Introverted, socially awkward Jay Kirkman, known to his Grams as “Jay Bird,” is riding the ups-and-downs of youth while living with overbearing parents and dealing with the pressures of being a senior in high school. A month away from graduation, Jay hopes to flee the small upstate New York town of Milton for a life anywhere but in his dead-end hometown. He wishes for more than he has now: scholarly, eccentric parents, and watching Grams, the closest person to him, slowly dying before his eyes. His equally withdrawn but edgier best friend Rocco has a hearty appetite for drugs, alcohol, and promiscuous sex. When the law comes knocking, asking questions about a crime Rocco may or may not have committed, he finds himself in big trouble and turns to Jay for help. Is Jay and Rocco’s friendship strong enough to sustain life’s tough obstacles as they navigate the highs and lows of growing up together?

Jay Bird

“I just visited her a few days ago,” I said, walking back and forth in front of the closet.


“I’m sorry to have to tell you, son.”


“She made me laugh. Her dirty jokes were fucking funny. She was one-of-a-kind. She was colorful and mischievous.”


“She was a spitfire,” my father added.


I went to him, bent over his body, and wrapped my arms around his broad shoulders. I cried long after my dad left, through the rest of the morning, after the light of a new day reached the corners of my bedroom.


Later that afternoon, I visited the school nurse—Ms. Stevens, a tall, slim woman in her fifties with a mole the size of an olive behind her ear and a beehive of whitish grey hair. She always wore knee-high leather boots, like she was going to the rodeo. She was filling in for Mrs. Ritter this week.


Chapter 22