“Moses, this is Trevor. Now, me? I hear Trevor’s a card shark; one the fifth-grader babes would not stop talking about it,” Faisal told us in a very loud and confidential voice. “Up for a game of cards, Trev?”
“No, thanks,” he said as he walked back into the cackling darkness.
We were quiet for a moment until Michael started dealing another hand.
“That’s Trevor,” Faisal said to me. “Trevor has to pee a lot. According to WebMD it’s an anxiety thing.”
“You WebMD’d Trevor?” Michael asked.
Faisal pointed at him and cocked his head to the side, his eyes big and accusing. Michael fanned his hands out and raised his eyebrows until something clicked and he said, “Goddammit.”
“He doesn’t believe me that he has a problem with turning everything into verbs,” Faisal informed me.
“Michael or Trevor?” I asked and let them take it away; I leaned back and let the natural waves of their conversation ebb and flow.
“Mike. Trevor just has to pee a lot.”
“It’s not a problem. Saying it’s a problem implies something negative. It’s not my fault I’m a word-birthing grammar wizard,” Michael said matter-of-factly.
“You’re not a grammar wizard, you’re just too lazy to put together a complete sentence with real words and you have a God complex.”
“I didn’t come up with WebMD as a transitive verb!” he said, leaning into the card table.
“To say nothing of your God complex,” Faisal added.
“Well.”
“And no, since you asked. Trevor told me on the bus. Hang on.” Faisal tossed his cards facedown on the table and walked over to the urinal. In one swift motion he had his pants pulled down all the way around his ankles and proceeded to take the longest, loudest piss I’d ever heard, and all the darkness laughed. It was a laughter so complete that even Trevor had to have been part of it.
Michael leaned over to me so that all the ears in the abundant darkness couldn’t hear what he said. “We like Trevor. Some of the little shithead kids here don’t.” He said it to me because, somehow, I was still there and I was still involved.
I picked up my cards and pretended to be figuring out my next move when I said, “Which ones?”
“You’ll know them when you see them. Mostly Bryce and his little douchebag friends. You probably heard them, swearing and being little monsters in the back of the bus.”
Faisal sat back down. “Getting the skinny on Bryce and his little douchebag friends?”
“Yep,” I said. “I remember them from the bus.”
“We still haven’t figured out how to get rid of him,” Michael said. “We should make shirts. It’ll just be a picture of Bryce’s face with the text WHAT A PIECE OF SHIT written in all caps over the top.”
“I still like Matty’s idea.”
“The piñata full of bees?”
“No, covering him in honey and bear pheromones and leaving him in the middle of the woods.”
Forty-five minutes later—after the cabins had gone completely quiet—they were still telling stories about the things Bryce had done last year. The stories had started off nearly silent so none of the students would hear them, but after a while they drifted up into a comfortable semi-whisper. Stories like how last fall, even though he was in the younger set of kids at the time, he had stolen three different cell phones and a 3DS from the older kids’ cabins.
And about how, when the Buddies had set up a Scrabble tournament and Trevor eliminated him in the first round, Bryce’s two-part revenge mission had consisted of (A) finding the trunk where they kept all the games and ripping them all in half before (B) beating up on Trevor until Trevor wet his pants.
“What’ve we got on him?” I said. Something in my stomach was cold; somewhere far in its fluid depths, there was a slithering, icy rope winding around my bones. Not because of the many juvenile injustices done to Trevor, but because I was starting to feel like it was any of my business.
This was how it always started with Charlie.
Always and without fail.
There would be something that one of us saw as some kind of injustice, some wrong we could right, and the stupid, caffeine-fueled plan would start to take shape.
“Got on him how?” Michael said.
“Like his weaknesses?” Faisal said.
“Sure,” I said, even though the last time I’d started making elaborate plans, I’d watched my cousin and my best friend get shot. Despite that fact and despite the sour knot in my guts, I started going through the catalog of classic rock songs to which the heroics would have to be set. One of the ass-kickers, one of the heavies, like “War Pigs” by Black Sabbath. “Paint It Black” by The Stones.
“The good news is that I think he has the same weaknesses as most fifth-graders,” Michael said.
“Like, for example, the awkward, fat-but-gangly, almost-puberty physique. Not really sure what to do with their hands or how to use their different-sized feet,” Faisal chimed in.
“Really his only advantage is his low center of gravity,” Michael said. “Which doesn’t mean much if you hit him with a car. Although I do remember him being afraid of the dark.”
The only sound from the cabins was the occasional creaking of old mattresses and bed frames that sounded like they almost couldn’t hold the weight of those sleeping in them. The kind of creaking that makes you wonder if the ground will hold.
But even if the ground did break underfoot, I realized that I wasn’t trying to make my mouth smile to look normal; I wasn’t nodding along to a conversation I didn’t care about to keep them from asking questions or thinking I was weird or out of place.
I was just being me.
FIFTEEN: NO SERVICE
WE HAVE A SMALL SERVICE for Charlie. We don’t call it a service—just the family geting together to try to start the healing process. But we all know it’s a service.
Afterward, all of the aunts and uncles and parents are in our living room, while the younger kids play video games in the basement. I find Jordan in the rec room, looking small next to the pile of coats.
I find him because I hear him crying. Like he’s still crying, and hasn’t stopped since Christmas dinner. He’s leaning over into his arms, crying big, ugly, hard tears, and as soon as he looks up and sees that it’s me who found him, he buries his face back into his sleeves.
“He was my brother,” he says, just like the time before, except this time there’s no fight in him and his mouth sounds full. He’s drowning and falling apart at the same time, like he can’t help dissolving.
Jordan, who once snorted so many Pixy Stix that he started puking up blue.
Jordan, who kept a pet frog in a shoebox when he was thirteen and we were twelve.
Jordan, who doesn’t know I can smell the booze on him.
When he sways, and retches, I think:
Why haven’t I fallen apart like this?
What kind of broken excuse for a person doesn’t disintegrate?
This is what they whisper about me; they know I’m not like them.
They know I’m a bullshitter.
Some superhero.
SIXTEEN: INTO THE FIELDS
I STRETCHED AND CHECKED my phone and there were still ten minutes before my alarm was set to go off. I turned it to silent so it wouldn’t wake up the groundskeeper, Nathan, who was asleep in the bunk next to me.
In the five or so minutes where we’d both been awake in the same cabin at the same time, we’d silently agreed not to talk about the uncomfortable age gap or the subpar living standards of his shack.
I pulled the heavy curtain open to check outside. Dead flies were piled up against the dirty glass. They were stacked four high in the corners, like the survivors of the apocalyptic insecticide incident refused to believe the dead bodies were evidence that no one gets out alive. Most of the bugs were long dead—dead to the point where their already fragile wings had since turned to particles floating on angled slats
of sunlight. The rest of the bodies were just dust holding shape.
The heap shifted. Something moved in the bottom of the pile and a dead bug rolled silently from the top.
From the stacks and stacks of little dead bodies, a fly crawled out. It twitched back and forth, moving so fast in such a small space that it looked like it was glitching—like everything it did was edited out and I could only see the consequence of its movements.
The bug turned in a fast semicircle, wiped at its alien face a few times, then took flight. It clattered off the glass a few times, never understanding that windows get nailed shut. But it tried and it tried, and when I thought it was going to give up and resign itself to the mountain of bodies, it flew off into the dark of the cabin.
Outside of the window, past the empty, backlit trees, the graying, shotgun-blast clouds were rimmed with gold. The pieces of sky that you could see though the black trees had a color like the clouds were melting into the blue and diluting it. It was a patchwork of pale blue fighting to be seen through branches that looked like Rorschach ink blown out of a straw.
I fumbled through the dark with my arms stretched out in front of me. Aside from tossing my bags in there the first morning, I’d only seen the inside of the maintenance bunkhouse at night. Besides the antler racks and the old-fashioned bear trap on the wall, the only thing I knew about the interior was that it was cold and that Nathan slept with extra blankets that only served to overheat him and make him stink with night sweat.
Hugging my towel and body wash against my chest with my left hand, I dragged my free hand along the wall until I found the only door other than the front entrance.
It was dark in the quarters but stepping on the cold tile floor of the windowless bathroom felt like stepping on midnight, like the tiles were colder and sharper and more immediate than the cold of Nathan’s weird little apartment. Wading into the infinite void of the bathroom made the dark of the quarters look gray, and if I could’ve seen anything, I probably would’ve seen my breath.
I tried the light switch at the door but it didn’t do anything other than make a dry snapping noise each time I flicked it up or down. The potential heat of the shower outweighed staggering around in the dark and trying to keep both feet off the ground as much as possible.
After the shower sputtered and hissed to life, I realized it had two settings: boiling hot or off. I felt around for another knob but there was only one handle in the center of the tiny, coffin-shaped shower stall.
At first I just leaned forward with my hands against the wall, letting the water hit the top of my head while I stared into the nothingness in front of me. I stood there until the air around me began to change—until the air got thick and warm and when I turned around, the water poured down around my collarbone, covering the puckered spot of scar tissue above my heart.
When I couldn’t stand it anymore because it felt like the water was going to wash me away, I crouched down and wrapped my arms around my knees. The searing water hit the back of my neck and my shoulders. I moved my head up and let the water wash down my face and around my eyes, pooling in the small cup where my arms hugged my knees like a baby in a strange womb.
It was too dark to see the water but it was impossible not to feel it because, despite the lack of light and despite the expanse of freezing tile, there was undeniable heat in the blackness and I was slowly waking up.
SEVENTEEN: BEATLES VS. STONES
I HUNCHED MY SHOULDERS TOGETHER and held the Styrofoam cup of motor-oil coffee at chest level while Matty and Michael talked next to me. I pulled on the bottom of my striped ref shirt, momentarily stretching the wrinkles out until I let the fabric go. On the field, Faisal was standing between the two teams, talking and gesturing from one group to the other.
Since Matty had convinced a solid half of her cabin to come play football, the teams were divided roughly between the two-and-a-half cabins, with Faisal as captain of one half and Bryce as captain of the other. No one had protested that Bryce was leading a team, since he had volunteered, and since Faisal was looking for an excuse to demolish him.
Bryce, the legend himself, had been picking on Trevor all the way from the cabins to the field. Having walked with the group, I got to see the little fart in action, starting with small annoying shit like flat-heeling Trevor and throwing pinecones at kids I hadn’t met.
As we got everybody separated on the field and ready to play, Goblin Joe ran into him, got tangled up, and fell. Bryce decided to help him up by lifting Joe’s shirt off and tucking it into his own flag football belt.
Joe didn’t even try to take his shirt back. He just got up, crossed his arms to hide his chest, and looked like he was about to cry.
“Bryce,” Matty said. “Now.”
Bryce smiled photogenically. “We were just messing around!” he said, tossing the shirt back to Joe.
Faisal finished what he was saying, nodded, and the two teams separated. I looked at my stopwatch, let the final six seconds of their time-out tick away, and blew the whistle. Faisal’s team headed for the twenty-yard line and got into formation, but Bryce kept talking to his team. I blew the whistle again, harder, forcing the air out of my lungs and calling him a fucker at the same time.
I added “Total willingness to punt a child into a volcano” to the list of things I’d have to atone for at some point.
He looked over at me, smiled just enough to let me know he heard me, then turned back to his team and kept talking.
I spat the whistle out of my mouth and started toward him but only managed a half-stride before his team broke for the line. He positioned himself in front of Faisal, leaning forward and bracing himself on three fingers.
Faisal looked back and forth, nodded, and yelled, “Football!” before faking to his left and running right.
The teams fanned out and Bryce went gunning for Faisal.
Behind everyone, Trevor walked to the end zone. Nobody saw him; he wasn’t a threat to anyone. Right as Bryce went crashing through the no-touch defenders and jumped toward Faisal, Faisal flipped the ball behind his back.
It spiraled sloppily and unevenly but it fell, perfect and awkward, into Trevor’s flinching embrace.
Everyone on the field went quiet and Trevor looked around amid the wild silence until Faisal shoved Bryce off of himself and yelled, “Trevor!” triumphantly right into Bryce’s dumb face.
I remembered my job and blew the whistle.
Faisal jogged from the center of the football field to where we stood. “This is amazing,” he said, pulling his sweatshirt off. “I get it now. I get it.”
“Which thing do you get?” Matty asked.
“Football. I never liked football.” He balled up his sweatshirt and tossed it next to us. “Or I never thought I did.”
“This doesn’t count as football,” Michael said. “You’re twice the size of the biggest kid out there.”
“I know. It’s perfect. I’m Too Big to Fail. I am destroying them.” He turned and faced the two teams that were loosely huddled together, kicking at leaves and doing the odd handstand, and yelled with a surprising amount of authority from behind his smile: “No mingling!” He turned back to us. “I’m going to make the losing team write letters to their parents apologizing for the shame they’re bringing down upon their families.” He grinned.
“Faisal!” one of the kids yelled, waving. He pronounced “Faisal” like “fizzle.” It was impossible to make out all the words the kid said except for “cold.”
“Gotta go. Kids are getting cold; can’t have the little animals going all Lord of the Flies on Trevor.”
“Moses! Tonight: The Entertainment?” Michael said.
“Yes,” I said. Then: “No. I don’t know. I don’t understand the question.” The wind was hitting me in the eyes so I looked more suspicious than I meant to.
“You don’t know The Entertainment?” Matty said. The disbelief in her voice was utter.
“Is that a wrestler? Like professional wrestler?”<
br />
“They’re only the seminal David-Foster-Wallace-related band in the Midwest and they’re only playing one town over. For a porch show. Our yearly delinquency trip has never been more important.”
“I guess I wouldn’t miss it for the world, then,” my mouth said before my brain could formulate a bullshit excuse for not going. Because this was after Tens and this was after talks about thin ice and this was after being put on Lump Detail and goddammit, this was after Charlie. And they were asking me if I wanted to be with them. I wanted to see more of Matty and Michael. More of Michael and Faisal. More of Matty and Faisal. If that meant learning about David Foster Wallace fan rock, then I was going to learn about some David Foster Wallace fan rock.
Their dynamic felt familiar and I kept thinking about Matty calling Michael a Tom Hanks kind of leader. It was just an off-handed joke, but she’d said it and it was the same kind of thing Charlie would have said about himself, even if Charlie would have chosen a different celebrity. Someone harder, someone more rock and roll. Where he’d have called me the Beatles, he’d have called himself the Rolling Stones.
And she’d called Michael her other half.
And she’d shot him—albeit with a Nerf gun.
Their dynamic, all three of them, was like looking at all of the constituent parts of my relationship with Charlie with just enough new pieces to make it different and new.
But like a version of us that worked.
While the two teams walked back to the starting line, Bryce kept staring Trevor down, which Trevor kept trying to ignore. Even after everyone lined up and waited for the play to begin, Bryce kept staring at him.
Fifty yards away, past the archery range, the door to the crafts hall burst open. Lump launched out, hurdling the stairs and hitting the ground mid-stride, aiming for us before the door had time to slap shut. She was a fantastic blur, pumping her free arm while the other held a stack of bright papers snug against her chest. With the sun at her back, her shadow was a thousand miles long—long like it could reach up and touch the light that made it. One of the Buddies emerged from the crafts hall and called after her to slow down.
Unstoppable Moses Page 9
