Authors: William Alton
G
RASS LIES IN
the pasture, long, like a carpet along the creek where the water runs over the bank in the winter and spring. Trees grow along the bank here with their leaves held up to the sky like the hands of children at a parade, reaching for the candy thrown from the floats. I walk and think and listen to the wind making music in the brambles.
Wild thoughts pillage my mind. I think of all the times I should've said something clever, but stayed silent and all of the times when I should've stayed silent but said something stupid. My tongue tastes of ash and cramps turn my belly. I walk and listen to the creek running over the stones in its bed. If I were to die right now, no one would mourn me. They'd shake their heads and say things like: “I saw this coming,” and “It's no surprise.”
Sparrows and starlings fill the sky with their wings. Ravens tear at the carcass of a 'possum back beneath the trees. It would be easy to lie down here and simply stop my heart. I have a knife with a sharp blade that would let the blood flow from long furrows in my wrists or push
through the skin and muscle of my middle and open the liver and stomach to the air. I walk and imagine myself half covered with leaves, waiting for the final darkness.
I light a cigarette and swallow the acrid smoke. I drink the last of the six pack I brought with me. I am not drunk, but I am not sober either.
How do you go on when there is nothing real in the world? My life is filled with people and they cannot touch me. They cannot do more than throw words at me and their words mean little or nothing, just pebbles of sound and some kind of meaning, but nothing I can understand. I do not speak their language. I cannot tolerate the way their eyes focus on me. They want me to be with them. They want me to become part of their lives. I don't know how. Even when we fuck or hug we're separate. Something invisible and intangible stands between us.
Somewhere someone sounds the horn of their car. I stop and turn toward the house. I can't stand the loneliness anymore. Each step is a marathon, each breath heavy and wet. My lungs burn and the muscles in my thighs feel watery. Soon, I'll just lie down and if I'm lucky, I'll sleep.
E
D RUNS AWAY
from home. She comes to my door with a bag of clothes and a fat, bloody lip. She looks more pissed than hurt, but the blood worries me.
“I need a few days,” she says. “My dad says I have to stop seeing you.”
“Me?”
“Us.”
I take her to my room and we sit on the bed. I want to touch her face, but it looks too sore.
“I have to talk to my mom,” I say.
“I thought you did what you wanted.”
“I do, but this isn't my house. I just live here.”
Mom and Grandma sit in the dining room drinking coffee.
“Just a few days,” I say.
“Where will she sleep?” Mom says.
“I can sleep on the floor.”
“There's the couch,” she says.
“The floor is better.”
“No sex?”
“I don't know.”
“You can't just move your girlfriend in here,” she says.
“She's not my girlfriend.”
They look at each other and I can see the hesitance there.
“You're not old enough for this,” Mom says.
“I've been old enough for a while,” I say. “You haven't been paying attention.”
“How long?” she asks.
“A week,” I say. “Maybe more.”
“You have to be careful.”
“I'm always careful.”
Back in my room, Ed is curled on the bed. Her eyes are closed and her fingers rest on her busted lip. The air whistles through her nose and she seems so fragile. Ed isn't generally a fragile girl. She gets what she wants when she wants it. She fights hard to seem tough, but all it takes is sleep to soften the edges she keeps so sharp when she's awake.
I stand at the foot of the bed and watch her dream. Her eyes flutter and her mouth works. I wonder what's going through her head. I wonder what she dreams of when she's sleeping. I can't wake her. I write a note and leave it on the pillow next to her head.
You can stay,
I write.
A week, maybe longer.
I turn away and go to the living room and stare at the television. I have nothing to do and no one to talk to, so I stare at the actors with their problems that only last thirty minutes. None of it makes sense. Real trouble seldom resolves the way we want. Real trouble tends to follow you around, souring the day, making sleep impossible. I wonder how long Ed's trouble will last. I close my eyes. Sometimes if you pretend everything's okay you can fool yourself for a while. You fool yourself into thinking that the world isn't out to get you.
I
WALK THROUGH
the hospital. The air smells of disinfectant and floor wax. Lights eat the shadows. Nurses and doctors, patients and families stand around, go from room to room. We're waiting for Harold to die. I don't want to be here, but he's been asking for me. It's as if he cannot die without taking a piece of me with him.
“You're a good boy,” he says.
His skin is pale and thin and yellow. Blood vessels pulse blue in his throat, his temples, the backs of his hands. Pain and morphine make him thin and misty. I stand at the foot of the bed waiting for him to say what he has to say.
“I love you,” he says.
Our secret is not a secret here.
“You should sleep,” I say.
My belly hurts now. My mouth tastes of bile and ash. I want a cigarette. I want to walk away, leave the hospital, go home and do something to forget the smell of shit and soap. A nurse comes and checks the IV. She shoots a
syringe of something into the line and he smiles. His hands flutter. His face is loose and wrinkled.
“I taught you things,” he says.
It's over now. There is no love here. Not for me. He drifts away. His chest rises and falls and his teeth whistle. I stand and stare and the nurse tells me he's going to be out for a while. I walk away. All the people in the hall know nothing about me. They know nothing about Harold. For a moment, I feel him moving in me. I tense and my belly hurts and I walk out to the parking lot to be alone. I light a cigarette and wonder, is this love? Is this what it feels like to tie your life inescapably to someone? I wish he'd just die and let memory take over where he left off.
The sunlight is clear and hot. Cars come and go. An ambulance pulls up to the entryway, lights flashing, but no siren. Sparrows peck through the grass in the verge.
“Do you think he meant it?” I ask, aloud to no one in particular. “Do you think we'll ever forget?”
I know the answer already. I'll never forget. Not in this lifetime.
“W
E HAVE TO
talk,” Bekah says.
I don't know what to say. I sit in the Commons eating a burrito that tastes mostly of saw dust and under done rice.
“I'm late,” she says.
“Late?”
“I pissed on a stick,” she says.
“Oh.”
“I need to go to a doctor.”
“Jesus.”
“You're the only guy I've been with,” she says.
“Fuck.”
“Exactly.”
I stare out the window.
“What do you want to do?” I ask.
“I don't know.”
“You're sure?”
“No,” she says. “That's why I need to see a doctor.”
“Sonofabitch.”
“I can't go to my regular doctor,” she says. “He'll tell my mom.”
“You're going to have to tell her eventually.”
“But not right now.”
My mind is a jumble of thoughts and images. I see blood and bruises. I see a fight coming.
“Are you going to keep it?” I ask.
She stares at me. My skin crawls and I want to go back and swallow the words. Blood rushes to my face. I can hear my heart beating, thump, thump, thump.
“I don't know,” she says.
She sits with me.
“I thought we were in love,” she says.
“Oh.”
“But then you turned out wrong,” she says.
“I'm not the right guy for you.”
“No.”
“I'll help out though,” I say. “With whatever.”
“Just find me a doctor.”
“I'll do my best.”
“Do better,” she says. “This is important.”
I nod. I don't know about love, but I know this was not how things were supposed to work. How am I supposed to find a doctor? I don't even know where to look. Everything feels brittle now, breakable. Everything hinges on the next couple of weeks. My whole life could
change just because I didn't mind myself for a few minutes. If I die right now I'll burn in hell, if there is a hell. I don't know. I don't know anything. I'll look for something in the phone book. I don't even know what kind of doctor she needs. I'll find an answer one way or another. I'll figure it out. I close my eyes and watch the red and green paisley spinning there. I need a beer. I need to get high. Nothing's too bad when I'm high. I can forget things for hours at a time. There's no forgetting this though.
Words come to me. Parenthood, pregnancy, babies, plans, abortions, doctors. They're all there, in the phone book. Planned Parenthood. I don't know what that means, but it's the first call I make. I'm lucky. They know the answers to all my questions. I just wish I knew what questions needed answering.
I make an appointment for Bekah. They ask if I'm the father.
“Not yet,” I say.
“What's that mean?” they ask.
“I don't know what's happening,” I say. “I'm learning as I go.”
“It would be best if you came with her,” they say.
“I'll be there,” I say. “I need to know what's happening.”
“It's all confidential,” they say.
I tell Bekah about the appointment. She nods and touches my face.
“Are you okay?” she asks.
“Not really.”
“You should try this side of it,” she says.
“I don't think so.”
“You have it so easy,” she says. “My own body's turned against me.”
“I can't imagine,” I say.
“Me either,” she says and walks away. I watch her go. It seems that the only time I see her anymore is when she's walking away. It seems to be my lot to only see the backside of things, the side of things that have already happened and have moved to the point that I can do nothing to help or change it. I watch Bekah turn the corner and wonder if she'll ever forgive me. I wonder if I'll ever forgive myself.
H
AROLD DIES IN
the morning before the sun rises, before anyone's awake. He dies alone. John John's mom takes us to the hospital to see the body. We touch his face and push his hair off his forehead.
Something washes over me. I don't know what it is. Maybe it's relief. Maybe it's sadness. Maybe a little of both.
The funeral is in the afternoon days later. The church is mostly empty. Harold had few friends. People didn't like him much. Some family comes to town and we all sit in the pews at the front of the church and the preacher reads from the Bible. The preacher didn't know Harold. He has no memories to sustain his sermon. He tries to comfort us, but the words are empty. We sit through the service and drive out to the cemetery and stand in the sunlight, the grass pressing up against our feet.
When he's finally in the ground, we go back to the house and eat. There's all kinds of food, meatloaf, potatoes, salads, beer and wine. John John and I take a couple of beers out to the yard. We smoke and watch the
chickens pecking at the ground, the sparrows wing through the afternoon light.
“I can't believe it's over,” John John says.
I sit in the grass. Clouds move through the summer sky like water moving over stones.
“When was the last time he kissed you?” he says.
“Weeks,” I say. “Months maybe.”
“I'm not a faggot anymore,” he says.
“I still miss him.”
“I know.”
“Do you think people know?”
“About him?”
“All of it.”
“I hope not.”
“I want to tell someone.”
“That's not a good idea.”
“I know.”
After a bit, he goes inside. He disappears and I sit in the yard. In the field below the house buzzards circle and drop into the grass. I smash an ant, a beetle. Today everything dies. Today no one gets out intact.
R
AIN COMES AFTER
a long dry spell. The wind is sharper now and the mountains stand on the horizon, green against the gray sky. Bekah drives us to the appointment. The blood work came back two weeks ago. She is definitely pregnant. She drives us to the clinic in sweats and I'll drive us home. No one knows what we're doing. We don't know what to expect. The clinic stands on a busy road and we park behind the building.
“You sure you want to do this?” I ask.
She looks at me. Her face is plain, without makeup and her eyelids seems a little swollen. Her eyes are wet. Tears seem to stand there, but they do not fall. We walk to the door and go inside.
The waiting room is empty. Posters and pamphlets hang on the wall. She goes to reception and checks in.
“We can still go home,” I say.
She shakes her head.
“I want to help,” I say.
She picks up a magazine and sits in a chair. She hasn't spoken to me since she got the results of the test back. She
seems to think this is my fault. She seems to think that I was the only one there when this happened. She's forgotten that we were friends once.
A nurse comes and walks her into the back. I go out to the street and smoke a cigarette. Cars and people go by without thinking once that a girl is killing her baby. They don't think about those things. Everyone's wrapped up in doing what they need to do to get through the day. I wonder what she's told her folks. Will I need to keep my eye out for pissed off parents? Her parents already think I'm useless.