In East Hawthorne, near where Gordy lives, is a wall about waist-high that stands between a broad sidewalk and the harbor. I’m showing it to him because everyone from the old regime knows it’s the perfect wall to walk on. He pulls himself up easily and begins cantering along the top.
“Have you ever thought of riding your bike up here?” he asks.
“I’ve thought of it, but never actually done it. I don’t think anyone has.”
“Maybe you can be the first.”
An elderly woman in a black nylon tracksuit stops a few yards away and glares at us.
“Sorry, ma’am,” Gordy says, hopping to the ground. Then to me he says, “I guess it isn’t very polite to walk on a wall that’s inscribed with the names of dead fishermen.”
“Everyone does it,” I tell him. “She should be glad someone’s taking an interest. Let’s jump back up as soon as she’s gone.”
“That’s all right,” Gordy says. “I’ve experienced it.”
“Say, Gord.”
“Say, Billy.”
“I was wondering: Did she say anything particular? At the very end?”
“At what end?”
“You know, when she died.”
“My mother?” Gordy looks out toward the water.
Now I wish I hadn’t brought it up. Maybe I should have kept my mouth shut. Maybe the answer is something really horrible like “I can’t breathe.”
“Not really. She was in and out. She said a few things like that I should work hard and have goals and try to do something with my life. The typical things parents say.”
“Except that this time you felt you had to pay attention?”
Gordy laughs and steps up onto a metal railing while still looking out to sea. The white sun of early April is reflected in one curve of the harbor, making it look like a bowlful of snow. “Yeah.”
“Is that why you’re good at stuff, because you work hard?”
“I don’t know.”
Tactical error. I shouldn’t ever let on that I admire him. If I say something like that again I bet he won’t want to be my friend anymore.
“I’m just trying to make some plans, you know? I’m just trying to decide what to do next,” I explain.
But I already know—I can almost tell by the texture of the way my brain feels most days—that I am not cut out to do a lot of things well. One thing, maybe. One big thumper of a thing. The type of thing that will earn me a gravestone with just three words: I DID THIS.