False Memory

One of the circling crows went military and conducted a bombing run with an accuracy that would have been the envy of any high-tech air force in the world. A messy white blob splattered across Skeet’s left shoe.

Skeet peered up at the incontinent crow and then down at his soiled sneaker. His mood swung so fast and hard that it seemed his head ought to have spun around from the force of the change. His eerie smile crumbled like earth into a sinkhole, and his face collapsed in despair. In a wretched voice, he said, “This is my life,” and he reached down to poke one finger into the mess on his shoe. “My life.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Dusty said. “You’re not well enough educated to think in metaphors.”

This time, he couldn’t make Skeet laugh.

“I’m so tired,” Skeet said, rubbing bird crap between his thumb and forefinger. “Time to go to bed.”

He didn’t mean bed when he said bed. He didn’t mean he was going to take a nap on the pile of mattresses, either. He meant that he was going to settle in for the big sleep, under a blanket of dirt, and dream with the worms.

Skeet got to his feet on the peak of the roof. Although he was hardly more than a wisp, he stood at his full height and didn’t seem unduly bothered by the hooting wind.

When Dusty rose into a cautious crouch, however, the onshore flow hit him with gale force, rocking him forward, off the heels of his shoes, and he teetered for a moment before he settled into a position that gave him a lower center of gravity.

Either this was a deconstructionist’s ideal wind — the effect of which would be different according to each person’s interpretation of it, a mere breeze to me, a typhoon to thee — or Dusty’s fear of heights caused him to have an exaggerated perception of every gust. Since he’d long ago rejected his old man’s screwy philosophies, he figured that if Skeet could stand erect with no risk of being spun away like a Frisbee, then so could he.

Raising his voice, Skeet said, “This is for the best, Dusty”

“Like you would know what’s for the best.”

“Don’t try to stop me.”

“Well, see, I’ve got to try.”

“I can’t be talked down.”

“I’ve become aware of that.”

They faced each other, as though they were two athletes about to engage in a strange new sport on a slanted court: Skeet standing tall, like a basketball player waiting for the opening toss-up, Dusty crouched like an underweight sumo wrestler looking for leverage.

“I don’t want to get you hurt,” Skeet said.

“I don’t want to get me hurt, either.”

If Skeet was determined to jump off the Sorensons’ house, he couldn’t be prevented from doing so. The steep pitch of the roof, the rounded surfaces of the barrel tiles, the wind, and the law of gravity were on his side. All that Dusty could hope to do was to make sure the poor son of a bitch went off the edge at exactly the right place and onto the mattresses.

“You’re my friend, Dusty My only real friend.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence, kid.”

“Which makes you my best friend.”

“By default,” Dusty agreed.

“A guy’s best friend shouldn’t get in the way of his glory.”

“Glory?”

“What I’ve seen it’s like on the Other Side. The glory.”

The only way to be sure that Skeet went off the roof precisely above the fall-break was to grab him at the right instant and hurl him to the ideal point along the brink. Which meant going down the roof and over the edge with him.

The wind tossed and whipped Skeet’s long blond hair, which was the last attractive physical quality that he had left. Once, he’d been a good-looking boy, a girl magnet. Now his body was wasted; his face was gray and haggard; and his eyes were as burnt out as the bottom of a crack pipe. His thick, slightly curly, golden hair was so out of sync with the rest of his appearance that it seemed to be a wig.

Except for his hair, Skeet stood motionless. In spite of being more stoned than a witch in Salem, he was alert and wary, deciding how best to break away from Dusty and execute a clean running dive headfirst into the cobblestones below.

Hoping to distract the kid or at least to buy a little time, Dusty said, “Something I’ve always wondered… What does the angel of death look like?”

“Why?”

“You saw him, right?”

Frowning, Skeet said, “Yeah, well, he looked okay.”

A hard gust of wind tore off Dusty’s white cap and spun it to Oz, but he didn’t take his attention off Skeet. “Did he look like Brad Pitt?”

“Why would he look like Brad Pitt?” Skeet asked, and his eyes slid sideways and back to Dusty again, as he glanced surreptitiously toward the brink.

“Brad Pitt played him in that movie, Meet Joe Black.”

“Didn’t see it.”

With growing desperation, Dusty said, “Did he look like Jack Benny?”

"What’re you talking about?”

“Jack Benny played him once in a really old movie. Remember? We watched it together.”

“I don’t remember much. You’re the one with the photographic memory.”

“Eidetic. Not photographic. Eidetic and audile memory.”

“See? I can’t even remember what it's called. You remember what you had for dinner five years ago. I don’t remember yesterday.”