by Chris Baron
Okay, I say.
Mom? I say.
She turns.
She is looking toward the corner,
toward the buses speeding
off into the city.
Yes?
I want
to talk
to Dad.
She looks down.
I know, she says. I know.
Calling My Father
I call Lisa
to let her know
about Sunday,
but there’s still no answer.
I hang up, but my hand stays on the phone,
and in that moment,
I decide to call my father.
Why shouldn’t I?
I am nervous to call him
so I grab Mysterious World,
so I can read and breathe first.
When I find my courage
to call,
the phone rings
and rings
and rings.
This voice mailbox is full.
I call again,
but it’s the same every time.
I Pack
more comics,
graph paper,
and a few new dice
for the game.
I stare at the cover of
The Diet Book and ask,
Where does it end, Doctor? Do I just do this forever,
until I waste away into nothing?
What happens
when I can’t find myself
anymore?
A Date
In the middle of packing,
I hear Gretchen’s
voice in my head
and think about how fun it is
to talk to her,
about how she says she loves my voice,
how much I like hers,
how funny she is,
how I can listen to her without trying,
and how she hears what I say,
how we promised to meet
somewhere in East Bay,
some mall or maybe Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley,
where we can go to old record stores.
We haven’t even met.
She doesn’t know that I’m fat,
that I might
not look like I sound.
I call, and she starts talking right away.
She tells me about Duran Duran.
Before I know it, she’s singing
“Hungry Like the Wolf,”
and she expects me to sing the low parts,
and I do, and we sing on the phone,
and it doesn’t even feel weird.
Pretty soon she’s telling me
about Lisa, how they knew each
other in elementary school,
before Lisa moved to Mill Valley.
Gretchen promises me again,
over and over,
that soon we’ll meet.
I say, Cool.
When? she asks, suddenly serious.
When?
Yes, when?
I don’t know,
I say, but we can
make a date before summer’s over.…
Great! It’s a date, she says.
Her words snap the spell,
and I remember that she’s
never seen me before.
I’m kind of a big guy,
I tell her.
I always have been.
Okay, she says.
I’m tall, way taller than
most girls I know,
sometimes they make fun of me.
And I have lots of freckles.
We make plans to go to the record store for sure,
find the Prince album she’s looking for.
I tell her that for my bar mitzvah
I might get a vintage record player.
Let’s sing one more song! she says. Prince!
Let’s sing “Purple Rain.”
That song is rad.
I tell her it’s rad.
We sing it until I hear her mom
telling her to get off the phone.
Missed
I look at the old note
on the bulletin board,
the Post-it hanging by one
sticky edge.
It reminds me
that I had another
appointment yesterday!
I didn’t remember,
missed it by a whole day.
Knots in my stomach.
How could I let this happen?
It’s over, I think.
I let him down.
The House Call
I sit in my room.
I should be packing,
but instead I’m
reading Web of Spider-Man #1.
Peter is thinking about how to tell Mary Jane
he wants to be a new kind of hero.
He doesn’t want to think of the past anymore.
By the last page,
Peter’s symbiotic alien suit
decides to detach itself from its host
and save Peter’s life—one being
suddenly split into two.
I carefully slide the comic book
back into its Mylar bag.
A knock at the door startles me.
I look through the peephole.
It’s the rabbi!
I feel a rush of nervousness.
He must be here for my mother.
I open the door,
and the rabbi looks up.
It’s about time.
Is your mother home?
The rabbi doesn’t waste words.
I’m sweating and there’s a long pause.
He looks around the apartment.
It feels like when I first saw
Mrs. Goldberg, my third-grade
teacher, at the candy store
on Lexington Avenue,
like she wasn’t supposed
to be anywhere but in school.
He searches the apartment,
taking in everything he can,
then his eyes
come back to me
and he smiles.
Can I come in?
Sure—I’m not really supposed
to let anyone in, though.
He looks around the kitchen.
Do you want a glass of water?
I pour him the water,
and he takes a drink,
and for a while we talk about stairs.
Up and down, he says. Always with this city.
Up and down.
Then the rabbi sits
on the barstool
in the kitchen,
Tell me how you are, Ari.
I lean on the counter.
Good?
There is a universe
in the answer I don’t give.
He stares at me,
waiting inside the silence.
I’m reading a great book, I say.
He lifts an eyebrow.
Can I show you?
He nods.
I find Mysterious World,
dust the cover off
and straighten the torn jacket.
It’s by Arthur C. Clarke.
You know, he wrote 2001: A Space Odyssey?
He nods, raises his eyebrow,
maybe acknowledging, maybe not.
His eyebrow stays perched.
I hold it up
like a preschool teacher
and open to the first few pages.
The crystal skull stares
the rabbi in the face.
Words bubble out
of my mouth.
It’s Aztec or maybe Mayan. Nobody knows for sure. Some people think it’s fake.
They say the skulls can tell the future if you look through their eyes.
I hold up the fullest-color picture
of the skull.
This is my book, I say.
I read it every day.
The rabbi looks at the book.
Looks at me.
The book again.
He smiles.
And that’s when I tell him everything:
Bigfoot, Loch Ness, the Jersey Devil.
I flip through the pages,
my fingers a tour guide,
walking backward through
sacred pages.
These are the Nazca lines, forms of animals miles and miles long.
They can be seen from space.
No one is sure how they got there.
And on like this, and the rabbi
is laughing now like my grandfather would,
nodding and pointing, and every now and then
looking up at me.
I tell him how so many things
are just unexplained.
Do you know? he says,
his hand sliding across the counter
to the container full of spatulas.
He pulls one out and holds it up.
Once, in the desert, Moses
and his brother, they were in trouble.
They needed water,
so they begged for a miracle.
So he was given a staff
and told by Hashem to speak to a rock.
A rock! So do you think he
would go in front of all
those people and speak to a rock,
like he was supposed to do?
Would you, Ari? Talk to a rock?
No.
So he hit the rock instead,
because he was mad. Frustrated.
Have you ever wanted to hit something?
You know, when you are frustrated?
Well, you know what? Water came out, just like
he was promised, and all
those people got what they needed.
To them it was all a mystery:
a desert, a rock, then water
flowing through the tents,
children playing, animals drinking,
who knows. Unexplainable.
Moses, though, he knew better.
He did what he thought he had
to do to be the leader.
He knew the directions
but didn’t trust to simply follow them:
Speak. Not hit.
Don’t get mad,
trust the miracle
that he’d already
been given,
not bring doubt into it
or get frustrated because it’s
not the way he wanted it to happen,
or just to look strong or smart,
like he thought everyone else wanted him to.
So even though everyone else drank,
he didn’t get to drink at all.
Maybe, the rabbi says,
it’s as simple
as believing that
you don’t have to be
what others want you to be.
You can do the right thing
because your life
is already a miracle.
His voice glides through his beard.
I want to see you, Ari,
on your birthday. Do your
best to remember all you can.
Practice the prayers. Come see me.
We can get through this together.
He takes my hand,
rests his other hand
on top of Mysterious World.
This is a good book of mysteries.
Then he places a worn book on the counter,
the pages folded, strands of leather
hanging out.
This is also a book of mysteries.
I spend my life with it.
We are alike, Ari. You with your book,
me with mine. Let’s share these.
I am here, Ari,
if you want to call me,
if you want to tell me about Bigfeet,
or when you go to Muir Woods,
or little green men,
or you find something strange.
He lifts The Diet Book
off the counter,
looks at it, eyebrows raised,
pointed. He speaks without
looking away.
Whatever you are trying so hard to do
on the outside,
it’s who you are becoming
on the inside
that really matters.
You came to me without
anyone telling you to.
You let me in without
anyone forcing you.
That’s strength.
And here we are.
I’m proud of you.
When he finally lets go of my hand,
I half expect to see saltwater taffy.
But it’s just my hand and his freckled fingers.
He looks one more time at Mysterious World.
It’s a good book!
he announces.
He takes a sip of water,
and he walks slowly toward the door.
I got to be going.
Be good to your mother.
He looks around one more time,
mutters something under his breath
and looks back at me,
then disappears down the stairs.
Finally
Packed,
in the car,
we cross the bridge,
drive through Mill Valley,
because I convince my mom
that we should at least
go by her house to check on her.
She texts her. No response.
No one is home.
My mom calls her mom.
No answer. Her mailbox is full.
We drive next to the bike path,
through town. The bakery is closed,
and I imagine marzipan potatoes
like a small pouch of sand
in my palm.
Before, I could’ve
eaten five in a row,
but now I think
one would be just perfect.
Homecoming
We wind our way
along the back roads to Stinson,
past old bunkers
of the Marin Headlands,
and the Marine Mammal Center.
Winding all the way
around to Muir Beach
and back
down the twisted road
into Stinson, nestled
between the hills and the sea.
We open the nursery gate, and the courtyard
is filled with its terra-cotta citizens;
trolls, and plaster bodies, birds, and insects
welcome us back.
It’s a homecoming my mother desperately needs,
and I see her with her face to the sun,
her silver hair translucent,
her face smooth and warm
in the afternoon light.
Settling (Back) In
Happy to be back at last,
I sit at the driftwood table
behind the counter,
lay out a half block of clay,
and three wood carving tools
in different sizes,
double wire,
single hook,
and straight spike.
I put the clay
on a paper plate,
tear off a piece,
and begin slapping it
against the ocean-soaked wood
with all my might
until the air
is all the way out.
I carve the trolls,
one round with stringy
coiled hair and sunken eyes.
The other tall and skinny,
with a sausage nose and a single
fang on the bottom lip,
then tiny, bulbous eyes
rolled between palms
and poked with the edge
of a toothpick.
Trolls on bikes
and boogie boards,
and with hiking sticks,
tiny backpacks,
&nbs
p; and beach balls.
I let them dry
on the plate
in the warm sun.
Giant Salamander
Jorge sits at the bus stop
across the street.
His pencil furious
in his sketchbook.
A canvas bag full of groceries
at his feet.
Jorge! I call,
and he stands up.
Ari! he shouts.
I run across the street.
He holds up his sketchbook.
Look what I drew!
On the page,
is a picture of a pond.
At the bottom is
a massive lizard
with a line drawn across the edge
of the page: nine feet.
A giant salamander?
Yes, Jorge says. This is one animal
I think your book got right.
I think I saw one of these once.
I smile.
You guys are back? Jorge says.
Yes, I say. We got back today.
He looks toward the beach,
I thought you guys got back yesterday
because I saw Lisa in town.
Her name startles me. Lisa?
Yeah, he says. I saw her earlier.
She’s at the beach right now.
I feel heavy and light at the same time.
Ari, he says, it’s weird.
Remember that guy who gave us a hard time?
The one with the dark hair?
She’s down there with him.
The bus pulls up.
I gotta go, but I’ll call you later.
He hurries onto the bus,
his groceries and sketch pad
bundled together.
Glad you’re back! he shouts.
I walk toward the beach.
The Surprise
Lisa says
that at least once a day
you have to put your feet
in the ocean.
I walk down to the beach.
The waves are big and far away,
breaking way offshore,
red flags along the beach
warning everyone
of heavy surf.
I walk toward the water,
past the SHARK ADVISORY signs,
