by Jeff Zentner
It was as sublime a piece of choreography as I’ve ever seen. I couldn’t tell how much of it was planned and how much was improvised. Blake has a unique talent for making planned things seem spontaneous and spontaneous things seem planned.
The still-tittering crowd disperses at the bell and hurries to class. We’re high-fiving Blake.
“I gotta admit, bro, that was good,” Mars says, wiping tears. “You pulled through.”
“Two thumbs up,” Eli says. “I saw Adair filming.”
“Make sure you talk to her. I want video,” Blake says.
As we head to first period, I notice Blake walking oddly. “Hey, did you hurt yourself?”
“No, no.” A pause. He’s clearly making a concerted effort to sound nonchalant. “I don’t guess any of you guys have an extra pair of clean underwear you’re not using right now, do you?”
“This building is so fancy,” Jesmyn says. “It looks like it belongs in L.A. or something. My last school looked like it belonged in…Jackson, Tennessee.”
“Uh-huh,” I say.
“You totally weren’t listening,” she says.
“No, I was.”
“Liar.”
I take a deep breath. Dread has started to seep down my body—indigo-purple dye injected into my brain, dispersing through my bloodstream. “I was thinking about something else.”
“Them?”
I nod.
Her hand weighs light and warm on my shoulder, over my backpack strap. I’m vaguely aware of the people flowing around us into the building while we stand like sticks jammed in a creek bed. I hold my blazer wadded up in my hand. What I thought made me look cool and authorial, I now realize, makes me look funereal.
“You’re not alone, at least,” she says. “Neither am I. That’s something.”
“We should probably go in. It’s about to start.”
“Well. Shall we?” Jesmyn asks.
“We shall, I guess,” I say, as though she suggested walking onto the thin ice of a frozen lake.
The smell of gentle (art school parents can be pains in the ass) industrial cleaning chemicals assaults my nose. Soft green sage and cedar, rather than electric-cough-syrup cherry and neon-laboratory pine. It’s a smell I used to love because it signified the possibility and promise of a new year. I enjoyed first days of school. When I had Sauce Crew. The scent puts my memory of last year’s first day in sharper relief. And that heightens my sense of festering dread.
The entryway atrium is a hive of activity. There’s a perceptible hush as Jesmyn and I walk in. Like somebody turned a volume knob down an eighth of a turn. People try to continue their conversations, but I see the abrupt shift in topics as they eye me sidelong. On their faces: There’s Carver. What do we do? Do we talk to him? Do we sully ourselves by associating with him?
Then I spot Adair, flanked by three of her friends. She catches my eyes and stares jagged icicles at me. She mutters something to one of her friends. I imagine: Look, there’s Carver showing up on the first day of school with his dead best friend’s—my brother’s—girlfriend. I wonder if he even waited until my brother was ash before trying to move in.
I have a slow-motion sensation again, but this time it’s not intentional. It’s not funny. Blake isn’t slightly ahead of me, nudging the waistband of his pants downward.
I sense Jesmyn at my side. I’m vaguely aware she’s said something, but my ears only catch whispered snippets from the crowd. There he is….Seems okay….Haven’t heard…Eli’s girlfriend…Don’t know her name. Then I hear Adair clearly through the murmurs and mutters. “Great day to be alive, huh?” she says to one of her friends.
I suddenly can’t imagine even one moment of happiness here all year. An invisible anaconda winds around my chest, squeezing, crushing. My heart strains against the pressure. My throat clenches. A sheen of sweat forms on my forehead like an ice slick on a bridge. My mouth is parched.
And then, as if pushed by an unseen hand, my head turns involuntarily to the right. There, in a glass display case normally used to showcase student awards, paintings, drawings, photographs, and other creations, are photographs of Blake, Eli, and Mars against a black background. The words “In Memoriam” float spectral and silver above them. Look, see Carver’s creation. His magnum opus. Isn’t it funny that the one piece of writing he ever did that most impacted people’s lives was a lethal text that said, Where are you guys? Text me back.
“Carver?” Jesmyn says, sounding as if she’s distant from me and echoing down a cavernous marble corridor. She lightly touches my left upper arm. But I don’t acknowledge her because the following thoughts command my full attention: I need air. My picture should be there too. I need air. I will never be happy again. I need air. I’m going to jail. I need air. Adair hates me. I need air. Everybody thinks I’m moving in on Eli’s girlfriend. I need air. Everybody hates me. I need air.
My head heaves like I’m on the deck of a ship. Then, that falling-through-ice sensation. That watching-something-heavy-and-fragile-slide-off-a-shelf feeling. Dark spots congregate in my field of vision. I need air. I need air. Not here. Not now. Not this. Not in front of Jesmyn. Not in front of everyone. Not in front of anyone. But it’s too late to call it back. It built like some awful orgasm; once it tips there’s no return.
My blazer slips from my grasp. My backpack slides off and thumps on the floor. My laptop is inside, and I would be more concerned but for the minor fact that I cannot breathe I’m being buried alive I need to breathe I’m dying.
Jesmyn faces me now, both her hands on my arms. She’s blocking me from the crowd’s view. “Carver,” she’s whispering, “Carver, are you okay? Are you having a panic attack?” I see the horde gathering behind her.
I nod, short and quick, so as not to stir my vertigo. My legs go numb beneath me. My heart thunders. Nausea rises in my gut.
“Out,” I wheeze.
“Okay.” Jesmyn puts her arm around me and starts to help me turn to leave. As soon as I unroot from my spot, I lurch to the side and stumble a couple of steps, catching my toe. I slip from Jesmyn’s light grasp and careen into the wall. My head impacts with a fleshy thud directly below the photos of Sauce Crew. A collective gasp sweeps through the crowd. I imagine this would be embarrassing if my need for oxygen weren’t reigning supreme over my need for dignity. Blake would be proud as he looks down on me. A few people step tentatively forward, uneasy expressions on their faces. “Call Nurse Angie,” someone says. What a gift this must be for Adair.
Jesmyn kneels beside me. “I’m here. I’m here for you,” she whispers, her lips against my ear, the flower and fruit scent of her hair brushing my face.
She helps me to my unsteady feet and grabs my bag and blazer, and we stumble out the door. I keep my eyes down and try to ignore the slight murmur of disapproval that I’m not waiting for Nurse Angie. Jesmyn’s hand grips my upper arm. She has strong fingers, no doubt the result of exercising them for hours each day.
I stop for a second as my stomach heaves.
“Are you okay?” Jesmyn asks.
I take a few deep breaths and nod. Latecomers hustle past, casting me looks of concern. Jesmyn directs them away with her eyes.
I was already sweating in the air-conditioned cool of NAA. Outside is a steam bath. My forehead drips. My shirt sticks to my back like a leaf to a rainy window. We reach Jesmyn’s truck after what seems like a mile.
She lowers the tailgate with a rusty clunk. “Here, sit.”
I nod quickly, showering the ground with droplets of sweat. I sit with my head bowed, as if praying. Thank you, O Lord, for this gift I have received: to have an utter shit fit of a panic attack in front of everyone on the first day of school, including the twin of my best buddy who—whom—I killed, the twin who now hates me, and my new (and only) friend, Jesmyn, who happened to be her twin’s girlfriend. Give me this day my daily humiliation. Amen.
Jesmyn rummages in the cab. She comes up with a scratchy gray blanket that smells like hay. Sh
e folds it in the bed of the pickup to form a makeshift cot. She rolls up my blazer as a makeshift pillow.
“Lie down.” She taps the blanket.
I squint against the brightness as I lie on my back. “I’m sorry for getting your blanket all sweaty,” I croak.
“I like you enough, I don’t even care if you make my stargazing blanket all gross,” she says. “Bend your legs. Good.” She slams shut the tailgate. Now I’m hidden from view.
Her head appears over the side of the pickup bed, in my field of vision, her face dark against the shimmering sky. She touches my cheek with a cool, soft hand. “What should I—”
“Go. I’ll be okay. I’ll call Georgia or figure something out.”
“It’s the first day and I’m late.”
“It’s cool.”
“You have my number. Text me if you need me. I’ll be sly and check my phone.”
“Would you try to keep Nurse Angie from coming out here? Say I went home already.”
“I got this.”
“Thanks.”
“No problem. All right, I better go.”
“I must seem completely nuts.”
“You don’t at all. We’ll talk.” She touches my cheek again and then she’s gone. I hear the quick clip-clopping of her running toward the school.
I reach for my phone to call Georgia but decide I’d rather lie here for a few minutes and gather my shit. Not that I plan to try sitting through a full day of classes. I’m too drained. I’m too— Oh, man, the embarrassment. That’s starting to sink in now. My cheeks burn. Like wearing snowshoes to spread your body weight and keep yourself from sinking in snow, losses of dignity are best dispersed across several people to keep you from sinking. Now I’m alone.
My head throbs. I rub the tender, swelling lump growing on it. My eyes fill with tears. One slides warm down my cheek and falls with a soft pat on Jesmyn’s stargazing blanket. Or rather: Jesmyn and Eli’s stargazing (and what else?) blanket. I guess that makes two things I’ve taken from you today, Eli. Your Dearly ticket and your spot on the stargazing blanket. But if it’s any consolation, wherever you are, I’ve paid quite a price today in dignity for both. And I’m sure Adair will make sure I pay even more, if Judge Edwards doesn’t get to me first.
I gaze up into the luminous blue, framed in the metal walls of Jesmyn’s pickup bed. Here we all now lie, all four members of Sauce Crew, in boxes. I’m the only one not in complete darkness. I’m counting Eli even though he was cremated. He’s in an urn. Which is sort of a box. It’s dark inside anyway.
I wonder if there was any moment, as they died, when they were able to look heavenward, as I’m doing now, through the torn-off roof of Mars’s car. I was “assured” they died instantly. As though that would soothe me.
I wish it would rain. Torrents. So hard it would cleanse me of worry and trouble; so hard it would lift the stain of death from me and carry it to the rivers and out to sea.
Blake peers over the side of the pickup bed. “Hey, shitlord,” he says softly.
“Hey,” I say. Eli’s and Mars’s grinning faces appear next to Blake’s.
“That wasn’t bad,” Mars says. “Not Blake level. But not bad.”
“I’m the only thing that’s Blake level,” Blake says. “But yeah, decent.”
“Thanks,” I say. “Maybe if it’d been intentional, it would’ve been even funnier.”
“The head smack at the end was what elevated it. That took it from funny to comedy,” Blake says. “That’s the secret to comedy—you gotta always take the next step.”
“But next time,” Eli says, “try to do it so you don’t actually hurt yourself. It’s funnier when people don’t worry about your physical safety. Nobody wants that guilt.”
“Thanks, dude. That’s good advice,” I say. “Guilt does blow.”
I continue to massage the thickening lump over my right eye. I have a nascent headache from the radiating pain. I can tell it’s going to make my eyebrow swell enough that I’ll be able to see a tiny bit of it in my upper field of vision, driving me crazy. Turns out there’s no real upside to collapsing in front of all your classmates two minutes into the first day of school and boinking your head on the wall. And then my mind is still as I watch a billowing ivory cloud lazily cross the sky. It’s a dog. Then it’s a frog. The ridges of the pickup bed are starting to dig into my spine. I roll onto my side, pull my phone from my pocket, and hold it for a second. I hear, somewhere in the distance, some shuffling; and then the door slams shut and there’s the quick scurrying of feet. Then it’s silent except for the far-off drone of car tires and thrumming pulse of insects in the trees; all the invisible life that surrounds me.
I call Georgia.
“Carver? Aren’t you supposed to be in class?”
“Don’t be mad,” I say as my voice starts to quaver.
“I won’t be, but tell me what’s going on.”
“I had another panic attack.” I can hear Georgia fighting the urge to say I told you so.
“Shit. Are you okay?”
“Um.”
“And of course you called me instead of Mom.”
“Yeah.”
“Where are you? Nurse’s office or what?”
“Parking lot.”
“Okay.”
“Look for a white Nissan pickup. I’m lying in the bed.”
She laughs and immediately catches herself. “Dude. You are having—”
“The shittiest first day of school ever.”
“I’ll be there in a few minutes. But I gotta rush; I have work.”
“Fine.”
We hang up and I lie there with my eyes shut, watching the kaleidoscope patterns on the insides of my eyelids. Finally a car pulls up behind the pickup. I still lie there, even when I hear the door open. I can’t take the risk that it’s someone other than Georgia. Lord knows I’ve had enough pratfalls today. I don’t need to be jumping out of pickup beds and having spooked strangers call the cops on me.
I hear footsteps and Georgia’s face appears over the side of the pickup bed, dark like Jesmyn’s was against the brightness. It makes me jump, even though I was expecting her. We stare at each other for a moment.
“Carver,” she says softly, and reaches out to touch the lump on my head.
I wince and gently bat her hand away. “Don’t.”
“How? Well, tell me in the car.”
I sit up and wait for the head rush to clear. I’m completely sapped. I struggle climbing out of the pickup bed. I flop down in Georgia’s car, rest my head against the headrest, and close my eyes. I realize I left my blazer in the pickup bed but I don’t have the energy to return for it.
Georgia sits. “You owe me, dude.”
I open an eye and look at her. “Why are you shitting on me? My friends died.”
“I’m not shitting on you and you can’t keep using your friends as an excuse. I tried to convince you to seek help, but no. Well, guess what.” She whips out her phone, scrolls through her contacts, hits one, and holds the phone to her ear as she starts to drive away.
“Who are you—”
“Hi, this is Lila Briggs. I need to make an appointment.” She’s doing a spot-on impression of our mom’s honeyed Mississippi accent. Under any other circumstances, it would be cracking me up. “Yes,” she continues. “For my son, Carver. With Dr. Mendez. My daughter Georgia was a patient. First availability…okay…okay…excellent. That is lucky. Perfect. Ten o’clock tomorrow.”
“Georgia,” I whisper, but without conviction. I can admit when I’ve lost. Still, she casts me a caustic side eye. Do not even, her look says. I shrink.
“Okay, great. We’ll see you tomorrow….You too….Bye-bye.” She hangs up and fixes her eyes on the road.
“Georgia.”
“Don’t start.” Her voice, sharp at first, eases. “I’m sorry; you are not okay. Yes, it’s hard to admit when you need help. I know. So I’m going to be a good big sister and help you help yourself.”
&
nbsp; “Am I crazy?”
“Crazy? No. You’re dealing with a lot and you’re in pain and sometimes that makes us do bizarre things.”
“It happened in front of everybody,” I say quietly, staring out the window. A tear slides down my cheek. I brush it away with the back of my hand.
She reaches over and takes my other hand. “When we get home, you need to put some ice on your head.”
I nod.
“A week from today I’m going to be in Knoxville, starting school too. I mean, we can talk on the phone and text and stuff, but…”
“I know.”
“Then you know you need to trust other people and open up. You need to let Mom and Dad in more. You need to be honest with Dr. Mendez. If you can talk to Jesmyn, you need to talk to her. You can’t be a dumb cowboy about this.”
“Nana Betsy asked me to spend a day with her. Like a last day with Blake, but obviously…without him. Sort of a goodbye day for Blake.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah.”
“That sounds intense.”
“Very.”
“See? Perfect example,” Georgia says. “I have no clue if that’s a wise idea. That’s exactly what you should discuss with Dr. Mendez. He’s way smart.”
“I’m going. You made the appointment. You win. I surrender.”
“Yeah, you do.”
“Can you bust out Mom again?”
“Why?”
“I need you to tell my school I’m home sick.”
“I should make you try to impersonate Mom.”
“No you shouldn’t.”
“It would be funny.”
“For you.”
“That’s why I should do it.”
“Please?”
She sighs theatrically and makes the call.
We drive the rest of the way home, my mouth stitched shut in defeat. I guess I’ve finally lost a battle against myself that I needed to lose.
I wish I could have lost it more gracefully.
“I gotta run to work. I’m already late. You have keys, right?”
I nod.