Tiffany McDaniel - The Summer That Melted Everything

“About what?”

“Comic books.” He frowned, not at me but at something bigger than the two of us.

As he went downstairs, he held tight to the banister, his feet careful with the stairs, lest he go to them, lest they fester the breaks.

He’d left Grand’s door open, so I looked into his room. I thought at first Grand was gone. But then I saw him, standing woodenlike, with his back straight against the wall, like a grandfather clock off its time.

“Hey, Grand.”

He just stood there and I thought for a moment he really had turned into a clock and the only thing he could ever say again was a minute upon minute.

Finally, he spoke as quick as a glance, “Hey.”

“Whatcha doin’?”

“Nothin’.” He kept against the wall. There must’ve been comfort in that.

“Wanna play catch, Grand? Like we used to?”

“I’m through playin’ catch, little man.”

I cracked my knuckles. I didn’t know what else to do. “You know the Reds are gonna be playin’ the Braves later?”

He looked at me, and it was like something lost looking to be found. “Oh yeah?”

“Yeah. It’ll be some game, they say. You wanna watch with me?”

“I don’t much care for baseball no more.”

“But you’re gonna be a Major Leaguer someday.”

“Am I?”

“Sure. Everyone says it.”

“Funny, no one ever asked me.”

“Don’t you wanna be a great baseball player?”

He sighed back into the wall. “I want to be a great man, Fielding.”

And so we stand, proved of our existence by those who see us. And how did I see Grand, how did any of us, but as the one who would be great at this and that, as long as it was baseball and girls. He always had to be what we wanted him to be first. He existed only by proxy to our dreams of him.

“Grand? Are you okay?” I took a step toward him, but he held up his arm.

“Don’t come any closer, little man.”

“Why?”

“I’m gettin’ a cold. Don’t want you to get it.” His arm stayed out. I wondered if he forgot about it.

“I won’t get it, Grand. I won’t breathe in real deep. Just surface breaths.”

“Naw, I like ya too much to take the chance.”

I emptied of a long-held breath. “You still like me, Grand?”

“Sure I do. I might even love ya.” His lowering arm was good-bye falling, and I too stupid to realize.

“Grand—”

“It’s time. You’re gonna miss the game, little man.”

“Ain’tcha gonna watch with me?”

A quiet came and dripped, making the room something drowned, us drowning with it.

Finally, three words rose above the gasping line, “I’m sorry, Fielding.”

“About not watchin’ the game?”

He looked at me like I was a boy, stinking of stupid.

“Naw, not about the game, Fielding. About hittin’ you that day. I know now you were only tryin’ to protect me.”

“I’m sorry too, Grand. I shouldn’t have called you that … that word. And I love you no matter what. And it’s okay if you’re sick, because I’ll be here for you. We’ll all be here for you, and everything will be okay.”

That’s what I wish I would’ve said. Why didn’t I? Maybe it would’ve changed things. Maybe if I would’ve said I’m sorry and I love you and I don’t care that you’re gay , then maybe, maybe he’d be living right next door to me now and I could go over there and sit with him and we could watch the game on TV. Or not watch it. Maybe we’d read Walt Whitman or Langston Hughes or something like that.

Maybe there’d be someone in the kitchen making noise and this someone would come out with the food to set the table and Grand would call him his husband and make love to him after sending me back off next door until next time, until the next day I could see him again. Maybe it could’ve happened that way, but it never will, because I just stood there and he did a half chuckle into his chest and seemed to say, stupid brother. And I was. God burn me for it, I was.

“I’m goin’ for a walk, Fielding. Tell Mom and Dad in case they ask, would ya?”

He drifted and I wish I would’ve reached for him. He stopped by my side, giving me the chance. I didn’t take it, though. Stupid boy I was. I let my brother leave without a hug. That has never been an easy thing to let go of.

Just before he left I blurted out, “I took your Eddie Plank card. And I lost it. That was my secret I buried.”

“I know.” He kept his back to me, but I could still see his smile, too small to ever be real. “I know you did, little man. And it’s all right. I forgive ya.”

“How’d you know? You dig my secret up?”

“I didn’t need to. The card was missin’ and you looked guilty.”

“I know your secret too.”

He turned to me. Looked more through me than at me. “You dug it up?”

I nodded. “You’re afraid. That’s your secret. You’re afraid.”

He suddenly looked toward the window, and I thought for a moment the rabid dog was coming back through. I tightened in that fear.

He rubbed the back of his neck. A low sound came trying to be a laugh, but it had too much worry to make a real go of it.

“You know the story of the man who went walkin’ in the city one day and found he couldn’t walk over the manholes, even though they were covered. He was afraid he’d fall down into them and the devil would finish draggin’ him down to hell. That’s what I’m afraid of. Men. Holes. And the devil.”

He strained like he was gathering something up inside him and it was heavy, heavy, and just too much. He buckled in the knees and leaned into the doorframe.

“Hey, listen, when I get back from my walk, I’ll watch the game with ya, okay, little man?”

His leaving had the sound of a turning page. Whoosh, flick, and he was gone. By seven thirty, the television was on and Grand wasn’t home. I tried to concentrate on the game, but it was a bad day for the color red. Cincinnati’s ball caps and uniforms, even the stitching on the ball itself, never let me escape what could be in Grand’s blood. I shut the game off and stared at the black screen until eight thirty. Nine thirty. Midnight. Grand still wasn’t home.

Dad grabbed a flashlight. Looked more annoyed than alarmed. The worry was all in Mom at that time as she called to Dad from the porch, “Find him, Autopsy.”

Dad nodded he would as she stood up against the wall of the porch like a second front door, waiting to be opened. Me, Sal, and Dad went up and down the lanes, shining the flashlight on bushes, passing cars, dark porches, and if Grand had been a leaf, a group of laughing teenagers, a napping cat, we would’ve found him.

Onward we went, shining the light across the baseball diamond behind the school. Up in the stands at the football stadium. It felt like a hundred different places before, after, and in between, but no Grand.

I found myself leading us through the woods. Dad shined the flashlight inside the one-room schoolhouse as we passed it. Nothing but one of Elohim’s pamphlets on the ground.

The whole way walking to the tree house, I had that feeling one has when walking toward a difficult decision. I wanted to find Grand, but when I climbed up and saw the tree house empty, I won’t lie and say I didn’t feel relieved.

By that time, Dad was no longer annoyed. He was worried, painfully worried now. The light in his hand anxiously bouncing from tree to tree.

“I wonder where that boy has gotten to.” He sighed. “I wonder—”

His voice fell with the flashlight that banged against the ground.

“Dad?”

It was too dark to see him, but I heard his feet pounding against the ground, running toward something.