by Mel Bossa
Later, Mrs. Lund asked me to stay for supper. She was making something colorful. It wasn’t meat, and it smelled nice. I wanted to stay, but the last time I stayed for supper, I puked, on account of my nerves, you know. My throat closes up like Dad’s fingers around his beer mug. I can’t blink.
I forget how to breathe.
My face burns.
My brain hums.
And sometimes, I get this funny feeling deep inside my stomach, like a hot liquid pouring into my shorts.
It only happens when Boone’s older brother sits at the table. He mostly doesn’t because he’s seventeen.
But I can’t take that chance. Sometimes, Boone’s brother doesn’t come to the table until dessert is served, and that’s the worst because I love Mrs. Lund’s tapioca pudding, but I just can’t seem to swallow anything down whenever Nicolai Lund is around.
Chapter 2
Dear Bump,
I plan on winning the chess tournament this year.
I’m tired of getting second place. Jesse Chao has won first place since the first grade. His smile looks like a string of gray pebbles. Everyone in the math club knows I can beat him. I need to practice some more, that’s all. I’ve been asking Mom, but she says she can’t remember how to play anymore. I don’t understand, she remembered fine last month.
I don’t know who I’m supposed to play with now.
When I asked Boone if he could help me hone my skills, he laughed. “No way, Red. Gonna be way too busy. JF told me Julie wears a bra now.”
Boone thinks I should ask his father because Johan and Nick used to play when Nick was little.
It’s hard to imagine Nick Lund as a little kid. I try picturing his eyes on a smaller face, but can’t do it. His eyes are so different from little kids’ eyes. Little kids’ eyes look like cough medicine bottles.
Nick’s eyes look like a picture I saw of a coral reef.
Except the coral reef wasn’t as beautiful.
Boone has blue eyes, too, but when he looks at me, it doesn’t feel like I’ve been punched in the stomach.
I’m shy about asking Mr. Lund. He’s always so busy. I think that’s why Dad doesn’t like him. “That man came to our country, and he’s going around stealing people’s jobs.”
But when I asked Dad if he wanted to be a locksmith, he just glared at me.
Dad likes Mrs. Lund plenty, though. He’s always so nice to her. She used to be in magazines in Norway. Her hair is the color of my beige dresser and her eyes are almost bigger than her ears. They’re blue. She wears lipstick and smells like Grandma’s rose potpourri. She never wears pants, just half-skirts. She doesn’t take off her shoes in the apartment and when she walks down the hall, they make a clanking sound I like.
She came by yesterday. She brought some cold fish and some kind of red soup. She and Mom sat at the kitchen table, and Mrs. Lund made Mom eat like a baby.
Mom cried the whole time.
Some girl with a belly bigger than a pumpkin came by with some boys this morning. Dad helped them load your crib and dresser in the back of their truck. He lit a cigarette and watched them drive away. I was standing right next to him, but he never said anything.
Tomorrow’s Sunday and we’re going to church. Father Neil is going to say something about you. Everyone is coming.
Even the Lunds, and they never go to church.
I don’t really like church, except for the communion. I like the way Jesus tastes.
* * * *
Now that I’d been reading my childhood entries in the last few days, I found myself debating on writing again.
But really, how healthy would it be to hash up the past or dwell on my current problems? What twenty-nine-year-old man kept a diary? Seemed like an odd and self-indulging thing to do. Yet, I couldn’t help wondering if Aunt Fran had been right. Maybe writing could be something therapeutic and provide me with some healthy introspection. I could give it a try. Here. With you…Bump.
How did one sum up seventeen years? I supposed one couldn’t, really.
The Lunds moved away in 1988, a week shy of my thirteenth birthday. Johan bought a house on the south shore. Boone promised we would keep in touch, but we never did. Aside from a love note I received from Lene that Christmas, I remained without news of the Lunds all these years.
Mom never truly recovered from your death, Bump. I used to tiptoe around that apartment, even when she was awake. In 1994, she bought a piano at a garage sale. From that day on, she spent countless hours teaching herself to play. Chopin was her favorite. When I left for university, she could play fairly well. That piano was her lifeline. Still was today. I enjoyed watching her thin fingers dance on the keys.
Only then could we really connect. Only then did she ask about my life.
* * * *
I was in my office today, at that dreadful bank I loathe, and decided to indulge myself in another dose of the past. I sat at my desk, eating lunch—a boring cheese sandwich and a glass of tomato juice—and read a few more pages of my childhood.
Dear Bump…
I saw Jesse Chao in Church yesterday. He said he’s been practicing every day for the last month. I haven’t played chess since June. Dad said, “You gonna let some little chink boy take first place again?”
Dad suffers from that thing I learned about this week. It’s called racism. Besides, Jesse isn’t Chinese. He’s from Australia. His mom sang opera in Sidney, and his father is a cowboy who used to be an astronaut, until the war broke out in the West, and he and Jesse’s mom had to go undercover to fight against the rebel snakes that had taken over a place called Pennsylvania.
Dad says, “That’s a bunch of bullshit, son. You just got the kind of face people enjoy lying to, Derek.”
After the special church service in your honor, all of us were invited over to the Lunds for lunch. I tried to fake an asthma attack, but Mom got too upset, so I had to stop. There was no use in trying to die.
I was going to have to eat around Nick Lund.
In the Lund’s apartment, I carefully hugged the hallway wall, tiptoed down the stairs, and slithered into Boone’s bedroom.
I found him sitting on his bed. “O’Reilly, check this out.” Boone’s face glowed like a red party lantern.
I walked up to his bed and sat on the edge. “What?”
“Smell this.” He held something up to my face. It was white and crumpled like an old Kleenex.
“Are yo—ou cra—azy? I’m not g—gonna smell some old used up t—tissue.” My stuttering has become a problem in the last year, but Boone doesn’t seem to notice.
His eyes darted up and the sun poked yellow dots into them. “Red, trust me. You need to smell this. Remember the fancy Italian chocolates Mrs. Bastone used to give us on Easter, the ones with the plastic cup at the bottom?”
I remember those. They were sweet and tangy all at once.
“This is how these panties smell.”
At the sound of that word, my nose met my mouth, like my face had folded over itself. “Ew! Boone, who’s p—panties are—”
But his bedroom door flew open. And my eyes popped out of my head.
It was Nick.
Boone and I jumped to our feet. Boone was quicker than I thought, because he’d managed to stick the underwear in his back pocket before Nick had passed the threshold, but from where I was standing, I could it see it plainly sticking out.
Nick cocked his head a little. “What ‘you got there, Bunny boy?”
My heart beat hard against my ribs. Could Nick hear it?
Nick took a step in Boone’s direction, and Boone stiffened at my side. “We were talking about Hulk Hogan,” he blurted out in a small voice.
Nick frowned a little, his eyes shining like two pieces of blue glass. “Hogan’s a fake.” For a second, he looked Boone up and down, and then turned around.
I tried to swallow all the spit that had gathered inside my mouth. Thankfully, we were going to live until lunch.
But just when Boone
’s shoulders had dropped an inch from relief, Nick lunged at him. We both shrunk back in shock.
Nick yanked the evidence out of Boone’s pocket. “What the hell is this, you little cum stain?” When Nick unfolded the underwear, his eyes widened. “Oh man,” he said, smirking, “you’re so fucked. Mom’s gonna flip. Stealing underwear. That’s a federal offense.”
Everyone knew about Mrs. Lund’s temper. “Nico, please don’t tell her,” Boone begged.
Nick gave a little snort. “I don’t know…”
Boone pleaded harder. “I’m already in trouble for the Playboy, and for the—”
“Where d’you get these anyway?”
Boone seemed surprised. He squinted and mumbled, “Well, in, uh, your bedroom, Nico. Under your bed.”
Nick’s pale eyebrows curled above his nose as he stared at the panties for a few more seconds, twisting them between his long fingers. He scoffed. “Well, shit. Guess she was right.” The hardness settled back into his face. “Bunny boy, I catch you taking stuff from my room again, I’ll make you wear these, and only these. Then we’ll take a nice little stroll around the block, got it?”
“Yeah.” Boone nodded. “Got it.”
“And one more thing, you should never touch a girl’s panties, even if she isn’t wearing them. Unless she lets you. Don’t be a perv, Boone. Lunds aren’t pervs.”
From the moment Nick had stormed in, my knees had been locked. I don’t think I took a whole new breath either, but he hadn’t even looked at me once. Like I wasn’t there in the room with them.
Like I was watching TV.
“O’Reilly.” Just like that, Nick spoke to me, but didn’t made eye contact. “Sorry ‘bout your brother,” he said softly. Then finally, he looked into my eyes. Only for a second. “Really sucks.”
A river rushed through my ears. Was someone blow drying my face? I opened my mouth but couldn’t move my lips, so I nodded my head up and down instead, letting a sound stream out of my mouth, something half between a grunt and a moan.
Without another word, Nick left the room.
My knees were like roasted marshmallows. The skin around them couldn’t hold the middle. I plopped down on the bed, staring at the empty doorway.
God, he was so beautiful!
Boone sighed. “Hey, my dad taped last week’s wrestling match. You wanna watch it?”
* * * *
Bump,
Mr. Lund and I are going to play chess together every Saturday morning.
He has a wonderful board, and all the pieces are handcrafted, made out of pink and black marble. They’re heavy, too. I think he’s happy about it. He says he hasn’t played in a long time.
I went to the dentist this morning. I was supposed to go with Mom, but she wasn’t dressed. Aunt Frannie came instead. We rode the bus together and she let me use her Walkman. Aunt Frannie works for a lawyer, and her office is on the 21st floor of a building I can see from my window. I don’t remember the name of it, though. Something Marie.
On the way back, we shared a peanut butter cup. Those are my favorites.
“Your mom’s gonna feel better soon. She’s got the blues, that’s all.”
The blues.
I’m not sure what that is. It probably has something to do with blood. I read that blood is actually blue. It only becomes red when it’s out in the open. That’s my nickname. Red. A lot of people call me that. Because of my hair.
A lot of people call Nick Blue. I don’t know why, though. Maybe it’s because of his eyes. They’re so blue, they make the sky look green.
Aunt Frannie says she might move in with us. Just for a while.
When I came home, I took my finger paint out of my closet. It was still pretty good, so I mixed the red and blue together.
The colors turned into purple. I made a purple heart and wrote Nick’s name inside.
Then I gagged. I cut the heart all up with our kitchen scissors and flushed the pieces down the toilet.
* * * *
Bump,
School starts in two weeks. I already packed my school bag. It sits by the door, waiting.
This summer is really long. All the days seem to be wearing the same clothes. It’s hard to tell them apart. Aunt Frannie says grownups feel that way all the time. “Sometimes I have to check the calendar to remember what year it is.”
I think grownups don’t know what year it is because they don’t celebrate their birthdays.
Mom’s blues haven’t healed yet.
Aunt Frannie says, “It’s like when you empty the tub, Red. It takes a while to fill it back up.”
I wish I could fill Mom up.
The only days I enjoy are Saturdays. That’s when I get to play chess with Mr. Lund. Johan. He asked me to call him Johan. It’s pronounced Yo Ann. We play on the back porch. Mrs. Lund, Helga, serves tea and ham sandwiches. The ham isn’t the kind Mom buys. It doesn’t have any purple spots on it and doesn’t sweat. Their bread is almost black and kind of hard, but I like it. Sometimes Helga makes a fruit salad and tops that with whipped cream.
Dad doesn’t like me eating their food. “We got plenty of food in the fridge. It ain’t good enough for you, now?”
We don’t have plenty of food in the fridge. Since the day you didn’t come home, all we eat is Spam and tuna. Sometimes Dad buys bananas. I had cheddar popcorn for supper last night.
Aunt Frannie lived with us for three days, but she left. She called me later that week. “Have you read Treasure Island?”
I hadn’t.
She seemed to hold her breath and then whispered, “Red, I’ll bring it over next time I come. Be a good boy. Keep dreaming.”
She hasn’t come yet.
* * * *
Dear Bump,
I dreamed about you last night, but I don’t remember what we were doing, only that you were in your crib, the one the pumpkin girl took, and there was a snowstorm outside.
I was in the hospital yesterday. On account of Boone, you know.
None of it is my fault. It was all his idea. I just did what he asked.
Here’s what happened.
So yesterday, I was in my bedroom playing my records, (most of them are scratched, but the Michael Jackson one Aunt Frannie got me last year is still good) practicing my moonwalk dance, going from my dresser all the way to the mirror, when Boone knocked on my window.
I climbed on my bed and slid open the window. “Aren’t you—ou grounded?”
He shrugged. “Dunno.”
Lene told me Boone gets into so much trouble, Mrs. Lund has a special calendar so she can keep track of his different punishments. She doesn’t forget any.
Boone took a little notepad out of his pocket. “I need a plastic bag and, uh, some cotton balls, okay?”
I didn’t like the sound of that. “What f—for?”
“Oh, and make sure the bag doesn’t have any holes in it. Meet me in the school yard, behind the green Dumpster. In five minutes.”
I shouldn’t have gone, but you don’t know Boone, and you haven’t seen him smile. Boone is the only happy person I know. If it weren’t for him, I would have never made it alive to high school. At recess, the boys don’t mess with me anymore because they’re scared of Boone, and the ones who aren’t, well, they’re terrified of Nick. Everyone knows about what happened to the boy who tripped Boone last year.
He walked funny for three weeks.
I got a bag out from under the sink, those grocery bags we use for the kitchen garbage, and some cotton balls from the medicine cabinet. I didn’t know how many he wanted, so I grabbed two handfuls and put those in the bag.
I snuck out the back door and walked to school. The fence was locked, so I climbed over it, being careful not to rip my gym shorts.
I found Boone and JF crouching behind the Dumpster. “Finally,” Boone said, looking up at me.
“What took you so long, Carrot Head?” JF eyeballed me.
I hate JF. I guess he hates me, too, but he can’t do anything abou
t it because Boone doesn’t let him be mean to me.
“Shut up, JF,” Boone snapped. “Besides, O’Reilly’s hair isn’t even orange, you dimwit, it’s red. “
I smiled victoriously and handed Boone the bag full of cotton balls. “What do you p—plan on doing with this stuff any—anyway?”
JF giggled. “Idiot.”
Boone shoved him in the ribs. “Quit it.” He’d brought his WWF backpack, and when he opened it, I think JF and I both held our breaths. Who knew what he’d pull out of that bag? But when he took out a small flask with what looked like water in it, our mouths sagged with disappointment.
JF scoffed. “Wow. Water. How exciting.”
“Here, Red, smell it and tell this retard it isn’t water.”
Boone handed me the bottle. It looked like a maple syrup bottle, only smaller. On the label, there was a drawing of a woman’s hand. I didn’t really want to smell it, but they were both staring at me with wide, eager eyes, so I twisted the cap and right away, got a good whiff of it. Made me gag. “What is th—this stuff? It smells like your d—dad’s ga—garage.”
Boone grinned. “It’s nail polish remover…Remember when that cop came to school last year?”
I remembered him. Officer Di Paglio. He’d brought his German Shepard dog and a whole bunch of other things. He’d stretched a black cloth over a table in the gymnasium and laid out all of these fascinating objects. Of course, we weren’t allowed to touch them, but we could all go up and look at them. He’d made a sign that read Drug Paraphernalia. I didn’t really understand all of it, but I remember Boone’s face that morning. I’d never seem him so focused and attentive. Not even in Sex Ed class.
JF still wasn’t impressed. “So, we’re gonna do our nails like a bunch of fags?”
Boone shot him a mean look. “Weren’t you two paying attention that day? We’re not gonna use it. We’re gonna sniff it.”
I should have said something, but I was way over my head already.
JF was quiet all of a sudden. “Oh, all right,” he finally said. “What’s the big deal? I mean, what’s gonna happen if we do?”