Strangers in Vienna

by Angela L.

  Maybe Alaric was wrong. Maybe it did matter where you came from and to hang on to your rock no matter what. And I didn’t mean the town, but the people. It was the people that made you who you were. They were my rock and they weren’t sinking me.

  They were saving me.

  These four idiots were my home. Not this town.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  (November 8, 1992, in Missouri)

  The next day, we woke up in the tree house in uncomfortable positions considering that we were all cramped up, laying down in a small tree house with limited surface area.

  My muscles ached as if every nerve in my body was going to pass out. A sharp pain pierced through the back of my head.

  “Is it me… or are we on the other side?” Benji slowly lifted himself up in a sitting position. His hair was messed up like a tornado and his left sleeve was ripped with a leaf sticking on it.

  “I’m pretty sure the other side doesn’t have a tree house with a pretty stream and sunlight around it,” Donna groaned with exhaustion. I think out of all of us, she looked the worst. To sum it up, her face looked like a baby hippo that just pooped itself.

  “What time is it?” Noelle groaned.

  “Who cares? My head hurts,” Benji replied.

  “I’m supposed to be at the grill today,” Noelle said and instantly got to her feet.

  “Aren’t we all supposed to be at school?” Donna asked.

  “Yeah. I dropped out,” Noelle said.

  “What? Since when?”

  “Who cares? Everyone, shut up,” Benji said. He put his index finger on his lips. “Shhhh, children…” He then cupped his hands on his ears and slowly lay down, rolling into a tight and cozy ball.

  “Since last week. Why did you think I wasn’t at school?” Noelle ignored Benji, but she lowered her voice.

  “We just assumed you were sick or had stuff to do. We all disappear from time to time. Thought it was normal. Benji didn’t go to school for two weeks before and he showed up in one piece,” said Donna.

  “Wait, why are you dropping out?” I asked.

  “We’re broke. In fact, we still haven’t paid our water bill and my mom’s doing nothing but trying to find some rich guy, but with her reputation, no guy’s going to marry her so I’m just going to have to earn some money at the grill,” Noelle sighed.

  “You need help? I can lend you some money,” I said. I honestly didn’t have much money even though I’d been saving up, but it was better than nothing.

  “Nah. I mean, to be honest, we’re all broke except for Benji and Jacob,” Noelle said.

  “I’m not lending you money, lady,” Benji grunted. “You can come over and take showers or whatever if you haven’t paid your water bill.”

  “I don’t want your money.” Noelle rolled her eyes. “And I got the water situation under control.”

  “Hold on, where is Jacob?” I asked.

  We all stopped talking. Even Benji looked up. We all realized that it was just us four and Jacob was nowhere in sight.

  “You think something happened last night?” I asked curiously.

  “He was with us when we fell asleep, though.” Donna said.

  “Guys, stop worrying. He’s probably fine. That kid can take care of himself,” Benji said and rolled back into his cocoon.

  “That kid’s stupid and naïve,” Donna said.

  Noelle and I both climbed down from the tree house to check if Jacob was there since Donna and Benji were still pretty hung over. When we got down, we saw that someone had vomited last night near the boulders.

  “Jacob!” I called out.

  “Jacob Carter!” Noelle called.

  She and I walked around the tree house, past the boulders and across the stream before coming back empty-handed. After calling his name for about five more minutes, we convinced ourselves that he was probably okay. I know, we were horrible friends, but honestly, Jacob knew these woods like the back of his hand, and he could easily have gotten out if he wanted to. And from what we knew, there weren’t any bears or any other animals that could eat him, so we just assumed the best.

  “Guys, I have to go back to the grill. See you all later,” Noelle said.

  “Wait, so you’re actually not going back to school?” Donna asked.

  “Yeah. Honestly, it wouldn’t have made a big difference. I mean, look at us. We all spend a bunch of time at that place and most of us aren’t even going to college or anywhere out of this town,” Noelle pointed out and left.

  “Don’t even mention college,” Benji groaned.

  “I still haven’t heard from them yet,” I said.

  “Same. I’m not expecting much,” Donna said.

  “Already got rejected from one college,” Benji said. “Just…screw it.”

  The rest of us were all too lazy to go to school, so we just stayed in the tree house, looking up at our empty roof. It wasn’t that windy today so there weren’t a lot of leaves blown down. And as I lay there, I thought about random things that just appeared in my head. That was the problem with lying down and doing nothing. All these random thoughts appeared. I hated it, so I tuned them out. It was quite simple. I’d done it since I was four. A trick that I’d learned along the way. None of my friends got it when I told them. It was sort of a mental thing where I imagined the thoughts being placed in this tiny wooden box. I lock it and place the box in the back of my mind with the other boxes and throw the key down a cliff. Then I just forget it after a few minutes.

  I looked at my side and saw Benji snoring, and towards my right, Donna was breathing heavily. Looking at them, I wanted to just fall asleep too, but I couldn’t. I had this thing with falling asleep in a room full of people, even if it was just two close friends. I think it started when I was in elementary school; the guys would draw on your faces or super glue your hair to the ground when you fell asleep.

  “Guys, I’m hungry,” Donna suddenly said. Her eyes were still closed.

  “Benji’s asleep,” I whispered.

  “Now I’m not. There’s licorice. You can eat that.” Benji pointed at the jars in the corner. We managed to finish two jars of licorice in the past two days. I think we were all sick of them, but he was still managing to haul them in like they were his last meal.

  “You can go get something from the grill,” I said.

  “No, don’t have any money on me,” she said and got up.

  “Where are you going?” he asked and sat up.

  “Back to my place. I think there’s still some leftover chicken from two nights ago,” she said.

  “Is that even edible?” I asked.

  “I don’t care. It’s still chicken,” she said and left.

  “Guess it’s just you and me, buddy,” I said and turned to Benji.

  “I feel bad.” He yawned.

  “You want to make the roof?” I asked.

  “Now?” he said.

  “Sure. We both have nothing to do, and I’m getting tired of spiders falling down from this tree,” I said.

  Benji and I left our stuff at the tree house and went to school. We didn’t know how much wood the school still had since we had basically “borrowed” ninety percent of it last time.

  When we entered the wood shop, one of the teachers was there eating his lunch. I was going to suggest that we try another day or maybe tell the teacher that something was going on somewhere else in the school, but Benji thought that wasn’t going to buy us enough time so he came up with the stupidest idea.

  “Um. Mister. I, I can’t feel my knees. Please help. Please. Where am I?” Benji stumbled into the room. He was holding his chest and pretending to have a hard time breathing.

  “Kid, are you okay? What happened?” The teacher got up from his seat and helped Benji up. He was still gasping for air.

  “I…I…I don’t know. I ate some of that special meat from…the cafeteria and…and, I can’t feel my left leg,” Benji said and collapsed again. I wanted to tell him to make it less dramatic, but it lo
oked like the teacher was buying it.

  When they left the room, I went in and got the supplies. Unlike last time, we came prepared with a wheelbarrow. There weren’t a lot of teachers patrolling the hallways, so I just freely walked out with a bunch of wood stacked in a wheelbarrow out of the school, down the streets, and back to our kingdom.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  (November 14, 1992, in Missouri)

  I’d been writing more letters to Alaric for the past few months. I knew I wasn’t going to be able to send them since I didn’t know his address, but something about writing the words Dear Alaric made me feel a tad bit better about my life.

  There were just so many what ifs. What if I had never decided to go to Krems an der Donau when I stared at that tourist map back at the café? What if I hadn’t taken the left turn in Krems an der Donau where I saw him? What if Raya had never sent me to Austria in the first place? What if Marcel had never brought me to that café my first night in Vienna where I first saw him playing on the streets? What if…?

  Dear Alaric,

  I’ve stopped fighting my inner demons. We’re on the same side now. But…the universe still confuses me. It brought you into my life, but then took you out instantly. I keep telling myself to never love “maybe” and “supposed to” because they never love you back.

  I dropped my pen when I heard Raya open my bedroom door.

  “Yes?” I asked.

  “Can you run down to the grocery store? I would do it myself, but I’m way too tired and we ran out of milk,” Raya said, holding her enormous stomach.

  “No problem,” I said and headed out.

  As I walked over towards the milk section at the farmer’s market, I couldn’t help but overhear this loud girl talking to her friend.

  In a town like this, you didn’t get a lot of good options on who to hook up with or who to date, but gossip seemed like it was spreading faster than love.

  When I first heard her saying how Jacob made out with her, I believed that she was talking about another Jacob. Until she started describing her Jacob as tall, skinny, and brown-haired with big feet.

  I wanted to ask her more about this guy called Jacob, but all she was describing was how he couldn’t stop kissing her.

  After listening for a few minutes, I finally convinced myself that they got the wrong Jacob because the one that I knew was gay. Jacob was a common name and it was possible that there could be another walking around town that was tall and skinny with brown hair and big feet.

  When I got back home, Raya was having one of her emotional moments due to her pregnancy when she just sits there and cries for about ten minutes or so. After that, she’s usually back to normal, all giddy and ready to get on with the day. I remember when she first did it, I freaked out and didn’t know how to respond. But as the weeks passed and each time she kept doing it, it just got old. Don’t call me cold-hearted; it was just considered “normal” since her hormones were all over the place. I tried helping her many times, but each time she told me to go away. One time, she even threw a roll of newspaper at me.

  “Raya, I got the groceries,” I said and placed them on the kitchen counter. She nodded and flicked her hands a couple of times, telling me to leave her alone. So I did. Well, I sort of did. I usually just sat there behind something so that she couldn’t see me and I would keep an eye on her. A lot of things could happen in ten minutes when she was emotional. Most of the time she just sat there, but once, she started walking around with the kitchen knife with a horrified expression to kill. After that, I just watched in case she went crazy again.

  I noticed Raya had left a stack of my letters on the kitchen counter like usual. I hardly got letters. Most were from the school about conferences or some lame event that they wanted me to attend; school spirit, right?

  I hastily flipped through them and then realized two of them were from colleges that I sent my applications to.

  I sort of already knew what they were going to reveal, but I still had that tiny hope that what was written on them would prove me wrong, and I was hanging on to that tiny hope for dear life.

  I sent half of my applications to colleges near or in this town and the other half to colleges that were on the other side of the state for scholarships. It was important to get out of this town, but I wasn’t going to leave this town broke.

  I wasn’t hoping to get into some fancy college with the sucky GPA and scores that I had, but I at least wanted to get into a college far from this town.

  The two letters I held in my hand both came from colleges on the other side of the state. I told myself to not get my hopes up, and then I made myself open the letters before waiting another second.

  My eyes scanned through the first sentence of each letter, and I knew that this wasn’t such a surprise. My heart stopped beating and life turned back to normal. Boring, lifeless, hopeless.

  I tore up the two letters and threw them in the trash can without looking back.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  (November 18, 1992, in Missouri)

  “Benji, did you see the look in Weyer’s eyes?” I said as I zipped open my backpack to get out my lunch. The brown paper bag crinkled when I grabbed it.

  “I told you I could do it,” Benji said proudly and took a bite out of his carrot.

  “Do what?” Donna asked.

  “During class, Benji took out a broken pencil, he then licked it and started to mix Weyer’s coffee with it,” I said. I didn’t know why I’d decided to put mustard in my sandwich, but it tasted so bad that I thought my taste buds died.

  “Wait, who’s Weyer?” Jacob asked as he licked his fingers that were covered in cheese powder from his bag of chips.

  “Ew, that’s so gross,” Donna made this fake barfing sound. “I’m trying to eat here.”

  “The new history teacher,” Noelle answered.

  “Wait, we have a new history teacher? What happened to Bushmen?” Jacob asked.

  “He retired. Dude, that guy was, like, a hundred,” Donna remarked.

  “Oh, it wasn’t so bad. It was just one cup of coffee.” Benji smirked.

  “Yeah, one cup of coffee that was stirred with a pencil with your germs rubbed all over it,” I said. I took a bite out of my sandwich, cringing at the taste of mustard.

  “Are you guys joining any of the clubs or plays?” Donna asked, changing the subject before she puked.

  “I’m thinking about the school play, and maybe chess club,” Benji said.

  “They’re cutting the school play,” Jacob mentioned.

  “What? Why?”

  “Budget problems,” Jacob said.

  “Again? Remember the time they cut out the basketball team because they couldn’t afford to fix the court?” Donna said.

  “Wait, what happened? Why did they have to fix the court?” I asked.

  “Remember how one of the basketball players made a dunk, then he hung on to the hoop ring and started swinging his body around in midair? The entire hoop-thing broke.”

  “That’s such a fail.”

  “Yeah. Whatever. They can’t cut chess club. If this school can’t even afford a few chess pieces, then that’s just sad,” Benji said and leaned back in his chair.

  “You know how to play chess?” I looked at him, amazed. Benji seemed like the type of guy who would stick chess pieces in his mouth rather than play with them.

  “Nope, that’s why I’m joining.” Benji drank his water.

  “How come I get the feeling that you’re going to get kicked out of the chess club?” I said.

  “Me too,” Donna said in between a mouthful of her lunch. “You guys want my apple?” Donna asked.

  I took it.

  “Guys, it hurts me how you think of me as that irresponsible and troublesome guy,” Benji said seriously, but failed when he burst out laughing.

  “Oh, we don’t think so. We know,” I said.

  ****

  You know how sometimes your day goes perfectly? Like how the tiny groc
ery store down the street has your favorite cereal in stock or when the skies are extremely blue with a cool wind blowing in your direction, but not too big or else it would mess up your hair? Well, ninety percent of the time there’s usually an idiot that comes along and dumps a big load on you to ruin your nice day. And today that idiot was Jacob.

  “What do you mean you're homeless?” I asked him. I literally opened my front door, and there he was with his luggage behind him, telling me he was homeless. Not even a “hello” or a “what’s up,” but just a traumatized expression with the words “I’m homeless.”

  “Come on in.” I sighed and opened the door for him. “Care to explain further?” I asked him. How on earth was he homeless?

  Jacob rolled his luggage into my living room and slumped onto the couch before explaining, “Remember when we destroyed that guy’s house during Noelle’s party? After that, while we were all heading back to the tree house, I ditched you guys because I figured if Noelle can own up to her mom, then maybe I should tell my dad that I’m gay.” Jacob said and stopped to think what to say next.

  “And…?” I waited.

  “Well…let’s just say it didn’t go so well. He kicked me out in the end.” Jacob sighed.

  “Did he say when you can come back or did he kick you out for good?”

  “He said, and I quote, ‘don’t you dare set foot in this house until you have your head in the right direction. No son of mine will be gay.’”

  “Wow. That’s harsh.”

  “Yep. So, can I stay here for a while?”

  “Wait. I have a question. Noelle’s party was on November seventh. It’s been eleven days. Where on earth have you been staying all this time?” I asked.

  “The first night I slept at the grill. Then I stayed at the tree house for a few days and I showered at Benji’s place. I told him my shower broke. Then I managed to sneak back into my own house through the backyard. I stayed for four nights before my dad came in after I’d accidentally knocked a stack of my school books in my room.”