91. As If Eventually

April belly flops into May, and I soon find myself drowning.

Something happens, and I can’t say exactly what. It’s like a full moon rises in the sky and then just hangs there, daring everybody to keep going, taunting us all with its cold color and craziness.

The craziness starts, of course, with Mom.

It started when she got the idea to come back to this crazy town and it continued once we actually arrived.

She’s been working more and coming home later and acting more strange, though part of me has been too preoccupied to really notice. But when I get home one evening after practice, Ray having given me a lift, I find her in a state of panic.

Make that terror.

I get to the door and find it locked. It’s never locked when Mom’s home. I unlock it and hear someone bark out at me and see a shotgun pointed at me.

“Chris! What are you doing?” Mom is standing behind the couch, in front of the island in the kitchen, pointing a shotgun.

At me.

“What are you doing?”

I guess most kids would be calling 9-1-1 by now and saying “Yes, sir, I’ve got a bat in my house but it’s actually in my mom’s head ’cause she’s gone totally batty.”

She lowers the shotgun but doesn’t apologize or even act like it’s weird to be pointing it at me.

“Mom?”

“I thought you were someone else.”

“I usually get home around this time.”

“What time is it?”

I know she’s been drinking. I can hear it in her voice. Her pitch is slightly higher, and even when she can say the words without slurring, they sound as if they’ve been coated in wine.

“It’s around seven.”

“Lock the door.”

“What’s going on?”

“Just do it!”

I lock it and put down my bag and look around the room. There’s only one light on in the whole house. I don’t even need to bother to look to see if dinner is ready.

“Mom?”

“I’m in trouble.”

“With who?”

“You be nice to the wrong people and they’ll just want to wreck your soul, that’s all I can say.”

For a split second I wonder if this has anything to do with Dad.

She’s still holding the shotgun.

“Where’d you get that?” I ask.

“It was here.”

“Where?”

“None of your business.”

“Mom?”

“Promise me, Chris. Promise me that when you grow up you’ll not be like ninety-nine percent of the guys out there. Promise me that.”

“Why don’t you put that down?”

“I’m not giving this to you.”

Yeah, because I can’t handle it, but you sure can.

“Just put it down.”

She sets it on the island.

“Should I call the police?”

“We’re not calling anybody. But if someone comes through that door, he’ll get an answer. I told him if he sets foot on this property, I’ll shoot him. I don’t care.”

“Who?”

“Chris—it’s not your—”

“Who are you talking about? Tell me!”

I think my voice might wake the dead, or at least the dead in the tunnels underneath our house.

“Mom?”

“A guy I met at work.”

“What’s his name?”

“Why?”

“Well, in case you pass out like you usually do every single night, and he knocks at the door. A name might be good. Or if he shows up at school like everybody does and pops out of my locker.”

“Mike.”

“What’d he do?”

“Nothing,” Mom says.

“Really?”

She sees me glancing at the shotgun.

“He’s a guy I met at work who I thought was one thing but was really something else. Just like every other guy I’ve ever met.”

“Did he—?”

“Just drop it.”

“Is he coming over? Seriously?”

Mom leans against the couch and looks like someone who’s just finished a marathon.

“I don’t know.”

That’s all she says. That’s all I get.

Mike.

Mike who might be coming over.

Mike who was going to be welcomed with a nice shotgun blast.

And here I’d thought we might have one of those nice scenes where a kid talks to his parent about prom, kinda like in those cute eighties flicks.

But this isn’t one of those films. I’m not a girl, and I’m never going to be pretty in pink.

Later that night, after Mom eventually falls into a coma on the couch with the television still on, I’m in my bed with my eyes wide open, waiting to hear anything.

I really can’t remember what it’s like to go to bed without worrying or wondering or waiting. I remember that I used to go to bed wondering what my friends would say tomorrow about my Facebook comment. Now I go to bed wondering if some creepy face is going to pop up by my window.

Eventually I turn the light back on and decide to read. That doesn’t work, so I put on some music at a decent volume that only the conscious can hear. I decide to skip the heavy, dark, sad stuff that fills most of the record collection. Instead I put on a Duran Duran album that is bouncy and peppy at first, yet soon turns sad and reflective. Of course.

I find the leather band I no longer wear but still have. For a long time I hold it and think of Jocelyn.

If heaven does exist, is she looking down at me?

If heaven does exist, she’s surely doing far more important things.

I want to cut this leather band up into a hundred little pieces.

I put it back on my desk and then see the picture, that crazy picture I found sometime ago.

It’s even more blurry and faded than I remember, like a snapshot accidentally taken pointing at the sun.

I want to cut the picture up, too, yet for some reason I keep it.

The same reason I keep listening to music like this.

The same reason I keep waiting.

As if eventually, it’ll all make sense.

As if eventually, it’ll all be okay.