Dismantling Evan (2 page)

Instead of biting off her head, which I would totally be up for if I wasn’t in an enclosed space, I settle with, “I didn’t sleep last night.”
Or the night before.
My terminal insomnia started my junior year, last year, and has not changed much since. Like I said, the Xanax helps a little, but not much.

“Didn’t Dr. Middleton say the medicine would help with that?” Dad asks.

Mom shakes her head at Dad then stares out the window as she speaks, “Your body just needs time to regulate with the anti-depressant.”

I swear hearing her use the word ‘anti-depressant’ sounds forcibly torturous.

“It has only been a couple of months, Evan, and it takes up to 6 weeks to regulate in your system. We can see if your new doctor can recommend something else for sleep.”

Great! More medication.

The road narrows as our car turns onto a two lane street. The canopy of trees overhead thickens quickly, framing our car as we pass houses on either side.

“You are going to love the house Evan. It is only two miles from your new school, my old school. Oh my God, it looks so different! Honey slow down, there it is! Evan, it’s your new school baby!” Mom says, excitedly.

The main building towers over two smaller buildings on either side. Much bigger than my school back home in San Francisco, which encompassed one main building and two rows of portables. At least back home I knew everyone. Well, knew of everyone. I knew why Samantha Johnson was the most popular girl because I had grown up with her, watched her slowly take her spot as one of my high school’s beauty queens. I watched Gilbert Jeffreys transform from the boy who played every sport in elementary and middle school to the most popular and untouchable jock in our high school.

I had changed too, just not in the direction of being a high school beauty queen. In the scheme of the high school social realm, I was among those in purgatory, my freshman, sophomore, and part of my junior year. The cluster of people I hung with were not friends really. The thing was I hadn’t chosen where I wanted to be because I was indifferent to the fact of having to make a choice. And, being indifferent about something as important as your social existence in high school leaves you in purgatory; a cluster of loners, stoners, and outcasts milling around without much direction.

Yeah I know, no high school is protected from the superficial social caste system; putting everyone in to a neat little category for which they will function. I hold out some hope though. Guess it is my mom rubbing off on me.

Dad slows to a snail’s crawl giving me the full monty of my new school. About a dozen cars are parked in the parking lot; pickup trucks, a few mini-vans, nothing fancy which kind of gives me some relief. My old school’s parking lot was filled with Mom’s and Dad’s late model Lexus and BMWs.

A woman is walking from her car with a briefcase and a crate in her arms. She must be a teacher. A small wave of anxiety rolls through me as I think of going back to school.

Here in Braxton Springs, it is a whole new playing field. I don’t know the untouchables, the beauty queens, the jocks, the rich kids, the poor kids, the techies, the loners and they don’t know me or the fact that I dwelled in social purgatory for the past three years.

“This is not a school. It is a campus!” Dad comments.

“It is so different. Bigger than what I remember,” Mom adds.

The football stadium is hard to miss as we creep along. It dwarfs what my old school called a stadium, which in hindsight would have been a practice field at best.

The football players are running drills on the field with sun-glassed, clip-board wielding coaches standing on the sidelines. I’m sure there is a Gilbert Jeffreys out on the field; untouchable.

The writing is already on the wall Evan. You are entering your senior year at a new school where the social cards are stacked against you, the categorical loner. People have already made life-long friends and you will not fit in here.

As if she has caught me in the midst of my inner voice of self-loathing, Mom says, “Clean slate Evan. You can start over here at Braxton Springs High School.”

As Dad continues down the main boulevard, Mom comments on the school’s mascot; the Braxton Bears. I look out my window and silently damn the fact Mom is totally right about having a clean slate here. No one knows me here. No one knows I was essentially at the bottom of the caste system back home. No one knows I had a psychotic breakdown less than three months ago and left my school labeled a mental case and freak. It isn’t like my social aptitude, or lack thereof, transferred with my academic transcript, right? I could reinvent myself if I wanted to.

After a few turns down side streets, our car slows and Dad announces, “There it is. Welcome home Evan.”

I move into the middle seat to get a better look, but all I can focus on is the lanky boy wearing a army baseball cap blocking our driveway.

“Is he going to move?” Dad asks.

He moves his hand toward the horn, but Mom stops him. “Don’t honk Aaron! You will startle him!”

Dad inches the car up closer to the drive. “Maybe if I move up he will see me.”

Dad stops a few feet from the boy and rolls down his window to try and speak to him, but Mom warns him, “Be nice Aaron.”

“Lucy, I’m not going to bite the poor kid’s head off,” Dad says as he leans his head out the window. “Excuse me?”

Even with my dad talking, he is oblivious to our car idling mere inches from him.

“What is he saying?” whispers Mom.

I watch his lips move, the expressions on his face change to mirror the emotion of what he is inaudibly saying. The book in his hands; could he be reciting something? Maybe he is rehearsing for a school play.

Dad puts the car in park and takes his seatbelt off, but before he can get out of the car, the kid stretches his hand out toward some invisible object in front of him and starts to walk further down the sidewalk.

“Okay, that was weird,” Dad says under his breath as he slowly pulls into our driveway.

I look back through the rear window, watching the boy continue to act out some kind of scene as he walks away.

As Dad and Mom get out, I take hold of my satchel and join them. Compared to our small garden home back in San Francisco, this house is enormous. It has two stories.

Mom’s voice is animated as the three of us stand side by side. “So, what do you think? Do you like it?”

I look over at her to find her ogling me, eagerly awaiting my approval. She adds, “We are renting it for now, but the owner said if we like it we can option to buy it! Isn’t that great?”

I glance at Dad. He’s waiting for my approval as well.

I try to cover my dispirited “Yeah,” with a fake grin, and pretend to look around the yard at the trees, the next door neighbors’ lawn, the street, and the houses around us. They both had shopped houses online rather than making a trip out here. They didn’t say, but I knew it was because they didn’t want to leave me alone in my ‘sensitive mental state’.

Dad stretches his hands above his head and yawns. “It is bigger than the house back home. Grandma and Grandpa did good with touring this one for us since we couldn’t.”

Correction...wouldn’t. They completely could have if they weren’t so hell bent on my mental state.

Mom walks up to the front door. “Come on you two.”

Changing the subject, I ask, “Where do Grandma and Grandpa live?”

Mom turns to me as she wriggles the key in the door knob. “About 2 miles from here. They are stopping by tomorrow. Give us a day to settle.”

“We live in the same neighborhood as you did?”

Mom pushes the door open. “Yeah.”

Dad brings two bags in from the truck. “They plan on bringing dinner tomorrow night.”

He looks at me oddly as I stand there next to the front door. “You coming in?”

“Yeah, let me just grab my suitcase,” I answer.

Dad disappears into the house behind Mom and I head back to the car to grab my stuff from the trunk. I look down the sidewalk and see that boy a few feet down the sidewalk, talking to himself again. He looks up, eyes raised to an invisible receiver and recites with intensity.

“I am but mad north-north-west: when the wind is southerly I know a hawk from a handsaw.”
[2]

Yeah, mad...definitely. I can’t say I recognize the quote. He lowers his hand then turns around on the sidewalk and begins to walk back toward our driveway. Hurriedly, I act like I am rummaging through the baggage in the back as I keep an eye on him. His stride is stiff and his shoulders are slouched. He swings his hips in the opposite direction to his arms as he moves with his book perched in one hand and his other orchestrating the words he is speaking. Suddenly, and completely out of character, I put my backpack on my shoulders and walk over to him.
Stop! What are you doing? Pretend you are picking something up on the driveway, quick!
I keep on walking toward him though.

I catch a few more of his words as he looks up from his book and into the world around him.

“Seems, madam! nay it is; I know not ‘seems’.

‘Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother. . .”
[3]

Still inattentive to my being directly behind him, I stop a few steps away and whisper. “Hey.”

He continues on with his speech, completely oblivious to my presence just as he was with my father. He passes in front of me then stops, still looking into some unknown distance.

“Hey! What are you reciting?” I ask again, louder this time.

He stops walking; but he doesn’t even look at me. He just stands still as a statue in the middle of our driveway, again.

I approach him slowly just in case he reacts, oddly. What am I saying? Of course he is going to act oddly. Maybe there is something wrong with him, mentally I mean. Maybe he has challenges. Wait, what if he is lost? I look up and down the open neighborhood street to see if there is anyone outside looking for him, but see no one. When I look back at the boy, he is looking right at me. Startled, my breathe catches, making a funny noise in my throat before I cover it up.

“I’m Evan.”

He doesn’t respond. He just looks at me, like I am some kind of curiosity. The very look I have been giving him for the last few minutes. His dark, probing eyes, looking me up and down are intimidating and make me uncomfortable.

“What were you um reciting just now?”

I can’t believe I am trying to make conversation with this strange kid.

He looks down at his book, then holds it up so I can read the front cover. I say the title aloud, “Hamlet. Cool.”

I haven’t read it yet. I know we are supposed to read it our senior year back home. What grade was this kid in? He definitely isn’t a senior. He doesn’t even look like he could be a sophomore. That is beside the point. The point is, no one walks around a neighborhood in the middle of the day, randomly stopping in people’s driveways, oblivious to onlookers and honking cars, reciting Hamlet - period.

“Gavin!” A strong bellowing voice pulls me away from my thoughts and towards a tall guy wearing a pair of faded jeans, grey t-shirt and bare feet who is quickly walking toward us. I try not to stare too much at how good looking he is. Definitely older. Maybe college?

His entire focus is on Gavin as he calls to him again and stops in front of the boy, “What are you doing over here man? Mom and I have been looking for you!”

It’s his brother. I look back at the boy and simply say, “Hi Gavin.”

Gavin doesn’t respond, he closes his book, closes his eyes, and begins to shift his body weight from side to side rhythmically. He mutters something under his breath and I lean in to try and catch it, but I can’t make any of the words out. The way he is swaying, its concerning. Is he scared of something or someone? Is he afraid of his brother? His mother? Is that why he is out here? I feel terrible for him as he stands there rocking back and forth. He seems confused and all I can think to do is put my arm around him to try and comfort him. He leaps as soon as my arm grazes his shoulder, throwing my arm off him, making my backpack fall to the ground. Frightened, I back away and his brother leaps between Gavin and me. He looks at me accusingly, like I have committed a crime.

“Don’t touch him! He doesn’t like to be touched!”

“I didn’t mean to. . .” I can’t form any other words I am so nervous, scared, and overwhelmed by what just happened.

Ignoring me, the brother turns back to Gavin and whispers firmly, “Hey, it’s me. Brody. It’s all right Gavin. No one is going to touch you, all right? It is just me. I’m here.”

This guy, his brother, Brody, is careful to not touch him, but still treats him with a tenderness that is just as strong as any comforting touch.

I finally form a coherent sentence. “I just was trying to help him. I didn’t mean to scare him.”

Brody’s tenderness shifts to aggression as he turns on me with apparent disgust. “You didn’t scare him. He just doesn’t like to be touched, especially by people he doesn’t know.”  Turning back to Gavin, he murmurs. “Idiot.”

My head swims and my chest burns from the obvious verbal slap.
Why am I the idiot?
Before I can gather enough sense to formulate a response, Gavin starts walking away from both of us. Brody shadows him quickly, forgetting about the idiot on the sidewalk.