Meet Me Here

by Bryan Bliss

  “He is so messed up,” I say. “All he does is sit at the house and watch videos on the computer and eat frozen pizzas and—”

  This is where I usually shut it down. Once, at school, a teacher asked, and I got this far before I started zippering everything closed. My mouth, all the feelings, the fear. Shutting down works because nobody pays attention, not really. For most people, Jake can be both hero and recluse because in that world nobody has to care except for me.

  “Is it because he got shot?” she asks.

  “Honestly, I don’t know,” I say. “The other night I had to go pick him up because he was halfway to Sherrills Ford. That’s like twenty miles away, and he was walking. For no reason.”

  I drop my head. Even now I can’t say it out loud. The only words anyone ever uses—crazy, sick, off—don’t capture what’s wrong with Jake.

  Mallory leans closer to me. “Hey, he’s going to be fine.”

  “I don’t think he is.”

  As soon as I say it, I’m nervous. If Mallory has a reaction, she doesn’t show it. I can’t tell if she doesn’t know what to say or maybe she can’t believe I’d betray Jake, everybody’s hero, so easily.

  “I’m really sorry,” she says, not looking up.

  I thank her quietly. The awkwardness begins filling up the truck by the bucketful until the unmistakable sound of a shotgun discharging rings across the night, immediately followed by shattering glass and enthusiastic male catcalls.

  All I can think is: thank God for Hickory, North Carolina.

  Voices dart across the empty parking lot, around the buildings. The words are muddled nonsense.

  I start my truck because who knows how many beers these guys finished before the firearms came out. Before I can put the truck in gear, Mallory says, “So I’m guessing that’s what your parents were arguing about.”

  I let the truck idle, hoping for another shotgun blast. But nothing comes, so I nod my head. “Of course. Dad says: ‘Jake is tough. Jake’s a man. He just needs some time to get right.’”

  “What does your mom think?”

  “That cookies and cake will solve all the problems.”

  “I’m sure she sees it.”

  “I see it,” I say. “But what does it matter if nobody does anything about it?”

  It sounds harsher than I intend, weeks and months of frustration coming at her like shards of glass. When her phone goes off, she stares at me for three rings before punching the button and lifting it to her ear. The one-sided conversation is loud and angry.

  “Well, stop calling then . . . Why do you care? . . . Fine, you want to know? I’m with Thomas . . . Yes . . . Yeah, we’re making sweet, mad love, Will—what do you think? . . . Okay, I’m hanging up now.”

  This time it’s Mallory who goes quiet. She stares at the notebook still in her lap. We could’ve been sitting there for a hundred years before she says, “All I’m saying is, maybe your parents have reasons for what they’re doing . . . or not doing.”

  “Ho-ly shit. Sin, will you look at this?”

  Wayne Lewis is standing in front of my truck, holding a shotgun and nodding to Sinclair Williams. I’ve known them both since kindergarten. Good friends, but the sort of guys who only know how to have fun that ends with the police showing up.

  Wayne squints into the truck. “Oh man, Thomas. Did we just ruin your graduation hookup?”

  Mallory opens the door and waves. When the light catches her face and Wayne sees her, he smiles. “Might need to reload this twelve gauge, Sin. This boy right here’s in need of protection, messing around with another man’s woman.”

  I’m about to tell Wayne we’re leaving, when Mallory gets out of the truck and points at the shotgun. “Hey, can I get a go with that?”

  Wayne looks more surprised than I do, and for the next ten minutes I couldn’t tell Mallory and Wayne the world was ending, let alone try to get either of them to disengage. Wayne is impressed and fascinated that a girl would want to stand on the back of his pickup and fire a shotgun at empty beer bottles. He shows her how to hold the gun against her shoulder, how to trace the bottles Sinclair throws across the parking lot. Her phone goes off inside the cab of my truck, but if she hears it, I can’t tell.

  “All right, get ready for this,” Wayne says, motioning to Sinclair.

  The bottle goes airborne, and she misses it completely, rubbing her shoulder and cursing from the kickback. Wayne still cups his hands and lets out his best yell.

  “Damn. That hurt,” Mallory says, still rubbing her shoulder.

  “Nice shot,” I say.

  She turns to me, a challenge in her eyes. “You think you can do better?”

  Dad taught me to shoot years ago, and Wayne’s twelve gauge isn’t any different from the one in Dad’s gun safe. But I also know Wayne. A couple of shotgun blasts could easily turn into our spending the next seven hours sitting in the back of his truck, drinking beer and listening to his stories. We’d be here until dawn.

  “Okay, soldier boy,” Wayne says, holding the gun out to me. “Let’s see what you’ve got.”

  “I’m not getting caught shooting a gun in the parking lot of a school,” I say.

  Wayne and Sinclair consider the felonious nature of this statement briefly before laying into me. Asking if I need to go home for some quiet time. Whether my yoga practice is affecting my trigger finger. All that.

  “How is that vegan diet?” Wayne asks.

  I still haven’t moved when Mallory takes the gun from Wayne and says, “Sinclair, throw another bottle.” And this time it doesn’t get twenty feet from Sinclair’s hand before it explodes, raining glass everywhere.

  “Hot damn!” Wayne nearly falls off the back of his truck with excitement. But she’s already jumping off the bed and walking to me, a taunt etched into her face and the shotgun in her hands.

  “One shot and nobody will think you’re a punk.”

  “You must have me confused with somebody else.”

  “Somebody who’s a punk?”

  “I think I’ve got a slingshot in the truck!” Sinclair laughs as he says it. I hesitate a second too long.

  “I understand if you’re scared,” Mallory yells, for the world to hear. “Especially now that I’ve shown what’s what.”

  “Hitting one is easy,” I say. “Anybody can do that. You hit two, three in a row? Then maybe I’m impressed.”

  Mallory takes the challenge, eyeing me as she lifts the gun to her shoulder. She misses the next three bottles, each one smashing against the parking lot. At first she doesn’t look at me, just stands there for a second contemplating what she’s going to say next.

  “Well, if you don’t shoot, you’re still a punk,” she says, handing the gun to Wayne.

  It gets a hallelujah chorus from the idiots as Mallory scans me up and down, like “Let’s see what you can do.” If I don’t shoot, nothing happens. Maybe they give me hell for another fifteen minutes, and probably not even that long. But if I do shoot, if I miss I’ll never hear the end of it.

  But I don’t think I’ll miss. Having a stock against my shoulder is like learning to ride a bike in most other families. You walk, you get a little age to you, you learn to shoot. BB guns, a hunting rifle: I’ve shot everything. As I’m going through all of this, I can’t think of a good reason not to take the challenge. And besides, it will be nice to finally win something with Mallory. Even if it took eighteen years to make it happen.

  When I stand up, Mallory starts clapping, throwing her hands up in the air like she’s at church. Then she’s in my ear, taunting me, whispered put-downs that are halfhearted at best. I climb into the truck bed, trying not to listen to her or Wayne and Sinclair’s commentary on the state of my manhood as I reject the shotgun and pick up the .22 leaning against the truck instead.

  “Throw three in a row,” I say, checking the sight and getting a feeling for the weight of the gun in my hands. “After I hit the first, throw the second, then the third. Okay?”

  “
That’s presumptuous,” Mallory says, but I ignore her.

  When I nod to Sinclair, everything stops moving for a second. The first bottle is in the air, and all I can hear is myself breathing as I pull the trigger. The second, the third: all of them are taken from the sky one after another. When I drop the barrel of the gun, everyone’s silent for a second.

  I smile as Mallory shakes her head, refusing to look at me.

  “Well, at least I can rest easy knowing America’s going to be safe,” Wayne says, taking the gun and slapping me on the shoulder. “When do you leave, man?”

  “Tomorrow,” I say.

  “Oh, shit! Tomorrow? Like, tomorrow tomorrow?”

  “I’ll be gone before the sun even comes up,” I say.

  “See, Sinclair, that’s what I’m trying to tell you,” Wayne says. “This right here is a man with plans. He’s going to war, son.”

  “I’m not going to war,” I say. Wayne and Sinclair both ignore me.

  “You know I’m waiting on NASCAR to call,” Sinclair says, adjusting his ball cap. “And just because you graduate from high school doesn’t mean you’re ready to go out and get a job. And that’s why I’m staying with my parents this year. It’s called a gap year, idiot.”

  Wayne stares at him for a long minute. “Sitting around your mom’s basement getting high and playing Madden isn’t a gap year. Hell, it’s your senior year—just no school.”

  “Okay, fair enough,” Sinclair says. “But it’s not like I won’t be working. I got a job up at Wagner Tires this summer.”

  “Yeah, yeah, enough with your gap year.” Wayne turns to me. “So what are we doing?”

  “Nothing,” I say.

  “Yeah, haven’t you heard? He’s leaving in the morning,” Mallory deadpans.

  “It’s graduation night,” Wayne says. “And hell if I’m not drinking a beer with you before you go. Sinclair, where’s the next party?”

  Sinclair pulls out a piece of paper from his back pocket, and before he can say anything, Mallory stops him.

  “What is that?”

  “List of all the graduation parties,” Sinclair says. “Some are actually probably more get-togethers, but that’s semantics. Anyway, we could go up to the quarry. There’s some people going up there tonight.”

  Mallory throws her arm around Sinclair, both of them staring at me and nodding. “I love these guys. We’re in.”

  “Hell, yes,” Wayne says, shouldering the .22. “We’re about two moments away from jail right now, and we need a good influence. Somebody with moral fiber to put us on the right path.”

  “Oh, that’s Thomas,” Mallory says. “Full of moral fiber.”

  “I don’t want to go to a party,” I say.

  “It’s not a party,” Mallory says. “It’s a get-together. Weren’t you listening?”

  “Yeah, Sin’s really particular about that shit, too.”

  Sinclair sighs, putting the list back in his pocket. “A party’s bigger, there’s an expectation that you stay longer. See more people. A get-together is casual.”

  “Hear that? Sounds exactly like what you need tonight,” Mallory says. For a second her face softens and she raises her eyebrows a half inch. “You know?”

  Wayne doesn’t give me a chance to answer. He slaps me on the shoulder and says, “We’re going to the quarry, end of story. You’re officially occupied, Bennett. Sin, get the truck.”

  And just like that, we’re four.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The quarry is for drinking beer, building a fire with friends. It’s whooping and hollering and stumbling into the dark corners with your boyfriend or girlfriend. And then somebody decides to jump into the lake fifty feet below and everybody packs it up until the next weekend. I’ve done this dozens of times by now and more than a few with Wayne and Sinclair. But never with Mallory.

  Maybe that’s why it’s so quiet in the truck. I’m following Wayne to the quarry, trying to conjure up the magic of the Grover and, to a smaller extent, the parking lot. In those moments I don’t think about Jake or the army. I don’t think about how I’ve missed Mom’s curfew now or how every minute I spend out with Mallory is a minute I’m not sleeping in preparation for the trip.

  “Look at you,” Mallory says. “Like you’re going to a funeral.”

  Her phone rings, and she silences it without looking. Ahead of us Wayne turns onto a gravel road, the dark trees camouflaging everything except the twin brake lights that flash on and off as he navigates the narrow road.

  “We should’ve come up here before this,” she says. “And how did we not put it in the ‘Book of Adventures’?”

  I laugh. “I’m pretty sure drinking beer around a campfire wasn’t high on our priorities back then. But yeah, I know.”

  We park behind Wayne, the small dirt clearing packed full of vehicles. A fire is already burning. Shadows crawl up and down the rock walls. This isn’t a get-together. It’s a party and a big one.

  I take a few breaths, readying myself for what’s coming. People will ask about tomorrow, and I’ll smile, tell them I can’t wait to get that uniform on. Everybody around this fire has known me since we were kids, and I’ve already been lying to them without pause for months. But the prospect of doing it even one more time makes my stomach drop.

  Mallory’s phone goes off, followed by mine: Mom. I hesitate before putting my phone in the cup holder. Outside, the group greets Wayne’s arrival with a cheer, a few of them standing up and slapping him on the shoulder. He and Sinclair grab a beer and raise them in the air.

  “You okay?” Mallory asks.

  “Yeah, I’m good.”

  “Okay, because I need some more memories,” Mallory says, pulling the sign out.

  “What are you doing?” But she’s already out of the truck, holding it above her head and whooping like some kind of deranged cheerleader. People yell because they’re buzzing, but it gets louder and louder as people start to realize exactly what she’s holding. They’re so enamored with the sign nobody notices me walk up.

  “Fifteenth floor, what?” Mallory says, pulling me toward her. “Luckily I had soldier boy here to keep me safe.”

  They pass the sign around the campfire, telling their own stories, the rumors that all share a little piece of truth. When somebody finally asks what was up there, Mallory doesn’t say anything. She turns to me, and at first I don’t realize she wants me to take over, to explain.

  “Satanists,” I say, trying to hide my smile when they all stop talking, moving. One of them, Emma West, nods her head knowingly and thrusts her beer to the sky, yelling out, “Satanists!” And then everybody cheers.

  Wayne ambles through the group, handing me and Mallory each a beer. When the sign makes its way back to Mallory, I think I’m clear. I’ll be able to sit here like any other guy in our class; the only difference is that I’ll pretend to drink the beer because the last thing I need is to be hung over tomorrow morning. But then Wayne goes into the middle of the circle, clinking his bottle against his belt buckle.

  “The United States Army has obviously lowered their standards,” he says to the group. They all laugh. Most of them are going to college; none of their parents want them anywhere near the army, even if the chance of active duty is remote. They don’t want heroes, just happiness.

  “But we know all about Thomas Bennett, don’t we? This is the guy who once put deodorant on the outside of his shirt for the sixth-grade choir concert, because he didn’t know how it worked.” Laughter. They want to send me off right. And every word that Wayne speaks gets them going more, which I appreciate. But I also wish he’d just raise his beer already and stop. Of course he keeps going. “The kid who used to wear camouflage to all the junior high dances, which now that I think about it is pretty genius. Respect, Bennett.”

  Wayne walks over to me, wrapping a thick arm around my shoulders. “Raise your beers to Thomas, y’all. May he go and kill a bunch of terrorists!”

  As people stand and tilt their beers b
ack in my honor, Mallory leans close and says, “Eloquent and subtle as always.”

  The firelight slaps against the walls of the quarry, distorting our shadows until we’re all taller than the trees—giants in the darkness. It’s how I always expected to feel on this night: big enough to take on anything.

  Somebody turns on a car stereo and opens the doors. A few people start dancing as the music fills the night. Mallory leans over to me, and at first I think she’s going to ask me to dance. My whole body goes tight.

  “Despite everything, I’m glad this is happening.”

  “Me, too,” I say.

  She nods and stares into the fire, taking short sips from her beer. Eventually she puts it down and sits on one of the empty logs. I sit down next to her as we watch everybody dance and laugh around the fire. We’re still sitting that way when Daniel walks up, wanting to chat me up. He hoped to sign up for the marines but won’t turn eighteen for another two months, and his parents wouldn’t sign the papers. Then he got into Appalachian State, and last I heard he was going to major in business.

  I have to stand to hear him, and Mallory drifts off to another group. As Daniel complains about his parents, I watch Mallory smile at whatever Wayne is saying to her.

  “So I bet you’re excited,” he says, sucking the last drops of beer from his bottle before throwing it over the edge of the quarry. “Do you think you’ll go overseas?”

  “I don’t know, man. I’ll probably end up in Kansas.”

  “Fucking Kansas,” Daniel says.

  I keep the conversation going with as few words as possible until Mallory comes up next to me and knocks me with her hip.

  “Hey, mind if I steal this guy for a minute?”

  “Oh, yeah. Sure. Hey, where’s Will?”

  But we’re already turning around and walking away from the fire. She leads me past another group, all of them too interested in their conversation to notice us as we squeeze around them. I follow her up a narrow path, through the thick woods. Soon I can’t see the fire below us. Mallory continues to climb until we break through the trees to a small collection of boulders. She sits down and pats the rock next to her.