“Is it true you killed a kid?” he asks.
“No!” I tell him. “I broke his nose.”
“Oh.” Cody seems both relieved and disappointed. “Well, ninjas know how to break your nose so the bone goes right into your brain and you die.”
“I’m not a ninja,” I remind him. He seems both relieved and disappointed by that, too. Then he thinks about it some more. “Are you gonna get like Uncle Hoyt?” he asks, then he looks at me, waiting for an answer. It makes me shiver, because I know he’s looking for something in my eyes—maybe something he saw in his uncle’s eyes—and I hope to God he hasn’t found it in mine.
“I’ll never hit you or your brother, Cody.”
“That’s not what I mean….” And still he’s looking. A little kid’s gaze can be innocent; but sometimes their eyes are so wide, they catch all kinds of things older eyes don’t. Kind of like those radio telescopes that stare at empty space so hard and so long they find thousands of galaxies in the darkness. Cody’s gaze reaches a little too deep, and I have to look away.
“Just don’t be like him, okay?” he says, then he leaves, and I’m glad for it—because once he’s gone I start to feel pretty good about things. Not just good, but great. In fact, I fall asleep that night feeling a bizarre bliss that flies in the face of everything going on in my life. I know I should probably wonder why, but who questions a good feeling? Better to just enjoy it. The fight with Ozzy seems too small and too far away to matter. So do the old fights between my parents. Ancient history. And all the fallout is little more than stardust settling on my shoulders.
Contentment. I could get used to this feeling.
CODY
49) STUFF
I didn’t mean to do it. I just wasn’t thinking. Well, that’s not true; I was thinking, just not the way I needed to be. Uncle Hoyt woulda taught me a lesson if he was here to see it. We were out at the park playing basketball again. That is, Tenny, Brew, and Mr. Sternberger were playing. Me, I don’t play because I don’t care much for things I’m not already good at, like handball and running, and most other stuff. But Tenny, he gave me a brand-new kite, then he put me with it out in the empty soccer field next to the basketball court and said, “Knock yourself out.”
The problem with kites is they got a mind of their own. This one was painted like a hawk, which I guess was right for it, because it sure was a birdbrain the way it kept diving into the ground.
I went over to see if maybe Tenny or Brew or Mr. Sternberger could give me some help, but they were already in a game with a bunch of other people. Brew was playing like one of them. Real good. Maybe not good like me at running, but good enough to score a couple of baskets while I watched.
Uncle Hoyt woulda never let him do that. He’d never let Brew out with a whole bunch of people like that. He’d come out here if he saw it and drag Brew’s butt home.
“You weren’t meant to be part of things, boy,” he’d tell Brew. “You know it as well as I do.” And Brew would put his head down and follow Uncle Hoyt home, because he’d know Uncle Hoyt was only looking out for him.
But there’s no one to protect Brew now, because there he was, playin’ up a storm and havin’ a good time with a bunch of people who are strangers now but might not be strangers for long. Uncle Hoyt wouldn’t be happy; and thinking about Uncle Hoyt makes me sad, because I miss him, or at least I miss the part of him that didn’t go foul. I think about how he’d like to see me finally get a kite up in the air, and so it makes me want to do it even more.
I go back to the field with the kite—that dumb old hawk that don’t know up from down—and I’m startin’ to feel good about it, because the wind, which at first couldn’t decide which way to blow, is now blowing straight; and I know if I run into the wind, I might teach that bird to fly.
I start running, letting out some string behind me, and sure enough I get it in the air. It’s trying to dip and twirl, but I won’t let it dive. The wind’s ripping at its wings, but not tearing them, like it did to my old kite. I give the kite more line, and I keep on running, because if I don’t, it’ll fall down and I’ll have to start over. The thing is, the field doesn’t go on forever. In a minute I’m at the edge of it—but even though I’m out of grass, I’m not about to stop. So I let out some more line and keep on running right into the street. It’s not a big busy street, but there’s cars, though, and maybe they’re moving a little too fast. But what am I supposed to do? Let the kite fall down after all that work?
So I’m in the street, and one car hits the brakes, and another car swerves around me; but it’s okay, because people around here are good drivers, and I’m sure when they see a kid running with a kite in the street they understand the situation, so they’re extra careful. I only almost got hit, and almost don’t count.
By the time I get across the street, that hawk is real high, and starting to stay up by itself; and since there’s nothing in front of me but a big, bushy hillside that probably has snakes and stuff, I turn right and run along the sidewalk. I didn’t see that stupid old electrical tower until it came out of nowhere and grabbed the kite with its ugly gray arms. In a second the kite’s just dangling there, whipping back and forth in the wind, all helpless. And that electrical tower, it’s looking down on me, and I can almost hear it go “Ha ha,” because sometimes I think things that ain’t alive know exactly what they’re doing.
Well, I’m not about to let it get away with that. It’s a brand-new kite! Then I get to thinking how an electrical tower is almost like a tree, except that its branches are metal and more regular. So I put down the kite string and start climbing with my eye on that dangling bird, because Uncle Hoyt always said “Keep your eye on the prize,” although I think he should have also said “Go after the prize,” too; and maybe that’s why prizes never came his way, because all he ever did was look at them. But I’m doing both, keeping my eye on it and going after it at the same time.
I climb and climb, and for the longest time the kite doesn’t seem to get any closer. Finally I get just as high as the kite; but it’s still out of reach, dangling on one of those stubby skeleton arms of the tower. Its tail’s all wrapped around one of the electric wires that looks much thicker up here than it did from the ground, and the wires are all buzzing like crazy—not just buzzing, but humming, like they all got a voice and are trying to be an electric choir.
I know enough not to touch those wires since I might get electrocuted—but I also know that birds sometimes sit on electric wires and are fine, so maybe it’s not as dangerous as they say. Either way, though, I have to get my kite down, so I work my way toward it. In a minute I’m out on the arm, and I can feel all the electricity making my arm hairs stand on end even in the wind. The kite’s still just out of reach, dangling and twisting and teasing me, so I reach for it with one hand.
Then I look down.
Maybe if I had looked down sooner I would have chickened out and gone back down, because there’s no tree I’ve ever climbed that’s this high. It’s like I’ve suddenly forgotten how to climb, because there I am, clinging to the metal bar with both my arms and both my legs and my whole body as well, and now I notice for the first time how cold the wind is, and the kite, which just a second ago looked like it was teasing me, now just looks trapped and kind of sad.
From way up there I can see everything. The field seems bigger than it did from the ground, but the basketball court looks smaller. No one’s on the court anymore. Instead they’re all running toward me across the soccer field. Even the people I don’t know. I hear a whole lot of “There he is!” and “Oh, my God!” and “Hold on!”