Be Not Far from Me(32)
His buddy yelled at him from the landscaping truck, and he said it was nice talking to me but he better get back to work, and then Davey walked away, turning back to say something I’ve carried with me forever.
“You did a good job growing up, Ass-kicker,” he called.
I didn’t know what to say, so I just nodded. Maybe if I’d been a little older or surer of myself I would’ve asked him out instead of waiting for him to ask me. Maybe he would’ve said, “No, but call me when you’re eighteen.” Maybe that little bit of something I saw in his eyes might’ve grown into something else, and maybe he wouldn’t have gone into the woods when another girl broke his heart.
And maybe I wouldn’t be standing here right now, staring at words written by someone who never came back, and was never found.
I go until I can’t go no more.
It’s not pain or hunger that stops me but pure exhaustion. There’s nothing left inside of me but tired when I fall under a big maple and can’t get back up again. I lie still, slipping my foot out of the sling and rolling onto my back so that I can look up at the canopy, and the bits of darkening sky in between.
It’s evening. Frogs are singing, and the light has that special kind of tint to it that used to make me want to go outside and stay there, which is pretty funny to me now. I might’ve left Davey Beet’s name behind me on that tree, but it’s burned onto my eyes, and all I can think about as I stare is that my mind has spent so much time thinking about Davey that now, somehow, I’m following him.
It’s a crazy thought, and yes, I did pop an oxy when I refilled my whiskey bottle at the last bit of running water I found, but I’m not sure it wouldn’t have occurred to me even without the drugs. Davey’s always been a safe place to return to, a what-if that kept me going through bad fights with Duke, or rough patches at home, like the time I told Dad that maybe if we didn’t live in a trailer I’d bring my friends over more often.
I’m embarrassed thinking about that, even out here.
It’s one of those moments that’ll dog me the rest of my life, like the first time I was invited to a birthday party and was the only kid who showed up without a present, or when Kate Fullerton recognized the shirt I was wearing because it used to be hers and she gave it to the Goodwill. Shame burns over time, leaving behind a scar that puckers up and shines so that it can’t ever be quite forgotten.
It happened after I started driving and Dad made the comment that I’d been making myself so scarce that he might start calling me Wendy (my momma’s name), and I don’t know if it was his timing or the fact that it was just a bad thing to say to a motherless girl, but I lit into him like it was Fourth of July and he had a fuse sticking out.
I told him maybe I’d stay home more if there was something better to eat other than venison and mac and cheese. I said maybe I’d spend more time with him if we actually played catch instead of just watching baseball on the TV, or maybe I’d even bring my friends over to our place instead of going to theirs if it didn’t risk them seeing him running around in his tighty-whities, beer gut hanging out over them while he made the trip to the fridge for the next one.
I said all those things to the person who raised me, the parent who stayed, the one who fed me and dressed me and read me books every night and made high-pitched voices for the girl characters. And every word I said cut him deep, down through skin and bone and biting into the soul. I watched it happen, and I kept going, saying all the bad things I could think of until he shoved open the screen door and told me to leave if things were so bad. But he cracked it open so hard it snapped right off in his hand, leaving him holding a door with no hinges, owner of a house with no proper entrance.
His face just kinda fell, like the world had ganged up on him in the form of his daughter and his own home. I was pissed too, at our trailer for being so shitty, at the door for falling off right then, even if all it did was prove my point. I didn’t need fate on my side to illustrate how bad off we were, so I took the door and threw it out in the front yard and stomped on it until my feet went through the screen and the metal frame was bent to hell.
It wasn’t the smartest thing I ever did, but it felt good. And after that Dad and I went to the hardware store and got a new door and put it on together and had some beer and watched a ball game. We didn’t talk about the fight, just slipped into our old routines and did them like always, working together without saying much, knowing what the other was going to do, or what tool they needed without words.
Dad and I were always like that, not needing to talk to communicate. As I watch the light fade out of the sky, I wonder if he could hear me right now if I told him that I love him and that I’m sorry about all that and about all this too. I wonder if he’s watching a baseball game right now, or how many beers he’s had, or if the door is slapping in the wind that’s kicking up because he managed to fuck up the whole doorframe when he tore it off.
The truth is I miss my shitty house, and not just for the shelter.
It is home, and has someone in it who loves me.
I tried going to church for a bit.
The memories get into my head because I’m looking up at the maple branches and there’s a spot where one overlaps another and damn if I didn’t lie down with a cross right above my head.
Dad always said there were enough people in his life asking him to be grateful for this or that, and forgiveness didn’t come easy when his days were mostly filled with people doing him wrong, like the guy who took his overtime shift when we were in the kind of tight spot that meant the electric might get turned off. But he didn’t care if I went, and Camp Little Fish was associated with some sort of Methodist group, so I ended up displaying enough interest the second summer I was there to get involved in a carpool.