“Da-ad,” I whine, though I know I shouldn’t. “Da-ad, that bite was huge! You said you wouldn’t take a daddy bite.”
He shrugs. “It was a daddy bite. But Daddy’s paying.” He rubs my head and squishes my hat and I can’t help but smile. “It’s your birthday—if you want another, we can get another. You can take a daddy bite from my ice cream.”
I look up at him. “Thanks,” I say, and I don’t mean about the ice cream. I mean about the game. I tell him that.
He rubs my head again, then turns back to the game, so I do, too. I’m out of ice cream but it doesn’t matter. Chase Utley is up to bat and the bases are loaded and the field is still green. I hope the game goes into extra innings so we can stay longer. Somebody should tell the players that they can play longer if the score is tied. And someone should tell the guy who starts the wave that I’m ready for another round.
* * *
It’s summer. A few months later. We’re watching home movies. My mom is next to me on the sofa. We’re sharing a large blanket with a tiger on it because the air conditioner is turned up high. Even though it’s freezing, my dad is in the kitchen eating his third ice cream sandwich. He has taken more than a few daddy bites. But he’s not joking or laughing about it. “Stupid paper wrapper,” he mutters. “Always getting stuck to the sandwich.”
My mom fast-forwards to her favorite scene: she’s in a red rocking chair, cradling me as an infant, rubbing the top of my head while singing about how I am her sunshine.
I want her to finish the song but my dad is making too much noise crumpling up his wrapper. My mom presses Pause and we both tell him to “Shhhh.”
He looks confused. “What? I’m not allowed to throw out my garbage?”
“Honey—” she starts, but my dad has already stormed out of the room.
“Mom?” I ask.
“Yes, my sunshine?” She rubs the top of my head and I let her, even though I’m now ten years old, nine years older than I am in the home movie.
“What’s wrong with Dad?” I ask.
“He’s sad,” she says.
“Why is he sad?”
She closes her eyes.
“Mom?” I ask.
“Yes, my sunshine?”
“Do you wanna finish the movie?”
She smiles, presses Play.
* * *
It’s Tuesday, September 12th, still technically summer, but fifth grade started a week ago and I’m as mad as a fire-breathing dragon. So is my mom. We’re both as mad as fire-breathing dragons, and the temperature inside my mom’s car is as hot as a fire-breathing dragon’s breath.
A gas attendant is sweating through his backward hat, filling up a red car to the left of ours. I’m in the backseat, wearing mesh shorts. My legs are sweaty and stuck to the cracked leather seats. My mom won’t turn around and look at me because I’m the one that turned her into a fire-breathing dragon, which makes my legs even sweatier, and the gas attendant won’t look at my mom, which makes her breath even fierier, but I don’t care that she’s angry because I don’t understand why she won’t listen to what happened to me at school and why I came home late.
My day was going fine, just fine. Manny and I played paper football during lunch, we had a substitute in history class, and my English teacher, who has a great sense of humor, said I have a great sense of humor and announced that I wrote the best and funniest similes and metaphors in the entire grade, but then in science Mike Whitman got assigned as my lab partner, and instead of doing the experiment he flung rubber bands across the room, and the teacher, Mrs. Skidich, kept us both for detention. “You are lab partners,” she said. “The key word being ‘partners.’” I said that I didn’t choose my partner, which I thought was a great point, but Mrs. Skidich raised her right hand, her symbol for silence. “Sometimes, Denny, in life, we have to do things we don’t want to do,” she said. “Sometimes we have to take responsibility for our actions.”
“But they weren’t my actions!” I yelled, which I thought was another excellent point, but Mrs. Skidich got so angry—“offended,” she said—at the level of my voice that she kept me for thirty minutes longer than Mike Whitman. I said it wasn’t fair—I didn’t even yell it—but she raised her hand and said, “Sometimes, Denny, life isn’t fair.”
The gas attendant with the backward hat is finally walking over to our car. His biceps look swollen, like they got stung by a whole family of bees on a family picnic in Stingsville. The gas attendant doesn’t go to Stingsville. He goes to Blueberry Hills High School. It says that on his school football shirt. I wish I were in high school, where students pick their own lab partner and teachers don’t raise their hands like queens to silence students.
Stupid Mike Whitman. Stupid Mrs. Skidich. I hope they’re both having miserable afternoons. I hope their cars run out of gas on the side of the road and their legs get so sweaty that they get permanently stuck to the seats. And when the police arrive, they’ll say they need to use the Jaws of Life to separate their sweaty, stuck legs from the seats. And when Mike Whitman and Mrs. Skidich put up a fight, the police will tell them, “Sometimes, in life, we have to do things we don’t want to do. Sometimes we have to take responsibility for our actions.”
“What can I get you, ma’am?” the gas attendant asks.
I wish I were big and strong with swollen bee-sting biceps so that I could pound Mike Whitman’s face in. I wouldn’t hit Mrs. Skidich because I don’t hit females, but I’d yell loud enough to wake a whole family of bees way out in Stingsville.
“Fill it—” My mom’s voice is cracking like cracks on the street would if they could talk. “With regular.”
I know she’s upset, more upset than she normally gets about picking me up late from school, but I don’t want to ask her what’s wrong because she should’ve listened to my story before blaming me. She should’ve asked me what’s wrong.
Stupid Mike Whitman and Mrs. Skidich, that’s what’s wrong. And my mom not listening to my story. Well, now I’m not listening to her. The battle is on, like we’re playing Battleship in the middle of an important battlefield and I have the coolest battle scars ever invented, and I will outlast my mom and not ask what’s wrong.
My mom is making crying noises. I think it’s a real cry, but maybe she’s just trying to win the battle. I lean forward and put my ear against the back of her seat and listen closely. It’s definitely a real cry. She sounds like a sheep would if a sheep could cry like a human mom, and I’m happy about this because it means that she’s probably really mad at Mrs. Skidich for ruining her afternoon, and then my mom will be on my team, Team Mad at Mrs. Skidich, and everything will be okay.
“Do you want your receipt, ma’am?” the gas attendant asks.
I squint one last look at his bee-sting biceps and promise myself to lift weights once I’m old enough for them not to stunt my growth. Sweats sticks to my forehead. The air is so thick I could swim home from here. But I think I’d get lost. I have a terrible sense of direction when I’m swimming and always bump into the ropes or wall or people.
My mom takes the receipt and rolls up the window.
I don’t want to lose the battle, but I can’t help but put my hand on her bony shoulders. They’re shaking—no, shivering, like a ghost after an outdoor shower in the back of a beach house in a season other than summer.
“Mom, what’s wrong?” I ask.
She shakes her head. I hope it’s nothing really serious, like Dad getting fired from his job and thrown in a pit of fire or getting breathed on by fire-breathing dragons. Okay, I know fire-breathing dragons aren’t really real, but in the third grade my classmate’s dad was fired and I’m pretty sure he was thrown in a pit of fire.
“Mom, I’m sorry about what happened in school,” I tell her, abandoning my battle plan. “I shouldn’t have yelled at Mrs. Skidich. I’m sorry.”
It’s not working and she’s starting to scare me because she never cries in public and we’re definitely in public. The green car be
hind us honks and a guy wants us to move the hell out of the way. “Hey, move the hell out of the way.” That’s what he says. He wants to get gas, too. He sticks his arm out the window and honks again. He has a lot of arm hair. I want to punch him for yelling at my mom, but people with a lot of arm hair can usually beat me up (with their fists, not their arm hair).
“Mom, wanna hear a joke?” I ask.
“Honey—” She reaches for a tissue.
“But, Mom, it’s a really good one. It’s clean, I promise.”
Another honk from the green car and a shout to “C’mon, move it!”
I shoot him the stare of death, and though my eyes are like a thousand daggers rolled into two, it doesn’t kill him. It doesn’t even make him blink. He honks again, this time longer, much longer, so long that I think his horn got stuck, like how my mom always told me my eyes would get if I rolled them back too far.
“Mom, don’t worry about him,” I tell her. “He’s just having a bad day. Like me. Okay, Mom? Don’t worry. Don’t worry about anything.”
I know it’s unfair, like life, to keep the green car waiting, but Mrs. Skidich said that life isn’t fair, so he can just stay there all day—
“Denny—” she says, between breaths.
The horn stops, then starts again, like a song or a car or a bicycle or a motorcycle or an air conditioner or an alarm that stops and then starts again.
I don’t think she even hears the horn because she turns around and looks at me. Her eyes look old. Tired. They don’t look anything like a fire-breathing dragon’s eyes, unless it’s an old, tired fire-breathing dragon with no more fire in her belly or throat.
“Denny,” she says. “I’m sick.”
THE WITNESS
Manny’s absence from school puts a damper on the day’s candy sales, but on the bright side, it gives me more of a chance to learn. On the dark side, I am still a middle school prisoner. In line again. This time in the back because Sabrina, a witness to the Natural Schmoozer’s latest restaurant breakdown, is the last person I want to see, and she’s at the front of the line. But after Mr. Morgan, the S.U.O.G.E., greets us and reminds us to check our hormones at the door, his order comes down fast and swift, like the ax of a lumberjack. In a red woolen sweater, which makes him look even more like a lumberjack, he pulls me aside on the way in and reads me a verdict that smells of coffee. “I know you’ve been dealing with a lot, but you must work like a contributing member of the human species on this project with Sabrina, in and out of school, Denny, or you will get an F.”
“Fine by me, Mr. Morgan. My middle name is Frank. F for Frank.”
He tilts his shades down. “If you don’t pass English, you will repeat the course, probably in summer school.”
“That’s okay, Mr. Morgan. I wouldn’t mind spending some more time with you.”
“Wish I could say the same.”
“Classic Mr. Morgan!”
I force a laugh.
He keeps a really good straight face.
As we enter the room and he reminds everyone to sit silently, I say to him, “You’re just playing, right, Mr. Morgan?”
He points to his HOMEY DON’T PLAY THAT sign.
“But, Mr. Morgan, we’re homeys, remember?”
* * *
Apparently Mr. Morgan is getting old and forgets obvious things such as the fact that we’re homeys, which is why, hours after a class full of Mr. Morgan’s gentle prodding to do group work—“NOW, DO IT NOW, OR FINISH TOGETHER FOR HOMEWORK”—while I try to avoid Sabrina’s eyes the same way my dad and I did at the restaurant, I am standing on her driveway in the freezing cold, looking at my breath. (Dear February, please leave.)
I thank my dad for the ride. He says, “Sure, no problem, it was my pleasure. Glad to help out,” and then I stop fantasizing and hear him grunt and watch him drive off, his old Buick coughing a cloud of smoke down the street.
Sabrina’s house is a ranch like mine, painted white with blue shutters. There’s a white cat on the steep roof that scares the bejesus out of me. It’s right in the middle, looking down with its blue eyes, and it’s not even moving because it’s so scared, and I know what I must do. I’m going to rescue it and save the day like a fireman or a lumberjack who fights fires in his spare time and—
“It’s not real,” she says, pushing the screen door open.
She’s wearing a gray sweatshirt, flannel pants, and blue dolphin slippers.
“Of course not,” I say, playing it cool. “Please, don’t be ridiculous. Slippers made out of real dolphin? Come on! But we really should hurry because—”
“The cat,” she says. “It’s not real. It’s made of ceramic.”
“What—oh, pshhh, don’t you think I know? Please, I love ceramics. I love painting ceramics at Color Me Mine. I’m a regular there. I have my own cup of paintbrushes. There’s a shelf of my finished artwork displayed as examples.”
She smiles and brushes her hair to the side. She has hazel eyes. She’s pretty and wearing no makeup. I don’t know what to do next but I hope it has nothing to do with breathing.
“Come in,” she says, so I do.
Her house reminds me of Mr. Morgan’s classroom except I don’t need to wait in line. It’s neat and clean and smells like chamomile. It feels like a home. The fridge is covered with ribbons and tests with big fat A’s, and at the top, a chore chart, with names and tasks and an orange pointer. Today is Wednesday and Sabrina has bathroom duty.
“Hey, Sabrina, I hope there aren’t any duties during bathroom duty, if you know what I’m sayin’, know what I’m sayin’.”
I know it’s immature, but the way she looks at me makes me nervous and I’ve never really been to a girl’s house before, alone, and can’t help myself. Besides, I’m grasping for anything to keep the conversation away from Hunan Palace.
“Remember, honey, there are cookies in the oven,” says a motherly voice from down the hall. So much for the house to ourselves. “And remember, Sabrina, what we talked about. You need to leave your door open.”
“O-kay!” Sabrina shouts, blushing.
“Just joking,” I tell her. “About the duty. As you know, I like to joke. Love it. Lots of people think I’m an expert at it, that I should become a professional comedian.”
“Interesting,” she says. “I haven’t yet met those people.”
“Ha! Classic! Sounds like something I’d say.”
“This way.” She leads me down a long foyer with wooden shutters, past a massage chair in the den, the walls covered in photos. Sabrina as an infant with two front teeth. At Disney World, wearing a Goofy hat, flanked by smiles. At a dance recital in a white leotard and pigtails. Halloween, in a Wonder Woman costume with a bag full of candy. She and her dad at a Phillies game with matching red hats. At a picnic eating an ice cream cone with rainbow sprinkles, children running through grass around a statue of—
“Is that Lincoln Elementary?” I ask, though I already know the answer.
She leans in. She smells of strawberry shampoo. “I love that picture,” she says, beaming. “Yeah, school picnic.”
“I remember that day,” I tell her. “All the moms were there—”
My chest hurts, like someone took an ice cream scooper to it and dug away.
She smiles. “My mom hates this picture because she’s leaning over in the background. She never thought that when she leaned over in her mom jeans to pick up that Sprite bottle she’d be immortalized that way.”
I squint for a better view. A wide blue butt is right over Sabrina’s shoulder. “Classic!” I shout, which makes her laugh. “Now that’s what I call butting into the picture. It’s almost as if she posed for that shot.”
To the left of Sabrina’s mom’s butt, two children throw a ball, and a woman cleans cookies off a small table of food. She has pink glasses, she—
Has on pink earrings, the ones I got for her birthday, and auburn hair, all of it, before the chemotherapy took it away. She—
Is weari
ng a Simpsons T-shirt, with Bart and a cartoon bubble reading “Don’t have a cow, man.” The sun is shining. It’s a beautiful day and everyone is healthy and playing and carefree and I’m not even in the picture, which means I’m not even near her. I was probably playing baseball, and I just left her alone to clean up after a bunch of sweaty children. I never looked around to see if she needed help and I never took a second to look around to see how good I had it. If I’d known she’d get sick, I’d have glued myself to her Siamese-style and never left her side. I’d clean up after myself and we’d watch movies—no, we’d do stuff together, talk more about our days and interests and dreams and hobbies and fears. She’d come to school with me and I’d get the best grades in the whole class because she’s so smart and I’d be smart, too, because we’d read the same books, even the ones that sound boring and lame and confusing in the first chapter. I’d hold on to the books and I’d hold on to her and appreciate things more, everything, sunsets and—
“Come,” she says. “This is my room.”
I breathe in, but it feels like someone slammed the door on my lungs.
“Are you coming?”
“Yeah, I—”
“It’s not that funny. I mean, I know the mom jeans are great, but— Are you okay?”
I nod.
“You sure?”
“Yeah, just got a little dizzy, that’s all.”
She doesn’t look convinced but ushers me into her room anyway, leaving the door open. The floor is lined with light purple carpet. There are teddy bears on her bed, a desk that’s cleaner than Mr. Morgan’s, a foldout table with a slice of pineapple pizza, a can of Cherry Coke, and a laptop playing a Bruce Springsteen song. Even that doesn’t cheer me up, not that it’s a cheery song. My dad plays it all the time, which is all you need to know about the mood of the song. But still, thinking of Bruce, I know I need to perform. I can’t let her see this side of me.
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