by Scott Kelly
Ultimately, I decided on the road. So, with the sleeping bag under one arm, I began walking back home.
I kept my thumb out as I climbed hill after hill, measuring the passage of time by each crest I conquered. Breaking down the journey into these tiny increments seemed like progress, though even as the sun peaked over my head and fell to the right, I knew I’d only gone a few miles.
Late in the afternoon, the first car stopped for me. A woman in her late forties. When she noticed the sleeping bag, though, she pulled away without hearing anything I tried to say.
I felt torn between tossing the sleeping bag so I’d seem more like a stranded motorist, or running the risk of having to spend the night with nowhere to sleep but a cold ditch.
Before I made that difficult decision, though, an old white Thunderbird screeched to a halt at the crest of a hill.
I stopped and blinked a few times. The car maneuvered an angry U-turn and skidded into the southbound lane, finally coming to a stop near my feet. Smelled like burning rubber.
The window rolled down and I peered inside.
“Just get in,” Nora said. I opened the door and climbed in before she changed her mind.
I couldn’t stop smiling. Nora was clearly angry, though; tanned hands gripped the steering wheel, knuckles white. Her jaw pulsed in her cheek from the strain she put on it, and those cocoa colored eyes were curled into cruel half moons. Hadn’t seen Nora in seven months. She’d lost a little weight. Thought I even saw a little blush on her cheeks.
“I hate you so much,” she said, voice deadpan.
“Do you?” I asked. “Look, never mind, don’t answer that. I’m just glad you came and got me. I was literally sleeping outside, on the ground, with no money and no one to call. On Christmas.”
A rumbling growl expelled from Nora’s throat; a deep sound I didn’t imagine could come from her. A sound like all the angry stuff she wanted to say was boiling inside. “And now I’m spending my holiday picking you up, Jacob. And do you know why? Because I’m an idiot. Because I like you, and I hate it when you’re in trouble. But really, if I was the smart, proud person I know I am—then I wouldn’t be here, would I? So I must not be very smart, or I must hate myself. One or the other. Because I’m positive, the reason you were stuck out here is that stupid game. Am I right? Tell me I’m wrong. Please, tell me I’m wrong, Jacob.”
“You’re right,” I said, looking anywhere but at her. “It’s the game, but it’s not—”
Nora shook her head. “Shut up, Jacob. I don’t want to hear it. I don’t want to sit here and try to talk you out of throwing away your future. I’m just going to be an idiot and enable you and let you get back to doing it—but at least don’t make me hear your justifications the whole way back.”
Silence ensued. Honoring her request was the least I could do.
I studied Nora’s face as she drove. Eyes moist, lips pressed tightly together. With the way she was acting, maybe she did care about me.
Better not to test her. Instead, we sat in awkward silence the entire drive back. As we grew closer to Broadway, I knew soon, the adventure would be over. I’d be back at the trailer, back to my dad and school, and back to the Six.
I was ‘it;’ at least I had that going for me.
Nora braked hard on the road outside the trailer park. I opened the door and turned to face her.
“I hate you,” she repeated, staring forward.
I think she meant the exact opposite, but I didn’t tell her that. I only smiled, thanked her, and shut my door. Her tires kicked up gravel as she slammed on the gas, putting as much distance between us as possible.
I sighed and stared at my trailer. Almost sad to be home, back to my life as a normal kid who lived in Broadway and went to school in Kingwood. Before, I’d been a drifter, and I was capable of anything.
Grackles beat their wings, rising away from the tall oak across from me, a brown-black eruption of mad synchronicity. Their squawks welcomed me home.
I stopped outside the door to the trailer, realizing I’d have to explain to Dad where I’d been for the past week, and what happened to the car. I wondered what I’d tell him.
Could say lots of things. Could have been an extended field trip, or maybe a kidnapping. Wasn’t far from the truth. But when I walked in, his back was turned to me and he had a cup of clear liquid in his hand, vodka bottle beside the chair.
All my wild imaginings were for nothing, because he supplied the answer for me: “I see you’re out of jail,” he grumbled.
“Yeah, Dad,” I said sarcastically. “I’m a free man. By the way, your car got stolen.”
My father jumped up from the couch and swayed on his feet. “What?”
“I went to Rusk to see a girl; I met her at a hotel. When I woke up, the car and the girl were gone,” I lied. My father’s face turned blood red and I sensed a tremendous outburst pressurizing inside of him.
So I left. Rather than sticking around, I got out of the trailer and roamed the dark for a few hours until he passed out. Might have been better off if I’d never come home.
25. Aftermath
Now
The door opens. We stop talking and observe the detective who fills the frame. The officer looks tired, face bloated with exhaustion, balding head covered in sweat. He twists to force himself into the tiny room and slams the door shut behind him; Mr. Aschen jolts in shock at the sudden sound.
“Do you think this is a game?” the detective asks, his crotch uncomfortably close to my face. “We don’t have all day, kid. You need to understand the decisions you make now are some of the most important decisions you will ever make in your life. This isn’t a counseling session. This isn’t time to work out your issues with your girlfriend. There’s a good chance you won’t leave this jail until a jury of your peers decides your fate. We need to know what happened to David Bloom.”
I meet his bloodshot eyes with my own. “I told you exactly what happened to David—someone shoved him off a water tower. What I’m telling you now is what lead him there. We’ve reached the beginning of the end, Detective. I am still coming to terms with what I know. Let me talk through the events with this man. You’ll learn everything I know, I promise.”
The police officer locks gazes with Mr. Aschen. Complex signals are sent and received through rods and cones within the eyes of each man; data is transferred through the light waves between them and something is understood. The cop shakes his head, running a hand through his thinning hair, then opens the door and walks out, slamming it again. This time, Mr. Aschen’s pen flies all the way into my lap.
A nice pen, heavy. I hand the writing utensil back to him.
“Thank you. I apologize for the intrusion. Now, where were we?” he asks.
I begin again.
*
Senior year, January
I woke up at ten to the sound of our trailer’s phone ringing. I reached for it out of reflex, hoping not to wake my father on a weekend. We’d been up fighting all night.
“Hello?” I asked.
“Jacob?”
“Yeah. Who is this?”
“It’s Geoff.”
“Oh. Hi, Geoff. Long time, no talk,” I said, wincing. Definitely not a good time. Besides, now I knew I was going back to KHS, and talking to him felt awkward. “What’s up?”
“Where you been, man?”
I paused before I blurted out: “Crazy busy. My sister—you met her, right? Well, she came in, and she’s been taking up all my time. Plus, me and my dad are fighting, my car got stolen, you name it.”
“Sounds ridiculous man, you’ll have to tell me the story some time. I got a car, actually, a piece of shit station wagon, but it runs.” He began to talk excitedly about the car.
“Geoff,” I interrupted him. “I actually need to be going right now; my dad and I are in the middle of World War Three. But, call me again. I want to catch up.”
“Oh, all right,” he said in a way that was obviously not ‘all right.’
“I was hoping we could hang out…but I can see you’re busy, so anyway, I’ll let you get back to that.”
I sighed and hung up. I heard my father’s sheets shuffling in the other room and didn’t want to fight anymore. I’d been trying to convince him not to call the cops on Emily—no luck.
So I got out, throwing on jeans and shoes before he had a chance to say anything. Spent my afternoon walking back and forth across Broadway and the surrounding forest, like I was twelve years old again. No escape.
I remembered Emily’s comment about the Six hanging out at David’s trailer in the evenings. Gotta be worth a shot; as the sun set I made my way through the woods. The trailer’s path was overgrown, and it took some wandering before the sound of laughter drew me toward my friends.
I wished I’d brought a flashlight to show me the way. Instead, I stumbled over hard roots with dusk at my back and twilight before me. Stopped about ten yards from the group; a campfire outside of David’s trailer lit their faces with a dancing glow. I heard the murmuring of their voices, watched them as they stopped to nod knowingly toward David. Emily was absent, which was disappointing.
Cameron sat nearest to where I stood, staring distantly into the fire. I wondered if her wounds were healing, or if she’d found another way to hurt herself.
Kent hovered near her. Forehead and jaw all met at strong angles, thick arms and wide shoulders, fat dripping from the muscles like upholstery hanging from the ceiling of an old car. An entirely different kind of monster than the hunched over, glasses-clad teen to his right.
Steven perched on a tree stump, nesting over fresh white sneakers. His knees were drawn up to his chest and wiry, pale arms rested atop them, chin on top of those. Every few moments, he pushed his glasses back up his nose. Gaunt frame was folded up like an origami figure of himself, like viewing him from a different angle might render the boy invisible.
All attention focused on David. He paced back and forth and waved his hands as he spoke, shadows cast from the fire painting his face in stark contrast. A half-full bottle of whiskey sat near his chair.
I cleared my throat as I walked the last few dozen feet to the fire.
He stopped talking and turned to face me. “Jacob,” he said, voice vaulting through the trees. “Great of you to join us. Welcome back to the fold.”
“Nice to be here,” I said lamely. I hadn’t seen all these people together in a few months; felt like showing up to a birthday party without an invitation.
The others mumbled their greetings.
Eager to be out of the spotlight, I filled a gap in the ring across from David. The moist feel of Kingwood forest on my ankles; I ran my palm over a patch of clover. Some things never changed. “What have I been missing?”
“We’re just talking,” Kent said. “David was telling us about liminal spaces.”
“Liminal?”
“Liminal spaces are places between places,” Steven answered smugly. When he was positive about a bit of knowledge, he showed it off like that—he’d been making the same satisfied grin since he was five years old.
“What does that mean, exactly?” I asked.
“I…I mean, David was explaining,” he finished. I looked across the circle to Mr. Bloom, the only one standing. The modest trailer served as a backdrop, and his shadow loomed there.
“A liminal space is a transitional period. Imagine taking a train ride from Kingwood to Houston—where are you while you’re on the trip over? You’re not in Kingwood or Houston, you’re in the liminal space between. With Eureka, you never get off the train. The doors slide open, you look out and notice, then start moving again.” Orange fire cast him in amber hues. “Every stop won’t be a good stop. Sometimes you are going to suffer. But that’s life, condensed. Play Eureka, and you’ll do more living in a decade than most people could do in a century. “
A log split over the flames and a shower of sparks rose, a swarm of fireflies climbing into the canopy of leaves above us. “Who is ‘it?’” David asked.
I answered: “I am.”
“Tell us your story. Who tagged you, what happened?” he asked.
I stood, staring into the measured fury of the smoldering fuel as I spoke. “Emily came for me while I was leaving school one day. She had this idea to just drive north, so we did. We spent the night in a motel, but we had an argument the second day. She tagged me, and I gave her my car. I guess she’s still out there somewhere, driving around. I spent a couple of nights at this camp ground, and then hitchhiked back here.”
Wide-eyed praise. Steven clapped his hands together. “Well, shit. You gave away your car?”
I shrugged. “It’s only a car. I wouldn’t want to sit around and miss it all day.” Even though I kind of did—but they didn’t need to know.
“I do believe that sets a new standard,” Steven exclaimed, firelight dancing across the thin, rectangular glasses.
“It’s not,” I said, feeling awkward at the adoration. “It’s not nearly as impressive as what David did at graduation.”
“I disagree,” Steven said, big smile on his face. “I think it’s better.”
What are you doing? I wished Steven would shut up. He looked a bit too pleased with himself.
“Well, it was certainly something,” David said, stiff-backed, both hands on his head, shadow warped into monstrous dimensions on the trailer behind him. “I’m proud when all of you finish tags. When Jacob does something great, it’s just like if I did. I’m that close to you guys.”
“Then what about Kent? He hasn’t done anything.” Steven again, pushing buttons.
“Well, no one has tagged him lately. Jacob, why don’t you do the honors?” David asked.
I glanced over at Kent. “Isn’t that a lot of pressure to put on the guy?” I asked. Really didn’t want to walk over there; wasn’t sure if he still hated me or not.
“I’m sure he’ll be fine, Jacob. What’s making you so nervous? Are you scared of Kent?”
Kent stood, reminding me how much bigger he was. “Stop talking like I’m not here. And, why would he be scared of me? Just because he put my dad in prison and ruined my life?”
I looked at Steven and opened my mouth. He shook his head.
I stammered: “I didn’t…”
Steven spoke: “I bet he’d just try to kiss Cameron again.”
Goddamnit. He was pushing everyone’s buttons, playing us against each other. The crimson in Kent’s ears looked purple in the flickering lights.
“Hey, c’mon, you can’t make me tag someone,” I protested. “I mean, I get to choose. Kent should go like normal, this is, this…” There was no way to phrase it without making things sound worse.
David’s face hardened. “Fine. If you’ve got to be a pain in the ass about it, and make it all dramatic, then don’t tag anyone. I’ll just go.”
My response sputtered and died on my lips.
I sat down back at my seat, as far away from Kent as possible. David walked over to the fire and retrieved a burning branch, waving it like a conductor’s wand as he spoke. “We’ll start with the root of the problem: homes. People are too attached to them. A home will always be your enemy. If you start to get connected to one area, or you set roots down in one spot, it’ll be harder to escape when someone tags you. Your home becomes a shrine to your identity, too, telling you every day who you are. It’s hard to be anything but my mother’s son when every moment I’m in this home reminds me of her.”
David faced his mom’s trailer, burning branch in hand.
“If, on the other hand, you set yourself free from this—and along with it, set yourself free from your friends, your family, everyone—then you become free yourself. You don’t let your possessions own you. The entire world is your home.
“Because, trust me,” he continued, “you will change, your situation will change, and your home will change. There is no solid ground, and there is no answer. Take fire, for instance. A house fire is the closest your average person will ever come to
playing Eureka, if they’re lucky enough. Fire cleanses all the baggage that made you who you were. It keeps you from staying stagnant in a shifting world. Change is the only constant; we need to embrace change.” He lowered the burning branch underneath his trailer, so the chemical reaction licked at the plastic.
Flames began to spread as the acrid smell of melting plastic filled the air. David kept moving and repeated the process all around his home, each time spreading the fire further.
Finally, the luminance burst up into the trailer itself, and the door was sucked against its own flimsy frame as oxygen was consumed with the inferno. David smashed a window with his elbow to revive the conflagration with a fresh breath, and the blaze shot up even higher. At last, he tossed the branch inside and stepped away.
I blame the death of David Bloom on the fact that after the math, David always won. We sat back in awe. He spun, and we were trapped in orbit.
26. Mouth or mouthful
Now
“Do you know what a narcissist is, Jacob? I mean, the clinical definition?”
“Someone who’s really conceited, right?”
Mr. Aschen leans back and folds his hands, gnarled knuckles protruding. “Sort of. As a clinical term, it refers to someone who is incapable of realizing other people are as valid as himself. He never minded frightening other people, or forcing them into dangerous situations, or even damaging their property—because he never could understand that they didn’t deserve to be hurt. To David, other people were just robots, or worse, insects. Lesser beings.”
The counselor continues: “But a side effect of narcissism is not being able to process social interactions. How can you deal with other people, if you don’t think they’re really people? How can Mr. Bloom feel guilty for burning down houses, when the people he hurts don’t matter? You might as well feel guilty for kicking over an anthill. But he was still human, and when David needed to process those feelings, he relied on scapegoats. If a failure came from David, it was the fault of someone around him. Someone else set him up with an impossible task, or let him down at a crucial moment. Every person in David’s life was there for a purpose, a tool to be used. To boost his ego, or to take the fall. It all needed to fit into David’s illusion that he was an incredibly important and valuable person.”