At the Edge of the Universe

by Shaun David Hutchinson

  “I love you, Lu.”

  Lua pursed his lips. “Yeah, I know, Oz.”

  He let his thought trail off. I understood what he was thinking, though. It’s how I felt about Tommy. Lua was my best friend, and he would always be part of my life, even if he went on tour and I went to college and we didn’t talk for months at a time. We were on planets in different galaxies, and Jaime was for Lua, as Tommy was for me, the sun around which we orbited. Ours, and no one else’s.

  “Oh!” I snapped my fingers, hoping to change the subject. “Speaking of Jaime . . . well, not Jaime, but of guys we hate who totally love you and want to have sex with you. You’ll never guess who I saw at the club.”

  “If you’re going to say Mr. Blakemore, I saw him there a few weeks ago.” Lua leaned back in the booth and stretched his arms over his head. “I watched him twerk. High school teachers should not twerk.”

  “No one should twerk,” I said. Lua’s fun fact should have surprised me, but it didn’t. Any person as persnickety as Blakemore was probably repressing some serious freak tendencies. Still, it was weird to think about teachers having lives and doing things other than grading papers and getting high on the smell of red ink. “But that’s not who I’m talking about.”

  “Don’t toy with me, Ozzie. Spill it.”

  “Trent Williams.”

  Lua’s mouth dropped open, which was exactly the response I’d hoped for. I grabbed my phone off the table and quickly snapped a picture. He slapped at me. “Asshole!”

  “That one’s going on SnowFlake,” I said, and I was already uploading it.

  “Trent was really at a/s/l?”

  “He tried to buy a shirt,” I said. “No, correction: He tried to steal a shirt.”

  “What’d he say? Tell me everything.”

  So, of course, I did. When I finished, Lua said, “You invited him to IHOP?”

  I poured myself another cup of the World’s Shittiest Coffee from the carafe our server had left on the table. “Come on, Lu. You know he’s into you.”

  “I don’t think Trent knows what he’s into.” Lua blinked rapidly, still shocked at learning Trent Williams had gone to a/s/l of his own volition.

  “Who are we to judge? We certainly don’t fit the textbook definition of normal.”

  “I know for a fact he hooked up with Aja Shapiro, though she is pretty hot. I’d hook up with her if given the chance.” Lua’s eyes seemed unfocused and far away. “Do you really think Trent’s got a thing for me?”

  I stirred three single-serve creamers and eight packets of sugar into my coffee. “He showed up at a gay club on the night you were playing.” I narrowed my eyes at Lua. “The real question is: Do you have a thing for him?”

  “Even if I thought he was good-looking, which I’m not saying I do, he probably only sees me as a novelty act in his perverted mental circus.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “Yeah, Ozzie, I do.” Lua bit his lip. “Jaime never cared what was under my clothes. He loved me for me. Do you honestly believe Trent Williams is that enlightened?”

  “No,” I said.

  Lua nodded authoritatively. “Remember that list going around last year? The one that assigned points to each girl in our class.”

  “And the guys earned the points by having sex with the girls? I remember. Unfortunately.”

  “Trent started that list.”

  “Sometimes guys overcompensate,” I said.

  “Bullshit excuse. Overcompensating for insecurity and a tiny penis doesn’t give guys the right to treat girls like shit.”

  I held up my hands. “I’m not excusing him, but it’s like Dustin said: There’s a lot of pressure on guys to be one thing or the other. Girls can experiment with other girls, and it’s cool—”

  “What a crock of shit!” Lua sputtered, and shook his head. “You’re an idiot if you think that’s true.”

  “It’s a little true.”

  “No, Ozzie, it’s not. Girls don’t get a free pass to experiment. That’s a fiction cooked up by men and played out in television and movies so they can fetishize girls hooking up, but it’s nowhere even close to reality.”

  “Fine, but if a guy even thinks about experimenting with a guy, he’s definitely gay and no one will ever believe otherwise.” I sipped my coffee, which was basically milky brown sugar water, and grimaced. “Plus, Trent’s dad played professional football, so I bet he puts insane pressure on Trent to be this übermacho, bang-all-the-girls guy’s guy.”

  “Boo-fucking-hoo,” Lua said. “Lot’s of people whose lives suck don’t grow up to be assholes.” Lua’s attention wavered when the Rocky table spontaneously burst into song. For a moment, I thought he was going to join them, but then he said, “Enough about Trent. Tell me more about Calvin and the teacher. Was it Mr. Bergen? I’ve always gotten I’ve-got-candy-in-my-van vibes off of him.”

  I shook my head. “Calvin didn’t give me a name.”

  “Well, that’s not fair.”

  “I think the guy is the reason for his dark-side transformation.”

  “Can you blame him?” Lua licked his lips. Most of his glitter lipstick had worn off, leaving them pale and somewhat shimmery. “Being in love is tough enough without the person you’re in love with being an adult who took advantage of you.”

  Which was true. Thinking about losing Tommy was enough to make me want to curl into a ball in the corner of my room and never leave. I couldn’t imagine what Calvin was going through. “I think it’s more than that, though,” I said. “I think what happened with the teacher was just the trigger.”

  “Maybe he is depressed. Maybe it was always inside of him, and this just brought it to the surface.” Lua paused. “Like how Dinah gets. Sometimes I think if she didn’t work, she’d lie on the couch all day and eat pickles.”

  Ms. Novak had never hidden her depression. Lua had lived with his grandparents for a few months in seventh grade because Dinah had checked herself into a psychiatric hospital. When she got out, she’d talked to me and Lua about it, explaining her illness and how she was fighting it. I’d always admired Dinah’s openness.

  “Either way, I think that teacher definitely screwed him up,” I said.

  “Do you think the teacher molested him?”

  “Calvin says it was consensual, but how could it be? He’s only sixteen.”

  “I thought Calvin was seventeen?”

  I shook my head. “He skipped a grade in middle school.”

  Lua formed an O with his mouth. “Yeah, well, I can definitely see how having sex with a teacher could have fucked with his head.”

  “I just wish there was something I could do.”

  “Have you considered telling his dad?”

  “I thought about it,” I said. “But if I rat him out, he’ll hate me. Besides, he promised he wouldn’t cut himself anymore, so I don’t think he’s a danger to himself or anything.”

  Lua rolled his eyes. “Is that your expert opinion, Dr. Pinkerton?”

  Maybe Lua was right. I’d always felt guilty I hadn’t called the police about Tommy’s father beating on him, and getting Calvin the help he needed might have been my chance to make up for that, but Calvin’s situation was more complicated, and I wasn’t prepared to make any decisions about it at IHOP. “We should probably get home,” I said, rather than answer.

  Lua and I fought over the bill while the poor waitress stood behind the register unsure what to do. Lua finally won, but I slipped twenty bucks into his jacket pocket while he rocked a victory dance.

  When we walked out to the parking lot, Trent Williams was sitting on my trunk with his arms folded across his chest.

  “What the hell?” I muttered.

  Trent hopped down when he saw us.

  “What’re you doing here?” Lua asked, his voice defiant.

  “Pink Lady invited me.”

  “Well, you’re late, and we’re going home.” Lua tried to walk to the passenger side, but Trent blocked his path. “You
don’t want to mess with me, Trent.” Lua was barely five feet tall, but he’d never backed down from anyone. I used to think he overcompensated for his lack of height with aggressiveness, but time had taught me that Lua was simply fearless.

  When I tried to push myself between Lua and Trent, I smelled booze on Trent’s breath. “Go home, Trent.”

  “What’s your problem? I just want to talk to the he-she for a minute.”

  Oh shit, I thought.

  Lua balled his fists and clenched his jaw. He stood straighter and looked Trent dead in the eyes.

  I had a good four inches on Trent, but the guy had rocks for brains and muscles. If we fought, I’d lose. But I wasn’t as worried about Trent starting a fight as I was about Lua starting one.

  “Dude, you’re drunk,” I said. “I’ll give you a ride home, but you have to cut this shit out.”

  Trent shoved me back. “I don’t need a ride from the pansy patrol. I just wanna talk to Lua.”

  I fished my keys out of my pocket and unlocked the car doors with the fob. “Come on, Lua, let’s get out of here.”

  I was worried I’d need to wrestle Lua into the car to keep him from throwing down with Trent, but I was relieved when Lua opened the door and started to climb inside.

  Trent lurched forward and slammed the door shut.

  A high-pitched wail ripped from Lua’s throat, raw and animalistic. I’d never heard a sound that hopeless in my life and I never want to again. He was screaming and screaming, and I felt his pain like it was my own.

  Trent was going, “Fuck! Oh fuck! Fuck! I’m sorry!” and he grabbed the handle and pulled the door open again.

  Without hesitation Lua kneed Trent in the balls, and it wasn’t some halfhearted move, either. Lua folded him.

  “What happened?” I ran around to their side. Lua was cradling his hand against his chest.

  “That asshole slammed my fingers in the door!” Lua said. Trent was still moaning on the ground, clutching his balls, and Lua kicked him in the arm with his steel-toed boot.

  I tried to coax Lua into letting me look at his hand, but he protected it like a wounded bird. His fingers, from what I could see, were already swelling and bruised.

  “Shit, Ozzie. Shit, I think he broke my fingers.”

  “I’m calling the cops,” I said. I already had my phone out and was dialing.

  Lua shook his head. “Don’t. Let’s just go.”

  “He assaulted you, Lua!”

  “I don’t care about him!” Lua screamed. “I can’t play guitar without my fingers, Ozzie, don’t you get it? I need to go to the hospital right now!”

  I hustled Lua into the car and left Trent moaning in pain in the parking lot.

  • • •

  Dinah ran into the hospital a little after two a.m., straight from a date and dressed in a short black skirt. Trent had broken three of Lua’s fingers. His index was fractured in two places and would require surgery. The whole time we were waiting for the X-rays, Lua kept saying, “How am I supposed to play now?”

  I wished I had an answer, but I didn’t.

  382,011 KM

  LUA HELD UP HER PURPLE-AND-GREEN fingers for Calvin and Dustin to see as we sat at our usual lunch table. The emergency room doctor had splinted her fingers the best he could, but they still looked deformed.

  “Do you want me to murder him for you?” Dustin asked. He looked past me, across the lunchroom toward Trent, who looked no worse for wear. I’d called the police on the way to the hospital to report a drunk guy in the parking lot of IHOP trying to drive home, but he must have either left before the cops had arrived, or managed to talk his way out of it, and it made me hate him more.

  Lua shook her head. She’d refused my calls over the weekend and hadn’t said much since she’d arrived at lunch. All the air had leaked out of her. She’d even subdued her normally flamboyant wardrobe. Wearing jeans and a black blouse, Lua looked so aggressively normal.

  “You’ll be able to play again, right?” Calvin said. I’d filled him in on what had happened, and he’d spent the rest of the weekend beating himself up for skipping the show, like he could have stopped Trent. Okay, maybe he could have. Calvin was probably the one person, other than Lua, who could’ve taken Trent in a fight.

  Lua shook her head.

  “But the doctor said if you get surgery on your index finger, they can put some pins in to make sure it heals properly.” Lua had forced the doctor to explain it five times.

  “And where the hell am I supposed to get the money for that?” Lua asked.

  I hugged Lua, wrapping my arms around her shoulders, but she pushed me away.

  “I’m just trying to help, Lu.”

  “I don’t want your help.” She looked around the table, challenging each of us. “We don’t have insurance. So no surgery, no tour. No music career.”

  “What about—” Dustin began, but Lua slammed her good fist on the lunch table, causing her tray to jump.

  “I can’t deal with this right now.” Lua stood and walked out of the cafeteria.

  “Should one of you go after her?” Calvin asked.

  “Let her be for now,” I said. “She just needs time.”

  Dustin started in on how expensive hand surgery would be without insurance, but I’d stopped listening and stared at Trent with his friends. He was eating his lunch and laughing like he hadn’t ruined Lua’s life. The longer I watched him, the louder the monster in my chest growled, clawing at the back of my ribs, demanding I set it free.

  When the bell rang, dismissing lunch, I marched across the cafeteria, right up to Trent.

  And I shoved him.

  “What the hell?”

  Trent was surrounded by his friends, but I didn’t care if they piled on and beat the shit out of me. I pushed him again. “You broke Lua’s fingers,” I said. “Did you know that? She can’t play guitar now.”

  Mason Kang grunted something that sounded like “Fuck the kid up,” and a couple of Trent’s other friends urged him to knock me down, but Trent kept his fists at his sides.

  “She was supposed to go on tour at the end of the summer, but you’ve ruined her chance to get out of this shithole town because she can’t afford the surgery to fix her finger.”

  “I didn’t know,” Trent said.

  “That’s because you’re an entitled, selfish asshole who doesn’t care about anyone but himself!”

  I didn’t know Calvin had followed me, but now he tried to pull me out of the crowd that had grown around us. “Come on, Ozzie,” he said. “Before Mr. Fletcher gets here.”

  I jabbed Trent in the chest. “I hope you get everything you ever wanted, Trent. And then I hope someone burns it all to the ground.”

  Mason surged forward, but Calvin blocked his path and said, “Bad idea, Kang.”

  I don’t know. I don’t know what I expected from Trent. Remorse maybe? Some acknowledgment that he understood how badly he’d screwed up Lua’s life? Instead, he puffed out his chest and said, “Whatever. Her band sucked anyway.”

  Calvin grabbed me by the back of my shirt before I could attack. He locked his arms around me and half pushed, half dragged me out of the cafeteria.

  • • •

  Dr. Greg Nelson played with his stylus, tapping the rubber nub on his leg.

  “How big is the universe?” I asked.

  “I asked you why you thought you were here,” he said.

  “Humor me, all right?”

  Nelson pursed his lips, but nodded. “About three hundred and eighty thousand kilometers.”

  “Three hundred eighty-two thousand and eleven kilometers, to be exact,” I said. “It ends just past the moon.”

  “Oswald, I’d like to talk about you, not the universe.”

  I shifted on the couch, trying to find a comfortable spot, but the cushions were lumpy and a spring kept poking me in the butt. “Where does daylight come from?”

  Dr. Nelson stopped fidgeting. He looked at me, his vague smile frozen. “I don�
��t follow.”

  “The universe. It consists of Earth and the moon, right? So where does daylight come from?” I didn’t wait for him to answer. “There used to be a sun, a star in the center of our solar system. That’s what generated the light and heat for our planet. But it’s gone, so what warms the planet? Why isn’t it dark all the time?”

  “Solar system? Star? I’m not familiar with those terms, Ozzie,” he said. “Now, I’d like to talk about you. Tell me how you’re doing.”

  Right. Why would there be a word for a thing that doesn’t exist? The word “universe” comes from an Old French word, which itself was derived from the Latin word “universum.” It means: all. Everything. The totality of existence. Which had shrunk to include nothing more than the moon after Trent broke Lua’s hand.

  “I’m fine,” I said. “Everything’s fine.” I stopped and thought about it, then said, “You know what? No. Everything’s not fine. My best friend’s dream was destroyed by a prick who doesn’t give a fuck, and I can’t fix it; I can’t let myself feel things for the guy I like who’s actually around because I refuse to give up on the guy I love who no one else believes exists; my parents suck; my brother’s gone; and no one can tell me where the light comes from without a goddamn sun!”

  Dr. Nelson retrieved his tablet from beside his chair and wrote something on the screen with his stylus. “I’m going to recommend to your parents that you meet with a psychiatrist.”

  “You have got to be kidding me.”

  “In addition to our sessions, I believe you would benefit from medication, so I’m referring you to Dr. Taylor Laurie for evaluation.” He finished writing and set his tablet aside.

  I shook my head. “No. Screw that. I don’t need medication. There’s nothing wrong with me.”

  Dr. Nelson’s smile smoothed out like he was speaking to a wild animal. “You probably have some misconceptions about psychiatric medications, but they’re not going to turn you into a zombie or alter your personality. They might, however, help you strengthen your grip on reality.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with my grip on reality. You all are the ones incapable of seeing what’s really going on.”