The Lights In the Sky

Chapter 4

I know they say that alcoholism is genetic. I don't know how true that is, but if it is, I probably shouldn't really touch the stuff.And I rarely do. But the thing is, Frank's mom and uncle don't really care if we have a few drinks when we stay at their house. I've only ever been drunk once; usually, I stop after I have a buzz. We only do it because we can, not because we necessarily want to.

Deborah and I went to Frank's that night after the game. My mom was a little skeptical because of the one time I came home hungover. I think she knows what we do over there. But I'm seventeen so I wasn't asking for her permission so much as I was just letting her know my plans.

Frank's house is pretty small for being in the country. It's just one story, no basement or anything. There are three bedrooms; one is supposed to be for Uncle Ashton, but usually he ends up going to Frank's mom's room anyway. Which is nice when we have a lot of people over, because then Deborah and I can sleep in the same bed.Not that we do much. I mean, we've done some stuff, but it doesn't have anything to do with the story and she wouldn't want me to tell you anyway. I'll just say that we're both virgins and leave it at that.

I try not to drink whiskey for obvious reasons, but Frank's mom made margaritas that night so we each had a few. Deborah figured out pretty fast that tequila doesn't agree with her. She spent most  of her night throwing up in the bathroom and she refused to let me sit in there with her because we haven't gotten to that stage where it's okay to see each other throw up. Which is strange to me,because I've seen Frank puke twice, both when he had the flu really bad last year, and I'm way more intimate with her than I am with him.

It ended up being an okay night for us, though. His mom attended to Deborah until she could make it into the bed (where she told me I wasn't allowed to sleep in case she threw up again in the middle of the night). We sat in the kitchen with Uncle Ashton as he smoked cigarettes and played his classic rock CDs. That part went by fast,but it must have taken a long time because we made it through an entire Pink Floyd double album. Uncle Ashton says that The Wallis an underestimated album because of how much people like Dark Side of the Moon. He actually prefers The Wall, but according to him, all Pink Floyd is good. That's the one he played that night, though. And this song called "Comfortably Numb" came on; do you know that one? I've probably heard it a billion times before, but that night it really caught me differently. Nobody spoke the whole time it was on. We just stared down at the table or up at the walls and listened. It's a sad song. I don't think I ever actually listened to the lyrics before.

Once Frank's mom took Deborah to bed, Uncle Ashton finished his cigarette very casually. It's like he doesn't want us to know that he's in love with Frank's mom. Her name is Wendy, by the way. I guess I could just start calling her that.

When his smoke was gone, he pushed the rest of the pack across the table toward Frank and I, even though he knows we don't smoke. He told us he was going to "hit the sack," which is what he always says when he's following Wendy to bed. It was just the two of us left sitting around the table. Frank poured us two more margaritas and I was feeling extremely buzzed. We sat there in silence until we both realized that we were drinking pink drinks from giant glasses that had umbrellas in them. That's just how Wendy makes her margaritas and we didn't think to change it. That made us laugh and it really caught on, so we just sat in the kitchen hollering in laughter and not saying a word. Frank got up and put on a Bob Marley CD and started dancing around the kitchen a little bit. I just sat there and drummed with my palms on the table. And to be honest, it did start to feel like every little thing would be alright. Like I said, I forgot about the dream.

Have you ever had one of those people where you can just look at each other and not even say a word, but you both know that you'rethinking about how great it is to be friends? Like you want to give that person a hug just for being themselves and being in your life? That happened and I think it made us both uncomfortable because then he put on Guns 'n' Roses and we both sang and danced a little crazy. And that long, slow song "November Rain" came on and Iswear we both collapsed on the kitchen floor. And it was nice and cool and I closed my eyes and felt like I was falling down a tunnel into the deepest sleep.

Then I heard Frank's voice. "Sammy. Sammy, get up." I opened one eye just a little bit and looked at him. He was sitting on the floor with his back propped against the fridge. And he was staring up at the window over the sink. There was dull light coming through.

"The sun's almost up," he said.

I think all I said back was, "Yeah."

He pulled himself to his feet and grabbed my hand and pulled me up, too.I followed him outside. The air was cold and brisk, but there was no wind. The only sound was the birds chirping as they flew around in the fields. That sound almost lulled me into sleep again, but I followed Frank out into his front yard. There was a county highway past his fence and then nothing but fields and small houses in the distance. If you looked hard enough, you could see this patch of trees a few miles off. The trees grow around this pond that sits back from our house. Like a country oasis. The corn was tall and motionless. The clouds were few and far between. There was us and the rolling hills and the birds. And nothing else.

Frank told me that if you really think about it, we're all just clusters of dead stars. Particles that came together in a particular way to make us who we are. And that if you thought about it, it was pretty cool. He didn't just mean how lucky we were to be alive. He meant that, too, but it was more. It was that we were both alive and both in that moment. That the swirling pieces of ancient stars came together in that precise, perfect way. I could have hugged him, I think.

The sun came up, a long arm of filtered light trailing behind bold beams that arched across the sky. When the arm turned into a globe, my eyelids got really heavy. Everything was so still and unmoving except Frank's chest rising and falling as he breathed beside me. I thought about passing out in the lawn for a second. Then Frank put his hand on my shoulder and said it was time for bed. I slept on his bedroom floor with just a single blanket and pillow. I didn't move until almost noon the next day.

You know how I said that thing about time being an illusion and how that means we're constantly living and reliving our lives? Well, if I could go back to a specific point and just stay there for a while, it would be that sunrise. Not just because things started getting bad after that, but also because it was genuinely perfect.

 Things did get bad after that. And I suppose that's the story you really want to hear. Which is a shame, because I would rather just tell you about the sunrise.