Moments - Part I - Chapter 6: Worry

That night was one of the longest nights a night has ever lasted. Those nine hours seemed to never end. Eventually, around five or six in the morning, I finally fell into a coma and my mom started shaking me awake at eight in the morning for breakfast. 

“Al, I’ve been calling you for half an hour. It’s time for breakfast,” my mom told me, sitting in Will’s desk chair. 

“Sszackere?” I asked sleepily, my face against my pillow. 

“What, honey?” my mom asked.

I sat up, still half asleep, and asked more clearly, “Is Jack here?”

“No,” she answered, “but after you eat breakfast, you can call him and invite him over. I was gonna take you kids to the water park later and you can ask him if he wants to come.” 

I perked right up after she said that. I hopped out of bed and ran downstairs, still in my Bulls pajamas, to the kitchen. I started cramming eggs and bacon into my mouth eagerly. I could feel Will staring at me like I was an alien and hear Bo start copying my eating style, but I kept going until my mom walked in and told me and Bo to slow down before we made ourselves choke.

“Cah ah caw Ack ow?” I asked through a mouthful of food.

“Alex, swallow your food before you talk,” my mom reprimanded me.

So, I did. Then, I repeated, “Can I call Jack now?”

She shook her head, looking down, smiling in amusement, and told me, “Go ahead, babe.”

So, I jumped out of my chair and ran to the wall phone (which used to be a thing) and dialed Jack’s number. While I waited for him to pick up, I asked my mom, “Is Daddy coming to the park with us?”

“Yeah. Uncle A.J.’s in town and your dad’s been visiting with him. They’re gonna meet us at the park,” she told me.

Uncle A.J. is my dad’s little brother by six years. He’d moved to California seven years ago when I was two (and he was twenty-four) with his band, None of the Above, and has lived there ever since. But usually, at least once or twice a year, he comes to visit. His real name is Alexander Joseph Grayson, and my namesake. He and my dad have always been really close their whole lives, even though they’re complete opposites and despite the age difference. My dad, you know, is a very responsible and hard-working family man. A.J. is irresponsible and immature and, let’s be honest, incredibly fun and, at least at that point in his life, had never been in a relationship that lasted longer than two months. But my dad always had his back and protected and defended him whenever he was in trouble. My grandma says that’s why A.J. never grew up—because Peter (my dad) would always be there to clean up the mess. But everyone who ever met him, including me, loved the guy. I can’t really explain it, but he has a certain childlike charm that people more often than not find endearing.

“Uncle A.J.’s here?!” Will, Bo, and I asked simultaneously.

“Yep, and Daddy said he’s gonna bring him to the park,” she told us.

My excitement caused me to almost forget I was on the phone until I heard a sleepy voice on the other end say, “Hello? Alex?”

“Jack? Is that you?” I asked excitedly. “I feel like I haven’t talked to you in forever!”

Jack laughed. “We talked a few weeks ago, but it feels like years.”

I laughed too. We knew we were being dramatic, but we were just so happy, we didn’t care. “Hey, J, we’re going to the water park today and I really want you to come. We haven’t hung out in a really long time. And you’re a lot more fun to play with than Will.”

“I’m sitting right here,” Will said.

I waved my hand, telling him to shut up, as I said, “Shh! I’m on the phone!” 

Then, to Jack, “So, can you come?”

“Um…” he seemed to be thinking about something. Then, finally, he said, “...yeah, sure. I’ll be right over.”

I said to my mom, “He said he can come!”

“Ask him if he has a swimsuit,” she told me.

“Hey, Jack, my mom wants to know if you have a swimsuit?” I asked.

“Uh, not really, no,” he said, sounding a bit embarrassed. 

I, not caring that this embarrassed him, called out to my mom, who had walked into the kitchen to wash our breakfast dishes, “He said no!”

“Tell him we’ll go get him a suit at the store on the way to the park!” she called back.

“Okay!” I said into the phone, “Mom says she’ll get you a suit at the store.”

 “Oh. Tell her thanks,” he said. “I’m gonna head over now.”

“Okay,” I said, “talk to you soon.”

“You too,” he said and hung up.

“He said thank you!” I yelled at my mom one more time.

My mom wanted us to be able to leave by the time Jack got there now that we had to stop at the store first, so she told us to run upstairs and change. I ran into Will’s and my bathroom and changed into my board shorts and swim shirt, while he changed into his trunks in our bedroom, and down the hall, Bo changed into her two piece swimsuit in her room. By the time, we’d all changed and ran back downstairs, Jack had arrived. I ran over and hugged him. Then, stepped back awkwardly as we didn’t really do things like that. He rolled his eyes at my embarrassed reaction to my in the moment hug, and then stepped forward and hugged me back. “I missed you, Gray,” he told me honestly, which took me by surprise because we didn’t usually talk like that either. You know, deep conversation. We usually just pretended we were normal kids and that we weren’t constantly dreading the minute he had to return home to his father.

“You too,” was all I said. 

Then, my mom started telling us to move to the minivan and so we did. Will sat in the passenger seat, I sat directly behind him and Jack sat next to me, behind the driver’s seat, in the middle row of seats, and Bo sat in the middle seat behind us in the back row of seats. And my mom drove us to the water park, but not before buying Jack a pair swimming trunks and a swim shirt that he asked my mom if he could have. She didn’t hesitate before saying, “Of course! You and Alex will look like twins,” she chuckled, despite the fact that me and Jack look completely opposite—he has olive skin and dark brown hair with matching colored eyes while I’m fair skinned with blond hair and light blue eyes, not to mention the fact that he was about four inches taller than me. But we liked that idea anyway, the idea of the two of us being twins and growing up with my parents and my siblings, instead of me being there and him with his dad who didn’t even seem to like him. We could pretend though, even if it was just for that day, we could pretend that we were twins, that we were blood, that my parents could take care of him in a way that his parents never had, that they didn’t have to disregard their instincts and instead follow the wishes of someone who didn’t care about this child, who just wanted power and control, and would use it against the nine-year old the law said was his. But we had today.

When we got to the water park, my dad and Uncle A.J. were already there. “Hey, guys,” Uncle A.J. said to us kids, then to my mom, “Hi, Kim.”

Before my mom could say anything back, I ran to him as I yelled, “UNCLE A.J.!” and he scooped me up and spun me around.

“HEY, ALEX!” he said, mimicking my level of enthusiasm. 

“I didn’t know you were coming!” I said as he placed me back on the ground.

“Yeah, it was kind of spur of the moment. We were touring around Rockford and it was only a two hour drive to see my five favorite people. Or six?” he added upon noticing Jack. He turned and asked my dad, “Did ya have another kid without telling me, Pete?”

My dad smiled and told him, “For the last time, bud, I told you about Isabella as soon as we knew Kim was pregnant, which was way before she was born. You just have a terrible memory.” Uncle A.J. smiled back at him. “And he’s not ours. That’s Jack, Al’s best friend.”

“Ah,” Uncle A.J. said, smiling big and extending his hand to Jack. “Well, it’s nice to meet you, Jack. I’ve literally heard nothing about you.”

Jack took his hand and shook it as he said, kind of quietly, “It’s nice to meet you too. I haven’t heard anything about you either.”

“Well, I’m A.J., Peter’s little brother. The screw up,” he said, laughing slightly.

“Hey,” my dad said seriously, in the voice he used when I was on my last warning before getting grounded, “Nobody thinks that, man.”

“Sure. Except for, you know, Mom, Dad, Aunt Carol, Aunt Lilly, Uncle Rob, Gra—”

“A.J.,” my dad warned, “stop talking about my brother like that. He’s my best friend and one of the best human beings I’ve ever known.”

 “Yeah, okay. If you say so,” Uncle A.J. said, now embarrassed if his cheeks were any indication. 

“Now, let’s go in,” my dad said, not noticing his brother’s embarrassment at being complimented. “Boa, come here.” Bo ran to my dad and he picked her up and kissed her forehead which made her giggle. “I can’t risk losing my firefly in the park. She’s too valuable.” I looked over and saw Jack staring at the pair with a smile on his face. 

When he saw me staring at him, he said, “What?”

To which, I cleverly replied, “Oh nothing. Nothing at all.” And I started smiling myself.

A few hours later saw me and Bo playing on one of the slides with my dad and uncle. It was Bo’s turn to slide with my dad, so I glanced over to my left and saw Jack standing at the center of the kiddy pool, as he stared, as if hypnotized, at the water dump bucket about ten feet away from where he stood as it poured a bucket of water over some kids standing underneath and they squealed and ran to the other end of the pool. I told A.J. that I was going to go hang out with Jack for a bit, and he told me it was fine, just to stay close.

I jumped into the kiddy pool and waded over to him slowly—well, as fast as I could in water up to my knees. He didn’t notice me even though I was not being very graceful. So, I tapped him on his shoulder as I asked, “Whatcha lookin’ at?”

He didn’t seem startled as he said, “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”

“The dump bucket?” I asked, a little confused as to the beauty of this device. 

“Yeah. I mean, on a hot day, such as today, it’s sharing the cool water with everyone around, even though it could just keep it for itself. Like the slides do. They make you come and get it if you need it and, even then, they keep most of the water for themselves. That’s how it usually goes, I guess,” he said, while continuing to stare at the bucket, hypnotised. “But the buckets? They share with everyone. It doesn’t matter who it is. If you’re hot, you can always come here to get cool, even if you have nothing to give back to it for its troubles, even if you make it harder for it to get some water for itself. It just gives and expects nothing in return. It’s beautiful.”

“You get that it’s a dump bucket, right?” I asked. “It’s not alive. It’s only purpose is to pour water on little kids. That’s it.”

He looked at me for the first time and smiled, “Maybe. But why should that mean it isn’t beautiful?”

“Whatever you say, weirdo. Do you wanna go on the diving boards?”

Later that evening, my family was lounging around the main pool, relaxing before it was time to go home. Jack and I were sharing an inflatable ring, with our head through the middle as we held on to the side and our feet dangled in the water below. 

When I felt something brush against my foot, I jumped, backing into Jack, which made him whimper slightly. I turned my head slightly to look at him as I saw that Will pretending to be a shark was what had bumped me. “Are you okay?” I asked Jack.

“Yeah, definitely,” he said, but I could tell he was lying. He knew I’d heard him cry out when I bumped into him and he knew I wasn’t going to let him run away from the issue this time. 

“I fell,” he told me. “That’s it.”

“You fell,” I repeated, not really believing it, but not knowing what else I could do.

“Yes,” he told me. “I think your mom is waving to us.”

The whole drive home, I asked Jack questions about his supposed fall, which, I believe, annoyed him greatly. But it was either make up answers to my questions or have me call him a liar in the center of a packed car, so he put up with me.

When my mom pulled up in front of Jack’s trailer, she offered to walk him in, to which he replied with a little too much gusto, “No! No!” he took a breath before saying, “It’s okay. Don’t worry about it. You can—You don’t have to come in with me. I’ll be fine.”

My mom just shook her shoulders and told him goodbye. He held his fist out for a fist bump, to which I obliged, but a bit dazed from my curiosity coupled with my inherent urge to worry about those I care about. “I’ll—I’ll see you tomorrow.”

But I didn’t see him tomorrow. In fact, I didn’t see him for the rest of the summer. The next time I saw him, it was our first day of fourth grade.

 

Tags: Sad, Humor, Depressing, Hope, Dark,