Why in the hell am I doing this tonight?
I can’t help it.
But I should be happy and asleep, letting my beat-up body heal.
I don’t like dark tales. I like funny stuff. Gus says funny stuff is always dark.
Is this funny?
Here’s that to-do list again:
I definitely did number one. I considered number three a lot (I still am, except I
do
think comedy is funny). Coach Jones gave me the form to get started on two, but I needed to get Jerri’s signature to get the permit, which she wouldn’t give me, and then she’d have to have teach me to drive—which also wasn’t going to happen. It was at this point in July that I tried to implement number four.
That day Jerri called me asshole out in the yard was the first day I ran up the Mound (the same one Dad ran up).
Let me describe it a little.
This Mound is a seriously huge-ass hill on the east side of town. It’s a county park, so anyone can go there. A really long time ago, college kids whacked down a huge tract of trees on it and made this huge M on its side out of big rocks. Then they painted the rocks bright white so the M can be seen from like a thousand miles away, if you’ve got the right view. Every few years, the engineering department from the college goes up there and paints it white again so it’s always really white.
I have no idea why they put an M on it. M obviously doesn’t stand for Bluffton. Maybe it just stands for Mound? I don’t know.
There’s a steep path that runs next to the big M so lovers of the letter M can climb up the hill. The path has got to be like a football field and a half long, maybe longer. It’s a hell of a place to run. I’m sure my dad would tell you the same thing if he could.
After Jerri called me asshole, I didn’t really know where I was going. All I knew was that I couldn’t stay in the house with her and Andrew around. I biked past the baseball fields and saw some honkies playing, but I couldn’t stop there because I was bawling and would look stupid. I biked past the schools, the track, the practice football field, and the tennis courts.
Tennis player?
Then I got on County Road D, saw the big M in front of me, and gunned it out into the countryside. I biked the several miles out there in no time flat. One pickup truck filled with poop-stinkers shouted “Rein Stone” as they passed. I didn’t wave or anything. Just kept pumping.
When I got to the Mound and the big M, I was completely out of breath. I lay down on a picnic table and sweated in the sun.
I thought about Jerri and Dad, and I got sick but couldn’t stop. Then I thought about Aleah.
Why is she so lucky? Yeah, her mom is gone, but Ronald takes care of everything. He’s great and she’s always happy—almost always happy. At least she knows why her mom left—too young when she got married and had to leave because she was so unhappy—and at least her mom didn’t totally abandon Aleah because she didn’t kill herself and she actually calls Aleah sometimes and sends her postcards. Ronald and Aleah talk about Aleah’s mom every day. Aleah told me. They talk and talk and talk. We never talked about Dad. Jerri never said anything except leave the past behind and re-engage. Aleah is so lucky to know why her mom left.
And why is Cody so lucky? His dad makes sure everybody’s safe. His mom works at the bank and probably buys groceries.
Even Gus is lucky. Sure, he has to do a paper route. Sure, he gets shipped to South America. But his mom would never call him an asshole.
She called me an asshole. She called me an asshole.
My legs started feeling twitchy.
Why are you so damn crap out of luck all the time? Jerri hates you. Your mom hates you. Your mom totally hates you.
I jumped off the table and ran toward the path next to the M. Within seconds, I exploded up it, running the rail stairs, accelerating up rocks and dirt. This is going to sound really dorky, but I felt like a mountain lion, and I was balanced like that. Trucks could’ve rolled at me and I would’ve dodged them, punched them on their sides and sent them tumbling away down the hill. I accelerated like crazy, even though I was going straight up. Up up up up! I probably looked like that Road Runner in that old cartoon. Up! Up!
At the top, I bent over to catch my breath. Sweat poured off my face and stung my eyes. My muscles shook. Ants scrambled on the ground below me. How easily I could’ve killed them all, all those ants. I stood straight, put my hands on my hips, and breathed, and looked out over a thousand miles of Wisconsin and Iowa and Illinois. Then I jogged back down so I could run up that Mound again.
I ran until I was dry-heaving, spitting, breathing so hard, groaning, cramping up in my guts. At the top, I collapsed onto the ground, face down, sucking air. And then I rolled over and stared at the sky. Deep breath. Deep breath. Breathing is good. Lying in the dirt is good.
Believe it or not, the sky was blue. The few clouds up there were white, as you might guess. It was exactly what I expected to see. Jerri felt far away. Just a ghost of somebody I didn’t know. Andrew could take what he wanted from my room. It didn’t matter.
Everything was a thousand miles away. I relaxed on the ground on top of the big M. The sky was blue, as it should be. The clouds were white.
Then my phone buzzed in the pocket of my shorts. It was a text from Cody. Apparently, he’d sent it to all his honky friends:
party my place july 31 celebrate rein stones 16 bday. 7 oclock. no alchies!!!
I know he sent it to a bunch of honky friends because Karpinski, Jason Reese, and a number I didn’t recognize all texted me immediately:
legal to drive get some hookers
gonna be fun rein stone
reinstein is big boy now!!! :0
The first message was from Karpinski. I texted back and asked him to pay. I said “will be fun” to Reese. “who this?” I asked the other.
Abby was the response.
Abby Sauter sent me a text. My friend planned me a birthday party. I could run up a cliff like the Road Runner.
This is my life, Jerri. That’s what I thought.
On the following Friday night, after managing to spend three solid days without saying a word to either Andrew or Jerri (actually, barely seeing them at all—this was the same strategy I used with classmates through just about all of eighth grade and freshman year—don’t look, talk, appear in front of them), Aleah and I watched this adventure movie with Nicholas Cage where he’s trying to figure out some mystery. I have no idea what else happened because Aleah invited me over not to watch a movie in the basement but to pretend to watch a movie. What she really wanted to do was lie on Gus’s giant beanbag chair and make out.
As we were kissing, she reached under my shirt and ran her hands over my skin, which raised all kinds of bumps, and I also put my hands under her shirt and touched her skin. I pulled her onto me, and we kissed until my mouth hurt and my lips were chapped, and I couldn’t see straight, and my legs hurt and my hips hurt and other stuff hurt, and I almost felt sick to my stomach because it was so great.
At around one, Ronald shouted down the stairs, “It’s about time for Felton to go home. There’s a paper route to be done in the morning.”
Aleah rolled off of me, and I stood fast because Ronald’s voice scared me and then I almost fell down because I was dizzy. Aleah almost couldn’t stand up because she was so twisted up. But we smiled at each other and didn’t say a word, and I ached and then climbed the stairs with Aleah right behind me.
Ronald squinted at my face as I walked out the door and said good night.
I biked home through the cool air, with blood running the right way through my body again.
It never occurred to me that I might ever actually have sex. The proposition had always seemed so totally remote and completely unreasonable.
How would that ever happen?
Suddenly, in one night, I knew how that would happen. Not that I thought Aleah and I were about to have sex or anything because I didn’t really want to. I was sure Ronald would walk down the stairs and see us and then I felt really terrified and explosive and crazy.
Oh, man, Aleah.
At home, I could hear the TV on in Jerri’s room, and I went right to bed. But I didn’t go to sleep, not at all. But I guess I was asleep when the alarm went off.
***
On the paper route the next morning, right after I’d handed Ronald the newspaper and he’d stared at me and squinted again, as we biked down the street together, Aleah said, “Daddy gave me the third degree. Hoo, boy!”
“What’s that mean?” I asked.
“He wanted to know exactly what we were doing down there.”
My stomach dropped.
“Oh, man. Jeez. How’d you get out of that?” I could feel myself blushing, and my mouth got dry.
“I didn’t. I told him what we did.”
I stopped my bike, leaned and stared at her.
“What? You realize I can never look at your dad again.”
She stopped right next to me.
“Why? He didn’t mind. He said it’s normal.”
“He wasn’t mad?”
“Maybe a little uncomfortable?”
“Oh my God. Oh my God.”
“He did say that if we went any further, he’d lock me up until I graduate high school.”
“Well, we’re not going to. I won’t touch you again. Seriously. He doesn’t have to…Tell him not to worry about…He won’t be seeing…”
“He said not to go any further. But you are going to kiss me again, Felton. You got that?” She grabbed my forearm and squeezed.
I tried not to smile because I was seriously concerned, but I did smile because I couldn’t help it. Then I said, “Okay. Yes. I’ll kiss you.”
Aleah smiled.
“You’re sexy.”
“Uhh, yeah.”
“Aren’t you going to talk to Jerri about it?”
“No,” I said.
“Why not?”
“Because.”
“You should talk to Jerri. It’s important to get an adult’s perspective.”
“I don’t know any adults,” I said.
“You know my dad. He’s an adult.”
“You want I should talk to your dad?” I asked, putting on a TV gangster accent, which made Aleah laugh and forget about poking at me.
I started going every day for hours, no matter what. I ran up while lightning shot across the sky and thunder rumbled down, the rocks, dirt, and rail ties slick with huge rain. I ran up it when the sun was burning hot, burning a hole in the back of my head, blinding me (even though I’d purchased some mirrored honky lifeguard shades). I ran up when the clouds were so low I was in fog at the top, sweating in the stillness and stinky humidity. It didn’t matter what was going on with the weather. Nothing else mattered. I ran and ran and ran.
Once, I ran up with that leather pouch of hippy rocks and crystals that dumbass drummer Tito had given me to help me relax (which made me a freak in the eyes of my classmates), and I dumped them in my right hand and whipped the whole handful down the M so they disappeared. (I threw the pouch in the weeds.)
Because I didn’t want to be at home (Andrew had, in fact, started asking Jerri “hard” questions. Jerri had, in fact, begun to scream like hell at Andrew), I’d stay out there for hours every day.
Every now and then an old couple or some family with kids or some tourist from another part of the state would show up and climb while I ran. Always, always, always, whoever was there would say, breathing hard, “I can’t believe you can run up and down this hill. It’s amazing.”
I’d nod, smile, keep running. Meep meep.
Mostly, though, I was alone out there. And that was good. No ghosts to freak me out with their pirate/zombie wailing about the past. Nothing to do but what I loved doing. I felt like an adult. It felt perfect to be out there. So much so, I began protecting the whole afternoon.
One early morning in the middle of July, at the end of the paper route while we were slowly rolling home, sort of zigzagging our bikes and crossing real close, Aleah said, “I’m considering changing my schedule, Felton.”
“Why’s that?” I asked, pedaling past her.
“You know, summer isn’t that long.”
“Already seems like forever,” I said.
“Well, summer term at the college ends at the end of the month. Daddy is aching to get back to Chicago.”
I hit the brakes and skidded to a stop. Then Aleah stopped a few feet ahead of me. She turned back and stared.
“You’re leaving at the end of July?” I asked, my stomach sinking.
“Maybe not exactly at the end. But pretty soon. Daddy’s got article deadlines in August, so he wants to get back to work with his co-author. You knew we were leaving.”
“Yeah, but I just figured it’d be later…Like the day before Gus comes back, right before school starts.”
“No,” Aleah shook her head.
“Oh, no.”
“That’s what I’m saying, Felton. I want to change my schedule so I’m awake during the afternoon so I can see you more.”
“But I’m not around in the afternoon,” I said, feeling dizzy.
“Where are you?” she asked.
I got off my bike, and rolled it up to the curb, and then dropped it and sat down.
“I just do stuff, Aleah.”
She followed me over to the curb, put her kickstand down on her Walmart mountain bike, and then sat down next to me.
“Can’t you change your schedule a little?” she asked. “I want to see you more.”
“I can’t. It wouldn’t be right.”
“Why? Do you need to drive around with your football friends?”
“I don’t. I don’t do that during the day.”
“What do you do?”
“I practice.”
“With your football friends?”
“No. Alone. I practice running, I guess. Or maybe it’s more just moving?”
“Oh my God. You’re so weird, Felton. You practice moving?
“Yes.” I looked down between my knees because it did sound dumb.
“Why?”
“I don’t know. You know…Why do you practice?”
“I know if I’m good at piano, I can play in front of a thousand people who’ll light up like Chinese New Year. They’ll shout and scream, and there will be all kinds of fireworks blowing up everywhere. Practicing for that makes sense!”
“Yeah.” I clearly didn’t practice running up a hill so crowds would clap for me—although I liked it when hikers were astounded by my running. I moved because I liked to move, I guess. “But is that why you play piano, Aleah? Because of Chinese New Year?”
“I guess. So I can perform for big…” She thought for a moment. “Also…Also because I know everything when I’m playing. Everything makes sense.”
“That’s it!” It hit me. While running on the Mound, I knew everything I needed to know. I knew everything. And whereas hippy crystals never helped me nor whispering Gus’s name in fourth grade, knowing all I needed to know completely helped. “Me too, Aleah. Everything makes sense. So I have to move in the afternoon.”
“You’re so weird, Felton Reinstein. It completely stuns me. I mean, ‘move’? How weird.”
“I know. Don’t tell anyone.”
“You’re weirder than me,” she sort of whispered, staring.
“Shhhh.” I gestured with my hand.
“It hurts my heart. I just love you.” She shook her head.
I nodded.
Then we kissed for about twenty-five years, I think.