Lizard People (11 page)

Maybe.

Take-Down

Driving
home, the sadness left me but the rage stayed. I thought about going fishing for an hour or so to settle down, but I was too restless.

My wrestling coach always said, “Never get mad in a match. All the blood goes to your arms and legs.” It leaves your brain, in other words, and you get stupid and make a mistake, and then you're upside down on your shoulders and the ref is counting you out.

It took running a stop sign to wake me up, and then some deep breathing to calm me down. It would have worked, too, if the Monte Carlo hadn't been parked in front of my house.

Vinnie was there on the couch with Mom when I walked in our front door. He stood and stepped out from the coffee table, and I hit him with a running tackle, butting him in the solar plexus, and we slid together across the wood floor into the bottom of the recliner Dad used to sit in. While he was gasping for breath, I hit him in the ear. I knew that hurt. I'd had it happen to me. I found the knife he carried in a Kevlar sheath on his belt, and put it in my pocket and stood up. He was curled up. I stomped on his foot. I don't think I broke it, but his groaning got louder. He would have yelled if he'd had any breath. I grabbed him by the collar and dragged him across the wood floor toward the front door. Did he have a gun in his car? Could I find it if he did?

The doorbell rang. Geez, what was Betty Lou going to think?

But it wasn't Betty Lou. It was Man-mountain Dullborne.

He looked down at Vinnie, then back at me. “Looks like you've apprehended a parole violator,” he said, pulling the handcuffs off his belt.

Now I could hear Mom screaming. I'd forgotten all about Mom. Sounded like she'd gone back to her bedroom.

I heard Dullborne yell, “I'll put him in the car and be back!” I shouldered open Mom's door, realizing at the last millisecond that she might be behind it. She wasn't. She was standing on her bed, with her arms out like wings, making a terrible sound. Her face was twisted by the noise she made, her teeth were bared, and her eyes were volcanic.

I began talking to her softly, wondering if she could even hear my voice over the sound of her tantrum. I held my hands out, fingers down, disarmed. I was saying, “Easy, Mom, easy, it's going to be okay.”

I got to the side of the bed and looked around to see whether there was anything Mom could grab and swing at me if I reached out for her. She was breathing so hard her chest was rattling.

I snuck up behind her and hugged her tight, hoping that would help her get control of herself. “I love you, Mom,” I was whispering. “Don't cry!”

Was that what Mom was doing? Was that crying? She sounded like Jurassic Park.

“Take it easy, Mrs. Mander,” Officer Dullborne said from behind me. “We're all going to stay right here and make sure you're safe.”

I don't know if it was my hugging or Dullborne's words, but Mom stopped screeching.

In a few minutes, she was willing to let me give her a Klonopin. She lay down and told us to leave her alone. Whatever force had animated her was gone. She looked completely exhausted, could hardly hold her eyes open. Officer Dullborne and I went to the living room.

He took rubber gloves from a pouch on his belt and stretched them onto his hands. He produced a resealable plastic bag from another pouch and swept the mirror and blade and powder off the coffee table into it.

“Can Vinnie, uh, Rupert, get out?” I was coming down from the anger and feeling wiped out and more than a little worried.

“No,” Dullborne said. “It's a cage car, like a mini-jail. But I'm going to check on him right now to make sure he's conscious. I need to get him to the hospital. We've had some of these meth guys die after using and fighting. Heart gives out.”

“Are you going to release him soon?” I thought Vinnie might shoot me or … I didn't want to think about it.

“Nope. He's down for a stretch. Solid time. Years. Breaking parole with drugs, plus whatever he has in his ride … likely a gun, there or in his crib.”

That reminded me. I handed over the knife.

Dullborne bagged it. “Running his name, I saw he's wanted in Oakland for popping two guys over a dope burn. South Bay wants him for questioning on an armed robbery. He goes back for the five years left on his sentence, and the Oakland thing would be his third strike. Years and years. Where'd your mom meet him, anyway?”

I didn't know, but I had to wonder if he had spotted her somehow at Mental Health and thought she would be easy pickings.

Calls and Whimpers

I
had already decided I would skip school until I got things worked out here at home. Getting Vinnie out of the mix gave me new resolve. I stayed home that night and made sure Mom took her evening meds right. Mom looked exhausted, probably coming down from the meth, along with the extra benzos, or maybe she was just wiped from all the excitement. I was upset and restless, but I made myself fix us some sandwiches for dinner and got Mom to sit with me while I watched TV, until she conked out sometime around midnight.

The next morning I left a message for Betty Lou telling her we needed a family conference and asking if she could stop by right away. I knew she had fifty or a hundred other clients, or more. I hoped she could make it soon, but no matter, I was going to stay home as long as it took to make a workable plan.

Betty Lou called back and said she'd be by in the late afternoon and for me to phone every relative I knew about and see whether any would be willing to take care of Mom for a few months, like you would do for an ailing father or mother.

I started with Mom's two sisters in Utah. They each said no right off.

I remember Mom saying her half brother and his wife in Manteca were “do-gooders.” I should have started with them. He, Arvin, said yes after a fairly bad argument with his wife, most of which I caught over the phone. If I heard right, the promise of a new car and some remodeling swung the deal. I had never met him or his wife, and I did my best to prepare them for how Mom was. He said he didn't think it would be an impossible problem because his wife was very involved in the temple, and she and her friends were always looking for a project that would help someone.

By noon Mom was up and in the kitchen, eating some toast and drinking fruit juice. I told her we were going to have a family meeting later today, and that I'd wake her if she was asleep. She avoided my eyes. I thought I heard her say, “I'm sorry,” as she shuffled back to her bedroom.

When Betty Lou came, I gave her the half brother's name, address, and phone number.

“Isn't your mother still married?” she asked.

“Yeah, to Dad, but I don't think he'll mind.”

“He won't interfere with this plan?” she asked, watching me closely to see if I was pulling a fast one.

“Dad?” I may have snorted. “He took himself out of the equation a few months ago. He gives me money, but he said he's never coming home again. He kind of washed his hands of the whole problem.”

“Well, he didn't get them very clean, did he?” Betty Lou said, frowning.

I hated to think it, but I was ashamed of my dad. Ashamed that Betty Lou knew what a loser he was. And I wondered if I would ever forgive him. But I didn't say that.

“Well, I think he's maybe got his own problems,” I said, instead. “He's done a disappearing act, but he's not really nasty. He's just … he just won't be involved.”

“He has to be involved enough to write you a note to school explaining your absences,” Betty Lou said, covering the bases. “Got to get the school thing square or the whole plan could cave in.”

“Right. I'll get Dad to write a note.”
Screw him, Z will do it.

I brought Mom to join Betty Lou and me in the living room. They sat. I stood.

“I called this,” I said, holding Mom's attention with my look, “because I can't do this family thing anymore. I have to go to school and have a life of my own. I can't stay home and take care of you, and right now, you can't take care of yourself. Betty Lou is going to help you get settled with Arvin in Manteca.”

Mom groaned and rolled her eyes. “Ohhhhh,” she said, like a wail. “Ben … I can't go there. What will they think of me?” She started crying.

Betty Lou said, “Mrs. Mander,” but I interrupted her.

“Mom, you've got to think about what's best for me, too. I can't take care of you here, and you won't take care of yourself. And you need people your own age who can make sure you take your medication like you're supposed to. I can't help you, but Arvin and his wife can, and that's the way it's going to be.”

Mom whimpered but didn't say any more. After maybe twenty seconds of silence, she started crying again.

“So, when does this all start?” I asked Betty Lou.

“Wait a minute,” Betty Lou said, wincing like she was annoyed. “What about you? You're a minor. I can't knowingly make a plan that will leave you home alone with no supervision.”

“Well,” I said, thinking as I spoke, “I'm, uh, I have a family that will watch over me until I am eighteen. I just have to make a call to set it up.”

Mom's crying got louder.

“So, when does this start?” I asked Betty Lou again.

“Best case scenario, five to ten days for your mom. That is, if you or your family transports her. I can make the clinical transfer to San Joaquin County so they'll be ready to monitor your mom's condition and provide her medications.”

When Betty Lou left, it was dusk and our house was pretty somber. We hadn't turned any lights on. Mom and I sat together in the living room, leaning against each other on the couch. Mom was dozing. I was looking out the window, watching neighborhood kids ride their bikes and goof around until they got called home for dinner. An evening with the Manders, before they go to their placements.

I could picture Hubie saying, “Don't worry. Years from now you'll look back on these touching, fond family moments … and run away crying and screaming.” Right. Actually, this was the most peaceful time we had spent together in months.

I had trouble sleeping that night. Partly because I was excited about the changes that would be happening, but mostly because I couldn't get Marco out of my mind. Who was he? What was going on with that story? How could he know those details about my life, my mom's delusions, my neighborhood? Sometime after three in the morning, I got dressed and drove to his house.

The front door was unlocked. That was a little surprising. But I guess Marco thought there was nothing much to steal. I tried the lights but none of them would come on. That was peculiar. Made the house kind of eerie. The three straight-backed chairs were in a semicircle, facing each other in the nightglow by the large dining room window. Like someone had been sitting in them, talking in the dark so they wouldn't be seen by any neighbors.

The kitchen remained empty, unused, no glasses or plates. Bathroom: no towels. No toilet paper! Nothing in any other room except Marco's. And there, his bed made, sleeping bag zipped. The whole house was silent, dusty like the carpet hadn't been vacuumed for months. A vague smudge of footprints from the front door to Marco's room. And maybe some marks by the chairs.

I noticed a wadded-up piece of paper under the chair nearest the dining room window. I picked it up. Not paper. Maybe a thin but stiff kind of cloth or plastic. When I spread it out, it had some lines and dots on it like a code of some sort. I couldn't read it. Tossed it back on the floor.

I went back into his room. Felt like I should be tiptoeing. I could smell his sleeping bag. Sour. It needed to be aired out. Through his window I thought I could see, back at the far end of his yard, the large dome-shape of an oak tree, branches moving quietly in the night breeze.

Z!

The
best thing that happened during the next two weeks was Z's unexpected visit. I got as close as I'll probably ever get to dating Z.

A couple of days before, Betty Lou had asked me if Mom “cheeked” her medicine, pretended to take it but really not. When I said I didn't know, Betty Lou told me to give it to her and watch her swallow it, and then ask her to open her mouth real wide immediately to make sure it had disappeared. Betty Lou said it would be embarrassing at first, but then it would begin to get routine, and this would make sure Mom got thinking clearer.

Anyway, Mom was fed, med, and off to bed. I was getting ready to visit Marco, when I heard a horn honking out front. Vinnie? I grabbed an umbrella from a stand by the front door. Mary Poppins meets Godzilla.

Z! In her beater that might have originally been a Honda. Waving me over while she stayed in the driver's seat.

“Onetime, no-frills offer,” she said, through the rolled-down passenger window. “I'm off to a party. Thought you might want to join me.”

“A party,” I said.

“Very good,” she said. “You're able to repeat in English. Of course, statistics show that most crimes are committed by repeaters.”

“No,” I said, trying to collect myself. “I'd like to go out with you. I, I'm just not ready or anything.”

“Let's be clear,” she said. “I am practically a junior in college. I've got about four years on you. You're jailbait. You are not ‘going out' with me. You are riding with me to a function. We're … acquaintances. This is not a date. Comprendez vous?”

Whatever! “Do I need a coat?” I wondered if my breath smelled.

“Yeah, and a haircut, and probably a steam bath, but get a jacket and let's roll. Carry some change. There could be a cover.”

I brushed my teeth, pulled on a clean sweatshirt, and grabbed my good leather jacket. If this was social work, bring it on!

I had imagined the teen club that's always changing hands down by the Liquor Barn. Or even the sports bar over by the new post office. Not to be. We headed west on 299 to the Whiskeytown Overlook and took the road south toward the dam. Brandy Creek Beach? Nope. We didn't take the cutoff over the dam, went straight instead, and wound up at the old cemetery. I could hear a mishmash of music from the far side of the graveyard and see what looked like flickering candles illuminating moving bodies. Live bodies, I was hoping. We sat for a minute in the parking lot while Z looked around. Then she drove a quarter mile or so to a trailhead parking lot and turned off the car.