At the Edge of the Universe

by Shaun David Hutchinson

  “Drink up, guys,” Dustin said.

  “Lua here?” I asked.

  Dustin took a hit off the bong and blew a jet of hazy smoke toward the ceiling. “Not yet. Maybe. Honestly, I don’t know. This couch is my entire universe tonight.”

  “I know the feeling,” I said.

  “I’ll help you look,” he said. “Am I standing up? I’m definitely standing, right?”

  “Still sitting.”

  Dustin patted the couch. “You should join us.”

  “Maybe later,” I said. “I want to find Lua first.”

  Cal nudged me. “Mind if I . . . ?”

  “Yeah!” Dustin said, and shoved some guy with blond dreadlocks aside to make room for Calvin. “Calvin’s cool, Oz. How did we never know he was so freaking cool?” He grinned at Cal.

  “I’ll be back?” I said.

  “And I’ll be here.” Cal flopped down on the couch beside Dustin, who was already packing the bowl.

  I rarely understood Calvin. It was like his emotions were controlled by a single switch he randomly flipped on and off. We’d spent enough time together for me to recognize a few of the triggers that shut him down—college, wrestling, his mother—but sometimes we’d be hanging out in his room and he’d be talking furiously with his hands, arguing with me about a new theory I’d floated for why the universe was shrinking, and then he’d stop cold and go monosyllabic for the rest of the day.

  I figured so long as he wasn’t hurting himself, I didn’t need to tell his father, but I still worried about him.

  Besides, Calvin’s behavior wasn’t that unusual when compared to the rest of the senior class. As we neared graduation, and floods of college acceptance and rejection letters rushed toward mailboxes throughout Cloud Lake, a lot of students had started freaking out. The other day at lunch, Jocelyn Nash had thrown a plate of meatloaf at Devi Chad and then stormed out of the cafeteria because Devi got accepted to FSU while Jocelyn had been wait-listed, but who the hell throws meatloaf over something like that? And Stephen Malik showed up to school with a giant tribal tattoo on his neck, telling everyone it didn’t matter since he wasn’t going to college and would probably end up working at a convenience store. The tattoo turned out to be temporary, though I wasn’t as sure about Stephen’s nihilism.

  So it wasn’t just Calvin who was stressing over the great looming unknown. Only, I suspected the source of Calvin’s behavior ran deeper and was connected to the teacher he said he’d had sex with, which I hadn’t worked up the courage to press him for more details about. I wanted to help him, but he needed to tell me on his own terms.

  I wandered through the house, checking each room for Lua. I found Jaime and Birdie Johnson making out in the kitchen, and kids in other rooms drinking and talking. Dustin’s party was quieter than the one party I’d gone to at Trent’s. No one had trashed Dustin’s house—yet—and the neighbors hadn’t called the cops. We were just a bunch of soon-to-be sort-of adults enjoying our last days of wasted youth.

  I was heading back to the living room to check on Calvin when I spied a lone figure on the patio by the pool. I peeked my head out the sliding glass door, and Lua’s bright green hair—because pink was so yesterday—shone like a neon beacon.

  “Lu?” I called.

  “No Lua here.”

  The floodlights illuminated the patio and pool, but Lua kept to the shadows. He stood at the edge of the pool, wearing board shorts and a tank top, and I noticed that he’d stopped shaving his legs. I closed the sliding glass door behind me so we could talk uninterrupted.

  “You haven’t been answering your phone,” I said.

  “And yet you keep calling. Funny how that works.”

  “I talked to your mom today while I was mowing the grass.”

  “Good for you.”

  I walked toward Lua but kept my distance. “Listen, you told me not too long ago that you were drowning. Well, Trent’s throwing you a life jacket, and you seem hell-bent on ignoring it. Tell me why.”

  “Because fuck Trent, that’s why.” Lua glanced at me.

  “Fine,” I said. “Fuck Trent. But accepting his parents’ money to fix your hand doesn’t make you indebted to him. It’s not charity, it’s restitution.”

  Lua snorted. He sat on the deck and slipped his legs into the pool, and I sat beside him.

  “Look, if you’re afraid of going on tour, that’s fine, but don’t use your fingers as an excuse.”

  “It’s not an excuse!” He held up his hand. Even splinted, his index finger was bent at an unnatural angle. “I can’t play guitar with this.”

  “Then let someone else play,” I said. “The band will still kick ass without you on guitar.”

  “Yeah right.”

  I threw up my hands. “Then get the damn surgery.”

  “I will . . . eventually. But Trent’s not paying for it.”

  “It’s okay to be scared.”

  Lua laughed. “I liked you better when you only thought about yourself.”

  “I’m serious, Lu,” I said. “Maybe it was all too much. Maybe the tour and the album and the attention were overwhelming, and Trent messing up your hand gave you an excuse to take a step back. That’s fine. But if you want this, if you really want to be a musician, don’t let your pride or fear stop you.”

  “At least the things I’m afraid of are real, Ozzie.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Universe still shrinking?”

  I looked up at the sky. There should have been stars, planets. The sky should have shone so bright, but it was empty. “The moon’s gone,” I said.

  “The what?”

  “The moon.” I shook my head. “Forget it.”

  Lua pushed himself to his feet. “Just leave me alone, all right?”

  “I still see you, Lua. No matter who you are, I see you.”

  “That’s great, Ozzie. Too bad half the shit you see isn’t real.”

  • • •

  Calvin was stoned when we drove home from the party. He’d wanted to stay at Dustin’s longer, but after my conversation with Lua I’d just wanted to go home. His dad’s truck sat in the driveway, so I sneaked Cal up to his room. He fell across his bed while I stripped off his shoes and pants. He sat up long enough for me to pull his hoodie over his head.

  Calvin’s arms were covered in a latticework of fresh cuts. Long gaping mouths that silently screamed.

  “What did you do, Cal?” I reached out to touch one of the cuts, but stopped short. I couldn’t make myself do it.

  “You really think we’re living in a simulation?” Calvin’s voice was slurry; his words ran together.

  “I don’t know. What does that have to do with you cutting yourself?”

  Calvin collapsed in on himself, like his bones had liquefied. “’Cause if it is, then none of this is real. None of the good. Especially none of the bad.”

  I stared at the gashes, at the fresh red ones, at the raised white scars of past hurts. “You should tell your dad what’s going on. He’s worried about you.”

  Calvin pulled me down on top of him and kissed me. It happened so quickly, I kissed him back instinctually. I’d wanted him since New Year’s Eve, but I wanted him sober and lucid.

  I twisted out of Calvin’s embrace and backed away from the bed. “Let’s talk about this when you’re not high.”

  “Whatever.” Calvin rolled over, his back to me. “He used to give me pills. Dulled everything. Didn’t feel the pain.”

  “Who was he, Cal?”

  Calvin said, “I still don’t feel nothing,” and I wasn’t sure if he knew I was even in the room. “We’re meant to feel, but not me. Too numb.”

  “Look, Cal, if this guy—whoever he is—drugged you to have sex with you, that’s rape. You know that, right?”

  Calvin burrowed deeper into his covers. I thought he’d fallen asleep, and I was turning to leave when he mumbled, “I never said no.”

  359,270 KM

  GOOD-BYE,
MOON. SO LONG, STARS. Along with Tommy and 99 percent of the universe, I remained the only person who knew they’d ever existed.

  I pored over science books at work looking for mentions of the moon, but found nothing. None of the Apollo space missions had ever taken place. No country on the planet had attempted a single manned space mission. Instead of the Space Race in the sixties, the United States and Russia had fought over who could first construct a base on the bottom of the ocean, and President Kennedy’s speech at Rice University in 1961 was no longer remembered as one of the greatest speeches in recent history, because “We choose to go to the ocean” hadn’t inspired the same level of patriotism as “We choose to go to the moon” had.

  Even though the shrinking universe continued rewriting history, most things remained the same. The technological achievements we’d discovered while trying to explore space still existed. Tommy and I had both gone through a period of obsession with space exploration, and we’d read dozens of books about the missions to the moon and the inventions NASA—which no longer existed—had created for space travel. Take the modern smoke and carbon monoxide detectors found in virtually every home across America. They were originally developed in the 1970s for use on the Skylab space station. But history had compensated for the changes to the universe, and I learned that the DOEA—Deep Ocean Exploration Agency—had invented the detectors during the construction of Atlantis, the first deep ocean base, built in the late 1960s.

  Despite the universe shrinking, history seemed intent on protecting the integrity of the timeline. Like how Tommy’s mother had still dropped out of high school even though he’d never been born.

  Sometimes thinking about it pushed me to the edge of sanity. The damn universe was disappearing and I was the only person who realized it. If other people knew the truth, there would have been riots and mass suicides and total chaos. But it was a problem I didn’t understand and couldn’t even begin to conceive of how to solve, so I focused on my other problems, the problems I could actually fix. Like Lua’s hand or Cal cutting himself or packing my room for the move, which my parents had scheduled for the following weekend.

  When it came to Calvin, I hoped being there was enough to keep him from doing anything permanent, but I worried I wasn’t a good, or even a reliable, anchor for him. I seriously considered telling his father about the cutting, but it’d been a week since Dustin’s party and Calvin had kept his word not to hurt himself again, and I’d checked his arms and legs each time we were alone together to make sure. I still felt like my life was splintering, though, and I was terrified I couldn’t keep it all from flying apart.

  • • •

  Next Sunday was our last day in the house. Mom, who’d started her new job in Chicago, had flown home for the weekend to help pack. I’d begged Dad to hire movers, but he remained obdurately determined we do the work ourselves.

  The soon-to-be new owners weren’t planning to move in for a few months, but Dad said they wanted us out quickly because they intended to gut the house and remodel everything. I was glad I wouldn’t have to watch the home I’d grown up in torn apart and transformed into a place I wouldn’t recognize.

  I’d spent Saturday morning cleaning out my closet. A pile of too-small clothes lay in a heap across my bed, and I’d gotten sidetracked sorting a box of papers, mostly old homework. The drawing of Tommy that Renny had given me for Christmas stood propped up against the wall, like he was watching me. My memories and the drawing were all I had left of him. Sometimes I wondered if they were enough.

  “Ozzie!” Dad called from downstairs. Between working and babysitting Calvin, I’d managed to avoid my parents, especially my dad, whom I was still mad at for cheating on my mom. I hadn’t switched sides, but had instead decided there were no winners in this war and that I was better off hating my parents equally. I continued to play nice, however, because I still hoped to change their minds about letting me go away to college. A plan that had, thus far, met with no success.

  I wondered if my parents had any control over their decisions; if they were being subtly influenced by forces they couldn’t perceive. I still thought it likely Flight 1184 had crashed to send me a message to stay in Cloud Lake, and was forced to consider the possibility that my parents’ renewed unity was merely another warning shot fired from the great beyond.

  “Ozzie!” my mom called. “Ozzie, get down here now!” Her panicked voice echoed through the house and into my room.

  I pulled on a shirt and headed downstairs. I stalled at the railing, watching Mom and Dad zip through the house like bumper cars. Mom’s suitcase sat by the door even though she wasn’t supposed to leave until tomorrow.

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  Dad looked up at me, his face pale and drawn, holding his phone to his ear. “Oz, come down here.”

  I walked down the stairs and noticed Dad’s duffel bag open on the counter.

  “Is someone going to tell me what’s going on?”

  Mom stopped running about, but Dad walked into the other room to talk on the phone.

  “Ozzie,” she said, “it’s Warren.”

  “What’s Warren? Did something happen to Warren?”

  “No,” Dad said, but to the phone, not to me. Tentacles of frustration tightened around his words. “Don’t put me on hold again. This is an emergency, and—”

  Mom rushed me and hugged me so tightly I thought I might break. “Renny’s been hurt.”

  I pushed her away. “Is this a joke? Early April Fools’? Ha-ha? It’s not funny.”

  Tears ringed Mom’s eyes; she wiped them away with the back of her hand. “We don’t know the details yet. Something happened during a training exercise, and Warren’s been injured. He’s at Martin Army Community Hospital. Your father and I are flying to Georgia as soon as we get tickets.”

  “I’m going too,” I said. My heart was pounding. I felt each beat in my throat and nearly choked on them.

  Mom shook her head. “I’m sorry, Ozzie, but you can’t miss school.”

  Dad hung up the phone. “Okay. We’re flying out of Miami, but we’ve got to leave now if we’re going to make it.”

  Everything was happening too fast. “I don’t care about school!” I said. “I want to go with you.”

  “Listen, Oz,” Dad said. “I’ll call the realtor and explain what’s happened, and I’ll hire movers to finish packing.”

  “Do you think you can stay with Lua while we’re gone?” Mom asked.

  I shook my head. They weren’t listening to me. “Yeah, but—”

  “Good,” Mom said. “I don’t know when we’ll be back, but I’ll call you as soon as we know how Renny is.”

  Dad had grabbed an armful of clothes and threw them into his duffel bag. I wasn’t even sure he knew what he was packing.

  “You’re not leaving me behind,” I said.

  Dad zipped his bag shut. “We don’t have time to argue about this, Ozzie. You’re not going, and you’re not staying here alone. Go to Lua’s house and I’ll call her mother on the way to the airport. Understand?”

  I didn’t know what else to say, and they didn’t give me the time to compose an argument. Before I could process what was happening, they were out the door and gone.

  • • •

  I didn’t drive to Lua’s house. Not right away. I went to Calvin’s instead. I showed up on his front step crying, and he didn’t ask why. He just hugged me until I stopped. Eventually we wound up at the beach, sitting in the sand, watching the tides roll out. It was weird that there were still tides without the moon to push and pull them.

  Calvin probably had a million questions, but he kept them to himself. We sat beside each other, my head on his shoulder, until the light in the sky faded. I didn’t know where that came from either, nor did I care.

  “I never really saw the stars before,” Calvin said out of the blue.

  I’d been thinking about Warren, about how stupid he’d been to join the army. He didn’t belong there. He wasn’t
a fighter or a killer. He was just a stupid kid who didn’t know what else to do with his life. And then Cal brought up the stars. I’d tried to explain them to him after they disappeared, but I don’t think he really understood what they were. Even the word sounded foreign when he said it.

  “What?”

  “The stars,” Cal said. “I don’t think I ever saw them.”

  I shook my head. “You don’t remember them, that’s all.”

  “No . . . I mean, yeah, I don’t remember them, but I think that even when I could remember them, I must not have seen them. Not really.” He shivered in the cool air. “I think the sky was always empty to me.”

  I wasn’t in the mood for one of Calvin’s philosophical discussions. Half the time I didn’t understand what he was saying anyway. Moments like that, I thought he and Tommy would have liked each other.

  If they’d met before Tommy and I had, they might have fallen in love and I’d never have known either of them.

  “That thing I told you,” Calvin said. “About being baptized? It wasn’t true.”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “Yeah it does.” Calvin was quiet for a moment. Then he said, “I did nearly drown, and God did speak to me and tell me I could breathe underwater, but it didn’t happen at the beach, and I definitely wasn’t being baptized. It started on a boat—his boat. He’d given me beer. I was a little tipsy and I fell over the side. He laughed at me because he thought it was funny, and maybe it was, but I sank beneath the surface and didn’t float back up. I thought if I let the air out of my lungs and drifted to the bottom of the ocean, everything would be different.”

  “Cal, I don’t—”

  “But God told me to breathe, so I breathed. And then he hauled me out of the water.”

  “God?”

  “Coach Reevey.”

  I pulled away from Cal to look him in the eyes. “Your wrestling coach? He’s the teacher you were sleeping with?”

  Calvin nodded. “I thought he loved me, but then he said he’d found someone new. That I wasn’t special anymore.”