Out of Reach

by Carrie Arcos

  The counselor tried to interject, “Now, Mr. Stevens, I think it’s important that we allow Micah to express his—”

  Dad cut him off. “I’m tired of all of this psychobabble. Micah, this isn’t you. It’s the drugs talking. I get that. I really do. This isn’t you. When you get out of here, we can talk about this some more.”

  “You’re not listening to me!” Micah yelled.

  Then everything became quiet.

  “Go on, Micah, tell us what you’re feeling.” The counselor spoke softly, but looked at my dad with threatening eyes.

  Micah started out slowly. “This is me. I’m not you or Mom. I know I have some issues, but I’ve got it handled now. I’m fine.” And then he said the biggest lie ever. “I’m not perfect like Rachel.”

  The shock must have registered on my face because the counselor asked me, “Rachel, is there anything you’d like to say to Micah? It’s okay. This is a safe space.”

  Safe spaces exist only where people aren’t, I thought. I shook my head, no.

  “You sure?” the counselor said, prodding. This time his dreads reminded me of small snakes, coiling and uncoiling. Micah looked in my direction. He hadn’t changed. His brown eyes still held the same dead expression as they had since he’d chosen meth over everything else in his life.

  My mouth made a smile. “It’ll be good to have you home,” I lied.

  * * *

  The funny thing about a lie is that once it has been said and believed, it lives and becomes. It can’t be taken back. It sucks all the air from you until you give up and it takes over and you forget how to breathe on your own. It is like those parasitic relationships, but not like the shark and the little remora that politely cleans the shark’s skin and sometimes attaches itself to its underbelly. No, it is more like a tapeworm eating someone from the inside out.

  My AP bio teacher caught one when he lived somewhere in South America for a summer. He came home and started feeling sick and couldn’t gain any weight. Turns out, he had a twenty-foot tapeworm feeding and growing in his intestine. He knew we wouldn’t believe him, so he brought some of it to class in a jar, where it floated, looking like the longest piece of linguini I had ever seen.

  How gross was that? He had actually asked the doctor if he could keep the tapeworm when they removed it.

  Just like a tapeworm, sometimes a lie has to be physically removed. The problem is, most of us still carry the lie around inside a jar like a souvenir.

  Chapter Two

  Tyler was waiting for me when I pulled into the 7-Eleven parking lot. He leaned against his truck, smoking a cigarette. The clock on my dashboard read 8:55.

  Early for a stoner, I thought. I took it as a good sign.

  I pulled alongside him, kept the car running, and rolled down my window. “Hey.”

  “Hey.” He took another hit, threw the cigarette down, and smashed it into the pavement with the ball of his right foot. The smoke left his parted lips like a slow-moving fog. He pushed his straight black hair, which hung slightly over the top of his eyes, away from his face and looked across the parking lot. “You sure you’re ready for this?”

  I followed his gaze to another car that had pulled in. I recognized the driver, who stepped out of the car wearing the store’s employee uniform. He had graduated with Micah’s class in June.

  “Yes.”

  Tyler opened the driver’s side of his truck and grabbed a black backpack. He shut the door, locked it, and walked slowly around the front of my car. He wore his usual ensemble: Hollister jeans, which hung a little low at the waist; a black T-shirt; and a chain of keys looped to one of the buckles. He was a year younger than Micah, like me, though he was taller than Micah, probably close to six feet. Tyler had that long, lean build, perfect for soccer and playing the bass, both of which I knew he did well. He was cocky, too, walking as if he expected me to watch him. The passenger door to my Civic opened, and he slid inside with that familiar ash smell.

  “I just have one rule. No smoking in the car.” I looked him in the eyes, hoping he would see that I was serious.

  “All right. Here’s my rule. No bitching about me smoking.” His expression matched my own.

  I looked away first, shifting the gear to reverse. “Glad we have an understanding.” I pulled out of the parking lot.

  “May I?” He motioned to the stereo.

  “Sure, whatever.” I kept my eyes on the road as Morrissey’s voice filled the space between us. A fitting melancholy set in.

  “Not bad,” he said.

  “You’re not the only one who knows music.” Tyler was in Micah’s band, which meant he probably thought he was some kind of expert, like Micah. I didn’t feel like making small talk, but I didn’t want to be a jerk. “Thanks for helping me find him.”

  Tyler moved the seat back and put on his dark sunglasses. “I’m not making any promises.”

  “I know.”

  From the little I knew of Tyler, he seemed to speak the truth, and that was something I needed. No more bullshit. No more lies. “I just mean you didn’t have to.”

  “Yeah. Well”—he shifted in his seat—“he owes me money.”

  I hadn’t known that, but I wasn’t surprised. Micah owes me, too, I thought, much more than just money. I turned onto the ramp to the 15 Freeway heading south toward San Diego.

  “Watch it!” Tyler yelled.

  I swerved just in time to avoid a black Lexus coming up on the left.

  “Need me to drive?” he asked, sitting up straight. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see him turn toward me.

  “I’m fine, really. Why don’t you take a nap?” With the traffic in front of us, it was going to be a while. “It’s gonna take at least an hour to get there.”

  “Over an hour.” Tyler laid his head back and folded his bronzed arms across his chest.

  I could see the bottom half of the Aztec eagle sketched into his arm. The sleeve of his black T-shirt covered the rest, but I knew it was there. He’d gotten it done when he went through his La Raza phase. He’d spent last summer down in Mexico with relatives, came back speaking some Spanish and talking about oppression, and how corrupt American politics were. He staged a walkout of his history class right before Thanksgiving break, objecting to the term Indian and even Native American, saying they should be called by their tribal names. He even got the whole school chanting the name of the tribe who’d helped the pilgrims, whatever it was.

  I kind of liked that side of Tyler, but it didn’t last long. Keeping up with a cause was exhausting, I supposed, when you were in high school and the bass player in a band. Besides, once Christmas came around, it was all Santa and elves and carols. No one wanted to hear about how California should really be part of Mexico. No one cared.

  I couldn’t believe it was already August, with only a couple of weeks left before I started my senior year. The fact that Micah was still missing was a subject that everyone tiptoed around like a kid avoiding cracks on a sidewalk. No one asked me about him, but they gave sad smiles. The kind you gave at funerals when you pass the family in the receiving line. The kind given when you don’t really know what to say.

  It didn’t matter. I had decided to move on. It had been a couple of months, and college applications cried for my attention. I didn’t have time to wallow in the fact that Micah had left us; that he had left me without so much as a word. In my opinion, I had already given him enough of my time. And then I got the e-mail.

  Rachel,

  You do not know me, but I know who you are. We have a mutual acquaintance, your brother, Micah. He’s not doing so good. He’s living on the streets, playing guitar for money, among other things. He’s in trouble, not the kind you can get out of so easily, if you know what I mean. But the more serious shit, the kind where someone could get themselves hurt or . . .

  He’d be upset if he knew I wrote you. He talks about you the most. That’s got to mean something, right?

  Anyway, he’s in Ocean Beach.

&nbs
p; I read the e-mail a couple of times, printed it out, and stuffed it into the drawer in the table by my bed where I kept lists and other things. Another week went by before I read it again. This time, I approached it like a text in my English class. I looked for patterns. I dissected the words. What did “not doing so good” mean? Good was such a relative term. What kind of trouble was he in? I imagined the “or . . .” signified something beyond hurt, which meant the person who sent the e-mail thought my brother’s life was in danger.

  But who sent the e-mail? I was pretty sure it didn’t come from someone at school, unless it was a cruel joke. It had to be someone who knew him, someone he trusted. I tried to trace it, but it was sent from some generic Hotmail account, as if anyone even used Hotmail anymore.

  Two sentences kept coming back to me. He talks about you the most. That’s got to mean something. I knew it had to be a lie. Micah had barely spoken to me, let alone acknowledged my presence, during the weeks before he left. But what lay behind the lie disturbed me. Someone was worried about my brother, and knew my weakness: guilt. It was the one weapon I had no defense against.

  I tried sleeping that night but couldn’t, so I called Tyler, the only friend of Micah’s I could stand, the following day and read him the e-mail over the phone.

  He was silent for a moment, and then asked me to read it again. When I finished, I said, “Well?”

  “Cryptic.”

  “I’m going,” I said.

  “When?”

  “Tomorrow.”

  I heard him suck in some air and let it out in one huge rush. “All right.”

  * * *

  Our plan was simple: Leave early in the morning, drive down to Ocean Beach in San Diego, look for Micah, and be home by eight, as my parents expected. In my mind, only one scenario could play itself out: We find Micah sitting on the sidewalk with his guitar and a can, asking for money. When he sees us, he is argumentative at first, but quickly apologizes and thanks us for finding him. On the way home, he worries about what he’ll say to Mom and Dad, but we both reassure him that we’ll be there for him. I block out any other versions of what might go down.

  The car started the long climb out of the valley where we lived. As it reached the top of the hill and started down the other side, I saw the wide four-lane freeway snake off into the distance. We had a long way to go.

  By the sound of his breathing, I could tell Tyler was already asleep. I glanced at him. His knees crushed against the dashboard as he slouched in his seat. His lips formed a lopsided grin before he mumbled something I couldn’t quite make out. A sleep talker. Good, I thought. Maybe I’ll get some dirt on him.

  My fingers drummed the steering wheel to the rhythm of the music. On either side of us were brown hills, covered with boulders of all shapes and sizes.

  When Micah and I were younger, Mom used to have us pretend we were in an old Western as we drove past the rocky hills. She’d point in a direction and say, “Look out, I see one now.” We’d duck in the car, as if we could see the top of a black cowboy hat, and would imagine the bad guy hiding behind the rock with his rifle. Micah and I would take our turns aiming and firing at him. One of us reloaded while the other fired, until Mom warned us about another imaginary cowboy and we’d switch our aim. We’d always make it through the pass. Sometimes Micah or I pretended that we’d gotten a small flesh wound, but there were never any casualties. As we drove away from the “hill country,” as Mom called it, she would speak of the bad guy who’d gotten away and how he’d be waiting for us the next time.

  This was how we passed our time during family road trips; sometimes we were pioneers out West, and other times we were explorers on another planet. My mom loved to play “let’s pretend.” The games lasted even into junior high, where we humored her because we still kind of wanted to be kids and have fun.

  By the time Micah entered high school, however, he let us know that playing make-believe games with our mom was not cool. Since I measured most things against his opinion, I stopped playing too. Mom eventually succumbed to our silent treatments and eye rolls. Car trips became competing playlists, as Micah and I sat in the backseat with headphones on, staring out the side windows at nothing more than rocks on a brown hill.

  Micah became cool sophomore year when Missy Eyers asked his band to play at her party. Since she was a senior and a cheerleader, Micah received instant status. To be fair, he had been rising pretty steadily on his own merit, but the Missy gig propelled him over the top. All I heard (because I didn’t get to go, I was only a freshman at the time) was how awesome they were, how cute Micah was, and how he and Missy made out and probably did it. Micah confirmed the first, but was purposefully elusive on the third.

  His band became the official party band. They also started playing shows in local clubs, some even twenty-one and over. They had to wear a wristband that said they couldn’t drink. Everyone said they were going somewhere. What they really meant was that Micah was going somewhere. He was the band’s magic. Seeing Micah in front of a mic with his guitar, you knew he was going to be somebody.

  He became somebody, just not the somebody we all thought. Micah wasn’t some teenage loser who had fallen into the drug pit. He had a desired commodity; he had potential. When we all started to see him throw that away, that was the hardest to take.

  At school, I heard the whispered Why? in clusters of students, former friends, or admirers. Teachers shook their heads in disappointment. They pulled me aside to tell me that they were “here for me” if I needed anything, which I thought was strange because wasn’t it their job to “be there” for me already?

  Why was Micah screwing up and throwing his life away? Why did he bail on all of us? I had no answer. Why did it have anything to do with me?

  I was lost in thought when the car in front of me stopped suddenly, and I had to slam on the brakes. I braced myself for the hit from behind, but it didn’t come. Tyler stirred next to me. He rolled his body toward the window of the passenger seat and mumbled, “Tell me something I don’t know.” I could see the tops of blue plaid boxers over his jeans.

  I focused on the road in front of me and decided that when we found Micah, I would ask him, “Why?” but no matter what answer he gave, I knew I’d still want to punch him in the face.

  Chapter Three

  Now what?” I asked Tyler.

  The streets of Ocean Beach all looked the same to me, small and cramped with tiny wooden cottages painted in different pastels. The gray clouds didn’t help, as they gave everything a dark, ominous feeling. I didn’t know where to go.

  “Coffee,” he said, and sat up. His voice sounded rough and deep, like he needed water, not coffee. He rubbed his face with his hands and then through his hair.

  “Coffee?”

  “Yeah, there’s a shop on the corner of Newport. We’ll start there.”

  I didn’t think Micah would be sitting at a coffee shop, but I didn’t have any better ideas.

  Tyler directed me to one of the side streets where there were plenty of two-hour parking spots. As I turned off the car’s engine, I glanced at the dashboard. We had until 12:38.

  Tyler reached into his bag and shoved a hunter-green Mao hat on his head and turned to smile at me. In the morning light, the hat appeared to match the color of his eyes.

  “Your eyes are green,” I said. I hadn’t noticed how green they were before, almost like a pale forest green.

  “Last I checked.” He smiled, revealing dimples in both cheeks, and bent quickly to stuff his bag under the seat. He opened the door and got out of the car.

  I got a text from Michelle wondering if we had found Micah yet. I texted her back to tell her we’d only just arrived, then shut off my phone and put it in the glove compartment. I didn’t want to deal with people texting and calling me. I brought my backpack, though. It was practically empty, except for sunscreen, a light black hoodie, my wallet, and a notepad.

  “Okay, Frank,” I said to the empty car. “Please help me find hi
m.” It couldn’t hurt to ask.

  * * *

  The coffee shop was on the main street that led to the ocean. Opening the door, I scanned inside for Micah, but saw only a couple of people scattered near outlets working on laptops, an older man reading a paper, and two women talking at a small table. Even though I knew he probably wouldn’t be kicking back and sipping a cappuccino, I couldn’t help feeling disappointed. If I wanted to survive the day, I knew I’d have to have realistic expectations. Those expectations would probably exclude hope.

  The perky barista took Tyler’s order.

  “You guys together?” she asked.

  “No,” Tyler said, and moved aside so I could order a latte.

  A woman in a long flowered dress and no shoes shuffled in with her head down and made her way past us in the direction of the bathroom.

  “Excuse me?” the barista said. “I’m sorry, but you can’t use that. It’s only for customers.”

  The woman didn’t stop. She tried opening the door, but it was locked.

  “You need a key to use it, and I’m sorry, but the manager won’t let us open it for you.”

  The woman muttered a few words at the floor. She stood in front of the bathroom door and rocked from the balls of her feet to her heels and back again. Her long hair shielded most of her face.

  “Can I have another small coffee?” Tyler asked.

  “Sure,” the girl said, and rang him up.

  “It’s for her.” Tyler motioned to the woman, who still stood in front of the bathroom door with the FOR CUSTOMERS ONLY sign.

  The barista gave Tyler an annoyed look, but reached in a drawer and handed Tyler a token, along with his coffee. He opened the door for the woman and gave her the coffee.

  “Who knew Tyler had a sweet side?” I said to him as we left with our drinks. “Don’t worry, I won’t tell.”

  He ducked his head and took a sip of his coffee. “Mmm. Nothing like a cup of joe to put some hair on your chest.”