“No problem,” Mateo says.
He’s turning away when he sees my bike. “Nice! Is that a Trek?”
“It is. Got it for off-road races. Do you ride one?”
“Mine got wrecked—brake cable got busted and the seat clamp was all screwy. I’m buying another one when I get a job that pays more than eight an hour,” he says.
“Take mine,” I say. I can do this. I walk to my bike, which carried me through a brutal race and everywhere else I wanted to go, and wheel it toward this guy. “It’s your lucky day, seriously. My friend isn’t about me riding this thing, so you can have it.”
“You serious?”
“You sure?” Mateo asks.
I nod. “It’s yours,” I tell the guy. “Have at it. I’m moving soon anyway and won’t be able to bring it.”
The dude throws the handball over to his friends, who’ve been shouting for him to come back and play. He sits on the bike and plays with the gears. “Wait. You didn’t jack this from someone, right?”
“Nope.”
“And it’s not broken? Is that why you’re leaving it behind?”
“It’s not broken. Look, do you want it or not?”
“We good, we good. Can I pay you something?”
I shake my head. “We good,” I say back.
Mateo gives the guy the helmet and he doesn’t put it on before riding back to his friends. I get my phone out and snap photos of him riding my bike, his back to me as he stands on the pedals, while his friends play handball. It’s a solid portrait of kids—a little older than me, but they’re kids, don’t fight me on that—too young to be worried about shit like Death-Cast alerts. They know their day is going to end like it usually does.
“Good move,” Mateo says.
“I got one last ride out of it. I’m set.” I take more photos: the ongoing handball match, the monkey bars where we played Gladiator, the long yellow slide, the swings. “Come.”
I almost go back for my bike before remembering I’ve just given it up. I feel lighter, like my shadow just quit his day job, walked off, and threw up a peace sign. Mateo follows me to the swings. “You said you’d come here with your dad, right? Naming clouds and shit? Let’s swing.”
Mateo sits on the swing, holds on for dear life—I know—takes a few steps, and propels forward, his legs looking like they’re about to kick over a building. I get a picture before joining him on the swing, my arms wrapped around the chains, and I manage to take some pictures. Puts me and my phone at risk—again, I know—but for every four blurry shots I snap a good one. Mateo points out the dark nimbus clouds, and I’m straight wowed I get to live in this moment with someone who doesn’t deserve to die.
It’ll storm again soon, but for now we go back and forth, and I wonder if he’s thinking two Deckers sharing swings might mean the entire thing will collapse and kill us, or if we’ll swing so high we’ll fly and fall out of life, but I feel safe.
We slow down and I shout to him, “The Plutos gotta scatter me here.”
“Your place of change!” Mateo shouts while the swing throws him backward. “Any other big changes today? Besides the obvious?”
“Yeah!”
“What?”
I smile over at him as our swinging comes to a stop. “I gave up my bike.” I know what he’s really asking, but I don’t take the bait. He’s gotta make a move himself, I’m not robbing him of that moment, it’s too big. I stay seated as he stands. “Weird how this is the last time I’ll be in this park—with flesh and a heart that works.”
Mateo looks around; it’s his last time here too. “You ever hear about those Deckers who turn into trees? Sounds like a fairy tale, I know. The Living Urn offers Deckers the opportunity to have their ashes put in a biodegradable urn containing a tree seed that absorbs nutrients and stuff from their ashes, which I thought was fantasy but nope. Science.”
“Maybe instead of having my ashes just scattered on the ground some dog is going to shit on, I could live on as a tree?”
“Yeah, and other teens will carve hearts into you and you can produce oxygen. People like air,” Mateo says.
It’s drizzling so I get up from the swing, the chain rattling behind me. “Let’s get somewhere dry, weirdo.”
Coming back as a tree would be pretty chill, like I’m growing up in Althea Park again, not that I’ll say that out loud because yo, you can’t go around telling people you wanna be a tree and expect them to take you seriously.