Chapter 19
James let himself into Mr. Heckerman’s house and heard electrical currents coming from the other room. The buildup of zaps came after bursts of light that lapped against the walls like laps of waves, spreading into the living room. He walked towards the door, and when Mr. Heckerman saw James, he turned off the machine and lifted the great steel mask over his face. He sat back in his stool and told James,
“Fruit.”
“What?”
“This machine, if I perfect it, will keep fruit fresh for months at a time-” James nodded and stepped forward, “you see, if I can get the electrical current slight enough, it mocks the fruit’s cycle on the plant where they do not ripen any further,” Heckerman looked down at a pile of brown mush in the corner, “the thing is, if there is too much electrical current, they seem to cook and rot immediately.” He looked back up at James, “So, what did you do in school today?”
“Sophie broke her glasses,”
“Oh yeah? Does she need me to build spectacles for her?” James laughed,
“No, she’s buying new ones soon.” James sat down on the floor and started organizing some bolts by size, “It’s just that she’s getting all this attention now,” Mr. Heckerman smiled,
“Are you jealous of her?”
“No... it’s just-”
“Ohhhhhhhh, yes, that would be a possibility,” Mr. Heckerman rubbed his palms together while he thought. “Everything will be okay,” he smiled, “What’s the worst that could happen?”
“Well, she could not want to be my friend anymore. She might get a boyfriend who beats me up.” Mr. Heckerman laughed.
“I’m sorry, I just forgot how you kids get ‘boyfriends,’ do you really think she’d do that?”
“I could see why,”
“Well, luckily boy, I think this girl is smarter than you know- she won’t stop being your friend, not if she can help it, do you remember before you were friends with her?”
“Yeah, why?”
“Did you ever have fun?”
“All the time, yeah, why?”
“Because if she isn’t your friend anymore, it can’t be much worse than that, can it?” James thought a while,
“Well it might be like if she died, I would hate it if I felt like she died.” Mr. Heckerman was quiet for a moment.
“Did you have your counselor’s appointment today?”
“Yeah.”
“How did that go?”
“The lady seemed like she was rushing me to some, some answer.” James looked at his backpack, “I drew a picture.”
“In the group?” Mr. Heckerman asked while tinkering with the mechanics.
“Yeah, of my father-” James reached for his backpack,
“Can I see?” James got the portrait of his father and handed it to Mr. Heckerman.
“When someone passed away in ancient Greece,” he said when he looked at the portrait, “they would have two coins placed on their eyes by their loved ones,” he looked up at James, “these were coins to pay the ferryman.” He paused.
“What ferryman?” James asked,
“The ferryman for the river Styx, to the underworld,” he looked out of the window, “so they wouldn’t have to wander on the banks for one hundred years.” He smiled at James, “you didn’t show the counselor the eyes blacked out, did you?”
“No, how can you tell?”
“Because you would still be there, counselors would pick up on that- consider it to be something you’re trying to say about your father,” he looked seriously at James, “you aren’t trying to say anything about your father by blacking out his eyes, are you James?”
“No, I just couldn’t get the eyes right,” he laughed.
“I remember when he passed away. Everyone in the whole town must have tied yellow ribbons to the limbs of the tree in the front of your house.” James nodded, “My son passed, about ten years ago-” James kept looking at Mr. Heckerman as he adjusted the machine, “Lukimea, I didn’t know people could get that sick,” he chuckled, “I’ll tell you.” Mr. Heckerman grabbed wrench and turned a few bolts on the machine, “I never thought that would happen to my family, after he got sick and passed away-” he grunted while tightening a bolt, “my wife, she didn’t know what to do with herself, she got sick too- but in a different way,” he looked up at James, “You understand,” James nodded, “I think her heart broke, and it moved on to her body. She stopped eating, got weaker and weaker and one day-” Mr. Heckerman pulled his mouth back into a sad sort of smile, “she didn’t last long before she went after him.” He put his mask back on, “a lot of people don’t want to deal with it, don’t understand loss.”
The words cracked from James’ throat, “I don’t think I understand loss,” Mr. Heckerman lifted his mask and looked at James again,
“Me either, not yet. But when I figure it out, I’ll tell you.”
“Same here.” and they both laughed.
The balloons were mostly James’ idea. After he and Mr. Heckerman worked on the fruit preservation machine for a while, they put some tools away- and he saw it.
“Is there helium in that tank?” James asked as he touched the knob.
“Well, yes, yes it is- I do believe there is some in there,”
“Do you want to try an experiment?” Mr. Heckerman lit up.
“What’s the purpose?”
“To contact our family, the ones we’ve lost.”
“Do you have a hypothesis?”
“Does that mean guess?”
“Yes, an educated one, what do you think will happen?”
“I think we’ll feel better,”
“Sounds good, go on- what is the procedure, what do we do?”
“We fill up balloons. We tie letters to the strings,”
“Brilliant. I think I have balloons, string, and paper in here,” he began looking through the shelves of the basement, “Go on, how do we collect data?” James thought,
“The data isn’t important. I think we have to take a leap here.”
“Well, I don’t see why not. If we can’t have our own interpretation of the scientific procedure on a Tuesday, when can we?”
“Exactly!” James laughed.
The filled up two gold balloons in the basement, James filled them up and Mr. Heckerman tied them with string. They let them float a few feet to the ceiling while they sat down in some chairs to write.
“Whatever you wish you could tell them, just write it down,” James said. They both did and tied the letters tightly with the string like a package. They carried their balloons outside silently. In the back yard, they looked at each other, nodded, and released them.
“They’re going right to zenith.” Mr. Heckerman said, “Zenith is the direction that is directly above us, like North, South, East, or West, but that way,” he pointed up. James smiled. A group of birds took off from the woods, and they could hear their wings flapping. It seemed like the balloons sped faster and faster as the birds themselves lifted off.
20
Sophie walked around her grandparent’s station wagon to get into the house. She took the side entrance into the garage that she knew was unlocked. Inside, her father’s SUV lingered beneath the snow shovels and bags of fertilizer stacked against the wall. The cement floor beneath her had enough dried dirt that it moved like sand and scraped as she walked. The garage smelled like cigarettes and gasoline, but something else too. Not the cold, not the sawdust, something old. The scent was something uncomfortably familiar. Gravity.
She sat down in the chair her father would lull his cigarettes in. One by one, she would watch the pack he set on the table next to him wither. Every day he emptied it like a bin of trash, like a bag of groceries. She pushed that day’s pack with her pointer finger so she could see inside. Mostly gone. Sophie thought about yellow walls. Sophie thought about cancer. She always thought it was a friendly disease. Like a dog that does not know how big it is. Jumping and licking an
d biting and ripping and shearing. Part of your body you cannot control. Part of your body but not part of your body. Staying too long at the fair. Starship 3000 for the rest of your life. Body used against itself. Close but unfamiliar. Too much Gravity.
Her mother used to smoke everyday with her father.
The door handle was cold enough to where it penetrated her gloves and she was glad that she wore them. A smell greeted her right away that reminded her of how the world smelled when she had a cold. Her dad was sitting standing looking at something in the oven. His eyebrows were raised.
“What’s cooking?” she asked.
“Lamb chops.” Sophie’s stomach turned. She remembered how lamb chops smelled when they cooked- like the whole house was coming down with something grave. “They’re upstairs, Sophie.” She nodded and went to her mother’s room. While running up the stairs she kicked her knees up as high as she could. She was out of breath when she reached the summit of the second floor.
Inside, her mother was lying in bed and her grandparents were sitting in chairs her father brought up from the living room. All three of them smiled and looked at their hands when they saw her.
“Come here honey, let me put your hair up,” her mom said, lifting one of her arms with too much effort. Sophie’s mom reached into the top drawer in the night stand beside her bed to grab a brush and some rubber bands. Sophie sat near her mother’s lap. While her mother was brushing Sophie’s hair, she tried to explain things.
“You know I’m sick,” she said as the brush ran through Sophie’s thick golden hair. The light from the window illuminated her. Through Sophie’s childhood, her mom started getting quieter. Sophie knows only a few words a day from her mother at this point. It was like her mother’s voice shrank over the years. There was a point where her mother quit her job, to where she no longer left the house. Sophie remembered reaching her hands up as high as they could go to reach something on the edge of the counter. A salt shaker. Her mother was singing. It was years ago. Sophie nodded.
“I am going to stay with my parents for a little bit, just while you guys get adjusted.” Sophie’s mother said. When Sophie asked,
“To what?” her grandparents looked at each other and she could feel her mother shudder as she was braiding Sophie’s hair.
“Your dad and I don’t want to live together anymore.”
“Oh.”
“But I’ll be right across town.”
“Can I come with you?”
“No, honey, your father thinks its best that you say here, with him.”
Sophie’s grandmother chimed in,
“But you can visit, anytime.” Her grandfather nodded.
The four of them nodded and looked down at their hands.