When Eliza and Danny Whitlock first took their own lives they were giddy. Danny said with a smile, I'm nervous, and Eliza told him, Don't be so soft. And they tangled their arms like they'd seen older kids do, but instead of saying bottoms up and drinking alcohol they said bottums up and each child drank a small clear vial of Juliet.
One minute later they took their first breaths and their hearts spontaneously thumped, singular and hard, like an underwater detonation. Their sleeping muscles kneaded blood back through their dried veins, and when their eyes fluttered open they looked at each other. Still nervous? said Eliza. Danny said, I don't remember anything. Eliza said, Me too, except everything was purple. Like closing your eyes and opening them up again, Danny said. They both sat up and Eliza guided her black course hair over her right shoulder and sat stroking it, and Danny tugged on his shirt which ate at his small chest. I don't think I would want to do that forever, Danny said. You're such a weenie, Eliza said, but she was looking down at her hair. Maybe, said Danny, but I still wouldn't want to do it.
It became ritual, this brother and sister, in the hours before afternoon service every Sunday, their parents busy drinking the mimosas they'd let sit out overnight, marinating. Juliet was not hard for the children to get. It was expensive, but they piled their allowances for a taste of the clear liquid vials, for a taste of the dark coolness of death and then the sudden explosion of the heart, and the warm blood creeping back like roots reaching through dirt. The blood seeping back, Eliza said once. That part makes my toes curl.
On Easter Uncle Bob came from out of town with his wife, Beatrice, and his son, Kurt. Kurt was ten—one year younger than Danny and two years less than Eliza—and he wore a blue clip-on tie decorated with dyed eggs wrapped under the collar of a thin, white, short-sleeved dress shirt from the boys section.
In the play room Eliza said, We'll all take half—you won't be out ten seconds. It's purple, Danny said. Kind of like sleeping but not exactly. The vial was big compared to Kurt's hand, the exact size of the stretch between the base of his palm and the end of his middle finger. I don't want to, Kurt said. We'll get in trouble. No one's gonna know, said Eliza. They're partying, don't be so soft. Kurt looked to Danny and Danny nodded, though he wasn't sure why, and so Kurt watched as Eliza and Danny did the familiar dance of arms and said bottoms up and brought the vials to their lips. Eliza slid a glance at Kurt, who was obligated to put the half-vial of Juliet to his mouth. Eliza said, Tastes sweet, too, and then they were out.
Sound seeped warm into Kurt's ears like melted chocolate. His eyes flitted open. After a moment his vision faded in and he saw Danny and Eliza were already sitting. Eliza was grinning down at Kurt, and Danny was turned away searching the blank wall and tugging at his shirt. Told you, Eliza said. Like butter cream.
Kurt lay on his side, didn't get up. He said weakly into the carpet, I don't get it. He rolled up his legs into his gut and pressed his clip-on Easter tie to his eyes. He cried, quiet and bald. I hate it, he said. Yeah, Eliza said, but now you know.
Mr. Whitlock called from the kitchen, Ready for takeoff! and Eliza jumped up. Alone, Danny said to Kurt, It gets easier. Kurt said, It felt like dying. That's because it was dying, Danny said. Kurt's small soft face twisted up like it was trying to catch an idea. But I don't get it, Kurt said. It was nothing. Danny said, I hate it too. And then they left for afternoon service.
The next time was at Danny's twelfth birthday party. Mr. and Mrs. Whitlock rented a bouncy castle, which Danny and his friends were just barely young enough to still enjoy. It was a family affair—each kid came wrapped with two parents, all of whom joined Mr. and Mrs. Whitlock for cool screwdrivers. It was hot out, bathing suits ran around attached to kids and bundled down the Slip 'N Slide. At one point Mr. Whitlock, who because of his job at NASA was always stuck in aero speak, hoisted Danny from the armpits, threw him up into the bouncy castle, and shouted, Liftoff! As Danny flew through the air laughing he thought how neat it would be to build rockets like his dad.
Later all the kids gathered in Danny's room and taped a note to the door that read, Boys Only, to which all the parents chuckled. Eliza was in there, too, but when one of the boys protested she slid him a look that said, Oh no you don't. Eliza had made Danny spend all the birthday money his grandparents sent on vials of Juliet.
Kurt was there in big Hawaiian trunks with palm trees that swallowed his rear. I'll watch, said Kurt. Eliza was lifting vials from a small brown bag. Fine, she said. No one's forcing you. Sissy, someone said.
The boys talked. I heard it was purple, someone said looking at Danny. Danny nodded, staring into the opposite wall. Tommy Meyer got grounded for a whole year, someone else offered. Like he'd leave his room anyway, said another boy. Eliza passed vials around—ten clear wraps of glass in all. She emptied Kurt's vial into her own. Good, Kurt said.
Danny was still staring into the wall. I don't want to anymore, he said, and poured his share of Juliet in Eliza's vial. Eliza grabbed the boy next to her, Jimmy Studebaker, and wrapped her arm around his. Jimmy's eyes jumped out of his head and he smiled right into Eliza's chest. Jimmy had never touched a girl before—not like this. Eliza said, Bottoms up, and Jimmy would have said anything to her so he said, Bottoms up, and Danny said—Don't. Eliza looked Danny firm in the face. Well I'm trying to be prepared, she said, and then she and Jimmy were gone.
Kurt got up and left the room. Danny had never watched someone turn off. It was like the taut strings that hold a person up were suddenly and permanently cut. Danny could almost hear a sound, deep and dark like the bottom chords of a piano, punctuate the moment his sister slumped over.
Jimmy Studebaker came to sixty seconds later with an erection. He looked all around and when his vision finally faded in he stared at Eliza. The boys stared at Jimmy. Jimmy couldn't stop smiling, looking down at the girl who entangled her arms with him. What was it like? one boy asked. Jimmy stared and stared. Who cares, he said—did you see her grab me? After a while another boy said, Man she took a lot.
The door opened and there was Mr. and Mrs. Whitlock, screwdrivers in hand, with Kurt hiding behind Mrs. Whitlock's yellow summer dress peeking in. Mr. Whitlock looked down at Eliza and said, How many? And Danny said, Three. Mine and Kurt's. Mr. Whitlock handed his drink to his wife and picked up his wasted daughter and carried her into the master bedroom. Danny heard him through the walls talking to his mother. Mr. Whitlock sighed and said, Houston, we have a problem.
Kurt was still drippy from the Slip 'N Slide, his curly black hair stuck to his forehead like electrician's tape. Jimmy Studebaker's eyes drifted dreamily onto Danny. Your sister has a thing for me, he said. This is stupid, Danny said, and he grabbed his young cousin's hand and he and Kurt left the whole thing.
You guys saw, Jimmy said, turning back to the group. She wanted it. The kids were entrenched in leftover hose water, circled on the floor around the empty brown paper sack. No man, someone said, pouring out his vial of Juliet on the dry bag, you didn't see her. She was really out.
Thursday, April 26, 2012
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
Jesmyn Ward
Tonight I went to a reading by Jesmyn Ward. She read from her book, Salvage The Bones, and then is when I realized I need to step my game up. I need to take my writing to the next level.
Her writing was so tight. And so imaginative. Listening to her similes was like having someone turn my brain 90 degrees. Yeah, it all still worked the same way—but damn if the world didn't look different.
None of the writing is lazy. Each sentence has urgency and heat and energy. There isn't a wasted moment—there were no throwaway lines.
It was encouraging, though. Encouraging because I thought to myself—this is amazing, and I don't know if I could do that right now, right this second—but maybe, actually, I could. I think I actually could see the world at my own version of 90 degrees. She saw everything fresh. Fresh, fresh, everything was like it was being described for the first time.
And what a breath of clean oxygen, and what an inspiration, and what talent, and damn I need to buy that book like yesterday.
Her writing was so tight. And so imaginative. Listening to her similes was like having someone turn my brain 90 degrees. Yeah, it all still worked the same way—but damn if the world didn't look different.
None of the writing is lazy. Each sentence has urgency and heat and energy. There isn't a wasted moment—there were no throwaway lines.
It was encouraging, though. Encouraging because I thought to myself—this is amazing, and I don't know if I could do that right now, right this second—but maybe, actually, I could. I think I actually could see the world at my own version of 90 degrees. She saw everything fresh. Fresh, fresh, everything was like it was being described for the first time.
And what a breath of clean oxygen, and what an inspiration, and what talent, and damn I need to buy that book like yesterday.
Monday, April 23, 2012
In retrospect, I feel bad for Spencer the Animal. I did not feel bad at the time. At the time I wanted to break him and make him understand that you can't smash and tear things and scream hurtful insults and ask women if you can fuck them.
But now I feel bad for him, because he's a senior and he's about to graduate and he's an alcoholic, and here at Stanford you get chance after chance, but in the real world you get put in jail and you abuse your wife and your children and your life is a Waste.
I do not want Spencer's life to be a Waste. Tonight, for Spencer the Animal, I'll pray.
But now I feel bad for him, because he's a senior and he's about to graduate and he's an alcoholic, and here at Stanford you get chance after chance, but in the real world you get put in jail and you abuse your wife and your children and your life is a Waste.
I do not want Spencer's life to be a Waste. Tonight, for Spencer the Animal, I'll pray.
Sunday, April 22, 2012
Spencer the Animal
I have been called four different names in the past eighteen hours. Five if you count "bald asshole" as a name, which I don't.
I like imagining other names I could have had and if having a different name would have made me a different person, or if it would have at least made me a different shade of the person I am, who is Lucas. I went to my friend EL's birthday party last night, which was fun, and there were lots of nice people who all knew each other. It was my job to pick up EL and blindfold her and drive her to the party. I held her hand as we crossed the street and she pointed out that we were holding hands awkwardly, which I took as an invitation to interlace fingers, which I did. And there were a lot of PHEs there at the party, a PHE being a Peer Health Educator, and a Peer Health Educator being the person every resident relies on for condoms. PHEs, I learned, like to Party.
Sexual tension is a funny thing, especially when it's one sided. There was this very nice girl named T who arrested my beer and told me we were going to dance. This I did. I don't remember much what she said because she kept pressing her breasts into my chest and gliding her lips along my ear, and I don't think she remembered any of what she said on account of the alcohol escaping her lungs. She must have tasted like fire. I did not check. T was aggressive with what she wanted, which I am certain was my mouth being on hers, and I was aggressive at trying to escape. Why? I was not into T. Nothing against her or her looks—excessively drunk girls turn me off. I escaped by getting into a big group hug with a circle of PHEs. The PHEs were everywhere, really. My new friend MD told me very seriously, I hope you're okay with orgies because PHE parties always turn into orgies.
I wish the party would have turned into an orgy because then I could cross Orgy off my Life List.
We paraded around campus. Six of us, including my female friend EL, marked a wide perimeter around a stretch of parking lot with our beer pee. I claimed a tall tree with wispy leaves and a double trunk, and I drunkenly apologized to it before I relieved myself. T had long since, I'm guessing, found another person into whom she could press her breasts. Anyway she was not there. And we hopped from place to place, and we ended up at The Knoll, which is the multimillion-dollar recording house on campus. It sits on top of a large hill and used to house the university president, and there are rooms everywhere which housed the president's servants.
EL said, I wonder if we can get inside. I used to work there, I said, maybe my keycard still works. I had not been to The Knoll in three years and I knew they had already deactivated my keycard, but EL and I still went up to check the front door far up the hill while the others waited far down below on the curb. No one was behind the tall glass doors at the front entrance, so I took out my keycard and waved it in front of the card reader. The light turned green and the lock snapped back, ready to be opened.
Holy shit, I said, it still works. EL said, I heard you can get up to the roof and watch the stars. Did you know that? No, I said. Don't tell them we can get in, EL said. Let's go up to the roof tomorrow. Okay, I said, and then is when I remembered that my friend K told me there had been an elaborate ruse. The ruse was: It was not an accident that I was the one that blindfolded EL. It was not an accident that I was in charge of bringing her to the surprise party. And it was not an accident that I would have to hold her hand.
My friends are cunning.
After a while we all said our goodbyes and EL and our friend LL and I headed back to our dorm together. EL got a text message from one of the RAs saying there was trouble. We all headed to a guy named Spencer's room.
Spencer was creating a Scene. I use Spencer's name because I do not give a shit about Spencer, which is something I try not to ever feel toward a person but with him I cannot help it.
He was like a crazed animal that had suddenly found his cage unlocked, after all these years. He was furious at everything. He was wearing a nice black suit and a skinny black tie and he was hitting things. His knuckles were bloody. EL and LL convinced him to let them bandage his bloodied hand. EL took out a band-aid. Can I fuck you? Spencer said. Not tonight, said EL. Can I fuck you in the asshole? Spencer begged. How about we worry about the band-aid, said EL.
Spencer was asking everyone if he could fuck them. He saw me leaning against the doorjamb with my arms crossed. I would imagine I looked disapproving. Who's this bald asshole? Spencer said of me. I'm Lucas, I said. Shut the fuck up! Spencer shouted, and he was coiled for hitting things. He started ripping the posters off people's doors and laughing like a person about to die. It was like crying but also like screaming, and it was all laughter, and it made my heart beat in a way that made me aware I was an animal, too.
He made a mess of the stairs and opened an emergency exit on his way to the lobby. There, he kicked in a metal trashcan with his nice black polished shoes and sent an armchair into the wall. He asked LL if he could fuck her too, and also in the butt, and then yelled again as if I'd been following him around his whole life, Who is this bald asshole?
He took off in his underwear. I did not see him take off his dress pants but he did in that mysterious drunken way that I sometimes confuse for gracefulness, and he laughed his way into the Papua New Guinea sculpture garden. When we found him he was on the phone with, coincidentally, my friend MR, and he asked her if he could fuck her. He was relentless, though I'm certain he did not fuck a soul that night.
By then we had dialed for the police.
Who is this bald asshole? Spencer was sitting down on the stone railing of a low-water bridge. I'm Lucas, remember? I bet he has a big dick, Spencer said into the phone. And then he peeled off with shrieking laughter. How big is your dick? Big, I said. He ventured a guess—About seven? he said. Yeah, about seven. He's seven, pushing eight, Spencer said into the girl in the phone. Tell MR I said hi, I said. I was trying to distract him. Who is this bald asshole? LL said, You know his name already. Josh? he said. I tried to help him out.
It starts with an L, I said. Luh-luh....
Loo?
Loo, loo.
Luh—Lucas!
Yes! I said. So now you know who the bald asshole is.
Spencer was warming up to me.
And then Spencer took off into the woods in his nice black polished shoes and his boxers and his coat and skinny black tie.
The police caught him in the end and I'm not sure what happened. I heard that Spencer has already been kicked out of housing. He's a senior, like me, but not like me at all. He asked everyone around if he could fuck them. He laughed in a way I never want to hear myself laugh.
Spencer reminded me that I'm an animal with adrenal glands and fists and that my body could be used as a weapon, if it had to be. I didn't like it, not exactly. But it reminded me that sometimes life comes down to confrontation and loud yells and asking everyone if you can fuck them. Spencer must be a lonely person. But there I go, projecting again, trying to make excuses for people, trying to be empathetic. Sometimes people are just assholes.
It was by then three in the morning. I walked back with EL to our hallway and said goodnight. I knew what I was supposed to do, because K had told me, he had said laughing—Don't forget your job tonight, meaning that I had to remember the elaborate ruse and why they had pulled it. But I was too tired, and I had been called Josh and Justin and a bald asshole all night, and I had had so much blood pumping in my head, and I had been reminded that I was an animal, and I know that animals are supposed to fuck, but all I wanted was sleep.
This morning a kid I know called me, on accident, Sam. Josh, Justin, now Sam. In a story I named a version of myself Danny. I am collecting names, holding them in my hands. I don't know why—but they were given to me. They were Gifts, and I will keep them.
I like imagining other names I could have had and if having a different name would have made me a different person, or if it would have at least made me a different shade of the person I am, who is Lucas. I went to my friend EL's birthday party last night, which was fun, and there were lots of nice people who all knew each other. It was my job to pick up EL and blindfold her and drive her to the party. I held her hand as we crossed the street and she pointed out that we were holding hands awkwardly, which I took as an invitation to interlace fingers, which I did. And there were a lot of PHEs there at the party, a PHE being a Peer Health Educator, and a Peer Health Educator being the person every resident relies on for condoms. PHEs, I learned, like to Party.
Sexual tension is a funny thing, especially when it's one sided. There was this very nice girl named T who arrested my beer and told me we were going to dance. This I did. I don't remember much what she said because she kept pressing her breasts into my chest and gliding her lips along my ear, and I don't think she remembered any of what she said on account of the alcohol escaping her lungs. She must have tasted like fire. I did not check. T was aggressive with what she wanted, which I am certain was my mouth being on hers, and I was aggressive at trying to escape. Why? I was not into T. Nothing against her or her looks—excessively drunk girls turn me off. I escaped by getting into a big group hug with a circle of PHEs. The PHEs were everywhere, really. My new friend MD told me very seriously, I hope you're okay with orgies because PHE parties always turn into orgies.
I wish the party would have turned into an orgy because then I could cross Orgy off my Life List.
We paraded around campus. Six of us, including my female friend EL, marked a wide perimeter around a stretch of parking lot with our beer pee. I claimed a tall tree with wispy leaves and a double trunk, and I drunkenly apologized to it before I relieved myself. T had long since, I'm guessing, found another person into whom she could press her breasts. Anyway she was not there. And we hopped from place to place, and we ended up at The Knoll, which is the multimillion-dollar recording house on campus. It sits on top of a large hill and used to house the university president, and there are rooms everywhere which housed the president's servants.
EL said, I wonder if we can get inside. I used to work there, I said, maybe my keycard still works. I had not been to The Knoll in three years and I knew they had already deactivated my keycard, but EL and I still went up to check the front door far up the hill while the others waited far down below on the curb. No one was behind the tall glass doors at the front entrance, so I took out my keycard and waved it in front of the card reader. The light turned green and the lock snapped back, ready to be opened.
Holy shit, I said, it still works. EL said, I heard you can get up to the roof and watch the stars. Did you know that? No, I said. Don't tell them we can get in, EL said. Let's go up to the roof tomorrow. Okay, I said, and then is when I remembered that my friend K told me there had been an elaborate ruse. The ruse was: It was not an accident that I was the one that blindfolded EL. It was not an accident that I was in charge of bringing her to the surprise party. And it was not an accident that I would have to hold her hand.
My friends are cunning.
After a while we all said our goodbyes and EL and our friend LL and I headed back to our dorm together. EL got a text message from one of the RAs saying there was trouble. We all headed to a guy named Spencer's room.
Spencer was creating a Scene. I use Spencer's name because I do not give a shit about Spencer, which is something I try not to ever feel toward a person but with him I cannot help it.
He was like a crazed animal that had suddenly found his cage unlocked, after all these years. He was furious at everything. He was wearing a nice black suit and a skinny black tie and he was hitting things. His knuckles were bloody. EL and LL convinced him to let them bandage his bloodied hand. EL took out a band-aid. Can I fuck you? Spencer said. Not tonight, said EL. Can I fuck you in the asshole? Spencer begged. How about we worry about the band-aid, said EL.
Spencer was asking everyone if he could fuck them. He saw me leaning against the doorjamb with my arms crossed. I would imagine I looked disapproving. Who's this bald asshole? Spencer said of me. I'm Lucas, I said. Shut the fuck up! Spencer shouted, and he was coiled for hitting things. He started ripping the posters off people's doors and laughing like a person about to die. It was like crying but also like screaming, and it was all laughter, and it made my heart beat in a way that made me aware I was an animal, too.
He made a mess of the stairs and opened an emergency exit on his way to the lobby. There, he kicked in a metal trashcan with his nice black polished shoes and sent an armchair into the wall. He asked LL if he could fuck her too, and also in the butt, and then yelled again as if I'd been following him around his whole life, Who is this bald asshole?
He took off in his underwear. I did not see him take off his dress pants but he did in that mysterious drunken way that I sometimes confuse for gracefulness, and he laughed his way into the Papua New Guinea sculpture garden. When we found him he was on the phone with, coincidentally, my friend MR, and he asked her if he could fuck her. He was relentless, though I'm certain he did not fuck a soul that night.
By then we had dialed for the police.
Who is this bald asshole? Spencer was sitting down on the stone railing of a low-water bridge. I'm Lucas, remember? I bet he has a big dick, Spencer said into the phone. And then he peeled off with shrieking laughter. How big is your dick? Big, I said. He ventured a guess—About seven? he said. Yeah, about seven. He's seven, pushing eight, Spencer said into the girl in the phone. Tell MR I said hi, I said. I was trying to distract him. Who is this bald asshole? LL said, You know his name already. Josh? he said. I tried to help him out.
It starts with an L, I said. Luh-luh....
Loo?
Loo, loo.
Luh—Lucas!
Yes! I said. So now you know who the bald asshole is.
Spencer was warming up to me.
And then Spencer took off into the woods in his nice black polished shoes and his boxers and his coat and skinny black tie.
The police caught him in the end and I'm not sure what happened. I heard that Spencer has already been kicked out of housing. He's a senior, like me, but not like me at all. He asked everyone around if he could fuck them. He laughed in a way I never want to hear myself laugh.
Spencer reminded me that I'm an animal with adrenal glands and fists and that my body could be used as a weapon, if it had to be. I didn't like it, not exactly. But it reminded me that sometimes life comes down to confrontation and loud yells and asking everyone if you can fuck them. Spencer must be a lonely person. But there I go, projecting again, trying to make excuses for people, trying to be empathetic. Sometimes people are just assholes.
It was by then three in the morning. I walked back with EL to our hallway and said goodnight. I knew what I was supposed to do, because K had told me, he had said laughing—Don't forget your job tonight, meaning that I had to remember the elaborate ruse and why they had pulled it. But I was too tired, and I had been called Josh and Justin and a bald asshole all night, and I had had so much blood pumping in my head, and I had been reminded that I was an animal, and I know that animals are supposed to fuck, but all I wanted was sleep.
This morning a kid I know called me, on accident, Sam. Josh, Justin, now Sam. In a story I named a version of myself Danny. I am collecting names, holding them in my hands. I don't know why—but they were given to me. They were Gifts, and I will keep them.
Saturday, April 21, 2012
Half-finished second tries at things
There was of course The Time Mom Died Scuba Diving. There was a hungry shark and can you blame it? And there was a funeral at sea and we scattered poppy petals for Mom, and Dad wore a snorkel and mask and fins to the wake because immediately afterward he dove into the sea off the coast in Akumal, Mexico, and found that bastard shark. He fought it underwater one-on-one with the serrated hunting knife he keeps by the rocking chair for intruders, and he killed the shark and took a tooth and so did I and now we wear them around our necks, and Dad's has carved in it Bastard and mine says Shark Fin Soup.
There was The Time Mom Died by Toaster Oven. She was getting my frozen pepperoni pizza out of the metal electric trap with a fork when all of a sudden, Zap!
Of course there was The Time Mom Died Falling Off the Merry-Go-Round, and The Time Mom Died by Frogs. I remember The Skydiving Incident clearly, though Crossing South Congress Avenue on May 14th is still hazy because of all the buzzing buses everywhere, and then the one bus that whisked her under.
I can count the ways Mom bit the dust. Trolley Fishing, The Backward-Falling Chair, Losing in a Duel Over a Pair of Sandals, Saving Me from a Rabid Dog. Of course there was That Time Mom Rented the Wrong Movie on the Wrong Night, and also Death By Knives.
When I was seven Dad and Mom were out on the porch and it was raining outside and they were there, sitting, and sitting. And Mom was smoking a cigarette, and I was out there to ask her if my buddy Ryan could come over to play, and I saw her drag on that skeleton bone and I told her, You're going to get addicted again, and I said it serious like an adult even though I was only seven. And she said, I won't, and I thought, But you will, and then she did.
Four years later when I was eleven my mom started working nights at the neonatal intensive care unit. Babies born with their insides on the outside, things like that. I am not kidding. And often babies died on my mom's watch and she would come home in the morning with breakfast tacos and slip into her bedroom as I slipped out for school. And the graveyard shift is what they called working nights.
That last year when she was working at the I.C.U. was the worst, because it was so different than the Mom I was used to. When I was a kid we'd run around Zilker Park and then lie face down on the grass with our arms out, her in her big Snoopy sweatshirt, and she would say, Lucas, look, we're hugging Mother Earth. And we'd hug her. And our neighbors told us once that they could hear my mom laughing all the way across the street. And my mom and I would have Falling Asleep Competitions, and we read The Lorax by Dr. Seuss together, which was our favorite book.
All of this is to say the I.C.U. changed (verb) my mom. Something about the incubators. Something about the little chests trying so hard to do something they were so new at. Something about the sun always being down, the night always being out. You could say she was Changed, like a wolfman, except the transformation was slow and it was permanent.
The Last Memory before the Worst Memory—it has to do with smoking. I was twelve waiting under the elm tree at my middle school for my mom to pick me up. I waited and she did not come, and I waited more. I got comfortable and spread my legs out with my back against the tree trunk and my butt in the dirt. I would have taken a book out of my backpack and read but I wasn't a reader back then, so I lifted my CD player from the bottom of my red pack and listened to something loud. And I waited. And I could have gone to the office to call. And I knew she had just fallen asleep because of the Graveyard Shift. And I knew she'd come get me. But I did not go to the office and I did not call. I just waited with my butt in the dirt and my legs spread out and my back anchored against the elm and my lips firmed up.
After two hours I spotted her dark eggplant of a car at a stoplight. Down the road. I twined my headphones around my CD player and tossed it into my red pack and drew up my knees. Then I sensed the light turn green and I heard a shriek of rubber and my mom's eggplant car came toward me too fast. I saw a cigarette spring from the window, still lit. The muscles in my face went slack and downward and I stood up quickly and found myself on the curb. When I opened the door Mom looked at me with Graveyard Eyes.
"Why didn't you call me?" she said. "You should have gone to the office. I was asleep. I was asleep—you could have called. I'm sorry. Why didn't you call?"
And I didn't look at her I just looked straight through the glove box and I could not say one word.
When I think about the next day I think about crane flies. Crane flies are like mosquitos but much larger, and they have very long legs and they don't bite, and they bob up and down in the air like fishing floats. Crane flies have been everywhere in our house lately. It's the spring rain that brings them. I love crane flies but on accident I keep killing them. They are so so fragile. They are everywhere against windows and above lampshades always glittering around the edges of my vision. I try to catch them and put them outside in the night, but all I do is crush their legs in the gaps between my fingers. Sometimes they die all on their own—on the counter they get stuck in thin slips of water until they drown. I want to say, Hey, stop flying inside there's nothing good for you in here. But they're attracted to light, or they get sucked in by our air conditioning, or they have small brains, and so I keep trying to rescue them and my success rate is about one half, and that is what it's like trying to think about the next day which houses the Worst Memory.
The next day my mom passed away in the bathtub from a blood clot in her lung, and I happened to be home sick that day, which was a Wednesday, October 3rd, 2002. And it was violent and fast, and loud, and I called the ambulance while my dad worked on my mom, and there was a lot of yelling and crying which I had a hard time understanding was coming from my own lungs, and then the paramedics and the firefighters came and one of them told me, "I don't know if you believe in God or Buddha or whatever, but if I were you I would start praying."
Our family friend M.G. came to pick us up in his dark green convertible, though the top was rolled up, and he drove very fast. We came to a red light but he did not slow down, just sped up, and we jerked left and the tires yelled out and we were almost sideswiped, and the oncoming car would have hit my side and I could see it coming, but it was like seeing the world through gauze.
At the hospital they made us wait in a room with a brass placard on front that read, Family Room. Inside sat a therapist whose job it was to try and make small talk with us—we who were waiting to hear if someone we loved had died or not, we who were waiting to hear whether our lives would be changed forever or not. And that poor psychologist tried to make small talk though I can't remember anything she said.
The doctor called my dad out of the room and I couldn't hear anything they said, but it didn't take long, and when Dad came in he choked, "I have bad news," and that was it. And that was it.
(I need to find the line of this story, I think it's deteriorating quickly into something sentimental. And where to from here? Where do I go? What is the main line I'm trying to follow? I liked the energy at the beginning but now I'm not so hot about any of this last stuff.)
There was The Time Mom Died by Toaster Oven. She was getting my frozen pepperoni pizza out of the metal electric trap with a fork when all of a sudden, Zap!
Of course there was The Time Mom Died Falling Off the Merry-Go-Round, and The Time Mom Died by Frogs. I remember The Skydiving Incident clearly, though Crossing South Congress Avenue on May 14th is still hazy because of all the buzzing buses everywhere, and then the one bus that whisked her under.
I can count the ways Mom bit the dust. Trolley Fishing, The Backward-Falling Chair, Losing in a Duel Over a Pair of Sandals, Saving Me from a Rabid Dog. Of course there was That Time Mom Rented the Wrong Movie on the Wrong Night, and also Death By Knives.
When I was seven Dad and Mom were out on the porch and it was raining outside and they were there, sitting, and sitting. And Mom was smoking a cigarette, and I was out there to ask her if my buddy Ryan could come over to play, and I saw her drag on that skeleton bone and I told her, You're going to get addicted again, and I said it serious like an adult even though I was only seven. And she said, I won't, and I thought, But you will, and then she did.
Four years later when I was eleven my mom started working nights at the neonatal intensive care unit. Babies born with their insides on the outside, things like that. I am not kidding. And often babies died on my mom's watch and she would come home in the morning with breakfast tacos and slip into her bedroom as I slipped out for school. And the graveyard shift is what they called working nights.
That last year when she was working at the I.C.U. was the worst, because it was so different than the Mom I was used to. When I was a kid we'd run around Zilker Park and then lie face down on the grass with our arms out, her in her big Snoopy sweatshirt, and she would say, Lucas, look, we're hugging Mother Earth. And we'd hug her. And our neighbors told us once that they could hear my mom laughing all the way across the street. And my mom and I would have Falling Asleep Competitions, and we read The Lorax by Dr. Seuss together, which was our favorite book.
All of this is to say the I.C.U. changed (verb) my mom. Something about the incubators. Something about the little chests trying so hard to do something they were so new at. Something about the sun always being down, the night always being out. You could say she was Changed, like a wolfman, except the transformation was slow and it was permanent.
The Last Memory before the Worst Memory—it has to do with smoking. I was twelve waiting under the elm tree at my middle school for my mom to pick me up. I waited and she did not come, and I waited more. I got comfortable and spread my legs out with my back against the tree trunk and my butt in the dirt. I would have taken a book out of my backpack and read but I wasn't a reader back then, so I lifted my CD player from the bottom of my red pack and listened to something loud. And I waited. And I could have gone to the office to call. And I knew she had just fallen asleep because of the Graveyard Shift. And I knew she'd come get me. But I did not go to the office and I did not call. I just waited with my butt in the dirt and my legs spread out and my back anchored against the elm and my lips firmed up.
After two hours I spotted her dark eggplant of a car at a stoplight. Down the road. I twined my headphones around my CD player and tossed it into my red pack and drew up my knees. Then I sensed the light turn green and I heard a shriek of rubber and my mom's eggplant car came toward me too fast. I saw a cigarette spring from the window, still lit. The muscles in my face went slack and downward and I stood up quickly and found myself on the curb. When I opened the door Mom looked at me with Graveyard Eyes.
"Why didn't you call me?" she said. "You should have gone to the office. I was asleep. I was asleep—you could have called. I'm sorry. Why didn't you call?"
And I didn't look at her I just looked straight through the glove box and I could not say one word.
When I think about the next day I think about crane flies. Crane flies are like mosquitos but much larger, and they have very long legs and they don't bite, and they bob up and down in the air like fishing floats. Crane flies have been everywhere in our house lately. It's the spring rain that brings them. I love crane flies but on accident I keep killing them. They are so so fragile. They are everywhere against windows and above lampshades always glittering around the edges of my vision. I try to catch them and put them outside in the night, but all I do is crush their legs in the gaps between my fingers. Sometimes they die all on their own—on the counter they get stuck in thin slips of water until they drown. I want to say, Hey, stop flying inside there's nothing good for you in here. But they're attracted to light, or they get sucked in by our air conditioning, or they have small brains, and so I keep trying to rescue them and my success rate is about one half, and that is what it's like trying to think about the next day which houses the Worst Memory.
The next day my mom passed away in the bathtub from a blood clot in her lung, and I happened to be home sick that day, which was a Wednesday, October 3rd, 2002. And it was violent and fast, and loud, and I called the ambulance while my dad worked on my mom, and there was a lot of yelling and crying which I had a hard time understanding was coming from my own lungs, and then the paramedics and the firefighters came and one of them told me, "I don't know if you believe in God or Buddha or whatever, but if I were you I would start praying."
Our family friend M.G. came to pick us up in his dark green convertible, though the top was rolled up, and he drove very fast. We came to a red light but he did not slow down, just sped up, and we jerked left and the tires yelled out and we were almost sideswiped, and the oncoming car would have hit my side and I could see it coming, but it was like seeing the world through gauze.
At the hospital they made us wait in a room with a brass placard on front that read, Family Room. Inside sat a therapist whose job it was to try and make small talk with us—we who were waiting to hear if someone we loved had died or not, we who were waiting to hear whether our lives would be changed forever or not. And that poor psychologist tried to make small talk though I can't remember anything she said.
The doctor called my dad out of the room and I couldn't hear anything they said, but it didn't take long, and when Dad came in he choked, "I have bad news," and that was it. And that was it.
(I need to find the line of this story, I think it's deteriorating quickly into something sentimental. And where to from here? Where do I go? What is the main line I'm trying to follow? I liked the energy at the beginning but now I'm not so hot about any of this last stuff.)
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