The Cake is a Lie (25 page)

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.

A hush had come over Shorewood: coke.
You had no idea who was doing it, people were disappearing at
parties. Bathroom doors were getting locked. Lines were being drawn
and best friends had to pick sides. I was vehemently opposed from
the beginning, I’d promised myself long ago to never do coke. I’d
stuck to my guns this time, I rolled my eyes at all the “first
time” stories. Coke these days wasn’t even real, I’d read about all
the cheap chemicals like horse dewormer, paint thinner and dentist
numbing agents that were mixed in with the “coke.”

So when Jeff and Justyn would
mysteriously reappear at a party, I’d joke wildly, “Mmm how was
that horse dewormer guys? Was that paint thinner bomb?” They never
said anything back, their dismissive silence was enough of a
response. They were doing fucking coke.

I flipped sides in the middle of Social
Psych. I was staring at George Gerald, a goober I’d grown up
playing tennis with. He was blazed, eyes barely open, with a big
obvious grin on his rectangle face. His bright braces shinned
proudly. He wasn’t even hiding that he was high. How could the
teacher not see? It was infuriating. It wasn’t just him, lots of
kids were getting high now and throwing their own dweeby parties.
It was staring at George Gerald in social psych that I realized I
needed to get inside those bathrooms.

When the period ended I found Jeff and
said, “Come on Jeff, I want to get blown.”

He gave me a poker face. “Are you
serious?”

“
Yep, I know you’re holding.
Very exciting day Jeff. Big day,” I playfully mocked.

“
No way.” He lit up
excitedly. “Alright. Wanna skip 5
^th
?”

I offered my failing progress report as
a tooter and we did lines off my science book. As an experience it
wasn’t great. It made me feel so weird and flighty that I had to
smoke a ton of weed to balance it out. The best part by far was the
actual act of snorting it. The idea of being on coke, the glamour
of all the movies and songs. I had some hilarious coke jokes
too.

“
Cut me up a shamu line,
dawg. Aw ya gimmie some of that nose candy.”

Then after I’d snort the baby laxative
I’d shout out, “Hallelujah! Praise Jesús, Mary and Joseph!” or “I
can’t feel my face! I can do anything!” Laughs every time. Coke was
far from my favorite, but it got me into the bathrooms, with Mia,
Mike, Loren, Jonsen and the rest. A member of the secret society
within the secret society.

I woke up to the ruffling of my
step-dad, Allan, going through my jeans on the floor. I kept
pretending to sleep, but I was chainsaw awake. Did I leave anything
in my pockets? A lighter?

“
Good morning Allan.” I
pretended to groan irritably. The oaf didn’t respond. He looked
pissed. The jingle of my keys signaled his aim, once he had them he
stormed out of my room. In an attempt to appear innocent and
relaxed I lay in my bed for an anxious ten minutes before taking my
blanket down the hall to my mom’s room.

Leaning up half way against her
make-shift recliner of four or five pillows my mom’s eyes were
closed but she was never fully asleep. The Sunday paper was lying
open across her feet.

I crawled into the bed and moved the
pink spit/vomit bin that was always by her side. Her pituitary
gland didn’t work because of the steroids so she was always
spitting out phlegm.

I cuddled up next to her, draping my
arm over her pot belly. Her thin greyish hair was her most human
feature. Her whole body was bloated because of the steroids. None
of her glands worked right anymore. She was so full of fluids her
legs leak tears. Her face was puffy and swollen.

Her bug eyes opened to my touch, “Hey
sunshine,” she said, reaching her arm over to pat my arm. I looked
at the air tube sticking in her nose. I hated that air tube. I’d
come home one day a year ago to find a big bold letter sign
reading, “Caution Oxygen in Use: No Smoking, Sparks or Open Flames”
taped to our front door. I was so angry I’d it first from that
stupid sign.

“
Allan took my keys,” I
complained.

“
He found some weed pipes in
your car, Marco,” She said. It was the worst case scenario. They
weren’t just weed pipes, Eric’s 3 foot bong, Kim Bong-Il, was in my
trunk. My double-perk bubbler, Kunta Kiefte was in the
dash.

“
Are they yours, Marco?” She
asked compassionately. Her love for me had no bottom. Her sons were
the reason she was living. The reason she’d fought so hard for 14
years.

“
No, of course not,” I
snapped defensively, “They’re Eric’s.”

“
Come on honey, you can tell
me the truth.”

“
I’m honest to a fault mom,
that’s my nature, you know that. I’d tell you.”

“
Allan and I were talking
and we decided we’re taking your car until you take a substance
abuse evaluation.” It was bad, but surprisingly my usual desperate,
feverish outbursts weren’t taking over, I was dull. I’d been so
careless lately how could I not get caught? This was the moment I’d
built my life around preventing, for 4 years, my parents knowing I
smoked pot. The thought of life without the burden was both
liberating and terrifying, the duality of it caused me to twist in
the bed, searching for a cool spot of fabric to comfort
me.

“
Ok I’ll go, but I have to
get that bong back to Eric, mom. It’s 300 dollars, it’s called Kim
Bong-Il.” I told her the name hoping she’d laugh and get how cool
naming a bong was. To my frustration, it didn’t elicit a
reaction.

My mom called to Allan, he stomped in
the room and fumed while my mom instructed him to give the bong
back.

“
No. I’m gonna break them.”
He taunted me. My step-dad and me had been playing this game for
some time, he was always overly suspicious of me. His own sons had
taught him some hard lessons. And now the silly fool was glaring at
me like he’d won. I’d stopped trying.

“
No honey, he’s agreed to go
to the evaluation. Give them back.” From my mom’s side I glared
like a fox at the red-faced blowhard.

How quickly can I get my pee clean? I
planned. I’ll start taking Niacin today.

We’d been losing people to rehab since
middle school. The goobers who’d AP, who’d do Adderall a month
straight, or 20 e pills in a week, overdose on coke. [14] Kids who
didn’t have their parents in check. Some with potential. Only a
couple had been to rehab and made it back, most were forced to
transfer schools and never seen again. We’d laugh at their memory
and joke, “Rehab’s for quitters.”

[14]
One of Duncan’s
friends, Ivar, AP’d drinking with us in 8
^th
grade. We’d
decided to hide him in the bushes at the beach to sleep it off.
When Duncan went back for him later—despite my adamant reassurances
that he was fine and we should leave him until the morning—Duncan
found Ivar at the bottom of 15 foot ravine tangled in blackberry
bushes with his own vomit all over him. Duncan immediately called
an ambulance and took the fall with him. Ivar got sent away after
that. The doctors said Duncan might have saved his life.

I had two weeks. I started a Niacin
regime. I broke out in a rash the first day and spent the night in
front of two fans. I stopped smoking pot, but coke and the other
stuff only stayed in your system a few days. I was doing good,
completely on track, until the day before my test.

It wasn’t even on a weekend. I was
sitting around bored at the beach with Jon at 5pm on a Tuesday when
Jamilee pulled up next to us.

“
Hey guys.” As a senior,
Jamilee’s personality was so genuinely warm and friendly it was as
if that snobbish 11-year old look I knew from the park never
existed. I knew it was still somewhere deep down inside her though.
Jamilee drifted in and out of the Shorewood’s scene. She was one of
the hard partying beautiful girls that spent most their time with
older guys.

“
There’s a storm coming in.”
She pointed to sliver of black on the horizon. “I just got a bunch
of free blow from this homie and I’m about to do hella of it, you
want in?

Jon looked over at me.

“
F-it.” We hopped into her
car.

Each line made me more anxious about
failing my test the next day, feel more gross, like I needed to run
off in five different direction. Every line was a toast to the
memory of Jamilee’s 11-year-old perfection. Destiny had brought us
down the same path, back together. It all fit together so
perfectly. As the blackened sky grew closer we walked to the edge
of the beach’s biggest bluff. The storm clouds stampeded towards us
like a sublime rolling chimera until we were face to face, close
enough to touch it.

The next day I begged the counselor not
to give me a UA.