Please say something, she said.
I sat there with my feet twisted around the legs of the kitchen chair, legs chewed gnarly by our
deaf and blind dog, Mathis. It was two weeks after the accident, two weeks after the funeral. We still
had the pictures up. We still had the vases full of flowers, pink and brown, smelling like sweet decay.
Mom knelt in front of me with a hand on each shoulder begging me to talk about it, but there wasn't
anything to say even though there was so much. My Uncle Ben and Aunt Pat were there too, standing
statuesque behind Mom. And behind them, Dad paced. Mathis pinballed his way around the kitchen.
The soft clank of his body hitting a cabinet, the swoosh of his furry side sliding along the wood. He
moved in circles still, a sheltie who never learned to stop herding. It used to be, maybe a year earlier, he
would herd us all morning long as we opened presents on Christmas. Except now, in his blindness, he
herded people less. It was closer to “The Yellow Wallpaper”.
Please, she said, Please, she whispered.
I looked at her eyes and I wanted to say something but I couldn't because I didn't know how or
what. It had been two weeks since I'd said a word; a twelve year-old who refused to talk left a cloud
hanging in the room. Mom was at the breaking point. It wasn't her fault, really. She'd gone through a
tragedy; we all had; it was stressful. I stopped talking, but dammit, I said so much. She lost her oldest
son, and now her only child went dumb. Just stopped talking all together. I missed Trevor. Without him
I was the sole child and, though only twelve, I was bigger than any elephant in any room in the world.
I used to talk a lot more when Trev was around. It was the only way I knew how to get his
attention.
Hey Trevor, guess what? I would flutter around him, in and out, up and down like an insect. A
buzz in his ear.
Trev, did you know that corn can grow to be 12 feet high? I've never seen corn like that.
He would swat his hand with the flick of his wrist the same way he would a fly. Shoo, Ry, don't
bother me. And, like a fly, I would leave, circle back, and alight on his shoulder, buzz again.
Hey Trev, that cloud right there, up there, see it? It's an Altocumulus. Did you know that?
Nooooo. Leave me alone.
He usually groaned at me, but I didn't care. He never got really mad or anything. I just annoyed
him. I think he knew I wasn't trying to be annoying and that I really thought of him as a sort of hero.
Everything I wanted to tell him but couldn't get the nerve, I told my friend, Cam. Cam knew about the
crush I had on Nicole. Cam knew every curse word I learned from Trev. Cam knew about sex because I
knew about it. A month earlier Trev had just gotten back from his class trip to France, and the two of us
were playing catch in the front yard. He told me that a French girl gave him a blowjob.
Did you do it back?
Nah, he said, I didn't feel like munching a rug.
Cam and I loved that. We laughed about it for days.
Please, Ry, she said, and tears filled her eyes and her grip tightened and she shook me. It was
scary, the look she had and the way her hands felt more like claws or talons digging into my shoulders.
Maybe you should give him some space, Uncle Ben said, more time.
Mom was at her wit's end. All it took was that little comment from Uncle Ben and she flipped. A
short circuit. It looked like she turned her head all the way around. Everyone was scared. We held our
breath.
Mom stood and turned on a heel. She faced Uncle Ben with her jaw set in an under bite and her
eyes burning.
What?
I mean, he said, don't you think he could use the space? Like, maybe that's how he grieves. I
don't know, you know?
He scratched his head and looked skyward like maybe an idea would drift down but all that fell
was his dandruff.
Don't tell me how to talk to my son.
I was just--
Don't, I said don't.
Honey he was just--
NO, Tucker, he wasn't just.
It felt good to be on the outside. For a second I was forgotten. They said my name and talked
about me and pointed in my direction but they weren't really thinking of me. Nobody looked at me and
I could breathe again, but only for a second.
Things started closing in when I looked around the kitchen. We still had those stupid pictures
up. There were these two easels with pictures of Trevor at different ages. Trevor at prom. Trevor at
graduation. Trevor, 16 years-old, sitting in the driver's seat. A ten year old Trevor, shirtless, flexing for
the camera. There was a picture of him blowing a bubble bigger than his head. A baby Trevor. There
was a picture of him holding Mathis. There was a picture of him holding me. And now he was dead.
Under a pile of dirt he slept sealed in a vacuum. My brother was gone, leaving me to all the attention.
That moment with Mom standing, facing everyone else, was the first time in two weeks she left me any
sort of room. I tried to enjoy it.
Even with the weight of Mom lifted from me there was still that house. That kitchen. That
whole damn neighborhood weighed down on me. I had to go. I had to get out of the stifling kitchen
first. The smell of those funeral flowers, like carrion, after two weeks of dying on their feet. Those
pictures of Trevor stared at me. The buzz left in the air from his absence was too much, a roar.
No! He is my son!
I don't know how it got to that, the screaming; I must have drifted off.
Honey. Calm down.
I WILL NOT! I AM TRYING TO HELP MY SON!
THIS!? THIS ISN'T HELPING ANYONE!
Each trumpeted word shook the house down to the foundation and I felt choked, suffocated. To
my right, just through the kitchen entryway, if you peeked around the frame, was the front door. The
main door hung open to let an evening breeze through the screen. I saw daylight on the wall and I knew
I could do it. I could run. I'd just have to make it around that corner and out the door to freedom. I'd be
gone. I would be able to breathe. I untangled my feet from the chair legs. I planted my hands on either
side of me. I took a labored breath. I cast another glance around the room in case I never saw it again.
Poor Mathis. He was going to die herding pots and pans.
And there I went. I pushed up from the chewed on chair, knocking it over behind me. I turned in
my sneakers around the corner to the front door, to my freedom and I pushed with all my speed,
breaking the spring arm on the screen. I hopped the two front steps and was in the yard by the time they
realized what happened. Their shoes and sandals clapped the sidewalk behind me. We ran, a furious
mob, down William St. past the empty lot where we used to play baseball. We ran past Cam's house. He
was outside, standing there, doing nothing but watching. The whole street was watching. They'd all
found a flower to water or a letter to send. They were out and intrigued and staring. We ran past three
other houses: The Cheater, The Widow, and the Whore. A blur. My legs hurt but I kept them going. I
had to. It's all I could think to do was run. I ran. They followed. Uncle Ben yelled for me, but I ran
harder, faster. We came up to Freed Rd. and I ran across without looking. Behind me I heard a car horn
and Dad swearing. I heard everyone's feet clap clap clap until we each reached the grass and it became
a heavy thud. We were wildebeest on the plain. The ground trembled beneath my feet and I saw this
place, the park where Trevor taught me how to hit a golf ball. I saw the playground in the corner where
he punched a kid in the jaw for burying a box of dog treats we'd forgotten. I heard my lungs and my
heart fighting my ribs and I heard the feet of my followers drumming the ground. I was a war child
leading my tribe to victory, or a POW running from my captors.
I knew Mom wanted me to talk but I didn't know what to say. I had so much to tell her but no
way to say it. Running was my answer to her questions, her what's wrongs and her why won't you tell
mes. It was my chance to tell her everything without telling her anything at all. See me run, I wanted to
say. The grass under foot was sharp and dry, gold patches throughout the field. It hadn't rained in over a
month, hard as I wished for it at Trev's funeral. 90 degrees and all of us running. I pushed toward the
string of pines in the corner of the park where I was flashed for the first time. If I could just make it
there I might be safe. I pushed myself past whatever I thought I could handle and leaned with my
momentum and tried to distance myself from the crowd, but they were all right there behind me,
gaining, coming closer, drums beating, beasts hunting, and I felt a stutter in the world. Ahead were the
pines and behind were the memories and I tried to make it, to escape it all, tried to talk, and I dragged
my legs onward and pumped my fists and steamed out of my mouth and dried out my throat and wetted
my eyes and ran and ran and saw that I was so, so close, but so, so far and I kept on and on and felt
nauseous and god-like and super human and dead, and I tried, you know I tried, but I saw trees, grass,
them, sky, trees, grass, them, black, stop. Breathe. Collapse.
And there was Mom holding me, my head to her chest, her hand through my hair, her voice
saying, Shhhh.
Saying, It's ok.
Saying, I'm here.
Dad picked me up, cradled me in his arms and carried me away from the park. They all walked
behind the two of us and as we got to the corner of Freed Rd. and William St. it started to rain. I felt a
drop on my hand, then my head, then all over. We moved on in the rain, our neighbors still standing in
their yards watching us like some sad parade. They put me to bed, tucked me in, and Dad said, We'll
wait for when you're ready. You just come to us when you're ready. They pulled the door closed behind
them.
I stood in the street in the dark. The asphalt was cool on my bare feet. I stood in my boxers
under streetlights that didn't shine, under a sky without stars. It was my street but instead of snaking
around and becoming another street, it ended in woods. There, at the end of it was the entrance to The
Kish. The Kish, where we all had forts, where we all hid from our parents, where we smoked our first
cigarettes and grilled our first meat. It was a place with more than three tire swings. It was next to a
water treatment plant. And there it was at the end of my street. I had to go back there.
At the entrance the dirt was cool. There was a thing layer of powder on top and the feeling of it
between my toes took me back to days in the sandbox. It was fine as baby powder.
There were roots kicked up in the path, tree branches reaching down to tug at my hair and skin.
Leaves to caress. The whole forest was breathing in and out with me, the dumb boy. It was just the two
of us. In the day time that place would have been overrun with kids on bikes, but in that moment in the
night it was soft and serene. As I walked it sounded like the woods walked with me. Each step I took
brought a step from the trees. Each foot forward and it was like the roots followed. Then it felt a little
off. I would take a step and the woods would move. A small delay and a cracked twig. I realized that
maybe it wasn't the woods. I thought that maybe I wasn't alone. Maybe I was being followed. I moved
faster as sweat beaded on my forehead. There, just behind me. What was that? A wheeze or a rumble.
Something in the dark. It took so much control to keep from shaking that my back hurt.
I walked down a steep incline to the flood plain. Past the dirt jumps and the berm I turned left
and continued straight for ten yards before turning right and through the entrance to the fort. There
Trevor stood with his arms crossed. He looked good, he looked calm. He smiled when he saw me
panting and sweating in my boxers in the woods. He was black and white and that's when I realized
everything else was too.
Trev, I tried to say.
He held his finger up to his mouth, miming a shhh.
I looked at him, now so sad eyed like I'd never seen him before. His hair was short like always
and he had stubble on his chin, the only place he could really grow facial hair. His cheeks were baby-
smooth. His hands were nervous, kinetic,. They were in his pockets, then sliding over his short hair,
wiping his nose, rubbing his neck. He smiled at me, then, his eyes widened and he reached out.
I saw black. I fell flat on my face, a tumble, on my back looking up at a blurry constellation,
smiling at me. It came into focus and it wasn't a constellation but the face of a wolf, growling, drooling,
and shiny.
NO! Trevor screamed.
I looked at him standing there, upside down, pointing at the wolf.
It was dark, the blue-black of midnight, and when it looked up at Trevor, its eyes and teeth
disappeared and I lost it. I felt its weight and its claws on my shoulders, but its fur was so dark and
dulled that it disappeared. It was staring Trev down. I felt its claws flex into my body, pushing me into
the earth. A bark, and Trevor froze, a bright red flower bloomed from the top of his head, sprinkling
pedals down behind him. His eyes rolled up, darkened. He slumped, stumbled, tripped over a log and
landed on his back. That's when the wolf looked down into my face and whispered, shhhh, pressing me
further into the ground, whispered, it's not OK, its claws stabbing my chest. I couldn't breathe. I felt
twisted, tied up. Gasping, my mouth opened and closed, drinking no air like a fish spent from flopping
around on land, too tired to try to find a puddle or something. My vision started to fade and then--
HHHHHAAAAAAA! My chest shot up it was so full of air. I was on my back looking at the stars,
wheezing. The Big and Little Dipper. Orion. Eyes focused, stars turned to stickers. The sky, my ceiling.
I was twisted up in my blanket, sweating and panting. Everything was in the right place, right where I
left it. The house was quiet. The wolf was gone. So was Trevor.
I pushed myself up on my elbows and looked around the room. My toys standing at attention on
their shelves, ready to be played with. A box of G.I. Joes, hand me downs from Trev. In the corner on
my dresser was a boombox, also a hand me down. In it was a Beastie Boys tape. Ill Communication.
Obviously a hand me down. Half of my room was cast off pieces of my older brother. The flotsam and
jetsam of a growing boy. It was probably a good thing that he changed interests so much. It gave me a
chance to try almost everything. My dresser, my bed, my pillows were all formerly his. It's weird being
a younger brother. The way people describe things as post-modern, the younger brother is post-son. I
was post-Trevor. His actions dictated my upbringing. Because of him I couldn't have a paintball gun.
Because of him I couldn't stay out after 9pm. Also, because of him, I didn't have to ask any questions
about sex or drugs or life. I could see that Mom put a sort of hologram image over top of me. Like the
ghost on an old television, she saw Trevor on me, slightly blurred, a little behind in his movements.
I swung my legs over the side of my bed and touched them to the worn in carpet. I stood and
wobbled a little, then walked to my door. I froze for a second, a slight hiccup in my movement, and I
reached for the doorknob. It felt like my arm was six feet long. The knob was cool to the touch. I turned
it and lifted up on the door before pulling it open. It was the only way to keep the whole door from
whining. Outside my room the house was quiet. Uncle Ben and Aunt Pat had gone home to their pets. It
was just the three of us now. Three. But his room was right there, the fourth. It was just down the hall
with his bed and his drawings and his music. His sheets still smelled like him. It was like our house had
been lobotomized. A big chunk just disappeared. Dad snored across the hall. Mathis dreamed in the
kitchen. I took one step and the air conditioning clicked off. That was true silence then. People talk
about “deafening silence”. That was it. It was so quiet that it left a buzzing in the ears like my brain
couldn't deal with that kind of quiet. It was the sound of my inner ear relaxing. The rest of my steps
were a blur of nerves and sadness. The house just seemed to get smaller and heavier after each step.
Then, there it was. Trevor's door was right there in front of my eyes and my hand was even on the
knob. Nerves were like lava in my gut. I wanted to throw up, go to bed, run away, anything. I pushed
the door open and walked to the desk and turned on the lamp.
It was the same. I expected it to feel different, but it was just a room full of nobody's stuff. It felt
like a model home, meant to look like a real person's space. Posters of bands like Nirvana and The
Beastie Boys. A record player left over from when he wanted to be a DJ. After that dream died he used
to play Miles Davis records to help him fall asleep. He had shelves on his wall full of action figures. He
had a book shelf that was covered in the likes of Anderson, Bradbury, and Faulkner. The bottom shelf
was full of his old sketchbooks. I bent down and pulled out his last one; it was half done. The last used
page had a drawing of a car, dark on the inside with two sets of eyes in the front seats. A large
SKREEEE! came from the rear tire. I used to ask him weekly if I could look at his new drawings.
Trevor was always very open with showing us his stuff. As a family we would sit and finger the pages.
I knelt down to put the book back and saw something out of my periphery. There taped under
his desk was a piece of cardboard. I leaned over and saw that it was a kind of sheath. Tucked inside was
a book. I pushed one side to scoot it out of the cardboard, and it was another sketchbook. It was one I'd
never seen before. Trevor usually stickered up the outside of his books to make them his own, but this
was straight black. On the bottom edge it read, “1995--” in black pen. It usually took him a couple
months to go through a whole sketchbook with how often he doodled. The bottoms of the others said
things like, “Jan-Mar '93”. I peeled it open and before I could even look at the page I heard Mom and
Dad's door open and close. Mom's scuffling footsteps came down the hall, her callused heels scraping
the carpet. I snapped the book shut and held my breath. Clicked the desk lamp off. A soft tap on the
door, like she knocked with her fingertip.
Ry?
She breathed on the door, a shaky breath.
It's me. Mom.
Her hand turned the knob a quarter turn. She stopped when it squeaked, a denial to her efforts. A
whimper. There was a soft thud, her forehead pressing, her breath catching.
You don't have to say anything. When you're ready, we'll talk. Just, I want you to know that I'm
here for you. I know what you're going through.
The silhouette of her head almost pressed itself into the door. I could see her there hiding behind
it, talking through it. Her eyes were closed and wet. She sniffled, bit her lip, let her hand drop from the
doorknob.
I love you, she said, and her heels scuffed back down the hall and her door opened and closed,
the brief wheeze of their bathroom fan slipped out.
I sat there in the dark holding a sketchbook that nobody knew existed, my palms sweating into
the cover. I bent down and sheathed it. Though I wanted to run from that house, from that place with
those memories, I couldn't leave just yet. I had to know what he thought before he did it. If there was
anything in that house that could give a clue, that could shed light on why, it was that book. It held all
the thoughts he didn't want us smudging with our curious fingers. Only I would know about it. It
would be our secret.
Mathis barked.