Crazy (9 page)

CRAZY GLUE
:
She's heading for the living room. Tackle her before she gets any farther. You don't want her seeing the house like this.

AUNT BEE
:
Don't you dare!

"Look, Jason—no need to put up a front for me," she says over her shoulder. "It's no fun facing this stuff alone." She turns around and smiles, then notices the room. "Wow, you've got a lot of books! What is this, some kind of used bookstore you're running?"

CRAZY GLUE
:
Say yes. Lie, goob, lie! Maybe owning so many books is crazy.

I can't come up with a good lie, so I tell the truth. I walk into the living room and set my hands on one of the many shelves of books. "My dad's a writer and we all love to read, or loved to, or ... uh..."

CRAZY GLUE
:
Told you. You should have lied. Just don't let her upstairs.

Shelby stares at the ceiling. "Wow, the ceilings are really high in this place. What are they, like twelve feet?" She looks at me a second, but before I can answer, she's marching toward the dining room, which is looking kind of empty without the table and chairs and side table, which I sold because we needed the money.

CRAZY GLUE
:
Along with his bike and the canoe and...

"Really, Shelby, you don't have to stay here. I mean, what are you going to do, stay the night?"

LAUGH TRACK
:
(Laughter).

She turns around to look at me. "Well, yeah. You don't want me going back out in the cold again, do you? It's freezing out there—and the roads are really icing up."

CRAZY GLUE
:
(In a singsong voice) You're gonna wet the bed.

LAUGH TRACK
:
Uh-oh!

It's only now that I notice Shelby is wearing a bike helmet.

CRAZY GLUE
:
About time.

"You mean you biked over here?" I run to the living room windows and look out to the street. Her bike is locked to the speed limit sign.

Shelby follows me. "Well, yeah, how else was I going to get here? I live way over on Vinton Street, near the school, and my dad's out of town, as usual, and my mom can't drive—duh, and my sister's away at college, and the nurse has to stay with my mom, so ..." Shelby unfastens her helmet, takes it off, and shakes her hair out. It looks the color of cinnamon in the living room lights. It falls onto her shoulders in a mass of frizzy curls.

SEXY LADY
:
What an obvious move. She's trying to come on to you.

Shelby joins me at the window.

"You could have killed yourself," I say. "It's really slippery out there."

"Tell me about it."

I look at her and she smiles, lighting up her whole face.

I smile back at her, pleased that she's come out in miserable weather just to keep me company. We stand for a few seconds looking at each other. I notice that her eyes and even her freckles are the same color as her hair. She's the color of cinnamon all over.

CRAZY GLUE
:
(Singing) You're gonna wet the bed.

I turn back to the window. "I can't believe you rode all the way over here."

"Right, so don't be sending me out there into the cold. Show me your kitchen; I'm hungry."

Shelby sets her helmet on a stack of books and scuttles toward the back of the house.

"So tell me what happened? You just came home and your father was gone?" she asks, still aiming for the kitchen while I struggle to get ahead of her and block the entrance. I know there's nothing to eat. I don't want Shelby going through our cupboards and finding that out.

I manage to squeeze past her just as she reaches the kitchen. She looks at me standing in front of her. "What are you doing?" She pushes her finger against my forehead again, and I remember the eyeliner. I know I look crazy.

CRAZY GLUE
:
But you're not, right?

"Jason, you almost knocked me down." Shelby pushes me aside and enters the kitchen.

I follow her. "Just—just would you wait a second? I haven't done any shopping lately, so all we have is—"

"Hey, I'm a whiz at making something tasty out of this and that. Just watch me." She goes toward the refrigerator, so I give up and just let the embarrassment happen.

"Nice kitch, by the way. I really like red walls."

AUNT BEE
:
We have such a nice memory of you and your dad painting it while your mom was in her coma. We all hoped to surprise her when she got better and she came home, but...

CRAZY GLUE
:
Aunt Bee, stow it already.

AUNT BEE
:
I was just going to say, at least someone's appreciating it.

The kitchen does look fresh, with its red walls and white cabinets and trim. We have a pine table in the center of the room with four chairs that my mom painted in different colors: red, yellow, aqua, and green. The room looks festive and warm.

Shelby opens the refrigerator to find...

CRAZY GLUE
:
Exactly nothing.

"I was going to get some milk and bread and eggs—really," I say.

She nods and closes the refrigerator, then removes her backpack. She digs into her pack and pulls out her cell phone. I see her texting somebody.

"Who are you talking to? What are you saying there?" I peer over her shoulder.

FBG WITH A MUSTACHE
:
She's broadcasting your empty refrigerator to the whole school.

CRAZY GLUE
:
Busy fingers are already at work all over town text messaging: The Pope-a-Dope has no food!

"I'm asking Haze to bring some goodies when he comes over later tonight," she says.

"He's coming, too?"

LAUGH TRACK
:
Gulp!

"Yeah, the more the merrier in cases like this, right?" She gives me a puzzled expression, as if to say, what's got you all bent out of shape?

CRAZY GLUE
:
Nightmares, urine-soaked sheets, crazy dad—for starters.

"In cases like what?" I ask.

CRAZY GLUE
:
Careful—your paranoia is showing.

"You know, in cases where we're going through a tough time," Shelby says. "We're here for you, Jason. That's what 'support group' means, right?" She picks up the burned-out pot in the sink.

I lunge for the pot and grab it out of her hands. "I burned my soup," I say loudly, feeling like a little kid the way I grabbed it away from her.

CRAZY GLUE
:
Your face is burning.

"Sorry!" she says. She moves over to the cabinets and opens the only one with food in it. A bag of dry lentils sits beside a box of Lipton tea bags and a carton of oatmeal.

"Tea!" she says. "That's just what I need. Let's have some tea, okay?"

CRAZY GLUE
:
Do we have a choice?

She's already got the box down and is squatting, searching the lower cabinets for a teakettle.

CRAZY GLUE
:
The teakettle is so yesterday. Your dad burned that baby four burned-out pots ago.

"We just use a pot. Here." I lean over and grab one out of the drying rack on the counter. "Use this," I say.

"Great, okay." Shelby stands and takes the pot. She runs cold water into it and sets it on the stove.

I watch her while she putters. She's buried in layers of fleece, which hide her curves and make her look like a fuzzy black and red snowball. I notice her running shoes—Nike, no socks.

AUNT BEE
:
Remember when you had a nice pair of running shoes?

"So don't you ever wear socks? Is that how you got your nickname?"

She turns around. "Yeah, haven't you noticed? My feet sweat like crazy. I don't know what's wrong with them. I remember when I was twelve, they really started to get bad. That's when my mother was first diagnosed with ALS, and I thought maybe the sweaty feet were some kind of sign I was getting ALS, too."

CRAZY GLUE
:
Careful. Your bird heart is getting jumpy.

AUNT BEE
:
Oh dear.

What? What did she just say?

FBG WITH A MUSTACHE
:
I know, but it's better that you don't...

Shelby pulls the aqua chair,
my
chair, out from the table and sits down. I choose the green one across from her. "What is ALS, anyway?" I ask. I notice I'm sweating even though the room is cold. I feel the eyeliner starting to run.

"Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis," she says. She hands me a napkin from the Popsicle-stick napkin holder I made in third grade. "Here, wipe that off, why don't you."

I grab the napkin and go to the sink and wash it all off with dishwashing detergent. While I scrub, Shelby talks.

"ALS is like a wasting-away disease. People usually call it Lou Gehrig's disease because he was one of the first famous people to get it."

"Sounds scary," I say.

"My mom says it's like getting buried alive. So yeah, it's scary."

LAUGH TRACK
:
Uh-oh! (Nervous laughter).

I freeze.

AUNT BEE
:
Buried alive. Oh dear, bad choice of words. We know what that's like.

FBG WITH A MUSTACHE
:
Oh, come on. Pull yourself together! Enough self-pity already. Buck up, son.

I dry my face on a dishtowel and take my time with it. Then I take a deep breath and rejoin Shelby at the table. We both just sit there a minute, thinking, and then Shelby looks straight into my eyes. "I would never do it," she says, her voice a whisper.

I know she's talking about this afternoon when she confessed that her mother had wanted Shelby to leave her to die.

I reach for her hand across the table. "Yeah, I know," I say. I realize what I've just done and pull my hand away.

Shelby blinks back her tears. "I'd never do it on purpose. This sounds awful, especially with your father missing and all, but sometimes I just wish I'd come home and the nurse would tell me my mother had passed away while I was at school." She leans back, letting both hands drop into her lap. "Then other times I think I don't know what I'll do if she passes and I'm not there holding her hand. I hate going to school knowing that any minute she could die and I wouldn't be there." She twists up her mouth as if trying to keep from crying.

"Exactly," I say. "I know exactly how you feel." The water is boiling and I stand up to make the tea for us, glad to have my back to her, what with what I'm about to confess.

CRAZY GLUE
:
You're so going to regret this.

AUNT BEE
: Go ahead.
Take a chance.

SEXY LADY
:
Ah, young love. We'll confide anything in the heat of passion.

FBG WITH A MUSTACHE
:
This isn't passion; it's fear. He's trying to shed some fear.

Would you all let me speak already?

"My dad—he's—he's kind of a little crazy right now, and I think—I mean, I'm sure he'll get better again, but right now, it's like half the time I can't wait
for school to end so I can run home and make sure he's all right, that everything's all right. But then—but then, I dread it, too. I don't want to go home. If it weren't for school and the break I get from dealing with my dad, I think
I'd
go crazy. Ha, ha, ha."

CRAZY GLUE
:
You're so lame.

"Yeah, that's it," Shelby says. "I know exactly what you're talking about."

I bring the two mugs of tea over and set them on the table. I feel relieved that she's taken what I told her so casually.

CRAZY GLUE
:
Pretty cool.

"Thanks," Shelby says, drawing her mug closer. She dunks her tea bag in and out of the hot water, then leans forward and takes a deep breath. "Ah, tea," she says, smiling and closing her eyes.

She looks as though I've just handed her the most wonderful meal in the world, the way she smiles. She looks like an angel, an angel with freckles. I smile back, and I realize I'm glad she's here.

S
HELBY AND I
are in the middle of an argument. It started in my dad's study. I took her there to show her the books my dad wrote.

Shelby looks at the Cretan scenery on the covers, both photos my mom took, and asks, "Have you ever been to Greece? It looks beautiful."

"Yeah. Yeah, I used to want to live there when I grew up. It's cool the way the mountains rise straight up out of the sea. My dad told me about this runner during World War Two who ran up and down and all over those mountains delivering messages between the Greeks hiding out in caves and stuff. He's a real live hero there. I—I'd like to do that someday. Live and run in the mountains, I mean, and take pictures, too, like my mom used to. She—she was a photographer. Now I have her camera and stuff."

Shelby looks around. "There aren't any pictures on your walls anywhere. That's the first thing I noticed when I came in the house."

"Oh yeah, well, my dad's kind of funny about stuff on the walls."

CRAZY GLUE
:
Funny? Don't you mean crazy? He thinks the pictures are talking to him.

Shelby sets my dad's books down, then looks into my eyes and says in that too-honest way of hers, "You know you're going to have to put your father in a mental hospital, don't you? I mean, yanking his tooth out like that, almost electrocuting himself, no food in this
freezing
house—he needs help. You both need help."

CRAZY GLUE
:
I warned you, you were talking too much.

LAUGH TRACK
:
We all warned you.

FBG WITH A MUSTACHE
:
But you ignored us. Told us to shut up.

SEXY LADY
:
You fell for her feminine wiles and the intimacy of the moment and made a full confession.

AUNT BEE
:
Oh dear.

CRAZY GLUE
:
Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!

"Jason, are you listening to me? He needs to be in a hosp—"

"No way! I can't do that to my dad. You don't know. You don't understand. Anyway, we have no money. He'd have to go to a state institution. Do you know what they're like?"