“On the screen two skyscrapers were streaming black smoke the way people bleed underwater in shark movies.”
First Published 2018 in Still Point Arts Quarterly
He was jabbing the rubber “Walk” button, waiting to cross, and thinking of Jillian, the rhythm of her name, the love note he might write when he got home. Jillian, smooth like the ink from a blue gel pen.
The two boys with him watched a bus pivot around the curb, a diesel groan as it turned from Stouffer onto Stanley. Then they stepped out into the crosswalk while the light was still green, leaving Alex on the curb, jabbing that button. They didn’t do it on purpose exactly, they just knew when to step off and he didn’t. Alex was both the most cautious of the three and the one most often darting into traffic. He looked up from the button, saw he’d been abandoned, and hurried after them. The straps of his book bag tugged his shoulders as his shoes slapped the pavement.
“I hate it when you do that.”
Brant, the largest boy, twelve but with the shoulders of a fourteen-year-old, said nothing. He waited just long enough for Alex to know he’d been heard and ignored, then said: “I heard a plane flew into the Empire State Building today.” He was boasting.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean a plane flew into a building this morning.”
“You mean like in King Kong?” Alex was picturing a wooden biplane with a banner streaming off the back.
“No, I mean a real plane. A jet.”
“Yeah, right.”
“Mr. Ocker was watching it on the TV when my class left for gym.”
“You’re not in Mr. Ocker’s class.”
“Dude, I saw it. We walked right past his door. There was smoke everywhere. Turn on your TV when you get home.”
“Maybe I will.”
They turned the corner into a quieter patch of streets, dormered houses with shutters in blues and greys. Kevin, the third boy, picked a scab off his elbow and flicked it into a rose bush. He was a stringy kid with a feathery blond mustache and he had a buzz cut because his father was a Marine. He said, “I heard there were two planes.”
This rumor was unhelpful. Brant ignored it. “Don’t you remember,” he insisted to Alex, “in gym, when they made that announcement about if anybody wanted to go to the guidance counselor?”
“That doesn’t mean anything.”
“Well I heard school’s gonna be cancelled tomorrow.” Brant looked away from Alex as if the dispute had been settled.
“That’s bull. You just say things. This is like when you said you’d eat one of those onions by the stop sign and didn’t.”
“I only didn’t because I knew you didn’t have five bucks.”
Here the conversation lapsed into silence as the boys crossed an empty intersection diagonally, corner to corner, and circled up on the other side. This was the spot where their walks home diverged.
Kevin shrugged off his book bag. “I’ll do it,” he said, nodding at the wild onions sprouting up around the green metal base of the stop sign.
“All right, I’ll do it if Kevin does it,” said Brant. “You’ll just owe me, cause I know you’re not gonna do it.”
“This is dumb,” said Alex. “What if they’re poisonous?”
“That’s mushrooms. Don’t be stupid.”
Kevin squatted down to examine the plants. “I think they’re just like regular onions, only they’re growing wild.” He grabbed a stalk at the base and worked it free from the dirt, a shiny white bulb no bigger than the pad of his thumb. He bit into the shoot like it was a carrot. He chewed thoughtfully. He swallowed.
“See, Kevin’s not dead.”
Brant bent over and pulled another from the ground. He tilted back his head, tipped open his jaw, and dangled the bulb over his gullet. For a second he hummed like he’d just been tongue depressor’d and told to say “ah,” then he dropped the onion into his mouth and snapped his jaw shut. He began to chew. The green shoot wriggled in his lips like the tail of a snake.
“What’s it taste like?” Alex asked.
Brant responded by feigning nausea, twisting his face and sending a whip-wave of mock-sickness from his stomach to his throat as if he were about to barf on Alex. Then he swallowed, spat, and laughed. With the toe of his sneaker he ground the juice out of the shoot on the sidewalk. “Now you have to do it.”
“What’s it taste like?”
“Kind of watery and bitter,” said Kevin. “Kind of gritty, too.”
“Like an onion, stupid. Are you gonna eat one or what?”
“I don’t even like onions.”
“Oh come on.”
“I’m going home.”
“Dude.” It was Kevin who put his hand on Alex’s shoulder. “You have to do it.”
Alex looked at the shoots fat and skinny. He tried to guess which one was attached to the smallest onion that would still be big enough to count. He shook his head and pulled his shoulder loose from Kevin’s grip. “No. This is dumb. I’m going home.” He could see the edge of his parents’ driveway just on the other side of the bend in the road, the basketball hoop set up in the cul-de-sac.
“All right,” said Kevin, “hold him down.”
Alex wheeled around to protest, but Brant was already moving. They collided like sumo wrestlers, their hands locked together, and for a moment Alex stood firm like a tree bent back in a hurricane—but then he tumbled. The book bag strapped to his back hit the sidewalk as Brant pancaked on top of him. He squirmed but could not get free.
Brant grabbed one of Alex’s wrists and pressed it to the sidewalk. Then, with the thumb and forefinger of his free hand he squeezed Alex’s cheeks until his jaw popped open. Alex hammered away at Brant with his free hand, but all he could hit was book bag. Then Kevin appeared above him. His face blocked out the sun. He was lowering an onion into Alex’s open mouth. Alex began to thrash but Brant applied more pressure to his cheeks and the onion entered. Alex began to gag. Brant was laughing so hard his face was red.
“Close your mouth. Brant, let him up.”
Brant eased but did not release. “Don’t be stupid. Just chew. It’s almost over.”
The onion crunched wetly between his teeth, and the taste of it rose off his tongue like steam.
“Come on, don’t spit it out,” Brant said. “Just chew and then swallow.”
Alex winced but kept chewing. He chewed and he swallowed. His stomach churned.
“All right, Brant, let him up. Come on, let him up.”
Brant rolled off Alex, but Alex did not get up. The two boys took him by the wrists and pulled him to his feet. Brant slapped him on the back. “Welcome to the Man Club.”
Alex looked down. He could feel his face growing hot and puffy and knew that he was near to crying. He sucked back a lump of teary snot and did not cry. “I’m going home,” he said and turned again. This time the boys didn’t stop him, although Brant called after him, shouting, “Don’t be a baby!”
As he approached his driveway he felt a childish urge to cry out for his mother—I want my mom—and he tried to suppress it. What would Jillian think? He knew he was too old for that feeling, too old for his Legos and Power Ranger toys, knew that that was part of why the other boys did not respect him.
He entered the house through the garage and found his mother standing in the kitchen but watching the TV in the living room. The house was still and he had the sense that she had been standing there for some time. On the screen two skyscrapers were streaming smoke the way people bleed underwater in shark movies.
When she heard him come in she reached toward the remote but changed her mind and left the TV on. Then she turned, moved forward, and embraced him. She covered his cheek with her hand as she pressed his head against her chest and he felt, for the first time, how frail she was. ♦
Ryan Rickrode 