Page 18 of Goodbye Days

“If it’s a good story. If I’m, like, invested in the characters.”

“All right.”

Something lifts from my chest as we talk. As if I were lying under a pile of stones, and someone is removing them one by one. An oh-so-gradual lessening.

We talk into the early morning. I have to plug my phone in. We both get so sleepy that by the end, we say each other’s name every once in a while, to fill the interlude between topics. To make sure we’re both still there.

My parents sit at the kitchen table having coffee and cereal when I stumble in. They look at me as though I told them I have an invisible friend who tells me to collect knives and save my pee in jars.

“Hey, sweetie,” my mom says. “We heard you up in the middle of the night.”

I rub my face. “Yeah. Couldn’t sleep.”

“You should rest today,” my dad says. “School starts soon and you haven’t been sleeping well. And this Judge Edwards thing can’t be helping.”

“I can’t sleep anymore today. Plus I’m going to go help Blake’s grandma weed her garden and do whatever else.”

My mom hands me a bowl of cereal. “You still haven’t talked to us at all about everything. It’s been a week since Blake’s funeral. It’s not healthy to bottle things up. If you won’t talk to us, we want you to talk to someone.”

“I’ve been through this with Georgia. I’m fine.”

My dad tries to speak gently. “You’re not fine. People who are fine don’t go to the ER with panic attacks.” He sounds frustrated. I can’t really blame him, but he frustrates me too sometimes, so fair is fair.

“That happened once.”

“Are you working on anything new? Any new stories or poems?” my mom asks. “That seems like it would help.”

“No.” Being asked the question while I’m totally blocked up certainly doesn’t make me feel better. Maybe my muse was in the car with Sauce Crew.

As we sit there together, I can sense their minds turning, trying to take advantage of the opportunity. Looking for the right words. I know what the air feels like around people who are trying to find perfect words and coming up empty. So I eat quickly and stay mum.

As I go to brush my teeth, my dad says, “We love you, Carver. It’s hard to watch you hurting.”

“I know,” I say. “I love you guys too.” And if it’s hard to watch me hurting, imagine how the hurting feels.

“Okay, check it out, y’all. Squirrel rodeo,” Blake says.

“What, like we’re going to ride the squirrels?” Mars asks.

“Yeah, we’re gonna ride the squirrels. No, numbnuts, here’s how it works. You see a squirrel by the side of the path, and you move to steer it onto the path. Then you follow it slowly. Not too fast, or it’ll bolt and you’ll lose. Every time it starts to go off the path, you move and cut it off, so it keeps going on the path. You have to keep it on the path for eight seconds. Squirrel rodeo.”

“Just when I’m afraid we’ve reached the limits of your hillbillyness, you dig down deep,” Mars says.

“At least he’s not suggesting that we catch the squirrels and eat them,” I say.

“Yet,” Mars says. “He’s not saying that yet.”

“Y’all are never going to make the professional squirrel rodeo circuit with that attitude,” Blake says.

“Listen, bruh, I signed up for a peanut butter and banana milkshake from Bobbie’s Dairy Dip. I did not sign up to chase no damn squirrels with my last week of summer vacation.”

“What if your dad could see you chasing squirrels around Centennial Park?” Eli asked.

“He’d be like, ‘Thurgood? To what end are you chasing these squirrels? How will the chasing of these squirrels advance your studies and learning? Are you pursuing excellence in the chasing of these squirrels? Your grandfather did not march with Dr. King so that you could chase squirrels.’ ” Mars delivers these lines in an imposing, staid tone.

We crack up because Mars is exaggerating only a little.

Blake raises his hand for us to shut up and approaches a squirrel by the side of the asphalt walking path. “Here we go,” he whispers, phone out and filming. He carefully herds the squirrel onto the path. For about seven seconds, the squirrel trots in front of him. Blake maneuvers to cut off each attempt by the squirrel to veer off the path until finally it bolts. He groans. We laugh.