We Are the Ants(21)

“Nah, we were done way before that.”

“Sorry.”

“I’m not. She was only using me for my big prick. Didn’t I mention that?”

I snorted and laughed. The students at the other end of the table glared at me, which only made it harder to stop. “I know the feeling.”

“You got a . . . ?”

“Not really,” I said. “Maybe. I don’t know. He’s a big prick too.” I considered telling Diego about Marcus, but I hardly knew him, and it wasn’t my secret to tell. It would destroy Marcus if word got out he was hooking up with Space Boy. “Why’d you move to Calypso?”

Rather than answer, Diego looked at the table and the walls and over my shoulder—everywhere but at me.

“I get the feeling you don’t want to talk about it. I was only trying to make conversation,” I said.

“It’s complicated.” I thought Diego was going to explain, but instead he said, “What do you do for fun around here?”

Diego’s unwillingness to discuss why he moved from Colorado to a shit hole town in the limp dick of the nation only made me more curious. Maybe he was shipped off by his parents as punishment for robbing liquor stores or cheating on history exams. Or maybe he was a secret government operative whose mission was to befriend me and discover what I knew about the sluggers. That actually made more sense than anything else. Still, I hated secrets. Jesse had kept secrets. Maybe if he hadn’t, he’d still be alive. Only, Diego wasn’t Jesse. Diego was nobody to me, and I didn’t want to piss him off by prying.

“You already went to the biggest party of the year. What more do you want?”

Diego leaned back in his chair. “Something exciting.”

“What’d you do in Colorado?”

“Stuff.”

“Stuff?”

“Yeah,” Diego said. “Hung out with friends, avoided my parents. Stuff. All of it very exciting. I miss it.” He looked far away, like he’d traveled there in the silence between our words. That’s the problem with memories: you can visit them, but you can’t live in them.

“Then why don’t you go back?” I regretted asking the moment the question left my mouth. Shadows crowded Diego’s face, and every muscle tensed up. Shoulders, fists, cheeks. I cleared my throat and said, “All we’ve got here are beaches, but you already know about those.”

“Let’s go.”

“Where?”

Diego grabbed his tray, already half standing. “The beach. We’ll bail on class, and you can show me around Calypso. I’ve got a car. We’ll get some sandwiches and hang out.”

Jesse and I skipped once in tenth grade. It was the first week he got his driver’s license. Vice Principal Marten nearly caught us trying to sneak off campus, but Jesse’s car was faster than Marten’s golf cart. We drank beer on the beach and lay in each other’s arms until the sun was only a memory burned into our brains. He’d said, “You know, I think I love you, Henry Denton,” and I believed him. I believed all of Jesse’s lies.

“I can’t.”

Diego slumped back into his seat. “It’s cool.”

“Maybe some other time.”

Rather than giving me a guilt trip, Diego said, “Any time,” and I knew he meant it. “So, tell me about these aliens of yours.”

I twisted a bit of sandwich wrap around the end of my index finger, watching it turn grape red. Diego snapped his fingers in front of my face. “I’m not making fun of you.”

“I didn’t—”

“You can’t bullshit a bullshitter.”

“It’s not something I talk about.”

“Then you should write about it.”

“Drop it.”

Diego was either oblivious or determined or simply a giant prick like his ex-girlfriend had said. “Writing’s like painting. You have to write about yourself before you can write about anything else.”

I was done talking, but I couldn’t figure out how to shut Diego up. It was like something inside of him had malfunctioned, and he was going to keep rambling until his batteries died.

“There’s an amazing world out there for you to discover, Henry Denton, but you have to be willing to discover yourself first.”

The bell rang, saving me, and we all rose like Pavlovian dogs, eager to run to our next classes. Except Diego. He was still sitting, like he was waiting for me to say something, but I didn’t know what. Finally I said, “What if I don’t give a shit about the world?”

Diego gathered our trash and frowned. “I’d say that’s pretty f*cking sad.”

“Why?”

“Because the world is so beautiful.”





4 October 2015


Nana leaned on the shopping cart as we strolled through Publix, ignoring the other customers who shot us pissed-off glares every time she blocked the aisle to scan the shelves for some item from the crumpled list in her hand.

“What about pork chops?” she asked. “I could stuff them. Maybe fry some okra.”

“Sounds good.” I grabbed a jar of spaghetti sauce and tossed it in the cart, which was filling up rapidly because Nana couldn’t decide what she wanted for dinner. So far she’d suggested tacos, salmon with spinach, shepherd’s pie, and lasagna, and we’d gathered the ingredients for each. “Did you teach Mom how to cook?”