Story of the Moment

"My name is John Heymann. I could tell you my middle name, but then I'd have to kill you. I'm nineteen, and I'm a self-conscious philosopher. I read the comics every morning, even when I'm late, I have random, unbridled bouts of happiness, and I think wisdom is more important than knowledge. I'm a hopeless romantic, an undying idealist, and a starry-eyed dreamer. I'm also irrepressibly silly. As for my social spheres: Loners confide in me, nerds champion me, the social elite befriend me, bullies respect me, and girls worship me (ok...maybe not so much that last part, but I'm working on it). Other than that, just ask...I'm not that shy."

John is a 19-year old freshman at the University of Texas at Austin, a debate champ and a graduate of Corpus Christi King High School. He is a poet and short story writer, and a brilliant thinker. I've known John for some seven or eight years, and he's never failed to engage me in the depths of some subject that i've only cursorily considered before. Lately we've thrown each other thousand word e-mails in search of the meaning of everything, horked a few readings in Austin, commiserated about lost girls, and eaten Pad Thai with his roomate Noamy at a Guadalupe Street joint. More than a little of all of that is hidden in the story that follows and in the series of poems on the Poet of the Moment page.

From the shelter of the stone porch, the boys watched the storm. Rain poured down in sheets like a thousand thousand small paratroopers jumping from their cloudcraft, angrily streaking toward the Earth, intent on their mission. The droplet soldiers struck the Earth tenaciously, one after another and began their work. They beat down the dry dust on the road, collected it and carried it away, streaming down the hill, the dust their prisoners. The soldiers poured into the river, reinforcing its flowing current.

Now, the Guadalupe rushed and tore at its banks, empowered by its reinforcements, pulling dead trees and debris with it as it went. The river rose, reaching amorphous fingers up the bank to snatch at anything loose, carrying it away. The river and the rain and the wind and the storm stripped the Earth in their fury. They left only what was strong and good, and tore down the weak for new growth. It was a cleansing rain.

As the boys watched, silenced in the face of such power, lighting flashed in the sky and struck the field; illuminated the rising river, barely visible through sheets of pounding rain. One boy, one young man, already sixteen, saw more than the awesomeness of nature in the rain. The rain spoke to him, as an old man speaks to a boy, throwing a word of wisdom over his shoulder as he runs on past. And as the boy remembered, he stared out into the field with the others. But he did not watch the rain, he looked past it to the horizon of his mind where the projector for daydreams is stored; where you cannot hear and you cannot see.

Eventually, the boys got up and filed into the cabin, the slamming of the screen door lost to the howl of the wind. They scuffled and shuffled across the slick concrete floor and into bunks, thankful that the window flaps were already down this night. The rain continued long after the boys had gone inside to sleep. Long after the watching eyes had left, he lay awake listening to it; it still cleansed and refreshed, with destruction bringing a new beginning.

Now, in the morning, the hot sun blazed down on the Texas hill country through a thin, patchy layer of cloud cover like a flashlight through a thin blanket. The heat was the worst kind of heat, making the air thick and muggy so that it felt as if the heat were magnified a hundred times. A strong breeze moved shadows like ghosts over the campgrounds, gently flowing across the grass, the road, the river, and the cabins as the clouds covered and uncovered the sun.

On the grassy hill encircled by the muddy dirt road that winds in front of the cabins, a long line of green grass with a fork toward the cabins is set in a field of yellow, parched blades, showing where the leaking water pipe is buried. And if you were lying on your back, in the prickly, dried grass, crushed and bent under your body, staring through closed eyes at the sky above you, you could feel the parade of light and shadow played out for your unseeing eyes. And you could feel, in an instant, the energy of the sun and its hugeness, its heat as it emerges from a

The heat was relaxing, almost deceptively so, lulling one into a false sense of security, like falling asleep at night when one has an incredible amount of homework, it's so nice, so peaceful, so easy. Now the camp lay tense and uncertain; still in the brutal heat. In the afternoon, with the sun at its zenith, the heat was the worst. Nothing living stirred in the camp, everything still but the river, now swollen over its banks. And in the murky green waters could be seen remnants of fences and trees floating lazily past, even an escaped canoe.

Directly out of the brutal heat, but still stricken by its fingers creeping in the shadow of the cabin, semi-comfortable under the whirr of a four inch electric fan, he reclined on his top bunk. He hadn't wanted a top bunk; in fact, he hated it. But he had arrived late on opening day, and bunks were doled out on a first-come-first-served basis. Of course bottom bunks were far more popular and so they were quickly taken by the first boys to arrive. The problem with top bunks was that there were strict rules regarding how a bunk must be made. It must be made every morning, and there were no sleeping bags allowed on the mattresses. In the morning, one had to groggily climb down the ladder or take the jump to the hard concrete floor. Fortunately, in five years of camp, and seventeen years of laziness, he'd worked out a method which provided for complete comfort with a minimization of work and inconvenience.

Hot as it was in the summer, a heavy comforter really wasn't needed, and all he brought was a bottom sheet and a thin, camouflage, nylon blanket. When it came time to make up bunks in the morning, he would simply tuck in the sides of the bottom sheet, smoothing out the wrinkles with his hand, and fold the comforter as one would fold a towel, placing it at the foot of the bed. There was an upside to the top bunks: during rest break and cabin time your bed did not become a center of social activity. Games of Spades and Presidents were frequent in the afternoon, played out on crates and trunks dragged up for seats.

But now, it was the first hour of rest break, and everyone was quiet in their bunk beds, reading, listening to discmans, or simply catching an hour's sleep before snack and the afternoon's activities. Now he lay on his back, his head resting in a warm indention on his white, feather pillow, listening to The Violent Femmes play "Blister in the Sun" on his discman. As he rolled over on his side, reaching behind him to switch off the discman where it sat on the two stone shelves carved into the slabs of white rock that made up the walls of the cabin, he heard his name called.

"Here," the voice was Mike's, the senior counselor in his cabin and also the horseback-riding instructor. "Letter for you," he said, tiredly tossing the envelope onto the boy's bed without looking up. It spun in the air, like an oblong chinese star, landing face down on the covers above his lap. Mike continued shuffling through the envelopes. "Jordan, Jason, you got mail," he said, tossing their letters onto their respective bunks.

"Go to sleep you bunch of girls," was all Mike said as he turned under the wide archway and returned to the middle room of the three-room cabin. They all really liked Mike. He had a sarcastic, dry sense of humor and took great pleasure in being senior counselor for the oldest group of boys. He cut them a lot of breaks, and frequently reminded them that they were the coolest kids in camp. And he expected them to prove it. However, he also used this as a pathetic excuse to get them to set a good example for the younger campers. He affectionately referred to them by a host of degrading terms, but no one took offense. But now, he wanted to sleep, and they knew better than to wake him up when he wanted to sleep. It would go against all rules of "being cool" and it very possibly could result in a great deal of physical pain. So now the boys went back to reading, though now it was their mail if they had it, listening to discmans, or simply catching an hour's sleep.

The boy was in no hurry. He often got mail from home, and he still had an hour after all. He lay back down, settling into the warm depression in the sheets, but not before flipping the pillow over so the cool underside was now against his head. He regarded the letter, his eyes fixed on it, but not really looking at it. His thoughts were elsewhere. After a moment, he returned to reality with a sigh. He blinked his eyes, which the flow of air from the fan had dried, and looked at the letter again. Sometimes his mother sent him big, brown envelopes with newspaper clippings, or the comics page, or maybe pictures from home. The comics page was popular, and was always passed around the cabin after he finished. It struck him as how prison must be. Getting something from the outside, everyone wants to see. Certain people had favorite comics they would always read, but he read them all. This was not a big, brown envelope. It was a long, white envelope. It was the kind of envelope in which businessmen folded letters into thirds, so that they fit perfectly and looked neat and professional. The letter was probably from his father, written at work as a sort of obligatory hello. Hi. How are you. How are things? You should write your mother. We never hear from you, so you must be having a good time.

He sighed again, and struggled to a sitting position. The long, white envelope was still face down in his lap. He sat on the sagging bunk bed with his outstretched legs a slight degree higher than his butt and his head hanging down and his back hunched with his hair and his hands drooping toward his lap as if the dip in the bed were a black hole; his head and arms were very heavy. He picked up the envelope and turned it over and as his eyes glanced over it, he quietly caught his breath and his heart skipped a beat. He took a deep breath, breathing in through his mouth and his nose simultaneously, and sat and stared at her beautiful, chicken-scratch handwriting for a long time.

Life was Hell. He believed there was probably nothing worse in the world than being a sophomore in high school, and certain things were making this particular year at this particular time worse than usual. He walked down the hall to first period: chemistry. He could hardly wait. Not only was chemistry a dull subject, despite his being adept at it, but she was in his class.

He walked through the door, made a visual scan of the room, she wasn't there yet. Walking to his desk, he took his hands out of his jeans pocket, unshouldered his backpack, and promptly and unceremoniously restuffed his hands into his pockets as he sat down. He sat slouched in his desk, which was too small but which he couldn't get away with sitting on top of in this class, He looked through bored eyes at his classmates.

His thoughts slowly spirited him away from chemistry and returned him to the horizon of his mind. I'm here, he thought, but I don't know how, or where, or from whence I came, but I do know why; I do know that. In fact, he thought, I'm not altogether convinced that this field is not real somewhere, that it doesn't exist only in my mind. But he stands in the field in his mind, in the loose sod, dirt from the plowed rows of field falling into the cracks in his leather sandals; fine dirt, like a granular second skin between his toes. He stands, eyes closed, face upturned in the warm sunshine. The parade of light and shadow across his closed eyelids tells him a few puffy white clouds mar a perfect sky. They're moving quickly, he knows; he can feel the warm breeze on his back, cooled as it hits the sweat under his shirt. He consciously accepts his real life, arms outstretched, palms upward, but he doesn't have to like it. To any outside observer, he's the placid picture complacency. They cannot possible hear the savage drum beats, see the fireworks, smell the smoke, taste the bitter bile, or feel the chaos raging inside him, he has prevailed.

But such a false sense of security it is. Just as the Native American shamans prepared their warriors for battle with the ghost dance, so does her entrance into the room shatter his dream field like the very real bite of the soldier's bullet. He returns to reality, watching as she hurries carelessly through the door, seconds after the tardy bell, a mischievous smile on her face. All smiles, she says her hellos to a few of her friends and plops down into her desk. She never looks in his direction, never gives the slightest hint of sadness or remorse. I wonder how she does it, he thinks, personally torn by the latest quarrel.

I guess, he decides, she might just have more practice. He watches her out of the corner of his eye. He's slouched in his chair, not paying attention to the teacher. She puts her head down on her desk and is promptly oblivious to the world around her. She's like that a lot he notices. The bell rings and the bored students gather pencils and papers and books, hoisting backpacks and purses as they chat with their friends and shuffle off to their next class. He moves very slowly. Gathering his unused materials, he gives her a chance to leave when she wants. In the past they would have left together, chatting about this and that as they went to their second period. Now, she takes the opportunity. She takes her purse, looking intently forward, and strides purposefully out the door. With a sigh, he tiredly lifts his own beat-up backpack, it's heavy on his shoulders. Fuck it, he thinks. There are only a few more days left until summer. Summer, when his mind will be occupied. Summer, when he won't have to see her every day and be reminded of what might have been. Summer, full of fun and friends and carefree people. Yes, come summer, everything would be all right.

The fan, on high in his car, blew on him from as many vents as he could aim at himself. The late summer sun beat mercilessly down on the campus, making the metallic cars shimmer and shine in the heat, their hoods painful to the touch. He, not so good at parking, had to back in and out of a space a few times before his Suburban finally fit with enough room to open the door on either side. He turned off the car; was instantly uncomfortably warm in the stifling atmosphere. He was taller now and in excellent shape, and tan from a summer in the sun. Brushing his long brown hair out of his eyes, he sat for a moment in the stillness and the heat, thinking. Today was not the first day of school, but it was the first day that she would be back.

Finally, the heat and the tension got to him, and with a sigh he grudgingly unlocked the door to his quiet sanctuary. Grabbing his backpack, he locked and shut the door, and made his way under the glaring sun across the parking lot to the side door of the high school. Despite the sun, a slight breeze cooled his face, brushing the heat away and tousling his hair. Still, beads of sweat were present at his hairline as he swung the side door opened and stepped into the blast from the air conditioning.

He went to fourth period that day, but she wasn't there. She was supposed to be, he knew, because every day the teacher called her name at roll call and her friends answered that she was still out of town. She would be back in a week. In three days. She was coming back tomorrow. But she wasn't there, and he was disappointed and relieved at the same time. She was probably getting her schedule straight, he thought. He wondered if she was at school at all.

Maybe she wouldn't have this class after all. Friendship is usually such a state of convenience. People rarely went out of their way to make friends, or to keep them for that matter. He wondered how things would be this year. The bell rang, and he walked down the wide, crowded hallway, hands in pockets as usual. And in his pocket he fingered the folded sheet of notebook paper, now three months old. “This is going to be short and sweet,” it said, “School starts soon and I'll be home from camp. Let's start over . . . When I get back and we see each other at school, let's be cool. P.s. No, you don't have an option here. We will be friends again. I leave in a year and I'm saying we are friends.”

When he thought of it, he looked down and smiled a quiet, personal smile, remembering her. The letter captured her. Her commanding attitude only slightly annoyed him. After all, there was forgiveness to be given on his side of the dispute as well. But he knew better than that, it was all he could do to forgive her. He wondered if, when he saw her, he could be cool. And when he looked up, he did. She was at the end of the hall, walking alone and looking casually about herself. She didn't notice him at first, and he didn't say anything. As he got closer, she recognized him and a smile lit up her face, but she didn't say anything. He stopped, and they were quiet for a moment.

And so he turned, returning the way he had come, now with her, hands in pockets, looking straight ahead and not saying anything. As they walked, they talked about meaningless things, summer activities and plans for the year. And the other students in the school walked all around them in a confused stream of many currents. But they didn't notice the others, they simply went around them, brushing by them and dodging them and continued walking. And once in a while, when they would come to a large clump of students, blocking the hallway, she would walk around them to the left and he would go around to the right and they would be separated for an instant, left alone to think their private thoughts.


	The Black Widow & The Brown Recluse \| home Locker Room Writers and Thinkers Workshop \| Poet of the Moment \| Poets from the Past \| Story of the Moment \| Stories from the Past \| Info about Submissions \| Other Events \| Related Links \| The Kerrville Book Festival \| Contact the Magazine \| Index to Issues Online Story of the Moment The Story of the Moment comes from: John Heymann Corpus Christi & Austin, Texas "My name is John Heymann. I could tell you my middle name, but then I'd have to kill you. I'm nineteen, and I'm a self-conscious philosopher. I read the comics every morning, even when I'm late, I have random, unbridled bouts of happiness, and I think wisdom is more important than knowledge. I'm a hopeless romantic, an undying idealist, and a starry-eyed dreamer. I'm also irrepressibly silly. As for my social spheres: Loners confide in me, nerds champion me, the social elite befriend me, bullies respect me, and girls worship me (ok...maybe not so much that last part, but I'm working on it). Other than that, just ask...I'm not that shy." John is a 19-year old freshman at the University of Texas at Austin, a debate champ and a graduate of Corpus Christi King High School. He is a poet and short story writer, and a brilliant thinker. I've known John for some seven or eight years, and he's never failed to engage me in the depths of some subject that i've only cursorily considered before. Lately we've thrown each other thousand word e-mails in search of the meaning of everything, horked a few readings in Austin, commiserated about lost girls, and eaten Pad Thai with his roomate Noamy at a Guadalupe Street joint. More than a little of all of that is hidden in the story that follows and in the series of poems on the Poet of the Moment page. -- tony gallucci 18 November 2001 STORY: UNTITLED From the shelter of the stone porch, the boys watched the storm. Rain poured down in sheets like a thousand thousand small paratroopers jumping from their cloudcraft, angrily streaking toward the Earth, intent on their mission. The droplet soldiers struck the Earth tenaciously, one after another and began their work. They beat down the dry dust on the road, collected it and carried it away, streaming down the hill, the dust their prisoners. The soldiers poured into the river, reinforcing its flowing current. Now, the Guadalupe rushed and tore at its banks, empowered by its reinforcements, pulling dead trees and debris with it as it went. The river rose, reaching amorphous fingers up the bank to snatch at anything loose, carrying it away. The river and the rain and the wind and the storm stripped the Earth in their fury. They left only what was strong and good, and tore down the weak for new growth. It was a cleansing rain. As the boys watched, silenced in the face of such power, lighting flashed in the sky and struck the field; illuminated the rising river, barely visible through sheets of pounding rain. One boy, one young man, already sixteen, saw more than the awesomeness of nature in the rain. The rain spoke to him, as an old man speaks to a boy, throwing a word of wisdom over his shoulder as he runs on past. And as the boy remembered, he stared out into the field with the others. But he did not watch the rain, he looked past it to the horizon of his mind where the projector for daydreams is stored; where you cannot hear and you cannot see. Eventually, the boys got up and filed into the cabin, the slamming of the screen door lost to the howl of the wind. They scuffled and shuffled across the slick concrete floor and into bunks, thankful that the window flaps were already down this night. The rain continued long after the boys had gone inside to sleep. Long after the watching eyes had left, he lay awake listening to it; it still cleansed and refreshed, with destruction bringing a new beginning. Now, in the morning, the hot sun blazed down on the Texas hill country through a thin, patchy layer of cloud cover like a flashlight through a thin blanket. The heat was the worst kind of heat, making the air thick and muggy so that it felt as if the heat were magnified a hundred times. A strong breeze moved shadows like ghosts over the campgrounds, gently flowing across the grass, the road, the river, and the cabins as the clouds covered and uncovered the sun. On the grassy hill encircled by the muddy dirt road that winds in front of the cabins, a long line of green grass with a fork toward the cabins is set in a field of yellow, parched blades, showing where the leaking water pipe is buried. And if you were lying on your back, in the prickly, dried grass, crushed and bent under your body, staring through closed eyes at the sky above you, you could feel the parade of light and shadow played out for your unseeing eyes. And you could feel, in an instant, the energy of the sun and its hugeness, its heat as it emerges from a cloud, blasting orange across your eyes, enveloping your face, your arms, your body with its warm embrace, as if the entire world were a furnace and some invisible hand was stoking the fire. The heat was relaxing, almost deceptively so, lulling one into a false sense of security, like falling asleep at night when one has an incredible amount of homework, it's so nice, so peaceful, so easy. Now the camp lay tense and uncertain; still in the brutal heat. In the afternoon, with the sun at its zenith, the heat was the worst. Nothing living stirred in the camp, everything still but the river, now swollen over its banks. And in the murky green waters could be seen remnants of fences and trees floating lazily past, even an escaped canoe. Directly out of the brutal heat, but still stricken by its fingers creeping in the shadow of the cabin, semi-comfortable under the whirr of a four inch electric fan, he reclined on his top bunk. He hadn't wanted a top bunk; in fact, he hated it. But he had arrived late on opening day, and bunks were doled out on a first-come-first-served basis. Of course bottom bunks were far more popular and so they were quickly taken by the first boys to arrive. The problem with top bunks was that there were strict rules regarding how a bunk must be made. It must be made every morning, and there were no sleeping bags allowed on the mattresses. In the morning, one had to groggily climb down the ladder or take the jump to the hard concrete floor. Fortunately, in five years of camp, and seventeen years of laziness, he'd worked out a method which provided for complete comfort with a minimization of work and inconvenience. Hot as it was in the summer, a heavy comforter really wasn't needed, and all he brought was a bottom sheet and a thin, camouflage, nylon blanket. When it came time to make up bunks in the morning, he would simply tuck in the sides of the bottom sheet, smoothing out the wrinkles with his hand, and fold the comforter as one would fold a towel, placing it at the foot of the bed. There was an upside to the top bunks: during rest break and cabin time your bed did not become a center of social activity. Games of Spades and Presidents were frequent in the afternoon, played out on crates and trunks dragged up for seats. But now, it was the first hour of rest break, and everyone was quiet in their bunk beds, reading, listening to discmans, or simply catching an hour's sleep before snack and the afternoon's activities. Now he lay on his back, his head resting in a warm indention on his white, feather pillow, listening to The Violent Femmes play "Blister in the Sun" on his discman. As he rolled over on his side, reaching behind him to switch off the discman where it sat on the two stone shelves carved into the slabs of white rock that made up the walls of the cabin, he heard his name called. "Here," the voice was Mike's, the senior counselor in his cabin and also the horseback-riding instructor. "Letter for you," he said, tiredly tossing the envelope onto the boy's bed without looking up. It spun in the air, like an oblong chinese star, landing face down on the covers above his lap. Mike continued shuffling through the envelopes. "Jordan, Jason, you got mail," he said, tossing their letters onto their respective bunks. "Did I get anything?," joked Steve because his parents never sent him anything. "Course not fruit," replied Mike, "nobody likes you." "Oh yea," Steve said with a smile, "I had almost forgotten." "Now you boys keep it quiet in here until second hour," Mike finished, "I need my rest, and if I have to come in here, I'm going to charlie-horse the hell outta the lot of you. Got that?" "You freaking pansy, you're lucky I don't beat your ass," returned the boy, with a smile. "Go to sleep you bunch of girls," was all Mike said as he turned under the wide archway and returned to the middle room of the three-room cabin. They all really liked Mike. He had a sarcastic, dry sense of humor and took great pleasure in being senior counselor for the oldest group of boys. He cut them a lot of breaks, and frequently reminded them that they were the coolest kids in camp. And he expected them to prove it. However, he also used this as a pathetic excuse to get them to set a good example for the younger campers. He affectionately referred to them by a host of degrading terms, but no one took offense. But now, he wanted to sleep, and they knew better than to wake him up when he wanted to sleep. It would go against all rules of "being cool" and it very possibly could result in a great deal of physical pain. So now the boys went back to reading, though now it was their mail if they had it, listening to discmans, or simply catching an hour's sleep. The boy was in no hurry. He often got mail from home, and he still had an hour after all. He lay back down, settling into the warm depression in the sheets, but not before flipping the pillow over so the cool underside was now against his head. He regarded the letter, his eyes fixed on it, but not really looking at it. His thoughts were elsewhere. After a moment, he returned to reality with a sigh. He blinked his eyes, which the flow of air from the fan had dried, and looked at the letter again. Sometimes his mother sent him big, brown envelopes with newspaper clippings, or the comics page, or maybe pictures from home. The comics page was popular, and was always passed around the cabin after he finished. It struck him as how prison must be. Getting something from the outside, everyone wants to see. Certain people had favorite comics they would always read, but he read them all. This was not a big, brown envelope. It was a long, white envelope. It was the kind of envelope in which businessmen folded letters into thirds, so that they fit perfectly and looked neat and professional. The letter was probably from his father, written at work as a sort of obligatory hello. Hi. How are you. How are things? You should write your mother. We never hear from you, so you must be having a good time. He sighed again, and struggled to a sitting position. The long, white envelope was still face down in his lap. He sat on the sagging bunk bed with his outstretched legs a slight degree higher than his butt and his head hanging down and his back hunched with his hair and his hands drooping toward his lap as if the dip in the bed were a black hole; his head and arms were very heavy. He picked up the envelope and turned it over and as his eyes glanced over it, he quietly caught his breath and his heart skipped a beat. He took a deep breath, breathing in through his mouth and his nose simultaneously, and sat and stared at her beautiful, chicken-scratch handwriting for a long time. *** Life was Hell. He believed there was probably nothing worse in the world than being a sophomore in high school, and certain things were making this particular year at this particular time worse than usual. He walked down the hall to first period: chemistry. He could hardly wait. Not only was chemistry a dull subject, despite his being adept at it, but she was in his class. He walked through the door, made a visual scan of the room, she wasn't there yet. Walking to his desk, he took his hands out of his jeans pocket, unshouldered his backpack, and promptly and unceremoniously restuffed his hands into his pockets as he sat down. He sat slouched in his desk, which was too small but which he couldn't get away with sitting on top of in this class, He looked through bored eyes at his classmates. His thoughts slowly spirited him away from chemistry and returned him to the horizon of his mind. I'm here, he thought, but I don't know how, or where, or from whence I came, but I do know why; I do know that. In fact, he thought, I'm not altogether convinced that this field is not real somewhere, that it doesn't exist only in my mind. But he stands in the field in his mind, in the loose sod, dirt from the plowed rows of field falling into the cracks in his leather sandals; fine dirt, like a granular second skin between his toes. He stands, eyes closed, face upturned in the warm sunshine. The parade of light and shadow across his closed eyelids tells him a few puffy white clouds mar a perfect sky. They're moving quickly, he knows; he can feel the warm breeze on his back, cooled as it hits the sweat under his shirt. He consciously accepts his real life, arms outstretched, palms upward, but he doesn't have to like it. To any outside observer, he's the placid picture complacency. They cannot possible hear the savage drum beats, see the fireworks, smell the smoke, taste the bitter bile, or feel the chaos raging inside him, he has prevailed. But such a false sense of security it is. Just as the Native American shamans prepared their warriors for battle with the ghost dance, so does her entrance into the room shatter his dream field like the very real bite of the soldier's bullet. He returns to reality, watching as she hurries carelessly through the door, seconds after the tardy bell, a mischievous smile on her face. All smiles, she says her hellos to a few of her friends and plops down into her desk. She never looks in his direction, never gives the slightest hint of sadness or remorse. I wonder how she does it, he thinks, personally torn by the latest quarrel. I guess, he decides, she might just have more practice. He watches her out of the corner of his eye. He's slouched in his chair, not paying attention to the teacher. She puts her head down on her desk and is promptly oblivious to the world around her. She's like that a lot he notices. The bell rings and the bored students gather pencils and papers and books, hoisting backpacks and purses as they chat with their friends and shuffle off to their next class. He moves very slowly. Gathering his unused materials, he gives her a chance to leave when she wants. In the past they would have left together, chatting about this and that as they went to their second period. Now, she takes the opportunity. She takes her purse, looking intently forward, and strides purposefully out the door. With a sigh, he tiredly lifts his own beat-up backpack, it's heavy on his shoulders. Fuck it, he thinks. There are only a few more days left until summer. Summer, when his mind will be occupied. Summer, when he won't have to see her every day and be reminded of what might have been. Summer, full of fun and friends and carefree people. Yes, come summer, everything would be all right. *** The fan, on high in his car, blew on him from as many vents as he could aim at himself. The late summer sun beat mercilessly down on the campus, making the metallic cars shimmer and shine in the heat, their hoods painful to the touch. He, not so good at parking, had to back in and out of a space a few times before his Suburban finally fit with enough room to open the door on either side. He turned off the car; was instantly uncomfortably warm in the stifling atmosphere. He was taller now and in excellent shape, and tan from a summer in the sun. Brushing his long brown hair out of his eyes, he sat for a moment in the stillness and the heat, thinking. Today was not the first day of school, but it was the first day that she would be back. He had not seen her all summer. Finally, the heat and the tension got to him, and with a sigh he grudgingly unlocked the door to his quiet sanctuary. Grabbing his backpack, he locked and shut the door, and made his way under the glaring sun across the parking lot to the side door of the high school. Despite the sun, a slight breeze cooled his face, brushing the heat away and tousling his hair. Still, beads of sweat were present at his hairline as he swung the side door opened and stepped into the blast from the air conditioning. He went to fourth period that day, but she wasn't there. She was supposed to be, he knew, because every day the teacher called her name at roll call and her friends answered that she was still out of town. She would be back in a week. In three days. She was coming back tomorrow. But she wasn't there, and he was disappointed and relieved at the same time. She was probably getting her schedule straight, he thought. He wondered if she was at school at all. Maybe she wouldn't have this class after all. Friendship is usually such a state of convenience. People rarely went out of their way to make friends, or to keep them for that matter. He wondered how things would be this year. The bell rang, and he walked down the wide, crowded hallway, hands in pockets as usual. And in his pocket he fingered the folded sheet of notebook paper, now three months old. “This is going to be short and sweet,” it said, “School starts soon and I'll be home from camp. Let's start over . . . When I get back and we see each other at school, let's be cool. P.s. No, you don't have an option here. We will be friends again. I leave in a year and I'm saying we are friends.” When he thought of it, he looked down and smiled a quiet, personal smile, remembering her. The letter captured her. Her commanding attitude only slightly annoyed him. After all, there was forgiveness to be given on his side of the dispute as well. But he knew better than that, it was all he could do to forgive her. He wondered if, when he saw her, he could be cool. And when he looked up, he did. She was at the end of the hall, walking alone and looking casually about herself. She didn't notice him at first, and he didn't say anything. As he got closer, she recognized him and a smile lit up her face, but she didn't say anything. He stopped, and they were quiet for a moment. "Hey," he said. "So, what's up?" she replied. "Nothing much." "Ooh, I have so much shit to do for school." She was, jokingly, complaining as usual. "I'm sorry," he returned in mock sympathy. He wondered what "cool" was. "Walk with me," she demanded more than asked. And so he turned, returning the way he had come, now with her, hands in pockets, looking straight ahead and not saying anything. As they walked, they talked about meaningless things, summer activities and plans for the year. And the other students in the school walked all around them in a confused stream of many currents. But they didn't notice the others, they simply went around them, brushing by them and dodging them and continued walking. And once in a while, when they would come to a large clump of students, blocking the hallway, she would walk around them to the left and he would go around to the right and they would be separated for an instant, left alone to think their private thoughts.