Falter Kingdom

by Michael J Seidlinger

  But what are you gonna do, you know?

  Calculus. Everyone, even the A students, are over it.

  Miss Canaan needs a life. I want to just walk up to her desk and tell her what everyone’s been telling me: It’s almost over. You’ll never see us again. Why not cut us some slack? Some of us are fun people. If you’d stop stressing the curriculum so much you’d have a better time.

  But that takes balls. Well, more than that, it takes effort.

  And I’m low on that lately.

  I bump into Blaire before fourth period to exchange homework.

  “You look like shit,” Blaire tells me.

  Yeah, I haven’t been able to shake the exhaustion. I yawn it off, make appearances. “Insomnia,” I say with a shrug. “What else is new?”

  Blaire’s hands are all over the homework, checking it like I didn’t actually do a good job. I’ve got this stuff. I’m not an idiot.

  English class, that’s my forte.

  She won’t look me in the eye. “You’d tell me, right?”

  But I don’t hear her until she seems to answer for me—“Yeah, you’d tell me”—and runs off. We don’t have any classes together, which is why trading homework works. I know what she’s talking about. She was there. But, um, I know she wouldn’t tell anyone. At least not until she was sure about it.

  During lunch, the student body president, Chris something—I can’t remember his name, but really most people just know him as “Chris the Student President” (you know how everyone’s labeled something)—he makes a few announcements. It’s blah, blah, blah until he finishes with a heads-up stating that yearbook deadlines are in a week.

  One fucking week.

  It’s a wake-up call for most. It is for me. I don’t know what to write. This is more than making the most of the rest of the semester; the bio you write is what people remember you by. Every word counts. Some people pay extra to fit in another fifty words over the three-hundred-word blurb limit.

  Being memorable.

  People talk so much about being remembered and “the one thing you’ll be remembered for.”

  I think about the prompt while standing in line for food. My mom packs me lunch but it’s embarrassing. I leave it in the trunk of my car and toss it on the way home. Been doing that since the middle of freshman year.

  So it’s this junk they serve us, but it works.

  The one thing people will remember me for.

  I’m not sure I want to settle for just one thing like everyone else. I’m not sure about what I’d write, so I do what I typically do—I put it off for later.

  Brad’s late to lunch. I end up at our table, sitting with a few others I never really talk to. They’re almost finished with their bios.

  This guy, Mark, reads his bio aloud. He’s really thought it out.

  Brad gets there and steals the page from Mark’s hands, ’cause he’s an asshole and you know he’ll never let you down. Brad reads some of it aloud for the entire cafeteria: “Mark Banes excelled at contemporary literature, earning himself an A- average—”

  “Come on, Brad, lay off.” That’s me saying that. I’m the one who usually tries to keep things cool. Do you ever really question the guy who’s trying to keep things civil? Yeah, everyone likes that guy, even if they don’t really know him. It’s how I keep this from getting back to me. And today, I know Brad and a bunch of people are suspicious about what happened in that tunnel.

  They have something on me. I’m an interesting topic, you know?

  And I just want to make it to fifth period so I can take a nap in my car, get away from all this stuff. Lately, everything’s been, I don’t know, just too much. It’s not just graduation; it’s everything. I feel like the pressure is increasing and I’m worried that it might never release.

  Kind of melodramatic, yeah.

  But I guess it’s mostly the fact that I know what’s going to happen next.

  Brad sits across from me, steals one of my chicken fingers, and starts people-watching. That’s how it always starts.

  Brad leans in, whispering, “Bro, you see Jess today? Jesus.”

  Testosterone-fueled annoyance, that’s Brad’s yearbook bio. He’ll be remembered as the dude with so much testosterone he drowned in it, meaning we all ganged up on him and drowned him for being such an asshole.

  I don’t know why I hang around this guy.

  But yeah, I do. I know. I’ve talked about this already.

  “Yo,” Brad says.

  “Yeah, what is it?” I’m acting like these chicken fingers are awesome, like they taste like more than salt.

  “You hit up JJ yet?”

  Shit. That’s right. I can’t leave the guy hanging. He’s my source for booze, blunts, and anything else I want. For cheap.

  “Not yet, after I finish eating.”

  “Bro, he’ll be pissed.”

  I’m going, I’m going.

  Push the food away and Brad takes it, always hungry.

  I always leave via the back entrance of the cafeteria so that I don’t have to make eye contact with anyone. But I’m not always that successful, you see.

  On the way out, I cross paths with Nikki. She’s got this guy, Luke, with her, and he’s handing over her purse. As she looks back at the door, I happen to be the one walking out. We exchange glances. That smile, one I’ve seen before. Strand of red hair brushed with her hand back over her ear. Blue eyes on me. This is where I’d trip and fall if I let it get to me, but I don’t. But so what, she smiled at me? So what? She says hello. She says my name. She slows down and waits until I’ve gone.

  So what?

  It’s not a big deal.

  But Brad makes it a big deal.

  Goes on and on: “Bro, there’s no way you didn’t see that...!”

  I play it off the way I know how things should be played: “Yeah, I saw.”

  “You know you have to talk to her now,” Brad says.

  I’m thinking, “What makes anything mandatory if I don’t want to?” Yeah, I want to talk to her, and yeah, I like her—so what? But just because we looked at each other doesn’t mean now I’m supposed to let go of my own problems.

  What problems?

  No, I’m pushing that aside. Not thinking about that.

  “Don’t be stupid,” Brad’s saying, as we walk around back, where the theater kids smoke because it’s near the auditorium stage.

  Jon-Jon and a few others hang here.

  You can hear barking from far away. That’s Jetson, his corgi. He always brings the dog to school. It’d be a problem if he went to class, but he’s got all that covered. Rumor has it he pays off the principal. Halverson gets a cut from sales. It’s just a rumor. Gossip.

  But that’s like all things at Meadows.

  Everything’s gossip until it’s naked truth.

  Brad tells Jon-Jon. Of course he tells Jon-Jon. “Dude, Nikki Dillon’s got a thing for our bro here!”

  Some days I can almost see it happening: I’ll start by punching Brad in the gut. He’ll wince in pain and I’ll wrap—I don’t know, sometimes it’s rope, other times it’s piano wire—around his throat until his neck snaps. I’ll say something clever and then walk away. The next day people will know what I did and everyone will be happy. Brad’s body is brushed under the floorboards.

  Jon-Jon tugs at Jetson’s leash. The dog runs up to Brad, hyper and seemingly happy as always. Corgis. Happiness is a corgi.

  “Brad,” Jon-Jon says without looking up from his phone, “enough.”

  “Yeah, sorry, man.” Brad works on finishing the chicken fingers.

  I’m watching him until Jon-Jon asks, “Hunter, how are you feeling today?” Jon-Jon’s eyes are almost always glued to the phone in his hands. Guess it’s the way he conducts business. But he looks at me like he’s concerned. Is he really? You know, I never know what’s real or fake with the guy.

  “Yeah”—I fake a yawn—“just a little tired.”

  Jon-Jon leans forward. “That so? How t
ired are you, on a scale of one to ten, ten being chronic insomnia?”

  Uh, I go with an eight, which means I really tell him, “About a five.”

  Jon-Jon clicks his tongue, looks up at one of the girls, kind of cute, brown hair tied back, red lipstick—no one knows any of Jon-Jon’s girls, their names or anything else; I’m pretty sure they don’t go here—and the girl hands him a notebook.

  Brad with his mouth full: “Is that...?”

  It is. It’s yesterday’s betting pool.

  See I kind of started betting on football, baseball, basketball, whatever everyone around me was betting on, because it kept things cool. If I won, I get some cash. If I lost, then whatever. I don’t have a stake in any of these teams. I don’t even really find it all that interesting. Watching Brad as he flips through the book quickly, for him it’s more than just money.

  “Hell yes,” Brad shouts, “you owe me! Pay up, pay up!”

  This is how it goes. Then there’s still all the talk about stats, which player to pick, who’s got the better team. I just want to make it until fifth period so I can get some sleep.

  I lean against the wall while Brad and Jon-Jon talk sports, then about this rapper who’s supposed to be in town soon, how Jon-Jon can probably get tickets for cheap, which gets Brad excited. “Get me a few. Perfect bait for landing a date!”

  I glance over at Jon-Jon’s girls, or assistants, or whatever. I know they find this as dull as I do. Or maybe they don’t.

  What’s the big deal?

  I used to feel kind of bad about not being interested in sports or music or that kind of stuff. Culture, I guess. I mean, I still do. I can see how learning about the stats and predicting how ball games will turn out could be really cool. I bet it’s satisfying. But before I can really get used to it, they’re talking about other things. Never really been into hip-hop or the stuff I hear coming from people’s cars. At least at the parties they blast it so it’s all bass.

  But I guess I never got into it.

  I don’t really know what I like. Music can be fun to listen to, but sometimes I just like sitting back and listening to podcasts, people chatting about, I don’t know, new technology, space, time travel. Weird stuff that doesn’t come around often. I guess that’s kind of insane.

  Jon-Jon didn’t bring me here to listen to them talk business.

  He asks me, “Too tired for one on me?” He holds up a bottle of vodka.

  This guy, there’s no way he’s getting away with this stuff just by being careful. I say yes and we both take swigs from the bottle, Brad included. We take enough to ease off a little, but right before Brad and I walk back for class, Jon-Jon calls me out: “You ran, huh?”

  Back turned, I kind of freeze, feeling the more powerful lull of liquor, how it kind of feels heavier than a beer buzz. Brad nudges me. “Bro...”

  I know.

  I tell him the truth, the lie I’ve practiced enough for it to be truth. Trick is to believe it yourself.

  “Yeah, man,” I say, playing it smooth, “I did.”

  Jon-Jon stares at me. “Why wasn’t I invited?”

  Brad chimes in: “Wasn’t really planned, like, we got in each other’s faces, this guy and Steve... you know Steve? Steve the creep?”

  Jon-Jon nods his head once. “I do.”

  Brad continues: “Well, our boy here got in dweeb’s face and then just fucking ran Falter like it was nothing.”

  Jon-Jon puts his phone down on his right knee and claps five times, slow, like this—clap, clap, clap, clap, clap.

  “Yeah”—I sort of smile—“yeah, you know.” I laugh.

  “I could have made some money. We all could’ve,” Jon-Jon says.

  See that’s what’s been happening with Falter and Meadows students. You go there and run on a bet. No one talks about it and no one really makes any bets, but whenever people plan on actually running, more than a few people show up. They show up and Jon-Jon’s always there.

  I can see why he’s disappointed.

  Jetson barks at me.

  Jon-Jon looks at the dog. “And?”

  Jetson growls. I’m not doing anything. I take a step forward and the dog charges at me. Jon-Jon tugs the leash back.

  We all look at the dog.

  We’re all thinking the same thing, but only I really know the real deal.

  Still, I’m not telling. I don’t want the last thing people remember of me to be that I caught one, showing symptoms and all.

  Jon-Jon glares at me. “Didn’t catch anything?”

  Brad tries to speak for me, but Jon-Jon raises a hand like he’s some mob boss and a single gesture commands the entire scene.

  Then again, it’s kind of like that, actually.

  “No,” I say, “unless you call insomnia demonic.”

  “It should be!” Brad laughs. Brad is so fake.

  I want to say it—I don’t know why I hang out with you—but I won’t. I won’t.

  Enough’s enough.

  Jon-Jon doesn’t laugh. No one does.

  He says something like, “Fair enough,” right as the lunch period rings out in the distance. I give this kind of weird, awkward gesture—“It calls”—and then I burst out of the scene too quickly, like I’m trying to tell Jon-Jon that I’m hiding something. I manage to say, “Catch you later, man,” as casual as I can.

  Jon-Jon says something like, “Yeah. We’ll talk later.”

  The way he said it, it sounded insincere, like a mob boss who’s already read a victim’s future. He knows. Or he doesn’t know. Maybe no one knows. Even I kind of push it aside. It’s easy when there’s so much stuff going on.

  It isn’t until after school that the activity continues.

  Like it waited patiently for me to return home.

  Last thing I want to do is have to sit and eat dinner with the parents. Mom’s cooking is all Shake’N Bake, out-of-the-box premade stuff. She’s got all those clients to worry about, and when you’re lawyering it up, dinner and family and all that stuff isn’t top priority. And Dad, don’t get me started on Dad.

  Even when he’s pretending to care, in the back of his mind he’s thinking about the latest cancer patient of his.

  It’s not just money with them. It’s like, well, it’s like what I’ve seen in so many movies. The job becomes you.

  So when I get back from school and all I want is to crash for a few hours, Mom calls me into the kitchen like a home-cooked meal is a surprise.

  “Son, dinner’s almost ready.”

  I watch her pull out meat loaf from the oven.

  “It’s four thirty.”

  “Early bird special,” she says, and chuckles.

  I head up the stairs, but she’s not letting me get away easy today.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” she says from the foot of the stairs. She’s still wearing those oven mitts. Makes her look ridiculous.

  “Getting a hoodie, Mom.” I point in the direction of my room. “It’s cold in here.”

  “Are you feeling all right?”

  Enough with that—but she won’t stop with the questions. Like she really cares. Whenever she’s around, she tries to be supermom. Whenever she’s around, it’s usually because she lost a case, so she’s feeling depressed. Feeling depressed for my crazy mom translates to: smother Hunter. Turning up the parenting to 150 percent hurts everybody.

  At the dinner table, I can’t sit still.

  Mom asks me if I feel okay.

  “Just cold, Mom.”

  She doesn’t seem to be having a problem.

  I look at the placemat she set for Dad.

  “He showing up?”

  Mom makes excuses: “Dad is busy saving lives.”

  Yup, saving lives, like some kind of Superman. I take a bite of meat loaf, dry and bland like any other store-bought thing. But I know what’ll happen if I don’t eat it.

  Mom asks me about school.

  “It was like any other day.”

  “Getting close to graduati
on!” Mom grins, bringing a piece of food to her lips.

  “Yeah.” I pick at the food. Watch as even Mom pretends to like the food, that small piece going in her mouth and back out into the napkin. She does it when she thinks I’m not looking.

  I look down the hall, the one leading upstairs, expecting to see something. I don’t know what, but my eyes keep floating back to that focal point.

  Meat loaf, eat another piece of meat loaf.

  “Refill, hon?”

  This is the kind of stuff that bothers anyone. I can get my own water. I can pick up after myself. I’m eighteen and she’s treating me like I’m ten.

  I get up from the table without saying a word.

  As I do, my gaze floats back to the hall. I do a double take when I see it. It’s not really, um... let me try to explain. It’s still the hall, and the stairs, and the little side table thing my mom put there for decoration. But what I saw was something else. Kind of like a blotch where evening light should pass.

  Course, I could have just said it was a shadow.

  Shadows are one of the symptoms. But it’s more than that. When I look, I feel something looking back. It’s you, isn’t it?

  It’s got to be you.

  But I don’t want my mom to suspect anything, so I refill my glass with water from the tap, which is nasty but I’m not really thinking straight right now, and I sit back down to eat.

  A chill runs up my spine.

  I chew, looking at Mom while I’m sure you, whatever you are, look on at this pathetic scene. It’s really sad, you know? No dad and some depressed mom about to take enough pills to feel fucking fine.

  I zip up the hoodie.

  It’s a different kind of cold. You’d think “cold spots” means what it sounds like, but it’s kind of different. My mom isn’t cold. But I am. My mom isn’t shivering. But I am. My mom isn’t being watched. But I am.

  My inner stupid’s excuse is that I’m just really, really tired. It’s common to feel more sensitive to temperature when you’re tired.

  Yeah, but this is different.

  This is the start.

  It’s not just broken vases and doors opening in the dark.

  I focus on the meat loaf because it’s all I can do to block out what’s happening. You kind of just want to ignore things when they’re so intense, you know? You just want it to go away.