The Walk Home

            by Emma Schain

 

            "Do you have connections with people from before high school? I was lying on my bed, feet up in the air, phone propped against my ear on a pillow, eyeing the clock and trying desperately to procrastinate so that math homework would keep its distance."

            "What do you mean?"

            "Do you have bonds with people because of the fact that you went to elementary school with them?"

            "Yeah, sure. There are always those people who you share memories with."

           

***

           

            I grew up in the suburbs. Benicia, California, is a town of about 28,000. There is a Safeway, a Raley's, and about fourteen churches, but no public transportation system to speak of. I wish that my memories of the suburbs were of playing with neighbors in the street, of organizing games of kickball and tag. But I just didn't luck out when it came to my neighbors. To the right was a family with two crazy parents who locked their twin boys in the backyard. The two boys, who were about the same age as my brother, Skyler, yelled at us whenever we ventured too close to their part of the fence.

            "Boy! Hey boy!" they screamed at Skyler. Like I was dealing with rabid dogs, I grabbed Skyler and we ran to the other side of the yard. On that side of my yard lived two boys as well. The only time Skyler and I played with them, they locked me in their room and played video games for hours. Pacman didn't hold my attention, and I became more and more frightened of the chubby boys with red stains around their mouths, a side effect of eating too many packets of Gushers.

            There was one saving grace in the neighborhood, however, and his name was Trent Grossman. Trent lived on Bristol Court, a side court off of Hastings that was a bit further down the block from my house. He was my age, and we went to the same elementary school. I first noticed him when I was in second grade. It was sunny, and the bell had just rung to signal the end of the morning recess. Like the well-trained elementary-schoolers that Benicia public schools had made us, we were frozen, waiting for the army of yard duties to collectively blow on their whistles and signal that we could go back to class. I was standing on the blacktop between the basketball courts and the bike racks when I looked to my right and my eyes landed on a pair of black Converse high-tops. I immediately took notice, because I was still in the stage of my life when I wore black Converse high-tops every day, and I had yet to find another high-top wearer. The boy who was wearing them had dirty blond hair and red, ruddy cheeks, and when he caught me staring at him, he gave me a snarly look.

           

***

 

            On either side of the Carquinez Strait are hills. The hills are brown during all of the months except January, when they turn emerald green. Nestled in between the curves of those hills is where my childhood is, and it is where it stays.  It is tied around the tetherball poles at Joe Henderson Elementary and buzzing about the African Daisies. It is painted on the walls of my old bedroom in Dream Blue, swinging on the tire swing in the backyard of 567 Hastings Drive, whipping around the baby willows that were just planted a few years ago at Community Park. There, with the SUVs parked in every newly paved driveway, is a childhood wrapped up in people that I no longer have any relationships with, with teachers that I don't run into in the supermarket, with sidewalks that I haven't walked since my last trudge home from school in eighth grade.

            I don't know if my occasional yearnings to skip school and take Highway 80 to 780, turn off on Military West, and sit overlooking the straits are sentiments that I will grow out of. There are certain people that I can't seem to shake out of my head. Whereas I am now beginning to forget the names of some of my more insignificant teachers and the more distant acquaintances, there are those who have stayed in my mind, who have staked out camp in my unconsciousness without hesitation. 

***

 

             "Do you still know the people that you grew up with?" We were walking across the courtyard from fifth period physics to dance in the A-Building. A casual group of seniors mingled by the brick steps, the girls with their hips cocked, the boys with their hats cocked, slight smirks making stains on their faces.

            "I still know a lot of them. My best friend from third grade is now in my English class, and 'Ive known him since I can remember. I think that I have known most of my friends that I have now since I was, like, ten."

           

***

 

            In the suburbs, it is the moms who control everything. All of the stereotypes of suburban stay-at-home soccer moms with SUVs are tried and true in Benicia, and no stay-at-home-mom living in Benicia during the late 1990s could top Melody Grossman. She shopped at April Cornell and sported the cutesy vests and blouses to her volunteer job of grading the spelling tests and laminating artwork at my elementary school. She drove a tan Chevy Tahoe SUV, and she always had a flag mounted outside of her house that corresponded with the appropriate holiday. I found out years later that she was an alcoholic, but her ability to balance the alcoholism with her weekly volunteer shift is to be admired. On the other hand, it was probably the vodka that caused her to become notorious among the other parents as the woman who screamed at her kids when they were playing on the playground. Her shrieks of "Treeeeeeeent!" and "Elllllliottttt!" could be heard from miles away.

            During the two years after I first noticed Trent, I knew him as the kid with the black Converse high-tops.  Our paths didn't officially cross until we were both in Mrs. Brisbin's fifth grade class. Trent didn't wear high-tops anymore, but neither did I. He was chubby and his hair was cut in a bowl cut. I was chubby and my hair was out of control. I think it was Melody Grossman who initially brought us together. She sought me out and, in her domineering, organized way, suggested that Skyler and I walk home with Trent and Elliott after school on Fridays. I don't remember if I had even spoken to Trent before we started walking home together after school. But before I knew it, we were spending every afternoon at the fire station next to Joe Henderson Elementary. There we bought root beer for seventy-five cents from the vending machine and then slowly walked home along Hastings Drive, the sun warming our faces and the root beer cooling our mouths. We told jokes back and forth, picked flowers off of bushes along the way, and wore down the soles of our sneakers from scraping them along the pavement.     

           

***

 

            In Benicia, all of the houses look the same. The streets are named after flowers, plants, and members of the Knight family because one of the daughters, Kim, was on the planning commission for street naming. There are two parts of Benicia. The historical downtown that draws the artists with its quaint main street and waterfront views of the Carquinez Strait is one. The hills, with the developments multiplying by the year and the refineries blowing smoke over Labor Day barbecues in the square backyards, is the other. It is the former that drew my parents into the small town. After spending a hellish year living in a brick condo in central North Carolina, anything with water seemed the path that led to nourishment.

      

***

 

            I have pictures from hella long ago for the page!" my friend exclaimed to me. We were sitting in Spanish class, looking through an envelope thick with pictures to go onto the buddy page in the yearbook. One after another, I was informally introduced to the thirteen-year-old versions of friends whom I am now so close to. I laughed at their glasses and braces and awkward haircuts, wishing that I had been around to witness the growing out of bangs and to hear about the crushes that evolved and dissolved at lightening speeds. I looked in my envelope; all of the pictures were from October.

           

***

 

            The middle school years began soon after Trent and I started to walk home together on a regular basis, after I found myself the lone girl at his birthday party at Q-Zar, after I spent the occasional hot summer day in his den, watching hours of Pop-Up Video on VH1. With adolescence came the uncomfortable stages of passing notes in class and crushes and glittery gel pens that decorated every homework assignment. The girls, whom I didnt spend much of my time with in elementary school, suddenly ran the show. The boys flopped around like puppets as they were manipulated and teased. I was neither puppeteer, nor puppet. I just sat in the back corner and watched from the wings. The boys with whom I played fistball at recess every day the year before suddenly became strangers to me, as they got so involved with the drama of those girls with high ponytails and constant layers of purple lip gloss.

            At school I was confused, lost, and self-conscious. But as soon as the final bell rang, the sun would emerge from behind the eucalyptus trees that cast shadows. At three-ten, I would gather my binders and my gel pens and walk up to the Mormon church that sat next to the Baptist church and across the street from the middle school. The parking lot of the Mormon church was where Trent and I met to begin the walk home; now we were older, with more responsibilities, and our walk was no longer three blocks, but seven. In those seven blocks we had to go up and down three steep hills, and with our heavy backpacks we felt no need to rush.                     

            We always started in sullen silence, two twelve-year-olds caught up in the inner turmoil of adolescence. But by the time we reached the blue house, complete with blue trim, a blue garage door, and blue curtains, I was plucking the petals off of daisies, laughing at something Trent said. At the house with the barking dogs, Trent and I were cussing at each other. We experimented with the words that were still new to our tongues, ones that we picked up after hearing the eighth graders throw them back and forth like nuclear weapons in front an audience of awed sixth graders.

            "Fuck You!"

            "Oh, you go fuck yourself!"

            "Don't flip me off!"

            "Wait, have you seen this one?" Trent held out his fist, his thumb in his mouth, and then made blowing noises with his thumb still between his lips. Like he was blowing up a balloon, his middle finger slowly unfurled from his small fist. I sprinted at him, and pushed him, but he just laughed at me until I was smiling and my anger was nothing but make-believe.

            When we reached the house with the jasmine bushes, Trent was giving me a lecture on music, trying to make a convincing argument that Rage Against the Machine and Blink-182 were far superior to Christina Aguilera and N*SYNC.

            "I can't believe you listen to that shit! LIVE 105 is so much better than Z 95.7. Your taste in music sucks ass."

            "You suck ass."

            "Fuck you."

            "Fuck you to infinity times infinity times infinity times infinity times infinity times..."

            The last leg of the journey was on Brentwood Drive. It was the steepest part of the walk, but it was all downhill. It was where our middle school insecurities would temporarily melt away, and we were free to talk about how you could see your eyelashes when you squinted and how much we missed having recess. It was the part where we would run down the hill, our legs buckling from the incline, slowing to a stop only when we felt we were going to tumble headfirst down the sidewalk. 

           

 

 

            "Is Meaghan there? I held the phone to my ear, silently cursing at the static that made sentences choppy and hard to decipher."

            "Hey Emma! Meaghan answered. How are you?"

            "I'm good. What about you?"

            "Ugh. Benicia is even more boring than it was even in middle school."

            "Damn girl, I'm sorry." I picked at a scab on my knee. "How is everyone?"

            "Everyone's good."

            "Yeah?" The scab fell off cleanly, neatly.

            "Yeah."

           

***

 

            The only time I ever went to the Gilman punk rock club, I was a sophomore in high school. I felt out of place in my American Eagle jeans and bright yellow jacket. It was drizzling. The bands that played that night were mediocre; I dont remember their names. I spent most of my time on periphery of the mosh pit. The two people that I had gone with were lounging on a couch that looked as though it had seen better days before teenagers started picking at the fabric and burning cigarette holes. In front of me stood a giant man with blond dreads and a tie-dyed shirt. I stepped around him and noticed that, almost uniformly, everyone was wearing black Converse high-tops. I smiled, remembering the days when I, too, wore them religiously. I looked around at the faces; most were covered in black eyeliner and the metal of various piercings. Some were smiling, others were sullen and grim. I glanced to my right, and one of the sullen faces seemed to be familiar. It was sunken, bony, pale, but my stomach dropped.

            "Trent?"

            He turned toward me, his mohawk didn't even move an inch. His eyes were sunken into his head, but they lit up when he saw me.

            "Emma! Oh my god!" Trent dragged me outside and hugged me, and I could feel his skeleton pressed into my yellow jacket. I stepped back. His footwear hadn't changed; he still wore black Converse high-tops. But everything else was different. He was dressed in all black, his black pants hugged legs that were now like sticks, and his black jacket hung loosely over his frame. The chubby face was now just skin stretched over bone, and the humor was gone from his eyes. I didn't want to think about what drug addictions had caused him to lose over one hundred pounds, to make him into an emaciated skeleton that barely cast a shadow onto the sidewalk.

             An equally skinny girl with three nose rings and a platinum bob walked over to us. He introduced her as his girlfriend, Sarah, before he pulled out a cigarette and took a long drag. He asked me about my life, I asked him about his, but he didn't go into much detail.

            We didn't have much to say after that. I didn't want to question about his parents recent divorce that I had heard about through the one of the two connections I still had to Benicia. Nor did I dare ask about his moms tumble into depression, or inquire about how his younger brother Elliott was doing. I was afraid of what he would tell me, afraid of what parts of my childhood would be further darkened with the dawning of this reality that was hitting me in the face like ice water.

            After a couple of minutes, we parted. He and his girlfriend went to bum some cigarettes off of the techies huddled behind the stage door, and my friends and I left. We drove up Gilman towards San Pablo and passed Trent and Sarah walking. I waved at Trent, or rather, the sliver of Trent that remained. The lights on San Pablo blurred as I squinted my eyes, stared at my eyelashes. I knew that Trent was walking a different way now; we would never walk the same route home again.