by Kat Spears
“I feel sorry for anything that goes near your mouth, you prick.” That’s a little better than my first comeback, but not by much.
Eric’s friends are looking at me with guarded interest, while my friends pointedly ignore Eric and avoid looking at me.
“What happened to your hair?” Joe asks Eric, and I’m grateful to have him on my side.
“I got the tips frosted,” Eric says, forgetting to finish me off as he brushes his hand over his head. “The whole soccer team got theirs done.”
“Yeah? Did you go to the same salon where your mom goes?” Joe asks.
“Man, shut up.”
Eric and his friends have ruined my day of skating, the way he ruins everything that is good in life. There is no way to ignore them as they fill the available air with their stupid jokes. They speak almost constantly, using volume to dominate the space with their toxic masculinity. I can tell they are high because they keep laughing at the dumbest things. They have to laugh at their own jokes because nothing they say is funny enough to make the rest of us laugh.
Joe and I keep taking turns hopping over the ramp; with each jump we get higher and land closer to the edge of the bent. It is a test to see how high we can jump while still leaving enough room to land and stop our boards before we hit the edge.
Eric watches us for a few minutes, but not being the center of attention bores him. I can feel his need for the spotlight to be on him as he says, “There’s a party tonight at that girl Shana’s house.”
“I heard it was at your mom’s house,” Joe said.
“Very funny, Flip,” Eric says. I broil at Eric’s use of the racial slur but Joe doesn’t even flinch. I have heard Joe use the word “Flip” to describe himself before, and I have heard Mark and Harry call him a Flip when they are teasing him, but I figure it is like the N-word and only other Asians are allowed to say it. In fact, my friends have a lot of culturally derogatory shit they say about each other, but in a way I will never understand, and I can’t participate.
Eric’s friends are dropping comments about the girl Shana, about how she will sleep with anyone. Winking and nudging each other about her low standards. I feel bad for Shana, and a little guilty that I’m glad they have turned their attention to picking on her instead of me.
“You guys probably don’t go to parties where they have actual girls, anyway,” Eric says.
“Nope,” Joe says. “Just your mom.”
“Stop talking shit about my mom,” Eric says as he takes a few menacing steps forward.
“Stop calling me a Flip,” Joe says. Joe never raises his voice, never even changes his expression, but Eric backs down and doesn’t use the word “Flip” again.
The corner of Joe’s mouth lifts in an almost imperceptible smile. Eric tried to take him on for a few rounds, but Joe got the KO on decision.
After his exchange with Joe, Eric directs his comments to his buddies but they are still talking about girls. Guys our age spend a lot of time thinking about girls. Maybe not real girls, like the girls we know at school, but the girls who are just objects on a screen or a page.
I am not really listening, trying to force their voices into the background and pretend like they aren’t there. But then Eric and his friends are talking about Ophelia and I am straining to overhear.
“Hey, Dane,” Eric calls out to me. “What’s the story with Ophelia? You hitting that?”
“I don’t know what you mean,” I say, trying to keep my voice level, indifferent.
“Of course you don’t,” Eric says, and turns to his friends, seeking their approval. They all laugh obediently, and I can feel heat climbing my face.
“I never really noticed before, but she’s pretty hot,” Eric says, and I’m not sure if he’s doing it on purpose to get under my skin. But he is. Under my skin.
“She’s not your type,” I say. “She doesn’t have an idiot IQ.”
“Yeah, well, she doesn’t need to be a great conversationalist,” Eric says. Cue laughter at his stupid joke from his friends. “Do you have her number?”
“I don’t really talk to her much. I just see her around sometimes.”
“No worries,” Eric says. “I can get it.”
I’m agitated now, thinking about Eric making the moves on Ophelia. Nobody seems to notice. It always amazes me that the shitstorm inside my mind is never visible to anyone on the outside.
The last jump I make over the ramp that day is the jump I make to put Eric in his place. It is my best. I catch air and hang there for so long that I have time to see the sun glinting off the stream as it slithers over the rocks; have time to notice the angle of the sun as it cuts through the immature leaves that have sprouted on the bigger trees; and have time to clearly read Joe’s lips from the other end of the bent as he says, “Oh, shit.”
Part of my body lands on the safety of the concrete, but most of my weight is beyond the edge. I land on my shoulder against the concrete and feel it scrape my arm before I tumble over the side. My muscles strain, as if they might be able to perform some miraculous feat of strength and save me from falling. But my arms find only air, and I land facedown on the packed earth below. My skateboard clatters beside me, and the clunk as it hits the ground next to me is like a mallet ringing a gong. And the gong is my head.
The impact of my chest against the ground knocks the wind from me and I spend an agonizing minute making that horrible whooping sound as I try to suck air into my starved lungs. The minute is probably more agonizing for Mark and Harry as they stand over me, helpless to do anything until I can fill my lungs.
I sense Joe scrambling down after me, but then my consciousness slams shut like a closet door and I, trapped on the inside, become a prisoner of blackness.
* * *
The next thing I am truly aware of after my fall is that I am in the back seat of the Mercedes, my head in Joe’s lap. Mark is driving and I feel gratitude that at least they have sense enough not to let Harry drive.
“Shit,” I say as I screw my eyes shut against the pain in my head. I let go with a string of curses after that as I first put my hands to my face to rub away the ache in my head and then think better of it when the skin I touch is raw and sensitive. It feels as if a massive hand slapped me from my forehead to my knees, and I think how strange it is that while most of my body hurts, my lower legs feel perfectly fine. I want to scrunch my entire being into my lower legs, the only part of me where there is no hurt. Joe shushes me and holds my shoulder as I squirm, as if I can really retract myself into my calves and ankles.
“Holy shit, man,” Harry says. “That was fucking epic.”
“Shut up, Harry,” Mark and Joe say in unison. But for once, I don’t mind Harry’s commentary. It distracts me from the pain, which I am now able to sort into categories as a way of keeping my mind occupied.
The worst pain is the pain in my head, an ache that comes in waves, each more excruciating than the last. Wherever we are going, I hope it is toward some kind of pain medication.
“Anything broken?” Joe asks.
“My head,” I say through clenched teeth. “My head is broken.”
“We’re here,” Mark says. “What do I do? Park?”
“Just pull up to the entrance and drop us off,” Joe says.
“It says that way is just for ambulances,” Mark argues.
“We are an ambulance,” Joe says.
“You’re taking me to a hospital?” I ask in alarm.
“Dude,” Joe says, “you need it.”
The efficiency with which Mark, Harry, and Joe get me into the emergency room makes me realize that in the event of doomsday, they probably aren’t the best teammates.
I sit slumped in a chair, holding my head in my hands, with Mark and Harry sitting uselessly on either side of me, while Joe goes to the reception desk to talk to someone.
The waiting room is much noisier than I would have expected. There is a television hanging from a stand in the corner, and a dozen or more people a
re waiting. None of them look sick. Maybe I don’t look sick, either.
I study my body as if I’m not inside of it. My left sleeve is torn and has a streak of blood on it. My chest burns when my shirt rubs against it and I am afraid to lift my shirt to look at it, mostly because anytime I move, the pain in my head comes rushing back full force.
The pain in my head is bad, but now there is something so much worse. Smells of the hospital start to fill my head, and soon after, the images come. When my eyes are shut, a slideshow plays on the back of my eyelids. Dad, in life, his body shaking with laughter. His laugh was always over the top, his whole body in on the joke. I loved his laugh. In one recurring dream his hands reach out to me, so big they fill my entire world, as he helps me down from the monkey bars at the playground by our old house. There are gaps in the slideshow, the years that Dad was working so much we hardly ever saw him. He was always gone before I got up in the morning and often got home only in time to say good night when I was on my way to bed. The last images in the slideshow are of Dad after I returned home from boarding school. Dad is thin and frail and his skin is yellowed and dull. By the end it is hard to believe he is the same person who raised me. He is so changed physically, it’s impossible to believe he is the same person inside.
Joe returns with a woman wearing hospital scrubs. She has an iPad resting on her hip and a stethoscope around her neck. “Are you Dane?” she asks me. It is a very innocent question and probably she is nice, but all of a sudden my heart is racing and I can’t catch my breath and there is a weight, like a lead blanket, on my chest and arms. My mind goes into a spiral of fear and panic and I have this terrible feeling that something bad is about to happen and I am powerless to stop it and it is going to happen. Right. Now.
“No,” I say.
“He hit his head,” Joe offers as explanation. “But he’s definitely Dane.”
The woman’s forehead wrinkles in confusion and she asks, “Do you not know who you are?”
“I’m Dane,” I say.
“Uh-huh,” she says. “Dane, do you know what today’s date is?”
“It’s Sunday.”
“Okay. How about the date? Do you know what year it is?”
“Seventeen,” I say, hoping that this is the right answer and that now everyone will see I am perfectly fine.
“He’s seventeen years old,” Joe says, his voice hushed as he looks into the face of the woman to judge her reaction.
It feels like being drunk, like everyone is in on a secret but me. And then the most alarming thing of all happens. I start to cry. They all stop to watch me. Even Harry, by some miracle, is quiet as they all watch me sob. Tears run down my face and puddle at the corners of my mouth. I lick the puddles and the water is just the right amount of salty—like snot—and tastes good.
“I want my dad,” I say, my voice a strangled sob.
At the same time Joe and Mark both put a hand on my back.
“His dad’s dead,” Mark says, and there is a question in his voice, and the question is whether everyone else is in agreement that the current situation is crazy.
Though Joe isn’t a big guy, he never takes any shit from anybody. His tone of voice is changed as he speaks to the woman now. “You gonna stand out here asking him questions he can’t answer all night? Or take him back to see a doctor?”
“We’ll need to call his mother to get his insurance information,” the nurse says, unmoved by the ice between Joe and her.
“I’ll take care of it,” Joe says.
* * *
Mark calls his dad to let him know where he is and Joe calls my mom. They both show up at the hospital. Mr. Edgar takes the Extreme Sports Asians home and Mom stays with me. She sits by me in the emergency room while we wait for the doctors to tell us something.
I haven’t said much since my failure to identify the date, afraid that anything I say will be evidence of permanent brain damage. If I can just get some sleep, I keep thinking, I’ll be fine. But they are intent on keeping me awake. Every time my eyes slide shut, someone starts saying my name in that insistent way, like the sound of your mom’s voice in the morning when she’s waking you for school. So annoying, and no way to sleep through it.
When I finally do say something, it comes across as weird. I have been quiet for so long, my mind tripping through a half-awake, half-dead place.
“It smells like Dad dying,” I say, which, to be fair, doesn’t make a lot of sense to anyone who can’t read my thoughts.
“You’re not going to die,” Mom says quietly as she squeezes my hand.
“No. The hospital. The smell reminds me of Dad being sick.” There. That made more sense.
She’s quiet for a few minutes then says, “I hated it, you know? The fact that the house had those hospital smells in it while he was dying. After he died I kept lighting scented candles, trying to get rid of the smell. But it was like cigarette smoke. No way to get rid of it unless we gutted the place.”
“Maybe we should have been smoking in the house,” I say, and I’m trying so hard to speak clearly but I think it might still be a mumble. “Cover the smell of death with the smell of dying.”
She laughs so I think she understands me, then fluffs my bangs away from my forehead with her fingers. “You’re so much like him,” she says. “Maybe that’s why you make me crazy.”
“Mmph.” I am drifting off to sleep again but trying to play like I am still in the conversation.
“I could use a cigarette right now,” Mom says with a sigh. “Why weren’t you wearing a helmet? You go out skating God knows where and don’t even wear a helmet? Not smart, Dane.”
“Nope,” I say. “Not wearing a helmet. I’m not eight.”
“That’s something an eight-year-old would say.”
It occurs to me that my mom is incapable of just saying she’s worried and upset. Her response to crisis is irritation and sarcasm. The same reaction she had to Dad dying. It’s something to think about, but my head hurts too much and my thoughts slip through my grasp and disappear into the void.
After what seems like an eternity, the doctor comes in to tell us what we already know, that nothing is broken but that I have bruising, including a bruised brain. I am to rest but Mom is supposed to wake me frequently, and if I start to vomit or seem disoriented I am to be brought back immediately. Disorientation is a pretty normal state for me so I’m not sure how Mom will know if I need medical help before it’s too late.
On the ride home I keep my eyes shut against the brightness of the sun and the next thing I know Mom is shaking me awake in the driveway. She offers me something to eat but Mom’s idea of food usually involves something revolting and healthy like quinoa, so I just shake my head and trudge up to my room. Normally I would be starved after no lunch or dinner, but there is bile at the back of my throat and my stomach is too knotted to feel hunger.
I am dimly aware when Mom comes to check on me, when she brings me ginger ale or tells me I should really take a shower and change out of my dirty clothes.
When I wake again I am unsure if it is the same day or I’ve slept through to the next. I’m so hungry I figure I must have slept through the night.
There are voices coming from the kitchen as I walk downstairs and I’m surprised to find Mom and Chuck sitting together at the kitchen island. They stop talking as soon as I enter the room and they both look guilty, so I figure they’ve been talking about me.
“Morning, son,” Chuck says.
I hate it when he calls me that. I’m not his son.
“Why are you here?” I ask.
“Dane!” Mom says, shocked at my rudeness.
“What?” I ask. “I mean, it’s a workday, right? Wait, what day is it?”
“It’s okay, Trudi,” Chuck says, and puts a hand on her arm. To me he says, “This is why we decided to sell the firm, Dane. Your mom and I wanted more days that we could just take off and forget about work.”
“You guys are pretty good at forgetting things
,” I say, which is a lame response, but I can see from their reaction that it’s had the desired effect.
“I was just getting ready to wake you. I made an appointment for us to see Dr. Lineberger today since you’re home from school anyway,” Mom says, going for casual and failing miserably. I know what she’s thinking about. The scene I made at the club with the oysters, the things I said at the hospital.
“Why don’t you guys go see her together?” I ask. “Maybe she can help you deal with your guilt.”
“That’s enough, Dane,” Mom says. She shakes her head in disgust and says to Chuck, “You see? I’m trying. I’m the only one.”
Mom storms out of the room and all we hear is her bedroom door slamming. Chuck looks really uncomfortable. More uncomfortable than I feel when I’m in his company, which is a lot.
“You know, Dane,” Chuck says as he removes his reading glasses, “your mom loves you very much. She was terrified when your friend called from the hospital.”
My anger with Mom and Chuck is instinct now, so ingrained that I barely have any control over it.
“I don’t need you to tell me how my mom feels about anything.”
He twirls the reading glasses between his chubby fingers as he bites the inside of his lip in thought. “Well, I just wish you could take it easy on her. All she wants is for you to be happy.”
“Does she?” I ask.
“Yes. You make it difficult for her, and for yourself, by moping around the house and always giving her a hard time.”
“Well, I’m sorry if my feelings are inconvenient for everyone.”
“I understand you’re upset about your dad,” Chuck says. “We were all sad to lose Craig. We miss him. But life keeps going, you know?”
“Not for Dad.”
“Well … right,” Chuck says, “but I mean for those of us who are still alive. We’re all still alive and we have to keep going. Your dad would want you to be happy.”
God, he is so annoying.
“If Mom wants me to be happy,” I say, “then she shouldn’t be sleeping with my dead father’s best friend, pretending like Dad never existed, letting you move in here and throw your weight around as if this is your house.”
