by Mark Tufo
“Mom, you know he did. They called your name twice,” she said, turning back to Mike. “How come you didn’t go?” She grabbed his hand.
“Seemed like a waste of time,” he told her.
“But sitting on our front porch for God knows how long seemed better?” Mrs. Hollow asked as she pushed past and went into the house.
Mike was about to answer, ‘Yes, yes it was,’ but Jandilyn placed her index fingers against his lips and shook her head with a big smile. “Don’t you dare,” she said softly.
“Well, he’s here now,” Mrs. Hollow shouted from inside the house. “Ask him if he wants a drink of water.”
“See, she’s getting better.” Jandilyn smiled.
“She probably wants to spit in it.” Mike laughed.
“You’re horrible.” Jandilyn laughed with him.
“But funny,” Mr. Hollow said as he walked past, a ghost of a smile on his lips.
Mike’s face froze in shock when he realized he’d been overheard.
He stayed a little while longer, congratulated Jandilyn but he had other, less pleasant business he needed to take care of.
“You won’t stay?” Jandilyn said as they sat at the kitchen table.
“No, I want to go see Paul and Dennis’ parents.”
“Want me to take you?”
“No. Stay with your folks, celebrate—we’ll talk later.”
“You sure?” Her mother was already pulling her away.
Mike left Jandilyn’s house, his spirits teetering on a filament fine balance point. On one side he was happy for Jandilyn on the other he was distraught at the realization he could not celebrate this day with his friends. Each step he took to Dennis’ house reminded him of everything he had lost. It was an hour later as his final footfall brought him to the driveway that led up to the two-story Tudor home. Dennis’ home had been party central mainly due to the fact his parents’ house was lake front property resplendent with a pier and a small sandy beach. More than one teenager had dove off that small wooden dock sans clothes.
Mike thought about walking into the backyard but he didn’t think his heart could take it. He walked up the flagstone pathway to the front door, all the shades were drawn and the house was dark. He silently hoped nobody was home.
Maybe if I just knock softly no one will know I’m here, he thought as he opened the screen door. He rang the doorbell instead, quickly shutting the screen door as a layer of protection from whatever lurked inside.
Mike heard some shuffling and a muffled ‘ummph’ from inside.
“Dammit. Dammit,” he said under his breath.
Mrs. Waggoner answered the door, cigarette in her left hand and in the right she held a large glass with ice and an amber-colored liquid that looked suspiciously like scotch. “Whaddaya want?” she said, taking a drag from her cigarette and chasing it down with the scotch.
“Hello, Mrs. Waggoner.”
“Eh.” She belched.
Mike wanted to rip the screen door open and give her a hug. This was once the woman he called his second mom and she had gladly accepted the responsibility.
“I just wanted to see how you were doing,” Mike said, thinking now about how that this might have been the stupidest thing he’d done in a very long time.
“You come here to just rub it in my face that you’re still alive!” she spat. “But no, now that I’m looking at you good, you’re not really…are you?” She cackled. “I can almost see right through you.”
“Please m—”
“Don’t you dare!” She pointed her cigarette-laden hand at him. “My son is dead! And if you had any brains left you’d have joined him!” The front of the house shook from the force with which she slammed the door.
Mike was too shocked to know whether to cry or vomit. He stepped off the porch and headed to Paul’s. “Well, at least I don’t think it can get worse,” he told himself, failing miserably to prop himself up.
“Fuck,” Mike said as he mentally prepared himself. Paul’s home in contrast to Dennis’ appeared cheery and welcoming, the front door was even open, allowing a fresh breeze to circulate throughout the home. Mike walked onto the porch and knocked on the aluminum door.
“Hello, Michael,” Mrs. Ginson said from off to his side. She had been sitting on the deck reading a book.
“Hello, Mrs. Ginson,” Mike said.
“What brings you here?” she asked coolly.
“I just wanted to pay my respects,” Mike said, wishing desperately he had worn a hat so he could take it off and wring it with his hands.
“Consider them paid,” she said, turning back to her book.
“Is Mr. Ginson home?” Mike asked.
“He’s where he always is at this time of the day.”
Mike stood there for a moment, wondering if she was going to clarify. When he figured she had reached the end of the paragraph she was pretending to read she looked back up.
“The grave. He’s at the grave. He’s always at that damned grave site.”
“I’m so sorry,” Mike said.
“Paul was our only son, it should have been you who died.”
Mike almost rocked on his heels from her words.
“Your parents probably wouldn’t have missed you at all. It was nice of you to stop by,” she said, resuming her place in the book.
Mike missed the first step entirely as he left, nearly losing his balance and toppling over. He wanted to go back to Jandilyn’s, to the only person who could bring him out of this Twilight Zone episode, but her mother wasn’t much more welcoming than the two he had just dealt with and he didn’t know if he had it in him for round three. He went home and lay on his bed. A day that had started with such promise for so many of his classmates was nothing but a nightmare for him. He couldn’t imagine being able to sleep anytime soon. He awoke some hours later to the tapping of a large crow perched on his window sill.
“Go the fuck away,” he said, picking up a small trophy from his Pop Warner Football days, threatening to throw it through the screen.
The crow seemed to know he wouldn’t let loose the shiny object, but it cawed once, opened its beak as if it were smiling and alit from the ledge.
***
It was two weeks after graduation, Jandilyn’s head resting on Mike’s chest as they lay in his bed.
“Your mom really doesn’t care about me being here?”
“I don’t think she even knows I’m here,” Mike said in earnest, although he had a few months previous put a lock on his door to keep his mother out.
More than once he had awoken to the sight of her standing over his bed with a confused look upon her face, as if wondering who he was. It had freaked him out to no end and it was after the third time that he had gone down to the local hardware store to rectify the problem. She had tried the handle only twice over the following months and then had stopped trying to get in altogether.
“What’s wrong with them, Mike?” she asked, propping her head up with her hand. “It’s like they’re mourning.”
“I don’t know. I really don’t.” Part of that was a lie; he had some sneaking suspicions, but he was in no mood to share his dour thoughts.
“I think the contact looks great—does it bother you at all?” she said, smiling up at him.
Mike had tried a few months ago to see if leaving the patch off would in some way make the two separate halves of his vision unite again. His experiment had failed miserably within the first few hours, the resultant migraine headache had caused Jandilyn to break no fewer than seven traffic violations as she drove him to the hospital. The doctor who had seen him there suggested the prosthetic contact that would match his right eye but would completely block light from coming in.
“I don’t miss the pirate patch. That’s for sure. Want to get some lunch? I’m starving.”
“We can go back to my house and I’ll make something.”
“I was hoping for something with a little more substance than a baloney sandwich.”
She smacked him gently. “Do you sometimes wish I lived up to my reputation?” she asked as she stood up.
Mike smiled as he noticed how slyly she was trying to gauge his reaction without looking like she was. He made a big show of exaggerating his features to show disappointment. “I deal with it as best I can. My dad has a lifetime subscription to National Geographic and there’s always the Sears catalog with the women’s underwear section.”
She smacked him a little harder this time. Besides some potential world record-breaking kissing marathons and some heavy petting, Mike and Jandilyn had not done the deed.
“I don’t think I would have gone out with you if I had known just how pious you were.”
“Pious? You’re calling me pious! I’m going to start wearing ankle-length dresses!”
“You’d still look good,” he said playfully.
Her face saddened a bit.
“Jandilyn, I love you. When we do it—when we’re both ready, we’ll do it. I’m in no rush.”
Jandilyn scrunched up her eyebrows.
“Okay, that last bit might be a stretch of the truth, but it doesn’t change the fact of how I feel about you. You saved me.”
Her face beamed.
“Come on,” she said, grabbing his hand. “I know how to make grilled cheeses now.”
The bright sun beamed down into the car as Jandilyn retracted the cloth roof, but Mike could not shake the feeling that something was barreling toward him.
“You alright?” Jandilyn asked, noticing his discomfort.
“Heartburn,” he told her.
“We haven’t even eaten yet.”
“I was thinking about your cooking.”
“Funny.”
As they pulled up to Jandilyn’s home, Mr. Hollow was coming back across the street holding the mail in his left hand and waving enthusiastically to his daughter, a broad smile across his face. When he looked at Mike the smile faded ever so slightly. Mr. Hollow had been nothing but amicable to Mike, but there was always an underlying current of wariness as if he expected Mike to strike at any moment and he would be there to put him down.
Mrs. Hollow, on the other hand, was just openly hostile, but Mike thought it was getting marginally better. At least she just left the room when he entered instead of making snide comments.
“Maybe we should just go,” Mike said as Jandilyn pulled into the driveway.
“Something came in the mail for you,” Mr. Hollow said, waving a large envelope in front of her.
“OhmiGod,” Jandilyn said so fast it sounded like one word. She quickly exited the vehicle and snatched the letter from her father’s hand, sending the rest of the mail sprawling. Her father laughed. She scanned the outside quickly then thrust it back at him. “I can’t open this! You open it!”
“Not a chance, kiddo.” He laughed and shook his head.
Mike got out of the car and stared at them, feeling more like an outsider as each word was spoken. He turned to the house where Jandilyn’s mom was looking at him. She did the sign of the Holy Trinity and then let the curtain fall back into place a chill rippled across his brow.
Mike looked back to Jandilyn as he heard the telltale sound of an envelope ripping open.
“Dear Miss Jandilyn Hollow,” Jandilyn muttered softly as she read, a trait Mike found endearing. “We are happy to inform—” That was all she read before she started jumping up and down.
Her father embraced her in a bear hug and swung her around. “Congratulations!”
Now Mike knew what he had been feeling in the car.
“I’m in, I’m in!” she shouted again. “I’m in, Mike, I’m going to UCLA Berkeley!”
“I heard,” Mike tried to answer as enthusiastically as possible.
“Where are you going to college?” Mr. Hollow asked Mike as he finally put his daughter down. She read through the rest of the letter and subsequent enrollment paperwork. Mike hesitated to respond. “I’ve seen you play, you must have some prospects, some partial scholarships.”
Mike’s head dropped.
“I’m… I’m sorry, I just got wrapped up in Jandilyn’s news, I forgot.”
“What’s the matter?” Jandilyn asked a huge smile nearly spreading ear-to-ear.
“Your old dad might be getting a little daft I think,” Mr. Hollow said with a nervous laugh at the end.
Mike’s stomach was churning. He was proud for his girlfriend and was dreading the thought of losing her. Mike at this moment wished he were as invisible as he sometimes felt. If he could have just walked off into the sunset he would have done so.
“This calls for a celebration!” Mr. Hollow said, getting pulled back up in his daughter’s emotions, his earlier embarrassment swept under the rug.
“Dad, I have to fly out for orientation in two weeks,” Jandilyn said dismayed. She looked over to Mike, the realization of what was taking place finally dawning on her.
“Jandilyn, I’m going to head home, you need to be with your family. Do some planning,”
“We haven’t eaten lunch yet, though,” she said.
“I’ve lost my appetite,” he said, trying to smile.
“Oh, you’ve had her cooking too then.” Mr. Hollow laughed.
Mr. Hollow was trying to help soften the mood and Mike thanked him for that.
“You guys have a lot to talk about and I feel a killer headache coming on,” he lied. It wasn’t coming on, it had already hit with full force.
“Then at least let me take you home,” Jandilyn said.
“No, I really think the air will do me some good.”
“You sure, Mike?” she asked, coming over to him and grabbing his hands. The pages she clutched in her right hand would do more than separate them from the inches they were at the moment.
“I love you,” Mike said softly as he placed his forehead against hers.
“Same,” she returned, glancing over quickly at her father, a blush of embarrassment as she noticed her father trying his best to not be involved in this scene.
“I’ll call you later,” she said.
“Sounds good,” Mike said as he turned and started back the way they had just come.
Mike heard the Hollows’ door open and Mrs. Hollow disingenuously yell out. “Oh that’s a shame he’s not coming in.”
“Mom, I got accepted!” Jandilyn fairly squealed as she raced up the stairs to show her mother, completely oblivious to her mother’s outward disdain for Mike.
“UCLA, that’s great,” Mrs. Hollow said a little too loudly as Mike tried his best to get out of earshot without looking like he was running. “I hope that’s far enough away!”
“Far enough away from what?” Jandilyn asked, Mike was finally out of range of a response if one came.
Mike’s range of emotions varied from angst to depression. Jandilyn was his life. His best friends were dead, the platoon of close friends he’d had before the accident who could have stepped into a best friend role had all marched out on him, or him on them, he wasn’t sure. His family who had always been a stalwart from any advancing storm had cracked and splintered from the storm waves he had caused. Of all his siblings, he had only seen his sister once in the last six months and that had been barely. It had been a half day at school or he would not have even seen her half-hearted attempt at a wave as she pulled out of the driveway as Jandilyn was pulling in.
Mike was lost in his thoughts and did not notice the Blue Chevelle as it slowly approached him.
“It’s the freak!” One of the passengers in the car said. “You gonna get him this time?” the hyena voice asked.
Durgan slowed as he pulled next to Mike. He had his attention now. Mike thought a beat down might do him some good right now.
“Mike,” Durgan said, acknowledging him with a small nod before gunning his engine and leaving him in a smell Mike had come to loathe, burning rubber.
Mike turned to watch as the car rapidly retreated from his vision. “What a weird fucking day,” Mike said as he headed for th
e only place where he thought he could get some solace.
***
Within twenty minutes he was back at the train trestle. He had learned to compensate for his lack of depth perception, but that still didn’t mean he liked it. He took his time crossing. When he finally made it to the other side he took his first comforting breath in almost five minutes.
“That sucked.” He walked over to the pathway that led up to the Hill proper. No matter how much he wanted it, he knew without a doubt Jandilyn was not watching him this time as he ventured off to the right and into the denser woods. The large rope swing swung gently. Mike grabbed the coarse hemp and thought about swinging on it, but without Paul and Dennis to laugh and joke as they swung perilously close to the trees on the downward arc, what was the point?
The leaves above his head rippled as a calm breeze passed through. Birds sang and crickets, unaware of the time, chirped. Mike climbed up the side of the Hill he was on, dragging the rope with him. When it had gone as far as it could, he watched its descent as he let it go, remembering a time when Dennis had been riding the rope, his hat had flown off and Dennis had made a valiant stab at it with his right hand to try and snag it out of the air and missing. The funny part had been when Dennis also reached out with his left hand, the only part keeping him tethered to the rope. He had been successful in retrieving his hat, but then he was free flying, which was not necessarily a good thing when there was not any water to break your fall.
Loud ‘umphs’ and ‘ugs’ had been punctuated by spirited laughter from Mike and Paul.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Paul had been asking as he ran down the hill to make sure his friend had not done anything too serious as he had tumbled across the pine needle-laden ground. Except for some dirt skids and minor scraping Dennis had lived, at least for a few more months.
Mike had been too busy laughing on the ground clutching his stomach to be of much help.
“I got it, didn’t I?” Dennis had said defiantly as Paul helped him to stand.
“It’s a Yankees hat. You should have left it there,” Paul told him, brushing leaves off Dennis’ side.
The empty rope came to a standstill; there was no laughter this time. Only the slow empty creak as the thick hemp rubbed the bark raw on the bough it hung from.