Before everything fades away

I was on lookout at the corner of the alley while Mary began spray painting the wall. It was just after midnight, and the hot June day had melted into a beautiful evening. I glanced over as she unleashed a long flowing spray of orange that twisted into itself. She repeated it a few more times, and her movement cast wild shadows beneath dim lights along the back of the shop wall. We probably wouldn’t get caught but adrenaline still surged through me. I felt alert.

Which, I guess, is a good thing for a lookout.

Although my chest surged with electricity, my legs were still dead stumps. I clenched the rubber tread of my chair. I was imagining how I would zip off down the hilly street, wheeling away from some fat, pigeon-toed cop, or a cruising away from some pissed shop owner with a baseball bat. I could see myself doing wheelies and laughing the whole way, Mary running behind me, screaming gloriously. I was picturing the scene in my head as I watched her up on her tip toes, spray painting with arm fully extended. She was focused.

To state the obvious, I should tell you now that I am in love with her. I think that may have started in fourth grade. Maybe earlier. Sometimes, I think it may have even started in some other life, when we both inhabited some other bodies. I’m pretty sure that Mary and I have known one another across several lifetimes.

A car turned up the street. “Just a guy sitting here in a wheelchair in the dark, nothing to look at. Keep driving dude.” The voice in my head.

“You watching, Cricket?”, she half whisper-yelled down the alley.

“Oh shit! I think three cops are coming our way!”

A short pause. The sound of spray paint stops for a second.

“Maybe you’ll have to blow all three of them so they wont arrest us,” she said as she crouched and sprayed more.

“oh….again?” I said in whiny voice. I heard her laugh.

“You’re gonna need some mints, dick breath.” She made me laugh more than anyone I’ve ever known.

“Cricket, you are such a whore!” She said with fake disdain, as she began filling in the center of the shape with deeper orange, the petals beginning to have depth. Beauty emerging.

People have called me Cricket since I was a little kid. I remember my mom said one time “it’s those long skinny legs of yours. You could probably jump to the moon.“ I look at pictures of myself when I used to be able to stand, my legs do seem impossibly long: easily holding me vertically, muscled and straight.

Mary went away to art school up in Philadelphia two years ago. We talked all the time during her freshman year, not so much this past year. I got it. I couldn’t blame her. She has a whole other life up there. Other friends, other scenery, other worlds. She always wanted to get away from this town. When we were younger, we would plan it as if we were going to do it together. I kept thinking she was going to invite me up to hang sometime in Philly some time, but she never did.

She came back this summer after sophomore finals with three new piercings, and a new appreciation for sativa. We used to smoke a little bit, but she liked to be stoned all the time now. She got straight A’s her last semester, and she told me she had gotten high every day.

“Sativa is like a straight path to your creative energy. I can’t stop working!” She sent that in short message to me back in April with a nude she had finished in figure drawing. I was stunned at how good she had gotten. There was something inside me a little jealous. Maybe sad is a better word; she was growing. Changing. I was thinking about how we would eventually drift apart. The night was so still. I watched her in her black Doc Martens and paint-splattered jean shorts. She was spraying up high again. Her hair was pulled back behind her ear. In the half dark, she looked familiar but changed. I had known this girl forever, and she was a woman now.

Last summer, some dude she met at art school came to visit - Adam. She wanted me to go out with them; I think she had already slept with him once but wasn’t ready for it to happen again. We went bowling. We smoked a joint in the parking lot before we went in and he talked alot. He seemed like a pretentious dick to me. Non-stop hipster irony show. I didn’t like the way he got close to her. Once, he smacked her ass after she rolled a strike. She grabbed him by the wrist and was laughing as she said something quietly to him. She obviously didn't mind, that much.

And I hated his fucking art—it looked like some shit you would see on the side of some seventies pervert- van. I guess it was supposed to be ironic, demons and half -naked women. But he seemed to make Mary laugh a lot. I just thought he was an asshole. Trust me, I'm aware of my own jealousy. I know I can be a dick.

I was still watching at the corner thinking about all that shit, when a woman and her dog walked by across the street. I let out a little whistle and Mary stopped painting, stepped out of the glow of the streetlight. The woman never even looked our way. That’s one good thing about wheelchairs, a lot of people don’t look at you. I guess they don’t want to stare, even if you’re sitting on some random corner after midnight. After the woman turned up the block, Mary picked up the green can and, in between vigorous shakes, began short intense sprays that began to take the shape of flowing stems.

Mary was home to stay for the summer because her dad was sick. He had lung cancer and the chemo left him really weak. Her mom was working double shifts at the hospital, and Mary became her dad’s primary caregiver for the summer. Sometimes, I went over and we watched movies with him. He was really into Marlon Brando. I liked "The Godfather", and had seen "Last Tango in Paris". That movie is pretty fuct. One night we watched “Rebel Without a Cause”. I actually liked it: totally cheesy and good at the same time. Mary’s dad used to ride a Harley Fat Boy: he’d come rumbling down the road with the exhaust thundering: he was all sun glasses, no helmet and a long handle bar mustache. Nicest dude, though, He’s the one that started calling Mary “Marigold”. He always just called me “C”.

One time in eighth grade, Mary and I were skateboarding down behind the Circle K. She would try any trick that I tried. Well, I did an ollie off of a 4-foot loading dock, landed it perfectly, and skated away smoothly. I told her not to try it, but as soon as she hit the pavement, her board slid out from her and her ankle splayed out. She tried to walk it off, took a few steps, and fell to the pavement. Her ankle had immediately swollen to the size of a softball. We called her dad from a payphone.

We sat three across in the front of his pickup on the way home. I was watching the town lights fly by out the window. Mary was quiet, her head back and her eyes closed. Her dad was blasting Creedence on the radio. We stopped at a red light just outside of town and he turned to me, “How did you let this happen to my daughter, C? ” I glanced over and he smiled a bit. But there was a look in his eye that also gave me the feeling that he meant what he was saying: I was supposed to be looking out for Mary.

My mom died in the accident that put me in this chair. The last thing I remember was looking out the passenger window, imagining myself skateboarding over the curbs and roofs we passed. I woke up two weeks later in the hospital. My aunt was there when I opened my eyes. She the one that told me my mom had already been buried. Apparently, my brain had swollen and they had kept me in an induced-stasis to keep me alive. I just remember tubes and all of the pin-sized holes on the drop ceiling in that room. This was four years ago, but I can still see every one of those damn holes.

Mary was one of the first to come see me when I was finally conscious. I ended up missing half of our sophomore year. I had a home visit nurse and a tutor who would come by on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I didn’t give a fuck about school. I was adjusting to life in the chair. Sometimes after school, Mary would stop over just to hang and listen to records before she went home to her house. Just her being there was enough. We would hardly talk a lot of times. We’d just sit and draw and listen to music. Occasionally, we mixed a bit of my dad’s vodka with grape soda and sat on the back deck, watching the cows. Getting buzzed. That was nice, too.

Mary’s dad took me fishing a couple times after I got hurt. He put a ramp up to the back of his pickup and strapped my chair to the cab facing backwards. We left at dawn both times. Mary sat beside me as watched corn fields and trees recede behind, the sun rising orange above it all. Only the sound of wind in our ears. We never caught too many fish, but I loved those trips.

I looked at my watch and it was almost one am.

“Yo bitch, your spray paint pimp needs you to report back to the crack house,” I said, trying not to laugh.

“Im all done, pimp daddy.”

I heard her packing up, putting the cans into her backpack. I wheeled over toward her. The night was quiet and even my wheels seemed loud on the pavement. The hum of the street lights were a sustained ambience over everything.

“I think you’re gonna like this one, Cricket.” she said.

She stood up just as I reached her. Beside her was a six- foot tall marigold- painted beautifully. Then, I noticed just above it: a small cricket with long legs, arcing high over the flower. In the corner, I saw two words: “For Jeff."

Her dad.

“Fucking amazing,’ I heard myself say.

She stood behind me, looking at it for a moment, and then she bent down and put her chin on my shoulder. Her cheek was almost touching my own.

“Look. It’s like you are jumping high over me, Cricket. It’s like you’re looking out for me.”

I wanted her dad to see it soon. Before it was too late. Before everything faded away.