Crazy (25 page)

CRAZY GLUE
:
Looks like you've sprouted an exact copy of your dad's nose.

I'm not ready to think about my dad just yet...

AUNT BEE
:
Forgive yourself.

I say out of the blue, "Did you know I got stabbed by this kid in the foster home I'm staying at?" Why do I keep bringing this up?

"What?" Shelby leans forward and bugs her eyes out. "Are you kidding?"

"No, I'm not kidding. I got stabbed. Right here." I lift my shirt and Shelby leans over farther to take a look at my bandaged wound.

CRAZY GLUE
:
You didn't show everyone else your bandage, hot stuff.

"Gross." She straightens up and looks at me in the mirror across the room. "That's all you needed, huh?" She combs out the tangles in my hair.

"Yeah, and the guy who stabbed me? It was weird cause he was in my room—I mean, we shared a room—and he had all this stuff, model airplanes and his computer and stuff. Then after he stabbed me, I went to the hospital and when I got back, he and his stuff had completely disappeared. It—it was kind of, I don't know, surreal the way he was just gone like that. It was like he never even existed in the first place." I pause and stare down at my hands, noticing that I not only have my dad's nose but his hands, too—palms like spatulas with long fingers, very straight. I think about my dad—gone.

I look up at Shelby, who's stopped combing my hair and is just standing, listening, her head tilted to one side.

"I keep wondering what happened to him," I say.
"I even dream about him. He's one of us, in a way. I mean, he's had bad shit happen to him, too, you know? So I wonder where..."

Shelby shakes her head and laughs. "That's easy. He's in juvie, where else?"

"Juvie?"

"Sure, that's where they put kids who stab people."

"Oh yeah," I say, feeling stupid. I imagine Reed in one of those orange jumpsuits they make prisoners wear, looking something like a pumpkin with legs. I imagine him sitting in the juvie cafeteria plowing through a bag of Oreos. Just like my dad, he's locked away, separated from society—invisible to the world. He has no parents to remember him or to worry about him, and my dad, all he has is me. I'm the only one to remember him and to care, and to carry on his genes.

FBG WITH A MUSTACHE
:
Ah, but what genes did you inherit? There are the visible and invisible.

"Jason, will you sit still? What's wrong with you? You want me to cut your ear off?" Shelby puts her hands on either side of my head to hold it still. "Now come on—let me cut your hair."

A few seconds later the door opens and in walks a girl who looks a lot like Shelby, only taller and thinner and more sophisticated-looking with her sleek, pulled-back hair and dark suit of clothes.

"Mind if I join you?" the girl asks. "I need a break."
She sits on Shelby's bed, then flops back onto her pillow with a grunt.

"That's my sister," Shelby says, "in case that isn't obvious. Nora, this is Jason. Jason, Nora."

I raise my hand and say, "Hi," but Shelby's got my bangs combed in front of my face so I can't see her anymore.

"Yeah, hi," Nora says. Shelby hands me a pillowcase. "Here, put that around your shoulders like a towel so you won't get hair down your back."

"Why don't you just get him a towel, Shelb?" Nora says. "Why use something
like
a towel when you can just use a towel?"

I've never had a brother or sister, but the way Nora says this seems to me that she's laying down some kind of challenge for Shelby, or maybe setting a trap, but Shelby doesn't fall into it. She just says in her matter-of-fact way, "The pillowcase is handy." Then she squirts something on my hair, and I jump in my seat and I pull my hair back. I look at Shelby. "What was that? I don't want hair spray on my hair. I'm not some Ken doll you're playing dress-up with, okay?"

Shelby and Nora laugh, and Shelby shoves my head with the tips of her fingers. "It's just water, silly. I need to wet your hair before I can cut it. It's too wavy." She shows me the plain plastic bottle and squirts me right in the eyes.

"Hey! Cut it out!"

"That's just what I'm trying to do." Shelby laughs again and combs my hair back in front of my face.

We're all silent for a couple of minutes, and then Nora says, "Shelby, how can you sleep in this room with all these creatures staring at you? Aren't you a little old for a zoo in your room?"

"It's a jungle, and I hope I never get too old for it."

"I guess you're still planning on being like that Jane Goodall and going to live among the monkeys."

"Gorillas," Shelby says. "I want to study gorillas, if that's all right with you. And anyway, Jane Goodall studied chimpanzees."

"Whatever, it's your funeral."

Shelby stops cutting. "Great choice of words, there, Nor."

"Okay, so, while we're on the subject, tell me about it. What happened? Were you with Mom when she died?"

I stiffen, bracing myself for another outburst of tears from Shelby or a story I don't want to hear—not today. I'm glad my face is hidden beneath all my hair.

"No," Shelby says. She cuts my hair, moving across the front of my face right at the bridge of my nose, and I shiver as the cold steel edge of the scissors touches my skin.

"No, I was asleep. We were both asleep—Dad
and I. When I went in to check on her, I just—I just found her."

"Well, she's at peace, at any rate," Shelby's sister says. "She's finally at peace."

"Yeah," Shelby agrees, even though I notice a certain tension in her voice. "She's at peace, all right."

We go silent again after this, and then I hear Nora moving on the bed. She gets up and walks over to the door. I notice her red painted toenails as she brushes past me, because, like Shelby, she's barefoot. Her feet look sexy somehow with the polish on them. I glance down at Shelby's feet and wonder what hers would look like with polish.

CRAZY GLUE
:
She's not the type.

"Well, I'm going to go take a nap in my room. I'm exhausted. Call me if you need me," Nora says at the door.

"Right, sure," Shelby says, again with that tension in her voice.

Nora leaves, and Shelby follows behind her and elbows the door shut.

I peer between my much-shorter bangs and ask, "What was that all about?"

"Call me if I need her," Shelby says. "Right! When did that ever work? Her college is just two hours away, and yet ever since she left, she just couldn't be bothered to come home and check on Mom, even in the summer."

Shelby pulls my hair in a ponytail and yanks and cuts and yanks some more. It feels like she's fighting a war with my hair and my hair is winning.

"You wanna watch it with those scissors?" I lean away from her.

"Sorry. It's just she gets me so mad." She pulls me back and snips and yanks one last time, then holds my ponytail up to me. "For Locks of Love." She sets the hair on her desk, then starts back on my hair again.

"So you were asleep when your mother died, then," I say, kind of changing the subject but not really. The edge in her voice when Shelby told her sister this makes me wonder. I remember the time we had the conversation in Dr. Gomez's office when she said her mother wanted Shelby to let her die and not try to resuscitate her. Is that what happened? Did Shelby sit there and watch her mother die? Could she have saved her?

CRAZY GLUE
:
Could you have saved her?

AUNT BEE
:
Forgive yourself.

What? We're talking about Shelby's mother, not mine.

FBG WITH A MUSTACHE
:
Are we?

I notice Shelby isn't cutting my hair anymore, and I look across the room at the mirror and see her face. Beneath all her freckles she's blushing, and her mouth is turned down. It looks like she might burst out crying
again. I want to kick myself for bringing up her mother's death. I'm doing just what Gomez did to me. I think to apologize, but Shelby says, "No, I was awake. I was with her when she died, but I didn't want to tell Nora that." She sniffs and starts cutting again, tiny snips this time. "What happened between my mother and me is special. It will always be special—our own private time no one can ever take away from us."

"So it was peaceful, then?" I ask.

"In the end, yeah." She keeps snipping away at the back of my neck, taking my hair shorter and shorter.

"But what about your father?" I ask. "Where was he? Doesn't he sleep with your mother?"

CRAZY GLUE
:
What's with all the questions, Gomez?

I can't help it.

Shelby laughs a bitter sort of laugh, abrupt and sharp. "My father wasn't even home last night. I don't know where he goes and I don't care anymore. He's just like my sister. He hides his head in the sand and waits till everything's over, and now he pokes his head up and plays the part of the long-suffering husband with all our relatives gathered around him." Shelby cuts around my left ear, and I lean away from her and her scissors when the steel grazes my ear.

"Hold still!" Shelby says. "You want me to cut your ear off?"

"That's exactly what I'm afraid of."

Shelby swats my shoulder and I straighten up, and she continues cutting and talking as though I hadn't interrupted her.

"Both my father and my sister were so scared of my mom's illness, they couldn't even stand to be around her, like maybe it was catching."

"Yeah, I know what that's like." I nod.

"Hold still," Shelby says, clamping her hand down on my head to steady it. Then she shifts to my right and cuts on that side of my head.

"I was the one who took care of her, so it's right that I was the one to be with her in the end," Shelby says. "Really, I can't stand cowards. They're cowards—my sister and Dad. They think that by hiding they can keep it all from hurting them, but they can't. At least I had those last moments with my mom. I've got nothing haunting me, but those two, if they've got any conscience at all, they'll have their own guilt for company for the rest of their lives." Shelby smiles. And that's okay by me. They deserve it."

Her words sting me. Am I a coward?

CRAZY GLUE
:
Is the pope Catholic?

What am I hiding from?

FBG WITH A MUSTACHE
:
You tell us.

Shelby sounds so angry and bitter. I turn my head and look straight at Shelby. She stops cutting and holds her scissors and her comb above my head, waiting.

"Maybe they were just doing the best they knew how," I say. "I mean, everyone's not like you."

"Yeah, maybe, but what if I weren't here for my mom? Or what if I had been just like Nora and Dad? Who would have taken care of her then?"

I shrug and turn back around. "But you were here, Shelby, and your father and sister knew that. They knew they could count on you. Maybe if you weren't here to help out they would have done more; you never know."

"I doubt it, she says, yanking on my hair again.

"Do you really want them to feel guilty the rest of their lives?" I ask, reaching out for her hand to stop her from pulling my hair out.

"Oh, sorry." She snips some more around my ear. "Maybe—yeah. At least—at least I want them to feel
something.
It's as if they don't even care."

"Yeah, but maybe that's their way of grieving—to hide, and to hide their feelings, too," I say, these thoughts just occurring to me as I speak. "And anyway, maybe you won't have the guilt over your mother like them, but you sure seem angry. So maybe you're just going to be this bitter person the rest of your life because you can't forgive them for not being like you." I twist around and look at Shelby. "Maybe you need to forgive them—you know, for your own sake."

Shelby and I look at each other and I hold my
breath, waiting for her to speak. I want her to forgive her father and sister, because somehow I feel that by doing so she will be forgiving me, too. Dr. Gomez told me I needed to forgive myself. I don't know how she knew this, but she's right. I blame myself for my dad. I even blame myself for my mom's stroke. I was up there on that mountain. I saw her go down. I should have done more. I should have run and gotten help instead of staying with her, but I couldn't move. I couldn't leave her. It's just that I feel everything bad that's happened in my family is my fault, and I don't know how I'm supposed to forgive myself. So it's like I need to see that something horrible, like the way Shelby's sister and father treated her mother, could be forgiven, and then maybe I can step back and look at my own situation and find a way to forgive myself.

I hold my breath and wait for Shelby's verdict, my heart in my throat.

Shelby shakes her head. "I hadn't thought about that," she says, blinking several times. "You're right. They're not me. I know they loved my mom." She pauses and tears roll down her face. "My mom knew it, too. I just wish they could have been here, you know? Mom needed them and"—more tears—"I needed them, too. It was so hard." She sniffs and wipes her nose with her wrist. "I needed them, too."

I
FEEL LIGHTER
all over by the time I leave Shelby's house, with my hair cut short and my mind more at ease. I sit in the back seat of Shelby's sister's car on my way to the Lynches' home, while Shelby and her sister sit up front and argue about the fastest way to get across town. I stay out of it. I think about my day, first at school and how great Haze and Pete were to me. They didn't laugh or look at me as if I were some monster when I went berserk. It surprised me that Haze shaved off his beard and took off his makeup out of respect for my parents. I guess I feel really good about that.

I think about my explosion in Dr. Gomez's office and my tears with Shelby and how I've been afraid to lose control like that because I thought I would end up spilling all my secrets, which I kind of did, or that I might go crazy, like Dad, which I kind of did, too. But I'm thinking that talking to Gomez about how I hated my mom for dying and how I've been invisible for so long and that telling her about the swirlie have freed me, the same way standing up to Reed did. I don't
know, but maybe I can lose control a little and still be sane. Maybe there's still hope for me.