Confusion Is Nothing New

by Paul Acampora

  None of this stuff is Mozart or Bach or Beethoven. Some of it is just plain bad. But there’s also a lot that’s fun, and challenging, and even wonderful. And for the most part, it’s almost completely new to me.

  Tapping my foot to a kooky, perfect pop song by a group called the Bangles, it strikes me that it’s not just my mother that I’ve been missing. There’s a whole wide world that I know nothing about.

  On Friday, which is Halloween, Charlotte, Anya, Daniel, and I all dress like witches from the Wizard of Oz books. It was Anya’s idea, so she’s Glinda, the Good Witch of the South. Charlotte is Mombi, Wicked Witch of the West. I am decked out as Locasta, Good Witch of the North. That leaves Daniel dressed as Gingema, Wicked Witch of the East. Gingema is the witch who gets crushed when Dorothy falls out of the sky, so Daniel’s costume is a tall cardboard box decorated to look like an old, brown house that’s been dropped on his head.

  “We’re like a coven,” says Charlotte when we gather around our cafeteria table at lunchtime.

  “You need thirteen witches for a coven,” Anya informs us.

  “How do you know that?” I ask.

  Anya smiles sweetly. “If I tell you, I’ll have to turn you into a newt.”

  I turn my attention to Daniel. In addition to the box, he’s wearing a pair of black-and-white striped stockings along with bright red, chunky-heeled Mary Janes decorated with a bow and glitter paint. “That’s a good look for you,” I tell him.

  He makes an awkward twirl and nearly falls into a trash can.

  Mr. Leary, who is wandering around the cafeteria and talking to costumed kids, approaches Daniel. “Is it just you and the girls today?”

  Daniel clicks his bejeweled heels together. “Today, I am one of the girls.”

  Mr. Leary raises an eyebrow. “You think?”

  Daniel does another little pirouette. When he spins, it looks as if his cardboard house is getting sucked up by a tornado and flushed down a toilet at the same time. Charlotte reaches out and pats him on the back door. “It takes more than good looks to be one of the girls, honey.”

  Daniel stops turning, kicks off his ruby slippers, and rubs the back of his foot against a metal chair leg. “To tell you the truth, this girl thing is killing me.”

  “You can rub a little lip balm on the backs of your heels to prevent blisters,” Mr. Leary tells him.

  Charlotte puts a black-gloved hand on one hip and tilts her head so that the top of her pointy black hat looks like a rocket launcher. “Is this what you learned from your rock star lifestyle?”

  “First of all,” says Mr. Leary, “I am not a rock star. Second of all, I spent six months touring with a hair-metal glam band, so I know how to be comfortable in heels. As far as the rock star lifestyle, Jon Bon Jovi bakes his own bread, Steven Tyler knits his own scarves, and Beyoncé gets ready to go onstage by practicing magic tricks.”

  “You’re making that up,” Daniel says from inside his box.

  “Trust me,” says Mr. Leary. “Beyoncé can pull silver dollars out of your ears all day long.”

  The bell announcing the end of the lunch period rings, and our conversation is nearly drowned out by laughing and shouting and scraping chairs as students begin cleaning up and heading toward the exits.

  “Before you go,” Mr. Leary tells us. “I checked with Sister Stephanie about school policy regarding students visiting teachers’ homes. Basically, there should be another adult present. Your principal will be at my house tonight for Halloween, so feel free to come over.”

  “We’re going trick-or-treating,” Charlotte tells him.

  “I give out good candy,” Mr. Leary promises.

  “Name brand and full-size?” she asks.

  “Of course.” Mr. Leary turns to me. “By the way, I found a copy of that CD your mom was supposed to sing on. Obviously, you won’t hear her voice, but you can still have it if you want it.”

  “Okay,” I say. “Thanks.”

  “Mr. Leary,” Charlotte calls after our teacher, who is walking away now. “I don’t care about Beyoncé’s tricks, but you better not be lying about the good candy!”

  Mr. Leary lifts a hand and gives a wave without turning around. “Happy Halloween!”

  Several hours later, Anya, Charlotte, and I gather at the end of Daniel’s driveway. Sinbad and Josh join us too. Even Hannah Shupe, our drum major, has come out. She’s dressed as the Cowardly Lion. Sinbad and Josh are wearing Munchkin costumes, which almost works for Sinbad, but I don’t recall any heavyweight wrestlers in Munchkin Country.

  “Are you sure you want to trick-or-treat with underclassmen?” Daniel asks Hannah, who is a senior.

  “I love trick-or-treating,” she tells him. “And I couldn’t find anybody else older than nine to go with me.”

  “It was a yes-or-no question,” says Josh, who is holding a gigantic, round lollipop.

  “What are you supposed to be?” Hannah asks him.

  “I’m a Munchkin,” Josh tells her.

  She twirls her tail and studies Josh’s huge outfit. “Are you sure you know what that word means?”

  “People,” hollers Charlotte, who is marching around in knee-high, black stilettos, “let’s get started!”

  “Who died and left her in charge?” asks Sinbad.

  Anya points at Daniel’s Wicked Witch of the East outfit. “Technically, he did.”

  A moment later, we join a crowd of small, one-eyed pirates, bloody zombies, and miniature superheroes moving through the neighborhood. I’m swinging a bright orange trick-or-treat bag in one hand. In the other, I’ve got a spatula that I’m using as my magic wand. A yellow half-moon shines through long oak and maple branches above us. “Does anybody know where we’re going?” Hannah asks.

  “There’s a walking path at the end of the block,” Daniel tells her. After a long day at school, his cardboard house looks like a stack of recycling that’s been run over by a garbage truck. “It cuts through the cemetery and leads past the house with the red barn. That’s got to be Mr. Leary’s.”

  “Fly, monkeys! Fly!” cries Charlotte.

  Daniel staggers down the sidewalk in his heels but comes to a stop at the narrow gate that leads into the cemetery.

  “What’s wrong?” I ask him.

  “I’m not just as big as a house,” he says. “I am a house.”

  “So?”

  “So I don’t fit through the gate.”

  “So get out of the house,” I suggest.

  “Good idea.” Daniel pushes the cardboard over his head. It gets stuck briefly, but a strong gust of wind suddenly lifts the thing off his shoulders. The box flies for a moment, hits the ground, then collapses with a muffled poof!

  “Your witching days are over,” Anya tells him.

  “I was already dead.” Daniel kicks off his ruby slippers. “Now I’m free.” He reaches into a small backpack that’s slung over his shoulders and pulls out an old gray Trinity College sweatshirt and a pair of sneakers with laces that match his pumpkin-orange gym shorts. Once his shoes are on, Daniel heads through the cemetery gate and into the graveyard. “Ellie,” he calls back to me. “Don’t be afraid. There’s nothing in here but dead people.”

  “Thanks.” If Daniel makes one more joke about dead people I’m going to have to kill him. And wouldn’t that be ironic.

  As he marches away, I glance back up our street and toward my house, where Dad is handing out homemade caramels to trick-or-treaters. He asked me if I’d stay home and help tonight, but I acted like a witch. And not a good one. As a matter of fact, we were yelling at each other before I headed out.

  “Ellie,” Charlotte calls from inside the cemetery. “Come on!”

  I jog down the walking path and catch up with Anya and Sinbad, who are lagging behind the others. The three of us walk together past long lines of headstones. As we continue down the path, Anya points toward one inscription and starts to laugh. “Optima medicina non est semper risus,” she reads out loud.

  “What’s
that mean?” says Sinbad.

  “It’s Latin for ‘Laughter is not always the best medicine.’ ”

  “You speak Latin?” asks Sinbad.

  Anya shrugs. “It’s a lot like Spanish.”

  Our friends are far ahead now, but I can see their shadows in the distance. When we finally catch up, Sinbad says, “Check it out!”

  Anya and I join him in front of a large, stone statue of a fat, laughing Buddha. The figure, which is seated on a flat rock, holds both hands up in the air as if he is cheering us on. Anya leans forward and rubs the statue’s round belly. “In China,” she explains, “it’s good luck to rub the happy Buddha’s tummy.”

  In addition to rubbing the Buddha’s stomach, Sinbad and I both give him gentle high fives. “Are there any happy Catholic saints?” I ask.

  Sinbad looks around, then points at a small ceramic figure placed atop a nearby grave marker. “What about her?”

  “That’s Our Lady of Guadalupe,” says Anya.

  “Are you going to rub her tummy?” Sinbad asks me.

  “I don’t think so,” I tell him.

  “Why not?”

  “That’s Jesus’s mother,” I remind him. “The Virgin Mary. You don’t rub the Virgin Mary’s tummy.”

  Sinbad studies Our Lady of Guadalupe. “She looks very nice. I don’t think she’d mind.”

  “Hey!” Hannah calls from up ahead. “Are you coming?”

  “Well?” he says.

  I take a step closer to the statue. What can it hurt? I tuck my magic spatula into my bag, then reach out to rub Mary’s tummy with my palm. In the dark, however, I don’t notice a low gravestone in the grass at my feet. I stumble over the granite marker, trip, and pitch forward. A moment later, I accidentally hit the Virgin Mary with all my weight. In other words, I’ve just approached Holy Mary, Mother of God, and punched her in the stomach.

  Yay me.

  The statue snaps off its base with a loud CRACK! Now I’m gripping Our Lady of Guadalupe in both hands. I hold the figure away from my body like it’s a baby that needs a diaper change.

  “What did you do?” asks a shocked Anya, whose eyes are as big as two full moons.

  “I don’t know!”

  “Put it back!” she tells me.

  I try to return the statue to its place, but the base is broken. “It won’t go!”

  “Then put her down!”

  “I can’t leave her here!”

  “You guys!” Hannah’s voice comes again from the distance. “Help!”

  “Help?” I say.

  “Come on!” says Sinbad.

  I hold up the statue. “What about—”

  “Put her in your bag!” says Sinbad.

  “Help!” Hannah yells again.

  “We’re coming!” Sinbad shouts.

  “Sorry,” I say to Mary. I drop her into my trick-or-treat bag, then sprint after Anya and Sinbad toward Hannah’s voice. Our Lady of Guadalupe slaps against my thigh as we race across the cemetery. Fortunately, it doesn’t take long to reach Hannah, so the Virgin Mary and I both arrive without too much damage.

  “Are you okay?” I ask Hannah, who stands by herself on the graveyard path.

  “I wore the Cowardly Lion costume for a reason,” she says. “And it’s not because I enjoy being left alone in a cemetery at night.” She points into the dark. “I heard a noise from over there.”

  Anya glances at the shadowy headstones all around us. “Where did everybody go?”

  Hannah points toward the shadow of a barn at the edge of the cemetery.

  “Is that Mr. Leary’s?” asks Sinbad.

  Hannah nods. “Daniel, Josh, and Charlotte ran ahead to see if he’s home. But then I heard screaming.”

  “What were they screaming about?” asks Sinbad. “Why didn’t you follow them?”

  “Did I mention the Cowardly Lion costume?” says Hannah.

  I turn toward the barn. “Let’s go see if they’re okay.”

  “I’ll stay here,” says Hannah.

  “In the dark with Halloween ghosts, and graves, and dead people?” asks Anya.

  Hannah grabs my hand. “I’ll come with you.”

  Together, we make our way up a gentle slope toward Mr. Leary’s barn. As we approach, we hear a familiar voice. It’s Sister Stephanie, and she’s not happy. “Do you have no experience with doors?” she is hollering. “People a lot less adept than you have figured out how to use them. Or have I overestimated your abilities?”

  “No, Sister,” says Josh.

  “Yes, Sister,” says Daniel at the exact same time.

  Sinbad, Hannah, Anya, and I round the corner of the building. Sister Stephanie, dressed in full flying nun regalia, stands in front of the open barn door with Charlotte. Light from inside streams onto a patch of brown grass, where Josh and Daniel are sprawled on their backs.

  “Trick or treat?” says Sinbad.

  Mr. Leary steps out of the barn and into the light. “Happy Halloween!” He notices Josh and Daniel in the grass. “What are you doing down there?”

  Daniel gets to his feet. He looks ridiculous in his pumpkin-colored gym shorts and striped witch stockings. “I was trying to make sure this was your house.”

  “Here’s an idea,” says Sister. “You could have knocked.”

  “I’m still confused,” says Mr. Leary.

  Josh stands and points at a half-moon window directly above the open barn door. “I let Daniel climb on my shoulders to look inside.”

  “Sister saw Daniel’s face in the window,” Charlotte explains.

  “And then I opened the door,” says Sister.

  I glance at the entryway. “That door swings out.”

  “It sure does,” says Josh, who is standing beside Daniel now. The two of them look like dogs who got caught peeing on the rug.

  “It hit them like a sledgehammer,” says Charlotte. “Josh got knocked right off his feet. Daniel flew like he’d been launched out of a catapult.” She turns to Sister Stephanie. “You don’t know your own strength, Sister.”

  Sister rolls her eyes. “Seeing one of your students’ faces hovering in a window ten feet off the ground on Halloween night can really get the adrenaline flowing.”

  “She went into total exorcist mode,” Charlotte tells us.

  “Miss Rios,” says Sister Stephanie, “in my line of work, we’re not big fans of exorcism jokes.”

  “Sorry,” says our very own Wicked Witch of the West.

  Mr. Leary laughs. “Please, come inside!”

  As we head into the barn, Sister Stephanie stands in the doorway and drops candy into our bags. I’m last in line, and when it’s my turn, she holds out three extra-large chocolate bars. “Ellie Magari,” says Sister, “we had a rough week, but that doesn’t mean I don’t like you a lot.”

  “Thank you,” I say.

  “You’re welcome.”

  I open my Halloween bag. Sister drops the candy. The chocolate bars hit Our Lady of Guadalupe on the head. Clunk. Clunk. Clunk. Sister reaches into the bag and pulls out the statue. For a long moment, neither one of us speaks. Finally, Sister breaks the silence. “Holy Mary, Mother of God, what are you doing here?”

  I consider all the possible answers to this question. As it works out, there aren’t many. “It’s not what you think,” I say.

  Sister holds up the broken statue. “I think I just found Our Lady of Guadalupe in your trick-or-treat bag.”

  “Okay,” I say. “It is what you think, but I can explain.”

  “Please do.”

  In a rush, I tell her about our walk through the graveyard, and the Buddha, and the fact that laughter is not always the best medicine. And then I explain how Hannah, who really is a cowardly lion, started screaming, and how I tripped, causing me to knock Mary off her pedestal. Somehow, I include the part about rubbing a lucky tummy, and I admit that I’m concerned about the apparent lack of happy Catholic saints. Before I know it, I’m going on about my stupid father and my dead mother and Cyndi Lauper,
whose voice really is an instrument made out of God’s own breath. I also explain that I wish my parents—both the live one and the dead one—had trusted me instead of keeping a lifetime’s worth of secrets. And I’m wondering if maybe my mother might actually be buried somewhere in Rockhill Memorial Cemetery, and I confess that I’d always hoped to meet my mom one day, but now that’s never going to happen, and—

  “Ellie,” says Sister.

  “What?”

  She presses Our Lady of Guadalupe into my arms. “Keep the statue.”

  “Should I put her back in the cemetery?”

  Sister shakes her head. “You need her a lot more than anybody who’s already buried.”

  “What am I going to do with a statue of the Virgin Mary?” I ask.

  Sister puts her hand on my shoulder. “You’ll figure something out.”

  I place Mary back into the bag and follow Sister Stephanie into the barn. Looking around, I realize that Mr. Leary wasn’t kidding about the professional recording studio. Charlotte is seated behind a massive set of drums. Josh and Anya are making weird electronic sounds with some kind of keyboard. Daniel has discovered a piccolo, and Sinbad is showing Hannah how to make a chord on a cherry-red electric guitar shaped like a lightning bolt. Meanwhile, a half dozen old upright pianos stand in a line against the barn’s back wall.

  “Does Mr. Leary collect pianos?” I ask Sister Stephanie, who is now in the middle of the room.

  “He rescues them,” she tells me. “Whenever he hears about a piano that somebody’s going to throw away, he runs over, grabs it, and brings it back here.”