Cappy tipped the beer down with a pill, lay back, and stared up into the leaves. The light was turning gold.
This here is my favorite time of day, he said. He took a small wallet-size school photo of Zelia from his cowboy shirt pocket and held it to his forehead.
Ssshhh, they’re communicating, Angus said.
I miss you too, baby, said Cappy after a few moments. He put the photo back in his pocket, pressed down the pearl snaps, and patted his heart.
It’s a beautiful love, I said. I turned on my side and leaned into the earth and threw up a little. I buried the puke with dirt. Nobody noticed. I mumbled, I wouldn’t mind a beautiful love.
Cappy handed me a pamphlet. Her last letter, man. It was about the Rapture. This was in it. Cappy smiled upward.
I looked at the pamphlet steadily, reading the words several times to get their meaning
Rapture, yeah man, said Zack.
Not that kind of rapture, said Cappy. It’s a mass liftoff. There’s only a certain number of people who can go. They don’t apparently take Catholics so Zelia’s family is thinking of converting before the Tribulation. She wants me to convert along with them so we get raptured up together.
Stairway to heaven, laughed Zack.
Raptured as one, I said. As one. My brain had started on a repeating loop and I had to force my mouth to stop saying everything I thought fifty times.
I don’t think you’ll make it, you two, said Angus dreamily. You guys can’t get in now with that mortal stain.
It was like an icicle jabbed into my thoughts. The subject hadn’t come up with the four of us. We hadn’t spoken of Lark’s death. The cold spread. My brain was clear, but the rest of me was just too comfortable. Cappy handled the moment and melted the fear out of me as usual.
Starboy, said Cappy, holding out his hand. Angus clasped it in a brother shake. The truth is, none of us will get there. They only take you stone-cold sober.
All your life? said Angus.
All your life, Starboy, said Cappy. You cannot slip even one time.
Ah, said Angus, we’re screwed. My whole family is screwed. No rapture.
We don’t need no rapture, Zack said. We got confession. Tell your sins to Father and you’re wiped clean.
I did that, said Cappy. Father tried to clock me.
We all laughed and talked for a while about Cappy’s run. Then we fell silent and watched the flickering leaves.
Zelia probably confessed at home, Cappy said after a while. Zelia probably got wiped clean.
Unless she got pregnant. I hadn’t meant to say a thing like that, but I could not stop the
If only I hadn’t, said Cappy. If only she was. We would have to get married then.
You’re thirteen, I remembered.
Zelia said so were Romeo and Juliet.
I hate that movie, said Zack.
Angus was asleep, his breath whining evenly as a cicada.
Food. My voice again. But the others were sleeping. I stood up after a time because someone was moaning. It was Cappy. He was weeping, heartbroken, then frightened, shouting Please, no, in his sleep. I shook his arm and he passed on to some other dream. I watched over him until he seemed more peaceful. I left them sleeping there and wobbled home on my bike, but when I got into the yard the space under Pearl’s bush looked so comfortable that I crept into the dark leaves with her and slept until the sun faded. I woke up, alert, and walked in the kitchen door.
Joe? Where you been? Mom called from the other room. I felt that she had been waiting for me the whole time.
I grabbed a glass and poured some milk and drank it fast.
Out biking around, I said.
You missed dinner. I can warm up some spaghetti.
But I was already eating it cold, straight from the refrigerator. Mom came in and shooed me aside.
At least can you put it on a plate? Joe, have you been smoking? You stink like cigarettes.
The other guys were.
Same old line I gave my folks.
I like spaghetti cold.
She made me a dish and begged me not to smoke.
I won’t anymore, I promise.
She sat down watching me eat.
There’s something I wanted to tell you this morning, Joe. You called out in your sleep last night. You yelled.
I did?
I got up and I went to your door. You were talking to Cappy.
What’d I say?
I couldn’t make out what you said. But you called Cappy’s name twice.
I kept eating. He’s my best buddy, Mom. He’s like a brother to me.
I thought about him crying in his sleep out at the construction site and put my fork down. I wanted to leave our house, find Cappy again. I felt that I should not have left him sleeping. The crack of light beneath my father’s door widened and he came out and sat down at the table with us. He had stopped drinking coffee from dawn till dusk and on into the night. My mother gave him a glass of water. He was neatly shaven, never in his bathrobe anymore. He kept reduced hours at work.
I started today, Joe.
Started what? I was still distracted. If I called Cappy’s house, maybe he could get a ride over here and stay the night. We’d be together in the dark. My father kept on talking.
I started my walking regimen, around the high-school track. I made it a half mile. I’ll be going every day. You’ll be out running too. I guess you’ll lap me a few times.
My mother reached out and took his hand. He smoothed his hand over her fingers and touched her wedding ring.
She won’t let me go alone, he said, looking at her. Oh, Geraldine!
They were both thinner and the lines along the side of their mouths had deepened. But the knifelike mark between my mother’s eyebrows was gone now. I had stopped them from living in the fear cloud. I should have felt happy watching them across the table, but instead I was angered by their ignorance. Like I was the grown-up and the two of them holding hands were the oblivious children. They had no idea what I had gone through for them. Or Cappy. Me and Cappy. I stubbed my foot sullenly against the table leg.
Something’s fighting in me, Joe, my father said.
My foot stopped kicking.
Maybe you’ll understand if I talk to you about it?
Okay, I said, though I was jumping out of my skin. I didn’t want to listen.
I feel relief at Lark’s death, my father said. Just like you said when you first heard, I feel that way too. Your mother is safe from him, he will not show up in the grocery store or at Whitey’s. We can go on now, can’t we?
Yeah, I said. I tried to get up, but he spoke.
Yet the question of who killed Lark must be asked. There was no justice for your mother, his victim, or for Mayla, and yet justice exists.
Unevenly applied, Dad. But he got what he deserved. My voice was flat. My heart sickly pounding.
My mother had dropped my father’s hand. She did not want to listen to us argue.
I feel that way too, said my father. Bjerke will interview us tomorrow—it’s routine. But nothing is routine.
