The Tragedy of Dane Riley

by Kat Spears

  “I don’t know. Maybe?”

  A girl like Ophelia is so complicated. She looks like a girl—beautiful and curvy, with a long, delicate neck—but she’s more complicated than any other girl I’ve ever known. Holding a door for her is okay, but suggesting that she wear bubblegum-scented body spray is not. It’s a lot to figure out.

  “I don’t use a vape because if I did, I wouldn’t have a reason to sneak out.” Her tone implies that this answer should be obvious. Her logic doesn’t make much sense to me, but she keeps on talking and I have to stop figuring to keep up. “I’m grounded. I can’t go anywhere unless I sneak around for two weeks,” she says, then blows out a plume of smoke, as if blowing out all of the frustrations that come with being awesome.

  “Again?” I ask. “What did you do this time?”

  Ophelia is always being grounded for something. As far as I can tell she never does anything really terrible. Except maybe the smoking, but she doesn’t even inhale so it kind of defeats the purpose, a fact I would never point out to her. Colonel Marcus would probably send Ophelia to a convent if he could. He’s convinced that every teenage boy within a hundred yards poses some kind of threat to Ophelia’s virginity.

  If she is a virgin. Maybe she isn’t. Virginity is a mere technicality in the age of social media. It’s up to everyone else to tell us who we are.

  “I’m flunking calculus,” she says.

  “Well, obviously you’re setting yourself up to fail by taking calculus. How many people take calculus in high school? You got a light?” I ask as I dig in my pockets for a lighter but come up empty.

  “Obviously I have a lighter,” she says. “I’m holding a lit cigarette.”

  “Well, can I use it?”

  “My point is, why don’t you just say that to begin with? Ask me, ‘Ophelia, could I use your lighter, please?’ since you know I have one.”

  “Ophelia, could I use your lighter, please?” I ask obediently. Arguing with Ophelia is a waste of time. I know that she is always going to be smarter, one step ahead. I just accept that and don’t fight it.

  “You want me to smoke it for you, too?” she asks.

  “Such a lame joke,” I say as she hands me the lighter.

  “It is lame,” she agrees. “I have no idea why I just said that. I hate it when people use that line.”

  “Your dad barely lets you go out. You have plenty of time to do homework. So, why are you flunking math?”

  “Maybe it’s a cry for attention,” she says.

  “Yeah,” I say in agreement. “If anyone has daddy issues, it’s you.”

  “He’s such a drama queen. I’m not actually flunking. I just failed the most recent test. I still have a B average and I can pull it up to an A for the semester if I get extra credit.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about right now. It’s like, I know all of the words, but together they have no meaning for me.”

  “Why are you dressed like that?” she asks, nodding at my jacket and tie.

  “What’s wrong with it?” I ask. “Don’t you think it makes me look manly?”

  She lets out a snort that can be interpreted as a laugh, or a grunt of disgust.

  Maybe she’s laughing at what I said because she really thinks I’m not manly. That hurts. But I have long ago given up on the hope that Ophelia would ever fall madly in love with me. Or even just find me physically attractive enough to be considered part of the potential gene pool.

  I hear the sound of something rustling in the underbrush and instinctively I look over my shoulder, around the yard. Catching the coyote in the headlights earlier, it was almost as if the coyote was showing itself to me. Somehow, I feel like if I see it again, it will be confirmation that the coyote and I have some kind of spiritual connection.

  “What’s the matter?” Ophelia asks. “You think somebody’s going to sneak up and kill us?”

  “We’re definitely asking for it,” I say, not comfortable with the questions that might follow if I mention the coyote. “Two teenagers, hanging around late at night.”

  “You’re safe,” she says. “They never kill virgins.”

  “Very funny.”

  “I know,” she says as she drops her cigarette and scrapes it under her shoe. “I’ve got to get back.”

  “I’ll see you around,” I say, because I can’t think of anything else.

  “Not if I see you first.” As she walks away she tosses this comment casually over her shoulder. I laugh, but her comment hits me as if it has been shot from a bow. I am wounded.

  It’s only a few seconds before I can no longer see her in the dark. Almost as soon as she’s out of sight I think of some cool things I could have said to keep the conversation going.

  ACT II

  FOR IN THIS SLEEP OF DEATH WHAT DREAMS MAY COME

  I started working at Mr. Edgar’s grocery store almost as soon as I got home from boarding school. That’s what it’s called, in fact—Mr. Edgar’s Grocery. Mr. Edgar is Korean, but his kids all have American names like my friend Mark, Mr. Edgar’s youngest son. I know Mark’s Korean name, but Mark says it comes out sounding white when I say it.

  Mr. Edgar’s name is not really Edgar. He bought the store from an old guy who retired and sold the business before moving to Florida. People who are regulars in the store call him Mr. Edgar because everyone knows he owns the place and why would you own a place called Mr. Edgar’s Grocery if your name isn’t Edgar? His real name is Kwang Cho, but everyone, including his wife, calls him Mr. Edgar. His wife does it as kind of a joke because she likes to make fun of him every chance she gets. But Mr. Edgar has kind of a corny sense of humor, so I think he likes it.

  Mr. Edgar’s daughter used to help around the store, but once she started going to the community college and working part-time at the school library, Mr. Edgar hired me. Sometimes he tells me that I am a better employee than any of his kids. They all sit around looking at their phones or complaining about having to work instead of being out with their friends.

  Before he died, Dad had been after me to get a job. He wanted me to learn about hard work. My grandfather worked himself to death in a steel mill in Ohio. Dad worked himself to death, too, just destroyed himself from the inside out. At first, I got the job just to make Dad happy, figuring I would quit after he died. But I like the time I spend at the store, and Mr. Edgar is the closest thing I have to a father now.

  Mr. Edgar feels as if he can trust me and will leave me to manage the store on my own sometimes. Which makes him just about the only person on the planet who thinks I can be trusted with anything.

  His store is on a busy street in north Arlington, with lots of businesses and shops and apartment buildings surrounding it. It’s the kind of shop that sells more beer and cigarettes than milk and eggs. The front of the shop is floor-to-ceiling plate glass. The windows are filled with posters and hard plastic display signs announcing that Newport is either alive with pleasure or will make you alive with pleasure, I never can figure which, and an electronic sign that features the daily lottery jackpot amount. The current jackpot is an underwhelming $27 million.

  The store features some of the specialty Asian groceries that you can’t find at a regular grocery store, like those sheets of dried seaweed or the noodles that go in pho. I have no idea what the hell the seaweed is for, but I can’t imagine anyone eating it and actually liking the taste. I tasted it once, when Mark dared me, and it’s a brittle, salty mess.

  Mr. Edgar’s store is on the first floor of a seven-story apartment building. I discovered how to access the roof of the building one day when Mr. Edgar asked me to deliver some groceries to old Mrs. Hathaway who lives on the sixth floor. Ever since then I take my breaks on the roof, sitting on the low wall that overlooks the street, watching the world pass beneath my feet.

  When I walk down a street I always look up at the roofline, wondering if I will see someone, like me, who sometimes thinks about jumping off a roof. But most people on the street never bothe
r to look up from their phones, never know they are being watched by anyone.

  It’s about seven o’clock when I take my break, and the street below is busy with people on their way home from work, or on their way to happy hour at one of the many restaurants and bars in this part of north Arlington. I like to imagine where all of the people are going, to destinations more interesting than anywhere I ever go.

  I take out my phone and send a text to Dad, just to let him know I’m thinking about him. Soon after, my phone buzzes with a text and I expect it to be from Dad, but it’s not.

  Harry.

  Yo. Wtf? Im straight as shit up in here

  Wtfw? I’m busy

  Busy w what?

  I think about texting him back to tell him to fuck off. I am busy. Busy contemplating my own death after jumping from the roof. What it will look like on social media the next day. Who will find my body. Whether anyone will give a shit that I am gone.

  Seven stories. It isn’t much. I might actually survive the fall. My body would be broken and twisted, but I could survive. And I would end up a prisoner, a functioning brain inside a broken body. Like that guy in that movie. I can’t remember the title, but the guy had a perfectly functioning brain trapped in a paralyzed body, his only means of communication the blink of his eyes.

  And that life would be a thousand times worse. It’s not as if they were mixing up margaritas to serve that guy through his IV.

  I pat my pocket to confirm I still have the bag of Biodiesel I bought from Eric. The fact that he can get good weed is Eric’s only socially redeeming quality. Technically, it is still my weed. Harry hasn’t paid me for half of it, but he promised to split the eighth with me.

  The Biodiesel is good bud. A body high that just makes you feel like Jell-O, right up until you get the munchies and crash.

  I want to get hi mafuck

  Harry, persistent and annoying.

  I take a deep lungful of air, then an exhale that doesn’t release any tension. I look down at the ribbon of sidewalk beneath my feet—cold and unforgiving—inviting me to jump.

  I look back at the display of my phone. Another text from Harry that is just a series of poop emojis and then his own creation, a stick figure with an eggplant between its legs.

  I imagine how pissed Harry will be if I jump and the bag of Biodiesel is found by the cops when they come for the cleanup. In fact, my friends might miss the weed more than they miss me. Except for Joe. He would miss me.

  The news story about my suicide would include mention of the bag of weed in my pocket, the antidepressants floating in my veins.

  Dr. Lineberger reduced my dosage of the antidepressants after our first appointment. Mom would probably blame her—say, See, if Dane had been taking a higher dosage he would still be alive. Chuck would sue Dr. Lineberger for malpractice and, as a way to manage her grief, Mom would turn my room into a yoga studio.

  Maybe the cops wouldn’t even know about the antidepressants. They probably don’t bother to do an autopsy with such an obvious cause of death.

  Or maybe they would do an autopsy, and the antidepressants would be their confirmation that I had jumped, not been pushed, to my death.

  That part would be kind of interesting—the cops doing an investigation to figure out if it was murder or suicide. Of course, I wouldn’t be alive to witness it. It was a cool idea, like that movie about that girl who was murdered and her ghost stuck around watching her family and the cops while they tried to find her killer. Once they solved the murder, her ghost disappeared—headed off to the afterlife or just turned to vapor or something.

  In a lot of movies a dead person becomes a ghost because they have unresolved shit with the living. People who are murdered, commit suicide, or are trying to stop a bad guy, they get to stick around long enough to fix things. It’s possible the movies are right—about everything. After all, the Bible and other religious texts are just stories made up by people. You might as well believe in movies as your religion. You have about the same chance of being right believing in a movie as you do believing in the Bible.

  Still, I’m not sure I like the idea of living as an invisible ghost for eternity. I am already pretty invisible at home and at school and it isn’t cool.

  I lean out as far as I can without pitching over the edge and test the sensation. My skin tingles with a biological survival instinct, though consciously I am not afraid.

  Last year I read an article about a guy who jumped from the roof of his apartment building three days before Christmas. He was a famous writer so it was big news, though I had never heard of him. The article didn’t mention how tall the building was, but it was in New York, so probably taller than seven stories.

  I still think about that guy. I wonder if he changed his mind the second after he stepped off the roof, what his thoughts were on the way down. The article mentioned a wife and a kid.

  Three days before Christmas. That just seemed fucking selfish. That guy didn’t just leave his kid—he ruined every Christmas that kid will ever have. Everyone is sad enough at Christmastime anyway. Sad that your family doesn’t live up to some TV-sitcom standard of happiness, or sad that you aren’t going to get that PlayStation you wanted, or sad that your dad has cancer and won’t live to see another holiday. Why make it worse by jumping off a building three days before Christmas? And it seemed like the guy had a pretty good life. A famous writer with a wife and a kid. It’s not as if he had been homeless or without anyone to love him.

  How miserable are you if you can’t even hold out for January to jump? Nobody gives a shit about January.

  My dad died on a blazing hot day in the middle of August. Nobody gives a shit about August, either. My dad would never have wanted me to hate every Christmas for the rest of my life because of him. Which is sad, because even though he managed to die during the one month of the year without any national holidays, I’ll still hate every holiday without him.

  My phone buzzes again with a text and I look at it, expecting to see another message from Harry, and planning to tell him to go to hell. But it’s not from Harry. It’s from Ophelia.

  Are you home? she wants to know.

  I go through a range of emotions. Elation that she cares where I am—that’s the first. Worry that the only reason she’s asking me is because something is wrong. Then disappointment as I assume she is probably only bored and just sending me a message to pass the time.

  At work, I tell her.

  What time will you be home? The question pops up so quickly that she must have sent her message at the exact same moment I sent my response.

  Idk have to make a stop on the way home

  Msg me when you get home

  K

  I want to ask her why but decide it will sound too desperate.

  * * *

  After work I drive to Emily’s house to meet Harry, Mark, and Joe. They have been texting me repeatedly for the past hour. Not because they are so eager to be in my company, but because I have the weed.

  The party scene at Emily’s house is one of the constants of our lives. Emily’s mom is a bartender and works late four nights each week. At least a couple of nights per week I know I can find my friends at Emily’s, hanging out. Parties usually bore me, and no amount of drugs or alcohol can change that.

  Emily is a total bro. She can skate, wears Doc Martens with miniskirts, and always knows about the best music by the most obscure bands before anyone else does. She is the universally ideal woman for all guys between the ages of twelve and twenty-four and is, at the same time, completely oblivious to our adoration. She’s the kind of girl who dates legends—like Tony Hawk or Dave Grohl—and someone will eventually write a hit song about her.

  I used to have a crush on Emily, until I accepted that I would never be cool enough for her to feel the same about me. My crush on Emily was nothing like my feelings for Ophelia, though I’ll never be a good enough student or athlete for Ophelia to want me back. It’s a vicious pattern. Society conditions us to
want the things we can’t have.

  As is the case with cool people like Emily, her home life is a complete disaster. Emily’s mom is single and I’ve never heard her mention a dad. Her mom is the kind of mom who lets her daughter and her friends smoke cigarettes out in the open, and who has a complicated dating life with guys who are tough enough that no one would ever call them out for wearing mullets. I suppose girls like Emily grow up to be like Emily’s mom, still dating guys who attach their wallets to their pants with a chain, or who fill jobs that allow them to have tattoos on their hands and necks. Maybe this is the peak of existence for Emily, but in high school, she is like royalty.

  My friends and I used to go to the same elementary school, back when my dad was still getting his law practice off the ground and we lived in a normal-size house and weren’t members of a country club. Though I only saw them for summers and winter breaks while I was still in boarding school, I have known them for most of my life. When I returned from boarding school for good at the end of junior year, our friendship picked up where we had left it.

  There is Mark, Mr. Edgar’s son, who is funny, though his parents don’t really think so. His parents think Mark should get his shit together, be in AP classes, and work on college credit so he can get into medical school like his older brother.

  Harry, whose family is originally from Vietnam, is loud and often hyper, and he’s got a smile that goes on for miles, but he gets less entertaining the longer you are with him.

  Joe is the unofficial leader of our group and the closest thing I have to a best friend, but he’s so cool it’s hard to know if he feels the same way about me. His family is from the Philippines, which is in Asia but he has a Spanish last name. He’s explained the history to me, that his grandfather was actually Spanish, though his family is from the Far East, and he was born here. The result of him being truly global in his outlook means that he is comfortable no matter where he is, and ambles through life in a slouch despite the fact that he is barely five feet four inches tall. His smiles are as rare as unicorns and his humor is quick and succinct, like boxing jabs. He is always watching the world around him, but rarely shows much reaction to it. He’s as cool as the underside of a pillow, and oblivious to the fact that his long hair and flannel shirts haven’t been in style since the nineties.