WHY GOODBYE? by Daniel Kuttner

Fifth grade is when the three of us started to feel brave. Neighbor kids Pete, John, and I had outgrown playing war and hide-and-seek. We looked for more of that new rush, adrenaline. We invented deeds with which to dare one another, then accomplish as a team.

The dares started simply. Walk out on a tree limb. Crawl through the spooky culvert under the highway. Run by the Sloans' loose, vicious dogs.

The tasks became more dangerous. Squeeze through the bars blocking the abandoned mine and bring out a chunk of coal, wet from the rust-laden rivulets running down its far wall. We each took a turn defying Mr. Powell, the paddle-wielding teacher.

The dares weren’t a matter of one-upmanship. They were rather a way of sharing excitement. Sharing the rush toward manhood.

One dare lurked in all our minds, inspired by the demonic-red facade of our grade school building. It appeared as a scowling face, angry from the generations of painful experiences recurring inside it.

From the street the top two windows they looked like stern, disapproving eyes, with heavy eyebrows formed by the arched parapets above each one.

As graduation to Junior High approached, one of us vocalized the ultimate dare. Climb out onto one of the eyebrows above the attic windows and spit onto the sidewalk forty feet below.

We’d seen that access was through the attic, smelly and damp with century-old secrets. I was sometimes banished there from class for some real or imagined breach of the many rules. I loved to explore the attic’s old desks and file cabinets, the ancient globes and cobwebbed, obsolete machinery stored there. To open and sniff a can of mimeograph fluid.

I discovered the name of the kid who grew up to be my orthodontist. He’d carved it into a desk, inside a heart with a pair of initials. During one tooth-tilting appointment, when I asked him about the heart, he blushed and stuttered, but never told me whose initials they were. He’d never married, so speculation was open-ended.

All three of us kids had been sent to the attic, and all shared the fascination of the view from the yellowed, ancient windows. We trembled with the delicious danger of climbing out onto the slate shingles, around and up onto the small ramp above one of the eyes.

Sixth grade was our last year at that school. The subjects had gotten harder, and we'd had our various scholastic and mental tests. The results would determine where we went, and what we did after grade school, and for the rest of our lives.

Our teacher, Mrs. Sully, had already dictated how we'd be split up. A few would continue on to higher academics, some to a trade school, and others pushed into the work force. She went down her list, handing out slips for our parents. She pointed out each student and pronounced the likely sentence.

According to her, our trio would divide three ways. John was destined for trade school, I would go on to Junior High, and Pete would head for the mills, or worse, the coal mines.

When Pete returned to school the next Monday, he had a fresh set of bruises. We knew not to ask him about his various marks. He’d had a dislocated shoulder a couple of years before and never spoke of it.

Pete’s parents met with the principal, Miss Pobic, who in turn met with Pete regularly thereafter. The sessions were always after class and never discussed. Pete usually squirmed in his desk the entire next day.

The end of the school year loomed, bitter-sweet. We decided, as one of our last acts together, to take the rooftop dare after the last day of class. Instead of heading for the buses, we'd meet up in the attic and lock the door behind us to keep other kids and teachers from following. This adventure was for us, alone.

I was the last to show up.

"Sorry guys. I got stuck with clapping chalk off the erasers again." I coughed and patted white powder from my pants.

"It's OK, Jake, we've got time . . . right?"

"Sure, this is the Big Show."

"Do I have to go, too?" Pete was shaking.

"No, you don't have to. A dare is something you either do or don't. But either way, it’s how you'll remember this day. It’s our last time together."

We walked around musty, tarp-covered furniture to the two windows.

"Which way, right or left eye?" I asked.

John pried at the left one. "Looks like the window’s cracked open."

I think we expected, even hoped, that they wouldn’t open, or one of us would chicken out. That'd be a good excuse to drop the dare.

Pete sighed. “Let’s get this over with, OK?”

We all heaved, and with a little jimmying, the window creaked open. A cool wind pushed against our chests. It stirred the sediment and cobwebs around us, wheezing through the attic like a decrepit concertina. A few papers blew off a wooden file cabinet.

“You okay?” John asked.

“Sure. Just something in my eye.” I plucked the painful speck from among the tears. The grime on those fingers would cause a dose of pink-eye.

John pulled a wastebasket over to the window, turned it upside-down and stood on it, one hand on the window frame, one foot on the sill. He faced us.

"You're all gonna follow me, right?"

"Sure." I said, now trembling as much as Pete, whom I asked, "How 'bout you?"

"Yeah," he said, hoarsely. He was visibly shaking.

We clasped each other’s wrists to make a human chain. One by one, we climbed onto the slate roof. The wind picked up, whistling past the lightning rods above each eye.

John led us to the right, up and around toward the top of the dormer.

"What if a shingle is loose?" I said.

"Just be careful." John was all guts. “If one slips, the others will keep him from falling. It’s how mountain climbers do it. I saw it on TV.”

I looked back at Pete. His eyes were so large, I almost laughed. His grip was incredibly strong.

One by one we belly-crawled along the peak of the dormer roof. First John, then I, and finally Pete slid over to the thin, splintered railing at the outer edge of the platform.

"On three, stand up, OK?" John's voice now shook as much as my heart was fluttering. "One, two . . . three."

Slowly, we all stood, turned outward, facing the wind, let go of one another's wrists and gripped the wooden rail. There was no way it would hold if one of us lost our balance.

“Okay, time to hock up a loogie,” John laughed. I started to chuckle, then Pete, on the far right, started laughing, too. John and I stopped, but Pete continued. His laughter became louder, ending as a maniacal shriek.

"What's wrong, Pete? Relax. Stop that. You're shaking the rail."

"Hey! What're you kids doin' up there? Get inside, right now. I'm coming up to get yinz guys." Mr. Jones, the otherwise kindly custodian, added some loud swear words our way.

Shit! We had to get out of there before he turned us in. Principal Pobic was a skilled practitioner of humiliation and corporal punishment. Last day of school or not, we had to avoid her at all costs.

Turning back, Pete was now first in line. John and I joined hands again, but Pete gripped the rail with both of his.

"C'mon, Pete, we've got to get back in before old Mr. Jones gets up here. He’ll turn us in to Miss Pobic.”

"Why? Why? Why?" Pete was crying. He stared past us, his eyes wide.

Fear rose in my stomach. "Why what, Petey? Let's go. We've got to go back.”

“Yeah. Think how good it'll feel, back inside the attic."

"Why? Why? Why?" Pete was wailing the words. He stopped, looked at us, then loosened his grip on the rail. His hands started to slide downward, stabbed by long, dirty splinters. He leaned to the right, causing his feet to slide, too.

"No! Petey! Hold on, I'll get to you." John worked his way around me toward Pete.

It was too late. Pete looked skyward. His expression became peaceful. Chin up, no longer asking, "Why? Why?" he slid the final foot to the edge of the platform.

He looked sadly at us and quietly asked, “Why? Why? . . . ‘bye.”

I looked away and shut my eyes. I heard him hit the roof, knocking loose a few pieces of slate, which slid to the rain gutter, catching there. I heard Pete roll to the edge, then silence until his body smacked the concrete below.

For years thereafter, a hopscotch design retained his faint, orange shape. If you knew where to look, you’d see a piece of tooth wedged between concrete slabs.

Those physical memories of Pete remained until they demolished the school seven years later.

No one had a good theory as to why Pete let himself fall. The official ruling was an accident. John and I knew better. We'd seen his eyes.

I still wonder if there were a connection to those after-school sessions and Miss Pobic's sudden departure from town.

I do know that now, as an architect, I never design a building with those frowning eyebrows, and I ensure all upstairs windows lock tightly.