All Saints' Day
I steered the lawn mower over the grass and loose ponderosa pine needles like a grazing animal fattening up to hibernate all winter in the garage. Each stripe I cut on that late October day brought me closer to those two months or so when I neither had to mow the lawn or shovel the driveway. Sure, the challenge of raking up 10 trees worth of pine needles loomed ahead, but I kind of liked doing that that. The hot Saturday mornings of the pull-start cord and gas fumes were nearly over, but I had still taken off my sweatshirt.Pushing the Craftsman slower into the last quarter of the yard, I inventoried the homework for the weekend Read and summarize Act Four of Macbeth for Soph. Lit: piece of cake. Problems 1-25, the odds for Geometry: blech, but it’ll get done. Answer the questions for Section 2.1 in Bio: no sweat. Call Brendan for the first time since his mom died: next to impossible. Somehow this last task of the weekend made all the rest into a giant pile of time that would disintegrate into nothing in the space between church and sleep on Sunday, a time that’s supposed to be reserved for reading what I want or watching football. But, like math and summarizing, it would have to happen.
I slowed my steps even more, appreciating the shine of sun off the dew on the mowed strips of grass and the cooler air that signaled the earth’s leaning back and relaxing after a busy summer and the start of school. The mower buzzed over the yard and leveled the grass as I padded slowly after it in my green-stained sneakers. It was like I was trying to sneak up behind the mower. Either that, or I was trying to sneak away from something else.
---
I hadn’t talked to my best friend Brendan since he stopped coming to school because his mom’s leukemia finally got her. She had got it back when Brendan and I were finishing 5th grade, and I guess it hadn’t learned its lesson the first time. She’d lost her hair and about half her weight, and her tanning-bed brown had yellowed, but still she had sent the disease spinning into the canvas in remission. I’m sorry for the sports metaphors, but it’s the best I can do to explain leukemia, which is some kind of cancer of the blood or something. The thing made a hell of a comeback two months ago and got its second wind. Mrs. Roberts had grown her hair back of course, but she never was as sturdy as she was before. She had run every day after she recovered, and eating dinner at their house never involved anything like the Domino’s or Pizza Hut feasts Brendan and I had enjoyed in elementary school. (Tofu burritos anyone?) There were steps taken to stay healthy. But she always seemed softer, bendier like an old Gumby toy compared to who she was before.
Brendan had gotten off at my stop the last time we talked. Neither of us was cool enough to get a ride with anyone who had a car; it was the Yellow Limousine for us every day. It wasn’t weird for him to walk home with me or anything. Unless we had something to do or an after school sport, we always went to one of our houses to hang out or blow each other up infinite times on the XBOX. He’d seemed quiet on the ride, and we never actually discussed whether he was coming over, he just started walking with me.
“My mom’s in the ICU again,” he had said.
I’d had a little joke in my head about the ICU being more like, “I never C U again.” That was one of those inside jokes you only have with yourself. So inside you want to bury it deep and never even remember it much less blurt it out.
“I’m sorry, dude,” I offered instead of the joke.
“She’s been at the hospital for a few days now. It looks like it,” he said. His voice was even and quiet. I had to listen carefully over the noise of the few cars rolling by that belonged to juniors or seniors in Camelot, our housing development.
“I’m sorry.”
“I’ll be OK. This is one of those things we saw coming.” He was right, but I hadn’t even know the cancer was back. How long had he known?
“If you need anything…”
“Actually, I do.” His voice rose a little as if he just remembered something. “I need you to talk with Katie about what we’re doing for Halloween.”
“What if your Mom, you know…”
“Dies? That’s probably not a what if. She told me not to worry about it.” He took a breath, like he was trying to recall a line in a play. “I can’t let this get in the way of my life. The best thing I can do for her is to do what makes me happy.”
“Well, I don’t know what’s going on with Katie this year. You and I should do something not matter what, though.”
“Just keep me posted, dude.”
We laughed our way through Simpsons reruns and did a few math problems together that evening. Brendan ate dinner with my family and said something pretty vague when my mom asked about his. I can’t remember much else about it. The next day he wasn’t at school, or for the two weeks after.
I knew he’d be back on Monday because the counselor had pulled me out of P.E. to talk to me about Brendan’s situation and how I could help make his return as smooth as possible. Sitting in her windowless office, fiddling with her magnet toys she set out to help fidgety boys open up, I wanted to tell Ms. Nakagami that the last two weeks had been like a vacation for me. Brendan had crept into my thoughts but was easy to dismiss and lock out when I had other things going on. I wanted to put this in my vault with the ICU joke, but they wouldn’t stay put. While I was brushing my teeth or trying to go to sleep, anything where your brain has free time, I’d think of Brendan and his dad sitting quietly at home, or eating at McDonalds, waiting for Mrs. Roberts to die. I wondered if he was crying. He’d cried a whole ton when he’d learned that his mom might die the first time. It sucked to be around him because what was I supposed to do? I was only eleven.
---
The last stripes of lawn fell to the mower and I released the handle, shutting down the mower and letting the quiet of the fall day sneak back into the yard. I unhooked the bag and took the grass back to the compost heap in the back yard. This late in October, it was as high as it would be. It’s layers of brown to yellow, sea foam to olive had built up slowly since March when I had first rolled the mower out from behind the shovels and rakes we had never really put away. I thought back to what was going on at each layer, tried to remember each mowing, but they all heaped together. Memories of a routine: why bother if it’s always the same?
Shaking out the last of the bag I wandered back to the front of the house. I still wasn’t in any hurry. Technically, I was done mowing the lawn, but each step in parking the mower back in the garage had me wondering if I would mow again this year. I replaced the bag and wheeled the Craftsman onto the coarse cement of the driveway and onto the smoother surface of the garage. I put the mower in its usual stall next to Dad’s tool chest. The white drywall surface of the garage walls caught slanting light from outside. Something in the light told me that this would be the last mowing of the year. It seemed like an early-snow kind of light, if you could call it that.
Using my thumb and pinky I hit both buttons on the garage-door opener, and the door shuddered and began its descent, carving the light as it went.
Inside the house I made a turkey sandwich and sat down with my mom and dad in front of the UW game on T.V. I never cared much for football. Baseball is right up my alley. So is golf, I guess. But I don’t mind watching a Husky football game if they are playing well. Unfortunately, it really wasn’t their season for playing well. My Mom went there, she has to care, but my Dad went to Central Washington University, which is a school with no real allegiance to the Huskies.
Mom sat on the couch making all kinds of noise about calls and the lazy offensive line while Dad graded papers and looked up every now and then, mostly at Mom. He was there to offer his moral support with a red pen and a stack of middle school science tests. I was just there to eat a sandwich. When that was over, watching my Mom grimace and care too much or my dad give out grades and smiley faces seemed not very worthwhile. And the Huskies were down 20 points in the third quarter, so I decided to do some math.
It’s not that I like math much. It’s just that when there’s something I don’t want to do, I don’t put it off. I can put off assignments or projects I care about or want to do good on for days, but I like the feeling of buckling down and getting something out of my way. It was funny how this worked for everything but calling Brendan.
That was pretty much Saturday. I called or texted some friends that night (everyone but you know who) and tried to get someone to hang out, but everyone was busy. Pretty lame way to spend a Saturday, but I did get to talk to Katie, who I kind of have a thing for, about Halloween.
“Brendan wants to come,” I said as if he was some new kid I needed permission to invite to her party. Katie and he had lived in the same cul de sac for as long as I knew them. Until she started maturing (wink, wink), they had pretty much been best friends. I kind of became his best friend by default after she got hotter.
“Well, that’s… OK. I knew he was coming,” she let each word out very slowly.
“Are you sure?”
“Of course. I’ve already talked to him about it. It’s just that, we’ll kind of have to change things around a bit.”
“Like what?”
“Like pretty much everyone’s costume, and the activities, and the movie.”
“What do you mean?” I had some idea, but I wanted her to be the one to say it. I couldn’t believe Katie had talked to Brendan first. What kind of friend was I? Was I really that much of a pussy to not call him sooner?
“OK, so…what are you coming as?”
“A vampire. Pretty original, right?”
“See, that won’t work. Vampires are dead.” She paused. “I was going to be a witch, but then I thought witches put curses on people, and then I thought of the Salem witch trials where they burned all those people, and I thought it might remind Brendan of what he’s going though, his mom being cremated and all.”
“Wait, I didn’t know his mom was cremated.”
“Yup, anyway, I really don’t want him to feel uncomfortable.”
I thought for a second, “So, I guess I could get some face paint really quick and borrow some of my dads clothes. I’ll be a clown or something harmless.” I didn’t bring up the fact that five weeks of allowance had paid for my Hollywood-quality vampire makeup kit and costume complete with top hat, cane, and cloak. For some reason I can never complain to Katie though. I guess I can store the vampire gear until next year.
“We’ll go trick or treating instead of doing the séance I had planned. Do you think we’re too old?”
“Fifteen? Nah.” How could I argue with her? “I’m sure it’ll be fine.” What was a séance? I had to remember to look that up. I hate sounding stupid.
“And we have to think of a movie, a funny one to lighten the mood, you know? Keep it casual for after trick or treating.”
“How about Young Frankenstein? It’s funny and kind of Halloween-ish.”
“Um, hello? They like dig up dead bodies in that movie.”
“Guess not.”
I wrapped up my call with Katie. Pushing the end button quickly, I flipped my phone closed before my mouth blurted out something stupid like, “I’m in love with you,” or “I can’t stop thinking about you.” These things needed to stay in the vault. They could do a lot of damage.
---
Planning Halloween was really more of a Brendan and me thing. This year would be our first spent going to a party with actual girls. Usually, we plotted ways to scare trick-or-treaters or build haunted houses in the garage.
I remember the year we built our first haunted garage. We started planning in the July before 5th grade by making a tape to play in the background as kids walked through our haunted garage to get to the candy. We were never impressed with the ones available in the stores, so we scripted out what we thought would cover one side of a 90-minute tape. It was pretty much this:
• Wind and lightning
• Growling and snarling
• Slamming doors
• Screaming
• The ghost attack
• More growling
• The Grim Reaper speaks
• Whispered threats
We figured that would be enough and hooked a microphone to an old stereo with a tape deck in his parents’ garage. It was going to be great: 45 minutes of the scariest noises known to man. Making it happen was actually harder than it sounds. After we ran out of things to growl, moan, or whisper, we realized that no one would be spending 45 minutes in the garage, so ten minutes looped over and over would work. We also didn’t think about how high-pitched our voices were. I have to wonder now how it sounded to people to hear our ten-year-old voices making threats or laughing maniacally as they made their way toward candy. Maybe it was extra creepy if it wasn’t totally stupid-sounding.
We drew up plans for hanging canvas tarps to block off certain sections of the garage into various “rooms”. There would be a spider “room” full of rubber spiders and a strobe light to make it look like they were moving. The “victims” would go from there to the chainsaw guy room. My dad removed the chain from an old electric model for me; it still made noise but wasn’t going to cut anyone. The talking head room would feature Brendan in a box with his head sticking out next to a stuffed dummy. We spent 20 bucks in fake blood alone in that room. Finally, the kids would wind up at the witch’s lair where Mrs. Roberts would dispense candy from her cauldron, which was actually set up with dry ice in water around the edges to give off steam. She was our biggest backer on the project and even let Brendan spend some of his Christmas fund early on supplies. It was amazing how much money we blew on this thing.
We spent three weekends getting ready with the help of our parents. I got to climb up and use a staple gun to attach canvas to the beams of the Roberts’s garage. We got everything arranged as we wanted, and even though we knew it had problems it felt great to work together on it as families. The spiders weren’t as menacing as I’d hoped, and hearing my own voice on the tape recorder gave me a funny, embarrassed kind of feeling, but the chainsaw was cool and my costume featuring a lab coat and demon mask looked more threatening than a 5-foot-tall ten-year-old should. Mrs. Roberts really got into it; some of the little pixies and Spidermen wouldn’t go near her and walked out without their Candy.
The night went quickly and I had a blast, but what I remember most was watching Mrs. Roberts take off her makeup in the mirror of the downstairs bathroom. I was standing there in the dark hall, letting the light fall out of the doorway onto me. It was fascinating for some reason, watching the cloth erase the witch and transform her back into the woman who was so ordinary, who reminded me to take off my shoes before I came into her house. She talked to me but watched the washcloth remove the green makeup and warts from the woman in the mirror.
“So what do you think?” she asked when she noticed me watching.
“Well, I think the tape could have been scarier, and I didn’t like it when the big kids came and made fun of it.”
“Yeah,” she closed one eye and wiped over it. “You noticed how they came in as groups and wouldn’t shut up? Well if they were quiet and alone they’d have been about as scared as the little kids.”
“Yeah,” I had to giggle a bit at the thought of the tall, deep-voiced 8th graders cowering in terror from the fake spiders. I knew she was trying to make me feel better, but somehow I needed it.
“I think you guys did a great job planning this whole thing yourselves.” Her eyes in the mirror looked into mine and she smiled. I felt like I was wrapped in a blanket.
“You and my parents helped out a whole lot, though.”
“We wouldn’t have done it without you; I think your dad enjoyed it as much as you did.”
I stood there watching, saying nothing. Mrs. Roberts’s face was almost back to its (not exactly natural) tan. “I guess I’ll go home. Do you need me to come clean up tomorrow after school?”
“No, I mean, yes, but let’s wait ‘til Friday to clean up. It’s late. Go ahead and get some sleep for school tomorrow.”
It was ten by the time my parents drove home, but I couldn’t sleep. It was as if watching Mrs. Roberts remove her makeup gave me some kind of clue to a mystery I hadn’t even thought of. I wonder now if some part of me knew she was getting sick. Maybe it was something else, but by May of that school year, she was getting chemotherapy.
Looking back at the haunted garage, my parents put in way too much money. It makes me feel terrible that there are tons of homeless people in Spokane, and we blew a huge amount of cash on one night one something nobody needed. People downtown could have used it for food or something. Still though, I worked harder on that haunted garage than I ever had before on anything, and harder than I will on most school work this year. It felt good to have us all working together, as if we were building a country. It was how I imagined the founding fathers felt. When we looked out as the garage door opened onto the slowly darkening Halloween night, it felt like a new nation, conceived in liberty.
---
Sunday morning, I was on my way to church, keeping my hands at ten and two, watching the speedometer as much as the road. My mom sat beside me and gripped the handle of the door at every turn. It didn’t give me a lot of confidence, and really it bugged me. On the other hand, the fall morning was cool with the sun making the frost on the colored leaves sparkle and I was in a pretty good mood. It was one of those days that reminds me how great I’ve got it. Still, I wanted to get that learner’s permit phase done with so badly, just so I could drive in peace and maybe go about three or so miles over the limit.
“You’re getting pretty good at this. I haven’t seen you speeding once,” my mom praised, or at least tried to.
“What’s the hurry? We’re always early anyway,” I replied.
“Well, when you’re on time for dates and job interviews, you’ll thank me.”
I eased on the brakes for a red light at an empty intersection. On two corners, diagonal from each other, two houses seemed to compete for Halloween decorations. A giant inflatable spider clung to one roof while store-bought cobwebs smothered a big, leafless tree on the other. The other two houses didn’t seem to notice or care and were happy with their own neatly trimmed hedges and leaf-free lawns.
“I like the spider,” Mom said.
“Yeah.”
“It reminds me of what you and Brendan used to do.”
“We would never have used something like that. I mean, it’s like smiling. Not scary enough.”
“It’s fun; I wonder where they got it,” she seemed to genuinely wonder. This wasn’t just small talk for her.
The light turned green and I brought the car up to 35 M.P.H (exactly). Houses scrolled past in the order I had memorized from years of following this same route to church. It struck me how much I relied on them in some weird way that I couldn’t really describe.
“Speaking of Brendan, have you talked to him?”
“I’m going to today.”
“I would have thought you would have called by now. I mean, he is your best friend.” It was the should/ shouldn’t have done it voice. The words didn’t matter; I knew I’d screwed up.
“Yeah, but it’s not that easy. You know?” I waited for her to tell me to just do it already, but she said nothing as we caught a green at the last intersection before the church. It wasn’t until we had parked and I had shut off the car that she spoke.
“This must be hard for you. I get it. But down the road Brendan will appreciate it.” She checked her lipstick in her mirror. I fiddled with the keys in my hand. “You guys have had a lot of fun together. Maybe this is how you earn it. By being there when he needs you.”
I like church, but I don’t think I really believe most of it anymore. That’s kind of funny because I believed it all when I was little, and I hated sitting through the worship service. Maybe it was because I’d be able to not go in a little over two years, I kind of liked it. It gave me time to think, at least. Sometimes that was the problem.
The pastor spoke, something about some girl drying Jesus’s feet with her hair. The communion grape juice tasted tart and the bread was stale. Old women and men shared hymnals. I thought about what I would say to Brendan. I thought about how Katie had talked to him before I did. Mostly I thought about how I was letting everybody down. I tried to put that in the vault, but it wouldn’t stay. 5:00 and I would call.
---
The afternoon had rolled by slowly. I had worried that time would fly and 5:00 would be there before I knew it. What happened was almost worse. I had hoped to fill the time with reading and summarizing Act 4 of Macbeth (It’s the shortest act; that didn’t take long.) Instead I had more down time than I thought to rehearse what I was going to say to Brendan.That's one thing I do, analyze what I'm going to say too much. I make a big fuss over planning this "speech", and then I always screw it up. I could have made 10 phone calls in the time I spent procrastinating.
4:55 became 5:00 on the VCR/DVD player in the family room, and I had no choice but to call now. Sitting on the middle cushion of the downstairs couch, I flipped open my phone and hit the contacts button. Why did his name have to begin with B? I didn’t even have to scroll down. There it was under Alex, Amina, and Andrea. I selected his name and hit “SEND”. My body tensed up, and all of my well-rehearsed speeches seemed worthless; the best I could hope for was to leave a voice mail.
Three rings in, Brendan picked up.
“Hey, dude,” he said. I listened for a difference in his voice? Was it quieter? Was he crying?
“Hey…Brendan. It’s me.” I knew my voice was quieter.
“Yeah, I know. Your ring came on.”
“Oh yeah. So…How you been?”
“I guess fine. What about you?”
We continued to discuss how fine each of us was doing until he realized what I really wanted to talk about.
“I guess you heard I’ll be back at school tomorrow. What have the teachers been saying?”
I stood up from the couch and began to pace back and forth, wiggling my free hand. “Mr. Yang says you are at an extended family activity, like some kind of vacation, and Cargill sat us down for a big discussion.” We had killed a whole fifty minutes BS-ing about death.
Brendan laughed. He laughed, and I was supposed to be comforting him.
“Are you going to Katie’s party?” I said, trying to change the subject, as if I could somehow comfort him, as if he needed it.
“Yeah, but I don’t have a costume for this year. Maybe I’ll wear one I’ve already got.” A man, his dad, said something in a quiet voice in the background about dinner. I couldn’t hear his muffled reply as he covered the phone. “It starts at eight on Wednesday, right?” he said after a few seconds of muffled discussion with his dad.
“Not anymore. We’re trick or treating.”
“I thought you and I vowed only to hand out candy and stuff after fourth grade?”
“We did, but…something came up. We’re meeting at six. Can’t use her house until nine.” An OK lie. Not great.
“I guess it doesn’t matter to you as long as it’s with Katie, right?” He knew I liked her. Any crap he had given me about it was gone. He sounded so adult to me. “Hey, dude, I have to go. Should I call you later?”
“Nah, it’s OK. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Yeah. OK. Later.”
“Sorry about your m-.” The phone clicked. I had passed the test, but why did it seem like his mom being dead was worse for me than for him?
---
Monday isn’t that much of a hassle for me. A lot of kids whine about it and act all grumpy all day. I kind of like seeing all my teachers and friends again.
Brendan and I rode the bus without saying much. The green vinyl seats were cold but warmed up and there was enough fog on the window for me to run my fingers over it and feel the cold. Through my finger streaks, colored leaves and frosty grass scrolled by and slowed to a stop as kids got on. I thought again about getting my license and not having to ride the Yellow Limousine with all the froshes and middle school kids. It would be cool to crank up some AC/DC or Green Day and pick up Brendan at his house, maybe hit Starbucks for some mochas. Somehow, I’d miss riding the bus, though.
We arrived at school, our breath turning to clouds as we exited the bus. Nobody stood around too long outside because of the cold. Brendan and I shuffled into the flat brick building with the rest of the students toward the commons. I could sense more eyes on Brendan than usual. He isn’t a short guy, plus he’s pretty good looking (Is it gay to say that?), but it seemed like people saw him and had to look again. Then, they had to turn to their friends and whisper. It was like clockwork, the kids noticing that the kid with the dead mother had returned. I swear I can’t read lips, but that day I learned what “mom”, “died”, “sucks”, and “too bad” look like. It was like a bunch of compassionate mimes or something.
The teachers were a little more direct but still tried to show they cared. Mr. Yang hunkered down next to Brendan while we were reading a social studies chapter and said, “Hey, if you need anything, let me know. I’ll do my best to make everything work for you.” It reminded me of the server we had once at the Olive Garden, who squatted down, leveling his goatee to our faces, to take our orders and wines to my family. Apparently, if one of your students’ parents dies, your job is to act like a really good waiter.
---
During lunch Brendan and I sat with the usual group of Katie, Amina, Colin, Kellen, Alex, and Corrine at the round table in the busy cafeteria. A pizza pocket cooled in my hand after the first searing bite.
“So my mom was like, ‘There’s no way you’re going as a French maid at fifteen years old.’ So I thought about it and said, ‘How ‘bout Tinkerbelle?’” Corrine drew a breath, possibly to add suspense to what she was going to say. “And she totally went for it. I mean, the Tinkerbelle costume shows as much if not more leg than the French maid costume.” Corrinne took pride in her legs and probably talked them up way too much. Sure they were long and always shaved smooth, but the more a girl brags about something, the less I guess I care.
“I always thought Tinkerbelle was hot,” Colin pointed out.
“You would. Been wearing out that copy of Peter Pan lately?” Kellen teased.
"Oh yeah, I had to go buy another DVD of it at Best Buy, and that’s the second this month. You know me.” Colin has the kind of voice where sarcasm sounds sincere and the other way around sometimes. I wouldn’t have put it past him.
“You guys are gross,” Amina declared.
At this point I remembered Brendan was back and sitting next to me, dipping his fries in honey mustard dressing and laughing at what Colin had said. I looked at him for a second; it was like nothing had happened, and my other friends laughed and talked with him like it was months ago. Was it just me who Mrs. Roberts’s dying bugged so much? I looked away and met Katie’s gaze from across the table for a second. Had she been looking at me? At Brendan? At me looking at Brendan? She smiled the kind of smile where you don’t show teeth and aren’t really happy.
Kellen finished his fries. “So, I guess the question is, and this applies to any of us here, who is, like, the hottest Disney character, I mean who do you want to do? Colin, yours doesn’t count ‘cause she’s only a foot tall. I’m talking life size.”
“Sick,” Amina declared.
“Yeah, so, who would it be?” Brendan challenged her.
“Fine, Beast I guess,” she gave in.
“Before or after he changes back to a guy?”
“Gross.”
It didn’t make sense to me: his mom dies and he’s joking around like anyone? It almost pissed me off.
“All right, how about you, Alex?” Kellen really wanted to keep this going.
Alex looked up from his science questions, which were due in about 10 minutes, to mutter, “Princess Jasmine,” and then get back to furiously scribbling his answers.
“Thanks. Katie?”
“I guess I had a crush on Eric from Little Mermaid when I was little.”
“Good enough. Moving along, Brendan?”
“Pocahontas.”
We wrapped up this monumentally important discussion as the bell rang, yanking us back into what was supposed to be “thinking and learning” mode. I let my prepared answer to Kellen’s question (for the record, it’s Pocahontas, too) slide into the big gray trash can with the rest of my lunch and marched off to P.E. I’d have time waiting to rotate in on the volleyball court to think about what exactly was bugging me about Brendan and what I could do about it, if anything.
---
Halloween slows things down a little bit, even in high school. The teachers get a little bit festive. For example, Mr. Cargill posted two tomb stones, where he wrote “dead words” like “good”, “fun”, “freaking out”, and “dumb”. The point was to make us choose better words. I don’t know if it worked, but the two poster-board tombstones came down from his back wall before Brendan came back.
Ms. Hrcek had a little skull fountain that was also a candy bowl on her desk, but she replaced that with a plastic trick-or-treat pumpkin, like a four-year-old might carry, when Brendan left two weeks ago.
I couldn’t blame them. They are pretty cool teachers, and I guess they didn’t want to hurt Brendan’s feelings. I probably would have done the same thing. But seeing as how he seemed to be doing, I’m not sure it made any difference.
Tuesday was pretty much the same. Brendan and I riding the bus. Goofing around at lunch with our friends. Teachers and students being extra nice to Brendan. On the other hand, he did seem quieter, not as sad as maybe he could have been, but not really like yesterday either. I caught him zoning out a couple of times. He stared at a map of the world in Mr. Yang’s class without really seeing it, and then in Math, he looked at his calculator like it was showing a really important video rather than the answer to a problem.
I was going to ask him how he was doing, but then on the way home, we started goofing around on the bus. He and I were laughing about the one Halloween we had climbed up on to my roof and lowered a life-size plastic skeleton as a way to give out candy. It had a noose we’d tied with yellow rope around its neck. The roof was pretty hard on our butts, but we were in love with the idea. That was in seventh grade, and it didn’t work quite as well as we’d hoped. Some kids would have to yell, “Hey, where’s the candy?” at us from the front door. We had to tell them it was in the pillow case masking-taped to the skeleton’s hands.
It was cold on the roof, and some high school kids stole one of the skeleton’s legs, but we didn’t have the money or time, or we didn’t care as much as we had in fifth grade, to build another haunted house. Where could we go from there but down?
We’d given up and come inside to just give out candy like most every other house. We felt like people were looking at us and expecting more. It was pretty pathetic, and we really felt like crap at the time.
For some reason though, it was really funny on the bus that afternoon. We even did funny, high-pitched voices mocking our younger selves:
“Man, this sucks. I hate high school kids.”
“I hate Halloween. I’m just gonna sit here and eat candy in the dark until I’m a real fatass.”
“I thought everyone would like us and want to be our friends because we lowered a fake-looking skeleton with masking tape holding on a pillowcase off a roof.”
“I hope my voice changes real soon. I’m tired of sounding like a Charlie Brown character.”
It was amazing how the pain was funny now to us. How getting out of middle school had made it seem so ridiculous. But it felt natural, too, to be laughing with Brendan on a fall afternoon bus ride with the sun shining. It felt so right I forgot to ask if he was OK. Oh well, I thought. He’s doing fine.
---
We don’t get to dress up anymore for school. Miller H.S. had decided long before we got there that costumes were inappropriate. I think the Bible-thumpers with their “Harry Potter is evil,” and hatred of all things fun might have had something to do with it. Kids might wear something special now or dye their hair, but people with elaborate costumes actually get written up. It kind of sucks, but it gets me out of having to dress up an extra time. That year, it bought me an afternoon to make a clown costume from a vampire one.
Leaving promptly at 2:30, I walked to the Rite Aid down the street. My dad would pick me up as soon as he could leave work. That’s one good thing about having a teacher for a parent: he can pick you up after school just about whenever you need it.
The empty hooks and few remaining priest and nun costumes reminded me (or did the opposite of remind, really) how well-stocked Party Surplus was when I went to get my costume back in mid-September. A few bottles of crème make-up, some green hair spray, and that was about all I was going to get. I’d hoped to find a red foam clown nose, but they went along with the George W. masks and Spiderman costumes long ago. I figured I could use the makeup I had and borrow some of my parents’ old clothes to finish the clown costume.
I stood outside the entrance with my little plastic bag and waited for Dad to pick me up. The sun was bright and the sky was cloudless. It could have been the perfect summer day if there was any kind of warmth in the air. I knew it would be a cold night, but I enjoyed the sun on my skin as I stood out front. Waiting’s OK, but if I’m waiting where people can see me, I get fidgety. I checked the time on my phone at least a dozen times and read the back of each package of makeup I bought before my dad finally pulled up in the Subaru.
“Hey, Amigo,” he blared over the sound of NPR as I dropped my backpack in the rear seat.
I closed the back door and could still hear the radio a bit. Why he needed to hear a bunch of boring people talking so loud was beyond me. I opened the front door slipped into the passenger seat. “Thanks for coming to get me,” I said, quietly so he would have to turn down the radio; it’s a little game I like to play, one of the ways I can control him.
Sure enough, he lowered the volume before he asked me how my day was. I told him I was fine.
“Can I borrow some of your old clothes for tonight?” I asked.
“ I guess so, but you bought your costume already, right? Vampire?”
“Yeah, but Katie asked me to change it because Brendan is coming tonight.”
“So?”
“His mom?”
Dad took a breath and ran one hand through his rumpled brown hair. “I guess she wants to not remind Brendan of death, right?” Dad usually figured things out pretty quick.
“Yeah, but…Doesn’t it seem kind of stupid? I mean, he knows his mom died. We all do.”
Dad pulled out of the lot and headed toward home. I thought he was going to turn off the radio and launch into one of his patented “heart to heart” chats, but he was quiet for a while. I watched the shadows of ponderosa pine whiz by on the road as he drove. The voices of the radio blended in with the engine and tire noise.
We were a few blocks from home before he let out a sound. “It reminds me of when your grandpa died,” he finally said. “I tip-toed around the subject with your mom for months. I mean, I didn’t talk about him unless she brought it up, and I didn’t rent any movies about people dying, even though there were some good ones I wanted to see.” He watched the road, occasionally glancing over at me. I didn’t look back at him, just listened an noticed the houses that had put out pumpkins already.
“She seemed better after a while, months,” he continued, “but one day I kind of made a joke, and it got to her.” He hit the turn signal for our street and used one hand to steer. My Mom’s dad died when I was two. What I remember of him is a big man laughing at the TV, and then I heard that he had “passed away” when I was three. “She didn’t blame me, though,” my dad added.
We rolled past the familiar houses, the beater Ford Tauruses and Pontiacs of kids I had played touch football with in elementary parked at their curbs. I thought of something about time, but I couldn’t put it in words.
“I guess you have to ask yourself, what would Brendan want? But you can never really know. If someone’s going through a tough time, they are sort of on their own.” We turned right into our driveway, and Dad killed the motor. We both turned away, got out, and looked at each other over the top of the Subaru.
“I want to do something, though,” I said. “Like it doesn’t feel right to just leave him alone.”
“Well, by hanging out with him, you are kinda doing something.”
“Yeah,” I admitted. He was right, usually a better than .500 average. I was batting closer to .150. I knew I couldn’t do anything, but I felt so helpless.
“How’s Mom doing with it now? Doesn't she seem like she’s OK?” I hated these rhetorical questions of his. Mostly because of how right he was.
“Wait, I know; ‘These things take time, but everything will be fine,’ right?” I said in a voice he didn’t deserve.
“Aren’t they usually?”
“Have you read a newspaper?”
“Touché.” He smiled a bit and walked toward the front door.
We didn’t say much the rest of the night. I ate a turkey sandwich for dinner and washed it down with a Mountain Dew. It wouldn’t take me long to put on my make up and the clothes I had borrowed, but I was kind of in a hurry because Katie wanted us to show up around six. I walked out the door towards Avalon Drive at 5:30. I’d be early, but maybe I’d get some alone time with Katie, for all the good it would do me.
to be continued
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