Page 21 of What You Left Me

It’s not a question, but he means it as one. “Do you want to sleep in your truck?” I ask, not sure if I’ve read him right. It seems so random.

“I don’t think I can drive if I don’t.”

“Oh.” A little smile creeps up on me, happy to know that I read him perfectly. It flattens out when I mull over his words again. “Oh.” What’s one more reluctant yes in the bigger picture? After what happened to Martin, any mention of unsafe driving is a good enough reason to do something, no matter how strange. “That’s fine.”

“Damn food always makes me tired,” Turrey curses as he throws his garbage away.

Maybe I’ll study while he sleeps.

Maybe.

What a word.

8

In the center of a hazy version of Turrey’s bedroom sits a makeshift poker table. The space is all dim corners and lazily maintained pieces of decor. Clouds of smoke fog the room. It smells like stale air conditioning. It feels like the stillness inside an idle car.

Before Mike Turrey takes his seat, he puts on opaque sunglasses to cover the truth his eyes will surely show. One by one, the other players appear. Spencer Kuspits sits on Turrey’s left, smiling because he should. Because he can. Because it’s all he knows how to do. Chris Davis is on his right, typically smug. And Petra McGowan presides over them all, dealing the cards with the precision of a time-tested expert.

The boys are dressed in tuxedos—the same ones they wore to prom, sans top hats and canes. Spencer is in white and pink. Chris is in black and gold. Turrey is the sleekest in a rich dark brown, almost as dark as his skin, accented with a black tie.

Petra wears jean shorts and a heather-gray crewneck tee.That’s not right,Turrey thinks. In a flash, Petra’s dressed in a white button down with a black vest over it, her hair slicked back into a neat low ponytail.

No words are spoken or looks shared. It’s all steely stares and quiet grimaces. The stakes are too high. A life is on the line. The life of Martin McGee.

Martin, a.k.a Fly himself, is off to the side, elevated on a pedestal constructed from old beer cans, wearing the custom Cubs jersey Turrey got him for his sixteenth birthday. The players know of Fly’s presence, but no one reacts when he yells out, “Hello? Hello? Why won’t anyone look at me!” They don’t even glance in his direction. He is nothing more than a physical representation of why they are playing.

Petra silently deals five cards to every player. When Turrey turns his hand over to look, each card is not a number, but a good memory with Fly. He understands the rules of the game: choose which card you think is the best memory and place it down in front of you. Once everyone’s chosen, the group has to vote for which card wins the round. When a winner is decided, all other entries from that round are thrown out, the memories erased from existence. Replace your discard with another card from the deck until the pile runs out. The player with the most winning memories gets the right to be the most upset about what’s happened to Fly.

The first card Turrey looks at is the time in fifth grade when Fly decided he was going to climb the flagpole. For Turrey’s eyes and ears only, the card starts playing out the action of the day like a movie.

A young Martin hypes himself up, clapping his hands together and dropping down to do push-ups, putting on a big show. It’s fall. The bite in the air has painted red splotches onto his cheeks, only further exaggerated by the effort he’s putting into preparing.

A small crowd of fifth graders gathers around him. Young Turrey, Spits, and Chris stand together at the front, never more than a step or two away from one another. Young Spits’s teeth push out over his lower lip as he stands gawking. Young Chris shifts from foot to foot, rubbing his arms furiously to fight the cold. He’s forgotten his jacket once again. Young Turrey is jumping in place, excited for what’s to come. He starts yelling words of encouragement to both Martin and the crowd. “Let’s go!” and “Come on now!” He’s met with small cheers every time.

Martin announces he’s ready. He takes a step back then leaps to the pole, wrapping himself around it like a koala. He starts scooting up, his face tense with concentration. Around the ninth scoot, he loses his energy and slides down so fast the crowd gasps.

“Ow!” he yells out, more theatrical than genuine. He leaps back up. “Let’s try that again.”

Young Turrey turns to the crowd, cupping his hand behind his ear to make the other kids cheer louder. This goes on a few more times, each of Martin’s attempts to climb more pathetic than the last. However, the crowd turns more and more hysterical, growing in size and volume, lathered up into a true frenzy.

“Fly! Fly! Fly!” the fifth graders chant at Turrey’s beckoning. A new nickname is born right on the spot.

Principal Wheeler catches on and runs over to the flagpole. She presses her hand into Martin’s back and directs him toward her office, the entire crowd chanting his new name as they walk away.

Turrey doesn’t even have to examine the other cards in his hand. This card is the moment Martin McGee learned how to entertain a crowd. This card is the moment Martin McGee became Fly.

This card can’t be beat.

Turrey places it on the table, smiling as he does it. So much for poker faces.

Once all the cards have been laid down, one by one the memories are projected onto the blank wall above Turrey’s bed. Spits and Chris laugh hysterically at Spits’s card. It shows the time Fly dressed in a full wet suit to ask Brooke to prom. Fly gathers up all the other dancers on Brooke’s Poms team. They put on shark fins and do a hastily choreographed number to LL Cool J’s song “Deepest Bluest” from the movieDeep Blue Sea. Fly performs the song with modified lyrics, somehow making it about the dance.

It’s funny, but it’s not Fly’s best work.

The memory ends. Without deliberation, the others vote for it. Spits even votes for himself. Turrey forgets to vote, that’s how flustered he is. The boys don’t notice. They see a majority in favor and call it a win. The rejected cards dissolve into the poker table, memories erased.

“Wait! Absolutely not,” Fly calls out from his beer can perch. At this, Turrey can’t help but turn to look at him, surprised at his outburst. “Turrey’s card was obviously the best. That was one of the greatest days of my whole life! It can’t just be gone. I mean, I did crush that lyrical rewrite, but absolutely not. Plus, Turrey was the one who gave me the ice pack from his lunch box because I bruised my tailbone so badly that day at the flagpole. He deserves to win.”