Authors: Loretta Ellsworth
“Call me Coyote,” he told me the first day we met. His real name was Jack Simmons. I thought I'd be calling him Mr. Simmons. “And we'll be meeting out on the south terrace, so wear sunscreen if you burn easily.”
Coyote was a bushy redâhaired grad student from Michigan. The Grad Program had run out of assistantship money when he applied, but there was a stipend available to tutor their newest subject, which was me.
I was twelve years old and Dink had just been sentenced. I had some trust issues. I didn't want a tutor. I didn't want to go to school. I didn't want anything other than to be left alone. But adults never listen to what you want.
Jack's goal in life was to get a tan. He told me he thought that if he spent short periods of time in the sun and used sunscreen with a high SPF he'd accomplish that task even though he was a fair-skinned redhead and his previous attempts had always turned his skin lobster red.
“First thing we need to do is figure out what you like,” he said, “because nobody studies unless they're rewarded and I'm not about to mess with grades and all that stuff. So we need a system where you study and then get rewarded and I give you all As if you pass your tests. So what do you like?”
I'd never been asked that before. “I like to ride my bike.” After Dink was arrested I took long bike rides and I'd pedal as fast as I could, dangerously fast. I don't really know why I did that.
“Cool. I'll see if I can get a couple of bikes for us to use and we'll plan some long rides.”
That perked my interest. The Institute was surrounded by curvy, tree-lined roads and steep hills.
So each day we spent two hours studying on the south terrace. I developed a deep tan and Coyote turned a darker shade of pale. On Fridays after I passed my tests we'd go biking through the hills, speeding down winding roads and slowly trudging back up. Sometimes we talked as we biked, but mostly I just felt the wind wrap around me and tried not to remember or think about anything except the road up ahead. Sometimes it worked.
One day I was having trouble with a math assignment. I could always remember the formula, but I was struggling with the application of it. I slammed down my book.
“Can we go riding?”
Coyote looked up from his reading. “It's Tuesday.”
“So what?”
“So we ride on Fridays, after you've passed your tests.”
“I need to get away. I don't understand this.”
Coyote put down his book and looked at my math problem. “You've always had it easy, haven't you? Never had to work to understand material?”
“I guess.” Up until now math had been mostly memorization and simple problems. But now I was studying geometry and trying to apply geometric concepts to word problems.
“It was the same for me. I didn't have a super memory like you, but I was so smart I never had to study. Then when I went to college and my classes were harder I didn't know how to study because I'd never needed to before.”
He pulled out a sheet of paper. “The best thing I can teach you is how to study. We'll do the first problem together, then you do the rest while I watch.”
He guided me through it, showing me how to apply the formula to the problem. I finished the assignment and Coyote felt sorry for me and we rode our bikes afterward for half an hour.
Coyote was the closest thing I had to a friend those three years. I'd lost touch with the few ones I'd had at Pascal Elementary and was beginning to feel like an outcast. Coyote taught me things that had nothing to do with studying. He taught me how to get a soda from the machine with just one quarter, how to play desk football with wads of paper, and how to play poker, which he consistently beat me at. He yelled when I got annoying. He made me feel normal again.
He was also the one who told me I should leave the Institute. “I know you think Dr. Anderson is some kind of god. I'm as big a fan as you are. But you can continue meeting with him
and
go to school. You don't want to miss out on high school,” he said. “It's the common American experience, the hell that binds us together, the fact that we all suffer through it and live to tell about it later. You'll regret it if you don't go.”
So I planned to switch back to school in tenth grade, but when Dink got out, our plans changed and I went back a year earlier. I miss Coyote and Dr. Anderson, but what I miss most is the bike riding. When I left the Institute I was hoping they'd give me the bike I'd been using, since my old one at home was too small for me. No one ever offered. Mom says she'll buy me a new one when she gets a few paychecks under her belt. In the meantime I have to hoof it.
Coyote also gave me some advice before I left. “Whatever you do, don't raise your hand the first six months at school. Even if you know the answer.”
He knew that would be hard for me, so he gave me a piece of tape. “Pretend it's on your mouth when you're tempted,” he said.
When I told him we were moving to northern Minnesota he laughed. “With that badass tan and those biker legs, the girls are going to fight over who sits next to you.”
There's only one girl I want to sit next to. So far, neither my tan nor my legs have impressed her. And the tape? I keep it in my pocket as a reminder.
I'm staring at the green wall of my bedroom, unable to sleep. Pushing down memories all day is hard work. At night, when I'm tired, they run rampant, like a dam with a crack in it. The memories seep through when all I want is to shut them off for a while, to escape into the oblivion of quiet. Someday, the whole dam will burst.
On top of that, I worry. A lot. There's Mom, who I worry will die while I'm still young because she smokes behind my back. There's Dink, who I worry will find us. And then who knows what he'll do to me?
Then there's the worry that my brain will leak if I can't find a way to forget, that I'll eventually lose any kind of filter or organization up there, like a library with no Dewey decimal system. The other worry is that I might forget everything; that my brain will kick into reverse and keep going until all that's left is a blur of white noise.
But the reason I can't sleep tonight is because I keep thinking about Halle Phillips's daffodil voice. It floats through my mind and whispers in my ear. When I finally do fall asleep, I dream of that same daffodil voice that I heard in kindergarten, the sassy attitude that went with it, and how she sounds now, how she hasn't changed all that much after all. I dream of her curves and those dark eyes that draw me in. I dream of her long, sexy legs.
When I wake up I want to go back to sleep, to keep dreaming about her. I roll over and look at the clock: two minutes before the beep, which lasts an annoying five seconds and repeats every minute.
Pans rattle in the kitchen and the strong odor of coffee hits my nose. Mom is up. I turn off the alarm and pull the covers over my head.
Five more minutes
. The fog of sleep wraps around my brain.
But my memories are up and forcing their way in. I'm in front of Dink. Dink's muddy voice yells at me.
“We're running out of time. I don't want to hear any more of your crap. You don't have to ask your mom. Do as I tell you, Baxter!”
I sat frozen in front of him, a pencil poised in my hand. Dink was doing something bad. Why did he want me to write down all those numbers?
The next moment a hand cracked across my face. My cheek had a hot streak from where Dink hit me, leaving an imprint. Dink's eyes were wild marbles moving back and forth between me and his two friends.
“You start writing. Now!”
My hand shook as I scribbled down the numbers.
Dink. I can't stand the memories. For three months after he was arrested I'd dream about him and wet the bed. I grab my watch off the nightstand and clutch it in my palm. I pry my eyes open and stare at it, focusing on memories of anyone but Dink.
Dr. Anderson was in front of me. His lab coat was blinding white; he looked like an angel.
“I want to help you figure this out, Baxter. Will you let me help you?”
I reach out to him and my watch falls to the floor. Is this real? Is Dr. Anderson here in my room?
“Baxter, wake up. You'll be late for school.” Mom opens the curtains, flooding my face with sunlight. I put up my hand to block it out. When did I fall back asleep? How much was memory and how much was dream?
Is dreaming what it's like to have a normal memory? When you see some things that are real, but not everything is as it seems? Or is it where you unconsciously choose to discard memories, to flush them away into the excess tide of unwanted experiences?
Dr. Anderson was the only person I could talk to about this, the only person who understood. He sounds like a silver trumpet, vibrant and bright.
Mom shouts a hurried “Get up” and leaves. I roll off the mattress and hit a wall. I'm not used to having my bed propped next to the right wall of my bedroom after years of having it on the left side. I'm half asleep and I thought I was still in California. So this is what it's like to forget! Suddenly the day seems promising.
I pull on jeans and a clean T-shirt. My drawer is almost empty and Mom hasn't done laundry yet. I'm dangerously close to being forced to wear a large shirt I got years ago, a yellow SpongeBob atrocity. I'm not a math whiz, but I know that would exponentially lower my popularity index at Madison High School.
Mom is pouring herself a cup of coffee. A whiff of residue smoke tells me she's already been outside for a cigarette. Do I nag her so early in the morning? The kitchen is less cluttered; she unpacked some more boxes last night. The small, square table is cleared off, but the chairs still hold boxes marked “kitchen.”
I smother my Cheerios in a cascade of milk and open three drawers to find the silverware. Then I move a box so I can sit at the table. Mom sets her cup down and moves a box so she can sit across from me.
“We need to do laundry,” I say.
“Tomorrow. I promise. There's a Laundromat not too far away.”
I smirk. “In Wellington, everything's not too far away.”
“You should shower.” Mom reaches over and runs her hand back and forth across my head, making even more of a knot of my dark curls.
“Can't. It's already 7:22. Don't have time,” I say between mouthfuls.
“Someone is coming to hook up cable this afternoon. You'll be home, won't you?”
“Where else would I be?”
“I don't know. I thought you might want to join a sports team or something.”
That came out of nowhere. I stop eating. “What kind of sport?”
“Any sport. Hockey? Basketball? It might be good for you.”
“Are you joking? It's not like I'm going to become the next Wayne Gretzky just because we moved to Minnesota.”
“How do you know if you don't try?”
“I can't skate and my ball skills are nonexistent. How's that for trying?”
Mom swirls her finger around the rim of her coffee cup. “I've never pushed you to do anything you didn't want to do, Baxter. I'm not that type of parent. Maybe I should have, though.”
Her voice makes me stiffen. She doesn't play the guilt card often, but I can hear it coming out now.
She straightens up. “Did I tell you I used to play volleyball in high school? It's a good feeling to be part of a team, to work together toward a common goal. You could use that type of experience.”
“I was in the Cub Scouts in California,” I remind her. “For two years.”
“Scouting isn't a sport.”
“Okay, it's not volleyball, but there's definitely a competitive edge to getting that traffic safety badge.”
That doesn't even get a small laugh. Mom purses her lips. “Okay, maybe something other than sports. Newspaper club or Debate. No, forget Debate. I don't know, Baxter. You spent the last few years cooped up at home except for the time you spent at the research center with Dr. Anderson and your tutor. Three years of watching old sitcoms on TV. But now you have a clean slate, a chance to start fresh. To do something different.”
Her pity seeps across the table and into my bowl of cereal, making a soggy mess of the Cheerios. What she really means is that I have the chance to
be
something different. Someone besides who I am: the Memory Boy.
I put down my spoon. My stomach feels bloated, as though the cereal has expanded. Mom takes a small sip of her coffee. She's watching me, hoping for something that I can't give her. Her look makes me feel guilty. I ratted on her boyfriend and now she's moved us to northern Minnesota, the opposite end of the earth. She's left her friends and family and her job and Dinkâwell, he was the main reason we moved. But she did all that, mostly for me.
So I say what she wants to hear, even though it's difficult because I know it's a lie, and I have to grit my teeth to get it out before it escapes back inside.
“Okay.” I force a half smile. “I'll find something. Maybe they have an art club.” I figure it's the least I can offer after all she's done for me. Mom's always considered herself somewhat of an artist, so she'll love the idea of art club, if Madison High has such a thing. I can slop some paint on a piece of paper, even though I'm not artistic in the least.
Mom's face brightens. “I have a feeling this place is going to be great for both of us. Just don't forgetâyou're not the Memory Boy now.”
I almost laugh. As if that was possible.
She remembers then. “Oh, right. You won't forget.” But she sounds kind of sad when she says it.
I don't know what to say, so I go brush my teeth. The weight of the Cheerios presses in on me. Nothing scares me more than to see the hope in Mom's eyes.
Her voice is the same as it has always been: a breath of spring air, mixed with the scent of lilac that used to grow outside my bedroom window. It's the voice of promise.
As I stare at my reflection in the mirror, I wish I had an answer to that promise.