Ryan Thomas: The Summer I Died

“Fuck you,” she screamed, and with that, stormed out.

I sat at the table with my eggs and rolled the dice as I ate. Outside, the sun was high and the air coming through the window smelled of cut grass and pine needles and baking dirt. A murder of crows flew from a tree in the woods out back and sat on the power lines over the driveway.

“I want to go shoot my 9mm today,” Tooth said.

“Dude, how many guns do you have?”

“Just two. I would have got them long ago if it wasn’t for you always worrying what your mom would say. But you looked pretty happy shooting that.44. Gave you a hard on, didn’t it? I told you it would.”

I didn’t want to let on how much firing the gun had affected me, but it had certainly turned my nuts into giant Epcot Centers of steel. The sense of power was unfathomable; suddenly I was the mightiest thing in existence, all men bowing before me. With the squeeze of a finger I could undo all of God’s creations. Truthfully, I couldn’t wait to try the 9mm.

I rolled the dice; they came up seven, a lucky number if ever there was one.

“Okay,” I said. “But let’s go somewhere different. I didn’t like being so close to the road at that other spot. And besides, you and I still go there so maybe other people do too and I don’t want to shoot some fucking dude traipsing through the woods on his way to down some suds.”

“Fair enough.”

Just then the phone rang. Tooth leapt up and grabbed it, said, “Starlet Productions, you swallow the cream, we give you the green. Oh, hi, Mrs. Huntington. Yeah, Roger’s right here.”

I took the phone from Tooth, and waved him away. “Hi, Mom.”

“How much green we talking here?” she laughed

My mom was pretty cool, all things considered. “Only thing Tooth has that’s green are the skid marks in his panties. How’s Grandma?”

“Oh, great. She thinks she has Psittacosis.”

“Sounds bad.”

“It is, if you’re an owl. I don’t know where she gets this stuff from.”

“She’s not an owl, is she?”

“An old bird, yes, but there’s nothing wise in that addled brain.”

“Be nice. She gives me money for Christmas.”

“I’m glad I taught you not to be superficial.”

“I’m just kidding. I love the old bird.”

“Hey, you can’t call her that until you’ve lived with her for eighteen years.”

“Eighteen years with an owl?”

“Well, she can’t get her head all the way around yet but I doubt it’s for lack of trying. You and Jamie haven’t killed each other yet, have you?”

“Why, would that be bad?”

“It would if you got blood stains on my rug. Blood doesn’t come out without professional cleaning equipment.”

“I’ll lay down some tarp.”

“Good. But try to do it outside, if you could.”

“Agreed.”

“Is she up yet? I want to talk to her.”

“Yeah,” I replied, “I’ll get her.”

“And, Roger?”

“What, Mom?”

“I love you. Sorry we had to take off so quickly after you got back.”

“No sweat. I’ll see you in a couple days.”

I didn’t realize I didn’t say I love you back, and I don’t think she thought too hard on it-she knew I did-but I regret it now.

I put the phone down and hollered for Jamie to pick it up upstairs, then went to take a shower.

We had to go to Tooth’s house, which was on the other side of town, to get the other gun. It was a small yellow house with a couple of bedrooms, a wraparound porch held up by some four-by-fours, and lots of empty, forgotten beer bottles still standing where’d they’d been placed when finished. The crispy yellow front lawn looked like uncooked spaghetti, and a basketball net stood tilted in the dirt driveway like a giant metronome needle that had stopped slightly left of center. The net had been ripped long ago but a few remnants of tattered rope hung from it and blew in the slight breeze.

Tooth’s father was sitting on the porch with a beer in his hand, reading a magazine about cars or airplanes or something. I couldn’t really tell because it was old and faded, like the kind you always see in patches of weeds by abandoned parks. He looked up when we pulled in and wiped the beer can across his forehead in an attempt to cool down.

“Get the gun outta the back,” Tooth told me. “We gotta clean it before we put it away.”

I grabbed the gun, which was in a black plastic carrying case, and followed Tooth up to the porch. He mumbled an apathetic hello to his father, and disappeared inside. Sometimes I didn’t know if they were really family or just roommates. I nodded to the ex-preacher, hoping to pass by without any conversation, but luck was not on my side.

“How you been, Roger?” he asked with the gait of a doped-up turtle.

“I’ve been good, Mr. Elliott. How are you?”

“Well, can’t complain. Other’n the heat it’s been quiet. How you doing at school? Merv don’t tell me much about what he hears from you.”

“School is good,” I said, trying to end the conversation quickly. When he didn’t say any more, I figured that satisfied him so I headed for the door.

“That’s good, got to stay in school. I told that to Merv, but he don’t listen. Says he through with that shit. . his words exactly.”

I stopped at this, hoping it was the last bit of afterbirth to come out of his ethanol-soaked mind, but he continued with words that almost made me pray for mercy.

“I’ve been thinking, Roger.”

Shit. In my book, listening to a drunk get philosophical is on par with rolling down a hill in a barrel full of nails. You get dizzy, your insides shriek with stabbing pain, and you end up someplace lower than where you started. I stopped and resolved to excuse myself politely at the first possible opportunity.

He ran his hand through the few remaining hairs on his head. “I ever tell you about the time I saw Jesus in the gymnasium when I was at seminary?”

Oh, Lord, only six hundred and four times. “Yeah, actually you did. You saw him drinking from the water fountain.”

“Well, let me tell you again. I know you think I’m just a crazy drunk, but I got methods to my madness. He was getting a drink,” he continued, his eyes glazing over as he looked into the past, voice slower than ice trying to melt in Siberia, “and when he bent over and turned on the water, it wasn’t water at all that come out, but wine. Took a long swig, He did, and then He turned to me and a tear fell from His eye and landed in the wine. When it struck, little blue bolts of lightning stitched themselves across the purple liquid and formed a cross.” He stopped and looked at me to make sure I was still listening, then went back to the past. “I put down my basketball and walked over to ask Him what it meant, but He turned and walked out of the room. I followed Him outside but when I got there, there wasn’t anybody in sight except a student I didn’t know. ‘You see anyone come out here?’ I asked. ‘No.’ I searched high and low and never found Him. By the time I got back the wine was water again, and no evidence of Him having been there remained. Until today, I didn’t know what He was trying to tell me.”

That you’re insane , I wanted to say. Instead, I just smiled and said, “I gotta help Too-I mean Merv.”

He looked at me, eyes back from their holiday at the seminary, and took a sip of his beer. “Now wait, I’m getting to my point. I’ve been sitting out here all morning thinking on that, and I came up with a theory. What if every person has a purpose in life, but not one they can necessarily see or are even aware of. Like me for instance. Sure I drink, I don’t deny it. I got my problems-hell, we all got our problems-but suppose that’s my purpose, suppose my drinking causes a reaction somewhere else. And suppose that reaction is doing some good. Why else would He have drawn a cross in wine? See, Jesus was born to die on that cross, saved humanity by giving His life on it. That cross was His purpose for being. I think He was telling me my purpose in life was to drink-my cross, if you will, is to drink wine. . or beer anyway.”