This is the Part Where You Laugh (24 page)

The woman psychiatrist is young and pretty but she doesn't smile. We sit across from each other in a room in the front of the building. She doesn't say anything for a long time. I look around the room. There's a bookshelf with lots of thick books on it, and I wonder if she's read all of them. There's a desk with a lamp. Nothing else on top of the desk. We're sitting on blue plastic chairs in front of the desk.

The psychiatrist crosses her legs. She has thin, strong legs and I wonder what sport she played in high school. She's reading a file. “Tell me about your mother.”

I point at the file. “What does it say there?”

“Well, let's start with your living situation. Why don't you live with your mother?”

“She uses heroin.”

The psychiatrist closes the file folder. “Have you seen her use heroin?”

“Yes.”

“How many times?”

I shake my head.

“A lot?”

“Yes.”

The psychiatrist cocks her head sideways. “When you were little too?”

I nod.

She picks up a yellow legal pad and writes a few notes. “And when was the last time you saw her?”

“Last summer.”

“You saw her this last summer?” She makes a circular motion with her finger. “So that means roughly a year ago?”

“Yes. Once.”

“And how long had it been before that?”

I count on my fingers. “I think maybe three years?”

“And how was she doing when you saw her last summer?”

I shake my head.

“I'm sorry,” she says. “This is really sad. We have to collect these facts, though.” She doesn't smile, but she says “sorry” like she means it.

I breathe. Look around the room. Try to think about anything other than my mom. Anything other than Creature.

I look back at the psychiatrist and she leans forward. “Now tell me about Malik.”

I start to cry. I've cried more this week than in my whole life combined, and now I can't stop myself. I grit my teeth and close my eyes and drop my head. Try to breathe through my nose, the tears leaking out the corners of my eyes.

“It's okay,” she says. “It's all right.”

I open my eyes and wipe my face with my hands. Take a big, deep breath.

The psychiatrist stands up and walks over to her desk. Opens a drawer and gets out tissues.

I say, “Thanks.”

She sits back down. Leans forward. “You've had a tough life in some significant ways, Travis. But the key here is making positive choices going forward. It's my job to determine if you understand that.”

I wipe my eyes and nose with a tissue.

“So,” she says, “do you understand that?”

I look around for a garbage can and the psychiatrist reaches back for the wastebasket. Holds it out to me.

“Yes,” I say.

She hands me another tissue, and now she does smile at me. “I believe that. I think you do.”

We sit there and don't talk for a minute. I hold the tissue in my hand because I don't really need it now. I'm not crying anymore.

The psychiatrist picks up the file again. Settles back in her chair. Says, “Is there anything that you want to pursue? Anything that you love?”

“Basketball.”

“Basketball?” She flips to a different page in the file and taps something with her finger.

“Yes.”

She says, “And what's your goal there?”

“To play D-1 college ball, to get a scholarship.”

“And are you playing now? I mean, I know you played on the school team last year until your first assault, but do you still play now? AAU? Or on another summer team?”

I shake my head. “I've been running drills. Working on my game.”

“And do you work hard?” She looks up from the file.

“What?”

“Well, most of reaching a long-term goal is doing daily practice. So, do you work hard when it's not basketball season?”

“Yes,” I say. “Creature and I worked out every weekday morning this summer when we weren't hurt. 500 shots, dribbling drills, push-ups, and pull-ups.”

“Creature?”

“Malik.”

“Oh,” she says. “I see.”

I don't cry then. I don't know why. I picture Creature practicing spin moves, right to left, left to right, and I smile. And that's how it is in here, this week. I can't tell these days whether I'm gonna smile or cry at any moment. It's like I don't even know myself right now.

The psychiatrist leans toward me. “So will you continue to pursue your dream now, even without Malik?”

“Yes.”

“No matter what?” she says. She closes the file and looks at me.

“Yes,” I say. “No matter what.”

I'll get out today, and there are too many thoughts in my head, like trying to hold a gallon of water in my bare hands. Someone keeps pouring and I keep trying to make a better cup out of my palms and knitted-together fingers.

The drug's haze wears off and I sit on my bunk in the afternoon and watch the angle of the sunlight slowly move across the floor.

I've spent a lot of time alone in my life and I always wonder at the strange concept of brothers and sisters, of a family that sits down and eats dinner together, of people talking in turn about what happened during their day at school and work. I wonder how many people really have that. I wonder if that exists anymore beyond TV shows and movies, if that's something we're supposed to think is real, something we're supposed to hope for.

This is what I know about brothers:

Creature is dead, and there's no way around that.

At home, I unzip the pillow and take out the jar. It's stuffed with money. I don't count it, but it's a lot. $2,000 maybe. I pull twenties out, count and lay them down by hundreds until I have exactly $1,000 on the floor. I'll pay the court-appointed fine with that. I slide the thousand in an envelope, seal it, and slip it underneath my mattress. Then I put the jar with the rest of my money in my backpack. Go to the kitchen.

I make sandwiches. Spread yellow mustard on both pieces of bread. No mayo 'cause she always hated it. Salami, turkey, and cheddar. Slice tomatoes. Add lettuce. I make three sandwiches. Cut them in half and wrap each in foil. Pull Chips Ahoy! out of the cupboard and drop a dozen in a Ziploc. Find two unopened Gatorades and put those in my pack as well.

I look along the river first. Spend an hour on the North Bank trails. Then through Alton Baker. The shelters. The lowlands. Under the two bridges, Ferry and DiFazio.

Then I pedal down to the Washington-Jefferson Bridge and lock up my bike. I don't walk out onto the court because I don't want to see the bloodstain if it's still there. In my head I can see a game going, fives running shirts and skins, but it's daylight and the court's empty.

I walk south under the bridge, past the cleared pylons, no ivy, but two tables, groups of people huddled next to shopping carts. Blankets. Army tarps. Rolled sleeping bags and extra coats. A tent without a stuff sack. They're sitting on the benches, cans of Sparks and Mad Dog 20/20 on the table.

I look at each face to make sure. Then I keep walking. Walk to the sculpture at the end of the park, its iron painted red, a film of green lichen creeping from the corners.

Two men stand at the end of the highway off-ramp. A woman across from them, 60 or 70 years old. I check the west end of the park. See no one. Walk north again, back past the picnic tables to the basketball courts, then up past the construction zone for the skate park. Check underneath the forms, the first one empty, but the second one with two people in it.

I lean in to see past the line of the shadow, the overhang. Blink and open my eyes wide, and there she is, inside the dark, just like that. Her face. Her dirty hair, a little more gray in it than the last time I saw her. She's wearing a different coat. Red. Mud stains on the left arm and a hood pulled halfway up.

“Mom?”

She shifts in her sleep.

“Mom?”

Her eyes open. Lips peel back. Then her lips relax and she moves her mouth like a fish.

“How have you been, Mom?” I lean in, touch her shoulder.

“Hmm?” She exhales and her breath is like a casserole left to rot on the counter for a week.

I say, “I've been looking for you.” I sit down next to her, on the line between the shadow and the sunlight.

She shifts and closes her eyes again.

“Things have been good,” I say. I take a deep breath. Feel the sunlight on my face. “Actually, that's a lie. I don't know why I said that. Things have been messed up.” I drum my fingers on my knees, look out at the construction site, the grass beyond, the benches under the maple trees.

My mom's asleep, and I shake her shoulder. “Wake up.”

She shifts. Rubs her face on the concrete, her eyes closed. Her nose rasps against the cement's grit.

I say, “Don't do that.” Put my hand under her face. “Mom?”

She doesn't wake up. I shake her again, one hand under her face and one on her shoulder. “Mom?”

She doesn't move. Doesn't shift.

In the dark behind her, there's someone else sleeping. Snoring. A deeper-voiced snore—a man, maybe. I lean in and see a bigger person, thick clothes and a wool ski hat, even in the claustrophobic heat of midday.

I slide my hand out from under my mom's face. Stand up. The daylight is bright on the concrete, August hot and no wind, and I look up at the top half of the bridge pylon above me. Someone's spray-painted
YOLO
20 feet above me, in silver paint, and I wonder for a second how a kid could get up there. There aren't any ladders and there's no girder to hang from.

YOLO. I look down at my mom, asleep just inside the shadow.

I set my backpack down next to her. Unzip it. Pull out the food and the Gatorades. Then the jar of money. I hold it in my hands and look at the bills stuffed in, twenties mostly, a few tens and fives.

I put the sandwiches in a stack, all three on top of each other, and the cookies next to them. I place the Gatorades on either end, a foot from her face. Then I put the jar of money in her hands, against her stomach, reach behind her to pull a blanket over the top of her so people won't see the glint of glass and metal that she's holding.

I kneel there, my hand on her shoulder. I say, “Don't get this stolen, okay? Go rent an apartment with it. Use it to get back on your feet, all right?”

I stand back up. Turn around. Look to see if anyone's watching. But I don't see anybody. This doesn't feel good, exactly. It isn't how I planned it. I imagined a long conversation down by the river, my mom and I talking about what we're doing now, how things could have been, how things will change.

The service is on a Sunday, and a lot of people come. Basketball made Creature well-known in the city, a high school cult hero cut down too early.

People get up, one after another, to tell stories, to talk about Creature, to say things they'll miss about him. An old coach. Two of his teachers. A girl he used to hang around with for a while. A man that knew his mom a long time ago. But I don't get up. I sit in my pew at the church. I sit and try to listen to what they say, see if I can clear my head that's full of waterlogged computer parts.

I don't cry. I don't know how to describe what I feel. It's like my body is a wind tunnel, not just a hollow, but a moving hollow, as if two weather fronts are sitting on either side of me, and neither one of them can settle the way it wants. I don't really hear anything people have to say. I keep thinking that Creature couldn't play defense once he started trash-talking in a game. Gary Payton could trash-talk and “D-up” just fine, but not Creature. Once Creature's mouth started moving, he'd drop his hands, he wouldn't spin or run around a screen, his butt would be up, his hips out of place. It was like all of the blood that should've been in his mind and in his muscles was stuck in his swollen-up tongue.

I don't know why I keep thinking about this.

After the memorial service, a couple dozen people go up to the graveside. I know some of them: Grandpa pushing Grandma in a wheelchair, Creature's mom, Jill, and Coach. Then I see Natalie trailing behind. I didn't even know she was at the funeral service until this moment. She's walking in the back of the group, and when we get to the top, she steps up and stands behind Creature's mom. Where I'm standing, I can't really see her.

A pastor reads a passage from the Bible, then says a prayer while we all listen and close our eyes. Then we say, “Amen.”

Creature's mom doesn't look like herself. She isn't wearing a tight Lycra bodysuit. I don't know why I keep thinking about these little things.

She hands each of us a peach-colored rose. “Malik loved this color, said it was a man's pink.” She puts her rose on the coffin. We each place our roses on top after her, so there's a small pile of roses on that big silver casket, too big-seeming even for Creature's long body.

We stand there for a few moments in the shade of the tree behind the grave. There's a little bit of wind but it's still hot—late-summer hot—and everyone is quiet and sweating. No one knows what to say, so we stand and mostly just look at the casket. People nod to each other or keep their heads down. Grandpa steps over next to me and squeezes my shoulder. He holds it for a minute, then lets go.

After a while, Creature's mom says, “I love you, Malik,” and after that, we all say, “I love you,” one by one.

Then people are hugging each other, and Creature's mom starts walking down the hill, and everyone follows her. Natalie takes my hand and pulls me off to the side. “Let's stay up here for a minute.”

“Why?”

“I have a reason.”

We stand next to the casket. Natalie says, “It's August 28th, and you started camping May 21st, right?”

“Yeah.”

“So tonight would be 100 nights, right?”

“Yeah,” I say, “but I wrecked that streak when I was arrested. Sleeping in juvie is sleeping inside.”

Natalie shrugs. “What are you gonna do?”

“I've been sleeping inside since I got out, and I probably will again tonight.”

“No,” Natalie says. “Breaking the streak doesn't matter, but quitting does. You've got to start over. Treat 100 like 1.”

“But breaking the streak matters to me.”

“Travis,” she says. “I've been wanting to tell you something.” She touches the scar on her face. “We were biking.”

“Who was biking?”

“My dad and I. We had one of those tag-alongs, a sort of trailer-bike thing behind his bike. That's what I rode.”

“What are you talking about?”

“In Portland,” she says, “when we lived there. When I was little. My dad turned a corner onto a one-way. He must not've seen the sign. And the truck hit him but not me. The truck was going 40 miles an hour. That's pretty much all I know. I just remember how much white there was in front of me, a huge, white truck. And then I was on the ground and I cut my face on something, we never really knew what, some sort of metal or something, and there was so much blood. Blood everywhere.”

“So that's the scar on your cheek?”

“Yeah, kids used to make fun of it in grade school. And I used to punch people in the face when they said something about it. One time I knocked out a boy's two front teeth. I hit him with a metal water bottle.”

“I wouldn't feel bad about that.”

“No, I don't.” Natalie is crying a little and she wipes a tear with the back of her wrist. “No, fuck that kid. Fuck all of those kids. Making fun of a girl with a scar on her face? I mean, he didn't even know about my dad or anything, but fuck him anyways.”

“Yeah,” I say, and wipe one of her tears away with my thumb.

Natalie laughs. “So I guess I hit people like you do.”

“I guess so. I'm sorry about your dad, though. I'm sorry to hear that.”

“It was a long time ago. It's been 11 years.”

“Still, that's horrible.”

“Yeah, it was messed up. I'm not gonna lie.” Natalie touches her scar with her index finger, pushes on the pink.

I reach and trace my finger across that scar, feel the ridge of it, the hardened line where the L shape turns down.

Natalie says, “Things get messed up. I think about my dad sometimes, or Creature now. Or my knee injury. Or your ribs. Or you being in juvie.”

I say, “I don't know how to feel about any of that.”

“That's okay. Who cares? But you should camp tonight no matter what, and I'll camp with you. It'll be a different 100. I'll help you start again, or finish. Whatever.”

I close my eyes. I don't want to cry again. I've cried so much in the last week, and suddenly I feel like I could start again.

Natalie says, “We'll do it together.” She puts her arms around me. Kisses the side of my face.

I open my eyes and stare over her shoulder at the big silver casket. The loose roses we put on top, the petals quivering in the wind.

Natalie says, “And I wanted to stay up here because I have something to read.”

“To read?”

“It's some of Creature's pages.” Natalie lets go of me and reaches into her pocket. Takes out two pages all folded up. She unfolds them. “One night I came over to your house, and your grandma read these to me. She said Creature gave them to her. I wish I'd known him better.”

“Are those part of his Russian princesses book?”

“Yeah,” she says. “Entry number 69.”

“Oh no.”

“No,” she says, “they're really sweet. And your grandma loves them too. She let me borrow them to read to you today, but she wants them back.”

I shake my head. Picture Grandma reading Creature's dirty love letters.

Natalie says, “Your grandma called this ‘the real Creature,' right here. She said, ‘in all his glory.' And you've never heard these pages, Travis. So listen.”