What We Never Had

by Zach Wyner

  “Okay if I toss this stuff in there?”

  The gravediggers looked at each other and shrugged.

  “Do what you gotta do,” one of them said.

  The bacon-cheeseburger dog sprang from its container on impact as the Lottery ticket twirled and fluttered in blithe descent. It touched the surface of the casket face-up, it’s hopeful numbers legible for a few fleeting seconds before being buried beneath a shovelful of uncompromising earth.

  You and Bill wandered over to Amare.

  Bill squinted into the yellow-brown sky as rivulets of sweat streamed down his forehead. “When my uncle died, only about a quarter of the family showed up for the funeral.” He wiped his head and shook the sweat from his fingers. “He was a compulsive liar who everyone hated, but I don’t think that they stayed away from the funeral because they hated him. I think sometimes people stay away from funerals because they’re not ready not to hate.”

  “You think there’s like a forgiveness ratio?” you said. “X years spent in the ground absolves you of Y years spent being a total dick?”

  “That depends on the person, obviously,” said Amare, loosening his tie and unbuttoning his collar.

  “Ozzie was a saint,” you said.

  “You ever see him outside of 7-Eleven?” said Bill. “Maybe that place was some kind of self-imposed purgatory.”

  “Ozzie was a genius,” said Amare. “We should all aspire to have his level of commitment.”

  Bill laughed. “Are you kidding me?”

  “Do you realize how much discipline it takes to be as educated and intelligent as he was and live the life that he did? If more people had that kind of discipline, all our problems would be solved.”

  “You’ve lost me,” you said.

  “You guys want to go stand in the shade?” said Bill. “I could fill a kiddy pool with the sweat from my lower back.”

  “See what I mean?” said Amare. “Can’t even stand in the sun for three minutes without running for cover.”

  “Try living in this pasty white skin for a day and see how you like it!”

  “I’m just making a point,” said Amare. “The Wizard was committed to an act. And that act made him a joke to others. It made him a subject of ridicule and derision, but he weathered their judgment like a fucking champion. He endured.”

  “What others are you talking about?” you said.

  “I don’t know. Everybody!” he shouted, flailing his arms around his head, indicting grass, trees, tombstones, clouds.

  You paused for a few seconds and then spoke softly. “Ozzie was smart and he was educated. But you’re acting like withdrawing from society took courage.”

  “Maybe it did,” said Amare. “Maybe it took more courage than the alternative.”

  “Oh, that’s horseshit,” said Bill, walking off toward the shade and the steadily filling hole in the ground.

  Amare wiped his forehead. “I think I’m done here.”

  “C’mon,” you said. “Final respects and then we go.”

  The man in the Members Only jacket and the pastor were gone. You, Bill, and Amare sat in the shade of the eucalyptus and waited for the gravediggers to finish. When the job was done, you stood over the tightly packed earth, staring at it like it held the answer to a question that none of you had had the guts to ask.

  Bill broke the silence. “The Wizard was the first stranger to talk to me after I moved here.”

  “Me too,” said Amare.

  “Me too,” you said.

  The boys looked at you like you’d just confessed to having sex with kitchen appliances. “Since I moved back anyway.”

  “Seriously?” said Amare.

  “A few weeks ago. He made a comment about my hangover.”

  “But you moved back here from school like four years ago,” said Bill.

  You scratched your chin and gazed off into the smog as you considered this. “Yeah,” you said. “A little over four years ago now. Fuck. I’ve been out of college longer than I was in it.”

  “That’s crazy,” said Amare.

  “Time is speeding up,” you said.

  “Time is getting ahead of itself,” said Bill.

  Amare said, “I meant that it’s crazy that it took four years for you to have a conversation with a stranger.”

  “That’s this city, man.” You chuckled. “Strangers don’t pay you no mind. You don’t keep reminding them, they’ll forget you’re here.”

  You dug a tissue out of your back pocket and mopped your brow. “When I went to June’s mom’s funeral, there were dozens of people there that June hadn’t seen in years. Relatives that had stopped returning her mom’s phone calls and whatnot. She, her mom, had been real secretive about her illness, so it wasn’t like they’d known and done nothing to help her, but still, if June’s sister hadn’t gone through the Rolodex and called everyone, those people wouldn’t have shown. Maybe June would never have seen them again. But she acted happy to see them, and when they said that they wanted to be there for her, she held their hands and smiled and thanked them. When no one ever called, she didn’t say shit. I guess she wasn’t surprised.”

  Bill exhaled loudly. “Thanks, Josh. I didn’t think I could get any more depressed.”

  “An honest question,” you said. “Would you rather have a few sincere mourners at your funeral, or legions of people, many of whom have only shown up out of sense of obligation or guilt or…I don’t know…for the sake of appearances—to make it look like they gave a shit, like they weren’t the self-involved pieces of shit they really are?”

  “Funerals are for the living,” said Amare. “I’ll be dead so what should I care?”

  “I just pray I outlive my mother,” said Bill.

  “Yeah?” you said.

  “It’s not like I’m looking forward to burying her,” said Bill. “It’s just that I don’t want her at my funeral. I don’t want my mom crying all over the people that knew me, telling them what a great son I was. I don’t want all those people lying to her through their teeth and her getting solace from bullshit.”

  You laughed. “Jesus.”

  Amare chuckled. “Bill, you have a singular ability to find the absolute most depressing angle to a hypothetical question. You should do that for a living.”

  “That have health benefits?” said Bill.

  Amare smiled. “Idiot.”

  “Asshole,” said Bill.

  “I need water,” said Amare. “I’m gonna pass out if I don’t get hydrated.”

  Bill clasped his hands at his chest. “Thank you.”

  “One more minute,” you said.

  Amare glanced at you and nodded. Bill ground his shoe in the yellow grass.

  “It feels important to just…” You didn’t finish your thought. Didn’t have to.

  The sun moved across the sky and light seeped through the tree shade, pooling on Ozzie’s grave. The three of you baked in it for a couple of minutes before someone sighed, another turned and gradually, the ineluctable tug of time and duty drew you back to your respective rides.

  *

  Sometimes the only way to leap forward is to first fall back. It’s the correction of the original motion, the reactionary thrust that catapults you past that place where philosophy or inspiration petered out and left you standing on well-worn territory with nothing but another false epiphany and less time left to figure it all out than you had going in. You recognized something of yourself, something of every friend you’d ever had, in the Wizard’s drive to obliterate his mortal flesh. It was easy to admit this to yourself. Surprisingly, the revelation brought you some peace. Because there was beauty in the man, in his slovenliness, in the way he made no attempt to conceal his demons. And while the feeling you had felt toward him might not be so accurately characterized as admiration, that was definitely part of the mixed b
ag of emotions that churned in your gut as you sat in a gray metal folding chair, in a high school theater, and Adrienne materialized on stage in a shaft of golden light, wearing a melancholic expression at once very Adrienne and very different.

  Some actors can captivate an audience without uttering a single line; their expressions and gestures reveal the inner life of the character and evoke an emotional response that stems from the recognition of something true. The dialogue was sophomoric, full of sentimentality, clichés, and poor imitations of the way adults speak. In addition to this, Adrienne’s co-star, the handsome young man who had been the object of such controversy at The Homework Club, found a way to inject a pregnant pause into nearly every line, so that the action came to a screeching halt every time he opened his mouth. None of that detracted from the sincerity and grace of Adrienne’s performance, or the pride you took in her success. As the drama unfolded, you couldn’t help but recall the first time the Wizard spoke to you. He had called you and your profession “noble.” You’d peered at him through hungover, sleep-encrusted eyes, and, despite your condition, he bolstered you with his esteem. He made you believe, in that moment, a moment in which you felt nothing but nausea and self-loathing, that there was an apparent goodness in you, and later that day, you’d carried that feeling into your work with Adrienne. You had been a better, more confident teacher. For that trick alone, the man deserved his moniker.

  Soon enough, the one-act was complete and the curtain fell. You and Harrison lingered on the periphery of the mob that swarmed Adrienne, patiently waiting your turn. The Homework Club had come out en masse, Sophie and Caspian each bringing a few friends with them. And then there was the family. You had never actually seen Adrienne’s mom or dad, but they were easy to identify, clinging to their new partners as they fussed over their daughter and surreptitiously eyeballed one another’s dates, inventorying all observable flaws.

  You waited, expecting Adrienne to be Adrienne—deliver a bashful nod in your direction before spending an obligatory moment by your side where she might hang her head and humbly accept whatever praise you lavished upon her. So it took you by surprise when she saw you and her eyes went full-moon wide and she pushed her way through the crowd and unabashedly threw her arms around your neck. She released you and you stepped back, stunned, glowing like that robust spotlight had been trained directly on you.

  “What did you think?” she said, her sparkling eyes locked with yours.

  “You were amazing,” you said.

  “They dropped a sound cue and for a second I was like, totally ready to panic, like, what do I do if the phone doesn’t ring, you know? But then I remembered what you said and I just repeated the line and they got it. Did you notice?”

  “I did not,” you said, lying through your teeth. “You were too smooth.”

  She laughed. “Nah. Of course you noticed it, but that’s cool, I don’t mind. I expect you to notice things that other people don’t.”

  You turned to Harrison to tell him that it wasn’t usually like this, that he shouldn’t go making any assumptions about your skill or ability, that it was highly unusual for your students to smother you with credit and hugs, but before you could put this into words, or even into some kind of facial expression that might convey roughly the same thing, Sophie sauntered up beside Adrienne and slipped her arm through her elbow.

  “Doesn’t our Adrienne look hot?” she said, fussing with Adrienne’s hair.

  “Stop it, Sophie,” Adrienne said, smiling hugely.

  “Don’t get me wrong, babe, dying your hair green was like, totally badass, but this reddish brown color is way sexier. You look like that girl in Titanic.” Sophie turned nonchalantly back to you and said, “Who’s your friend, Josh?”

  “Harrison,” you said, “Meet Adrienne and Sophie. Two of my star pupils.”

  Harrison extended his hand. “You were great.”

  “Oh,” said Adrienne. She took his hand and pumped it once very formally, nodding at him as she did it. “Thank you, sir.” She smiled at Sophie like this was the funniest thing that had happened to her all night.

  Harrison stuck his hands deep in his pockets. “Interesting show.”

  Adrienne looked back toward the stage, as though the ghost of her performance lingered there. “The script still needs some work.”

  “No!” said Harrison. “It was good. The whole fluidity of sexuality thing…”

  Sophie’s eyes widened at the mere utterance of the word “sex.” She swept her hair behind her shoulder and stuck out her chest. Seized by a sudden coughing fit, Harrison buried his face in the crook of his elbow.

  “Great stuff,” he said in between smoker’s hacks. “Very timely.”

  “What did you think about the sexuality, Josh?” said Sophie.

  You chuckled. “To be honest, I was more interested in the actors than the ideas.” You nodded at Adrienne. “She’s right about the script, but it didn’t detract from her performance.” You pointed at Adrienne. “You were brilliant.”

  “Aw shucks, Teach.”

  “Now go back to your adoring friends. I’ll see you two Monday.”

  Adrienne gifted you a smile that you immediately framed in your mind’s gallery of Images to Preserve. “See you Monday,” she said.

  You and Harrison wordlessly navigated the crowd and emerged onto the black asphalt of the parking lot. Beside it were half a dozen basketball hoops.

  “I wish we had a ball,” said Harrison.

  You grinned, retrieved your basketball from the trunk of your car and gave it a few dribbles.

  “Could use a little air,” you said.

  You whipped a pass over to Harrison and he air-balled a three-pointer.

  “They get heavy when they’re flat,” you said.

  “Shut up,” he said, running after it.

  He jogged back to the free throw line, took a few dribbles, bent his knees, and knocked one down. You caught it before it hit the ground and sent it back to his chest. This time he dribbled it through his legs, stepped back a couple feet and his jump shot caught nothing but net.

  “Jumper looks good,” you said.

  He tossed you the ball and you walked out to the free throw line. You dribbled a couple times, bent your knees, and released it. It landed softly on the front of the rim, rolled around for a second, and fell through.

  “You always had a soft touch, Teach.” He sailed the ball back at you.

  You knocked down another free throw and wandered out to the left wing. “I had all the confidence in the world when I was a kid.” You banked one in, jogged to the corner, caught the pass from Harrison and shot a deep jumper that caused a slight stab of pain in your shoulder. The ball rimmed out. You pinned your arm across your chest, pushed on your elbow and held the stretch. “When I got older, like by the time I was thirteen or fourteen, I lost confidence, turned into a classic practice shooter. My shot abandoned me during games.”

  Harrison dribbled the ball out to the three-point line and sank it. He said, “I’ve gotta say, this low self-esteem shit is getting old.” You grabbed the rebound and passed him the ball. “I’m tired of you thinking that you’re not something that you are.” He knocked down another three. “Like with those girls in there, the way that you handled them, what you mean to them.” You zipped a pass into his waiting hands. He launched again but came up short. The ball careened off the front of the rim and back out to him. “You’re an important person in their lives.”

  “I know.”

  “Do you?” He dribbled the ball and stared at you.

  “Yeah.”

  “Good. So just own that and stop worrying so fucking much.” He launched another three from the same spot and came up short again. “Goddammit.”

  You grabbed the rebound and fired a pass into his waiting hands. “Knock it down, shooter,” you said. He jumped, followed through and t
he ball rattled home. “There you go, baby.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” he said. “Get out there. I’ll rebound for a minute.”

  You jogged out to the top of the key and massaged your shoulder.

  “You okay?” he said. “Something hurt?”

  “I’m good.” You held up your hands. Harrison fed you a pass and you dribbled a few times.

  “Don’t think,’ he said.

  You bent your knees and sank a set shot. The discomfort in your shoulder was negligible. He rifled it back to your waiting hands. “You’re a shooter,” he said. “Shoot.” You sank a jumper and moved back to the corner. As he fed you the ball, your mind went blank and your muscles warmed, until soon you felt no pain at all, only the sweet satisfaction of the ball finding the bottom of the net.

  Acknowledgments

  Special thanks to Tyson Cornell, Julia Callahan, and all the folks at Rare Bird Books for your talent, energy, humor, and kindness. Above all, thank you for your belief in this book, and for never once suggesting that I ditch the second-person point of view.

  Thank you to K.M. Soehnlein, Malena Watrous, Howie Krakow, and Joshua Mohr for going above and beyond, and to all my professors at USF for your wisdom and encouragement.

  To my peer editors, Calder Lorenz, Charlie Mandell, and Jenny Skogen, thank you for your blood, sweat, and tears. Or, at least your lower-back pain. I am forever grateful for your smart eyes.

  Thank you to Bacchanal—to Nick Van Brunt, Jesse Krakow, and Jon Damon—without whose delight in the silly and the absurd, my adolescent heavy-handedness might have become a lifelong affliction.

  Thank you to Josh Smart, Abi Hassen, and Will Gruen, for the inspiration; to Adam Machado for the pep talks; and to Alex Maslansky, whose intolerance for ego and bullshit sentimentality has positively influenced my creative efforts since I was fourteen years old. The fact that you helped put this book into the world is all the affirmation I’ll ever need.

  I’m a lucky guy. This is not something of which I ever lose sight. Without the luck of having been born into the unyielding love and support of my parents George and Kathy Wyner, and my brother Nick, this book would be no more than a lonely kernel, rattling inside my brain, forever waiting to burst open.