The Summer That Melted Everything

  The grave of that man, not really a man but the devil. After all, we never needed Sal or any devil to come from underground. I learned at that moment that the devil, the true one, is people like Ryker.

  I knew I couldn’t show the paper to Mom and Dad. Only Grand could do that and he had decided not to, so I started a fire in the fireplace. Even with the heat, I sat so close to the flames. I thought for a moment I might just say fuck it and lean all the way in and come out the other side as nothing but ash.

  Ash doesn’t have to worry about anything, does it? It doesn’t have to worry about a sick brother. It doesn’t have to worry about what it all means. Ash just turns gray and blows away. That’s what I wanted. I just wanted to blow away.

  As I watched the paper burn, I remembered the day me and Grand made his shoestrings red. It was a couple years back. We were sitting in the tree house. Grand’s shoes were brand new, having just come from the factory.

  “Always white shoelaces.” He stretched the untied laces out to the sides like bleached worms. “Why you think this is, Fielding?”

  “You’ve got a tongue of the shoe right there, and the laces are the teeth. Teeth are white.”

  “Bad design, ain’t it? Puttin’ the tongue so close to the teeth. I’m always bitin’ my tongue. You’d think if God was so smart, He’d have come up with a better design.”

  He took his pocket knife and studied each finger on his left hand like he was determining their value. Deciding that his ring finger was the least valuable, he took the knife and cut deep into his finger tip.

  “Whatcha doin’?” I sat up on my heels but didn’t try to stop him.

  “Since I’m always bitin’ my tongue and gettin’ blood on my teeth, I reckon it’s only right for my shoes to bite their tongue and get blood on their teeth.”

  “That’s the craziest thing I ever heard.”

  “What is it they say? You’ve got to be crazy once in a while, or you’ll go insane.”

  He reached the knife to me. “Go crazy with me, Fielding.”

  I took the knife and looked carefully at each of my fingers like I still had a choice to make. Really it was the left ring finger all along, making for a strange wedding of us brothers and our blood. The initial tear of the knife is what makes you cringe, but the coming blood makes it worth it. That red river, too well ourselves, too well each other.

  After the shoelaces were our blood, we made the handprints on the wall of the tree house. It was a moment shared between us when blood wasn’t dangerous, it was just the color of us. That was long before Ryker. Long before the blade followed the shine.

  It never occurred to me at that time there was even the slightest possibility Grand had not contracted the virus, as I’m sure it did not occur to him. In those early years of the disease, some feared a kiss was enough. Fear is ignorance’s first shadow.

  After the newspaper burned, I doused the fire and went upstairs, finding Sal in the hall. He looked like something returned to shape after having been pulled this way and that way and almost in two.

  “What were you and Grand doin’, Sal?”

  “Just talking.” He seemed to be gnawed at, as if of himself only a sliver remained.

  “About what?”

  “Comic books.” He frowned, not at me but at something bigger than the two of us.

  As he went downstairs, he held tight to the banister, his feet careful with the stairs, lest he go to them, lest they fester the breaks.

  He’d left Grand’s door open, so I looked into his room. I thought at first Grand was gone. But then I saw him, standing woodenlike, with his back straight against the wall, like a grandfather clock off its time.

  “Hey, Grand.”

  He just stood there and I thought for a moment he really had turned into a clock and the only thing he could ever say again was a minute upon minute.

  Finally, he spoke as quick as a glance, “Hey.”

  “Whatcha doin’?”

  “Nothin’.” He kept against the wall. There must’ve been comfort in that.

  “Wanna play catch, Grand? Like we used to?”

  “I’m through playin’ catch, little man.”

  I cracked my knuckles. I didn’t know what else to do. “You know the Reds are gonna be playin’ the Braves later?”

  He looked at me, and it was like something lost looking to be found. “Oh yeah?”

  “Yeah. It’ll be some game, they say. You wanna watch with me?”

  “I don’t much care for baseball no more.”

  “But you’re gonna be a Major Leaguer someday.”

  “Am I?”

  “Sure. Everyone says it.”

  “Funny, no one ever asked me.”

  “Don’t you wanna be a great baseball player?”

  He sighed back into the wall. “I want to be a great man, Fielding.”

  And so we stand, proved of our existence by those who see us. And how did I see Grand, how did any of us, but as the one who would be great at this and that, as long as it was baseball and girls. He always had to be what we wanted him to be first. He existed only by proxy to our dreams of him.

  “Grand? Are you okay?” I took a step toward him, but he held up his arm.

  “Don’t come any closer, little man.”

  “Why?”

  “I’m gettin’ a cold. Don’t want you to get it.” His arm stayed out. I wondered if he forgot about it.

  “I won’t get it, Grand. I won’t breathe in real deep. Just surface breaths.”

  “Naw, I like ya too much to take the chance.”

  I emptied of a long-held breath. “You still like me, Grand?”

  “Sure I do. I might even love ya.” His lowering arm was good-bye falling, and I too stupid to realize.

  “Grand—”

  “It’s time. You’re gonna miss the game, little man.”

  “Ain’tcha gonna watch with me?”

  A quiet came and dripped, making the room something drowned, us drowning with it.

  Finally, three words rose above the gasping line, “I’m sorry, Fielding.”

  “About not watchin’ the game?”

  He looked at me like I was a boy, stinking of stupid.

  “Naw, not about the game, Fielding. About hittin’ you that day. I know now you were only tryin’ to protect me.”

  “I’m sorry too, Grand. I shouldn’t have called you that … that word. And I love you no matter what. And it’s okay if you’re sick, because I’ll be here for you. We’ll all be here for you, and everything will be okay.”

  That’s what I wish I would’ve said. Why didn’t I? Maybe it would’ve changed things. Maybe if I would’ve said I’m sorry and I love you and I don’t care that you’re gay, then maybe, maybe he’d be living right next door to me now and I could go over there and sit with him and we could watch the game on TV. Or not watch it. Maybe we’d read Walt Whitman or Langston Hughes or something like that.

  Maybe there’d be someone in the kitchen making noise and this someone would come out with the food to set the table and Grand would call him his husband and make love to him after sending me back off next door until next time, until the next day I could see him again. Maybe it could’ve happened that way, but it never will, because I just stood there and he did a half chuckle into his chest and seemed to say, stupid brother. And I was. God burn me for it, I was.

  “I’m goin’ for a walk, Fielding. Tell Mom and Dad in case they ask, would ya?”

  He drifted and I wish I would’ve reached for him. He stopped by my side, giving me the chance. I didn’t take it, though. Stupid boy I was. I let my brother leave without a hug. That has never been an easy thing to let go of.

  Just before he left I blurted out, “I took your Eddie Plank card. And I lost it. That was my secret I buried.”

  “I know.” He kept his back to me, but I could still see his smile, too small to ever be real. “I know you did, little man. And it’s all right. I forgive ya.”

  “How’d you know?
You dig my secret up?”

  “I didn’t need to. The card was missin’ and you looked guilty.”

  “I know your secret too.”

  He turned to me. Looked more through me than at me. “You dug it up?”

  I nodded. “You’re afraid. That’s your secret. You’re afraid.”

  He suddenly looked toward the window, and I thought for a moment the rabid dog was coming back through. I tightened in that fear.

  He rubbed the back of his neck. A low sound came trying to be a laugh, but it had too much worry to make a real go of it.

  “You know the story of the man who went walkin’ in the city one day and found he couldn’t walk over the manholes, even though they were covered. He was afraid he’d fall down into them and the devil would finish draggin’ him down to hell. That’s what I’m afraid of. Men. Holes. And the devil.”

  He strained like he was gathering something up inside him and it was heavy, heavy, and just too much. He buckled in the knees and leaned into the doorframe.

  “Hey, listen, when I get back from my walk, I’ll watch the game with ya, okay, little man?”

  His leaving had the sound of a turning page. Whoosh, flick, and he was gone. By seven thirty, the television was on and Grand wasn’t home. I tried to concentrate on the game, but it was a bad day for the color red. Cincinnati’s ball caps and uniforms, even the stitching on the ball itself, never let me escape what could be in Grand’s blood. I shut the game off and stared at the black screen until eight thirty. Nine thirty. Midnight. Grand still wasn’t home.

  Dad grabbed a flashlight. Looked more annoyed than alarmed. The worry was all in Mom at that time as she called to Dad from the porch, “Find him, Autopsy.”

  Dad nodded he would as she stood up against the wall of the porch like a second front door, waiting to be opened. Me, Sal, and Dad went up and down the lanes, shining the flashlight on bushes, passing cars, dark porches, and if Grand had been a leaf, a group of laughing teenagers, a napping cat, we would’ve found him.

  Onward we went, shining the light across the baseball diamond behind the school. Up in the stands at the football stadium. It felt like a hundred different places before, after, and in between, but no Grand.

  I found myself leading us through the woods. Dad shined the flashlight inside the one-room schoolhouse as we passed it. Nothing but one of Elohim’s pamphlets on the ground.

  The whole way walking to the tree house, I had that feeling one has when walking toward a difficult decision. I wanted to find Grand, but when I climbed up and saw the tree house empty, I won’t lie and say I didn’t feel relieved.

  By that time, Dad was no longer annoyed. He was worried, painfully worried now. The light in his hand anxiously bouncing from tree to tree.

  “I wonder where that boy has gotten to.” He sighed. “I wonder—”

  His voice fell with the flashlight that banged against the ground.

  “Dad?”

  It was too dark to see him, but I heard his feet pounding against the ground, running toward something.

  I jumped down out of the tree house and picked up the light. Its shine found Sal. The way he stood there, I’ll never forget the horror on his face. What he and Dad had seen, I didn’t know. But he raised his trembling arm to show me.

  I was afraid to shine the light to where he was pointing. I would go slow to the sorrow. Light on tree, another tree. Bark, more bark. Took the light lower and saw dirt. Leaves and more dirt, and … the toes of Grand’s tennis shoes.

  Oh, God, no.

  Slowly I moved the light up his laces, untied.

  His jeans. Something red drenching the denim up his left side. More red drenching his hand, his arm. More than more, it was plenty to scream at, as Dad was screaming.

  Oh, God, Dad. You on all fours and scooping the blood up from the ground, trying to put it back into the large gaping slash on your son’s arm.

  With every scrape Dad made of the ground, leaves and debris were brought up too and because of this Grand’s arm became Halloween and I had to look away because the scare was no longer subtle and I thought I was going to scream my throat to pieces.

  It was then I saw the pocketknife. The knife me and Grand had used to cut our fingers. The knife that had once bled us closer. Now it was the knife that cut us apart.

  I looked at Dad’s face. His tears didn’t drop. Instead they stopped at his cheeks like they were taped there. I tried to remember, did someone come along with clear tape, and if so, when? Were they still around? Would they tape my tears? I wanted them to. I wanted my tears to be always stuck on my cheeks in that particular fall the way I knew they’d always be on Dad’s. In ten, twenty, the eternity of years, I knew the tears would still be there. This would be the reason I would never again be able to get close to my father. I’d never be able to make it past the tears.

  Dad never gave up trying to put Grand’s blood back into his arm, not even when I asked him to. Even when I screamed at him to stop, to just stop it already, he kept going and was so there with it that he never saw Sal. Never saw how he picked up the piece of paper with Grand’s words written on it, Don’t touch my blood.

  I’d forgotten about the blood. It was everywhere and I had forgotten it. I almost told Dad to wipe it off his hands. It could make you sick, I almost said, but Sal tore up the letter and stuffed the pieces into his pocket and I did the same with my words.

  Even if I had told Dad, he wouldn’t have stopped touching it. How could he? All that blood was Grand before it was anything else. And I mean grand in all the magnificent definition of the word. I fell to my knees at his side and tried myself to put the blood back because, hell, I wasn’t finished with my brother. How could I be when I was only thirteen and he was only eighteen.

  I would’ve worn a tie to his graduation. Dad would’ve made me, but I would’ve wanted to. Grand would’ve grabbed the end of it, tugged it until I laughed, tousled my hair and called me little man.

  I would’ve gotten the extra boxes needed to pack his things for the dorm, though he would leave me his baseball glove. I’d hold it when I was missing him. Because of this, my chest would start to smell like leather.

  He’d study hard at college, though I’m not sure what and that not knowing would break my heart. It breaks my heart still. That I didn’t know my brother enough to know what he would study, what he would become. That I didn’t know he would be more than baseball.

  Goddamn it, I wasn’t finished with him yet. I still had to get drunk with him at least once and stumble into a conversation that would maybe heal all things. He’d make me burnt toast in the morning for the hangover. Of course he would. He was Grand.

  No, I wasn’t finished with him. We were supposed to grow old together, me and my brother. If I was going to grow old with anybody, it was going to be him. Our parents would die. Our lovers would die. Our friends would all go before us. But we, we would be the last on the road.

  My brother of mine, I had your white hair and wrinkles all picked out. Now I wear them, along with my own. Twice wrinkled, twice gray. I hate you for leaving me no choice but to go forth into this heat-colored future and its long voyage I no longer want to hold.

  I wonder if when we get to the beyond, if we are there what we were here. If so, he’ll still be eighteen. A beautiful eighteen. And I will be old, as I am. He’ll be like a grandkid to me. What will I do with that?

  I wonder if he would ask me for his wrinkles. Even if I handed them over, they’d never fit him, not that eighteen-year-old skin. A boy trying on his grandfather’s face, that’s all he would be.

  I’ll never have my brother back even when he is back, because that night he died, he vanished, and vanished things stop becoming more. That is the tragedy of losing an older brother. He stays still. You keep on and one day become the older one. It’s unnatural, that reversal. It’s the thing that keeps the family from ever being whole again.

  I knew we’d never be the same as I listened to Dad’s crying screams and wa
tched him frantically search and dig at the ground for every last drop of blood. As if the reason Grand hadn’t risen was because the blood wasn’t all back in his arm yet.

  “Dad, please stop now.”

  A bawling howl set me back on my heels. Dad’s agony was so severe, it was frightening. I didn’t have the courage to hold him through it, so I stayed back, letting my father be devoured before me.

  Somewhere I heard a crying that compared to Dad’s was so small, it almost didn’t exist. I shined the flashlight, and there was Sal, coiled up on the ground, face tucked toward his knees. He didn’t rise to look at me or the light. The ache had curled him into a circle, rounding him out, like a porthole into a darkness that was taking his place.

  I needed the devil more at that moment than the weeping Sal. I needed that comfort of authority. I needed the experienced angel to stand solid and strong, not collapsed on the ground as just another crying boy who could offer me no wisdom nor understanding.

  I grabbed the pocketknife and climbed up the tree house. I looked at mine and Grand’s handprints on the wall. There was a new third handprint, smaller than either mine or Grand’s. I didn’t worry about it then. It was Grand’s handprint I wanted. It was his that I stabbed.

  “I hate you. I hate you.”

  I spit my powerful fire. I raged against his ghost, so my living hurt could haunt him, the way he was already haunting me. I stabbed until the wood splintered and broke away, revealing the outside and what I had tried to escape. My father crying. My brother dead in his arms. The darkness eating from edge in.

  24

  Farewell, happy fields

  —MILTON, PARADISE LOST 1:249

  THE YELL IS permanent, the wrong is lasting, the damage is complete, and the goddamn is eternal when a young man goes into the woods and in his fray turns the sword inward.

  I waited for Dad to ask me why Grand would do it, but he never did. Not even when the morning light began to reveal more of the scene before us. He just stood and said he was going into town to do the things that needed doing. Me and Sal were to wait with Grand’s body, he said. And then he left. Me and Sal listened for as long as we could hear him. He was rambling off case after case. Some real. Some not. Like Man v. God. Boy v. Knife. Bliss v. Misery.