Jeremy Stone (4 page)

Caitlan Cried

The floodgates opened

and I held her

and then she sobbed

and blew her nose on my sleeve

and said she was

sorry.

I knew it was my job to stay strong right now.

That was all I knew.

I silently told the fuckin' black dogs to fuck off

and they did.

And suddenly,

Old Man was in the little closet with us.

He looked a little older, a little more tired. Bent over.

I heard him speak in my head in the usual way.

Oh boy, he said, you sure got your hands full

and he nodded at Caitlan.

I shrugged. You look tired, I said silently to him.

Yeah, he said. I've been staying up late.

So much to think about on this side.

She's pretty, he said.

But it looks like a bit of trouble.

I must have looked puzzled because he added,

It's okay, though. It's always okay.

Caitlan was pulling herself together

We've been in here a long time. Fred

will probably show up. But that's okay.

It's only Fred and he's cool. But we

should get

to our next class. I'm sorry.

Nothing to be sorry about, I said.

Probably best if we don't

leave here together

in case somebody sees.

Right. Old Man nodded.

And then she was gone

and I was alone again

with my grandfather. You like her? he asked.

What's not to like? I answered.

She's got Indian hair,

Indian eyes.

I noticed. That's good.

It's all good, he said.

When you get to where

I am, you get to see things

on a lot of levels.

And your eyes work in different ways.

I get to see the sunset

from the other side of the sun

and the sunrise too.

And people—

you can see people inside out,

if you know what I mean.

What can I do to help her?

You'll need to be careful.

She could drag you down.

But she said she was trying to help
me.

She's kind. But a bit intense.

You noticed.

I don't miss much.

She needs you. So there's that.

Can't ignore that.

Just don't fall in love.

Oops.

Right.

Sounds like she's still in love with Jenson Hayes.

There's that.

That can't be good.

She didn't have closure.

Everyone needs that.

What can I do about that?

Old Man straightened his back. That's what he

does when he's about to leave me.

I'll ask around. Everyone shows up

on my side

of the sunset eventually.

I'll just Google him

and see.

And then of course he was gone. And leave it to Old Man to try to blow my mind by suggesting you could find someone on the other side just by Googling a name. But then that's Old Man for ya.

Just then

the door opened

and I guess it was Fred

'cause he had a bucket and a mop. I was just sitting there

in a chair with my hands on my knees.

Fred looked surprised

but not too surprised. I guess he'd come to his janitor's closet before

and seen lots of unusual things.

It's okay, kid, he said. Finish up with whatever you're doing and I'll come back in a few minutes.

And he left.

So I don't know if he thought I was doing drugs or whatever.

But it didn't matter

much, I guess.

Not to

Fred.

The End of the Day

No one said, Why did you miss class?

I went to English then history

and then it was time to go home.

I looked around outside for Caitlan

but she was gone. I wondered what she did after school.

I had

nowhere

to go but home.

So I went home.

When I went in the door there was my mom

lying on the living room floor face up eyes closed

arms at her side.

Mom! I screamed.

She didn't move but she spoke:

What?

She didn't open her eyes.

Are you okay? Yes.

She sounded annoyed.

What are you doing? I'm meditating.

Just shut up so I can

meditate.

She was mad.

So I didn't say another word.

Went into the kitchen

for peanut butter

and celery.

Peanut butter is smooth on the tongue and celery,

well, you gotta love celery: the way it crunches.

So after a few minutes

my mom

comes into the kitchen and lights a cigarette.

First one of the day, she says.

I promised myself I wouldn't

smoke

until I meditated

for twenty minutes.

My mom could take the longest drag

on a cigarette,

like half the cigarette

and then hold

the smoke

in her lungs.

I chose not to say a word

about secondhand smoke

or any

of that shit

that would make her mad.

Instead, I said I was sorry

for messing up her meditation on the living room floor.

It's hard, you know.

Everything is hard

for a single mother

who's given up all

her addictions

except smokes

and alcohol.

I know, Mom, I said.

It can't be easy.

My Mother Knows

She knows that I love her

and would do just about anything for her

except buy her drugs. She used to do that sometimes.

Give me money to buy her drugs from this guy named

Chevy. I liked Chevy.

Everybody did

even though he'd sell weed or coke or maybe even crack

to a kid like me

to take home to my mother. Chevy bought groceries

for families

that didn't have any money, usually because the father

or mother

had spent it all on drugs.

When we moved away—off reserve

Chevy gave my mom a whole

carton of smokes

as a going-away present.

This was after my father was gone.

I think my mom liked Chevy

but didn't want her kid

having a drug dealer

for a secondhand father.

I have to draw the line somewhere, she said.

And when we moved, she got real moody

'cause she gave up everything

but eventually went back to

nicotine and alcohol

in what she called “limited quantities.”

She worried about me

and took me to counselors

and healers

and psychics. I told them all about

Old Man and they all told me

that was great. The psychics said

they could see him. But I don't know.

The psychics said I was an Old Soul and that part of me was damaged because of some kind of shit that happened in a previous life. The not-talking routine that I did sometimes was a good thing because the silence, they said, helped cleanse me of negative energy from my past lives. I asked one of them, Jack—Jack the side-burned psychic—if he could see Old Man and he said he could, that Old Man was standing over my left shoulder. And I turned and sure enough, Old Man was smiling. But that was nothing new.

So Jack said Old Man would always be there for me. He also said my father was somewhere Out West and kind of messed up but would come back one day. He said he saw the two of us as adults drinking beer in a gloomy bar. And there were no other people in the bar. Just black dogs.

And I said,

Yeah,

that's probably

me

and him.

But the psychic said it was okay, that when I was an adult and we had that beer together, we'd both be pretty messed up but not totally fucked. And that, he assured me, was the way life worked for most people, even Old Souls like me.

You just got to work with

what the spirit world hands you,

and grow from there, he said.

Isn't that true, Old Man? he asked.

And Old Man nodded, straightened his back and disappeared.

Then the psychic told my mother

That will be a hundred bucks.

Cooking

My mother stopped cooking when

my dad left.

She said I had to cook from then on.

I said I was okay with that.

So I shopped for food.

And cooked.

When my mom finished her cigarette

she took out another

and just looked at it for a long while

and then spoke to it:

You bastard, she said. Let go.

And then she put it back in the pack

and I asked her if she wanted me

to make

spaghetti. I love you, kid, she said. Someday.

Someday.

But she didn't finish the someday sentence.

She never

does.

So I boiled water

and it got real steamy in the kitchen

and I kept thinking

I should expand our list

of stuff we would eat for meals.

Maybe start reading some of

those women's magazines

I saw in the supermarket line

with recipes

for artichoke salads

and sautéed eggplant

and thirty ways to lose weight

and fifty ways

to have great sex.

As I dropped in the spaghetti—

the really thin stuff

called capelli d'Angelo angel hair

hair of the angels—

I told my mom about Caitlan.

Maybe I shouldn't have done that

'cause she pulled that second smoke

out from her pack

and lit it,

took the signature long drag,

tilted her head back

and said

Holy fuck.

Maybe

sending you to school

was a total

absolute

mistake.

The First Time He Walked Up to Me

I didn't know who he was at first.

Just another guy at school.

I didn't know what he wanted.

You're Jeremy, right? I'd been walking down the hall

my eyes looking at the dusty floor

thinking about Geronimo

preventing the sun from coming up.

I looked up, nodded.

Saw this skinny white kid

pale, like a lot of white people when

they don't get out in the sun

with messy, kinda long hair hanging

down over his eyes.

Yeah, Jeremy, I said.

We need to talk. You okay with that?

I thought maybe he was selling weed

and assumed I was a stoner.

What do we need to talk about?

(The word “need” was freaking me a bit.)

Don't be scared. Shit. I guess I looked scared.

I look that way a lot

(even when I'm not scared). So?

He looked puzzled now. Said, You can't tell that I'm different?

I wanted to say all white people kinda looked the same to me

but I received a knuckle sandwich for that one once.

Lesson learned.

Dunno, I said.

You don't know who I am?

Like what kind of bullshit, now?

How was I supposed to know who he was?

No, man. You somebody important,

someone famous?

No, dude. (Nobody had called me dude in a long while.)

Who are you, dude?

Jenson Hayes, he said.

I guess I stopped breathing and stared.

You okay, dude? he asked. I let out my breath and

took a new gulp of air.

I'm okay, I said. You?

He smiled a crooked smile, snorted a little.

Well, he said, you know, dude.