Things Get Better

It was a choked cry followed by the soft thump of a feathered body dropping on concrete. I peered into the dark, beyond the yellow light of the front porch, beyond the cement slab front yard, beyond the chain link fence but it was too dark. Too dark. Too dark. I squinted, and the darkness morphed into a pit of rot and sin, and I knew that if I looked a second longer, it would swallow me whole.

I retreated back into the house, a different kind of rot festered in there. I snuck to the room I shared with my younger brother, climbing carefully under the stiff polyester sheets and wishing that tomorrow the school bus would leave me at third grade forever. The sheets were loud. Too loud. Too loud.

The next morning I found out that the sound I heard from the porch was a barn owl. It was dead. Mr. Stanley, the guy who drove the school bus, said it probably flew into the power lines. Maybe it thought the shoes hanging there were it’s friends. I thought it should have a funeral, but Mr. Stanley said birds don’t have funerals and he gave me a granola bar. I split it with my brother.

When the school bus picked us up at the end of the day, and I asked Mr. Stanley to please leave me there, he said no, who would make sure my brother got on the bus every morning? I knew he was right. I thought about how the teachers sleep at school. I wondered what their beds were like. The owl was gone that night. Maybe they zipped him up in a big black bag like they did with my dad.

In middle school, my best friend got a boyfriend. I didn’t get it. He wasn’t even that nice to her and she was like, really pretty and he was just like, kind of normal looking. After two weeks they stopped dating. I didn’t ask why but she didn’t seem sad about it. Secretly, I was glad. We hung out more after that. She didn’t have any more boyfriends until high school, and they dated for three years until they didn’t. She was sad this time, but I still didn’t get it. He wasn’t very nice to her either. She cried for a couple weeks and I tried to cheer her up with ice cream like they do in movies.

It wasn’t like the movies though, because she never realized. And I never said it. It was too dangerous. Too dangerous. Too dangerous. A couple weeks after I heard the owl die, the man who lived two houses down was murdered. I watched his black bag get lifted into the back of the van. There wasn’t a funeral. Mom said he was asking for it, the fucking faggot. I didn’t know what she meant, but I learned.

When I started high school and my brother was still in elementary, he asked me if I was gay, you’re not are you? I assured him I wasn’t. I believed it too. I said to myself in the dark when my brother was asleep. I’m not. I’m not. I promise.

When I was twenty three my mom died. We didn’t have a funeral for her either. I hadn’t talked to her since I got an apartment and took my brother away. He’s in high school and he has a girlfriend. He never asked why I didn’t have a boyfriend. And he didn’t ask why our roommate and I shared a room. He knew, but he didn’t ask. She made banana bread that he would eat before school. They were friends and I was glad. So glad. So glad.

Years later my brother married a girl. He wore a tie and he was so happy.

Me and my roommate bought a farm. We haven’t filled it with animals yet, and our garden is bare. We have lots of trees. Big ones, old. On our first night we lay on the front porch. The bulb is out but it’s okay. The moon is bright. The darkness is full. It’s hot out, the summer is sticky. Our bare backs are against the soft wood of the house, her bare leg is over mine. We watch the darkness and the life that emerges from it. She can name all the bugs and animals. She’s smart, she went to college. Maybe she doesn’t really know their names and she’s making them up. She could be. I don’t care. She points and names them over a few content hours until it starts to get cold, then she gets a blanket and names more. I keep waiting for the barn owl to swoop into view. I know there’s one who lives here with us. There has to be. But that would be too perfect. Her hands are in my hair and it’s too perfect. Too perfect. Too perfect.