Chapter 22
The radio was typically on in the kitchen when I went downstairs for breakfast. So, when I ventured downstairs for breakfast on the first of July, and I was met with silence, I was confused.
Had Jack slept in, or had he simply turned the radio off when he went outside to begin his work in the backyard?
Since he wasn’t in the kitchen finishing breakfast, those were the only other options.
I ran a hand through my mussed hair, scratching at my scalp as I yawned and tiptoed across the kitchen tile to the back of the house.
The sounds of Jack reached my ears before I actually laid eyes on him.
Once I’d pushed open the backdoor, I found Jack in the yard, as was usual on bright, sunny mornings, working on another project.
I padded down the backsteps in my bare feet, letting the door shut behind me.
Dewy grass slithered between my toes, tickling me as I strolled across the back lawn sleepily.
When I approached the table Jack was working on, he looked up, and gave me a small smile.
Since I had his attention, I touched the tips of the fingers of my right hand to my chin, lowered it to my other waiting hand, moved my right hand to the crook of my left elbow, and raised my left open hand. Just a simple sign.
Good morning.
Jack stared at me.
So…I repeated the sign.
Good morning.
Time ticked by as Jack stared at me across the length of the table, his expression betraying nothing of his thoughts. I was about to repeat the sign when Jack gave me a curt nod, then lowered his head and went back to work.
“Good morning,” I said.
Jack looked up just long enough to repeat the sharp nod, then he was looking back at his project once again.
I wanted to try again with the ASL, but Jack’s snippy response to my first attempt led me to believe that I’d signed wrong.
Obviously, I hadn’t signed “good morning” so poorly that he hadn’t understood it, but it had upset him enough.
So, instead of asking him how the table was going with ASL—which I might have butchered even worse, considering how nervous his response to my first attempt had made me—I just asked him out loud.
“How’s the table coming?”
Jack looked up briefly, nodded his head side-to-side as to indicate his thoughts on the project, then went right back to looking at the table. He hadn’t even stopped working to respond.
“Do you need any help?”
Jack shook his head curtly, but didn’t bother raising his head again.
I didn’t want his obvious rebuff of my attempt to communicate with ASL hurt my feelings, but it did.
Auggie and I had spent a few weeks working together—not enough to be fluent or all that impressive—but I had tried.
Auggie had given up time to teach me, I’d given up free time to learn, and Jack didn’t seem to care.
In fact, he almost seemed bothered by my attempt to say “good morning.”
A parade wasn’t what I’d been searching for when I signed “good morning” to my stepfather, nor did I want a trophy.
Something like a smile wouldn’t have been bad, though.
Jack smiling and signing back would have been amazing.
I was just trying to connect with the guy since I hadn’t seen him in…
I couldn’t remember how long, honestly. Jack was a nice guy—nice enough to let me stay with him without so much as a heads up from Mom—so I wanted to be friendly, if nothing else, with him.
I kind of wanted him to act like a stepfather.
As I stood there, watching him from the other end of the table, I realized what I desperately wanted that from Jack.
A father figure.
Maybe that made my attempts at ASL less altruistic, but it was what it was. I wanted to be able to communicate with Jack in a way that was easiest for him, and for him to treat me like his stepson.
I felt equally disgusted with my desperation and Jack’s dismissal of my attempt. It was Auggie all over again. Kind of. I desperately wanted to be accepted while putting my foot in my mouth in my attempts to become friendly. Well, in Jack’s case, it was my hands, not my foot.
“So,” I said finally, “you seem like you’re going to busy with this for a while.”
Jack nodded without looking up.
“I’m going to go have breakfast, I guess,” I said. “Um, then maybe I’ll shower and, I don’t know, find something to do?”
Jack didn’t even nod, let alone look up.
“All right,” I said.
Without another word—and especially without another attempt at signing—I slogged back through the dewy grass and up the back steps into the house.
Since I had nothing else to do, I found a box of cereal—Lucky Charms, my favorite—in the pantry, and made a bowl of cereal.
I contemplated turning AMOR on while I ate at the kitchen table, but I found that I couldn’t stand listening to the same song on repeat, even if it only took a few minutes to eat a bowl of cereal.
So, I ate in silence and washed my bowl up and put it in the draining rack when I was done.
After my pitiful, yet delicious, breakfast, I trudged back upstairs.
Once in my room again it occurred to me that, while lonely, though not as lonely as living in motels, Jack’s house afforded me a luxury I had never experienced.
I had privacy. I’d always shared motel rooms with Mom.
Most of them were only one room—unless the bathroom counted.
Before my shower, I climbed back under the covers on my bed—just in case Jack got a hair up his ass and came to check on me—and did what teenage boys do best. And as often as possible.
On the road with Mom, once I realized jerking off was a thing, shower time was the only sure opportunity I had to explore my body as a teenager.
There, in my own room, on the third floor of Jack’s house, as dust motes hung in the sunlight that streamed through the window over the bed into my darkened room, I felt explosions I’d never felt before.
Sure, I had to cover myself, just as an extra precaution, but I had privacy.
And time. I could do something that is so natural for…
almost everyone. Not having to hurry or stress during the experience was glorious.
So great in fact, that I contemplated taking a nap right after the stars and motes stopped dancing in my eyes.
I forced myself back out of bed and into the shower instead. Once out of the hot shower, I was even sleepier than I’d been after my fun under the covers.
After putting on some fresh boxers and a t-shirt, I crawled back up on my bed, my room still unlit, though the sunbeam from the window provided enough light. I folded my legs under me and sat next to the window and stared out at Possibly.
Did Auggie masturbate?
What about those guys I’d seen on the street who gave him high-fives and fist bumps?
Was it weird to be curious about that?
Did…Jack masturbate?
Looking out over Possibly proper from my window, I found that I had been calling everyone in town weird since my arrival. Now I was wondering if I was weird just for being curious if I was normal.
I’d never had another guy—neither a father figure nor a guy my age—to talk about those things with when I thought of them.
I didn’t even know if that’s something guys talked about with each other.
My only experience was TV shows I’d watched in motel rooms, and if there was one thing I’d learned on the road—show business was one big lie.
Was I weird for wanting some other guy I could ask about those things?
Did I desire answers, or was I…curious?
Shaking my head clear of thoughts, mostly so I wouldn’t think of masturbation and get myself excited again, I pulled my knees up to my chin and rested it upon them.
Days drifted by slowly in Possibly, it seemed.
Time seemed to mean nothing. The sun didn’t rise and set.
It strolled. Leisurely cutting a path across the sky, it tiptoed east to west, lending its warmth and illumination to the town unobtrusively.
Through my window, I could see AMOR and Liberty Lane.
Bend of the Road Graveyard, the top of The Pueblo and Starbuck’s.
I could catch glimpses of the teal siding of the post office.
If I squinted hard enough, I could see the orange fabric of Mystic Molly’s tent.
Of course, Auggie’s barn was down by the creek, a fiery beacon in the hot summer sun.
I almost grabbed a book to read in the sun by the window, but found I preferred watching life—what little I could see from my window—go by in Possibly.
It was peaceful. Possibly, that is. I could see people come and go here and there on the streets, though they were often blotted out by trees and the shops at times.
Even getting into July, the grass was lush like shag carpet and the trees’ emerald gems tinkled in the soft breeze that seemed omnipresent.
People came and went, did their jobs, performed their art, and acted as weirdly as they wished without judgment.
It was the strangest town I’d ever found.
And I found that I was becoming enamored with it.
I couldn’t imagine being anywhere else. I couldn’t even imagine my life on the road with Mom before she left me in Possibly.
Jack’s curt nods and silence aside, Possibly was easy. Weird, certainly, but it seemed that as long as you didn’t bother others, freedom, choice, and acceptance were the mottos around Possibly. It made me think of Auggie’s comments about art.
Did my thoughts prove I was an artist since I could see the beauty in the tiny town tucked away at the end of a trail that was becoming slowly overgrown?
If I was an artist, what was my art? I’d never drawn anything in my life that didn’t look like a blob.
I found myself sitting there, wondering how I would capture the scene from my window artistically if I were to make an attempt. Everyone in town—aside from Levi Lee—seemed to understand the artistic part of their soul.
Did Levi Lee masturbate?
I shook my head again as my cheeks grew hot.
As things were, my only choice, that I could see, was to visit The Pueblo. It was one of the few places in Possibly proper I hadn’t let Auggie drag me to visit. Maybe Lilly—or one of the other artists there—would inspire me. Give me some insight into my thoughts and abilities.
I wasn’t sure how the day passed and I never left the window, but the sun finally put itself to rest hours later. I’d had no contact with anyone except Jack all day. I’d only eaten cereal at breakfast. And I found that I was okay with all of it.
When I stripped my shirt off and tossed it to the floor, I checked my phone for old time’s sake.
I miss you, Jordy. One day, we’ll be back together. Promise.
Mom finally remembered me. I didn’t know whether to smile or tap out a response about how angry I was with her.
Without strong feelings pushing me either way, I simply locked my phone and slid it back onto my bedside table.
Maybe I’d feel like responding the next day.
Or the day after that. She had taken her time in texting me; she could wait for my response.
Before climbing into bed, I sat up on my knees in front of the window as the moon cast the town in blues and blacks.
My eyes automatically went to the Auggie’s barn.
Without a second thought, I pushed my dormer window open and leaned forward, listening carefully as I stared at the dark roof down by the creek.
Seconds later, the Possibilian breeze—it was a citizen, too—carried an indiscernible song to my ears.
When the lights appeared through the skylight in the roof, I smiled.
A vision of Auggie zipped through my brain. A flash of a white diamond.
I left the window open when I slid under the covers so that the breeze could carry Auggie’s berceuse to me. However, if I was honest, it sounded like a dirge. Though I couldn’t make out the tune or lyrics, it made me think of the windchimes in the clearing in the woods.
Hopefully, Auggie would be at The Pueblo the next day.
As I drifted off to sleep, I could have sworn I heard a door open and close.
That night, I dreamt of a car crash. My mom screaming at me. But it didn’t disturb my sleep.