Growing Sideways

Danny Bracco

Goodbyes
She can’t help but give my passport and ticket information to the woman in the stiff navy blue uniform, and I can’t help but let her. This is bigger than just my trip. Her body sinks toward the counter, supported more by her arms than her legs, while the uniform checks my information. On the early drive to the airport, when the sun was rising but still casting more of a blue light than a yellow one, she told me she would probably just drop me off at the terminal so she wouldn’t have to deal with parking madness and walk into the airport. She has never left the house without applying at least a hint of makeup, but still insists she looks like she just rolled out of bed. When we arrived at the Tom Bradley International Terminal, she drove into the parking structure without a word.
George and I hand our passports to my mom, who hands them to the uniform. I smile to her, trying to match the face in the picture. Everyone has reminded me how important this is—my first big trip alone, the test-run before moving out of my home and into the dorms. Even though I will come back to my own room for holidays and summer vacation, it will never really feel like home again. Relatives tell me this with a laugh and a smile that believes they hold the secret to each of my future experiences. She tells me this too, but each time she doesn’t laugh. She reaches for my hand or my shoulder and prepares me for how different things will be, as if it doesn’t ever sink in. As she hands us back our passports, nodding in agreement with our flight status and asking my questions, I wonder if she needs to tell me one more time.
I’m not actually traveling alone—that part the relatives add in to make their point seem more dramatic. Upon hearing about my trip, they throw on one of those secret smiles and call this my “first big trip alone” simply because I’m not traveling with my mom this time. They wax off airport advice like “Arrive at least two hours early” and “Put everything you need for a week in your carry-on” like I will show up to the airport clueless about how to proceed. Their gentle slaps to my shoulder and tales of cancelled flights project their fantasies of me walking through the automatic doors into the cold, stale air and looking around for my mom.
This is wrong. I have been on hundreds of planes, and am not traveling alone. George is with me, like he has been since I moved next door to him when I was two. We have gone over every imaginable detail of what this trip will bring for months in the same way we have since we realized there was a difference between the kids that ran around the playground with us and each other, who we actually wanted to play with. We used the phone. George lives not twenty steps from my front door, but we can dial each other’s homes faster than the numbered buttons can beep in recognition. But when my mom starts to cry, I look to make sure George isn’t ready to hand her his ticket.
The air is cold and stale, but I still lead the way to the security lines. The closer we get, the slower my mom walks until she finally accepts her inevitable tears and smiles through them, allowing George and me to laugh as she catches up to us.
“Fuck, I knew I should have brought tissues,” she says, and George laughs, like he does each and every time he hears her swear. My mom sniffles and dabs under her nose with her sweatshirt. She hates going to sad movies in theaters because she says when she cries, she doesn’t make tears—she makes snot.
After the repeated hugs, kisses, and vows to be safe and to write, she turns and hurries out of the terminal. I watch her for as long as I can, weaving through the suitcases and people squinting at departure and arrival screens, walking through the automatic doors and back to the life I am about to leave for a month, and then forever.
With just the two of us there, George and I know it is a moment in which we should turn and walk forward. To our first trip alone. To whatever glimpse at our future this trip will provide. This is it; this moment is all those phone calls. We are ready.
But we turn around and don’t move. The security line does not let us. Seven “Please remove your shoes” signs clearly aren’t enough for the average LAX traveler.

I’m five; and I don’t know why, but Mom has made my favorite meal and agreed to read The Velveteen Rabbit, the book that is always too long to read but nevertheless my favorite. Pulled into my spot under her left arm, I enjoy the soft buzz version of the story in the ear pressed against her body, and the clear version I don’t quite know by heart in my free ear. Past the picture of the rabbit’s fateful fire are Mom’s black suitcases, and now I know why she is sad.
I smile when she brings the globe over; I like this part. She takes my finger and carefully traces the route the airplane will fly to bring her to England. She hugs me and says she’ll miss me very much, but I already have a plan. I pack my softest jammies, a sippy-cup filled with water, underwear, my baby blanket, paper, the crayons I forgot when Mom brought me to work with her in Washington D.C., and The Velveteen Rabbit.
The half-beep from the alarm is enough to wake me. I remember my sweater this time and make my way to the door with my backpack. I hear Mom go into my room to kiss me goodnight, and she walks down the hall calling my name when she can’t find me.
“Surprise! Now I can go with you,” I say, ready to take her hand and walk out the door.

“Jesus, we’re really doing this,” George says, staring at the line that is finally moving as he puts away his glasses. I know that “this” is not about going to Europe. It is about staying with someone we only knew for a few weeks through a desperate student exchange program that managed to contact my mom, the mother of all PTA mothers. My sister Amy twirled her fork at the dinner table and wondered aloud what language they spoke in Austria and if they would be cute. Dean, my step-dad, gave an enthusiastic shrug of approval. I stared in disbelief. My attempts to change my mother’s bleeding heart were futile. They were coming. Three weeks after the foreign invasion, when Michael’s bus pulled out of our school parking lot to bring him back to Austria, I clung to the empty cigarette box he scribbled his number and address on in between good-by hugs. The box rests now in the back of my nightstand drawer.
I only made it a week before I called him. When I finished dialing the longest number I ever had, I got slow beeps in response. Not a busy signal, not a non-existent number alert. The beep scared me out of calling for a whole day. I hung up. When someone finally answered with a rushed word before I could hang up the next time, I talked to Michael for an hour. That’s when I asked him if I could really come to visit him like he said, and if I could bring George. The whole time I held the cigarette box in my hand, rubbing my finger over the address that had letters I could not find on my keyboard.

It is the morning of my fourth birthday, and the first real phone call I remember. Mom, bouncing Amy on her arm, takes the phone out from between her head and shoulder and hands it to me.
“Here, sweetie, it’s your dad. He wants to say happy birthday.” She smiles. A big secret smile. I take the phone and wait, not sure what to do next.
“Mathew? Are you there?” I nod.
“You have to talk, honey, he can’t see you. You have to say ‘hi’ back.”
“Hi, yes I’m here Dad. Where are you?” I look up to Mom the whole time, checking to see if I’m doing it right.
“My boss is having an important meeting I can’t get away from. It’s very important I be here. I’m sorry, but I’ll be thinking of you all day. You’re such a big boy now. I love you, and have fun today, okay?”
I nod.

Our tickets to Austria had been purchased three months before graduation, and two weeks after Michael left my house. The tickets are stand-by, which George convinced me to go for because they are cheaper with a solid chance of an upgrade given his uncle’s employee connections. Repeated fantasies and scenarios race the familiar path through my mind at reuniting with Michael. Some are memories of my uncharacteristic wrestling matches with him when he’d flick my ear or I’d snag a leg hair, and I can see every drop of sweat work its way down to his forehead, threatening to sting his light blue eyes. Others are invented, to-be memories with colors that go a little outside the lines, and some of these I don’t share with George.
I’m up first, and walk through the security panels that scan for any metal that could be a weapon, such as my belt buckle. I beep. My bag is flagged. I am asked by a woman with streaks of gray and brown hair to remove my belt, sweatshirt, and shoes, and not to give any attitude or the pants are next, all before I even open my mouth. I’m in my comfort underwear, not my public underwear, so I choose not to remind her that my shoes are already off because I have been able to read for the past eleven years. But I beeped, so I have officially become another idiot traveler. At least that’s what George says, who passes through the panels with silence.
Shoes tied and re-buckled, we make our way to the gate. We are unusually quiet. Past the security, we are now experiencing the first glimpse of the trip we have fantasized about for months. All we can do is wait for the moments we have been expecting to show up, starting now. When we get to our gate, George goes through his bag to find some gum and ends up spilling his open toiletry bag onto the thin airport carpet. Things are already different. Relieved, we laugh.
It is at the gate we discover what stand-by really means. We get to wait for what seems like the fullest flight ever to board to see if we even get a seat. And, apparently, the airline’s computer cannot allow upgrades for passengers not wearing black shoes—black shoes we own and have safely packed away in the suitcases we checked to ride under the plane an hour ago. Stand-by also means that we get to enjoy four-hour layovers at both our San Francisco and Frankfurt stops on our way to Vienna. Stand-by is a terrible way to travel.
With nothing to do but watch those who are allowed to board before us, we see that every potential armrest challenger the airport has to offer is in full attendance. Dozens of business suits, two wheelchairs, three adorable kids, four ugly ones, two screaming babies, a cowboy, and—we count—twenty-eight fat people we know we would lose to. We watch them all hand their real tickets to more uniforms with limp smiles, and I pull my sleeves down to my fingers.
Fortunately, the flight is full and we get to wait an hour for the next one.

Birthdays
“Okay, now that Roman has her outside everyone line up on the stairs, smallest to tallest,” I say, motioning small and tall with my hands just to be sure that the message gets across to all twelve people scurrying across Luise’s living room. “And quiet the fuck down—it’s a surprise party!” Julia and Phillip giggle at the new American bad words that are now permanent fixtures in their vocabularies.
Luise has been more hospitable and welcoming than George and I ever imagined, and as her birthday fell on our last week in Austria, we have decided a surprise party is in order. Rarely wanting to miss Luise’s cooking, we amazingly have more money than we anticipated since we rarely went out to eat. Michael brought us to Vienna to shop for the gifts we had in mind. Not to be distracted by the Gothic splendor of St. Stephen’s Cathedral and other archaic buildings, we marched through the Stephenplatz with determination. When we returned to the house, quietly lugging the gifts up the stairs while Luise watered her garden in the backyard, George and I were still outraged over the most ridiculous price we paid today: two Euro total for shopping bags to put the gifts in. For the first time in nearly four weeks, we missed America.
Once upstairs, we checked how our other project is coming. Before shopping, George and I loaded our favorite pictures from his digital camera onto the family computer and printed them out. Krista and Julia stayed behind and cut out each picture so when we returned we could all help with the collage that would become Luise’s poster-sized “29th” birthday card. Each of us wrote messages of love, and Julia added ribbons around the edge of the card for decorative flair. We stood back in admiration, and Michael made the final phone calls.

The gift is of no importance to George and me. The twenty dollar bill we give each other is never the surprise. The surprise is the card. Our birthdays are three days apart, and we give each other the cards at the halfway point. We both are not sure exactly when it started, but we remember the first cards we gave each other. From me, I drew a picture of an unfinished roller coaster with the twenty riding in the first car to go down the slope to its imminent death—we had just survived our first amusement park experience. From him, he folded the twenty into a 3-D football that was taped onto a drawing of me with a terrified expression—I have hated the sport since I could pronounce “football.”
Now we are fourteen, and oh so much more creative and funny. For the attention and care we now give to the twenty, it could be Monopoly money. Cards are now working pieces of art to us, a competition to see who can make the other laugh harder. With the internet to our disposal for the first time, we are both giddy with the potential this year has. The ultimate test of creativity and resources.
The day is here. A day that comes to our mind faster when asked when our birthday is than the actual date of our birth. From me, a picture of the largest naked woman I could find while my mom was out of the den with our Spanish teacher’s face pasted over the original. The twenty? Lodged between her butt cheeks in a space I have created with scissors and brown tissue paper. George loses it hard, eventually coughing and tearing up. From him, a small pool with little apples and the twenty floating in it, all within the spread legs of our History teacher—all hand-drawn as usual, with the exception of the teacher’s face. The teacher has a dialogue box next to it that says “Bob for my apples,” and so I must put my hands behind my back and pull the twenty out with my teeth. George wins for raising the bar to requiring physical activity, and we laugh until we are gasping for air.

“Um, no, Alexander? You’re not that tall. Switch with Marcus. There, perfect! We’ll look like the von Trapp family!” George and I prep to being a spin-tastic “Sound of Music” rendition when we notice the confused looks coming from Michael, his siblings, and each of his friends.
“The. Von. Trapp. Family.” George repeats, emphasizing each word more to be an ass than clarify.
“What’s that?” Michael asks, not even trying to search his brain for an answer.
Appalled, George and I explain the significance of The Sound of Music and why we look like the von Trapp family all lined up on the stairs according to height. They are unmoved.
“If it weren’t for that movie, twice as many people would have thought we were going to Australia, not Austria,” George says, and takes his place at the top of the stairs. I place a sheet over the gifts we have arranged on the table in the exact order we want her to open them.
Roman gives the signal from outside where we have kept Luise, and she walks into the living room cautiously. We yell surprise and sing “Happy Birthday” in English, a song that has managed to make its way across the Atlantic. Luise buries her red face in her hands then gives George and me tearful smiles back and forth. She sees the card propped up against the blanket and evenly poured glasses of champagne and starts to cry.
We are prepared for this. During our first week here, Michael’s sisters bought Luise a lighter with a glittery heart on it and her eyes instantly reddened. The first wrapped gift stacked under the blanket is a box of tissues; she laughs and opens it immediately. Next, two bags of popcorn, and makes a joke about champagne and popcorn tasting great together. She has not caught on. After the popcorn come her two favorite movies on DVD—Ghost and Pretty Woman. She cries “Ja! Ich liebe!” and immediately begins to hum an off-key “Unchained Melody” while miming the infamous pottery scene. She looks to the family computer, previously the only method to watch DVDs in the home. Still hasn’t clicked. When she sees the last wrapped box, what has been the base in this pyramid of presents, she slumps into her seat with realization. “Nein,” she whispers, and carefully unwraps the DVD player. She shakes with sobs.
“You are my children, my American children.” She pulls George and me into her arms and we sink in. We rock with her as she rattles off words she does not even try to say in English. She lets us go only to grab more tissue. She takes Michael’s hand and says things to him in German while looking at us and placing her hand over her heart.

I am three years old today, and I know the best part of my day is about to happen a full six hours before my birthday party. Mom drives me early to school and takes streets I feel are familiar. When I see the orange “Party Zone” sign I can’t help but squeal in delight.
Once inside the store, I tear my hand away from Mom’s parking lot grip and instantly turn to the balloon section. This year, I choose blue. Last year Mom says I picked green. The woman at the counter puts the flimsy blue opening to the hose and fills it with the magic air that makes the balloon float. She ties a silver string around the bottom and hands me the balloon with a smile, asking Mom what the occasion is.
“Oh, happy birthday!” She smiled and was already walking over to the other balloons, the big silver ones with the writing that I never choose. “We have ones with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and ones that—”
“Thank you, but trust me—this is all he wants,” Mom says, waving goodbye to the woman. We step outside and she says “Go!”
I look into the sky and let go of the string, sending the balloon gliding into the air. I watch as the blue dot fades away into the sky and smile, ignoring the woman who has run outside promising a new one. Mom explains that this was what I wanted to do all along, and we walk back to the car.
George’s mom takes us to my house for the party after school. Family picks me up and hugs and kisses me from all over and says words that get all mixed together so all I can do is hug them back. When it is time for presents, everyone gathers around to watch—my least favorite part. After carefully removing the wrapper for the last gift I thank Grandpa for the new jammies and Mom brings out the cake. This means the party is almost done and, alone in my room, I can rediscover each gift on my own.
This time the party is not over. All the adults are whispering to each other while Mom wipes the chocolate frosting off my cheek, a few running into the backyard then coming back with a thumbs up sign. Mom takes my hand and says she has one more surprise for me.
She leads me into the backyard and into the circle that most of the guests have formed on the lawn. There is an enormous white sheet that looks even bigger than Mom’s bed with stuff bubbling underneath it. Four adults are holding each corner of the sheet, and a few are holding the sides.
“Are you ready?” Mom asks, bending down to meet my eyes and pointing to the moving sheet. I swallow and nod my head. “Go!” With that, the adults pull the sheet away and hundreds of colored balloons burst out from under it.
Every cell in my body seems to expand, my eyes and mouth popping open and my arms shooting out to the side. A scream rushes from my insides and follows the balloons up. All the adults are clapping and cheering, exhilarated at my reaction. The colors dance in the air, starting as one mass of blues, reds, greens, and yellows, then turning into hundreds of separate balloons, and finally into the colored dots in the sky. I stand there through their entire journey up, arms stretched out as all of the colors soon become part of the pale blue. I close my eyes and the afternoon breeze rushes through my fingers and hair, slowly carrying me down from the sky and back onto the grass in my backyard.

The celebration continues all afternoon with more champagne, music, and dancing. As everyone’s champagne buzz wears off, Luise’s cheeks are still a glowing pink. We are outside to accommodate the smokers, and for the first time in what seems like hours, the smile leaves Luise’s face and she curls an eyebrow. “Hearts?”
It seems necessary—it is the last full day we will have in Austria, a fact I have buried under planning for the surprise party. What started out as a way to get to know each other has developed into a heavyweight competition, and here on this last warm evening in Purkersdorf, the game has culminated into a spectator sport.
George gently tears a fresh piece of paper out of a nearby notebook and writes our names in calligraphy, a skill he mastered in the throes of high school senioritis. Michael deals this time, employing his mother’s haphazard methodology, and this time he actually gets it right. From the first card, we play conservatively, like we all want this game to last as long as possible. The moon floats above the roof and the cigarette butts pile up as the four of us inch closer to one hundred, no one getting those nasty twenty-something point hands.
With the four of us sitting locked up in the eighties, Michael deals again, this time the proper way, giving each person one card at a time; when everyone has received their cards, his blue eyes focus intently on his own. He wins twelve hands in a row, leaving George, Luise and I to cling to whatever hopeful last card we have managed to save to try and keep him from shooting the moon. He does not even pay attention to Luise’s and George’s cards when they place them on the table, confident that they are irrelevant to his victory. He narrows his eyes onto mine with a smirk, trying to read what I’m holding. I place the card down slowly, and he wins the game.
After the condemnations on his trickery are dispersed, the focus turns to us. Someone asks what time our flight leaves tomorrow, and Luise asks for her tissues. Michael stays quiet as the rest of the guests say the four weeks have gone by too quickly and make us promise to come back, pleading as if these four weeks have been a favor we were doing them. We take a last set of pictures with everyone, and convince Luise to finally pose for her first and only picture of the trip with George and me. We go through our trip highlights—George’s is when I slipped twice down the stairs at a club, and I say mine is watching George dance alone on the floor after his first taste of Bacardi shots.
Eventually, hugs of every conceivable combination have been given out at least once, and everyone filters back inside to either drive themselves home or find a cushion to sleep on. George clunks upstairs to double-check our packed suitcases and go to bed while I sneak the letter I have written in thanks to Luise onto her dresser with a note demanding that she wait until after we leave to read it. I have written two letters to Michael, and can’t decide which one to leave on his dresser before he drives us to the airport.
Before going back to my room, I make a quick trip down stairs to get a glass of water, my feet nimbly placing themselves down the thin wood in the dark. I get to the kitchen and look at the glass in my hand, a mug with chipped red glitter that comes with the set Luise’s mother gave her on her last Christmas, and I realize this has been more than a trip, more than a stay. I have been living here.
On the way back to the stairs, Michael comes inside from a late-night smoke and says goodnight to me. I say goodnight back and he begins to close the door, stopping short of popping it shut. Standing at the foot of the stairs, I know which letter to leave him.
He stands naked beside the bed, moonlight pouring into his open window, making his body half skin and half shadow. We stand apart for a moment, me wrapped in clothes and he wrapped in soft white light. I put my water glass on his dresser and walk to him. He takes off my clothes piece by piece, slowly removing each soft layer without touching my skin until that is all that is left.
His fingers touch my shadows and I touch his; my skin blossoms with bumps. After we explore the shadows with our fingers, we feel the light with our hands, moving our palms up and across and over and under. Our bodies meet and stay that way. My brain has no words other than “Michael” to describe the smells my nose devours when pressed against his shoulder, his hair. No other words for the taste of his skin. No other words for the way it feels when my tongue reaches the warm insides of his mouth or his fingers run through my hair.
The gravity in the room shifts toward his bed, and we fall into the sheets. I am up in the sky again, this time with Michael, and I will not come back down to the ground.