Sunshiner

The next day was spent mostly inside. Mom was still angry with me and she made me do plenty of chores to make it up to her. It was strange, though, because even though it was evident she was at least a little glad to have me home, we hardly spoke to one another. She would ask vague questions, probably because she was the mom and moms were supposed to be curious about their child’s life; and I would give vague answers, usually not more than a single word. Maybe that was the way our relationship had always been, though, and I just never noticed it before. She asked me how my trip was: “Good.” Where did you go? “No where.” Did you have fun? To that, I did not reply.

When I was done vacuuming every rug in the house and my room was sparkling clean, I was finally allowed to go outside. It felt weird. I couldn’t figure out why that was, either; everything seemed normal enough. I saw a lot of moms in their backyards, tending to their gardens, which happened to be something that they did a lot. The mothers in Dayton liked bragging about their flowers a lot, which I found odd because parents were supposed to brag about their kids and what colleges they got in and stuff like that.

As I continued to walk down my street, I saw a few of the fathers lounging around in someone’s backyard. Even though I could not see a grill, the smoky scent of a barbeque reached my nose and I understood why so many parents were clustered at one house. Hamburgers and beer were a manly way to bond, I suppose. I saw Bear, Candace’s father, and he saw me too. He waved with a huge smile on his hair-covered face. I only nodded in return. I couldn’t understand how that man could be so happy in his…situation.

I continued to walk without a real destination. I just let my feet lead the way. After a while I realized that I was heading in the direction of the ice cream parlor, only I had taken the long way that lead me all the way around Dayton. It was afternoon now, meaning it was my least favorite time of day, and everything was cloaked in the hazel light and I was quickly lost in the slanted shadows. The dusty town of Dayton, when portrayed in this light, looked much different. I didn’t like it. Maybe I was simply feeling pessimistic because of the fact that it was afternoon and the sun was in my eyes.

I had reached the border of Dayton, a place that I hadn’t been to since I was a child. When my friends and I were little we would dare each other to run out here, which at the time seemed so dangerous because it was so far away from home and we were clearly not allowed out here. Not too many houses were located in these parts, and the few that were had been abandoned long ago and were falling apart. Candace and I used to adventure out here and pretend we owned all of these houses, usually because she was a princess and I was her prince and these were our castles (but sometimes we would pretend we were robbers and this was our hideaway). I could recall the day I had been courageous enough to climb on the roof of one of the houses, which was claimed to be haunted because it was the oldest of all of the houses. It hadn’t been long before the rotten, moss-covered roof fell under my weight; thankfully the house had an attic, so I hadn’t fallen far enough to actually injure myself. It was probably the scariest zero-point-three seconds of my childhood, despite the fact that I hardly attained a scrape or a bruise. I hadn’t been out to the Dayton border since then.

As I passed the old haunted house, I could see the hole where I had fallen. Poison ivy had conquered the house and its vines were covering all four walls and nearly the entire roof. Its leaves were a radiant emerald color in the fading sunlight, luscious and enticing and dangerous. It was unsettling to think that this place used to be someone’s home. Someone had loved the house and the people in it, and now it was dead and overcome by the poisonous plant. I sighed, turning away from the sight, and continued to walk.

Eventually I reached the rail road tracks. There was a story behind these too, of course, just like everything else in Dayton. There hadn’t been a train to cross these for over eighty years, after that woman had been killed. According to the tale, which had been a popular ghost story I had heard several times over a campfire, the woman had been seven months pregnant when it happened. She had another child, too: a two-year-old son. The day that she died, she had been pushing her son around in a stroller and when she crossed the railroad tracks, the wheels got stuck. She tried and she tried to get the stroller out, but in vain. She finally gave up and began unbuckling her son to get him out. And that’s when she heard the train coming.

That’s when the true story ends and the ghost story begins. According to Ben (who had been the one to first tell me the tale), she was a crazy depressed woman and she had stepped in front of the train on purpose. On nights when the sky is moonless, when the crickets are deadly silent and the frogs have ceased their bellowing music, it is said that you can hear her ghost crying into the night, mourning the loss of her son and unborn child, since their innocent souls had passed onto heaven and her murderous one was doomed to walk the Earth for the rest of eternity. Or so the story says. I’ve lived here for eighteen years and I have never heard a thing. So fuck you, Ben.

I walked down the tracks, balancing on the beam with my arms extended on either side, wondering if this was the spot where she died and if I was walking over the place where only fifty years ago her bloody intestines had been sprawled out over the ground. I sort of hoped so. I was being especially cynical today.

The tracks died out into broken pieces of metal and wood, but there was still a path, which I followed. I hadn’t been this way in a while and I hoped that this would lead me to the ice cream parlor, which I had initially thought it did, but now I wasn’t so sure. The path steered me up a steep hill, and when I had trudged to the top I was slightly out of breath. I took a moment to rest and while doing so I noticed that I could see almost all of Dayton from up here.

Among the rows and rows of small, worn-down houses, I was able to pick out my little yellow house, as well as Candace’s white one. I could see the red roof of the ice cream parlor. Over the tops of a row of trees I could see a glimmering mirror that was the Lake. A boat zoomed by Devil’s Island. A plan soared overhead. I used to think that no matter how old or faded this town appeared, I used to think it was absolutely gorgeous. Now, however… Now I could see that it was really just a giant piece of shit. This place wasn’t my ultimate vacation from the real world; who I was I kidding? We lied and laughed and pretended our lives were great. We could begin the summer as if we had never left the place, and not once did my friends and I ever discuss our lives outside of Dayton. I used to think that doing this was spectacular, but now I thought we were pretty stupid. We weren’t living as if we were kids again – we were living as though we were in a perfect fairytale land where the outside world didn’t exist. Each person here was a professional bull shitter.

“No, that’s not fair,” I said aloud. I couldn’t hate everyone in Dayton, because I knew perfectly well that they were good people. Sure, they weren’t angels, and sure, they had more flaws than most people...but wasn’t that what made me like them so much more? A lot of my friends were into drinking and pot, and a few of them were even into hardcore drugs. Some of the lowest of scumbags – who, I admit, I was pretty good friends with – would steal and lie and betray people like it was their job. But at least they weren’t like the snotty rich kids in my hometown who enjoyed driving shiny cars and shopping at the most expensive places. At least the people in Dayton didn’t pretend to be perfect. They knew they had problems and they embraced it.

I couldn’t tell myself that I hated all of them, then. I couldn’t hate Dayton, either. I could only hate myself. I had made Dayton into my escape route; I had made it into the place where I could deliberately ignore my problems and believe any lie I wanted. It was my fault that I was so miserable. I suddenly realized that I wanted to fix myself, to pick up all of the pieces I broke and glue them back together; I needed to get out of Dayton again.

Not yet, though, I told myself. I had only been back for a day and I needed to spend more time with my mom. I didn’t care how lame that sounded, either, because I knew that if I ditched my mom again like that, she would hunt me down and kick my ass. She was a good mother, I couldn’t deny that much.

So, instead, the only thing I could do was keep moving forward. I left the hill and I walked down the path, and I just kept going and going and going until finally, just as the sun was about to sink behind the black rim of the tree line, I reached the ice cream parlor.

“Kasey Ray!” Johnny Boy exclaimed excitedly upon seeing me stumble out of the woods like some crazy hobo. “Where have you been, man?”

“Johnny Boy,” I greeted warmly. Although only a few minutes ago I had mentally shit on everyone on Dayton, I still considered Johnny Boy to be one of my closest friends. Then I added, to answer his question, “Oh, you know. I’ve been around.”

“Fair enough,” Johnny Boy laughed, since he knew better than to ask questions. He had known me long enough to know that when I gave a vague answer about something, that meant I didn’t want to talk about it.

“What are you doing here?” I asked.

“I work here,” he said, as if it was obvious.

I let out a laugh, which felt weird for some reason, but then I realized I hadn’t laughed in quite a while. “Oh yeah. Duh. I can’t believe I forgot. Hey, listen,” I said, lowering my voice to a whisper and leaning in towards him, “do you think you could grab me some free ice cream?”

Johnny Boy smirked. “For you? Absolutely not.”

“What? Dude, come on. I thought we were friends.”

“I only do it for chicks who I know will hook up with me. As far as I’m concerned, you’re not a chick. And you’re not going to hook up with me. Unless…” He gave me a weird look.

“I would fucking die before I ever even considered that.”

“I was kidding, man,” Johnny Boy laughed. “Chill.”

“So…” I said slowly, making my way over to a picnic table and sitting down. “Are you and that Cindy girl still together?”

“Pfft. No,” he said and sat down beside me. “I found out she was a virgin.”

“So?”

“So,” he said, and he gave me a look that read, What, are you stupid? “If I did it with her, she’d get all attached and everything. You know how girls are. They want to make their first time so special and perfect.”

“You broke up with her because she wanted to have sex with you? That doesn’t sound like you, Johnny Boy,” I said.

“Nah, I didn’t break up with her for that,” he said, shaking his head. “Believe it or not, I actually sort of liked her. But when she brought up the whole Let’s Have Sex issue, I sat her down and looked her straight in the eye. ‘Listen,’ I told her. ‘You can’t keep thinking that your first time has to be perfect and all that shit. Because honestly, if you work it up this much, it’ll end up as a major disappointment.’”

“And how did she respond to that?” I asked incredulously. I couldn’t believe he had been so blunt with a girl. Usually guys had to be conniving and sneaky when they told girls something like that, since they get so emotional and overreact to almost everything. I mean, yeah, I could be pretty honest with Candace…but Cindy was not that sort of girl.

“Well,” Johnny Boy let out a sigh, “she interpreted it as I was an absolute terrible fuck, so she broke up with me.”

I burst out laughing. “Dude. That is awesome.”

“No, Kasey. No it is not. Now all the girls in Dayton think I have a small dick.”

This only spurred another fit of laughter. I liked being around Johnny Boy again. It was easy to laugh and I was actually beginning to feel normal again.

“C’mon, man! Shut up!” he said and shoved me. “It’s not my fault girls are stupid like that. They won’t screw a guy unless it’s a perfect situation with candles and all of that bull shit.”

“What, you don’t think that sex deserves to be special?” I inquired, which only caused Johnny Boy to give me a very disturbed look.

“I’m sorry, when did you turn into a fucking woman? And do tell, Mrs. Kasey Ray, how do you hide your boobs so well?”

“Shut up, asshole,” I scoffed.

“I guess it’s, you know, special,” he shrugged, saying the last word as if it disgusted him. He wasn’t a very emotional person; even talking about sentimental things repulsed him. It wasn’t because he was a typical shallow guy or anything. It was because that was just the way he was. “But I think that if you need something to be absolutely perfect, then you’re going to keep hesitating,” he continued. “You’ll just keep waiting and waiting for it to be the right time and then it will never happen. I mean, seriously, you’ll never know it’s the right time until after it happens. You need to seize the opportunity before it’s too late. And who cares if you regret you did it? It’d be worse to regret you didn’t do it. You’ll become a regretful person. A regretful virgin, to be more precise.”

I looked at Johnny Boy for a long time. “You’re high, aren’t you?”

He gave me a sheepish grin. “How’d you know?”

“You only say philosophical things like that when you’re blazed out of your mind.”

He shrugged. “Whatever. It makes work go by faster. Anyway,” he went on, and he cast me a sideways glance, as if he was afraid to say his next words, “I heard you and Candace have a little thing going on.”

“Oh?” I said. I tried to look as indifferent as possible. “What gave you that idea?”

“Well, there is the tiny fact that the two of you conveniently disappeared at the same time for the past few days. So, what, are you two dating now or something?”

I shrugged. “Honestly, I don’t know what we are.”

“Are you serious with her? I mean, I thought you hated her and the feelings were mutual…”

“Yeah, well…I don’t know. It just sort of played out this way,” I said and looked up at the sky, which was turning into a puddle of rippling indigos and lavenders.

“Do you know what’s going to happen between you two?”

“I have some idea, yeah,” I said bitterly, my happy mood dissolving into thin air. “I know that we’re not going to last, that’s for sure.”