Taken by Storm, Page 2

  “Don’t give me nightmares.”

  Right on cue, like Mom foresaw all and paid off the captain to get her way, the horn on the Festiva blares, over and over.

  Mom frowns back at the boat. “Let’s go.” She starts swimming.

  I hang back.

  “Get a move on,” she yells. “They don’t blow that thing for nothing.”

  MICHAEL’S DIVE LOG—VOLUME #8

  MICHAEL’S DIVE LOG—VOLUME #8

  chapter 2

  AFTER

  MICHAEL’S DIVE LOG—VOLUME #8

  When i ask for clothes, the nurse opens a drawer in the nightstand and pulls out my dive-club jacket and pants. This log was in the waterproof pouch. Must have stashed it there on the way to dinner. The thing is totally dry. The ink didn’t even run.

  Wish i put my wallet in there. It’s wrecked—salvaged the plastic—my license, dive card, and a condom. The picture of me and Mom and Dad smiling on a dive boat together is ruined. The Belize money fell apart, but my U.S. dollars dried out. They’re salty, but they survived. Guess breathing isn’t an issue if you’re a dive log or a dollar or a stupid condom.

  i keep forgetting how. To breathe. Three, four minutes go by and i realize i’m doing it again. Holding my breath. Good thing i’m not hooked up to those monitor machines. The alarms would be buzzing all the time.

  There’s an old guy across the hall. Must be close to toast. Bells go off seems like every ten minutes. Nurses run in there. A doctor or two show up. And then i hear that steady bleep, bleep, bleep. And i’m glad the guy’s still with us—some shriveled-up old Belize man i don’t even know.

  The nurse says they’re going to call me a taxi in a couple hours, so i shower. First time in days. Get dressed. Maybe somebody laundered my clothes. They don’t stink. No mud, salt.

  i don’t think i have shoes. i limp out into the hall to ask where i can buy some sandals, and the nurse leads me back to my room and makes me get in bed. The sun is shining in my eyes. No blinds. Hurts. Wish i could turn it off.

  MICHAEL’S DIVE LOG—VOLUME #8

  i’m checked in. No luggage. The nurse gave me a pair of gigantic green flip-flops from the lost and found. You think they’re some dead guy’s? Am i wearing a dead guy’s flops? The airport’s got a junky-looking trinket shop and a place to buy drinks and stale sandwiches. Maybe sandals. Not. That would mean standing, moving, talking. My lime flops will do—go great with the gauze and white tape the nurse wrapped around my foot.

  i can’t remember much about the past week. A lot of blue pills. A punctured arch and a tetanus shot. A hospital ward i didn’t care to be in. Questions i didn’t care to answer.

  Some trauma shrink told me to talk about it as much as i can. Who am i going to talk to? Not him. He said something about processing. That’s how i feel—numb, mechanical, processed—like a jar of nasty yellow cheese.

  i like the pills, though. The shrink gave me an extra bottle to take—i was going to write home. With his pills dissolving in my gut, my brain mucks into the quarry back in the Keys. Water fog. Shifting grayish green. Freaked me when i was a kid. Now, though, i want no vis. When the pills wear off and reality tries to sneak back in, i’m twelve-year-old me fighting blind terror, trying to keep myself from tearing to the surface and blowing the dive.

  The plane finally takes off. Loading all the coffinswhile. i watched from the terminal window. Eighteen. i counted. The coffin i bought for Mom looks nice. i think it’s cherry. She liked cherry. Our house is full of it. And pink. Pale pink satin. Not in our house. In the coffin. They didn’t have any hot pink with white fish blowing bubbles. She wouldn’t have liked traveling in gray plastic like they stuck the guys in.

  i have to leave Dad here. They still can’t get him out. Fuel leak. Too toxic, even for dry suits. Maybe the stink of the gas will keep the sharks out of there—

  Freak—i think i’m going to puke again, and the chicks with the drink cart are coming with their complimentary sodas, blocking the aisle. My seat’s barf bag is stuck together with gum. Hurry, chicks. i need to wash down two more of my complimentary pills.

  Breathe, that’s it, just inhale, exhale, long and slow. Inhale again. Hold it. Let that O2 feed your brain. Do it again. And again. Pack. Hang on for a few. Swallow the pills dry. The movie sucks, but the pills work. i’m sinking fast. i won’t notice the tanned woman with gold bracelets sitting next to me who’s about my mom’s age. i won’t hear the loud lady behind me condemning everyone i loved, everyone i lost. When i close my eyes, i won’t see Mom twirling in her pink sundress for Dad. i won’t smell her gardenia perfume. i won’t watch Dad smoothly catching her arm and herding her out of the cabin. i won’t hear him crack open another crab claw.

  i won’t remember Mom screaming my name.

  MICHAEL’S DIVE LOG—VOLUME #8

  i can’t get warm. Too cold here for Arizona blood. Maybe i should go home to Phoenix—wander around that great big house by myself. Right. It creeps me out staying here, sleeping in Dad’s bed from his glory high school days, but our house full of their socks and shoes and underwear—no way. Gram’s place is my only option.

  Stan, the dive club’s treasurer, met the plane in Miami and claimed all the bodies. Guess lawyers are good for something. He took Mom, too. Handed me a one-way ticket to Spokane and a duffel full of my stuff from our condo on Duck Key, thumped me on the back, and said, “Be strong, kid.”

  Gram met my plane, her face wet and crumpled. Since i got to her sugar-cube house in Teacup, Washington, all i’ve done is eat blue pills and lie in Dad’s old room with that quilt Gram made from pieces of his worn-out jeans pulled over my head. At night, when the pills wear off, i stare at the glowing dial of a clock radio shaped like a football until the nightmares start. i’m on deck thinking how cool it is. Rain like i’ve never seen. Debris pounding like hail. Then Isadore arrives packing a thirty-foot surge. Mom screams, “Michael, get down here. Michael.”

  i wake when the wave takes me, shaking, nauseous, covered in sweat, tangled in the pants quilt. i pop more pills, grit my teeth, and wait. She should have made it. i did. i kept telling the helicopter guys to look for a pink sundress, but nobody listened to me. They left her out there too long. So she screams until the pills kick back in.

  There’s a spidery-thin crack in the wall Dad’s old bed is shoved up against. It disappears behind a faded Pink Floyd poster but re-emerges and keeps snaking down the wall until it vanishes behind the bed—right where my pillow is. i take down the poster so my eyes can trace the lines of that crack while the fog settles back down around my ears.

  Stan phoned. Was it yesterday? No, two days ago. Gram got me out of bed for the call.

  “We all got together Sunday for a memorial dive.”

  All?

  “We dove the Thunderbolt and then went over to the barge.”

  “Cool.” i feel cheated. The T-bolt’s the first deep wreck i ever dove. Dad took me.

  “Be strong, man.”

  “Sure.” They had no right to remember my parents without me. i’m the one who was there—on that boat. In that storm.

  “Are you still there, Michael?” Stan’s voice scrapes my senses.

  Where else would i be, Stan?

  “I need to talk legal stuff with your grandmother.”

  i hand off the phone. Like Gram can deal with anything more than fixing me endless plates of French toast. Legal stuff. He’ll freak her for sure.

  Stan must have said something about getting me into school. Gram started in on me as soon as she was off the phone. i can’t blame her. She’s got to be tired of watching me pick at her thick, gooey, cinnamoned French toast, tired of hearing me retching it into her pink toilet bowl whenever i choke a plate down. That stuff used to be my all-time favorite food. When i was a kid and we visited Teacup, she could get me to do anything for a plate of it. Even go down the hill to church with her on Sundays and let the minister pinch my cheek and mess up my hair. Must kill her to hear me vomit it away.<
br />
  Food and my stomach don’t remember how to get along. Getting along with Gram. That’s another challenge. i don’t know how much longer i can take her tear-stained face hovering over me all day, her shaking finger touching my cheek like she needs to check if i’m real. Maybe she thinks i’m Dad. She stares at me and then the eyes overflow and she disappears into her bedroom. She keeps wanting to change my bandage—like i can’t do it myself. Her house smells nasty now. Not that candy scent i remember from visits before she started coming to the condo with us.

  School? Sounds even worse.

  chapter 3

  EVERYBODY’S TALKING

  LEESIE HUNT / CHATSPOT LOG / 09/18 7:52 P.M.

  LEESIE’S MOST PRIVATE CHAPBOOK

  POEM #26, BIOLOGY

  Nuclear equations fall

  prey to my calculations,

  speed of light fairy-tale power:

  E equals MC squared absorbs

  whispers of peptides joining in the dark.

  I reign over forces that always react equally.

  don’t face me with biology:

  the pulse, the hum, the empty

  nameless yearning for a shoulder, a hand,

  a whisper that knows my name alone,

  the mystery of being someone to someone,

  feeling whole instead of half,

  loved—not harassed—far away

  from wheat-covered hills

  on an endless, rhythmic roll,

  our cathedral barn mom’s

  grandfather built, the squeal

  of hogs, the sizzle

  of bacon, white flowers

  that scent the night air

  swirling through my window,

  ruffling the faded pink curtains

  that frame my white chamber,

  my princess bed,

  my pillowed head

  that prays for recess from

  biology.

  chapter 4

  NEW KID

  MICHAEL’S DIVE LOG—VOLUME #8

  The football alarm rings. i’m still awake. Out of pills. Way wired without those little friends. i know every twist and turn of the crack in Dad’s wall. i should fix it. Mom hated cracks. i always helped patch our textured walls down in Phoenix. i’m a master at Spackle—even smooth flat walls like Gram has. Some fresh paint and you’d never know. It’s just a stupid crack.

  i reach out and run my finger along the jagged line. Press my hand to the wall and remind myself to breathe.

  “School today.” Gram tries to sound cheerful, but she doesn’t quite carry it off.

  i actually remember how to shower, get dressed. Shaving is beyond me. i don’t seem to have a razor anyway. Did Gram pitch it? Does she think i’ll cut myself? i study the grim face looking back from the mirror. The scruff look goes great with the dark circles under my eyes. My hair is gross. Didn’t i see my baseball cap in the duffel bag?

  “Your foot all right?” Gram calls through the bathroom door.

  “No big deal.” The arch is still tender, but i’m down to two crisscrossed regular Band-Aids. i open the door. “i need some more pills, though. Can you call the doctor?”

  “I’ll get right on it.” Gram holds out an old pair of sneakers i left at her house when i was fourteen. They almost fit.

  “I can drive you.” She reaches for her keys that dangle on a key chain hosted by a crocheted pink bunny.

  The school’s three blocks away. i shake my head. “i can manage.”

  i do, too. i manage to walk up the hill without limping, push through the double front doors into an open space with a stage on one wall and cafeteria-style serving windows along the other. i manage to ignore the kids sprawled on the stage wearing jeans and T-shirts, even the chick making out with her boyfriend. She’s got Carolina’s eyes and forehead, the same thick, black hair.

  i manage not to see the picture of my dad bulked up with football pads, his helmet under one arm and a cheerleader under the other, hanging in the office. i manage to send the principal-by-day-football-coach-by-night a blank stare when he asks me if i want to practice with the team after school. i manage to slump in a desk with my head down on my arms like a grade school kid in trouble when the English teacher hands me a stack of books on grieving. i manage it all until physics.

  Somebody who reeks of smoke sits next to me, bumps my arm. “Hey.”

  i’d grabbed a seat in the back and assumed my position. i lift my head. Smoke Chick is leaning over so i get the full effect of her skimpy black tank and push-up bra. Cs at least. Quite a show.

  “I’m DeeDee. You must be Mike.”

  “It’s Michael.” Dad was Mike. i bury my head in my arms again. Not even a twinge from that firm flesh waving in my face.

  “Hello-oh.” She slides a physics text under my arms. “Anybody home?”

  i look up, and she’s squatting down beside my desk, her cleavage in perfect position again. She has the sleazy look down. Tan from a bottle. Shagged-out hair dyed too blond. Heavy eye makeup. Red lips and nails. Not pretty enough to be popular but packed sexy tight in clothes that barely cover her assets. i can’t eat. Fine. i don’t sleep. So what. But a flesh parade like DeeDee is putting on should trigger animal instinct firing on automatic. She’s easily good enough for that.

  i sit there, numb, wondering what she’d look like lying on a dock with a white sheet pulled over her face. Am i inventing new stages of grief or did the shrink in Belize leave this one out?

  The seven other students in the room stare.

  “We’re on page fifty-two.”

  i sit straight, push my chair back, fold my arms across my chest, and pull my cap down over my face.

  DeeDee perches on the edge of my desk, smack in front of me. “I heard about your parents. If you need someone to, um”—she leans over and drops her voice to a stage whisper everyone can still hear—“talk or—something—I’m always around.”

  “Get away from me,” i snarl at her. Rude, sure. But she is scaring me way more than she knows. i mean, am i broken? i don’t want to toss the football around with these hicks or write a research paper on grieving, but you’d think a good night with an easy girl would be just what i do need to start plugging the crater my guts have become. The thought of letting DeeDee comfort me makes me nauseous. i should call Carolina. Her voice always used to do it. Crap. What if it doesn’t? i bet the pills would help.

  i look away from DeeDee pouting and catch the only other chick in the class staring at me. She looks down fast. Embarrassed red stains her farm girl cream cheeks. At least she has the decency to hide behind her physics book. DeeDee retreats into the desk beside mine. i can still smell her gaudy perfume.

  i make it through the class without hurling, then bolt down to Gram’s for lunch. “What did the doctor say?” i hope he’s called in a prescription. i want a gleaming bottle sitting on Gram’s melamine kitchen table.

  “I’ll make the call after my nap.”

  Crap.

  i hide out in the guys’ john while DeeDee hunts for me before afternoon classes start. The john is a real treat. Designer haven. Two urinals. One stall. The place smells like decades of guys missed the mark. Layers of obscene graffiti cover the walls. DeeDee’s name takes up some major space. While i’m in there, a blond guy comes in, scribbles something on the wall over the urinal next to me, and leaves. i examine it. Somebody actually painted out a fresh “page” on the wall. Best Butt heads the white space. Five girls’ names follow. DeeDee tops the list, but the chick who has the most tally marks by far is named Leesie. Guys signed their names all around hers. i’m pretty sure what that must mean.

  Looks like DeeDee has some competition for Queen of the Skanks.

  chapter 5

  DROOL

  LEESIE HUNT / CHATSPOT LOG / 09/21 10:39 P.M.

  chapter 6

  GHOST SCENE

  MICHAEL’S DIVE LOG—VOLUME #8

  The school’s English teacher/librarian/volleyball coach, Mrs. D, is making us read Haml
et out loud. Kiss of death boring. She feels compelled to explain what’s going on after every stupid line. Everyone would much rather just watch the movie—even that four-hour marathon one—except the staring chick from physics. Staring Chick is way into it. She reads that archaic gibberish out like the words mean something. Mrs. D gets her to play Hamlet every day. At least the woman doesn’t torture us by making one of the jocks read it. Or call on me.

  After the scene with the ghost, poor Mrs. D tries to provoke the class into a discussion. “Is the ghost good or bad?”

  Nobody says anything.

  “Should Hamlet obey it?”