By Alison Naomi Holt

 

“How far is forever, Dylan?”

Eight-year-old Dylan leaned back on his hands and looked up into the night sky. The grass in the schoolyard had turned brown, and the dry stalks poked into his palms while he thought about the question. A breeze pushed the old swing back and forth, and he listened to the chains squeaking as they slid through the pulley. The faint, tinkling sound of the extra bit of chain clanking against itself added a quiet counterpart to the pulley. “It’s far, Yancy. Too far for us, I think.”

Yancy glanced over at the older boy sitting next to him. Dylan was darker than Yancy, way darker, but that was because both his parents lived in Africa. Yancy’s mother, on the other hand, was white, and his father must have been black, but he couldn’t say for sure. No one ever talked about who his father might be, and sometimes he guessed that was because nobody really knew. He supposed it could have been any number of men because his mum wasn’t choosy about who she slept with. “I want to go to forever.”

Dylan lay all the way back and pillowed his head on his hands. He liked the way his tight curls felt soft and cloud-like against his skin, but the dead grass on the other side was pokey and made him uncomfortable. “Do ya see th’ moon?”

The moon was giant tonight, giving off enough light that Yancy had to squint when he looked up. Sometimes, when they sat out here, it was orange, and at other times, yellow. Tonight, it shone pure white into the star-filled sky. “It’s huge.”

“I think forever’s farther away than th’ moon.”

Even though his friend was only two years older, Yancy knew Dylan had faced everything there was to experience in the world. “Is Africa farther than forever?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you miss your mom and dad?”

“Yeah.”

Yancy lay down next to his friend and pillowed his hands beneath his head as Dylan had done. “Sometimes I think I’d like to live in forever. I’d like to walk past th’ moon and keep walkin’, ya know? Like tonight, when Mama brought home that man and tol’ me to leave. I wanted to walk to forever and never come back.”

Dylan sighed. “I had to walk to th’ moon. When they shot Timer, Dimamzo pointed to th’ moon and said, ‘Walk towards that at night, and sleep durin’ th’ day, and never stop until ya come to freedom.’” He rolled his head to the side and looked at his younger friend. “I think she meant walk until forever.”

“What’s Timer?”

“My Papa. Dimamzo is my Mama.”

“You walked from Africa to Baltimore by following th’ moon? All th’ way?”

Dylan’s white teeth shone in his dark face, and he rolled back to stare at the moon. “I walked to th’ water and found a ship that was sailin’ toward th’ moon. I crawled into th’ bottom, and when it stopped, I snuck off again.”

“How long did that take?”

“Thirty moon rises.”

Sitting up again, Yancy turned to face his friend. “Did you eat?”

Dylan sat up, too, and faced Yancy so their knees were touching. “Of course, I ate. I’m not a ghost, am I?”

Yancy’s face took on a sad, pitying look as he stared into his friend’s dark, dark eyes. “I think you are. I think you walked to forever and never stopped. I think that’s what I want to do, Dylan. I want to walk to forever like you did.”

From far away, laughter rolled over the grass field, and the boys looked up to see two policemen walking past the school grounds. The woman’s high voice carried better in the moonlight while the man’s deeper baritone dropped down into the dirt beneath the dead grass.

The boys quickly turned onto their stomachs so they looked like discarded rags lying next to the swings. They hid their eyes on their arms because their skin blended into the dirt, but their eyes would stand out like white marbles left out after a game of Shooter. They listened to the rhythmic squeak as the swing moved back and forth, and the clanking chain continued with its steady counterpoint to the swing’s soft melody.

When the policemen turned the corner, Yancy lifted his head and propped his chin on his hands.

Dylan rolled onto his side and rested his ear on his fist. “I’m not dead, Yance. See?” He reached out with his free hand and pulled Yancy’s curly hair.

Yancy laughed and pulled his head away. “Ow. Okay, okay.” His smile faded, and he asked, “What did you eat? In the bottom of the boat, I mean?”

The teasing light left Dylan’s eyes. He played with a stalk of dead grass, holding it between two fingers and snapping it off length by length with his thumb until there was nothing left to hold. 

Watching his friend’s hand, Yancy sighed when the piece of grass was gone. He turned back and set his chin on his hands. “Sometimes, when my mom gets high, she forgets I need to eat. I look in the fridge and see furry green stuff growing all over the beans, and I put them in a bowl and wash the green stuff off. And I eat ’em, the beans I mean. I eat ’em anyway, cuz I get hungry.” He lay his cheek on his hands so he could look at Dylan. “I bet you had to eat green furry stuff in the bottom of the boat.”

A tear slid down Dylan’s cheeks, and Yancy sat up straight. “Hey, don’t cry. It’s okay cuz forever is far, Dylan, and we all gotta eat, even if it’s just green furry stuff. We all gotta eat. And, like ya said, you’re still alive, so ya can keep walking toward th’ moon. Can I come with ya, Dylan? Can I come with ya while ya walk toward th’ moon?”

“Rats.”

“Rats? What d’ya mean, rats?” 

“I ate rats an’ I drank their blood cuz I was thirsty.” He closed his eyes to blot out the memory. “I don’t think forever is far enough to get away. We need to go farther than forever.”

The boys stayed quiet for a while, each thinking their own thoughts. Finally, Yancy said, “I have a rat who visits me in my room at night. She comes in through a hole in the wall. I talk to her, and she sits and listens to me. I don’t think I could ever eat her.” He looked worried when he stared into Dylan’s eyes. “If you ever come to my room, will you eat her?”

Dylan shrugged, “If I’m hungry enough, yeah, I prob’ly would.”

Yancy glanced at his friend out of the corner of his eye. “Are you hungry now?”

“Nuh uh.”

A sigh of relief escaped Yancy’s lips before he could stop it. He whispered, “I don’t think I want you to come to my room.” His mind churned as he gathered his thoughts. “Dylan?”

“Yeah?”

“If you followed th’ moon to forever, and you had to eat rats, then forever’s no better than now, is it?”

Dylan shrugged, “I guess not.”

“I thought if I ever got to forever, it’d be okay, but it won’t, will it? It’ll be like now.” Worried thoughts clouded the little boy’s mind, and he tried to put his despair into words. “A man once tol’ me that dead’s forever. If dead’s th’ same as now, we’ll never find what your Momma tol’ you to look for, will we? It ain’t real, is it?”

The drooping, tear-filled eyes and worry lines around his friend’s mouth frightened the older boy. He was eight, and he’d just told a six-year-old that there wasn’t any reason to hope. He looked up at the moon again and pointed off to the left. “You see that star over there, th’ third one that kind of blinks?”

Yancy scrubbed the tears from his eyes so things weren’t so blurry. He pointed into the sky. “That one, you mean?”

“Yeah. I think that one’s on th’ way to forever, and there ain’t no rats on that one. We could go there, and that way, we never make it to forever. That way, maybe me ‘n you’ll get to freedom, and we’ll be happy, and we’ll smile, and we’ll be loved again.”

Shading his eyes against the moon’s brightness with one hand, Yancy circled the blinking star with the thumb and forefinger of the other. “How will your Dimamzo find you if we go to that star?”

The older boy stayed quiet for a moment. His eyes clouded with tears again, and he wiped his nose with his sleeve. “I think Dimamzo is already there waiting with Timer. I just need to keep walking towards th’ moon, and I think if we stop at that star called Freedom, they’ll both be standing there with their arms open wide. And I’ll run to them, and they’ll laugh and cry and be so happy I found them.”

“And what about me?”

“I’ll tell them you’re their little boy, too, ’cause we walked together toward th’ moon. An’ they’ll hug you an’ bring me an’ you with ’em. We’ll be happy again.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever been happy.”

“I think you’ll like it.” Dylan got up and held out his arm. “C’mon. Let’s head to forever an’ stop at that star, okay?”

Yancy got to his feet, and Dylan put his arm across his shoulders. The two of them walked toward the moon, two sad little boys lost in the wilderness of despair. 

©Alison Naomi Holt