30
Only the Lonely
==========DANNY==========
My guitar cases and gym bag slid right in place in the backseat of Dad's Mustang, easy to pack with the top down. A sunken sun shone through the breaks in the clouded sky. With the twist of a key, the lock of the front door fell into place with a thud. With another twist of another key, my car ignited. And as I grabbed the gearshift, I couldn't help but think: Dad was supposed to teach me how to drive.
I was getting tired of having to change the story each time someone went away. It wasn't what I necessarily wanted, but the only way.
In the height of summer, I didn't really need to think twice about running out the door, jumping into my car, and driving off anywhere my heart oh-so-wanted to go. But the cold tinge in the infancy of the evening air reminded me that we were all too subjected to the never-ending pull of the Earth on its axis. Physically, we were further away from the sun than we'd been before. Darkness fell onto the world evidently earlier than it did back in June. And until the depth of winter, each and every day would just get shorter and shorter. Darker and darker. I knew I could catch the sun if I were to run. Because somewhere, the sun wasn't yet setting on people. Somewhere it was bright and beautiful and tanning the bodies of those who bathed in it.
We were Children of the Sun / Take my hand, Mary
We can make it if we run.
I kept my mind preoccupied trying to roll that one lyric into an entire song as I drove down all the familiar streets. The South End swept away when I looked out the side of my car. One after another, the houses stretched into blurred lines that whizzed by and eventually disappeared.
And then, accelerating to merge with the 306, my car crashed against the atmosphere. Forcing the still air into a dashing wind that tousled my hair in a dance above my head. Above, a dark gray cloud hovered through the sky like an abandoned continent adrift at sea, receding eastwards, allowing the golden light from the sinking sun to prevail across the world. The magnificent light, so immaculate and golden that it must have broke from Heaven, stood in deep contrast with that dark cloud wrapping the lower half of the hemisphere.
The division of the globe was a near perfect masterpiece. An excellent telling for the duality of life. The rarity of which such phenomenon occurs undoubtedly would convince anybody that the creator of the world had illustrative intentions in mind.
The wind skimmed the hood of my Mustang, cycling through a flapping sound like a waving flag. That rebel one nailed to my back.
There's not a single stretch of paved road in this country that doesn't connect to every other. Highway, freeway, backstreet, dead-end, a street winding around in a crescent, the Nevadan Interstate; any two lanes will do just fine. They're all connected. Inviting anyone with the will, and an adventurous soul, to chase a rising or setting sun. All you have to do is drive.
Most boys will grow up to be men who will only ever set their sights on the pavement that takes them to school, their mother's house, the rounded driveway of the church hall on their wedding day, through the factory gates, to only U-turn back to the same church and hitch the only free ride life ever gives you to the grave.
So, as my car obeyed the turns of the 306, a vision of my future-self as a Gilmore Park working man filled my eyes. How the rubber of his daddy's car will burn against those same tracks on that same highway until that Mustang's driven into the ground. And on that same highway, the dial will turn up on those same songs he listened to since he was sixteen to get him through the night. To save his spirit from completely breaking. Every beat of his heart, a beat closer to death. The body he'd been blessed with rotting away in the slums of Gilmore Park, New Jersey.
By the time my car braked at the Fisherman's Alley stop sign, the last rays of the setting sun were threading through the intersecting branches. Cutting deep black shadows where the light had failed to reach. Out from the side of the open roof, as I watched the rows of houses in Danae's Bay slip away one after another, the space of a vacant lot provided a little vista from which I could see the ocean. The geography of the bay and the roof peaks prevented me from seeing the sun itself, but the pink and blue sea guarded by the dark cloud honorably mirrored its expression.
My heart battered at the cage of my body as I turned down Bayview. No doubt in a desperate attempt to escape and save itself from the inevitable wounds to come. I could always just drive on; transform my intentions, and therefore myself, into just another car on the road passing by. But despite all the internal alarms, blaring on high alert, my mind was set in a stone heavy determination.
As my front tires straddled the curb three houses down, the long frilly leaves draped from the massive heights of the willow trees swayed lazily to and fro. Beyond the vegetated curtain, I saw a tiny playground I had never noticed before on Bayview. The playground held only a pinkish, sun-faded slide, and next to it, a two-seated swing set. The cloth of the caved-in seats had long since been worn down, and the steel had rusted where the beams conjoined and the chains were browned with age.
And in that second I saw it all: Mary as a toddler, chubby-cheeked and curly-haired, struggling with the mechanics of flight. The scrawny and hungry kid, only nine years of age, camping out after another night of her father's drunken rage. She was also there as a heartbroken fifteen-year-old, blanketing herself with the invisibility of a hoodie. Maybe the day was cold and wet with April's rain.
The willows and the scenes I imagined quickly fled out of sight. An uncertain purple glow from the sky descended upon the evening. In the lull afterward, I slid my key out of the ignition and listened to the distant waves of the Atlantic crashing along the shore. And as the birds sang to each other, Roy Orbison over the stereo sang "Only the Lonely" to me.
From down on the street, I looked up at her house. The dirty floor of the porch. The rain-beaten shingles. All of the splinters mottling the wood. Jim's burnt-out Chevy pickup in the driveway. The back of my neck cracked as I glanced up to the treetops one last time. I then popped open the glovebox, pulling out our map. Fear stilled my hand as I grabbed the door handle, but courage pushed it open. Cutting the running battery off, Roy Orbison sang no more. My Converse crunched against a scattering of loose gravel as I stepped out of my car.
Above those three rickety steps of the front porch, I heard the front door unlock. The pulse in my head gunned. The screen door pushed open and then slammed back as Mary ran onto the porch. Her white sweater, falling down long like a dress, swayed with the stride of her feet. Mary stopped and gazed down at me from the porch's edge. Three more steps were all that it would take.
"Danny."
Mary's long hair lapped against her shoulders as she stepped to the side and grabbed the railing.
Just walk down those three steps.
"I heard about Max—I am so sorry."
The wind sighed through the trees. "I... I can't even think about—that—right now." I fell back against my car. "Can we talk?"
Mary let go of the railing and then backed away to grab the screen door handle. "I can't. I'm sorry, Danny. I can't. I have to go."
"No, Mary, please! Don't run back inside. Please, Mary. Don't run back inside."
She hesitated, but slowly, reluctantly, returned to the porch's edge; one foot away from those three steps.
"What if my dad sees you?"
"I don't know," I answered. "Are you just going to put up with his bullshit for the rest of your life?"
Mary stared at me. Her lips trembled, resisting the urge to settle into a frown. I stole a glance at the concrete beneath my feet. And then as my gaze lifted over the weeds that shot out from the lawn, and went past the dark scars splintering the paint, and landed on her face, studying the expression I hoped was remorse, I noticed something was off. Horribly off. It only took me a second to realize what it was—and what it was killed me.
That slight obscuring of her eye had skewed the alignment of her entire face. Mary was still beautiful—nothing, no force in this world could ever alter that. But Mary was never going to be as beautiful as she had once been when the arrangement of her face inspired perfect harmony. How each of her features flawlessly spiraled in with the rest, leaving not a single disruption in the current of the admirer's eye. Her face at seventeen was gone forever.
In that lack of her response, I said, "You're better than that." Shattering the silence.
Mary started shaking her head. "Well. What am I supposed to do, Danny?"
"Come with me, like we talked about."
"Where? Like, actually go to California?"
"Yes! There. Somewhere. Anywhere. God." Tears blurred the corners of my eyes. "I just know there has to be some place better than here."
Mary wavered in her stance. It was only when the porch light flashed on that I realized the sun had set.
"How do you know?" she asked. Behind me, a pair of evening larks began to sing.
"Because... because we promised each other in the old abandoned—"
"Oh my God. Danny, don't do this."
"Okay. I'm sorry. That was stupid of me. That was stupid and childish. And I should grow up. I know, Mary."
She stopped moving. I swallowed through a lump in my throat.
"That's not even it, Danny."
"Then what, Mary?"
"Danny, I've had a lot of time to think about it. And, like, you—you grabbed me, that day. You got mean, angry. Aggressive, with me, Danny. Like you bruised my arm." With her palm facing her, Mary bent her arm up as to emphasize the veracity.
Mary continued saying, "I don't think I know you, well enough. As well as I thought."
"Mary! My God! I'm sorry! It was once, and it was a mistake. Let me prove to you that it will never happen again and—and that, that wasn't me!"
Mary fell silent. She then took a deep breath, looked up to the sky, and then sighed as she said, "But, Danny, it was you. Maybe it's not who you are every day, but that was you who grabbed me."
"Mary, please. I'm so sorry. It will never happen again."
"I don't...trust...that. I've been—too many times, in my life. I don't trust you." Mary started stepping back toward the door. "I don't know you."
"Mary, please! I hate myself so much!"
"Don't," she said, stopping. "Danny, you're the last person who should hate themselves. You're an amazing person. Maybe the most amazing person I have ever met. The way you see the world. Your dreams. It's all beautiful. Don't ever stop. But that's not for me, I can't see things the way you do. I didn't grow up like that." She gestured helplessly toward her house. "I want to. I thought I did. But...I can't. I can't trust you, anymore. Please go now."
"But—but, Mary!" I whipped our map out of my pocket and fumbled to unfold it. "I have our map! What about all the places we talked about seeing? Colorado! You can finally see Denver! The mountains! The desert, California—"
"Danny. I just told you—those aren't my dreams. I thought they were. But they're not."
"Mary, come on. You can't be serious—"
"I am, Danny. Please, please, forget about me. Just go," she said, retreating further, pulling open the screen door.
"But Mary! No, wait! I love you—"
But by then, the screen door had already slammed back behind her after she went inside.