When he was a little boy, his family called him Curty, a nickname he suddenly hated one morning when his mother called out the front door after him, “Curty, don’t forgot to give Mrs. Bailey your field trip permission slip.” Why would he forget? What fourth grader didn’t want to turn in a permission slip? Why did his mother have to scream out the door after him at all? He didn’t respond, just shifted his backpack and from that point on insisted on being called Curt.
Years before this pivotal moment in his tedious growth to manhood, though, he unknowingly learned everything there was to know about life when he asked his older brother Ryan about death. Ryan was a sullen fifteen-year-old, slouched in a Lazy Boy, clearly unhappy to be stuck baby-sitting his five-year-old brother on a Saturday afternoon. Curty was wide-eyed and talkative and intensely interested in everything. During the week, the boy shuffled from morning kindergarten to an all-afternoon daycare run by his mother’s sister Alice, and one of the other children, a little boy named Kevin Wilkie, who suddenly moved away when they were all in the third grade, announced to the group that he had gone to a funeral.
“What’s that?” asked a little girl named Anna Matthews.
“It’s for when old people go to heaven,” Kevin said, cheeks puffed with an air of authority.
“You mean when they die?” Anna asked.
Kevin nodded. “Yes, but the people still here want to say goodbye before the old person goes to heaven, so they have a funeral.”
“What if the old person doesn’t have any friends?” piped in a tiny slip of a boy named Otto Smart.
“All old people have friends,” Kevin said, but he seemed unsure.
“Does an old person have to wait to die until after the funeral?” Curty asked.
Kevin seemed annoyed. “No, stupid. They’re already dead.”
“So when do they get to say goodbye?” Curty pressed.
Kevin shrugged. “Beats me.”
Aunt Alice called them into the kitchen for a snack then, and the subject was dropped, but Curty still had a lot of questions. So on that Saturday afternoon, he asked Ryan what it meant to be dead.
At first, Ryan’s eyes lit up with a hint of wickedness Curty had only ever seen directed at their mother. But the look faded and he beckoned his little brother over closer to him.
“Dead means dead, retard,” Ryan whispered. “Dead means gone.”
Curty rubbed at the spot near his ear where his brother’s hot breath still lingered. “Mommy’s gone,” he said meekly. “Daddy’s gone. But they’re not dead.” He was only partially sure he was right.
Ryan leaned back and laughed. “Curty, you’re one dumbfuck kid, you know that?” He sighed and stood up. “You wanna know about dead? Follow me.”
Curty watched his older brother bang out the back door, unsure if he should venture out after him or not. Ryan could be playing another trick on him. He was always playing tricks. But Curty really wanted to know about death, and Ryan said he would tell him. So Curty followed his brother out to the backyard.
Ryan was at the edge of their property, near the wide-slatted fence that butted against a thicket of trees, largely known in Ridgewood as The Stryker Woods. Curty knew there was a nest of baby bunnies there. Their father had discovered it the previous weekend while he was mowing the lawn and he had forbidden both sons from going near it. “They have it hard enough with the raccoons and neighborhood cats,” their father said. But there was Ryan now, a thick pair of their father’s work gloves on his hands. He was crouched over the divot in the earth protecting the babies.
Curty had permission from his dad to lay in the grass a little ways away and watch the mother rabbit, an unimpressively bland specimen, hop in and out of the special spot. His dad let him borrow his heavy binoculars and Curty had enjoyed watching the mother bunny’s nose twitch, like his friend Dave Lowell’ sister’s pet bunny. Her bunny was speckled black and white and named Hamlet. “Because he looks like a Great Dane,” Mrs. Lowell would chuckle. Curty didn’t know why it was funny, but he liked Hamlet. He liked bunnies.
Now, in his backyard, he stood perfectly still with his hands at his sides and watched his brother. Curty felt afraid, though he wasn’t sure why, and he was sure Ryan was doing something he shouldn’t be doing.
“But Ryan, Dad said...” Curty began.
“Shut up. Dad’s not here. And you said you wanted to know about being dead,” Ryan said. Suddenly, he jerked around and faced his brother, a delighted grin on his usually dark face.
Curty felt sick. Dangling between Ryan’s gloved fingers was one of the bunnies, a dusty brown colored four-inch miniature rabbit. “Ryan, Dad said...”
“Quit being such a baby and come here.” Ryan shifted the bunny into the palm of his hand.
Curty didn’t know why, but he obeyed. When he was two feet away from his brother, Ryan said, “This is dead.” In one forceful thrust, he slammed the baby bunny against the ground in front of him and without hesitation, he stomped his left Timberland boot on the stunned creature. When he lifted the boot, Curty stared at the broken body of the bunny and felt tears fill up in his eyes.
“Why did you do that?” He rocked back and forth on the balls of his feet.
Ryan scraped the bottom of his boot off in the grass. “I was just trying to teach you a lesson...”
“Dad said you shouldn’t go near the bunnies,” Curty said, his lips trembling.
Ryan’s eyes narrowed. “I was just trying to teach you a lesson, Curty,” he repeated. “You wanted to know about death. There. Death. Right before your retarded eyes.”
Curty never could quite remember what happened at that moment, but he knows his brother left him in the backyard and he knows he wanted to throw up but he didn’t. And even though Ryan grew up to be a middle school algebra teacher and marry a pretty girl named Amanda Parker and have a little boy named Jonathan and never become a serial killer or anything that fucked up teenagers like him normally become, Curty never forgave him for killing the bunny, not ever.
Even so, he couldn’t help staring at death. He still didn’t know how it worked. The only thing he knew was being an old person in need of a good funeral wasn’t the reason anything died.
***
Dave Lowell and Curtis Stryker walked south on Aberleen Avenue to the old highway overpass. The fall sky was overcast and dreary, but neither man minded. They were back in their old stomping ground, their old territory, and there was comfort in the day’s familiar grayness. Dave was glad that Curt agreed to come back to Ridgewood for the occasion, but he was even more glad that his best friend wasn’t insisting they talk about it. Curt had been away for a long time, though, and Dave didn’t want to waste these moments, so he shoved his hands deep in his pockets and asked, “How’s Molly?”
Curt’s nostrils twitched at the sound of his ex-girlfriend’s name. “She’s OK.”
“And Jenny?” Dave asked.
At this, Curt smiled. “There’s nothing like having your own little girl, man,” he said. “She’s my world.” He paused for a moment and spit sharply to his left. “Too bad her mother’s an aggravating bitch.”
Dave chuckled, used to this sort of Molly-reference. “I remember when you first hooked up with that aggravating bitch. She used to be your world -- rocking it, shifting it, lifting it, twirling it...”
Curt shot his friend an annoyed look, but he was still smiling. “Women,” was all he said.
The two men crossed the overpass and followed the sidewalk past Marshall Johnson Field and then two blocks up Mayfield Road to the old Cooley residence. A seventeen-foot U-Haul was parked in the street and they could see a fuzzily-familiar man with remarkably tame red hair waving at them from the guts of the truck. Dave and Curt walked up to the bumper and Sam Cooley stuck his hand out to greet them, saying, “Thanks for coming.” No one said anything for Ben’s family, but Dave knew he wasn’t the only one thinking it.
“Where can we start?” Dave asked.
Sam hopped out of the truck and beckoned them to follow him into his mother’s house. “Everything’s packed. We just have to do the loading.”
Dave and Curt stared for a long moment at Ben’s old house before following Sam inside.
***
Curt never understood how the kid got away with it. Here they were, in Tom Baxter’s basement, having a typical baseball team bonding session, and the only one to pass the blunt without taking a turn was Sam Cooley. Even Otto Smart, the class valedictorian, took his like a man, turning slightly pink with every embarrassing inhalation. But Sam simply passed it to the next guy without a second thought. Even though Sam was only a freshman at Ridgewood High, he was the best player on the team, so no one gave him a hard time about his choice to settle for a contact high. It didn’t hurt any that he was Ben Cooley’s little brother and he was rumored to be dating Anna Matthews, the hottest piece of Ridgewood property on the market. The rest of the guys on the team seemed content to let him slide by, but Curt didn’t think the kid should get off so easily.
“Sammy, what’s Anna up to tonight?” he asked, interrupting Frankie King’s stream-of-consciousness babbling about uses for Cheez Whiz.
The guys turned their attention to the rookie with a sudden alertness. Curt knew Anna was an effective stimulant for this crowd.
Sam reached casually into a bowl of Nacho Cheese Doritos. “Dunno, probably studying for a chem test or something.”
“Huh, I’m surprised you don’t know exactly what she’s doing.”
Sam crunched slowly as a blush rose on his cheeks. “Why would I?”
Curt shrugged nonchalantly, but his eyes remained slit and cruel. “Well, since you reside right up her ass, I just find it surprising that you don’t know what she’s doing.”
The guys laughed and the ones closest to Sam slapped congratulatory hands on his back. “Lucky bastard,” Aaron Brody said.
“Well, what difference does it make to you what she’s doing?” Sam asked.
Curt took a hit and paused a moment to enjoy the burn. “Thought we could all gang bang her or something if she was free.”
The room fell silent as the guys looked back and forth between their two teammates with a mixture of curiosity and fear. Curt knew Sam should defend Anna, should defend her reputation and thus defend his own, but Sam was frozen, complete deer-in-the-headlights. So Curt laughed, an unintentionally stoned giggle, that proved to be infectious and soon the entire basement was full of baked laughter. It roared from their spiced lungs until Sam stood up.
“Sure, Curt. I’ll give her a call and see if she wants to come over,” Sam said, his face blank as reached for the phone over the Baxter’s washing machine.
***
Dave had seen Elizabeth Cooley at her husband Peter’s funeral a few days before and that’s when Sam had asked if he would mind helping him move his mother’s stuff out of the house. They were standing near Ben’s grave, next to where they buried his father, and Dave’s eyes wandered away from the younger Cooley brother to the stone: BENJAMIN COOLEY 1980-1998. Was it really that long ago? Glancing back at Sam, Dave knew it was that long ago. The kid was all grown up. He hadn’t seen Sam for ten years, not since he’d left for school on the East Coast, never to return to Ridgewood, but it didn’t occur to Dave to find any request from his buddy’s brother odd or to turn him down.
“Sure will be strange to see someone else move into your house, Sammy,” Dave had said after agreeing to help.
Sam had nodded and looked away. “After my dad’s heart attack, Mom said she didn’t want to stay in Ridgewood by herself, but I know this is hard for her. This was my great uncle’s house, you know.”
“Sure, kid. Ben told me once, or your dad did.” Dave had paused and stared somewhere above Sam’s head. “Ha, yeah, your dad used to welcome us to Neverland every time we came through the door. He’d say, ‘Grow up since you have to, but not too fast. And stay out of trouble, if you can. But if you can’t, Peter Pan can be your lawyer.’” Dave had shook his head. “Your dad was a funny one.”
Sam had swallowed hard and said, “Yeah, Dave, he sure was.”
But now, standing in the Cooley’s living room, staring at boxes and furniture, Dave just felt lost. He had spent a good chunk of his childhood in this living room, in this house, he had personally banged up a few walls, broken a few door hinges, built a bird house for Mrs. Cooley. So had Curt, standing ruefully beside him. So had all of their friends growing up. Dave looked around the room and felt the frightening joy of youth rising in his stomach. He wanted to be careless and reckless again. He wanted to play touch football in the kitchen and have ultimate frisbee tournaments in the back yard. But he didn’t say any of that out loud. Instead, he clamped his hand on Sam’s shoulder and said, “Where to begin, little man?”
Sam pointed to a stack of boxes in the corner. “Those first. Then we’ll take out some furniture. My mom’s getting rid of a lot of stuff, but she’s keeping a few of her favorite things.”
Dave’s eyes lingered on the leather couch he’d only ever seen a few times before. “What about this thing? It’s not all bubble wrapped.”
Sam shook his head once. “Want it? I could ask my mom if she’d give it to you.”
Dave shifted uncomfortably. “Sure.”
“C’mon, Dave, what do you want that thing for?” Curt said.
Dave suddenly felt embarrassed, but he didn’t know why. “Why not? It’s a nice couch.”
Curt laughed, almost meanly. “It’s the couch Sammy here lost his virginity on.”
Dave’s mouth opened in astonishment. “Dude, what the... How do you...”
But Sam was rolling his eyes. “Don’t listen to that asshole, Dave,” he said. “I’m sure you could take the couch. Let me go ask my mom.”
The minute Sam walked out of the room, Dave slugged Curt in the arm. “What the fuck?”
Curt shrugged, his eyes narrowing in the way Dave forgot they could. “It’s the Ben-replacement. This couch. Remember? Old Pete Cooley always wanted this damn leather couch but no one else wanted it, not Pretty Lizzie Cooley, not Sammy, and especially not Ben. You know, Ben always thought leather furniture was tacky, crazy kid. But after Ben died, Peter Pan went bonkers and bought the couch. Pissed Sam off like nobody’s business.”
Dave remained skeptical. “What’s your source, Magnum P.I.?”
Curt hefted one of the larger boxes up. “Anna Matthews.”
***
Curt never had an answer when people asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up. He knew what he didn’t want to be -- a policeman like his dad or a baker like his mom or a teacher like his brother. And he knew what he’d like to be but would never be -- a major league second basemen, a mad scientist, an ice cream tester. It always bothered him that he had to lie, say something ridiculous like a fisherman or a marine or a stock broker, something that he picked randomly from the air, like a slow-moving fly.
Mr. Cooley, though, had invited Curt, as well as Dave and their friend Andy, along with Ben on a career day visit that had taken the boys into the Ridgewood Court House where Mr. Cooley argued a case. A real judge and jury deal. Curt was fourteen years old and fascinated by this aspect of the law. His father had actually arrested Mr. Cooley’s client, an older man known by most of the people in Ridgewood as George Guff, even though his name was George Guthers, for public drunkenness. The charges were fairly minor and the tone in the courtroom was barely even one decibel above hum drum, but Curt had gripped the edge of his seat, literally, as the DA and Mr. Cooley bantered back and forth about the case. And when the arguments were done for the day and Mr. Cooley piled the boys into his Saab, Andy was the only one talking, and a mile a minute at that, about the bailiff and how cool his job must be and could Mr. Cooley get him in to shadow that guy for a day? Dave seemed bored by the entire thing but was laughing at Andy now; Ben, though, turned around from his front seat position and grinned at Curt.
“Cooley-cool,” Ben said.
“Cooley-cool,” Curt agreed.
When they’d pulled up to Ben’s house, Mr. Cooley dropped the boys off and returned to his office. Inside, the boys crashed onto the couches and the floor in the living room and turned on the TV. Mrs. Cooley wasn’t home; she worked part-time at a flower shop.
“Where’s Sammy?” Dave asked as they queued up Legend of Zelda on the Nintendo.
Ben grabbed the second controller. “Why, you wanna kick his ass in Zelda?”
Dave shrugged. “Maybe. Where is he?”
“Sammy!” Ben yelled. “Sammy, come here, we wanna kick your video game playing lame ass self!”
They heard Sam’s feet pounding across the upstairs hallway and down the stairs. “In your dreams,” he said, reaching for the controller in his brother’s hand.
“Forget it. Next game, kid,” Ben said.
Sam rolled his eyes. “So what’d you call me down here for?”
Andy lay sprawled on the floor beside Ben with a bag of chips propped up on his stomach. “We’re gonna have a tournament,” he said. “We just needed someone else to even it out.”
Ben grinned. “We already had an even number, Andy -- me, you, Curt, Dave.”
Andy appeared confused. “Oh. Well, I don’t know why we called you down here, Sammy.”
“Ah, Sammy, the proverbial odd man out,” Curt said, stretching out on the long, tan couch.
Sam frowned and sat down on his father’s recliner. “Gee, thanks, Curt.”
“Sure thing, little man,” he said.
The boys played the game for awhile without any further discussion unrelated to Zelda until Andy got bored and started talking about the bailiff again.
“Seriously, that’s the coolest job,” he was saying for the ninth or tenth time.
Finally, Curt interrupted Andy’s rambling to say he thought Mr. Cooley’s job was much cooler than the bailiff’s. “What he says isn’t in a script, you know? He’s arguing merits,” he said, proud of his blatant use of lawyer terminology.
“My dad definitely has a kickass job. He lets me come to his trials all the time,” Ben said, his eyes glued to the screen.
“You too, Sammy?” Dave asked.
Sam blushed. “Not really. I mean, he’s invited me, but I always have baseball practice or something.”
Curt noticed an edge in his voice that indicated there was more to it than that. “Well, you should make it a point to see your old man in action, kid,” he said loudly. “Don’t let Benny-boy be the favorite.”
Ben jerked around suddenly and shot Curt a warning look. “I’m not my dad’s favorite,” he said.
“Dude, you just got killed off. Let Sammy play,” Dave said.
Ben threw the controller on the ground and stalked out of the room. “Sure,” he said.
But he was only gone for a few minutes, and when he returned, everything was fine. They were back to juggling apple cores and chugging cans of Coke in no time flat. Curt knew he’d done the wrong thing, though, pointing out Mr. Cooley’s favoritism. But he wasn’t sorry that he’d done it. He was, however, sorry that Anna didn’t stop by the Cooley’s that day, like she normally did.
“Dentist,” Sam explained as he advanced to the next level.
***
The three men had moved half of the boxes out of the house, but Dave still couldn’t stop thinking about Anna. Curt hadn’t said another word about the matter since his hypothesizing about the couch concluded. Dave hadn’t thought about her for years, not since they were all in high school together and all the guys in their class had a hard time getting her out of their collective perverted minds. If the guys in their class were the Lost Boys, then Anna was their Wendy, their mother, their provider, their woman.
In all truth, Dave didn’t know her very well, none of them really did. She was a serial dater, bulldozing her way through the halls of Ridgewood High, always rumored to be hooking up with this jock or that nerd, no man was safe, or for that matter unsafe, when it came to Anna Matthews. But the most rampant rumors always linked her with Sam, especially when they were seniors and Sam was a freshman. Sam always swore up and down they were just friends, but could any of the Lost Boys just pal around with Wendy? Didn’t everything having to do with her go way beyond a crush for them all?
Sure, Dave had his Anna-crush. So did Curt. So did Andy. But if Ben ever had a crush on his neighbor-girl, he never said so, and this was always all the proof Dave needed to know that there was something going on with Sam and Anna. Otherwise, Ben would have wanted to suck the poisoned apple with the rest of them.
So it had surprised them all when Ben asked Anna to the prom and they showed up together, arm in arm, even though Ben spent the entire night with his eye on Marianne Cameron, the girl everyone thought he’d ask to the big dance. Dave had been just as shocked as the rest of the school, but, like other males in their class, he was secretly jealous that Ben had scored such a hot date.
It wasn’t until a few days before the accident, though, that Ben had confessed to Dave that he hadn’t wanted to go with Anna at all.
“But I had to,” he said.
Dave didn’t understand what he meant then and he didn’t understand it now. All he knew was he’d never seen Anna Matthews look so happy and pure as she did at their senior prom. He couldn’t help wondering what had happened to her, a strong student, third in their class, something most people conveniently forgot.
“She’s living in San Diego working in a clinic,” Curt muttered behind him.
Dave hadn’t realized he’d been thinking out loud. “Oh?” he said.
Curt brushed past him, up the stairs. “She’s divorced. But she’s successful.”
Dave watched his friend make the sharp turn into Ben’s old room and wondered if maybe he shouldn’t keep better track of what’s up with Curt.
***
Once, Curt asked Anna if she remembered Kevin Wilkie’s tutorial on funerals. It was while he was lying on top of her in the back of his father’s Honda Passport. They were sophomores and still virgins.
“Kevin Wilkie,” Anna murmured.
“Yeah, remember how he said that funerals were so old people’s friends could say goodbye to them after they died?” Curt asked, face flushed.
Anna wriggled out from underneath him and half sat up. “Sure, that day at Aunt Alice’s. Jesus, Curt, that was, like, a million years ago.”
Curt sat up next to her and pulled her close to him. “Yeah, I know.”
With her head on his shoulder, Anna sighed. “So, what about it?”
Curt shrugged. “I just wondered if you remembered it, that’s all.”
Anna pulled away from him and looked him square in the eye. “You were thinking about funerals while we fooled around?”
Curt wanted to say that he was thinking about how much he thought he loved her and how much he wanted to say that none of the rumors about her mattered to him at all and that he didn’t care that she got better grades in geometry than he did and that he wanted her to be with him all the time and that he wanted to tell her everything, everything about his entire life strictly so she would, then, be a part of all that he is through the re-telling. He wanted to tell her about what a sadistic prick his brother was and how that afternoon so long ago, so million years ago, had made him fundamentally mean and cruel, he wanted to tell her the story.
And then he wanted to fuck her brains out.
Except he would say it in such a way that she might go along with it, like I want to make love to you or I want you to be the first, though he wasn’t sure he would be her first. Rumors, rumors.
He wanted to say he wasn’t thinking about funerals while he leaned over to kiss her in the front seat of his dad’s Passport and he’d been pleasantly surprised by the taste of her strawberry lip gloss and that death hadn’t occurred to him as they’d heated things up enough in the front seat to warrant climbing into the back. He wanted to say that his brother’s boot smashing a baby bunny to death hadn’t been on his mind while he slid his hand up her shirt and he certainly wanted to say that his hard on didn’t make him want to cry.
But he was thinking about funerals and death and childhood trauma. And he could feel the tears held at bay.
“Curt, we were just fooling around, you know,” Anna said and Curt realized he must have been silent a long time.
“Sure, Anna, I know. I guess I was thinking about how long we’ve known each other, that’s all,” Curt said.
Anna bit her lip and straightened her shirt. “Maybe you should take me home,” she said.
Eventually, Anna would lose her virginity to a boy named Ronnie McNulty and Curt would lose his to a girl named Sandra Leonard, but Curt always thought of that night, the only night he ever spent with Anna Matthews, as the night of his love-ruin. And when they saw each other in school the next Monday, Anna treated him the same as she always had -- with indifference.
***
Dave didn’t know about Curt’s night was Anna. No one did. But if Dave had known about it, he might have understood his best friend better. As it was, he didn’t understand Curt at all. Standing on the Cooley’s front porch, cold beer in hand, he watched Curt and Sam struggle to lift the final piece of furniture into the U-Haul. Soon they’d pull down the hatch on the back with an accomplished swish-click and they’d be done.
They’d all be done. Finally.
There were still a lot of boxes in the house, boxes that were to be loaded into Dave’s truck later in the week and hauled off to Goodwill. “Take whatever you want,” Mrs. Cooley had said, patting him absently on the arm. Dave had offered her a weak smile and felt oddly afraid of her.
When they were kids, Elizabeth Cooley had been the Mom of Moms. She wasn’t the best baker or the most lenient on rules, but she was always the most dependable, the one that every one of Ben’s friends had genuinely enjoyed talking to. Even after Ben died, Dave used to wander over to the Cooley’s and sit on the front stoop until Mrs. Cooley would come outside, Coke in hand, and they’d chit chat about how Dave liked Ohio State or how the Reds were doing or what was a better movie -- Godfather Part 1 or Part 2. As time went on, Dave made this less and less of a habit, especially after Sam left for school in Boston and especially after Peter Cooley had his first in what proved to be a series of heart attacks. Ridgewood was a small town, but Dave learned he could still hide out there, live in his small house with his three labradors, Vinny, Steel, and Hilary, show up at his contractor job, inherited from his now-retired father, and think about asking his girlfriend of three years to marry him without running into ghosts.
The Cooley family was nothing but a ghost.
“Did you enjoy the show?” Curt asked, joining Dave on the porch. “Glad you had some refreshments.”
Dave shook his head. “Fuck you, I did my share.”
Curt’s grimace relaxed. “Sure, kid.”
Dave eyed Sam, leaning up against the truck bumper. “What’s up over there?”
Curt shrugged. “Sam hates it here, but he doesn’t want to leave.”
Dave knew Curt was right, but he still had to ask why. “Ridgewood’s home,” he said.
“No. Ridgewood’s dead,” Curt said. “I’m getting a beer.”
***
He and Dave were getting stoned when they found out Ben was dead. The friends had been sitting on lawn chairs in the Stryker Woods rolling joints for almost forty-five minutes when Marianne Cameron finally found them. She’d stumbled into their hiding spot, her long brown hair back lit by tree-filtered sun light, Curt thought she was an angel, an angel who knew their names.
“Dave, Curt,” she said, her voice strained. “Dave, Curt.”
Curt stared at her with his mouth slightly open while Dave took a hit.
“Want some, Marianne?” he’d asked and then Curt realized who she was.
Marianne closed her eyes. “You guys, listen. I have some really bad news.”
“Bad news?” Dave repeated, squinting his eyes.
“Oh god, I wish you assholes we’re smoking right now...”
“Don’t get all high and mighty on us, lady,” Curt said and Dave giggled.
Marianne stepped closer to them and folded her arms solemnly across her chest, not angry, really, but defeated. “Ben’s dead,” she said.
Dave and Curt stared at her without saying anything. So she repeated it, “Ben’s dead.”
Curt’s head dropped into his lap, but Dave continued to stare at Marianne. “What do you mean?” he asked.
Marianne crouched between them and placed a hand on each of their knees. “I mean Ben Cooley died this morning. He died in a hit and run accident. Someone hit him with their car and left him bleeding in the street. He’s gone,” she said, her voice calm and even.
Curt lifted his head and saw Marianne nodding, she wasn’t lying. “Who told you that? Who told you Ben died?”
“Anna Matthews called me. Sammy called her right after the accident.”
“Oh, shit,” Dave said.
Curt leaned over and threw up.
***
Dave didn’t want to leave. The three men sat on the front stoop drinking beer for almost two hours without saying much of anything. Mrs. Cooley had been picked up by Sam’s pretty wife and driven to the old Marble Lane Inn -- commonly referred to as the Ridgewood Radisson -- where the Cooleys were spending their last night in town. Before she’d left, she’d thanked the men for their help, though she called them boys, and handed the house keys over to her son.
Dave had enjoyed this day with Ben’s baby brother, his tagalong, his shadow self. Of course, he’d always liked Sam as a kid, too. They all had. But it was strange to think of Sam as married with children. It was strange to think of this mess of a boy as having his life together.
“You know something, kid?” Dave began, clamping his hand down on Sam’s shoulder. “Ben’s probably really proud of you.”
Sam smiled weakly, but Curt all of the sudden jumped to his feet. “What a stupid thing to say,” he spat.
Dave blinked back his surprise. “Is it?”
Curt headed off the porch, half-finished beer in hand. “We almost got through the whole day without bringing that asshole up,” he said as he walked away. “Almost got through the whole day. Goddamn.”
Dave and Sam watched Curt walk away without saying a word. Only after Curt rounded the corner to head back across the highway overpass did Dave bother to apologize for his friend’s attitude.
“It’s OK,” Sam said. “I know he misses Ben. We all do.”
“I guess we all miss a lot of things, kid,” Dave said. “Maybe we had it too good growing up. Maybe we had it too normal.”
Sam flashed one of his all-too-famous grins. “Poor us.”
The two men sat on the stoop until long after it was dark and even then they barely considered saying goodbye. There didn’t seem to be a reason, not yet.
“Maybe I won’t sell the house,” Sam said finally.
Dave grunted. “That’d be stupid.”
Sam nodded. “Yup.”
Eventually, Sam handed a set of the house keys over to Dave and thanked him again for coming to clear out the rest of the boxes. No problem, Dave assured him. Anything he could do. Anything for Ben’s kid brother.
“Neverland’s for sale,” Sam said, staring at the U-Haul. “Already for sale and my dad’s barely even dead.”
***
It rained during Ben’s funeral. The whole group, all of his friends, stood in a stunned mass by his grave in the cemetery. But while everyone stared down at the pit where Ben was lowered, Curt stared straight ahead -- at Peter Cooley, stone-faced and steady. He didn’t speak to Ben’s father that day, none of them did. None of them even spoke to Sam. None of them needed to. Peter Cooley shed no tear and ushered his family to the car as soon as the casket was out of sight; Sam Cooley lingered behind, lingered with Anna Matthews at his side.
They all grew up at that moment, even though none of them really knew it. All of them, that is, except for Curt who had grown up long ago, never under the Neverland spell they’d all played with for so long. Standing in the rain at the edge of Ben’s grave in early August, Curt watched everyone around him change into people he didn’t know and didn’t want to know.
“So this is death,” he whispered. “So this is.”
From the novel-in-stories Neverland, Ohio by Sarah Wolf
Published by Wolfstar Press (2011)
Buy the collection in paperback or Kindle.
