by Nick Burd
A rush began in my torso and moved up into my head. She was right. I was going to start crying. I reached over and took her hand. She gave mine a good squeeze. I pinched the bridge of my nose as if that could stop it. She rubbed my knee and hushed me, told me it was going to be okay. I wiped my nose with the back of my hand.
“It’s okay,” she said. “Cry if you want. Let it all out.”
Let it all out. If only I could. Letting it all out would involve me exploding like a firework, a beautiful riot of rainbow sparks bouncing around the car and lighting up the entire lot. Everyone would look over to see what was going on, and one by one they would understand everything I had inside me.
Chapter 9
I woke up the next morning with a vague hangover and an aching sadness in my gut. In my first waking moments I couldn’t place where it had all come from, but then the previous night came back in an avalanche of thought. I went into the bathroom and snagged an Advil and then went downstairs and ate yogurt, granola, and raspberries in my underwear at the kitchen table. My parents were nowhere to be found. Every now and then I glanced up at the television. News of Jenny Moore’s disappearance had reached a national level. A tabloid journalist was interviewing a psychic in Portland who specialized in missing children. The newswoman asked her if there was any way, after such a long period of time, that Jenny Moore could possibly still be alive.
“It’s possible,” said the expert after a strange pause. She had an Eastern European accent and a short symmetrical haircut. “There aren’t any rules for this sort of thing. When you cross certain borders, there is no telling what you may find. Anything is possible. Both the best and the worst thing about situations like these is that there is always room to be surprised.”
The newscaster leaned forward in her chair. “Are you getting strong vibes one way or another about the fate of this young girl?”
She said, “I don’t feel comfortable saying. Not here. Not on television. But I have been in touch with the police and the Moore family. And they are always in my prayers.”
I didn’t have to work that day. I put on my swimming trunks and went out to the pool. It was humid, at least ninety-eight degrees according to the heat index. A lawn mower buzzed from a few yards over and the scent of freshly mowed grass tickled the inside of my nostrils. I swam back and forth, forcing myself to stay under until my lungs felt like they might burst. After a while I got out and fell asleep on one of the chaise longues contemplating whether or not I could ever have the courage to drown myself, if maybe filling myself with water was the only way to fill the void.
I woke up sensing a presence. I assumed it was my mother coming to make me clean my room or ask me to change a lightbulb. But instead it was Fessica Montana standing just a few feet away. She looked guilty and lost, like she’d suddenly appeared in my backyard and didn’t know how she got there. She was wearing khaki shorts, a frilly pink T-shirt that was a size too small, and a sequined yellow belt.
“The door was open,” she said before I could say a thing.
“What are you doing here?”
“I thought I’d drop by. That’s what friends do, right? They drop by.” She looked over her shoulder at the water. “You have a pool.”
There was something so pathetic about the way she said it. I felt embarrassed for her, but a part of me recognized her cluelessness. I thought back to riding in Alex’s car, how every word that came out of my mouth sounded incredibly lame.
“Yeah,” I said. I was already trying to figure out how to get rid of her. “We do. It’s more of a hassle than anything, though. Leaves in the drain. Dead things. I need to take a shower, so you should probably—”
“What dead things?” she asked.
“Um, we’ve found a couple of mice. A bird once.”
“Dead?” she asked.
“Yes. Dead.”
“It just fell out of the sky?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “All I know is I had to get it out, and it was disgusting.”
“Are there bird snipers in your neighborhood?”
“Bird snipers?”
“There are bird snipers in my uncle’s neighborhood in Washington. They do it for fun. They hide in attics and shoot from the windows.”
“Fessica,” I said before she could say anything. “Why are you here? What do you want?”
“I wanted to see how things with Alex are going,” she said. “See if there’s anything else I can do to help you. I still feel bad about what happened. I didn’t mean to start any rumors.”
“That’s very nice,” I said, “but you should probably go. My parents get weird if I have friends over.”
I stood up and led her into the house, my hand on her arm.
“Friends over?” she asked. “So we’re friends, right?”
“Sure. We’re friends.”
“I help you, you help me.” I was pulling her through the kitchen. “We help each other out.”
“Yeah,” I said, not really getting what she was saying. “For sure.”
“I mean, maybe someday we could sorta be more than friends, right? That’s possible.”
I stopped. “Fessica, come on. You can’t be serious.”
They were playing some home video of Jenny Moore on the refrigerator television. I went over and punched the mute button.
“Jeez,” she said. “What was that about?”
“Fessica, I’m gay. We both know this.”
Her eyes grew wide. It occurred to me that I’d never actually told her I was gay. In fact, Lucy was the only actual person I’d told. Her eagerness quickly gave way to a look of concern.
“But what about what happened in my bedroom?” she asked. “Did that mean nothing?”
“You attacked me,” I said, gesturing at the ceiling like my dad when he was pissed. “You tried to stick your hand down my pants and I ran out of your house like I was on fire. What about that sounds like a romantic moment to you?”
She opened her mouth to let out a sound. But nothing came out. Her eyes got wet.
“Oh shit,” I said. “Don’t cry. Don’t do that.”
But it was too late. She let out a broken little cry. She limply held her arms out, ready to receive anything the world would offer her. I felt horrible and before I knew it, I was hugging her. My chin was on her shoulder, and I was staring at the television in the refrigerator, at a muted commercial for laundry detergent, and I prayed she wasn’t getting the wrong idea. She started sobbing uncontrollably.
“Don’t cry,” I said. “Jesus, dude. Don’t cry. I’m sorry. This isn’t your fault.”
“But I don’t have anybody,” she said between sobs. “I don’t have anybody, Dade, and it makes me wish that I was dead. I wake up every day and I wish that I was dead. The only reason I don’t kill myself is because the idea of it is so terrifying, and I’m scared I’ll be so scared that then I’ll screw it up and then people will have something else to make fun of me for.”
“Jesus,” I said. I pulled back and looked her in the eye. “Don’t say that. That’s horrible. You don’t really think that, do you?”
“I do!” she screamed.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” I said.
She pulled away. She wasn’t crying anymore. She looked angry now.
“Maybe I’ll do it now,” she said. “Maybe I’ll just go home and get it over with. No one will miss me. My parents won’t. They have Jessica. What do they need me for?”
“Um, you’re way cooler than your sister. Trust me on that.”
She stared at my knees, her face locked into a hard grimace. I was hoping to maybe get a laugh out of her with that last line. No such luck. My annoyance with her gave way to a very real sympathy. My earlier thought of drowning myself in the pool was just a catnap away, and it was impossible to admit that it wasn’t.
“You want to come upstairs?” I asked. “Hang out? It’ll be fine. My parents won’t care.” She looked up at me and nodded solemnly, the faintest trace of a smile on her
mouth. I grabbed two Cokes from the refrigerator and led her up to my bedroom. She followed behind, sniffling. She sat on my bed and sipped at her Coke while I went around picking up random articles of clothing off the floor and tossing them into my closet.
“What’s this?” she asked.
I looked over and saw she was holding a soda can that Lucy had turned into a pipe a few nights beforehand.
“Gimme that,” I said, going over and grabbing it from her.
“Sorry. It was just sitting there on your nightstand. What is it?”
“It’s a pipe,” I said.
“A pipe?” There was still the residue of sadness in her voice. Her throat sounded wet and clogged like a neglected storm drain.
“Yeah,” I said. “You smoke pot out of it.”
“Pot?” she asked. “I want to smoke pot.”
I looked at her inquisitively. I really didn’t think getting her stoned was going to accomplish anything, but there was something so pleading and expectant in her eyes that it was impossible for me to say no.
“Do you really want to?” I asked.
“Do you think it’ll help? People seem to be really into it at school.”
“I don’t think it’ll help, necessarily,” I said. “But it’ll distract you. And sometimes that’s all you can ask for, right?”
“I guess,” she said with a tinge of disappointment.
I put on a record by the Breathless Faggots and took the precaution of opening the windows, stuffing a couple of towels in the crack under my door, and lighting some incense. I still had most of the weed that I’d bought from Alex in my desk drawer. It was special to me. It was Alex Weed. Whenever Lucy and I would smoke it, she would say, “Mmmm. Tastes like sexy loser,” and I would laugh. I placed a little bud on the constellation of pinpricks on the top of the can and turned around to offer it to Fessica. She was reading one of my notebooks that I’d left on my nightstand. I hurried over and grabbed it from her.
“Don’t read that,” I said.
She turned her eyes up toward me.
“Sorry,” she said. “I didn’t know you wrote.”
“Well, I do.”
“I didn’t read anything in there. I promise. I just saw a few lines, that’s all.”
“Well, forget whatever you read,” I said. “It’s not finished.”
“Can I read it when it’s done?” she asked.
“Sure,” I said. “When it’s done I’ll let you read it.”
I handed her the makeshift pipe. She used the orange lighter on my nightstand and took a hit. She let out a massive, choking cough right into the can and blew the pot onto the carpet.
“Whoa,” I said, stamping at the burning pieces with my bare feet. “Easy, partner.”
The Breathless Faggots were singing that line about the times of our lives being outside of time. I kneeled down and picked up the pieces of Alex Weed off the carpet. They broke apart in my hand, black and spent. I held them in my fist and then went over to my trash can and brushed my hands together over it.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“It’s fine,” I said with a forced cheeriness that I hoped she mistook for the real thing. “Don’t worry about it. You always cough your first time.”
I repacked the bowl.
“Be careful,” I said to her, handing her the pipe. “Don’t inhale more than you can handle.”
She handled the next hit much better. She kept watching me as she exhaled, as if trying to glean support from my presence. I gave her a thumbs-up as she sent a long plume of smoke across the room. She held the pipe out to me, but I shook my head. She set it on my nightstand and then leaned back and sprawled out across my bed.
“Your bed is so comfortable,” she said.
“Thanks.”
“I downloaded the Vas Deferens the other day. You like them, right?”
“Totally.”
“You told me about them once, so I checked them out. I love them.”
“Yeah, everyone loves the Vas Deferens.”
“I like the song that was in that commercial. The one where he sings about the vast fields of ordinary.”
She totally got the words wrong, but I didn’t feel like correcting her. I just focused on doodling a big blue star on the back of an old notebook. She stared up at the Johnny Morgan shrine on my wall.
“You like Johnny Morgan a lot,” she said.
“Totally.”
“He’s okay,” she said blandly.
I stopped doodling and looked up at her. “I think he’s really talented.”
“Sorry,” she said. She looked around my room. “So what kind of stuff do you write about?”
“Stuff.”
“What kind of stuff ?”
“Stuff about my life. People I like. And about how much I hate Cedarville.”
“I hate it too,” she said. “I can’t wait until I graduate. I’m going somewhere far away. I’m going to start over. I’ll be Francesca again.”
I stopped doodling and looked up at her. She was still looking around my room and taking everything in. I thought about telling her that I knew what she meant, that I also dreamt of starting over in a new place, but then I got worried that would give her the wrong idea, so I didn’t say anything.
“Why did Pablo punch Bert McGraw that one day?” she asked. “What happened between you two?”
“Pablo and I don’t talk anymore.”
“Why not?”
“Because Pablo’s a dick,” I said.
“Did you and Pablo used to . . .” She trailed off. The way the sentence drifted out into silence somehow seemed like the most appropriate way to describe what Pablo and I used to do. In different circumstances, I would’ve laughed.
“We used to do a lot of stuff,” I said. “But not anymore. Because Pablo’s a dick.”
“Is he gay like you?”
“I don’t know. Well, no. Not like me. He is, but he isn’t.” I didn’t know what I was trying to say. “I mean, he thinks he isn’t. Or, I should say, he says he isn’t.”
“What about Alex?” she asked. “When are you seeing him again?”
“Who knows. I hung out with him once, but he hasn’t called. I’ll probably never hear from him.” It wasn’t until I said that last sentence that I began to realize that I really might never see him again. I wondered what this meant for the last few weeks. The thought that all this longing could be for nothing was too depressing to dwell on.
“Are your parents married?” she asked.
“They are,” I said. The question sorta caught me off guard. “They shouldn’t be, but they are. Are yours?”
“My dad left a couple of weeks ago,” she said. “Just packed up his things and left. Jessica’s been having a really tough time with it.”
I tried to imagine Jessica feeling the same pain I’d felt when my father first told me about Vicki. I tried to imagine her sprawled on her bed, broken and helplessly staring off into space. The image came, but it didn’t fit. It was hard to imagine Jessica feeling anything at all.
“I feel like I’m sad about so many things that I don’t have room to be sad about this,” she said. “Does that make sense?”
I nodded slowly. We stared at each other for a bit. Something passed between us, some sort of understanding.
“I don’t think we need dads,” I said. “My dad’s a dick too. Dads are the appendix of humanity. They should just be taken out before they start causing problems.”
“I love my dad. I miss him. I wish he’d come back.”
I gave a little roll of my eyes and went back to doodling on my notebook.
“What was that for?” she asked.
“What was what for?”
“You rolled your eyes,” she said. “Why?”
“I don’t know,” I said without looking up from my star. “I’m starting to think that getting attached to things is pointless. That’s how things get screwed up. People care too much about everything. Let it go. You’ll be h
appier.”
She was silent for about a minute.
“I should go,” she said.
“Right now?”
“Yes,” she said. “Right now. Is it dangerous for me to ride my bike stoned?”
“Are you stoned?” I asked. “Most people don’t get stoned their first time.”
“I can’t tell,” she said.
“Do you feel stoned?”
“I can’t tell,” she said again. “I need to go. I want to go home.”
“My mom’s out with a friend,” I said. “I can take you and your bike home in her SUV.”
“That might be a good idea.”
I backed my mother’s SUV out of the garage and loaded Fessica’s hot pink mountain bike into the back for her. We listened to the radio on the way there. Top 40 crap. She sat there with her arms crossed and her mouth fixed in a firm line. She was upset about something. It was coming off her in waves.
“Don’t talk about my dad like that, Dade,” she said when we finally pulled up to her house. “Don’t tell me not to get attached to things. And don’t tell me what I want. Ever. Not when it comes to my dad, not when it comes to me and who I am, not about anything else.”
“What?” I asked.
“My dad is not an appendix. People aren’t disposable. People’s problems aren’t disposable. You might think it’s cool to say you don’t care about anything, but you do. You care just as much as anyone else. Pretending you don’t makes you just like Pablo and Judy and all those assholes. You’re not lonelier than anyone else in the world.”
She slammed the car door when she exited. I sat there, a bit stunned, a bit embarrassed. The honeyed glow of the sunset made even this ugly neighborhood look somewhat beautiful. She slapped her hand against the back of the car. She wanted her bike. I got out and opened the back for her. I started to unload her bike for her, but she shouldered me off to the side and did it herself. Jessica was on the porch painting her toenails. We made eye contact, and I didn’t know what to do so I waved. She gave me the finger.
“Faggot,” she said. She went back to painting her nails.
Fessica and I stood there in the street for a few moments. I wanted to say I was sorry, but I couldn’t make myself do it. It felt weird having to be on the other side of an apology. I was so used to being the one who thought he was owed one. It was Fessica who spoke first.