Cameron and the Girls

by Edward Averett

  A low lamp is lighted on her bedside table, and I can see Nina face-down on the bed. I make her suffer and suffer and I don’t even know why. My throat catches.

  Doesn’t it make you feel, you know, a little tight?

  “I don’t like this.”

  You will. Then you’ll be a man.

  I stand in her doorway and look at her. Even through the gauze of crazy I can see there’s something not quite right with her.

  Touch her.

  I whisper again. “Please help.”

  And it finally comes.

  Am I some genie you can conjure up when you need me?

  “I do need you.”

  I can see that.

  “Can’t you help me?”

  If you do it, it would be like doing it with me.

  “What? No, help me.”

  Do now what you need to do, and then I’ll help you.

  “What I need to do?” I look at Nina on the bed. This doesn’t sound like The Girl.

  I love you, Cameron.

  The Professor’s voice, but The Girl’s words.

  Do it. Now The Girl’s voice.

  I love you, but you must do it; remember the old nobody Cameron? Is that what you want to be again?

  I raise my hands high in the air. Everything’s all mixed up. “Stop talking!” I shout in a voice the neighbors should have been able to hear. Only Nina seems not to.

  Do it now. Touch her, touch her, touch her.

  I take a step into the room and see the bottle on the bed. A couple of pills have fallen out of it, and it is now empty. It takes all my self-control to bend down and look at Nina. Her breath is ragged, her face a pasty white.

  This is where you dig deep, Cameron Galloway.

  “Oh God,” I hear. “Help her.”

  And it’s my very own voice this time.

  Twenty-two

  Now the only thing I know how to do well is run. So I sprint out of the room, out of the house, and to the middle of the street.

  Get help.

  No. Just do it.

  “Help!” I call as I turn in a circle. “Help me! Help her!”

  My words are gibberish. “Girl! Pills! Dying! Help! Girl. Pills. Dying. Help.” Over and over I say it until a guy comes out of his house with a cell phone at his ear. Seeing him, I run back into Nina’s house.

  Minutes later, I’m clown-walking in the front room when they break through the door and come in with their trunks and their bags and their gurney. I try to go back with them, but one guy shoves me out of the way, and I retreat to the living room.

  You could sneak out. Find a new home.

  “Leave me alone.”

  Do you think I’m just some girl you can boss around? Some professor? Who do you think’s in charge?

  It’s been only a few minutes, and they’re out with Nina on a stretcher. She already has a tube hooked up to her arm, and her face is just as washed out as it was when I found her. I back up, step by step, and run into a pair of feet. I turn, and there stands a policeman.

  “I guess you’d be Cameron Galloway,” he says.

  “Might be.”

  He takes me by the arm and I don’t resist. “There are a lot of folks waiting to see you,” he says.

  I try to pull away, but he holds me fast. “I’m fourteen,” I say. “Can make my own mind up.”

  “Is that so?” says the cop. “Well, I’m thirty-eight and I can too. My decision is to take you into custody as a material witness.”

  “No.” I want to fight, but I don’t have it in me. And when I realize this, a strange thing happens. I give in, and the whole house lights up like a rainbow strobe. The cop’s head is pulsating with light. It runs along his arm and jumps onto me. I can feel the current follow my nerve paths.

  “Come on, then,” he says, and we step out just in time to see the ambulance take Nina away.

  People have gathered in the neighborhood, and up above them floats a cloud of letters bumping into each other. It’s what you call a hubbub. I let the cop take me to his prowler and put me in the back seat. It’s quieter there. I can see the cop through the screen separating the two of us. He’s on his radio, telling them he found me.

  I’m scared, Cameron. What’s going on?

  “Arrested,” I say.

  “No, not arrested,” the cop says as he places his radio back in its home. “Just held.”

  He’s scary.

  “You bother my girlfriend,” I say.

  The cop takes a peek back at me, rolls his eyes, and then starts up his car. We back out of the driveway, and a group of people parts to let us through.

  The cop is back on the radio again, but all I pick up is the word hospital.

  Don’t let them split us up, Cam. We’re all we’ve got. If they split us, we can’t make it.

  “Do what I can do.”

  I love you, Cam.

  I lean my head against the window. My energy is leaking out of my shoes, and I feel more and more like a husk. “Where are you going?” I ask.

  “To your folks. Don’t you think they’ve suffered enough?”

  I don’t want to go home, but there’s not much I can do locked in the back of a cop’s car.

  Use your sneaky brain.

  I try the only thing that comes to my failing mind. I start batting at my legs. “Off! Off! Eating me alive!” I throw myself from one side of the back seat to the other. “Help me!” I squeal. Ten more seconds of this and the cop’s back on the radio, and instead of driving to my house, he takes a sharp right turn toward Saint John’s.

  At Saint John’s, they are already working on Nina when the cop brings me in. As soon as I get inside, I stop the screaming and just look around with my eyes open wide. A nurse takes me to a special room, tells me my parents are on their way, and rubs my arm for a few minutes while she talks about how drugs are taking over our youth.

  I try to ignore her, but it is a small room. “Smell you,” I say.

  She jerks back and narrows her eyes.

  “Smells like bad medicine.”

  After a moment, her pager goes off and she stands up and says, “I’m going to trust you to stay here till the doctor comes.”

  “All right,” I say.

  Get ready.

  As soon as she’s gone, I’m out of the room. She’s walking right, so I sneak down the wall to the left. I pass a couple of examining rooms and then round the corner to the real emergencies. Most of the curtains are drawn in a funny crescent, but the one in the middle of the room is closed, and I can see feet everywhere on the inside.

  “Lavage!” someone barks as I step closer. I can see people working through the curtain. Nina is stretched out on a bed with a tube already down her throat.

  “We’ll lose her if you don’t start that lavage, stat!”

  The voice is growly and primal, and it’s hard to tell where it’s coming from. I jump back from the curtain. My stomach feels knotted up. I don’t want to hear this. I don’t want to know what’s going to happen. But when I start toward the other side of the room, my nurse spies me and says, “Hey!”

  I spin and take off the other way. Over my shoulder, I hear her shout, “I need Security!”

  My shoes start acting as if they’re packed with concrete. My knees feel weaker. I duck into one of the examining rooms and wait. Outside the door, I hear my nurse and some guy.

  “He went running,” she says. “He probably took off outside.”

  Then I hear footsteps recede down the hall. I take a deep breath and carefully turn the knob. All clear one way and all clear the other. I want to run in my concrete feet, but I’m not sure which way to go. The dilemma is solved when my nurse turns the corner again and sees me. Before she can get a word out, I spin around and take off in the other direction. I’m tracing the way I came in and hope the cop isn’t still lurking around when I get to the lobby. Lucky me. The way is clear to the front door and I bust through it running.

  I manage to find a good hiding spot in a s
tand of scrub fir. I watch the Security guy do a cursory look around the grounds and then go back inside. I sit and wait. It did not seem good for Nina back in the ER, but if I were to go in again, they’d nab me and I might never find out what happened to her.

  It is just a few minutes later when I think I’m hearing yet another voice. But it turns out to be a familiar one. “It’s time for new rules,” my dad says, and I turn toward the sound.

  My family is piling out of our car: Dad, Mom, Beth, and even Dylan. I clench my fists. Beth has never been a snitch before. I watch them hurry across the parking lot, wondering what is going on in their heads. Even from a distance I can tell my mom’s eyes are bright red. My dad’s face has new worry lines. When Dylan slips through the ER door, I stand up. I look at the car.

  You know you can.

  “Know it,” I say.

  Then why not?

  “Don’t know if I can drive.”

  Anybody can drive.

  I walk over to the car and stand, listening to the ticking of the engine as it cools.

  You know where it is.

  And I do. I reach to the space below one of the wipers and find the magnetic box my dad uses to hide the spare key. I rattle it.

  It’s a good sound, buddy boy. You know what it’s the sound of?

  “Freedom,” I whisper.

  You got that right.

  Again, Cameron, we’ve reached a point where you can do the right thing. The chances of a fourteen-year-old boy coming to some bad end driving a car he has never learned to drive are well over 80 percent.

  Now, where do you get those phony numbers?

  Hello, Cam. Hello, hello, hello. I would look good snuggled up next to you in this car.

  That clinches it. Despite my footloose brain, I unlock the door and slide into the driver’s seat. It smells of my family and makes me feel a little more in control again. No wonder my dad likes to be here. I plug the key into the ignition and switch it on.

  It roars and I like it. I keep pushing down the pedal and letting this beast get it all out. A couple walking by raise their eyebrows at me, so I give it a little more gas just to make my point. My foot feels funny, and I look down to see that somewhere along the way I’ve lost a shoe. But I don’t have time to look for it and instead put my hand on the gearshift.

  Here we go.

  I pull the shift back to reverse and give it a little too much gas. I shoot out into the lot and practically squeal the tires when I slam on the brakes. The car bounces and then settles.

  I put it in D and gently move ahead, going around the circle to the exit. Too late, I realize this is a pay lot. I ease up to the window and search in the ashtray where Dad keeps his change. There I find the slip. I pass it to the guy at the window.

  “One dollar,” he says tiredly, holding out his hand.

  I yank out four quarters and give them to him. He doesn’t even look at me as I take off and nearly clip a car when I pull into the street. Driving is all new to me, but it’s not as hard as they make you think it is. Pretty soon, I know I can do it.

  Next problem. Where am I supposed to go? I know I haven’t got much time. My parents will look for me at the hospital, but then they’ll come out and see that their car is missing. After that, every cop in town will be looking out for my license plate.

  So I head to the one place I figure they wouldn’t think to look for me. Home.

  Home? Blah.

  It’s where the heart is. Good idea, young man.

  I get on the West Side Highway and pick up speed. I’m weaving a little and tapping the brake too much, but after a while, it’s easy to keep the car on my side of the white line. Pretty soon, I’m passing under the railroad bridge, and I freeze when I think of how just a while ago I was up there risking my life. I can do this.

  My parents must have been in a hurry, because the back door is standing open. I sneak into the kitchen and listen. No sounds except for the gentle sigh of the furnace. In the refrigerator I find leftovers; roast beef slices under plastic wrap, macaroni and cheese in a casserole dish. I pull both of them out and head for the microwave.

  Oh good, I’m starved.

  Me too.

  When the microwave buzzes, I take the food to the table. Without thinking, I pull out my dad’s chair and sit down. I stuff a piece of beef in my mouth but stop when I look down the length of our table. One chair on each side, and one on each end. It seems a long way down there now.

  It’s as if you’re the dad and I’m the mom.

  And I’m the bad son.

  Great, I’d like to introduce myself to everyone. You can call me chopped liver.

  Something gnaws at my stomach as I get up and pull down two plates from the cupboard. I put one in front of me and one at my right side. I scoop out some mac and cheese and spoon it onto the other plate.

  “There you go,” I say.

  You’ve beaten the odds, and they were pretty stiff odds. Sadly, the odds of getting out of this particular situation are zero. Please, Cameron, let’s think about this.

  I get up and retrieve yet another plate from the cupboard. I lay a piece of beef on this one and shove the plate to my left. “Don’t you want me to be happy?” I ask The Professor.

  This is what you call happiness?

  You’ve still got work to do, bud.

  “Work?”

  The best you can be. Remember? Before we’re through, you’ll be driving all the way to Mexico.

  Instinctively, I take another plate out. On this one, I put on a little of each. I take aim and push it down the length of the table like a shuffleboard game. It stops a foot from the end.

  My hands shake. There’s a pounding in my head. The voices keep screaming and I can’t get a word in. And I don’t know who’s on my side.

  Twenty-three

  I have opened the floodgates.

  You were just going to make life better for her.

  That’s rude and you know it. Cam, who is this guy? Isn’t that rude? You’d never be cruel to her. She’s a friend of ours.

  Oh, what’s a friend, anyway? Do it with her and then move on. Who cares whether she wants to or not? That’s what I say. Then your troubles are over and your new life can start. You, of all people, would like that.

  What is that supposed to mean?

  “Enough,” I say. But this doesn’t work. And I feel my mind start to break, the pieces, like drifting ice floes, occupied by these voices. I put my hands on my head and try to squeeze the pieces back together. And then it is absolutely quiet. Even the ticking of the furnace has stopped. Just like in Nina’s bathroom, I feel myself rise from the table and clutch desperately at its edge to hang on.

  “What’s happening?”

  I rise but the chair moves with me. I lift above the chattering voices. I climb higher and higher to where they sound like little mouse voices, like the little rabbit girl at school. I have risen above them, but in actuality I haven’t moved at all. I close my eyes and start spinning, like a diver who has leaped from the board and tucked his knees into his chest. Faster and faster I go until I believe that I can spin right out of my life into some great void where people like me spend eternity just spinning. I spin so fast that the voices resemble different strings of color in a blender.

  And now I can see without opening my eyes. I can see through my eyelids, and I see them all. I see The Professor with his carefully shaved goatee. I see The Other Guy with his torn T-shirt and baggy pants and the way he slouches in the chair. His voice disengages from the blend and says:

  I’ll take you where you want to go.

  “Go away,” I say. But I sense a weakness in my voice.

  And then I see The Girl. I see her so clearly that it makes me suck in a big breath. I’ve been waiting and waiting, and here finally is the love of my life. I want to drink in what I see. I want to reach out and feel her tender milky skin. She’s everything I dreamed of: the lips, the eyes, the body all rolled into one beautiful girl. And there’s so much I
want to say. I want to quote all the poets I’ve ever heard of, all of Shakespeare’s sonnets, but all that comes out is, “I wish, I wish.”

  Then I hear another voice, a new one at the table.

  “Cameron?”

  Against my will, I finally stretch out of my spin. My body lengthens and I point my hands straight ahead of me. Soon, I will cut into the water in a perfect dive. But before that happens, I open my eyes to find myself still sitting at the table. All around me are the plates humped with food. Something taps me on the shoulder. I turn to see my father standing there.

  “Cameron?” he says. “Settle down, son.” He pats me and it feels like a cool rag on my forehead.

  “Pop,” I say.

  He holds my shoulder tighter. “We’ve been looking all over for you. Your mom has been scared out of her wits.”

  I look around for her and he reads my mind.

  “They’re all at the hospital, hoping you’ll come back. I was sent out to see if I could find you. Only I couldn’t even find our car in the parking lot. Where it was supposed to be, I found this.” He holds up one of

  my shoes. I look down and see its match on one foot.

  I cough and my throat feels raspy. “Nina?” I ask.

  “I don’t know,” he says as he hands me the shoe, and when I get it on, he starts steering me toward the door. “Is there anything you want from here?”

  “Peace,” I say.

  We ride the way we usually ride—not much is said. I’m easily distracted, and I can feel my head shooting side to side, back and forth. Dad is humming, but not loud enough for me to recognize the song. He’s in his work clothes, and there’s a crease down his pant leg. When we get to the railroad bridge, I point to it and say, “Climbed that once.”

  “Did you, now?” he says. “That’s a ways up.”

  “Yeah, the wind was blowing hard and the rails were slick—”

  “Cam,” he says. “That’s enough now.”

  He might as well have stuck me with a knife. He checks his rearview mirror and speeds up. He looks scared. The strongest people in the world can still be afraid.

  I feel myself being pushed aside. Soon, I can’t tell what is real. Am I really traveling down the West Side Highway with my dad, or am I just making it up, or is somebody making it up for me?