These Dreams Which Cannot Last

by Matt Flickinger

  “Pick it up, Meat!” Michael says as he and Ortega round the curve for their second cool down lap. The new nickname is progress on his goal of fitting into the team, even if Zain isn’t wild about the title. Greyson, the team captain, finishes the cool down as Zain starts the jog around the track. He doesn’t look at Zain, just stands by the gate, waiting for the others to finish. There’s probably a Meat most years, Zain thinks, a freshmen clinging to the back of the varsity pack. Thinking he’s hot shit, until he’s left in a pile the other runners step over. Greyson stretches his calves against the fence, clapping for the returning JV runners. Forester strides in a minute ahead of the rest of the JV pack, upright and glaring.

  Varsity always starts their long runs first. Then, following a few words from Coach Branson, JV sets out. Until a couple weeks ago, Coach’s words of “chase ‘em down, boys!” was inspirational. Chasing ‘em down is part of what earned Zain his Varsity spot. Now the words seem more like a warning. Zain is unsure how long coach held JV back today. At mile three he turned around, to head back to school, all alone as the dead last varsity runner. When he crossed Forester, Zain looked down at his watch. Forester was only a couple minutes back, with three miles to catch up. Every day he’s gotten a little closer. Zain tried not to think about it, just set his eyes on the backs of Michael and Ortega and picked it up, better to look ahead than behind. But he didn’t gain any ground. Every time he looked up they were farther ahead. Any longer a run and he’d have died, slowed down, watched helplessly as Forester passed him, left him behind. And left Coach with the easy decision to drop Zain back down to JV.

  By the time Zain walks into the library the computers are all taken. He sits at a table close to the computer bank, hoping one will open up in time for him to complete and print his essay. He’s got two paragraphs left to finish explaining symbolism in Lord of the Flies for his Pre-AP English class. He’s chosen the shell as a symbol for decreasing order on the island. He’s really enjoying writing about the book, diving into its dark waters. Dark and slow and kind of beautiful. He even chose the island as a setting for his six weeks project in art.

  Pulling his English spiral notebook from his backpack, he jots down some notes. “Where it once held power to bring the boys together, the shell is now faded and useless.”

  A group of boys crowded around one of the computers yell and cheer. A librarian shushes them from behind the counter. Final warning, she whispers. On the boys’ screen, medieval characters with little health meters floating over their heads bob up and down, waiting for instruction. He recognizes a couple of the boys from middle school. He could walk over, he thinks, ask about the game. The tight group, their backs like a wall, whisper instructions over each other to the one at the keyboard. The guy at the keyboard clicks the mouse around the screen, nodding as they vanquish another enemy. They all celebrate with whispers, slapping each other’s hands. Zain returns to his notes, reading what he wrote yesterday, “Ralph, as a lonely and confused leader on the island, feels isolated from the group by his duties.” He circles the sentence, then circles it again. The boys yell again and the librarian comes out from behind the counter. Hands on her hips, the boys don’t bother protesting. Zain gathers his things and hovers, not too close, as the group grab their bags. Zain slides into the warm seat, listening to the boys joking and laughing, clicking through the library turnstile. Zain plugs his flash drive into one of the empty ports and gets to work.

  5

  Over It

  Charlotte hears the familiar screech of Ford Taurus tires slide around the corner of her street. The Bean, as Toni has named her car, bumps up over the curb into Charlotte’s driveway just after nine, as promised. Toni’s probably already buzzing. Good, Charlotte thinks, that means she has booze. Charlotte could use another shot. Restraining herself to two gulps of her dad’s cheap, back up bourbon wasn’t enough. And the half a bowl she scraped out of the bottom of the bag was mostly stems. And it’s all wearing off.

  Everything. The booze and weed and this town and the feeling that escaping nowhere is impossible if that’s exactly where you’re stuck. Going to this party tonight is just another escape that won’t work, she knows. She will still be here when she wakes up. In this place, this town, in this feeling. If she still had a car she could get in and drive away, she thinks. Even if she knows that isn’t true. For seven months, she had a car and never left. Still, not depending on other people for a ride was a freedom she should have appreciated more. But with one too many absence, one call from her bitchy Assistant Principal Ms. Archuleta, those seven months of near freedom ended. She had begged her parents to ground her instead. But they didn’t listen. They never listen.

  The Bent Fenders’ fall tour that Anthony worried wouldn’t pan out has and more. Invited to open for another band through the Midwest, Bent Fenders’ pre-breakout tour has been extended through October. After that, the band will meet up with Pure X in Kansas City for the Midwinter tour. Anthony will not return to River Valley until New Year’s. Everything is looking promising for him, not so much for Charlotte. The texts have been less and less frequent the further he’s gotten from River Valley. He promised her an actual call tonight. It’s been two weeks since they’ve spoken and Charlotte is unsure how the call will go. Probably like all the others, another backstage partial conversation, too noisy for any real context. She doesn’t know how much better a quiet call would be, though. Without the rumble and hum of sound checks, nothing but silence and their clear voices, time to think and speak, what will she say? What will he say? The brief backstage noise calls, ending without any sort of resolution, sustains their relationship. As purgatorial as it has become. She is still technically dating the hot musician, even if she doesn’t exactly remember his face. Plus, these frustrating calls offer an excuse for Charlotte to stay angry. Angry, but linked to someone, even if it’s to someone who doesn’t care enough to find a quiet room. Charlotte is tired of being fucked up over it. Tired of needing attention, and convincing herself that she doesn’t. Her loneliness, over the borders of pathetic, is all that keeps them “together.” And she’s over it.

  For the last few weeks, she’s been making an effort at distraction. Hanging out with Toni, surrounded by clueless laughing dolts, is almost better than being alone. The shows, the parties, the old faces are effective at distraction, sometimes. Listening to Toni’s newest favorite bands, catching up on the gossip about classmates distracts, but not entirely. She misses Anthony. The physical, of course, but more than that. Talking and listening in stolen mornings or through the late-night, post-show rendezvous. Even if it was mostly Charlotte listening to grand plans for the band’s future. On a few rare occasions, she shared her stories with him and he had listened. Always complimentary, even if he didn’t really get it all. He would shake his head, marveling at how she could “make all that stuff up like that.”

  Charlotte opens the passenger side door. A tinge of fresh peppermint, strong and familiar, cuts through the cigarette musk. Toni smiles, blurry eyed already. “I need a drink,” Charlotte says. Toni smiles, reaches under the driver seat, and pulls a half empty 750 mL bottle of peppermint Schnapps out by the neck. Handing it over, she grabs the Big Gulp from the center cup holder. Charlotte doesn’t have to guess where the other half of the bottle went. Schnapps and Sprite is Toni’s jam. Charlotte twists the cap and chugs down three mouthfuls until her throat burns. “Over it!” she says.

  “Fuck yaaa, bitch!” Toni says as she pops the car into reverse, bouncing back down over the curb.

  Charlotte had to get outside. The brash music and screaming of the party still ring in her ears. She sways a bit in the warm breeze and giggles about something she can’t remember. Something someone said, she thinks. It’s gone now, except for the funniness. Oh well. She pulls her phone from her pocket. One missed call, one voicemail, from forty five minutes ago. “Shit!” she says.

  She slides her thumb across the phone screen to open the voicemail, but doesn’t li
ft the phone to her ear. She just listens to the little voice from the tiny speaker in her hand, so far away. When she finally lifts the phone to her ear Anthony is most of the way through an annoyed message. She catches the end, “Call back when you have time, I guess.” Click. Charlotte drops the phone into her pocket and sucks in a deep breath of warm air. She wobbles over to the enormous Mulberry tree in the center of the yard. Looking up through its branches, she sits back hard against the trunk. Inside, the party rages on. A new song vibrates the glass of the sliding back door.

  She can’t decide if she should call back now or wait. There was no background noise in the message from Anthony, which means he found somewhere quiet to talk. The call was forty five minutes ago. He’s probably somewhere loud now, pissed that she didn’t pick up. He’ll be mopey. Mopey is bad. It means one syllable answers that will just make her angry. And not the kind of anger she wants to hold onto. Peeking up over the waves of the last jaeger shot, another possibility sticks its head out of drunken waters. Maybe he’s still somewhere quiet, but not alone.

  Charlotte rests her head against the trunk. If only autumn would get here, she thinks, drop through the tree limbs like a wave. Turn all the big leaves yellow in this and every tired windblown tree. Wash away the heat of this never-ending summer. Take the next hour with it, too. The call made, the boy released, the girl free to be really lonely, shivering in a sweaty tank top in a strange backyard starting her next chapter. A lonely winter chapter. That is what she wants. No more hot nights reminding her of the one in that other backyard all those months ago, that beautiful boy emerging from the dark to write a number on her in permanent ink that faded too quickly.

  She pushes his name on the screen and listens to the rings until the voicemail clicks on, “This is Anthony, leave it at the beep.” She considers hanging up, leaving it until tomorrow, letting it drag on another day. But she knows it is time. She thanks him for their time together, knowing it meant more to her than to him, tells him not to call back. Good luck, Anthony.

  When she clicks end, another breeze shakes the dark branches, a bit cooler this time maybe. She hopes.

  6

  The Great Divide

  High school hallway walking is a contact sport. Zain moves down the hall to his locker after second period Geography. He much prefers running around opponents to through them. But the halls of River Valley High School are so packed, so full of so many people, that avoiding running into people is impossible. The crowds build and multiply like storm clouds before the day’s first bell and spill out again from classroom doors like violent storms all throughout the day. No matter how fast he moves, no matter how clever his dodges, Zain always ends up brushing or slamming against strangers in the torrent. He thought the hectic violence of middle school was bad, but high school is much worse. The groups are bigger and so many of the students are impossibly huge. Even the girls, many of whom look like women (all of them ignoring him) are intimidating. Zain moves quickly toward the exit to the commons, skirting a group of bearded, broad-chested man boys, hand near his crotch, just in case. He opens the doors of the academic wing, breaking out into the dry air and sunshine space of the desert landscaped courtyard. He crosses it quickly, heading towards the Fine Arts wing.

  After scolding himself for not being more assertive the other night, Zain decided he would try again, with a new plan. Maybe Jackson has never been good at listening, but that doesn’t mean he should give up his oldest friend. Six years of friendship, laughter and bike rides and sleepover secrets. For none of it to matter now, just because they’re in high school, doesn’t feel right. He will make Jackson listen, not allow him to interrupt. Catching his friend in his new element, with his new group is risky, but it might work. Jackson will have to excuse himself from his theater friends to escape embarrassment, even if just to get rid of Zain. This will give him a few moments to state his case.

  Walking into the Fine Arts hallway is what Zain guesses it must be like to crash a wedding reception in a foreign country. People sing and dance and laugh and run from group to group with a private energy that he doesn’t understand, hasn’t been invited into. He looks over the crowds, but Jackson is nowhere to be found. Hopefully he’s not in the theater, Zain thinks. Just entering the Fine Arts hall is bad enough. Walking into the dark theater would be like interrupting a church service.

  Zain looks down the hall towards the Athletics wing. A group of big boys has gathered, probably football players. The narrow hall connecting the Athletics and Fine Arts wings houses a single set of empty lockers. Michael, the one Varsity runner who actually speaks to Zain, once called the hallway “The Great Divide.” Double doors out to the courtyard mark the separation between the jock’s indoor domain from that of the school’s performing artists, singers, and musicians. The carpet of the Fine Arts wing ends abruptly at the doors, changing to tile. From soft expression to a practical firmness, easy to mop. The hallway is usually empty. Athletes exiting quickly out the doors before the carpet. Actors staying away completely, entering and exiting their wing through the doors Zain came into today.

  He has only crossed the threshold once, on his first week, looking for the fastest route from the locker room to his first period class. He had accidently walked between two theater kids, running lines. Just as the actress turned, rushing across the carpet toward her scene partner, Zain had walked between them, unaware he was interrupting anything. The girl almost ran into him, her scene partner cursing at the disruption. The two stood with their arms crossed while Zain jogged out the south end doors. Since then, Zain leaves the locker room through the north doors, before the carpet, like the rest of the clueless jocks. A longer walk across the courtyard is worth avoiding another episode like that.

  The group of boys down the hall is yelling. Different than the clamor of the excited artists around him, the shouts from the divide are angry. A large boy pushes a smaller one from the group. The little one stumbles away, but stays standing. The larger boy, fat and powerful, lifts a finger, pointing angrily at the little one. The rest of the group closes in as a mass behind their big leader. Once the little one regains himself, he bounces on his toes. Something about those little bounces is familiar. Anytime he’s excited or scared, Jackson bounces just like that. The fat kid pushes the boy again, hard. The little one’s shoulder slams into a locker. He turns away from the group briefly, clutching his shoulder. Zain can see the kid’s face now. There is no doubt, it is Jackson.

  Zain doesn’t think, he just runs. Jackson is straightening up again, no bouncing now. The crowd at Zain’s back has grown quiet. The fat boy pokes a thick finger into Jackson’s chest. Zain can make out the jock group’s words now, “fucking faggot!” “You’re fucked now, bitch.” He sprints over the carpet. Jackson looks from face to face, holding his shoulder. He backs up against the empty lockers. Carpet turns to tile beneath Zain’s feet. The pusher’s hands clench into meaty fists. He cocks back an arm. Zain judges the distance and launches, knees up.

  Zain slams into the boy’s fat side, his hand smashing against a greasy, whisker stubble cheek. He and the big boy fall. The boy tumbles, his face hitting the tile with a slap. Zain lowers an arm and rolls back onto his feet quickly. The group of boys stand stunned, but only for a second. Then they descend. Zain raises his fists, trying to keep each of the boys in sight, but there are too many. A fist hits Zain’s left cheek like a brick. Then another to the stomach, forcing the air from his lungs. He falls back, tucking into a ball, one hand clenching his gut, the other covering his face. Someone kicks his shin, another foot slams into his tailbone. There is more yelling. The side of Zain’s head hits the ground as someone lands on him. More kicking. More yelling.

  Then it all stops.

  He can feel the group retreat, their shoes sliding back across the tile. The body on top of him remains, draped over Zain, covering as much as can be reached, shivering.

  Between the fingers twisted over his face, Zain makes out a standing figure,
separating the heaving group from the huddled mass on the ground. Thick, iron-scented soup drips from Zain’s nose, collecting on the cool tile. The body draped over him shakes, his hand squeezing Zain’s shoulder. The standing figure above them has his hands up in a half surrender, half pleading gesture. The muscles in his broad back tense and mound in hills beneath a thin t-shirt. He moves his head from one set of dark, hungry eyes to the next. The five boys who make up the rest of the group nod and ease their shoulders. The fat ringleader Zain slammed into is hunched, still tense. “Yo!” the standing figure yells. He bends over, taking the big boy by the neck, whispering something. The rest of the group disperses down the tiled hallway. Finally, the leader stands, looking at the guy who stopped the attack. Finally, he cocks his chin to the side, cracking his neck, relaxing. He looks over the broad-backed savior at Zain, and walks away.