by Crystal Chan
I was shrugging on my backpack and about to head to school myself, when the doorbell rang. It was before eight o’clock in the morning. Weird. I opened the door.
It was Jello.
My blood pressure shot through the ceiling.
I stared at him. He was the same Jello: nice jeans, T-shirt hanging just right. Hair combed for the girls.
Or, more correctly, for the girl.
“What do you want?” I asked.
“Punch me,” Jello said.
“What?” I said.
“Punch me,” he said, and he opened his arms a little. “You know you want to.”
“You’re crazy,” I said, but even as I said that, my hands started tingling. “I’ve never punched you in my life.”
“You punch me all the time,” Jello countered. “Do it.”
“Socking you off of your computer chair doesn’t count,” I said.
“Punch me,” Jello said again.
I paused. Dad was asleep in his bedroom. He’d never know. No cars were passing by; we lived at the quiet end of the neighborhood, and the neighbors had all gone to work by now.
“I’m seeing George,” Jello announced.
“No shit,” I said. My jaw clenched.
“Come on, hit me,” Jello said.
It would feel great to beat the shit out of him. To see him double over, wheezing. I stepped outside, and Jello countered a step back. But still, I couldn’t hit Jello. Not for real.
“She’s great,” Jello said.
“Stop it,” I said. My forearms tightened.
“She’s an amazing kisser,” Jello said.
Without thinking, I lunged at him, pummeling him with my fists, in the stomach, in the legs, the arms, the chest, anywhere I could reach. I connected with his jaw and grunted as pain shot up my hand. Jello staggered and fell over on our lawn; I could tell that he wanted to curl into a ball, instinctively, and was just barely willing himself not to, so he looked like the letter C on the grass.
I grabbed him by the shoulders and banged his head into the dirt. “You’re an asshole,” I shouted, my voice nearly breaking.
“I know,” Jello said thickly. I punched him in the stomach, and he crumpled around my fist.
“When did you even have time to hang with her?”
“We started sharing a lot of the same classes,” he said, wheezing. “She was my AP Chemistry lab partner. We were working on our labs all the time, sometimes late into the night. I didn’t realize we shared so many things in common. We both like thermodynamics. What are the chances of that . . .?” He trailed off.
“Did you ask her out or did she ask you out?” I leaned my hands into his shoulders until he winced.
“No one did. It just happened. And trust me, we tried not to . . . you know . . . We both knew how you felt. But things kept happening.”
I spit onto the ground just inches from his face. “Like what?”
Jello winced. “You know, things.”
My neck tightened. “Things?”
“I told you, she’s a good kisser.”
I punched him again.
“Do you take her to Standee’s Ice Cream?” I asked.
“Yeah,” Jello gasped.
I punched him in the side.
“You went behind my back,” I said.
“I know,” he panted. “We talked about you all the time, what we were going to do, if we were going to tell you.”
“If?!” My voice got tight, and I punched him in the face, just under the cheekbone. His skin split and blood ran out. He gasped and gave a guttural moan of pain. My hand was instantly numb.
“And yeah, we did talk about maybe never telling you,” Jello continued, panting hard. “But then George would start crying, kept saying that we had to tell you, and soon. And she was right. But we didn’t know how.”
“Well, good thing I found out by mistake so you didn’t have to figure out the answer to that question,” I said as I punched him in the stomach again. Jello curled up tight, despite himself, and rocked to the side so his back was to me.
“I love her,” I said, and my chest burst.
“I know.”
“You’re a fucker.” My voice pinched up.
“Yes, I am,” Jello whispered.
I sat back on my haunches and wiped my face while Jello lay in the grass, panting. A light wind picked up. “I always wanted to take her to Standee’s,” I said.
“The chocolate chip cookie twist is good,” Jello said.
“That’s what I would have gotten her,” I said.
“She liked it.”
“Finished it all?” I asked.
“Yeah.”
I massaged my right hand. I still couldn’t feel it. The trees’ leaves rustled.
“So she’s great?” I asked. My voice was soft.
Jello smiled in a way I’d never seen before, until he remembered I was there. Then the smile disappeared as he nodded. “Except it’s hard dating a perfectionist,” he said. “She gets upset when I mess up.”
I snorted. “That must happen pretty often.”
Jello didn’t respond.
I flexed my fingers, wincing. I was going to be late for my Western Civ class if I didn’t leave soon.
“You know, I’ve given up on the cat safari,” he said with a curious tone in his voice.
“Really?”
“Yeah. Going out into the who-knows-where is dangerous, you know? We’re too exposed. Anything can happen.”
My eyebrows lifted. I didn’t know what to say.
“Anyway,” Jello said, “I think I have a better subject. A different kind of safari.”
My hands clenched into fists. “I don’t want to hear about George,” I said.
“Her?” Jello made to shake his head but winced. “No. Not her. It.”
“It?” I repeated.
“It,” Jello said proudly. “The python. It’s in my garage.”
17
JELLO REALLY WANTED TO MAKE it to class, so at that point he went to school, and I went back into the house. My Western Civ class was fine and all, but I was too jacked up to sit in a desk all day and pretend I was thinking about Thucydides. I mean, I just beat the shit out of my friend because he wanted me to, and he had a python in his garage. To calm down, I went online and learned the difference between ground faults and short circuits. While I was on the computer and eating cereal, Dad came out of his room.
“Ronney?”
“Yes.” I stuck another spoonful into my mouth, feeling happier than I had in a long time.
“Why are you still home?” he asked, rubbing his face.
I swallowed. “Could you call in for me?”
He looked at me blankly, like I had just spoken in Aramaic. “I didn’t call in for you,” he said.
“Could you?” I repeated.
“No,” he said.
That was the first time he’d said no. “Excuse me?” I asked.
“No,” he repeated.
A strange feeling popped up inside of me when he said that, but it was so terrifying a feeling that I pushed it right back down. “Oh, so your shrink finally decided to see you?” I snapped.
“Perhaps,” he said.
I shrugged like it didn’t matter, took my bowl of cereal and started eating it standing up. He was still in pajamas, like always, but something had shifted. I didn’t like it; it made me feel off center, and that terrifying feeling from before still remained. I needed to stop thinking about it; maybe that’s why I added, “I just beat Jello up in our front yard.”
Dad’s eyes grew big. “Where is he?”
“Now? In school.” I snorted. “He looks like shit. They’ll send him to the nurse’s, first thing.”
“Was it that bad?”
“Bad enough to have a cut on his face, blood coming out all over, and multiple gut punches.” Dad stared. I shrugged. “He wanted me to hit him.”
Dad cocked his head, then looked at my hand, which was all swollen.
I flexed my hand, even though it hurt like a bitch, and shrugged again. “It wasn’t a big deal.”
“Jello was a pretty good friend,” Dad said.
“Is.”
“What?”
“Jello is a pretty good friend,” I said.
“That you beat up.”
“Like I said, he wanted me to.” I shook my head and glanced back at the screen. “You wouldn’t get it.”
Dad stood there holding his arm, even though he wasn’t supposed to anymore with his physical therapy. “So things are cool with you now,” he said. It wasn’t a question. The corners of Dad’s lips pulled up slightly.
My throat tightened. Dad had figured out this whole fight thing without me telling him. He got it. Even though he was standing across the living room, it was as if he were in my face, way too close, trying to be buddy-buddy with me. And he had no right to be.
“Yeah, well, get your shit out of my business,” I said.
The slight smile disappeared. “You should go to school,” he said.
“And you should get a job,” I said.
“And you should get your grades up,” Dad said. “Or do you want to flunk out this year?”
“You have no right to tell me what I should be doing,” I said. “May I remind you that you shouldn’t have put a gun to your head?” I put a hand to my cheek. “Oh dear, I remember now. You didn’t put a gun to your head. That’s why you fucked up your shoulder.”
Dad ran his hand through his hair.
“And you should do your arm exercises; I haven’t seen you doing them lately. Or maybe you always want to hold your arm like a loser,” I said, feeling the venom building in my throat.
“I am doing them,” Dad said, walking back to his bedroom.
“Like hell you are.”
“I don’t always have the time.” He retreated farther down the hallway.
“Go ahead, run away. Do what you—”
Dad closed his door.
I slammed my bowl of cereal into the sink and left.
Outside, helicopters thrummed the sky above me, and some cop sirens went off in the distance. I shook my head, not caring about any of it. I just couldn’t believe that Dad had told me no—I mean, what was wrong with him? He always called in for me. That was the deal, and he just broke it. What an asshole.
On top of that, I couldn’t believe that Dad had really understood what had happened between Jello and me; I didn’t have to spell it out for him. That was so weird. I shook my head and kicked a stone on the sidewalk. But who knows, maybe he had beaten up his best friend too when he was my age. Maybe over a girl.
If Dad understands what happened, then he might understand more than I give him credit for, I thought. But then why doesn’t he understand that retreating to his room like a loser is chickenshit crap? I stuffed my hands into my pockets. Why doesn’t he understand the extra work he gives to Mom by being MIA? Why doesn’t he understand that Mina would give anything to be his little girl again? It just didn’t make sense that you can get one part and not the rest, how you could be a solid, living dad one moment and a ghost the next. I mean, really: What was I supposed to do with a dad like that?
• • •
Since my bike had unsurprisingly been stolen the Thursday I picked Mina up from school, I needed to buy a bike. By the time I got there, my feet were tired, but in a good sort of way. I had just enough cash saved up from doing lawn work at the Goupells’, our neighbors, and paid for a mountain bike that had a bigger frame than my old one. Allen, the owner, chitchatted with me for a little bit about the tiger, and then he assured me that I’d grow into the larger bike, which was cool. I tooled around town for a couple hours until Mina’s classes got out, then I went to go pick her and Sam up. I forgot to buy a lock, so I had to wheel the bike around with me, which wasn’t all that bad since it looked pretty slick.
Mina’s face lit up when she saw me. “Ron-Ron!” she cried, and flung her non-orange self into my arms.
I tousled her hair. “Hey, kiddo,” I said.
“Mom’s not picking me up?” she asked.
I smiled. “I already texted her—I came to walk you home and to see how Sam’s doing.”
Mina perked up even more, believe it or not. “Sam’s great,” she said. Her hands instinctively grabbed the key-chain toys on her backpack. “And I’m sure he’ll want to walk with us.”
Which was totally true—he did. So there I was, with two perked-up kids, walking along the tree-lined street of Makersville, Indiana. I don’t know if Mina is that much of a genius or if I got lucky, but the moment we got home, she said she needed to do her math homework and wanted to start right then, leaving Sam and me alone, but not before telling me that the garbage disposal had broken. I promised her I’d get around to it, and then Sam and I grabbed a bag of chips and sat on the front porch, watching the clouds pass in the sky. I fidgeted while I tried to figure out what I was going to tell Sam about Nick—knowing what I did about Nick felt about as great as a nail in my eyeball.
Believe me, I did entertain the thought of lying about Nick—Why, sure I talked with Nick, and boy did he want to come home!—but every time I thought about that, I felt like pure crap. I mean, if you’re going to live and walk on this planet, you’d better sure as hell be real about it. The last thing this world needs is one more fake person with fake shit spewing out of their mouth. Besides, if the truth’s the truth, then Sam had better get used to facing hard facts, just like I had to.
I played with my shoelaces. “So, what happened in school today?” I asked.
“We learned about parallelograms,” Sam said.
My eyebrows shot up. “Not bad.”
Sam shook his head, grabbed a handful of chips from the bag I was holding, and stuffed them into his mouth. “Not good,” he said, but the words weren’t the clearest.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean,” Sam said, swallowing, “who cares about parallelograms? How will that help me in life?”
“It won’t.”
“Exactly,” Sam said, being all indignant about it.
I picked some mud off my shoes. “So what will help you?” I asked. I swatted at a mosquito.
“In life?” Sam cocked his head.
“You said it.”
“Well—” He paused, thinking. “I want to find Nick.”
My stomach tightened into a fist. Of course Sam would say that. “Look,” I said, “about that . . .”
Sam suddenly became alert. Very alert. “What? What happened?”
“Well . . .”
Hope flashed across his face. “You found him?”
I yanked at my shoelace. “Not exactly,” I said.
Sam leaned into me. “What do you mean?”
“He called me.”
“How did he get your number?”
“When you go looking for someone all across town, word gets out. I guess.”
“How is he? Where is he?” Sam asked excitedly. He stood up. He would have crawled under my skin if I could have let him.
“I don’t know.”
“But—”
The unspoken question hung in the air. Sam’s eyebrows knit together as he looked at me with huge eyes. I looked away so I didn’t have to see the confusion on Sam’s face. “From the way he was talking, though, he sounded pretty good,” I said.
“What is he doing?” Sam asked.
“Drinking,” I said.
The sudden look of dejection in Sam’s eyes almost killed me. I regretted opening my mouth. “Look, Sam—”
“He’s not coming home, is he?”
“Well, it’s not that Nick doesn’t want to, but—”
Sam took a step down our front porch and turned away from me. “I don’t want to hear any more,” he said quietly.
“He was concerned about you.”
Sam clenched his fists. “I said, I don’t want to hear any more.”
“He said that—”
Sam ripped the bag of ch
ips from my hands, stomped on it with one foot, then twisted it up and whacked it against the front porch post. Twice.
“Okay,” I said quietly.
Sam ran down our porch steps, crossed over to the oak tree, and kicked it a couple times. There really wasn’t anything to say. I had just told him his brother was a drunken dickwad who didn’t want to rescue Sam; how the hell do you follow up on that?
A police car whizzed by on our street.
After a while Sam came back and sat with me again on the porch stairs. He untwisted the potato chip bag and started eating the crumbs with pinched fingers. He ate that damn bag of chips so intently it was like his entire life depended on it.
My chest hurt as I watched him. “Hey,” I said.
Sam licked his fingers.
A helicopter hovered in the sky.
“At least we know he’s okay.”
Sam kept eating.
“And we can stop looking for him.”
Sam shook his head. “I don’t want to talk about it.” We sat there in silence for a long time, with the only sound being the helicopter and Sam eating chips, until Jello came strolling up the driveway. Okay, not really strolling. He rolled up onto our lawn with his bike, then flung it aside and ran up to us. The nurse had done a good job cleaning up his face, but he still looked awful.
“Well, are you ready?” Jello asked. “Man, I couldn’t concentrate in class all day.”
My stomach churned.
“What happened to your face?” Sam asked. “And ready for what?”
Jello was hopping with excitement. “This photo shoot is going to be great.”
I fidgeted on the porch step. “When’d you find it?” I asked.