by Jeff Zentner
I had to overcome—
It taught me—
No. I can’t. Sorry, college admissions people, but I really have to quit lying through my teeth on this dumb essay, because I haven’t learned. I haven’t overcome. I’m having panic attacks and I can’t sleep at night. Losing my three best friends hasn’t taught me shit other than my capacity for grief and self-loathing.
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I’m gonna delete all this shitty crap and I’m going to Nashville State Community College, where I’ll study janitorial science. That is if I’m not in the penitentiary.
I lean back in my chair and growl at the ceiling. This day wasn’t proceeding so terribly until now. I got home about an hour ago from watching Jesmyn practice. I get hunger pangs now on the days when I don’t watch her. And the music seems to be wrenching open some rusty door in me. The words are beginning to flow again. Well, trickle. I’ve got the first two pages of a new story. That’s something, I guess.
A knock. “Come in,” I call.
My mom enters, followed by my dad. They wear grave expressions. My dad is holding a newspaper. My heart starts thudding.
“Hi, sweetie,” my mom says. “Can we talk for a second?” Her voice bears the slightest tremor. But for the context of our interaction, I would’ve missed it.
“Um. Sure.”
My dad sits on my bed, and my mom sits next to him. My mom turns to my dad. “Callum, will you? I don’t—”
My dad clears his throat. He holds me in his gaze for a moment and looks down at his newspaper. His voice is soft. Same tremor as in Mom’s. “Carver, Mr. Krantz called and told us about this article in the Tennessean. The district attorney has decided to open an investigation into the accident.”
My pounding heart becomes a drum roll. “Did he say anything else?”
“He said they’ll probably want to talk to you now. So make sure no talking to police unless he’s there,” my mom says.
My mouth is parched. My palms are sweating. I can’t breathe. A horribly familiar feeling. “Can I be alone for a while? I just—I need to be alone.” I try not to sound frantic, even as my lungs collapse in on themselves.
They hug me and leave, gently closing the door behind them.
I fall on my bed, head swimming. Black spots form in my field of vision. I have a fleeting premonition of lying on a prison cot, having an attack.
I guess these miniature deaths are just part of my new landscape. At least I’ll have plenty to talk about with Dr. Mendez at our next session.
When the worst has passed, I text Jesmyn and ask her if she’ll put the phone by the piano and play for me. I don’t tell her why and she doesn’t ask.
It helps a little.
When she finishes, I tell her that I might be heading to prison.
It happens the most when my mind is at its quietest. While I’m drifting off to sleep. When I’m listening to Jesmyn play. When I wish it were filled with the words for my next story but instead it’s a slate-gray winter sky.
I start the what-ifs. The do-overs. The replays.
It’s an absence of action. I don’t text Mars. What else could it be? I guess I could try to keep them from going to the movie in the first place. But that’s harder to imagine because that involves my convincing them not to go to a movie they really wanted to see, with no reason to believe they’d be in danger by doing so.
I don’t imagine what Mars could have done. I wasn’t there. I had no control over that. I don’t imagine what the driver of the semi could have done. I only have control over what I do. And in this scenario, all I have to do is nothing. Nothing is easy to do. I can do nothing.
So I don’t text Mars. Instead, I simply wait fifteen minutes. I tell myself that they’ll be there soon, and texting won’t make them arrive any faster. I’m tempted, but I don’t do it. I don’t text Mars.
While I wait, I flip through a book I’m supposed to be shelving. As I go back to work, I hear an unholy mockery of a female voice.
“Excuse me, young man, where are your copies of Fifty Shades of Grey? Only the new copies, please.” It’s Blake. Eli and Mars stand beside him.
I grin. “You know that book involves humans and not sheep, right?”
“Oh…never mind then.”
We all bust a gut.
“How was the movie?” I ask.
“Awesome,” Blake and Eli say simultaneously, with Mars saying “Shitty.”
They look at him. He shrugs. “DC’s getting owned by Marvel.” They roll their eyes at him.
“Imagine being such a nerd that it prevents you from experiencing joy,” Eli says.
“Hey, I’m surprised you even came to the movie. I thought Jesmyn kept your balls in a little velvet-lined box,” Mars says.
Ohhhhhhhhhhh, we all moan.
Eli makes a pshhh sound. “Bro, ask your mom, my balls are right where they’re supposed to be.”
We all moan louder. “Oh, shit,” Blake says, pointing at Mars and covering his mouth. “You just got dragged, dude.”
Mars starts to say something, but I put my fingers to my smiling lips. “Y’all. Chill. You’re gonna get me fired. We’ll assume Mars had a sick burn in response.”
Eli extends his hand to Mars and they clasp hands with a slap.
Blake checks his phone. “Blade, go clock out. We have squirrels to chase and I’m about to get up in the business of some Bobbie’s.”
I pull off my green apron and start for the back room. As I’m leaving, I hear Mars say, “Fam, we need girlfriends. Not you, Eli. But the rest of us do. Chasing damn squirrels. Shit, y’all.”
Their voices fade behind me, drifting upward to the sky.
That’s how it was supposed to happen that day.
So I don’t text Mars. I leave my phone in my pocket. I keep shelving books until they come and we talk and laugh and kneel at the altar of life without even being aware we’re doing it. I wait. I don’t text Mars.
And they’re no longer lying broken amidst a chaos of lights and screams, their crimson blood spilling onto the dark asphalt as if it belonged there.
So I don’t text Mars.
I don’t text Mars.
I don’t text Mars.
I’m lying under the piano while she plays, hands behind my head. From my vantage point, it’s like being completely immersed in a starlit ocean. It calms my mind.
She stops playing. I still lie there. I start to rise, but she kneels, looking under the piano. She slides underneath and lies next to me, gazing upward. “Hey,” she says.
“You sounded phenomenal.”
“You can’t tell me you didn’t hear me shitting the bed on that last section.”
“Can and am. What’s the name of that piece? It’s gorgeous.”
“ ‘Jeux d’eau’ by Ravel. It’s basically impossible, but I’m screwed if I play something easy, even if I play it perfectly.” She crosses her legs and smoothes her sundress against her thighs. “So this is what it looks like under here.”
“I’m not in it for the looks; I’m in it for the sound. You’ll get dirty.”
She snorts. “Who cares? I used to go frogging with my brothers. I’ve had so much mud between my toes.”
“You went frogging?”
She sighs and rolls her eyes. “Here we go with the racism again.”
“What? No. Come on. How?”
“Yes, every time I mention being country, you’re so shocked because Asians can’t be country.”
“That’s not it.”
“So you’re just sexist then.”
“No.”
“If I were a seventeen-year-old white bro from Jackson, Tennessee, would you be at all surprised if I told you I went frogging with my brothers?”
Shit. Walked into that. “Yes?”
“Liar. Sexist liar.”
“No! It’s because you’re a pianist and I assume y’all are too worried about your hands
.” Nice. Quick thinking there.
She stifles a giggle and backhands me in the stomach. “That’s…musicianist.”
I double over and laugh. “Ow. That hurt. Which doesn’t surprise me at all, because girls are good at hitting too.”
“Shithead,” she mutters around a smile. “So I want to hear how it sounds down here. Go play something.”
“I don’t play.”
“Every single person on Earth has a song they can play on the piano. Do it. Git.”
I feign annoyance. “Fine.” I get up and dust off. I sit at the piano.
Eli sits at the piano bench next to me. “This is gonna be good.”
“Your face is gonna be good,” I say.
“I tried with you, I really did.”
“I know. I told you a bunch of times: music isn’t my thing. My dad’s music genes just totally skipped over me. I don’t know.”
“How many times did I offer to teach you guitar?”
“Dude, you tried. I admit it. It’s like you couldn’t stand to have anyone around you who didn’t know the joy of playing an instrument.”
“Fact. And another fact is that I have woefully underprepared you to hang out with my very musical girlfriend after I’m gone.”
“It’s not your fault.”
“I was going to teach her guitar. She’d have been good.”
“I don’t doubt it.”
Eli tosses his hair out of his eyes with a quick flick of the neck. “Stick to the key of C, dude. No sharps or flats. More forgiving.”
“I’m all there for forgiveness.”
“None of that made any sense to you.”
“Not really.”
“How did you avoid taking piano lessons as a kid?”
“Georgia gave my parents such a hard time, they didn’t even try with me.”
“Here’s my official suggestion.”
“I’m listening.”
“Be funny. It’s your only shot.”
“That’s what Blake would have said.”
“Yeah, well, we know your strengths and weaknesses, Blade.”
“I miss you guys.”
And then he’s gone.
Jesmyn’s voice sounds distant from underneath the piano. “Okay. Wow me.”
I affect my horrible British accent. “But what to play? What shall I regale you with? The Mozart? Pah. The Beethoven? Poppycock. The…who’s another composer?”
“Bartók.” She’s giggling.
“The Bartók? Stuff and nonsense. No, I shall play you one of my own masterpieces—”
“Play already, you dingus!”
“Shhhhhhhh…one of my own masterpieces entitled ‘Mary Had a Little Lamb’.”
She giggles. I play it haltingly, clumsily. I finish with a flourish, stand, and bow. She applauds.
I slide under the piano and lie next to her. “How was it?”
“Bravo, maestro.” She pats me on the chest. “It sounds amazing under here.” After a moment or two, she says in a quieter voice, “This reminds me of when Eli would play for me.”
The air between us is like when a heavy wind stops and the trees become still.
“Yeah,” I say, because I don’t know what else to.
“Did he ever play for y’all?” Jesmyn turns on her side toward me, her hands palms-together under her face.
I turn toward her and mirror her position. “Sometimes. But I assume he wasn’t trying to kiss any of us.” We give each other wistful half smiles.
“I’m still not okay,” Jesmyn says. “I’m better, but I’m not back to normal.”
“I was coming down from another panic attack when I called you the other day and wanted you to play for me.”
“You win. Are you okay?”
“Yeah. What a shitty contest to win.”
“I keep crying randomly,” Jesmyn says. “Like the other day my mom sent me to Kroger to buy eggs and I’m standing there in line and the line is really long so I start crying. I never used to cry about stuff.”
“Remember how I talked about having the goodbye day with Blake’s grandma? That’s tomorrow.”
“Wow,” she murmurs. “Are you nervous?”
“Yes. I talked to her last night and she’s got a plan, so I guess we’ll go with it. It’s hard to know how to honor someone’s life.”
“Yeah. You’re smart and sensitive, though—you’ll be fine.”
“I’m not that sensitive.”
“First of all, sensitivity is an awesome trait in men; and second of all, yes you are, and that’s okay. I was trying to give you a compliment.”
“Sorry. Compliment taken.” The “in men” part salves the part of my ego that was wounded over being thought overly sensitive.
“What time is it?”
I look at my phone. “Four-fifteen.”
“Crap. I got a student in a half hour.” Jesmyn slides out from under the piano and jumps to her feet. I follow.
She faces away from me and steps backward, gathering her long, thick hair and lifting it. “Dust me off.”
I balk. She waits. So I start dusting her off. I sweep her smooth, almost-bare shoulders. They’re scented with honeysuckle lotion. The place where her neck meets her shoulders, even though her hair was probably covering it. I just want to do a good job. I don’t do it like I’m pounding cracker crumbs from car upholstery. More as if whisking the dirt from a treasured painting discovered in an attic. Her skin is warm under my fingers, like the first day of spring when you can open your windows.
I brush off her shoulder blades. The middle of her back. The back of her left arm. The back of her right arm. Her lower back, as low as I dare go.
My pulse tingles in my fingertips. “Should I do your legs?” She could easily reach her own legs. But…
“No,” she murmurs. “I want to walk around with dusty legs.”
Interesting. “See how I didn’t assume that you wanted me to because you’re a girl who’s afraid of a little dirt?”
She turns her head around partway so I can see her smile. “You’re not hopeless.”
I bend down and dust off the backs of her smooth thighs below the hemline of her dress. The minute I do, I start experiencing what we’ll call “some personal growth.” I’m really trying to keep this pure and innocent, and I’m not being gross about a friend, but I’m touching her legs and they’re really pretty. So I conjure the image of my grandma pooping to try to nip things in the bud and avoid any potential awkwardness when Jesmyn turns around. It mostly works.
“You’ll do great tomorrow,” Jesmyn says out of nowhere. And that reminder works even better than Grandma pooping. “You’re doing the right thing. I bet this’ll help.”
“I don’t want to make things worse somehow.”
“You won’t. You done? Am I good?” she asks, letting her hair fall.
“Yeah,” I say. “You’re good.”
On my way home, Darren Coughlin calls. I pull over to answer. He wonders if I have some comment on the impending investigation. I tell him I don’t and sit there and breathe and listen to my heartbeat until I’m sure I won’t have a panic attack while driving.
If I had a million dollars—well, first I’d pay Mr. Krantz—but then I’d pay the rest of it for just one hour when I don’t think about the Accident, about Judge Edwards, about the DA, about Adair, about legal bills, about prison, about any of it.
An hour when I can sit and let the warmth of Jesmyn’s skin ebb from my fingertips’ memory while my mind is as clear and tranquil as a waveless sea on a windless day.
I lie awake and the silence roars in my ears. The glowing green letters of my alarm clock read 2:45. I was almost asleep when a train woke me. Nana Betsy wasn’t kidding about bright and early. I’m meeting her at seven a.m.
I try to collect my stories of him. It won’t help me sleep, but I do it anyway. I line them up in my mind. I wash them and polish them.
I prepare to lay them to rest.
It’s the third week of ei
ghth grade at NAA. I don’t know anyone because it’s my first year there (it’s an eight-through-twelve school). I’ve left all my few friends and more bullies behind at Bellevue Middle. It’s weird being at a school where everybody in your class is the new kid.
I’m sitting in the back of civics and the teacher, Ms. Lunsgaard, is droning on about bicameral government and checks and balances. This is the longest hour of the day because it’s the hour before lunch. I glance over at the kid next to me. He looks friendly and kind. He grins and starts making elaborate tying motions with his hands. He fits an invisible noose around his neck, tightens it, and jerks it upward, sticking his tongue out the side of his mouth.
I stifle a laugh and pantomime opening a bottle of pills and dumping the whole thing down my throat.
He doesn’t succeed in stifling his laugh. Ms. Lunsgaard peers at us. “Blake? Carver? This will be on the test.”
“Sorry,” we mumble. We meet eyes again. Under his desk, Blake pantomimes cutting his wrist.
The bell finally rings. I’m stuffing things in my backpack. Blake extends his hand to me. “Hey, man, I’m Blake.”
I shake his hand. “Carver.”
“That’s a badass name, dude. Sounds like a serial killer’s name. The Boston Carver.” He has a thick drawl. It doesn’t sound local.
“Yeah, I was named after a short story writer.”
“Oh.”
“An acclaimed short story writer.”
“Oh.” He does an impressed-old-lady voice and covers his O-shaped mouth.
I laugh. “So where did you use to go to school?”
“Aw man, you’ve never heard of it. Andrew Johnson Middle School. It’s in Greeneville.”
“South Carolina?”
“East Tennessee. Way closer to North Carolina than here.”
“How’d you end up here?”
“I live with my grandma, and my grandpa died a while ago, so she needed a change and she wanted me to go to a good school. So we moved here.”
“Cool. You like Nashville?”
“Yeah. I wish I knew more people.”
We drift out to the hall. “You wanna hang out for lunch?” I ask.