The Boys Who Danced With the Moon

by Mark Paul Oleksiw

  “I know you will.” I smiled and tried to return to the conversation I was overhearing but Laura and her friend were gone.

  ***

  Spring indeed had arrived. I thought I would be ecstatic to learn Laura didn’t really get a card from someone else. In my room at night, the joy was muted. While my hope grew stronger, I found myself troubled that Laura was disappointed. I could find no peace in that. I thought of this lovely girl who needed help in class that day. Somehow it was my heart that heard her. I looked out the window at the endless sky and thought to myself how elegantly humble love was.

  CHAPTER 23

  We had stayed late one day after school. It was early April, and, as a delayed April Fool’s joke, spring had arrived quite late. Marius had come by my locker and asked me to meet him at the old cabin. He told me he had to tell me something in private. Marius made it clear no one was to accompany me, not even Moony. He claimed he wanted to see if the cabin was still standing after the harsh winter. He had no knowledge of how well used it was over the course of the last few months.

  “Hmm . . . Looks like someone has been hanging around here.” He looked around in the spirit of an amateur detective.

  “Well, I came by once or twice in the winter. Just to check.” I had to fess partially up as there were clear footprints in what was now the muddy steps leading to the doorframe.

  “Without me?” he said in mock anger. “Did you bring a girl up here with you for once?” He drove his finger into my shoulder, prodding and probing me.

  “Yeah. Right.” Only in my mind.

  He sat down on the bench in the cabin and pulled out a paper from his backpack. He looked at it as if for the first time. His eyes grew wide and pulsated with light. I had never seen him smile so enthusiastically.

  “What is it?”

  Typically, he would have thrown the letter at me. This time, he carefully handed it to me. Before I could read it, he blurted out. “I got in. I got in. They finally accepted me.”

  I read through the letter quickly. Marius had been one of the few who hadn’t received an acceptance letter from Riverside College yet. I had received mine more than a month earlier. While Marius’s marks had improved, his past results clearly had been a cause for concern.

  My smile grew bigger than his. “Cool. We’ll be going to college together.”

  “Don’t forget that freak, Moony. Right? You told me he got his.”

  “Yes, Moony, too.” And of course, Laura, I thought.

  Marius pulled out a flask from under his jacket. We had no cups for the occasion. He took a swig and passed it to me. I guzzled without trepidation and took a cavernous gulp.

  “Good bourbon,” I said.

  He leaned over and put his arm around my shoulders and pulled me close. As if exposed by the gesture, he quickly retreated into his persona. He was laughing and, dare I say it, giggling. He had feared rejection, his academic kryptonite. He looked at me and raised the flask to the heavens. The late afternoon light was beginning to recede. The smell of winter’s remains soon filled the room.

  “This is a special day. A memorable and extraordinary day.” He focused on the floor as the last words slipped from his lips and splashed on the moldy wood. “I suppose it’s not easy being my friend, right?”

  I smirked at him and was shocked by the display of sincerity and emotion. “No. It’s pretty easy once you get used to doing trapeze without a net.” I poked him in the arm as he had done to me a million times.

  “Thanks for helping me get through. You were the easiest person to copy off of I have ever known.” He faced me with a broad smile.

  I stared at him with intensity. “Friends would do anything for friends.”

  “Oh, great. Now you’re getting all fucking emotional,” Marius said, diving right back into character just as he took one more chug from his drink. The sun descended, giving way to the blackness of the night. It was time to leave, as the cold started slithering up from our boots.

  “I’m sure my parents are waiting to have supper with me.” I tapped him on the shoulder and put my satchel across my shoulders and left. I turned back to see Marius sitting with a letter in his hand and rereading it again with a wide grin bigger than any sea or ocean I could ever imagine.

  I trudged through the muddy fields down past the ice rink that was all boarded up. The spring smells fermented the air with a foul odor unwrapped from the autumn. I finally made it home as the neighborhood succumbed to complete darkness.

  I turned the key in the lock and could almost sense the presence on the other side waiting. When the door opened, my parents stood before me. They had never minded me coming home this late or worried about me. The sun had only just gone down and as far as I knew there was no special dinner tonight.

  My mom pounced in front of my dad, grabbing my jacket and hanging it up for me.

  “Dinner is waiting. Wash up and join us at the table.”

  This burst of energy seemed so unlike her recent behavior. Usually, she was tired after work and would rest on the couch, watching the news until I arrived. This evening was totally peculiar.

  “Uh. Is there something wrong? I’m sorry I’m late.”

  My dad found his opening and, with a relaxing hand on my shoulder, just smiled at me.

  I went to the upstairs bathroom and stared into the mirror. I must have had alcohol on my breath, but they seemed not to notice. They were unusually happy and anxious. I cupped some soapy water in my hands and brought it to my face. I felt a sudden burning in my eyes from the soap, and they quickly started to tear. I hurriedly toweled off as I knew they were waiting for me.

  I navigated the stairs with energy only to find them already seated. Everything looked ordinary except the meal was what I termed a “bonus night” menu. Usually, we only ate such big steaks when my dad got his bonus or a raise. I could see the bloody redness still oozing out of these monsters. I scanned the table looking for any clues. Forks, knives, plates, salad bowl, salt and pepper shakers, all appeared to be assembled in orderly fashion.

  I noticed “it” as I looked at my place setting. My setting was slightly different from that of my parents. What at first glance appeared to be a napkin was now clearly not. It was an opened envelope. A letter. There was a large logo on the front of it. My heart pretended not to know except I caught on immediately. I moved slowly to my seat and avoided looking at the letter. I reached over for some salt and pepper. Finally, my mom broke the heavy silence.

  “Aren’t you going to read it?”

  “You mean this,” I said as I pointed to it. “Hah. I thought it was a napkin. What is it?”

  “Read it for yourself,” they bellowed in unison, both leaning over their chairs.

  I fumbled the paper in my hands and the logo whether upside down or not was unmistakable. “Young College.” It was a prestigious college in the south. It was one of “the” colleges.

  My eyes still burned from the soap as I read the words printed on the thick stationery.

  Dear Mr. Kiran Wells,

  It is with great pride that we have accepted your application to attend our school this fall. Please find enclosed information for your freshman year. Please confirm your attendance by returning the enclosed form in the envelope provided. We look forward to seeing you in the autumn.

  Yours truly,

  Marcus Freeman II

  President and Academic Dean

  Young College

  I took a deep breath. If it had been my last breath on this earth, it would have been memorably tragic and probably ironic. My mom studied my reaction and finally spoke. “Well?”

  “It’s very impressive, I suppose.”

  “What do you mean, you suppose? It is undeniably marvelous. You got into Young!”

  I could see the look on her face. I didn’t even remember applying to Young. Clearly, my p
arents had. However, it was possible in the hurricane of papers I signed before the holidays, when I was sick, that they may have applied on my behalf and I hadn’t realized it.

  “It is flattering to be accepted. For sure, I’ll treasure and save the letter for my scrapbook.” Bull. I didn’t even own a scrapbook. A treasure in need of burial is what it was.

  My mom rose from her chair and hugged me. She nearly suffocated me. “My son is going to Young.” At that moment, sheer terror had established squatter’s rights inside me. There was no way my parents could afford this. No way.

  “It is nice, but I know we can’t afford the tuition. It’ll be fun to at least look back upon this letter one day. Like a souvenir.”

  “You don’t understand. You are going.”

  I looked bewildered at her.

  “My job! Why I went back to work. It was to save the money for this. You are going, sweetie. Congratulations.”

  I fell back in my chair. My mom had gone back to work that past two years for me and my tuition. I weakly smiled at her as she leaned toward me and gave me an even larger hug. She knelt down on the floor in front of me and grabbed both my hands pressing them together.

  “Son, we love you dearly and are so proud of you. We thought of this as our gift to you for graduation.”

  My dad, who had been quiet, reached over for his napkin and brought it to his face. He patted his eyes just as I noticed the tears forming from behind his glasses. He walked over to me and patted me on the head and extended his arm.

  “Congratulations, son. No one deserves it more.”

  I smiled the ugliest smile this world has ever known. Pulled apart were the corners of my mouth. I showed my clenched teeth. Hopefully, this would pass for happiness. I said very little. My parents assumed I was overwhelmed with delight.

  The steak bore the brunt of my emotions, as I drew my knife across it and cut it open, allowing its juices to leak freely across my plate. The red meat revealed itself before me, glistening in the kitchen light. I don’t remember much about what happened next. My parents did most of the talking. I had become hollow. Their voices rang through me like a bell and vibrated back at them.

  I finally looked up at them and excused myself. Claiming to be tired from all the excitement and the events of the day, I hugged them both, thanked them, and went up to my room. I could feel their smiles at my back, tearing through me. They had sacrificed so much for me.

  I entered my room and put on my winter pajamas. I took a pen from my desk. My personal notepad remained out of arm’s reach. I took the envelope from which the letter came and wrote on it:

  I now know.

  I had swum in a forbidden dream.

  My lonely trust asleep

  when the vengeful bird,

  through an open window flew.

  Circling with appetite

  its tired prey,

  an innocent string,

  dressed as a beautiful worm.

  My heart’s only stitch,

  now forever unraveling away.

  I buried my head in the pillow. Whether I sobbed or not throughout the night would never be certain. It didn’t matter. The bread was offered to me. A betrayal would surely follow.

  Friends would do anything for friends.

  CHAPTER 24

  The end of the school year was a month away. My friends had noticed a change in my demeanor. The grin that they described as my signature characteristic had slowly been replaced by a frown. Even Janie kept her distance and stopped trying to borrow my CDs or ask for cigarettes. Marius had toned down his ritualistic hazing of me.

  I suppose everyone sensed I had shut down. I found some off switch inside me and locked it into position. I just passed it off as nerves about final exams, although most knew that was a ridiculous excuse in May.

  Many times, I had caught Moony’s stare, or, worse, his head tilting on its axis to study me from different angles. He was trying to solve the puzzle of my behavior. He would often tug at my arm during lunch to get my attention. Even he was aware that I stopped listening to anyone. No longer would I glance over to Laura during English class. It was like a horrific magic trick where the disappearing assistant never returns. I knew soon enough Laura would vanish for good. No, not her. I would be the one gone.

  We assembled one afternoon for our last gym class. Mr. Platt stood in front of us, clipboard in hand and pen balancing precariously over his right ear. He was in his fifties with thinning gray hair and thick black glasses. Mr. Platt looked like someone who had served active duty long ago and still had the taste of gunpowder in his mouth. There was no doubt he could have killed a platoon with his bare hands. Behind him was the one sight we, or specifically I, was terrified to witness. The rope. The brown twisted rope stretched from the rafters to within a foot off the floor. I got dizzy just looking up. The climax to a year of flexed arm hangs, shuttle runs, and running laps: the dreaded rope climb.

  I could see the marks on the rope colored in dark black ink. Each line represented a grade for this test. You started as an F and with each black line you passed, your grade moved up. If you got to the top, you got an A. I was terrified of heights and my best attempt ever was to make it a little more than halfway up for a C. The end of the school year was approaching, and this would be a significant portion of our physical education grade.

  The huddled young masses were stretched along the bench as we watched each of our comrades being called forward. We mostly sat with hands clenching, toes tapping nervously, or some additional form of a tick. Athletes, like Marius, made it quite effortlessly. Moony struggled to even lift his legs off the floor and barely went up two feet. Some hands blistered almost to the bone. Legs became entangled in the rope when some tried to hang on for dear life.

  My turn came with no ceremony. The gallows awaited. I had hoped the bell would ring before my chance would come. My name was usually near the bottom of the roll. I could thank my dad for that. There was still five minutes or so left before the bell would ring. I would have to face my inevitable defeat.

  I walked slowly to the rope and looked up. It was dizzyingly high. Marius calmly walked over toward me, scratching his leg as he approached. He looked at me and laughed. “Don’t look down, buddy,” and returned to bench laughing, high-fiving my so-called friends along the way. I heaved myself up a couple of feet and began my ascent. This time was different. I felt anger in me like I had never felt before. By the time I made it up halfway, the blood coursed through me as if heated by an invisible source. My eyes were closed, and I could scarcely hear the courtesy cheers of my classmates. “Don’t look down.” Good advice.

  I inched my way up farther and farther. Temptation would be my downfall. I could no longer resist. From across the room, I could see the girls gathering to watch. With mere minutes until the bell rang, they were now watching and waiting at a safe distance. I could feel my strength draining and could picture myself next year at Young College doing the same thing. I gritted my teeth as my arms started trembling.

  I was about to slide down and accept my C. My mind quickly established this was satisfactory. But then I looked across the hangar-like room to the girls’ side. I noticed one figure in the distance. The long dusky hair was a dead giveaway. It was Laura. She, too, was watching my predicament. It was at that moment that the world began to spin on its axis again. A switch went to the “on” position. I could feel my heart beating to a familiar rhythm. Everyone else vanished. I could only see her and her dark hair and eyes. A lightning bolt shot up my spine and ignited something within me that my insecurities enviously once smothered. She was divine and more so from my vantage point at that moment. I was in the sky, looking at everything from a new perspective. Suddenly fear, logic, and reason gave way to curiosity and something more powerful. A loud chord played upon my spine, vibrating through my frame. I looked up and, with my newly formed strength, move
d inch by inch higher.

  As I pulled myself up to new heights, I looked across the room over to her. This new strength I found was like wiping the dust off an ancient sarcophagus and rejoicing in the splendor of golden treasure. I moved with purpose, like a rocket launching, and before I knew it, had reached the ceiling. I watched from my observatory and thrust my waist forward and back in a swinging motion. From the top of my kingdom, Laura was all I could see and all I wanted to see. The sun shone through the gym window when a passing cloud danced away. I swung back and forth to the polite applause of my classmates. It was like a cathedral with me perched high atop and swaying like some deafening bell.

  A smile, once erased by the stain of my toxic future, found itself on my face. The grin was back. I closed my eyes to savor the feeling, oblivious to Mr. Platt, my classmates, and the ringing bell. Music played in mind and unconsciously, I began singing. Mr. Platt was the first to notice.

  “Wells! What are you doing? Come on down. Are you really singing?”

  The murmurs of my classmates spread like a wildfire beneath me. I didn’t even realize I was singing out loud one of my favorite songs, “Skyway”. My eyes shut while I was swaying on the rope, thinking of Laura. I wondered if the same fate awaited me as the unlucky character in the song.

  It was at that moment that my hands slipped. I came tumbling down, grasping at the rope along the way to break my fall. I hit the floor with bloodied hands, skin ripping on my way down, and with a sickening thud, I landed heavily on my side. By then, most of the gym had already emptied, except for a few of my classmates and Mr. Platt.

  Moony stood trembling in the distance. Too freaked out to come close, though intrigued enough not to leave. I could hear his petrified voice. “Is he dead?” He asked it over and over again nervously. He thought only he could hear. I could. I hoped to hear a reassuring answer from someone. None came as everyone waited to follow Mr. Platt’s lead.

  “YOU OKAY!?” screamed Mr. Platt, as if commanding me to not be dead.