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Wirt's penchant for fears and worries was nothing new before he and Greg had gone over the wall.
He had a level of anxiety best soothed by creation, poetry, and clarinet. When he’d found an old tape recorder at Pete's Pawn it had seemed to be the perfect accessory to those outlets. He could record his poetry, best delivered as spoken word anyway, and his clarinet, for playback purposes.
His step-dad had teased him more than once that he'd run the old thing ‘ragged.’ Recording and replaying. He knew, like the suggestion to play in marching band, that it was a well-intentioned comment. Something his step-dad like to call ‘ribbing.’ Or Joshing. (Wirt hated the second one, because there were only so many times you could laugh at “but maybe I should call it Wirt-ing right,” before you were weary.)
Wirt knew it was his attempt at bonding. He was a supportive dad of Greg, and wanted to be with Wirt. He would probably show up painted all in school colors, Greg in tow, to the high school home-games if Wirt would let him. Wirt knew this. But the teasing made him feel that sticky hot embarrassment that curses fourteen-year olds specifically. It was like a gnawing thing took up residence in Wirt’s chest, keeping him from replying because the tapes meant so much to him.
Before the wall, Wirt had coveted the ability to record and listen to tapes. Keeping it out of Greg's fingers in particular when he'd wanted to record songs of his own. Wirt loved his tape recorder. Until he didn't.
Until listening to the old ones made his palms itch.
Until he realized he could tell apart the Wirt Before. And the Wirt After.
-
Being back hurt in strange ways. Often he warred between feeling his previous fears were unfounded. The world and school could seem so mundane that it seemed ridiculous he had ever been so afraid. At other times, his heart seized up and looking for the nearest exit was primary. He'd feel silly afterward. Had he not been brave? Had he not jumped onto a horse to rescue Beatrice? What was the sacrifice of humility to share something with someone as kind as Sara? Could it be comparable to the horror of nearly losing Greg? The Wirt Before and After warred, but shared the same traitorously racing heart.
Still, he tried to keep the kindling of the Wirt After, the one who had been struck with the clarity of his mistakes and his fears, alight. That meant acting when he wanted to runaway. He’d tried be brave by lending Sara his tape deck. She could listen to the mix-tape. Share how hard he’d worked even if rejections was on the table. Even when he'd felt the rising bile of nerves and oncoming humiliation.
Maybe sensing his anxiety, Sara had promised to listen to the cassette. She took it home on a Friday but told him she would wait until Sunday. Afterward she would call.
All Sunday morning, Wirt had paced nervously by the phone because Sara had promised she'd call with her thoughts. First thing. It should have been reassuring. But instead the idea of the songs being heard made him pace faster.
When she finally rang, Wirt’s hands had slipped on the phone, and he had dropped it unceremoniously. He imagined all she could hear was him tripping over his feet yelling sorry.
"It's okay, Wirt!" Sara hollered from her end of the phone. She was usually soft spoken, but yelling was the only way for him to hear her from scrambling on the floor.
"I liked them," she said. He could hear the smile in her voice when she spoke. Sara was sincere that way.
Wirt wished he had a corded phone so he could twist the cord. Have something to do with his hands. "Really?" he asked, squeezing the word out past that aching, clawing thing in his chest. He coughed, and the feeling eased. In his ear, Sara laughed. It was the nice kind of laugh where it was at nothing in particular.
"Can I tell you which was my favorite?" she asked.
Wirt was glad she asked. He imagined twisting the phone cord around his finger. "Please. I mean, if you want to," Wirt replied.
-
Wirt wasn't Greg. When memories bubbled up, Greg could regale their mom, and neighbors and guidance counselors with them. At his age, they still took them to be fancy and fantasy. There was no weight applied to them, and no cautious whispers about lingering trauma.
If Wirt told his mom about talking birds and horses, he could only imagine what would happen.
Greg could talk as much as he wanted. The consensus would stay the same. Greg would be fine. That's how the adults saw it.
The first time Wirt picked up the tape recorder for use again, was because Greg asked. He’d needled for attention, and had almost been as surprised as Wirt when it had been given. Greg had smiled. The sing-song of his voice so happy as he tugged Wirt along. Eager to start recording their adventures. And Wirt had thought, maybe they both needed this.
Maybe it was fine that Greg could talk to everybody else. But maybe what he wanted more was to share with Wirt.
Wirt filled up a shelf with tapes labeled after Greg’s stories. The Time in the Bog, The Steamboat Shanty, the Pumpkin Dance . Often Greg remembered better than Wirt did. But he also often embellished. Which made the tapes a sort of project that needed editorial notes.
Wirt felt, however, that recording dissenting commentary would lead him right back to Guidance Counselors, and the sort of adults who tended to call him champ or sport. Like doctors and cops, and the Vice Principal who had added, 'you ought'a keep a better eye on your younger brother, son.'
Poetry had leeway. Poetry would fit with his old collection, and maybe make him mom smile more instead of worrying about him. He could record it, and replay it, and everyone would assume they were allegorical in nature. Possibly, Wirt thought, the Vice Principal would say they were a bad influence on his younger brother’s wild imagination. But even that man, who's frown was only matched in sheer fierceness by his mustache, could find no harm to them.
Still. Wirt preferred to keep them private. When he wanted to record his own stories, Wirt went to the old graveyard, in broad daylight, to record and listen to the tapes beside the wall. It was easier there to believe the most fantastic elements of their journey. To lean his head against the wall. To believe that when his own voice haunted the air, “.. ever blue, her talons curved and grew, and oh, my heart did wonder. When she might cut it asunder…” that the wind would carry a response.
“Wirt, you better not be writing poetry about me.”