Facts
In 1785, French chemist Antoine Lavoisier discovers that matter can neither be created nor destroyed.
Fifty-five years later, German physician Julius Robert Mayer concludes the same is true of energy.
Sixty more years later, Albert Einstein gives us E=mc2.
Which means mass and energy are exchangeable, and therefore, the total amount of mass and energy in the Universe is constant.
There will always be the same amount of energy and matter.
I say this because if matter doesn’t die, if energy can’t die, then no one really dies.
Five years.
Five thousand.
Five billion.
You will still be here.
So, before they close their eyes for the last time, when they promise you—
I’ll always be with you, I’m everywhere you are.
They will.
They are.
101
When tragedy strikes—and no, I don’t mean the barbarism of watching someone pour milk before cereal, or laboring to make that last square of toilet paper, the one superglued to the cardboard, be enough.
I mean, actual tragedy.
Like, when no one wants to tell you your parents are dead.
Like, when your stupid brain can’t decide which outfit—if the dress, the suit you chose, is what they’d want to wear forever.
Like, when your best friend really needs you, but you’re gone, baby, gone.
See, actual tragedy monsters your heart.
Actual tragedy saws you in half.
Before and After.
Like cheesy weight-loss commercials where on one side you’re chubby, bald, bad posture, bacne—and then you swallow a magic capsule and voilà!, you’re eighteen-pack abs, more hair than five woolly mammoths, and astonishingly clear skin.
Look, they’re saying, this is you then, but this is you now.
That’s tragedy: a hard pill you swallow that changes everything.
And one day, you look in the mirror, and a stranger is there where you used to be.
You’ll interrogate yourself endlessly.
If only you’d done this slower, that faster.
Now you know the true cost of a split second.
You never stop paying.
This is what no one tells you—
100
—the worst day of your life begins like any other.
The sun shows up before you want.
You left the fan on all night, your throat’s scratchy, nose itchy.
You claw sleep from your eyes.
Press your feet into carpet, curl your toes.
The kitchen tile’s freezing.
It’s June in Ohio so it’s eighty degrees, or thirty-five inches of rain, or snowflakes.
You rifle through cabinets, the pantry. Pillage two Pop-Tarts, eat them raw.
You dash back upstairs, bang on the bathroom door, yell at your sister for hogging the hot water.
Dad materializes in the hallway, says if you want he’ll boil water on the stove, pour it over your head, same as a shower, he claims.
Only with third-degree burns, you fire back.
His laugh’s a breathy hiss, like a snake gasping.
You cannonball into your parents’ bed, pillows scattering in your wake, but Mom doesn’t look away from her book, says your breath stinks even though you’re nowhere near her nose. So you logroll over to her, blow all that hot pastiness into her face, and she pushes your head away, says boy, if you don’t quit, but she’s trying not to laugh, and your lips aim for her cheek but she bobs and you glance her eyebrow.
The bathroom door bursts open, your sister shouts happy now? from the hallway, then slams her bedroom door shut.
So yeah.
A day you couldn’t pick out of a lineup.
A day like most before it.
Except on June eighth, at 11:43 in the morning, your life, your entire world, snaps in two. Forevermore, there is only before 11:43 and after 11:43.
No one tells you this. That your life is always a few shitty seconds from absolute devastation. From irredeemable destruction.
Because in the end, all it takes is twelve seconds, and two otherwise innocent, seemingly disconnected things merge to obliterate my life.
1. Dad continued his I-suck-at-technology ways.
2. My best friend wished my parents a happy anniversary.
23 Months After the Funeral
Also Known as Now
99
Everyone shows up to a Hills party—cool for people-watching, not cool for personal space. Tonight’s party-thrower is among the more popular kids at Elytown High, meaning you gotta walk sideways to get anywhere.
“Umm, what the hell are they playing?” Autumn asks.
I shrug. “Trap-rock-bluegrass?”
“Mmm, I’m thinking alternative-emo-backpack rap.”
Autumn and I slot music three ways: good, listenable, kill the DJ.
“Listenable,” she says.
And I agree. Besides, expecting good music at a Hills party is like swimming in Scotland thinking you’ll spot the Loch Ness Monster.
Autumn’s brow slides up. “Beer?”
“I’m good,” I tell her. “Gonna check out the pool.”
She squeezes my hand and I’m not sure if this means be right back or see you later. She picks her way toward the keg until a couple of girls stop her to chat.
I dispense a week’s worth of hey, what ups in the ninety seconds it takes to reach the sliding patio panels.
This view dropkicks my jaw, every time.
Standing here, the lake gobbling the horizon, black waves colliding like monster trucks, you could convince me we’re at the edge of the world.
I nearly forget I’m not alone.
My chest vibrates. I pinch my phone from my shirt pocket.
I’ve ignored her last three calls.
“Hey, you’re already at the party,” Whit says, like an accusation.
“Yeah, I told you I—”
She cuts me off. “When were you gonna tell me?”
For a moment, I pretend that what follows is good, happy.
When were you gonna tell me you’re really taking pride in your lawn-mowing?
When were you gonna tell me you can actually sing?
But this isn’t that. This is the setup to an ongoing series I call What’s Wrong with Jamal, starring Jamal Anderson as himself and costarring Everyone Else.
She asks again, so I bite. “Tell you what, Whit?”
“You’re skipping class again? Really? I thought we . . .”
I hold the phone away from my ear until she stops talking. “I’m not skipping,” I say into the receiver.
“Then how come Mrs. Sweat wants a meeting Monday?”
“Okay, I got to school the other day and I didn’t feel well and . . .”
Whit sighs. “Dammit, Jamal. This is serious.”
How long before she says your future?
“This is your future we’re talking . . .”
Kids dot the lawn like pushpins. Kids in the infinity pool guzzle from red Solos, play flip-cup on the edge. This pool’s a mood ring, the cool cerulean water now purpling.
When Whit finishes outlining my current path toward oblivion, I tell her:
I’m sorry.
It won’t happen again.
Not to worry.
“They will remove you from my custody, Jamal. Is that what you want?”