I look down at the inky, bloody bandage hanging off my arm and then back to Mom, trying to look guilty. “Sorry?”
She laughs harder. “We’ll let this one slide.”
“Not like you can ground me.”
“No, I suppose not. But you can at least show me what you got permanently written on your skin.”
I pull the bandage off, wincing. “I thought it was appropriate.”
“And have you?” asks Mom after scrutinizing it.
“Have I what?”
“Seized your Deathday?”
It takes me a couple seconds to answer but when I do I say, “Not much has gone the way I planned but I’m not sure I would have done anything differently.”
Mom stares at my tattoo again and then says, “Well, I’ll let you get cleaned up.” She turns to leave but as she does I swear I hear her whisper, “I couldn’t have asked for a better kid.”
Standing in the shower, letting the water run across my face, I feel sorry for Mom. My whole family, really. Including myself. People always talk about how great Deathday Letters are. About how they give people a chance to say good-bye. About how terrible the world would be without them. But I’m not so sure I’m on board with all the warm fuzzies.
Seriously. One day isn’t enough time to do anything really meaningful. I wanted to do something so that people would remember me as more than that kid with the funny hair who could stick string up his nose and have it come out his mouth, but what did I really accomplish aside from hurting Ronnie? I stole some clothes and jumped off a bridge and got kicked out of a strip joint without even seeing a real naked girl. Not really the stuff great stories are made of. There should be more. There should be more time. Or less. I shouldn’t have wasted the time I had.
And saying good-bye? What a load of shit, man. I think I’d rather have someone tie a hot hook to my intestines and slowly pull ’em out through my navel than spend another second saying good-bye to the people I love. It’s torture. I mean, here I am in the shower, and my mom and I just wrung out some sloppy tears and said our see yas, and I have to go downstairs and do it again.
Maybe Deathday Letters should be more of a five-minute warning. Just enough time to say good-bye but not long enough to get too sappy.
The water’s cold and I know that I’ve been in the shower awhile. Everyone’s probably downstairs thinking I’m having the longest pull in history, which I’m actually not. I know. Shocker, right? It just doesn’t seem as important as it did when I woke up this morning. Or, you know, an hour ago.
It takes me a few minutes to find clean clothes. Normally I’d just throw on whatever’s on the floor, but it seems wrong to die in dirty clothes. I mean, what if I die and some hot paramedic’s working on me and I have skid marks on my shorts? Not cool.
Shane’s already downstairs when I finally join the family. My parents weren’t kidding when they said they cooked all my favorites. In fact, I think they cooked every single thing I’ve ever even hinted that I liked.
“I hope you’re hungry,” says Nana when she sees me. “I even made pie.”
“Lemon meringue?”
Nana looks at me like I’m nuts. “No, pumpkin. Of course lemon meringue. I’m old, not stupid.”
“We’re hungry,” says Angela.
“Can we eat now?” asks Edith.
“I third that,” says Shane, rubbing his belly.
“We didn’t know when you were coming home,” says Dad, “but your mom wouldn’t let anyone eat until you did.”
“Okay, okay,” I say, and take my place at the table. “I feel like I haven’t eaten in days.”
“Did you not eat today?” asks Mom.
Shane and I look at each other, sharing a grin, and I say, “We ate.”
Dad chuckles as he finishes loading up the table with all the plates of food. “I think that whatever they ate managed to find its way back up.”
“Girls, listen very closely,” I say, and lean toward them. “If anyone ever offers you a soda bottle filled with a little bit of everything from their parents’ liquor cabinet, say no.”
The twins look at me like I just told them not to shave the cat again, and I get the distinct impression that we’ve only seen the tip of their evil iceberg. I kind of feel sorry for my parents.
“So, tell me about your day,” says Mom.
I look around the table. “I guess it all started when Shane handed me a shovel.”
After I finish telling them about the better parts of the day, with a ton of interjections from Shane, Mom tells us how when she was a girl, her family used to have dinner at the table every single night, and that it was her favorite time of the day. We don’t get to do that often ’cause Dad’s always at the restaurant and the girls are always busy with dance or softball or taking over the world. But I can see what she means, ’cause this may be the best part of my day so far.
Dad tells us stories about when he was in high school. Apparently the twins get their looks from my mom and their fiendish tendencies from my dad. He barely makes it through his story about how he let twenty-nine rats loose in the school numbered one to thirty without laughing. He ended up getting caught on account of he skipped number eleven and that was his number on the football team.
Mom, of course, was a perfect angel in school. Except for the time she set her science class on fire. “Accidentally.” Air quotes added by Dad.
Mom and Dad both tell us about their first times drinking. Mom got hammered before her senior prom and fell asleep in her friend’s car, missing the whole dance. Dad drank at his house with his buddies and threw up all over Grandpa Lou. Of course he tries to leave out the last part, but Nana clues us all in.
It’s the kind of stuff parents don’t really tell their kids until they’re adults. I tell them pretty much everything I did today, leaving out the stuff about Hurricane and Ronnie, and they’re being so cool. Of course, Dad goes into total parent lecture mode when he realizes that we weren’t joking about the tattoos. Mom gets him to back off and offers to take me driving in her car, but I decline. I think I’ve driven enough.
I’m stuffed to my eyeballs. I can tell that everyone’s wicked beat as we float to the living room. Mom’s head is on Dad’s chest, her eyes barely open, the twins are two snoring lumps beside them, and Nana’s dozing in the recliner. Even Shane is half asleep. I guess I can’t really blame them for taking a little nap.
“I’m glad you had a good day,” says Dad.
“Thanks.” We sit in silence. “How’d you know?”
“Know what?”
“That I wouldn’t go to school today.”
Dad laughs and nearly wakes up Mom. “Well, first of all, I know Shane Grimsley.” Shane twitches at the sound of his name but a second later he’s spooning the couch cushion, drooling up a storm.
“Yeah. He probably would’ve stuffed me in a sack to get me out of school if he had to.”
Dad moves Mom to the other side of the couch and leans her head on the cushion. “And second of all, you’re my son. You managed to have more adventures in one day than some people ever do. Carpe Mortediem isn’t just a tattoo. You lived it.”
“But I feel like I didn’t really do anything.”
“You took chances, Oliver. You took risks. Some people go their whole lives without taking any risks.”
My eyes are kind of heavy but there’s no way I’m sleeping. “Does that make me a man? I don’t feel like a man. I feel scared.”
Dad looks like he might cry, which would be bad. I can’t handle another tearfest. Luckily, Dad holds it together. He’s superglue. “You’re more of a man than some men twice your age, Oliver Travers. I can only imagine how you would have turned out, but I know you would’ve made me proud, because I’m pretty damned proud of you already.”
“Thanks?” The whole emotional thing is making me uncomfortable. It’s like watching the end of The Notebook while reading the end of To Kill a Mockingbird while someone punches me in the face. Again.
/>
“I really screwed things up with Ronnie.”
“You can fix them.” Dad looks at the clock on the cable box. “You have plenty of time.”
“I don’t know how.”
“You’ll figure it out.”
“I hope so.”
Dad smiles at me and messes my ’fro. “Movie?”
I nod. “Pirates of the Caribbean?”
“You can never go wrong with Depp.”
Dad finds our favorite movie and I find myself thinking more about Ronnie. Or I try to. If there’s one thing that can take my mind off of dyin’, it’s Captain Jack. And, you know, Keira Knightley isn’t too tough to look at either. Dad is lights-out before the first fifteen minutes are up.
The thought that this might be the last time I see my family crosses my mind. They’re all here, sleeping. Even Shane. And the next time they open their eyes, I might be dead. I don’t know how I’m gonna die, but the countdown is in the single digits. It’s best to let them sleep.
Anyway, I’ve done all the good-byes I think I can do and I don’t want to do any more. If I have to die, then I want to do it on my terms, surrounded by the people I love. It’s been real.
Peace out, yo.
The End
5:51
Just kidding. I ain’t dead yet and you’re stuck with me till I am.
By the way, waiting to die: total yawner. Sorry for having a little fun.
But I sort of mean it. About being done. This whole day has been one big emotional suck. I mean, just look. Here I am, hours from being worm food, and everyone’s so drained that they’ve passed out. Even I’m about crash.
I don’t want to sleep though, so the second my eyelids start to get heavy, I check my cell to see if Ronnie’s called or texted but she hasn’t. Just in case, I go upstairs to the family room and turn on the computer to check my e-mail. I’m not a big Internet guy. Shane’s the one who’s got a blog and a Web page. Shit, the kid’s even got his own YouTube account. There’s this really funny one you should check out of him singing “Hot in Herre” with a ukulele. Seriously, just try to imagine a nerdy black dude with thick black glasses, a sense of rhythm that makes me look good, and the voice of a horny dog, rapping with a tiny guitar. Fun-ny. Like watching someone else get hit in the nuts. Or that skateboarding dog.
No mail. That’s not entirely true. I do have one e-mail for male enhancement, but since I’m about to be stiffer than a corpse . . . or an actual corpse, I just go ahead and delete it.
All I want is something from Ronnie to let me know that I can still fix things between us. I mean, she knows I’m gonna die, right? Can’t she just let it go?
The only thing keeping me from marching over there right now is the likelihood that I’d just make things worse. I mean, how do you tell a girl she gives you more wood than a woodchuck could chuck if a woodchuck could get wood, without sounding like a total tool? I don’t know either. I guess if I had the answer, I wouldn’t be in this mess.
Shouldn’t all the shit I did today have made me wiser? I almost had sex for crying out loud. Doesn’t that sort of thing change a man? I still feel like the same dumb kid who woke up this morning and just wanted to polish his scepter. And there are no real answers in my underwear. Except for my name. It’s written on the inside of the waistband. Just in case. Dad’s a worrier.
I’m so tired my brain begins to wander from making up with Ronnie to making out with Ronnie to how sad she’s going to be when I die to how I’m actually going to die. It’s not like I have cancer or a tumor or anything, and I don’t feel sick. I feel fine. Maybe I’m gonna off myself. Maybe I get so bored that I hang myself. Nah. I can’t tie a noose.
Maybe a plane falls through the roof and squishes me. Or maybe the twins finally lose it and take me out. I just hope it’s not too painful.
Speaking of the twins, I go back downstairs and gently carry them up to their room, one at a time, and tuck them under their pink comforters. Sleep is the only time they ever look innocent. And even that’s a stretch. It’s like a matter of degrees, you know? Compared to the Sahara, I’m sure Florida’s an absolute icebox. Still, I’m gonna miss them.
“Good-bye, Angela. Good-bye, Edith.” I think for a second that they hear me but their eyes stay closed and I just watch them sleep for a while. In their own way, I know my sisters are going to miss me. At least, they’ll miss having someone to dress up and put makeup on. Not that I’ve ever done that. Okay, just the once. Twice. Maybe three times, but that other time definitely doesn’t count.
“What’re you doing?”
I scream like a girl and spin around, slapping Shane as I go. Yes, I slap him. Because I scream like a girl. If you could die from embarrassment, that’s what I’d be doing right now.
“Don’t sneak up on me like that,” I whisper. I look over my shoulder to make sure the twins are still asleep before quietly closing their door.
The second I shut the door, Shane takes his hand away from his mouth and lets the laugh escape.
“Dude, that was the funniest thing I’ve ever seen in my entire life.” He mimes and mocks my scream. “Oh my God, that was funny.”
I brush past Shane and head to my room. “It wasn’t that funny.”
“It so was.”
“You’re a dick.”
I stand in my room, not really sure why I’m here. Shane makes himself comfy on my bed, and I don’t bother telling him what I was doing there this morning. Payback’s a bitch.
“So can I have your comics?” asks Shane after a couple of minutes of watching me stare off into space.
“Already circling my corpse, huh?”
Shane draws circles on my sheets with his finger. “No. I just. You’re not going to need them and I thought—”
“I’m kidding, dude. What do you want?”
Shane grins. “Since you asked.”
He takes my Xbox games, my comics, some of my T-shirts, and my iPod. I’d assumed I could count on him to take my porn but I guess that’s out of the question now. He does, however, promise to get rid of it for me.
I begin making other piles aside from the ginormous one for Shane. There’s a stack of stuff Shane’s gonna hide from my parents, some things my parents might actually want to keep, like pictures and awards and stuff, a small stack for Ronnie, and even a pile for the twins.
“It just seems like such a shame to get rid of it all.” I toss a DVD on the “incinerate immediately” pile. “Bye, ladies, thanks for all the good times.”
“You have a problem,” says Shane. He grabs the DVD. “Armagetiton?”
I shrug. “What? It’s the touching story of a giant meteor inhabited by naked alien girls on a collision course with Earth, and the one man with a drill big enough to save them all. Actually, you might like it.”
Shane coughs uncomfortably and kicks the pile of Ronnie stuff. It’s a pretty small pile. The old yellow Schoolhouse Rock! tee she used to wear when she spent the night, a Yeah Yeah Yeah’s CD she let me borrow, a Domo stuffed doll, and a book about medieval warfare she gave me for my thirteenth birthday.
“Is this what you’re giving Ronnie?”
I nod. “Yeah.”
“Kind of lame.”
“Yeah.” I look at the pile again. “I don’t know what else she’d want of mine. Think she’d want the porn?”
“Doubtful.”
I grab the medieval book off the pile. “I don’t even like knights and shit. Maybe she didn’t know me that well at all.”
Shane takes the book from me and tosses it back down. “That’s not true. You know it’s not true.”
“But look at this. Music I hate, books I don’t like”—I pick up the Domo doll—“and I don’t even know what this thing is.” I drop it again. “Maybe she was right to break up with me.”
Shane sits back on my bed. “You are stupid. I can’t say it any plainer. You’re a moron.”
“Way to kick a dude when he’s dead.”
“Don’t make me slap yo
u.” Shane’s face goes crazy serious. “Ronnie doesn’t suck at giving gifts, you suck at remembering the things she gave you.”
“I don’t—”
“For your tenth birthday she took us all go-cart racing. For your twelfth birthday we went to the science museum and she got us the planetarium for a whole hour alone because she knows you love the stars.”
I shrug and sit beside Shane. “Okay, so she does know me, then. Maybe I don’t know her. I mean, I really screwed up the pudding thing. That should’ve been gold.”
“I told you it was a bad idea.”
“I didn’t see you coming up with any great plan.”
Shane looks at me and sighs. “We’ve been over this and all this talk of pudding is just making me hungry again.”
“Come on, dude, there’s got to be something I can do. There’s got to be something she wants more than anything else.”
Shane’s belly rumbles.
“Sorry,” says Shane. “But I told you I was hungry.”
My brain hurts from thinking and food doesn’t sound like a terrible idea. “We’ve got leftovers to last until ‘armagetiton.’ Wanna?”
“Get it on? No. Eat food? Absolutely.”
We raid the fridge like we didn’t just stuff ourselves silly a couple of hours ago. Let me tell you a secret you probably already know: Fried chicken, especially my mom’s fried chicken, tastes about a hundred times better as leftovers. I know that a couple hours don’t exactly make leftovers, but I won’t be around for real leftovers.
I’m standing at the kitchen counter with a chicken leg hanging out of my mouth, and Shane’s unceremoniously stuffing his face with an oversize spoon full of mac and cheese when Nana clears her throat.
“Nana,” I say. It actually sounds more like “Ehuh,” but you get the picture.
“Boys. You didn’t think you could eat all the leftovers without inviting me, did you?”
I pull the leg out of my mouth. “Sorry to wake you.”
“Just a catnap, Oliver. A stuffed belly will do that to you.” Nana looks over her shoulder at the couch. “And I see I’m not the only one.” Without missing a beat she takes a hefty slice of lemon meringue pie and sits at the table. “But we’re not savages, so get a plate and sit with me.”