Orange Suitcase Read Online Free PDF Page A

while others went for Communion, she said to talk to grandpa (who died before I knew him). Tell him what your life is like, she said. Tell him about your new bike. Tell him about your friends. Ask him to watch over you. I knelt in church and remembered the one memory I had. Repeated it until it was fake:
    My grandfather in a chair. A Frisbee. He is too sick to play; I go outside and throw the Frisbee in the air to myself. Orange on blue. Like a basketball. My goldfish. My bunkbed and bike.
    What was his favorite color?
    It felt like talking to a stranger, and so I asked God to help me play basketball for the Chicago Bulls. I prayed to be like Michael Jordan. I want to be like Mike, I strained, and clenched my hands together against the pew in front. I imagined myself in a Gatorade commercial; I saw myself in black and white. I saw myself sweating orange and dunking.
    2
    At night I dreamed of an orange suitcase among my Legos. In the middle of a summer thunderstorm I dropped from my top bunk and tore apart the tiny city in a search. It must be here, I thought. God wouldn’t make me dream something untrue. Buildings fell and I cut my small hands on the corners of tiny bricks. My parents discovered me on my floor in tears. Destroyed pirate ships and castles surrounded me. A pile of blue and red and green tiny suitcases. Someone said: He’s afraid of the lightning.
    3
    Does God cause dreams? I asked Ben’s mother. She was our Sunday school teacher, handing out pencils and papers before class. What do you mean? she asked. I told her I dreamed I had an orange suitcase. I prayed for God to give me good dreams. But God must have known what I really wanted was an orange suitcase, right? Was God making fun of me for praying bad, Mrs. Jensen? She looked at me and seemed scared. I remember thinking, Adults get scared. She said: Stop crying, Joey, it’s okay. Just remember, God loves you, and when you pray, all you have to say is thank you. Thank you for loving me, God. Say that and God will know that you love him.

“Something About Swimming With Sea Turtles”
    1
    M y grandfather swims ahead, a bag of frozen peas in hand. I struggle to keep up, sputtering in the too-big snorkel we’ve rented from the resort. The reef turns kaleidoscopic below, pinks and greens in the turquoise water. Yellow and orange fish flit about like birds and squirrels in blackberry bushes. My grandfather treads water up ahead and waves at me to catch up. He looks strange in his blue mask, like a kid version of himself or my father. I taste salty plastic and listen to the wheeze of my breathing in the tube. I am just a few feet away when he rips the bag of peas in two. A cloud of fish surround us at once, like the petals of a great tropical flower rising up from the sea floor. I feel them slither against me, on my legs and arms and cheeks. I reach out towards my grandfather and watch a yellow fish suck my finger.
    2
    I wake in the middle of the night to the phone ringing. I hear coughing, my father saying, My dad-, my mother saying, At least. I wait all night for them to tell me.
    3
    I am swimming alone with a bag of frozen peas in hand. I watch the reef beneath me, wonder how many generations separate these fish from those before. I feel a tap on my shoulder and turn; my grandfather is there, suddenly, unmasked, grinning, reaching out to where a giant turtle appears as if by magic, slow and graceful as an elephant, until we are carried apart by the current.

“Something About Remembering A Couch Or A Person”
    T he smell of mildew, recognized only after.
    The feel of a dead turtle’s shell against a woman’s bare stomach.
    Maybe a leather couch in a basement; the first time touching a breast (by accident) beneath a blanket. Pearl Jam on the stereo. Pop cans and pretzels, crumbs stuck in old orange carpet.
    Maybe a bald grandfather. Maybe a tool-belt in a garage while it’s raining against the window. Dust, empty vodka