by Heidi Ayarbe
I looked at Jason’s handwriting: Kyle.
“Is your mom, um, cleaning out his room?”
Chase shook his head. “No.”
We sat on the porch steps, watching the last stars fade away.
“I sit there,” he said. “In his room.”
I nodded.
“It doesn’t smell like him anymore, but I still like it.” Chase leaned on me. “I like to pretend he’s coming home.”
“Me too.”
“But he’s not.”
“I know.” I put my arm around Chase.
He got up. “See you this afternoon.”
“See you.”
“Don’t be late.”
“Never.”
“Almost never,” he corrected me, then walked down the street, leaving padded footprints in the crystal frost.
Kyle
Jason’s writing.
I turned the envelope over in my hands and slipped out a brochure. Voices of Youth Filmmaker Contest. Jason had highlighted the application due date: May 7.
I lay on the porch, my shoulder blades digging into the concrete. The first rays of sunlight crept across the street until they worked their way up the steps. Tears pooled in my ears.
“Happy birthday, man,” Kohana said, coming up to me before lunch.
“Thanks. How’d you know?”
He held out the The Carson High Tribune. “They always print up the birthdays here, a week ahead of time.”
“I never noticed.”
“I have a lot of quality reading time waiting for Gram when I miss the bus.”
“Yeah, I guess so.” I read my name: Kyle Michael Caroll, February 2.
“Dude, so are you getting your driver’s license today?”
I shook my head. I felt kind of stupid.
“So are you having a party or something?”
“Nah.”
Kohana took back the paper. “Well, happy birthday.” He walked down the hall toward the cafeteria. I was on my way to the library.
“Um, Kohana?”
“Yeah?”
“Do you maybe want to come over for dinner tonight? Just if you can, you know.”
He grinned. “Sure.”
“We can pick you up and take you home, if you need.”
“Cool.”
“Um, seven o’clock okay?”
“Definitely.”
On the way out of the library, Mr. Cordoba handed me a small package. “Open it.” I guess he read the The Carson High Tribune too.
The whole birthday thing is way overrated. It would be cool if we had a system where birthdays were earned. Like if you lived the year right, then you could get older by one year, or even two if you lived the year really perfect. If not, you’d end up staying the same age until you did. That would’ve made more sense than giving somebody a present just because they happened to get born on some particular day. Especially if that person didn’t deserve it.
Mr. Cordoba leaned on the desk.
I opened up a tattered book in Spanish: Crónica de una muerte anunciada. The name Edgar was scribbled inside.
“That’s the first book I ever owned,” he said.
“Your very first book?”
He leaned his elbows on the desk. “It’s Chronicle of a Death Foretold, in Spanish.”
“You read this as a kid?”
He laughed. “I got it when I was nineteen.”
“Nineteen? You didn’t have your own book until you were nineteen?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“What about school? Didn’t they give you books?”
“I didn’t go to school in Colombia.”
“Really?”
“I had to work. I boxed.”
I shook my head. “They let you box instead of going to school?”
“No. I boxed because my family needed money. School didn’t come with a paycheck like I got from the ring.”
I cradled the book in my hand. “So how’d you learn how to read?”
“When I was eighteen, I was given a few years to think about a lot of things. That’s when I decided to study and learned to read. That’s when I learned to make peace.”
“Peace?”
Mr. Cordoba eyed my notebook. “To make peace with the past.” He got up from his desk and motioned me to sit down. He sat down across from me at the table. He pointed to his scar. “This is a memory, a reminder of who I was. I take this to bed with me every night.” He scanned the library. “And this is who I am.”
“Who were you?” I looked at the scar.
Mr. Cordoba smiled. “A foolish young man who was given a second chance at life.”
I stared at the scar on his face. I wondered if Kohana had ever taken a photo of Mr. Cordoba’s scar, if he had ever captured that story.
Mr. Cordoba watched me intently, then said, “I choose not to live my life based on one moment.” He rubbed his scar.
I ran my fingers over the soft edges of the book, worn like velvet. “So you didn’t learn how to read until you were eighteen?”
“No. And I’ve been trying to catch up ever since.”
“And after you learned, this was the first book you ever bought?”
“Actually, my best friend gave it to me.”
“And you’re giving it to me?” I blushed.
He smiled.
“I don’t know what to say. About this.”
“‘Thank you’ will do.” He got up from the table.
“Thank you, Mr. Cordoba.”
“Happy birthday, Mr. Caroll.” He patted my shoulder and headed back to his office.
That afternoon, even Mark stopped by with a card. “Happy birthday, Kyle. Now that you’re sixteen, gotta get you up on a motorcycle one of these days.”
Mom set her jaw and scowled. The last thing she needed was for me to join a biker gang.
“Just kidding, Mrs. Caroll.” Mark laughed and winked at me. The last of his Cancun sunburn had flaked off. For a while his head had looked like a blotchy billiard cue ball.
We picked Kohana up at seven o’clock. Dad grilled burgers out on the deck. Mom made sweet potato fries. Kohana had three helpings of everything. He turned red every time Mel said anything to him. It was the first time I ever saw the guy flustered.
Mom brought out a double-chocolate fudge cake with chocolate-chip ice cream, my favorite since forever. Everybody sang.
“Make a wish, Kyle,” Mel said.
I closed my eyes and blew out all the candles. I just want things to be okay again. I want Chase and the Bishops to be okay.
Mom and Dad gave me a key chain and keys to both their cars. Mel gave me a TEAM DUDE BIG LEBOWSKI T-shirt.
Kohana pulled out his photography portfolio. He handed me a photo. “This one’s for you.”
It was a black-and-white of my shoes, hand-tinted orange. “This is really cool.”
Mom, Dad, and Mel crowded around to look at the pictures Kohana had taken. “Those are so good, Kohana,” Mel said. “I never thought those shoes of Kyle’s would be photogenic.” She pinched her nose, and everybody laughed.
Kohana turned magenta. “Thanks.”
“They’re stories,” I interrupted. Then I explained Kohana’s philosophy of photography.
“Maybe one day you can tell us the stories,” Mom said.
“Sure, Mrs. Caroll.” Kohana chewed on his lower lip and fidgeted with the zipper on his portfolio.
Mom smiled at Kohana. “Only if you’d like.”
Mom, Dad, and Mel looked at every one of Kohana’s pictures, then headed into the kitchen. I got up to help with the dishes. “I got ’em, Kyle,” Mel said.
Kohana reorganized his portfolio, leaving a blank spot.
“What picture goes there?” I asked.
“Your shoes.”
“You can keep this if you need it.” I handed him the photo.
“I have a copy,” he said.
“So? Why leave it blank?”
“This is like an anthology. B
ut it can’t be complete without your story. No story. No photo.”
“Oh.” I swallowed.
“Maybe another time.”
“Yeah. Maybe.”
Dad and I took Kohana home. He talked the entire way about how much he had loved dinner. Mom had made him a leftover bag so he could share with his grandma.
As he was walking into his house, he shouted, “You owe me a story!”
On the way home, Dad turned on the radio and hummed along to some jazz solo. He looked over at me and said, “Anything else you’d like to do?” He motioned to the slice of cake I’d wrapped in aluminum foil and brought with me at the last minute.
“Do you think we could stop by the cemetery?”
Dad nodded. We drove in silence and parked outside the gate. “I think it’s closed.”
“I know a way in.”
“Do you need company?”
I shook my head. “I’d rather go alone. If that’s okay.”
“Sure.” He lit up a cigarette and winked. “Don’t tell your mother.”
“I won’t.” I rolled my eyes. It would be easier if they just smoked together.
I slipped through the shadows of the cemetery, unwrapped the cake, and left it next to Chase’s M&M’s jar.
Happy birthday, man.
Thanks, Jase.
Make a wish?
Yep.
Hope it comes true.
Me, too, Jase.
“Okay.” I ran up to Dad. “I’m ready.”
I got into the car and Dad cranked up the heat. “It’s cold outside.”
“Yeah.” I cleared my throat. It had felt pretty scratchy all day. “Can you maybe not tell anybody we came by?”
He turned off the radio and touched his forehead to mine, just like he used to do when I was little. I leaned into him and it felt good, like I was ten years old again.
When we got home, I hung Kohana’s picture up next to Chase’s Orange Dragon drawing. The walls didn’t seem so empty anymore.
49
Every day I’d wake up hoping to find Mr. Bishop’s car back in the driveway. It didn’t make sense to me that he had left Chase and Brooke like that. Jason didn’t have a choice, but Mr. Bishop did.
I walked down the winding path to Jason’s grave one day and saw Mrs. Bishop on her knees. The snow had melted and the cemetery looked barren. There was a smattering of chalky conversation hearts left over from Valentine’s Day. I walked away before she saw me.
I had turned sixteen. Jason never would.
Freeze frame.
The rest of February sucked. The snow was crusty and melted, black and yellow from exhaust fumes and dog piss. And all I did was write, trying to bring Jason back with every object, every scene. Once in a while I thought about Scene Three, but I was afraid it would bring me back to the way I had felt that night in the shed.
Sometimes the scenes came back so quickly, I felt like I wouldn’t be able to write them down fast enough. One afternoon I sat behind the Dumpsters writing about the time Jase helped me organize a B-movie marathon in the backyard. I had gotten seven of the best B-movies to show and was ready with Grandpa’s old projector. When we threaded the first film, the movie that started to play definitely wasn’t The Rocky Horror Picture Show. We didn’t get a chance to see too much before Dad ripped it out of the projector and canceled the showing until he reviewed all seven movies. All seven starred a girl named Roxy Lovelace. Apparently we had gotten the wrong shipment. I wrote the scene in a grind-house movie style—like those cheesy seventies movies with bad acting and hot chicks.
“Kyle. Hey, Kyle! Psst!”
Chase and Mike were standing together, peeking around the corner. “Hey, guys. Sorry. Didn’t see you.” I shoved the notebook into my backpack.
“You didn’t hear us hoot?” Chase asked.
“I guess not.”
Chase crossed his arms. “A little lackadaisical today.”
“Nice word, Chase.”
“Thanks. I learned it last week.”
“Yeah, and he says it every day, all day long.” Mike rolled his eyes. “Nobody in Mrs. Perrin’s class knows what it means. I don’t think she even knows what it means.”
Chase glared at Mike. “It means ‘lazy.’”
Mike picked at a scab. “Yeah. But who’s gonna remember that?”
“I’m going to Mike’s.”
“Cool.” I looked at the time—late for the library again.
“Anyway, I need your help with something,” Chase said, turning to me.
“What’s going on?”
“Well, Mom is into this heaven–eternal-life stuff, telling me Jason’s with me always.”
My throat felt dry. I rubbed my eyes. “What does your dad say?”
“Dad stopped going to church the day he left the house. I heard him tell Mom that there is no God.”
I couldn’t believe I had taken God away from Mr. Bishop too. “Have you tried praying to him? Doesn’t Pastor Pretzer help you with that stuff?”
He shook his head. “I saw this thing on the Light Up Your Life channel at Mike’s house, that when people die, they leave a soul print.”
“A soul print?” I asked.
“There are even soul-print hunters who help people find the place where a person was at the very moment when their soul left their body.”
“On what channel?”
“Mike has DISH.”
I nodded. “I remember.”
“Anyway, it’s all really confusing and I can’t afford a soul-print hunter. And I have something really important I need Jason to know. I need to get a message to him.”
“Jase is always going to be with you, Chase. Just because he’s not here”—I motioned to the air—“doesn’t mean he’s not here.” I tapped Chase’s heart.
“So do you know how I can talk to him? To feel him here?” Chase touched his heart right where I had.
I thought for a while. No clue. But I couldn’t let Chase down again. “I think I might know a way.”
Chase’s eyes got wide. “You really know how to talk to the dead?”
I did it every day. But I didn’t figure that would be a good thing to tell Chase. “Well, I wouldn’t say that exactly.”
Mike grinned. “Wow, Chase. This is big.”
Chase nodded. “How about this Saturday? March eighteenth. Oh seven hundred hours.”
“Oh seven hundred?”
“That’s military time for seven A.M.”
“Oh. Yeah.” March 18? I wondered how it was possible that more than five months had gone by. “Oh seven hundred hours. You got it.”
Chase turned to Mike. “You’ve got to get me an invitation to stay over Friday night.”
Mike wrinkled his nose. “An invitation? Like a card or something?”
Chase rolled his eyes. “No. Just have your mom call my mom. Okay?”
“Oh. Okay.”
I laughed. “Where do you live, Mike?”
Mike gave me detailed instructions on how to get to his house. Chase interrupted, giving me the GPS coordinates.
“Got it, OD?” Mike asked.
“Yeah, I got it.”
“You sure?” Chase asked. “I didn’t see you write down the coordinates.”
It was like we were acting out some James Bond movie. “I’m sure.”
“So?” Chase asked. “We’re on for Saturday?”
“We’re on. I’ll pick you two up at seven.”
“A.M?”
“Yes. A.M.”
“Do I need anything?” Chase asked.
I thought for a while. “Write down the message you need to get to Jason on a piece of paper.” It sounded good anyway—like I knew what I was doing.
Chase shook my hand. “I knew I could count on you, Kyle.”
50
I pedaled as hard as I could, zigzagging puddles and potholes. Maybe Cordoba had some books on talking to the dead. Jesus, that wasn’t a conversation I wanted to have with him.
Ho
w could Chase talk to Jason? I had five days to figure it out.
I wondered if anybody in Carson City could do a séance at the last minute. Would that kind of shit be in the yellow pages? Or maybe I could use Mel’s Ouija board. But how seriously can anybody take something made by Parker Brothers? I had to find some way for Chase to send a message to Heaven.
If there even was a Heaven.
Why had I promised those things to him? Jesus.
I threw open the library doors, trying to catch my breath. Mr. Cordoba looked up from the paper.
“Sorry.” I looked at the clock on the wall and pinched my side.
Mr. Cordoba mumbled and continued reading the paper. I peeled off my sticky sweatshirt, found my seat, and brought out my notebook. The library was empty—the way I liked it. Sometimes it felt like it was there just for me. Then I closed my eyes and thought about the day we took Chase to Rancho San Rafael Park to watch the national kite festival. Colors and shapes dotted the sky like confetti. We lay on the grassy hills of the park, eating cotton candy, watching the kites cartwheel and somersault in the sky.
“KITE,” I titled the scene.
Mr. Cordoba cleared his throat in the way he did when he wanted me to pay attention. Phony phlegm. Maybe one day I could write that scene. I laughed to myself, imagining a suspense scene building up to the phony phlegm sound followed by a shrill scream from a beautiful blonde. Very Hitchcock.
“I watched Unforgiven,” Cordoba said.
“Really?” I put the notebook down. “What’d you think?”
“Interesting choice.”
“It’s a great western—one of the best.”
“Why do you like it so much?”
I bit my lip. “It just makes sense to me. It was like the past was always with him.”
“So, a man is stuck with his past?”
I thought about my old notebook, the shed, and all the ways I had tried to write the scene. Jason ended up dead every time. I nodded. “Pretty much.”
“He can’t choose to change?”
“He might change, but everybody else stays the same, you know. So he would have to leave everything to really change. Just like William Munny did in the end.”
“Though he left, did his past change?”
“Well, no. But at least he didn’t have to face it every day. It’s easier to forget that way.”