by Crystal Chan
For my country
1
IT WAS A THURSDAY WHEN the squirrels fell from the trees. I knew I shouldn’t have stayed at George’s after school, but she wore a really tight shirt that day, and besides, she was freaking out over four questions she knew she got wrong on her AP chemistry test and wanted to cry on my shoulder—how could I say no? Still, by the time the windstorm started, I was almost regretting it; shingles were ripping off the roofs and flying down the street. I braced myself against the wind as those squirrels fell, one after another, claws gripping at the sky, squirrels falling like acorns.
Earlier on that same Thursday, Mr. Jenkins, the crazy guy on the edge of town, the guy who owned an exotic zoo filled with tigers, panthers, hyenas, and elephants and the like but who never fed them very well (they all had ribs poking out like the black keys on a piano)—he decided to go and shoot himself dead, but not before opening up all the cages and letting his animals loose. Of course, in that windstorm, the animals—having been caged up for years and years—freaked out and ran. So there we were, Makersville, Indiana, the sudden focus of TV reporters and animal rights groups and gun rights advocates, thrown in the spotlight when we hadn’t hardly existed just a couple hours before. Goes to show what a tiger can do.
So everyone was running around with their cameras and cell phones, then running around some more and telling people not to run around and to stay in their homes. Then a couple reporters got on TV and started talking in Really Excited Voices because two giraffes had been mauled and gnawed on by the Bengal tiger. I mean, really, people? Makes sense to me: The tiger had been starving, windstorm or no windstorm, and it’s not like it was going to saunter through the fast-food drive-through and order the double-cheeseburger meal deal. And this hubbub was before folks learned that the python was nowhere to be found.
Maybe it should have bothered me more that these animals were on the loose and hungry, but in light of what had happened six months before that, I wasn’t bothered at all. It’s funny how relative life is: If you have a boring life where nothing much happens and suddenly there’s some big cat out there, I suppose that would be a good reason to get upset. But if your dad tried to kill himself but messed up and just hurt himself really bad, well, some cat somewhere out there isn’t all that awful. I mean, the cat could be anywhere. Your dad lives in your house.
I was straining into the wind along Oakwood Road—with the nice network of roads for all the new houses in the new part of the neighborhood so only those who live there could ever, ever find their way out—when another squirrel dropped right beside me, making a grotesque cawing sound as it fell. I jumped, scared, then glanced around to see if anyone had noticed.
That was when I saw the boy. He was small, about Mina’s size, and he was maybe ten feet behind me, heading in the same direction. I was surprised he wasn’t blown away, he was so small; if there were chain-link fences, I’d have encouraged him to hang on to them and crawl his way home.
There was no one else out on the street. Who would be out in a windstorm with squirrels falling through the sky and lions on the loose? Not that anyone here actually uses the sidewalks for walking—they’re just big empty spaces that you have to shovel in the winter or your neighbors get pissed at you and start talking behind your back. They’re perfect, these sidewalks, flawless, except everyone uses cars.
I continued to walk home, squinty-eyed into the wind, my face at an angle to the sheer, and I could swear that the kid was following me. He had on a hoodie and was using his forearm to protect his face from the wind.
I turned around and staggered a step toward him, the wind blasted my back so hard. “Where are you going?” I shouted to the kid. “You’re crazy for being out here.”
He said something, but the wind carried his words away.
“What’d you say?” I shouted.
“Give them back,” he yelled.
“What?” I shouted.
“Give them back,” he repeated.
“What the hell are you talking about?” I said.
“They’re not yours,” he yelled, leaning into the wind.
I stared at him like he was an idiot, and he turned his head away. With his hoodie he almost hid it, but I got a split-second look at his face. Pale. Mousy. Intense. And the way he looked at me, I knew—I knew—this kid needed something bad.
Maybe if I were a better guy I’d have talked to him, found out what was wrong. But at that point a jigsawed shingle fluttered down the road, branches were down everywhere, and Dad was probably pissed he didn’t know where I was, which meant Mom wasn’t much better. That’s really what I was thinking about, not some little kid falsely accusing me of shit. So I turned around and kept walking.
But he kept right up with me; he made his little legs go twice as fast, and he stayed a couple feet behind. I kept catching him out of the corner of my eye, thinking he’d turn off at Allerton Drive or maybe when we came to the cul-de-sac where that new family moved in last week. But no. He stuck by me like a bad shadow.
I spun around, and he nearly bumped into me. “Go away!” I said, and I still needed to shout because the wind nearly dissolved my words. “I didn’t take anything, and I don’t know what you’re talking about!”
At that point he must have seen that I was getting pissed, and he dropped back about twenty feet. But freaking-A, he still followed me.
I thought again about talking to him. Clearly, he was confused. But what could he be talking about? The thing is, figuring that stuff out takes time; while I was more than happy to let George cry in my arms all day if she’d like, I didn’t know this kid, and I’d be damned to let him cry on my shoulder about whatever problems he had. Besides, there were squirrels falling from the trees and a couple cats on the loose.
My house was coming up. In a strange way it was a serious relief with this hoodie kid trailing behind me. He still had that really intense look on his face: the look of pure, absolute need. I didn’t know what to do, and I think a part of me stalled a little, like a funky engine, because when I got inside the house and turned to close the door, there he was—just like I knew he’d be—standing outside the door, looking at me like of course I was going to invite him in.
“What do you want?” I said, trying not to show that this was creeping the shit out of me.
“I want your jeans,” he said.
“You want what?” I asked.
“Your jeans,” he said.
“Fuck no,” I said. “Now go away.”
He stood there.
There was nothing more natural than to close that door in his face. So I did. I locked it for good measure. You never know what people will do, even when they’re young. Especially when they’re young.
2
THURSDAYS HAVE A THING WITH me. It was a thursday when George told me she saw me only as her friend and always would. George’s real name is Geraldine, but she says her name is George. Don’t ask me why it’s not Gabbie or Genna or even Gigi, for Pete’s sake. She wants to be a George. And she’s got that kind of personality where whatever she wants, that’s what she gets, and no one ever questions her. But yeah, she held my hand and looked me in the eyes and said, Oh, Ronney, you’re such a good friend. We’ll always be friends, right? That was on a Thursday, mind you.
It was on a Thursday that Dad bought his gun and showed it to us at the dinner table.
It was on a Thursday that I found out I had flunked algebra and had to retake it next year with a bunch of pimply freshmen.
Got fired from my job at the Car Palace Auto Shop? Thursday.
The day that my little sister, Mina, threw up on the shoes I had bought with that last paycheck from said auto shop? Thursday.
So when I heard at school that exotic an
imals were loose and Mr. Jenkins dead, all I had to do was go through my mental calendar. It was a Thursday. Of course.
After I closed the door on that kid, I paused in the foyer. The house was quiet, as usual, except for the wind howling at the windows and the occasional thump of a squirrel body hitting the roof. I hoped that some of our shingles hadn’t ripped out and were tumbling down the street or floating in someone’s swimming pool—then I’d have to spend the next couple days calling the roofers and staying home to let them in. Most normal fifteen-year-olds have parents who do these things—like home maintenance—but when you have a dad who’s recovering from trying to kill himself and a mom who’s popping pills for her various ailments, some things you gotta do yourself or else that leak in the bathroom will still be there.
But it’s hard to care about everything. So yeah, the roof is important. I care about that. But Dad’s attempted suicide, Mom’s pills, the kid who wanted to come into my house? Sorry. I used up my caring on the roof. And anyway it’s a whole hell of a lot easier to pick up the phone, schedule the guys to come over, and know that because of you, nothing leaks. The roof might have been a pain in the ass, but it’s fixed—the family’s dry. Dad pointing a gun at himself? How can you fix that?
I kicked off my shoes and made sure they landed right in the middle of the kitchen floor. I’m amazed my parents have never tripped over them or, frankly, thrown them out. A part of me really wants them to do something daring, but my shoes just silently migrate to the edge of the shoe wall, like there are magnets in the toes and magnets in the wall; my parents have never said a single word about them. On the Daring-O-Meter, they’d land a big fat zero.
On the exact other end of the spectrum, there are George’s parents. Her mom is a neurosurgeon, and her dad is some kind of chemical engineer who makes some futuristic plastic for some save the world the future is now kind of car technology. They go backpacking in the Andes, and her mom did a year of Doctors Without Borders. I mean, that’s daring. That’s living life. My parents? One’s an overworked bank manager, and the other used to sell insurance but now sits at home and does nothing.
I was about to go into my room when I heard some rustling coming from my parents’ bedroom.
“Ronney?” That was Dad.
“Yeah.”
“Where’d you go?” The door opened, and there Dad stood, holding his bad arm, which was new, but his straight, black hair stuck out at crazy angles, which certainly wasn’t. He leaned slightly, favoring the injured side. And though his skin is darker than mine, I could see a razor cut on his cheek. He had shaved today, which was the first time in days: Mom had probably nagged enough.
Dad doesn’t care about how he looks. Just like he doesn’t care about the lawn or if the toilet’s plugged up or that I flunked algebra. The only thing that he does care about is whether or not I’m home. He always wants me to be home. Sometimes he goes around the house, calling my name, looking in every room, alarmed as if I’ve disappeared into the ether, and he doesn’t stop calling my name until I shout back, “Yeah?” Then he says, “Oh, there you are.” Then I say, “What do you want?” And then he says, “Nothing.”
With his good hand, Dad ran his fingers through his hair. That meant he was mad, just like I knew he’d be, because I went to George’s after school and didn’t come directly home. If he raked his hand through his hair a couple more times it might actually look halfway decent, but he wasn’t pissed enough to run his hand through his hair twice. I’d have to be in some pretty deep shit to see three times through the hair, but that hasn’t happened yet. It’d be freaking funny to get him so mad that his hands would turn into an automatic hair-raking system: He’d be the most groomed man in town.
So yeah, once through the hair. “Where’d you go?” he asked again.
“I was at George’s,” I said.
“With this wind? And animals everywhere?” Dad asked, staring at me.
“She needed me,” I said simply. I grabbed an apple off the counter.
He started to say something else, but I left and went to my room. He didn’t stop me, nor did he grab my shoulder and demand more respect. Not that I really expected him to.
Adults like to say that these years of growing up are the best years of your life. That line, by the way, is total crap. They forget that, as a kid, you can’t do shit about most things, especially the important things. I wish to hell that I could have told Dad not to go and shoot himself and that he would have listened to me. But no. I watch like some passerby at a car accident, completely helpless, staring at all the death and brokenness. So I focus on the things I can do something about—like the house—because if not, who knows? I might end up just like Dad.
My cell phone buzzed. I glanced down to see a text from Jello, wanting me to hang at his place later that night. Jello got his name the day he ate over two gallons of the stuff on a dare, kept it down, and then farted cherry juice for the rest of the day. Every so often kids throw him a box of the dried Jell-O stuff, and he always catches it in one hand with a grin. Nothing gets that guy down. I’d have taken a different name, myself. I mean, really—Jello? But he’s my friend, and he can do whatever he wants, including naming himself after gelatin. I told him I’d beat up any kid who gives him shit about his name, but he’s never needed to take me up on the offer.
I can’t make it tonight, I texted him. Maybe tomorrow. It was a Thursday. Better play it safe. I didn’t tell him that, but if he jiggled half his brain, he’d remember what day it was and why I turned him down.
I opened the blinds in my room and searched for that kid, but he was gone. What kid would stalk someone in a windstorm for a pair of jeans? He had to be a stalker kid. I immediately added stalker kids to my list of things to watch out for. Also on this list were UFOs, random-ass sinkholes, iguanas, and the West Nile virus.
I flipped on the TV; the news reporters were all psyched up and talking stressed out about staying in our houses. In the background behind the reporters, useless TV helicopters were grounded, given the velocity of the wind. You could tell that for these reporters this was the story of their lives. But, seriously. There are tons of deer and geese and shit running around, tons of things for these cats to eat. We can all get along, right? Then Mr. Rockfeller—not Rockefeller, mind you, but you can’t tell him that—got on camera and declared how these animals were a clear and present danger to our community, to the children. That man always gets me. He doesn’t even talk to his children, for chrissake; he just cruises around town in the shiny BMW he got in Indianapolis and thinks he’s the shit. Rockfeller’s the leader of the largest gun group in our county. It’s super active, and he gets his guys to vote at every election like lockstep soldiers. He’s also friends with the mayor—well, let’s just say the man does what he wants. But old Rockie’s eyes flicked when he was talking about those cats, just once. He really was scared.
Some guys from the Department of Natural Resources were rounding up a black rhino in City Park when I got bored and flipped off the TV. Jello texted me again:
Are you sure you can’t come over?
Not coming.
Then I looked out the window again for that hoodie kid and saw nothing but a couple squirrels hobbling on the sidewalk. Cracked me up. The sidewalks are only used by maimed squirrels, stalker kids, and me.
A knock on my door. “Ronney?”
I didn’t say anything. Maybe Mom would go away.
She turned the knob, but I’d locked the door.
“Ronney?” she said through the door. “I talked with your dad.”
“Good for you.”
“He said you went to George’s.”
I lay on my bed and closed my eyes. “Yeah?”
Pause.
“Ronney?”
“What?” I said, agitated.
“He was upset you didn’t tell us where you were going.”
I covered my face with my arm. “George was crying really hard, and I forgot to call.”
“
Oh.”
Another pause.
“Dinner’s in a couple minutes.”
Like I said, my parents have absolutely no daring. I put on my headphones—the beefy kind that cancel out sound in the background—and hit my favorite playlist. It’s a mix of stuff, from the screamers to classical. That classical shit can really take you places, unlike most songs where they whine about how much they want to get laid or how they just got laid but it was crap or how great it was but damn, that went fast, and now they want to get laid again. I mean, we all want to get laid, okay? That’s a fact. But there are other things in life than getting laid, like making George laugh—I swear, when I can do that, it’s like the sky rains down gold—or that day Jello and I had an ambush war in his backyard and pelted each other with raw eggs.
Mom made tofu-and-Spam casserole for dinner. As I sat down, I noticed faint lines under her green, almond eyes—Mina gets her eyes from Mom, just like I get my dark tan skin from Dad, and his straight nose, too. But Mom’s face muscles were all tense, and she looked exhausted. Maybe that was why I ate the casserole without complaining—for once—but Mom didn’t notice. Instead, we sat around the dinner table and let Mina kick her legs, bop her head and accompanying black spiral curls, and prattle on about how she almost won the spelling bee in class today but she missed the word “perspicacious.” For a fourth grader. God, I don’t even know what that word means, much less be able to spell it. Sometimes the stuff Mina does drives me crazy, and other times she makes me want to start a fan club for her. The problem is I never know when she’s going to make me feel one way or the other, and sometimes I do jerky things I regret. When I go off on her, she gets this awful look in her eyes like I’ve just eaten her small intestine. It’s a look that’s hard to shake. The next time I turn around, though, her eyes are all bright and sparkly again, like everyone’s forgotten my crappiness, except me.
“And so,” Mina was saying, “that means that Janella’s won four times, but I’ve only won three.”