Two

MY DAD HAD OFF that night. But I headed straight to my room and didn't even see him. He was downstairs reading, I guess.

I lay in bed for a long time replaying what had gone on that day.

It seemed like I had two choices. One was to deny everything. I could just say I was totally freaked out by the show, stressed way into the Crazy Zone. Playing out for the first time. The crowds of screaming kids. Relly's Ghost Metal pouring from the amps. My words big as thunder. Maybe I was sick too, feverish again, which always makes my brain work in strange ways. Maybe it was all in my head.

Or I could accept it. I could say to myself, "All right, Relly explodes into flames sometimes. That's just the way he is."

I had an old record called Everything You Know Is Wrong, by this acid-head comedy group called the Firesign Theatre. I listened to it once, after my uncle Otho had broken up his record collection and given it to me. I guess it was supposed to be funny. But it just seemed strange to me. I didn't understand a lot of it. The story line wandered all over the place and I didn't laugh once at any of the jokes. Exactly the kind of weirdness that Uncle Otho would love. I stuck it away in the attic, but the name of the record kept coming back to me.

"Everything You Know Is Wrong." I said it out loud, lying there in bed.

If metalhead freak boys can explode into flame, then what else was possible? In a way, that was much scarier than accepting what my eyes had seen. One totally bizarro thing is bad enough. But if that could happen, then what else was waiting for me?

I usually kept my thoughts pretty much under control, like they were wild animals and I was in charge of the zoo. Yeah, I might obsess about a burning car wreck or the coils in the electric heater. But that's as far as it went. And maybe all my obsessing was even a way to keep the other stuff locked up in nice dark cages.

So lying there in bed, it really scared me what might come crawling out of my brain.

What if Relly told me that everybody bursts into flame now and then?

What if Mr. Perfect Jerod said he wanted to be my boyfriend?

What if my dad understood that I needed a real father and not just somebody who paid the bills and left supper in the fridge for me?

What if I was the best bass player in the universe?

What if Tannis could put spells on people the way pagan priestesses did in the olden days?

What if Relly and me were together forever?

That one really scared me. So I got out a candle and lit it. And sat there watching the flame, which sometimes works to calm me down.

Only that night it didn't work. In fact, it made the feeling even worse. The little flame seemed dangerous, or maybe a warning of danger. Anything was possible now. Anything, good or bad, real or unreal. My skin was hot and damp with sweat. My thoughts were all a blur, one idea melting into the next. I saw Relly on fire and a couple hundred screaming faces. I saw the back alley, filled with red sunset light.

This was too much. So I blew out the candle and went down the hall to the bathroom. Without really thinking why, I started the water in the tub.

Our house is old and sometimes that can be a pain. The windows are drafty and the floors squeak. But if my dad ever gets around to redoing the place, I'll fight him to the death to keep the old bathtub. It's big, and it's got those claw feet holding it off the floor. And I can fit in it all the way, stretch out, and be totally under the surface.

So I ran a bath for myself, real hot, and soon I was submerged. Only then did the bad feeling go away. I stayed under as long as I could, then came up gasping and went below again. Eyes closed, hugging myself, holding my breath, all the world went away. I was safe underwater, perfect and secret.

And the fever was gone too. Finally, the damp smoldering in my body had stopped.