Mosquitoland(3)

Well, that’s that.

I take a deep breath, step through the mini-waterfall and into the rain. It’s still falling in sheets, but I don’t mind. It’s the first rain of autumn, my favorite of the year. And maybe it’s this, or the adrenaline of my day’s decisions, but I’m feeling reckless—or honest, maybe. Sometimes, it’s hard to tell the difference.

Turning toward Poncho Man, I notice his eyes are wet and shiny, but it’s not from crying or the rain. It’s something else entirely. And for a split second, I have the peculiar sensation that everyone and everything around us has dissolved. It’s just the two of us, cursed to face one another amid the ravenous elements of this bus station for all of forever.

“You know,” I yell over the rain, breaking the curse. “I’m sixteen.”

The other people under the awning are staring now, unable to ignore the uncomfortable nearness any longer.

“Okay,” he says, nodding, still smiling with those glassy eyes.

I push a clump of sopping hair out of my face and pull the drawstrings of my hoodie tight around my head. “You really shouldn’t talk to young girls. At bus stations. It’s just creepy, man.”

Soaked to the bone, pondering the madness of the world, I stomp through puddles to the doors of the Jackson Greyhound station. Next to Gate C, a short man in a tweed hat hands me a flyer.

LABOUR DAY SPECIAL

FOUR $DOLLAR-FIFTY GENERAL TSO CHICKEN

WHY U PAY MORE? DROP BY! WE FAMOUS!

The flyer is a domino, the first, tipping over a row of memories: a blank fortune knocks over Labor Day traditions, knocks over Elvis, knocks over fireworks, knocks over the way things used to be, knocks over, knocks over . . .

From a thousand miles away, I feel my mother needing me. This is a thing that I know, and I know it harder, stronger, fuller than I’ve ever known any other thing.

Four days until Labor Day.

Ninety-six hours.

I can’t be late.





3


Northbound Greyhound





September 1—afternoon


Dear Isabel,

So I’m bored. On a bus. Stuck next to an old lady who keeps leaning over like she wants to start up a conversation. To maintain sanity, I shall write.

Labor Day is Reason #2.

Now, I know what you’re thinking. Really, Mim? Labor Day? And rightfully so. What’s so special about the first Monday of September that the government would shut down the country in its honor? Honestly, if it weren’t for school closings and extended happy hours, I’m not sure anyone would know it exists.

But I would.

One Labor Day, six or seven years ago, Mom stood up in the middle of dinner and asked if I’d like to go for a walk. Dad kept his head down, toying with the food on his plate. “Evie,” he whispered without looking up. I remember laughing because it looked like he was giving his food a name. Mom said something about the digestive benefits of exercise after eating, grabbed my hand, and together we walked out the door, down the hushed streets of our subdivision. We laughed and talked and laughed some more. I loved it when she was like that, all young and fun and eager to keep being young and fun, and it didn’t matter what happened the day before or the day after, all that mattered was the Young Fun Now.

Such a rare thing.

Anyway . . .

That’s when we found it. Or rather, them. Our people.

They lived on Utopia Court, if you can believe it—a little cul-de-sac tucked in the back of the neighborhood. When we turned the corner, it was like stepping through Alice’s looking-glass, only instead of the Jabberwock and a Red Queen, we found revolutionaries and idealists, people who damned the Man, people who refused to bow to suburban mediocrity. While the rest of the neighborhood watched TV or played video games, that little cul-de-sac set off explosions for the ages.

They understood the Young Fun Now.

Every Labor Day, Mom and I came back for more. We took part in their pig roasts, lemonade stands, and beer buckets, their loud stereos and rambunctious kids, their flag wavings and fireworkings and food gorgings. We did so with gumption and hunger and thirst, knowing full well it would be another 364 days before those offerings came back around. (That first year, we went back for Memorial Day—bupkis. Nothing. Like an empty baseball stadium. Same with Fourth of July. I guess Utopia Court was more like Narnia than the looking-glass in that respect. It was never where—or rather, when—you thought it would be.) Bottom line: in the face of suburban mediocrity, Utopia Court provided an honest-to-God mutiny, and we loved every mutinous minute.

So there’s the setup.

Now for the teardown.

Last year, just as the fireworks were picking up steam, Mom set down her beer and began saying thank-yous and good-nights. Something was wrong—we’d never left so early. But I didn’t argue. What mattered to her mattered to me. Reluctantly, I followed her back to the other side of the looking-glass. We admired the fireworks from a distance, holding hands as we walked (yes, I held hands with my mother, but then, nothing about our relationship has ever been traditional). Suddenly, Mom stopped dead in her tracks. This image—of my mother’s silhouette against a black sky backdrop, as majestic fires exploded all around—is a memory I have tucked in my back pocket, one I can pull out and examine at will, to remember her like that forever and ever and ever and ever and ever . . . infinite forevers. “Mary,” she whispered. She wasn’t looking at me, and I could tell her mind was somewhere I could never be. I waited for whatever it was Mom wanted to say, because that’s how it used to be with us. There was no need for prodding. For a few minutes, we stood there on the quiet sidewalk, stuck between mutiny and mediocrity. As the distant fireworks dwindled, our sidewalk became darker, as if Utopia’s pyrotechnics had been the city’s only source of light. Just then, Mom let go of my hand, and turned. “I was lovely once,” she whispered. “But he never loved me once.”