I text her back, That was beautiful. You should put that online.
Thank you. Like where? she replies a moment later.
I think of the time Devon had a blog called “All the Things in Appleton That Smell Bad.” It was short-lived but funny.
You should do a blog.
Maybe. Thanks for reading it.
Thanks for sharing it.
Good night!
I look back over her article, and a couple of lines stand out.
What brokenness inside us could be repaired?
What yearnings could finally be satisfied?
Good questions, Marvel. I’m just not so sure your Superman really does await. ’Cause I’ve been waiting a long time and still don’t see any sign of him.
Maybe I’m wrong, though. Maybe the signs have started popping up everywhere.
“No.”
It’s the one word I can’t hear my mom tell me.
“It’s just for one day,” I say to her. Again.
Mom is cleaning up after dinner, and I was hoping to ask her at a busy time. She acts like she’s already had a conversation with Dad.
“Your father isn’t going to let you go to an expensive concert. Even if the ticket was given to you.”
“I already told them I was going,” I say.
“You’ll have to tell them you’re not going anymore.”
“Mom, seriously—”
“Talk to your father then.”
Whenever Mom says this, I know I’m done. There’s no way I’m going to talk to Dad about Lollapalooza.
“Mom, can you just talk to him?”
She hands me the ketchup and mustard. “Put this away while you’re here.”
We had hamburgers and hot dogs on the grill. Grilling is just another excuse for Dad to drink. Like a sporting event. Or a holiday. Or breathing.
Carter comes in and asks what I’m wanting. “Nothing,” I tell him.
“He wants to go to a concert in Chicago,” says Mom. “Where were you during dinner?”
“I was playing basketball at the Grambs’.”
Carter can get away with things because he’s athletic and Dad loves him. Sometimes it drives me crazy, because I think he’s always playing the jock card.
“What concert?” he asks, going to the fridge and getting out the burgers we just put into a container. “Hey, where’s the ketchup?”
I want to pour the ketchup over his head. “Here you go.” I toss it, and of course he catches it without even thinking about it.
“I bet if there was some kind of sporting event, Carter’d be able to go,” I say to Mom.
She ignores me, but Carter takes a bit of a cold hamburger and nods. “Yeah, probably.”
There might be a time when he’s going to need me for something, and if and when he does, well, I just might not be around.
Yeah, right.
“Mom, just this one time, please, that’s all I ask.”
But Mom doesn’t want to hear it. She’s moved on. The only thing I can do is try to do the same.
A couple of days later I’m still debating whether to completely disobey my mother or just try to sell the ticket and give Harry his money back. I’m sure Marvel will understand. I’m also sure she’ll still want me to go to church with her.
I’m driving Glyn’s truck far more often this summer than I thought I would be. It’s rattling and I’m hoping it doesn’t break down with me in the driver’s seat.
I head down the busy street toward the water tower. I’ve passed it a thousand times before. It says Appleton in big letters, and underneath: A Small Place with Big Potential. The guys and I joke about that phrase a lot. But as I drive toward it, suddenly the saying doesn’t seem funny.
Suddenly the water tower is blank.
Since the sun is bright I blink several times to determine whether what I’m seeing is real. That’s when the words change.
DON’T STOP
I blink and hold my eyes closed, then look again.
JUST GO
When I see these two words, I almost crash the truck I’m driving. I steady it and drive past the water tower at forty miles an hour. In the mirror I look for writing anywhere else, but I don’t see anything. I’m not about to slow down.
I just made that up. That didn’t just happen.
But I can blink and still see those words.
Don’t stop.
Just go.
Really? Am I seriously losing it or something?
I’m at a Kane County Cougars game with Devon and his family when I get a text.
Just completely lost it. Bawling like a baby. Wish I could see you.
Some things in life don’t need second-guessing.
Devon had driven us to the minor league baseball field, and his parents had come separately. I turn to him and say, “Hey, can I borrow your Jeep?”
For a second he gives me an odd look. Devon knows I wouldn’t ask to borrow his new Jeep without a serious reason. I show him Marvel’s text.
“She just sent this?”
I nod.
“Okay then.” He hands me the keys. “I can ride home with my parents. Just let me know when you’ll bring it back.”
“I seriously owe you, man.”
Devon explains that I have a family emergency, and I thank his parents and take off. As I’m walking toward the parking lot, I text Marvel back.
Where can I meet you? Tonight I have a car.
I’m in the library.
So what kind of book are you reading? I ask, trying to be funny.
I’ll be waiting outside.
I take her to this little burger and ice cream joint that’s only open in warm weather. We both get ice cream cones, though it seems like neither of us is very hungry. We sit at a table next to an older couple working on some kind of sundae and another table with a family all eating cones.
“So what’s up?”
“Everything,” Marvel says.
I nod, not sure what everything refers to and hoping I’m not a part of it.
“I was reading an article about Artie. I’ve stayed away from watching the news about it, but I came across a newspaper giving details. It’s awful.”
“Yeah.”
“I’m scared. I’m scared that things are only going to get worse.”
“Why? We’re probably safer now than we’ve ever been before. I swear I’ve lost track how many times during the day I see random cop cars patrolling, waiting for anything weird.”
“I just think of the next year and it’s overwhelming,” she says, sounding weak and defeated.
“Look, I’ll help you out in any way I can at school.”
“I know—thank you. It’s not that.”
“It’s just a little bit of everything, huh?”
“The book of Revelation—which I don’t understand at all, to be honest—says that in heaven there will be no night and no need for lamps or sun because the Lord will shine on us. I love thinking about that. I love thinking that the darkness won’t have a place anymore. The darkness outside and the darkness in our hearts.”
I keep eating my ice cream cone. How can I respond to something like that?
“I know you think I’m crazy,” Marvel says.
“No, I don’t. Honestly.”
“A little crazy then.”
“Yeah, sure. But so am I.”
“Thank you, Brandon. Thanks for being so kind to me this summer.”
I nod. “You’re different from the girls around here.”
“I’m different from most people. Always have been.”
“Different is good,” I say.
“Sometimes.”
“I can’t wait to go to Lollapalooza. The weather looks like it’s going to be nice.”
“I’ll try to be in better spirits.”
“I like the fact that you can be honest about being sad. I think . . . I think I’ve gone a long time not thinking about my feelings. Maybe thinking I shouldn’t even have them. I’m the oldest of three g
uys, and one thing my father has tried to get me to believe is that I just gotta suck it up. Be a man and take the hits and blah blah blah.”
“Blah blah blah,” Marvel says with a smile.
“Yeah, and I think I’ve gotten used to sorta believing it and not being emotional and all that. But then I meet you.”
“A real basket case.”
“Are you kidding? You have it all together, considering everything.”
“I hide it well,” Marvel says.
“I think we all do. I think everybody has secrets. Every family. Some are worse—or more weird—than others. But we all have them. And it’s cool to meet someone who is a little more up front about them.”
Marvel smiles, but she seems sad again.
“Hey—okay, now what’d I say?” I ask.
“Nothing. Nothing. You’re precious, you know that?”
“That makes me sound like a kitten.”
“Kittens are special.”
“Please,” I say. “I’ll be anything other than a kitten.”
She smiles, and everything inside of me wants to lean over the table and kiss those smiling lips. But I’m precious, and precious people don’t do that sort of thing, right?
It doesn’t matter what I am. It matters that I can sit here with her and make her smile and try not to think of the overwhelming next year. Whatever it brings, I want Marvel to know I’ll be around.
On the way home from Devon’s house, close to eleven o’clock, I see a figure standing in someone’s lawn across the street underneath some trees. For a second, I wonder if it’s my father. But Dad wouldn’t be hiding. If he came out here to find me, he’d find me. He wouldn’t worry about hiding in the shadows.
I stop for a moment and look. If it’s some weirdo, he’ll go away. But this person just stands there. It’s clear that I’m looking at him, not moving in any way.
I keep walking down the sidewalk, and the figure across the street moves too, keeping pace with me.
“Hey—you need something over there?” I call.
I think of all the times Mom has told us to be careful, all the cop warnings, all the adults telling us not to be out alone at night. I can hear Harry saying, “What are you doing, you idiot?” But after being around Marvel all night, I’m feeling high and a bit cocky.
The figure stands there. He’s wearing a sweatshirt with the hood up. Half of me wants to walk over and see who it is.
“Can I help you?” I say.
The shadow just stays there, waiting, watching. It’s seriously creepy. Was this what happened to Artie? Was he followed slowly, then lost track of the figure until it was upon him and started cutting him all over?
Stop that now, Brandon.
I keep walking, constantly looking over to make sure he’s there. To make sure he’s not suddenly sprinting toward me with a meat cleaver in his hand. My house is only six houses away. The figure moves with me until we hear a car approaching. Then I see an SUV passing, and the creeper suddenly disappears.
I make it to the house safely. For now.
He might have just been trying to scare me, whoever this weirdo is. But he doesn’t have a clue that the thing I’m most scared of resides behind the door I quietly open.
Thankfully, it appears I’m safe for the night.
I see a car driving at eighty miles an hour down a lonely road in the middle of the country. No, it’s not the country, it’s a suburb west of Appleton. I can’t tell if the car is racing toward me or away. Something about this car is not right.
Then I see a helicopter following, and as my view pans away I see multiple cop cars following from all directions. Soon the racing car stops and the driver gets out and runs into a field. Maybe I’ve seen this before in a movie and that’s why I’m dreaming about it now, but it feels very real. It seems like I know who the driver is.
Is that me?
But I don’t think it’s me. I try to make out the face, and then I see figures dressed like a SWAT team racing out to surround the person. He raises his hands and the figures swarm around him, forcing him to the ground.
More cop cars arrive on the scene. Whatever this guy has done, it’s bad. It’s really awful.
I keep trying to look at his face to see if it’s someone I know, a friend or an enemy or a casual acquaintance. But there is no face to see. Only laughter. Awful laughter. The kind that’s loud and awful enough to wake me up.
For a moment I swear I can see blood on my hands. But it’s dark and it’s three in the morning and I’m imagining things. Bizarre and crazy things that hopefully don’t mean anything. That hopefully are just wacky dreams.
We sit facing the front of the Metra train. About a third of the people in our train are heading to the same destination. I can tell because of their wristbands and concert wear, and also because about half look seriously wasted. I can’t imagine spending a whole weekend at Lollapalooza with a hundred thousand other people. The fortysomething guy who looks like the walking dead maybe should’ve just imagined it instead of living it.
Marvel takes out her phone. I see she’s got headphones attached to it. She’s wearing a tank top with yet another flowery dress and matching floral beads around her head. She seriously seems like she could have been teleported from the seventies.
“Gonna just listen to your own music?” I ask.
“It’s funny that you got me to go to this show, since I like music more than you do.”
“I like music.”
“Really. Name your top bands.”
Nothing really comes to mind. I rattle off a few bands just to name them.
“Come on,” Marvel says. “Seriously. Here, I’m going to play you some of my favorites.”
“Oh, no. Here we go. Stevie Nicks marathon.”
She shakes her head. “No, that’s too cliché. I’m going to play you some of my favorites that are out now.”
For the next twenty minutes, as we stop at every town on the train line heading east into Chicago, Marvel plays me her special Lollapalooza set list. Some of the music is from bands playing today. Others are just songs she loves. Or, in her words, “beloved songs.”
The one thing about all these songs is that they’re unique. Like Marvel. They sound like someone I’ve heard before but they’re doing their own thing in a unique way. I make fun of a few of the contemporary songs, but they’re all good. As we near the train station downtown, I start to take off the headphones, but Marvel makes me keep them on.
“Listen to the last song.”
I fast-forward to get to it.
“That’s a special song to me,” she says as she takes an earbud out of one of my ears, then sticks it back in.
The song starts slow with a high-pitched female voice singing and a violin playing along. Then I hear the chorus. The word fear stands out. I glance at Marvel watching me, watching as someone else sings words that obviously mean something to her.
“I fear I have nothing to give,” the singer sings.
It’s a hypnotic, trancelike song that fits with the jittery motion of the train and the buildings going past. Marvel watches me, so intense and so there. So right there with me in this song. It fades away just as the train heads into the station.
“That was great,” I say.
She nods and takes the headphones. She doesn’t want to elaborate, and that’s okay. Sometimes that’s what songs do. Say the words we’re too frightened to try to get out.
“Marvel . . . ,” I say before the train has stopped and we’re moving with the crowd.
“Yeah?”
“Thanks.”
I want her to know that I get it. That I appreciate it. That I maybe understand just a little more. Just a little more and that’s great. That’s really great because I wasn’t expecting it.
I’m going to be grounded for a year after this day, not to mention the wrath I’m going to take from the monster at home. But that’s okay. Just for this train ride alone, it’s worth it.
It happens in t
he late afternoon, around five thirty or so. Something magical and completely mysterious. Like the girl next to me.
It’s a perfect Sunday afternoon, about twenty degrees cooler than usual for this time of year, with a soft breeze coming off the lake. Maybe Chicago knew Marvel was coming and wanted to welcome her. We’ve watched a few groups, and it’s been fun. Everyone’s in good spirits and lots of people are stretched out on the grass and dirt of Grant Park. We’re checking out this group called Alt-J that’s unlike anything I’ve ever heard. They’re funky and groovy (perfect for a seventies vibe) with some amazing percussion and a singer who goes really high and sings strange words.
The clouds have come in. Not storm clouds, but the kind that seem to be hazy like some kind of cool color-altering photo app on your phone. The sun cuts through them as this band plays. Marvel and I are standing as we have before, side by side, like friends would do. But a strange dude dancing to the music causes Marvel to move in front of me. She stays there, since we’re surrounded by people.
The band plays a slow song that starts to build. Maybe it’s because I’ve been around her all day, and maybe it’s because I’m just embracing the moment. Or maybe it’s because it’s finally time. I don’t know. I just know that I move toward Marvel and slip my arms around her, holding her from behind. She doesn’t jerk or elbow me or ask what in the world I’m doing. She stays and even seems to lean back a bit to let me know this is okay.
“A wave, an awesome wave,” the guy sings.
And yes, it’s an awesome wave.
I see birds flying above, a couple of them seeming to dance together, watching all of us from so high, doing their ballet in the clouds in case we’re watching.
I hold this girl I still barely know but want to fully know in every way possible. This girl I went to church with this morning, this girl I know has gone through hell in the past year, this girl who is just like I am, a girl who is just trying to get by.
I hold her and hope it will mean something tomorrow and the next day. I didn’t expect to meet her this summer, but her smile walked into the room and has remained in my mind ever since. The wind blows against us and the crowd stirs with electricity and I know that as long as I live, I’ll never forget this moment.
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