Remember Me This Way

Jessai Flores

Do you remember the five of us friends sitting on the slate roof of our school in the spring of senior year? Remember how we danced half-drunk under the sway of the stars like it was the end of our lives? It was, you know. That was the reason we were there. We once shared a joke between us about growing old and ugly like our parents and having noisy children and working dead-end office jobs where we’d all wear beige and live boring lives—but it wasn’t funny anymore. The future was hovering in front of us like an unmoving tornado. It was our apocalypse. It was four weeks away. We were all worried, but no one said anything because to think about it brought the storm closer and none of us were ready to duck and cover. So, we danced. You remember.

How did the conversation go after we finally sat down on the blanket you brought and passed around the hot chips Cecilia had bought with the money she made working the county fair? Andrea had complained about her stupid boyfriend. I had made fun of his stupid mustache. “It looks like a pair of false eyelashes,” I said, “And don’t even get me started on his stupid cologne.” We spoke stupid things about that stupid boy, but it was a stupid conversation and a stupid way to distract us from the sword above our heads. And we knew that.

What was it that Miriam, always loud but that night unusually quiet, had asked me? It was the question that snapped me back to the start. The question was about the apocalypse. “So, when will you leave,” she asked slowly, “After graduation?” Everyone knew the answer. We’d all go off to college, but the thought of it frightened me. I was the sun, and you were my planets, but you were all spinning away from me, and I was growing tiny and cold. “I’ll probably hang around town for a bit before leaving for New York,” I said. A silence settled in the air, and it was as if we could feel time coiling itself around our ankles. “But I’ll be back for Christmas, and we’ll all hang out or catch a movie or go to Chili’s,” I added. Then we all poured our Christmas plans into the silence, but we meant none of it. We were simply biding time as we hurtled towards oblivion.

The cicadas had begun to buzz that night. It was strange because it was too early in the year, but Texas is Texas. And Texas was weird. “It might be a copperhead,” you reasoned, “or it might be the school.” But it was too late, and I tumbled into the scene of us at McFalls Park.

I was eight, and you were seven.

How did the sunset look? A runny egg spilling yolk down the side of the westward sky. It was hot and humid. The cicadas were screeching their songs in the treetops. There were grass stains on our trousers from the hours we spent rolling down the hillside. You were itchy. I was tired. I had sand underneath my fingernails, and I spent the sunset digging it out with stiff blades of grass. Off in the shade, our mothers spoke about homes and markets and crashes and crises, but those were adult things. Foreign as the prayer beads we had found among the cigarette butts in the sandbox. Strange as the sunshine that peeks through the clouds during summer storms. The sun fell beneath the earth, and everyone was packing up, but I was crying. I had lost my Lego people somewhere under the slide, but it was too dark, and I couldn’t see. I couldn’t find them, and I never did. That was the first time. 

How did Miriam catch me from slipping too far away? She slapped my shoulder and repeated what I didn’t hear her say: “Are you okay?” She noticed my tears, and I cast my eyes at the stars. There I found Orion with his hand on his bow, aiming his arrow. “The stars look bright tonight,” I deflected. It didn’t work. “You’re crying,” Cecilia said. “My dog died last month,” I said. But that wasn’t the reason. You knew that, but you didn’t say anything.

I had missed school that morning. I had woken up and found my dog dead at the foot of my bed. He was old and blind and smelly, and he was mine. I had loved him for fifteen years. I had taken him to get ice cream the night before. You all joined me in the parlor and joked about how he was old enough to remember Jesus and how he was too stubborn to die. It was true. He had been poisoned, mauled by stray cats, and had fallen down the stairs countless times, but somehow he always pulled through. He was going to live forever—at least until he fell asleep for the last time. Of all things, dying in his sleep was not how I expected him to go. So yes, I cried about it, but not necessarily about him. I cried about what it meant to lose a fixture of my childhood. When I was ten, I had snuck him scraps of food under the kitchen table when my mother wasn’t looking. When I was twelve, I chased him around the backyard. During all that time, he was dying. Faster than we all were. It wasn’t fair. Was that it? Was this it? We all watched my father bury him.

The smell of the rust on the spray paint cans I stashed in a Kroger bag reminded you of blood, didn’t it? “Why are we doing this again?” Miriam asked. “Why not?” Andrea replied. “But won’t we get in trouble?” Miriam pressed. “Not unless you tell anyone,” I said. Miriam argued that she wasn’t a snitch, but that she thought it was a stupid idea. “No one will even see this,” she argued. But that was the point. Soon we stood and sprayed the roof with streaks of blues and purples. You drew hearts, and I smiley faces with x’s for eyes. We wrote WE WERE HERE and spelled out our initials. And below it all we painted our class year in powdery, Sakura pink. Andrea threw a spray can at me, but I let it slip from my fingers and it bounced off the roof. You laughed. I could never catch anything. That’s why I was always picked on and picked last in gym class. The can had rolled across the parking lot and into the street, and from the street to the telephone pole adorned with marigold and rosaries.

I ruined the moment when I caught the glint of the pole and its unusual bend at a wicked angle. Wasn’t that where that man died? It was the day of our U.S. history exam, two weeks ago. We were ripped away from questions about Hawaii by the shriek of metal and the sound of a watermelon bursting open. Mrs. Jefferson, who saw it first, had run to close the blinds. “Look away,” she said. But we weren’t children, so we looked anyway. What we saw wasn’t human. It was a sea urchin of protruding bones and twisted sinews and blood so dark it looked like tar. I wanted to run, but I could not look away. The sight of death planted a seed in me. I wonder what went through that man’s head. The curb. Apparently. That was the third time.

That night on the rooftop, we stared at the darkened spot in the pavement. I turned my head slightly and saw tiny pieces of glass twinkle like stars in the grass. Andrea elbowed me in the side. “I think I saw the crows pick at his intestines,” she whispered angrily, “Thanks for reminding me.” I apologized, but the damage was done. All we could think about was the mangled remains. Silence fell upon us again, and you joked about motorcycles, but it didn’t land. We didn’t laugh for the rest of the night. Instead, Miriam began to speak about the end of the world and what she hoped would come after. “I’m gonna major in finance,” she said, “I’ll move to Nashville and work at a nice firm, if I’m lucky.” Cecilia crumpled up the bag of chips and burped. She said, “I’m taking classes at Mountain View, and then I’ll transfer to UTA. Community college is cheaper and transferring to Arlington means I don’t have to pay for room and board.” Andrea then spoke about Miami, and how she dreamed of the surf and opening a restaurant. “Baby, you don’t know the things people will do for good crab legs,” she joked, “I would do anything. I mean come on now.” You then spoke about going to California to study art and animation. And then there was a pause. And then you asked me about my plans.

What was my response? Was it the same answer I gave to my parents when they asked the same thing? I’d go to Columbia, study English, and hopefully work for a publishing house. But really, I was scared. Everyone was moving too fast. All of you were in such a hurry to grow up and get out of the suburbs, but I didn’t want that anymore. I didn’t want to go. And this fear had turned to anger, remember? I lashed out, because how could you all be so complacent? I threw a tantrum on the roof that night. You all reassured me that we’d be like this, friends, forever. The five of us. Then Miriam said, “We’ll always have each other’s phone numbers. It’s not like we’ll disappear forever.” And then you agreed. I wiped my tears, apologized, and blamed my bad behavior on the paint fumes. We all laughed again, but that was the last time.

Above us the sky had turned a deep purple. It glistened with the white and blue freckles of stars. We all sat in silence as we watched and counted down the hours until it was time for us to climb down and head home. The sky held the pearly moon, the horizon held the faraway neon green glare of the city, and we all held each other. I cried again, but you didn’t see. You and everyone else was busy pointing out the figures and shapes in the stars, talking about star signs and future plans. I knew better than to believe the lies we told ourselves on that roof. I knew that I would waste away here in the recesses of my memory as I waited for you to come back to me. I knew and I said nothing. Instead, I sat quietly as you looked at the midnight sky and I cried because I could not count myself among the constellations.

Jessai Flores is a student at Yale University.

ABOUT THE ART | A Flock by Charlie Nevins, 2022. Charlie Nevins is a student at Yale University.