“I need to go visit my parents,” I said, then waited. I heard her exhale loudly. I could almost picture her resting her forehead in her palm, her eyes closed.
“What’s happened?” she asked.
“Nothing, really. I just—I just have to go see them.”
“Did your mother call?”
I felt like yelling ‘you never listen’ because if she had, she’d have known about my mom. About how she never calls anyone on the phone. I turned my back to the bottle of pills and crossed my arm over my chest.
“No. I just have to go see them.”
“But you promised me,” she said. I didn’t say anything in return. After a little while, I noticed that my heartbeat was very fast, my breathing very quiet. “When will you be back?” she asked.
“I guess—I guess maybe Sunday.”
“You guess?”
“I haven’t gotten the plane ticket yet.”
“Well, then how do you know that you can even go?” she asked, and I have to admit, in hindsight, that she was right.
“I dunno.”
I heard her exhale. I pictured her shaking her head side to side and then looking up at the ceiling.
“Have a nice flight, then, I guess,” she said.
I didn’t know what else to say, so I said, “Okay. Thank you.”
I heard her mutter something savage under her breath. I didn’t know what she wanted, though. Looking back, I guess what she most wanted was for me to acknowledge how upset she was at the sudden change in plans.
“Just—just call me when you get back,” she said. I’ve heard parents use the same tone of voice with their kids when they’re exhausted from correcting them all day. I wondered why she felt like that about me.
“Okay. I will,” I said, and she hung up. I knew she was mad, but I couldn’t figure out for the life of me why. I hung up my phone and turned around, seeing the bottle of pills on the counter. I felt confused. I wondered why I’d gotten them out. Did I remember to take one? I couldn’t think if I had or hadn’t. They’re down, though, aren’t they? That must mean you just took one, I thought. I nodded to myself and put the pills back in the cupboard. The next thing was to finish packing and get to the airport.
The entire time I kept thinking about bones: about how dry and brittle bones must feel, about how surprisingly heavy they must be.
Packing went exactly as slow as I figured it would. Even with the music playing in the background, it was still confusing and slow. Halfway through I couldn’t remember if I’d packed enough underwear. I sat down on the bed and cried. The whole time I told myself to stop being such a baby, to stop sniveling like a little girl. I screamed at myself inside to get up off the bed and figure out how many days I’d be there, then pack that many pairs of boxers. It seemed so simple, but I couldn’t do it. I ended up crying for ten minutes. When I was done, I stood up and walked to the kitchen. Dr. Bledsoe said that on days like this, it was maybe okay to take two pills. I took down the pills and shook one out into my hand. I almost threw it into my mouth, then cupped my hand under the faucet. I got some water, then gulped it down. I felt the pill the whole way, and almost immediately felt better.
I wrote down in the little book that I’d had to take two that day. He always wanted to know. It made me feel like a failure to have to write it. “I wish I could just be normal” I whispered to myself. The album was over, so the house was completely quiet, and I felt like the neighbors had heard. I felt like maybe they’d been waiting, ears pressed against the wall, for just such a proclamation. I felt like they all had just gotten huge smirking grins over their faces and, looking at each other with sly eyes, were nodding. They knew I was cracking up.
My head cooled down. I went back to packing. It took another hour or so, but eventually I felt confident enough that I could zip the suitcase closed. Then I looked back to the kitchen and snapped my fingers. It sounded like a gunshot in the silence. I’d forgotten to pack my medicine. I got it and put it in the suitcase
I picked up the phone again, and set it on top of the suitcase. Then I got the phone book and dialed the toll free number to one of the two companies that came into the local airport. The lady who answered was polite, but I felt like I was annoying her. I told her about how I needed to get home for Thanksgiving. She said that sounded nice. She said there was something leaving this afternoon that connected to another plane; I could be home by tonight. I asked her how much, inhaled through my teeth, did the math, then said “okay.” I gave her my credit card number and she asked me if I was excited about going home for the holiday. I said “I don’t know” and she gave me my confirmation number.
The ride to the airport was long. Sometimes I come out of the fog just long enough to really be able to judge distances and things. I never really noticed just how large this city really is. It sprawled all over the place like a kid stretched out in a chair before bed. My eyes kept changing focus from the bed to my face reflected in the window the entire ride.
Rain from earlier in the day was still puddle on the concrete in most places. I watched the buildings reflect like tiny porthole windows into other worlds. I used to think that a lot when I was a kid. I always wanted to know why when I stepped into the puddle, I didn’t fall into that other world I could see so clearly.
One time when I was watching Randy after a swimming lesson, I couldn’t tell you why, but I asked him if he ever thought that. He’d grinned his tiny lopsided grin and said he had. We’d taken off our shoes and walked into a larger puddle in the parking lot. We sunk into it to our ankles. We looked at ourselves in the reflection of the muddy water, our heads cocked to the side a bit.
Mrs. McPherson drove up and he waved to her. She saw us standing in the water and yelled out his name. She had stopped the car, and she got out, leaving it running. She came over to us and grabbed him by his wrist, yanking him along behind her. I remember her mumbling something angry about ringworm and broken glass. She snatched up his shoes and almost threw him in the car. She was still mumbling as the station wagon shot out of the parking lot. I waved after it and said goodbye out loud, the water slowly calming down under my feet. I watched myself a while in the water, then picked up my shoes and walked to the bench at the bus stop.
The interstate was full of cars as the cab merged from the off ramp. Like always, I made a game out of guessing the model year of each one. I’d gotten pretty good at this over the years. Not as good as Terry, one of the guys I worked with at the tire shop, though. A customer came in one time and parked the car. As the guy got out, Terry came up to me, throwing his cigarette down on the asphalt. He said to me “Eighty-nine Chevy pickup,” he said, “Dimes to doughnuts that man right there is about to ask for an alignment. When he does, he’s gonna’ tell Vargas that he’s heard a funny noise whenever he puts on brakes, too.” Sure enough, the work order came back for a rotate and alignment, and the ‘extra comments’ section said “check for odd noise in brakes.” Every car that came in, Terry knew the year and make, and was almost always right about what they’d ask for.
I always wanted to be that good. Not just at cars, but at anything. Cars, I guess, were just the first thing that I found I had any kind of talent at. Terry helped me get better. He was always pouring over manuals in the break room. I’d ask “Where’d you get that one?” every time a new owner’s manual would show up. He told me one time, without looking up, “My cousin out at Fairfield has a junk yard. Turns out most people don’t bother to take the owner’s manual out of the glove box when they throw away a car.” He’d tell me things he’d learned from his cousin about why most cars went bad. Brake lines couldn’t handle the amount of pressure for that year’s make and model, brake discs couldn’t hold up to the heat they said they did, etc. After working in a place with a guy like Terry, it makes you not want to buy a car ever again. This is why I don’t own one anymore.