Wait Until Twilight (22 page)

“You talked to my dad?” I ask.

“Yeah, he came out and told me to bring you inside to show you something he made. He says you’ll know what I’m talking about.” Melody’s met my dad a few times at the hardware store and at the house, too, but I’ve always been around. It was strange them talking together without me there.

“Don’t worry,” I say. “We’ll come back.”

She leans over into the window and points. “What happened to your hand?”

“Basketball injury, it’s nothing. Get in,” I say.

“Did you get in a fight?”

“Just get in.”

Then Dad comes out from the garage and waves for me to come in. I get out of the truck, and Melody and I walk into the garage. “He was trying to get away,” Melody tells Dad.

“He was, was he? How’s that hand?” he asks me.

“It’s fine.”

“Who makes narrow steps without railings?” he says.

“Huh?”

“Jim told me how you fell down the steps at his apartment. I’ve seen those steps. Whoever designed that place was a fool.”

“Right, the steps. I went kersplatt.” I look over at Melody to see if she’ll say anything about the inconsistency in my story but she just shakes her head.

“Well, did Melody tell you about the project?” Dad asks.

“You’re finished.”

“That’s right. Me and Jim are going to hook up the last part of the wiring. Why don’t you wait in the laundry room?” Dad scurries back into the house. He looks like a little kid. I haven’t seen him this excited since the Braves went to the World Series. Melody and I go into the laundry room in the back of the garage where there’s a door that leads to the backyard. She closes the door and it’s pitch-black in there. I can’t see a thing.

“Leave the light off,” she says. There’s a slow hum coming from the water heater. “Now, you want to go ahead and tell me what was on your mind?” her disembodied voice says in the dark. It’s almost solemn the way she says it, and it makes me even more compelled to speak.

So I start talking. It’s kind of hard at first and I’m kind of mumbling, but soon the words come. “She’d got word about the growth in her head before, but she still had time left. So, my mom and I were supposed to go on some cruise. We hadn’t spent that much time together, and she thought it would be good for us. Dad had to work, and Jim had just left for college. It wasn’t long or anything, just off the coast of Florida. Three days of going around in circles and coming back to the port. That was it. My mom had got us this package through a travel agency.” I wipe my brow thinking there’s sweat there, but it’s dry. “We met all the other local passengers at the mall, and they were all young, you know.” I can feel my lip quivering. “I had packed a small suitcase and somehow it got lost. It had my iPod in it and everything. I got so pissed and blamed my mom. I used it as an excuse not to go, so she went on her own. Dad didn’t like it, but I went with some friends to the beach instead. It wasn’t even that far from where the cruise ship launched. I didn’t want to go because I felt embarrassed because I was with my mom.” I swallow a lump in my throat. “She was there all
alone on that boat with that tumor in her head”—I cringe—“while I was playing with my friends.”

“Samuel,” Melody says soothingly.

“After I had my fun I got back home and it was almost like normal, you know. Mom didn’t say a word about the trip, but I was nervous all the time. I was just waiting for someone to say what a shit I was, but no one did. It was like that for a couple of weeks. Then she just fell.”

“Samuel.”

“She stayed in the hospital hooked up to all these machines. It was like she wasn’t even human. She just stared into space like a zombie. Almost like a vegetable, except her mouth just moved a little like she was trying to talk without a sound. She was like that for three days, then she died.” My face is hot and wet with tears. “I thought I killed her.” I catch my breath. “I was the monster. I hated myself. I was the one that I wanted to destroy. Not them. Not anyone else.” I hold my face. In the comfort of the dark in that laundry room, in the presence of my confessor. Then Melody places my head on her shoulder. And I feel warm inside. The kind of warmth I felt with Naomi. The kind of warmth I felt from my mom. It stays like that for some time. Then I hear a strange sound. It’s like a big machine faltering and then stopping. Then a large
pop
sounds, and the water heater cuts off. It’s completely quiet. “What happened?” she asks.

“Sounds like the power went out.”

I can hear Dad and Jim coming out of the house into the garage. Melody and I quickly separate from our embrace, and Dad and Jim come in with flashlights. “I told you it was too much juice…” Jim’s saying.

“I’ve used a lot more than that, son.” Dad turns to Melody and me. “Just a power surge. Just got to flip the circuit breakers.”

“Dad, make sure the main line is off before you switch on the one for the outside outlets,” says Jim, following behind our dad.

“When’d you start worrying so much?” With the door open there’s some light, and I can see Jim and Dad squeezing into the back of the laundry room, in between the water heater and the washing machine where the fuse box is.

Dad opens the box and Jim says, “There’s too much power coming in through the outside. Switch the main power off first.”

Dad flips a switch and there’s another loud
pop
! And then a
zap
! Then the hum of the water heater comes back on. In the darkness I see a small flicker, then a flame seems to come out of the wall where the circuit breakers are.

“Dad!” I yell.

“I can see it!” he yells back and he and Jim start to beat at the flame with their hands wildly like they’re trying to kill a scorpion on the wall. “Get it! Get it!” The flame just dances this way and that.

After some more frenzied flailing, the flame has only gotten larger. I quickly open up the washing machine, which is empty. Then the dryer. Inside is a fresh batch of underwear, T-shirts, and towels.

“Here! Smother it!” I say, and toss them some towels. They grab them and smother the flame until it’s completely extinguished. Jim and Dad are breathing real heavily.

“Jesus!” says Jim. “That was close.”

“Good work, son.”

“What? That was about the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen,” says Jim.

“I was talking to Samuel.”

“Oh right. Yeah, quick thinking, bro.”

The laundry room lights are switched on by Melody. I’m looking at her, and she gets this look on her face and covers her mouth. And I turn to see Dad’s thinning gray hair standing straight up and Jim’s brown longish hair sticking out in every which way. What’s funny is they have no idea. They just have this panicked wide-eyed look about them.

“What is it?” asks Jim. He looks over himself and when he sees Dad, he gets it. “Do I look like that?” They both start laughing when they see each other. I can’t remember seeing either one of them laughing like this. It’s been a long time. It’s the best feeling in the world.

They both feel for their hair. “It must have been the electric charge,” says Dad as they get a hold of themselves. “Did you feel it?”

“Yeah, but it just felt like static electricity. Not enough to give me an Afro. I want to see how it looks in the mirror.” Dad and Jim squeeze out between the water heater and washing machine. “Why don’t you head on out and see the finished product.” Dad thumbs toward the backyard. As they leave the laundry room Dad turns off the light and it’s dark again in there. Then I see a glow coming from under the door.

“I guess this is it,” Melody says, and opens the door to the backyard. I’m struck with an intense brightness. It’s coming from those pipes Dad had been planting into the ground. All the plastic pipes put together form a thick white trunk that goes up about six feet high; at the top the ends curve out. I don’t think I could even get my arms around it it’s so thick. At the top of the curved ends of the pipes he’s placed high-powered lightbulbs, the kind used in searchlights, but because of the way the pipe ends were placed and how they are angled, it’s like a blossom forming a kind of orb of light that expands out to create a sphere of light covering the entire backyard and the edge of the woods behind it. I walk out into the grass and stroll about, looking up into the branches of the pecan trees in our yard, and I can see little parachutes from when Jim and I used to throw those up there and watch them float down. We had thrown footballs to get them, but three are still dangling from the branches up there. I look at Melody, who’s standing by the back porch. With all that pale light illuminating her, she looks like a ghost again, just like that time at the bridge. She smiles and says, “You did get in a fight, didn’t you?”

“I fell down some steps.”

She shakes her head. “Did you win?”

I answer with a smile. Dad and Jim step out from the sliding doors onto the back porch. Dad has a can of Budweiser in his hands, and Jim has put on a hat. They’re smiling, happy. Together. They walk down the steps of the back porch and stand beside Melody, the three of them there on the edge of the illumination.

“I’
LL
LEAVE THE LIGHT ON FOR YOU, SON,”
my mom had said.

S
UMMER PASSES AS FAST AS A BOLT OF LIGHTNING
, and the new school year begins in the fall. A couple of months into school I’m having to take a practice SAT test like everyone else in my grade. An even more rotund and sweaty Principal Reeves wants everyone to get high scores so the school looks good. It’s Monday, right after lunch, and I’m out behind the soccer field with David, smoking one of his cigarettes along with him.

“So what made you change your mind about going out for the varsity basketball team?” he asks.

“I’ll probably just end up sitting on the bench even if I make the team. But what the hell. I just feel like doing it.”

“Looks good on college applications, right?”

“Eh.”

“What does Brad always say? It pays to be a dumb jock, right?”

“Right.

We put out our smokes, and I head back into the building. David’s ditching the rest of the day to work at the garage. He’ll do fine on the SAT without the practice test anyway. So I jog back to the building and catch up to Will and Brad, who are walking down the hallway to the cafeteria talking about how hot Katy got over the summer.

“I bet you she got a boob job.”

“No way…”

And they go on like that. The hallway’s full of disgruntled and confused-looking sophomores carrying their lunch to their homerooms. Some of them complain openly about us juniors doing this to them. All the juniors are taking a practice SAT in the cafeteria, which means the sophomores have to take their lunches back to their homeroom.

“It’s not our fault,” I say to them as they walk by.

“Yeah, eating outside is good for your health!” adds Will, pounding his chest. “The bracing air, the open space! Breathe it in!” We have a good laugh at that. I don’t know why they’re complaining, though, I would have preferred eating in my homeroom.

Jacob, an extra-smart sophomore in my advanced algebra class comes walking by, and we all stop. “Take a look at this, Samuel,” he says. On his plate is a stack of blueberry pancakes with butter and syrup dripping down the side, along with a side of eggs and sausages. “They ran out of the regular food and only had this left. Does this look like lunch to you?”

“Looks good,” I say.

“If it looks so good, then have a bite.”

“No, man, with foods like that, it’s all or nothing for me. Anyway, I gotta go take that practice SAT.” I notice Will eyeing the plate, with some sort of deviousness in mind. “Don’t even think about it.”

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” says Brad.

Will puts an arm around my shoulder and points at Jacob. “I was going to do it to him, not you, man.”

“Like I said, don’t even think about it.” I push Jacob along and start for my homeroom. “You guys go on ahead,” I tell Will and Brad. “I’ll meet you in the classroom.”

“You’re scary,” Will says to me with a smile. I shake my head and laugh.

I go to my homeroom and get my number-two pencils. Then I go back to the cafeteria to get back in line for the test. Katy and Debbie are having a last-second look at a preparation book.

“It’s too late for that,” I say. “You should have done that over the summer.”

“Look at you. You look like you want to take this thing,” says Debbie.

“I don’t want to take it,” I say. “I just wanna get it over with.” But I feel like hopping around, I’m so excited. The studying I’ve done over the summer seems like a dream I’m already close to forgetting. We all file into the cafeteria and we’re supposed to sit in the order in which we’re standing in line, but when the guys around me get to a table, instead of sitting in order, they separate. Will, Brad, Katy, Debbie, and all the rest of my friends sit on one side, and these other kids who are considered not so cool sit on the other end. If I’m to sit in order, I should sit by those other kids, but all my friends are sitting on the other side. I look around the cafeteria. At the far end I see Cornelius and Yoshi sitting with all the black kids. Opposite them is a group of nerdy kids, and at the corner are the artsy hipster types. There’re the real poor kids, the super Christians, the rednecks…it just keeps going.
Shit
, I think. It isn’t anything personal to any of them. I walk across the cafeteria to where Melody’s sitting and squeeze in beside her with a good feeling that I can’t understand at all.