The Gatekeepers Page 12

  Proud of me.

  Riiiiiiight.

  I took the fifty that was attached to the note and stuffed the bill in my pocket. Then I wadded up the Post-It and tossed it in the recycle bin. If my folks were truly proud of me, they’d have shown up to my screening last night. Mine were the only parents who weren’t there out of all the student filmmakers. Why didn’t they come? Wouldn’t have taken more than half an hour of their day. I taped the flier about it to the fridge weeks ago. They grab skim milk out of there for their coffees every morning; they didn’t notice? I even set reminders in their phones. I’m supposed to believe that this thing just snuck up on them and there was no way they could rearrange their schedules? Last month, they promised they were going to be there and then...

  Two empty reserved seats, right up front.

  I mean, Simone’s parents were there. They showed up. They were all enthusiastic, too, gave me a standing O when it was over, shouting “Bravo, bravo!” I’m nobody to them, just some random who’s crushing on their daughter.

  My parents tell me they’re working so hard for me. How can that be true when they miss everything that’s important in my life? They say one thing, but their actions deliver an entirely different message. They never made an appearance at my lacrosse games, either. Wonder if I’d still be playing if they ever actually came and cheered me on?

  So I pulled the money out of my pocket and I examined the bill, front and back. Ulysses S. Grant was sitting there with this look on his face like he’d just been goosed. Was this cash supposed to make me feel better?

  It didn’t.

  But I knew what would. Like Bob Marley says, “Herb is the healing of a nation.” In this case, I’m a nation of one.

  Jasper Gates meets me under the railroad trestle. His parents are legit billionaires so he’s the least likely weed dealer you’ll ever meet. ’Course, his forest green corduroys with the white embroidered pheasants are kind of pimp, so I guess that counts. Wait, pimps are for hookers, not drugs.

  Whatever.

  I asked him once why he dealt—he’s not exactly hurting for spending money. He replied that being an entrepreneur runs in the family, which seems as good an explanation as any. I heard his parents spend all their time on philanthropic causes around the globe now, which is badass. But I wonder if Jasper would be dealing at all if they were home more.

  The railroad trestle’s not far from the school, so it’s our usual meeting point. “What’s shakin’, Kosher Bacon?” Jasper asks as he strides confidently down the embankment. I grudgingly admire his balance. How’s he’s not slipping all over the place with the dew-damp grass under his slick-bottomed loafers? Guess that’s just Jasper for you, everything under control always, not a hair out of place, all gelled back like Gordon Gekko’s character in Wall Street. There’s a whole pack of guys named Jasper at our school, but he’s the Jasper, the one all the other Jaspers aspire to be, kind of like Heather Chandler in the movie Heathers. “Thought you were going soft on me. Where you been, man? You haven’t texted in a while.”

  I haven’t bought in weeks. Hasn’t been on my mind. “High on life, bro,” I reply. “New girlfriend.”

  He slaps me on the back with one hand and simultaneously takes the fiddy and shoves the Ziploc in my hoodie pocket with the other. “Ass trumps my product? You old dog.” Then he punches me in the shoulder, way harder than necessary.

  “Whoa,” I say, bristling as I rub the point of impact. Not sure if I’m saltier about the assault on my bod or on Simone’s character. I haven’t laid a hand on her yet because I’m waiting for the right moment.

  I say, “She’s a really nice girl, it’s not like that.”

  He takes a step back from me, transaction complete. Smirking, he replies, “Figures you can’t close the deal. Flaccid-Foley-Feinstein, you’re a triple threat.”

  Sorta of hate Jasper sometimes.

  Sucks that he’s a necessary evil, so I have to be cool. I take out the baggie and pack my pipe and then I grab my lighter. I offer the full bowl to him first. “You in?” I ask.

  He refuses. “I don’t get high on my own supply.”

  “Please, Biggie Smalls, you get high on your own supply all the time,” I reply. We used to play lacrosse together and trust me, Jasper was Captain Pre-Game.

  He shrugs. “Then I guess I’m a hypocrite. Taking off. See you later, Folsturbater.” He sprints back up the embankment, so sure of himself that he travels up the practically vertical face with his paws in his pockets. He won’t need his hands free to catch himself if he falls because the Jasper Gateses of this world never fall. This kid lives such a charmed life. He’s, like, the luckiest dude in North Shore.

  When he’s out of sight, I light my pipe, careful to not ignite all the contents at once. Trick is to leave some green. You blaze up the whole thing and that’s a one-way ticket to a scorched esophagus and a coughing fit. Rookie mistake. I place my finger over the carb (air intake hole) and inhale, long and steady.

  I hold the smoke in my lungs for a solid ten count, and then I blow out a slow stream. A feeling of peace and tranquility washes over me and the universe turns Technicolor, like when Dorothy finally lands in Oz.

  The birds’ songs are suddenly almost too sweet to bear and the woods around me smell of damp earth, teeming with life. The scene is so moving that I have to swallow down the lump in my throat.

  How could anyone be unhappy on a day like this? How could I be unhappy? The air tastes like baked apples and the forest looks like someone dumped out a bowl of Froot Loops, with equal parts of green, red, orange, and yellow leaves.

  Another hit and I’m cool with my parents again. They do their best. They’re trying, right? A for effort, if not execution. My mom did come in late last night and kiss me on the cheek when she thought I was asleep. I liked that. And my pops said something about this being the year we finally make it to the Sundance Film Festival. Maybe that’ll happen, maybe it won’t, but I’m stoked he offered. I’m going to hug him when he gets home tonight. He’s a righteous dude.

  I am filled with love.

  I love my family.

  I love being outside.

  I love the combination of pineapple and tomato sauce and ricotta and ham. Sounds sick and wrong and definitely not kashrut, but it’s everything.

  I love dogs. We should get a dog because I would really, really love him. Like a pug or a Pekinese or a pit bull. Something with a P, for sure.

  I love Robert DeNiro in Godfather II.

  I repack the bowl and take another hit.

  I love this time of year and I can’t wait to show Simone boss old horror movies like The Omen and The Exorcist. I love that they might scare her and she’ll have to climb into my lap.

  I could love Simone.

  Obviously not yet because I’m building a friendship first. Haven’t laid a finger on her. But I could see it happening at some point in the not-too-distant future, though. Maybe Wednesday?

  No.

  Today.

  I’m absolutely gonna kiss her when I see her. Screw my whole waiting-for-the-perfect-cinematographic-moment plan. I’m done waiting. Don’t care. It’s time. At this point, she might not even realize I like her that way, so I plan to show her. Girl, you are exiting the friend zone in three...two...one...

  I take a fourth hit. This is way more than I usually smoke, but I’m celebrating. All my thoughts turn to Simone. She’s been awesome these past few weeks, like interesting and deep and we don’t talk about nonsense like clothing or video games. We connect.

  Last night Simone’s folks took her, Kent, and me out for frozen yogurt after my movie and we spent a ton of time debating about renewable energy sources. Windmills for the win!

  Forgot how much I liked Kent. We had some good times at astronomy camp together before seventh grade. A bunch of us from Che
rokee Elementary ended up there together. Kent and I were bunk-mates, which was nice. He’d been there the summer before, so he knew everyone. He was supposed to room with Stephen Cho, but Cho’s grandfather had gotten sick and he couldn’t come.

  Kent and I would sit there in the darkened planetarium, clicking our laser pointers, pretending we were shooting Imperial Star Destroyers, his Luke to my Han. Then we came home and Stephen was his shadow. Don’t know why, but I just didn’t dig Stephen’s energy. Too negative or too hyper or too something. Always made me feel off-kilter. Ever since then I’ve lumped Kent and Stephen together. Didn’t occur to me that I could hang with one without the other.

  Anyway, we got into this epic discussion last night about whether free will is a thing and Kent started throwing out stuff about quantum mechanics and how Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle proves its existence and I went home with my mind utterly blown. (Kinda wish I’d gone to physics camp now.) So, while I thought the evening was going to be a bad scene after Mom and Dad were no-shows, it ended up pretty good.

  Especially the being around Simone part.

  Simone knows I smoke sometimes and she’s fine with that. She did say she’s not interested in joining me because she just can’t eat that much sodium. Didn’t know what that meant, but I nodded like I did.

  Wait...

  Is she really fine?

  Or is the sodium thing a red herring?

  Is that why we haven’t moved out of the friend zone?

  What if her being okay with my smoking is just one of those things you say in the beginning of a relationship, because it’s not a deal-breaker, but it’s not something you condone? Kind of, no, it’s fine if you leave your empty Starbucks cups in my car, when you actually mean, I don’t mind having to pick up after you all the time, you goddamned littering litterbug, as you currently possess just enough redeeming qualities that this isn’t the hill I want to die on. Like that.

  Does weed make her mad?

  Would she be pissed to know what I’m doing right now?

  I feel like she might be mad.

  Shit.

  She’s gonna be mad.

  She’s gonna be real mad and she’s gonna dump me before we ever even achieve Simowen status.

  Can’t have that. Don’t want that.

  I should...quit. I should quit right now. Cold turkey. Detonate the whole habit like the Death Star. I look down at my baggie and it’s still full of bud. That’s got to go. I take a sharp rock and use it to dig a hole. Once it’s deep enough to conceal what’s left, I dump it onto the ground and then use my foot to cover it back up with dirt.

  Okay, that’s better.

  Wait, what if it grows?

  No, hold up, I’m not Jack and this ain’t no beanstalk. Hell, I’d have planted my weed a long time ago if I thought I could cultivate it myself and not do business with Jasper.

  What about the pipe, though? What if she gets cold today and asks for my hoodie? I wanna be a gentleman, right? I’d need to cover her shoulders like they do in all those late ’80s rom-coms. Giving her my jacket seems like a real Tom Hanks gesture. No one doesn’t love Tom Hanks. But what if she reaches in my pocket and feels my pipe? That’s not cool. Tom Hanks would never pull a move like that. Need to get rid of it, destroy the evidence.

  I take the pipe and throw it into the small stream that runs under the trestle. The current begins to slowly carry it away.

  Shit, should I have wiped off my fingerprints? What if someone finds it? Will I go to jail? She won’t like me then! I scramble after the pipe and fish it out of the water. I wipe down the whole thing with the corner of my hoodie. I hold it with the tail of my T-shirt as I rub so I don’t cover it with new DNA.

  Better. Much better. Mucho mejor.

  I feel like I’m standing outside of myself right now observing the whole scene. As I wind up and pitch, I’m in super slow-mo, like I’m suspended in a vat of molasses or something. My senses are on point, hyper-exaggerated. I can hear the pipe going whoosh-whoosh-whoosh-whoosh as it cuts through the air for an endless stretch of time until it finally lands with a juicy splash about three hours later.

  Coffee.

  I need coffee. I’ve gotta get it together. I slap myself in the face a couple of times and then I’m mad at myself for hurting me.

  Definitely coffee.

  New plan. I’ll climb this hill and then I’m going to hit the coffee cart for a quad espresso. Then I’m going to drink it real fast, find Simone, and close this deal. Ink that contract, baby.

  I start up the embankment but I keep sliding down. When did my feet become skis? This is so trippy. I try again, but this time I bend over and clutch the grass as I make my way up. Grip. Grip the grass. Griiiip. Grrrrriiiipppp. Grip sounds like a made-up word. Grrrriiiiippp the grrraaaaasss. Look. I’m doing it. I’m doing it! I release the grass to give myself a round of applause and when I do, I slide back down.

  No applause, O-town. Just grip. Grrrriiippppp.

  You know what’s hilarious?

  Gggggrrrriiiiiip.

  I’m halfway up the embankment when I see another dude I know. Wait, he was at camp with us! He wasn’t in our same school then, but he is now.

  “Greetings, fellow stargazer!” I say, with a lift of my chin. “Can’t wave, need to grip.”

  He doesn’t respond.

  That’s weird. Why didn’t he say hey? I’m a friendly guy. He’s a friendly guy. Two of us, two friendly guys. Why aren’t we being two friendly guys together?

  Wait, wasn’t he all about the astronomy puns back then? Yeah, he was. I remember he almost wet his pants when I told him my fish in orbit/trouter space joke. He loved puns, fucking loved them.

  I go, “Hey, how’s Uranus?”

  I crack myself up, but my words don’t even register with him. What’s up with that? Wait, maybe I’m talking in a whisper and I only sound like I’m yelling in my head? I’ll try again.

  “What’s up, bro?”

  Was that shout-y? Felt shout-y. But he says nada. Is he mad at me? Is everyone mad at me? Why would he be mad at me? I didn’t do anything... Did I? We don’t have a beef. We never had beef. But what if we do? What if I wronged him somehow and now he hates me? I feel awful. Am I out there spreading terrible karma, unbeknownst to me?

  When did I start using the word unbeknownst?

  The ground begins to tremble under my grip as I scramble upward. Oh, no wonder he can’t hear me. Train’s a-comin’. I say, “You can’t hear me because of the train!”

  I feel better knowing that my old pal is not my enemy. Least that’s something, right?

  Something.

  Something feels off here. What’s wrong with this picture? There’s something off kilter and I’m not seeing it. Like in the Highlights magazines I’d look at as a kid at the dentist office, when one cartoon bear would have an emblem on his fez and the other wouldn’t. Like that. Like something isn’t right. Like something is off.

  I peer up at him. Nah, he looks normal. His usual, maybe a little more tired. Mostly same as always. But something is pulling on the sleeve of my consciousness, though. Something saying no. No. NO. What is it?

  Can’t think, train’s too loud.

  Train’s too loud.

  Too loud.

  Train.

  Oh. Train.

  Train.

  “Dude,” I shout. “Get off the tracks. TRAIN.”

  InstaChat

  0 Likes.

  MalloryGood11m.

  where is everyone? ANSWER ME GODDAMN IT

  View all 5 comments.

  AveryDayAllDay jesus, mal, what NOW? saw u 2 seconds ago.

  SupaFlySpencer im all good.

  MidfieldNoell noe here, chillin like a villain.

  EliseALot heard i
t 2 am sick already.

  NShoreKnightTheo out of shower after practice—what up?

  15

  MALLORY

  No.

  The second I hear the desperate pull of the train’s whistle, I know.

  I know.

  I know with every fiber of my being.

  How? How is this happening again?

  The campus is motionless, no one’s moving. We’re like the world’s largest mannequin challenge. No one’s talking, not a single word. We’re just...frozen.

  Bracing ourselves.

  The only person who appears normal right now, who doesn’t look like she’s been punched directly in the gut, who doesn’t seem like the whole goddamned world is crashing down around her, is Simone. She’s standing there with her two lame friends, smiley and effervescent. Her whole demeanor says, Now then, what’s all this?

  I’m so jealous of her obliviousness, of not knowing what comes next.

  I want to be her right now.

  I want to be the girl who hasn’t yet learned North Shore’s dirty little secret. Her ignorance is bliss. Maybe that’s because there’s a fact that I omitted when conducting her campus tour, an oversight that is in no way, shape, or form small.

  North Shore has one of the highest teen suicide rates in the country.

  Because sometimes being the best comes at a price.

  I must be in shock right now because I can’t feel anything. I can’t run, I can’t walk, I can’t take a single step. Instead, I’m thinking in facts and figures. Data points are easier to manage than feelings.

  I’m rationalizing that suicide is not uncommon in moneyed communities where academic success is valued over almost anything else. Take Palo Alto, a San Francisco suburb like North Shore, where six kids committed suicide between 2009 and 2011. Four more died by their own hands in 2015. In Fairfax County, Virginia, four teenage boys killed themselves in a one-month period of 2014, with fifteen other teens ending their lives in the three years previous. I’m staggered by the numbers. But I’m numb to them, too.

  Even though it’s an epidemic.