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ISBN 978-1-250-13854-5 (hardcover)
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eISBN 9781250138538
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First Edition: September 2018
1 A Smith and Wesson Model 642 weighs fifteen ounces and has a five-shot capacity. The sound of a gunshot is loudest when you are seven feet away, eight years old, and directly in front of it.
2 They insisted that we refer to ourselves as “Buddies” instead of “Counselors” since “Buddy/ies” felt more approachable. Like we were supposed to be more to the kids than just authority figures. The vast majority of Buddies were not there on any sort of court mandate.
3 More examples: every week during the trial, someone, at some point in the middle of the night, would leave a candle burning on our front porch like a vigil for the dead or dying, while on Sunday mornings a gaggle of old women would drive by our house, slowing down like they were trying to work up the nerve to come talk to me but ultimately deciding to drive on and say a prayer.
4 A second chance that, the soccer-judge made very clear, would not be followed by a third. A second chance that, if I took it, meant paying back the damages to the bowling alley for the rest of my life—instead of being tried as an adult, going to jail, and paying back the damages to the bowling alley for the rest of my life.
5 Mom Shorthand for “Super Boy.” Ever since I woke up after Charlie put me down, even after the bowling alley and trial and Charlie, my parents had talked to/about me like I was their constant miracle. Like it wasn’t okay for them to hurt or be fucked up about everything and the best way to show how not-fucked-up they were was to stomp through the eggshells everyone else insisted on tiptoeing around.
6 There were no teachers. The whole idea of the tri-county Buddy program was to give everyone a certain opportunity: high schoolers got a chance to experience and demonstrate leadership/responsibility while the teachers and students got to take a break from one another for a week. The adults on-site were all camp staff, and the kids were our shared responsibility.
7 It is statistically impossible to have any sort of defenses up against someone with an armful of teacup pigs. Even when you feel like you need to have all of your defenses up.
8 I was thrown headfirst onto my own shit list as well because it’s so much easier, all the time, to not say something like that. If I’d learned anything from being an infamous local celebrity, it was that you just shut up and ignore the world until it goes away.
9 Like really fucking orange. Orange-orange. Orange like burning gods except for Mohammed. Mohammed hadn’t burned because we couldn’t find one. Which is something I already said.
10 Not literally forever, obviously. The shelf life of isopropyl alcohol—rubbing alcohol—is more about the bottle’s integrity. As well-intentioned as rubbing alcohol may be, burning away that which seeks to hurt you, the liquid will inevitably eat the bottle away until there’s nothing left and everything comes spilling out.
11 Even under the bandages, I saw the words grab her attention. Like everything else suddenly went mute in her otherwise rapid-firing, circus-parade, caffeine-brain.
12 01001001 00100000 01101100 01101111 01110110 01100101 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101
13 “I love you too”
14 … lying. Even if Test was telling the truth about camp not being a punishment but community service, they still hadn’t given me a cabin.
15 Caused primarily by exposure to asbestos, mesothelioma is a rare form of cancer that develops in the lining that covers many internal organs, and she pronounced the word flawlessly. She didn’t explain what ghost hair was.
16 Like catalyst gunshots.
17 It’s impossible to know.
18 Which was another lie. We domesticated hard-shell gourds ten thousand years ago because they were good for almost exactly that reason: carving and containment. But we do it for other reasons than just art and storage. We do it to keep the monsters at bay and because some people believe that jack-o’-lanterns represent all the souls in purgatory and sometimes we just do it to light the way.
19 Sincerely just smack the ever-loving shit out of a child in front of fucking everybody.
20 Which was fair.
21 If she asked for my life story again, Faisal wasn’t going to stop her. Eventually questions have to be answered, especially when you’re breaking rules and drinking cheap beer.
22 Even in that light you could tell it was the kind of barn that had been built fifty, sixty, a hundred years back. The kind that someone had built one plank at a time, with a purpose in mind. The barn was defiant though—even after all these years and countless roof-tearing storms and brutal winters, it was still standing. Unshakable. Resolute. Old barns are like that; they’re practically invisible and just part of the Norman Rockwell backdrop of any road trip, but they are there. Despite outward appearances, they are there.
23 Moving like all things are moving—whole complex, intricate, unique galaxies that are barreling through the cold expanse and giving the impression of static when they are anything but stationary.
24 Breathing deeply affects the hypothalamus, which connects to your nervous system, which helps regulate your heartbeat. Breathe in, breathe out. Breathe in, breathe out.
25 The little frozen ponds reminded me that it’s the little ones that freeze first.
26 And for once, I wasn’t lying.
27 I think not every relationship gets a proper apocalypse. That you have to keep an eye on your past. That you can run and run and run but if you look away from that motherfucker, it’ll sneak up and whisper in your ear that it’s always right there behind you. That there’s merit in stopping and turning and letting your past come screaming into your open arms. That honestly and authentically being around others is maybe the hardest thing in the world.
28 He meant APB. Which he didn’t do—he asked for help. A camp director clearly can’t issue a legitimate all-points bulletin.
29 Which, of course, they had, because they were there, and which was a stupid question because GPS accuracy is still shit when it comes to emergencies.
30 The kind of Full Alert Mode they use when bowling alleys are on fire.
31 We knew she was close because she had to be. That was the only acceptable truth: she was close; she would be found.
32 I focused on her finding a bear. I focused on the bear roaring at all the things that a child like Lump was too naïve to be afraid of. The bear was protecting her until we found her.
33 Panic is one of only a handful of innate human emotions.
34 Because I couldn’t think of anything else to say. I should have said sorry too, over and over and over.
35 I’ve got requests, Charlie. I want to apologize because you never tried to hurt anybody. I’ve always had requests. And now I’m going to start doing something about them. I do love you. And I miss what we should have been. What do I request? I don’t have to request that you and Lump stay with me because I’ll carry you both forever. My request is a beginning that has already been granted. My request is to learn from my ghosts: to do something I’m nowhere near 99.999 percent sure will work because sometimes risking the fall is worth it. My request is myself.
36 The plan is to know certain truths that I was too fucked up to see before, like: I can hurt too; I can miss people in my own way; I can care about things deeply; I am not a machine or a superhero or a miracle and that is exactly how it should be.
> 37 Namely, Mark Wahlberg getting shot in Three Kings.
Unstoppable Moses Page 27