by Lila Felix
“Why don’t you leave home? I mean, if your life is so horrible, why not leave?”
“Because it’s not horrible to me anymore. It just is. And she needs me and as sick as it sounds, she’s the only person that needs me. Look, I gotta get home and try to get some sleep before school. Lay off the pseudo-suicidal playlist, yeah?”
A dial tone interrupted my answer. She’d hung up again. I’d gone too far with my question. I could tell by her irritated tone that I’d missed my mark by a long shot. My tenacity had dragged me by the collar into trouble again. There were so many things I’d wanted to say to her. And every time she hung up I felt like it was the last time I’d ever talk to her even though I’d only had two conversations with the shadow that was Jocelyn. As the sun rose, I almost wondered if she ever existed at all.
I went home exhausted and didn’t even bother taking off my clothes before I collapsed into bed. I woke up later in the afternoon and made myself three peanut butter and blackberry jelly sandwiches, downed a glass of cold milk and went back to sleep again. I hated this zombie life.
I slept on the hammock in Ali’s backyard the night before. By the time I reached her house it was well after two a.m. and even though they probably would’ve welcomed me in, I didn’t feel right disturbing them. They were probably tucked into soft sheeted beds with cold air conditioning blowing their hair while they snored to the tune of a stress free life. And here I was, like their stray who showed up for meals and shelter, making my bed in their backyard hammock. I tried to take joy in the stars above me as I swung back and forth on the netted slumber nest. I really tried. But joy had pain as a dance partner and I was fresh out of music. Anyway, that bitch didn’t deserve my first dance or my last.
She had too much of my life as it was.
The birth of the day pulled me from sleep and I tried to sneak out of the backyard right after I disentangled myself from the hold of the hammock. Somehow my toes had played footsie with the strings during the night and they won.
“Havok Daniels, you did not sleep in my back yard.”
I’d been caught. And not by Ali, no, I could get away with that. This was her mom.
Shit!
“I didn’t want to disturb you.” A little diplomacy never hurt anyone—polite but vague.
“When have I ever given you the idea that sleeping at our house disturbs me? Let me tell you what I find disturbing—teenagers sleeping in my backyard when there’s a perfectly good house and plenty of beds and couches not ten feet away. If I didn’t love you so much, I’d knock you into next month. I bet you haven’t eaten either. Get inside, shower and then I better see you at the table for a real breakfast.”
She walked back inside mumbling something about the atrocities of sleeping outside. There was nothing you could do with Mrs. Blakely but obey. There was something about her tone that made her troops, including those not directly in her platoon stand to attention—clean the barracks—scrub the latrine. She was beyond disobedience.
And then she would flash you a smile that belonged to a saint.
I hefted my bag higher on my shoulder and stalked towards the house, my feet carrying the humiliation of being caught. I showered in the downstairs bathroom, trying to shield myself from Ali’s Jeopardy game. She would know something was up immediately and she would be relentless in her pursuit for the scoop.
I scrubbed myself down, wishing there was a harsher brush to scrub the night from my skin. I relished in the smell of their shampoo. It was ordinary and clean. And it wasn’t the kind that went on sale for eighty eight cents either. It was the kind of ordinary and pure that I wanted to be. But no matter how much I scrubbed, I wouldn’t ever be the kind of clean that anybody would want.
I thought of the phone call the night before, harping on every word out of Fade’s mouth. He’d played psychologist, which I predicted, but I don’t think he saw me or my blatancy coming. He knew after that call. He knew for sure who he was dealing with now.
I joined the family for breakfast, going mostly unnoticed by everyone except Ali and her mom. Mrs. Blakely continued to shake her head every once in a while and once she shook it and then pointed her fork in my direction. Ali just mouthed ‘we’ll talk later’ and went about eating her breakfast casserole square whout further preoccupation.
“Hey, don’t eat mine.” Ali’s brother J.J. didn’t live with them anymore, but was present for most meals. He’d graduated the year before we started high school.
Ali and I left shortly after and as I expected, she demanded an explanation. I explained everything on our way to school but explicitly left out the Fade part and the Cal part. If she knew, she’d be on it like a fat kid on a Twinkie. And it was mine—both of them belonged to me and no one else.
As much as I hated Mondays, Wednesdays really sucked the big one at school. Wednesdays were the days I was expected to be dissected. Most kids get to dissect frogs but I got to sit in the guidance counselor’s office and get my skin pinned down around me like Jeepers Creepers and let her look at my insides for our prescribed hour. All because I’d written a poem in Creative Writing last year about darkness. They translated that to mean suicide. God forbid they just look at it simply. Night is dark, but do we have them performing psychiatric surgery on it, no.
And I didn’t do the obstinate thing by sitting there silently while she pried my organs from me. I let her dig, answered her questions, attempted tears when I thought the occasion called for it. But the poor thing, she was maybe twenty four, her body and her mind. She was innocence and virginesque. It was funny how aware I was of all things sinful yet had never actually done the deed. How could I? To me, it was dirty. Mrs. Alder was the carnal opposite of me and the way she gasped every time I’d throw an atrocious detail her way—I had to hold in my laugh at her reaction—she was too pure to be in this line of work with broken vessels like me.
She could never be a pink lady—‘she was too pure to be pink.’ Gotta love some Rizzo. Ok, ok, pay attention—she might sneak a halfway decent question your way.
“So, anything new Havok?”
I threw my bag on the floor in her almost Victorian office. The walls were a stark contrast to the rest of the school. They were gaudy pink, the kind of pink that from a certain light looked brown. And there was a table in the corner with a lace doily on top and a lamp in the shape of a lady in waiting holding an umbrella. She tried to homey up the place, but all it made me was hungry—that Victorian shit made me think of scones.
“Not really, my mom bought me a meal?” I formed the statement like a question, hoping it would keep her interest for a few minutes.
“Well, that’s a step in the right direction,” she didn’t sound impressed-Damn it.
“Um, and she asked me nicely to leave the apartment last night. She didn’t bark at all.” I snorted at my own joke but by the disdain on her face, I’d missed her comedic preference. She checked off boxes and made comments on her notepad and I wondered if her opinion of me would stifle my graduation.
Whack job, check. Co-dependent narcissist, check. Talks to herself, check. Note: Nut job should not be allowed out of high school.
We talked about college plans and other non-emotional subjects for the rest of the hour and I resumed my day. I felt bad bringing the evil to her fragile existence—but she asked me to—I had to oblige. I went home to an empty house, followed through on my maid routine and got to work on my homework since Ms. Alder ruined AP Physics. And the only way one could ruin AP Physics was by not letting me spend the whole hour doing homework while the teacher, from Latvia, snored while leaned back in his chair.
Even when he was teaching he said half of the stuff in another language.
Which wasn’t confusing at all.
Later at home, my mom stumbled in, looking like she was Spandex worn by a fat man, stretched out too thin and a wisp of sheen to her skin. She went to bed and slammed the door behind her. I took the trash out from the kitchen and as I chunked the white bag into the downstairs dumpster, I r
emembered Ms. Swan’s trash. I’d forgotten to take it out.
I made the walk to the bakery in no time and after she waved off my apologies took out her trash and she fed me dinner since I’d missed stopping at her shop for breakfast. The woman was a wonder—she fed me like a queen. I sat before my bowl of gumbo and fresh made cornbread and thanked someone above for the kindness of strangers—for the kindness of people who chose others as family even though there was no shared blood between them. She forced a plate of bananas foster cake on me with a glass of milk. It made me feel like one of those men who unzipped their pants and patted their bellies after Thanksgiving dinner on TV. I wasn’t even sure if I could walk out of there. But as I checked my watch, it was almost time to wake up ‘mommy dearest’.
I got home just in time to start the coffee and make the final countdown. At seven o’clock I woke her up but this time she actually had a long t-shirt on. No naked toga for Mama tonight. I handed the coffee to her and pulled some spaghetti strapped dress from the closet and placed it on the bed.
I looked back after getting her shower going and she was back asleep, which never happened.
“Mom, you’re gonna be late, get up,” I half yelled at her while poking her calf with the plastic clothes hanger still attached to her dress.
“Stop poking me!” She screamed and then dragged herself out of bed, pulling the sheets halfway off as she did. I bet it was the first time she’d ever said that sentence out loud.
I went through my vomiticious routine of cleaning her bed. I couldn’t believe how almost addicted I was to doing this day after day. I loathed it and cherished it at the same time. It scared me how much I loved that feeling of being needed. She needed me there to make her home life safe and clean. She needed me to wake her up and be there. And wasn’t that just healthy? But at this point, stepping outside and facing a normal world would be scary for me while the life that I led would be nightmarish for the regular person. But this was life to me—a shell of an existence, free of emotional attachments and the heartbreak, I could only imagine it brought. I bet it wrought havoc and brought down the hardest of hearts—like mine.
My mom left sometime later with no further word and I went to work. After we delivered all the papers, Mr. Randy dropped me off in the same place and as I put on my headphones, I heard some Fade’s last callers for the night. They were talking about me. How they agreed with me and some of them had lives that were not much better than mine.
Then Fade said goodbye for the night and I listened to his morose choice of music before something in me decided to intervene. Clearly something was going on with him. He’d been so sincere the other night on the radio. On a wistful whim, I plowed down the stairs and over to the nearest payphone. I called the number to the station predicting that no one would even answer at such an hour. But he answered after only two rings, Fade himself answered.
His voice wrapped around me and for a few seconds of my life I could feel warmth.
It was just a normal conversation until he asked that faithful ever repeating question: Why didn’t I leave? It was the same question I asked myself every night, every day. And I didn’t know why. I should’ve just talked to him. It wasn’t like I was ever gonna be anything more to him than a challenged caller looking to solve their life problems over the air in sixty seconds or less. I would make sure to call him again—after hours, apologize.
And I was sick of being numb. It had gotten so bad that I could barely feel the temperature of the water when I got in the shower anymore. I was a disfunctioning robot—no one made parts old enough, rusty enough or squeaky enough for the likes of me. And I only had one distinct function—I was basically discontinued goods.
I didn’t have work but my mom had another busy night so I went to spend the night with Ali. The rest of the week was more of the same except I saw less and less of my mother. I didn’t call Fade again until Thursday night. I called right as his show ended before he had the chance to play any more wrist-cutter music.
“Hello, The Edge,” answered some radio station person.
“Hi, I’m sorry, I was calling to talk to Fade.”
He chuckled like I was just another fan girl—I was just another fan girl to them probably. Hell, I felt like a fan girl.
“I’m sorry, that part of the show is over for the ni…” He paused and I could hear the muffle over the mouth piece, like he’d been interrupted.
“What’s your name ma’am?”
“Jocelyn.” I heard the hand covering again.
“Hold on, Jocelyn, he’s asking that we connect you.”
There was a brief hold, with music playing of course and Fade introducing the next song and then he answered, “Hey Jocelyn, I’m sorry you had to hold.”
“It’s fine. I won’t keep you long. I just wanted to apologize for hanging up the other night. It was rude. I know you probably could give a shit.”
“No, I do. I’ve been worried about you all week. Don’t hang up before getting my direct line to the station and my cell. The producers have to be careful of who’s calling in.”
So we talked for nearly two hours. He didn’t judge me or come down on me like I thought he would—like I thought was inevitable. He asked questions and I answered them openly, honestly, like I never could with Mrs. Alder. After I was tired of standing at the payphone and he needed to cue up some more songs, but he gave me all of his phone numbers, including his home number and told me to call anytime. And I wanted to—if for nothing else but to hear his voice and be heard, not as the pitied best friend, or the next file folder in line, not because of realized or not realized motherly duty—because he wanted to listen to someone like me.
I snuck back in the apartment, showered and changed clothes while Mom was still out cold. I had decided somewhere in the night that I wanted to get a piercing. I wondered if Cal would come with me or if he’d had something else in mind. I went to the bakery a little early to get the trash taken out before he got there, garbage girl wasn’t very attractive.
Not that I was trying to be attractive—I totally wasn’t. I even wore my baggiest jeans and a short sleeved hoodie for that non-pretty effect to solidify. Then I pulled some bullshit teenager move. I recognized it for its true self immediately, but no less scooted down the alley and waited until two minutes before noon before I turned the corner and walked back towards the front of the bakery, like I was so casual about the whole thing. Lies, it was all lies. I couldn’t be less calm and collected if I tried.
I’d waited for this day for a week, but it seemed like I’d waited for him forever.
Cal was already there, leaned against the streetlamp, looking forty three degrees of beautiful. He had some of those brand new headphones on, the ones that wouldn’t let the furious roar of a jetliner pass through. A sense of cool seeped from his stance, back cradling the post, face looking towards the sun, thumbs tucked in his pockets while the rest of his fingers danced for him. I expected a phrase like ‘that’s cool’ or ‘whatever’ to billow through his lips. And that scruff, damn, I wanted to touch his wanna-be beard so badly.
He didn’t hear me as I called his name and so when I got next to him, I tapped him on the shoulder and then quickly backed up, sure that I’d scared him.
“Hey,” he said, pulling off those coveted headphones.
“Hi,” I answered and before I could stop the onslaught, he had me in an embrace, right there on the street in front of God and everybody. I was so taken by surprise that it took me a few minutes to hug back—plus, I sucked at hugging.
He smelled so damn good. It wasn’t anything in particular and I couldn’t put my finger as to its source—it was just clean and new. It was Cal.
“What do you want to do today? Are you hungry?”
“Um, yeah. I’m always hungry.” Wasn’t really a lie.
“Ok, let’s go to Jesse’s Place. Have you been there?”
I shrugged, “I haven’t even heard of it, so no.”
“Good. I get to show
you something new.”
I squirmed, “Let’s go.”
I didn’t know if he had a car or not, it wasn’t really necessary in this part of town where everything was a few city blocks away. As we walked, I realized I was really bad at small talk, and with Ali, most of the talking came out of her mouth, so it was easy. But I knew that I had to make the most of the time I had with him.
“Those headphones are great. I’ve been wanting some for a while.” It sounded great in my head, out of my mouth—no so much.
“Yeah, I got them from my sister for my birthday last month. I have a thing for music.”
“No kidding. I do too.”
He slowed down and asked me some question, but the only thing I could seem to see was his smile.
“Havok?”
I jerked my eyes away from his lips and made them focus on his eyes, which wasn’t really that hard of a task after all.
“Yeah, I’m sorry, what?”
He laughed and I knew he’d caught me looking at his mouth, “I asked you what your favorite band was.”
“Oh, band, well, I don’t really have a favorite. Honestly, I haven’t ever heard anything that I hated. I always find something to like in a song.”
“I’m the same way, well, except for Willie Nelson, I just can’t handle him, I don’t know why.”
I shoved him, faking disgust, “You’re a Willie Nelson hater! We can’t hang out anymore.”
“Ok, ok, I love him and his music. I’m gonna grow out my hair so I can have braids just like him, happy now? Can I still be Havok’s friend? Am I worthy?”
Was he worthy? He was one ass-backwards guy if he thought he was the unworthy one in this equation. I needed to lighten up and quick.
“I guess. But if you say one word against Merle Haggard, you’re dust.”
“No problem, my mom used to listen to him all the time when I was a kid. So, I was thinking about you this week and I was wondering if you had e-mail. I know you said you don’t have a phone but maybe we can at least talk that way. I’m always checking the email on my phone.”