How Evan Broke His Head and Other Secrets

by Garth Stein

  Very nice, very nice. A nice little life. No glamour, very few frills. Neat and tidy. Functional. Efficient. Pared down, in a sense, to provide the least amount of padding between parent and child. Quite unlike Evan’s backyard when he was fourteen, which was full of balls and bats, bicycles, basketball hoops, golf clubs. Tools. Weapons. Things used by father and son to bridge the gap of intimacy. Things to do that can then be talked about. Never talking about feelings or thoughts. Talking about the shot just made in a game of Horse, or how to chip from the fringe. Men are genetically engineered to behave in this way. Since the beginning of time, back in the caveman days, fathers didn’t chat with sons about poetry or music. They took their sons out to the savannah and stalked okapi. You don’t talk about sonnets on the savannah or the okapi will escape. You are silent. A single spear is thrown, dartlike, through the air, piercing a heart. The men rush to the fallen prey. They stand over the kill. They talk about what a good throw it was, how it could be thrown better the next time. They do not talk about their feelings.

  He reenters the house. The smell is worse, if that’s possible. It smells like wet dirt. He ventures into the kitchen, a narrow galley bookended by the entry hallway on one side and the breakfast nook on the other. He glances around for something offensive smelling. Nothing jumps out at him.

  He returns to the living room. Nothing. He looks down the hallway. A light is on in the bedroom at the end. Must be Dean’s room. Dean isn’t inside. Evan hears movement from the other direction. He quietly walks toward the sound.

  The hallway is dim and ends at a single door which is open. Evan looks inside. It’s Tracy’s room. It’s pretty big, a double bed, a large dresser, a writing desk, a TV, a bathroom off one corner, a lot of closets. It’s warm-feeling, decorated with tans and browns. It’s sophisticated, not frilly. It’s like the backyard: there is no extra junk, but it still doesn’t feel empty. It feels full, but full of something other than objects. It feels, strangely, full of soul. It feels like it was lived in by someone who enjoyed living in it.

  Dean stands silently at the dresser, his back to the door and to Evan. He’s looking through Tracy’s jewelry box. Evan watches for a couple of minutes as Dean opens each small drawer and pokes through her belongings. Occasionally, he removes something, a ring or a bracelet, examines it, feels its heft, considers it, then sets it back in the box. At last he takes a necklace, a thin chain with a locket on it. He holds it up and stares at it as it glitters in the sunlight from the window. Then he gathers the chain into his hand. He closes the jewelry box door without replacing the necklace. He closes the jewelry box door without replacing the

  “I should probably go to the store, ” Evan says.

  Dean starts. He jerks around.

  “What?” he asks, clearly wondering how long he’s been watched.

  “I should go to the store and get some supplies. You want to come?” He hadn’t meant to startle Dean. Just the opposite. He wanted to console Dean. He wanted to share Dean’s thoughts.

  Dean doesn’t answer. Evan walks toward him. He can see the pain on Dean’s face from being in his mother’s room. He wants to hold Dean, to hug him. He wants to tell Dean he’s there for him. He reaches out, touches Dean’s shoulder.

  “You okay?” he asks softly.

  Dean jerks away.

  “Let’s go, ” he says.

  He brushes past Evan. As he walks toward the door, he slips his hand to his jeans pocket. He tries to stuff the necklace into the pocket, but it falls to the ground. Dean quickly kneels and scoops the chain off the carpet.

  “What’s that?” Evan asks.

  “I didn’t steal it, ” Dean says quickly, standing.

  “I know. I just wondered what it was.”

  “Nothing. It’s just a necklace.”

  He slides the necklace into his pocket, and then stands with his back to Evan, not moving. He’s being interrogated. He’s waiting to be dismissed.

  “Was it your mother’s?” Evan asks, and immediately feels like an idiot. No, it belongs to someone I’ve never met, but my mother keeps it in her jewelry box. Duh.

  Dean shrugs and looks at the wall. He doesn’t want to talk about it. Yeah, Evan thinks. Sometimes he feels exactly the same way.

  “So let’s go, ” Evan says.

  Dean nods and leaves the room without looking back at Evan.

  THEY GO TO THE local supermarket and buy the junk you would expect them to buy: potato chips, corn chips, popsicles, cereal. They return to the house and Dean wants to go Rollerblading. His injuries feel much better and he wants to get out on his good skates like in the old days. It’s early, and the late July heat has dissipated enough to make the evening almost idyllic. Evan gives his blessing, partly because he knows that if he doesn’t, Dean will go anyway, so why fight it.

  Dean dons his helmet and blades and takes off; Evan goes into the kitchen to put things away, and the smell is so intense now, it almost knocks him down. He sees what it is instantly. Sitting on the counter is a bunch of rotten bananas. Really rotten. Blackened bananas, sitting in a pool of their own rotten banana juices. A million fruit flies are swarming in a cloud above them, dipping down in intervals to suck up the sugary mess. It’s absolutely foul.

  He finds a garbage bag, scoops the mess into it with a wad of paper towels and seals the bag shut along with most of the fruit flies, who have chased the banana frappé into the bag. He cleans the counter briefly and then commences putting things away. He picks up the frozen waffles and popsicles and turns toward the refrigerator, where he notices a piece of notepaper held to the refrigerator door by a magnet. He looks closer.

  It’s a note from Tracy:

  Dean—

  There’s a pizza in the freezer and carrots in the fridge . . .

  EAT THEM! I’ll be a little late.

  Love you,

  Mom

  Evan cautiously opens the freezer door, not wanting to see what he knows is there. Inside are ice cubes, ice cream cartons, various unmarked containers. And there’s a small frozen pizza in a box— pepperoni—and Evan is suddenly overcome with sadness, like falling into a pool of warm water, it’s suddenly all around him, inside him, without him feeling the change. Just a stupid pizza, that’s all. Nothing to be upset about. But it’s proof. The day she died, Tracy wrote a note to her son telling him about dinner, telling him that she would be home late, probably working overtime or attending a community board meeting or something, and she was probably driving to that meeting to drum up support for a new playground or new after-school activities or a firmer anti-drug program in the high schools when her car was hit by a truck and she was killed. The truck driver probably walked away from the accident unscathed, unmoved, angry, even, at the scratch Tracy’s puny car had made on his front left fender. But Tracy was dead, and her plan—that Dean would eat a frozen pizza and some carrots for dinner—was scuttled once and forever.

  Evan drops the note into the garbage can and looks around the kitchen, hoping to see something that will make him feel better, or at least make him feel not so alone. He walks to the hallway and looks toward Dean’s room, but Dean isn’t there, he went skating; Evan can’t try to connect with him. He can’t call his parents or his brother. He tries calling Lars, but Lars is out. He tries calling Mica in Jamaica, but she’s not in her room. There’s no one. He’s absolutely alone, just him and Tracy’s ghost, and she’s got such cold hands, they make him shiver.

  WHEN EVAN WAS sixteen, he took the bus to his grandfather’s apartment once a week to play the guitar for the old man. It was a forty-minute ride, but Evan didn’t mind it. These private recitals were something they both enjoyed, even though Evan had long suspected that his grandfather was too deaf to hear.

  His grandfather was old, eighty-seven, but he was still a spry little man who got around as best he could and refused every offer of help. That was why, the week before he died, Evan was surprised by his grandfather’s question.

  “Is there anything I have that
you want?” he asked Evan.

  “No, Grandpa, ” Evan smiled.“Nothing.”

  “Come, Evie, there must be something. When I die, I want to leave you something. What will it be?”

  Evan looked at him and felt so horribly sad that he felt ill. His face must have registered powerfully, for his grandfather didn’t wait for an answer.

  “That wasn’t a very good question, was it, Evie?” he said quickly. “Let’s pretend I didn’t ask it.”

  That was on a Monday. The following Monday, Evan let himself into the apartment with his key. He found his grandfather lying on the carpet next to the coffee table. He was dead. Around his head was a dark, circular stain.

  Evan was overcome. He didn’t know what to do. He called 911. Then he called his father.

  “You didn’t call emergency, did you?” Carl asked.

  “Yes.”

  “You did?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  Evan didn’t know why. He thought that was what he was supposed to do.

  “I’ll be right there. Don’t let them in if they get there first.”

  Thankfully, Carl arrived before the ambulance. He immediately started in with the questions. When did you find him? When was the last time you spoke with him? Did you move the body? So many questions.

  “It was an accident, ” Carl then announced to Evan.“He fell and hit his head. A terrible accident.”

  The intercom buzzed. Carl let the medics in. Then he took Evan by the arm and led him into Grandpa’s room. He shut the door on Evan.

  Evan could hear them through the door. The medics, the police. A lot of talk. Carl telling them that he was a doctor and he had already examined the body. Carl telling the ambulance guys that he would ride with them to the hospital and sign the death certificate. The police not really caring, going back to work. Evan could hear them hoist the body onto a gurney, take it outside, and then the door closing and everyone was gone.

  Everyone.

  After a few minutes, Evan realized no one was coming back. He had been left there. His father had forgotten him.

  He waited for an hour before he went outside to catch a bus. An hour after that, he got home. When he walked in the house, he found his mother and father and Charlie together in the kitchen, crying. His mother looked up with tears in her eyes and said, “Grandpa is dead, ” and Evan could do nothing but stare at them blankly. He couldn’t join them. He couldn’t cry with them. He wasn’t a part of them, he wasn’t one of their group. He retreated to his room to play his guitar, as he had planned to do that afternoon, for his grandfather.

  Evan never knew what happened. He wondered if his father ever remembered how he had forgotten Evan that afternoon. He didn’t even know if his father remembered who had found Grandpa. His father never said a word about it. Neither did Evan.

  “WHAT ARE YOU doing?” Dean asks.

  “Setting up the bed, ” Evan replies. And, indeed, that is what he’s doing. He’s in the study, the office, whatever you might call it, unfolding a sofa bed, tucking sheets around a three-inch-thick foam mattress.

  “Why?”

  “So I can sleep. I’m tired.”

  Evan knows that’s a false answer. It’s true, but it doesn’t answer the real question, which is, why are you sleeping in here and not in Tracy’s room? And that answer is a bit too complicated to tackle at this time. It’s probably something like, because he’s afraid of Tracy’s ghost, he’s afraid of Dean, and he’s afraid of himself. In a den on a sofa bed, at least he can concentrate his energy on his own discomfort and thereby avoid becoming overwhelmed by other things.

  “You can sleep in her room.”

  “Thanks, Dean, that’s a generous offer, but—”

  “I’ll help you change the sheets.”

  Dean turns and walks away from Evan, stops at the linen closet to pick up clean sheets, and then heads off toward Tracy’s room. Evan follows him; they make the bed together.

  “Thanks, Dean, ” Evan says when they’ve finished, but Dean doesn’t make a move to leave. He lingers by the bed.

  “You want to watch some TV with me?” Evan asks.

  Dean shrugs a yes. Evan turns on the TV and the two of them slip off their shoes and sit back on Tracy’s bed. Evan takes control of the remote and puts on MTV for some mindless programming, then they watch Iron Chef, then Letterman. Sleep sneaks up the side of the bed and takes them both by surprise, first one, then the other; they drift off silently; neither stirs all night.

  EVAN THROWS TOGETHER a little barbecue dinner for two. A grilled, marinated chicken recipe he picked up from his buddy, Emeril, who has a TV show and often talks about how to cook dead things. They sit on the back patio and eat off of paper plates because eating off of paper is cool; they drink out of glasses, however because beverages taste better out of a glass.

  “Can I go out?” Dean asks as they clean up.

  “Did your mom let you go out on weeknights?”

  “There’s no school tomorrow.”

  “So that’s the criterion?” Evan asks.

  “Yeah.”

  “Okay. Be back before dark?”

  “Mom always said I had to be back by nine-thirty.”

  “Okay, ” Evan says. “I’ll believe you. Where are you going?”

  “To play street hockey.”

  “Street hockey? That’s a little rough, isn’t it? You’re injured.”

  “It’s not rough. Plus, I feel all right.”

  “Let me see the bruises, ” Evan says.

  Dean pulls down his jeans and displays the bruise on this hip. Not that bad. He lifts his shirt and reveals the larger bruise on his lower back.

  “That doesn’t look good.”

  “It looks bad, but it doesn’t hurt, ” Dean says, sensing Evan’s reluctance. “Matthew’s dad puts up cones. We wear helmets. It’s really safe.”

  “Well . . . I guess. Can I come and watch?”

  Dean doesn’t answer. What kind of question is that, anyway? Can I come watch? A bit dorky. Surely the answer will be no.

  “I don’t care, ”Dean shrugs and leaves the room; Evan continues cleaning up. Dean reappears two minutes later holding his stick, pads, and skates.

  “I don’t want to be late.”

  “I’m ready, ” Evan says, surprised, quickly drying his hands.“I’m ready.”

  AT THE BOTTOM of the cul-de-sac are fifteen or twenty kids on Rollerblades. They’re carrying hockey sticks and wearing helmets. Half of them are wearing orange vests, like soccer kids wear. There is a man on Rollerblades, too. This must be Matthew’s father. He wears a whistle around his neck.

  The street is blocked off by orange cones, as Dean had said. Two portable nets are set out. White lines indicating the playing area are painted on the street, as is a center line and two off-sides lines. No doubt the paint job is courtesy of Matthew’s father, who seems to take his officiating rather seriously. Dean slips on an orange vest and takes his place on the sidelines, waiting to be rotated in.

  Evan leans against one of the cars parked adjacent to the hockey field. Most of the cars have been moved away, probably to avoid being smashed by a flying kid with a stick. And they are flying, these kids. Spinning and weaving, firing an orange ball among them. It’s a fast game. When a ball shoots out of bounds into the low ivy that surrounds the cul-de-sac, Matthew’s dad simply dips into a bag he wears around his neck that holds an apparently endless supply of new balls. No time to search for the errant ball. We’ll gather them up later.

  And Dean is in. He is one of the smaller boys, some of them being older, sixteen, maybe, much more muscular, football players, probably, but made to look Neanderthal by Dean, so agile and quick as he darts around them like a little bug, flicking the ball this way and that, the unselfish guy, flick, flick, flick, it’s off his stick and—

  Goal! Goal! Goal!

  Dean has scored. Fresh into the game, and he’s changed the entire complexion of it.

  He d
oes a dance. His comrades beat on him. High fives. High tens. Hugs. Jumping.

  “Good to have you back, Smith, ” Matthew’s dad bellows across the pavement, smiling, his deep voice booming off the houses that encircle them, the dark houses, residents obviously knowing of the daily, weekly, or monthly game and clearing the heck out of there, diving into the local Red Lobster for the nine-ninety-five all-you-can-eat special on batter-fried-prawns, hoping against hope that there is no overtime.

  Ssshhhheeeeeee!

  The shrill squeal of a whistle and the attention is back at center ice.

  “Rotate!”

  One boy from each team reluctantly skates to the sideline, replaced by someone new and energetic. What a system. Matthew’s father runs it all. Rules, a judge, painted lines, a rotation system— what’s that?—Evan realizes that Matthew’s dad has a stopwatch. Brilliant. He’s timing the rotations. Maybe on a goal they automatically rotate. Who knows? Dean is still in.

  Swish, swish, flick, flick. The ball skirts along, hits a rock and bounces up a bit, a foot off the pavement; the big guy, the one on the other team wearing a New York Rangers jersey, takes a swipe at it. Why not? Swack! Misses the ball and catches nothing but shin. Dean’s shin.

  Dean crumples to the ground. Evan moves toward him, but holds back. Dean’s big enough to take care of himself. He clutches his leg. The other boys stay away, skating in circles. Matthew’s father skates to Dean and examines his shin.

  “Shake it off, Smith, ” Matthew’s father commands.“Shake it off. No blood, no pain. You want out?”

  “High sticking, ” Dean blurts out through his gritted teeth.

  “I saw it, Smith. Not intentional. No penalty. You want out?”

  “No, ” Dean responds loud and clear.

  “Shake it off, then. The clock doesn’t stop for injuries.”

  Dean shakes it off and keeps skating. They play on.