Close to Home

by Nolon King

  “Totally. But whatever. I mean, he’s a dick about it, but he means well. And if he gets his way, then I get mine, too. Stanford is still close enough for us to hang out whenever, but far enough that my dad doesn’t have to know when I’m here.”

  “Living the dream.” Levi walked back to the game with Dane right beside him.

  Elliot said, “I’m not sure if I want the guy who thinks he’s God’s gift, or the guy who can’t bother to show up before it’s time to go home. One of you can choose. Just don’t ask Pussabo.”

  “I don’t care who I play with,” Pussabo said. “They’ll be lucky. I’m totally feeling my game right now.”

  Elliot held out his hands for the ball. Pussabo threw it to him instead of taking another shot. Elliot hurled it at the basket without aim or intention.

  Then he said, “Hey Dane, do you think that you’re still going to be nerdy when you’re in college, or will you finally be cool and learn to chill the fuck out? It’ll make your dick bigger. And then chicks will want to get on it.”

  “Maybe chicks will want to get on it because I’m driving them to my mansion, and they want to give me head along the way, seeing as how they’re so grateful for all the stuff I just bought them.”

  “Dude, you don’t need Stanford for that,” Elliot said.

  “Yup,” Levi agreed.

  Pussabo shot and scored. “It doesn’t hurt. And besides, Dane has a reason for wanting to go. You know he’s not doing it just because.”

  Levi looked at Elliot, hoping he wouldn’t go there, with something like, Yeah, because his mommy went there.

  But instead he said, “Let’s play!”

  They did, the four of them easily falling into a game that was both fun and familiar.

  Not just the rhythm of the ball in play, their words were dribbled and shot as well, rebounded and bounced all around. Insults and banter, born of boys being boys rather than animus.

  Levi was the leader on the court, just like he was everywhere else.

  Elliot had the most punchlines, but Levi’s were usually sharper.

  Pussabo was an optimist, but Levi lived on the sunny side anyway, since circumstances always seemed to smile his way.

  Dane was smart and good-looking. People agreed that he was an excellent listener.

  And Corban … well, Corban was a pain in the ass.

  Swish.

  “Nice shot,” Elliot said to Levi as he jogged toward the ball. “Think Corban is going to be pouting about whatever the hell he’s been all pissy about for much longer?”

  “I dunno,” Levi said, caring more about guarding Pussabo than anything Corban might or might not be doing.

  “I’m just saying that maybe that’s for the best,” Elliot said. “He’s a shitty ref, because he feels sorry for Pussabo all the time. Calls fouls when the problem is really just Pussy sucking. But since you assholes always split us up, that’s a good thing for my game.”

  “You know what would be good for my game?” Dane said. “If you—”

  A siren screamed in the distance.

  Then another, and another, and another.

  It sounded like a freight train getting torn from its track.

  Dane stopped dribbling. “What the hell?”

  “Maybe someone found Pussabo’s giant porn stash, and since no one had seen that much eighties bush since the eighties, and maybe not even then, someone figured that there was a pervert among us and so they called the police. Then the police got there and saw all the semen. They called for backup—”

  “Okay, Elliot,” Dane tried.

  “No, he’s right,” Levi said. “Pussabo loves eighties bush.”

  “I do not like eighties bush. I told you guys, I like Miley Siren.”

  Elliot made a face. “Gross. Miley Siren has been used like a car.”

  “All pornstars are used like cars!”

  “Yeah,” Elliot argued, “but Miley Siren has been used in every state.”

  “Yo!” A voice from the porch.

  Levi looked over along with everyone else.

  “You guys hear the sirens?” Corban asked.

  Dane said, “You mean the ones that were just screaming? Yeah, we heard those.”

  Then Elliot: “Did anyone just see an echo?”

  Levi said, “Did anyone just hear one? That joke probably wants us to get the hell off its lawn.”

  “Fuck you.” Elliot punched him on the shoulder.

  Levi grinned. Couldn’t help pushing it despite the warning. “The rule of comedy is that jokes get less funny each time you tell them.”

  “Guys,” Corban said, stepping down onto the porch.

  Levi turned to his twin. “What?”

  But Corban didn’t need to answer, because all of them had the Almond Alert installed on their phones, and the symphony of ringing and buzzing and the beats of some Drake bullshit from Pussabo’s phone all screamed in unison.

  That something was very wrong.

  Chapter Three

  Corban pedaled faster.

  To hell with Levi and his friends.

  They used to be my friends, too.

  Until things finally blew up. If Levi had given a shit, then maybe everything wouldn’t be so upside down now.

  At least he had Kari.

  She was on her way to Costa Bella right now, and Corban was hoping to beat her there. Her dad, Ollie — nice guy, but weird — got a lot of work on those tract homes.

  Corban rounded another corner and eased off on his pedaling. The wind could do most of the work as he coasted downhill, eyeing the sprawling properties on either side.

  His community, The Village, was at the top of the hills, so riding down was always a blast, and coming back up, a bitch and a half.

  Corban slowed when he got to the Costa Bella bridge, where the gate would have been if crime was a problem in Almond Park, then followed the billowing column of black smoke down three curvy roads to the end of a cul-de-sac lined with McMansions, to where Kari was already waiting with the crowd.

  The flames were out and a trio of fire engines idled. Corban could smell the sweat and the fear. Like barbecue and burning cake.

  “What happened?”

  Kari turned to him and his heart gave a hiccup in surprise. Her eyes were wide and wet, makeup smeared beneath them. Corban still wasn’t used to these feelings. He hadn’t been able to stop thinking about Kari for a couple of weeks now. The emotion ballooned in his chest and filled him up until he was ready to pop. He was all nerves at least half the time. Looking at her quiet tears, he wanted to reach out and wipe them away.

  Or pull her toward him.

  But Kari wiped them herself. Then she said, “Other than fire, I have no idea.”

  Corban nodded at the house. A large wreath nearly swallowed the top half of a door that was barely attached to a house. Everything around the door had become a charred husk. Unbelievable, considering the house had been so new, the paint probably only half-dry.

  “It’s one of the finished ones, huh?”

  Kari nodded, then turned back to the house, staring.

  Corban wondered if he should say something. Anything. Kari liked to think, and ever since he’d been spending more time with her than his brother, Corban had learned to listen. When she got going, she really got going. But sometimes she needed a prompt. Appreciated it, even. Death was sort of a thing for her, so surely she’d want to talk.

  Or maybe he should grab her hand …

  Corban stared at the house, blinking into the sooty air. Waiting.

  “Good stuff is supposed to come from tragedy, right?” she finally asked.

  Corban nodded.

  “What good can possibly come of this? These houses are all brand new. That was someone’s dream, Corban. Now it’s gone. Just like that. Doesn’t that make everything feel temporary to you?”

  “Yeah. Totally.”

  “I bet that family wasn’t all that different from mine. They moved to Almond Park because they could final
ly afford the house they wanted. And now their dream is dead!”

  “Maybe their insurance is amazing, and now they’ll get to live in a place that’s even swankier.”

  Kari turned back to the house.

  Corban wished she would say something.

  He needed to hear her voice. Something about it loosened the constant squeeze of life’s grip as it tried to force him through a round hole that his edges kept catching on. High school’s typical hierarchy should have made their friendship impossible.

  But when just-moved-to-Almond-Park Kari had shown up friendless on orientation day, she’d spent the morning giving Corban an earache, slowly drawing him out of his shell. For the past three years he’d thought of her as the extrovert to his introvert. Now he thought of her as the yin to his yang. Or at least that’s what he wanted her to be.

  “Think we’ll see your dad?”

  Kari shrugged.

  Corban hoped so. She always lit up around her father. And right now she seemed as dead as the ashes of the burnt-out house.

  Ollie was an odd guy. He had an intense stare, even though all of his words sounded like they were smiling. He wore his hair swept back with a part that would have looked at home on a Ken doll. He did and said the most random things (I was born as a baby; sometimes I feel like sleeping in my sleep; my hair hurts). But Corban couldn’t help but like the guy.

  So the rumors pissed him off. They weren’t a weird family. They were close. They laughed a lot. They shared. Kari ate dinner with her parents almost every night. The Nashes hadn’t done that since Levi and Corban were in middle school. Family dinners had dwindled to maybe twice a week.

  It was dumb, but Corban missed them.

  Ollie the oddball was married to the sweetest woman Corban had ever met. The kind of person who’d tend to a bird with a broken wing and worry about it for months after releasing it back into the wild.

  If the school wanted a fucked up family to talk shit about, they could have started with his.

  The crowd stirred, restless for news. Again he wanted to take Kari’s hand. Still, he didn’t.

  Instead, he said, “My dad’s house burned down when he was a kid. The house had faulty wiring. He said Grandpa should have noticed because some of the lights would dim when they switched from one appliance to another. Or for one thing to work they had to unplug something else. Fuses were always blowing. But they were all used to it.”

  “Were they home when it happened?”

  “At the movies. But they lost everything. And it’s not like now. I mean, you would still lose all of your shit, but pictures and stuff? That’s all in the cloud.”

  “It would still feel like losing a limb, I bet. My stomach hurts when I empty the trash on my computer; I’m not sure I could take losing everything I owned.”

  The coroner’s van rounded the drive, coming to a slow stop in front of the charred shell before the murmuring crowd.

  “Fuck.” It hadn’t even occurred to Corban that someone might’ve died in the fire.

  Kari’s eyes filled with tears again. If he offered to take her home, would she be grateful? Or did she want to be here, hard as it was?

  The murmurs grew louder as the coroner got out of his van and slammed the door.

  “Can you hear what they’re saying?” Corban asked.

  Kari shook her head.

  “Want me to ask?”

  “No. That’s morbid.”

  “So … should we go?”

  “No.”

  Soon the rumors were no longer whispers, and worse than Corban had imagined.

  This family hadn’t gone out to a movie.

  They’d all been inside, watching one.

  “Oh my god, Corban.” Kari collapsed into his arms.

  She had more to say, but tears were all that came out. Every word fell into a sob, soaking the front of his shirt as she buried her crying face into his chest.

  And Corban couldn’t stop himself from getting hard.

  What’s wrong with me?

  Chapter Four

  “Pass me the knife?” Selena nodded at the blade in Dane’s hand and smiled at him.

  “Sure thing.” Dane slid it across the granite countertop, handle toward her. Good boy ...

  She normally cooked on the other side of the kitchen, but Dane was sitting at the bar, and the TV was on in the living room behind him. The Costa Bella fire was awful. Levi and the rest of his friends had lost interest once they learned what the sirens meant and had retreated into the game room. Fine. She didn’t mind Dane’s company, and he was clearly struck by the tragedy. Why else would he have stayed downstairs to talk about it with her?

  He was a junior like her sons, but had just turned eighteen, thanks to a repeated year back when his mother passed away. She wouldn’t call him chatty, though he did like to talk. His words were measured, thoughtful. Selena had almost laughed to herself a few days ago when she caught herself thinking of them as graceful. It was such a pleasure to see him changing from an awkward teenage boy into an intelligent young man.

  But today he was quiet. More than pensive, almost lost. Until he finally spoke.

  “Do you think that death is just a door to something else?”

  A good question. Selena smiled again. “What do you think, Dane?”

  This time, he smiled back. Even if they hadn’t been playing it long, this was still a game. Dane wasn’t her patient, but it was fun to pretend that he was, with this marble counter between them.

  “You first.”

  “Okay,” Selena said. “I do have my doubts about an afterlife, but that doesn’t mean that death isn’t a door to something else.”

  “Like?”

  “I don’t know. Something.”

  “But not heaven?”

  She paused, then, “Definitely not heaven.”

  Dane nodded. Seemed to consider. “Why not?”

  “Just seems to me that if there was really a heaven, why would we spend a lifetime trying to avoid it? I think that heaven gives people a reason to believe that there’s something better waiting, so they don’t have to do the hard work of reaching for it down here. I’d rather make my heaven on Earth.” A beat, then, “You?”

  “What if death is a chance to leave your body and see all of your life from a distance, to know whether you lived a true life, or one that was just what everyone expected of you? Then maybe if you did live righteously, not necessarily by helping others but by being true to yourself, you get another chance to come back and do it again.”

  Is that what you hope for your mother?

  The next logical question, if Dane were a patient, but it felt cruel to keep pushing when he was so clearly seeking comfort.

  “So,” she said instead, “you think reincarnation might be merit-based, and that achievement might be calculated around how honestly you lived your life?”

  Dane’s somber expression seemed to split in the middle. Then he grinned. “That sounds so professorial, but yeah, I suppose that’s about right.”

  “And how long have you been thinking about this particular theory?”

  Dane checked the time on his phone and grinned wider. “About a minute.”

  “Well that’s—” Holy shit.

  Dane turned around to see what she was staring at.

  The anchors shifted from solemn to suppressed excitement — still respectfully sober, but there was a light in Colleen Little’s eyes. Same for her co-anchor Martin Denison. News was breaking, and they were first to tell the world.

  Or at least Almond Park.

  “What is it?” Dane asked.

  But Selena didn’t answer. She kept looking at the screen, watching an Almond Park police officer pulling out a bright red scarf from the mailbox in front of the home’s burned out husk, looking agitated as the cameraman caught him.

  Martin said, “The police have confirmed that a woman’s red scarf is the lone item inside the Andersons’ family mailbox. But they are thus far unsure of what this might mean.
”

  “Or they’re unwilling to say,” Colleen added.

  “Or they’re unwilling to say,” Martin repeated, giving her a sage-like nod.

  The talking heads kept talking, arguing about what the scarf might mean. Selena had a suspicion, but it was nowhere near strong enough to voice. Not yet, and certainly not in front of Dane.

  But he must have caught her expression. A twitch of her mouth, or maybe a glint in her eyes.

  “What is it?”

  “What do you mean?” Selena asked, as if she didn’t already know.

  Dane looked at her without speaking or blinking. His silence felt like a dare.

  He finally said, “What are you thinking?”

  “What makes you think that I’m thinking anything?”

  And when did you start paying such close attention to me? How embarrassing to realize that Dane’s observation felt both uncomfortable and inappropriately thrilling.

  “Because you stopped talking like there had been a second fire, as soon as you saw that scarf on TV. You have to be thinking something. This is what you do, right? Do you think that someone might have set that fire on purpose to … you know, kill that family?”

  Now Dane seemed worried, poor kid. She laughed, knowing he wasn’t going to buy it, but trying anyway. “I wasn’t thinking anything.”

  “Please,” he said. “You don’t have to tiptoe around me.”

  But Selena felt like she kinda sorta did. Surely this was the last thing the poor kid needed. Right now of all times, with an entire family dead.

  At least that little boy won’t grow up without a mother, because he’s dead too.

  It was an awful thought, and Selena swallowed it immediately. But surely the image had made its mark on her face.

  She wondered if Dane caught it.

  Of course he had. And the look in his eyes was there to prove it.

  “A red scarf in the mailbox is … specific,” Selena finally admitted.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Why would it be in there? I don’t know one woman who would put one of their scarves — and that looked like a nice one — into a mailbox. To me, it’s an obvious signal. Not necessarily a talisman, but at the very least a little bit of piss to mark his territory.”