by Joey Goebel
“We will clean it up, good Reverend. No problems here,” says Luster.
“No!” growls my father. “Leave! All of you, leave at once!”
“So may our band please practice here? I had been meaning to ask you that,” says Luster.
“Never! Get out!”
Ember grins and giggles some more, and she looks somehow different. That’s when I realize that this is the first time in the year I’ve known her that I’ve seen her smile. She has always looked so cute, I guess I never really noticed the actual feelings on her little face. She’s always angry or pouting or brooding over something and sometimes even seems depressed.
As we’re walking out the door, I want to pick Ember up and shake her and yell into her tiny ears, “Don’t be like that! You’re eight years old! You shouldn’t have a care in the world! You should be happy!”
But then I realize that I can’t preach, because someone could just as easily say the same things to me since I’m a teenager, that these are the best years of my life and all that crap. Still though, a depressed child has to be the saddest thing on earth.
I’d give anything to be a kid again, before zits, breasts, drugs, jobs, boyfriends, death, and those nagging thoughts that make you constantly question everything around you and inside you. I didn’t know how good I had it as a kid, when my thoughts were to the point and pure and true, when I immediately accepted anyone I met and they accepted me, when the concept of what other people thought hadn’t yet entered my mind.
So here’s my epiphany for the day, one that should be taught in grade schools all across the world: When you’re a kid, you’re as close to perfect as you’re ever gonna be.
VII. Grade School Riot
Ember
I got my hands in my shoes. I walk like a dog all over the classroom.
“Na-hoola-hoola-hoola. Na-hoola-hoola-hoo,” I say, some sounds I like to make.
“Ember! Get over here, now!” says my mom. Her name is Kristen. She is a bitch. She is very pretty and almost thirty. I hate her.
“Mr. and Mrs. Blackwell, I appreciate your coming in today,” says Ms. Watson. She’s my lesbian teacher. I hate her too.
“That’s fine,” says Mom. “But we have to be out of here by 3:30. I have to take our dog to agility class.”
“I won’t take up much of your time. I just wanted to talk to you about Ember’s conduct. I don’t suppose Ember has been bringing home her conduct notices for you to sign. She never brings them back to me.”
“No. Have you seen any conduct notices, Don?”
“Uh uh,” says my idiot dad. He’s also almost thirty and sucks.
“You haven’t seen them because I burned them all up!” I yell. I know it’s wrong, but I love fire. When I’m around matches or lighters, I just can’t help myself.
Fire is so pretty. I like to think about the whole world on fire. I see the earth from outer space. Instead of water, the oceans are made of fire. I have dreams about that sometimes.
“Well, I figured you should know that her behavior is getting out of control,” says my teacher. “And if it continues, we’ll have no choice but to consider expulsion.”
“Oh, geez, is she that bad?” asks Mom.
“Uh, yes, she is. We expect instances of bad behavior in any third-grade class, but it’s the intensity and the ferocity of Ember’s bad behavior that, frankly, sometimes scares the other students and me.”
“What has she done that’s so bad?” asks Dad. He’s dickless.
“Let’s see. I have a list here. She’s thrown scissors at other students, sprayed Windex in other students’ eyes, carved ‘Slayer’ into most of the desks, accused students of being homosexual, accused me of being homosexual, she regularly sniffs gluesticks, she’s been caught chewing tobacco three times, she writes cryptic messages on the chalkboards such as ‘nightmare day,’ she’s tried to incite riots in the cafeteria, she does this thing where she writes down what I say before I say it—the list goes on and on.”
“Well, what do you want us to do about it?” says my mom all bitchy. “We know how bad she is. There’s nothing we can do with her. We’ve tried everything. Ritalin doesn’t work. Nothing works. She’s just wild.”
“Is she having any problems at home?” asks the dyke.
“Are you?” Dad asks me. I shake my head. Not me.
“She often talks about being friends with a stripper, an Iraqi, and a crazy black man. Do you know anything about that?”
“No,” says Mom. “She lies all the time. The only person I know of that she hangs out with is her eighty-year-old babysitter.”
“We think she might have imaginary friends,” says Dad.
Clueless bastards.
Mother
Was I ever as wild as my kid? I swear, if I had come as close to being an abortion as she did, I’d be trying to behave a little better. She’s lucky I had already had one too many or she wouldn’t even be here.
“Have you considered any psychological treatment?” asks the teacher.
“Look, Mrs…”
“Ms. Watson.”
“Yeah, Ms. Watson,” says Don. “Ember’s never been a normal kid. She doesn’t act like other kids act. Like when I was a kid, I got a kick out of simple stuff, like pushing the buttons in an elevator, you know whum sayin? But Ember could not care less about stuff like that.”
That’s right, Don. You better not tell anyone that our daughter has been to a therapist. We took Ember to a therapist for the first time when she was six because we noticed she kept rooting for the coyote and yelling “Die!” at the roadrunner. The therapist couldn’t do anything with her.
She’s just too much. Screw Don for getting me pregnant. I’d probably go ahead and go for a divorce if I weren’t able to have fun on the side like I have been lately. And thank God for Opal always being able to keep Ember. Don and I like to have some us-time now that our daughter is getting to an age where she doesn’t really need her parents. Besides, she seems to like Opal better than us anyway.
“Ouch! Dammit, Ember!”
Ember just threw a pair of scissors at Don’s head.
“Ember! Get over here, now!” I order.
Now she throws crayons at me and Don.
“Go get her,” I say to my husband. He obeys, and I resume this little conference with the teacher.
“She’s such a cute little girl, Mrs…”
“It’s Ms. Watson.”
“Right. She’s just so adorable on the outside, and it’s hard to believe she’s such a monster on the inside.”
I hear three good spanks behind me, which usually shuts her up for a few minutes.
“That ain’t cool,” says my daughter after the last spank.
“Uhh—she’s also extremely intelligent,” says the teacher.
That’s news. She never seemed all that smart to me.
“But I’ll warn you. Should her behavior not improve, not only could she face expulsion, but also the school might contact social services, as Ember would perhaps best belong at the East Home.”
“The East Home for Girls?”
“Yes.”
“You hear that, Don? They might send our girl off to the East Home.”
“Oh, great,” says Don as he sets Ember in a desk.
They cannot send any daughter of mine to that skanky place. I used to hang out with some of the trash that lived there. God, I could use a big fat blunt right about now.
“What’s the East Home?” asks my daughter.
“Don’t worry, Ember. We’re going to straighten things out,” says the lesbian.
“I’ll tell you what it is,” I say. “It’s a home where they send all the bad little girls, and most of them are really mean orphans.”
“Ember, I know that you’re really a good girl, and I don’t want you to have to leave this school or your home,” says the teacher.
“She’s not going to any home for delinquents,” I say. “We’re gonna change, Ember. We’re gonna make you
a good girl, aren’t we?”
She gives me the dirtiest look and says, “You’re not the boss of me, and someday I’m gonna grow up and fart all over you.”
Ember
Mom said that after all the problems I was causing, she needed a vacation from her worries. The day after the conference with Ms. Watson, she and Dad left. They are in Cancun. They will be there for about a month. They left me at home with my babysitter. They took the dog with them.
I don’t mind since my babysitter is Opal. Now Opal will be living in my house for the next month. Mom told her that she couldn’t deal with things and needed to get away. She told her to make sure I go to school and stuff.
I live in a big, nice house in the suburbs. Now there are no adults in it. (Opal doesn’t count.) We are finally free to do what we want. Opal and I started talking about our new freedom. Then she called the rest of the band.
Opal and Aurora move the couch against the wall. Ray jumps. Luster looks all around my big living room.
“Righteous,” he says. “This is all ours for a month. The possibilities.”
I help Luster and Ray bring the music stuff into the house. Luster is so happy. He loves music so much. I love playing it, too. Now we can play it every day.
We get the stuff out of the station wagon. The neighborhood walkers and joggers look at us funny. I hate them.
Ray waves at them. He doesn’t ever act tough. He is gentle and not like men.
People sometimes don’t like to see all of us together. They would hate to see us as a band. They’d hate to hear us come together. That’s why I love playing music with them so much.
Ray keeps waving. They look the other way. Why should I be a good little girl when the neighbors won’t even wave?
VIII. Hey Suburbia
Cop
After we get the third call about some suspicious activity in the Hills, I get going. They say some suspicious-lookin guys (a black and a foreigner) are lurking around at the Blackwell residence. One of the ladies that called said that the family left for Cancun this morning, so something is probably up.
Just as I’m getting out of the car, I hear someone say “One, two, foot, shoe,” and then some rock music starts. They ain’t ten seconds into the song before I’m ringing the doorbell and pounding on the door.
An old lady wearing blue jeans and a shirt that says “Screeching Weasel” on it finally answers the door.
“What do you want?” she asks.
“Ma’am, that music’s too loud. You can’t be playing music that loud in the middle of the suburbs like that.”
“But we just started playing ten seconds ago! We were just ten seconds into ‘Awesome Possum.’ Nobody could have complained yet.”
“Well, they were going to. Do you mind if I come in, ma’am?”
She walks away pissed off and leaves the door open for me. I walk in and see a portrait of a good-lookin couple hanging in the foyer. I thought the name Blackwell sounded familiar. He’s a lawyer I see at the courthouse from time to time. I actually think I may have arrested the wife once for meth.
I follow the old lady into the living room and see where the noise was coming from, and now that I seen it, I seen it all. There’s a curly-haired black guy standing at a microphone, an Arab-lookin guy with one of them keyboard guitars, a little girl with a great big guitar, and a slutty girl behind the drum kit.
The old lady says, “Well, what do you want? You wanna watch us or something?”
“No, ma’am.” The foreigner looks kinda scared and afraid to move. The black guy is staring me down. He looks kinda familiar.
“The eternal question,” the black guy says into his microphone. “Is there a problem, Officer?”
“Well, no problem, but I’m sure someone was gonna complain about that noise. Listen—who’s the head of this household?”
“I reckon you could say I am,” says the old lady.
“This is your house, then?”
“Naw. The owners left for Cancun. I’m babysitting their girl, the bass player.”
I look at the little girl. She’s cute as hell, but she’s giving me a real dirty look. Then she sticks out her tongue and strums her big guitar like she’s mad at me.
“So you’re the babysitter, and you’re babysitting the kid. And who are these other people?”
“Our friends,” says the old lady. “Why do you ask?”
“No reason. We got some reports of some suspicious activity at this residence. I just wanted to check things out.”
“You don’t see anything suspicious here, do you, Officer?” asks that hot young thing.
“Well, uh, I guess not, ma’am.” I still gotta make sure there’s nothing going on here. “Hey, little girl, do your parents know you’re playing that rock with these grown-ups?”
The little girl don’t even answer me. She just stares at me. Meanwhile, the foreign dude looks like he’s about to have a nervous breakdown, fidgeting and sweating and shit.
“Policeman, please! We break no laws here!” he yells in a shaky voice. “But okay! I’ll confess it! Coming in America I was not familiar with urban traffic laws. I jaywalk! I jaywalk many, many time! I’m sorry! I—”
“Hey—take it easy there, chief,” I say. “No one is in any trouble.” Yet.
“Then will you leave?” snaps that hot piece of ass.
“Yeah, I’ll leave. Y’all sure are a curiosity, though. I’ll tell you that much.”
I figure I must have pissed off the black guy by saying that, ’cause he’s about to stare a hole right through me. I stare at him right back, and then I realize where I know him from. He’s one of the Johnson boys, some of the biggest dealers in town. I’ve seen this guy before when I’d make an arrest at his shack. He’d be off on his own writing in his bedroom while his brothers were getting busted.
“Aren’t you one of the Johnson boys?” I ask him.
“Yes. I am sure you are familiar with their work. But do not consider me one of them.”
“Is it Jerome?”
“No. Luster.”
“Well, Luster, you’re a good ways from home, ain’t ya?”
“Yes. I am breaking the social law, Officer, and so are the rest of my bandmates. If there is a problem with that, you can kiss my ass, figure of speech style.”
“Watch it, mother fucker. I’ve put away plenty of your brothers, and I could just as easily do the same to you. As far as I’m concerned, you’re guilty just for being related to ’em.”
The boy shakes his head and just starts laughing like a crazy man. The whole time he’s staring at me. He’s fixin to say something when the old lady interrupts.
“You remember the way out, don’t you?”
“Yes, ma’am. I’ll be on my way. Just keep the noise down.”
My work is done here, so I check out the slut again and look at the black boy one more time to show him who’s boss, and then I head on out. Just as I’m fixin to leave, the black boy yells at me on his microphone.
“Oh, sweet lord, Officer! It just dawned on me like a black hole sun that there is something I have been meaning to ask a man in uniform!”
I turn around and re-enter.
“Okay, but you don’t need no microphone to ask it.”
He steps away from the mike and says:
“I have always wondered about a situation. I am sure that it is one that happens every day somewhere in the world, even in a small town like this one.”
“I’m listenin.”
“Let us say there is an individual driving his car down a lonely road at night, doing his own thing, minding his own business, obeying traffic laws, and keeping his speed at the posted limit.”
“No problems there,” I say.
“I guess not,” says the gangster. “But then let us say that a second car comes up behind him and keeps getting closer and closer yet shows no interest in passing. Remember, it is night, so our individual can only see headlights creeping up behind his ass. When he sees that he i
s being tailgated, he speeds up.”
“Right. What’s your question?”
“So the second car keeps right on the tail of our individual, forcing him to keep increasing his speed, until finally he is driving well past the speed limit. At that point, the second car, the one that is doing the tailgating, turns on its sirens and patriotically displays its red, white, and blue lights. We know the rest. Pull over, please, license and registration, please, step out of the vehicle, please, here’s your ticket, and so forth and so on. So my question to you is, who should be blamed here?
I ain’t stupid. He expects me to say the police officer wasn’t doing anything wrong, since after all, I am a cop. I know how to handle this.
“First of all, that wouldn’t happen. Second of all, both of them are at fault. The cop should’ve had something better to do than follow around that driver. But the driver didn’t have to speed up, though. Nobody was forcing him to. He didn’t have a gun to his head.”
“Would you say that the cop actually created this crime?” he asks. “It would have never occurred if he had not appeared.”
“Now you’re getting into chicken or the egg stuff, there. I gotta get going.”
“Fry the chicken and scramble the egg. That is what I always say. But I am surprised at you. You said both drivers were at fault. How could the police officer be at fault, for as soon as the first driver exceeded the speed limit, the police officer was merely doing his job in pulling him over?”
That’s true. Now he’s making sense.
“That’s true. Now you’re making sense.”
“Yes, sir,” says the boy. “The police officer was just doing his job, being a fucking asshole. You push us into things like that and then wonder why we are the way we are. You push us out just so you can get things the way they are in your head, and then you do not even give us a chance, and none of you have guns to your heads, either.”
Listen to all that bullshit. Sounds just like his brothers, like he’s on crack.
“Shut the fuck up, Johnson. I’ll be keeping an eye on you.”
I hurry out so I can have the last word.
