Michael Seidlinger - Falter Kingdom

“Yeah, I know.”

“So wild, dude,” Brad boasts, “we had to fucking run and get help.”

“Yeah,” I say, monotone, driver’s seat reclined back, eyes closed.

“But then Steve twisted his ankle like a pussy and we got lost in the fields.”

Can’t a guy get a few winks?

“And shit, bro, it sucked. Getting lost in that forest is no joke. Being buzzed makes everything look the same.”

I yawn. “But you weren’t out there as long as I was.”

“Yeah, bro, Blaire told me. She said you fell asleep.”

“More like blacked out.” I rub my eyes. “Did y’all end up copping it?”

“Naw”—Brad snaps his fingers—“texted Jon-Jon and he called it like it is, said, like, if we called the cops they’d be more about trespassing charges.”

“Jon-Jon knows what’s up.” Falter isn’t a place anyone’s allowed to access. It’s one of the places closed off for a reason. But we all know that. It’s kind of the point. And Jon-Jon, he always knows. Older than most, he’s got the wisdom to make money work for him. He stays at Meadows because it’s where the money is. He pulls in as much as he wants selling. He’s a good guy, Jon-Jon. Still don’t know him well enough to really get a good read on the guy. Then again I don’t think anyone does. That’s him. That’s Jon-Jon. He’s a businessman.

“Bro, he’s looking for you,” Brad says.

I groan. “I’ve got first period in, like, eight minutes and I still got to pass by my locker.”

“I thought first period was free,” Brad says.

“That was last semester.” I’d kill to get that free period first thing. But no, I’m supposed to be doing awesome at calculus.

“Bummer,” Brad says.

“Yeah.” I open my eyes, staring at the faded fabric ceiling of my car.

“But, bro, you know what he wants. Fuck, I got to ask too.”

“Nothing happened,” I tell him.

“You were running that long and you’re going to tell me nothing fucking happened?”

I put the seat back up, stretching. “Yup. That’s what I’m saying.”

“Jesus,” Brad says, and sighs, “real bummer.”

“World’s full of bummers.”

We leave the car and walk toward the main building. Meadows is made up of three buildings, two on either side of a big four-story main structure where most of us spend the bulk of our time.

Brad’s talking, something about “a bunch of people are going to be blasting it in the fields this Wednesday.” It’s another party in the middle of nowhere.

I’ll probably go. Becca will want to go anyway. Everyone will be there; even if I stayed in, people will notice. The next day at school would be all about how Hunter Warden was a no-show. It’s like that here at Meadows.

Everyone knows everyone, especially if you’ve never met.

I tell him, “Yeah, you know it. Anyway, I’ll catch you later.”

“Yeah.” Brad nods. “Yeah, hit me up at lunch.”

He goes his way and I go mine. And there’s first period, which isn’t worth talking about. I think I might fail the class. I won’t, but I would, you see — Blaire’s my eyes and ears. She’s got the stuff finished and all I have to do is not fuck up the pop quizzes. I fucked up today’s pop quiz.

But what are you gonna do, you know?

Calculus. Everyone, even the A students, are over it.

Miss Canaan needs a life. I want to just walk up to her desk and tell her what everyone’s been telling me: It’s almost over. You’ll never see us again. Why not cut us some slack? Some of us are fun people. If you’d stop stressing the curriculum so much you’d have a better time.

But that takes balls. Well, more than that, it takes effort.

And I’m low on that lately.

I bump into Blaire before fourth period to exchange homework.

“You look like shit,” Blaire tells me.

Yeah, I haven’t been able to shake the exhaustion. I yawn it off, make appearances. “Insomnia,” I say with a shrug. “What else is new?”

Blaire’s hands are all over the homework, checking it like I didn’t actually do a good job. I’ve got this stuff. I’m not an idiot.

English class, that’s my forte.

She won’t look me in the eye. “You’d tell me, right?”

But I don’t hear her until she seems to answer for me—“Yeah, you’d tell me”—and runs off. We don’t have any classes together, which is why trading homework works. I know what she’s talking about. She was there. But, um, I know she wouldn’t tell anyone. At least not until she was sure about it.

During lunch, the student body president, Chris something — I can’t remember his name, but really most people just know him as “Chris the Student President” (you know how everyone’s labeled something) — he makes a few announcements. It’s blah, blah, blah until he finishes with a heads-up stating that yearbook deadlines are in a week.

One fucking week.

It’s a wake-up call for most. It is for me. I don’t know what to write. This is more than making the most of the rest of the semester; the bio you write is what people remember you by. Every word counts. Some people pay extra to fit in another fifty words over the three-hundred-word blurb limit.

Being memorable.

People talk so much about being remembered and “the one thing you’ll be remembered for.”

I think about the prompt while standing in line for food. My mom packs me lunch but it’s embarrassing. I leave it in the trunk of my car and toss it on the way home. Been doing that since the middle of freshman year.

So it’s this junk they serve us, but it works.

The one thing people will remember me for.

I’m not sure I want to settle for just one thing like everyone else. I’m not sure about what I’d write, so I do what I typically do — I put it off for later.

Brad’s late to lunch. I end up at our table, sitting with a few others I never really talk to. They’re almost finished with their bios.

This guy, Mark, reads his bio aloud. He’s really thought it out.

Brad gets there and steals the page from Mark’s hands, ’cause he’s an asshole and you know he’ll never let you down. Brad reads some of it aloud for the entire cafeteria: “Mark Banes excelled at contemporary literature, earning himself an A- average—”

“Come on, Brad, lay off.” That’s me saying that. I’m the one who usually tries to keep things cool. Do you ever really question the guy who’s trying to keep things civil? Yeah, everyone likes that guy, even if they don’t really know him. It’s how I keep this from getting back to me. And today, I know Brad and a bunch of people are suspicious about what happened in that tunnel.

They have something on me. I’m an interesting topic, you know?

And I just want to make it to fifth period so I can take a nap in my car, get away from all this stuff. Lately, everything’s been, I don’t know, just too much. It’s not just graduation; it’s everything. I feel like the pressure is increasing and I’m worried that it might never release.

Kind of melodramatic, yeah.

But I guess it’s mostly the fact that I know what’s going to happen next.

Brad sits across from me, steals one of my chicken fingers, and starts people-watching. That’s how it always starts.

Brad leans in, whispering, “Bro, you see Jess today? Jesus.”

Testosterone-fueled annoyance, that’s Brad’s yearbook bio. He’ll be remembered as the dude with so much testosterone he drowned in it, meaning we all ganged up on him and drowned him for being such an asshole.

I don’t know why I hang around this guy.

But yeah, I do. I know. I’ve talked about this already.

“Yo,” Brad says.

“Yeah, what is it?” I’m acting like these chicken fingers are awesome, like they taste like more than salt.