by K. J. Reilly
Eli turned to me and whispered, “Do you know who that was?”
I whispered back, ”Yes.”
She asked, “Who?”
And I said, “God.” And I made sure not to laugh.
Eli looked from me to the door where Mr. Miller had been standing in silhouette as the light was pouring in making it look all heavenly, but he was nowhere to be seen. She looked back at me and said, “Joel Higgins, God is not a farmer.”
I said, “How do you know?”
And she said absolutely nothing. Both of us just stood there staring at the henhouse door.
Then, with all the beautiful light pouring in and the chickens running around at our feet clucking, I asked, “What do you think happens when you die?”
Eli was silent for a minute but then she said, “You are overcome with radiant warmth and engulfed in light and peace and you live for eternity in the embrace of God’s love.”
“So that’s what happens to all the soldiers who die and all the kids with cancer and—”
“Yes.”
“And you really believe that?”
“I do.”
As I looked back toward the doorway I was thinking that I really wished that I could believe that, too.
Then I said, “Let’s go pick asparagus.”
And she said, “Joel, what should we say if we bump into…”
“God?”
“Not God. Him,” she answered as she gestured toward the door.
I thought for a moment and then said, “Either way, God or not God, I’d go with ‘hi.’”
That night, after we served the poached eggs on top of the asparagus at the soup kitchen and were about to close up, I asked Spindini if he believed in God and he said, “Yes.”
So then I asked him, “Even with all the death and killing in war?” and he said, “Especially with all the death and killing in war.”
Then he said, “If there’s no God then that means that we’re all alone and this is it.” Then he just shook his head and said that he couldn’t face that because that would mean that all his buddies were just gone.
I stood up. Stepped back, knocked a chair over by accident, and said, “You’re definitely right, then. There is a God.” And I walked over to Eli and said, “The whole God thing?”
“Yes?”
“I’ve been thinking about it and I’m a bit more flexible.”
And she said, “That’s good to know, Joel. But that guy at the farm today was not Him.”
And I said, “Eli, I know that. I was just messing with you.”
TEXT FROM JOEL TO ELI 11:06 p.m.
I saw you praying once. You were kneeling at the casket.
Andy’s casket.
You looked so beautiful.
Your hands were folded and your head was down and your lips were moving and you looked so calm. I thought, I want that. What Eli has. I really do.
TEXT FROM JOEL TO ANDY 11:12 p.m.
Where are you?
Text from Eli to Joel 12:35 a.m.
Joel R U up?
Text from Joel to Eli 12:37 a.m.
Always. Never sleep. What up?
Text from Eli to Joel 12:38 a.m.
Can you go get Benj? He’s drunk.
Text from Joel to Eli 12:38 a.m.
How do you know?
Text from Eli to Joel 12:39 a.m.
He texted A. J. and A. J. texted me and he said, GET JOEL TO GET HIM.
Text from Joel to Eli 12:39 a.m.
Where is he?
Text from Eli to Joel 12:40 a.m.
In front of the soup kitchen throwing up.
Text from Joel to Eli 12:43 a.m.
Can’t he call someone else??
Text from Eli to Joel 12:44 a.m.
He has no friends.
Text from Joel to Eli 12:46 a.m.
What about his aunt?
Text from Eli to Joel 12:47 a.m.
He said he would rather die.
Text from Joel to Eli 12:47 a.m.
Fuck!
Text from Eli to Joel 12:49 a.m.
Joel!!!
Text from Joel to Eli 12:49 a.m.
Fine. I’ll do it.
“Who’s there?”
“It’s Joel.”
“Joel who?”
“Very funny, Mom. Can I come in?”
“It’s almost one a.m. Is something wrong?”
I opened the door a crack. Jesus, Mary was leaning up on her elbow squinting at me. Jackson was holding a pillow over his head.
“You know how you said that if I ever needed help you would be there no questions asked?”
Jesus, Mary switched on the lamp next to the bed and Jackson sat up shielding his eyes from the light and looked at me.
“Yes.”
“Did you mean it?”
Jackson said, “Probably not,” but Jesus, Mary smacked him and said, “Of course we did.”
“Can you drive me somewhere? No questions asked? It’s important.”
“Now?” she asked.
“Now.”
Jackson said, “I’ll do it. Come on, Joel, get some shoes on. Pants might be a good idea, too.”
By the time I put on pants and pulled a sweatshirt over my head and grabbed my shoes, Jackson was sitting in the truck with the engine running. When I climbed in he was smoking a cigarette and he said, “Don’t tell your mom.” And then added, “Don’t ever smoke.” Then he popped the truck into reverse and backed down the driveway and said, “Where to?”
“Hendricks and Main.”
“We’re not going to rob the donut store or the fix-it shop, are we?”
“No, Pop. We’re just gonna pick up a drunk kid.”
“One of your friends?”
I was looking out the window at the houses on our street and there were no lights on at all except for at the Andersons’ place and Jackson always said they must get free electricity or something ’cause they never turned any of their lights out. Not even their outdoor Christmas lights, which they kept turned on all year, even in the summer, and they were the twinkly kind that made their house look like there was always some kind of party going on. And then I wiped the steam off the inside of the window and said, “You know that I don’t have any friends anymore.”
It was quiet for a few minutes after that and then Jackson said, “Okay, well, where are we taking this drunk person who is not your friend after we pick him up at one thirty in the morning?”
“Home.”
“As in his home or our home?”
“Our home.”
“Doesn’t he have a home?”
“Nope.”
“Okay, then. Our home it is.”
“No questions, right?”
“Only one.”
“Fuck.”
“No potty mouth.”
“So what’s your question?”
“Does this drunk kid who’s not your friend like the Yankees? ’Cause if he doesn’t like the Yankees…”
I rolled my eyes and said, “Just drive, please. And thanks, Pop.”
Then Jackson said, “This drunk kid we’re picking up, it isn’t a girl, is it?”
“Unfortunately not.”
just as Eli had promised, sitting on the curb in front of the soup kitchen with his shoes covered in vomit.
I texted Eli, Got him.
She texted back, thks!
Benj looked up at me and said, “Joel?”
“Yep. Come on, let’s go.”
“Joel?”
“Hop up. We’re going to drive you to my house.”
“I don’t feel so good.”
“I’ll bet.”
“Can I ask you something?” He was slurring his speech.
“No. Just get up and get in the truck.”
Benj got up and staggered to the truck and Jackson got out of the cab to size up the situation.
Jackson leaned in close to me and whispered, “Isn’t that Benj Kutchner? The kid you hit?”
“Jackson me
et Benj. Benj, Jackson.”
Jackson said, “Put him in the back, Joel. And you sit with him. Here. Use this in case he throws up again.” Then he handed me a garbage bag.
“Is this your dad, Joel?”
“No, Benj. He’s just some stranger I found in the middle of the night who was willing to come pick you up.”
“Hi, Joel’s dad.”
“Jesus, Joel, get him to take his shoes off. We’ll toss them in the back. I’ll wait for you in the truck.”
“Okay, here’s the thing…” Benj said.
“Benj, please just take your sneakers off and get in the truck.”
He almost fell.
“Maybe you better sit down to take your shoes off.”
Benj replied, “Nope. I can do it standing up.”
I had the back door to the cab open and was standing behind Benj trying to block him as he stumbled backward. It took a while but he eventually got one lace undone.
“Here’s the thing….What if…”
“Benj, stop! Just stop talking. Sit down and take your shoes off and then get in the truck. No what-ifs….”
He kept stumbling backward as he was trying to untie his other sneaker. Then he almost fell flat on his face several times, but I kept catching him under the arms and kind of propping him back up on his feet.
“What if you’re fifteen years old and your parents are driving late at night on…What’s the name of that big highway that goes all the way from Florida to Maine?” And Jackson called out, “I-95,” from the truck and Benj said, “That’s the one, I-95.” Then he said, “So if they’re driving north between Baltimore and Philly on I-95 because they were at an orthodontist convention and—”
“Benj, not now.”
“—and your dad is driving and right in front of him just past a bridge overpass there’s a barricade due to road construction and there’s a jackknifed tractor trailer just around the bend but he doesn’t know that yet and there’s a fucking eighteen-wheeler loaded with gasoline barreling down from behind him, and the driver of that truck had been driving for twenty-three hours straight and your dad doesn’t know that either…”
Benj now had one sneaker completely off.
“…and your dad tries to swerve around the barricade and your mom is sitting in the front seat next to him knitting a sweater and they are probably just listening to the radio—WPIX Jazz Top 40, maybe—and talking about summer vacation like you always take to the shore and they have no idea that there won’t be a summer vacation or a summer and they have no idea what is about to happen…”
Then Benj threw up. And I mean a river. Then he wiped the back of his hand across his mouth, finally got the second sneaker off and then continued in a rambling drunken slur.
“…then what if your dad sideswipes the tractor trailer and almost recovers control of the car but then his car gets flattened by the eighteen-wheeler full of gasoline that came up from behind him with the driver who hadn’t slept for a whole day but stayed awake by popping amphetamines…”
And then Benj just stopped talking and looked straight ahead and I thought, Say something, Joel.
“…and then your parents’ car bursts into flames in a fireball that could be seen for miles around because it exploded on impact…”
Benj was waving his arms around like a bomb had gone off.
“…and then what if that happens and you don’t have any brothers or sisters and you have to move in with your aunt who you don’t even hardly know and she doesn’t have a husband or kids, so it’s just two strangers living together because they have to and then you show up at a new school where everyone thinks that you are…”
He throws up again.
“…and you don’t have any friends and—”
“Benj, I’m your friend.”
“You don’t even like me, Joel.” He was crying now.
“Yes, I do.”
“No, you don’t.”
Then Benj started to cry more and I was still thinking, Say something! Anything at all, Joel!
“Okay, here’s a what-if, Benj. What if your best friend from kindergarten who you hung out with all the time and all summer every summer and every day after school got acute lymphoblastic leukemia last year and you still spent every afternoon with him even when he couldn’t go to school because he was so sick from chemo and cancerous blood cells were boxing out his healthy blood cells and that meant that he couldn’t get oxygen or clot anymore and you watched as he went from sick to sicker to too sick to almost dead and his hair fell out and he got so pale you could see through him like he was disappearing and he threw up every day all day and he lost so much weight you couldn’t look at him but you had to look at him because he was your best friend.”
I stopped talking and Benj was just looking at me waiting for me to finish so I said, “And you didn’t want him to know that you felt guilty all the time because every once in a while you had fun at lunch or saw a movie or got a hamburger and didn’t even think about him once the whole time even though he was dying. And then what if he told you that he didn’t want to live anymore and that he was only breathing today because he didn’t want his mom to be sadder than she was right now and then you show up one day and his mom answers the door and she says, ‘Joel, he’s gone,’ and you say, ‘Gone? What do you mean, Mrs. Westfield? Andy can’t be gone…’ because even though you knew this was coming somehow you still thought it wasn’t.”
Benj was just staring at me now like he was seeing me as someone who had the same disease that he had.
Then Benj said, “I think I’m going to throw up again.”
I said, “Me too.”
“You’re not even drunk, Joel.”
“I know.”
And then Benj barfed and I barfed all over the side of the road and Jackson climbed out of the truck and put his hands on our shoulders and said, “Come on, boys, let’s go home.”
I walked out to the garage, pulled open the door, and then made my way to the back wall by the pile of old bricks Jackson had stacked up.
I knelt down, counted three bricks to the left and four down, then pulled two bricks out, slipped the gun out from its hiding place, removed it from the plastic bag, and carefully unwrapped it from the rag. Then I sat down on the ledge that jutted out from the wall and placed the gun in my lap. It was almost 3:00 a.m. and pitch dark and it had started to rain hard and the rain was pounding down on the roof as I pulled my cell phone out from my sweatshirt pocket, then tapped the phone icon, hit voice mail, put it on speaker, and hit play. I’d done this a thousand times since last summer; I played the only saved voice message I had.
Hey, man. Are you coming over? I missed you yesterday.
I hit pause. Went back to the beginning. Then hit play to listen to the message again. My hands were shaking.
Hey, man. Are you coming over? I missed you yesterday.
Pause. Went back a little. Hit play.
I missed you yesterday. And the day before. Don’t give up on me.
I hit pause, went back a few seconds again. The tears were coming.
Don’t give up on me. You’re all that I have.
Went back. Hit play.
You’re all that I have.
Went back. Then play again.
You’re all that I have. I hope they had pizza for lunch and chocolate milk. And pretzels.
I put the phone down, picked up the gun, and stood up. Held the gun out in front of me. At arm’s length.
A shooter’s stance.
My muscles trembled and my finger on the trigger of the gun twitched. I aimed straight at the garage door like I was going to fire. Moved my line of sight a few inches to the left. Took aim at an old paint bucket, then at the tractor, then at an old broken flowerpot. I wiped the tears from the corners of my eyes with my shirtsleeve. I was Spindini in the wheel well of a Humvee with my last round chambered so I wouldn’t be taken alive trying like hell to honor the creed that no man is left behind. I was ready to shoot at anythi
ng that fucking moved. In that moment everything in my life looked like an enemy that needed to be taken down. It’s fucking hard to be a normal kid and go to school and learn algebra and take the SATs when your friend dies and you can’t find your way back home. Even when the voice mail wasn’t playing, I could still hear Andy’s words.
Hey, man. Are you coming over?
I missed you yesterday. And the day before. Don’t give up on me.
They were like bombs going off in my head.
You’re all that I have.
I sat back down trembling and sweating. I put the gun back in my lap. Picked up my phone again. Played the message so I could hear Andy’s voice for real. I wanted to feel the pain.
They
were
violent
words
and there
was
no
safe
place
to
hide
from
them.
Hey, man. Are you coming over? I missed you yesterday. And the day before. Don’t give up on me. You’re all that I have. I hope they had pizza for lunch and chocolate milk. And pretzels.
Andy sounded upbeat, happy even. Not like someone who was abandoned by his best friend when he was going to die in two fucking days.
How come he had to die in two days?
Andy could have at least sounded pissed off. That would have been way better than this. I yelled into the dark of the garage, “You should have said, What the fuck, man? You’re my best friend and you won’t even stop by to see me before I fucking die? Don’t leave me behind!”
Those words split the air around me.
Hit an artery.
I bled out. Didn’t bleed out. Wished I bled out. Looked around for a tourniquet. Couldn’t find one.
Doesn’t he see? It was friendly fire. I didn’t mean anything by it.
I didn’t know he was going to die in two days.
I should have known he was going to die in two days.
I whispered in the dead, dark air of the garage, “I’m not coming over anymore, Andy. Not ever. And I’m sorry. So sorry.”