Alan Cole Is Not a Coward

by Eric Bell

  “Mr. Harrison!” Dad says. “I—I’m so sorry! My son—he’s not right in the head. When he gets stressed, he—”

  “I think you and your family should go home, James,” Mr. Harrison says quietly.

  Dad arches his back. Promotion on the line or not, Dad is not a man who lets people talk to him like that. “If you think I’m going to—”

  But maybe it’s the fact that Mr. Harrison is his boss, or that he’s surrounded by all his coworkers. Maybe he’s just embarrassed. Whatever the reason, he ushers all four of us out of the Flower County Community Center without a fight, leaving all the world behind.

  “I didn’t—” I start, but Dad points to the car, and we pile inside, not a breath spent between us.

  Dad doesn’t start the car at first. He massages his temples a lot, and I keep bracing myself for him to open my door and tell me to get out and walk, or go die in a ditch, but eventually he starts the car. Mom grips the side of the car as we round turns. Nathan’s eyes keep going back and forth between me and Dad, me and Dad.

  When we get home, we file in for inspection, as we were before dinner. That’s when Dad finally turns to me, finally drops the bombshell. “Your sketchbook,” he says.

  “. . . what?”

  “Your sketchbook,” he says. “Now.”

  He turns around and, after some fiddling, lights the fireplace.

  The flames flicker and dance in the mostly burned-out logs from last year. In them I can see reflected something dark, something disgusting. “Goldfish!” Dad barks. “Sketchbook.”

  “I . . . I . . . I—I—”

  This isn’t happening this isn’t happening this isn’t happening this isn’t isn’t isn’t is NOT is NOT—

  “Nathan,” Dad says. “Your brother’s sketchbook.”

  “Dad—” Nathan starts, but Dad turns back to the flames. The darkness he sees there, I begin to see.

  Nathan looks at me. Looks at Dad. Me. Dad.

  He slowly walks upstairs, and I let out a sob.

  The wait is agony. The only noise is the crackling of the flames, and Dad rubbing his hands together. Then, slowly, descending footsteps from upstairs, and Nathan clutching my sketchbook, band tied around the sides. An entire year’s worth of work and art, work and art that can never be replaced.

  My cretpoj. My cretpoj that’s going to change the world.

  I’ve already started to cry. I try to muffle the noises, but there’s no point. Big, heavy, stupid tears fall onto the carpet. I can’t see anything through my tears, but when Nathan arrives, I try to look at Mom, who takes a step forward, until Dad glares at her, and she freezes in place. She clutches her cross to her neck and closes her eyes.

  As Nathan hands the book to Dad, I cry, “Nathan!”

  My brother looks me squarely in the eyes, then drops the book at Dad’s feet.

  Dad opens the gate to the fireplace nice and slow, clearly making sure I savor each second, remember each detail. Then he says, “You disappointed me.”

  And my sketchbook gets tossed in with the rest of the garbage.

  I stay in front of the fireplace long after everyone else disappears, watching the little embers burn out, trying to remember as much as I can of my beautiful paintings.

  Gone.

  June was right after all.

  I don’t know what time it is before I trudge up the stairs to my empty room full of empty things. The stupid maple tree outside sways its stupid leaves. Who even cares? What’s even the point?

  Who even cares about my stupid cretpoj? My stupid project?

  I almost climb into bed in my suit and coat—Mom draped the coat over my shoulders after who cares how long—because who even cares about stupid wrinkles, but I’m warm from being in front of the fireplace so long, so I at least take off the jacket and leave it, limp and lifeless, on my closet floor.

  I sink into my closet and sit there. Just sit. I don’t even think about anything. What is there to even think about? I figure, here’s as good a place to sleep as any, so I slump onto my side, and I brush my head against something weird and lumpy and stupid. I go to move it out of the way and scrape my fingers against a bunch of pages of something.

  Pages that feel used.

  Slowly, slowly, slowly I look at the object.

  This Sketchbook Belongs To:

  Alan Cole

  My hands tremble as I leaf through the pages. All my paintings—Big Green, raked leaves, apples and bananas—they’re all here. And the last page, the outline of Connor’s face, his big smile glowing up at me from the crinkled parchment, it’s—it’s—

  I move the sketchbook to the side so my tears don’t stain the paintings.

  But—but I saw Nathan—

  And it hits me.

  He gave Dad my new sketchbook.

  The empty one.

  And Dad didn’t know the difference.

  My breath comes in loud gasps. I’m shaking. What in the world is going on?

  I leave the sketchbook in my closet, where it’ll have to hide for now. I look out my window at the maple—at Big Green—and the last thing I see before I fall asleep in my dress clothes is the swaying movement of the leaves, and the last thing I think before sleep bludgeons me over the head is maybe I’ve still got a lot to learn about people after all.

  TWELVE

  A dark, dreary cloud hangs over Sunday morning breakfast, like we’re sitting at the kitchen table with the grim reaper hovering around, waiting to flash his scythe and cut us down. Nobody looks up when I walk in and quietly pour myself a bowl of Lucky Charms. I stare at Nathan, watching for some kind of reaction, some kind of sign about what he was thinking last night. Mom flips through the newspaper, but I can tell she sneaks some glances my way when I’m not looking. On my third spoonful, Dad says, “I’ll have to grovel like a dog at Mr. Harrison’s feet tomorrow.”

  I don’t look up. Emphasis.

  “What were you thinking?” he continues. “You embarrassed me.”

  When I woke up, I thought about what I’d say to Dad when he inevitably started talking about this. I decided that, no matter what I said, he’d never believe me.

  “Why are you such a bad kid?” Dad moans, massaging his temples. “Even Nathan wouldn’t have done something like that.”

  So I go with my plan. “I’m sorry, Dad,” I say quietly. Pattern.

  “Sorry isn’t good enough,” he snaps. “I won’t get my promotion. I might even lose my job. Then what’ll I do?”

  “I’m really sorry,” I whimper, putting as much effort into it as I do when I’m trying to convince Nathan he’s surprised me.

  Dad raises his head. Upward movement. “You’re done at that health club. Tell your friend to hang out with someone else.”

  At this, Nathan’s eyes dart up. A fly on the canvas.

  I knew Dad was going to say that. Still, I whine, “But Dad—”

  My father growls, and it’s enough to turn my spine to ice. “Think about what you did. It’s all your fault. Everything. Understand?”

  I nod. There it is again: in the blame game, I always come in first. Or maybe it’s last. “Yes, Father.”

  Dad slowly gets up. “Get ready for church.”

  Mom pours me a glass of mango juice, my all-time favorite. Nathan, still a mystery, reads the paper. And I eat my Lucky Charms, ignoring the bubbling in my gut.

  I’m going to the health club. I’m learning to swim.

  Whether Dad knows about it or not.

  Pattern breaking.

  “Goodness,” Madison says, his voice echoing around the Helen’s Crest pool. “My parents could probably get these Harrison people a membership here, if that will help.”

  “Probably not,” I say.

  Sneaking out was a little tough. Even though Dad never pays attention to where me and Nathan are unless it’s dinnertime, I still had to get my bike out of the garage after church, while Dad was working on some project. His power saw was so loud, I probably could’ve led a mariachi band
through the garage and he wouldn’t have noticed. (He still could’ve looked up and seen me, so I guess I got lucky.) And I’ll even shower at the health club (fortunately they have private stalls) to hide the chlorine smell. This is how it’s going to be, every day until CvC ends. I don’t get to mark off “stand up to Dad” because Dad doesn’t know about it, but CvC isn’t why I’m doing it.

  I’m doing it because he tried to destroy my cretpoj.

  Madison says, “Well, you’ve had an adventure. It almost makes my weekend seem boring. Although I have to say, watching C-SPAN is never boring.”

  I snort. “Yeah. I bet.”

  Madison smiles, despite clearly trying not to. “I liked you better when you didn’t talk. Now show me your flutter kick again.”

  Gripping my kickboard, I start splashing my legs, propelling myself toward the other side of the pool like a poorly constructed speedboat. I get about halfway there before I almost tip over, but I hold on to the kickboard, and I stay stable, and I make it to the other end.

  “Good,” Madison says, calling out as I swim back. “Now we’ll try the backstroke. The swimming test is freestyle, backstroke, and breaststroke, but you won’t be able to use the kickboard for any of them.”

  “Maddie!” a voice calls from the end of the pool.

  Madison ducks down in the water. “We’re a little busy.”

  Mrs. Dorothy Truman stands at the water’s edge. “Come out of the pool, sweetie. I want to take a picture of you before you start losing weight.”

  Madison turns red. “That’s, er, okay, Mom. I’m sure I’ll remember what I looked like.”

  “Not for you,” Mrs. Truman says. “For Aunt Grace and Great-Aunt Sylvia and your little cousins.”

  “Betty and Billy are not seeing this,” Madison says. (His voice cracks on “not.”)

  “Oh, nutbutters,” Mrs. Truman says. “I don’t have my phone on me. Is this your bag here on the bench, Anton? I’ll go ahead and borrow yours.”

  I blink. “It’s, uh, Alan. And that’s okay—”

  But Mrs. Truman already has my phone out, flipping fingers across the screen like she’s squishing spiders. “Your phone is very disorganized, dear,” she says. “When I’m done taking Maddie’s picture I’ll reorganize your apps.”

  Madison’s head is bowed, and he’s muttering under his breath what could be either prayers or swears.

  “Stop pouting,” Mrs. Truman says as Madison stands up to pose, looking completely miserable. “This will be another incentive to get you to lose all that weight. From the looks of it, Maddie, you need a few more incentives.”

  After texting the picture to her own phone, and doing Lord-knows-what to my music library, Mrs. Truman leaves, and Madison practically cannonballs back into the water. “Some help,” he barks at me. “Taking pictures. And you let her!”

  “What did you want me to do? She grabbed my phone herself.” And I can’t make the Trumans upset, because they might stop letting me come here.

  He runs a wet hand over his hair. “You’re lucky I’m a nice person. This only means I’ll be tougher on you. Starting tomorrow, no kickboards.”

  My fingers instinctively squeeze the precious, protective foam. “Really?”

  “You’re pressed for time,” he says. “The sooner you shed your training wheels, the better. But first: the backstroke. Let me show you the form.”

  As Madison positions me in the water, I stare up at the ceiling and wonder how Nathan’s doing at swim practice, if he’s got a Madison of his own to show him how to stay afloat.

  “How are lessons coming?” Zack asks Monday at the Unstable Table.

  We spent hours at Helen’s Crest on Sunday. The muscles in my arms and legs feel like they’ve been flattened by a steamroller and left to dry out in the Sahara. “It’s going well,” Madison says after swallowing a bite of his salad. “Alan’s a good student. Of course, he’s got a good teacher too. Right?”

  I nod. “Right.”

  You wouldn’t be able to tell I’m a good student if you looked at me in the official swimming class at Evergreen, where Marcellus seems dedicated to undoing all the progress I’ve been making. I played dumb this morning and made sure to only follow Marcellus’s “instructions,” never to show him I’m actually learning something.

  Of course, this is only part of it. I’ve still got to figure out how to make someone cry, which makes me squirm just thinking about. Or how to get my first kiss, which makes me squirm even worse. The vending machine is impossible. And even though I’m going behind Dad’s back, it’s a far cry from standing up to his face. But I can’t think about all that, or about what happens if I don’t beat Nathan. (If I do think about it, my brain threatens to melt.)

  “That’s great,” Zack says. Then he immediately goes, “Hey, check this out.” He takes the straw on his lunch tray and wedges it up his nostril. “Oday,” he says, “Ib I do dis right I cad shood boogers oud.”

  “That’s disgusting,” Madison says. “We’re trying to eat.”

  Zack yanks the straw out and wipes it on his shirt. “I was just showing something cool.”

  “Well, it’s not cool,” Madison says. “What does your father think when you come home and show him little stunts like that?”

  “He doesn’t think,” Zack says. “He’s dead.”

  All of Madison’s muscles lock up.

  “It’s okay,” Zack says. “If he was still around, I know he’d laugh too.” He smiles.

  Madison clears his throat. “I’m, er, sorry—”

  Zack gasps. “That ceiling tile looks like a tumbleweed!”

  Madison runs both hands over his hair. Repeatedly. He looks at me. I shrug.

  As we leave the Unstable Table after lunch, Zack calls my name. Madison lingers for a little bit, then he heads off to Miss Richter’s room without us. Zack smiles when I come near. “Wanted to talk to about. That’s No-Noun for, ‘I wanted to talk to you about something.’”

  “Madison didn’t mean it,” I say.

  “Huh? Oh, I don’t care about that. I need your help. See, I have this problem, and—wait, let’s head over here, where it’s quieter.” He leads me out of the cafeteria—on the way I overhear a kid saying, “You could totally reach into that vending machine if you were tall enough”—and out a side door, clearly marked DO NOT EXIT, and suddenly we’re outside, out of sight from the main hallway. He sighs and stretches his arms. “Muuuuch better.”

  I look around the small field in front of us. The amount of cigarette butts littering the grass says Zack isn’t the only kid who knows about this secret exit. “I don’t want to be late for class,” I say.

  Zack waves a hand. “This won’t take long.” Right, because Zack Kimble has such a strong concept of the passage of time. Before I can object even more, he takes a deep breath and says, “I’ve got a crush on someone.”

  “Oh,” I say.

  “Do you know Penny Schmidt?”

  I shake my head.

  Zack holds a hand to his heart. “She’s perfect. She’s nice and kind and sweet and good with animals and friendly to old people and she has glasses and her hair’s in a bun and she has hazel eyes like me and when we get married we’re going to buy famous paintings and keep them in our home and we won’t even charge money to see them. That’s Penny. I love her.”

  “Okay,” I say slowly. “You probably shouldn’t worry about getting married when you’re twelve.”

  “It never hurts to plan ahead,” Zack says. “Anyway, my problem is I can’t talk to her. Every time I see her, I get so tongue-twisted I wind up saying something stupid. Can you imagine that? I really want to tell her how I feel, but the words get stuck inside me like a bowling ball inside a moose’s throat. She might not even like me, but the odds are better than zero, right?”

  “I guess,” I say.

  Zack shrugs. “If the odds are better than zero, that means there’s hope. That means you shouldn’t give up on it, no matter what. So the odds are better than
zero she’ll like me. Anyway, I thought we could help each other get confident enough to talk to our crushes.”

  My throat gets dry. “Uh, what?”

  “Well, if I boost up your confidence it might help you talk to Connor, and if you boost mine it might make me talk to Penny, and then—”

  “Shhhhhh!” I hold a finger to Zack’s mouth and look around the empty field in a panic, like the cigarette butts have ears. “W-W-What are you talking about?” I whisper. “That’s impossible.”

  “What?” Zack asks. “It’s nothing weird.”

  The back of my shirt gets damp. How did—how is—this can’t be—

  “He doesn’t know,” Zack says. “I don’t think anyone knows but me. It’s obvious to me, because the way you get with Connor is like the way I’d get if Penny ever talked to me. I think it’s great. Connor’s a nice guy. You two would be happy together.”

  I’m breathing really heavy and my entire body feels weighted down with sandbags and—and—

  “I won’t tell anyone,” Zack says, very gently. “But I think you should tell him how you feel. It’s not fun living a secret life. That’s why I try to be as open as possible with everyone.”

  Zack looks away from me, up at the clouds. He pulls something from his pocket: a small rock. He runs the stone along his fingers with an old, familiar rhythm. “My dad always told me be proud of who you are. He did a lot of kooky things. He liked to wear really silly hats. He went rock climbing all year round, even when it was snowing. Before he died he told me to never let anyone tell you you don’t deserve to be who you are. The only person who can tell you that is yourself.” He squeezes the rock. “I don’t like it when people can’t be themselves. That’s why you should tell Connor.”

  My breathing calms down a little, but my voice still comes out raspy. “It’s . . . not that easy.”

  “It usually isn’t,” Zack says. “But I’d rather have a hard time being myself than an easy time being somebody else.”

  Zack turns back around to me. He grins. “Wow, I feel better already! Thanks, Alan. You’re a great friend. I know together we can really tell our special someones how we feel.”