by Garth Stein
Dean senses Evan’s reluctance.
“You crashed your car, didn’t you?”Dean asks.“You can say it.”
“I crashed my car.”
Dean nods and throws his ball into the backstop.
“I was driving over from Seattle and I crashed.”
Dean catches the ball and throws it again.
“I’m sorry, ” Evan says.
Dean shrugs, catches and throws the ball.
“Did you have any trouble with Frank?” Evan asks.
Dean catches the ball and eyes Evan suspiciously.
“Grandma made him go away, ” he says.“He won’t be back.”
“Oh, that’s good. What about the pot thing?”
“I guess they let me go or something.”
“Oh, yeah? Do you think they’ll give me my pot back?”
Dean cracks a smile, but doesn’t share it with Evan.
“Can I play?” Evan asks.
“Sure, ” Dean says. He removes his glove and hands it to Evan with the ball in the webbing. Evan takes it with his good hand. “Knock yourself out.”
He walks away and sits on the porch steps.
That wasn’t exactly what Evan had in mind by play. He follows Dean to the porch.
“Look, Dean, ” he says, “you didn’t have to have an emergency to get me here.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I was coming anyway, you know.”
“What do you mean?”
“I was already on my way. You didn’t need to be in trouble to get me here.”
No response. They’re silent.
“Somebody made an offer on my apartment, ” Evan says after a moment.“I’d have to talk to your grandmother about this, but do you really have to live either here or in Yakima?”
Dean shrugs.
“Because I was thinking, you could sell your mom’s house in Yakima, I could sell my apartment, and then maybe we could get a little place near Green Lake or something. Nothing big. The schools are good around there, and we could get a windsurfer or something. They have a ton of soccer teams there. And I’m sure someone plays street hockey, right?”
Nothing.
“It doesn’t have to be a parent-kid thing. We could write down rules. We’d both abide by them. You know. It would be like a partnership thing.”
“What about Grandma?”
“Well, we can talk to her. Maybe she’d want to move back to Seattle. You know, she lived there when your mother was growing up. She might not even like Walla Walla.”
“She hates it.”
“See? Or we can make sure to get a house with an extra bedroom so she could visit whenever she wanted. We can figure something out.”
Dean studies the palm of his hand for a moment.
“So now you want me again?” he asks.
“Dean, I’ve got to be honest. I got scared. I got really scared that I would ruin you, you know? That I would make all the wrong decisions and say all the wrong stuff. When you tried to push me away, I let you do it, like I let your mom do it a long time ago. Instead of thinking about it a minute, I threw it back in your face. And when I hit you, it scared the shit out of me, honestly. I panicked.”
Dean doesn’t respond, but he switches hands and studies the other palm.
“People make up stories about themselves, Dean, ” Evan says. “They tell themselves stories, and then they try to make those stories come true. Sometimes the stories are good, but sometimes people make up bad stories about themselves because maybe someone told them something once and they believed it. It’s easy to believe, Dean.”
Dean nods at his feet.
“But you can change the story. You can take a bad story and make it good and try to fulfill it, take responsibility for it, and then nobody can do anything to hurt you unless you let them.”
They sit for several minutes thinking about what Evan has said, and about the sky and the brown grass in the backyard, about the dilapidated fence at the end of the yard that needs replacing or at least painting, about the man across the yard who’s shingling his house with a rhythmic banging that teaches an elementary lesson in physics: light travels faster than sound. What he’s said sounds a little ridiculous, a little simplistic, a little moralistic. But it makes sense, especially to a fourteen-year-old. Which is what Evan is. Which is why he can relate.
“So, what do you think?”Evan asks.“You want to rewrite our story?”
Dean shrugs a nod at him, again, not meeting eyes, again not speaking, just reaching down and pulling at his shoelace, tucking a small stone into an eyelet.
I feel like I’ve failed you.
No, Dad, you haven’t failed me.
“I’ll start, ” Evan says.“I have epilepsy. Did your mother ever tell you that?”
Dean shakes his head no.
“Do you know what epilepsy is?”
I feel like I’ve failed you.
Dean starts to nod, then shrugs, then pulls at his shoelace again.
Evan holds up his wrist.
You haven’t failed me, Dad. But my head is broken and you can’t fix it. Nobody can fix it.
“This is my Medic Alert bracelet, ” he says.“There’s a telephone number on it that you can call . . .”
Dean glances at the bracelet, then looks at Evan, who is struck by his eyes, glowing at him like giant emeralds. And his ears. And his cheeks and his mouth. His hands and arms. He is Evan. He is Evan incarnate. Evan made him.
Dad, Mom, Brother. You haven’t failed me. But you have all grown up. You have all grown old. And I’m still the same. I’m still fourteen-years-old. And I’m just now waking up.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Lori Ames, Kristen Bearse, Tina Bennett, Bryan Devendorf, Yale Fergang, John Field, Douglas Fleming, Muffy Flouret, Wallace Gray, Tom Hobson, Lynn Hoffman, Ted Houghton, Laura Hruska, Soyon Im, Juris Jurjevics, Douglas Katz, David Katzenberg, Peter Kenney, Roy Kimbrell, Dena Jo Klingler, Jennifer Lager, J.R. Lankford, Ailen Lujo, Amy Lumet, David Massengill, Richard Morris, Scott Morrison, Arash Nadershahi, Len Nahajski, Joel Nichols, Kevin O’Brien, Sandy and Stephen Perlbinder, Janet Rumble, Astrid Sabella Rosa, Paula Schaap, Corey Stein, Marvin and Yolanda Stein, Liane Thomas, Doug Thompson, Terry Tirrell, Andrea Vitalich, Jonathan Wald . . .
Caleb and Eamon
and, in all dimensions, throughout all time,
Drella
