I Will Save You (19 page)

You stared at him.

You could barely breathe.

“Your family’s, like, seriously screwed up.” He shook his head and turned back to the letter. He read on: “ ‘I realized the only thing that matters to me is your safety. Your chance at a real life. So, this time, I’m going to your father. And I’m going to deal with him once and for all. Please understand and forgive me. Please know my only motivation is to set us free.

“ ‘And I want you to promise me something, baby. The Ellison abuse stops with your father. His evil may lurk somewhere inside of you, too. But you don’t have to let it come out. You don’t have to be like him. Or his father. You’re your own person, baby. I want to look down from heaven one day and see you happily married and raising a family. Please. You have to always remember, you’re your very own unique and wonderful kid. And nobody can take that away. Mommy loves you, baby. And she’s so sorry for what she has to do.’ ”

You were staring at the floor, not crying, but your heart racing and your mind thinking everything at once. And Devon snapped for you to look at him, and he said: “Dude, did your mom kill your dad?”

You looked at him. Your breaths going faster and faster.

“She shot him, didn’t she? Because he was a wife beater and a child abuser. Holy shit, dude. That’s right out of a movie!”

You watched Devon fold the letter and put it back in the envelope and flip it toward your bag. Then he stood up, shaking his head. “Look, man, I’m guessing you might need a little solo time. You know, to think about what you just heard.”

You looked at the rug. And his shoes.

“What’s your name, anyway?” he said. “You never told me.”

You looked up, thinking about that question. You knew whatever you said could be the new version of you, the one your mom wanted to look down at from heaven.

“Hello?” Devon said.

“Kidd,” you told him.

“Kidd?”

You nodded.

He smiled. “Look, I know you just heard some pretty heavy news, man. So I’m not gonna bust your balls. But ‘Kidd’? Really? That’s pretty generic brand. What are you gonna do when you turn eighteen, switch your name to ‘Adult’?”

He laughed, then walked out the door.

And you were alone.

You looked at the letter. You opened the envelope and pulled it out and read it, over and over, pausing between every sentence to think what it meant. Between every paragraph. You spent the rest of the night reading it. The rest of the week. The rest of the month and year. You read it so many times the paper turned soft and brown in your hands. It ripped at the creases. You read it until you had every word memorized. Until you could picture the letters floating in the clouds when you closed your eyes at night.

But here’s why you have to remember that night when Devon came in. Because fate brought him when you couldn’t read the letter for yourself. Just like he said. If Devon never walked in that night maybe you never would’ve been able to open it. Maybe it would’ve stayed sealed and stuck inside your bag forever. Buried in your Horizons closet like a pair of new shoes still in the box.

And maybe you never would’ve known what your mom did for you. Or about the evil in your genes. Or the new person you had to become. Kidd Ellison.

What I Remember About My Dad

How he played on a work softball team with the guys from his construction crew, and how one time when I was little he made the game-winning hit and everybody jumped on him at home plate and patted him on the back. And when he came off the field his whole face was a smile and he picked me up and spun me around and everybody was looking.

His skin was dark and hair long and brown and how Mom said all the girls wanted him in high school. How he always wore Dickies pants and a white wife beater and his scraggly beard only on his chin. His arms with tattoos of names and places, the biggest one of an old man in a rocking chair holding up a beer. Him explaining how he dreamed of that man one night and as soon as he woke up he went to the tattoo parlor and had it done so he’d never forget. “Who is it?” I asked him, but he just looked at me.

How he always had a cigarette behind his right ear. Even when he was smoking another one.

Me coming home wearing the Superman cape, telling him about the man in the suit who bought it ’cause he saw me looking at it in the store window. Dad staring at Mom, then shouting: “Take it off!” Him pulling his switchblade and stabbing through it, ripping the costume right down the middle, throwing it in the trash. Saying how he better never hear of me taking something from some rich person ever again. We didn’t need no charity.

Him breaking my nose when he hit me with the back of his hand. Then hugging me and saying he didn’t mean it. And how we both told my mom I fell.

Him riding me on his motorcycle to school that time when I missed the bus and all the kids turning to watch.

The look in his eyes when he got mad. How it didn’t even look like my dad anymore. The veins in his neck as he swung his open hand. The things he’d yell. Spit going from his mouth. “See what you made me do! Do you even understand?”

Him being gone so long and then coming to my bedroom window and knocking and me opening the curtains and how he’d always be smiling, but not his regular one.

But mostly I remember a night when he went in my room with his CD player and made me listen to this old song, over and over. How he said to pay attention to the lyrics. Me listening as hard as I could, and him staring at me and then playing it again. His face so serious. Tiny red lines in the white parts of his eyes. “You hear what he’s singing?” Me nodding. Him pointing at the CD player and then starting it over. “It’s Nick Drake. He’s singing that he loves the person, but at the same time he doesn’t care. And that last line: ‘Know that I see you / Know I’m not there.’ ”

•  •  •

How when he finally shut the stereo off he looked down at his hands for the longest time and then he said the song made him think of his old man, and how last night his old man died. Him looking at me and nodding and crying. “You should only believe in animals, little man.” Me nodding. “You understand me?” “Yes, sir.” “Animals are better than people. They’re the only thing that won’t hurt you.” Me nodding, trying not to seem like I knew he was crying. “They’re the only thing you can trust.”

Him crying so hard his whole body was twitching. Me staring at the bedspread and nodding and promising him, over and over, and then him taking his CD player and going out of my room.

“Come on, Special,”
Devon said from outside my tent. “How long we gonna play this stupid game?”

I didn’t say anything.

“What, you’re just going radio silent for the rest of your life? You’ll never be able to do it.”

It was a week after Olivia played me her song, and I was laying in my sleeping bag, with all my clothes on, looking at the book Olivia had given me earlier in the day. The one with the story she’d told me about, “The 100% Perfect Girl.”

But I was also ready to do my plan.

Devon had knocked on my tent door like this every single day, at this exact time, and I never answered. He’d stand out there telling me I had to trust him and how I was his best friend and if I kept holding a grudge maybe one day he’d decide to quit coming around altogether. And I’d be totally alone. I’d have no one.

But I didn’t care anymore.

“Special, man,” he said, smacking my tent wall. “Dude, when you gonna grow up and deal with your problems?” He paused for a few seconds. “Maybe you’re getting corrupted by all these rich people around here. Is that what’s happening? You crossing the picket line on your boy?”

I never said anything back, though, no matter what he asked. ’Cause over the past week I’d been thinking a lot about Devon. And what happened in the ocean. What he said. Maybe he was
never
my real friend. Maybe my therapist had it right all along when she said the only way I could get better was to cut Devon out of my life.

“It’s not that hard to answer a simple question, dude. I know you aren’t exactly valedictorian material, but you can talk, right?”

I didn’t say anything.

“So now you’re a deaf-mute?”

I thought up questions about Devon. Like, he’d found me at the campsites almost two months ago, but I still didn’t know where he was staying. Or who he was with. Or what kind of stuff he did. Or where he got his money. When I really thought about it, I barely knew anything about Devon since he was at Horizons with me. When he took all those pills.

That’s why I decided to follow him.

He was quiet for a few minutes, me just watching his shadow move along my tent wall. Then he cleared his throat and said: “Watch, one day I’m gonna say screw it and never come back. And you’ll be all alone, Special, with your ugly old dog. You’ll be like some woman who has thirty cats and her whole house smells like piss.”

He kicked my tent wall and stormed off.

I sat up and listened to his steps.

When I could barely hear them anymore I stuck my head out of my tent door and saw him turn out of the campsites.

I jumped through my door and Peanut came out, too. He rubbed his head on my leg, and I reached down to pet him, said: “I gotta go, big guy. You stay here.”

He looked up to my eyes.

“Trust me,” I said, backing up. “Stay.”

He sat down and watched me and wagged his tail.

I turned and jogged to the campsite exit and watched
Devon crossing the street toward the train tracks. When he slid down the dirt hill, I crossed, too, spied him walking along the tracks.

I stayed up on the cliff, by the cars, watching.

For a while Devon just stood there, throwing rocks at a yellow crossing sign. Then when a train came he dropped his rocks and turned around and faced it.

He stood right in the middle of the tracks and closed his eyes and held out his hands, and as the train came barreling down the tracks it blew its low whistle, over and over, so Devon would get out of the way, but he just stood there.

Waiting for it to crush him.

I closed my eyes and turned away, plugged my ears. I could almost feel it myself, the wind going past his face and the ground rumbling and his teeth clenching down and then the huge train exploding into his body, his death-drive soul rising above the wreckage, finally free from its misery.

But when I opened my eyes again, the train was past.

And Devon wasn’t crushed.

He was laying on the rocks to the side of the tracks, watching it speed away.

He hopped up and brushed off his shirt and jeans and laughed. And for the first time ever I saw Devon in a different way. He was truly crazy. Somebody who needed therapy more than anyone we had at Horizons.

I imagined him turning into one of those homeless people who stands outside the store all day talking to themselves and asking if you could spare change.

•  •  •

Devon moved on to the park.

He sat on the same swing where I first saw Olivia and watched the guys playing basketball. I was surprised. The old Devon would’ve hopped right in the game, made friends with everybody. But this Devon just sat there for over two hours, watching, not even swinging.

When the guys finished playing and gathered their stuff and drove off, he stayed sitting on his swing, staring at the court.

It was dark when he finally left.

He went out of the park and walked up a steep street called Birmingham and went into the gas station at the top of the hill. I stayed outside and tried to look through the streaked glass doors. Devon was talking to the woman behind the counter. I saw her laugh and point at something. Devon came out a couple minutes later with a big bag of chips. He opened the bag and started eating them as he walked toward the freeway.

I followed.

He stopped at the on-ramp, stood there eating his chips and watching cars merge onto the freeway. I ducked behind the freeway sign and watched, listening to the crunching sound of him chewing.

For a second I thought he was getting ready to jump off the bridge. And maybe the chips were his last meal. But when he was done with the bag all he did was throw it in a garbage can, jog across the on-ramp and duck
under
the bridge.

Devon’s Secret Life

I waited a couple minutes, then came out from behind the sign and darted across the on-ramp, too. And when I peeked under the bridge I was in complete shock.

There were three mattresses and five sleeping bags and two grocery carts full of cans and bottles and layers of cardboard. Litter all over. Devon sat with a girl and a woman, and both of them looked homeless. He was leaning against the concrete wall of the bridge and the girl was trying to kiss him, but Devon kept pushing her away.