Before You Go

by James Preller

“What do I know? I’m just a fat virgin,” Roberto replied. “But, yeah, I think you should call. Absolutely.”

  “I screwed up,” Jude admitted.

  “Yeah, you did,” Roberto agreed. “But there’s been a lot of that going on. You’ve been dealing with stuff. I hate to see you guys end this way. Besides, now you’re even, right?”

  Jude remembered that night at the bowling alley. How he felt when he saw Becka with the drummer. A fatigue came over him; he could almost feel his face drain of color. “Look, I’m fried.” Jude yawned.

  Roberto took the hint. “Sure, sure. I was just leaving.” They climbed the stairs together. Roberto paused at the front door, looked at Jude as if he had something important to say. “You’re going to be all right, Jude.”

  Jude nodded, remorseful. “I know, I know. I want to feel better.… It’s just … not easy, you know.”

  Roberto nodded, trying to know.

  “What about Daphne?” Jude asked. He was surprised to hear the words come from his mouth. He didn’t think he cared about her.

  “Daphne?” Roberto smiled, his eyes a little more alive. He considered the question for a long while, looked down, tilted his head from shoulder to shoulder. “She’s like you. Stopped coming to work. Went into stealth mode, you know. I’ve hung out with her a little lately.”

  Jude raised an eyebrow.

  “Just friends,” Roberto said, “my specialty.” He paused, thought of something to add. “Daphne’s applying to veterinary schools. All of them out of state. I think she wants to get as far away as possible.”

  The news made Jude feel glad. He felt a tremor in his heart. As if a deadened nerve ending twitched to life. It was something. A murmur. Jude stepped forward, held open the door. “Thanks,” he said. “For the check, for stopping by. I mean it. You didn’t have to come.”

  Roberto smiled. “It was Becka’s idea. She still cares about you, bro.”

  Jude took in the news, accepted it as fact. Becka Bliss McCrystal. She still cared, even after he’d given her every reason to give up on him. “Tell her … hey, you.”

  “‘Hey, you,’” Roberto echoed. “That it?”

  “That’s it,” Jude replied.

  THIRTY

  Jude had been painting the house for three days now—and hadn’t yet dipped a brush into the paint can. The first step, in his father’s words, was all about “surface preparation.” That is, scraping off the old paint that cracked and peeled along the white trim. It was mind-numbing work, done with a metal scraper, a coarse pad, and an iPod on shuffle. To cover his eyes and head from falling flakes, Jude wore sunglasses and a floppy rain hat he’d found at the bottom of a closet, along with a damp bandana wrapped around his neck to keep cool. Becka would have laughed at the sight of him. “Comical,” she would have said. Nevertheless, Jude enjoyed the work. He took satisfaction in laying down the drop cloth to catch the falling paint chips, steadily inching the ladder along the side of the house. It was put-your-shoulder-to-the-wheel labor, no heavy thinking required. And so the job gave his mind room to roam free, like a knock-kneed pony in a great open pasture.

  The bizarre thing about death—besides the absolute, heartbreaking, unfathomable horror of it—was that everyday life kept on coming, like a slow-moving river burbling past. It seeped into every corner, into his bedroom, the living room, and out into the streets. The universe didn’t cry or regret; it just rambled on. Nothing changed, yet everything felt different. Friends sent text messages. His father knocked on his bedroom door, inventing ways to lure Jude out of the house. The world tugged on Jude’s sleeve. He found himself rinsing the dishes in the sink, hauling the garbage out to the street, scraping paint. From can to can’t. Wherever he turned, life chased him down, dragged him back to the land of the living. And that was the whole deal, Jude mused, standing high on a ladder, arms moving back and forth across the eaves. You had to ride that river all the way to the sea. Jude didn’t believe the stories that the priests told in church, the myths they taught in Sunday school. He wished he could, but he could never get past the problem of how all those different gods, from all those different religions, could possibly be right. Somebody had to be wrong. Instead of belief, Jude cradled doubt. He carried uncertainty on his back, a burden of not knowing. As he scraped away at the surface of his house, Jude made a truce with that unknowing.

  He still thought of Corey all the time, but the shape of those thoughts had morphed. It wasn’t Corey in death; it was the positive memories, images of the friendship that endured. Time had not healed him, but it had eroded the bitterness in his heart. For the first time, Jude felt sympathy for Daphne, the driver of the car. She was a nice enough girl who dreamed of becoming a veterinarian, fretted over sick cats, and now had to lug around guilt for the rest of her life. Daphne had agreed to be DD for the night; she wasn’t drinking, wasn’t jabbering on a phone. It was a freak accident: An animal stepped into the road, and she crashed into the only tree within a hundred yards. It could have happened to anyone, should never have happened at all. Could have, should have: The universe yawned its gaping maw. Jude couldn’t hate Daphne any longer. The whole thing required too much energy.

  Around noon, with the sun at its height, his father came around to eyeball Jude’s progress. “Take a break,” he said. “Come for a ride with me. I have to run a few errands.”

  “I’m rolling here,” Jude replied. “You go.”

  His father waggled the keys. “Come,” he said. It wasn’t a request. That’s the way people talked to Jude nowadays, like they all knew best. Whatever. Though Jude had his permit, he declined the offer to drive. He sat in the backseat, talking baseball with his dad. A safe, easy topic. Mr. Fox pulled into a plaza off Sunrise Highway. He handed Jude a fold of money and a short list of grocery items. “Do me a favor, Jude, pick these things up while I get the paint.”

  Jude frowned, accepted the assignment. He pushed a creaky shopping cart into the vast, cool supermarket, steered to the fruits and vegetables section. He checked the first items on the list: grapefruit, apples, bananas. Jude noticed an elderly couple nearby. A shuffling, bent-backed man wore Coke-bottle glasses and a green Jets sweatshirt that hung loose around his frail body. He squinted to read the prices, appeared confused by it all, shaking his head as if in great sorrow. A stout, white-haired woman stood beside him. She appeared alert, capable, and sturdy. A tough old bird. Gently she spoke to her husband and placed a bag of oranges into their cart. They rolled away together. This nothing encounter somehow drove a stake through Jude’s heart.

  “Jude? Is that you?”

  A familiar voice called to him. Jude turned to see Corey’s mother. Mrs. Masterson looked elegant, a tall, thin woman dressed in a gray business suit with matching skirt and jacket over a bright blue blouse. “Oh, Mrs. Masterson. Hi.”

  “Jude, I haven’t seen you for ages.” Her eyes scanned the vicinity. “Is your mother with you?”

  Jude held a grapefruit in his hand. “No, I’m … my dad’s at the paint store. I’m supposed to pick up some grapefruit and stuff.”

  She smiled, glanced at the fruit in Jude’s hand. “Well, that one’s not ripe, it’s too yellow,” she instructed. Mrs. Masterson picked through a few grapefruits, talking as she did so. “You have to look for ones that are more orange in color. Like these. But check for soft spots; you don’t want the fruit that’s been bruised.”

  Jude held out a plastic bag and allowed Corey’s mother to select six good ones. He smiled. “Good thing I ran into you.”

  “You must be excited about school starting next week,” she said, her smile an act of determination, a choice. “Senior year.”

  “Senior year,” Jude echoed.

  “Are you all set with college?” It was the question that every adult asked kids his age.

  “Not yet,” Jude said. “My grades are good. I’m thinking about Boston, or the city, maybe for music. Applications aren’t due until January. We’ll see where I get accepted.”

&nb
sp; “You did very well on your SATs. I remember Corey bragging on you, he was so proud,” she said. Mrs. Masterson lifted her chin after those words, forced her body to stand erect. “There’s time to decide yet, no hurries.” She touched his arm, squeezed. “It’s good to see you, Jude. If you ever want to come around the house, just to visit, you know you’re always welcome. Corey’s accident was hard on everyone, and I worry about his friends, especially you.”

  He felt a warm pressure build up behind his eyes, looked away. She was worried about him, this woman who had buried her son. “Thanks, maybe I will,” he answered, even though he knew he’d never make that visit.

  “Have you been going to church?” Mrs. Masterson was devoutly religious, never missed a Sunday. Corey and Jude had joked about it many times, since she always insisted on dragging Corey along.

  Jude shook his head. “No, I—”

  “It’s helped me,” she said.

  “I’m glad,” he said, and he was.

  She looked gravely into his eyes. “Are you okay?”

  Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, Jude faked that answer. Shrugged it off, gave a line, walked away. But this time, he stood there, breathless, his vision gone blurry, eyes moist. Something inside him seemed to break, like a dam giving way. “No,” he admitted, “not really,” his voice tripping over the emotion, the sound scarcely above a whisper.

  Her warm, dark hands came to him then—hands that felt soft and infinitely kind—and wrapped around his own hands. “I know, Jude, I can see it in your eyes,” she said. “If you leave your heart open, God will find you.”

  They stood together in the fresh-fruit section, surrounded by oranges and bananas, a white teenage boy and a bereft black woman, her hands holding his, tears in both their eyes.

  When will we ever stop crying? he wondered.

  “I’m helping my father paint the house,” Jude finally said, shifting on his feet, trying to regain some sort of balance. “And we’re taking down some bushes and that old tree out front.”

  “That will brighten up the place,” she replied.

  “Yeah, I guess the roots were kind of screwing up the foundation,” he offered, somewhat lamely.

  “It’s good to let in the light,” she said. Jude understood that she was speaking in mysteries, not of trees, of things deep and spiritual.

  Jude’s cell sounded, an electronic riff from a popular song. He grinned awkwardly, embarrassed. “My dad,” he explained. “He’s probably wondering what’s taking me so long.”

  Mrs. Masterson signaled that she understood. Before parting, she asked, “Is it all right, Jude, if I hug you? Right here in the middle of the supermarket?”

  “I wish you would,” he told her, his voice a bleat in the wilderness.

  THIRTY-ONE

  Jude couldn’t sleep that night. By one thirty, he still lay on his back, mind throbbing with the conviction that everything in his world had gone wrong. He forced himself to retrace his blessings, the people and things he would never wish away. But it didn’t work. Some secret part of him that he dared not confess longed only for annihilation.

  The idea of death.

  Sweet oblivion. Jude felt the undertow pulling him, the riptide washing him out. He stared at the ceiling. Water filled his ears; he was drowning again. Jude felt with astonishing certainty that he would die right there in bed if he did not act, did not rise this very second to resist the grip that pulled him deeper into the gloom. He sat up, flicked on a closet bulb, and quickly dressed, baggy shorts and a Radiohead tee. He slipped down the stairs, stepped out into the night, and sniffed autumn’s sweet decay.

  He walked aimlessly, or so he imagined, down a desolate street, then another, crossing into an empty playground where swings dangled uselessly. He reclined on a seesaw, arms folded behind his head, invisible to any passing cars. Jude tried to clear his mind, casting away thoughts and images, hoping to stay as empty as the unwritten pages of some tender, forgotten book. He thought of zombies and ghosts, and he thought of the living. Somehow the thoughts hoisted him up, like strong hands yanking on his collar, and he knew there was only this present moment, cast adrift in the here and now. He breathed in, he breathed out. He decided to believe in life.

  Jude punched out a message to Becka: Can i c u?

  Would she hear it? Could she possibly be awake? He waited for an answer. None came. He sent a second message: Now, pls.

  It was useless. She must be asleep, the cell off. But Jude was determined. He couldn’t not see her. Jude’s body wanted to run, needed to run, and so he ran along the front strips of grass between sidewalk and street, his body energized, heart beating steadily—all the way to Becka’s house, two miles away.

  Jude paused outside, gathered small stones from the road. There was a light on upstairs, leaking from the hallway. He tossed pebbles at Becka’s bedroom window. The window shuddered up, a head poked out. “Who are you?”

  It was Becka’s brother; Jude recognized him from the band at the bowling alley. Even in the dark, he looked pissed.

  “Sorry, I must’ve got the wrong room,” Jude called up in a whisper.

  “What?”

  “Where’s Becka’s room?”

  “Are you freaking kidding me?” the brother asked. “I should come down and kick your ass.”

  Jude must have appeared like a sad, pathetic figure out there on the lawn, because the brother—Matt, that was his name—finally pointed a finger at the next window. “That’s hers, dickwad.” He slammed the window shut.

  More rocks, more anxious waiting. At last Becka pulled the curtains aside, peered out, recognized Jude’s shadow, and signaled for him to wait. A pair of car headlights snaked down the street. Jude retreated behind a tree, an intruder in the night. Becka opened the front door. He stepped from the dark, whistled softly, and she came to him in bathrobe and slippers.

  “Jude, what are you doing here?” she asked, slumber still in her voice.

  “I couldn’t sleep. I’ve been out walking.”

  “And now you’re here at three in the morning,” Becka stated.

  “I’m sorry, it was stupid; I wasn’t thinking.”

  She looked searchingly into his face. Her fingers touched his cheek. “You look like hell.”

  “I’m so, so sorry,” he said.

  Becka turned to look at the house. She chewed on the corner of her lower lip, deciding. “Wait here,” she instructed. Becka went back into the house and returned minutes later fully dressed, holding a plastic bag and a set of car keys. “Let’s go.”

  “Where?”

  “Shhh,” she whispered, moving to the car. “I don’t want my parents to hear us. You’ll have to push me out of the driveway.”

  She climbed into the driver’s seat and put the Toyota into neutral. Jude lowered his back to the front grill and pushed. The car rolled easily down the incline, banking into the street. “Hurry,” she urged. “Get in.”

  Becka turned the key and away they rolled—down the road, around the corner, the two of them hushed in the thrill of their illicit escape, safely away.

  She handed him a soda, purloined from the fridge. Jude twisted off the cap. “Where to?” he asked.

  “Give me a hit of that first,” she said, reaching for the bottle. Becka took a deep swallow, burped faintly, and giggled. “God, I so love burping.” She laughed and took another sip.

  At a stop sign, Becka found something acoustic on the radio, a guy with a guitar. The suburban side streets were ghostly, the town at rest. Jude sat back and watched Becka scan the road with alert, roving eyes. “You’re a good driver,” he said.

  “Thanks,” Becka nodded. “Not that I need your approval.” She smacked him playfully on the chest. Jude caught her hand, felt it against his heart, and held it there. After a pause, she pulled her hand away and returned it to the wheel.

  “I made you a sandwich,” she said. “You like mustard, right?”

  It was real ham, cut from the bone, on a kaiser roll. Jude ate
ravenously. “I didn’t realize I was this hungry.”

  She glanced at him, satisfied, and turned onto the parkway, the car picking up speed, hurtling toward Jones Beach.

  THIRTY-TWO

  Becka led the way through the dark, down the long West End beach toward the ocean. Jude smelled the briny air, tasted seaweed on his tongue before the ocean’s hum had even reached his ears. His vision limited to shades of gray and black, Jude sensed something in the distance that couldn’t be seen, something vast and mysterious called the Atlantic. There was another world across it, and even greater mysteries beyond. He reached out for Becka’s hand. They walked barefoot and together to land’s end.

  They found a lifeguard stand and climbed to the high, wide seat. “Okay, I’m listening,” she said with a new edge to her voice. “Talk to me, Jude. What’s going on?”

  Jude didn’t know where to begin. His mind was like that restless ocean out there, thoughts churning.

  “I’ve been thinking about my sister a lot,” Jude said. “It’s weird, you’d think after Corey—I don’t know.”

  Becka glanced at him, watched the ocean, waited.

  Jude sighed, frustrated. Not sure what he wanted to say or what had carried them to this moment in time, on the beach, under the stars. “I helped carry her casket,” he said.

  “Your sister’s?”

  “I guess my parents thought it was poetic or whatever, I don’t know. I remember that I told them I wanted to do it, but it wasn’t true. I just felt like I should.”

  “You were nine years old,” Becka said, “and you carried a casket?”

  “I didn’t do it by myself,” Jude said, “I had help—my father, some uncles, my parents’ friends. All I really remember was how heavy it was,” Jude continued, staring into the ocean. “I didn’t expect that part. She was only, like, forty pounds, but the coffin weighed so much. All I could think about was the awful weight of that box. With each step, I knew I would carry her like that forever.”

  The surf pounded in broken waves. Becka squeezed Jude’s knee, her face in shadow.