Chapter 68
JUNE
I've had to board up most of the windows in the house since flying rocks have been the weapon of vengeance for disappointed Dinahmiters.
At first they came in crowds to get Dinah and Clint.
After a week of this, I finally convinced them that they genuinely did panic and abandon ship after I spilled the beans.
To get them off my case, I told them they forced me to do the scam and I couldn't lie to people anymore, which is technically the truth.
Still, some of them won't stop taking it all out on me.
Walrus Cop follows me when I'm driving to work and pulls me over for some fake infraction or another.
I'm amassing an impressive collection of traffic fines.
Thankfully, Leo Steger is already in an Alzheimer's ward, so he can't come at me with his arsenal of grenades.
I took a double shift at Bueno Bueno Bueno to cover for my coworker with COVID, and of course it's unusually slammed for a Wednesday night. I'm already regretting this. My manager is nowhere to be found because he's on his phone with his divorce lawyer.
I wait on a family with a baby, and to lighten the mood I put their check in front of the baby, who sees my face and starts to cry. “Don't be cute,” the mother says to me.
Lucilla is working the other side of the restaurant, and I can hear one of the customers doing a number on her because he got the wrong order, ate it anyway, and expects his dinner to be comped.
“It's not my fault you're an idiot. That's why you're working in a place like this,” the man yells.
Lucilla rushes past me in tears. I give her a sympathetic glance, then follow her to the back to put in the order.
“What a dickhead,” I say.
“I'm sorry, Wade. I can't do this anymore,” she cries.
“Please don't quit. I've been here six hours, with another six to go,” I say, though it's better not to think about it. Thinking about it makes me even more exhausted. But it's too late—she's thrown her apron on the ground and sprinted outside.
Back at the cash register, a group of old men holding their guns tell me they didn't get the 15 percent discount for bringing their guns and that I have five minutes to fix this—or else.
I search for my other coworker to manage this so I can focus on getting the food out. Of course, the last place I look is the bathroom, where he's on the floor in a stall, lighting something on a scrap of tin foil on the toilet. “Wanna join?” he asks me with glazed, peaceful eyes.
“You're getting high in the bathroom while I'm dying out there? You asshole.” I kick the toilet paper dispenser right next to him and storm back to the floor, where a man yells at me because his idiot son stuck his foot in between the spindles of his chair and can't get out.
I start to follow him, but I see one of my groups quickly rushing out the side exit.
“Hey!” I scream. They run faster.
I chase them out into the parking lot and yell after them. They're too fast. They dive into their car and speed off before I can get the license plate.
I sit on the curb in front of the restaurant with my hands on the top of my head. I can't deal with this. I'm getting paid ten dollars an hour. I'll have to work like this for an eternity to pay off my medical bill.
A car pulls in. Darren gets out, along with Byron.
“Hey, it's Wade,” Byron says to him.
I can't take any more people from my school finding out I work here.
“Hey there,” I say, fighting back tears.
“We were in a Tex-Mex mood tonight,” Darren says.
“It's a mess tonight and I wouldn't go in. My coworkers and manager abandoned their shifts, and I'm working the floor by myself.”
“Okay, Darren,” Byron says. “Wade needs our help, so let's get to work.” He pulls me up and pats me on the shoulder.
They hold my arms as they walk me back into the restaurant, and what happens next is nothing short of a miracle.
They help me carry out every single order and check on all the tables I can't get to.
By the time we're done for the night, they've helped me close every tab at the restaurant without any angry customers and brought every dirty plate to the kitchen.
The cooks are so grateful that they whip up a complimentary plate of enchiladas for both of them. I sit next to them in a booth while they scarf them down.
“I owe you two. Let me know what I can do. You saved my ass,” I tell them.
“It wasn't the first time we cleaned up after you,” Darren says.
Once the restaurant closes up, Darren has to go and Byron stays behind with me. We hang out in my van just to talk.
“I take it you guys made up?” I ask.
“Carsten didn't ever want to kiss Darren again after he saw him fall into your puddle of vomit, so he dumped him.
I guess you could say we're the Carsten's Exes Club,” Byron says.
“When you apologized to me at graduation, I realized how much anger I've been holding in and how much energy it sucks out of me.
I called Darren to tell him I forgive him, and I'd like to see him before we both leave this place forever.”
He thinks for a moment before he talks again.
“My parents' divorce got finalized. I'm moving to New York with my mom. This is the end of my life here. It's surreal.” I guess California was a pipe dream for all of us.
“I learned to accept that a long time ago,” I say. “When my parents died, I learned the hard way that nothing is forever, and there's nothing you can do about it.”
Byron winces. “Wade, I'm so sorry. I love my parents so much. I would fall apart if I lost them.”
“You'd be surprised how capable you are of picking yourself back up and moving on despite the numbness you feel in your soul,” I say. “I think we're programmed to do it.”
Byron and I don't talk about much for the next ten minutes except for random anecdotes we tell each other about high school.
“It's late,” I say. “I should probably take you home.”
“How about we go to your house?”
“You don't want to. Trust me.”
“I'm not tired. And my dad's got his new girlfriend over, so he told me in the nicest way possible to stay out as long as I want tonight.”
“Byron, it's in really bad shape. You wouldn't be caught dead there. The garage burned down. All the windows are smashed.”
He grabs my hand. “I realize I've been—I am—a snob.
And I'm sorry. When you threw up all over me in front of everybody, I changed.
I hated you even more than I hated Darren.
All this time I had been trying to control my image and what people thought of me, but all this time that was controlling me.
It was so tiring. After a while, letting the anger go felt liberating.
Accept the chaos. Don't let it control us.”
“Baptism by puke,” I say. He laughs.
“So, Wade, please invite me to your house. I would love to hang with you there and watch a movie.”
What the hell. My aunt disappeared to god knows where, and I'm all alone and I hate it.
___________
In the living room, we park on the couch and examine our options on whatever streaming services haven't been disconnected yet since Dinah left.
The Seventh Seal. It's an old black-and-white Swedish movie. There's a scary-looking guy in all black. It looks spooky enough for me, and artsy enough for Byron. Compromise!
Except I spend most of the movie confused.
“Is the guy in black supposed to be the Grim Reaper or something?” I ask.
“Perhaps,” Byron says with uncertainty.
“Why is the knight playing chess with him?”
“I dunno. Not a lot of things to do six hundred years ago.”
“I don't understand.”
“You know, this is the second artsy movie we've watched together,” Byron says, smiling.
I pause. “Is this a date?”
“I don't know.” His face is frozen toward mine. “Is it?”
He slowly moves his hand over mine and squeezes it softly. We look each other in the eyes, and our faces draw closer like magnets. We kiss. We're both too dumb to understand this movie, so we might as well make out, and we do.
Most of the movie flies by, and I laugh at the thought of Dinah knowing what we've done on her couch. Byron says he's thirsty, so I go grab water. By the time I'm back, he's fallen asleep, so I watch the remainder of the movie.
The silhouettes of a group of people holding hands run up a hill, while the Grim Reaper leads them.
So, Death is chasing all these people the whole movie, but in the end they're not running from him anymore. They're dancing with him. As a partner. I think I get it.
What if that's what we all need to do? Dance with death. Accept the chaos. Don't let it control us.
I grab a blanket from the chair and drag it over us.
I wrap my arms around him and think about how we've arrived at this moment.
On the first day of school, Byron, who I hated, walked into the gymnasium dressed as Death.
Now he's here, in my arms, and we're watching a movie about the Grim Reaper.
Sometimes I wonder if I'm inhabiting a strange dream and nothing more, I think as I drift into sleep.