The boy had stayed in all day and finally the slowness of time was seeping into his limbs and stifling his youth. It had not been so unreasonable to stay in all day as it was winter, and Saturdays in the city only came alive for young people when the sun was down and there was reason to brave the cold with others. Nonetheless, the boy’s drowsiness had lasted so long that he felt for hours now as if he had just woken up, and remained in bed in hopes of drifting off between loose dreams. His dinner, a cheeseburger and milkshake ordered in from a diner on the corner, likely added to this deteriorating effect. It was his favorite diner, however, and he had told his parents that it was all he wanted. So, he thought to himself, he really should not complain.
He went to the closet to get his coat and meanwhile he told his parents that he was heading out to see some friends. They were seated in the living room and reading by a dim light but got up when the boy called out to them. They observed that it was ten o’clock and asked the boy to be home soon since it was already quite late and he was only fifteen years old. They repeated their offer to take him to a movie, and the boy thanked them again but said he still didn’t want to. Then they told him to be safe and keep warm but most of all to have fun because they wanted him to make the most of his day. He smiled but did not say anything as he wrapped himself in his new scarf and zipped his coat. They walked him to the door and hugged him one by one at the entryway before saying goodbye. Then they asked him if he wanted company while he waited for the elevator. He said he’d rather take the stairs. They smiled, a little sadly, as if at his growing up too fast, and then watched him disappear down the stairwell. They could still hear the echo of his feet pattering quickly down the steps as they closed the door and went back inside. They put on some soft classical music and did not say anything else as they sat down again to read.
As soon as the boy walked out into the street, a gust of cold pushed across his face and burned along the edges of his nostrils. He did not turn his face away from the wind, however. Instead he looked directly into its path and imagined it washing away the greasiness of his dinner and the previous hour. It slapped against his eyes and scraped at his skin, but he enjoyed the sharpness of it and felt only a little cleaner and newer from the pain. The wind was very loud in his ears and the boy liked that also because it made it harder for him to think about things. He remembered how he had almost cried earlier on the floor of the bathroom, but the image seemed far away now, and he believed the sadness was peeling off him with every one of his steps. His new scarf was very soft cashmere, like the ones worn by the popular boys at his school who were able to look older, and he liked the warm, relaxed feel of it around his neck. In middle school the boy was afraid to be seen wearing scarves, and would refuse them whenever his parents offered him one, but now they were a sign you did not care how you looked and the boy felt confident in his. It was a light brown shade, striped with different shades of red and dark autumnal yellow. It looked very good in the black wool coat he had gotten only a few months before. They both fit his body well, and he was sure he could look older in them too.
The wind died down now for a couple of blocks, and the boy could hear the sounds of the city again. He listened to the passing cars and the shaking street signs and considered the details he would tell his parents when he got home. That he had gone to the home of a friend who was having a few people over; that it had not been a party, really, but more just a casual gathering. He knew there was someone at school who lived a few blocks downtown on the same avenue, and he would say it had been there if they asked. That would make sense, the boy thought, since he often heard people talk in the halls about how they’d been there over the weekend. It would also keep his parents from having to worry. They did not like him to wander the streets at night but this, they would have to realize, was just a short walk in the neighborhood. The boy continued downtown, a little faster now.
He felt his phone vibrate in his pocket suddenly and took it out. He saw by the name on the screen that it was his cousin calling. He had told the boy earlier that day that he wanted to take him out tonight.
The boy watched the phone a moment and then pushed a button on its side to stop its ringing. Then he put the phone back in his pocket and let the call go to voicemail.
The boy did not feel bad about it. He would call his cousin back tomorrow and say he was sorry to have missed his call, that he had gotten drunk at a friend’s. Maybe he would tell him he had been busy with a girl he met, and ask for his advice because that would make him happy. His cousin did not know he was the boy’s only friend now, so he never would find out otherwise. Besides, the boy thought to himself, his cousin would understand. He did not go to school with the boy, and he would not have known anybody at one of the boy’s parties. His cousin would not have wanted to go to something where he’d be a stranger, and the cold was too rough on the boy’s bare knuckles for him to call back anyway.
The wind had risen again, so that the boy could hear it beating against the coats of the people he occasionally passed. All others looked down to avoid having the wind in their eyes, but the boy still looked straight into it, as if it was a friend only he could ever really understand. The wind was fickle and playful, and he was proud to know how to forgive it. He liked the wind very much, even when it hurt him, because it was still playful when it hurt him.
Several gusts now squeezed around the corner of a building and collided, drying the boy’s lips, and snapping at the outside of his ears with their cold. They dispersed softly afterward though, so that a quiet remained, and the boy’s thoughts were able to return to him. He noticed he was getting closer to the other boy’s house, and it occurred to him that there might actually be people going there tonight and that he could run into them. If they asked what he was doing so nearby he could say he was going to a different party somewhere else and maybe they would remember it on Monday. If he was lucky, they might also remember his bold new scarf and the way it looked under his sophisticated black coat. The only problem was that they might ask for more details about the party he had made up. Or worse, they might not ask him anything at all.
The boy decided then it was probably safer if he did not run into anyone. As a result he wondered whether he should stop someplace and stall for time, so that his story would be more believable when he got home and told his parents about it. He would not let them pity him.
The boy thought then about what he could do to make his time out longer. A movie would keep him from thinking, but he might see someone at a movie who knew him, and that would ruin his story when he told it on Monday. He could keep walking, but he now had to admit it was very cold, and he did not want to get sick.
He saw a supermarket across the street and knew no one would see him there because it was a Saturday night, and he went toward it without thinking any further. Outside the store an old man was selling Christmas trees, and the boy smelled them as he went in. The scent was sharp and crisp and it made the boy think about when he was younger and it was spread throughout his home. The smell had hung on warm air then and meant presents, but now it was carried by air so cold it seemed a lack of air, and the time for presents was over. The boy stepped into the supermarket and the doors closed automatically behind him, replacing the smell of Christmas trees with that of plastic.
The boy raised his hands to his mouth and blew into them to give the impression that it was the cold that forced him indoors. After looking around for just a moment though, he saw that there were few people in the store and concluded it was unlikely that anyone was watching. All the same he blew into his hands again and proceeded to rub the arms of his coat with his palms. As a result he soon felt much warmer than he needed to, and was forced to unzip his coat. He delicately untied his scarf, so that it hung around his shoulders at just the right length, and then he started down the second aisle from the entrance.
He walked down the aisle slowly and carefully eyed all the shelves as if he were looking for something. He examined the different cereal boxes, and for some reason they reminded him of his parents. He decided then that they had done their best today and that he did not need to forgive them for anything. The light was very artificial and everywhere it looked like a glare you could not hide from. At the end of the aisle, in the frozen foods section, one might even forget it was a night out.
The boy spent a long time in the supermarket, and soon he developed a pattern for his wandering that he thought would leave him inconspicuous. First he would go down one aisle, casually examining its contents so as not to linger over anything; then he would skip an aisle and enter the next, proceeding through it the same way he had the first aisle, sometimes pointing a careless finger at a shelf or turning a jar as if to inspect its label. Then he would double back and go down the aisle he had skipped, repeating the process from there until he had gone through all the aisles. This way it might seem to anyone watching that he was shopping with some kind of agenda or shopping list. The only aisle the boy did not go down was the cleaning supplies aisle because he believed anyone paying attention would know he did not belong there. Usually he avoided it by going down the stationery aisle an extra time and glancing at the birthday cards. Sometimes he tried the beer aisle instead, but usually it wasn’t empty enough.
The other customers there were all older and he wondered if they noticed he was younger. He hoped they did not, and he did what he could not to show his face as he passed by them. He also wondered if the store clerks reorganizing a section noticed when he passed a second time, and whether they ever saw others like him and understood. One of them eventually asked if he needed help finding anything and that was when the boy looked at the time on his phone. It was nearly midnight and late enough now for him to go home. He told the clerk no thank you and left the stationery aisle for the last time.
He felt a little hungry and thought he should treat himself to something unhealthy as it was still his birthday for a few minutes more. He went to the sweets section and took a box of Gushers from one of the shelves. As he looked at the bright yellow box with the fruit colors splashing across it, he remembered watching other little boys fight over the candy and wishing he had some for them to fight over too. The boy softly shook his head, and put the box of gushers back on the shelf. Then he looked at himself in the round mirror hanging from the corner of the ceiling and used it to tie his scarf back up the way he liked it. Afterward he zipped his coat back over his scarf. He kept looking at himself another moment and then he quietly circled around the end of the line of cash registers toward the exit. He stepped outside and quickly turned right, to go back uptown. This time he did not smell the Christmas trees as he passed them.
The boy thought about his night and how fun he would say it had been to anyone who asked. He knew it would be only his parents and cousin who did, but they would be so interested that they would be enough. He would tell his parents they ate Gushers at the party for old times’ sake, and he would tell his cousin about a girl.
The wind had joined the boy again and he smiled to himself. Then he picked up the pace of his steps because he was tired and felt he should get to bed. His birthday was over now, he told himself, and there remained no reason for him to continue his night.