Waiting for Jason

© 1993 Chris Wood
All rights reserved.

My brother Jason died today and boy was he mad.

We were out back in the pasture and Jason rode the mare after Mommy told him don't do it and the horse got spooked and bucked and Jason got dead and mad.

I knew he was mad because his mouth was hard. It got that way before he hit me, so I got gone, ran to fetch the mare instead. But when I came back he was still in the grass and I'd never seen him madder.

"All right, Jase," I said. "Quit playing possum. It's getting late."

But he didn't say anything because he was dead.

I noticed this fly crawling around his nose and he wasn't doing anything to shoo it away. The wind was pushing the sky away, and the grass grinned around Jason. I could tell this was his first time being dead.

I tip-toed up and nudged him. Then I high-tailed it lickety-split in case he tried to kill me. But when I looked back he wasn't moving. Just the wind in the grass, and the sun was hiding.

This time I walked right up and kicked him. But he was as straight as a limb, and his mouth was so hard I thought it would break his face. He really didn't like being dead.

"Jason?" I asked. "Does this mean I can have your Tonka truck?"

But his face didn't move. Just the fly. It crept up his nose.

Something crackled behind me, so I twisted around. The fields were empty, except for a scarecrow dancing in the wind, and the sky was crazy with crows. I figured Jason's soul had leaked out his nose and was wondering what to do. Then I heard my name being spoken. "I'm here, Jason," I said to the air. But it wasn't him. Just Mommy calling us in for dinner.

She saw Jason dead and came running. "Y'all weren't riding that mare again, were you?"

"Jason's dead, Mommy," I said. "What's for dinner?"

Jason is the ground now.

I wonder how he likes his new home. He's probably mad because he can't come out to play. I go over and visit sometimes. Mommy and I buried him out back behind the corn. It gets cold there.

"Jason?" I ask. "What's it like being dead?"

But he won't tell me, so I play with Tonka toys all over his grave.

Mommy got rid of the mare, and there isn't much to do except tree-climbing. The leaves have blown away with the birds, and the trees look like big black bones. I like to climb way up top so I can be close to heaven. That's where Mommy says Jesus took Jason. And Daddy.

I never knew my daddy. Mommy said he got tired of living in nowhere, so one day he just started walking, rubbing us off on his jeans as he went. She says he went to work in a fact-tree. But I think I found Daddy in the woods one day. All that's left of him is this skull on a rope hanging from an oak tree, grinning at me. I like to ask it questions because it answers them. Sometimes it says yes by bobbing up and down on the rope like a chicken's head. But most of the time the wind pushes it back and forth in a great big NO! I wonder if Daddy's in heaven with Jason now, saying yes to everything.

"Mommy?" I asked. "What's heaven like?"

"White," she said. "All white. And when you die you go there."

She told me Jason's an angel now, that he grew wings and could fly.

"I want wings, too," I said. But she said you have to be dead first.

"Crows have wings," I said.

But she told me birds don't go to God.

"I wish I was dead!" I said, and she smacked my mouth.

And I said, "IF JASON'S GONNA BE DEAD I WANNA BE TOO!"

I held my breath, but she didn't say anything. Just looked at the sky and cried.

I've got this game now. Every day I climb higher and jump. It's fun! My tummy giggles, and my feet burn.

Every time I fall I take longer to get up. Sometimes I stay in the grass and play possum. I'm so good even the flies don't know. They creep up my nose, run across my eyes.

I try not to laugh.

Mommy used to tell me don't do it, Justin, you'll snap your back, but not anymore. I was up among the trees when I heard this big bang. I didn't come down because the wind tells me things, so I stayed up until dinner. But Mommy never came to fetch me, and my butt started hurting, so I jumped down and played possum and ran inside.

The house smelled of rotten eggs. It was quiet.

"Mommy?" I called, but I didn't get an answer. There was nothing on the stove either. "Where you hiding?" I said. "OLLIE-OLLIE-OXEN-FREE!"

I had to go pee-pee, and that's where I found her, naked in the tub with her head blown off. I'd never seen Mommy naked before, and my tummy felt funny, like I was jumping from a tree. She wouldn't let go of the gun. She was real selfish, the way the dead are, taking everything with them. The more I looked at Mommy the uglier she got, until she wasn't my mommy anymore, just some hunk of death in the tub, staring. I saw how little life was, how death waits in a corner to pick us up and play with us, and I giggled up a storm until my eyes rained.

I pissed without lifting the seat and didn't flush. Mommy stared at me with a split grin.

"Jesus did this to you, didn't he, Mommy?" I said. "He came here and kidnapped your soul!"

But she didn't say anything because she was dead.

I've reached the last limb.

The sky is cold and gray, and the world is brown and mean. A breeze tickles my ears, and I shoo it away. Down among the corn the scarecrow's looking, and crows are dancing on the air. Sometimes the woods get to laughing at me. I hear lots of sounds.

Mommy's in the tub, and the house smells like shit. I can say that word now because she's dead and Jesus kidnapped her. I ate all the food until there wasn't any. There's no one to play with.

The grass is grinning. It looks soft, like a pond, shaking with light. But I know that it's life that's hard, and no one can do anything to make it safe or soft again. I'm not waiting for Jesus anymore. I asked the head in the woods if today was the day, and it pecked at the air like a wicked chicken. This is the time for me to be dying.

I close my eyes, but the wind keeps haunting me. "Shut up," I tell it. "GO AWAY!" and it does. I hold out my arms and breathe. "Here goes." I step out on air.

I'm falling, falling, the ground rushes up. My tummy leaks out my nose, my mouth gets hard. I'm almost dead! Won't that be something? I'll sprout wings and fly, soar like a bird away from this place, break the sky, make me a world.

Maybe I'll find Jason there.

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