Being Henry David - By Cal Armistead Page 0,6
someplace safe.
“Uh, thanks,” is all I can think of to say. “So are you.”
Brilliant.
Jack comes out carrying two blankets and a pack of cigarettes. He offers me a thin wool blanket. It’s gray, full of holes and smells like mothballs and piss, but the night is chilly, so I take it, hoping it’s not crawling with bugs or something. Wrapped up in the blankets, we lean back against the Dumpster. Nessa nestles between us, and Jack hands her the cheeseburger he saved from our snack at the terminal.
“Aww, thanks, sweetie,” she says. “I’m starving.”
“Hank bought it.”
“Then thank you, sweetie,” she says to me, and I nod as if it were my idea, wishing it was. She chews the first bite with her eyes closed like it’s a gourmet meal instead of a cold, greasy burger.
I take the cigarette Jack offers, poke its tip in the flame of his lighter, and puff. Smoke in my lungs feels familiar. I must be a smoker, then. We sit there for a while just smoking together, and something inside me relaxes for the first time.
“Check out the moon,” Nessa says.
It takes a moment to see it past the glaring lights of the city, but then, there it is, big and full, glowing orange like an omen. Good or bad? I wish I knew.
I look at Nessa’s pretty profile as she tilts her head to look at the sky. “Makes me think of this book I really liked when I was a little kid,” she says, her voice quiet. “I think it was called Goodnight Moon.”
Jack snorts. “Yeah, except out here, it would go something like, ‘goodnight junkies, goodnight rats, goodnight Dumpster, goodnight trash.’”
Nessa smiles at him, but her voice is still dreamy. “Remember that book, Hank?”
“Nope,” I say.
“You’re kidding, right?” Jack says. “Every kid knows that book.”
I shake my head and take another drag of the cigarette. “I don’t remember.”
We smoke in silence for a bit, so quiet I can hear faraway sirens and the crackle of our cigarette paper burning down.
“Mom used to read it out loud,” Jack says, still looking up at the moon. “That was before she died and Dad stopped caring whether I went to school or not or whether I was alive or dead. Until the day he came after me with a shovel. Then I was pretty sure he wanted me dead.” Jack gives me a sidelong look and this weird smirk. “Whatever. Everybody out here has a story.” Jack swipes at his face with the wool blanket. “So what’s yours?”
Nessa stands up and stretches. “Leave him alone. Can’t you see he doesn’t want to talk about it?” She rubs her eyes with fists like a sleepy child, further smearing her makeup. “I gotta sleep. Are you going to stay with us a while, Hank?”
“Maybe a little while,” I say, though I have no idea. A part of me wants to stick around, like I have this crazy idea I can protect her. Nessa says good night and disappears into the shack.
“Everybody has a story,” Jack says, as if there’d been no interruption in our conversation. “No matter how bad it is, I guarantee I’ve heard it before.”
“I doubt it.” I stare up at the moon for a long time. Jack and Nessa have taken me in, the only friends I have on this planet. The night is gentle, holding its breath, and at least for this moment in time I feel safe. So I decide to tell him. “My story is that I can’t remember my story.”
“Say what?”
“I don’t remember anything.” I lower my voice. “Not my name, not where I came from. I woke up at the train station a couple hours ago, just before I met you, and that’s the first thing I can remember.”
“Seriously?” The glow of Jack’s cigarette hovers motionless. “You mean, like you’ve got amnesia?”
“Yeah,” I say. “I guess so.”
“Wow.”
“I mean, I know stuff. Like, before I ate it, I knew cheeseburgers tasted good. I know about money and train stations, that I live in the United States of America and speak English. I know general stuff about the world. But I don’t remember anything, you know, about myself.”
“Hmmm.” Jack purses his lips as he contemplates this news. “That is so messed up, dude.” Then his face twitches into a smile.
“I know.” Recognizing the weirdness of my situation, I smile back. When Jack starts laughing, at first I’m a little pissed, but then his laugh is so damn contagious, I’m laughing too.