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KIRSTEN MCDONALD

Catching the Moon: Tyrell

 

I can hear the TV before I even open the dented front door to our duplex.  It’s a cartoon, so I know it’s AJ watching, and since it’s up real loud, I’m guessing that AJ’s alone or that Momma’s too dead to care.

 

“Yo, AJ!” I call as I unlock the front door.  “S’up, dude?”

 

AJ doesn’t say anything.  He might be ignoring me, or he might not have heard me over the crashes and shouts from the TV show.

 

I drop my backpack and twist the knob on the door’s deadbolt.  Then I walk through the living room to the kitchen where the TV’s blaring.  AJ’s back is to me, so I creep up behind him.  In one smooth move, I grab the back of his chair and tip him halfway over.

 

“Whaaaaaa!” AJ screams as he flails his arms and legs.

 

I set his chair back down and cuff the back of his head.

 

“Got ya’, Lil’ Bro!” I say with a laugh.

 

“I hate it when you do that!” AJ shouts as he jumps up and punches me with his six year-old’s fists.

 

“Chill, dude,” I tell him and swat away his punches.  “You’re missing your show.”

 

“You’re gonna’ be missing your head if you do that to me again!”  He juts out his chin and plants his light brown fists on his hips.  His loose black curls flop from side to side as he waggles his head at me and tries to get in my face.  I try hard not to laugh at him because he’s trying so hard to be tough.

 

I waggle my own loose black curls and fist bump him.  “You’re the man, dude.”

 

“Yeah, and don’t you be forgetting it,” AJ shouts as I walk past him.

 

I check the kitchen to see if anyone’s been here since this morning.  In the sink, it’s just the two bowls – mine and AJ’s -- from last night’s

canned ravioli.  Nothing’s been left out on the kitchen counter, so if Momma’s been here, she hasn’t been messing around in kitchen.  

 

“You seen Momma?” I ask AJ without turning around.

 

AJ doesn’t answer me, so I turn and face him.  “Yo, AJ!  You seen Momma today?”

 

Without looking away from the TV, he shakes his head and answers, “Nah.”

 

“You seen anybody here since you got here?”

 

“Nah,” he repeats and shakes his head again.  His curls whip from side to side, and I know it’s time for me to get haircuts for both of us.  

I walk over to where AJ’s sitting and hold up my hand for a high five.  AJ looks up from the TV and shoots me a smile before he lifts his hand up to slap mine.  The raised pink scar that splits his palm in half screams at me, and as our hands meet, I’m thrown back to that summer night a few months ago.

 

* * *

 

AJ and I were asleep when Momma burst into our room.

 

“Wake up, boys!” she shouted.  “We’re gonna’ go catch the moon!”

 

“What, Momma?” AJ asked as he sat up in bed.  

 

I didn’t say anything.  I just lay there willing AJ and me to be invisible.  But that night, Momma’s eyes were so bright she could have seen us even in the darkest hole in the blackest night.  

 

Momma flung her arms wide open.  “Come ride with me, boys.  It’s a beautiful night, and the moon looks so close.  We’re gonna’ drive until we can catch it.”

 

She pulled the blanket off the bed and said, “Come on, you two.  The night is young, and we’ve got a moon to catch.”

 

“Are we really gonna’ catch the moon?” AJ asked me as he clambered over to the edge of the bed.

 

“Nah, she’s just dreaming big, AJ,” I told my little brother.

 

Momma held her arms out wide and spun in a circle.  She looked so pretty and so happy and so nice.  I knew that she was just yanking on me, but I still fell for it.  When she’s so full of life and dreams, it’s hard not to.

 

AJ and I slipped on t-shirts and shorts and went out to the pickup truck that she’d borrowed.  In the night, a bass line boomed out of the duplex across the street, and angry shouts leaked out of the other half of our duplex.  Somewhere in the housing project, a car squealed it’s way to somewhere better.  But over all those nighttime noises, the loudest sound was trouble calling my name.

 

I boosted AJ up into the cab and was halfway in when Momma floored the truck.  The truck’s quick speed and a sharp swerve to the right slammed my door shut.  

 

I grabbed a wad of AJ’s shirt in my left hand and used my right to hold on to the door’s arm rest.  Momma blasted the radio and flitted between stations.  In between songs, she shouted, “Look at the moon, boys!  We’re getting closer!  I think we’re gonna’ touch it soon!”

 

But we didn’t.

 

Instead, we drove and drove until both Momma and the truck were out of gas, and we coasted onto the shoulder of the road.  Momma pulled the key out of the ignition and banged her head against the steering wheel.  Once.  Twice.  

 

Then she spat out, “Why does crap like this always happen to me?”

 

AJ drew in a breath like he might try to answer her, but I nudged him with my elbow.

 

“What!” he hissed at me instead.

 

I leaned over and whispered in his ear, “Don’t say nothing, AJ.  Just be real quiet.”

 

“Why do I got to be quiet, Tyrell?”

 

“You got to be quiet ‘cause I say so!” Momma growled, and that shut everybody up.

 

The three of us just sat in the truck for a while after that.  AJ and I didn’t say anything, and we didn’t move.  Next to us, Momma banged her head a few more times, sucked on her teeth, and let out several long, frustrated sighs.

 

Finally she said, “Okay.  This effin’ truck’s out of gas, and I am not going to stay here all night long.  There’s a gas station up ahead, so we’ll just get some gas.”  She looked over her shoulder into the truck bed.  Then she swiveled her head looking all around in the cab.  

 

AJ and I still didn’t move.  We didn’t say anything.

 

Momma banged her head one more time on the steering wheel, “Crap!  Crap!  And, crap!  I got nothing to put gas in.”

 

AJ and I kept frozen trying to be shadows.

 

“Well, this just makes my night!” Momma spat out as she slammed the heels of her hands on the steering wheel.  “We’re just gonna’ have to get this effing, no good truck to the gas, and when I see Samuel, I’m gonna’ let him have it for loaning this no good excuse of a truck.”

 

I looked at the gas station off in the distance.  It could have been a quarter mile away or it could have been a hundred.  Didn’t matter which, though.  There was no way we could push the truck all the way there, but I knew that Momma was beyond listening to sense, and I knew better than to tell her.

 

“You boys get out and push,” Momma growled at us.  “I’ll steer.”

 

“But I don’t got no shoes,” AJ whined.

 

“Well, that’s your own effin’ fault for leaving without your shoes!” Momma snapped back.  

 

“Come on, AJ,” I said quietly.  “We can push.  It’s no big deal.”

 

So the two of us got out and pushed.  We held onto the chrome bumper and planted our feet in the loose gravel scattered over the asphalt, and we pushed.  I turned around so my shoulders connected with the tailgate and pushed.  I looked over at my little brother a few feet away from me.  His face was all screwed up in concentration, and he was holding his breath as he pushed.

 

From the pickup’s cab Momma screeched, “You call that pushing?  You better quit messing around and push or we won’t never get home.”

So we pushed harder.  A six year old and a twelve year old.  Two barefoot boys in the middle of the night trying to push a full size pickup truck.  

 

But we couldn’t get it to move.  Not even an inch.

 

“Didn’t I tell you to push!” Momma shouted at us.

 

AJ and I looked at each other, but we didn’t say anything.

 

“What is this!  You boys giving me the silent treatment on account of you think this is my fault?  Well, I can tell your sorry butts something.  This is not my fault, and it’s not gonna’ be my fault if I come back there and beat your sorry butts if you don’t push.”

 

The last thing either of us needed was for Momma to get close to us, so I answered in a calm voice, “Sorry, Momma.  We just needed to get a better

grip.  We can push you now.”

 

“Well, you effing better!”

 

So we pushed again, and that’s when it happened, and I watched it all like a slow motion replay.  

 

AJ’s hands slipped on the slick chrome, and his feet scrambled in the loose gravel.  He opened his mouth in surprise as his feet slipped further out from under him.  Then his face smacked with a crack of teeth and a thud of lips and cheeks into the shiny metal of the bumper.  AJ’s hands scrabbled frantically below the bumper for anything to break his fall and a wail burbled out of his bleeding mouth.  His hands found the exhaust pipe and closed around it.  Instantly, he flung his hands away from the burning metal.  His wail turned into a scream as he thudded onto the pavement.  Blood welled from is nose and mouth, and he kept shaking both of his hands like he was trying to fling something off of them.  He screamed and gasped as he writhed from side to side on the pavement below the bumper.

I was just standing there frozen and watching my brother when a car eased onto the shoulder behind us.  I knelt beside AJ and tried to pull his thrashing body into my arms.

 

“Come on, dude.  We gotta’ move so we don’t get run over.”

 

But it was like AJ couldn’t even hear me.  His hands were burning, and his mouth and nose were bleeding, and his brain couldn’t think of anything else.

 

A guy got out of the car.  He looked at me trying to hold AJ, and AJ bleeding and wailing and thrashing.

 

“You boys okay?” he asked.

 

I just stared at him.  Had he really just asked if we were okay?  There we were in the middle of the night, two barefoot boys behind a broken down truck, one of us wailing and both of us covered in blood, and he wanted to know if we were okay.

 

Momma saved me from having to answer the man’s ridiculous question when she shouted from the pickup’s cab, “No they’re not okay.  They’re lazy butts who won’t push this truck to that gas station up there.  And they’re crying about having to be the ones to push.”

 

The man looked at us and back at my momma and then back at us.

 

“Umm, I think one of the boys is hurt.”

 

“Nah, it’s just AJ being a baby.  He’s all the time faking stuff,” Momma told the man as she glanced briefly in the rear view mirror.

 

“No, I think he’s really hurt.  I mean, like, there’s blood and stuff.”  

 

“Well, that’s effing just what I need!” Momma snapped.  Then she threw open the truck’s door and stomped to the back of the truck.  I had AJ over in the grass by then, but he was still crying and flapping his hands like a bird trying its best to fly away.  

 

All I could think about was how we never should have come with Momma -- how I should have said there was no way we’d ever catch the moon and that she was tripping if she thought we could – how all of this crap was unfair – how a little kid shouldn’t have a busted up face and two burnt hands all because his stupid mother was too high to notice the truck was getting low on gas and too burnt to know that two boys have no business trying to push a pick up truck in the middle of the night.

 

* * *

 

A cartoon explosion brings me back to today, and I let go of the breath that I didn’t know I was holding.  I turn away from my brother and go open the refrigerator where I look for something to fix us for supper.