White Sheet
Tony’s dirty dish clanked in the sink just after he ignored his mom’s request to please load the dishwasher and start the cycle. He called back at her as she worked on some marketing campaign on the computer, “Hey Mom, can I borrow the car?”
Distractedly, she said, “Sure, where are you headed? — Anthony, be home by midnight.”
Tony went over to Craig’s house. Tony and Craig had been best friends since elementary school; they grew up doing everything together. Craig’s basement was their base; they liked to refer to it as the Cave. Craig’s parents shopped at Costco, so the snacks were always fully stocked, and the cellphone service was shoddy down there, so they didn’t have to respond to their girlfriends’ texts. Once the boys convened on Friday night, they usually scanned the web for new skate videos and played a few rounds of Zelda.
It was April, and they seemed restless in their routine. They were coming out of the winter slump and didn’t know what to do with their excess energy. Craig suggested they go down to Pops, see if the General (the homeless guy who buys underage kids alcohol given they provide transportation and a fat tip) was around. They could all go in on a couple six packs or even a thirty-rack, drive over to the dike and get buzzed.
Alex, a new friend of the bunch, chimed in, “My cousin just got like a pound shipped from Cali, I bet he’d be willing to see us a dime.”
“You’re so full of shit,” said Tony. “Do you even know how much weed that is?”
Alex ignored him. “I’m serious dude, I’ll roll us a joint and we can take a joy ride over to Wendy’s and listen to the new J-Dilla.”
Craig rolled his eyes. “Like you even know how to roll a joint.”
“It can’t be that hard,” Alex droned.
Craig and Tony looked at each other.
“Okay, well, let’s at least get out of this house,” said Craig.
Craig grabbed shotgun in Tony’s car. They planned to meet Alex’s cousin in the Stop & Shop parking lot, and then they’d take the back roads toward the dike.
The story goes that a bunch’a hoods used to meet near the reservoir, out in the boonies. There’d be kids packed in-between the edge of the forest and the street. Rivalry marked by the road’s divide. It was mostly innocent but sometimes some dude would hit on the wrong girl and they’d have beef for a couple’a weeks. It was an annual event they’d have in springtime—just after the mud slurped up the last of the slush.
Girls in tight jeans and silver hoops poured Rubinoff into half-empty Gatorade bottles. The hollering would pause when boys and girls who weren’t preoccupied with what’s classy stabbed holes into their Miller High Life or Coors Light. Lids cracked and whatever piss booze that wasn’t choked down dripped onto their t-shirts.
There was this guy—Macho, people called him; he rolls up in his rusted Chrysler with the lights off. An engine revs and a second car stops parallel to Mach. The lights come on bright, revealing the wickedness. The street hushes and another dude struts to the middle of the road up ahead. He holds a white sheet. He whips it into the dark sky, the engines sound and together they take off. Kids chase after cheering, tossing empty cans at the cars speeding along the straightaway. Breaking just enough to round the first curve, Macho’s behind as the rear lights fade.
In a heroic attempt to pass his opponent he misjudged the street’s bend. The rate at which his Chrysler moved was beyond the winding road’s limit. Riding on air, Macho lost control of his vehicle. A big oak stopped him in his course.
They carried him out into the woods and draped the white sheet over his body. Now they say, if you walk through the woods by the reservoir at night you can find that fateful white sheet and the ghost of Macho.
Alex smirked, proud of his retelling. An air of spook in his voice, he continued, “Hey guys, this looks like the spot; Tony speed up!”
Alex started making car sounds like he was a kid at NASCAR. Then muttered from the back, “You guys are no fun, just pretend we’re drag racing.”
Tony accelerated, flinging Alex back into his seat. The road was long and straight. He kept pressing the gas. A rush of adrenaline came over him. A flash of white swept across the road. Clutching the wheel, Tony steered to the right, missing some kind of creature. He slammed on the breaks; unable to stop, the Subaru rammed a fence, sending a picket through the windshield and smack-dab into the passenger seat.
Alex shouted, “What the hell was that?”
Tony was stunned by the airbag. He turned the engine off and slowly got out of the car. Craig hadn’t said a word. Tony moved, shaking from shock, to open the passenger door. When he opened the door he finally saw Craig’s face covered in blood. He began to cry.
“He’s dead. He’s dead. He’s dead. Craig is dead.” Tony wilted to the ground, rocking next to his mother’s car.
Alex sat in the back, frozen. Tony got up and paced around in untraceable loops. Crossing over the mark of the vehicle’s misplaced entrance onto the lawn, and over to a crippled picket fence, shards of glass bringing a sheen to the dirt. His eyes wandered the scene, occasionally stealing a glimpse into the passenger seat of the damaged car, bringing his friend’s fractured face into focus.
Alex finally came to and dialed 911. He shouted into the phone, “There’s been an accident, a car, uh, we went off the road. We need help. Our friend is hurt. Where are we? We’re…we’re…” He racked his brain for a landmark or a nearby gas station. “Oh, oh, on Reservoir Road. Yes, uh, closer to the four-way stop.” He hung up the phone and sank to the ground.
Sirens brought them out of their stupor. A blur of red and blue danced among the tree trunks, hitting them harshly in the face as the ambulance and police approached. EMTs jumped out of the back and immediately tended to Craig. Two police officers and one of the EMTs checked and questioned the boys, now motionless. Meanwhile, with delicate ease, they placed Craig’s body on a stretcher and returned to the positions they arrived in. The lights and sirens began again, retracing their dance along the trees, heading back to where they came. Tony and Alex sat on the curb without saying a word, waiting with the officers for their horrified parents to arrive.
Neither boy slept that night, except Craig.
Craig spent the next two months in the hospital. He left with one of his eye sockets wrapped in fresh bandages and an eyepatch.
The following Monday, the school principal made an announcement over the intercom letting everyone know that Craig had been injured in an accident, “We are holding Craig and his family in our hearts today, we have been told he is in good hands at the hospital and wish him a speedy recovery. Thank you.”
Tony sat in the guidance office, staring down at his hands. Rubbing his nails into his palms. His mind shifting in and out of focus. Over and over a voice in his head had been repeating: it’s all your fault, it’s all your fault, all your fault, your fault. It hadn’t stopped since Craig was carried away in the ambulance.