pasta in the water, and the vegetables in a saucepan. I felt awkward all of a sudden, trying to figure out how to patch up the silence. In the weeks since I’d come back the air was full of all the things my parents and I weren’t saying to each other, and I wasn’t sure if I ever really expected that I could leave and come back and pretend that nothing had changed, but I wanted that anyway.
“Mom,” I said. “The PTA is upset that we’re doing a musical about ninjas. I don’t think they’re gonna shut us down, but they came pretty close.” And maybe I hadn’t let myself think about that too much, because—since I’d come back, at least—I could make all the excuses I wanted about fictional violence, but I couldn’t think about not being a part of this thing that had so much of Julia’s heart in it.
Sometimes you don’t have a choice. Sometimes you just know what you’re going to do, past all possibility of being convinced otherwise.
But still, I had to ask. I didn’t want to figure things out for myself. I just wanted to hear that I was all right, and not think about anything that had anything to do with Heather. “Do you think it’s okay? That it’s kind of violent?”
Mom frowned. “When your friend Amy was over here with you and Julia to work on a project last year, she was talking to you about a movie where the killer had blades coming out of his shoes.”
“I never actually saw that movie,” I said. I felt that I had to add this just for the record, because the blades in the shoes were the least objectionable part in it.
“It made me wonder, I’ll say that. I thought I’d raised you better than that. But twenty minutes later, I wander past the kitchen again and you’re mumbling that you shouldn’t talk about beating the other mathlete team to a bloody pulp, even if it’s just a joke. I can’t say I understand it, and don’t you even think about asking to play one of those Grand Theft games, but—if you’re clear on the difference between fictional violence and the real thing, there are worse things.”
I drained the pasta and started mixing in the butter and vegetables while Mom set the table. “It’s not like it’s glorifying violence,” I said. “Not really. There’s even a song called ‘The Flavor of Blood Is Sadness.’”
“And why is the PTA more concerned about high school students pretending to be ninjas and kill each other than the military recruiting high school students to actually kill each other? I would like to know that.”
Mom could give a good rant on the military-industrial complex anytime, and I did not mind listening to her rant, because it felt like we were back in our old routines.
And it meant that I didn’t have to think too much about anything I didn’t want to think about.
THEN
G etting back on my bike was out of the question. I kept trying, and I’d get as far as swinging one leg over the saddle and I’d chicken out again. But I needed to make some forward progress, needed to mark off another bit of road along the map. I finally started walking, balancing my bike alongside as I walked on the shoulder of the road.
Once a roadie in orange spandex braked for a second to look over at me. “Everything okay? Did you have a breakdown?”
I shook my head. “The bike’s fine, I’m fine. I’m just walking right now.”
He gave me a whatever kind of shrug and kept going.
I walked most of the rest of that day. When it got dark I took my bicycle headlight and held it so it flashed in my hand, and when I could barely see more than the blinking in front of me I lay down in a graveyard and went to sleep.
I woke up on a Sunday morning, too late to slip away unnoticed. Gravestones rose up around me like bed-posts. After my last couple of days, it didn’t spook me to be among the dead, but it did spook me to be here among the living again, where I could see cars pulling up into the gravel parking lot behind the church.
I got up and ran
“Mom,” I said. “The PTA is upset that we’re doing a musical about ninjas. I don’t think they’re gonna shut us down, but they came pretty close.” And maybe I hadn’t let myself think about that too much, because—since I’d come back, at least—I could make all the excuses I wanted about fictional violence, but I couldn’t think about not being a part of this thing that had so much of Julia’s heart in it.
Sometimes you don’t have a choice. Sometimes you just know what you’re going to do, past all possibility of being convinced otherwise.
But still, I had to ask. I didn’t want to figure things out for myself. I just wanted to hear that I was all right, and not think about anything that had anything to do with Heather. “Do you think it’s okay? That it’s kind of violent?”
Mom frowned. “When your friend Amy was over here with you and Julia to work on a project last year, she was talking to you about a movie where the killer had blades coming out of his shoes.”
“I never actually saw that movie,” I said. I felt that I had to add this just for the record, because the blades in the shoes were the least objectionable part in it.
“It made me wonder, I’ll say that. I thought I’d raised you better than that. But twenty minutes later, I wander past the kitchen again and you’re mumbling that you shouldn’t talk about beating the other mathlete team to a bloody pulp, even if it’s just a joke. I can’t say I understand it, and don’t you even think about asking to play one of those Grand Theft games, but—if you’re clear on the difference between fictional violence and the real thing, there are worse things.”
I drained the pasta and started mixing in the butter and vegetables while Mom set the table. “It’s not like it’s glorifying violence,” I said. “Not really. There’s even a song called ‘The Flavor of Blood Is Sadness.’”
“And why is the PTA more concerned about high school students pretending to be ninjas and kill each other than the military recruiting high school students to actually kill each other? I would like to know that.”
Mom could give a good rant on the military-industrial complex anytime, and I did not mind listening to her rant, because it felt like we were back in our old routines.
And it meant that I didn’t have to think too much about anything I didn’t want to think about.
THEN
G etting back on my bike was out of the question. I kept trying, and I’d get as far as swinging one leg over the saddle and I’d chicken out again. But I needed to make some forward progress, needed to mark off another bit of road along the map. I finally started walking, balancing my bike alongside as I walked on the shoulder of the road.
Once a roadie in orange spandex braked for a second to look over at me. “Everything okay? Did you have a breakdown?”
I shook my head. “The bike’s fine, I’m fine. I’m just walking right now.”
He gave me a whatever kind of shrug and kept going.
I walked most of the rest of that day. When it got dark I took my bicycle headlight and held it so it flashed in my hand, and when I could barely see more than the blinking in front of me I lay down in a graveyard and went to sleep.
I woke up on a Sunday morning, too late to slip away unnoticed. Gravestones rose up around me like bed-posts. After my last couple of days, it didn’t spook me to be among the dead, but it did spook me to be here among the living again, where I could see cars pulling up into the gravel parking lot behind the church.
I got up and ran
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