I welcomed the quiet and tried go back to sleep, but as usual, once I was awake, I was awake. I spent half an hour studying a small spider weaving a web next to my ceiling light fixture. Not exactly a productive use of time, but it beat thinking about my lame-o life.
I got up and heated two corndogs in the microwave. I poured myself a glass of milk and squirted a glob of mustard on a paper plate. The breakfast of losers everywhere.
Around ten thirty, I called Bulldog Benny’s.
Terry, the manager, answered.
I asked, “Is Lisa Brazo there? This is Todd Nelson.”
“She’s here. Wanna talk to her?”
I almost said, “No, I’m just checking on where everyone in town is this morning. I’ve finished the A’s and I’m now checking the B’s.” Almost, but I thought better. Lisa might need to ask for a night off sometime, and I didn’t want to antagonize him.
Instead, I said, “Yes, please.”
“She’s busy.” So why did he ask if I wanted to talk to her? Executive material, that one.
“Uh, okay, I’ll drop by, if that’s okay. What time does the lunch rush die down?”
“Oh, about one thirty or so, I guess.” He let out a long Uuuuuh, then asked, “You want her to call you back?”
“No, that’s okay. But I’d appreciate it if you told her I’ll stop by around two.”
I washed off the best I could without getting any of the dressings too wet and covered the spots where blood was showing through the original bandages with a new layers of white bandage tape. I couldn’t do much about the bruising or swelling. I looked at myself in the bathroom mirror. Only a slight improvement. Where’s a good plastic surgeon when you need one?
I spent most of an hour binding and rebinding my sore ribs with tape and some old elastic bandages I found in the top of Dad’s closet, every movement an adventure in pain. I never achieved the desired result. I gingerly bent from the waist from side to side and front to back. Moderate agony seemed to be the best I could do.
I replaced the big pressure bandage on my chin with a regular adhesive bandage. The gauze pad on the new bandage was too small to cover the whole length of the stitched cut. The next bigger size in the medicine cabinet was a whopping two and a half inches wide and four inches long. I opted for improvisation. I cut the gauze pad from the bigger bandage to the size of my wound and put it under the regular bandage. Not bad. I used a little of Mom’s liquid flesh-colored base stuff on my purple and green eye but it made the swollen lump on my upper cheek look like an elephant zit, so I washed it off. Ouch!
I did what little I could to make myself appear half human. It took half a bottle of alcohol, but I got most of the maroon sterile wound prep stains off my face, but my cheeks and forehead shined bright red from the scrubbing. As Grandpa Collins would say, “All the paint and powder in St. Louis can’t turn a horned toad into a ballerina.”
I wore my purple-and-gold team jacket from Heritage Park High. It looked good and reminded me of better times. I checked the mirror again. Maybe a cap would help. Too bad I didn’t have a fifty-gallon Stetson and a ski mask in the closet. I could only hope Lisa wouldn’t be repulsed by what she saw. I thought about calling to warn her since I wasn’t sure how dialed into the Branard High grapevine she would be.
One last look and I told the mirror, “It is what it is.”
Lisa said I needed to talk to her dad before we could go out, so I needed to do that early in the afternoon. But I wanted to test Lisa’s reaction to my condition before talking to him. No use meeting him if she wanted to cancel. She didn’t seem the type to do that, but I didn’t yet know her as well as I would like.
I gathered up Josh’s box of ill-gotten gains and stashed it behind the seat of my truck. I didn’t want Dad to stumble on them before we had a chance to turn them in. Luckily my truck was the extended cab model because the box was huge. I’d drop it off at Brandon Lupo’s office after I saw Lisa and her dad. Brandon was the youth pastor at one of the bigger churches in town. He had a great rep with the kids at school as someone a kid could trust.
With more than an hour to kill before meeting Lisa, I tried Mission to Tulley VI’s Level Ten. The Mordoon’s cyborgs on the new level were no longer on foot. Each one rode their own Rocket Cycle instead, making them ten times faster than on the previous level and all but impossible to escape. I hit the Off button and threw the controller on the bed when I died in the Valley of Zongar for the zillionth time. My mind was on Lisa, not cyborgs.
As I retrieved the controller and hung it in the BotBox’s side rack, the phone rang.
“Todd, this is Dad.” He sounded serious. “Your Mom has taken a turn for the worse. You need to go by and pick up Josh at school and get over here. If you’re not well enough to drive, get Mr. Shepp to bring you. Do it now.”
No, God. Please, no.
Chapter Thirteen
The scene was more than a little surreal. Me, Dad, and Josh sat together on the front pew in a little side alcove of Resthaven Funeral Home’s chapel. The other family members were sitting in the four or five rows behind us. A thin veil-like curtain separated the bereaved family section of the chapel from the main seating area.
I had zombie-walked through the four days between Dad’s urgent call and the funeral, my mind in a haze of grief, anger, and numbness. I knew the three of us had gone through the funeral arrangements together, but I could have sworn I had never seen that pewter casket with its pinkish tint and ornate silver hardware before. The flower arrangement splayed on the closed half of the casket’s lid was a mix of yellow and peach roses, Mom’s favorites.
As if she could see them.
Flower wreaths of every size and kind adorned the front of the room, and potted flowers and plants lined the side walls. The place was packed. They say she was dressed in her favorite ivory and emerald-green dress and held a single yellow rose in her folded hands. I didn’t look.
Oh, I faced the coffin at the appropriate times and even passed by it at the end of the service, but instead of looking at my mom’s cold, lifeless form, I fixed my stare on a tuft of satin near the upper rim of the coffin. I don’t know why. Maybe I thought if I didn’t see her, I could still believe she was alive, or maybe I knew on some subconscious level I did not want to remember her that way.
Either way, I couldn’t stand the thought of seeing her lying there, void of love and life. I chose to remember her smiling at me and telling me to be careful, or warning me if I didn’t eat my veggies, I couldn’t have any of her fresh-baked coconut cake.
Dr. Dan Chenevert, President of Grace Christian Seminary—where dad graduated—preached the funeral. Nothing he said made it all the way to my brain. None of it mattered anyway.
Dad was quiet and stoic. I knew he would be. He never was one to let his emotions show, but it was Josh that puzzled me the most. He teared up at one point about halfway through the chapel service. It lasted half a minute at best, and the rest of the time, I swear, he appeared disinterested. He fidgeted in his seat, picked at a string on his sleeve, and fiddled with his watch the whole time.
The Resthaven Funeral Home in Madisonville was tiny. I didn’t know if Dad had picked it for the funeral because it was cheap or because it was halfway between Houston and Dallas where most of Mom’s siblings lived. We were never close-knit, although we all lived within a few hours’ drive of each other. Mom used to fly up to see them every year or so, but Dad, Josh, and I always stayed home. I always suspected Dad thought Josh and I would be corrupted by their worldly ways.
They never came to visit us either. I think they were uncomfortable being around us church types, Mom’s brothers being what Uncle Mike used to call honky-tonk sinners. Uncle Doyle, Uncle Terrence, and his son, Frank, played in a country band called The Belly Up Boys.
The service lasted a full excruciating fifty-five minutes. Dad and Josh hung around accepting condolences and pathetic pity patter for another twenty. While Dad was occupied with a particularly chatty grou
p of mourners, I slipped out a side door and found a wrought-iron bench in a little side garden. I could see Dad and Josh through a slit in the drapes in a rear window, but they couldn’t see me. Dad would look around every few minutes and then turn back to whoever approached him next. Josh fidgeted at Dad’s side, surely sorry he hadn’t made a break for it when I had.
»»•««
Because of the long drive back to The Garden of Eternal Rest Cemetery in Houston, we only invited family and our closest friends to the graveside service. Dad, Josh, Granny Wall, and I rode to the cemetery in a limo big enough for a dozen more people, but everyone else would need their own cars to get home.
We rode in silence the whole trip, Dad staring straight ahead, Josh slumped to one side with his head back and his eyes closed, and me, studying every strand of fiber on the limo’s floor mats.
Dad’s best friend, Reverend Bob Hopkins, the pastor of a large church in San Antonio, spoke at the graveside. The day had turned gray, wet, and cold, just as it should have. A faded twelve-by-twenty blue awning did little to protect the area around the excavated grave from the biting damp. The soggy ground beneath a piece of pale green Astroturf with frayed edges sloshed with every step we took from the gravel driveway to the graveside tent.
The funeral home’s white metal folding chairs sat six across and six rows deep, and although less than twenty people were invited, every seat was full and another fifty or so mourners crowded around the outside of the awning in the cold, damp mist.
Dad, Josh, and I sat in the middle of the front row with Granny Wall next to Dad, and Aunt Sue next to me. I tried to listen to what Reverend Hopkins had to say. I liked him. He was the friendliest, most cheerful minister I’d ever known, and it wasn’t an act. With Brother Bob, as he insisted Josh and I call him, what you saw was what you got—a happy, generous, loving man whose sermons were lively and relevant. Dad’s preaching could use more influence from Brother Bob and a lot less from Dr. Chenevert.
Brother Bob took his place in front of the casket and read the scripture in the fifth chapter of the Gospel of John. “Do not marvel at this; for the hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear His voice and come forth, those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of judgment.”
I actually found a degree of comfort in his words. I don’t remember anything else he had to say.
»»•««
Back at Granny Wall’s house, people had hauled in enough fried chicken, barbeque, potato salad, and coleslaw to feed most third-world countries for a year. And the desserts: cakes, pies, puddings, and cookies. Wow! Under other circumstances, I would have been in hog heaven, but as it was, I just wanted to be alone. I wanted to get in my truck, gas it up, and go. Just drive and drive and drive. I would have, too, if it weren’t for Granny Wall, Josh, and my dad. They would have never understood.
I could find no refuge. Every inch of the house was filled with too-cheerful faces and endless empty chatter. Two hours of an impromptu family reunion, and smothering hugs from relations I hardly knew was more than I could endure.
I asked Aunt Sue if she had the Net on her tablet. Maybe I could borrow it and stow myself away in a closet somewhere.
She said she did, but that it was too expensive to use unless it was an emergency. She did say, “I’ve got my laptop in the car. Would you like to take it and my car over to Starbucks on Jessup Road near Plumb Ridge? You know, they have free Wi-Fi.”
No, really? Free, you say?
I had to smile. I love Aunt Sue but like all of Dad’s family, she was way behind the time with all things tech.
She twisted her face into a fake frown. “What?”
I shook my head. “Nothing. That’d be great.”
When I turned to go she grabbed my arm.
“Yes?” I asked, afraid she had changed her mind.
She cocked her head to one side and grinned. She said, “There’s just one thing. I need you to do something for me.”
“What’s that?”
“You have to take your Grandmother Nelson with you.”
I cracked up, and so did Aunt Sue. Thank goodness, she wasn’t serious.
“I swear,” said Aunt Sue. “If that woman weren’t my own mother, I’d strangle her. She drives me stark raving mad.”
An elderly couple I didn’t know sauntered by, and Aunt Sue motioned for me to step out into the entry hall where we wouldn’t be overheard. “Mother is the most viciously negative human on the planet. Do you know what she just said about Reverend Bob?”
I shook my head, “No.”
“She said he looked like a womanizer to her. Can you beat that?”
“What made her say that?” I asked.
“I don’t know. She says things like that more and more these days.”
I chuckled when Aunt Sue said it, but in truth, it wasn’t funny at all. It was sad. Sad and downright mean. Bob Hopkins was the finest, most morally upright man I knew. I couldn’t imagine what it was about him that would lead Grandmother Nelson to say such a thing. I guess that was how she saw things in her bitter little critical world.
A TV program I once saw said people who criticize and ridicule others do it to try and build themselves up in people’s eyes. If that was what my grandmother was trying to do, it wasn’t working. It served only to make her appear mean-spirited and small.
Chapter Fourteen
We got back to Branard Saturday afternoon, and Dad forced Josh and me to return to school the following Monday. He thought it might help to keep our minds occupied, but I knew better. Nothing was going to help. No matter what I did, my life was in the dumpster, and I was the rotting scum stuck to the bottom. For a while, I forgot all about Josh’s stash behind the seat of my truck.
School turned out to be a little better than it had been before. I guess your mom dying buys you some time off from your tormenters. Even so, I was growing angrier and more bitter each day. In one of my mandatory talks with Mrs. Franks, the school counselor, she said grief often manifests itself as anger. “You need to channel your emotional energies in some constructive direction.”
What is that supposed to mean?
“Channel my emotional energies?” I asked. “Exactly what is the proper direction for one to take after the death of their mother? Am I supposed to hand out blankets to the homeless or something? Is that supposed to ease the pain?”
She didn’t answer.
I said, “God lets a sweet, kind, loving, saint of a woman die at thirty-nine and lets a guy like Amos Bloom live. The guy gets drunk and kills five people with his car. He gets two years in some plush rehab house because his daddy spoiled him too much. Affluenza? Really?”
“He had the flu?”
“Don’t be a tuba. It’s ‘ay’ as in affluence, and I’m trying to make a point.”
She raised her hands in surrender. “Okay. Okay.”
“I’m just saying. God snatches up my saintly mom and I’m supposed to go on like she never existed? Just occupy my mind and channel my energies?”
“Now, Todd, that’s not what…”
I didn’t give her a chance to finish. I stood and walked out of her office. Had she ever been in my position? I didn’t think so. So how was she supposed to fix everything? Short answer: she wasn’t.
»»•««
I lost what little interest I still had in school, not that it had been such a meaningful and rewarding part of my life since the football game anyway. I didn’t even want to call Lisa or go by Benny’s. I didn’t know what to say, and I didn’t want her sympathy.
I lost my temper with Josh over something trivial and slapped him across the face, hard. I’d never done that before. Life was beating me down deeper and deeper each day, and Josh just happened to be handy.
The loot from his and Kevin’s crime spree remained behind the seat of my truck and I didn’t care. I felt I was under attack from every side, and I didn’t have a clue as to how to fight back
.
Less than a week later, some of the guys from the football team began to hassle me again, but it wasn’t as bad as before. I wasn’t sure if it was because their anger over the loss to West Cleary was beginning to fade, or if some of the guys were continuing to cut me some slack because of my mom.
For some, I suspect there could have been another reason. Maybe they left me alone because of how ill-tempered I was all the time. Not too many guys wanted to tangle with an angry six-foot-three two-hundred-forty-pound gorilla.
I’m not sure exactly when it happened, or why, but sometime after my third week back, I decided it was payback time for the blanket-party beat-down I’d been given.
I cornered Law in the parking lot after school. “I’ve decided it’s time for the big V.”
“Ah yes, vengeance. The dish best served cold.” Law raised a clenched fist to eye level and gave it a single shake.
“I’m going to catch Lance Brighton and Jamel Crockett each alone somewhere, and return the beat-down bruise for bruise and contusion for contusion. And, if I can find out who the third guy was, I’ll get him too.”
“You’re going to all Vogel on ’em?”
“What are you talking about?” Law was wired a little different from most people. I loved the guy, but at times I had trouble following his logic. It wasn’t exactly flawed, but it didn’t always follow a straight line either. I called it Law-gic.
“Haven’t you ever seen The Tower of Og? When Vogel, The True Warrior, goes after the king’s guard, this old consort tells him, ‘you must meet their fires with lightning, their raids with massacres, and their full offensives with total annihilation. Only then will you be free.’”
“Total annihilation? Really? That’s a little severe, isn’t it?”
“I’m making a point here.” Law tilted his head to the side and looked to the sky. “Doesn’t the Bible say something about hand for a finger?” His mouth twisted into a silly grin.
“It says, ‘An eye for an eye,’ you heathen.”
“Yeah, I’m the infidel. And which one of us is planning a couple of aggravated assaults?”
Half the Distance Page 10
