by John Anthony
We polished the little apples on our shirtsleeves until the sun reflected in the shiny skin. I was convinced that the more you shined them, the juicier they’d get.
Cubby brought little packets of salt that his mom got from her job at the Busy Bee Diner. He set a few packets on the hard stone, and we licked a small spot on our apples with our tongues for the salt to stick. Then we gently tapped a bit of salt on the apple, but not too much, and took a bite. The salt made the apple both sweeter and more sour, a perfect combination.
We watched people, all dressed up and fancy, file into the church across the street for Saturday evening services. The adults didn’t pay attention to us, but most of the kids spotted us and gave us a jealous look, like they’d rather be sitting out there with us than inside with God.
Whenever we’d sit there, Cubby would always watch the people with a look in his eyes I could never understand, like he was trying to figure them out. He’d always watch until everyone had entered the front doors and the service started.
I took a bite of my apple.
“Do you think I’m different, Jack?” His voice was soft, and he kicked at the wall with the heel of his ratty oversized sneaker.
I might only be eleventeen, but I knew what he meant. It didn’t mean I knew what to say, though.
Of course he was different, but it didn’t matter. In my mind, he was no different from me than I was from him. Where it really mattered—deep under our skin, in our bones and guts—we were the same.
“We all are different,” I said with a nod. “Like you got black curly hair and mine’s straight and brown.”
Cubby shook his head. “I mean because I have brown skin and you have white. Does that mean I’m stupider than you?”
He looked at me then with that look in his eye, the one where someone was looking at you to make them feel complete and whole. Like it was up to you to make them feel needed and important.
“No way. You aced all your spelling tests last year.” Right then, that was the best I could come up with. But it was true. Cubby was younger than us and sometimes was a scaredy-cat, but he was smart.
He hung his head again and sniffled.
“I just mean,” I wiped at my mouth, “I don’t think no one is a lot smarter than anyone else.” I looked over at him, and he was watching cars drive by. “At least, no one should tell anyone they’re stupider. That’s just mean.”
“Why do you think they do it?”
I twisted the stem off my apple, trying to think. “Gee, I dunno.”
He lifted his chin to point with it toward the church. “You think they’re just pretending to be fancy people, or do you think they really are?”
I didn’t quite know what he meant, but there was something about the people over there he didn’t care for. “What’s that matter? They ain’t bugging us.”
Cubby shrugged and looked down at his hands, still holding his apple. He hadn’t taken a bite. “Is that where people go to get God to forgive ’em for the bad stuff they did?”
“I think so.” I nodded. “It’s called confession. You gotta go into a little room and say all the bad stuff you did.”
Cubby was looking at me now with wide eyes. “I never saw any cop cars, so maybe no one ever confesses to anything.”
“Nah, this is the different kind. Like to God, and then he forgives you if you say some prayers. But it’s only for not-important stuff.” I took another bite of my apple. “Not like stealing money or anything.”
Cubby nodded and wiped his nose with his forearm. “Do you think it takes away the bad feelings of what they did too? Like, do they forget?”
“Forget they did it?” I shook my head. “Nah.”
That was when I saw a tear welling up in Cubby’s eye.
“I think there’s some mean people over there.” His voice sounded a little angry now. “Sometimes it makes me want to do something like throw this apple at ’em.”
I didn’t know what to do or say. All I could do was listen.
“But I won’t,” he said. “Because I’m good. I’m a good boy.”
I nodded at him. Cubby was a good boy. He was the only boy I knew who didn’t even squash bugs. Because they were living creatures, he couldn’t hurt them. He picked up ants on the sidewalk and put them in the grass so no one would step on them.
A lot of that I think he got from his mom and dad. They were always taking care of people and not just thinking of themselves. At least, that’s how it seemed. Their house was always so happy to be in, his mom always smiling and his dad taking time to talk to each of us kids.
“Those corner boys.” Cubby looked at me. “The ones your granddad has to kick out of the store sometimes? They say things.”
He was talking about the hooligans from a couple of blocks down, the ones who’d showed up at the end of the block the day we had been sitting in front of Mrs. Tremont’s house.
“What kinda things?”
He took a bite of his apple and wiped his mouth with his sleeve. “Bad words about me. And Mom and Dad.”
“You know, if we tell Ryan—”
“No way,” Cubby said. “No one’s gonna go cause trouble on account of me.”
“Those boys don’t know nothing. Everything they say is just trying to be the meanest they can be. Isn’t no truth to it.”
Cubby looked over at the church. “Maybe not, but it hurts just the same.”
I remembered how Tommy had said, “It’s only words,” when Ryan was close to punching the head hooligan in the nose. Like words couldn’t do any damage. But it sure looked like they did with Cubby.
Confused, I asked, “But what’s the church got to do with it?”
He pointed across the street. “Because they go in there with their mom. Every Saturday and Sunday service.”
“That don’t mean all the people in there are bad, Cub. My granddad goes too. And my family does sometimes.”
He nodded. “I know. But someone should tell God he’s got some bad people in his house trying to pretend they’re good.”
“I think God looks at how you act more outside church, instead of how you act when you’re at his house. Everybody acts proper when they’re visiting someone’s house.”
Cubby slowly nodded, thinking about what I’d said. “It’s like you gotta dress up your manners when you go someplace fancy, just like your clothes do.” He turned to look at me. “And I keep my manners dressed up all the time, in front of God and everyone.”
I punched him lightly in the shoulder. “You’re still a spaz.”
Cubby chuckled, and it was like a balloon popped and things didn’t seem so tense. Everything was back to normal.
But I knew deep down that it wasn’t normal. There was something Cubby had tucked away, just like Tommy did with being angry about his dad. Something that would never disappear totally, and he’d always deal with. It made me realize that treating someone different made them feel bad, like they were less than they really are.
“Do you think we should go confess about stealing the apples?” Cubby looked back across the street.
“You kidding?” I laughed. “They’d lock us up for sure.”
“Just like on the cop shows.” Cubby laughed too, and we finished up our stolen apples.
“Slap jack, Cubby.” I held out my hand to him.
He swatted my hand with his. “Slap jack.”
Cubby and I sat in silence eating our apples for a little while, and then he looked at me. His eyes looked old and wise for a second, almost like Granddad’s.
“I’m gonna miss you when you move, Jack.” He nodded his head slowly. “You’re one of the good ones.”
In that moment, it occurred to me I might never see him again after we moved.
And I started to cry.
Chapter Eleven
Summer was coming to an end. The days were shorter, sunset arriving a little earlier every night. Streetlights came on well before bedtime now.
As the end of summer neared,
so did the day we’d be moving and leaving the neighborhood. It made my stomach queasy. I felt it in my gut every time I let the thought enter my head.
Over the years, Tommy and I had come up with a way to communicate after bedtime via flashlights from our bedroom windows. Slow flashes were to get each other’s attention. We could spell out letters sometimes. A back and forth motion meant no, and up and down meant yes. Quick flashes meant meet me in the backyard right away.
That night I delivered quick flashes, and Tommy responded with an up-and-down.
I crept out of my bedroom, avoiding the squeaky part of my floor so Mom wouldn’t know I was sneaking out. Quietly, I opened the front door and stepped out onto the front stoop, and pulled the door closed enough to stick in the jamb, but not enough to latch. Then I sneaked around the side of the house and sat on the grass to wait for Tommy in the backyard.
Owls hooted, and although the moonbeams were bright, they didn’t quite reach into the shadowy corners of the yard. I was sure something was there, waiting to pounce on me with fangs glistening.
Thankfully I heard Tommy’s back screen door slam, and saw the beam from his flashlight sweeping across the yard.
Why do I always forget to bring my flashlight?
“Must be important since you’re out at vampire time.” He held the flashlight under his chin and let out a sinister laugh.
“Knock it off, you goof.”
He plopped down next to me and nudged me. “Gotta get the rest of my scares in before you move.”
I scowled. “That’s what I’m scared of. I don’t wanna go.”
Tommy turned off the flashlight and looked up at the stars. “Seen the new house yet?”
His voice was so matter-of-fact. It scared me how easy the new house came up these days. Almost as normal as talking about comic books or monster movies.
I shook my head. “I told Mom I didn’t want to. She said it’s got a decent yard, and we’ll all have our own rooms.”
Tommy nodded, picking at weeds in the lawn. “How long a bike ride you think it is?”
He didn’t look up, but the hurt in his voice was clear. I didn’t know what to do about it.
“Long, I guess.”
He tossed a handful of weeds into the yard and rested his arms on his knees. “Nothing’s too far.”
“What’s that mean?”
“It means if it’s too far for you to come here, I’ll go to you.”
I chuckled. “Dad says he’ll give me rides to your house, you dork.”
When Tommy looked at me, I realized this wasn’t about me moving. It was about me maybe not coming back, and about not trusting adults and what they said to kids.
“Your dad’s probably telling the truth,” he said. “He’s good.”
The darkness wrapped around us as we sat there, saying nothing for a while. It was those quiet times in between everything else that you got to sit and think, and let the real important stuff sink into you and make sense. Those were the moments when you figured out who you were.
After a while, we both lay back and stared up at the stars. Two shooting stars shot across the sky, and we were able to point out many of the constellations, including Orion the Hunter. That one was our favorite because it always stood so tall and proud in the night sky.
It’s time to say what you wanted to say, Jack.
“I’m sorry your dad left, Tommy.” I had never said that before, never even mentioned it, but it felt right to say it now. Like it needed to be said before I moved away.
Tommy froze and didn’t say anything. Maybe I’d said the wrong thing.
“I mean—” I swallowed hard. “’Cause you had to grow up fast.”
Tommy shrugged. “It’s okay. You still got your dad, so your job is gonna be a lot easier.”
I drew back slightly. “Huh? What do you mean?”
The darkness hid his eyes. “I mean you won’t need to be more grownup than you’re supposed to be.” He sat up and tossed a pebble into the yard. “And you won’t have no reason to be mad all the time.”
Confused, I sat up to lean on my elbows. “You’re not mad all the time.”
“I don’t show it,” he said. “But I get mad sometimes. Not like before.”
“You mean when you didn’t come around to hang out for a while?”
He nodded. “When I was mad, I wanted other people to feel bad too. I guess because it felt like it wasn’t fair. That’s what Mom said.” He swiped at his cheek with his forearm. “I believe her; she makes sense of stuff. So I stayed home until I could be happy.”
That got me wondering about the times I’d been angry and lashed out. It never made me feel better to be mean, but that always seemed like the thing that was quickest to rise to the surface.
Granddad always said that mad stuff jumped out of you first, so it was always best to wait until you knew it was gone before you did anything.
“That why you got mad at me when I asked why you always have to help Steph?”
Tommy took a deep breath and nodded. “Yeah. ’Cause sometimes it feels like I gotta be older and stop being a kid.”
Suddenly, it all made sense. Tommy felt like his time being a kid was being cut short. He was being robbed. And it was his dad who did it to him by leaving.
“We still do kid stuff,” I said. “Even after we move, we’ll still do kid stuff.” I hope.
Tommy nodded and looked up, his eyes a little glassy in the moonlight. “Yeah, sometimes. And that’s good.” Then he sniffed hard and nudged me. “And we’ll start talking about girls more too.”
“Like Becky,” I said, giving him a sly look. “Becky, Becky, Becky.”
Tommy’s eyes grew wide. Guess he was surprised I’d figured out who he liked. Then he laughed. “Oh boy, you’re gonna suffer as soon as I find out someone you like.”
“So, you gonna kiss her?”
He pulled back. “Whoa now, hold your horses, Jacko. Don’t go getting all crazy.”
“Isn’t that what happens when you like girls?”
“Maybe later, like when I’m Ryan’s age, but right now it’s just—” He scratched his head. “I dunno.”
“Then why do you wanna talk about them with me?”
“Because I’m still figuring it out too, you goof.”
I lay back down and tucked my arms behind my head. “What’s it like to have a brother?”
“Dunno. Never thought about it.” Tommy shrugged and lay back. “Why?”
“’Cause I wished for one, and just wonder what it’s like.”
“Ryan’s a lot older than me. He likes different stuff than us.”
“You never wanted a brother our age?”
“Why would I?” He sat up on his elbow and gave me a light punch. “That’s what I got you and Cubby for.”
I thought about what Granddad had said. Maybe it was closer to true than I’d realized.
“Is that what you dragged me out here in the middle of the night for?” Tommy turned on his flashlight and shined it into the dark corners of the yard. “When all the monsters are out and hiding in the bushes for us?”
Ignoring his taunts, I asked, “Do you really think so?” I looked into the night sky and watched as the stars twinkled above us. “That we’re brothers. Close to real?”
“We’ve known each other our whole lives. And I can’t remember a time that you weren’t there. So, yeah. Pretty darn close to real.” He stood up and held out his hand, palm up. “Slap jack, you goof.”
I sat up, leaned on one elbow, and slapped his palm. “Slap jack.”
“Okay, I’m out.” He snapped his fingers. “I don’t want to be out too long, in case Steph wakes up afraid.”
“But it ain’t storming or nothing.”
“Yeah, but ever since Dad left . . .” He looked away for a second, then waggled his flashlight. “Want me to walk you to your front door with my flashlight?”
“Nah, it’s okay.”
He nodded as he wandered off, calling int
o the darkness, “Come on, all you creepy monsters in the bushes. Follow me. Jack ain’t got no meat on his bones anyhow.” He turned the flashlight in my direction. “Run, you goof. I got them coming after me.” His voice lowered, becoming more dramatic and intense like on TV. “Run, Jacko. Run.”
So I ran.
Chapter Twelve
It was one of those days I needed to let things simmer, but instead of crawling under the pine tree, I decided to walk across the street to Mr. Shaw’s lumberyard. Watching all the men working and cutting down huge boards into smaller pieces was a great way to forget about everything else for a while.
Grandma used to say, “The best advice usually comes from the people who don’t look like you do.” And that was certainly true of Mr. Shaw. He might have looked gruff and scary to someone who didn’t know him—like he did to me when I first saw him—but he was a kind and gentle man. And he was chock full of wisdom.
Plus, he was good to us neighborhood kids. We loved that he’d invite us into the lumberyard to show us interesting scraps they’d cut that day, or let us rifle through the scrap bin.
I always loved running my hands through the heaps of pillowy sawdust covering the discarded pieces of oak and pine in that bin. It was like wooden snow. If you cupped it in your hand, it was a soft cloud, and you could delicately touch it with your finger and leave a small indent. But you had to be careful, because if you were too rough with it, you were just left with a moist, useless clump of wooden pulp.
“Only time in your life,” Mr. Shaw told us, “that you can leave a dent in wood with just your finger.”
With Mr. Shaw’s permission, we kids could walk in and start rummaging through the scrap bin on our own. It was a short walk from the side entrance to the bin, and we’d have to walk carefully past a couple of the guys cutting long boards on giant saws, so as not to get hurt or cause someone else to get hurt. The concrete floor was smooth, and little piles of sawdust usually sat in the corners, freshly swept from under the saw blades.
The bin itself was just an area under a large wooden table that had been boxed in with larger boards. We could kneel on the floor and rummage through it. The scraps ranged from small finger-sized ends to pieces as tall as we were. Some had interesting shapes, but most were just straight-sided. Every so often we’d see a rounded edge and think that was something special, so we’d pull it out to do something with it. It was an awesome moment when you found a perfect square, like you’d walked in and asked for it to be cut special, just for you.
