The Heart Does Not Grow Back Read online

“Pop tenderized me over the title game,” he said. He pulled up a chair next to the bed. “You should see that old fucker though. I got him back this time. Got him good.”

  “Damn, man, I’m sorry.”

  “I got him good,” he said again, then picked up the phone and started dialing. I heard the tones rattle as he pushed the buttons, and then he got a freaked-out look and hung up the phone, his eyes fixated on the doorway.

  “What?” I asked.

  He just pointed, and there was Regina with a balloon that said GET WELL SOON.

  “I can come back if you have a visitor,” she said.

  “I was just going on a hospital Jell-O run,” Mack said, hobbling away. “You want anything?”

  “No, thanks,” she said.

  “I wasn’t talking to you,” he said, giving her a cold look. She returned it, and won the staring contest when he finally left the room.

  “Hey,” I said.

  She tied the balloon to the rail of my bed.

  “How you doing?”

  “Better now,” I said. She pulled up a chair and sat next to me.

  “I’m that much of a morale boost, huh?” she said. “Well, I can’t stay long.”

  “Just showing up means a lot,” I said.

  She looked sad, started to say something, then stopped.

  “What?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Clint’s a fucking nut job,” I said, a thought I wouldn’t have parted with if the painkillers hadn’t tamped down my nerves.

  “I know,” she said.

  “Why are you with him? Why stay?”

  She took a long time to answer, clearly indecisive. I took that as a small win, but looking back, there was so much more to see. I was still blindfolded, letting pretty girls bounce me off of playground equipment. “At least we have that much in common,” she said finally.

  “I’m not sure what you mean.”

  “Asking that question. All the time. Trying to make sense of it.”

  “He’s not holding you hostage,” I said, knowing immediately I might have overstepped a boundary. Stupid drugs.

  She shook her head, leaned in, and kissed me on the cheek. “Now, don’t you go and suck the helium out of that balloon.”

  She left, and Mack actually came back with Jell-O. My mother arrived after her shift was over. She slept in a chair next to my bed, both of us hoping a night of sleep would bring about a much-needed slice of healing. I slipped in and out of sleep every couple of hours, and in those black hours that are neither night nor morning, I felt my mother holding my hand, her palm clammy. She was smoothing my hair with her other hand, just being next to me. I could feel the edges of her knuckles, the thin glide of her fingers, and I heard the unsteady breath of her crying. I kept my eyes shut and tried not to cry because I knew her sorrow was not for me alone. I should have known then it was cancer. I’d never observed cancer personally, but it claimed so many fictional characters in TV shows and movies, the symptoms should have been evident. Her hand was skeletal, the flesh and tissue fed to the furnace of malignant cells torching her entire body.

  * * *

  The initial prognosis of a broken nose seemed like a reach to me. I never had a problem breathing after the injury. The scrape on my head was gone almost overnight. My ribs had no lingering soreness and my neck felt fantastic, as if Clint kicked something back into place instead of out of whack. I felt prime and complete, all cylinders firing. I had no choice but to call it more luck, maybe good genes. What else could I have done? Was I supposed to rebreak my bones to test the process? Some people were fast healers. I didn’t think anything of it, I was just thankful to be ahead of the healing curve. The heat-death of spring held the promise of summer, when I wouldn’t be forced into the clumsy glove of hallways and classrooms. And because Clint’s latest assault had resulted in expulsion, the rest of the school year flew by, smooth and conflict-free.

  On the last day of school, rumor spread of a party at Ted Painter’s house. I hadn’t officially been invited, but Mack insisted that I go. I refused, the thought of awkward mingling outweighing Mack’s obvious disappointment. This wasn’t my first party refusal, but this one pissed him off something terrible.

  “Sometimes I’m afraid you’re going to be you forever,” Mack said, and didn’t talk to me the rest of the day.

  A piece of loose-leaf paper was in my locker. Someone had folded it up and stuffed it through the vent. The note was on its side, halfway open, with ruffled bits frilling the edge like lace.

  I’ve been thinking about things. I hope you will be at the party. We should talk. I need to tell you something. Signed with a single letter: R.

  Thanks to the loose curriculum of the final day of class, Mack was in the weight room instead of biology when I got the note. I trotted down to see him and he greeted me with a grunt, grinding out a few bench-press reps.

  “What now?” he said. “You decide to quit school or something? Become a nun?”

  “I’m going tonight,” I said. “I need a ride.” I tossed him the note. He unfolded it, read it, then flicked it away.

  “I’ll give you a ride, but don’t be all focused on one chick. She’s bad karma, man, don’t you get it?”

  “It’s getting me into the scene,” I said, picking the note up from the concrete floor. “I figured you’d be happy.”

  “I’ll be straight-up God-damned happy when you can go out for the baseball team or go to a party because you want to, not because you’re trying to impress some moody whore whose boyfriend stomped your ass twice.”

  “She can’t stay with him. She just can’t.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” he said. “She’s a fucking ho.”

  “Don’t say that,” I said.

  “She is, man. She cheated on him.”

  “You didn’t tell me you heard that.”

  “That’s because it was with me.”

  He dropped back onto the bench and started repping out his next set. I could only wait for him to finish before speaking again.

  “Did you have sex with her?”

  He slapped at his own back, hugging himself with ballistic stretches. I wanted to kill him, but knew any move down here, alone, would end up with me getting another no-expenses paid trip to the hospital.

  “No. She sucked my dick.”

  “What?”

  “You don’t want to know, dude, seriously. She’s bad news, that’s all you need to know.”

  “Why did you do it?”

  “It was like”—he snapped his fingers—“and she was blowing me in Justin Wilson’s bedroom. And in case you’re wondering, she was sober as a priest. Clint was drunk off Natty Light, hugging the cat’s litter box in the laundry room.”

  “But you knew how much I liked her.”

  “Shit, it could have been you, if you ever went to parties. Yet another Dale no-show, so I figured it would prove she’s a fucking slut so you could get on with things. The next thing you know I’m done and I felt bad about it, so I figured I’d just not tell you and let you grow out of it, you know, out of respect for your feelings. But that ain’t happenin’, so I’m telling you here and now, she’s a whore. And dude, even if you could get past it, she’s not even a good whore. She used too much tooth and spit my load into a pair of penny loafers.”

  He dropped into another set and started pumping away. By the time he was done, I was gone, intent on getting to the party myself, hoping that the delicate, handwritten loops on my note could trump the harshness of Mack’s revelation.

  SIX

  The party was at a farmhouse flanked by a silo and barn with a lengthy vein of gravel for a driveway. The attendance looked to be epic, with dozens of cars lined up along the blacktop country road, half hanging in ditches overgrown with wild grass.

  The porch light was on, and some students I recognized sat on the rails with red plastic cups in their hands. All eyes were on me as I shuffled up the steps.

  “Good old Silent Sampson,” Billy Stann
ely said, a thick and zitty kid, a year younger than me. He leaned by the door, his glassy, drunk eyes glimmering in the ugly light. “Can’t believe you’re here. Cups are five bucks, or did you bring chocolate milk?”

  I ignored him and went inside.

  The house was lit with dusty bulbs stuffed in chandeliers. The place was old, with high ceilings and hardwood floors already splattered with beer, tacky against my shoes. Plastic cups were in most hands, people broken off into splinter groups, talking and drinking.

  In the kitchen, Dirk Gaston, a senior and the basketball team’s star point guard, was pumping the keg, flirting with the girls in line. Mack once told me pumping the keg was “the first step to pumping a chick’s ass,” so it didn’t surprise me to see Dirk, another high school lady killer, manning the post. Ted sat on his kitchen counter with a big sleeve of cups stacked next to him.

  I took a deep breath and wandered into the spotlight of the kitchen, a five-dollar bill, my only money, folded in my hand.

  “Hey, Ted, can I get a cup?” It was early, but he already looked half-drunk.

  “Fuckin’ Dale Sampson? Now it’s a party,” he said, popping a cup off the stack. “They’re usually five bucks, but for this special appearance, it’ll be … five bucks.”

  I handed over the bill and took the cup. Dirk stood at the keg, staring at me. I was two inches taller than him, yet he was looking down at me, one hand on the black knob of the pump, the other holding a frothy brew that he sipped from.

  “Is beer extra?” I joked.

  He busted into a smile. “I thought for sure you’d just wander around with an empty cup.” He pumped the keg. I grabbed the nozzle and performed a terrible, novice pour—mostly foam.

  “Jesus, Sampson, you pour beer like a bitch. First failing grade ever.”

  I scurried into the social areas of the house, trying to lose myself in the noise of the growing crowd. Blending wasn’t working. Anywhere I went to stand, I was alone. I felt like I wasn’t standing right, or didn’t look casual enough, or wasn’t drinking my beer the right way. Sweat built up on my chest and in my armpits as if the white heat of a spotlight was following me. Without Mack around, I couldn’t get over the dark tingle of exposure.

  I didn’t know if Mack was there yet, and didn’t know what it would feel like when I saw him again. Maybe relief? Was I waiting for him, hoping for him to show up, or dreading it? I didn’t know. I guzzled the beer, bitter as all hell, but it was the effect that appealed, not the taste, that rebellious feeling of knowing it was an adult, forbidden thing to do.

  Some basketball players were dealing cards at the kitchen table, playing a drinking game. The bump of the stereo’s bass shook the bones of the old house. The treble was drowned out by the chatter of increasingly drunk teenagers. People were filing in from the porch. New guests bought cups and filled them up at the keg. I was left wandering around in silence, wondering just what the fuck I intended on doing. Regina was nowhere to be found, and was I really going to open a conversation with her by asking if she sucked off my best friend? I couldn’t tell if she liked him or hated him. I couldn’t tell if she liked me and had no idea what the note might mean. Mack always said it’s all the same, that the girls who have hated him the most ended up falling the hardest when he turned on the jets, but hate was an emotion, a reaction, something I truly hadn’t elicited from Regina. At least, not yet. I had hope. I had the note. Tonight I would know for sure. I was standing in the archway between the kitchen and dining room, feeling the eyes of a corner group tilting my way, perhaps wondering among themselves what I was doing at the party. I figured it was a good time to take an oh-so-cool swig of brew. I drank deeply, moving my throat on purpose, like in a beer commercial, to let anyone watching know that yeah, Dale Sampson was gulping down some major beer. Check it out folks, I’m no pussy drinker, I’m not nursing, I’m not drinking for appearances. I’m here for the beer. That’s how I roll.

  Someone slapped the bottom of my cup, driving it upward, sending a tidal wave of beer into my face, the burn of carbonation stinging my nostrils. The empty cup fell to the hardwood. Beer was everywhere, mostly on me, a bib of wetness spreading on my chest, and now more people were looking.

  Clint Phillips was laughing his ass off.

  “Hey, asshole, who’s gonna clean that shit up?” Ted said. He jumped down from his post on the counter, leaving the keg unattended. Thank God. If he and Clint got into it, I could just slip out.

  “Yeah, who’s gonna clean that shit up, you clumsy fuck?” Clint said to me.

  Ted regarded the two of us and sighed. “Sampson, clean that mess up then get out.” I could tell he didn’t want to say it, but had to due to some sort of social code that dictated that he side with the disgraced senior instead of the dorky junior. I wished Mack were there. He never would have stood for this, blowjob betrayal or not.

  “Where’s your lover, Dale?” Clint said. “We’re going to have us a little talk. I never see you without Tucker around, and that’s who I mean to have words with.”

  “Like on the baseball diamond? Those words looked to hurt.”

  He pushed me, but I stood my ground.

  “He didn’t do anything,” a girl said in protest—Joanie Herrel, a classmate I recognized but didn’t truly know. A few other people who never talked to me muttered in approval, sort of taking my side, but not taking a stand.

  “I’ll let you off the hook,” Clint said. “Just tell me where Mack is. He coming to the party?”

  “Does a bear shit in the woods?”

  He pushed me again. “Fuckin’ smartass. You look like you need another footprint on your face.”

  The haze of anger built inside of me, muddling words and images except for Clint’s jaw—that naked, exposed, punchable jaw. Clint was telling everyone how gay I was, how I was quiet because the only thing I liked to talk about was Mack’s dick. He spoke through a smile, the parted lips that had kissed Regina, perhaps in more places than just her lips.

  “I know why you’re looking for Mack,” I said.

  Clint stopped talking. He didn’t know that I knew, and he didn’t want the entire party knowing that Regina was cheating on him. I thought I had him, but guys like Clint don’t get had—they’ll fall on the sword before someone can stick them with it.

  “Because Regina’s been blowing him? That’s exactly right. I should have known he’d tell his little lover. I just want to talk to him about it. Man to man. So far the only thing I found out was from Regina. She told me his dick tasted a lot like your asshole.”

  I cracked him with a right hook and felt his jaw shift under the force of the blow, giving me the satisfying feel of flesh and bone moving with my fist, the bundle of nerves in his chin twisting with the impact. A moan of air burst from his lungs as he fell, unconscious before he hit the ground. He was out cold, his feet twitching as he sprawled on the floor.

  “Give me a roll of paper towels and I’ll clean this up,” I said. Ted was stunned, but he turned around and walked into the kitchen. Everyone else just kind of stared, wondering what would happen when Clint stirred.

  He was only out a few seconds when he planted his hands and tried to push himself up, so I snapped another punch into the side of his face, this time catching the hollow of his orbital bone, dropping him again. He made a wheezing sound like a leaking accordion.

  I backed off, hands up, signaling I was finished, fearing I went one punch too far. I created space as he tried to get up again.

  “It’s all cool if he doesn’t come at me again.”

  I heard someone say, “He had that shit coming.”

  Clint stumbled to his feet, looking unsteady, his pupils fat, broken blood vessels inflating the flesh of his right eye. A rosy patch was on his cheek—it would undoubtedly turn into the darkness of a full bruise by morning.

  He looked around. Everyone had sucked in closer to the walls and one another, as if he were giving off an invisible force that created space around him.

&
nbsp; “Enough of this shit,” Ted said, glaring at me. Clint grabbed him, trying to steady himself, intent on staying upright.

  “That was a mistake,” Clint said. He shuffled to the door, smiling at me. Blood was thick in the channels of his teeth. He shambled out, his footsteps loud on the hardwood, echoing in the now-silent party. I believed him. I’d met that man before, the one fascinated by playing chicken with a shotgun. That was almost two years ago. Who was he now? How close did the danger have to be before the high was gone, before he had to see and feel something far more terrible to get his high? The moment wasn’t any triumph for me. Festivities resumed. Partiers still talked to one another about the incident, rather than to me. I sat at the bottom of the living-room stairs and put my head in my hands, the thrum of adrenaline hot in my fingertips. The shakes came over me as I came down from the confrontation, an urge to cry catching fire in my bones. I bit the inside of my cheek to keep myself in check. Still no sign of Regina. Once I collected myself, I planned on leaving, slipping out through the dark, making my way home without looking back.

  The party continued to regulate itself back to normal. The music got louder, as if to urge everyone to move along. With the cover of the crowd, I got to the front door and went out.

  Mack was in the driveway, at the bottom of the porch steps, holding on to the neck of a whiskey bottle. Two guys were talking to him. They all looked up at me.

  “You cool?” Mack asked. I wanted to sob, to let the tension pour out of me in tears and heaves, but I kept it choked down, nodding instead of talking. The dam would break if I opened my mouth.

  He handed the whiskey bottle to one of the guys, then waved me over.

  “How’d you get here?”

  “I walked,” I said.

  “Jesus,” Mack said. “I’ll give you a ride home if you want, man.”

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  “So you handed him his ass,” he said. We left the light of the porch. Nothing but the crunch of the gravel, the darkness, and voices heavy with an urge to mend.

  “Mack Tucker–style,” I said, wiping at my eyes.

  “That’s what I hear. Must have fucked him up good. He backed into Ted’s mailbox on the way out with his truck.”