Before the Ever After(15)

Makes me want to move inside the story the song is telling me. Makes me

want to live there

always.

Makes me want to feel all the things all the happy

and even the sadness too.

Makes me know that, kinda like the chorus, the happy’s going to come around again.

Right now I’m listening to that song that my daddy and mom love called “September”

by Earth, Wind & Fire.

There’s this part where the singer keeps asking Do you remember?

I don’t know why but every time he sings it, I want to yell Yes!

I want to say I do.





Darry Dancing


The way Darry dances, it’s like all the beats ever made

were only made to get his body to twist and pop and turn and dip and slide and jerk and spin around them.

It’s like the beats bow down when they see him coming

cuz even with the new dances, he sees somebody doing it one time and already he’s doing it better.

When we ask him how he got so good, he says It’s just in my body. I just love it.

When you love a thing, you gotta love it with everything you got, my dad always says.





The Trail


The woods aren’t really woods, it’s just a park with trails and trees and rabbits skittering away from you.

Me, Daniel, Ollie and Darry meet there after school because just before lunch,

Darry passed a note to me that I passed to Daniel that Daniel passed to Ollie

that said

I need the trail.

I need the trail means I need my boys, means something is happening, means come be around me.

Darry has the loudest laugh but mostly he’s the quietest of all of us. And now he needs us.

I know what it is. To just need to have your boys around you.

Cuz they’re your boys and something about them surrounding you makes you know everything’s going to be okay.

So after school the four of us walk and walk that trail, our backpacks bouncing, our hoodies on under our coats because it’s too cold now to tie them around our waists.

When we get to the place where so much sun is coming in through the trees

it looks like a scene in a movie, Darry stops walking, says So guess what.

My mom and dad are separating. They told us last night.

Darry’s sister is in high school. He has a brother who’s already in college.

So in a way, he’s like an only child.

My dad’s gonna mostly stay in the city since that’s where he works, Darry says.

The way his voice chokes around, you know he wants to cry. It’s strange, he says, even saying this stuff out loud, you know. Like saying it makes it true.

That is truly messed up, Ollie says.

And me and Daniel say Yeah. Sure is.

I gotta be in the city a lot of weekends with him, Darry says.

They said that’s the agreement.

Okay, what we gotta do, Daniel says, is look on the bright side.

You’ll have a second house, and we’ll be having sleepovers in the city!

We could just wake up and walk

to the Empire State Building.

We’ll still be the Fantastic Four, I say.

Nobody and nothing’s ever coming between our crew, Ollie says.

We all high-five each other, echo Ollie.

Nobody and nothing.

Darry smiles and looks so relieved. And then we all get quiet.

And keep on walking.





Snow Day


Ollie calls me early in the morning and tells me everybody is meeting at the park for the snowball fight of the century.

You need to get there, he says and I’m already pulling on my ski pants, my sweater, looking everywhere in the house

for my lucky snow gloves—dark blue with reflector tape.

I don’t know why

but those gloves seem to have a superpower when it comes to shaping snowballs and firing them at the sucker who didn’t duck fast enough.

I find them in the basket under the bench by the door beneath scarves and hats and a plastic bag of LEGOs from when I was little and my mom had to carry some if we went to a restaurant.

Then I’m yelling goodbye to my mom and dad, who are both sitting in the kitchen drinking coffee—my mom reading the paper, my dad just staring out the window.

Be safe, my mom yells back.

Be safe, ZJ, my dad says.

Then he says it again.

Zachariah Jr.?

Yeah?

Be safe. Be safe, okay?

And when he turns my way, he’s not looking at me.

He’s looking at something else.

Something that’s not there,

something

nobody but him can see.





Dream


You ever had a dream that shook you awake?

And even then you still believed it was true?

Last night I dreamed I was a quarterback, running behind my dad and he was there on the field, pushing players out of my way.

I had the ball and was running like if I wanted to I could lift off

and fly.

And in front of me, my dad just kept taking the hits, keeping me safe

making sure I touched that ball down.

I woke up still hugging the ball, only my arms were empty, pressing against my chest.

In the dream, my daddy’s helmet had cracked in two.