by Rob Rufus
“Eh,” I mumbled, not sure how to answer. “Not as bad as I was. How is tour going?”
“Amazing! I wish you were here, bro.”
“Me too. You get to meet any other bands yet?”
“I met Tim Armstrong from Rancid yesterday—backstage,” he said proudly.
“Whoa. What did he say?”
“Not a lot, really. He was walking backstage, and I bumped into him when I was carrying my amp to the van. He told me to get the fuck out of his way.”
“Damn!” I said. “That’s so rad.”
“Yeah, it was pretty badass. So how is your breathi—”
“Where are you guys at tonight?” I asked quickly. I didn’t want to talk about my breathing.
“A Super 8, outside of Philly. We had the day off, decided to stop here tonight.”
“Is Philadelphia cool?”
“We went downtown an hour ago and got cheesesteaks,” he said. “They put fucking Cheez Whiz on them, dude.”
“Fuck. Gross.”
“Kinda, but the city seems okay. Day after tomorrow is Cleveland—it’s the last show of the tour.” He sighed. “I never imagined I’d be beating you home.”
“No shit,” I said. “I wish I was gonna be in Philly, or even Cleveland. And you know I hate Ohio.”
“Me too,” he said. “Me too. . . .”
Someone called for him in the background. He hissed at them to hold on.
“You got a window in that hospital room?” he asked.
“Yeah, they moved me to a new room. It’s legit.”
“Did you see the moon? It’s fucking huge tonight.”
I eased over to the window. I covered the receiver as I struggled for breath. The moon was huge—it was an orangish-copper color, a moldy tangerine in the sky.
“I see it.”
“Good,” he said, “me too. If you can see it, and I can see it, maybe we really aren’t that far away.”
“Yeah. Maybe not.”
It was in that way we said good night.
* * *
I called Ali next.
I was so thankful she wasn’t there to see me laid up. The call was dramatic enough.
To keep it light I asked her what she’d been up to since I’d been gone. I should have just told her about the surgery instead.
“I don’t know. Just stuff. Whatever,” she mumbled.
“Uh, all right,” I said. “You okay, babe?”
“I’m fine.”
Girls are so fucking weird.
“You don’t sound fine,” I said.
She sighed. “It can wait until later.”
“What can?”
“Nothing.”
“Ali—you’re a horrible liar, and you know it. Just tell me what’s going on.”
“I—[sniffle]—told myself I wasn’t gonna tell you until after.”
“Tell me what?”
“Well, it wasn’t my fault,” she said. “Let me just say that first.”
“Okay,” I said. My body tensed.
“I went to a party last weekend, with Mandy. At Adam’s place.”
“Okay.”
“Well, so everyone was there and there was tons of booze and I’ve been so stressed out lately—with your surgery, and money, and school starting again soon—so I got like, pretty wasted.”
“Okay.”
“Well, like I got blackout kinda wasted. And you know Teddy, my boyfriend before the boyfriend before the guy I was dating right before you?”
“Yes.”
“Well, he showed up. He was blackout drunk too, and he started like, grabbing all over me, right in front of everyone.”
“. . .”
“Nothing really happened. I don’t think. I was so fucking drunk, Rob. But I am, like, pretty positive nothing happened. Okay? I just wanted to tell you before someone else started gossiping about it, or something.”
The world turned red.
I had to get off the phone—now.
“I have to go,” I snapped. “Sorrytalktoyoulaterbye.”
I slammed down the receiver. It didn’t help.
I threw the phone at the wall. My wound throbbed.
A nurse rushed in.
“What happened?” she asked.
“I need medicine. I am in serious pain.”
3
When I woke, the sun was in my eyes, reflecting off the blank TV screen. I got up slowly. I walked shakily into the bathroom. Balancing against the wall, I grabbed the geriatric rails around the toilet.
Godfuckingdamn, I hurt.
I pushed myself off the toilet. I eased to the sink. I glanced up at the mirror and looked at my bandaged chest. Half the dressing had come off as I slept. I could see the corner of the wound. It looked as raw as uncooked hamburger. I cringed. My gut tightened.
But that’s when I saw it—hair!
Not a lot—shit, barely enough to count, just a shadow of hair. Little buds of stubble popped up around my ears and the top of my head.
I ran my hand over it—I felt it! The skin was rough, like used sandpaper. I brushed my hand over my head—over my hair—again, laughing like an idiot at my own reflection.
* * *
I could walk down the entire hallway now. It still took forever, and I still had to stop a lot—it was walk, break, breathing test, walk, break, breathing test—but I now had the confidence to keep going. I wanted to do better.
And I was.
Mom told me that they were going to let me leave in the next day or two. I still didn’t feel ready to be discharged—I could barely breathe, and I was still in pain. I wanted to go home, but I also knew what home meant—that the rest of my recovery was up to me.
I called Nat again that night, on the new phone the orderly brought. He told me the show in Jersey ruled; that it was the biggest crowd he’d ever played to. He said he couldn’t wait for us to go back and play there again.
He asked me if I’d talked to Ali yet. I told him about the party. About Teddy. I couldn’t help it. He listened to the story in complete silence.
“When did this happen?” he finally said.
“Last weekend, I think.”
“Do you know Teddy’s number?”
“Nah.” Then, embarrassed, I added, “But I bet Ali still does.”
He sighed. “Jesus. Okay, thanks. See you at home.”
The line died.
* * *
Two days later, the word came down—I was finally going home.
The nurse said I could take a shower, but that also meant cleaning my own wounds. She brought me a towel, along with packages of gauze, medical tape, and huge white bandages.
I was afraid to let the water touch my incisions. I stood under the showerhead with my back toward it and my chin bent down. I covered my chest and let the warm water wash over the tops of my shoulders. I ran my hand over my head, savoring the roughness of it.
Mom helped me dress my wounds. Our nurse gave me a bottle of painkillers and more bandages. My chest was too sore for me to put on a T-shirt, so I had to borrow one of Dad’s button-ups. It was loose on my body and barely touched my skin.
No doctors came to see me off. No nurses came to tell us goodbye. An orderly showed up outside my door with one of those beautiful wicker wheelchairs.
I sat down in it. The orderly let Dad roll me to the car. I made it out of the hospice, alive.
* * *
I took two painkillers before we even got to the car. Mom opened the door for me, and I lay slowly in the backseat, using my backpack for a pillow. I asked Dad to ride easy.
It was late afternoon when we pulled out of the hospital parking lot. It was already August. The summer was already done.
* * *
Dad’s yelling woke
me up. I rubbed my eyes and looked toward the front seat. He was on his cell phone. When he hung up, I asked what was wrong.
“Oh, I don’t know,” he said sharply. “Maybe your goddamn knucklehead of a brother, or your idiot buddy Paul can tell you.”
“Nat?” Mom said. “What about him?”
“Well, that was my buddy from the police station. He called to let me know that someone in our neighborhood just called the cops on your son.”
“What?” we both said.
“Apparently he and Paul assaulted someone, a few blocks from the house.”
Mom put her face in her hands.
“There’s no way,” I said from the backseat. “Who called the cops?”
“Reed, something.”
Shit.
“Teddy Reed?”
“Do you know him?” Dad said. He looked back at me.
“Kind of.”
At that exact moment, the strangest thing happened.
A family of deer stood on the empty highway ahead of us—six of them, unmoving, in between the rows of corn. Dad wasn’t paying attention and he didn’t have time to brake.
We plowed right fucking into them.
Mom screamed. I flew forward, hitting my chest hard against the back of the seats. I lay on the floor moaning, straining to get up.
Dad didn’t even slow down.
“Fuck it,” he said. “This car’s a piece of junk, anyway.”
I crawled back onto the seat and looked out the rear windshield—a deer lay dying, twitching on the cement. The other deer still stood there, gathered around the injured one. They didn’t move. They watched over him hopelessly, there on the empty road.
TWENTY
Prodigal Son/Weeping Saint
1
The tour van was parked in front of the house when we arrived. It was just sitting there, like it had never left. Déjà vu again and again. Everything changes but remains the same.
I stared at the concrete steps leading to our yard. I hadn’t progressed to stairs, yet here were eight of them, hard and chipped, and waiting for me.
I inched across the sidewalk toward them. I leaned on the railing to catch my breath.
“Shit . . .” I panted. “How . . . am I . . . supposed to do this?”
“One step at a time,” Mom said from behind me. “The only way you can.”
* * *
By the time I made it up the stairs I was exhausted. But I made it up!
I kept moving through the yard, afraid to lose momentum. I climbed the front porch . . . my chest heaved . . . I leaned onto the porch rail . . . Dad unlocked the door. . . .
Inside.
It was dark, and mercifully cold. I sat down on the couch, still trying to catch my breath. The lights were off. Nat must have been asleep.
The place smelled the same. I huffed the fumes of home. I didn’t want to move.
I decided just to sleep there, on the couch. I didn’t have the energy to walk upstairs to my bedroom.
Mom brought me blankets and a pillow. What I needed (wanted) was painkillers. She gave me the bottle. I took one, and then lay on the matted couch.
After I was settled, my parents marched to the basement door. They threw it open, flipped on the light, and stormed down. I heard Nat wake up. I heard them all start yelling. Welcome fucking home.
Through snippets of their argument, I pieced together the events of the night.
Nat and Paul decided to confront Teddy almost as soon as they got back into town. Nat tried calling his house first. He called again. And again. He left ten messages. Teddy never called back.
He called again—the phone was off the hook. So, the two of them decided to stop by his place. . . .
The Reed family lived in a big house, near the park. They had a gigantic yard that Teddy had turned into a makeshift soccer field. All Nat planned to do was tell him off, call him out. He knew that Teddy was at home—his car was parked right out front. But no one answered the door.
So they waited. They paced the porch. They got angry.
Nat told my parents the reason he went over there. I could hear his voice from the basement, trying to explain. . . .
. . . This guy is man enough to try and screw my brother’s girlfriend while he’s in the hospital, but not man enough to answer the door?! So I started thinking, Screw THAT! And I just . . .
Nat said that they waited for a half hour, until his cell finally rang—it was Teddy’s mom. She demanded Nat leave them alone.
Paul pounded on their door now, angrier than ever. No one would answer. Eventually, they decided to try another tactic.
A large bag of soccer balls was tied to the goalpost in the yard.
They started kicking soccer balls at the front door of the house.
They aimed for the front door, at least—but it wasn’t like they had their own practice field at home.
Balls smashed potted plants. Balls chipped siding. Balls dented the gutter. A ball murdered a lawn gnome. Nat scored a GOOOOAL—straight through the fucking living room window.
That’s when they saw police lights moving down the street.
They left the soccer balls and took off running. Nat cut through the alley, Paul ran toward the park. When they met at my house, two hours later, there were no police waiting to arrest them, no phone messages, no nothing. Nat had figured they’d gotten away with it.
Dad called him a fucking idiot.
He said he was lucky he wasn’t arrested. He bitched my brother out accordingly, but his tone wasn’t harsh anymore. Mom’s voice was too muffled to make out.
Their footfalls moved up the basement steps. They didn’t tell him good night.
* * *
I felt responsible for all of it. When I told Nat about Teddy and Ali, I must have known he’d do something like that—I must have wanted him to do something like that, right? I probably hoped for something worse.
But I hadn’t meant to cause more friction in my own family. Shit, my issues left my parents mentally and emotionally spent—and Nat had missed so much while he was on tour.
Now things were even worse.
My parents had this new, crippled version of their son. I took up even more room, caused even more stress, and stole even more time, Jesus Christ. They weren’t equipped to take on the problems of two kids, not anymore. So, without even knowing it, Nat was on his own. He was now an adult, while I was once again a child.
I hurt too bad to think about that shit anymore. I leaned onto the coffee table and popped another painkiller. I let it dissolve a little under my tongue. Then I swallowed, and hoped to pass out quick.
2
I heard Nat in the kitchen when I woke. I groaned and sat up on the couch. My wounds felt sticky against the gauze. I must have sweated through the night.
I dragged myself into the kitchen.
Nat was at the table, drinking coffee with Mom. The scene was unexpected—I’d never seen him drink coffee, and the sight further confirmed his new aura of grown-upness. When he saw me he smiled.
“Yo man,” he said, not getting up.
“Hey.”
I winced when I sat down at the table. Mom brought me my morning meds and a glass of water. She sat the pills in front of me and then left the two of us alone.
Nat got up. He’d lost weight—he was almost as skinny as me. His hair was bigger. He wore ripped black shoes and jeans, and a sleeveless T-shirt. On his left shoulder was a new tattoo, a black-and-white vintage microphone. He looked like he didn’t give a damn about anything. I wanted to look like that one day.
“Are you allowed to walk up and down stairs?” he asked.
“Yes, smart-ass.”
“Then let’s go down to the basement. I wanna show you what I brought you from the road.”
“I’ll meet ya
down there,” I told him. I didn’t want him to see the way that I struggled.
When I finally got to the basement, my chest was throbbing in pain. I sat on the bottom step. Nat’s suitcase was in the corner. It was still packed, like he was only visiting.
A Warped Tour backstage pass was sitting on the shelf beside his SIBLING ID card from Children’s Hospital. I reached for the pass—it was just a piece of laminated plastic, faded a little around the sides. I had never played a show with backstage passes before—I’d never played anywhere with a backstage before! That dirty piece of plastic was eternally cool.
I put it back.
Nat leaned over his suitcase and started pulling stuff out. He laid the highlights of his adventures on me—seeing Jimmy Eat World in Asbury Park, right beside the ocean—when the singer of 7 Seconds watched their set from side stage—seeing AFI play different songs every day. He spoke of driving the Jersey Turnpike death-race, where the skyscraper horizon gleamed as sharp as switchblades. He described Pennsylvania forests, reaching higher and farther than ours ever could.
“And the girls. Shit, man. The girls.”
I laughed. “Whatever. Rock ’n’ roll groupies died out with Def Leppard, bro.”
“Dude, you have no idea. There were so many chicks at these shows! And, like, they’d come and talk to us! It was fucking insane. I met this one, in Louisville, who looked like Rachel Leigh Cook with a Mohawk.”
“Have you talked to Ashley since you’ve been back?”
He looked annoyed. “Yeah. But she’s been acting weird.”
“Ashley always acts weird.”
“Yeah, I know—but even her weirdness is getting weird. Whatever. Talking about that shit is a drag. Let me show you what I scored for you.”
He brought tons of records and band shirts home for me, all autographed by the bands with phrases like Stay up! and Get well soon, dude! He brought me a Rancid beanie. AFI signed a drumstick for me. H2O gave me every piece of merch they had.
“I talked to the other bands about you a lot. By the time I left that tour, everyone knew your name, man.”
“Trippy,” I said self-consciously. I twirled the drumstick around in my hand—it had been months since I’d held one.
“I wish you could have been there,” he said. “I wished it every fucking day.”