Trickle-Down Timeline

They’ll Shoot You

Cris Mazza / 147 They’ll Shoot You This decision should be as easy as resolving to avoid dangerous places. She’s going to tell him about it tonight. Cici watches Jeremy’s eyes move across hockey statistics in the newspaper . His mother has told Jeremy, in private, that Cici could use some cute new clothes to wear instead of jeans. Jeremy told Cici later. He also told her his mother had informed him—as though it took her a day and a half to do the subtraction—that Cici was eleven years younger than him. His answer: “So?” He was mean to his mother. Cici told him that in private. He laughed. “She needs to be kept in line,” he said. “She might want me to start visiting more often.” He has decided that they’ll leave for the hockey game three hours early, eat at the place where two larger-than-life hotdog people—one a girl, the other a boy—stand on the roof, then go to the game, walk around the inside of the stadium looking at the souvenirs, try to sneak down close to the ice to watch the warm-up, then find their seats, after the game go to Greektown for gyros. “That stadium’s in a bad place,” his mother has said, just a minute ago. “They’ll shoot you down there.” Cici had looked at Jeremy and he grinned back at her. “They will,” he said, “every time you go.” now his mother says, “The roads are icy.” “maybe we’ll be killed skidding off an overpass and you won’t have to put up with us another three days.” “oh you.” Cici keeps looking at Jeremy because after three days she won’t be 148 / TRiCkle-Down Timeline able to look at him anymore for a long time. He sticks out his tongue or crosses his eyes or makes a wildman face or grins a manic grin or smiles gently, sadly. He has lovely hazel down-turned eyes and sweetly crooked front teeth. long before this visit,Jeremy had told Cici over the phone,“my mother cries easier than anyone i know, except you.The biggest difference is that she can also stop on a dime. She might say five sentences, the first one she’s normal, the next two she’s crying, the forth and fifth she’s perfectly normal again, just bossy as usual, as though nothing happened.” “what does she cry about?” Cici had asked. “She misses my father, she wants to see me more often, she’s worried that Glenda will kill me.” “Does she cry when she tells you not to get married again?” “no, that’s when she’s bossy. She’s bossy about 90 percent of the time.” Just before the first time Cici had to leave Jeremy in California for what was then her new job in Cincinnati, he’d suggested she get a new car for the long trip, strongly recommended it, advised it, called around and found the lowest price on the type of vehicle best suited for her needs, forced the dealer to get it in the color Cici wanted. Tears gathered in his eyes the morning she left, his nose red and slightly transparent. She would’ve reached to touch the tears beginning to run down his face, but he held her too close, put his chin over the top of her head. She knew he wouldn’t shut his eyes but would keep staring over her head around his garage.That’s where they were.Finally he’d whispered,“i guess you better go.”That was over a year ago. Since then she’s had to leave him again and again, after being together a week, a month, three weeks, a weekend, two months.This time it’s just five days together—all five at his mother’s condo in the Sauganash neighborhood in Chicago, two thousand miles east of his house in Del mar and Cici’s currently uninhabited apartment in San Diego; eight hundred miles northwest of her rented room in Cincinnati. “All set for hotdogs, hockey and gyros?” Jeremy says. He already has one arm in his coat. “it’s hours early,” his mother says, “You don’t need to go yet.” “we’ll take a drive.” He turns his back on his mother, rolling his eyes for Cici’s benefit. “it’s icy,” his mother says. “You should listen to the traffic report. You should...