Two Circles

I have a calendar. On this calendar, drawn in red ink, somewhere in the middle of July, there is a circle. You are this circle. It was the day your dad walked into my house, cigars in hand, telling my parents it’s a boy. It’s a boy.

You were too young but I wasn’t. I remember. I saw you in your blanket and I wasn’t much bigger. I knew we’d be friends.

Soon we played through the small squares in the chain link fence. I watched you eat sand in the pit made by an above ground pool. It wasn’t long before you could climb the fence and we could play whenever we wanted. Remember the time we hid on the garage roof until it was dark and no one could find us?

There was that day we sat on your porch burning ants with a magnifying glass. We swept that little circle of heat around playing god until you felt guilty. We burned leaves instead. And we were mesmerized by the small conflagration. The withered leaves, left over from last year’s autumn, crackled and crumpled and burned until they turned into ash. I wondered out loud what happened to things after the ash went away. You asked if there was a heaven for ants.

One summer you went to Florida. I drew circles in the dirt while you were gone. My mom would me make go outside and I would see your window and wonder when you’d come home. Remember how we promised we wouldn’t ever leave each other.

I look at the calendar, and that day circled in red is still there. I pull out a black marker and start crossing through the days, until I stop on one square. Just before I cross that day out I remember the last time I saw this day circled, in your mom’s kitchen on your tenth birthday. It was so hot and the pool felt like bathwater and we had to eat the ice cream before it dripped off our plates. Sometime along the way, your dad got mad and went in the house and your mom waited outside smoking cigarettes down to the butt. She went though a whole pack before she went in after him. I didn’t see you for a while after that.

It went almost as bad as that one day, years later. You stole a pack of your mom’s smokes and kept trying to suck on one without choking. The lighter wouldn’t work and you threw it on the ground. I picked it up while you swore and tried to take a pull on a half lit cigarette before it went out. Every time you inhaled you snorted and coughed and smoke came out of your nose. I picked up the lighter and blew in the top to dry it out. These kill people, I said. You said death wouldn’t be that bad. I tried to ask what you meant but you told me to shut up and hand you the lighter.

That’s when I should have known.

On my calendar, there is a second circle. Its placement was your decision. I drew the red circle afterward, but you chose the date, without anyone’s consultation.

One cold day in February that would forever grow colder. It was the day your mom came to our door, covered in blood, screaming. I ran to your front door but stopped, sat frozen on your porch, and started crying. I had to watch the ambulance arrive without its lights, in no particular hurry. Afterward, I heard your mom cry when she found out your priest wasn’t coming because of what you had done. I watched your dad fall to the ground, cursing god, and asking about things that could never be answered.

Two days later, I sat in a church so full that people had to stand, and all because you felt alone in this world.

Sometimes I like to think that somewhere in your grey matter there was a reason but I will never know. Now the only things left are two circles on the calendar. Two days every year that carry more weight than the others. Two days of the year that correspond to two dates too close together.

I cross out the remaining days on the calendar until there is only one square left. That day. The day I cannot cross out because you already did.