“Okay. I promised Gordo I’d be at the shop early tomorrow.”
“No rest for us, huh?” She kissed my forehead and left me to it.
I wanted to ask Mark more questions, but I remembered my manners. I ate my burger instead. It was slightly charred, just the way I liked it.
“Gordo?” Mark asked. It was almost a question, but also like he was trying out the name on his tongue. His smile was sad now.
“My boss. He owns the body shop.”
“That right,” Mark said. “Who would have thought?”
“Thought what?”
“Make sure you hold on to her,” Mark said instead. “Your mom.”
I looked up at him. He seemed sad. “It’s just us two,” I told him quietly, as if it were some great secret.
“Even more reason. Things will change, though. I think. For you and her. For all of us.” He wiped his mouth and pulled out his wallet, pulling a folded bill out and leaving it on the table. He stood and pulled his coat back over his shoulders. Before he left, he looked down at me. “We’ll see you soon, Ox.”
“Who?”
“My family.”
“The house?”
He nodded. “I think it’s almost time to come home.”
“Can we—” I stopped myself because I was just a kid.
“What, Ox?” He looked curious.
“Can we be friends when you come home? I don’t have many of those.” I didn’t have any except for Gordo and my mom, but I didn’t want to scare him away.
His hand tightened into a fist at his side. “Not many?” he asked.
“I speak too slow,” I said, looking down at my hands. “Or I don’t speak at all. People don’t like that.” Or me, but I had already said too much.
“There’s nothing wrong with the way you speak.”
“Maybe.” If enough people said it, it had to be partially true.
“Ox, I’m going to tell you a secret. Okay?”
“Sure.” I was excited because friends shared secrets so maybe that meant we were friends.
“It’s always the ones who are the quietest who often have the greatest things to say. And yes, I think we’ll be friends.”
He left then.
I didn’t see my friend again for seventeen months.
THAT NIGHT as I lay in bed waiting for sleep, I heard a howl from deep in the woods. It rose like a song until I was sure it was all I could ever want to sing. It went on and on and all I could think of was home, home, home. Eventually, it fell away and so did I.
I told myself later it was just a dream.
“HERE,” GORDO said on my fifteenth birthday. He shoved a badly wrapped package into my hands. It had snowmen on it. Other guys from the shop were there. Rico. Tanner. Chris. All young and wide-eyed and alive. Friends of Gordo’s who’d grown up with him in Green Creek. They were all grinning at me, waiting. Like they knew some big secret that I didn’t.
“It’s May,” I said.
Gordo rolled his eyes. “Open the damn thing.” He leaned back in his ratty chair behind the shop and took a deep drag on his cigarette. His tattoos looked brighter than they normally were. I wondered if he’d gotten them touched up recently.
I tore through the paper. It was loud. I wanted to savor it because I didn’t get presents often, but I couldn’t wait. It only took seconds, but it felt like forever.
“This,” I said when I saw what it was. “This is….”
It was reverence. It was grace. It was beauty. I wondered if this meant I could finally breathe. Like I had found my place in this world I didn’t understand.
Embroidered. Red. White. Blue. Two letters, stitched perfectly.
Ox, the work shirt read.
Like I mattered. Like I meant something. Like I was important.
Men don’t cry. My daddy taught me that. Men don’t cry because they don’t have time to cry.
I must not have been a man yet because I cried. I bowed my head and cried.
Rico touched my shoulder.
Tanner rubbed a hand over my head.
Chris touched his work boot to mine.
They stood around me. Over me. Hiding me away should anyone stumble in and see the tears.
And Gordo put his forehead to mine and said, “You belong to us now.”
Something bloomed within me and I was warm. It was like the sun had burst in my chest and I felt more alive than I had in a long time.
Later, they helped me put on the shirt. It fit perfectly.
I TOOK a smoke break with Gordo that winter. “Can I have one?”
He shrugged. “Don’t tell your ma.” He opened the box and pulled a cigarette out for me. He held up the lighter and covered the flame against the wind. I took the cig between my lips and put it toward the fire. I inhaled. It burned. I coughed. My eyes watered and gray smoke came out my nose and mouth.
The second drag was easier.
The guys laughed. I thought maybe we were friends.
SOMETIMES I thought I was dreaming but then realized I was actually awake.
It was getting harder to wake up.
GORDO MADE me quit smoking four months later. He told me it was for my own good.
I told him it was because he didn’t want me stealing his cigarettes anymore.
He cuffed the back of my head and told me to get to work.
I didn’t smoke after that.
We were all still friends.
I ASKED him once about his tattoos.
The shapes. The patterns. Like there was a design. All bright colors and strange symbols that I thought should be familiar. Like it was on the tip of my tongue. I knew they went all the way up his arms. I didn’t know how far they went beyond that.
He said, “Everyone has a past, Ox.”
“Are they yours?”
He looked away. “Something like that.”
I wondered if I would ever etch my past onto my skin in swirls and colors and shapes.
TWO THINGS happened on my sixteenth birthday.
I was officially hired at Gordo’s. Had a business card and everything. Filled out tax forms that Gordo helped me with because I didn’t understand them. I didn’t cry that time. The guys patted me on the back and joked about how they no longer worked in a sweatshop with child labor. Gordo gave me a set of keys to the shop and smeared some grease on my face. I just grinned at him. I didn’t think I’d ever seen him so happy.
I went home that afternoon and told myself I was a man now.
Then the second thing happened.
The empty house at the end of the lane was no longer empty and there was a boy on the dirt road in the woods.
tornado/soap bubbles
I WALKED down the road toward the house.
It was warm, so I took off my work shirt. I left the white tank top on. A breeze cooled my skin.
The keys to the shop were heavy in my pocket. I pulled them out and looked at them. I’d never had that many keys before. I felt responsible for something.
I put them back in my pocket. I didn’t want to take the chance of losing them.
And then he said, “Hey! Hey there! You! Hey, guy!”