Purple Hearts(7)

Well, good for me. That bartender had gotten under my skin. For once it was good, for me and for everyone. Frankie and Davies and Armando and I were out here pushing ourselves to the brink, about to face death, and it meant nothing to her. To people like her.

I realized I was running in the middle of the road. I veered back onto the sidewalk.

Why did I care what one of Frankie’s bleeding-heart friends thought of me anyway? Cassies were everywhere, especially in Austin.

The smooth pavement of Frankie’s wealthy neighborhood soon gave way to the cracked concrete of furniture stores, used-book shops, public schools. Three miles.

In sync with the sound of my feet in this thin space, lacking oxygen, my thoughts shifted. The washed-out yellows and browns of Buda rose up behind my eyes and I started hearing the voices of the people who always seemed to run with me.

Dad’s face pulsing with my breath, over and over, you dumbass, you dumbass, you dumbass. I couldn’t help comparing the Cucciolos’ spicy fresh pasta sauce from last night’s dinner to the little balls of meat he used to slap on a sheet pan. But they were hot, and they came at the same time every night. Mess-hall precision at six p.m., not one minute late. Burgers and A.1. between store-brand white bread, or nothing.

Nothing, I had started to tell Dad when I was fourteen, on my way out the door. I’ll just get something from the gas station.

On mile four, when the sun was fully up, I thought of Jake, sitting at the table alone with Dad after I’d left, night after night. I thought of Mrs. June, the history teacher who’d failed me, Coach Porter, the clerk at Mort’s.

I thought of seeing them now, what they would say. Wow, you’ve changed, Morrow. You’ve got your shit together.

Except for Jake. The door shutting in my face. I could show up in a limo as a fully ordained priest and he wouldn’t believe I’d changed. And until now, he had no reason to.

I looped back toward Frankie’s house, back up the hills, past the sprinklers turning on, past a French bulldog and a retriever and the women in spandex who walked them.

My muscles twinged but they pulled out of the grip of the sticky air. Weeks of carrying fifty extra pounds of gear, hauling my limbs over walls and under spiked wires, pushing off the ground for hours, splitting seconds until I threw up—after that, this was nothing.

Between breaths, I made my case to Jake.

I wasn’t a lazy, doped-up loner who passed out on Johnno’s couch anymore. I knew how to execute. People relied on me. I knew how to take risks and put the good of others above myself. I knew how to push away fear and do whatever it took to get the job done.

Prove it, his voice said back.

Frankie’s Spanish-style house came into view. I tapered my pace and checked my watch, panting. Seven and a half. Cut my fastest time by two seconds. The pleasure was white hot.

I’d go back to Buda as soon as I could.





Cassie


Playing at the Skylark was like playing in the basement of a surreal little house. The whole place was painted dark red. Soft disco lights made patterns on the unfinished floors and pipes snaked across the black ceilings. Nora and I had pooled our tips to get her a used amp that didn’t sound like total shit. We’d played Petey’s, and from Petey’s we got picked up by the manager of Les RAV—one of their openers had dropped out and they needed a last-minute replacement.

We were on our second to last song, our newest song, the first I’d written for the album, and I never wanted it to end. Mom was here. She was sitting in the back, stone-faced, her purse clutched on her lap, but she was here.

My fifth Christmas, Mom bought me a small, plastic Casio keyboard, and I couldn’t stop playing it. After about a year of telling me to shut up, she had a headache, she had converted her sewing room into a music room and left me to it. My big vocal cords must have been from my dad’s side of the family, whatever Euro-clan they came from. All I knew is that he grew up in Iowa, had freckles and brown hair like me, and fell in love with Marisol Salazar in the checkout line at the San Juan Public Library. Beyond that, there’s a wall in Mom that I don’t get to cross. And believe me, I’ve asked, wheedled, interrogated.

Nora plucked, almost inaudibly, and the crowd whooped like it was over, but at the bottom of the quiet we shot again: “Give me too much, give me too much, give me too much.”

I stepped back from the mic and banged out the bridge. The lights felt brighter, splitting my vision. I looked sideways at Nora. Whoa, I mouthed. I was smiling bigger than I had in months.

Then the good got too good. My gut jumped, warning me. I felt my skin crawl with shivers. But if anything, the lights felt too hot. There shouldn’t have been shivers.

“You give me too much,” I sang back for the chorus, “I didn’t ask for it, You’re heavy enough, I didn’t ask for it, I got big bones, I’ll play you for it.”

I hit the D chord, waited for Toby’s triplet. Nora switched keys and I was right there with her on a slight delay, like an echo, with the words I had written on the back of a receipt during a slow night.

While the last notes faded, I drooped with exhaustion. I could barely press the keys.

Shit. I hadn’t had anything but a sandwich since lunch. Maybe that was it. I had meant to get something on the way over, but I’d gotten caught up trying to fit the amp and keys in the backseat of the Subaru.