The Downside of Being Charlie

by Jenny Torres Sanchez

  She gets up from the table and comes around behind me. “I don’t know what gets into me sometimes,” she whispers and kisses the top of my head. “I should know better. I’m wrong about so many things so often.” She pats my shoulders and walks over to the sink to wash dishes.

  Maybe I didn’t even hear right the other night. Maybe there was no forbidden conversation coming from Dad’s den. Maybe there was no whispered “I love you.” The hushed words float to my ears. No—there was.

  I look over at her and then quickly look away because staring at her back, watching her wash the dishes and listening to her hum happily to herself makes me feel terrible and like at any moment I’m going to yell, You’re right! It’s true! You’re not crazy . . . about this!

  I shove more food in my mouth. I can barely eat it, but I do because if I don’t, those words will come up, and I’ll end up telling Mom the truth.

  Later that night, Mom goes out of her way to do nice things for Dad, and I feel sick to my stomach each time. I’ve just made a fool out of her. And it continues the rest of the week. She bakes his favorite stuff, buys him new shirts and ties, and talks about taking a camping trip to Morrow Mountain. But he’s indifferent and distant, and I can tell Mom doesn’t know what the hell to make of it. It’s my fault. It’s my fault that Mom stares at Dad the way she does, so hopeful. And then her face turns from hopeful to hurt when Dad announces one night that he has business in Chicago and has to fly out the following day. I can hardly handle the way she looks when he leaves

  Charlotte and I hang out during drama as usual, but something seems off. I try to make small talk, try to listen when she talks, and try to laugh when she jokes around with me, but it doesn’t feel like it used to. This is the girl who is supposed to save me. This girl is supposed to make everything better, but she’s not. Maybe she’s already given up on me and that’s why things seem different. Maybe she’s made her final choice between me and Mark.

  I walk around feeling terrible about Mom and Dad and Charlotte until one day, on our way home from school, Ahmed finally says, “All right, cat, I get it. I know your mom’s back and I told myself I’d give you a week, but your week is up and you need to stop feeling sorry for yourself and get back in the game.”

  “I’m not feeling sorry for myself. And you have no clue, okay? So drop it.”

  Something in my voice makes Ahmed look at me sideways as he navigates the Roller Skate to my house. “Okay, sorry. But . . . you know what I mean.”

  I don’t snap at him again, so he goes on. “You gotta step up and be a player, get it? You gotta live, Chuckie. You gotta go be a pimp. You gotta do something that’ll counter your funk. Like go up to Charlotte and say, chickie, I claim you, you dig? You can’t sit around like this and let everyone suck the life outta you.”

  Ahmed is my best friend, my only friend, but I really feel like shoving his own car up his ass. It’s easy for him to say this since he doesn’t know all the shit I’m going through. But even though he doesn’t know everything, some of what he’s saying makes sense.

  “Maybe you’re right, but I just gotta get things straightened out, you know? I’ll be fine, dude. I just need . . .” I shrug my shoulders because I don’t know what I need. I look up at my house and dread going in.

  “I gotta get some work done on Killinger’s project. Wanna go with me to the botanical gardens?” I ask since I need some nature shots. I also really need to get started on superimposing Charlotte’s pictures on the other ones to get the effect I want. And maybe it would help get my mind off of things.

  “Charlie, that’s fruity. Listen to Ahmed,” he says. “You’re gonna go in your house, and you’re gonna give your baby a ring-a-ding. You two are gonna hang. You’re gonna smooch, and you’re gonna feel better. Trust me. Besides, I have a date,” he says and grins.

  “What! Who the hell with?”

  “This new girl who showed up in my ceramics class. Daisy. Isn’t that a fantastic name? I always wanted to date a chickie with a name like Daisy. Anyway, she’s no Janie Hass, but she’s cute and digs my style. I started talking about Frankie and the boys and she told me she idolizes Sammy.” He’s acting very, very smooth, but suddenly he can’t contain himself. “And I’m psyched, brother! I mean a girl who idolizes Sammy!” He hits the steering wheel a couple of times. “Out of this world, know what I mean? Can you believe it?”

  “No, I can’t, and why didn’t you say anything?”

  “I just did, man, anyways, it’s not a big deal. Just another chickie.” He smoothes out the wrinkles in his shirt and adjusts his cuffs.

  “Right, well, good luck,” I say.

  “Thanks. See you tomorrow,” he yells as the Roller Skate zips away. I feel a little jealous as I watch him go, which doesn’t make sense because I have Charlotte, sort of.

  I’m still wondering why the hell I feel jealous as I head inside my house. I pass the door to Dad’s office, and it’s opened just enough for me to see inside. My heart starts thumping quickly as I scan the rest of the house from where I stand, but nothing else seems out of place. I go into Dad’s office, even though part of me is telling me to get the hell out of there since somebody’s obviously broken in, but I already know there’s only one person who could do this. Mom.

  Every drawer of Dad’s desk is opened; all the papers that are ordinarily tucked away in folders and stacked on his desk lie all over the floor, along with picture frames, pens, pencils, tacks, paper clips, and rubber bands. A framed picture of a duck that for whatever reason, was one of Dad’s favorites, is broken on the floor with a three-hole punch near it that was apparently the weapon. But the worst thing, what actually scares me most, is the couch. Dad’s brown leather sofa is slashed. Long gashes reveal the yellow, foamy stuffing inside. It looks like a skinned animal that vultures tore up.

  I suddenly hear the frantic bump, bump, bump of footsteps upstairs. “Mom?” I call out as I head up the stairs. “Mom!” I yell again. Her bedroom door is closed. I try to open it, but it’s locked, so I bang on it.

  “Mom, are you okay?” She doesn’t respond, but I can hear her inside. “Can I come in? Mom, please let me in.” But there’s no answer. The craziness of the couch makes me wonder what else Mom can do—would do.

  The footsteps continue from her room and then to the bathroom and back to her room and back to the bathroom. I wonder what she could be doing.

  “Mom, come out, please. I . . . we can go get dinner,” I say because I don’t know what else to say. “You know what would be good?” I rack my brain for things to continue to say. I need to keep talking so that we don’t get swallowed up in silence with only those frantic thumps for sound. “Pizza. We could even make it if you want. I saw this cooking show and it’s not that hard.” I wait for an answer, but there’s none. Maybe I should try to pick the lock, except I don’t know how. I keep talking.

  “We could put a bunch of toppings on it.” I can smell bleach and wonder what the hell she’s doing.

  “Come on, Mom. Let’s go get everything. Open the door, please!” I start banging on it harder and finally it swings open.

  “Charlie! I don’t give a shit about pizza right now!” she yells.

  She’s wearing an oversized black sweater that is now stained with splotches and streaks of orangey white where bleach has splashed on it.

  “I don’t give two or three or four shits about pizza! Order a pizza, if you want, and fuck off!” she yells and turns back around to the piles of clothes in her room. Her words shoot out and pierce me.

  I’ve never seen her like this and it scares me. I don’t know what to do. She’s never talked to me like that before, even in the worst of times, and especially not after she’s been gone for over two months.

  She grabs a pile of what I notice to be just Dad’s clothes and walks to the bathroom. I step into the room and almost get knocked out by the smell of bleach. She comes back out for another pile, this one with some of Dad’s shoes, books, and belts, and walks back to
the bathroom again. I follow, still unsure how I should act or what I should say. I peer into their bathroom and see the growing mass of Dad’s belongings piled up in the bathtub. On the bathroom floor are two bottles of bleach, one opened and toppled over having already been used.

  Mom grabs the other one and starts pouring more bleach onto the new additions in the tub.

  “Oh my God,” I whisper, even though I don’t mean to say it out loud. She either doesn’t or pretends not to hear me.

  “Mom, stop, please . . . stop,” I tell her.

  “Stop? Stop? You know who should stop, Charlie? Your father, Charlie! Your father should stop! He should stop screwing some tramp in Chicago! Did you know that’s why he left? On sudden ‘business’?” she spits out through clenched teeth as she empties out the second bottle.

  Holy shit. She knows. She stares at me like she expects me to answer, and I now know what could happen if she found out. I meet her eyes for a moment, but I can’t look at what I see behind there, so I look at the heaping mound of Dad’s clothes in the tub. She goes back to frantically pouring bleach on Dad’s belongings, splattering more on herself, and I’m glad she doesn’t demand an answer because whether I lied or told her the truth, both outcomes would have been terrible.

  “Didn’t know that about your precious father, did you?” she says. Even though she’s standing right here, right in front of me, talking to me, it’s like she’s not really there. She’s looking at me, but I don’t think she really sees me. She’s in this room, but I don’t know if she knows that. Something inside of her, her brain or consciousness or whatever makes you realize right from wrong, good from bad, sane from insane just . . . snapped. And I’m the only one here to really see it.

  “Well, now you know! And I know!” She throws the bleach bottle across the room, and it hits the wall and bounces off before skidding across the floor. “We all know about Kate! All these months I suspected it, and he just acts like I’m crazy! Like I’m out of my mind. But I knew, and it was killing me, so I came home and I find . . .” She starts crying hysterically. “And you, you want me to make pizza!” she says, throwing the accusation at me like she just found out I was stealing money from her. She shakes her head in disbelief.

  “So this is what it comes to! Damn it! Damn it! Damn it!” She kicks the tub repeatedly, hard enough to break her toes through the flimsy shoes she has on, but it doesn’t seem to bother her. She starts screaming, really screaming, which scares me even more, and all I can think is that I have to calm her down, but I don’t know how, she is already beyond reach. All I can do is watch this terrifying episode.

  “I gotta go,” she says suddenly.

  “What?”

  “I gotta go. I gotta go, out. I gotta get out!”

  “Mom, don’t. I mean, wait. Wait until you calm down, okay?”

  “No, no.” She shakes her head and walks out of the bathroom and into the bedroom. I follow her. “Now, I gotta go now.” She looks around like she’s trying to figure out what to take but then shakes her head again and starts racing down the stairs. I run after her.

  “Mom, please don’t! Please!” I’m frantic now, wondering if I can find her keys before she can. But she’s already in the kitchen, and I hear the jingle as she swipes them from the counter.

  “I’ll go with you! Mom, please! I’ll drive, Mom! Mom!” I yell. She’s already out the back door. I run after her toward the garage. The car beeps as she unlocks it. She gets in and slams the door shut, and just as I reach the passenger side door handle, I hear the lock click.

  I pound on the window. “Mom, please. Don’t do this! Mom, let me in!” She starts up the car and doesn’t even look out for me as she throws it into drive. I jump back as she screeches away and watch her car race down the street and out of sight.

  I stand there for a long time and start pacing, trying to think of what I should do. Should I call the cops? What could they do? I’d go after her, but I can’t. I don’t have a car. And even if I did, I imagine the craziness of me in a high-speed chase after my mother. I don’t know what to do. There’s nothing I can do. There’s no one here to help me.

  I go back inside the house, but there’s nowhere to go. Nothing seems right. I pace the kitchen wondering what I should do. The TV is on in the family room. I hear a commercial for the local car dealership, and I just want to pound the obnoxious spokesperson. His voice is annoying, and I hate him. I hate everything.

  I go back to Dad’s office. It’s like a car crash; I don’t want to look, but I can’t help it. I sit down on the side of the couch with the least amount of gashes and take in everything Mom has done. I notice she didn’t trash Dad’s computer and it’s opened. I walk over and see an e-mail to Kate from Dad.Kate,

  I miss you. I can’t tell you how different my life seems with you in it. I feel like I have a reason to wake up. . . .

  I close Dad’s laptop and pick it up. It’s heavy in my hands. I set it down and open it again. I start typing.

  Kate,

  Thought you’d like to know my crazy mother has just gone off on a suicidal road trip. Thanks for being the last nail in her coffin. Say hi to Dad for me. Charlie Grisner.

  My finger hovers over the send button. Just a quick click and somebody would know how I really feel. I imagine some faceless woman opening this e-mail today—maybe even with Dad sitting next to her. I close my eyes and take a deep breath. I wish I could send it. I wish I had the nerve. I wish I weren’t such a wuss.

  DELETE

  I close the laptop and send it flying across the room. I sit down on the floor, surrounded by the mess.

  I can’t even begin to imagine where Mom went or how to follow her, or what else she’ll do. I can’t believe she found out. Why isn’t Dad here to deal with it? How could he do this to me, leaving me alone to pick up the pieces? I can’t believe this is really happening. I contemplate calling Dad, but he can’t do anything from Chicago. I don’t know what to do. I have absolutely no clue. So I stare at Dad’s ripped-up couch and wait.

  I don’t know what I’m waiting for, but I wait. And the only thing that makes me certain about what just happened is seeing the disaster in this room.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  An hour later, our home phone rings, interrupting the running images in my mind of the past week—the way she acted, the way she looked while Dad and I either ignored or lied to her. I trip over all the crap on the floor as I run to answer it.

  “Doug Grisner, please,” says the voice on the other line.

  “He’s not here.” He’s never here anymore.

  “Who am I speaking with?”

  “Who is this?” I ask.

  “My name is Lee from Hunter County Hospital. I’m calling because . . . who am I speaking with?”

  “This is Charlie Grisner.” My heart starts pounding harder. Hospital? What happened to Mom? “What’s going on?” I ask as I start to feel adrenaline rushing through my legs and arms.

  “How old are you, Charlie?” the guy asks. The sense that something is very wrong makes me cooperate.

  “Eighteen, is it my mom? Is she there?”

  “Yes, she’s here.”

  “What’s wrong? Is something wrong? Is she okay?” They wouldn’t tell me she’s dead over the phone, would they? Horrible images of mangled cars flash through my head—sirens, flashing lights, my mother . . .

  “She’s in our ER. She was brought here after officers received several calls reporting a confused and disoriented woman driving erratically. . . .”

  “Is she okay? Was she in an accident?” I can barely make out the words as I remember the way Mom left here a few hours ago.

  “She’s all right, but there was an accident. Can you come down here now? I think she really needs someone here that she knows . . . as soon as possible.”

  “Yeah, I’ll be there in a minute, I mean, as soon as, yeah, I’m on my way,” I tell him, my mind already racing with the realization that I have no car and will have to call Ahmed fo
r a ride. I place my finger on the hang-up button, wait for the dial tone, and dial Ahmed’s number. One ring . . . two rings . . . three . . . four . . . five rings . . . and then his voice mail answers. I hang up and run to my room for my phone to text him:Call now. Need help. Now.

  While I wait for Ahmed to call, I think of someone else to call. Okay, think, Charlie, think. I could call Ahmed’s mom, but . . . who else? I know Ahmed’s mom would help me, but I didn’t want to make mom seem even worse than I suspected Ahmed’s mom already thought she was. It was stupid. I should just call Mrs. Bata. Mom was in the hospital, doing and acting like God knows what, but . . . was there anyone else? Charlotte? The idea leaves my mind as soon as I think of it. I already know exactly how Charlotte would look at my mom . . . her eyes wide, staring in shock at the crazy woman in front of her. No, I definitely can’t call Charlotte. And then, I remember Mr. Killinger.

  I sit on my bed wondering if I should call him. No, he’s my teacher and teachers just say stuff like that. But if he didn’t mean it, he wouldn’t have actually given me his phone number. Make a decision. I go to my dresser and open the top drawer where I keep miscellaneous crap that I might need someday. I search for Killinger’s card and find it. I take a deep breath. This is insane. But I dial his number anyway, and before I can think about it anymore, I hit the call button.

  “Hello?”

  “Um, hi, Mr. Killinger? This is Charlie, Charlie Grisner.” There’s a slight pause on the other end before he answers.

  “Hi, Charlie. What’s up?”

  “I know this is kind of weird, but I was hoping . . . I, uh, kind of need help,” I say, trying to speak over the lump in my throat that feels like it’s cutting off my voice and breath.

  “Okay . . . what’s going on?” he asks.

  “I need a ride to the hospital.”

  “Are you hurt?”