CRAZY GLUE (ACTING AS JASON): "Can't we just stay here? I'm tired and it's cold."
Dad took off his jacket and wrapped it around me and my pack and lifted me onto his back. He ran with me like that for at least a mile, his pack, my pack, me, the thunder and lightning. Then at night at the shelter, it was just the two of us eating oatmeal and sitting around the fire. We sang songs and told stories and looked at the stars. It was like we were the only two people on the planet, but it felt safe then—like a good thing.
FBG WITH A MUSTACHE (AS DAD): "Hey, Jason, did you hear the one about the mortal who asked the great god Zeus, 'What is a million years like to you?'Zeus says, 'Like one second.' So the mortal asks, 'What is a million dollars like to you?' And Zeus says, 'Like one penny.' So the mortal says, 'Hey, Zeus, can I have a million dollars?' And Zeus says, 'Sure, wait just a second.' Ha! Now, that's funny, huh?"
CRAZY GLUE (AS JASON): "That's so lame, Dad."
But I loved his lame jokes. I loved when he laughed. It sounded like a dog barking. I miss it.
AUNT BEE: That's a nice memory, Jason.
Dad is in his room playing again and I'm doing laundry when Pete, Haze, and Shelby arrive.
"We would have come sooner," Shelby says, brushing past me and into the house, "but I had to check on my mother. Is everything okay here?"
"Yeah, sure," I say, trying to look cheerful.
CRAZY GLUE: Talk about lame.
"My dad's upstairs playing—well, I guess you all can hear him."
"Yow! What is that?" Haze asks. "That's some weird music, man." He starts to take off his jacket, then changes his mind and zips it back up.
I shrug. It's crazy music—that's what it sounds like.
"So, let's get this show on the road." Haze rubs his hands together and grins at us, clearly excited.
"Right," I say. "I'll go get the—the uh—"
LAUGH TRACK: Uh-oh.
I realize I haven't figured out how I'm going to get the violin away from Dad. I scratch my head and look at the others, who look back at me expectantly. "Uh—I'll be right back."
I run up the steps, wondering what I'm going to say to my dad. I find him back in front of the mirror. He's wearing a fresh set of aluminum ears and four bandaged fingers. "Dad, it's time to—time to take the violin in for repairs, now," I say, shifting from one foot to the other, hoping my voice sounds bright and cheerful. "We need to drop it off at the shop."
"Jason, it's Danse Macabre," he says.
"Yeah, nice." I walk over to him and touch his arm. "Dad, I need the violin now."
We look at each other through the mirror, and I see that I look like a younger version of him. I'm even almost the same height now.
SEXY LADY: Don't look.
CRAZY GLUE: There goes your bird heart. It's just flapping and beating its wings like crazy.
Dad twists away from me. "I have to play." He speeds up his playing, almost poking me in the eye with the bow.
"Look, Dad—the Argonauts are here again. They want to see you. They're downstairs."
He stops playing and lifts his head. "They are? Am I to stand trial for murder? Are the Furies with them? And what of Athena, my defender?"
"Yeah, she's here, too. So come on—they're waiting for you."
"Okay, if the Furies aren't there." My dad nods and follows me, and I breathe a sigh of relief. I figure if I can distract him with my friends somehow, I can get him to set down the violin and we can take it.
We reach the top of the stairs and Dad stops. He sees everyone in the hallway below and he panics. He grabs me by my shirt and I'm pulled off balance. I'm too close to the edge of the staircase; I lose my footing and fall backwards down the steps, my back, shoulders, head, elbows, and shins hitting the wooden treads, the wall, and the balusters on the way down. As I tumble, I hear Shelby cry out; my dad's playing his Danse Macabre; Haze shouts, "Hey! Hey! Hey!"—and it all feels as if it's happening in slow motion.
I land sideways with my legs tucked into my chest at the foot of the staircase, staring up into the stunned faces of my friends.
Shelby's the first to react. "Are you okay, Jason?" She kneels down beside me and takes my hand in hers.
CRAZY GLUE: Ah, nice!
The others join her by my side. "Don't move him; something could be broken," Pete says.
For a few seconds I feel a little loopy, but then I realize Dad's still playing, and I know how this has to look with him practically pushing me down the stairs. "I'm okay," I say. I sit up and feel a sharp pain in my shoulder—it kills, but I ignore it. "I'm great," I say. "I'm used to it. I—I've always been clumsy around stairs." I laugh.
CRAZY GLUE: So lame.
Shelby shakes her head and gets to her feet. She shouts at Dad, "Hey, look what you did. Hey you! Mr. Papadopoulos! Look what you did to your son. You pushed him down the steps!"
Dad keeps playing.
I try to get to my feet, pushing off the floor with my hands, but an excruciating pain shoots into my shoulder, stunning me for a moment so I can't rise or speak fast enough to defend my dad and shut Shelby up.
"Stop that playing!" she shouts at him, clapping her hands like a teacher.
CRAZY GLUE: Remind me again why you like her.
I raise my arm and grab Shelby's hand. "You stop it! It's all right. I'm okay. Leave him alone."
Shelby and Pete are about to say something, when Dad notices me on the floor and stops playing. "Ja-son? What happened? Are you hurt? Why did not the Argonauts defend you?" He trots down the steps to see me. "Did you fall?"
"Yeah, you pushed him," Shelby says, her voice angry, her eyes blazing.
My dad kneels beside me. "Uh-oh, Jason. My poor son." He sets the violin and bow on the floor, takes my head in his arms, and pulls me toward him. It kills, but I don't holler like I want to. I say, "It's all right, Dad. It was an accident."
Just a couple of hours ago I was rocking him and now he's rocking me. The thought makes me uncomfortable.
He tries to rock my head in his arms and kiss it at the same time. "Poor boy, poor little boy," he says, and I suddenly feel embarrassed. Everyone is looking at us.
FBG WITH A MUSTACHE: Get up, son! You're making a fool of yourself.
"Dad, let me get up, okay? I'm all right. Really, I'm all right." Dad lets go, and with Pete's help I stand. I brush myself off just to have something to do because I'm still so embarrassed, and then I notice Haze staring wide-eyed at me, raising his eyebrows up and down and signaling something. He backs away toward the front door with an odd shuffle and his arms behind him. I glance at the floor where Dad had set his violin and bow and see that they're gone. I nod at Haze, then grab on to my dad with my good arm. "Help me walk a second, will you, Dad? I need your help."
"He's helped enough, if you ask me," Shelby says, still angry. She obviously has no sympathy for my dad's condition, and that irritates me.
FBG WITH A MUSTACHE: Too much sympathy can be as harmful as too little.
AUNT BEE: I'd rather have too much than too little. Poor Jason.
I want to say something to Shelby, to explain a few things, but I'm in too much pain to say much of anything, what with the way Dad and Pete are pulling on me as they help me walk around the room. I bite down on my lower lip to keep from yelping and lean into my dad, hoping to keep him distracted. I hear the door open and Haze says, "Be back in a min."
"Help me sit down, okay, Dad?" I say, blocking his view of the door.
"I'll carry you," Dad says, bending down and trying to lift my legs.
Shelby panics. "You're going to trip him! You're going to trip him! What are you doing?"
"It's okay," Pete says, grabbing me under both arms to support me. "We've got him."
"I can walk," I say through gritted teeth. "Just let me get to the kitchen."
The three of them huddle close as I hobble my way toward the kitchen, all three talking to me at once, giving me instructions to be careful, and asking where I hurt.
Before I
even reach the kitchen, though, Haze returns and says, "Everything's wiped clean and in the bag. Let's get going, man."
"Where? Where are we going?" Dad asks.
We all stop and look at one another.
CRAZY GLUE: Yeah, goob, where are we going?
I recover first. "We have a musical mission to accomplish, Dad. Do you want to come with us?"
"What? Are you kidding me?" Shelby says, and Pete sets his hand on her shoulder.
CRAZY GLUE: Good ol' Pete.
Dad smiles, exposing his yellowed teeth and swollen gums. "A musical mission? Will the Furies be there? The horrible Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone?"
"Cool," Haze says. "Who are they?"
"No, we're safe, Dad. Come on—let's get our coats on." I turn around and we all go back to the entrance hall, where Dad and I grab our coats. I try putting mine on, but it hurts to lift my arm, so I just carry it and tell everyone I feel kind of warm.
We step outside, the first time I've been out all day, and I'm hit by the brightness of the sun. It cheers me even though it's only about ten degrees out. I shiver and limp with the rest of the gang toward Haze's van, holding on to my dad's arm. I feel bruised about the body and still a little shaky.
We reach the van and we all climb inside. I tell my dad to get in the far back and I push him from behind. Then I climb in and sit down next to him. I look to the front of the van and spot the two grocery bags holding the violin and bow in the passenger seat, one turned upside down on top of the other.
We all get settled, Dad and I in the back, Shelby and Pete in the center, and Haze and the Stradivarius up front.
As soon as Haze turns on the ignition, the car explodes with the sound of hip-hop and it rocks the van. Our musical mission has begun.
Chapter Sixteen
HAZE LIVES IN ONE of the new neighborhoods around here that have these gigantic houses and acres of fancy lawns. The roads are really wide and there are all these young trees planted at evenly spaced distances along the grassy strips running between the houses and the streets. It all looks well tended and perfect—like a fantasyland. Looking at Haze in his rumpled clothes and bizarre makeup and driving around in his industrial-size van, it's hard to imagine he actually lives in one of these homes.
We turn onto his street, Honeysuckle Circle. Haze shuts off the radio and says, "Well, there it is." He points to a four-story brick mansion with porches and balconies jutting out from both sides. "That's the whorehouse."
CRAZY GLUE: Yup, hard to miss. Looks like there's more than one loony-tooney parent on the loose.
Spray painted in large black block letters across the front of Haze's house is the word "whore," and I notice as we pass the huge, four-car garage that the center door has a Hummer-size hole in it.
Pete laughs. "You don't lie."
"Yeah, right? I told you." Haze chuckles.
AUNT BEE: How nice to have a sense of humor about it.
SEXY LADY: Jason has a sense of humor; it's just that nothing's funny.
We drive for a minute or two more, and then Haze slows down and says, "Shit!"
We look up ahead and see the mail truck. "What's wrong?" Pete and I both ask.
Dad says, "Is it the Furies?" He grabs my sore arm and I wince.
"The open door is on the sidewalk side," Haze says. "We can't just roll up and drop it in. Shit! Someone's got to get out and walk past the truck."
Pete and I both volunteer. "I'll do it," we each say.
I repeat more firmly, "I'll do it."
CRAZY GLUE: Way to go. You've got a busted arm, goob. Why can't you just shut up sometimes?
AUNT BEE: He's doing the right thing.
Haze pulls up alongside the mail truck and looks inside as we drive by. "Good, he's not there. Let's drive around and find out where he is, first."
"Where's the music?" Dad asks. "Just, where's the music? Have we lost the music? This is very dangerous." He puts his hands over his ears.
Haze turns the radio back on but keeps it down low. We ride about half a mile and find the mail carrier turning away from someone's bricked-in mailbox. Haze continues driving, but we all look back to see in which direction the carrier is headed. Unfortunately, he's moving toward his truck.
"That's okay. It's okay—we've still got some time."
"Let's just hope you don't have any nosy-bodies poking their faces out the windows around here," Shelby says, speaking for the first time since we got into the van.
"So what," Pete says. "Let's just do it."
Haze speeds up. "This street makes a full circle, so I'll just keep going. Jason, get up front and get ready to jump out with the vi—vi—viceroy," Haze says, shrugging and looking at Dad for his reaction in the rearview mirror.
Dad doesn't notice the slip-up. He's too busy keeping an eye out for Furies lurking in bushes and behind houses.
I get up from my seat and make my way to the front of the van, my shoulder throbbing with sharp stabs of pain and both my hips aching.
FBG WITH A MUSTACHE: I bet you anything your collarbone is broken. Give the job to someone else. Have some sense.
I catch Pete watching me. "Really, Jason, I don't mind doing it," he says, but I shake my head.
"I got it."
CRAZY GLUE: You had your chance, goob, and you just blew it.
He's my dad. He stole the violin, remember.
I climb into the front passenger seat, making sure I don't step on the violin that now sits on the floor of the van. I take a deep breath and let it out. I feel lightheaded from the pain, and I lean back in my seat and brace myself with my right hand as we speed around a curve, wheels screeching.
"Great way to not draw attention to us," Shelby says. "Your broken muffler's bad enough—think you could slow down?"
Haze shakes his head. "No can do. If he comes around that corner, he'll see us, so I don't think we've got too much time."
I see the mail truck up ahead again, and Haze slows while I lift the bags into my lap.
"I'm going to pull in right behind the truck. You jump out, put the—it in the seat, and hop back in, got it?"
CRAZY GLUE: Roger Dodger.
"Yeah, yeah, I got it. I got it." I feel dizzy now and my heart's pounding. My hands are sweating and wilting the sacks where I'm holding on to them. I swallow hard and Haze slows to a stop. I open the door and slide out of the van, leaving the door open. I look down the sidewalk in front of me. No mail carrier. I look at the nearest house diagonally across the street from where we're parked. I study the windows a second, but most all of them are covered in some gauzy stuff, so I can't tell if anyone is standing behind one of them watching me or not.
"Go! Go!" Pete says in a loud whisper.
I jog up to the truck with the violin held out in front of me. I get to the door and it's closed, not open the way Haze claimed it would be. "Shit!"
I hold the bags in my bad arm and try to open the door with my good one, praying it isn't locked. The door slides open with a bang and the bag slips out of my hand so that all I'm holding is the empty, top grocery bag. The bottom one hits the sidewalk with a thunk and the violin falls out of the bag. I hear Dad call out, "My violin! Jason, my violin!"
I glance back at the van and see Pete get up out of his seat and go toward my dad. I hear Dad call out to me, and then Haze and Pete are yelling at him. I turn back to the violin and grab it off the sidewalk.
CRAZY GLUE: Fingerprints, goob!
Jeez! There's no time to wipe it down or examine it for damage. Haze, Pete, and Dad are yelling at one another and I can see the mail carrier coming around the corner. "Don't look up. Don't look up," I warn the carrier under my breath.
I thrust the bow and violin, with its neck now exposed, into the truck and run back to the van, still holding on to the empty grocery bag.
I jump back into the van and yell, "Come on, let's get out of here!"
That's when I notice Haze has left his seat in order to help Pete calm my dad down and hold him in the van.
I look back and see arms and legs flailing; then I scramble over to the driver's seat, ignoring the screaming pain in my shoulder.
AUNT BEE: But you can't drive! You don't know how!
LAUGH TRACK: Uh-oh! (Nervous laughter).
The motor's running, so I put my foot on the brake.
CRAZY GLUE: Brilliant!
I mess with the gearshift a few seconds trying to get the thing to shift, and I finally move it into gear. I press the accelerator and we shoot backwards. I slam on the brake and we jerk to a halt with a screech.
CRAZY GLUE: We're all gonna die!
I look through the rearview mirror and see everyone except Shelby picking themselves up off one another. Then I look out the windshield and see the mail carrier watching us.
"He sees us!" I yell. I jam the gearshift into drive and floor it, and we shoot forward. I turn the steering wheel just in time to keep from hitting the mail truck. I keep going, weaving left, then right. I don't know what the hell I'm doing.
CRAZY GLUE: Not quite the piece of cake you thought it would be, huh, goob?
We roll up onto the sidewalk, then back onto the road. I see the mail carrier dart behind one of the brick-post mailboxes and hear Shelby scream, "Don't hit him!"
I'm driving mostly with my right arm because my left arm is killing me. We ride up onto someone's grass, just past the driveway where the mail carrier is hiding.
FBG WITH A MUSTACHE: Watch the road, son, not the mail carrier.
"Shit!" Shelby yells.
"Shit!" I yell, bumping off the lawn and taking the curve too fast.
"Slow down! Slow down!" Pete yells.
"Keep going. Hurry up!" Haze yells.
I hear Dad crying and mumbling something about his violin.
"Shit!"
I keep driving, weaving all over the place.
FBG WITH A MUSTACHE: Get it under control, son. Do it now.
CRAZY GLUE: We're gonna do a rollover at the speed you're going.
I take another curve and Haze, who has managed to get to the row of seats just behind me, tells me I can slow down now. "Stop and I'll take over," he shouts.
I keep going. I don't know what I'm doing.
"I said, stop the van!"