Come As You Are

by ChristopherWaltz

As the two of us made our way down Market Street in search of the nearest restaurant, I noticed my feet kicking up obscene amounts of dust on the road’s edge in the dim light radiating from the town’s street lamps. August, however, seemed not to disturb the dirt lining the edge of the road at all. For some reason I took this as a sign that he was more of a native in Aberdeen than I was.

  It bothered me that, for a brief moment, I considered if this was where he actually belonged. Maybe Mom and I were dragging him back to a place he didn’t fit into when what he really needed was to be around people who liked and understood him. Just because someone is born somewhere, doesn’t mean that’s where they’re supposed to be.

  Who was I kidding? He was seventeen and needed to be with his family.

  “Where are we eating?” I asked nonchalantly. We looked to be in a mostly residential area, but the glow coming from over the hill ahead of us told me more than a couple fast food joints would soon make themselves known.

  August shrugged, bending over to pick up a small rock on the side of the road. He studied it momentarily before hurling it forward. The stone connected with a street sign in the distance, causing a loud clang that could undoubtedly be heard from streets over. “I don’t really care as long as I get something without meat,” he said as we approached what I could only guess to be the sign he had just hit with the rock. As he marched a few steps ahead of me, I realized he was wearing a faded gray backpack. I couldn’t be sure how long he had been wearing the pack, but I was almost positive he hadn’t had it on when we left the hospital. Where had it come from?

  “You’re a vegetarian?” I asked, looking at my brother. He simply nodded, giving me a confused stare that told me this was information I should have already known. “Since when?”

  He picked up another rock and seemed to weigh it in the palm of his hand, not throwing it this time. “Well, since I became old enough to discover that it’s disgusting to raise animals simply for the purpose of slaughtering and eating them, especially when they’re raised in conditions that make said slaughter and eating a relief from the torturous lives they once lived.”

  I was obviously shocked by his quick answer and passion on the subject. I was at a loss for intelligent words. Again, this was a side of August I had never encountered before, a side that had opinions and cared about things. “Do you eat fish?” I asked blandly, trying to keep the conversation going as long as possible.

  He laughed and shook his head at me. “It’s okay to eat fish, because they don’t have any feelings.”

  While I knew his tone was sarcastic and that he was probably disappointed in me for not having known he’d been vegetarian since, well, since I didn’t know when, I also knew the two of us were connecting on a level we never had before. We were joking with each other and having a random conversation without awkward pauses and silences that spoke volumes about how neither of us really wanted to be talking to the other. As we walked down Market Street towards the glowing lights of the fast food restaurants, August and I were truly acting as brothers.

  A few minutes later, we compromised on eating at a small pizza place called Cope’s where, after making sure August was indeed vegetarian and not vegan, I ordered a cheese pizza for us to split. The waitress, a girl in her early twenties, brought the pizza along with our drinks, giving me a strange look as she placed them on the table in front of me.

  I glanced down at my t-shirt and checked to make sure the waitress wasn’t in earshot. “Do I look like that much of a tourist or outsider or whatever?” I asked.

  August took a bite of his pizza and spoke with his mouth full, something he’d done since we were both little kids. “I don’t think so. What did she do? I didn’t really notice.”

  “She just looked at me like I’m a lunatic or something. I thought it might be the way I’m dressed. Maybe I don’t look like I belong in the wonderful little town of Aberdeen, Washington.”

  “Well, you’re not wearing flannel,” August pointed out. “That could be the problem.”

  I scoffed at him. “Neither are you, and she didn’t even give you a second glance. I, however, got the complete third degree.”

  We continued eating our pizza in silence for the next couple of minutes, but it soon occurred to me that if the silence continued, we might lose whatever connection we had gained throughout the earlier part of the evening. Before August had run away to Washington, he and I had partaken in few enough meaningful conversations to count on one hand. But now, as we were preparing to head home, we seemed to be bonding with one another, an event I had surprisingly become fond of and didn’t want to lose.

  I tried to think of a conversation starter as the seconds ticked away on the clock that hung on the wall opposite me. Each second that went by meant that I was one second closer to reverting to my old relationship with August. “So what’s going on between you and Mom?” I blurted, not thinking too much about whether or not it was a good idea to bring it up.

  “Nothing; we just got into a fight and I took off,” August lied.

  I brought my hands to my face in a praying position as if contemplating his words. “You’re trying to tell me it was just a fight?” I asked. “There was no real reason behind it? The three of you just decided it was a good time to start screaming at each other?”

  “Is that so hard to believe?” he asked. Part of me wondered how long he was going to try to play this off with me.

  “You said yourself that it was like Three Mile Island. Those kinds of meltdowns don’t just happen for no apparent reason. I’m guessing you did something or told them something they didn’t want to hear.”

  August didn’t answer and made every attempt not to make eye contact with me. As I watched him, his eyes darted around the room, from table, to floor, to jukebox, to waitress. Whatever had happened had scarred him to a point of refusing to speak about it. And if neither he nor Mom would fess up to what happened, then it was pretty obvious I was going to remain in the dark until both of them decided to grow up.

  “Fine,” I stated dryly. “You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to.”

  He laughed, wadding his napkin into a ball and throwing at my face. “You’re reverse psychology really isn’t going to work on me. It didn’t work when we were kids; it won’t work now.”

  “I know, but I’m your older brother; it’s my job to be kind of mean to you sometimes.”

  “Isn’t it sad, though?” he asked me, his face becoming more serious than before.

  “Isn’t what sad?” I asked, perplexed.

  August paused momentarily, contemplating whether or not to continue his thoughts. Of course, he had to finish, because he had already asked the question. There was no way I was letting him out of telling me what he found sad.

  “It’s sad that we’ve been brothers for almost eighteen years and we’ve never really acted like brothers. I mean, it took me running away and falling off a bridge for us to get to this point in our relationship. Doesn’t that seem a little pathetic?"

  Of course he was right, but I wanted to play it off as much as I could. I knew I had been a pretty horrible big brother over the years, mostly concerned with things that only affected me directly, but now it felt as if things had changed. In a completely morbid way, I thought that August falling off that bridge might have been the best thing to happen to either of us in a long time.

  “Yeah, it’s really pathetic,” I said. “But, maybe this is where things change for us.”

  August’s brow furrowed as if he were deeply contemplating my words. “Yeah, maybe,” he said, not looking at me.

  I started to reply, but the waitress interrupted our conversation, walking up to the table and giving me a concerned look. “Is everything alright?” she asked me. Her back was to August who covered his mouth, trying to stifle his laughter. The waitress’s presence seemed to have snapped him out of whatever deep thought process he had been in momentarily.

  “Everything’s fine, why?” I asked, not sure w
hy she seemed so concerned.

  She paused, beginning to gesture towards the table for reasons unbeknownst to me, but she stopped herself and let out a small, frustrated sigh. “No reason, darlin’,” she said. “Are you ready for your check?”

  I told her we were, and she walked away from the table again. Once she was gone, August removed his hand from over his mouth and let out a roar of laughter that left him with his knees curled to his stomach as he fell onto his side in the booth seat across from me. His infectious laughter was impossible not to catch, and I found myself laughing along with him, only to a smaller degree and not completely sure what we were actually laughing at.

  The waitress, whose nametag revealed her name to be Bette, walked past the table with a tray of food in her hand, laying our check next to my hand without so much as another word to either of us. As I pulled my wallet from my jeans pocket, I realized she had forgotten to charge us for one of our drinks.

  “I wouldn’t worry about it,” August stated, standing up from the table and yawning. The clock on the wall behind him revealed it was nearly midnight. I hadn’t realized we’d been at the pizza place so long.

  I was about to protest my brother’s words, but as he made his way towards the door, I decided it was best to just go along. However, I left enough cash on the table to cover the missed drink and still provide Bette with a small tip, even if her service was a little out of the ordinary.

  Rushing out the door, I saw August walking down Market Street, about thirty yards ahead of me. I jogged to catch up with him, realizing as we reached the edge of the parking lot that he was walking south. Our motel was about a mile or two north of Cope’s Pizza.

  “Where are you going?” I asked, stopping and grabbing him by the arm. I pointed north, towards the dark suburban end of the street from which we had originally come. “Motel’s that way.”

  August paused, nodding his head over his right shoulder towards town. “Would you believe me if I told you I know a shortcut?” I shook my head ‘no’ at him, not saying a word as he continued to speak. “So, there’s this party tonight…”

  “August, no!” I stated, cutting him off.

  “But it’s perfect!” he exclaimed. “It’s my last night in Aberdeen! I’ll never be in this town again!” Though I was essentially denying him what he wanted, his tone was excited, and his eyes were full of life. August wasn’t done fighting.

  “No, we can’t.”

  “But it’ll be like a going away party! And I want you to come with me! You can meet the friends I made while I was here!”

  “Mom will freak out if we don’t come back to the motel tonight.”

  “She’ll never know,” he pleaded. He grabbed my arm like a little kid begging for his parents to buy him an expensive toy in a department store. I’d seen August use this maneuver on our mother before, when we were both much younger. Needless to say, he usually got what he wanted.

  “August…” I sighed.

  He looked at me with a bambi-esque expression, all watery-eyed and innocent-looking. He knew he could break me, and truth be told, I was honored that he wanted me to meet the friends he’d made while on the run from his family. As the night had gone by, I’d actually begun to feel like one of those friends who had seemingly fixed August, rather than a family member who had been a part of the original problem.

  Chapter 6