We’d been on CalFresh before, for ten months, back when it was still just called “food stamps.” I’d been seven and hadn’t understood. Back then, the EBT card—that special debit card, the Electronic Benefit Transfer—had seemed like an exciting gift from a mysterious helper. I didn’t get that it meant something bad had already happened, that the layoffs had reached us and we were scrambling to catch up.
Dad found a new job, though—his current job—after the better part of a year. Sure, the hours were shitty, mostly night shifts, but it was something. Then a part-time position had fallen into Mom’s lap like a gift from God, and we clawed our way over the poverty line. Paid off our debts, started getting bills in on time. For half a decade, we were normal-poor, instead of missing dinners. Regular-tired, instead of exhausted. And then the hospital bill from hell.
Good news, I reread, feeling sick. Good news? Without Mom’s job, were they going to have enough to make rent, or pay the bills for the phone in my hand, let alone make payments to the hospital? How long would they have to stay on SNAP?
Growing up poor meant getting intimate with acronyms. SNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. FNS, the Food and Nutrition Service. CalWORKs. LIHEAP. On and on. Dad’s disability had its own list: SDI, State Disability Insurance. SSDI, Social Security, which had denied my father’s application because he wasn’t quite disabled enough. SSI, Supplemental Security Insurance, the benefits that had disappeared because my parents had saved a little too much. Honestly, the only thing more sobering than being poor was dealing with it. Everything needed paperwork, interviews, renewals—and strict, merciless verification. Are you sure you’re poor; are you sure you’re disabled? How much do you really need this? How much do you still have left to lose?
My phone buzzed. Mom’s next text said, Didn’t say anything bc did not want to make u worry !
Okay well, I typed, I’m worried now… so are you going to find another job? Are you and Dad talking about this?
My finger paused over the Send button. After a moment, I reread her text. did not want to make u worry !
I closed my eyes and exhaled a long, slow breath.
Then I selected my reply and deleted it.
Are you okay? I asked instead.
Fine, Mom said after a minute. That was all. Fine. Sure.
The muscles in my stomach were tense. I looked up from my phone. The dining hall had come into sight, perched on an incline. On the lawn spilling down from its doors, clusters of people lounged in the late afternoon, a stippled landscape of brightly colored backpacks and summer clothes. They all looked free, and free sounds tinged the air, careless laughter and energetic exclamations. In the same breath I felt entirely outside the world and as if I were drowning in it. I listened to flutters of crows’ wings from the trees and the distant whir of car tires over asphalt.
When I felt inside my body again, I started to walk, and I thought determinedly about the homework I’d partitioned into hours for tonight. I thought about keeping my head down along the back wall of McKnight. I didn’t let myself think about the way Mom and Dad might simmer over the dinner table tonight without a word to each other, because there was no use torturing myself over something I couldn’t change. I was going to learn this one way or another: If you can’t fix it, leave it behind.
That night, I lay in bed, turning over again and again. My legs weighed too heavy on each other; my hands felt too empty; my eyes wouldn’t stay shut. Snatches of tonight’s arrangement cycled in my head. “Your touch is heaven falling, heaven, din din dah dat, fall, whoa way ah.” As if it weren’t bad enough hearing these songs on repeat. When the nonsense-syllable version got stuck in your head instead, you couldn’t even sing it out loud, at the risk of seeming seriously deranged. Your eyes so starry, jah wah! Bow! Your eye-eye-ah-bah bow.
After what felt like hours of trying to sleep, my phone buzzed on my desk. I sat up at once and checked it. It was past midnight, and Isaac had texted to the group, Meet at the side gate in 20 min or be condemned to everlasting suffering!
Replies from the others rolled in. If you insist, from Nihal. Roger that, from Trav. A hands-to-God emoji from Jon Cox.
More texts rolled in, but I didn’t stop to read them. My feet hit the floor of my dorm, sheets thrown aside. Live energy hummed in my veins.
I didn’t think about the two-day suspension kids got for sneaking out. The only thing on my mind was how isolated I’d felt since my mother’s messages, how restless. My heart was on the other side of the country and I had no control. It took every ounce of energy not to slip into dismal hypotheticals—but maybe the best way to get distance from yourself was to never be alone.
The side gate peeked out of the woods behind Marden Cathedral, guarding an old maintenance road. When I got there, Nihal and Trav manned the pillars, hands in their pockets. Trav looked cold and thin, a beanie pulled down over his forehead, his dark skin turned slate gray by the scant moonlight. Nihal wore pajamas. Button-up red flannel, top and bottom, his kirpan slung around his waist as usual. The ceremonial knife never left his side.
“Hey,” I said breathlessly, breaking from my jog.
“Where is everyone?”
Nihal pointed past the gate. “Theodore, Isaac, and Jon went on ahead.”
Two silhouettes appeared by the hulking outline of Marden Cathedral. Erik’s slight frame moved with its usual cocky swagger. Marcus hurried afterward and muttered to Erik as they approached, a low, nattering stream of words. Erik had his arms folded and met my eyes with exasperation. I kept getting that vibe from Erik during rehearsals: that because Marcus talked too much, and wore cargo shorts, and, okay, was kind of a suck-up, Erik thought he belonged at the “humiliating” end of the uncoolness spectrum. Maybe Erik would grow out of it. Being earnest wasn’t the disease people made it out to be.
“Let’s go,” Trav said. He grabbed the bars of the side gate, planted his sneakers on the wrought-iron crow motifs peeking out, and grappled his way to the other side. His forearms flexed past the rolled-up cuffs of his sweatshirt.
I grabbed the bars, the first to follow. Up and over. The burst of activity lit up my muscles, made my vision clear. I’d barely hit the ground before Trav was striding down the side road into the woods.
I waited for Nihal before following. “What is this?” I asked.
“Don’t worry. No hazing.” Nihal gave me a serene smile, and looking at it, I felt a wave of gratitude that he was here, that he was reliable and kind and himself.