“I don’t know, Candy.”
I can’t stop the blood rushing into my face, the hot tears slipping from my eyes.
“You felt it too, Levon. You can’t fake what we shared. Right?”
I want to yell at everyone walking by like it’s just another day at the airport, with no idea that the road I was riding on is now cracking, splitting right beneath my feet. Underneath is quicksand.
Levon is not answering. He’s looking everywhere but into my eyes, and for a second he looks ugly, like he just ate something terrible.
The road is ending at a brick wall, the ocean is drying up, the sky is closing in, the air is getting thinner. And thinner.
At last he turns to me and opens his arms once again. I step into them. But the pain of knowing it might be the last time is like a choke hold on my heart. I squeeze him harder while travelers filter around us, each one oblivious to our road, our story.
But there is no road. There is no chance.
The picture is blurring.
We release, and I turn, looking back once.
There is no us.
Walking through security, I hear people talking around me but not the actual words. There is an electric hum throughout my body—a very slight ringing in my ears. It doesn’t stop until I’m on the plane, staring out at the tarmac. The dry, exposed pavement is burning in this heat. I turn to face the woman who sat down next to me. She has this moment of recognition, realizing I’m a kid. She gives me a look that says How sweet. She doesn’t know anything about the world yet.
I thought I did, but I’m not so sure anymore.
18 Months Later
There’s a letter sitting on my bed in my dorm room with my name written on it in the scribbled handwriting of my father. I look at it, then slip it into the bottom drawer of my desk. There were others, but I threw them all away without opening them. For some reason, I keep this one.
I turn on my laptop and open my inbox. It’s mostly filled with emails from Billy Ray. We spent last summer together and it was fun, although he knows that my heart lives in the land of Levon, whose last email was from two months ago, even though I’ve read it a million times.
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Mortimer and Randolph
Candy—
Sorry I’ve been out of touch. My grandmother passed away last week. She spent most of her last few months with my father, and she was actually sharp at the end. She mentioned you!
I’m getting closer to making Albuquerque a reality. It’s like a light at the end of a tunnel, I guess.
I think about our trip a lot. If I had to choose anyone to kidnap again (which I won’t), it would definitely be you. I heard from my buddy at the trailer park that Jamal is now in rehab. Let’s hope that lasts.
I hope school is going well. I’ll write more soon but I’m caught up in dealing with my grandmother’s service and packing, blah-blah-blah.
Onward.
Love,
Levon
He typed love. I’m not sure what that even is, but my heart seizes every time I read it. One word with so much power. I responded immediately, hinting about us getting together again, which I’ve basically been doing since Miami, but haven’t heard back yet.
Billy Ray was very skeptical about Levon. When I got back to Oakland, I noticed right away that Billy Ray was acting like he was part of my family, which he kind of is but not in the way he was thinking. He thought we were going to be together together. We hung out at the hospital with Rena, and she would become so animated around him that I sensed she wanted the same thing. It was nice to see, but it also made me a little jealous. Would she have bonded more with me if I were a boy?
On the day before Rena was well enough to come home, Billy Ray and I were having our favorite pizza at the place with the old jukebox. He’d put on this Dylan song that had connected us (we’d actually sang it together once, sappy I know), and I knew it was coming. He tried to kiss me, right between bites of pizza, and I turned my face away. It felt like my former self, the one that played with Billy Ray at the train tracks and in his father’s shed, was no longer accessible. I wasn’t playing anymore. Feeling the way I did about Levon was like finally making it to an almost impossible level on a video game. I couldn’t go back.
• • •
The Borings turned out to be the Not So Borings. Like the car graveyard Levon took me to, everything is interesting if you look closer. Right now, Brittany is telling me about the guy she dated last summer.
“He rides a Vespa, like one of the vintage ones from Europe, reads poetry, and surfs. His hair is naturally highlighted—and get this: he totally listens to what you’re saying. You have to go for that type of guys. The ones who have empathy. Most guys are so emotionally closed off.”
“I saw Levon cry twice.”
“Yeah, from everything you told me, he seems like a super snack.”
“Fritos go with lunch,” Jiwa adds, looking up from her book. As usual, she’s studying, and Brittany and I are talking.
“Jiwa, did you tell Candy about your uncle?”
“He works with Tarantino,” Jiwa says, like he was some guy who lived on her street.
“No way,” I say, kind of sounding like them but not caring anymore. Even Fin is happy I now have friends my own age.
“You can meet him this summer. Maybe he can help,” Jiwa says.
“That’s amazing, but I can’t fathom how that would happen without me self-combusting or fainting or both.”
Brittany laughs.
“Are you gonna bail on college and try to work in the film industry?”
“That’s the plan, I guess.”
I can tell they’re slightly mortified, since they are still obsessed with college, but things are different now. They are trying to accept me, and it feels good. I’m still an outsider, but I’m connected to them now. I was lame for judging them and not being more open to our differences. They still iron their pajamas, but now I’m kind of fascinated by it.
• • •
A week later, I finally hear back from Levon.
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Mortimer and Randolph
Candy—
I’m in Albuquerque. My lease on the theater starts Tuesday.
Leaving Miami was chaotic, and adjusting here is the same.
More soon.
Levon
He didn’t say love this time. Just more soon. Was he just in a rush? Did he bring Leeza there with him? The questions fly around my head like angry bees.
• • •
When I visit Fin on our usual day, I help him wash his car and tell him about Levon moving and not saying love in the last email.
“I think you should meet up with him sometime, face-to-face. That’s easier than email, even though some people are afraid of it,” Fin says. “But you’re a person who needs direct contact, I think. The way you process things is very immediate.”
“Yeah? How do you know me so well?”
“Trust me,” Fin says, wringing out his oversize sponge, “I know more than you think.”
I grab the hose and spray the suds off the license plate.
“I have a daughter too,” Fin says over the water sound. “My ex, she took her away. I haven’t seen her since the nineties. I think about her every day.”
I can’t believe Fin hasn’t told me about this. He did mention something about his past, but a daughter? My jaw drops, and I stop the hose.
“I thought…”
He pulls a picture out of his wallet. The girl is around four, with a big smile and blond curls.
“Fin, she’s beautiful. Did you ever try to find her?”
; “Still trying. I’m saving up to hire a private detective.”
“Wow.”
We wash some more for a while and then start to rinse. The suds clear away, revealing a shiny, clean surface underneath.
“Did Levon and his dad ever get the money?” Fin asks.
“Yes. Wade finally paid him—on his own. I like to think I had a big part in that.”
“You have a big part in everything you do, Candy. And you’re gonna do great things.”
“What about you? Is this it for you? Cleaning the halls at NRS and fishing?”
Fin grabs the hose from me. “Hey, don’t judge.”
“You should find your daughter—or at least a nice lady to be with.”
Fin laughs and sprays me a little. Then his eyes get glassy, and he looks off into the distance.
“You had one, didn’t you?”
“Yes, but she got away.”
“I know how that goes,” I say. “But guess what?” The thought comes to me as I say it. “I’m gonna go. I’m just gonna go. To Albuquerque. After graduation, on my way back to California.”
Fin nods, like he’s expecting me to do just that.
“You’re right. I need to see him face-to-face. I know there’s something he couldn’t say to me at the airport in Miami.”
“A girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do,” Fin says.
“Do you think I’m foolish?”
“No, more like strong.”
When we finish and his truck is all dry, he gives me an ice cream sandwich and says, “Now, go pick on someone your own size.”
I smile, grateful for Fin. He always looked out for me. But now it’s time to look after myself.
• • •
What helped me not think about Levon every second of the day was making the film about Gary, the homeless war veteran who is supersmart but can’t get a job or rent an apartment. I tried to really capture him with the content and also the light, movement, and sound. I used two of Billy Ray’s songs and a song from Gary’s favorite band, Steely Dan. Gary didn’t want compensation and still thinks I work for CNN. I got him to sign a waiver, and I’ll be doing a screening in the student theater tomorrow.
I’ve thought about my father a lot, even though I discarded his letters. I know that he delayed going to jail for as long as possible, and that he recently got out on good behavior. I’ve had many moments when I wanted to take it back, to let him go free. But it was all too late.
Back in my dorm room, something tells me it’s time. I open my bottom drawer and take out the letter.
Dear Candy,
I hope you’ve been getting my letters, but even if you aren’t, it helps to just write them.
When you were little, you laughed at everything. You loved to stick your head out the window and watch the trees go by. Everyone told us we shouldn’t raise a baby on the road, and maybe they were right, but you were really happy. You probably don’t remember this, but the times you actually did cry, which was usually late at night or when you woke up on the bus, the only thing that would calm you down was me singing to you. When I’d finish the song, you’d say, “Nother song.” I learned all these kids’ songs, cool ones for adults too. I still know them.
Wait a second, he did sing to me? I have no recollection.
You took your first step in Boulder, Colorado. Your first word was “Momma,” then “juice.” When you said “juice,” we freaked out. My bandmates were like, “We get it. She knows a word.” But it was more than that. We thought you were absolutely brilliant, which you are. Much smarter than I ever was or will be. You got your brains from your mother. Did you know she turned down a scholarship to Columbia University?
I look out at the quad, covered in a blanket of green leaves. A teacher and his wife are walking their floppy Labrador, and the sun’s long arms reach through the pines. It feels like something frozen inside me is starting to thaw. I look back down and read the second page.
I was angry with you for a while, but you were right. I needed to pay for what I did. I only wish that instead, I was someone you looked up to. You did at one time. We were a team, the three of us. But when your mother died, well, life happened. Instead of getting closer to you, I made the choice to distance myself. I went on tour without you and never came back. I’m so sorry.
Love,
Wade
I walk over to my bed and lie down, staring at ceiling. I place the letter over my heart and close my eyes.
• • •
I sneak into the very last row of the student theater just as my film starts to show. Not that I would know, but it feels sort of like giving birth, starting with the opening sequence, which shows Gary doing his morning ritual—shaking out his blankets, brushing his teeth using water from a plastic gallon milk jug, then wrapping his various possessions in a large tarp and hiding it near the train tracks. Billy Ray’s song works well. Hearing his voice makes me feel bad about the pizza place and the attempted kiss. I told him flat-out that I wanted to just be friends, that being with Levon changed everything for me.
“What does he have that I don’t?” Billy Ray had asked.
“I don’t know,” I said, and I didn’t. But I think now I’m starting to. Something is pulling me. I already have one foot in New Mexico.
There are about forty people in the theater, including the Not Borings, Fin, Max the Goth (who has since forgiven me and helped me on location), and a bunch of junior boys who were required to come for a class.
People laugh at moments that I never thought would be funny: Gary getting caught in the closing door of a bus, his skinny dog peeing a yellow stream on the sidewalk. In general, it feels like it’s going well. Gary is charming on camera, and during his weekly “poetry slam,” he and other homeless guys (and some college students) read their poetry and discuss it.
Aside from bouts of talking to himself, he spends his days collecting cans, bumming cigarettes, and going on about “Sara with no H,” a girl who may or may not be imaginary. Apparently she saved his life twice, wore black leather, and played the cello. Gary always had the sense that she could show up at any minute. Toward the end of the film, underneath the covered bridge downtown, Gary cries, staring at the camera openly. It makes me think of my father’s letter.
The last frame is Gary, holding a black balloon and walking up Main Street in Northampton. He leans down to give the balloon to a little girl. At first the girl is reluctant, but something happens, a connection between Gary’s bracing smile and the little girl’s big eyes. She walks away holding the balloon, but after a few steps, she releases it into the sky, watching it go.
The screen goes white and, as promised, it reads:
THERE’S SOMETHING ABOUT GARY
A FILM BY CANDY REX
DEDICATED TO SARA WITH NO H
People clap.
I let everyone leave without seeing me. Then, as I’m walking out, I notice someone on the side of the balcony. His hair’s short, and he’s wearing a jean jacket.
“That was amazing, Candy. You made that?”
“Wade?”
“Better than anything I’ve ever done.”
“What are you doing here?”
“I got out last week. Basically came right here.” His smile is a little maniacal.
“Well, they need the theater back. Let’s go.”
I can’t believe he showed up. I immediately take him off campus in case anyone recognizes him. We go to a coffee shop that’s in an old Airstream trailer. There are no customers, just the pale girl who works there, who makes us coffees and then continues to paint her nails, glancing up at Wade. I go to the bathroom, and when I come back, Wade’s signing a napkin for her.
“Seriously?” I say, and the girl looks embarrassed.
We sit at the one table outside the trailer. I’m not sure how I feel about h
im being here. I’m nervous, so I start talking.
“We have a few days off before finals. They call them reading days, but no one reads. They usually go online and mess around. Try to find beer. Some of the townies will buy for kids.” My nerves are making me babble, and I don’t care what I say because it just feels good to talk. “There’s some guy speaking at our graduation. Like, some Navy SEAL who lost a limb or something. Sounds clichéd to me, but whatever.”
Wade is smiling, and now there’s water in his eyes. I can’t look at him for too long, so I look down at my hands and keep talking.
“I’m not going to college, at least not right away. I want to make films, so if I do, it will be film school anyway. But I’ve read a lot about it, and you can learn more by actually working on films, so I might try to do that.”
I can’t tell him about my plan to stop in Albuquerque; it seems way too personal. Instead I ask him about jail.
“What was it like?”
“Monotonous.”
“Did you play music?”
“There was a piano, but no guitar. I think I might do a solo record next. Even though I’m an old man.”
Looking at him, my stomach sinks. I feel terrible for doing what I did.
“Well, if there’s one thing about Black Angels fans, they’re loyal. I think a scandal and a comeback may even work in your favor.”
He smiles a little more naturally now. That’s easier to look at. There’s no entourage, no white leather pants, and no arrogance. He’s completely humbled, like an old dog that has finally come home, waiting on the doorstep.
“How is Duke’s kid?” he wants to know.
I try to act normal about it.
“He’s good. He moved to Albuquerque.”
Wade contemplates that while a woman in a polka-dot dress and platform shoes walks by, getting pulled by a fat bulldog.
“So, were you famous in jail too?”
“Not really. Some of the guards slipped me junk food and stuff. But I’m just a guy, you know? A guy who screwed up.”
I look at him. He doesn’t seem like a rock star, even though he signed a napkin for that girl, who is now probably texting all her friends. He’s right. He’s just a guy.
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