Who I'm Not

by Ted Staunton

  I sucked it up and did my best with the sympathy card. “I’m real sorry about last night, Mrs. Dewitt. Shan tried to call but couldn’t get your number. You know I’ve been, uh, away a long time, and I didn’t know anything about Ty.”

  Then Gillian said I’d had an accident and asked her mom to drive us to the bike. I rode in the back with Buster. Gillian said he was a golden Lab. I understood now why the Jeep smelled like dog. It made me sneeze, which didn’t make my shoulder feel any better.

  I asked Mrs. Dewitt to let me out at the top of the dirt track. “It’s kind of muddy down there. You don’t want to get stuck.”

  “I’ll come with you.” Gillian got out too. I shook my head. She ignored me.

  The bike was a couple hundred yards down the trail. You could smell wood smoke and weed in the breeze as we got closer. The bike was lying deep in the tall grass where I’d left it. I peeked over the bank. They were sitting in my spot, with a little fire going and a line of beer tins already on one of the logs, their voices mixing with the sound of the water. I wanted to roll a boulder onto them. But there weren’t any boulders, and I had bigger problems. I got the bike and we started up the road.

  When we were well away, I said, “I am sorry about last night. Danny has a weird family.”

  “That’s okay,” Gillian said. “So do I.”

  We were on either side of the bike. She smiled. That made me feel good. She tucked her hair behind her ears. She looked, well, pretty. I wanted to say it, but it was hard. I could say a million nice things I didn’t mean, but saying one I did was harder than catching Harley dealing off the bottom of the deck. I did it though. Gillian smiled and looked even prettier.

  “Thank you.”

  “Maybe we could go to another movie,” I said. “Just us.”

  “Us?” she teased. “Does Danny want to go to another movie?”

  “I don’t know about Danny, but I do.”

  “Me too.”

  For a minute I forgot all about Griffin and Tyson. I even forgot to hurt. Gillian helped me put the bike in the back of the Jeep. She touched my hand, I think on purpose. I didn’t mind at all.

  TWENTY-THREE

  For the next few days, though, I didn’t think much about movies. It was a week straight from the Bad Time. Meg had found out about what happened with Ty and she was all over it, meeting with me, meeting with Carleen, knowing we all wanted to make it work. The weather was cooler now. She wore clingy sweaters. They weren’t as nice as tops I could look down.

  I could feel myself slipping back into my old Bad Time ways, too. I stopped talking. I looked away from everyone. I got stupid. One night after supper, Brooklynne kept pestering me to play with her doll stuff until I tipped the dollhouse over and said it was an accident. She started crying, of course, and everyone, especially Roy, was pissed off.

  After that I took Matt’s bike without asking and just rode. I ended up out at the beach again. I shouldn’t have gone back; they’d wrecked it all, of course. It was windy and empty and the waves were pounding. Why I’d ever thought I could get across the lake I didn’t know. I stood there and yelled into the wind, not even words, just noise, and it was as if I wasn’t even yelling at all. I went back to the bike. It had a flat tire. By the time I walked back to town, it was after dinner. Shan was in tears, thinking I might have gone again. Matt was freaking about his bike being stolen. Brooklynne was running around yelling, and Roy was pissed all over again.

  I lied about where I’d been. I lied about the bike. I said I’d found it down by the river where whoever stole it must have left it and I’d been lucky enough to recognize it. Meg got called all over again. I know we all want this to work. I’d tried not to stare at her chest.

  Meanwhile, I hurt like the Bible thumpers had been beating on me, and Griffin hung over everything like a concrete nightmare. He had me second-guessing everything and everyone, including Shan. She’d say something like “You never used to like orange cheese” and instantly I’d be on guard. One time I said, “Well, sorry I can’t be exactly the way you remember. Times change.” She looked hurt and I felt as if I’d blown it, and I didn’t know how to make it better.

  Griffin had dropped out of sight. That made it worse. That told me he knew what he was doing. You worry more when you’re always looking over your shoulder. Harley used to do the same thing with scams. He’d set the bait and then pull back for a few days, playing hard to get. The marks would drown in their own greed. “It’s not outta sight, outta mind,” he’d say. “It’s outta sight, in the mind.” I was learning the hard way that he was right. Knowing Griffin’s mind game didn’t keep it from working.

  He had me aching to run. I had to get ready. The only place I could think of to go to was Reno. When Darla and Harley split a couple years back, Darla headed there. She said she was tired of the road and had connections at a casino there. I thought if I could find her, maybe she could help me a little. Darla didn’t owe me anything, but she’d been okay to me, and she knew I did good work. She was also pretty much the only other person I really knew.

  To get to Reno, I’d have to get across the border and have money for food and bus fare plus a little padding. Toronto was a pretty big city not too far from Port Hope. I’d start by going there. On the map, it looked as if I could go from Toronto to Niagara Falls. I was sure I could cross the border there. I had a backpack, clothes, ID. I wondered if I could steal more ID from someone at Open Book. I also needed to work out the longest head start I could get and round up as much cash as I could.

  First chance I got, I looked for Darla on Facebook on a library computer. She’d used a couple different last names. No luck. Then I checked Matt’s and Shan’s money stashes and got the next bad news: the money was gone. When I cornered him, Matt told me that Roy had opened a savings account for him. Then Shan came home from shopping with a bunch of new clothes, so I knew where hers had gone, and Roy hit me up for twenty-five dollars for my share of a birthday gift for her. I was down to forty dollars Canadian, all I had left from working with Dave the Garden Fairy. I wasn’t going to get far with that.

  I did the only thing I could think of. I’d remembered a kind of Hail Mary play Harley had told me how to run if you were going to take off instantly and needed cash, but you needed a bank card for it. I went to the bank and opened an account with twenty-five of the forty dollars. Getting my card would take a few days, they said. Till then, at least most of my cash was hidden away from tightwad Roy—I could see him going through my dresser drawer.

  In the meantime, my only chance for a quick score looked to be a family party for Shan on the weekend. With any luck, Gram and Grampy might slip me a few bucks, or I could sneak a look through some purses. I asked if Gillian could come to the birthday party with me. I told myself it was good cover for Danny, and it was. With someone else there, it would be okay if I acted a little differently. But really, I just wanted her there. Luckily, she said yes.

  Gillian helped me pick a birthday card for Shan. Roy had told me to get a card we could all give to her. When I used to have time to kill in malls while Harley was busy, I’d sometimes looked at birthday cards, deciding which ones I’d have liked to get. I’d never picked one for somebody else.

  “How old is she going to be?” Gillian asked as we stood at the display.

  I didn’t have a clue. “Thirty-two,” I said.

  “So it’s not, like, a significant birthday.”

  “I guess not.”

  “How about that one?” It had a picture of a goldfish in sunglasses and some kind of lame joke about hoping the birthday “makes a splash.”

  “Sure,” I said. “When’s your birthday?”

  “In February.” She passed me the card.

  “Which one would you pick for yourself?”

  She laughed. “I don’t know. You can’t do that— it wouldn’t be a surprise.”

  “It’s just a game I play,” I said.

  “Well, then, which one would you pick?” She’d t
urned it around on me.

  “That one.” The card had a cartoon of four fat butts, jeans sagging off them. Inside it said, The backside of Mount Rushmore. Have a monumental birthday, and there was a cartoon of the four faces on the mountain.

  “That’s what I would have picked too.”

  “Get out.” I laughed. “You would not.”

  “Okay, that one.” It was a perky cartoon face exclaiming, You’re cheerful, kind, talented, funny, smart, generous, friendly, helpful, sympathetic, hardworking, passionate, creative…Inside it finished with…and you’ll believe anything. Believe this: Happy Birthday! “When’s your birthday?” she asked.

  It was a good question. Danny’s was in November, so that was what I had to say. I’d have to check the birth certificate back at Shan’s for the date. I was getting sloppy. The thing was, I didn’t want to tell Gillian Danny’s birthday. I wanted to tell her mine—except I wasn’t sure when it was either. There were a lot of years in the Bad Time when no one bothered to ask, and if anyone did, I always said it was the month before— I wasn’t going to tell anyone I’d forgotten. When I was with Harley and Darla, Darla asked me one time. We were up in Washington State. It was raining. We’d scored big all week.

  “Whaddya mean, last month?” Harley had demanded. It was hard to lie to Harley. He could practically always tell, maybe because he was such a good liar himself. “I bet he’s just saying that. Whaddaya think, Dar? I bet he’s just scared we’ll give him the paddywhacks.”

  “Could be.” Darla half smiled, reaching for her smokes.

  Harley said, “All right, he won’t tell, so we get to pick one. How about today?”

  “Today?” I said. I didn’t like being teased. I didn’t like paddywhacks either.

  “Why not? What’s today? Check the paper.”

  I remember it was a Spokane paper. I picked it up off the RV seat. “March twenty-ninth.”

  “Bingo. That’s your birthday. Remember it.” Pop went Harley’s gum. That night we had pizza in a restaurant and the waiters sang “Happy Birthday” and Harley and Darla let me spend twenty bucks in Barnes & Noble. I got a book of Sherlock Holmes stories. I put the steak knife under my mattress again, just in case they remembered the paddywhacks.

  I had to answer Gillian’s question, so I said, “Not until late spring.”

  When I left her that afternoon, I went back to the store and bought the card she’d liked. Neither of us was going to be here in February.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  The birthday party for Shan was up at Uncle Pete’s place, in the country north of town. We picked Gillian up in the family van. The Dewitt house was classy and old-looking, on the steep hill of a street where even the doghouses were probably mansions. There was a FOR SALE sign staked into the front lawn. It was pretty clear that the Garden Fairy hadn’t flown by in a while.

  You could tell Shan was pleased I’d invited Gillian. She made a fuss over her, asking after her mom and sister. Gillian wore a red hoodie over her jeans, and she had a jacket with her. Uncle Pete had promised a bonfire after dinner.

  Uncle Pete’s place was a summer cabin—a cottage, they called them up there—that he’d added on to and converted into a house. It was by a lake the size I wished Lake Ontario was. I knew from some of the home movies I’d watched that Danny had gone there a lot. Pretending to be forgetful was only going to take me so far. I asked Pete first thing what had changed since I’d been away, and he took Gillian and me on a tour. He said he’d taken the dock in for the season and that his boat was in storage, and I came up with a couple “memories” of fishing that I’d watched at Shan’s. Then he showed us how he’d redone the kitchen and put in a new bathroom “that you won’t remember.” He was right. I said it was good to be back.

  Uncle Pete’s grown kids were there too, with their own kids. After supper we all took lawn chairs down to the fire pit by the water and Uncle Pete got the bonfire going. The dark came on as Matt and Brooklynne and Uncle Pete’s grandkids ran around with hissing sparklers. Gram and Grampy were blathering about getting ready to head to Florida. I sat next to Gillian, sunk in one of those saggy fold-up chairs that have beer-can holders in their arms. The heat from the fire was on my face and the night air was at my back. Uncle Pete passed out sticks for toasting marshmallows. From the joking, I got the picture that Danny had been some kind of marshmallow-toasting fanatic, which didn’t make me happy. I don’t much like marshmallows for one, and I haven’t been crazy about getting close to fire ever since Wayne the Bible thumper held my hand over the stove element. You better believe I wasn’t getting near those sparklers.

  “C’mon, Danny,” Gillian said. She was already crouching, reaching into the heat. The light from the fire made her seem to glow too. I was about to say I had to use the washroom first and then slip back to the house to hit the purses when I noticed something. The sleeve of her hoodie had pulled up, and in the firelight two pale ridges on the underside of her wrist were showing. They gave me kind of a jolt. I knew what they were. I’d met kids in the Bad Time who’d done that to themselves. She had just turned to look at me, probably wondering why I hadn’t said anything, when headlights swept the lawn and a car with a bad muffler pulled in. We all turned.

  “Better late than never,” said Uncle Pete. The motor cut out. There was a splash of light from inside the car. Two people. The doors clunked and they came toward us, surrounded by kids’ sparklers: Carleen and Ty.

  All at once Shan was beside me. “I didn’t know if they were coming or not, hon.”

  I looked at her. Gillian stood up, and Shan touched her arm. “He’s really sorry for what happened. He slipped, he knows, and he wants to apologize. And Gillian, I wouldn’t have let you come, hon, if I didn’t know it would be one hundred percent okay. Our Ty’s had some issues, and I’m so sorry you had to be involved. If you’d been hurt I’d never have forgiven myself and neither would Ty. But this—this is just going to be fun. It’s my birthday!”

  Gillian looked kind of worried. I probably looked the same way.

  “C’mon, you two,” Shan coaxed. “He won’t be in your face. He’s shy. Just let him take his time and you’ll see.”

  Roy had come up behind her. His eyes caught mine and rolled. It might have been the one time we felt the same about something. He’d calmed down after I’d gotten the card and given him an extra ten bucks for Shan’s gift.

  Carleen was in jeans and a Dale Earnhardt NASCAR jacket. Her face was a hatchet, sharp and dangerous in the firelight. Tyson was a step or two behind her. This time he had on a ballcap and a jean jacket over a hoodie, and he was carrying a can of beer. People called out hellos and he lifted the can like a toast. “Yo.”

  “Sorry we’re late,” Carleen said, then to Shan: “Happy birthday, dreamboat.”

  Shan went over and kissed her. Carleen made her way around the circle until she got to Gillian and me. Gillian’s sleeve was back over her wrist.

  “Hey, Momma,” I said.

  Carleen looked at us. If her face was a hatchet, her eyes were razor blades. There was a hard gleam in them. “Sorry about the other night. Understand, I had to deal with Ty. He’s not good with, uh, surprises.” There was a little something on her breath, vodka maybe; it was hard to tell. All I could smell for sure was cigarettes. This time, with everyone watching, she went all the way and gave me something like a hug. I introduced Gillian. Carleen went through the motions. Then she turned to Tyson and jerked her head at me.

  Tyson had stayed at the edge of the firelight, sipping his beer and talking to Uncle Pete. He was still bouncing and rolling but not as badly as at the grocery. Now he came over to us. I think he was trying to look casual. He looked about as casual as a funeral. “Hey-ey-ey” he said, with kind of a hoarse little chuckle breaking up his voice. “Um. Little, uh, bro, can I—can I…talk to you for a sec?”

  He led me a few steps away. He turned, and the fire lit up his skeleton face. He was twitching so much now that one of the kids could have waved
him around in the dark to watch the sparks fly out of his eyes. “So, uh, listen, I’m really sorry, dude. I was just so…surprised and, like, it’d been so long and…so I didn’t recognize you…” The words rushed out, stumbling. He gave me the family sneer. I gave it back.

  “’S all right.”

  “No, lissen, dude, I was outta line. Lissen, I gotta level with ya…” He fished half a joint from the top pocket of his jacket, fired it with a lighter and sucked some in. His hands shook the whole time. “You want? No? No, I gotta level with ya. It’d been so long and I’d thought, you know, even after I heard that you—like, you know I got a little problem, right?” Now the words were racing each other. He spread his hands as if I was supposed to size up a shirt he was trying on. I nodded. “Lissen, you want a beer or anything?” He yanked one out of the pouch of his hoodie.

  “No, it’s okay.” All I wanted was for him to get done.

  “Okay, so I got a problem and sometimes I don’t even get things right, even when I hear them, and it had just been so long and I’d got it in my head that you were, like…”

  “What?” I said. “Dead?”

  “Whoo-oh, don’t even say that, man. ’Cause you’re not. You’re one hundred percent alive, dude, and thank God for it.” He squinted as he took another hit off the joint. “Thank God for it. But when you, uh, you know, popped up like that, oh man, I freaked. You know?” He blew out smoke.

  “Sure.”

  “Anyway, uh, this is just to, just to say sorry, you know? And like I know things weren’t always right between us, dude, but I—I kept somethin’ of yours all the time, like a momen, monu—memorial of you, in case you came back. So now I wanna give it back to ya, but just between us, okay? This is just between you and me, bro to bro.” He reached into another pocket, his jeans this time, and pulled something out. He took a last quick hit off the roach, threw it on the ground, grabbed my hand and pushed something into my palm. We stood there with him clamping my hand between his. “Between us, okay? No Shan, no Ma, just us. Brothers. All the way.” I nodded. His eyes were like the bonfire now. He had a surprisingly strong grip, and his hands were grave-digger cold. “You may need this some time, man. I couldn’t save you last time. This is for you. Never can tell. Just us? Brothers? All the way?”