Stupid Fast

Chapter 40: 5:15 A.M.




There are these weird times in life that you sort of experience as if they’re memories while they’re happening. For example, the summer before, after we got back from camping and hiking at Wyalusing, when Andrew, Jerri, and I went to the Strawberry Festival, which was at the city square downtown, I felt like I wasn’t just there having a really good time with my funny little brother and my funny mom. I sort of felt like I was watching it happen too.

It was like there was an older me remembering playing the hoop toss while Jerri and Andrew cheered. It was like the older me watched while the three of us sat still on little stools, cracking jokes while the caricature artist laughed and drew us.

The caricature artist made my Jew-fro huge, which was funny. He made Andrew’s glasses huge, which was funny. He made Jerri’s smile huge, which it really was. And the evening sun draped orange on the green grass and green trees. And an older me watched it all and remembered. I was sad and happy at the same time.

In November, right when I started growing, Jerri stopped being that Jerri. I think I knew it was about to be over while at the Strawberry Festival. The older me was remembering.

That’s how I felt on the Mound one night. Everything was really good, and my older self remembered.

It was Thursday night, the day after I’d nearly fought Ken Johnson. I ate dinner with Aleah and Ronald. Good food. Ravioli. Aleah was intent on practicing a new piece, so Cody picked me up, and me, Reese, Cody, and Karpinski drove out to the Mound—all smashed in the cab of the pickup—and climbed all the way to the top and watched the sun go down over Bluffton.

Bluffton didn’t look like Suckville at all. It was rolling and green, and as the sun set, the town’s tiny lights came on one by one and twinkled. Bluffton sort of looked like a place where elves would live.

We’d gone up there for a dumb reason, to see if Cody could throw a rock all the way down. We all tried.

And I was laughing, and an older me watched and smiled.

Karpinski threw a rock, and even though he can catch anything thrown at him (including rocks me and Reese threw pretty hard, even though he was only ten feet away from us), he totally can’t throw. He looked so dorky throwing, and he tried so hard, and he screamed really loud, and me and Cody fell over laughing. I threw a rock, but it only went halfway down. I watched the rock bounce down one side of the big M, just like my leather pouch rocks and crystals did. It was like in slow motion. Then Reese threw a rock and lost his balance, and he almost fell down the Mound, which probably would’ve killed him or at least totally maimed him, but I reached out and grabbed the waistband of his shorts and pulled him back on top of me.

“Nice, Rein Stone. You gave me a snuggy,” he smiled.

“Yeah? You squished the crap out of me.”

He did too. Reese weighs 270 pounds. And then Cody stood and threw, and it was really like in slow motion: the rock exploded from his hand and up into the setting sun and then it arched down, taking like ten minutes, amazing, arching, falling, until it cracked against the hood of his truck in the parking lot below.

“Jesus, no!” he shouted.

“Holy shit,” I said. “You hit your damn truck!”

“Damn, man, you got a cannon!” Karpinski said, spazzing.

Then we sat up there, the sun coloring everything orange like orange juice, and talked about girls and football, and I had to agree when they talked about how hot Abby Sauter is. She really is.

“She’s turning into a freaking swimsuit model,” Reese said.

The Bluffton poop air smelled fresh, like Aleah’s idea of the country, and we laughed and laughed, and the sun set. It was so fun. It’s good to be almost sixteen, I thought.

“It’s good to be sixteen,” said my older voice. “It’s good to be sixteen.”

I watched myself watching the sunset, and I was both happy and sad.

***

It sort of freaks me out.