by Carrie Mac
This is a terrible place to be.
We have to get out of here.
My printing on the cover was done with marker, but not indelible marker, so the words are mostly smeared. The book is a flipbook that was in Pete’s stocking one year. Flip it one way and you see a unicorn jumping over a happy-face sun. Flip it the other way and the unicorn is jumping over a sleeping moon. It is a very cute book, considering the peril that lies within.
NOTEBOOK OF DOOM: A CHRONICLE OF STUPID STUNTS AND/OR NEAR-DEATH EXPERIENCES
By Annie Banana Poltava and Unicorn Pete Bonner
Bullet in the brain (age 8)
We took the BB gun to our fort at Otis Creek, even though Annie’s dad said Always Have Him Help. But he moved to Bellingham, and so he was not around to Have Him Help, and Annie’s mom didn’t know that we took it and a bag of Pete’s dad’s beer cans with us after school. We filled the old Pabst cans with water and lined them up on a log. Annie was about to pull the trigger when a dumb pheasant flapped right in her line of sight, and so she swung the gun out of the way and squeezed the trigger at the same time and with one phsst a pellet shot straight into the middle of Pete’s forehead.
Once we realized that Pete wasn’t dying, we wiped it with alcohol and put a Band-Aid on it and told our parents (except for Annie’s dad) that he fell at the creek.
The pellet is still in there, as far as we know.
Bee sting (age 11)
We camped overnight at our fort for the Very First Time. The dads told us not to have a fire, but we did because it was cold by the creek and we’d brought marshmallows. Marshmallows = fire. We started the fire again in the morning, to have the other half of the bag. Pete was adding little twigs to get it going while Annie took down the tent. When she didn’t come after a long while, he went to look for her and found her kneeling on the ground, about to tip over, clutching her throat.
“Bee!” she croaked.
“Bee!” he hollered while he dumped her backpack and did not find the EpiPen she was supposed to carry with her. “Bee!” He dumped his pack too and found the backup EpiPen Annie’s dad had given him.
“Bee!” he yelled again as he swiftly and heroically stabbed her with it.
She recovered, and we hiked home and got there in time. We never told about the fire we’d had at Otis Creek, or the bee sting, most of all. We ripped Annie’s room apart and found the pen behind her dresser and then told her dad that she’d lost it, just so we’d both have one from then on. Annie could easily admit that not being able to breathe is a very bad thing.
Fall from a height (age 13)
Annie bet Pete that she could jump off the Sparkle Clean Laundry’s roof and tuck into a roll, parkour-style, thus dissipating the impact. She landed flat on her back somehow, her breath punched out of her with so much force that Pete thought everything had exploded inside her and her brains would start leaking out of her ears. She lay there for a long time. Not moving, eyes closed, breathing shallow. Pete still maintains that Annie was actually dead for a couple of seconds at least. Annie claims that she was trying to add a flip, and could’ve if she’d jumped from a little higher.
Don’t argue with the ocean (age 15)
We read the timetables wrong coming back from hiking to Liberty Cove. Annie’s dad dropped us off to camp for two nights, and we were due back at the parking lot to get picked up by Pete’s dad. We had to cross the little cove, which was engulfed by a gigantic and steady swell. We’d have to jump. Was it ten feet maybe? More or less. Annie had no doubt she could make it. She said she’d go first. She landed in the water.
“Swim!” Pete jumped in after her as a wave crested overhead.
Our packs filled with water, pulling us under. It was cold. Annie hit her head on something. Pete reached for her, but we were yanked apart by the waves rolling back. Neither of us tried to wrestle out of our pack, which was entirely stupid. But can you imagine how much it would cost to replace all our gear? Death versus a few hundred dollars to replace our gear off Craigslist. Duh. We both sank to the ocean floor. There was Pete, his eyes squeezed shut. Annie didn’t have any breath left. Then, as if the ocean had made a very clear and somewhat angry conclusion, a huge wave lifted us up and pushed us toward the beach, dumping us on a carpet of sharp rock. We dragged our packs and ourselves to the parking lot, which was just over the dune. Pete’s dad was nowhere in sight, and even though our phones were in a dry bag, there was no signal. By the time he showed up, we’d mostly dried off in the sun but still had to explain why our gear was soaking wet.
We told him the truth, because Everett can appreciate a story like that. He figures if it ends well, then every other bad decision gets a pass.
But don’t tell Annie’s dad, he said. Which we had no plan to do anyway.
Annie wants the following stated for the official record: I could have made it if I had a running start.
Pete wants the following stated for the official record: There are no running starts on boulders.
The black dog (age 16)
The day Gigi’s doctor said there was nothing else they could do.
“Except for hospice,” she said. “There is a spot in Bellingham. It’s beautiful. A little cottage at the edge of a park with hundreds of rhododendron bushes that are just about to bloom.”
“Each one of those blooms can kiss my ass,” Gigi whispered, her eyes closed against the constant pain. “They’re only going to die too.”
The doctor glanced at Annie, then her father.
“She’s coming home,” her dad said.
“She’s coming home,” Annie said.
“What they said,” Gigi said.
“We’ll make you as comfortable as we can.” The doctor put her hand on Gigi’s knee. “If that’s what you want.”
That night, while Gigi solidly slept, wheezing wetly, Annie sat on the edge of the bed, holding her hand, Gigi’s skeletal fingers tipped with her fresh manicure—“I’ll die with Fatal Attraction Red on my nails and a tiny rhinestone set in each one.” Gigi’s booze cabinet and mini fridge were right there, so Annie made a vodka and 7UP for Gigi and one for herself and drank both while trucks scooped up people in Soylent Green, playing on mute behind her. Then another drink. And one more, because what did anything matter if Gigi was going to die, soon? And then she went out the back door with the car keys and got into the car to drive to Pete’s—even though it was only a few blocks away—but instead of turning onto his street, she hit the telephone pole, slamming to a stop, the airbag exploding in her face and cracking her wrist. She called Pete and then passed out. He dialed 911 as he ran. He is not ashamed to admit that he was bawling as he approached the mangled car. He is also not ashamed to admit that he bawled even more when she seemed to be mostly okay, thanks to the airbags deployed on three sides.
“You braked for a dog,” Pete said as the sirens got louder and louder. “You saw a dog in the road and you couldn’t stop in time, and so you hit the pole. A black dog that was hard to see at first, Banana. No vodka. You’re just upset because of your grandma.”
Annie was nodding, holding the wrist that Pete had tucked into the folded blanket she always kept on the backseat. That was easy. She was upset because of Gigi.
She told the paramedics about the dog. She told the nurses. Her father. Pete’s father. She told Gigi when she called her to tell her that her wrist was broken and she was fine and to rest and do not come because she’d be home in a couple of hours. She told the X-ray technician. It was a Lab, she said. Black Lab, which was why it was so hard to see it. By the time she told the young doctor about the dog, she nearly believed it was true. There had been a dog. Black as night. Slam the brakes. And then the crash.
The doctor rolled his eyes, and when it was only Pete and Annie with curtains drawn all around, he said that he wouldn’t tell her dad because he believed in second chances, which was
either a very nice thing to do for her or a very stupid thing. Annie votes nice thing. Pete votes very stupid thing.
* * *
—
There are two other near-deaths listed in that book, but Pete and I never wrote the stories, mostly just in case the dads read them. Or Gigi. We keep them at the back of the book, where the unicorn and sleepy moon are. Maybe when we’re grown-ups, we’ll write about them then.
Drowning at Lake Shannon (age 11)
That time we were kidnapped (age 12)
Before that horrible sunset on the mountain with Pete, before Gigi died, we left the doctor’s office with her for the last time. After that half hour with the doctor, Dad, Gigi, Pete, and I had more knowledge about the Death with Dignity Act than we could ever use. Considering none of us had ever heard about it before, it was a lot of information all at once.
The last thing the doctor did before we left was lean forward and put her hand on Gigi’s knee.
“I must be clear. You are now in the dying process,” she said. “It will not get better. I cannot fix this. I know that you understand, but your family must too.”
None of us said anything until we got into the car.
“Why didn’t you tell us?” I asked, but as soon as the words were out of my mouth, I knew why. Gigi and the doctor had already had this discussion. Gigi already knew that once a dying person decided to stop eating and drinking, you did not offer so much as a sip of water, even on the days into the final slide toward a starving, parched demise.
“Why didn’t you tell us about this?” I pressed the pamphlet to her bony chest. She held it there, not looking at it because she already knew what it said.
“The time is right,” she whispered through a throat lined with tiny glass shards. She didn’t tell me that’s what it felt like to swallow, but I read it in her notebook, where she’d filled dozens of pages with notes and words for what she called “Death’s Wardrobe.”
I can’t say anything about what I read. Because we have an agreement in our house. Her, me, and Dad. No one reads the personal stuff.
“I will be like a good poem,” Gigi said. “It’s all about the denouement.”
“How can you even say that?” I started to cry.
It could not be fixed.
You cannot fix a dead person. Both Pete and I know that. We’ve been the two sole members of the Dead Mom Club since we were twelve. Pete was the only member of the club before that. His mom died when we were ten. It’s not that it was only ever supposed to be the two of us, but none of the other kids’ mothers have died since then. It doesn’t happen all that often. It’s a very small club.
* * *
—
I crashed the car that night. Avoiding the black dog. Gigi came with my dad to the hospital, even though I begged her to stay home. She appeared at my bedside when Pete was stalking the vending machines and my dad was dealing with an insurance glitch. Her portable oxygen tank hung heavy off of one shoulder, making her lean awkwardly on her two canes—one sparkly blue, one baby pink with tiny red hearts all over it—and all my guts twisted into a ball. I’d made her get up in the middle of the night, when she should be peacefully getting on with the not-very-peaceful parts of dying.
She sat beside me on the bed. “When one is trying to dramatically die with as much Hollywood glamour as something so wretched can include, beauty sleep is absolutely essential. The good doctor did say so, didn’t she? Just this afternoon?”
“She did not.”
“Then it must be in the pamphlet.” Gigi took it out of her purse and tried to give it to me.
“I don’t want it.” I wished I’d never read it. It was basically instructions for how to starve to death. It even said that you could expect your loved one to have sweet breath just before they died.
“Right under ‘Your Life, Your Death, Your Choice.’ ”
“This isn’t funny, Gigi,” I said. “I am a spoiled brat. And I am so, so sorry. I wasn’t thinking. This is the last thing you need—”
“Maybe it’s under ‘Palliative Needs.’ ”
“This is not funny!” Then came the tears. I hadn’t cried in the car, the crash, the ambulance, or the ER. “I miss you already and you’re not even dead yet!”
She pulled me into the lightest hug, like it was the ghost of her wrapping those thin, pale arms around me, and not the woman I genuinely believed could leap tall buildings if she wanted to.
“You can’t make this better,” she said. “And I can’t keep coming to get you. Not anymore, Annie. This is going to be about me. From now until the end. When I’m gone, you can be as dysfunctional as you want, but please know that you are smarter than that. And that I’ve given Pete instructions to protect you from yourself, if required.”
“She has,” Pete said from the doorway, arms full of vending machine junk, and a ginger ale for Gigi, to go with the two little vodka bottles in her purse.
“Until then, this is mine to finish,” Gigi said. “And yours to help. Understood?”
“Yes, Gigi.”
“Good girl. Pete?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Good, good. Yay for death. Now for some arts and crafts, which works as a therapeutic distraction for little kids, and so there is no reason why it can’t help us now.” She reached into her purse and pulled out a rainbow of permanent markers secured with an elastic band. She took my brand-new cast in her bony hands, rested it on a pillow in her lap, and started drawing flowers.
“Dying doesn’t make me a better artist,” she said. “I can write a beautiful poem, but I’ll save that for a sealed envelope in my bedside drawer with your name written on it to read after I die.”
I waited a moment to say it, because I was trying to decide if she was serious. She beat me to it, smiling up at me with a yellow-toothed grin and wrinkles like little drapes hung at the edges of her mouth.
“There won’t be a poem,” she said in the quiet, hoarse voice that seemed to be getting quieter by the day. She drew another black outline of a flower and started to color it in. “You know it takes me twenty years to write a good one. And I refuse to leave you a piece of crap. What a terrible legacy that would be.”
That was the last time she left the house. Four weeks later, she was dead.
The colorful flowers on the cast are still vibrant, even if the cast is beat-up and was supposed to come off yesterday. I can almost slip it off, but I haven’t demonstrated that to anyone. I think if I just wait another week or two, my arm will have atrophied so much that the cast will slip right off and I won’t have to cut through the flower garden Gigi drew all over it. She didn’t even leave a square inch for Pete, so he found the flower with the biggest center and signed his initials there. He also found a spot of foliage and drew a unicorn horn, and the tiniest bit of a unicorn head, so it looked like it was either peeking out all nymphish and coy or being smothered by a witch’s spell of so many flowers that there was nowhere to breathe, even if there were so many places to hide.
Most of me knows that letting my muscles perish for even one day more is stupid, when one of the things I am most looking forward to is rock climbing at Ugly Mug with Pete. And Preet too, I suppose. It might help if I could imagine Gigi saying, Don’t be silly, darling, it’s just a cast. Except what she would really say is, It would make quite the souvenir from your dead, dead Gigi. Maybe you could turn it into a lamp. What a conversation piece.
I knew that the right thing to do was to go get it cut off. And so even without Pete—because I was still me without him!—I was going to do it. Right, Gigi? I’m still me without him. I don’t need him for everything.
But isn’t it wonderful to have such a divine connection with another person. You and Pete are symbiotic, darling. Enjoy it.
Not helpful, Gigi.
I told Pete that he didn’t need to come, because
I wanted to show Gigi that I could do it by myself. Actually, that’s not accurate. I knew that Preet was being awarded a big scholarship by the Poppen Future Lawyer Foundation in Seattle, and I didn’t want to make Pete choose, because then he would’ve launched into his But what do I do? Who do I choose? angst and I didn’t want that. If I’d told him, he’d have wanted to come with me, even though he’d already promised to go with Preet. So I didn’t say anything, because I don’t want to be that best friend who wields ten years over a paltry few months. And! AND the biggest reason is because I can do it myself.
I told Pete I’d send pictures of the slaughter. I told my dad not to worry, I’d be fine, and asked if he wanted something from the Bear Claw Bakery on the way back. But then I just didn’t go. I didn’t make the turn. I didn’t drive down the highway. I just pulled over and stared at the flowers on my cast, and thought about how I did not want the doctor sawing through them. Not yet. Not ever, to be honest.
I wanted to make a lamp. I would shellac the hell out of that thing and turn it into a frigging bedside lamp. Don’t you mean chandelier, darling?
* * *
—
Right here is where I could say that I got out of the car and drank in the grounding majesty of the mountains towering all around. The truth, however, is that I started laughing. Mildly at first, then cackling and howling so hard that I was crying. Sad tears and funny tears and all of them turning my face into a wet, blotchy mess. I kept my hands on the wheel and my eyes locked on those claustrophobic mountains and prayed no police officer would ask me why I was pulled over on the shoulder.
