“No duh, Phuc. You know what I mean.”
“The earth is in between the sun and the moon, blocking the sunlight. So that shadow on the moon is earth’s shadow.” Truth: I can’t really picture it. I try to make a textbook diagram in my head, but it doesn’t work. “You look,” Phuc says, and I do. In the telescope, the moon is more complicated than I realized.
For a long time, we stay quiet. Phuc only talks when he has something to say, which is the opposite of most people, who talk no matter what. Maybe it’s ’cause of his sisters. He doesn’t want to add any noise to the planet unless he has to. The shadow keeps moving across the moon, turning it more and more orange until the whole thing glows like a ball of red clay in the sky.
“Whoa,” I say. “Why’s it do that?”
“Only the red light can get through Earth’s atmosphere,” Phuc says. “All the other light scatters. So what you’re actually seeing is all the planet’s sunrises and sunsets reflected on the moon.”
“No way.”
“Way.”
I picture all the people all over the world under all the sunrises and all the sunsets, just going about their lives and not knowing that everything is reflected on the moon. “So it’s like everyone is…connected…on the moon,” I say.
“Yeah. Kind of like superstrings.”
Phuc’s mom is a physicist at the U of M. “Phuc. Speak English.”
“Superstrings are like, super, super small. We never see them. And the energy from their vibrations makes up the entire universe. All things.”
“I thought atoms made up all things.”
Phuc frowns at me. “Dude. No. So, because of superstrings, we have ten dimensions instead of four. Like, we can only see three dimensions of space and one of time, right?”
“Okay.”
“But there are actually nine dimensions of space and one of time.” His voice is revving up, like it might blast him off the roof and up into outer space to check it all out for himself. “And get this. The small dimensions are tucked into a bigger dimension, so we don’t experience them. But the smaller dimensions are actually reality.” He squints at me to make sure I’m paying attention. “Do you know what this means?”
He asked me the same question when they launched Hubble into space last year. Phuc claimed it was the most significant advance in astronomy since Galileo’s telescope. Even when the first picture came back blurrier than his sister’s Lite-Brite, he still believed. “Just wait,” he’d said. “Give it time.”
I laugh. “Of course I do. Not.”
Phuc leans back in his chair and stares at the moon, fading back to white. “It means our whole reality is unreal.” He shrugs and shakes his head. “It means the distinction between space and time is false. It means all times could be happening at the same time. Your past and your future could be happening all at once. Right now.”
I shiver. Probably ’cause it’s late and the temperature’s dropping. But maybe because the idea of Dad getting hit by the Christmas trolley over and over in some other dimension makes me want to throw up.
I wake up in the middle of the night and bolt up in my bed, like I did when Dad said my name in the dark, and here’s why: If superstrings mean that all time is happening at the same time, does that mean Dad is alive in some other dimension? I dial Phuc’s number before I can stop myself and his mom answers. “Hi, Mrs. Tran?”
“Justin? Are you okay?”
“Yeah. I just had a question for Phuc.”
“It’s after midnight. He’s asleep. Could you ask him in the morning?” I picture the phone ringing in the Trans’ silent house and the windows lighting up one by one like in that Christmas commercial, and all of Phuc’s sisters jumping on their beds and never calming down again.
“Yeah. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you.”
But Mrs. Tran says, “You didn’t.”
“Oh. Mrs. Tran? Can I ask you the question instead? It’s about the ten dimensions.”
“I was just thinking about those myself. About black holes, actually, but it all connects.” I try to imagine having a mom that sits and thinks about reality. I mean, actual reality and not the kind of reality that my mom sits and thinks about.
“Really?” I ask.
“Yes. We think so, anyway. What’s your question?”
“Phuc said that all times are happening at once. So I was wondering. If the past is happening, does that mean people who are dead in the present are still alive somehow? In the past? In another dimension?”
There’s silence on the phone, and my heart starts to beat in my eardrums. Maybe Phuc had it wrong. Maybe Dad is just dead. Dead, dead, dead, my heart says.
Mrs. Tran breathes in like she needs extra oxygen for the answer. “I can honestly say, Justin, I don’t know. There’s so much about space and time that we don’t understand, that we don’t perceive. We’re discovering new things all the time. By the time you and Phuc are in college, I just can’t imagine.”
I smile, in the dark. The moon is tiny and white outside my window, like nothing amazing ever happened to it. Like it was never a blazing ball in the sky reflecting all the sunrises and sunsets of this planet. But I know better. I was watching. “Thanks, Mrs. Tran,” I tell her.
“You’re welcome. Good night, Justin. Say hello to your mom for me.”
“I will.” I hang up and fall back asleep and dream of the Christmas Murphy and I got a whole set of Star Wars guys and played with them all morning. Star Wars battles were the only ones me and Murphy were allowed to have. We never had toy guns or tanks or anything. You know those plastic army guys every kid in America plays with? Once, someone gave me a tube of them for my birthday and Dad threw them right in the garbage. Not the kitchen garbage either. He walked them all the way outside to the can in the alley, like he couldn’t even stand to have them in the house.
In the dream, Dad’s in his recliner, the color of the red-orange moon, reading a newspaper front to back. When he finishes, he starts another one. He pours another cup of coffee. Then a huge finger reaches down from a white flower moon and pushes the rewind button and holds it, so it will stop at the start of the scene and play it again. And again. And again.
* * *
Rodney didn’t want to without a parent note, but he lets me off four stops early at Mom’s work. I buy a bag of peanut M&M’s (Mom’s favorite) from a new guy working the register, and I’m thankful it’s not Kathy, who always: (1) looks at me with panicked eyes, (2) reminds me she’s known me since I was this big, (3) asks in a whisper how I’m doing but doesn’t wait for the answer, (4) tells me how sick they all are over my dad, and (5) says how amazing Mom is for holding everything together. “A rock,” she calls Mom. Or “a saint.” Which is weird because Mom didn’t choose this, and I always thought saints looked for trouble so they could prove themselves.
“Justin!” Mom says when I get to the pharmacy at the back. Then her face goes pale and her hands stop in the middle of whatever she was doing. “Are you okay?”
I hold up the M&M’s. “I got these. I thought if you have a break soon, you could watch me eat them. I mean, I could share them with you.”
“That’s so sweet. Thank you!” She hugs me across the counter. “But we’re shorthanded and we’re so far behind. Save me a few, okay?”
“Okay.” I smile. “See you at home.” I walk outside and sit on the curb and rip open the bag. I watch the parking lot, cars in and out. People hurrying or not. I eat five M&M’s at one time.
“Hey.” Mom sits down next to me.
“Hey! I thought you were busy.”
“Yeah, well. Screw it. If I don’t have five minutes to eat candy with my son, what kind of person am I?”
I smile and shake a few into her open hand, and we sit for a minute, crunching them. “These are so good,” Mom says.
“I
know. Why are you so far behind?”
“Because Tom, who thinks he knows everything, is a terrible manager.”
I toss an M&M up and catch it in my mouth, like Phuc and his oyster crackers. “So why don’t you be the manager?”
Mom holds her hand out, and I shake out more M&M’s into it. “I could seriously whip that place into shape. Like a navy ship, Justin. I’m telling you.”
I laugh. “So why don’t you?”
She smiles. “I’m just a tech. I’d have to go back to school for that.”
“So why don’t you?”
She looks at me like I make no sense, the same way I look at Mr. Lindberg in math every day. “Go back to school?” she asks.
“Yeah.”
She goes blank, like her brain is making a billion calculations and her face is waiting for the result. Which is—the same smile she gives me when my church pants are suddenly too short and she realizes how fast I’m growing up.
“I appreciate your confidence,” she says, “but I gotta send you and Murphy to school first.”
I look down at the pavement and move the slush around with the toe of one shoe. “After that?” I ask.
“Maybe,” Mom says, even though we both know the real answer.
* * *
Murphy is back on the couch after another shift, smelling like grease and watching the game. I sit down. The horn blows, and the players circle the ice and hop off.
“Did we win?” I ask.
“Nope, but we didn’t lose. Yet. Tied going into overtime. The new guy at work threw away all the chicken, but I brought you some biscuits.”
“Thanks.” I eat a biscuit and watch the screen to figure out who we’re playing. The Edmonton Oilers. “What’s an Oiler?”
“Don’t know. This is the third game in a row we’ve gone into overtime.”
“Does that mean we’re getting better?”
Murphy runs a hand through his sweaty hair. “Maybe. We can’t get much worse. God, I stink.”
The players skate back onto the ice. Five minutes lights up the clock. “What happens now?”
“Sudden death. First one to score wins.”
“What if no one scores? Double overtime?” I think this is a thing, but I’m not sure and I wait for Murphy to laugh at me, but he doesn’t.
“Nope. Just a tie. Why all the interest in hockey? You going out for the team next year?”
“Yeah, right. I can barely skate.” The puck drops, and the players scramble and shove each other. “Just trying not to be useless at sports.”
Murphy turns away from the TV and looks straight at me. He’s got dark circles under his eyes that didn’t used to be there. “You’re not useless.”
I shrug. Minnesota shoots and misses. “How old do you have to be to work at KFC?” I ask.
“Older than you. Don’t even think about it. You’re smart. You’ll be riding in rockets one day. Or designing them. Or finding a cure for cancer.”
“Not me. I couldn’t dissect a sheep eye.”
Murphy laughs. “Okay. The rocket thing, then.”
We watch the game for a few minutes. A grass-green blur on the screen. I try to keep track of the puck. It’s strange we can hear the sound of the skates scraping the ice, on our tiny TV. “I need to earn some money,” I tell Murphy.
“For what?”
“I accidently asked a girl to get pizza with me.”
The horn blows, and Murphy sighs. “Tied,” he says. “Again.”
“Better than losing, though, right?” I ask.
“Yeah, I guess. But sometimes it’d be nice to just get out there and crush it, you know? Like, go five–nothing. Instead of just barely making it. Every. Single. Time.” I nod. Minnetonka High School just ended the worst hockey season anyone can remember. They were dead last in the conference, so they didn’t even go to State. Everyone said how great Murphy did, pulling himself together so fast after Dad died. He only missed one game. His coach called him “indomitable,” but Murphy didn’t agree. He won’t even talk about it. He pulls out his wallet and hands me a twenty. “Knock yourself out. Is she cute?”
The twenty feels thick between my fingers. “She’s beautiful. And smart. And funny.”
Murphy smiles. “Triple threat.”
I hand the twenty back. “I don’t want your money. I’ll find some driveways to shovel. I was just asking.”
But he won’t take it back. “Little Monk, that’s the best twenty bucks I’ve spent in a long time.” He goes to take a shower, and I can hear him singing/yelling under the water. I stare at the twenty. I am very tired of being so helpless.
Mr. Sorenson says the worst thing teachers ever say, which is “Everyone, partner up.” But actually I’m wrong. Because then he says, “We’re doing an in-class assignment on Vietnam.”
The word is a blade. It hits me and hacks up my insides. All the hair on my arms stands up and my whole body starts to sweat. Even my eyebrows. I’m pretty sure the whole class is looking at me, but I stare straight ahead so I won’t have to know for sure.
Then something very weird happens. Brandon reaches across the aisle and grabs my shoulder. “I get Cease-Fire!” he yells.
“Dude!” Josh says from behind us. “What the heck?” But Brandon’s nodding and smiling at me, so I just…smile back.
He scoots his desk over. “You’re my ace in the hole, Cease-Fire.”
“What?”
“You’re smart. That’s why we’re partners.”
Mr. Sorenson starts giving out the assignments, and my stomach turns into a pretzel and knots up tighter with each one. French occupation. The war’s origin. The Vietcong.
“Ha! Bad luck for you,” Brandon tells the pair next to us. “You got Charlie.”
Mr. Sorenson clears his throat, which he does a lot when dealing with Brandon. “Mr. Engstrom and Mr. Olson. Tet Offensive.”
“Tet a what?” Brandon asks, but Mr. Sorenson moves on. Gulf of Tonkin. My Lai Massacre. Lyndon B. Johnson.
I open my book, so Brandon does too. I turn the pages and stop on 72, so Brandon does too. “So let’s just read the section,” I say.
“Good idea.”
I read, “The Tet Offensive was a series of surprise attacks by the Vietcong and North Vietnamese forces on cities and towns in South Vietnam.” I’m shivering now, from all the sweat, but there’s something else too. Something like wanting to beat this. To win. The way Murphy said it. I keep going. “ ‘Tet’ refers to the Vietnamese New Year, when traditionally a truce was observed.”
“Hold on,” Brandon says. “They attacked on a holiday? When they were supposed to have a truce?”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“That’s cold. Okay, my turn. ‘It was considered to be a turning point in the Vietnam War.’ ” Brandon raises his eyebrows at me, like this is a fascinating development, and I laugh. “In-depth reporting on the Tet Offensive by the US media made clear to the American public that victory in Vietnam was not imminent. What’s ‘imminent’?”
“Soon.”
“Well, that blows,” Brandon says. “Your turn.”
“Though US forces were quick to respond and regained much of the lost territory, the American public viewed the Tet Offensive as a sign of the undying North Vietnamese aggression and will,” I say.
“They were tough,” Brandon says, nodding like an old man remembering. “You gotta give ’em that.”
I read, “At the end of the Tet Offensive, both sides had endured losses, and both sides claimed victory.”
“Wait. What?” Brandon says.
I read it again. We stare at each other. “How does that work?” Brandon asks.
“I don’t know.”
Brandon shakes his head sadly, an old man again. “Cease-Fire,” he says, “war is so messed up
.”
* * *
I’ve been on the bench for twenty minutes and I can’t feel my toes. Part of me wants to go home, but more of me wants to stay in case Benny H. comes. I want to know more about the Indians and the lake and the burial mounds. For example, Were the bodies all buried together? Was everybody buried there, or just important people, like the chiefs? And is the town of Mound across the lake that kind of mound?
We didn’t even finish burying Dad. We left his coffin at the bottom of a hole with a mound of black dirt beside it. Next to some fake flowers on a tripod. After Pastor Steve gave a speech about him, when they’d only met one time. Or maybe twice. Is that how we felt about Dad? Is that the best we could do? Toss down a few dinky handfuls of dirt and walk away? And why did we do that anyway? Mrs. Peterson is always talking about symbolism in English, and it seems like throwing dirt onto someone’s coffin should symbolize something. But what? I looked over my shoulder the whole way to the car, tripping over gravestones, because it was so weird to just leave Dad like that. Who would shovel the dirt over him? Would it be that night? The next day? The next week?
And here’s something even weirder: we haven’t been back since. Mom says it’s too cold, and plus the stone hasn’t come in yet. She says we’ll go in the spring. Maybe she’s afraid to see him like that. Covered with dirt (I hope), then snow, and surrounded by bare branches and ribbons ripped up by the wind. Maybe it would be too much for her. In the spring, there’ll be daffodils and budding trees and robins hopping around in the grass. But Dad will still be dead. No matter how much the birds chirp and build their nests and look ahead.
* * *
The waitress already brought me another Sprite and I’m too embarrassed to ask if there’s free refills, so I’m trying to drink as slow as possible, but it’s almost to the bottom because there’s nothing else to do. I can’t look around at the other people because it’s too embarrassing, and staring into space makes me seem like a freak. I’m also trying not to check my watch too much, but I check it again. Jenni’s seven minutes late. I can’t picture waiting much longer, but I also can’t picture paying for my Sprite (or Sprites) and walking across the whole Pizza Hut with everyone watching me.
Like Nothing Amazing Ever Happened Page 5