by Crystal Chan
• • •
I hated to admit it, but I missed George something fierce. I kept reaching for my phone to text her about something before remembering that she had kicked me out of her life because her parents don’t like me. That’s so crap. And I’d run into her every once in a while at school—quite intentionally on my part, I might add, as I know exactly the paths she takes to get to her classes.
“Hey, George!” I’d call out to her, and give a little smile.
And every time she’d see me, she’d look away quickly, as if that would make me not see that I’d seen her looking at me.
Goddammit, that girl knows how to make me feel worthless.
To get my mind off of George, I fixed my busted bike tire as best as I could and wheeled over to City Park to see how the gun factions were getting along. It’d been two weeks since Rockfeller blasted that lion’s brain, and some rich dude had gotten an electric fence installed around the park to protect the protesters from wandering, hungry animals; for two long weeks, the animal rights, gun rights, and gun control groups had parked their RVs there (with the city’s begrudging permission), lining them up in rows like some sort of triangular Civil War reenactment. The renegades had long since gone home, knowing when they looked stupid, I guess.
Anyway, it seemed like the factions weren’t even all that into it anymore, except every time a news reporter stuck a microphone in someone’s face, the various sides would start waving their signs and chanting their slogans, like their whole purpose had turned into who could be louder, brasher, and just plain right to the world. And this desire to be right overtook the desire to sleep in their beds or even to actually figure a way out of the mess. The mayor kept saying that he was going to “break up the fight,” but for some reason nothing ever happened.
It was hilarious, if you ask me. How are kids supposed to figure out how to reconcile on the playground if their parents are taking days off of work to wave their guns and sling insults at each other? Freaking hypocrites.
The craziest thing was, when there wasn’t some media dude with a microphone, there actually was some intermingling—people were saying things like do you have some toilet paper and here’s an extra sandwich. I’d even heard rumors that they were raking leaves together as a thank-you to the city. In front of the camera, though, everything melted away into the World War of Rightness, and you didn’t know which mask that people were wearing was the fake one. Meanwhile, the only creatures that actually behaved true to themselves were those exotic animals, but there we were taking them down, like we couldn’t handle the reality of it all.
When I reached City Park, I knew I had gotten there at the right time; a crowd had already formed around Rockfeller, who was telling the gun rights folks, again, how he had shot that lion, and how that gun had saved his life, and how everyone walking on this country’s dirt should have at least one gun each, and how there could never be too many guns in our hands. He said all of this loudly, so the gun control folks were booing and trying to shout over him and drown him out, which just pissed off the gun rights folks, who started shouting too and trying to shut up the gun control folks, and the animal rights folks were booing because they didn’t like that lion shot, but the only thing they all ended up doing was making the noise level of our stately City Park so high that you couldn’t hear anyone or anything, no matter how right they were.
I guess Rockfeller agreed with me on the whole noise level, because before I knew it, he whipped out one of his guns, raised that thing over his head, and fired it into the air. People got really quiet really fast, but only for a minute. By the time the police got there, you could barely hear the sirens, people were shouting so loud.
Have I mentioned that it’s really sad to see adults act like kids? Really. It makes for nothing to look forward to.
• • •
I know it’s awful—and honestly a little embarrassing to admit—but Dad’s gun was still in the house. Not the same one—the police had taken that first one away—but soon after Dad got back from the hospital, he figured out a way to get a second one from a friend or someone who didn’t bother to ask if he just tried to shoot himself in the head. All I know is that one day as I was putting away the laundry, I walked into Mom and Dad’s room, and there Dad was, with his new gun on the floor and him opening up the lockbox.
“What the hell is that?” I asked, even though I knew perfectly well what the hell it was and that it was a semiautomatic.
Dad didn’t respond. He quickly put the gun in the lockbox, closed the door, and turned the key. Then he stood up and put the key in his pocket.
“It’s nothing,” Dad said.
“Fuck me,” I said. I went straightaway and told Mom what I had seen, and when she tried to make Dad get rid of it, Dad started hollering about how that’s his gun and she’s going to get rid of it over his dead body. I guess Mom was in shock that he was hollering about something, period, which meant that he cared about something, and that could have been called an improvement. Most normal moms would have flown through the roof, put their foot down, maybe threatened to move out. My mom? In a tense conversation she asked her questions, then gave in and said that as long as it stays in the lockbox, it’s fine.
Which, by the way, was not fine. I think Mom knew that too, but she also knew she had no spine to fight him, and maybe that’s why for months afterward she hit her meds. In that way I guess she agrees with me: If you can’t control it, tune it out. It was hard to explain to Mina, though, why Mom was sleeping right away after work, in plain daylight, and why we had to eat ham sandwiches with sweet chili sauce. Again.
During the days when Mom slept, I went into their room a couple times and tried to get into the box, but I couldn’t find the key. I looked for that key everywhere. Every time I thought of that gun, I started to get panicky. One night I knew I’d have hives for the rest of my life if I kept caring about this shit, so I told myself that if Dad tries a second time, there’s nothing we can do to stop him. That calmed me down, and I actually felt good for a moment or two. We humans like to think we can control everything, but life mostly steamrolls us over no matter what we do.
The one thing left that bothered me was that Mina had been doodling or whatever in her room and probably overheard Mom and Dad fighting about the gun. Sometimes I fantasized about what would happen if Mom would scream like a ninja and throw that gun out the window. Other times I fantasized that Dad would man up and decide that he didn’t need a gun to make him feel better about himself, or safer, or that it wouldn’t help him cope with the world’s cesspool of disease. Still, other other times I fantasized that Mina and I would strike out by ourselves and leave my parents to fix their problems. If only they cared how much their messes ooze all over us.
Mom tries her best, given the circumstances, but she’s got her anxiety to worry about, and Mina to worry about, and the finances to worry about, and Dad to worry about, including taking him to physical therapy and then to shrink therapy every couple days. That means she puts in extra hours at work to make up for the hours she’s out of the office lugging Dad’s ass around, which really means she only thinks about me when she needs to think about someone who doesn’t need anything. It must suck for her, but it sucks for me, too. Still, I’m out there trying not to need anything at all.
• • •
Mom was making dinner when I got home.
“Hey, Mom,” I said, slipping off my shoes in the middle of the kitchen floor.
“Hello, dear.” Mom gave me a peck on the cheek, which she knows I don’t like. “I saw Jello biking this afternoon, and I stopped the car to talk to him. He said you should call.”
My eyebrows shot up. “Call?”
Mom sighed. “Okay, fine. Text. He said you should text him.” She paused as she poured coconut milk into the pan. “But there’s nothing wrong with getting on the phone and actually talking, you know.”
“Yes, Mom.”
At that point Dad called to us from his bedroom.
“Ronney?”
“Yes, Dad,” I called back.
“Linda?”
“I’m here too.” Mom stirred spices into the milk.
“What do you want?” I shouted, annoyed.
“Are you home?”
I grit my teeth.
“Yes, honey,” Mom said.
Silence, except for the coconut milk bubbling.
Mom shifted uncomfortably. “Oh,” she said to me, “Sam’s coming here tonight for dinner. Mina invited him over.”
My sister was something else.
• • •
Jello didn’t wait for me to text him—he texted me first.
I just saw on the news that the panther was spotted by the 7-11, get ready for Safari Trip Number Two.
I’m just about to eat dinner.
Eat fast.
Do you have meat?
Damn, Ronney, come on. Don’t be lame.
No meat, no go.
You = Lame. I’m going to the store. Eat fast.
I got it the first time.
I had to admit, my pulse had jumped. What would we do when we saw the panther? I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that Jello really hadn’t thought anything through—that’s just the kind of guy he is. So I needed to do that work for him: He was counting on me for that. I was getting all elaborate with the plans in my head, going through scenarios A through F, and maybe G, which meant that I was spacing out at dinner.
Sam looked at me. “So what do you think?” he asked.
I jumped a little. “What?”
Sam looked hurt.
“He said,” Mina jumped in, giving me a pointed Mina look, “that if you wanted to see a picture that he made, he’d show it to you.”
“Oh,” I said, feeling warmth rise to my neck. “Sure, Sam. Let’s see it.”
Right there at the dinner table, Sam took a folded-up paper out of his pocket and handed it to me. I unfolded it and looked at the picture. The paper was covered in question marks.
I laughed as I passed it around. “Looks like you really like my jeans, kiddo.”
Sam gave a small smile. “They were my jeans first.”
When the picture came back to me, I looked at it more closely. I’d never seen anything like it. He’d drawn question marks, all right, but densely, so they were jamming into each other in all sizes and shapes and directions. It looked like the paper was screaming.
“Sam,” Mom said, “that’s a very nice picture. But why question marks?”
“Why not?” Sam asked.
“It makes sense to me,” Dad said.
I threw Dad a look. That was the first thing he’d said all night. “It does?” I asked.
“Yes.” Dad rubbed his chin thoughtfully with his good hand. I waited for him to say something more, but he didn’t.
I caught a bruise on Sam’s wrist. It was an old bruise, but it made me wonder what other bruises were beneath his sleeve. I tore my eyes from his wrist. “It’s a cool picture,” I said. “Could you do that to a T-shirt? I have a shirt you could paint up like that, if you’d like.”
Sam looked adoringly at me. That kid would follow me anywhere, I just knew it.
The doorbell rang. We all looked at each other, and I swore to myself as I went to get the door. Jello couldn’t let me finish my dinner. Couldn’t freaking leave me alone when he had one of his ideas.
I opened the door, and what I saw made the air stop in my lungs.
It was George. She was standing on the porch in her fall coat with her hair down, dark jeans, and leather boots.
She was stunning.
She bit her lip. “Ronney, I’m sorry.”
I stared.
Her eyes flicked away, then met mine nervously. “You were right. I was trying to make my parents happy. But I’ve really missed you, and I want to be friends again.”
All words died in my throat. I just stared at her, my heart thumping wildly.
“And,” she said, her eyes bright, “I want to go on the safari with you.”
11
AT SCHOOL GEORGE AND I exist in completely different spheres. She belongs to the perfect valedictorian-contender crowd; I belong to the crowd that watches: the kind that doesn’t really belong to a crowd at all, because once you belong to a crowd, you stop watching. But that’s what I do—I watch people. Jello mixes with a whole bunch of crowds, but he hangs with me because I keep things real for him, whatever that means. And he agrees, I am his brains.
So George and I don’t really hang out at school. I’m lucky she lives in my neighborhood, because if not, I’d maybe never see her, which I hadn’t these last couple of weeks, anyway. But I was in her full presence as we headed to Jello’s house—she’s six months older than me, so she drives—and I was still shocked: George never admits she’s wrong. Never. Not even when she knows she is. Honestly, I didn’t think her beautiful lips would let her form the words “Ronney, I’m sorry.” But it happened, it really happened, and I kept hearing those words over and over in my mind.
For the record, it was not a Thursday.
“I couldn’t get what you said out of my mind,” George was saying, twiddling her fingers on the steering wheel. “You’re right: I am a pleaser. And I took a good, hard look at myself and decided that I don’t want to do that anymore. I don’t want to be that anymore.”
“You keep saying that,” I said.
Her eyebrows scrunched together. “That’s the first time I said that,” she said.
“Not that. The part about how I was right.”
George blushed and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “Well, you were.”
I gripped the door handle on the car so I wouldn’t reach for her face and kiss her, driving or not.
“You’re a good guy, Ronney,” she said, “and what your dad did was awful, but you couldn’t help that. And you help me a lot.”
My head jerked a little in surprise. “I do?”
“Well, yeah. You remind me of what’s important.” She stopped at the red light and turned to me. “All that my other friends care about is what their GPA is, or where they’re applying to college. And you remind me that there’s more to life than that. A lot more.”
“I keep things real for you,” I said, thinking of Jello.
She let me look into her hazel eyes. “Well, yes. And with you, I don’t have to be per—” Her voice caught. She paused. “I can just be me.”
We looked at each other until the light turned green, and she reluctantly started driving again. I could barely breathe, the air had turned so thick. Did this mean that she wanted to be more than friends?
“I still want us to be friends,” she said, driving a steel spike into my stomach, “but I want us to be good friends. Like, good friends. You know what I mean?”
Yes, I thought. You want to continue to torture me. I shifted in my seat. “But why are you coming on this safari?” I asked. Something felt like it didn’t quite fit, but I didn’t know what it was.
George smiled. “Because I want to. It’s a ludicrous idea—I’ll give you that. But it’s awesome. When will this chance ever come again?”
“And what would your parents do if they found out you’re hanging out with me? Catching panthers?” I asked.
George pursed her lips as we pulled into Jello’s driveway. “They’ll just have to deal,” she said.
God, that girl was hot.
• • •
Jello was ready for us by the time we dropped into the basement; he was packed and hopping up and down like a kid. Jello didn’t even seem surprised that I’d brought George with me. Among other things, he’d packed his night goggles, three different cameras, three cans of Mace (one for each of us), a couple flannel shirts, flashlights, portable flood lights, bug spray, a biological water filtration bottle, and a comb.
“A comb?” I asked.
Jello blushed. “For the pictures. In case, you know . . .”
“You need a touch-up,” George finished. “For your head shot, when t
hese go viral.”
Jello looked at her and grinned.
George grinned back.
“And the meat?” I asked.
“Ah, yes, the meat,” Jello said triumphantly. He whipped out a Styrofoam package from his backpack and threw it to me.
“Two pounds? That’s it?” I asked.
“It was six dollars a pound,” Jello whined.
I stared at him. “So what? How expensive is all your equipment you’re carrying?”
“Oh. I hadn’t thought of that,” Jello said.
“Of course you hadn’t,” I said testily.
“I’m sure it’ll be fine,” George said, jumping in. “We probably won’t even need it.”
“Right,” Jello said.
“So what’s the latest on the panther?” I asked, pushing aside a strange feeling in my stomach. “That thing isn’t going to hang around and wait for us to get there, you know.”
“The last thing I heard was that it was behind the 7-Eleven,” Jello said, “but if it’s gone, we can track it.”
“Sure we can,” I said, totally unconvinced.
Jello adjusted a camera strap that was crossing his chest. “I took a tracking course with the Boy Scouts last summer, so we can get to the 7-Eleven and track the panther on foot.”
“And I’m sure we’ll be the only ones out there in the dark wilderness,” I said, “since the whole state is out after these creatures. I paused. “And if it attacks us while we’re on foot?” I asked.
Jello smiled. “R-Man, you worry too much, relax. We have the meat, right?” He patted his backpack.
George looked back and forth between Jello and me.
“Come on,” I said begrudgingly, “before that thing gets any farther away.”
Jello punched me happily on the arm. I didn’t punch him back.
• • •
As George drove us to the 7-Eleven, she and Jello were talking excitedly about the different angles Jello could get of the panther. What if it was crouching? What if he could get a shot of it mid-jump and juxtapose that next to the picture of the squirrel? That’s what George said. Juxtapose. They prattled happily all the way there. Me, I was trying to figure out if we could use the car as a tank, for refuge, if the thing attacked. Or if flashlights would stun it, like they do deer. Or how quickly I could reach for a can of Mace. Or if two people could wrestle a panther off of someone.
