“Ugh, I can’t believe he’s going to drink it!” Jenny Sawyers squealed. She usually didn’t smile that big, because her braces would show, but it was obvious she couldn’t help herself. I don’t know if there was anything I wouldn’t have done to get her to look at me the way she was at Matt Meyers. Earlier that year I’d learned my best friend, who was already good at everything, turned out to also be good at making every girl in school like him.
It had been Matt’s idea to go to Burger King. Not that I minded really. The Dairy Freeze had closed for the season, and the high school was playing an away game so there honestly wasn’t much else to do on a Friday night if you were thirteen in Blackburn, Iowa. And besides, Burger King had eight kinds of pop and you could have as many refills as you wanted.
When they’d first opened, my dad drove the family there for Sunday dinner. He took his cup to the self-serve fountain and started filling it with a splash or two of each kind, mixing them all together. “We used to call this a ‘graveyard,’” he’d said. “Well, some people call um’ a ‘suicide,’ but we used to call ‘um ‘graveyards.’”
When he took that first drink, dad pulled a face like he’d just swallowed poison. He almost had me, but soon enough he’d broken into a smile and we were both laughing. It wasn’t too long after that when I went there with Matt for the first time. I played the same joke and we spent the afternoon acting grossed out. It became a thing we did.
“That’s so disgusting!” said Carrie Anderson. The way she said it sounded the exact opposite of what those words usually mean. Carrie and Jenny had been outside the Burger King before Matt and me got there. Matt didn’t seem surprised to see them, but I guess he never did. They’d kind of followed us in and then sat at the booth behind ours even though the place was empty. We’d each filled our cups up with every flavor, but the girls only seemed to notice when Matt did it.
“You dare me?” he said.
Carrie pretended to hide her eyes. Jenny bit her nails. Matt just smiled, and then took a gulp.
Almost immediately, Matt bugged out his eyes and tensed his throat to make his veins pop. The girls started freaking out. Shrieking and giggling the way girls do. One of the Burger King guys came out from the back and gave us a dirty look. That was when Matt went back to normal. “Whew,” he said. “That was close.”
“Oh my god, Matt, you’re so stupid,” Jenny said. She was still smiling though, and she pushed his shoulder the way my mom used to push my dad.
The thing about graveyards is, they looked weird, but didn’t taste bad at all. I actually liked them better than drinking just one kind at a time. I reached over to grab the salt shaker and held it over my cup. “You dare me?” I asked Jenny.
“That’s just gross,” she said, without even really looking at me. Carrie was whispering something in her ear. Matt was trying to listen.
“Hey, you dare me?” I asked Matt.
“Yeah, whatever,” he said.
I shook some salt into my cup. Matt laughed, which got the girl’s attention. I took a sip. The ice on top tasted a little salty, but mostly it just tasted like pop.
“Ugh,” laughed Carrie.
“Hmm,” I said, reaching for the other shaker. “Needs pepper.”
Matt beat me to it, snatching the grey plastic container from my hand. He turned it upside down over his cup and started slapping the bottom to make the pepper pour out. “Just a pinch!” he said in a high voice like that cooking show lady.
Carrie and Jenny laughed like that was funny.
“I’ll take a pinch too!” I said, but my voice wasn’t as high as Matt’s, so I guess it wasn’t as funny. Jenny didn’t watch as I put pepper in my cup.
“But wait!” Matt said, jumping up and moving back towards the fountain. “What this dish really calls for is… ketchup!” He came back triumphantly with a handful of plastic packets.
“Matt, no!” they squealed. He tore one open and hesitated. They loved it. It was always this easy for him.
“Give me one of those,” I said, taking a packet and tearing off a corner. I squeezed the whole thing out and then dumped the packet in for good measure. I took a deep breath, and then I drank until I’d finished the whole thing.
“Dude, that’s so sick!” he laughed.
I pointed to the packet he’d set down.
“What?” he said. “Seriously?”
“Wuss,” I said.
“Whatever,” he said. The girls were giggling and whispering.
“Puss,” I said.
“Fine.” Matt emptied the ketchup, dropped in the packet and stirred it up with his finger. He chugged it, and Jenny and Carrie started freaking out again. Matt’s eyes bulged. His veins popped. He slapped his chest and grabbed at this throat. The girls laughed. Jenny pushed him again, but this time he fell over. His face bright red. His legs starting to shake.
I could have moved faster. To this day I’m not totally sure why I didn’t. Maybe I just enjoyed being better at something than he was for once. By the time I did it was too late anyway. I think it was Jenny who screamed for the ambulance after he blacked out. It had to come from the next town over which was almost twenty minutes away. Fifteen too long.
Later, Matt’s dad told me he’d swallowed the ketchup packet, which had blocked his airway. At the funeral, his mom thanked me for being such a good friend.
Anyway. That’s why nobody drinks graveyards anymore.