“Jimmy . . .”
“Why don’t we just stay here and cook something instead?” I responded without looking away from the TV. She knew Patrick and sharp kitchen objects would be disastrous.
I got the glare. The one she thought Patrick didn’t notice.
“Maybe we could even cook something up on the grill.” Adding fire to the mix only made her more assertive that we go outside and do something. I knew this but said it anyway.
“Nope. You two need to get out. Too nice a day.”
“It’s freezing. We can’t be out in this bitter cold.”
“It’s April. It’s not freezing. Put on a sweatshirt and go.”
“Go where?”
“You’re twelve. You two can find something to do on your own.”
“Like wha —?”
“Go.” A one-word response meant the discussion was over.
Patrick stood up and muttered something about an idea. That’s the second phrase I didn’t like to hear.
He led the way as we walked out the back door. Our yard isn’t very big, at least not big enough for whatever Patrick had in mind. He went through the space between two lilac bushes and through the Petersons’ yard.
“Where we going?”
No response. Patrick had become quieter lately and didn’t tell anyone anything he didn’t have to. He gave me a look that meant one of two things: something was going to get smashed or blown up.
The town of Harper is laid out like most small towns I’ve seen. The downtown area has the usual bank, library, diner, and a few other small shops. While there are tracks running through the area, Harper isn’t big enough to get its own stop. It isn’t like we ever took the train much anyway. The nearest depot is about three miles west, in the neighboring town of Kingsley. It has a pool, a theater, and restaurants with cloth napkins. A solid stretch of woods separates us from our more affluent neighbor. Harper was commonly known as “poor man’s Kingsley.”
One of Patrick’s favorite things to do was follow the tracks that separate the towns into the woods. Not so much to go to Kingsley, just into the woods. It was quiet and possibly dangerous all at the same time, just like Patrick.
I knew we were headed into the woods before he even said a word. He’d always loved following the tracks, especially when we were younger and not allowed to do it. That made it even more appealing to him. Now his parents didn’t care if we walked them.
Every year since kindergarten, we ventured a little farther into the woods. As six-year-olds, we never left the view of the Harper crossing. By fourth grade, we were well out of range of anyone’s voice in Harper. Since then we had walked clear to Kingsley several times, but usually we stopped halfway. There was something about not seeing where the tracks ended that appealed to both of us. We never shared this out loud. We just knew it.
The forest was thickest in the middle between the two towns. This was where we’d always come to build forts. It was the one time I enjoyed Patrick’s company. I liked to build the most creative and functional fort, while Patrick preferred to build the deadliest traps around it. It wasn’t as if international warlords were trying to find our fort and take it over, but he liked to prepare for the worst. Once he built a Burmese tiger trap in front of my lean-to design. For a week after that, I dreaded hearing about the wrongful death of someone’s dog and had my “It was all Patrick’s idea” speech ready just in case. Never happened, thankfully.
We hadn’t built a fort in a couple of years, so it couldn’t be that. I also knew he didn’t want to walk all the way to Kingsley. I asked again and got the same “smashed or blown-up” look.
We arrived at the usual midway spot, and Patrick started digging in his sweatshirt pockets. He fished out an assortment of change, a key, a couple of fishing weights, and tape.
“Always wanted to make railroad art,” he said while placing the items on a stump. Smashing it is.
“Let’s see what happens to these on the tracks. I heard they go totally flat,” Patrick said, squinting slightly at the objects. I admit I was curious to see what would happen. He kept his eyes fixed on the items the way a mechanic looks at a stalled engine. “Two-thirty train should be coming soon. Let’s see how the key does.”
Patrick got down on one knee and surveyed the line of track in front of him. He ran one hand down the top, looking for the optimal place for the key to spend its final minutes in its current form.
“This should do,” he muttered to himself while placing the key on the track.
“What is that a key to?” I asked.
“Not sure. Found it in our junk drawer.”
“You don’t know if it’s important? Or if it’s the only copy?”
“If it were important, it wouldn’t be in a junk drawer.” I could never understand Patrick’s logic. But I couldn’t quite argue with it, either.
We both stood up as the sound of the Harper crossing bell echoed toward us.
“Here it comes. Let’s see what the weights look like, too.” We still had some time before the train rumbled through. Patrick grabbed three of the fishing weights and taped them onto the track just to the left of the key. “Not sure if those will stay, but it’s worth a shot.”
He walked back to the stump. We could see the train coming. Still had about thirty seconds.
“And now, my apologies, Mr. President, but I want to see what you look like with a fat face,” Patrick declared, grabbing one of the pennies. He walked to the track, looking for the ideal place for the experiment.
“Hey . . . hurry up! Train’s almost here,” I said, trying to mask my excitement. Still feeling the track for Mr. Lincoln’s spot, he ignored me until finding the perfect place for his artwork. He walked back to the stump, never once glancing at the oncoming train.
We stood on either side of the stump with what remained of the unscathed metal between us. The train was about one hundred yards away and getting bigger by the second.
In all the times I had been in these woods with Patrick, I always did my best to hide my fear of a train being so close to us when it roared by. When you’re at home or anywhere in town you can hear it. You can see it from anywhere downtown, and it’s something that always commands respect. But seeing the train from a distance is tremendously different from being five feet away when it passes by. You don’t realize how big an engine is until you’re in spitting distance from its size and power. Its massive sound is deafening. I would always grind my teeth to hide my anxiety when it stormed by us. Patrick always studied it as if he were admiring an exhibit at a museum. It would roar by while he stood unflinching, motionless, and asking some question in his head only he knew.
We kept our eyes focused on the metal objects as the mighty wheels approached, but we lost sight of them after the first car passed by. We couldn’t tell if our creations had been taken for a ride or were pushed between the rails. Patrick took a step closer as the cars barreled past us. I stayed back, planted firmly in my spot. He inched forward even farther, searching for any remnants, not once looking at the massive railcars flying by. He was an arm’s length away from the train now. My teeth hurt.
“Patrick!” No use. He couldn’t hear me. Even if he could, it wouldn’t matter. He was kneeling down now, scanning for any trace of what we left for the train to reconfigure. If there were anything sticking out of the side of the train, it surely would have taken his head off. Thankfully, it was a commuter train and passed quickly with only a few cars.
Patrick leaned his head forward in harmony with the end of the last car to inspect the outcome. From my angle, it looked as though his face were going to be removed. While my teeth were nearly ground out of my jaw, Patrick couldn’t have looked more at peace.
“Nicely done,” he boasted. He held up the key, which no longer resembled a key. It wasn’t perfectly flat, as I had hoped, but any chance of the key regaining its former self was gone.
“Here’s one of the weights.” He picked up what now looked like a bad nickel. This re
sult was disappointing. Fishing weights don’t have much shape to begin with, so I don’t know what I expected. “Where’s the penny? I want to see Lincoln’s fat face.”
Patrick looked up and down the side of the rail and found the penny facedown on the wooden tie. “Nope, fell off.” He picked it up and looked at it as if it were going to tell him something. “Tape isn’t strong enough. Maybe if we placed it somewhere else . . .”
Patrick saw this as a defeat, and he didn’t accept defeat well. I actually wanted to see what would happen to the penny, too. “We need to try again,” he said. “There’s a freight that usually comes around three.”
“How do you know that?”
“Just do.”
This was how Patrick operated. He had so many teachers convinced that he was lazy. When he had a goal, he did his homework and was well prepared.
I knew my mom wouldn’t care if we were out later than expected. I reached over to the stump and grabbed a penny of my own. I wanted to see this happen, too.
“OK,” I chimed in. “Let’s look for a better spot. What if each of us tapes one on a different rail, and then see if one of them stays?”
We didn’t stray far from the stump at first, but then we walked down the tracks a bit more. Both of us walked with a rail between our feet, scouring it for any kind of indentation that would better hold a penny in place to meet its demise. Patrick took a quiet knee. He’d found a spot.
While he examined the rail and how the penny would stay, I surveyed the rest of the setting. The thick of the forest was much closer to the tracks now. “I think we’ll be too close to the train here. Let’s go back.”
Patrick was on both knees, rotating the penny in its spot.
“Then go.”
He was committed. The anxiety of being close to the train passing had now been outweighed by my curiosity. I sucked it up and searched out a place for Mr. Lincoln on the rail parallel to Patrick’s.
He was putting the finishing touches on his placement while quietly stating, “This time . . . you won’t be so lucky, Mr. President.” We both stood up as the familiar whistle sounded.
Three o’clock. Patrick was right.
He took a few steps to the side and squatted down to view the arrangement. I moved toward him, stepping over his rail, careful not to disturb his surgical setup. Being on the far side of my rail, I wasn’t going to see my penny get squished. That was fine. I just wanted this train to pass and hoped it was a short one.
We could see the engine approaching. The earth started to tremble as it always does when you’re this close to an unstoppable force. We watched our respective pennies and would find out in the next twenty seconds if we were going to be successful. The tiny stones between the wooden ties began to shake. Patrick’s eyes stayed fixed on his penny, and I hoped he’d stay next to me this time. When I saw it happen, I knew he wouldn’t.
While his stayed put, mine fell off, a victim to the vibrations that ran through the rails, reminding us of what was coming. I’d hoped he didn’t see it. I looked toward the engine fast approaching, at least fast enough for me to take a step back into the tree that stopped me. I grabbed a branch at my side like it was a fence holding me back from a cliff.
By the time I looked away from the branch I was gripping, Patrick was stepping over his penny toward mine. It got loud: metal-wheels-on-metal-rails loud. The engine horn blasted twice — somehow loud enough to outcry the machine — and only added to my panic. It was close enough to hit with a baseball.
“Patrick!” No good. He was across and bending toward my penny.
“Patrick! Stop!” He was going to get hit. Or at least lose his arm. I didn’t want to see either. I didn’t want to be here. My hands were moving, circling without my control.
“MOVE!”
I have no doubt it was the loudest I yelled in my life. He was setting the penny down, looking steadily at the rail as if unaware a train was about to collide with him like a mosquito on a windshield.
“PATRI —”
The engine passed in a gust of wind. I frantically looked to the other side for any sign of my cousin, only to have my view blocked by the passing cars.
Nothing.
A split second between passing cars.
Again, nothing.
Another snapshot of time and no cousin standing on the other side.
More snapshots.
Nothing.
The train had taken him.
I looked toward Harper, where the engine came from, hoping to see the end car. Freight train, no chance. The cars were infinite. Why? It was a stupid penny! Why did he care? He was gone over a penny! I gripped my safety branch even tighter, hoping the mechanical beast would pass.
I looked straight ahead through a blurred space between cars.
It couldn’t be.
Looked like Patrick’s head.
Another blur.
It was.
It was Patrick.
Crouching down and focused on the rail was my cousin. Alive. Every other second gave me a glimpse across the tracks, reassuring me he was all right. He stared transfixed near where the pennies were placed. I turned my head toward Harper again to see that this train was mortal, and its caboose approached.
When the last car passed, I loosened my grip on the branch. Patrick never even looked at me. I’m not even sure he heard me shouting at him . . . or cared. He waited for the clearing and reached toward the rails. I said nothing. Just watched him carefully pick up two completely flattened pieces of copper and examine them in his hand.
“You can still see his eyes on yours. Check out his hair,” he said, passing my newly flattened penny over. I released the branch and stepped toward him. He stood with one foot on the ground and one on the rail, the way a hunter stands over an animal he’s shot. He extended the penny toward me while examining his own. “I should have cleaned mine first. Face would’ve come out better.”
I took my penny and pretended to examine it, but I still couldn’t see anything except the train ending my cousin. I composed myself enough to say, “Let’s head back.” He didn’t respond at first. He just stared at his penny for a moment before tossing it into the woods.
“Don’t you want to keep it?”
“Dad would be pissed if he knew I did that. Not worth it. Let’s go.”
No words were shared the entire walk home. I had no idea what to say. I don’t think Patrick had many thoughts he felt like sharing.
I didn’t understand why my cousin was willing to risk his life like that. For a penny. Then throw it away?
Patrick came within a few inches of death yet stood there calmly.
Maybe he didn’t notice he could have died.
Maybe he didn’t care.
I survey the remaining mourners. Only about a dozen people left. They all have their coats on, even Aunt Millie. This must be the end. As glad as I am that the wake is almost over, it only means the funeral and my speech are getting closer.
I can’t do this speech tomorrow.
I can’t.
My parents are talking to someone from Uncle Mike’s work. As soon as they leave, I’ll ask them — no, beg them — to have someone else speak.
I make my way to the oversize chairs. Sofia is in one of them, curled up like a cat and still asleep with Norman under her arm. I take over the other one and wait for my parents to find us.
Their friends leave, Aunt Millie leaves, and so do the rest of the guests.
“You guys head home,” Dad tells Uncle Mike. “I’ll take care of everything here and see you in the morning.”
Uncle Mike doesn’t argue as he carefully scoops Sofia from her spot without waking her. They thank my parents and hug me before leaving.
“I’m going to tell Marty that everyone’s cleared out and just make sure we’re set for tomorrow. Be back in a second.”
Mom and I stand at the poster boards of Patrick’s pictures. Even though she spent most of yesterday afternoon putting these together, I haven
’t looked at them until now.
“Remember this?” she asks, pointing to a frame of my seventh birthday, where Patrick was hovering over my chocolate cake.
“Uh-huh.” I remember it well. That was when I got a squirt gun from Uncle Mike. It lasted ten minutes. Patrick broke it. I never even got to use it. I was still crying when I blew out my candles.
“You were so mad at him,” Mom says quietly, and smiles.
“Mom?”
Deep breath.
“Mom, I don’t want to give the speech tomorrow.”
She hasn’t taken her eyes off the birthday picture. She responds in the exact same manner she did earlier. “You’ll be fine.”
She doesn’t hear me.
“Mom, please. Please don’t make me. I hate talking in front of people.” My voice is shaking. Mom turns from the picture of my birthday and is now focusing on a different one of us at Halloween, before Sofia was born.
“No one likes it, but you have to do it. For your aunt and uncle. You’re Patrick’s only cousin and that means a lot to them. You’ll be fine.” Her voice is calm. She focuses on another picture. “Remember this? You were such a funny cowboy. . . .”
She still doesn’t hear me.
I’m losing control of my voice. “Mom, please. I don’t even know what to say. I don’t know what to say at all.”
She breaks from the pictures.
“James.”
Nothing good happens after my formal name is used.
“You need to do this for your aunt, your uncle, Sofia, and most of all for Patrick. We don’t get to choose everything we want to do in life. You think Aunt Rose wants to be here now? You think she is choosing to bury her son?”
I’m tired. I’m scared. My waist hurts. Words are just coming out.
“I don’t care about that. I don’t want to do it. Please don’t make me stand up in front of everyone. Patrick was never even nice to me! What am I supposed to say about someone who was never nice to me?”
“Enough! None of us wants to be here, but we have to!” The anger in her voice escalates quickly. “Your cousin died, James. And this is what we have to do.”
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