Guy Wire
Authors: Sarah Weeks
Guy Wire
sld
—S.W.
“You know what I’ve been thinking about lately?” I said…
“I didn’t even see him. He came out of nowhere,”…
The summer before second grade started, I turned seven, and…
When we got back to the classroom after lunch, Mrs. Hunn…
The rehearsals were for our second-grade production of The Princess…
On the way home I noticed Fennimore walking up ahead…
An hour and a half later I came home, tired…
“How could you do this to me!” I yelled as…
I heard Kevin Brudhauser’s obnoxious booming voice as I entered…
“Are you sure about this, Guysie?” my mother asked.
The doorbell rang at six o’clock on the dot.
As soon as Kevin Brudhauser saw me the next morning,…
A loud bang made me jump. It was the double…
We rehearsed the play for about two weeks. During that…
“Honeylamb? Guysie?”
Obviously Buzz’s nickname stuck. Not long after I thought it…
After they took Buzz back into surgery, eventually I must…
“Y
ou know what I’ve been thinking about lately?” I said to Buzz as we rode our bikes down the street toward my house one afternoon during spring break.
“What to give me for my birthday tomorrow?” he said.
“No. I’ve been thinking about fate.”
“What’s fate?” asked Buzz, licking his palm and trying to plaster down the hair sticking up at the back of his head. He has a bunch of cowlicks, which make his hair stand up funny sometimes.
“Fate is like when stuff happens out of the blue and you can’t really explain why,” I said.
“You mean like belching?” Buzz asked.
“No, you gall bladder, like getting hit by lightning. Or happening to meet the person you’re going to get married to while you’re standing in line at the grocery store minding your own business.”
“I’m never going to get married,” said Buzz.
“You don’t know that,” I said. “For all you know, fate has her all picked out for you already. The future Mrs. Buzz Adams could be walking around Cedar Springs right now.”
“Sheesh, Guy. That’s creepy. You mean, even if I don’t want to get married, I have to because of this fate thing?”
“You can’t fight fate,” I said. “It’s a losing battle.”
“If we actually do have to get married someday, do you think either one of us is gonna have a wedding like the one your mom had?” Buzz asked. “Remember that?”
“
Remember
it?” I snorted. “Are you kidding? She wore a dress made out of Styrofoam cups, and the groom played the wedding march on a hose nozzle. Who
could forget something like that?”
My parents are divorced, and my mom got remarried last Valentine’s Day. The ceremony, like most things my mother masterminds, was a bit unusual, to put it mildly.
“The thing about marriage is I think it’s sort of like rolling dice. Everybody wants to roll a six and live happily ever after. But if it turns out you roll a four, then you’ve got to decide whether to stick with that or take a chance on rolling again,” I said. “Sure, maybe you’ll get lucky and roll a six the second time around, but then again you could end up rolling a two and be worse off than when you started.”
“Are the dice real ones, or fuzzy ones?” Buzz asked seriously.
“What difference does that make?”
“Real ones roll better than fuzzy ones,” he explained simply.
I stopped pedaling and looked at him.
“Why do you say stuff like that, Buzzard?”
“Like what?” he said.
“Like ‘Real ones roll better than fuzzy ones.’”
“What’s the matter with that? It’s true, isn’t it? Think about it, Guy. Fuzzy things don’t roll very well. Take rabbits, for instance. It’d be hard to roll a rabbit, don’t you think?”
We both lifted ourselves up off our seats, standing on the pedals in order to put our weight into an uphill climb.
“Do you ever actually listen to yourself when you talk? You say crazy junk like that as if it’s normal. Nobody rolls rabbits,” I said.
“There you go,” said Buzz in a self-satisfied tone. “You just proved my point. The reason nobody rolls rabbits is because they’re too fuzzy. Am I right, or am I right?”
“You’re nuts is what you are,” I said.
The next hill was too steep to ride up, so we got off our bikes and walked them next to each other.
“Do you still make a wish when you blow out the candles on your birthday cake?” Buzz asked me.
“Of course I do,” I said. “Who doesn’t?”
“Personally, I’m thinking about giving it up this year,” he announced.
“Are you serious?”
“Yeah, I think I’ve finally outgrown it. Like Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy.”
“Wishing isn’t like Santa Claus,” I said. “It’s a real thing.”
“Think about it, Guy Wire. Every year you’re supposed to make a wish, and the deal is, if you get all the candles out in one blow it’ll come true. Right?”
“Right, as long as you don’t tell anybody what you wished for,” I said.
“And you believe that?” said Buzz. “Come on, have you ever gotten anything you wished for?”
“Yeah,” I said. “As a matter of fact I have.”
“Oh, yeah? What?” he asked.
“I can’t tell you that,” I said, suddenly wishing I’d kept my big mouth shut.
“Why not?”
“I just can’t,” I said.
“The reason you can’t tell me is because it’s not true. Just admit it, Guy Wire.”
“No, I swear, once I really did get what I wished for. I just don’t want to tell you what it was, that’s all. It might be dangerous.”
“Dangerous?” Buzz said.
“Yeah, like maybe telling you about it could make the wish come untrue.”
“That is such bunk.” Buzz snorted. “Besides, the deal is we tell each other everything. So if there really is something to tell, spill it or else.”
I wasn’t sure exactly why it felt wrong, I just knew it did. But for some reason I took a deep breath and told him anyway.
“I wished for you,” I said.
“What are you talking about, corn dog?”
“On my seventh birthday I wished for a best friend. A few months later you moved here. So my wish came true. Okay?” We’d reached the top of the hill, so we both got on our bikes and began to pedal.
“For real?” he asked. “Did you really do
that? Wish for me?”
“I didn’t exactly wish for
you
. I wished for
somebody
, and it turned out to be you,” I tried to explain. “Can we please just drop it now?”
We rode in silence for a minute, and then Buzz said, “When I turned five, I wished for ballet lessons.”
“Get out!” I laughed.
“Get in. I swear. There was this girl in my kindergarten class who got to leave school early three afternoons a week for ballet. Seemed like a good deal to me, so I wished for it on my birthday,” Buzz said.
“Did you even know what ballet was?” I asked.
“Of course not, you drill bit. Can you see me jumping around in a tutu and tights?”
“Depends. What color is the tutu?” I asked.
Buzz reached over and grabbed my handlebars, giving them a quick jerk, which set my bike wobbling uncontrollably under
me. Then he sped ahead of me, whooping and hollering.
“Last one home is a rotten egg!” he called back over his shoulder.
I regained my balance as quickly as I could and chased after him.
“That’s it, gum ball. Prepare to die!” I yelled as he zipped out of sight around the corner ahead of me.
I heard it before I saw it. Screeching tires and a sickening
thunk
. And then—then—just silence. I pedaled as fast as I could, holding my breath as I rounded the corner.
“Don’t let it be. Don’t let it be,” I whispered over and over.
But it was.
“I
didn’t even see him. He came out of nowhere,” the man said as he got out of his car and came over to where Buzz was lying in the street.
“He’s not—? Is he—?” I almost didn’t recognize the sound of my own voice, it was so small and pinched, like something was trying to squeeze my throat closed.
The man leaned over Buzz and touched his neck.
“He’s breathing, and his pulse seems okay,” he said as he took off his jacket and laid it gently over Buzz’s still body. “But he’s not conscious, and that’s never a good thing.”
Somebody must have called an ambulance. The police came too. I remember answering questions, but mostly I just sat on the ground next to Buzz, touching his arm and talking to him softly.
Then a wonderful thought came into my head. I bent close to his ear and whispered, “Okay, I get it now. I know what you’re doing, you worm. You’re lying there pretending to be out of it so you can pop up and scare the heck out of me, aren’t you? Go ahead, Buzzard, pop up and get it over with. Make a fool out of me and then laugh your head off about it. I won’t mind. I promise, really. Go ahead. Open your eyes, Buzzy. Come on,
please
.”
But he didn’t pop up. And he didn’t laugh. Or smile. Or open his eyes. And it was all my fault. I should never have told him about the wish.
They wouldn’t let me ride in the ambulance with him. I watched them put him on a stretcher and lift him into the back. Then,
when they drove off toward the hospital, I rode my bike the rest of the way home, dropped it in the driveway, and ran into the house to tell my mother what had happened.
“You boys are in luck; snicker doodles are just coming out of the oven!” my mother called as I came in the back door. “Buzzy, I made a double batch ’cause I knew you were com—”
“Mom?” I said.
My mother turned around, and her face changed the minute she laid eyes on me.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, putting her potholder down on the counter and ignoring the timer when it dinged.
“It’s Buzz,” I said. “They just took him away in an ambulance.”
“Oh, my God. Oh my God. What happened?” my mother cried.
Tears began streaming down my face. “He got hit by a car, Mom. Somebody hit Buzz.”
“Is he okay, Guy?” she asked anxiously.
“I don’t know,” I said, and the words echoed through the new empty space that seemed to have taken over the whole left side of my chest.
My mother called Buzz’s mom. She was on the phone for only a second; then she rushed around turning off the oven, getting her car keys, putting on her jacket, and writing a note for my stepfather, Jerry.
“I’m going to drive Barbara over to the hospital,” she told me, starting for the door. “Buzz’s dad is going to meet us there.”
“I’m coming too.”
“Are you sure you want to?” she asked.
I just looked at her.
“Of course you do,” she said quietly.
Barbara Adams was already standing out on the curb at the bottom of our driveway. My mom’s house, where I live half of the time, since she and my dad are divorced and split time with me, is right next door to Buzz’s. She and Jerry bought the house when they decided to get married last spring.
Jerry’s semiobnoxious daughter, Lana, also lives with us part of the time, but at the moment she was in California with her own mom.
Mrs. Adams had her purse over her shoulder, and she was wearing an apron over her dress. It was pink and frilly and said, “Kiss Me I’m Cookin’” on it. Buzz and I had gone shopping together and each bought one for our moms for Mother’s Day a few years ago. My mom still wore hers too—but she had used white-out and a permanent marker to change hers so it said, “Kiss Me I’m Kooky!”
“Mom,” I said, “do you think we should tell her she’s still got her apron on?”
My mother looked at me and silently shook her head as Mrs. Adams opened the car door and quickly got in.
“Barbara, I’m so sorry,” Mom said, reaching over and touching her shoulder.
“Lorraine, I’m not even going to let myself think…” Buzz’s mom closed her eyes and pressed her lips together so tight that
they turned white. A few seconds later she turned around, took my hand, and squeezed it. I shivered. Her fingers were like ice.
Hal Adams was waiting at the hospital when we got there. He and Buzz’s mom were allowed to go in right away, but my mom and I had to wait out in the waiting room.
“Why can’t we go in too?” I asked.
“Only family is allowed right now,” my mother explained gently.
“Don’t best friends count as family?” I asked.
My mother just patted my knee.
We sat down next to each other in a couple of gray plastic chairs. There was a clock hanging on the wall with a large white face and a sweeping red second hand. I watched it go all the way around once. It was 2:37. A table nearby held a few magazines that looked like about a million people had read them already. I pictured those million people licking their million spitty thumbs as
they turned those same pages again and again, and I felt sick to my stomach.
My mother reached for a magazine with a picture of a big pie on the cover. I closed my eyes. When I opened them again, I looked up at the clock. It was 2:38.
“Can’t somebody come out and tell us what’s happening?” I asked.
“I’m sure as soon as anybody knows anything, they’ll come and tell us, Guysie,” my mom said, closing the magazine and putting it back on the table. “I know you’re worried.”
“
Worried?
No, that’s too small a word to describe how I feel. You don’t understand, Mom. You weren’t there. You didn’t see him. It was like he was Buzz, only he wasn’t Buzz.”
“I know, baby. I know.” Her consoling didn’t help—it just made me mad.
“No, you don’t know!” I yelled, suddenly standing up and facing her. “Don’t say you know, when you can’t possibly know. Is he
your
best friend? Did
you
see him lying there not moving? Are you the one who…” I
couldn’t bring myself to say the horrible thing that ached and burned guiltily inside me.
Are you the one whose fault it is that Buzz got hurt?
“I guess you’re right, Guy. I can’t know how you feel. But I love Buzzy too. You know that. He’s like one of the family. I don’t know what I’d do if anything happened to him.” She pinched the bridge of her nose. She always does that when she’s about to cry.
I felt bad that I’d yelled at her like that. It’s true, my mom does love Buzz. She always has.
“I’m sorry,” I said softly as I sat down next to her.
She put her arm around me, and I rested my head on her shoulder.
“What if he’s not okay?” I asked.
“We can’t think that way, Guysie,” she said, sitting up straight and wiping her eyes and nose with a crumpled tissue she pulled out of her pocket. “No. We have to think positive. That’s all there is to it.”
“Positive, about what?” I asked.
“About Buzz,” my mother answered. “Instead of imagining the worst, we have to visualize the best.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked.
“Just the other day I was reading an article about how positive psychic energy has remarkable healing effects on the human body,” she said. “It was fascinating.”
“Mom, this isn’t going to turn into a lecture about how blue food coloring and television commercials stunt your growth, is it?” I said warily.
“Of course not. I’m just saying that a lot of people believe that creating a positive aura around someone who’s sick can help make them better.”
“Okay, okay.” I hate when my mother starts spouting about stuff like auras.
“We could try it,” she said. “I mean, it can’t hurt, right?”
I shrugged.
“They made it sound pretty easy. All you
have to do is think something positive about the person. For instance, right now I’m going to think about the look on Buzz’s face when he bites into a warm snicker doodle. Can you picture that?” she asked.
Of course I could picture it. I’d seen him do it twelve million times. But I wasn’t the least bit convinced it was going to do any good to sit there picturing Buzz eating cookies at a time like this.
“I can see him clear as day, with a huge smile on his face and a big cookie in each hand,” my mother went on. “Now he’s smiling at me and saying—”
“All reetie, baked ziti,” I quietly finished the sentence for her. Buzz always says that when he’s happy about something.
“Exactly!” my mother said. “See?”
“Not really,” I said. “How do you know if it’s working? Shouldn’t something happen?”
“You have to put your faith in the idea that somehow your thoughts are going to reach Buzzy and make a difference. The positive
cosmic energy will search high and low for him, and when it finds him, it’ll wind around and around his spirit, and that will help begin to heal…”
I stopped listening. I know she meant well, but I have about zero tolerance for my mom’s New-Agey junk. How do you wind a positive thought around someone, anyway? All I could picture was Buzz tangled up in a yo-yo string.
“At least give it a try, Guysie. It can’t hurt. Besides, it’s better than just sitting here worrying. Come on. Think about Buzz. Maybe some great time you had in the old fort. Or at camp. Or school. You guys have had a million terrific times together.”
I closed my eyes and tried to picture Buzz. I sure had looked at his silly old freckled puss enough to have it memorized. But for some reason the first thing I pictured wasn’t his face; it was his left sneaker. Why? And then I remembered. One of his shoes must have come off when the car hit him. I had seen it
lying on its side in the gutter, with the laces still tied, a few feet away from where Buzz was lying on the pavement. As I pictured the empty shoe, I heard my own ridiculously happy voice coming back to me as I shouted to Buzz, “That’s it, gum ball. Prepare to die!” The horrible relevance of those words made me sit up with a jolt.
“What’s the matter?” my mother asked.
“I’m trying to think of positive stuff, but it’s not working,” I explained, still shaken by the image of that sneaker and the memory of those fateful words.
Prepare to die!
How could I have said that? I didn’t mean it. I didn’t mean it.
My mother put her arm around me, and I leaned against her again.
“Think back to the very beginning, Guy. When Buzzy first came to town. Do you remember that?” she said.
“Yeah, as a matter of fact we were kind of talking about that right before he—before the…”
I felt my chest tighten.
“Try not to think about the present, Honeybunch. Go back to the beginning. To the very first time you and Buzzy met each other. What a lucky thing that turned out to be, huh?”
I closed my eyes and let myself travel back in time. Memories spun in and out of focus, clicking into place like a slide show. My mom was right; meeting Buzz had turned out to be a lucky thing. The luckiest. But it hadn’t exactly started out that way….