Beyond Dreams

by Marilyn Reynolds

  “It is true what I told you in the hospital,” his mother says.

  “What?”

  “He didn’t die for nothing. Someone who didn’t have long to live now has a strong, healthy heart. Someone else now has healthy lungs. And a liver. The only thing Javier and I asked was that the liver not go to someone who’d ruined their own with alcohol—knowing what we knew about the driver who ran into you boys.”

  Man, I feel like such a fake, sitting here listening to all this, the part I had in Gabe’s death sitting heavy inside me.

  “We gave everything that could be used, except his eyes,” Mrs. Sandoval says. “From the time he was a baby, I felt I could see into his soul through his deep, brown eyes. And the sparkle— always that made me smile, even when he was up to something he shouldn’t have been. I was afraid that if we gave his eyes, I would be looking for that soul, that sparkle, in every stranger on the street. So his eyes are buried with him. Were we selfish?”

  I can’t answer. My chest is so filled with sorrow it feels as if it will burst. My eyes ache from holding back tears.

  Mrs. Sandoval’s cheeks are wet, but she laughs anyway. “Even his Achilles tendons are now a part of someone else. Can you imagine? Probably whoever got them is surprised to find themselves sprinting all over the place.”

  “I hope they’re not on some eighty-year-old lady,” I say, seeing some humor in the situation.

  “I don’t think they both went to the same person,” she says.

  “That’s even worse,” I say. “One leg is sprinting and the other is dragging along.”

  “Going in circles,” she says.

  We both laugh until we’re gasping. Mrs. Sandoval lets one, covers her face in embarrassment, and we laugh even harder. Monique pokes her head into the room.

  “What’s so funny?” she says, with a half smile.

  “You had to be there,” I tell her.

  I’m only on a home teaching plan for four weeks when the doctor releases me to return to regular classes. No P.E. yet, but everything else the same as before. I’m not supposed to be sitting around so much, but it’s all I really feel like doing.

  When Mom stops in front of the school on my first day back she asks, “Are you okay?”

  “I guess.”

  “I’m sorry you’re having such a hard time, Honey . . . I’m just so glad you’re alive, but I know it’s going to take some time for things to get back to normal.”

  “Normal?” I say.

  “Paul, I’m sorry. Nothing I say to you seems to come outright anymore. I miss Gabe, too. Everybody does. But somehow life goes on.”

  God, I hate when people say that, like that’s supposed to make everything all right.

  It’s weird, really weird, to be back at Hamilton High. First period, Algebra II, I’m lost. I try to concentrate, but it’s like Mr. Horton is saying blah, blah, blah. Nothing makes sense. After class, Eric and I walk out together.

  “When’re you coming back to track?” he asks.

  “I don’t know. It’s like a big effort to walk, much less run.”

  “Man, we suck right now without you and Gabe—maybe you could at least start practicing the baton pass with Tyler.”

  “Is he still fumbling?” I ask.

  “I think he rubs grease on his fingers before every meet,” Eric laughs. “I’ve been practicing with him, but not enough, I guess.”

  Eric walks on to his second period class and I go to my locker to get the notebook and texts which have been sitting there untouched for over a month. I stand in front of it, drawing a blank on my combination number. I try about ten times to open it, but I can’t do it. I bang my hand hard against the locker. It doesn’t help.

  Down the hall I hear someone yell, “Oh, shit!” and it is Gabriel’s voice. Crash! Metal crumples metal. Glass shatters. My heart pounds wildly with the spin and roll of the car. My face, hands, armpits drip sweat as I feel the emptiness in the seat beside me. I rest my head against the metal of my locker, waiting for the sirens, the lights, the pounding, spinning, sweating to stop. I am breathing hard and fast, like at the end of a race. I force myself to take regular, slow breaths, to come away from the accident, back to the present.

  I walk to class, passing friends who call out to me. I nod my head, mutter hi, hurry on. In English, Mrs. Rosenbloom wel­comes me back without complaining that I have no notebook or textbook. Before this all happened she would have given me a really hard time about coming to class unprepared. I’ve always liked this class, but now it’s more blah, blah, blah. Desiree passes me a note asking me to meet her at her car at lunchtime. Yes, I nod. She smiles. Mrs. Rosenbloom sees but doesn’t say any­thing. Talk about special treatment. That’s weird, too.

  Back out in the hall, I hear it again, “Oh, shit!” and the pictures roll to the accompaniment of my pounding heart, dripping sweat, dry mouth. I never realized how many times that phrase gets shouted in the halls of Hamilton High. It’s practically as common as “How’s it going?” Over and over again, “Oh, shit!” Over and over again—replay.

  I put my trembling hands deep into my pockets and walk past my third period class and through the gate. The narc doesn’t even bother to ask where I’m going. I walk through the back parking lot and out onto the sidewalk. It is two miles to my house— nothing to get tired over, but by the time I get home my legs are shaky and I’m winded. I go inside, thankful to find an empty house. I ease down across the bed, waiting for the numbing fog. I am still there when my mom gets home from work in the evening.

  “How was it?” she says, sitting in the chair beside my desk.

  “I didn’t stay. I can’t think right, Mom.”

  She moves over to where I’m stretched out, face down, across my bed. She sits beside me and starts rubbing my back like she used to do when I was a kid.

  “You’ve got to keep trying, Paulie. Remember, Dr. Baines told you it would be hard to concentrate for a while, but it’s important to keep working at it.”

  My grandma comes in, carrying a package of freshly made,

  still warm tortillas.

  “I stopped at Pedro’s on my way home,” she says. “Smell.”

  She unwraps the package and puts it down by my face. I turn over, suddenly realizing how long it’s been since I’ve eaten. I take a tortilla from the package, roll it and start eating. My mom and grandma each take one, too, both smiling now. I follow them to the kitchen and open a soda while my grandma starts cooking chicken and my mom makes a salad.

  After dinner I ask to borrow my mom’s car. She looks at me, puzzled, but hands me the keys. “Don’t be late,” she says, then adds in a whisper, “Be careful.”

  I’ve not driven since that night, and my hands are damp against the steering wheel of my mom’s Nissan. I back out of the driveway and go out of my way to avoid the comer of Fourth and Sycamore. It takes about twenty minutes to get to the cemetery. Everything is locked up, but the low fence is easy to climb. I remember where Gabe’s aunt is buried because I came with the family a few times when they brought flowers. Gabe’s grave is right next to hers, and the seam between the newly rolled-on grass and the stuff that’s been there for a long time is still obvious. “Gabriel Miguel Sandoval” is chiseled into a white marble headstone and underneath that the dates of his birth and death, and then it says, “Beloved son, brother, grandson, friend.” Then there is a torch, like in the Olympics, and under that it says, “His flame lives on.” What does that mean, anyway?

  I sit on the damp grass, next to the headstone, thinking. Maybe it means that parts of him, his heart and liver and all that stuff, are still alive in whoever got them. Well, I’m glad that makes his mom and dad feel better, and I guess it’s nice for the people who needed parts, but it doesn’t do much for me. I’m not catching his flame.

  Right under me, six feet they say, all locked up in a casket, is my best friend. And he’s there because of me. That’s the truth. I can’t run from it, the fog isn’t thick enough to block it out.
He’s down there missing all of the things that made him work—his heart isn’t even in there. His eyes are down there, but they probably don’t look so good anymore. God. I wonder what his emptied-out body looks like.

  “I’m sorry, Gabe. I didn’t mean to let you ride with me without your seat-belt. I didn’t mean for you to die,” I say. And then all the sorrow that’s been locked up inside me comes loose. Tears run down my cheeks and my nose is running all over the place, but I don’t care. “I miss you, Gabe. Sometimes it seems like I should be dead, too, but then I see my mom and grandma, and your mom, too, and I know they’ve been hurt bad enough as it is . . . I’m all confused and bottled up and there’s no one to talk to about it because you’re the only one I ever really talked to . . . I’m sitting there with my head resting in my hands, tears pouring down my cheeks, picturing Gabe below ground, when a noise behind me makes me jump. It’s Hector. I wipe my eyes, embar­rassed, but I see that his cheeks are wet with tears, too.

  “What’re you doing here?” he asks.

  “I just wanted to come here,” I say. “I can’t explain it.”

  “Yeah,” he sighs. “I come here every night.”

  “Do you think Gabe knows we’re here—like maybe he’s watching from heaven?”

  “Hey, I don’t know. That’s my mom’s department. I guess he could be, but I’d rather see him here with us right now.”

  We stand in silence for a few minutes, then I say goodbye to Hector. I walk back to the fence, climb over it, and reach into my pocket for the car keys. Not there. Now what? I look all around by the fence. It’s not very well lit, but there’s enough moonlight that I’d see the keys if they were there. They probably fell out of my pocket when I was sitting on the grass. I climb back over the fence and walk back to where Gabe is buried. I walk quietly, not wanting to disturb Hector. When I get close, I hear that he is talking to Gabe and crying. I stop, not knowing what to do. Maybe I should just wait until he’s finished?

  “God, Gabe. It’s bad enough that you’re gone, but that it’s my fault? I’m not sure I can stand it.”

  His fault? I stand there, barely breathing.

  “If I’d just gone to get the ice cream, like mom asked, none of this would have happened. But I was lazy, like dad accuses me of being, and I didn’t want to be bothered.”

  He is crying like a little kid now, making those choking sounds.

  “Mom told Dad it was her fault—if she had bought enough ice cream in the first place, you’d still be here. But I’m the one who sent you on an errand I was supposed to do myself,” Hector says, and the sobbing starts again.

  I walk over slowly to where he’s sitting. “I’m sorry. I think I lost the car keys around here,” I say.

  He looks up, wiping his face. I sit down next to him.

  “Listen, Hector, I couldn’t help hearing some of what you were saying. It’s not your fault.”

  “No! Everybody tells me that, but you can’t deny it. If I’d gone for ice cream myself, Gabe wouldn’t be dead and you wouldn’t be walking around half-dead!”

  “Maybe,” I say. “But there’s more to it than that.” I tell him the whole story about that night—the story I keep trying not to think about.

  “Two beers, even three over the whole afternoon and night— I don’t think you can call that drunk.”

  “But don’t you see? If I hadn’t had those beers, I would have noticed that Gabe wasn’t wearing his seatbelt. I’m sure of it. I’d never taken anyone anywhere in my car unless they were buckled up. Never before that night.”

  “He probably would have been killed, anyway,” Hector says. “I saw your car before they junked it. The whole right side was jammed flat against the steering wheel. Really, it’s amazing you’re alive. But see, your car wouldn’t even have been there when that guy went zooming through the red light if I’d gone to get the ice cream.”

  “Does your mom really think it’s her fault?”

  “I don’t know. I just heard them talking. My dad says life is full of what ifs and they get in the way of living—we just have to go on.”

  I start searching around on the grass, near where I was sitting before.

  “You’re not going to find those keys tonight,” Hector says. “C’mon, I’ll take you home and you can get the other set.”

  Just as he says that, my hand touches cold metal and my simplest problem is solved. We go back to the fence together, climb over, get in our cars and drive home. I follow him all the way, glancing now and then at the back of his head, thinking about how he used to bully us when we were little, and how defenseless he seems now.

  Mom is waiting by the window, watching for me, as I turn into our driveway. By the time I walk through the front door, she is on the couch, pretending to be involved in a TV program.

  “Goodnight, Mom,” I say, walking back to my room.

  “I’ll take you to school in the morning, on my way to work,” she calls after me.

  I don’t think I’m going to school in the morning. I don’t think I can hack it. But I’ll wait and tell her that tomorrow, when she’s in a hurry and won’t have time to argue about it.

  I pick up the practice baton from my dresser and hold it tight, thinking of the thousands of times Gabe and I passed it back and forth, trying to feel his presence in it, like his mom says she feels in his room. All I feel is the familiar weight and texture in the palm of my hand.

  In my dream Gabe keeps passing the baton to me and I keep dropping it. I’m surprised, because usually it’s the other way around. “Hang on!” he keeps yelling. I yell back, “Buckle! Buckle!” but he laughs and hands the baton off to me again. It slips away. Then suddenly I’m in a distance race. My feet are like lead. I’m moving as fast as I can, but the finish line keeps getting farther and farther away. Gabe is at the other end, laughing, urging me on, but he keeps getting farther and farther away, too, until he is only a dot on the horizon. I fall face down on the track, heavy, unable to move.

  “Get up!” a voice urges in my ear. It is Gabe’s voice. “Run,” he says. “You’re the endurance guy, remember? I’m just the sprinter. My race was exciting, fast, but it’s over. You’ve barely started yours.” He laughs again.

  A lightness returns. I get to my hands and knees.

  “Get up, Paul,” he says, “get up,” over and over, until his voice fades and my mother’s voice picks up the rhythm, “Get up, Paul. Get up,” she says, shaking me gently.

  I roll over on my back and take a deep breath. Mom opens the blinds. “It’s a nice, sunny day,” she says. “I’m going to jump in the shower now. Get yourself a bite to eat and we’ll leave in about thirty minutes.”

  Maybe I should go to school today after all. I rummage around in my top dresser drawer. Like with the keys last night, I’m in luck this morning. I find my wallet, and the tom slip of paper that has my locker combination on it. I take a quick shower and start getting dressed.

  When I pull my pants on, though, something feels heavy, out of balance. I reach into my right pocket and pull out the baton I’d held in my hand last night. But I put it back on the dresser! I know I did. How did it get in my pocket? Did I sleepwalk? I’ve never done that before. I sit down on my bed, holding the baton, remembering my dream.

  “Ready?” Mom asks, standing in the doorway.

  “Did you hear anything last night after I went to bed?” I ask.

  “No, like what?”

  “Well, like maybe I was sleepwalking or something?”

  “No,” she says, shaking her head, looking puzzled. “Why?”

  “Oh, nothing. I was just wondering.”

  I put the baton back in my pocket, walk past her to the kitchen and grab a couple of breakfast bars. “Let’s go,” I say.

  Today, when I hear “Oh, shit!” in the halls, I immediately change the word “shit” to “shinola” in my head. That sounds really weird, I know, but in Peer Counseling, when we were trying to clean up our language, Woodsy suggested we say “fudge”
instead of the usual “f” word, and “shinola” instead of “shit.”

  It helps a little. One time “Oh, shit” brings the replay of the accident in all its intensity, but the rest of the time “shinola” works.

  Algebra II still doesn’t make much sense to me this morning, but it’s maybe a little better than yesterday. I’m a little better than yesterday.

  I catch up with Desiree before English. “Sorry about yester­day,” I say.

  “I waited for you for twenty minutes,” she says, her eyes flashing anger.

  “Want to try again today?” I ask.

  “No way,” she says.

  I shrug. She doesn’t seem very important to me anymore.

  I reach into my pocket and touch the baton, wondering how it got there this morning. All day I feel the weight of it in my pocket. Sixth period I go out to the track.

  “Hey, Valdez,” Coach Sawyer says, walking over to me and shaking my hand. “We need you. Are you getting back in shape? How’re you doing?”

  “Okay, I guess.”

  “Ready to run?”

  “The doctor hasn’t released me for that yet, but I thought maybe I could help coach exchanges between Tyler and one of the other guys.”

  “Great. Tyler needs all the coaching he can get,” Coach laughs, then he gets serious.

  “That was a rotten break for you guys,” he says. “What a waste.”

  “Yeah,” I say.

  “I heard someone got Gabe’s Achilles tendons,” Coach says.

  “Yeah,” I smile. I tell him about the conversation I had with Gabe’s mom about someone running in circles because one side would be so fast. We laugh. Coach calls Tyler and we start practicing. It feels good to be outside, doing something. I run just enough to be moving when Tyler reaches for the baton, but that’s enough to wind me.