gods with a little g

by Tupelo Hassman

  Like this is not the morning after the scene in the driveway. After the scene at the VFW hall.

  I let myself in as usual but as I’m starting down the hallway, Rainbolene comes out of the bedroom. And she closes the door behind her.

  “Hey,” I say. So normal.

  “Hey,” she says, and stands there. So not.

  We both start to speak at the same time but everything I’m going to say is bullshit so I shut up and listen.

  What Rainbolene is going to say is apparently bullshit too, because she can’t get it out.

  “Win is … he doesn’t…”

  She takes a breath and looks me in the eye. “He’s not ready to see you, Helen.”

  And I say, “Okay, right, sure,” all those words at once, in this goofy everything-is-okay voice as if this happens all the time and everything is okay. I mean, I’m okay.

  Right.

  Sure.

  And she puts her hand on the doorknob and she says, “See you at school tomorrow, okay?”

  And I say, “Okay.”

  Right.

  Sure.

  And I walk out the door and down the steps. And I walk past the telephone poles of Rosary and all of their lost flyers. And I know just how they feel.

  LOST

  BEST FRIEND

  WHITE WITH BLACK HAIR. BIG. REALLY BIG.

  THE HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPION OF FRIENDS.

  SEVENTEEN YEARS OLD.

  LAST SEEN BY THE PORCHLIGHT.

  ANSWERS TO: WIN. WINTHROP. EVERY CALL I’VE EVER MADE.

  LIKES: RUBS ON THE BELLY, HILARIOUS PORN, ICE CREAM CHEERS. ME. BUT NOT ANYMORE.

  NAME YOUR PRICE.

  THE BLUES

  Fast Eddie bursts out of his office. He is holding the filthy plastic trash can that usually sits by his desk. The one that is usually filled with empty beer cans and cardboard boxes from the microwave dinners he eats in there. He’s holding this trash can and running, first to Mo.

  He says, “Beer.”

  She is staring up at him, blinking, but when he grabs the beer from her and drops it in the trash can, we get it. We all move toward him and drop our beers. Except Cy, who tries to drink his first until Eddie takes the can from his mouth. Some beer dribbles onto Cy’s T-shirt. We are looking at those wet drops in horror, proof of our misdeeds, and right then there is a knock at the side door.

  The knock isn’t asking for permission. The handle turns.

  And wherever we are, we all sit. Winthrop and Rain are on the couch, Mo and Bird are on the floor. I end up almost sitting on Cy on the arm of the couch, and he puts his arm around me like he’s practiced this, hiding in plain sight.

  It’s the cops.

  * * *

  Eddie disappeared into his office, the trashed beers with him, and now he comes walking back into the room. Slowly. Calmly. Cool Eddie.

  “Peter,” he says, and nods to the officer, whose blue uniform with its badge, whose belt with its weapons and restraints, whose ability to take people away for a day and for forever, blow through the tire yard like an icy wind.

  My skin prickles and I pull Cy’s arm tighter around me.

  “Ed,” the cop says back.

  There is nothing at all about Eddie that seems nervous, let alone criminal. He is a total badass. Even Bird swoons.

  The room becomes thick with some history between Peter and Eddie. It becomes one of those moments that takes place between adults that makes it obvious how truly and amazingly old they are. They’ve got stories. Their stories have stories. It’s kind of cool, if you think about it.

  But there’s no time for that, because the only reason Officer Peter could possibly be here is Winthrop. Because Winthrop is going to jail.

  Now.

  And I’m holding Cy’s hand for real and there’s this prayer in my head, like God and I never stopped being tight, like I have never doubted Him, much less screamed at Him and flipped him off on my Dad’s wedding night.

  I get straight to the point: Not today not today not today.

  * * *

  And it works. Question mark.

  Because Officer Peter has come from Winthrop’s house, seduced by Mrs. Epsworthy’s spacey helplessness into finding her son and telling him the good news.

  Good-ish.

  Officer Peter doesn’t ask what we’re all doing here, though he does scope the room, only focusing in twice. He takes in the old map hanging on the tire yard’s wall, hung before the City of Rosary insisted on itself and made that map worthless. And he takes in Rain. He blinks in shock or awe at the brilliance dazzling his eyes, but he doesn’t seem to get uptight when he looks at her. More like sad, like he feels sorry for Rain. Which is obviously worse.

  After he’s done focusing on Rosary’s past, and its future, Officer Peter makes a little speech. The authorities will let Winthrop remain a free man until Rain’s graduation, after which he will go to a detention center in Alaska. Officer Peter says this delay is so Winthrop can finish up the school year, and his words feel memorized. Like, he has to give this speech about not letting Winthrop’s “past tendencies” damage his “current educational prospects,” but it is not hard to hear what isn’t said, the same song and dance we have been hearing our whole lives. Alaska is Philistine. Alaska is Sky. No godless judge in Alaska is telling Rosary what to do with its children.

  Thanks, Thumpers. Question mark.

  MAKE-OUT PARTY

  Because Winthrop will be gone most of the summer, he is going to miss Rain’s birthday, so she asked if she could have a double celebration, a birthday and graduation mash-up. She never wants to pass a birthday without her baby brother, she says. She also says, “More presents for me,” and she does make out in the present department. It’s kind of like she’s on a game show.

  First, her parents promise that they are putting her cell phone in her own name but still paying for it. It’s a Rosary anti-miracle that she has a cell phone in the first place. No one says the phone is for Rain’s safety, of course, though the Epsworthys did buy it once they moved here. We don’t remark on the fact that the only trans kid in Rosary is also the only one with a cell phone. What useful thing could we say about that?

  * * *

  I give Rain a candle that I made with Aunt Bev’s help. It’s pink and perfumed just a little bit, with dried flowers, real flowers, pressed all through it. I’d made a mess of Aunt Bev’s kitchen in the process and it wasn’t really very candle-shaped, but Rain hugged it to her and then she hugged me.

  And then it was forgotten. Because in the next package there was that shiny ring that all girls dream of, and on it, the only thing that matters in this life.

  Car keys.

  The Lost City Bread van belongs to Rain now. A gift from her mom and dad and even from Winthrop. Since Officer Peter’s appearance at the tire yard, Winthrop has apparently spent the days and nights before the party secretly cleaning up the van, tacking down new carpet in the back, and wrapping a leather cover around the plastic steering wheel to stop it from becoming burning hot under Rain’s new sunny skies. The leather laces up and has us making bondage jokes as we gather around the old van that feels brand-new now, right down to the not-terrible editing on the van’s sides that Winthrop managed with white spray paint Mr. Epsworthy must have picked up for him. LOST CITY is completely covered over but the sheaves of wheat are still there, and underneath them, two letters remain from BREAD.

  The B and the E.

  BE.

  A brother’s perfect birthday wish for his sister. And I want to climb Winthrop and wrap myself around him like a leather steering wheel cover. Or something else just as awkward.

  Rain offers to take us for a drive, to Fast Eddie’s, of course. She’s had her license since Alaska, and so has Winthrop, useless as they are until there is someplace to go. As she goes in the house to grab it, I climb in the back of the van and sit cross-legged on the new carpet while Winthrop gets in the passenger’s seat. Things felt pretty normal during the party, but now
we’re alone for the first time since the driveway, since the prom, the flower. Since the deflowering. Just when I start to be afraid that the silence is coming to crush us into smithereens again, Winthrop turns to me.

  “What do you think?”

  * * *

  That’s easy. Here is what I think without pause or punctuation because that’s how I feel inside when I look in Winthrop’s eyes right now. The opposite of grammatically correct. You are my best friend in the world I would do anything to fix this.

  And I am sorry.

  But Winthrop is asking what I think of the van. So I try hard to make my response sound like regular-grade enthusiasm and not fangirl-grade enthusiasm. I run my hands over the new carpet and I try to say, “Yeah, it’s great.”

  Like it’s totally normal that your best friend maybe isn’t your best friend anymore because maybe he is in love with you and you really don’t want to lose him but you can’t explain how you feel because you don’t really know how you feel because when did this become about feelings anyway? And at the same time, I’m trying not to act too normal, too casual, because it isn’t every day your other best friend just got her first car and the first best friend busted his ass making it awesome because he is also the best brother in the world but also because he’s about to go to jail for being a deviant weirdo freak. Which is part of the reason you love him. Not that you love him, love him, like capital L Love him. You don’t mean it that way. Do you?

  It’s hard to find just the right tone to capture all of this emotion without really capturing it, and my cool but appreciative, “Yeah, it’s great,” comes out sounding strangled. “Yuhr, it’s gray!”

  Winthrop gives me this pained look and says, “I thought it was more of a dark green. Like a jade.”

  And then he turns to face the front, and we wait for Rain.

  VALEDICTORIAN

  Rain did all right in school. Like the rest of us, she didn’t stand out and she didn’t fall behind. The challenge at Rosary High is just to show up, and that has never been truer than on this day when everyone is acting like it all really matters. Because it suddenly does. Even the Dickheads are all here today, sprinkled through the football field’s metal bleachers. I’m in the front row between Bird and Winthrop because irony is real and because we put aside our weirdnesses to be the first ones here. Beside us are the Epsworthys and Dad. And then Iris. Even Aunt Bev is here, sitting at the end of the aisle nearest the gate to the parking lot, fanning herself with a program. She’ll disappear as soon as Rain’s done.

  Principal Harrison is sweating in a suit, reading off names from her stack of diplomas. As Rosary teens scoot across the stage to shake her hand, take the paper, become adults, there is some applause. A little cheering from this or that family in the audience. But overall, it’s a yawn fest.

  Until Rain steps up onto the stage to wait for her name to be called. The whole audience comes alive then, rustles, bristles. The Epsworthys sit up even taller and reach for each other’s hands. The only word I can think of for how they look sitting there on the bleachers is: noble. Which makes perfect sense as Rain walks across the stage toward Principal Harrison, because she is royalty.

  She takes her sweet time moving the tassel from one side of the mortarboard to the other, and when she does, the sunlight catches on its gold metal clasp. It shines a brief, bright halo around her head and I get a chill all through me. A good one. I look over at Aunt Bev and am surprised—and totally unsurprised—when she turns and gives me a wink.

  And then Principal Harrison says her name, her name.

  Rainbolene Epsworthy.

  And when she does, as Harrison’s voice echoes across the field, Winthrop and Bird and I don’t just cheer. We roar. The Thumpers might lose their voices when they look at Rain, but we don’t need their help because we’ve got all the Dickheads on their feet now. Together we shake Rosary High’s metal bleachers like the bars of a cage, we stomp and we cheer until the whole place trembles, and we don’t stop until Our Lady of Tomorrow has left the stage.

  SAY ANYTHING

  When there is nothing left to celebrate, I spend the afternoon at Winthrop’s house even though he makes it clear that I am not wanted. Not needed. Even Pen isn’t happy to see me. Her square head is down on her paws, watching Winthrop. She must know what packing means. She must have seen people leave before. Or she can tell he is not himself, anyway, he doesn’t smell the same or sound the same. It isn’t like he has anything to pack either, like he is allowed to have anything in jail, but he’s moving his stuff around. He’s making his bed. And he isn’t talking. At all. He just said that same “Oh” from under the porchlight again when he opened the door to his room and saw me standing there in the hallway. Not like he was expecting someone else, but like I am someone else. Now.

  I’m trying to read through some porn on my own while he packs but it isn’t funny without him and the graduation balloons that are everywhere, deflating slowly, are not helping. Everything feels used up, desperate, and as juvenile as the hall Winthrop’s going to, especially me. Finally, Rain comes in and offers to read with me.

  We read with a flashlight under the bedspread fort and I’m glad for it, so I can stop looking at Winthrop to see if he is looking at me, which he is not. So I can stop trying to figure out what to say, because I cannot. Rain and I take turns doing the voices in Buxom and Bi and The Doctor Will Eat You Now. We suggest that someone should maybe talk to these authors about overusing alliteration and doing a disservice to pervs everywhere with puns. And when the flashlight goes dead and we are out of batteries again I can’t think of any more reasons to stay. I have to go home now. I have to say goodbye to Winthrop. Like this.

  And I have an idea. A stupid one. So at least that part of my life is the same.

  “Can I take one of these?” I hold Lust in the Fast Lane, an old one that even we’ve read 472 times, close to her face so she can see. I’m positive Mr. Epsworthy won’t miss it, or if he does, he’ll think Winthrop’s the one who borrowed it and once he’d stuck the pages together from excitement he was too ashamed to put it back.

  “I guess you should ask Win,” she says, “he’s the porn-brarian.”

  This is either a terrible idea or it is some coded advice about how to approach her brother. It’s worth a shot, I think, but as I crawl out from under the blanket she says, “I’m staying here, where it’s safe.”

  Winthrop is just sitting on his bed. He stopped cleaning. And he speaks before I can ask him about porn-borrowing.

  “I think that you have a year to give the newlyweds a wedding gift.”

  Rain makes a squeak from inside the fort, but I am too surprised to laugh.

  Winthrop looks like he didn’t mean to say this, like he just remembered who I am, and the room goes back to quiet.

  “It’s for Aunt Bev,” I lie.

  I don’t know where that lie came from. This whole afternoon is a lie. It’s been a lie since the prom, since the wedding. Maybe it’s been a lie before that too. I should just tell the truth. I want to take this home because I am going to miss him and I want to make him a potion, do something, anything, to keep him safe in juvie, to remind him of our friendship. A friendship I still believe in.

  But when my best friend is going to a scary place alone, all I can do is make up a lie about being some kind of porn mule.

  I can tell they don’t understand why Aunt Bev would need porn, they are not stupid. Not only did I tell an unnecessary lie, I told one of those lies that require more lies to stop the first from collapsing. But Winthrop says yes, sure. Winthrop says, “Who cares?” which kind of stings, but he doesn’t say no.

  So, I try to act cool.

  I bop Winthrop on the head with Lust in the Fast Lane and tuck it in the pocket of my sweatshirt. “See you on the other side,” I say. Because I am so cool and this is a cool thing people say. Because I am trying to look like it isn’t a big deal that Winthrop is leaving while things are so awful between us. Which ends up looki
ng like it isn’t a big deal to me that Winthrop is leaving. It’s like I forgot that we’ll see each other tonight at the tire yard where Fast Eddie’s opening up late for us, a post-curfew going-away party for Winthrop.

  And Winthrop, who is actually cool, who is the coolest person I know, says, without looking up, “Yeah, see you tonight.”

  LAST DANCE

  Cans of Red Bull, which are Sky contraband, bottles of Jack Daniel’s, which are so easy to come by they are pretty much government-issue, and all the cheap beer Eddie could load into his Buick. It turns out the Dickheads really know how to throw a party. Winthrop is only leaving for six weeks, but no one comes back from juvie the same as when they left, so tonight we’ll burn the Winthrop we know into our memories with alcohol and idiocy and hope he sticks.

  Winthrop. Rain. Bird. Cy. Mo. Sissy. Me. A pack. A shuffle. People who can’t stay away from each other, who have nowhere else to go. Faces that we won’t know we have loved until we see them again years later, after one of us gets married, or never does, has a kid, another kid, until decades later, maybe, when one of us is finally gone and we tiptoe into a funeral parlor thinking we will be the only stranger there, and, seeing these faces, find out we never were strangers at all.

  * * *

  It is after-hours and post-curfew and our parents think we are each spending the night at someone else’s house. This old trick kids have used since the world was in black-and-white still works like it is brand-new. So we have all this beer to drink and all night to drink it.