by Susan Vaught
Dad rubbed his hands together again, but this time, he didn’t stop. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, son. Your mother and I disagree over a lot of things. Tonight, it was the television. It wasn’t you.”
It was hard to make my mouth work. Harder to swallow. I wanted him to leave so I could talk to J.B. because J.B. was way easier to talk to than Dad. 2x + 6 = J.B. Besides, Dad was lying.
“It’s always me. I did something awful.”
“Are you still on that? Honest to God, Jersey. You need to leave the past alone.” Rub, rub, rub went his hands. “You used to get so stuck on things, so obsessed with doing them your way. Don’t be like that now. Don’t be like—you know. Before.”
“Before I pulled the trigger?” Dumbass! Dumbass!
Dad’s hands froze.
My brain didn’t.
I pulled the trigger. I shot myself. Shot myself with his gun.
What was wrong with me?
Pragmatics.
His gun.
A weird taste in my mouth—oil and dust. I could feel cold gunmetal on my lips, then again, at the stupid-mark on the side of my head. Digging. Digging in. I clenched my teeth hard. Frog farts, frog farts, frog farts, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven … his gun, his gun. Not fair. Not his fault. Big Larry. Selfish. Be quiet. Focus. Try harder. Be quiet.
Dad looked at the football rug instead of me. “Yeah. Before you pulled the trigger. You probably made some people mad, got stressed out—but I don’t think you ever did anything awful. Let it be. And the fight tonight wasn’t your fault.”
He sniffed and shut the door before I could say anything else. The floor creaked as he walked away toward his bedroom.
For a long time I just sat there. My hands made fists. My brain made me open my fingers. Fist, fingers. Fist, fingers. J.B wasn’t talking. Dumbass. He only talked when I didn’t want to hear him. X, x, x, y. Fist, fingers. Had I been selfish with Dad, asking him my question? Making him talk to me? I had probably been selfish. Frog farts.
One fist, two fists. 2x + 6 = fists.
“Should apologize for being stupid.”
My words sounded flat in the room.
J.B. Still didn’t answer.
“Just go down the hall and say, ‘I’m sorry for being weird.’ I’m good at sorry.” Fist, fingers. Frog farts.
After a minute or two of breathing, I got up. Tripped on my books and braces. Sat back down.
Graceful. J.B. sounded mean … and a little sad.
“Now you start talking.” I kicked my Algebra book on top of my Earth Science book. Dumbass. This time when I stood up, I stayed up. “Graceful.”
This is a bad idea. You should leave him alone. He doesn’t want to talk to you.
“I’m going to say sorry. Then I’ll leave him alone.”
Just put your braces on and go to bed. J.B. sounded even sadder. It creeped me out.
“In a second. Graceful. X and y.” I headed for my bedroom door before he could talk me out of it. He didn’t call after me as I stumbled into the hall and made the floor creak.
Then the house sounded so quiet I stopped moving. Like I shouldn’t make any more noise or something. Like I’d bother Mom, but Mom was on her way to work or wherever Mom went when she got mad. Graceful. I wasn’t bothering anybody. Not yet. X, y, 2x.
I started walking again, toward Mom and Dad’s room. When I got closer, I heard crunching and clunking and rustling, kind of like a mouse. A big mouse. Dad-mouse, maybe. When I got to his door, it was open. The bedside lamp was on, and in the bathroom, a little light. I figured Dad was in the big walk-in closet Mom called “the storage shed.” Except it wasn’t really a shed. It had lots of Mom clothes and Dad clothes and lots of shoes and bags and suitcases and boxes. Around the top, it had more shelves with more boxes. Tax boxes, picture boxes, keepsake boxes. Something Mom called “what-not boxes.” Some had labels. Lots didn’t. 2x + boxes = junk. Graceful.
Dad was in the storage shed, in the junk. X. Y.
When I walked up, he had a shoebox open, looking at something. I couldn’t see it. Whatever was in that brown box, he was touching it over and over, like it was a kitten or something alive.
“Um, Dad?”
He slammed down the box lid.
“Sorry.” I rubbed my hands together like he’d been doing in my room. My bad hand felt numb and cold and clumsy. “I mean—about scaring you, yes, but, sorry for before.”
As I got closer. Dad moved the shoebox away from me. “You don’t have anything to apologize for. I told you, the fight wasn’t your fault.”
That again.
Did he think I was stupid? Graceful. Dumbass. I quit rubbing and made fists by accident. Let them go. Fist, fingers, breathe. One, two, three … fist, fingers, breathe.
Coughing and blinking, Dad stuffed the brown box back on a shelf over his head. When he turned around again, I was ready.
“I’m sorry about my questions,” I said really fast before I could get stuck on Algebra problems or call him a name. “I’m … sorry … for getting stuck. On questions. And stupid stuff.”
“You can’t help that. I understand.” Dad rubbed the top of his legs like he was drying off his palms. Then he patted my arm.
“No.” Fist, fingers, breathe. Fist, fingers, breathe. “I could … do better. I can do better … when I’m slow. I mean, when I slow down. When I focus.” Fist, fingers … “And pay attention like I learned at Carter.”
“Fair enough.” He stepped forward and steered me out of the junk box storage shed closet.
“So, I’m sorry.” Fist, fingers, breathe. I was doing it! Focusing. Trying harder. Making sense when it mattered. Why wasn’t Mom here for this? She might get un-mad, at least a little. “Okay?”
Dad stopped, put his hands on my shoulders, and turned me to face him. His eyes were red. “Yes and no. I don’t want you to have to worry about how you act around here. I want you to be able to relax at home. Do you understand?”
“I—uh, yeah?” I blinked. I didn’t understand. Not really, but sort of. Kind of.
Dad squeezed my shoulders. “Talk however it comes out. Just—talk to me more. Tell me what’s going on. This is where you live. It should be a supportive place. A peaceful, no-stress place.”
Here?
I almost laughed, but fist-fingers-breathed and thought about hoochie-mamas and frog farts and 2x + 6 = 12 = 8, but 8 still didn’t look right, even in my head.
Here with J.B. and Mom and the wrong-color bedspread and the football rug I had folded up and all the downstairs pictures of ghosts, here, me, relax? Fist, fingers. 2x, 2x, 2x.
“Relax” popped out of my mouth.
Dad smiled. “Yeah. So don’t worry so much. Say what you want. Ask what you want.”
“But Mom doesn’t. Relax.” I bit my lip, took a breath, slowed down. “I mean, she doesn’t like it when I ask. When I stupid-talk. Big Larry.”
“She’ll come around. Just give her a little more time, Jersey.”
Another squeeze to my shoulders. Another smile. Dad looked like he really believed that.
I couldn’t get mad at him when he really believed it, could I? Mama Rush would have gotten mad at me. Graceful. But, I wasn’t Mama Rush. No robes. No cigarettes. So I didn’t get mad.
“A guy peed on me at school. Dumbass.” I bit my lip again. Stopped the next five or six stupid words. “I have to eat peanuts with cheerleaders and I don’t want a babysitter anymore. No funeral Wench. Please.”
Dad let go of my shoulders. Looked like he was trying to sew up a rip in his brain. A couple of times, he opened his mouth, but shut it again and scratched his head where he would have gotten a stupid-mark if he’d shot himself like I did. But Dad wouldn’t shoot himself. He’d never pull the trigger. Graceful dumbass.
All of a sudden, his face got all shiny. “Wenchel. Wenchel in the black dresses. You don’t want her to escort you anymore?”
“No!” I let out a great big breath. “I mean, yes. N
o Wench. No more.”
“Even though some guy peed on you?” He got hold of my shoulder again, but only one hand this time.
“Yes. Even with pee. No Wench.” I smiled. Half my mouth, anyway. Good enough.
Dad smiled back. “I’ll call the school and see what I can do. Now I’m hungry all over again. Come on downstairs and let’s heat up a pizza.”
I nodded. “Pizza Wench.” My stomach actually growled, never mind pot roast only a couple of hours ago.
With a wider grin, Dad put his arm around my shoulders. As we half-walked, half-lurched down the hall together, he said, “So you’re eating lunch with Leza Rush and the cheerleaders? I’d eat peanuts, too. Can’t dribble those on your shirt.”
chapter 13
I have this dream where both legs work and both arms work and I don’t have any scars on the outside. I’m sitting on the edge of my bed in dress blues holding a pistol in one hand and a brown box in the other. Sunlight brightens the dust and ashes in my room and darkens all the places where I’ve nicked the walls and doors. The football rug, the one Mama Rush gave me when I made the team my freshman year, is folded neatly on my dresser so it won’t get messy. I give it one last look before I turn back to what I’m doing. My fingers tingle as I touch the box. Inside, there’s proof. Inside, there’s a reason. Everyone will understand when they see what’s in the box. I lift the gun to my mouth. It tastes oily and dusty all at once as I close my lips on cold gunmetal—but I can’t. Not in the mouth. I’m shaking, but I lift the barrel to the side of my head. The tip digs into my skin. I’m thinking about what’s inside the box, and all the dust and ashes in places I didn’t even know. Then I’m squeezing the trigger and looking at the box and the dust and ashes and feeling my hand shake and there’s noise and fire and pain and I’m falling, falling, my broken head smashing into my pillow ….
The box. The box in Dad’s closet.
I wrote about it in my memory book. I fell asleep thinking about it. I woke up thumping my stupid-mark with my hand brace and thinking about it, and I got dressed thinking about it.
You need to check out that box, J.B. whispered while I pulled on my tennis shoes. The green laces were still springy.
“Box, fox, rocks. It’s Dad’s box. Dad’s got problems right now. Later, maybe.” When I pulled the laces, they snapped back in place. “Rocks. Knocks.”
What if there’s something important in the box?
“I’m not looking in the box. Knock, knock.”
I know there’s something important in that box. You need to find out.
I made my shoelaces spring again, then stood up. “No box,” I said, just in case J.B. decided to listen. “No rocks, no fox.”
Could be some kind of doctor’s papers. Or maybe a picture. What if it’s a letter you wrote? Do you think you really left a letter and your dad’s hiding it?
“Dad’s not hiding stuff. Rocks. He’s getting dressed.”
Maybe it’s a tape. You could have left a tape….
I hummed so I couldn’t hear him.
But it might be a suicide note. You might have said something about him in the note, so he hid it. Or maybe he found out about something really awful you did, and he’s hiding the proof.
I hummed louder as I picked up my memory book and headed for the door. No more forgetting the memory book. I’d written that down.
A note. That’s probably it. Or something that’ll get you arrested.
Even though I got to the hall and shut the door, I could still hear J.B. talking about the note. But I didn’t want to think about notes. I hadn’t left a note. If I’d left a note, that would explain everything, and Dad would never hide that from me.
Would he?
A note. In the box.
I squeezed the cover of my memory book and stumbled down the steps. Maybe if I thought about shoelaces, I wouldn’t think about notes. Shoelaces were better than notes. If I said shoelaces, it wouldn’t bother Dad. But if I said notes like a note in that box, he might understand and get mad. Or worse, sad.
No note. Don’t say note. Say shoelaces. Say frog farts. Say anything else.
When I got to the kitchen, Dad was pouring healthy oatmeal into a bowl for me. I didn’t know if Mom was still asleep, since it was Saturday, and she slept late now, even though she never used to do that Before. Note. Box. Shoelaces. Shoelaces!
Dad had a conference to go to all day, for the next two days. Continuing education. CEUs. I wondered if I got CEUs, if I’d be able to do Algebra and Civics and Earth Science. Civics, maybe. But probably not Algebra. Probably not Earth Science, either.
There probably wasn’t anything in that box. Especially not a note.
“Note—I mean, Civics,” I said as I sat down. “CEUs.”
No note!
When I stirred my healthy oatmeal. It stuck to my spoon. No, no, no, no note.
Dad grunted and ate a bite of his oatmeal, followed by a bite of not-so-healthy leftover pizza. Don’t know how he swallowed oatmeal-pizza, but he managed. With milk. Gross.
“Make you a deal, Jersey. If you go to my conference, I’ll do your homework.” Dad wiggled his eyebrows.
“Earth Science and Algebra, too? CEUs. Milk-pizza.”
“Ugh. No on the Algebra. Deal’s off.” He smiled. That made the circles under his eyes look bigger. He really needed to shave.
Shave. Shave. Shave.
I passed on the leftover pepperoni pizza when he offered me some, counted a lot in my head, and let him burn some Kool-Aid glue toast for me because it made him happy. Then I used it to scoop up the oatmeal. The oatmeal made the toast taste a lot less like Kool-Aid glue. Nothing like milk-pizza. At least I didn’t think it was. I managed to chew up and swallow a bite. Milk might help a lot with the glue, only it wouldn’t taste so good with the Kool-Aid part.
“Is, um, Mom—is she still asleep?”
Dad sniffed and put down his pizza. “She pulled an all-nighter at the bank. They’re being audited next week, I think. Just a normal audit, but still. It’s a lot of work.”
The circles under his eyes got bigger whenever he talked.
There was a fairy tale about that once. Every time some kid told a lie, the circles under his eyes grew. No, wait. It was his nose. His nose got bigger.
“Nose,” I said, only it came out “Naw” because of the glue toast and sticky oatmeal. Naw sounded less like note than nose. Good. Naw, naw, naw, naw.
“Are you seeing Mama Rush today, Jersey?”
“Naw. Wait! Yes. Glue.”
“Okay.” Dad grinned and went after his last bite of pepperoni pizza. “Finish up and I’ll drop you off on my way to the conference.”
“I told you already, you’re tense, boy.” Mama Rush’s voice sounded like a dog growling. She stared at my memory book. “Loosen up.”
I took a deep breath. Tried to make my face look relaxed. How did a relaxed face look? Hands on the table. Slow breathing. Look relaxed. Look relaxed.
The sun was bright.
I could see heat rising around our patio table at The Palace, but at least I couldn’t see Big Larry. For now, anyway. My eyes kept jumping from the glued ceramic piggy bank to the patio door, like the door might pop open any second. I was tense, boy. And I had sweat behind my ears. Gross. Wet ears. Worse than pizza and milk. But not worse than the glued piggy bank.
Loosen up. Loosen up. I was tense, boy. Boy was I tense. Wet ears. The pig looked like a pink alien with a great big butt-face. Its nose was all smashed. One of the ears squiggled sideways. It didn’t have a tail, half of a back leg was missing, one front leg looked like my springy shoelaces, and the rest of it was all lumpy. Wet ears. It was hot. I think Mama Rush glued some of its smashed nose to its sides. Or maybe she glued pieces of something else all over it. I couldn’t tell. Those sides looked like pink butts, too. It was a really bad piggy bank.
Yeah, but it holds the money. Can’t have everything.
That’s what Mama Rush said when she put it on the table.
It holds the money. She turned my memory book around a little, squinting at my scribbles. Wet ears. Her lounging dress was red, and she had a red ribbon around her hair bun.
“You need a little computer.” Her gaze flicked toward the patio door, then back to the memory book. “Maybe there’s money in that box you’re worrying about. If there is, your dad should buy you a computer so I can read what you write.”
“Shoelaces. I think there’s a note in the box. Maybe. Money.” I glanced at the patio door and rubbed behind my wet ears. “Or a tape. Secret papers about me. Maybe I wrote a note.”
Mama Rush blew smoke out of her nose. “I can’t believe your father would keep something like that from you. Y’all had all that therapy—and he knows you’re hunting for answers.”
She was looking at the patio door, not at me. So I looked at the patio door, too. The table felt so hot under my fingers, from the sun. No wind. Nothing moving. The air smelled like wet and smoke and glue, with a little bit of flowers and perfume. The patio door wasn’t opening.
“Therapy. Shoelaces. Answers—what if he thinks the note’s too bad?” I couldn’t quit staring at the door. I wished Mama Rush would stop so I could stop, too. “He might think I don’t need to know. Or that it’ll make me upset again.”
She thought about this for half a cigarette. Both of us stared at the door. Smoke floated around the butt-faced pig like flat pieces of fog. From the corner of my eye, I kept seeing red from her lounge dress and ribbon. A red djinni today, looking at the patio door even more than me. Her eyes seemed kind of wet.
Was she waiting for Big Larry, too? Was he her boyfriend? He couldn’t be her boyfriend. Did she miss him? No way. How could anybody miss Big Larry?
Mama Rush sighed and closed the memory book. “What do you think about Number Two on your list, Jersey? Do you think it’s possible you did something to feel awful about—so awful you’d want to hurt yourself?”
“Yes, I did. I had to.” Finally, finally, I quit looking at the door, but only because Mama Rush stopped. I pointed at the memory book. “Almost out of reasons. Butt-pig. Alien.”
