CRAZY GLUE: Busy fingers are already at work all over town text messaging: The Pope-a-Dope has no food!
"I'm asking Haze to bring some goodies when he comes over later tonight," she says.
"He's coming, too?"
LAUGH TRACK: Gulp!
"Yeah, the more the merrier in cases like this, right?" She gives me a puzzled expression, as if to say, what's got you all bent out of shape?
CRAZY GLUE: Nightmares, urine-soaked sheets, crazy dad—for starters.
"In cases like what?" I ask.
CRAZY GLUE: Careful—your paranoia is showing.
"You know, in cases where we're going through a tough time," Shelby says. "We're here for you, Jason. That's what 'support group' means, right?" She picks up the burned-out pot in the sink.
I lunge for the pot and grab it out of her hands. "I burned my soup," I say loudly, feeling like a little kid the way I grabbed it away from her.
CRAZY GLUE: Your face is burning.
"Sorry!" she says. She moves over to the cabinets and opens the only one with food in it. A bag of dry lentils sits beside a box of Lipton tea bags and a carton of oatmeal.
"Tea!" she says. "That's just what I need. Let's have some tea, okay?"
CRAZY GLUE: Do we have a choice?
She's already got the box down and is squatting, searching the lower cabinets for a teakettle.
CRAZY GLUE: The teakettle is so yesterday. Your dad burned that baby four burned-out pots ago.
"We just use a pot. Here." I lean over and grab one out of the drying rack on the counter. "Use this," I say.
"Great, okay." Shelby stands and takes the pot. She runs cold water into it and sets it on the stove.
I watch her while she putters. She's buried in layers of fleece, which hide her curves and make her look like a fuzzy black and red snowball. I notice her running shoes—Nike, no socks.
AUNT BEE: Remember when you had a nice pair of running shoes?
"So don't you ever wear socks? Is that how you got your nickname?"
She turns around. "Yeah, haven't you noticed? My feet sweat like crazy. I don't know what's wrong with them. I remember when I was twelve, they really started to get bad. That's when my mother was first diagnosed with ALS, and I thought maybe the sweaty feet were some kind of sign I was getting ALS, too."
CRAZY GLUE: Careful. Your bird heart is getting jumpy.
AUNT BEE: Oh dear.
What? What did she just say?
FBG WITH A MUSTACHE: I know, but it's better that you don't...
Shelby pulls the aqua chair, my chair, out from the table and sits down. I choose the green one across from her. "What is ALS, anyway?" I ask. I notice I'm sweating even though the room is cold. I feel the eyeliner starting to run.
"Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis," she says. She hands me a napkin from the Popsicle-stick napkin holder I made in third grade. "Here, wipe that off, why don't you."
I grab the napkin and go to the sink and wash it all off with dishwashing detergent. While I scrub, Shelby talks.
"ALS is like a wasting-away disease. People usually call it Lou Gehrig's disease because he was one of the first famous people to get it."
"Sounds scary," I say.
"My mom says it's like getting buried alive. So yeah, it's scary."
LAUGH TRACK: Uh-oh! (Nervous laughter).
I freeze.
AUNT BEE: Buried alive. Oh dear, bad choice of words. We know what that's like.
FBG WITH A MUSTACHE: Oh, come on. Pull yourself together! Enough self-pity already. Buck up, son.
I dry my face on a dishtowel and take my time with it. Then I take a deep breath and rejoin Shelby at the table. We both just sit there a minute, thinking, and then Shelby looks straight into my eyes. "I would never do it," she says, her voice a whisper.
I know she's talking about this afternoon when she confessed that her mother had wanted Shelby to leave her to die.
I reach for her hand across the table. "Yeah, I know," I say. I realize what I've just done and pull my hand away.
Shelby blinks back her tears. "I'd never do it on purpose. This sounds awful, especially with your father missing and all, but sometimes I just wish I'd come home and the nurse would tell me my mother had passed away while I was at school." She leans back, letting both hands drop into her lap. "Then other times I think I don't know what I'll do if she passes and I'm not there holding her hand. I hate going to school knowing that any minute she could die and I wouldn't be there." She twists up her mouth as if trying to keep from crying.
"Exactly," I say. "I know exactly how you feel." The water is boiling and I stand up to make the tea for us, glad to have my back to her, what with what I'm about to confess.
CRAZY GLUE: You're so going to regret this.
AUNT BEE: Go ahead. Take a chance.
SEXY LADY: Ah, young love. We'll confide anything in the heat of passion.
FBG WITH A MUSTACHE: This isn't passion; it's fear. He's trying to shed some fear.
Would you all let me speak already?
"My dad—he's—he's kind of a little crazy right now, and I think—I mean, I'm sure he'll get better again, but right now, it's like half the time I can't wait for school to end so I can run home and make sure he's all right, that everything's all right. But then—but then, I dread it, too. I don't want to go home. If it weren't for school and the break I get from dealing with my dad, I think I'd go crazy. Ha, ha, ha."
CRAZY GLUE: You're so lame.
"Yeah, that's it," Shelby says. "I know exactly what you're talking about."
I bring the two mugs of tea over and set them on the table. I feel relieved that she's taken what I told her so casually.
CRAZY GLUE: Pretty cool.
"Thanks," Shelby says, drawing her mug closer. She dunks her tea bag in and out of the hot water, then leans forward and takes a deep breath. "Ah, tea," she says, smiling and closing her eyes.
She looks as though I've just handed her the most wonderful meal in the world, the way she smiles. She looks like an angel, an angel with freckles. I smile back, and I realize I'm glad she's here.
Chapter Ten
SHELBY AND I are in the middle of an argument. It started in my dad's study. I took her there to show her the books my dad wrote.
Shelby looks at the Cretan scenery on the covers, both photos my mom took, and asks, "Have you ever been to Greece? It looks beautiful."
"Yeah. Yeah, I used to want to live there when I grew up. It's cool the way the mountains rise straight up out of the sea. My dad told me about this runner during World War Two who ran up and down and all over those mountains delivering messages between the Greeks hiding out in caves and stuff. He's a real live hero there. I—I'd like to do that someday. Live and run in the mountains, I mean, and take pictures, too, like my mom used to. She—she was a photographer. Now I have her camera and stuff."
Shelby looks around. "There aren't any pictures on your walls anywhere. That's the first thing I noticed when I came in the house."
"Oh yeah, well, my dad's kind of funny about stuff on the walls."
CRAZY GLUE: Funny? Don't you mean crazy? He thinks the pictures are talking to him.
Shelby sets my dad's books down, then looks into my eyes and says in that too-honest way of hers, "You know you're going to have to put your father in a mental hospital, don't you? I mean, yanking his tooth out like that, almost electrocuting himself, no food in this freezing house—he needs help. You both need help."
CRAZY GLUE: I warned you, you were talking too much.
LAUGH TRACK: We all warned you.
FBG WITH A MUSTACHE: But you ignored us. Told us to shut up.
SEXY LADY: You fell for her feminine wiles and the intimacy of the moment and made a full confession.
AUNT BEE: Oh dear.
CRAZY GLUE: Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!
"Jason, are you listening to me? He needs to be in a hosp—"
"No way! I can't do that to my dad. You don't know. You don't underst
and. Anyway, we have no money. He'd have to go to a state institution. Do you know what they're like?"
"No, do you?"
"Last time, they tied him down. They locked him up. No way! And what do you mean, I need help? I'm not crazy, if that's what you're thinking. Just because of a little eyeliner..."
"And you should call the police," Shelby says, as if she hasn't heard a thing I've said. "What if he's out there somewhere in this cold, freezing to death? The police could be looking for him right now. They might have found him by now. They could get dogs out looking..."
"Stop! Just stop it, will you?" I storm out of the room with my hands over my ears, just like a kid—just like Dad blocking out the Furies. A moment later I spin around and glare at her. "If they did find him, what would they do to him? Put him away? No! I'm not calling them."
Shelby sets her hands on her hips. "What exactly are you so afraid of? So, you'd rather find him frozen to death somewhere than have the police find him and discover that maybe, just maybe, he's a little nuts?" She widens her eyes and shakes her head.
"Just shut up, Shelby!" I shout. "I don't want to hear it."
The doorbell rings.
AUNT BEE: Oh, thank goodness.
I go to the door and fling it open, hoping against hope to see my dad, but it's Haze, standing on the stoop with a grocery bag in his arms.
"Whoa, man, I could hear you guys yelling all the way down the block."
"Did you drive here?" I ask, not even bothering to say hello.
"Yeah, what do ya think? I had to park down the street a ways, though."
"Good," I say. "Let's go." I brush past him and trot down the steps, not caring if they're slippery and I fall and break my neck.
"Okay," Haze says, turning around and following me. "But where are we going, dude?"
"To look for his father," Shelby says. I turn and see her in the doorway. She smiles at me and shrugs.
"Right." Haze nods.
"Come on—close the door and let's go," I say, trying my best to return the smile.
Haze has to be the worst driver in the world. He owns a 1967 eight-passenger cargo van with a major muffler problem. He tears up the roads like he's driving a Porsche. Every time I tell him to slow down because I want to check someone out, he slams on the brakes and we skid like a hundred feet before stopping. Then he goes slowly for a while but gradually picks up speed again, getting right on the tail of any car in front of us until they move out of his way.
CRAZY GLUE: Dude doesn't know the meaning of the words "slow down." We're gonna get killed in this tin can of his.
Shelby is sitting in the one back seat that has a seat belt and is rummaging through the sack of food Haze brought with him. She calls out, "Anyone want some Doritos?"
"Most definitely," Haze says. She tosses the bag up to the front. I catch it, then open and hand it to Haze. He takes a few and hands it back to me. "Here, take some."
"No, thanks. I'm not hungry."
CRAZY GLUE: The way he's driving, you'd be tossing them right back up, anyway.
"Dude, you gotta eat. You'll feel better. I bet you haven't eaten since that stale burger you had at lunch today, and it's almost seven thirty, so eat, eat!"
I take a chip just to shut him up, but it tastes so good, I take another one and then another. By the time we reach downtown Washington, D.C., I've finished the bag along with some Twizzlers and a can of Pepsi.
CRAZY GLUE: That's it, swallow that burp down, goob. There's a lady in the car.
I haven't had much in the way of junk food in forever. It tastes like heaven.
My parents used to love to visit the Smithsonian, so even though it's closed, we drive around the area just in case Dad's there. Then we drive over to Georgetown, where he and my mom first lived as newlyweds. They rented the basement of a townhouse near Dumbarton Oaks Park, so we drive over there to look and then to the Georgetown University campus, where my parents first met and went to school. I don't know where to go after that, so we just wander the streets, stopping and speeding up, stopping and speeding up in Haze's old van while Haze tells us about his father's latest trick of spray-painting the word "whore" on the front of their brick house.
"It's in big black letters, right? A story and a half high, at least—spray-painted right on the front of our house. Whore! So my sister calls my dad on his cell, and she's screaming at him for calling her a whore, because she lives there, too, and so maybe he meant to call her a whore and not my mother, or maybe he meant it for the both of them. And my dad's trying to explain that it was just meant for my mother, like that makes it okay. And he's a lawyer!" He shakes his head. "What an asshole. Anyway, who's gonna know who it was meant for? Right? Sooo, the school bus stops in front of our house and like, man, everybody's howling when they see the house, and when my sister gets on, they start calling her a whore. She's in the fifth grade. She doesn't need that shit, man."
"Yeah, for sure," I say, remembering my fifth grade.
CRAZY GLUE: Jason got a swirlie! Jason got a swirlie!
It's ten o'clock and Haze is almost out of gas, so we head back to my house. Haze pulls into the same spot he had parked in before and turns off the engine. The whole van shakes and rattles and coughs so much, we're sure it's going to explode. The three of us leap out of the car and make a slippery run for my house. It's freezing out, so we run huddled together.
As we draw closer to the house, I notice my dad's bedroom light is on and I stop and just stand there, staring, not believing my eyes.
"What? What is it?" Shelby asks. She and Haze have halted beside me.
"My—my dad's light." I point to the front room upstairs.
"He's home?" Shelby asks.
"I—I think, maybe."
CRAZY GLUE: Well, don't just stand there getting all choked up. Move, goob. Move.
I can't bear to be wrong. What if he's not there?
Haze slaps my back. "Come on, dude—let's go find out if he's in there."
Shelby grabs my arm and pulls me forward, and the three of us run down the street and into the house. I call out to my dad as soon as we cross the threshold. "Dad? Dad, are you here? Where are you?"
I hear violin music coming from upstairs. It stops, and then I hear a voice: "Is that Apollo home from the war? What news have you from the front?"
The music starts up again, and I feel something in my chest give way, as if my heart, my bird heart, so pumped up with fear and dread, has at last collapsed back to its normal size. My dad has come home.
Chapter Eleven
I TACKLE THE STAIRS two at a time with Haze and Shelby right behind me.
AUNT BEE: Ah, what a relief.
FBG WITH A MUSTACHE: Buck up, son. He's all right. Everything's back under control.
I run to my dad's room and there he is. He's standing in front of the full-length mirror built into his closet door, wearing a wool scarf tied around his head with bits of aluminum foil peeking out from his ears. He's in Greek costume, wearing a dark blue shirt and embroidered vest, red sash, a pair of funny-looking, baggy black pants, and tall boots that come up to his knees. I know this outfit came from his Greek memories box. He looks noble in it, and very Greek with his beard and olive complexion. He's holding a violin, which must have come from the box as well, and he's playing it. We used to have, hanging on our walls, pictures of Dad playing the violin. He even won a major competition once, but that was before he got sick. That was before I was even born. This is the first time I've ever heard him play, and I'm surprised because he sounds pretty good—actually, really good. He's staring at himself, as though he's trying to recognize the person he sees in the mirror. As I rush toward him to give him a hug, I catch sight of the mirror over the chest of drawers still in a million splinters.
CRAZY GLUE: Did you think they'd magically glue themselves back together?
AUNT BEE: Oh dear, you're so ashamed.
FBG WITH A MUSTACHE: He's frightened by it.
"Dad!" I give him a hug and sque
eze my eyes shut to keep from crying. "Jeez, where have you been? I've been looking everywhere for you."
AUNT BEE: Now, don't be angry with him.
SEXY LADY: Of course he's not angry. He's a good son.
Dad holds the violin above his head while I hug him. I let go and he starts to tuck the violin back under his chin, when he notices Shelby and Haze, and in a flash he drops to the floor behind the bed. He tugs on my pants leg. "Apollo, they're here. The Furies. Get down," he says in a loud whisper. He moans and begins his chant:
"Now by the altar,
Over the victim,
Ripe for the ritual,
Sing this enchantment:
A song without music,
A sword in the senses..."
"Whoa!" Haze says. "We can just wait downstairs, dude."
I squat down. "No, Dad, it's okay. These are my—my—these are the Argonauts, here to help me capture the Golden Fleece. They're our friends."
Dad sets his violin and bow on the floor, then covers his ears. His voice trembling and his face turning red, he continues:
"A storm in the heart,
And afire in the brain;
A clamour of Furies
To paralyse reason..."
"Come on—let's go down," Shelby says.
"It's—it's Athena, here to help you," I say. "She's here to defend you against the Furies."
Thankfully, Dad stops chanting. He looks at me a second and I nod. His eyes are bloodshot, his nose is running and red, and his cheek is bruised and swollen on the side where he had pulled his tooth. He wipes his nose on the sleeve of his shirt and peeks over the top of the bed at Shelby and Haze, who are standing just inside the door of the room.
He picks up the violin and bow and slowly stands. I stand, too.
Shelby steps forward and I can see doubt in her eyes. She says hello. Then Haze says, "Yeah, hey, man," and steps into the room. "Cool violin. You sound real good." Haze coughs and shrugs, and I see him glancing at all the buckets and wastepaper baskets we have placed around the room to catch the water when it rains.
AUNT BEE: It's all right. So what. Now they know the worst of it.
FBG WITH A MUSTACHE: Buck up, son.