Alice, I Think

by Susan Juby

  Eugene, watching in the crowd, seemed to look relieved, but it could just have been my imagination.

  I decided MacGregor had probably seen enough, so I took him to go and find our horses. Georgette came over and stood with us. She asked MacGregor questions about his book. She pretended not to hear my mother yelling at my counselor. And we pretended not to see her brother hiding behind Bob.

  The rest of the trail riders lingered over the cleanup so they could hear what was going on. Georgette snarled, “Mind your own business,” under her breath when a couple nearby started commenting on the situation in stage whispers so loud we could hear every word.

  Finally Dad went over and put his arm around Mom and led her back to where MacGregor and Georgette and I stood waiting with our horses. He retrieved Frank, and we headed back down the trail.

  “Coming?” I asked Georgette.

  “No. I’d better wait for my brothers. God only knows what trouble they’ll get into on the way down.”

  “Oh. Okay. Well, see you, Georgette.”

  “George,” she corrected. “See you, Alice.”

  We rode back down the trail in silence, except for the odd murmur between Mom and Dad. I looked back at one point, and they were holding hands.

  Frank didn’t say a word to me, and I was too embarrassed to ask her any questions, even though I wanted to hear what happened. I wondered if she would have been impressed if she knew I had been invited to a shed too.

  September 29

  Frank didn’t go to school today. Apparently the blisters on her rear made it too painful for her to move. She tried to get Mom to take her to the hospital this morning, but Mom said that if blisters were all she got from those hot pants, she should consider herself lucky. I personally think that was a bit shaming, but whatever. Frank was on the phone talking to Uncle Laird when I got home. She was checking to see when she could get into that private school. I heard her say, “You know, Daddy, Smithers doesn’t have a lot to offer culturally.”

  She’s definitely got a point there.

  Mom and Dad told me tonight that there will be no more sessions with Death Lord Bob. They are writing a formal complaint to his supervisors. The letter says that Bob does not have “sufficient good judgment or decision-making skills to work with young people.” Apparently Bob has called three times to apologize, but my mother won’t take his calls. It doesn’t seem fair to expect a junior counselor to handle someone like Frank. Poor Death Lord. I’m going to miss helping him. Plus the video sessions were quite fun.

  September 30

  So much for blood is thicker than water. I can’t believe it. Frank ran away with Linda today!

  I came home from school to find Linda standing in my hallway. I nearly had heart failure. I stopped dead in my tracks, and she looked at me with those dead blue eyes and said, “I’m waiting for Frank.”

  “Oh,” I said.

  And then I went upstairs to my room. On my way past Frank’s room I looked in and saw her stuffing things into her stuffed-animal backpack. I watched as she ate a handful of pills that she took from a silver suitcase filled with bottles and baggies. Frank was a walking pharmaceutical company.

  “See ya later, kid,” she said.

  “Yeah. Okay,” I replied.

  I asked her where she was going, but she just straightened her wig and winked as she brushed past me. Watching from the second-floor window, I saw her and Linda get into a blue Firefly that I know for a fact belongs to the neighbors.

  So much for my peer group–friend ambitions.

  I went to bed.

  October 1

  I didn’t feel well today, so I didn’t get out of bed. I could hear the crisis about Frank and the stolen car going on downstairs—the neighbor’s phone calls, Uncle Laird’s phone calls, calls and a visit from Officer Ross (now practically an old family friend), fights and arguments between my mom and dad. It went on all last night and this morning. Usually I love that stuff. Not today, though. I must be coming down with something.

  October 2

  Today my parents tried to talk to me about the not-getting-out-of-bed thing. They think I’m depressed because of Frank. They think I have some unhealthy role model adoption–negative hero worship issues going on. Obviously that’s not it. I just don’t feel well. And the ceiling really is pretty interesting if you look at it long enough.

  October 3

  Not only am I back in therapy with Death Lord, but now he’s doing home visits. Mom came into my room this afternoon to say I had a visitor. In walked Bob right behind her. His hair was all tortured looking, like he had been pulling it out at the roots, and he had big bags under his eyes.

  He started right in. He should have handled things differently; he didn’t want to betray anyone’s trust; he’s been punished (his practicum has been extended by six months), and the worst punishment is the guilt he feels; if I stay in bed my depression will just get worse; he knows I looked up to Frank; drugs can make very good, very attractive people do bad things; blah, blah, blah.

  I finally got up just so Death Lord would leave. Apparently I will have to stay up now or he will come back.

  I really don’t know what he would do without me. I give him reason to live.

  October 4

  Things have calmed down around here since Frank ran away and I got out of bed. All I have to look forward to now is that stupid fish show.

  And that sounds worse all the time too. Now Geraldine the Awful of the James Woods lookalike fameis going to come to the fish show with us. That’s just what we need. We will go off to Terrace trailing plumes of musk and pot and B.O. Just the smell of her probably will be enough to kill the fish. It’s almost enough to make me not go. The only small mercy is that Geraldine is leaving Jane the Car Girl at home. I guess Jane was invited but Mom said she couldn’t smoke in our car, so she declined. I’m sure she’ll be waiting in their car when Geraldine gets home. Their relationship is enough to make me question having children. In fact, I’ve been thinking about reproductive issues a lot since the trail ride and Frank’s inspiring example. I’ve been reassessing Life Goal No. 4: Some sort of boy-girl interaction? I think I may need more extensive interaction to truly accomplish this, so I have uncrossed it and put it back on my list. Aubrey doesn’t really count, because most of our interaction consisted of me avoiding him.

  A more thorough attack on the problem is in order. The accomplishment of Life Goal No. 4 may require sex. And not just because of what I saw on the Internet. I need a clear success. So far my achieved Life Goals err on the side of incompleteness. And the ones that I have completed seem boring. Like going back to school. I thought that would be exciting for longer than just one day. But already school in an institutional setting is almost as boring as school in a dysfunctional home setting. Violet the Victim is the only person who really talks to me. And all she does is ask my opinion of her latest still life with fruit.

  I will be a success in my own life! I won’t play some bit role. I want to be the star of my own production! For a more extensive boy-girl interaction, all I have to do is get one other person to do what I want for a few minutes. That shouldn’t be impossible.

  Later

  Now not only is Geraldine the Awful coming with us, but so is Pit Hair the Dental Assistant. They are going to a drumming class planned for the same place and time as the fish show. The worst part is that they wouldn’t have been able to go if we weren’t going already.

  If Mom packs any more hippie freaks into the car, there won’t be any room for me and MacGregor, never mind the fish. I know MacGregor agrees with me that Pit and Geraldine shouldn’t come, but he is too polite to say anything.

  I really don’t know if I can stomach several hours in the same car with those women. Mom should get more working-class friends. All of Mom’s friends, who are waitresses at Smitty’s or clerks at Zellers or wherever, are actually potters or weavers or something artistic like that. It’s all crap. I admire store clerks who don’t think they
are too good or brilliant or creative to be clerks. I admire the people who don’t want to be something they are not. Give me someone who is good at helping that logger find just the right plaid shirt and who isn’t always coming up with excuses for why they don’t have a more fulfilling job, someone who lives for the weekend and admits it.

  I talked to George about it today when she called. I wasn’t actually going to mention that she phoned. I mean, it’s not that big a deal. It only means the end of aloneness and the accomplishment of Life Goal No. 2 and everything.

  I told her about Frank and the fish show. She told me about her brothers and Houston. I was on the phone actually talking for almost an hour! Nothing to get excited about, although my parents did. I could tell by the way they hovered around in the distance and kept walking past looking all nervous and happy when they realized I was talking to a peer-type person. Poor things. It was really sort of pathetic. Anyway, I suppose I should adjust my Life Goals list, but I can’t. It’s too soon. Frankly I’m afraid to jinx my peer-friendship accomplishments through overconfidence. I told George that when I have my career as an unskilled worker, I vow to give the other sandwich shop employees the respect they deserve by not going on about all my ambitions. When I pass my GED at age forty, I won’t sound off about it and make all my coworkers feel inadequate by comparison. George agreed with my approach. She said that she’d read and loved The Hobbit but that she hadn’t yet made it through The Lord of the Rings. She’s interested in watching Buffy with me sometime. The conversation we had was so good, I think it will give me the strength to get through the trip to Terrace, which is almost as small and even less cultural than Smithers. It doesn’t have the Bavaria-theme Main Street with the cobblestone motif or the statue of a guy blowing a giant alpenhorn.

  The whole drive will be taken up with talk of how broke Geraldine and Pit are and how they should get some sort of government allowance just for not using too much water for bathing or something. There is no way I am sitting next to either of them. Thank God our car is so huge. Pit and Geraldine should be able to fit in the front seat with Mom. It’s the least they can do; after all, I invited myself along first.

  GOOSEBOY AND THE GOOD HAIR DAY

  October 5

  I got my way. All the hippie babes are in the front seat together and MacGregor and I are in the backseat of the Wonderwagon. I had my Walkman on at full volume when we picked up Geraldine and Pit, so I don’t know how Mom explained why we were in the backseat with the doors locked. Maybe she told them my attitude was contagious or something. I think that my negative energy disturbs them to the point that they’re happy to stay as far away from me as possible.

  My new headphones are just like Frank’s—perfect for ignoring people. They are huge and they look like noise protectors on a hard hat. And even though they plug into my Walkman, they have an antenna on the side which I think is pretty cool and hiphop. Dad says they make me look like a sullen Martian. Whatever. As long as they drown out the tuneless sounds of hippie whining, I’m happy. I just wish they came with matching nose plugs.

  Geraldine and Pit are in fine form. They are all excited about the “serendipity” and “synchronicity” of the drumming workship being held in the same community center as the fish show. They’ve hand-painted stars and moons and goddesses and other stuff all over their big rawhide drums, which they’re holding on their laps to get a “connection going.” Oh man. Geraldine has mentioned a few times how sorry she is that Jane didn’t want to come. But I can tell by her voice that she’s thrilled to be on her own. When I turned down my Walkman for a minute, I heard Pit telling Mom about how drumming puts her in touch with her “earth energy” and Geraldine agreeing that drumming loosened her “lower chakras.” It’s hard to tell whether it is loosened earth energy or just B.O. and patchouli smelling up the car.

  I talked to George last night before we left. She told me about this aunt of hers who grew up in the bush ouside of Houston and went away to school in the city to study religion. She fell in with the animal rights people and somehow got the idea that she had to repent for the traplines she ran to make money. When George’s aunt finally moved back to Houston, she made a huge fake trap out of cardboard and tin foil and mounted it on the top of her car, an old beater Toyota. She painted the words “Death Trap” in dripping red letters on both sides of the car. Sometimes George has to get a ride to school with her aunt! In the Death Trap! Can you imagine? That’s even more embarrassing than driving around with Pit and Geraldine in our car. George thinks that the trauma of having a Death Trap aunt has played a central role in making Eugene and Bone so insecure.

  Hearing George’s story made me feel better somehow. I was also impressed that she has such interesting, if demented, relatives.

  I think MacGregor is a bit concerned about the fish. He put them into three plastic bags with water, and we stopped at the hardware-pet store on the way out of town and had the clerk put some pure oxygen in the plastic bags. His fish expert told him that’s how fish are shipped long distances. The oxygen lets the fish stay alive in the bags longer. It’s kind of like putting the fish in a hyperbaric chamber, if you think about it. The problem is that now the fish are acting like hopped-up athletes.

  MacGregor has the bags in a bucket at his feet, and he keeps leaning in to see if there have been any casualties yet. It was probably a mistake to put the mutant angelfish pair in one bag together. They are out of control at the best of times. Now, aided by a shot of pure oxygen, they are totally manic. I hope the fish-show judges are partial to shredded fins and missing eyes. The betta is in full display. He is pretty spectacular to begin with. Now his flowing red fins are all extended and he seems to be trying to catch the eye of one of the baby angels in the bag next to his. The little angelfish are racing back and forth and doing little dashes at one another, at least as much as they can in the confines of a plastic bag.

  I would offer some advice to MacGregor on how to deal with the situation, but I have to keep my headphones on so as not to hear the hippie horrors from up front.

  Later

  We are still not there. It will be a miracle if we reach Terrace alive. My mother doesn’t speed or anything like that, but her driving style is extremely erratic. She’s afraid of the big trucks. If one gets behind us, she slows the car to a crawl and tries to find somewhere to pull over. This is a problem because there are about two places on the way to Terrace with enough room on the shoulder to let someone pass. So we are inching along Highway 16 at about fifty kilometers an hour with all these big rigs and other vehicles backed up behind us. If this were the United States, some driver with road rage would have shot Mom long ago.

  She also does this crazy veering thing whenever a semi comes toward us. Most of the road to Terrace has a towering cliff with falling-rock warnings on one side and a raging river on the other side, with the narrow little two-lane highway running between. There isn’t anywhere to swerve to, but somehow she manages. It is amazing to watch. In addition to swerving the car itself, she also sort of ducks her body. All very confidence inspiring.

  Still Later

  Apparently Pit also finds Mother’s driving stressful. When Mom finally found a rest stop to pull into, it took about ten minutes for all the traffic backed up behind us to go by. The looks we got were murderous. Even the blue-haired ladies and hat-wearing old men in monster motor homes shook their fists at us. God.

  Anyhow, when I came back from the washroom, Pit was in the driver’s seat. This should be interesting. Pit strikes me as one of those confident people with badjudgment. I bet she’s a terrifying driver.

  Pit is out of control. She keeps saying how driving makes her feel “so free” and puts her in touch with her “goddess energy.” I guess race-car drivers must have goddess energy to burn, because it seems to result in extreme speed.

  We are careening all over the road, and I bet we’ve passed every single car that was backed up behind us when Mom was at the wheel. The terror is so bad that I h
ave had to take my headphones off to concentrate better on praying.

  Pit is passing people on hairpin turns, for God’s sake. Everyone in the car has stopped talking. We are all pressed into our seats and clutching the dash or door handles. It’s going to take the Jaws of Life to get Mom’s hands off the dashboard.

  But old Pit, she’s not even noticing the waves of fear coming off her passengers. The fact that our car is doing 140 kilometers an hour in a 90-kilometer zone isn’t fazing her at all. The fact that even the slightest dip in the road makes us airborne has also escaped her attention. She’s going on about how in her Letting Go ceremony last week she had this big insight into her need for security, and after burning some sage and doing the Dance of Life or something, she’s ready to live without fear. Just my luck. She decides to give up on healthy fear and now she’s driving our car. I’ll tell you, my need to hold on is about a thousand times stronger since Pit started driving. All the New Age rituals in the world aren’t going to get me over this trauma. I am going to need intensive, long-term therapy to deal with this. I’m probably scarred forever. I’ll probably have to walk everywhere because Pit has induced an incapacitating phobia about vehicles in me.

  Even MacGregor’s fish have gone as still as they can in the plastic bags, which are sloshing around like water balloons at a birthday party. My writing is all over the page. But I can’t let this moment pass undocumented. This notebook may end up being like the little black box in a plane crash. People are going to want to know what could possibly have happened that we had to go this fast to a fish show.

  Can’t we ever have a normal family outing? The only blessing I can see is that Pit has probably shaved about an hour off the trip.

  Later, but not late

  What an entrance! Of course we had an accident as soon as we pulled into the Terrace Community Center parking lot doing about 80 kilometers per hour. A crash was inevitable. I’m just glad that no one, well, no one except for Geraldine, got hurt. I think Geraldine’s injury is a bit of a load anyway. After all, Pit just nicked the end of that trailer. It crumpled and jackknifed as we hit it, and Pit slammed on the brakes at the end of the parking lot and put her hand up to her mouth.