In Summertime Saga

Saturday I ran three deliveries before my legs stopped cooperating and I sat on the curb outside Tony's with sweat running down my back and two hundred dollars in my pocket that hadn't been there yesterday. Tony came out with a glass of water and set it on the curb beside me and said "you look like hell" and went back inside.

I drank the water. My calves were burning. My shirt was soaked through for the third time that week and it was starting to develop its own personality. The delivery money was in bills in my front pocket and the edges pressed through the denim and every bill was fifty dollars closer to not running anymore.

Sunday was the same. Three more deliveries. Mrs. Patterson again, who opened the door and inspected the pizza and said "still not Tony" and tipped two dollars. A house on the west side where a man in a bathrobe took the box without saying a word and handed me the exact change and a cold look that suggested I'd interrupted his afternoon. A college kid in an apartment over the laundromat who opened the door shirtless with a game controller in one hand and said "you are a lifesaver, dude" and tipped five. The five-dollar tip was the best I'd gotten and I pocketed it and jogged back and my knees were making sounds they hadn't made on Saturday.

By Sunday afternoon I had three hundred and forty-five dollars in my pocket, which was more cash than I'd held at one time since I'd woken up in this body. I walked to Consum-R.

The bike was where I'd left it. Blue with a white stripe, cracking handlebar grips, two hundred dollar price tag. It was still the ugliest bike I'd seen in either of my lives and I'd been thinking about it every time my legs burned on a delivery run.

The clerk was different today. A girl, young, maybe my age, chewing gum and looking at her phone. She rang me up without comment and I wheeled the bike out of the store and through the mall exit and into the parking lot and sat on it.

The seat was thin. The frame was light. The handlebars felt like they'd been designed for someone with smaller hands and the grips were rough where the rubber was cracking. I pushed off and pedaled down the parking lot and the bike wobbled once on the first turn and then steadied and the wind was on my face and my legs were still burning from the deliveries but the burning was different on a bike because the bike was doing half the work and I was covering ground faster than I had on foot and the town was moving past me instead of crawling.

I rode through Summerville. Past Tony's, past the school, past the neighborhood where the houses got nicer and the lawns got greener and a woman was walking a small dog that barked at me as I passed. Past the gym, past the park, down to the strip of road that led to the beach. I didn't go to the beach. I turned and rode back north, past the church, past the police station, and pulled into the parking lot of the Saga Dealership because I wanted to see what was next.

The lot was full of cars I couldn't afford. Sedans, trucks, a sports car in the back row that was red and looked like it cost more than Debbie's house was worth. Inside, a girl was sitting at the reception desk with her feet up on the counter and her phone in her face and she looked up when the bell on the door rang and looked back down before the bell stopped.

Long black hair with bangs falling across one eye. Brown eyes. Slim. She was wearing a crop top and a pleated skirt and thigh-high socks and she had a choker and sneakers and she looked like she'd gotten dressed for a different place and ended up here by accident or revenge.

"Help you?" she said into her phone.

"Just looking."

"Cool." She didn't look up.

I looked at the price tags on the vehicles through the window. Scooter: $3,500. Small car: over ten thousand. The sports car in the back didn't have a price tag, which meant I couldn't afford to ask. Josephine Sato. I knew her name from the game and I knew she'd be the one selling me every vehicle I'd ever buy in this town, but right now she was a girl on a phone behind a desk and I was a kid on a bicycle with grease on his jeans.

I left. She didn't notice.

The gym was open Sunday morning. Planet Thiccness was on the main drag, glass front, a sign with a cartoon weightlifter that was either encouraging or threatening depending on your relationship with exercise. Kevin was inside. Kevin was always inside. He was at the bench press doing reps with plates that weighed more than I did and his face was red and his tank top was dark with sweat and he lit up when he saw me come in.

"Bro! Sunday session! Let's go!"

Kevin Cockburn was enthusiastic about lifting weights, telling me about lifting weights, and standing close enough to spot me that our knees touched. He was big, blond, and the straightest-looking closeted man I'd ever met, which was saying something because I'd lived in a city where the closet was a popular address. He was harmless and helpful and he corrected my squat form by physically moving my hips and I let him because the form corrections were actually good and the hips thing was his problem to deal with.

I benched the bar with ten pounds on each side. Twenty pounds more than last week. Kevin spotted me and said "bro, you're growing" and he was right. The bar was heavier but my arms were steadier and the reps were cleaner and when I put the bar back my shoulders hurt less than they had last time. Strength going from 1 to 2 didn't sound like much and it wasn't much, but the bar moved smoother and my arms held steady at the top and I'd added weight and my body had handled it.

I showered at the gym. The hot water hit the bruise on my shoulder where Judith had bitten me and the bruise was turning yellow at the edges and fading and nobody had noticed it yet and nobody would because the mark was in a spot that shirts covered.

Saturday night I'd gone to the park for the rap circle. Same kids. Same speaker rattling bass on the concrete. The scrawny kid in the backward cap was there and he challenged me first and I beat him in two rounds and the circle clapped harder this time, real applause, and a girl on the bench said "damn" into her vape pen. The second challenger was better, a taller kid with actual rhythm, and I had to work for it. I found the groove by the second bar and the delivery was slower this time, more deliberate, and the punchline landed in the quiet I'd built before it and the circle went still and then loud. Charisma 2. The number was invisible but the feeling was real. My timing was sharper and my reads were faster and the room gave me more space to work with.

At home, the house was changing.

Debbie watched me lace my shoes Monday morning and said "be careful" and her voice cracked on the second word and she pressed her lips together and turned back to the stove. I'd been leaving the house at seven every morning for a week. Running deliveries. Going to the gym. Coming home sore and tired and smelling like pizza grease and sweat.

"I'm always careful," I said.

"I know, sweetie." She didn't turn around. She was stirring eggs too fast, working the spatula like it owed her money.

Jenny was different too. She came downstairs Tuesday and I was at the table and she paused on the stairs and said "who are you texting" and I said "nobody" and she said "you're always on your phone now" and I said "I don't have a phone" and she stared at me for a second and then went to the fridge and the conversation was over but the question hadn't been.

The rhythm was building. Gym in the mornings. Deliveries after school. French homework and Jenny's photos and dinner with Debbie in the evenings. Rap battles on the weekends. Between everything, I rode the blue bike through Summerville and mapped the town against my memory. The gym matched. The school matched. Diane's farm had a smell that no game had ever communicated and I held my breath when I rode past the barn. The mall was bigger than the sprites. The beach was rockier. The pier was longer. The people were realer.

I had a hundred and forty-five dollars in my pocket after the bike. Strength 2, Charisma 2, zero Dexterity, zero Intelligence. The PC was still broken. The panties were still uncollected. The stats were low and the money was thin and the warehouse was still coming and I was still the same kid in a body that was slowly getting stronger.

I had a bike and I had a rhythm and those two things were going to have to be enough for now.

I rode home with the wind on my face and the town was getting smaller.