August and then some

Dani had been on the swim team since she was small. It was weird looking at her surrounded by all that unswimmable water—like an actor in an empty theater—you’d think she’d have wanted to go in, but she was a quiet kid, you know? And quiet people, it’s hard to know what’s in their head.

We were hanging out on the bridge over the falls—the whole crew of us—we tied our six-packs to the bridge on a rope long enough to reach the river, to keep them cold and out of view. That day on the footbridge, Nokey was scoping Dani’s just-turned-thirteen-year-old chest and body that really did look like a woman’s. Being my younger sister or being someone Nokey’s known since before birth didn’t mean she was out of the game.

(Nokey’s not his real name, by the way. It’s short for Gnocchi, which still isn’t his real name. It’s Eugene Cervella. But since the third grade, people have been calling him Gnocchi Cervella—in English it roughly translates to Potato Head. He hates the name, but he always acts like he’s got something else in his head besides brains, so he can’t shake it.)

He went up to my sister and started with: “Listen, Danielle. I don’t want to be a rock in your shoe …” and followed with a hand on her shoulder.

Whether he’s hitting on girls or not, he’s always working his hands. They’re big and heavy enough to separate at the wrists. His pinky is the only finger thin enough to fit in the neck of a beer bottle, and his nails are too thick to bite through—he has to use a scissor. His hands are smart, and make him a good mechanic. His father only had to show him how a torque wrench worked once like three years ago and it stuck—he never stripped a thread. It’s like his fingers memorize things on contact. When we worked at his father’s garage together, he’d handle customers and in the prints of his fingers record where and how they could be touched. This practice made repeats out of first-time customers and kept the regulars revolving. Some guys he’d give the one-hand shake with a matching slap on the shoulder. Or the classic two-hand shake, grabbing their entire hand—or just tapping the tips of his fingers on the back of theirs. For the ladies it’s a hand on the back when he’d lead her to the office to pay her bill. With the older ladies, he would link his right arm with their left and lay his free hand on their wrist.

He wore his mechanic’s coveralls cut off at the shoulders and below the knees, so all the married rich chicks could get a good look at his arms and cobra-tattooed-calf busting through the ragged edges. He was good for his dad’s garage business and swears that’s why his dad bought him the weight set. And this kid is a great wide receiver; he catches long passes like his palms are made of flypaper. He might even be scholarship worthy if he’d join the friggin football team already, but he has no time for organized anything; he’d rather set records hardly anyone will ever hear about.

Two summers ago he decided to jump in the river from the footbridge, which nobody ever did before because at about fifteen feet high and with no running start it looks like you could never clear the rocks to the water—which is maybe five feet deep on rainy days. Well, he almost cleared the rocks. He fucked up his ankle pretty good, bruised his back and got seven stitches on his ass. You would think that might have been a sign, but he didn’t see it that way. When the cast came off his ankle and the stitches out his ass, he tried again. This time he didn’t do it on a whim. He told people he was gonna do it on a particular day so we could all see him jump off the bridge again and possibly bust his head or slice his butt open. Thankfully, that time, he cleared the rocks. He came out of the river wet wearing only a pair of cut-off denim shorts with not so much as a scratch or a hair out of place. Everyone applauded. See, that’s the tricky thing about Nokey—just when you’re convinced all he’s got in his head are potatoes, he makes you believe he can do anything.

Me, because I’ve known him so long, I look at him do his thing and it’s like watching a third-grader in a teenager’s body. I half expect him to call me from the back seat of his GTI after he’s just finished with a girl and ask me if I want to go put quarters on the railroad tracks like when we were eight.

For as long I’ve hung around the cheeky fuck, it’s been easy for me to love him. Except that day on the bridge when he said, “Listen, Danielle, I don’t want to be a rock in your shoe, but I must say you’re looking very cute these days.” If he had stopped there, with the lame fuckin line, I might have been cool with it. But the goddamn hand on the shoulder bit. Maybe that’s the curse of knowing what someone’s capable of. Knowing how skillfully they can disguise their agenda in charm.

Danielle didn’t look as bent as I was. She deadpanned him right in his face and said, “I’m not wearing shoes.”

Now, from where I was standing, Noke should have backed up—made light out of the rejection. But the fucking guy kept coming.

“Yeah, I can see you’re barefoot. Rock in the shoe is just an expression. It means a pain in the ass. Like I don’t want to be bothering you. Be annoying like, you know, like how having a rock in your shoe would be annoying.”

Dani stayed quiet and let his joke sprawl flat on its back. This was flag number two signifying a dead end. But that didn’t matter to Nokey Cervella.

He said, “I don’t mean a real shoe. I mean a make-believe shoe. A hypothetical shoe.”

“I don’t have any hypothetical shoes.”

That may have given me the first laugh of the whole thing if I wasn’t feeling so ready to pounce.

He said, “You’re not gettin me,” and his smart-ass hand ran down her arm and landed on her wrist that was covered with a dozen silver bangles. Dani flinched, and pulled her wrist away. “No, Nokey, you’re not getting me.”

Finally he was ready to lay off. He held his hand out in front of him like a stop sign and said, “I’m getting another beer now.” He turned around and walked to where I was standing, grabbed the rope and lifted the six-pack from the water. “What the fuck?” he said. “Was I not being nice? I thought I was being nice. JT, what was I being?”

And Dani, who had been standing still watching him the whole time, finally climbed down beneath the bridge, hopped to her favorite rock and sat down.

Noke goes, “That’s a weird chick, man. I mean I know she’s your sister and all, but don’t you think she’s gettin a little weird?”

“Now she’s weird cause she’s not into you?”

“What’s wrong with me?”

“You want the short list?”

“Fuck off.”

“Hey, take a walk with me.”

“I’m good here. You go for a walk.”

I had to get serious and loud: “Fuck knuckle. Take a walk with me.”

We walked on the path next to the river, moving away from everyone.

“I hardly even touched her. And I’m a good guy. Like you don’t know I’m a good guy? Aren’t I a good guy?”

“Listen, maybe it’s better you don’t hang out here for a while. Let’s say we split the river for a while? I mean we work together, we gotta spend every day?”

“We were getting laid at her age and now you don’t want her to because why? She’s a girl? Does the term ‘psycho brother’ mean anything to you?”

“It ain’t that.”

“Oh, come off it. You haven’t been able to bullshit me since kindergarten, so stop it. Your stubborn wop’s starting to show.”

“It ain’t that.”

“Then it’s your stubborn mick.”

I looked back to see if we were out of shouting distance from the rest of them yet. Not quite, so I lowered my voice and picked up the pace. “She’s thirteen.”

“Thirteen’s not a disease.”

“You’re seventeen, that doesn’t bother you?”

“Should it?”

It’s hard to reason with ignorance. “I don’t like guys messing with her,” I said.

“Look, she gave me the brush off. So I consider myself brushed. I’m off the case. But here’s some news tough guy, I’m not the only one who’s gonna try to wet my luck with her so get used to it.”

“I don’t want guys messing with her.”

“Yeah, I heard you.”

“I don’t want it,” I repeated. Every smart piece of me said to keep it all to myself, because this guy could bad judge a situation to death and the last person I was gonna let him do that with was my sister. But another part of me wanted to tell him everything, and that’s why I kept repeating myself, hoping he would read my whole mind, and finally everything would be out without me actually having to say it. If we didn’t know each other so well, he probably would have thought I was autistic, but he caught on that there was something else I was getting at. His voice got real deep, like it does when he’s getting serious with you.

“JT, what the fuck?”

“I don’t like it.” I picked up my pace even more and looked over my shoulder.

“You’re freakin me out, man.”

“I just don’t like it.”

He stepped in front of me, put one of his heavy hands right under my throat and stopped me from walking. I could have cut off his hand and ate it. “Quit saying that. Stand the fuck still and tell me what you’re talking about?” I was trying to speak but I couldn’t. “Come on, it’s me for Christ’s sake. Tell me.”

“NO.” I slapped his hand away.

He slapped mine back.

I grabbed him in a headlock.

We both fell to the ground.

I wanted him to fight back so the talking would be over, but he wasn’t throwing any punches cause he knew I wasn’t really fighting him. And we both knew if it was a real fight his punches would have been the first and hardest to land. He let me roll him onto his stomach and hold him down. “Just get the fuck out,” I yelled.

“It’s not your fuckin river. Get off me.”

“No.”

“Let me up.”

“Will you leave if I let you up?”

“No.”

“Then forget it.”

“You gonna keep me here till you get hungry, idiot?”

“Till you leave.”

“JT, let me up and tell me what the hell is going on.”

“Fuck that. I tell you something and it’s like telling everyone we know, you bucket of shit spud brain.”

For that, he bit my hand.

I let go of his neck and squeezed my right hand with my left.

“Oww you motherfucker.” I shook out my fingers. “Did you just fuckin bite me?” I looked at my right knuckles that now had red teeth marks. “You bit me.”

“If you really want me to, I will fuck you up.”

“I want you to stop asking me questions.”

Noke walked up to me real slow, his arms up in the peace position, showing me his huge palms. “Did I break the skin?”

“No.”

“Talk to me. Now.”

If there was a way to get out of it then I didn’t see it. He would have been on my ass for months. And I supposed I did owe him an answer for why I threw a choke hold on him. “Noke, you have to make me a deal.”

“Done.”

“You cannot open your mouth to a single soul.”

“I won’t.”

Even though he sounded sincere I said, “How do I know that?”

“Because it’s me.”

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