Lay Me Down

19. Best babysitter ever.

{Jon}

Crisis of faith notwithstanding, Jon was starving when they got home. He made two stacked deli sandwiches with pickles and carried the plates to the deck, where Cary was having a smoke. Jon scarfed down his sandwich, then eyed Cary's, which was still sitting on the plate. Cary had his arms wrapped tightly around his body, and his cigarette was dripping ash from his fingers into the grass like he had forgotten it was there.

"Are you gonna eat that?"

Cary pulled his attention back to the present moment, glancing at him.

"I mean, you really should eat that. Unless, um, cigarettes don't taste good with food."

Cary shook his head. "I'm not hungry," he said.

Jon sat back and stretched his legs out, deciding he needed a break before he ate the second sandwich. "Can I have a drag?" he asked, as if it wasn't a big deal.

"Thought you quit," Cary said.

"Thought you quit," Jon returned.

Cary put his elbow on his knee, his hand shading his eyes. "Wanted to." He drew a drag and blew a straight stream of smoke out of the side of his mouth, away from Jon. "I'm not giving this to you." He didn't look at Jon. "Get your smokes somewhere else."

Jon was stung. "Why the hell not?"

"Your dad doesn't like it. He doesn't like you swearing, either."

"Well, fuck you." Jon's face was hot; he was more surprised than angry. "Like you have any right to tell me how to behave. And I don't care what my dad thinks."

Cary made a dry noise, smoke coming out his nose. "Sure. Me either."

Offended, Jon ate the second sandwich. It was hard to stay mad when he was so comfortably full. "Too late to go back to school. What do you want to do today?"

Cary had smoked the cigarette to the filter and was butting it out on the grass. He lifted his shoulders and let them fall. His face was all edges, and there were purple thumbprints under his eyes.

"You just want to sleep?"

"No," Cary said. There was a flash of fear in his expression, and he rubbed his hands over his face and straightened. "Let's go to the ravine."

///

Jon borrowed his dad's bike and let Cary ride his. He figured Pete would be okay with it if he was careful. They rode down to the dirt track that dozens of bike tires had carved out under a cathedral of evergreen trees so tall and shady that there was nothing on the ground underneath them except a thick carpet of needles. Cary quit before Jon, and lay down spread-eagled in the pine needles, smoking another cigarette while staring up at the hand-sized patches of blue in the roof of evergreen branches.

Jon was still annoyed that Cary wouldn't share his smokes, and he ripped around the course more violently than he had before. His front tire smacked into a rock and the whole bike flipped up and around. Jon struck the handlebars, and the impact punched out his breath and made everything go white with pain before he hit the dirt. He felt his dad's bike land on top of him, the pedals tearing at his legs as he skidded back to the bottom of the incline in a shower of dirt.

"Jon!"

He had come to rest in a tangle of bike and limbs, and he gasped as he tried to push his dad's bike off. Every breath felt like being stabbed in the chest. He saw Cary's long legs loping down the slope toward him, and then the weight of the bike lifted off. Cary's furious face appeared right in front of him hollering, "Why the hell weren't you wearing a helmet?" Jon squinched his eyes closed. He tried to roll onto to his side to get up, but pain sliced his head in half, and a sound came out that he didn't recognize as his own.