By Jacob Malewitz
We left the rocks after he drowned. We began the rocks before anyone died. I enjoyed our drug use, the way we jumped into life, and how we could avoid girls/trouble by doing this.
“Consider it a test,” the teacher said to us.
“And what else would I consider it?”
“How the hell am I supposed to know? Maybe life?”
He swore, cursed, even shadow punched—Mr. Key was a true life teacher. Before the days we went to the rocks, before the Jupiter Gods lost, we had been in school. I was trying to wing a test: without this grade I would be nothing, and with it I would find an ending to my own story. If I succeeded, the colleges would come. That was false, but we all dream of going to the Ivy League school when school is easy, and hope to avoid the fast food joint when it’s hard.
“Just take the fucking test, leave me in peace, screw till your eyes go blue, and leave me in peace.”
So I took the test. The test was nothing. I took it because life forces you to do things. I wamted to leave. Looking back, there was chaos in the classroom; and looking forward, there was order. I would have to leave this place, find a man named Dream, release myself of school. I hated having to forget the kisses and the short skirts—I wanted to keep everything.
I stopped. The test was blank. I realized I had been scribbling a picture of the Jupiter God, the super hero of Dream, on the back of it, and, with no further provocation, I stood, caught a few glances, and left.
He met me outside, me, halfway down the hall, and Key at the door. “What the blazes are you doing?”
He looked angered, a tempest, but I kept walking. I heard him yelling that quit word, that quit word I had heard throughout my life. Soccer, football, track, math, chemisty—I had dropped out of each, barely passed the rest, and left myself with no options. Maybe life would show me a sign, maybe me and the Jupiter Gods could find one.
Albert Tusk appeared to be the stupidest kid still in the second grade, but he was big, just had that young look to him that would stay until he grayed, learned, and found himself in the heaven some believed in. We were the Jupiter Gods. It used to be bigger: once we had ten, maybe more, but people grew up, stopped seeking out adventure.
Hours later, I met Al outside the school that day. I had killed time staring at the Jupiter God picture. I considered my future career in sales, thinking I would have the “Death of a Salesman” curse my father did. Books had power. So did paper and water. We all needed water—but did we need books? That was the question, because I loved water just as much as killing time with books. Al said I was studious when I wanted to be.
“Al.”
“JC.”
We walked. Walked and went to a place on the edge of the world. “Why did you quit?”
“The quest was over.”
“I never understand you. Book reader who sucks at school. Quitter who has more talent than half the athletes here.”
He liked pointing out the obvious.
“Schools over.”
“School isn’t a choice; it’s life.
I realized I had taken the picture with me. There, my muse was present. Everyone in that classroom must have thought I had finally made the choice. The Jupiter Gods were falling—only two, we had to make a stand against the rules. Society was empty. Families were drug filled jokes. I wanted to dream.
We went to my car. I saw a pretty girl on the way, one I had never seen before, and she seemed to be the dreamy-type only the heroes could gain. You would have to be a quarterback or a 4 point law student to get her, to kiss the lips, all that nonsense. Walking past her was empowering—she expected me to stop like every other guy. But, I didn’t win.
“My names …
“I didn’t ask your name.”
Here, you can see my moment of bliss, my anger at the opposite sex and life. I had something on my shoulder that wouldn’t relent, a piece of life that seemed to push back when girls tried to find their ways into my life. I walked closer. “You want to join the Jupiter Gods?”
“What the hell is that?” The swear word touched a vein of gold within her; there, the beauty worked hard on me. A man had to act the right way, he had to kiss, to love, to stop, and do it all over again when time ended. Dreams and lost gods were all that sounded good. But the girl seemed interesting, perhaps had a story, all that.
“It’s a special group. We go on adventures.”
“What’s your name?”
“My names dream.”
“And I’m illusion—what’s your name?”
“Calvin … I hate my name.”
She stepped forward; for the first time I saw into her eyes, the window into Ilusions soul, and here I was, Dream, thinking bad things.
“We’re leaving. We don’t drink, we don’t smoke, but we make all the other bad choices we’re supposed to.”
“Like?” She stepped closer. I saw down Illusions shirt. Yes, I was still a teenager, but as time changes, so does the boy who dreams of sex. Once, I would have never even said hello to her. I would be ashamed of all my sexual desires. Now, it was neither here or there, I was.
“I don’t know, Illusion, we jump off things, shoot things, run away from things, all that sort of stuff.”
She stepped even closer. A hint of a scent I won’t describe to you. A look of a kind you couldn’t see when the sun left the sky. A dream to be dreaming.
“We believe in the Jupiter God. He is our comic book hero. We plan on selling the rights to Marvel, you know, Spider-Man-and-X-Men Marvel, and then sell the movie rights to somebody rich.”
“What are you, a Freshman? Comic heroes? No one makes any money doing that.”
“Then forget it, Illusion.”
She must have liked I called her that, me being a Dream, and her being something different.
She followed me, Calvin, and we went along with Al to the car. This was the scene: a dream walking next to me, an ox named Al a few steps behind, a school that I left early, and a future that looked abysmal. I wanted to quit, but I didn’t want to quit on her. She had that sort of voice that touched the dream center. Al was an artist; I tried to be one. But I could see myself drawing her curves, the way the bangs slid across her face, all those reasons I shouldn’t have let her join the Jupiter Gods.
I called my van, Old Betsy, after Davy Crocket’s signature rifle. There was a comical element to that, perhaps during my drug use, but I stuck to the name like Davy Crocket did his post at the Alamo. It appealed to me because where everyone but me in the school was rich, I flaunted being poor. Before Tommy Hilfiger jeans went out of fashion, I was wearing denim with patches and other attempts by my disappearing mother to save a few dollars.
Money was a tool for me then, I won’t lie, because with it I had power. Without the gas money, the Jupiter Gods would be nothing. The society would win. We would be do-nothings, no quest to merit our guidance, and so on.
“Tell me more about Jupiter God,” she said.
We drove. Illusion sat next to me, AL in back, and me, Dream, worked my way towards our secret layer. Batman had the bat cave and Superman the Fortresss of Solitude. I didn’t name the place we entered … sure, I wanted to call it something cool like “Time Ends,” and you would think with my imagination it would be possible, but it was not.
We walked out. Walked and found that Illusion was a fast walker. Al huffed and puffed, something he often did in school, but once there he calmed down. The problem was, we had no idea of what to do next. Illusion had an idea, one I loved, and voiced it not to me but to Al. This angered me.
“I know a place,” she said, her arm on his shoulder, “a set of rocks that are above a deep pool of water. The Jupiter Gods best adventure.”
“I never even said you were in the group.”
“Calvin don’t be an ass.”
“Dude, she’s a girl. The whole point—“
“There is no point. We go or no more group. There can’t be one with just you, so we take a vote.”
I made the choice not to go. They tried to change my mind, but I wouldn’t go to some set of rocks just to see a pool of water. I would rather get drunk sitting in our secret lair; Al reminded me we didn’t do that. I sat there. Sat and they left.
Hours passed, with me staring at Old Betsy, my trusted weapon, and trying to find ways to put a hurt on the new couple. Al loved Illusion. I thought it was just a dream. We needed to go on something worthwhile. I said drinking, and even that seemed fun to just entering into a pool of water.
Finally, they returned. Actually, it was just Illusion. She had the fear in her eyes, the wetness all over her hair, the chaos entering her soul.
“What? What? Where—“
“Gone. He jumped, didn’t come up.”
I started running. Now, you may not know an AL from another Al: the bad football player with the bad knee, the guy who stayed out of trouble but would end up working at a gas station, the low paychecks that would make him smile, you remember, the ones who are blond in mindset—Forrest Gump types. That was AL. Thing was, they were supposed to live.
Once there, I hesitated to jump in. Illusion was right behind me. I stopped, touched the water with my hand, thought twice about throwing a second life away, and looked into her eyes. I did what my father told me you should never ask a girl.
“What now?”
“I have no idea.”
“He’s already dead, isn’t he?”
“How am I supposed to know?”
I put my hands on her shoulder. “Jupiter Gods don’t let Jupiter Gods fall. We have to get him.”
For some reason she jumped in. I didn’t. all the talk of quest, of leaving school on the run, and I didn’t have the heart in me to jump in after her. No, she would save him, she would be the hero, and there would be no more illusions in dreamworld. The place changed: I stopped calling it dreamworld. A minute after she entered, I called it hell. Considering my options, I knew my life ended. Here, there would be no more second chances. A man makes a choice, jumps, falls, and gets back up. I so wanted to finish that test, so wanted to see Keys shake his head at me after I passed a worthless test, because there I was no helpless. And here I was.
I looked for Illusion in the water. A lock of hair; a hand; a movement. Nothing happnened. I looked in, found the soul of someone lost, or maybe it was an illusion, and found myself edging towards the water. Becauee of the nature of the water, and because I was powerless over it, I feared making this decision. The moment I jumped was the last. The moment I passed a drowned Illusion and Al deep beneath the water, I knew the time of the Jupiter Gods was over.
