“I’ve gone a month without a shower. And even when there were showers to be had, you got in and got out ’cause some other guy was waiting. Often we were in old barracks that had no hot water, so contractors were hired to install water heaters, and sometimes they screwed up the installation, and there’ve been like twenty deaths from electrocution, where guys step in and get electrocuted just turning on the faucet. I never saw it happen, but it’s one of those things you hear about. So taking a long, hot shower in a place where it feels safe to do so is maybe the best part of being back.”
The wheel on the board stops spinning.
“So that’s why I take long showers,” he says.
“Thanks.” I nod. “That’s good to know.”
“You’re welcome.” He makes a move to get up, but then he sits back down next to me. “Is this your worst birthday ever?”
“No, of course not.”
“I’m not counting the one where the magician never showed and I threw on Abba’s tie and tried to make a penny disappear up my sleeve and all your friends booed me.”
I’d forgotten all about that. I was turning five.
I laugh. “That was worse. So was the one where we went looking for fossils.”
“Yeah. The streets of suburban Boston are practically paved with dinosaur relics. I tried to talk you out of that one, but you’d have none of it.”
“See? This is so not my worst birthday ever.”
“Good. Because it’s my best of your birthdays.”
I ride on Zim’s board, slowly so that I keep pace with Bo. This isn’t a time for liptricks or ollies. I skate in a straight line. It sure beats walking.
After a mile or more of silence Bo asks, “Aren’t you going to call Celine?”
“How do you know I haven’t?”
“Just a guess.”
“I will.”
“It’s your eighteenth birthday. Nut up.”
He shoves me off my board and grabs it. He jumps on and pushes off so he’s far enough ahead of me that I can talk in privacy—or at least as much privacy as one can get on the Baltimore Pike.
I flip open my phone. I scroll down to the Cs.
Nothing.
Apparently I don’t know anyone whose first or last name begins with a C. In the space where Celine should be I find nothing.
Nada. Zip. Zero.
My heart sinks.
But I saw her. I saw her program her number in. She did it right in front of me.
Or was that just an elaborate ruse? Something she did to make it seem as if she liked me when really she never wanted to hear from me again?
I close the phone. Then I open it. I scroll down, starting with the As. I scroll frantically and then I find her. Right below Demario’s Pizza. Right above Dov.
Dion, Celine.
I press send.
Smacked down, instantly, by the dreaded voice mail.
Beep.
“Hey, Celine. It’s Levi. How are you recovering from the walk? I tend to feel it in my lower back, and I’m pretty used to this whole walking thing, so I can only imagine how your lower back feels. Anyway, that’s why I called. To see how your lower back is doing and also the rest of you. Call me if you want. Or if you don’t want you could still call me just to be nice. Because, like, it’s my birthday, so I figure if you don’t call—”
Beep.
Okay, so I tend to ramble. I don’t know how to do the brief voice-mail message. I wish I’d thought it out more. Chosen my words carefully. But I don’t really care. She left me her number. That’s what matters.
I run to catch up with Bo. My brother, on wheels.
Five days: that’s about how far I figure we are from Washington.
Six days: that’s when the support the troops rally is scheduled to take place on the Mall.
Two a.m.: that’s what time it is, and I can’t sleep.
I stare at the ceiling.
And I get to thinking. All sorts of thinking.
I wait until I’m certain Bo is out. It’s hard to get a handle on the depth of his breathing over the sound of the radio static, but I can see the steady rise and fall of his chest, so I’m pretty sure he’s a goner.
I tiptoe out of the room in my socks and head to the motel’s business center. Not surprisingly, it’s deserted. For one thing, it’s two in the morning. For another, who comes to this crap motel to do business?
I go online.
I read about the rally. It’s a big one. It even has its own Web site: A Million Strong for America! I have no idea if that’s a realistic number. Probably not. But maybe so. Maybe people are flying, driving, walking in from all across the country.
BRING YOUR FLAGS!! screams a banner across the bottom of the home page.
Could that be it? Could that be all the clown is hiding? A flag folded tight enough to fit inside a child’s shoe box?
I search on. I read more.
Because while I was lying there not sleeping, while I was watching the digital numbers on the motel clock march toward daylight, while I was listening to the static and the faint sound of my brother breathing, I got to thinking about how little I’ve bothered even trying to understand.
I’m not pro or anti. I’m just nothing.
I’m just a nothing who can’t sleep.
So now I’m sitting in the motel business center in the deadest dead of night, and I’m thinking, and I’m reading, and I’m learning, and I’m getting ready to be one of a million strong.
I’m getting ready to take a side.
EIGHTEEN
THE NEXT MORNING, finally, after all these weeks and miles and blackjack losses, I ask him the big question.
“Why not a car? Or a train? Or a bus? Why are we walking all the way to DC?”
“I just like walking.”
I hop off my skateboard.
“That’s bullshit,” I say.
He doesn’t stop.
“You can tell me.” I holler because now there’s a distance growing between us. “I want to know.”
He doesn’t say anything. I stand there with my board in my hands in the middle of another one of those moments.
I must choose my path.
I could turn around and ride Zim’s old skateboard home. I could accept Bo’s brush-off answer, let it go at that. Or I could catch up to him and make him see that I want to know. I really want to know. I want to know because I care about him and all this matters to me. He matters to me.
A couple of good kicks and I’m right beside him again.
“You take long, hot showers because they make you feel safe. I know that. You told me that and it’s okay. Nothing terrible happened because you shared that information with me. So. Why don’t you want to ride in cars?”
He doesn’t look at me. He doesn’t answer. He walks and I ride in silence, and together we cross the border into Maryland. I imagine at some point people fought hard for these borders. That these sorts of divisions mattered to somebody. But now you wouldn’t even know you’d left one place for the next if it weren’t for the sign welcoming you here and informing you that the state flower is the black-eyed Susan, the bird is the Baltimore oriole and the motto is Manly Deeds, Womanly Words.
“We were on the outskirts of this province in the north,” he begins. “One of the more hellacious regions in that whole hellacious country, and we’re rolling along, it’s dusk, and you can’t think about IEDs, because if you did, you’d never get in your Humvee in the first place, and IEDs can happen anywhere, anytime, and we know that, we’ve seen that, over and over again, but you just have to move ahead and take it on faith that you won’t be one of the unlucky ones to make their acquaintance.”
If it hadn’t been for my late-night research session, I wouldn’t even know that IED stands for improvised explosive device. Otherwise known as a roadside bomb. One of the goals of A Million Strong is to get more Cougars, which are like Humvees on steroids, and are a far better match head to head with an IED.
“
So this one night we’re rolling along, and I’m joking with my buddy about something stupid, and the next thing I know there’s this big explosion as our Humvee and this IED are formally introduced. The whole fucking thing just blows apart. One minute everything is quiet, everything is fine, you can even let yourself have a laugh about something not worth remembering, and the next minute your friend is lying three feet away from his legs. And you check yourself. You feel your head, and you feel for your limbs, and everything is there. It doesn’t even make any sense, but everything is there, and you’re fine. And you look at your friend. And you look at his legs. And your brain doesn’t let you comprehend what you’re seeing, but you can’t just pass out. You can’t disappear into blackness. You have to do something. Say something. But what do you say to somebody who is lying three feet from his legs?”
His voice is shaking. The brim of my Red Sox cap is low over his face, so I can’t see if he’s crying, but I don’t try to find out. I don’t stare. One of the things about walking I always appreciated is the way you don’t have to look someone in the eye.
“I don’t know,” I say. “I can’t imagine.”
“So if I don’t have to get in a Humvee, or a truck, or a car, or even a train, if there’s a choice, if I have a choice and I don’t have to follow orders, if I can do what I want to do, and my legs still work, I’ll just walk.”
I step off my board and I tuck it under my arm and I don’t get on it again for the rest of the day.
Tonight we’re staying at Paul’s sister’s house. Otherwise known as Celine’s aunt’s house. You’d think that this connection might warrant a call back, but no. Leaving messages on Celine’s voice mail is like mailing a letter to Santa Claus. I do it with as much hope and optimism as a little kid. And apparently I’m as likely to get a call back as that little kid is to get a handwritten letter from the big man himself.
But still.
I give it another shot.
And this time she answers.
“Hey, Levi, what’s up?”
“Hey! Um, I’m just calling, um, again, because I’m on my way to your aunt’s house and it, like, made me think about you.”
Again: telephonic communication = not my strong suit.
“Where are you?”
“I’m in Edgewood. Two blocks from your aunt’s house.”
“How are you finding Edgewood?”
“It’s lovely this time of year.”
“Where are you now?”
“About a block and a half from her house.”
“Keep me posted, will you?”
“Can do.”
“I like you, Levi. Did you know that?”
“You do? ’Cause it’s kinda hard to tell.”
“Well, I do.”
“Good thing, because I like you too.”
“Now?”
“I’m on the block, I think. I just have to find the house.”
“Two houses up on the left.”
I’m looking up before fully understanding what she’s saying, and there she is, on the front steps, in her bare feet, waving wildly.
“Hi,” she says into the phone.
I still can’t quite believe what I’m seeing.
“Hi,” I say into my phone.
“It’s good to see you.”
“You too.”
Bo hangs back and I take the steps until we’re standing almost toe to toe.
“I’m going to hang up now,” I say.
“Okay.”
“And then I’m going to kiss you.”
“Sure thing.”
I think about all the times in my life when the minutes have passed like hours—Passover at the Schwartzes’, Mr. Michaud’s French class, Mom’s trips to the department store to pick up new makeup. Why can’t time ever slow down when it’s convenient? When you want it to last forever?
After dinner, when everyone goes off to bed, I tiptoe down to Celine’s room in the basement. I knock lightly. Hesitantly. The kind of knock I used to do on Bo’s bedroom door.
It’s past midnight.
She’s still in her T-shirt and cutoffs. “You wanna come in for a drink?”
“What’re you pouring?”
“I’ve got tap water in a glass with dried toothpaste on the rim.”
I grab her and I step inside. I take her by the waist. I close the door behind me. Pause for just a second before I land my mouth on hers.
I expect a rush, endorphins, some sort of high, but what I feel instead is a total calmness. Peace. It almost sweeps the legs out from under me.
I pull back.
“So why didn’t you return my phone calls?”
“I liked getting your messages. The way they sounded more and more desperate each time.”
Girls can be so cruel.
“That’s not very nice,” I say.
I kiss her again.
“Maybe I’m not a nice person.”
She kisses me back. Harder.
“I doubt that.”
I pull her onto the bed.
“I knew I’d see you again,” she says, kissing me more. “And anyway, talking is way overrated.”
My shirt is already off.
I pull hers over her head.
I hold her against me. Her skin on my skin. Her chest pressed against mine. It’s the single most amazing feeling in all of human history. Nothing has ever felt better, and I don’t care if anything else happens, or if this is all there is, because I can’t imagine anything feeling any better than this feels right now.
She pulls away. “So whaddya think?”
I prop myself up on my elbow and look her in the eyes. Try to catch my breath. “I think you’re beautiful.”
She is. She’s so incredibly beautiful.
“I mean … should we?”
Should we have sex?
There’s only ever one answer to that question, isn’t there? Of course we should have sex. I’d be crazy to say no. But somehow, right at this moment, even though I’ve done little else but imagine some version of this for years, I don’t care. For so long I thought having sex would change everything, it would make me a different person, a better person, a man. But now I’m here with her. And tonight that feels like enough. It still feels like one of those big moments without it being the big moment.
Plus there’s the fact that with all that I’ve got in my hypochondriac’s kit for bug bites, warts, blisters, splinters, fevers—I’ve brought along nothing for getting laid.
I run my hand over her shoulders, between the blades, all the way down to the small of her back. “Listen, Celine. I really, really like you. But …”
“But what? You’re not ready to go to sleep yet? Because that’s what I was asking about.”
“Oh.”
“You thought it was something else? You thought I wanted to have sex with you? You thought you’re so irresistible that I was ready to throw myself at you and let you have your way with me?”
“Well …”
“Well, no, you big pervert. I was asking if we should go to bed. You upstairs in your room and me down here. Quickly before my aunt finds you here and calls my dad and he comes after you guns a-blazing.”
“Right.”
“So good night.”
I stand up.
“Good night.”
She smiles at me. She pulls on her shirt and stands up and walks me to the door. She blocks my exit. “But before you get out of here, don’t forget my good-night kiss.”
Dov wakes me in the morning. Six a.m.
I forgot to put my phone on vibrate.
He insists on meeting us tonight. In Baltimore. He’s catching a flight and he’s picked the restaurant. I tell him we’re fine, that he doesn’t need to come, but I know him. He wants to see for himself. He won’t take my word for it that we’re okay, or maybe it’s that my word doesn’t come out sounding all that sure, because the truth is, when I’m on the phone with Dov, I get this homesick feeling. I’ve never been gone from him
long enough to miss him. Didn’t even know he was missable, but he is. He’s missable, and I’m sure he can hear it in my voice.
“I understand Baltimore is famous for its crab,” he shouts. He still doesn’t get that you can hear just as well on a cell phone as on a regular landline.
“And your mother. She’s gone off the deep end with this Jewish mishugas. She’s placed a ban on shellfish in the house. Shellfish! What did a shellfish ever do to her?”
So he’s coming. And I have to tell Bo. I haven’t even told him Dov knows we’re not on the Appalachian Trail, or that I’ve been giving Dov updates on our trip the whole way.
And all of that’s a big drag, but not as big a drag as it is having to say goodbye to Celine again.
A few short minutes remain before the house starts to stir. Before people get up and brush teeth and grind coffee beans. So I do what I can to make those minutes feel more like the minutes at the Schwartzes’ or in French class or at the makeup counter in the department store. I do what I can to make those minutes feel like hours.
I tiptoe down to the basement, where Celine is still sleeping.
I climb into bed next to her, wrap her in my arms. I close my eyes and I hang on tight.
NINETEEN
I WAIT UNTIL THE LATE AFTERNOON to break the news of Dov’s visit to Bo.
“Have you thought about dinner?” I ask him.
“Not really.”
“There’s a place I’d like to go.”
“There is?”
“Yeah. It’s a place for crab.” I pause. “And Dov is going to meet us there.”
That buys me about a mile or so of silence, during which I think of all the things I want to learn about Celine. All the questions I want to ask her. All the places on her body I’d like to kiss.
Finally I explain to Bo that I can’t lie to Dov, I never could, that when I was leaving home I told him what I knew, which wasn’t much other than that I was pretty sure the Appalachian Trail was a dodge. I tell him that Dov loves him and is worried about him and that he wants to see him, just see for himself that we’re okay.
“Fine,” Bo says.
He doesn’t sound angry. I don’t even get the sense that I’ve flushed away whatever trust I’ve built up so far. I just get a whole lot of quiet, but that’s something I know pretty well by now.
The Things a Brother Knows Page 16