Jeremy Stone

by Lesley Choyce

  and cheer up.

  Do you know if we have any mozzarella cheese?

  You sound just like

  your father.

  Always changing the

  subject to food

  when he wants

  to end a discussion.

  Mom, can I try to call him tonight?

  You want

  to call your father?

  How?

  His cell phone.

  He probably doesn’t

  have any minutes.

  He probably doesn’t

  have any money

  for minutes.

  I knew what she meant about the minutes.

  My dad could never pay regular monthly

  bills for anything.

  But maybe he does have some minutes, I said.

  And she smiled a real smile for once.

  Yeah, who knows.

  Maybe he has

  some minutes.

  Normal

  Why can’t we be like normal people? my mom asked over dinner. Why can’t we be like those families you see on television?

  But she must have been thinking

  about the old days on television

  because nowadays there were

  no normal people on television.

  No normal families.

  Just fat families and homeless families

  and angry families that fought all the time.

  Families with money problems and

  families with really mean children.

  But there were a few funny families.

  Mine was not one of them.

  You make good lasagna, Jeremy. You take good care of your mother. Do you know where my cigarettes got to?

  I went into the living room and found them

  and then handed Mom her smokes.

  She took one out and stared at it again. I thought she would start talking to it like she did sometimes and maybe that would be our TV show: Moms Talking to Tobacco. “In this week’s episode, Jeremy’s mother gives a long-winded lecture to the dark god of nicotine. Rated R.”

  Hah!

  She didn’t light it this time. The patch, she said. Maybe I’ll try the patch. Thank you for making dinner. Now call your father. I don’t want to talk to him. Not yet. But if he has enough minutes, tell him I want to talk to him soon. I gotta talk to him soon. Why can’t we be a normal family?

  Because, I said.

  And I really didn’t have to finish the sentence.

  What the Raven Said

  I had my dad’s cell phone number in my wallet. It was written on the back of a super lotto ticket he had bought for me.

  He said, You’d have to split the winnings with

  me if you win, Jer. We could go someplace

  far away. Maybe take your mother with us if

  she wanted.

  This was after they’d already been living

  in separate apartments.

  But, of course, we didn’t win. My father had said that a raven had given him the winning numbers but when we didn’t win he said, Freakin’ raven, anyway. Some of them are tricksters. You can’t trust those shiny black birds.

  Which was a little funny because my father’s name—

  his real name—

  was Smart Raven in our own language.

  Not so smart, my mom would say. But he knows how to fly away when he wants.

  Yep.

  Well, I dialled the number on the lotto ticket.

  Hello.

  Dad?

  Jeremy?

  Yeah.

  Sheesh. Holy smokes.

  It’s good to hear your voice.

  Where are you?

  Out West.

  Where Out West?

  Right now, you mean?

  Yeah.

  I’m in a bar called the Golden Nugget.

  Are you okay?

  Yeah. A little sad, maybe. A little lonely.

  Do you have minutes?

  Yeah. I have minutes. Howzabout you?

  Are you all right?

  I think so.

  Your mother?

  Not so great.

  Can I talk to her?

  Not now. But soon.

  She’s not still hanging out

  with that guy?

  Whatshisname? Ford?

  No. You mean Chevy. No, she isn’t.

  Good. Is she okay?

  A little sad maybe. A little lonely. A little depressed.

  Hey, he said, sounding

  suddenly oddly cheerful.

  Hey, me too.

  I think you should come home.

  Come back East?

  Yeah.

  But I got a job here.

  A good one?

  Pay is real good.

  Working on an oil rig, right?

  Sort of.

  Whaddaya mean?

  I clean up after the guys on the oil rig.

  And back at the shop.

  Do you like it? The work, I mean.

  I fuckin’ hate it.

  But the pay is good, right?

  Right. Hey, I got some new numbers

  from a raven out here. Maybe if I win …

  If you win, you’ll come home, I know.

  Yeah. Then a pause.

  Shit, I think I’m almost out of minutes.

  And then he was gone.

  Out of minutes.

  Just like that.

  The Phone That Never Rings

  Our home phone that is.

  Almost never rings except for telemarketers selling stuff we don’t want or need.

  But now it was ringing. My mother just looked at it. (She was still holding the unlit cigarette.)

  Don’t bother answering it, she said.

  But it might be Dad calling back.

  I don’t know.

  No. Don’t.

  She gives up, grabs a lighter,

  lights up.

  What the hell, she says,

  answer it if you want.

  Dad?

  Only it isn’t Dad.

  Jeremy?

  Yeah?

  It’s me. Caitlan.

  No way, I say to myself. Not in this lifetime. Caitlan calling me? My words have all flown away.

  Jeremy, are you there?

  I’m here. (I cover the mouthpiece, mouth Caitlan’s name silently to my mom and my mom rolls her eyes and leaves the room.)

  How would you know this number?

  Ever hear of the internet?

  You found my number on the internet?

  But it wasn’t easy.

  You know how many

  Stones live in this town?

  How many?

  Thirty-four. But you were

  only twenty-three.

  And that’s my lucky number.

  Wow.

  Like they say, leave no Stone unturned.

  Huh?

  Sorry. It’s just an expression.

  Oh. I’m glad you called.

  Me too. I’m glad I found you.

  Can we meet somewhere?

  Now?

  Yeah, now.

  Do you know where Coffee Coffee is?

  Coffee Coffee is a coffee shop, right?

  Of course. It’s two blocks

  from the school.

  Can you meet me?

  Yes, of course.

  In a half hour. Okay?

  Okay.

  And she hung up. I don’t know why the sound of a dead phone line was so beautiful. But it was a wonderful sound.

  Coffee Coffee

  I had t
o explain all this to my mom and she looked worried but said she understood and that she would not miss me at all but would sit down and watch a rerun of Grey’s Anatomy on television even though all that blood in the hospital scenes gave her nightmares sometimes. But that I should go out and have fun on my date, only not be out too long and don’t let that girl get me into any trouble.

  What kind of trouble? I asked.

  Trouble trouble, she said.

  So I didn’t say another word, but was wondering if Coffee Coffee was going to be trouble trouble. And I didn’t know if that would be something that I liked or not. So I figured I would just

  have to wait and see.

  It was a dark night

  but warm

  with a moon

  coming up

  like the one

  I used to watch

  back

  in my community

  in the woods.

  As I walked, I

  heard the sound of the phone line

  after Caitlan had hung up.

  It was an empty sound

  and it created a space

  where I could fill

  in a lot of ideas I had.

  Really nice ones.

  Coffee Coffee was right where it was supposed to be.

  Caitlan was inside

  and looked prettier

  than she did in school.

  She sat alone

  and when I walked up to her

  she stood up and hugged me

  and kissed me

  on the cheek.

  Everyone there watched

  as my cheeks turned red.

  I’ll buy you something, she said.

  What will it be?

  I shrugged. I didn’t really drink coffee but didn’t want to sound like a dweeb. Coffee, I said.

  She laughed. Two coffees it is.

  Caffeine

  Is a drug, she said. A good one. I love caffeine. You don’t think it’s bad for you, do you?

  I sipped the hot black bitter liquid.

  No, I said, I don’t think so.

  Look at all these people here

  drinking coffee. They look healthy.

  (Well, they really looked pale and

  unhealthy, like they had been living in

  caves for months and eating nothing

  but slugs.)

  I guess you are wondering why I asked you to meet me here.

  I looked her in the eyes just then, a

  thing I don’t usually do.

  You know, I said. Don’t you?

  Know what?

  About Jenson and me.

  He contacted you, didn’t he?

  I nodded, said, It was like he was right

  there. No different from you or anyone

  here.

  Is that how it works for you?

  Sometimes. (But before it was only

  Old Man.)

  Is he okay? Jenson?

  I think he’s all right but he can’t let go.

  That’s what I was feeling. Jenson needs something. He needs our help. I think I still love him.

  (I was afraid she would say that, but

  there it is.)

  So, I think that when you die with a lot of unresolved things—big things in your life—you hang around and try to find a way to finish things up.

  He said he misses being a vegan,

  he misses having arguments,

  but he misses you the most.

  I miss him too. And I don’t know what to do about it. I can’t quite give up on him either. Is he here now? Can you see him?

  I looked around. No, I said. He’s not here.

  (Neither was Old Man which seemed

  odd, because if I thought about Old Man, he’d

  usually show up but maybe coffee shops were

  not his thing. Or maybe caffeine

  interfered with spirit.)

  What else did he say?

  I sipped my coffee and told her about the

  thing with Thomas Heaney.

  I’ve thought about ways to get back at him.

  Jenson says no. Not the way to go.

  Instead, we have to

  show him the light.

  The light?

  You know. The light.

  You show him the light, whatever that is. Not me. I’m still too dark to be anywhere near the light.

  At first I thought she was

  making fun of me and maybe

  ready to laugh at me,

  but there was more to it.

  Her dark was her pain.

  I could see it in her eyes now.

  About Jenson, she said.

  I’m thinking of

  joining him.

  The words stung like wasps in my brain. No, I

  wanted to scream,

  to scream so loud. But I sat silent like a stone

  and waited.

  You are the only one

  I’ve told.

  The only one

  who

  would

  understand.

  I do understand, I said. (And meant it.)

  But Jenson would not want that.

  It’s the last thing

  he would want.

  How do you know? she asked.

  Because he’s standing right behind you now.

  And he’s saying this to me.

  To you.

  She turned then, I think, really expecting to see a flesh and blood Jenson standing there in Coffee Coffee.

  But he wasn’t there.

  I had lied. I couldn’t see him.

  Old Man, I pleaded inside my head.

  Old Man, what now?

  But even OM was not there.

  Just me

  and Caitlan

  and all that

  dark.

  Scars

  I hadn’t really noticed what Caitlan was wearing but

  she suddenly unbuttoned her long sleeves

  and showed me

  her wrists.

  Scars.

  Three each

  on each arm.

  These weren’t serious, she said.

  Kind of like

  practice.

  But it also helps with

  the pain,

  the dark.

  Now I was really scared, but

  tried not to show it. What

  did you use? I asked.

  I used

  a razor blade.

  I was very

  careful not

  to cut

  too deep.

  The most recent cut was not fully healed.

  There was a scab

  and a dark blue bruise under the skin

  around the cut.

  I wanted to run out of there, some place far from Coffee Coffee and never set foot in a coffee shop again. I wanted to get the hell away. I wanted to forget about Caitlan, about Jenson, about all the pale, pale people here and everywhere and go back to my old community. I wanted to stop talking again so no one would know my thoughts. I wanted the forest and the stream and the sun—the light inside the forest on a bright day—the sun shining through the maple and oak leaves and flashing through the white pine needles and the sparrows singing and the insects buzzing in my ears.

  Caitlan buttoned her sleeves

  and stared at me with

  a truly frightened, crazy look.

  I almost left her then. I was ready to just stand up and bolt out the door. And run.

  But I heard a voice.

  Hold your horses, Geronimo,

  Old Man sai
d.

  You are a warrior, remember.

  A warrior does not run when

  he sees the enemy.

  What enemy? I asked silently. Who is the enemy?

  Old Man huffed.

  Same old enemy you had

  since you were little.

  You know—fear.

  Now quiet your mind

  and say something nice

  to Indian Eyes here.

  I didn’t know where to begin but Old Man was there making me sit up straight. (I felt his hand on my back.) And he was urging me to do something I never did, which was talk about my family and about me.

  So I told her about my mom first and how she had been fighting her demons and doing an okay job of it by cutting her addictions down to just smokes and booze and the occasional fling with a man when she couldn’t help herself. I told about finding her meditating on the floor and me thinking she was dead.

  That’s when Caitlan interrupted

  and said, Yeah, I thought about that.

  I wouldn’t want anyone I cared about

  to be the one to find me

  dead. Only strangers. That’s why it’s

  important to kill yourself someplace

  away from home, in a city somewhere.

  Which seemed just about the saddest thing in the world to me and I said that. Man, I said, it’s no good to be all alone in some strange city alive or dead. No good at all. (I was starting to get worked up here—maybe even angry that she’d consider doing this terrible thing.)

  But I cleared my throat and sipped some more coffee which now didn’t seem so bad.

  Old Man was in front of me now,

  right behind Caitlan, shaking his head.

  Watch the caffeine, Jeremy. Too much

  caffeine gives you the shakes.

  So I pushed the coffee cup away and focused on Caitlan again. Told her about my father Out West with not always having a lot of minutes on his phone. How phone conversations never ended with anyone saying goodbye, just the sound of being cut off and then static and eventually a dial tone or a woman’s voice saying, please hang up the phone.

  And I told her about the black dogs he spoke of. And how I had that image of me and him in the future in a grungy bar somewhere. And I think I was about to say something really important and meaningful but

  Caitlan cut me off. Jeremy,

  she said, her eyes dark and intense,

  Why are you telling me this?

  I don’t know, I said. I think it is because I care about you and want you to know who I am and to know that you are not alone. We all have messed up things in our lives and do our best to get on with it. (I know this sounds old and wise and that is definitely not me, Stoney Stone, but I was being coached by OM and he said it was okay to just let the words and stories spill out of me like water in a small mountain stream gushing over the rocks.)