Fell of Dark (5 page)

Food

4:32
A.M.
I'M SITTING
at the dining table with a bowl of Hearty Oats cereal flooded in my mother's half-and-half. I can see her asleep in the armchair, her neck craned. She can't possibly be comfortable, but she sleeps. I eat my cereal. It's good. I like raisin bran more, oatmeal even more, soft-boiled eggs a little more, which come in behind scrambled, and scrambled a mile from over easy, which can't hold a candle to a ham sandwich on wheat with mustard and mayo, itself in the shadow of a salami sandwich on anything, with anything, and the salami may only wish it were sardines, the sardines wanting to be liverwurst and onions on rye with spicy mustard, and the liverwurst dying of longing to be a bowl of chocolate pudding, the chocolate pudding ecstatic to be anything like my mother's meat loaf, but even my mother's meat loaf would trade its onions to be a slab of poached salmon, a tuna sandwich, or pickled herring in wine, which finds itself narrowly beaten by mussels or clams. If I'm not a seal, I'm an otter.

I do like a skinny piece of skirt steak with pepper, mashed sweet potatoes, and baby peas. I like English muffins with butter. Peanut butter, but leave off the jelly. Bananas have to be green, plums hard, and peaches soft. I can eat my weight in blueberries. Strawberries are gold. Anchovy pizza, yes. Vinegar, yes. Lettuces, yes. Spinach and kale, no. Arugula, yes, since it's peppery. I don't like candy, but I like chocolate chip cookies. Ice cream, chocolate ice cream, oh yes, and chocolate malts make me very happy. Pumpkin pie, though, is my favorite dessert. I like to drink milk almost exclusively. Why drink anything else? Seriously, with the exception of apple juice, can you think of a reason to drink anything else?

Alone

NOTHING RUINS SILENCE QUICKER
than the voice of another person. I hear a voice, and I have to listen, even for a second, if only to decide whether or not it's worth listening to. Why? We're hardwired to listen for each other's call.

For the first time in I don't know how long, I walked with Nick, Holly, Jerome, and Martin after school. I don't know how it happened, but somehow I ended up walking with them, or they ended up walking with me.

“Erik.” Jerome, the athlete, punched me in the shoulder, and my whole arm went numb. I almost cried out, almost hit him, almost cursed, but I held it all back and started laughing.

“Wait,” Holly said, “get him a piece of paper and pen so he can write
ouch.
”

Martin laughed. “Or,
You son of a bitch, I'm going to kill you
.”

Nick slid his arm around my shoulder. “Erik, my brother, what's going on?”

“Interpretive dance?” Holly again.

All of us laughed, and Jerome said, “At least he's a good sport.”

Then tall Martin put his hand on my head. My head like an acorn in the hand of a grizzly. “How can you say no?” he said.

“Come sit with us,” Nick said. “We're going for French fries and shakes. You can sit there smiling like a chimp, not a word, if you want.”

The five of us, the quintuplet, a word I love, though I like quincunx more, stood in the middle of the sidewalk, the four of them looking at me, and me looking back at the four of them.

“Please, Erik,” Holly said. “This once, and we'll leave you alone.”

I should have said yes. I should have gone. Maybe if I had, I would've gotten them back. Other than you, who will I have when the story of my life comes to an end?

Mercy

I WALKED BY MY
mother this morning on my way to the kitchen. She was asleep in her armchair. It was later than she ever sleeps. I poured her a glass of orange juice, and I brought it to her.

I tapped her shoulder. Nothing. I never touch her while she sleeps, since I never want to wake her up. But I touched her again, and she jerked awake.

“What?” she said. “Everything okay?” Her eyes were wild and unfocused. “Erik, are you all right?”

I nodded and pointed to the clock. Almost seven thirty.

“I'm sick,” she said. She took the juice and drank a little. “Thank you, sweetheart. I have to call in.”

I got the phone from the sofa table.

“No, no,” she said. “I'll use the one in my bedroom.”

I noticed immediately, but it wasn't until my mother got to the door of the bedroom, holding her blanket around herself, clutching it under her chin, that she looked back at me and heard herself again in her own ear.

My bedroom, she'd said. My bedroom.

Overnight, she lost something of my father, the tightness of his grip loosened up, and she was saved.

Do you think my touch made a difference? If I had put my hand on her years ago, while she dreamed of my father, or between her dreams, would she have healed sooner? Did I close up the hole in my mother's heart?

Question

HOW LONG SHOULD A
miracle last?

I hear people talk about the miracle of nature, and I know what they mean. Nature has always been and always will be, as far as my tiny brain can understand, miraculous. Except, nature won't last because the world won't. It's a known fact our sun will explode. When our sun explodes, it will take away from the universe everything I have ever known or could imagine, and everything behind and ahead of me. I don't know how this figures in with God.

A miracle will last as long as a god or God allows it. A minute or an hour or centuries. A miracle might last as long as there's a world and nature where it can live. Or it will end when the world ends.

Maybe, though, maybe you and I will be a supermiracle. How can we know we won't go past the end of the world, past time, even past God?

Who says we won't?

Red

I'M BLEEDING. I JUST
noticed. It's slow. An oozing, not even a trickle. From a hundred little holes in my forehead. The blood won't stop.

What would you say about this? What could you say?

How did this happen? It's like finding a bruise on your arm and having no idea how it got there. I have nowhere to go for answers.

A miracle, right? A fresh miracle.

I'm used to my unknowing. I don't even know when to be afraid. I mean, is there anything more frightening about blood than an immortal flower or a water stain or my mother's healing?

Easter week.

Concern

MY HEAD STARTED BLEEDING
first. Now blood seeps from holes in my wrists. And just like that, a slow bleeding to death.

I wear a hat, long sleeves, and fingerless gloves, even inside, like it's some kind of phase. How long can I get away with it? Spring has sprung.

The End of the Beginning

EASTER SUNDAY, AND WHILE
some kids hunt for eggs, I bleed.

My blood smells dark. Like what? Like a pine.

Evergreen sap.

Invisible thorns prick my head so the blood drips down through my lashes and into my eyes. The blood glues and tangles up my hair.

My punctured wrists weep blood. I bleed from holes in my feet.

All this blood makes me think I'll die young.

This morning, when I woke up, my pillow was sticky with blood. I decided I had to talk with my mother. I wanted her to wrap my hands in bandages, to wrap my feet and my head.

I had to break my silence. The sound of my voice made her cry, but I had to get her to listen.

“Erik,” she said, “you're scaring me. What are you talking about?”

“Close your eyes,” I said.

“Oh, Erik,” she protested, but she closed her eyes. “Really, you're scaring me. I just want to hear your voice.”

“Please,” I said. “Wait.”

I took off my hat and gloves, my socks, my long-sleeve T-shirt.

“Okay,” I said. “You can look.”

My mother opened her eyes. For a moment, she said nothing, and I knew she must have felt shocked into silence.

I held out my hands, and she took them in hers.

Another moment, and then she said, “What am I supposed to be looking for, honey?”

“What do you mean?” I said.

“You have me confused.”

“Don't you see the blood? It's all over me.”

My mother turned my hands over, then back again. She shook her head.

I was suddenly afraid. The wounds were bleeding. Why couldn't my mother see this?

“Erik?”

“Hm?” I took my hands back. I laughed. “Nothing. I'm awake.”

“Is it a headache?”

“No, I'm fine. Nightmare. I thought I was bleeding. I'm sorry.”

“You scared me, you know?” She kissed my forehead. I saw my blood smeared on her lips. “Let me get you breakfast. We'll talk all morning.”

My invisible wounds. I have no answer, no proof I bleed. But I bleed. Sure as I love my mother and you, I bleed.