A Tragic Kind of Wonderful(63)
Out in the other room the TV is still on but I hear Mom and HJ talking quietly. They don’t shut the TV and lights off till midnight, which is late for Mom and early for HJ. By the time the house is settled, I’m even more wound up from forcing myself to stay still this long. It feels like my entire body is made of bees.
I dress in layers. Then I quietly make up my bed with extra blankets under the comforter to look like I’m in my usual cocoon. If I can get out without making a sound, no one will know I’m gone till morning. I can be a hundred miles away by then, which is perfect since that’s how far I need to go. One hundred and nine, to be exact.
I had no idea when I put my bike in the garage that I’d be taking it out again only a few hours later. I pull the red handle on the big door, slowly ease it up manually, roll my bike outside, and then carefully lower the door again. I’m finally bundled, on my bike, ready to go, with my route mapped on my phone to give me directions, when I remember something.
I slip back into the house. On the top shelf of my closet, pushed against the back wall behind a box of old books, is a rolled-up gray shirt. It wasn’t one of Nolan’s favorites—just one I didn’t think anyone would miss.
I fish it out and unroll it partway to reveal the thin paperback book of jokes Nolan bought for us at the stationery store on his last day. I slide it into my pants pocket. Then I unroll the shirt the rest of the way and catch the sparkly plywood Magic Wand before it falls.
HAMSTER IS RUNNING
HUMMINGBIRD IS SPEEDING
HAMMERHEAD IS SLOGGING
HANNIGANIMAL IS CRASHING/MIXED
The directions get convoluted—sometimes on bike trails, other times through city areas—to avoid freeways. The moon, half lit, half dark, rises higher and higher ahead. It doesn’t shine bright enough to see where I’m going, but the bike headlight is strong.
After climbing uphill from the coast, the way is mostly flat to and across the Dumbarton Bridge to the East Bay. After Fremont starts the slow steady climb, up through Pleasanton, Livermore, and downhill through Tracy. With twenty miles still to go, the moon is high and the eastern sky starts getting pink.
I’m exhausted yet still not tired. My muscles burn but don’t weaken. I’m trembling though it’s unclear how much is from exertion and how much is from the fact that I’ve been ice cold for hours. I thought I’d have to make bathroom stops by now but I haven’t felt the need. I haven’t stopped pedaling once, not for red lights, not for traffic, not for anything. I’m making much better time than the map predicted. Maybe my real superpower is cycling.
The sun rises as I reach my first destination. I park at the bike racks in front of my old middle school. I also put away my phone. I won’t need directions from here.
I frame my eyes with both hands and peer into the window of my old eighth-grade classroom. It looks very different, yet some things are the same. It still says MS. MALIK’S MENAGERIE over a bulletin board with photos of her current students. There’s still a poster over the door to the hallway, a close-up of a woman’s eye with a caption: “Who are you when no one is watching?”
Hanging by the door to the hall are two slats of dark wood with painted white letters: BOYS and GIRLS. They must have gotten rid of the old boys’ Magic Wand hall pass when I didn’t bring back the girls’.
I stretch for a minute and then continue riding down to the golf course trail. It’s similar to the beach trail back home, my newer home, except it runs alongside golf links instead of the Pacific.
The Healthee Hut is still here, which I think is miraculous. On a Saturday it won’t open for a few more hours. Sandy Park looks about the same except the swing set, slide, and playhouse all seem smaller than I remember.
The vacant lot behind the police station got paved over since we were here. There are trailers parked on it with police badges painted on the sides. I keep pedaling.
The stationery store is out of business, with a huge FOR LEASE sign in its window. Inside it’s completely empty, stripped down to unpainted drywall. I pull the now-mangled joke book out of my back pocket. It falls open naturally, to a page toward the middle, the page it’s been opened to the most.
MODERN PSYCHIATRY
Q: Why didn’t the psychiatrist believe anything his patients said?
A: Because they were all lying on his couch!
Q: Why did the psychiatrist use the spatula to flip burgers at the Bar-B-Que?
A: To avoid a slip of the tongs!
Back when Nolan bought it we found every page hilarious. I can’t believe I understood half these jokes then. Now that I do, they’re not laugh-out-loud funny. I want to go back to that time, to understand what we were thinking. How we felt.
I pedal through town. It’s quiet except for the few people who need to work Saturday mornings and some old people who don’t but are up anyway, out hunting up breakfast, looking for news still printed on paper, or taking slow walks.
I park at the bank in the same racks as the time Nolan and I came. It’s the right building but I don’t know if it’s the same bank. Doesn’t matter. It’s closed today. That’s fine. I’m not going inside.
Three years ago we did.
Ready to see something awesome? Bring your Magic Wand. You’re gonna love this.
I didn’t. I loved everything that day up to this point, when he led me through the glass doors in front and I saw the intense artificial light flickering hotly in his eyes. I didn’t love anything for a long time after.