Jumpstart the World

by Catherine Ryan Hyde

  I saw a woman in spandex walking four dogs—all boxers—on leashes, and I smiled at her, and she smiled back. I passed a small, very temporary homeless camp. Four men huddled on the pavement in a tight-knit circle. One of them looked up, and I was hit with a strange feeling that I was not so very apart from them. It came out of nowhere, and I didn’t quite know what to make of it.

  After that, I nursed the feeling. Looked for it everywhere. In the birds and the squirrels. In the bus exhaust and the traffic lights as I came back out onto the boulevard. Even in the cigarette smoke of people passing by. Some indefinable sense of being part of everything. Not really being separate from the rest of reality.

  I purposely didn’t think too much, but when I got to my building, I wondered again if Frank would forget my visit. And, most specifically, forget what I had said to him. It worried me, yet it seemed reasonable to expect he wouldn’t remember.

  Then again, that weird voice over my head said to me, Maybe it’s just the truth. Maybe it doesn’t require any forgetting.

  TWELVE

  Information, and Other Things That Fly

  I heard the knock on the door about eight o’clock that night. Right around the time it was dawning on me how tired I was.

  I figured it was Molly. Needing something. She had just brought Frank home an hour or two earlier, and I was on standby for any help she might need.

  “Who is it?” I called through the door. Too tired and lazy to walk over and look through the peephole.

  “It’s me. Wilbur.”

  A brief silence. During which I realized I was disappointed. Which is weird, because Wilbur is one of my favorite people in the whole world. But I guess I’d been hoping it was Molly, wanting me to do something that involved seeing Frank.

  I didn’t say anything. So I guess Wilbur felt he had to.

  “You didn’t show up at school today. I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

  That made only partial sense. Because he also could have called.

  I opened the door.

  Wilbur stood in my hallway with an odd look on his face. Ruffled. Not literally. Just the look in his eyes. As if something had ruffled him. And the ruffled thing was also sort of an aura. A field of energy that I could have read with my eyes closed.

  I could see and smell that he had been drinking.

  Dangling from his left hand was a six-pack of beer.

  “You okay?” I asked.

  “Yeah. Fine.”

  I knew he wasn’t, but I didn’t feel the need to push it. Wilbur never pushed me to say anything.

  “Come on in.”

  He did.

  We stood in my living room, more awkwardly than usual.

  “So how come you skipped school?”

  “No special reason,” I said. “Just tired. And in a funny mood.”

  So we both had information we weren’t quite ready to let fly.

  We sat out on the fire escape and drank all the beer. I had two and Wilbur had four.

  We talked about school, ugly a topic as that is. We talked about Annabel and her new boyfriend. He told me Shane had dyed her hair green.

  It was getting dark. It was getting late.

  “I’m exhausted,” I said. “I barely slept last night.”

  I thought that would be unsubtle enough for Wilbur. But he didn’t move. Maybe he was too drunk to get the message. I watched the lights of cars moving along the street below us. Wondering if I should say more.

  Then Wilbur said, “I was hoping I could stay here tonight.”

  “Oh. Yeah. Sure. Why didn’t you just ask me?”

  He never answered that one. We watched the cars for a few more minutes. It was a little too cool to be wearing only a T-shirt, which was actually a nice feeling. It was really going to act like autumn now. Finally.

  “I had a fight with my stepfather,” he said. “I can’t go back there tonight.”

  “The couch is pretty comfortable.”

  “Sometimes I wish he would die.” That just hung in the air for a moment. “I would never kill anybody. Or even hurt anybody. But I have these fantasies that he dies of some disease or something. Or gets hit by a car.”

  I winced at the reference. But I’m sure the darkness and the drunkenness covered it over.

  “Then I have to go to confession,” he said. “I think that’s what I hate most about him. That he makes me hate. And I don’t want to be a hater. I want to tolerate everybody. But he’s just so in my face. It’s like he challenges me to hate him.”

  “We should probably go to bed,” I said. “Things will look better after some sleep.”

  “Did that upset you? What I just said?”

  “No. I don’t blame you. I’m just really tired.”

  I was lying in bed, in my room. With the lights out. But the door to the living room was open. In case Wilbur needed anything.

  I heard his voice call in to me.

  “Did you ever find out who it was that got hit?”

  “Yeah. It was my friend Frank.”

  A brief silence. Then, “Holy shit.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Is he okay?”

  “I think so. He’s hurt pretty bad, though. I was at the hospital with him until this morning. That’s why I was too tired to go to school.”

  I lay in that dark silence for a while. I thought he might have passed out or gone to sleep.

  “So you’re speaking to him again.”

  “Well. He’s been kind of out of it. I was doing most of the speaking. But yeah.”

  “Do you still have a crush on him?”

  My stomach tingled. I wanted to say, No, it’s even more than a crush now. But of course I didn’t.

  “Yeah.”

  Long, long silence. Then I geared up to say something I never would have said to anyone but Wilbur. In fact, I wouldn’t even have said it to Wilbur if the lights were on. If he were in the same room with me.

  “What do you think that says about me?” A pause, but I filled it. “I’ve never had a serious boyfriend. Never really been in love. And then when I finally have all those feelings for somebody … Well, you know.”

  “Maybe it says you’re looking for a man who’s gentle. You know, more than most men are. I can relate. Because of my stepfather. I’m looking for a man who’s kinder than most men I meet. Maybe you are, too.”

  “That is such a good answer. I wish I’d asked you sooner.”

  We were quiet for a while, and I figured he wasn’t going to say any more. So I said, “Good night.”

  Nothing. I had already lost Wilbur to sleep.

  In the morning, he was gone. He’d left a note on the couch. Two words.

  Thank you.

  I guess there was nothing much more anybody needed to say.

  It was five days later, and I was sitting in Frank’s bedroom.

  I’d waited five days for this chance. I had skipped school all week, just so I wouldn’t miss any opportunity that came along. And now here I was.

  Molly had gone out to shop for groceries and refill a prescription. And I was sitting here taking care of Frank. Well, sitting here. I’m not sure what I was supposed to do to take care of him. He just needed somebody around.

  It wasn’t exactly the way I’d dreamed it. After all that waiting, I had mixed feelings now. I guess I thought it would be like the hospital. Like I could look at him and touch his face and nobody would be any the wiser. Not literally. I knew he was awake. I was prepared to find him the way I did, sitting up in bed.

  I just somehow pictured it being the way it was before.

  I’m not sure why I still ever expect anything to be the way it was before.

  “Toto is a lot better,” I said. Just to have something to say. “He’s all done with his pills.”

  I looked at Frank. He was looking back. Every time I looked at him, his eyes bored right through mine. I felt like I had words printed inside my head and he was reading them with great interest.

  After a pau
se, he said, “Toto was sick?”

  I had no idea what to say to that.

  He filled the gap for me.

  “Sorry. I guess there’s something there I should know, huh? Don’t get too freaked out. I remember most things. Just a few days before the accident it gets spotty. It may all come back. Or some may. Hard to say. Anyway, it’s just a few days.”

  “What about after? In the hospital?”

  It came out before I really had time to think. There was no fetching it home again.

  “I remember you were there,” he said. “If that’s what you mean.”

  I snuck a glance at him, but he was doing that thing again. Looking at the private inside of my head.

  I was hoping he wouldn’t say anything else. If he remembered more, I didn’t want to hear about it. I didn’t want to know.

  I looked at his arm. Just to have someplace else to direct my eyes. He’d had orthopedic surgery on his arm, and it was in a sling, and wrapped loosely with what looked like an elastic bandage. It was bulky and huge. I’d heard there was an actual metal bar under those bandages. With pins that went right into the bones. But I’d been doing my best not to think about that.

  He saw me looking.

  “Hey,” he said. Startling me. “Do me a favor, okay? Help me change the dressings on my arm. While Molly is gone. It has to be done every day. And Molly has been really nice about it, but she’s so squeamish. I know she hates it. She’ll be so happy if she gets home and it’s already done. Let’s surprise her.”

  I swallowed hard.

  “What do you need me to do?”

  “Come over here and sit on the bed.”

  I did as I was told. Sat beside his right arm.

  “Now take my hand and support my arm while I unwrap this. It’s a little bit heavier than you’ll expect it to be, because of all that metal.”

  So I did what I was told again. I held Frank’s hand. Supported his right arm. He was bandaged up to the base of his thumb. His hand felt rough. Calloused. A little small for a man’s hand, I found myself thinking. But strong-looking. Short, wide fingers.

  It gave me a great excuse not to look at his face.

  “Is this going to hurt you?” I asked.

  “Not if you keep my arm steady. I’m on so many painkillers I don’t feel much. But if I have to use the muscles in that arm, the pain’ll break right through the Vicodin, believe me. So don’t let go.”

  “I won’t.”

  He unwound the bandage until it fell away onto the bed. I sucked in a breath. Saw the metal bar, parallel to the bone in his arm. Two steel pins came down from it and disappeared between gauze patches. It made me a little queasy, even before he moved the gauze. After he pulled those pads away, I felt this sickening feeling like a sword moving down through my lower intestines. Something about those pins going right through his skin. I felt a little dizzy, like I might pass out.

  No wonder Molly hated this so much.

  His elbow stayed bandaged because the pins were all on the inside. Right inside the bones. Something else to try not to think about.

  He handed me a tube of triple antibiotic ointment and a bunch of fresh gauze pads in little paper packages. They had been sitting on the bedside table, and he was able to reach them easily with his left hand.

  “Now, set my arm down. Very carefully. And put a ton of that ointment in the middle of each pad. Okay? And then put two on each spot. One on each side of both pins.”

  “Sure,” I said. If I don’t pass out first, I didn’t say.

  He watched me work. I could feel it. I could barely see it in my peripheral vision. It made me nervous. I just kept looking down at his arm.

  “Thank you for being there in the hospital with me,” he said.

  I never answered. I couldn’t have talked if I’d tried.

  “I would have been so scared waking up there all alone.”

  I placed a heavily ointmented gauze pad against one of the pins. I winced on Frank’s behalf. But if it hurt, he didn’t let on. Vicodin. Right. I wished I’d had some Vicodin myself right about then. Thirty, maybe.

  “It shouldn’t be that way,” I said. Without knowing I was about to.

  “What? I shouldn’t be scared?”

  “You shouldn’t have to be. Why does it have to be a world where you can’t even go to the hospital in peace? And please don’t say, ‘It just is that way.’ I hate it when people say, ‘It just is that way.’ ”

  “I wasn’t going to say that.”

  “Oh. Good.” I placed another pad. Gingerly. “What were you going to say?”

  “I’m not sure.” A long pause. “The world doesn’t always play by its own rules, Elle.”

  “Not entirely sure I follow.”

  He sighed. “I guess I mean we all pretty much agree on certain things. Equality and stuff like that. But whenever it turns up missing, people just let it slide. That’s why there’s such a thing as activism. Sometimes you have to jumpstart the world just to get it to be what even the world admits it should be.”

  I placed the last gauze pad with a sigh. Got up and dumped all the trash in the bathroom wastebasket. Then I came back and held Frank’s hand again. Supported his arm while he wrapped it back up.

  “I sort of like the idea of activism,” I said. “Except that part of me doesn’t. Yeah. Real articulate. I know. Let me think what I’m trying to say here. Sometimes I feel like people who want to oppress people … well, they need people to feel oppressed. Like it’s a dance. Like it takes two, you know? And maybe they couldn’t even do it without you. I’m still not saying it right. Sometimes I think fighting against something only makes it stronger.”

  I looked up briefly. Thank God he was not looking at me. He was still wrapping the bandage. Watching his own work.

  He nodded slightly. “Sounds like what you’re saying is that you have the luxury of opting out of prejudice. I don’t.”

  “Yeah. Okay. Sorry if that was a stupid thing to say.”

  “Not at all. It was very intelligent. Very thoughtful. It’s just a thought from your world. It’s a little different over here. Not all activism is fighting against something, anyway. Sometimes it’s more subtle. Just something you do to open people’s eyes.”

  I’m not sure why, but I thought suddenly about the pictures I’d taken of Wilbur. I hadn’t even bothered to develop them yet. They were still sitting in my camera.

  “Do you think it’s possible to be an activist using a camera?”

  “It’s more than possible. It’s Molly’s life’s work.”

  At that moment, as if on cue, the front door opened and then slammed again.

  Molly was back.

  My private moment with Frank was over.

  Thank God. And, also, damn.

  The door to my apartment was standing wide open. My brain and body went cold. I thought I was being robbed. I thought maybe I should run, but I took one more step first, so I could halfway look inside.

  I thought about my mother. But it couldn’t be. She wouldn’t dare. She promised. Even my mother wouldn’t openly break a promise, just like that.

  And yet, there she was. Standing at my kitchen table, shuffling through some papers. Some of my papers. Just homework. But it really pissed me off.

  She hadn’t seen me yet.

  She picked up one of the papers to look at the text more closely. But she held it farther away from her face, not closer. As if she wished she had longer arms. I’m pretty sure she needed reading glasses and was refusing to admit it to anyone. Herself included.

  I stepped inside. “You better not have let my cat out,” I said. “He’s just barely recovered. He still has stitches in his gums.”

  My mother looked up at me. “You’ve been skipping school.”

  “What happened to your promise about calling first? Not to mention knocking.”

  “That was before I found out you haven’t bothered to go to school for days.”

  “Haven’t bothered to? It’s not li
ke I’m just being lazy, Mother. There’s been a lot going on around here.”

  “Tell me all about it.”

  “No thank you.”

  She said nothing. Just leveled me with a look that made me feel six years old and in trouble deep.

  “I’ll go back to school,” I said. It wasn’t such a big compromise. I’d already been planning to go back to school.

  She just stood there, taking it all in. She was still holding my math homework, but she was holding it too tightly, and I wanted to tell her not to wrinkle it. But I didn’t want us to be fighting. I was in a place where a mother might not have been a bad deal. Granted, my mother had always been more like a cheap mother substitute. But she was still the only one I had. And I didn’t want to be fighting with her. So I didn’t tell her to be careful how she held that paper.

  Besides. I could always print out another copy.

  As if she could read my mind, she set it back on the table. Then she walked over to my new couch and sat down.

  “All right,” she said. “I’m listening.”

  “Mark this day on your calendar,” I said. Half under my breath. But she heard it.

  I know she was hurt, but she spoke in soft, measured words. “I said I was listening. And I am.”

  I took a deep breath. There wasn’t much of this I was prepared to say to my mother.

  “My best friend has been in the hospital. He nearly died. He could have died.”

  “That young man next door?”

  “Yes. Frank.”

  “I know why you like him so much. You think I don’t but I do.”

  My gut went icy and a little sick. I said nothing.

  “It’s because he listens to you. Right? Right, Elle? He’s your friend because he listens. I can hear subtext, you know.”

  I guess it was a strange thing to think, but I thought, Wow. She heard something. She really did.

  “Talk to me,” she said. “I’ll listen. Tell me what’s going on in your life.”

  I just stood there in front of her for what felt like a long time. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to say.

  “It’s not quite that easy.” Not after all these years.

  She rose to leave.

  “It’s okay, Mother. Really. We’re okay. All I’m saying is … baby steps.”