“I don’t know,” I said. “Well. I sort of know. But I don’t know that it’s any one great big deal, like . . .” But then I didn’t want to say like what. I didn’t want to make any reference to her situation. Her great big deal. “He’s just always been sort of sad. His parents don’t say a word to each other, and it’s just really heavy and dark and strained in that house, and it’s getting to him. I think. Maybe there’s more, but if so, I don’t know it.”
“So what makes you think he’s thinking about it?”
“Because he said he thinks about it.”
“Oh. That’s pretty damn clear.”
For a minute or two I watched the curls of wood, and the shape they were leaving behind as they fell. It was beginning to look like a monkey. I could see its long tail curved around the inside core of the stick.
“Is that possible?” I asked. But then I didn’t know how to be any clearer than that. I wasn’t sure how to put into words what I thought I meant. “Like . . . even if nothing huge happened?”
“Anything’s possible. Sure, a person can just be depressed. Maybe his parents grew up hard and they haven’t even begun to heal the insides of themselves. And then yeah, sure. He can grow up hard, too. I don’t know because I don’t know him. But it’s not always about big stuff happening to us. Not as much as people think, anyway. Could just be his brain chemistry or a bunch of little things adding up big.”
I sat quiet a minute.
Then I said, “So what do I do?”
She looked at me like I was crazy. Stone crazy. Like I’d just told her I see flying monkeys or some weird vision like that.
“What?” I asked, feeling defensive.
“Well, first of all . . . you obviously weren’t listening yesterday. I told you. You can’t make somebody leave and you can’t make them stay.”
“You said I couldn’t with you.”
She sighed. “With anybody. And another thing. You’re looking for advice on keeping a friend alive. So you go to a person who tried suicide a few days ago and might try it again tomorrow. Does that sound like good sense to you?”
I stood.
My face was burning as I stared down at her. Partly because she was chastising me for not making good sense. Partly because she’d just told me she might try it again tomorrow.
“Okay,” I said. “Got it. I’ll go now.”
But I was only two or three steps into leaving when she stopped me with a single word.
“Kid.”
I turned back. Waited.
“Just be a good friend to him. Might work. Might not. But it’s really the only shot available to you.”
I didn’t say thank you. I didn’t say anything. Because I wasn’t sure if I wanted to talk to her anymore. It felt like such a minefield, everything that happened when the lady was around. Or even sometimes when she wasn’t around, like that moment with her daughter. When Zoe Dinsmore was involved, things got explosive.
I just nodded.
Then I ran home.
I managed to drag Connor out to the park, but it was a mistake. I knew I should have left well enough alone as soon as we got there and those two guys were there. The ones I beat by a step or two at the track tryout. They were on the other side, on this hilly part of the grass, but it was a small neighborhood park, so they were closer than I would’ve liked. They were playing tackle football with two other guys I had seen but didn’t really know.
And they were aware of my presence. That much was uncomfortably clear.
I had my bat along, and a couple of softballs. In case Connor hit one of them out of the park and we never found it. Connor wasn’t what you might call a star athlete, but he did have his moments as a surprisingly good hitter. He swung hard and missed plenty. He was just as likely to strike out as connect with the ball. But when he connected . . . man. His swing was unreal. Home run nearly every time.
I thought it might be good for him to play at something he was good at for a change. I didn’t think till later that his massive hits might have had something to do with anger boiling up.
I also hadn’t factored in the guys who were sneering at me.
“Come on,” I said to Connor. Ignoring them. I handed him the bat. “You’re up first. I’ll pitch you some.”
I paced off the distance I thought should represent home base to mound.
When I turned around to face Connor, I was face to face with those two guys. They had abandoned their game and walked over, following me across the grass.
“Hey, Speedy Gonzales,” one of them said. The one who’d snickered at me for not knowing how to use starting blocks.
“What?” I said, already not liking the feel of this. Already with a bad sense of where this was headed.
“See that guy?”
“What guy?”
He pointed over to one of the boys in his four-person football game. He had wandered closer, too, and was standing maybe ten steps away. I didn’t know where the fourth guy was. I didn’t see him anymore.
The guy in question raised his hand and waved at me. Not in a friendly way. More like, “Yeah. Me.”
“What about him?” I asked, noticing that my throat was feeling tight.
“His name is Arnie.”
“That’s nice,” I said, trying to sound casual. I don’t think it was working.
“He used to have a spot on the track team. But now he doesn’t. Guess why not?”
I knew why not. It was pretty obvious. The coach had given me a spot and then dropped his slowest guy. It wasn’t my fault that Arnie was his slowest guy. It didn’t make me feel guilty or like I’d done something I shouldn’t have. But that was on the inside. On the outside, I figured I’d better come out with something better than “Who
