Page 81 of Money Shot

I’d never heard words that sounded so important, even out of an adult’s mouth, let alone a kid my age. Impressed at his intellect, but now concerned with why he would need an out of state doctor with such a name, I pressed him for more information.

“Why?” I asked.

He turned to face me and shrugged his shoulders. “He’s the best.”

It made sense. Who would want anyone that wasn’t the best at what they did? Satisfied with his answer, and knowing nothing of the real reason why he needed a doctor, I stepped onto the railing and waited for the command he always gave before we started our journeys.

“Lead the way?” he asked.

“Follow me,” I said.

We never found the bag of money, and Jackson never got to go to Texas. His heart stopped two weeks later, just before he turned ten years old.

The school shut down for his funeral, and it seemed the entire city attended. We searched for a spot to park the car for what seemed like forever, and after finding a place, walked along the sidewalk for much longer than Jackson and I ever walked along the tracks. In that time I thought of him, our friendship, the permanency of death; and about losing the only friend I ever had.

I wondered if the pain I felt in my heart was similar to the pain Jackson felt from the disease I learned he had. I decided as we walked into the funeral home that if I never befriended another person, I would never be forced to feel the pain again.

As the sound of my motorcycle’s exhaust echoed throughout the shop and I stared blankly out into the street, I realized I was wrong.

And I suspected this new pain, no differently than the pain I felt from the loss of my best friend, would only be able to be temporarily suspended and not totally eliminated. As an adult, I had learned it wasn’t a doctor or the ice cream man that caused the pain within me to subside, it was a machine.

And that machine was between my legs.