The Inevitable Collision of Birdie & Bash

by Candace Ganger

  “Bash.” A voice startles me as I’m staring at Ma.

  It’s Kyle, not dressed in his usual expensive getup. The only thing I really notice is the look in his eyes, which is some degree of sorrow. I can’t tell if he’s actually sad for me or for himself. His ankle bracelet catches a gleam from the overhead lighting as Mr. Taylor stands behind him. He urges Kyle to shake my hand, hug me, anything, but Kyle resists. His cheeks are tomato red and plump with shame. He reluctantly holds out one shaky hand. I linger in his eyes, look for sincerity, but I realize, no matter how empty his gaze, this is all he’s got, all he’s ever had, maybe.

  If only I’d noticed sooner.

  I pull him in for a hug, and he leans into my ear. He’s resisting the weight of me, trying to break free. “Before you embark on a course of revenge, first dig two graves,” he whispers. Only Kyle could both begin and end a friendship with words of wisdom he can’t understand. And now I know we are finished. Pseudobrotherhood no more, and I couldn’t feel better about it. Can’t say I didn’t try.

  He steps back, this time to speak loud enough for Mr. Taylor to hear. “Sorry, bro,” he says with total insincerity. “For everything.”

  I shouldn’t be shocked, shouldn’t expect more than this, but after all these years of me going to bat for the kid, I am. “I didn’t turn you in,” I tell him. “I wouldn’t do it, you know that.”

  He manages a slight grin from the side of his mouth, winks at me with that smugness I’m used to. “Yeah, whatever.”

  I say nothing, don’t give him the satisfaction, and take comfort in the fact that he’s the one currently on house arrest, not me. Who needs the luck now, sucka? Mr. Taylor grabs my hand for a firm shake, wrapping his long arms around me for an embrace. He buries me in his pinstripe suit that probably costs more than everything I own (which, admittedly, still isn’t much). When he steps back, his tears have dampened my suit, and his. Our eyes meet, and with a slight smile, he looks to Ma. “Still beautiful, after all these years.” He pats my back, but just before he and Kyle move to the last row of pews, Kyle’s angry attention never abandoning me, Mr. Taylor leans in close once more. “Oh, and Bash?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I heard the Paxton boy had an angel donor. Big check.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  He smiles, looks at Ma again. “Of course you don’t.”

  I watch the back of him melt into all the other sad faces, my muscles twitching in weird places. A few more tissues and tears pass through before Vinny pats my shoulder. He and Evie are clutching wads of tissues between their hands.

  “I didn’t know it was so bad,” he tells me. “I’m so sorry. You should’ve said something.” He holds his hand out for a shake, but when I reach for it, he too pulls me in for a hug instead. Evie fights him to hug me next. She unravels Vinny from my new threads, jet-black mascara running down her cheeks. The color bleeds into her blush, creating a masterpiece right there on her face.

  “Oh, Bash,” she cries. “I hate everything that’s happened. If you need anything, we’re here.” Dave, Skip, and Janie are behind him. Some of the other rink regulars, too. Teachers, Mr. Lawson—everyone I’ve ever known is here to say good-bye amidst all these other people I’ve never seen before.

  My heart is swollen as I stand here, knowing this is the last time I’ll ever see this shining light again. It’s after 10 A.M., time for the service to begin, so Mr. Ed directs me to my seat. He stands at the podium, the people hush, and the only sounds are muffled crying and a song—Johnny Cash’s version of “You Are My Sunshine,” something Ma used to sing to me when I was little. The sounds of crying get louder, but from no one more than me. There’s no bottle of whiskey strong enough to make me not feel this cut. I’m here, in this chair, bleeding all over the funeral home because now I know she’s gone—she’s really gone. What’s worse is, I almost put Birdie through this—I almost caused this for someone else. The feeling will haunt me until I take my last breath.

  When the song ends, Mr. Ed talks about Ma like he’s known her forever—things she’d prepared for him to say so he wouldn’t—and he quotes—“screw it up.” I laugh because it’s typical Ma. He talks about her life in Brazil, how her parents struggled to make ends meet before her dad split, things even I didn’t know about her. A few others step up and say the nicest things about her. The room is so warm with love, it could heat Alaska.

  My stomach stirs as Mr. Ed calls me up. The room is quiet now, and my limbs are shaking beneath me, threatening to take me down. Everyone knows my face, my story in regard to the Paxtons now, and I hope it doesn’t take away from Ma’s legacy. Resting my hands on the wooden podium to steady my balance, I can’t look up at all the faces who are waiting for my words. From my pocket, I unfold a note I’ve written to help me.

  Though right now, I’d rather disappear.

  “I’m not good with words, so bear with me.” The paper crinkles between my fingers, my sweat bleeding into each letter. “For those of you who knew my mother, and all the things she loved, you’ll understand what I’m about to do.” I pull a stick of vine charcoal from my pocket and hold it in the air. “No one believed in me the way she did.” I lay the charcoal to the paper and make quick strokes, outlining a mother holding her infant son, similar to the ornament Birdie left. “The last year of her life was spent hooked up to machines, tubes, needles, you name it. She woke up, every single day, with that same ruby-lipped smile and the will to fight. There wasn’t a single second she thought about giving up. Not once.”

  I set the vine charcoal aside and dig into my pocket for a piece of compressed charcoal to gently shade where the light hits. “There were days I wanted to, but she’d look at me and say, You’ll never get to tell them ‘I told you so’ if you quit. It was that will, that strength, that ferocity that made me the man I am today.” I smooth the harsh charcoal lines with the edge of my palm. “She was born in the Morro da Babilônia favela in Rio de Janeiro, which is a neighborhood once controlled by a powerful drug-trafficking cartel—and something my father had become a part of. Being pregnant Ma feared for my safety, so she and my uncle, Ray—who also passed recently—risked everything, and fled before I was born. They came to America to give me the life she said I deserved.”

  From my other pocket, I lift a chamois, which is like a fancy eraser, to help define the image. “They came with nothing but the clothes on their backs. This woman behind me is the definition of courage. She was fearless the way a mother bear should be, and even when she lost jobs, fell in love with the wrong people, had a delinquent son, and was diagnosed with this death sentence, there was one thing she never, ever wavered on: me.”

  Careful not to overwork the drawing, I drop the chamois next to the charcoals on the podium. The image nearly knocks the wind out of me. I’ve never drawn a person before, never tried. It’s too boring and never manages to fully capture the emotions I’m looking for. But as I step back, paper in hand, I see something more powerful than any bear or fox I’ve ever drawn. “To know her is to love her, and to be part of her is an honor I’m not worthy of.”

  I hold up the drawing, A Mother’s Embrace, and feel Ma right here next to me as the people gasp in awe at this interpretation of my love. I swallow back my tears, not wanting to smear the charcoal. The final word still rests on my tongue. I spin around and nestle the drawing beside Ma in the casket. My eyes are hard-pressed to her, this unforgettable woman. No life inside, just a body. I lean down, kiss her forehead, and tell her good-bye—something I could never prepare for, no matter how much practice I had.

  When I turn around towards the rows of the grieving, I see her between the doorway and the back pews just as she’s leaving. Her thick white glasses are absent, and there’s an even bigger hole where her heart should be.

  Couch Girl.

  birdie

  As the service concludes, I round the corner for a tissue, or five, when someone tugs at my black peacoat.

  �
��I just want to tell you … I’m sorry,” the voice says. It’s Kyle, and his greasy fingers are holding on tight. I jerk my arm back, anger coating my throat with such rage, I can’t contain it. I shove my finger in his face—this kid who called himself Bash’s friend—and let him have it. “Do you even know what you put Bash through—what you put MY FAMILY through? Do you even care? I don’t want to look at you. Don’t talk to me. Ever. Again.”

  He’s backing away, hushing me with the tip of his stupid finger. A tall man, the same man I’ve seen talking to Benny’s nurses, watches us, but he doesn’t intervene. Is this all Kyle Taylor deserves? No. What he deserves is so much more than all the cells in my brain can formulate. I grab the fabric of his silken shirt, lower my voice the way I do to Brynn when she’s on my last, frayed nerve. “If it were up to me, I’d run you over and leave you to die.”

  Kyle is silent, backed into a proverbial, metaphorical, and actual corner. “He’s … better, though, right? Your brother?”

  My lips pinch. “What do you care?”

  His eyes dip, and suddenly he seems not as confident as he was at the rink. “It was an accident. If I could take it back, I would.”

  I release him from my grip. “That means literally nothing to me.”

  My foot out the door, he stops me. “Haven’t you ever made a mistake you wish you could undo?” I hear the pain in his voice, but I don’t turn around.

  Because, yes.

  The people are moving from their seats as another sorrowful song ends. When the next song begins, my feet grind to a sudden halt. Shinedown. I can’t help but smile in the very place no one ever should.

  I’ve lost track of Bash in the sea of black. It looks as if he dipped his charcoal in water and soaked the entire room in the dark drippings. I rewrap the tie on my coat and wait for the back rows to empty before I try to push through. I want to blend in, not stand out. Once the back doors swing open, the air is a thick sheet of ice that hurts my skin. I’m almost to my car when another hand grabs at me. My first reaction is to swing, thinking it might be Kyle for round two. I resist the urge, seeing as it might not be proper or ladylike to brawl in a funeral home parking lot.

  “I need to talk to you,” Vinny says. He leans in to cup a gloved hand behind my ear as he lowers his voice to a whisper.

  My eyes narrow. “What’s up?”

  Evie is caught behind him in a group hug between the nurses. They’re passing tissues back and forth like gold, and Evie’s at the epicenter.

  “It’s about Bash,” he says.

  My heart momentarily stops.

  He pulls me to my car door, away from the people flooding the line that will travel to the cemetery burial. Those cars have flags to say they care; they will support Bash at the cemetery. My car has no flag and I’m not sure if it should or not.

  “He wanted me to give you something, but I wasn’t sure when the right time would be.” Vinny’s sort of twitchy, like we’re sharing a secret.

  I feel my eyes water instantly. “You talked to Bash? I thought he was dead to you.”

  Evie strolls over just as I say this. She frowns and whops him in the arm. “Vincent Angioli—you did NOT say that!”

  He hangs his head. “I didn’t mean it, Ev. He knows that. I think.”

  “I can’t believe you,” she scoffs. “He’s just a kid.”

  Vinny looks around and discreetly pulls something from his suit pocket to place in my cupped palm. It’s the ornament I gave Camilla. I look closer. No, it’s not. The figures are different. This one has the same faceless woman, her hair all gray, but she’s holding the hand of a small child. On the back, the words Love that transcends the years. I’m breathless. Bash knew I was the one who’d given Camilla her special ornament for her tree and in return, he’s giving me one for Nan’s tree, somehow an exact replica of the one I lost in the move.

  “Just told me to tell you”—he hesitates like he’s trying to remember—“she isn’t gone—she’s alive in you. I assume you know what he’s talking about.” There’s a silence, an agreement that I understand. My eyes tear up faster than I can stop them. I blame it on the sun’s rays. The surface burns a scorching ten million degrees, and they’re all shooting down on me.

  He lays his hand on my arm and squeezes. I wonder how this boy I didn’t know a couple months ago somehow crawled inside my head and found all the lost pieces of my puzzle.

  “See you later,” Vinny tells me. He pats my arm.

  Evie’s fur surrounds me. “Bye, sweetie. Don’t be a stranger.”

  “I won’t.”

  I see Bash beneath the door’s frame, and everything inside of me freezes. Through the swarms of black dresses and whimsical flowers, I see him—the real him, and every hard swallow he takes. Judging by the way he’s enveloped in his own invisible cage of sadness, keeping every grieving hug just slightly at bay, I now realize I’m the last thing he needs. So, I decide to follow Vi’s advice via today’s horoscope. Before I slip inside my car, I grab my camera and snap one last picture of Bash to resemble something dead, us.

  And go.

  Good-bye, sweet bear.

  LESSON OF THE DAY: A body buried in a coffin can take longer than twelve years to decompose to a skeleton, depending on the type of wood the coffin is made out of. Even from the back of the funeral home, I could see Camilla’s coffin was solid oak, which means it could take approximately forever for Bash to ever recover from losing her.

  And twice as long for me to recover from losing him.

  BASH

  A week after burial, it’s Christmas.

  This holiday to me is the celebration of a fat man slinging an iPhone—or in my case, shitty knockoff IPhane—down the chimney (through the flimsy door) while I sleep, glistening snow over dead grass, holiday music known to put an annoying spring in Ma’s step, and peppermint everything (peppermint meat loaf, anyone?). Ma used to say Santa couldn’t give us much, because we already had too much love; wasn’t fair to the other kids. I believed her—the lying, old broad.

  God, I miss her.

  I’m sitting in my new place watching this totally overrated movie about a sinking ship and I’m not crying about the fact that Jack and Rose won’t end up together because that would be so incredibly lame. I was going to change the channel, but well, I haven’t. So, whatever.

  (Still not crying.)

  This is the same house Kyle and I used to secretly frequent on those miserable Sunday nights. It’s mine until summer, so long as I help finish the thing for whoever bids on it in the fall. That’s my rent. It has a working toilet, blinds instead of sheets hanging from the large windows, and electricity—bonus—plus, the walls are thick enough I don’t feel wind on my face while I sleep.

  The accident on Highway 22 hasn’t stopped Mr. Taylor from keeping his promise to “rebrand” Clifton. In fact, I think it has inspired him to work harder to make this neighborhood safe. And now I’m a little part of that. Ma would be proud.

  That old trailer is still sitting there, like a memory stuck in time. I left most of my things (what things?), shut the door hard (because it literally wouldn’t fucking shut), and didn’t look back. It’s easier that way. I still have that little patch of fabric. I keep it in my wallet as a constant reminder—to never stop trying to be better. Not just for Ma, but for me.

  I drive by Birdie’s house every damn day, and a lump forms every damn time. Probably will until I leave for NYC this summer, but I’m not going for the thing I always dreamed of. Birdie changed something in me. Made me want to be better, smarter. I realized I kind of like chemistry, and I’m sure Ma is laughing her ass off right now, because she knew when she saw Birdie, that was it for me.

  Once school and probation are done, and my community service reading to sick kids at Grove City PICU and Trauma Center is served, I hope to be the newest intern at the American Cancer Society—but not thanks to Mr. Taylor or his money or any other goddamned person in Clifton. I will do this on my own. I had a sort of epiphany.
Not that it’s a big deal or anything; I’ll still draw, because that’s part of me, but for once, I feel like I have something more to give, and I sure as hell have more to prove. I didn’t see those things in my before.

  Birdie did.

  Though we still haven’t spoken since before the arrest, I guess you can call her my muse. Without meeting her at that party and everything that happened after, I wouldn’t be where I am now. Sounds kind of like fate, but as Ma said, fate is a man, so inevitably, he will fuck my shit up again at some point.

  But for now, all is good.

  Mr. Taylor checks in on the Paxton family almost daily, keeps me informed. Says the little guy opened his eyes and is thriving, but there’s a long way to go. The point is, after over a month of hell, he’s alive. I can only imagine how happy Birdie is. I’m sure she hates me, if she’s even capable of that kind of feeling, and though I’ll deny it, it kills. Sure that check Mr. Taylor gave me could’ve changed my life, but Ma raised me better than that; I’ve never taken a handout before, and I ain’t gonna start now.

  A jagged piece of charcoal is pinched between my fingers, and I’m sketching my best bear yet. As the snow falls in delicate flakes from the sky, the irony sets in. I have a second chance and can’t help but think Ma set it up this way. That’s how she could go when she did. She knew I’d be okay before I did.

  This doesn’t feel like my life. It sort of feels like Kyle’s with one MAJOR difference: All this shit that’s happening? All me. The good and bad.

  And I’m okay with that.

  He’s not speaking to me, not that I (a) want him to or (b) see him in school anymore now that he’s on house arrest with a revoked passport (flight risk). It’s kind of funny. After all that’s happened, Kyle hasn’t just lost something, but everything. And me? Let’s just say knowing I have a plan for the future, however much work I need to do to get there, is enough.