The Cake is a Lie

by mcdavis3

  “Like later, after most people had passed out. Robby picked up half-passed-out Carol off the couch, and carried her up to his room. The skinnies all had to rally together to run up stairs and pull her away from him. And Robby was pushing them away and throwing a shit-storm about how they needed to leave them alone.” Once I finished intricately wording the story I focused eagerly back on Oakley’s face, but I was immediately dissatisfied. She looked genuinely sad, hurt. She never looked upset in my fantasies.

  She pulled out her phone and started texting away. I stared back in my book as the fear began to set it. I’d held out for a week, against all odds. Que sera sera, inevitably I was going to tell her, even if it meant getting beat up and humiliated and then being an outcast. How was anyone gonna know it was me?

  A half hour later, during lunch, I got a text from Oakley.

  “I’m so sorry Marco, I told him it was you. He just kept saying, ‘Who are you believing over me? Who are you putting this on? Who are you putting everything we have on? He wouldn’t talk to me until I told h–”

  Before I could even finish reading the text I got a call from an unknown number. I switched my phone to silent and pushed open the car door we were hot boxing for some air.

  “Ohh I messed up.” I announced to the car. “I told Oakley about Robby trying to get with Carol last weekend.”

  This produced a bunch of laughter.

  “I saw the whole thing,” Eric trumpeted, “That was so messed up, it’s good you told her.”

  My phone went off again. “Now some unknown number won’t stop calling me.” My eyes were glued to the menacing blinking screen.

  “Marco, I know what you’re thinking right now.” Justyn chimed in gleaming. “‘I’m Marco, I’m gonna be try and be tough right now, and say try and say some tough shit and get my block knocked off.’ No, you’re not. no, no, no. Don’t do it. Think about your future babies.” I was too scared to laugh.

  “Think about little Marco Jr. Caldirolis.” Justyn was cracking up.

  The phone started blinking for the third time.

  “Man, give me the phone,” Eric finally said, “I don’t give a f.” I tossed the phone to Eric. With a sunken head I listened to the one way convo.

  “Yo, who be this? Oh Brendo, what up bro? Marco didn’t have your number dawgy, we didn’t know who was calling. He can’t talk right now bro, he’s driving right now, what up though? We’re about to go eat some burritos as big as our faces. Oh ya? He mentioned that. Ya he knows he made a mistake. He knows it’s not his business. I get he shouldn’t be talking shit. Oh I know me and you are cool dawg. So ya gonna do me a favor and chill out on my bro ok? Alright here he is.”

  I put the speaker to my ear. “Ya?” I didn’t say hey or anything cordial, I knew what was coming.

  “I knew you liked her from that night outside of Marks.” He yelled.

  “Ya.” I said again, sounding defeated.

  “And now you’re up in my personal business!” He went on shouting and threatening me, going on different tangents but always immediately coming back to his main talking point, “Why are you up in my personal business homie?”

  “She really likes you, Robby,” were the only words that I could get out.

  Spring, 2006

  Two months later, after everything had long died down, I spoke to Robby on the phone again. This time concerning one of my favorite phrases: “a draught.” I loved saying it, we all did. A weed “draught” was a time to call everyone we knew. We’d scroll through our contact lists one by one, taking turns calling our childhood friends, 2nd cousins, 5th grade crushes, anyone who’d given us the slightest inclination they smoked cheeba.

  “I know you know someone, Patricia, don’t play around. Come on, we’ve been down since honor choir. It’s a crazy draught. Just make one call for me, please.”

  We used all our social power to be the first to connect the dots and find some, all the while cursing the draught every two seconds. It was my reason for ending up back in Robby’s house, back in the gross space, with Eric and Jay.

  Robby escorted us into his garage/game room, complete with a dart board on the wall and a poker table. He retook his seat next to Chris at the poker table, we headed for the lawn chairs further back in the garage. Chris nodded unemotionally to each of us as we passed. On the poker table were piles of discarded cigar tobacco, stems and seeds. The finished blunts were stacked 30 high in the center of the table. A stereo was playing softly but making a huge noise. “Money on my mind. Money on my mind. Fuck bitches, get money. Fuck bitches, get money.”

  “This is the cut,” Robby announced as he ran a lighter over a drying blunt. I’d never heard “cut” used to describe a good song before, it was genius.

  “What are you guys gonna do with all those?” Jay asked.

  Robby giggled wildly. “We’re going to smoke them all this weekend.” It was an unbelievable claim, and yet there they were, a pile of 30 blunts and counting. They’re crazy, I thought. The sight was enough to leave a “no one’s home” look on my face. Fifteen minutes later, I drifted back into the moment with a question.

  “So what ya gonna do after high school Robby? You going to college?” I asked with my most genuine “just making conversation,” naive face.

  “Hehe ooh haha.” Robby’s eyes kept dangerously coming back to me but his smile was all forgiving.

  “I’ve been kicked out of two high schools boii. I was held back a year, I’m 19. I got kicked out of Garfield dawg.” At the end of the statement he glanced over at Chris for approval. Chris nodded at him like “word up” as he tossed another blunt into the stack. Garfield was in the city and had metal detectors.

  “No I’m not going to college. What do you learn at college anyways? I’ve been killing it since grade school boii. I got something you can’t teach. Like a newborn’s scream when the doctor spanks him on the bottom for the first time. It’s not about money or looks either. I could pick up a model naked. You know my steelo.” Robby glowed at his words like he was awe-struck at himself yet again.

  “How you get good at fucking?” He asked the group. Silence. “Come on, how you get good at fucking?” Read a book? I almost guessed. “You fuck-a-lot.” He let this set in while he laughed loudly at himself, one of the constant reminders to everyone who his primary audience was.

  “How you get good at dancing? You dance-a-lot. How you get good at math?” The ashes from the circling blunt fell freely to the cement floor without a care.

  “So community college?” I persisted.

  Robby smiled even bigger. “My uncle was telling me about this helicopter pilot program. He said helicopter pilots make bank. I’m gonna fly helicopters.” You could tell it was his 5th or 6th choice, but it was one of the cleverest 6th choices I’d ever heard.

  In a dim cramped stairwell I came across Oakley and Robby alone. We were at some girl’s house. To my frustration the party hosts were getting hella random, mean nothing. Robby was hunched over in the middle of the steps. He looked half conscious.

  Oakley leaned in and put her hands on him, “Robby, what do you want?” He swatted her away with a violent hand motion.

  “I can’t even handle you right now,” She struck back nastily with her words.

  “Tst, tst.” Was all he said, “Tst, tst,” Then ructious laughter. A clown without his makeup. I’d taken a watchful seat at the top of the stairs. Oakley saw me and gave me a frustrated look, I shrugged sympathetically.

  Robby jolted up and flailed his arms against the walls like a beam. He froze there for scary moment before stumbling down the stairs. He disappeared into the basement.

  Oakley walked up to sit next to me.

  “He’s been getting like this every weekend.”

  “Weird.” I’d seen enough to know that was some serious drug stuff.

  “What are you doing after the party?”

  “I gotta feed my dog, my parents are out of town.” My house was only two blocks away from this sorry ex
cuse for a party. One of Oakley’s private school friends appeared at the bottom of the staircase. Oakley had a different private school friend with her every weekend. It was incredible how she kept in touch with all her friends, she had so many she still saw.

  “Can we come with you?”

  “For sure.”

  As we strolled, I asked Oakley’s friend to tell me how they first met. It was soccer. It turned out she hated Oakley at first sight. I reflected on how obnoxiously talkative Oakley was in 7th grade, when her great charisma knew no tact. She was an easy target to hate.

  For two blocks my imagination ran wild. But the charade couldn’t go any farther than my front steps. I couldn’t let them in, there were oxygen tanks in the living room, wheel chairs and ambiguous pink bins in the basement. We were stuck. I let my dog out on the steps, we all petted him as we talked for a minute. I kept petting him while I watched them walk off into the night.

  Two weeks later, I was hanging out at Oakley’s, watching her play solitaire on her computer. I was always uneasy at her house. Constantly reminded about the time I ran around her house drunk when I was 14, tearing through her underwear drawer. Other than that I loved it. The fancy big kitchen, the tidiness of everything that just emanated structure. Her younger sister was studiously memorizing a puzzle of flash cards spread out on the living room carpet.

  Can you feel the love tonight played tenderly in the background as I watched her furiously click the screen.

  “I always wondered what the great Oakley Carter did in her spare time,” I said from behind her. The joke was in how dead seriously I said it.

  “I haven’t talked to Robby in a week,” She said abruptly over her shoulder. “We’re dunzo. I haven’t told anyone yet, not even my mom. You can’t tell anyone.”

  “What happened?” I couldn’t wait to hear the dirt on Robby. [13]

  “Have you ever been with someone so long that you just can’t stand everything they do?”

  “Oh definitely.” How many relationships was this for her? 4? I hadn’t even had one, that was how far behind I was.

  [13] The saddest thing about Robby Blue is that soon he will be withered (if he isn’t already), with even darker bags under his eyes—from all the drugs, or the heavy weight of young adult malaise and regret he must carry. Probably the drugs though. And no one will know he was once as close to perfection as it gets. If I burned too bright to fast…Well he was Icarus in a jet, plugging.

  28. Journal Entry (Spring, 2011)

  In Richmond Beach there’s a five bedroom house that’s been deserted for 6 years. I visit it every few month to get nostalgic. It’s like a secret tomb I have a key to. The inside’s cluttered with rows of plastic shelves and hundreds of dusty boxes. Rooms and rooms full. It’s overwhelming enough to always make me pause for a while when I go in.

  I look at the Bowflex covered in a half inch of dust and remember the day my step-dad and mom bought it. My mom gave her Bowflex stump speech for a week, about its convenience and her and Allan’s goals to get in better shape. They never used it once. Just like the treadmill and the foosball table. I take one of the boxes down. (Most aren’t even sorted). Inside is a book, a mini fan, some screwdrivers, and fishing wire. The next one’s an orgy of baseball and magic cards, I pull gobs out and look through them. Sentimental ornaments are my favorite finds–holiday decorations, figurine collections. There’s microscopes, mirrors. Paintings, lights, lamps, Italian fine china, silverware, vcrs, board games. Biking helmets, sleeping bags, tents, ski boots, computers. Above all are packages of photos, not just of us, people I’ve never met, great aunts, keepsake keepsakes. And papers. Financial documents diligently kept all these years, now as valuable as seaweed.

  It’s during one of these soal-searching inventory expeditions that I find a bound notebook filled with worn and fragile letters. They’re all post marked from Mexico, written to my mom from my dad. My dad did community work there in his early twenties. My age. My mom saved them all these years. I make it three sentences before tearing up.

  “Today I was out working with Francisco and Luis in “la milpa” and coming back in the afternoon they showed me a small lake to swim in. I, instantaneously, upon seeing the combination of the dry land and flowing water and the landscape, thought of you and our “easy” hours on the Mabton River, relaxing and talking and swimming and beating the heat. It made me want to go swimming with you so much. Even working in the fields I can’t shake missing you. I was learning about how to grow Frijoles alongside the corn and I think I must have turned to you and said, “Isn’t this something?” a couple of hundred times in my mind…I was sitting outside this evening watching the sunset, saying a few prayers, trying to relax – but I realized several times that looking down, I was wearing the U of W tee-shirt that you wore a few nights, and I began to think of it on you, and saw your smile, and felt you hugging me and.. I went inside and tried to read the most interesting book I could – a social analysis of Mark’s gospel – no luck, by the first couple of pages into it I was thinking of you. So I said, “I’m going to write her for a while.” I like writing to you – I feel like you’re near for a while and I’m talking to you. I love you, mi esposa, Talking to you was so good, hearing about what’s been happening, how you’ve been feeling. We’ve become a part of each other in a very sensing way, in trust. I am sincerely and very serenely yours for as long as you wish.

  You know, my best friend and lover – con toda sinceridad, I’m feeling at peace, (I feel like you’re here) I don’t feel vulnerable, I’m thankful for life, I feel I know where I’m going, god is good. I keep you in my thoughts…

  I love you. You’re beautiful, Ms. Caldirola-Davis; I’ve told you I miss you a lot – 5 weeks, hmmm, I should last one more on my own and then I don’t know – I’ll make it, yessiree. I feel my style cramped when you call and I can’t tell you all I want to tell you of my love for you because Sandra is right there, and being shy, I just can’t feel so free to say right off, “Te amo a ti. It’s so good to hear your voice. I love you tatissimo.” (You understand now that “You know it,” means all of the above). I haven’t told her yet were getting married – she’d give me the same look you’d get from some of the close friends back home – “Cynics.”

  Barbara Caldirola-Davis I am hopelessly hooked on you. I just got here and read your letters – in chronological order (I took a deep breathe to be able to achieve this goal—normally I would have just started ripping and falling on the ground saying “a letter from Barbara, igads, wow, whew, lordy…) After I placed them in chronological order, I then fell on the ground, ripping and praying… Your letters were so joyful – I had a grin on my face the whole time. God knows I miss you. (All the gossip was great – I’m sworn to total secrecy.) I feel so attuned to you – if you were here I’d buy you a chocolate bar (If you’d give me a little bite) and we could go up on the roof of the church and watch the “luceros” or the lights that flicker in the mountains. And we could laugh and laugh, and plan and gossip a bit more, heh, heh. You’re a fountain of life, Caldirola, you know that. I love you so much. I’ve been dwelling on the fact that I caused you some pain by my three week writing lapse in Tlacotepec, “Davis you twerp, where were you at, chump?” I have visions of your anguished face and it makes me “grita” and walk and pace and moan…forgive me. Never will “business” get in the driver’s seat again. You make me feel so good. To have someone care for you, and to care for them with all your heart – I think creation is flowing – I’m so interested in everything happening to you. I go over your letters over and over to pick up everything…and they energize me (I wish men had purses in which I could carry them with me all day) ”

  The letters go on like this, forty of them. These words brought my brother and me into this world. But their marriage wasn’t love letters. That’s not what happened. What happened is they couldn’t see past their best intentions. At first my dad wasn’t successful enough–my mom was a lawyer and could have easily married a
doctor. And then when my dad did get on, he was always too busy.

  And my mom, well she didn’t do anything right. She did the dishes wrong, didn’t wear the right things. Once she didn’t feel like wearing high heels to a formal evening event at the museum–big mistake–my dad knew it was utterly embarrassing to wear anything but high heels that night. He stormed off for the whole day. She liked to ask waiters and front desk people at hotels for special favors, she was a lawyer and believed in being pushy, it was always absolutely earth-shattering for my dad.

  My most vivid memory of their marriage is trying to frantically smush my head together with our dog’s head in such a way that I could plug both our ears at the same time from the fighting. After it was all over I’d always run to my mom’s rescue, to comfort her.

  When we felt like skipping church we’d set up at-home family-services, “Give a sermon Marco,” They’d persist.

  I once stood up in all my 4-year-old brilliance and said, “No fight. God says no fight.” And everyone cried and they promised to get better.

  My mom getting cancer only confounded everything, at first bringing them closer together and then maxing out my dad’s social anxieties with the wigs, wheelchairs and special requests at restaurants.

  During one of their separations I found myself stranded in the middle of our walkway as my mom, standing by our doorway, and my dad, by his car, both kept calling me to come with them after a heated argument over a visitation mix-up. After indecisively going towards one, then the other, I just plumped down exactly in the middle and started sobbing.

  By six they were dunzo, my mom told me at Baskin-Robbins.

  29. Horse Dewormer