you when life sucks,” Twig said.
“Life does suck on
occasion,” I said.
When I was nine,
and Pops told me
that Mom had died,
I’d thrown myself
on my bed, hopeless and angry,
banging my head
and wishing that I were dead
instead of her. I wore
Mom’s flowered nightgown
that night, and about a thousand
nights after,
holding tight to the scent of Mom.
“If Pops dies,” I said, “I won’t be able
to handle it. It’ll kill me.
I can’t go through it again.”
We each melted
into our seat-belted selves
and rode in eerie silence
until the knifelike
sharp lights of the hospital
whittled holes in the sky,
carving, cutting through darkness,
as I hoped with all my breath
that my pops wasn’t dead.
Lesson 21
Never Let Doctors Blame You for Their Patients’ Problems
It smelled like
Lysol and dying
flesh and wet diapers
in intensive care,
where defenseless
people have to wear
those senseless gowns
that are all open down
the back, exposing
butt cracks and stuff.
It was bad enough
that Pops was in
the hospital,
but seeing him sleeping
in that dress—
pale and helpless—
made me catch
my breath.
It felt like
death, and
hearses, and I
accidentally
cursed at a
nurse clomping
past, chomping
on Starbursts.
“Quiet! Holy
hell! Can’t you
tell people are
trying to sleep
in this bleepin’
place?” I raged.
Then I felt like
an imbecile, because
I made more noise
than the nurse.
Pops opened his eyes.
“Laura,” he whispered,
his words a wisp.
“Baby. I was going
crazy, waiting.”
I cracked, and fritters of Sister Slam
fell in fragments to the hospital bed.
I kissed Pops’s
creased cheeks
nineteen times each,
weeping like a freaking idiot.
Pops’s face was tinted
ghostly Coast-soap
blue, and I didn’t
have a clue
what he was hooked
up to.
An IV, beeping machines,
a tangled
ivylike vine
of wires, and lights
like fires burning were all
connected to Pops.
There was a
lighted road map
of his heart
on a screen.
The room was dim,
and we were lit
by the red lights
of Pop’s broken heart.
The old geezer
Doctor Proctor
(known by everybody
in Banesville)
was wearing cruddy green
scrubs with
red blood blotches,
and he was crotchety.
“The surgery went fine,”
he snapped. Then he gave me
a line of crap about how
my father was bothered
by his daughter’s AWOL,
and how I ought to be ashamed
and maybe even blamed
for causing all the stress
and distress that might
have made
Pop’s heart explode.
“Whoa, dude,” said Jake.
“Nobody’s to blame.
No offense, sir,
but it’s not
Laura’s fault.”
“No, it’s not,” said Pops.
“It’s not Laura’s
fault. It’s all the
malted milk shakes
and Tastykakes I ate.
Give Laura a break, Doc.”
“Put a sock in it,” said
Twig, as Doctor Proctor
stomped off without another word.
Pops grinned. “Hi, Twig,”
he said.
Twig leaned over Pops’s
hospital bed and kissed
his bald head.
“They said I’m lucky
to be alive,” Pops said.
“I’m lucky, too,” I said.
“I don’t know what I’d do
without you. Seriously. I’d be
deliriously wacked.
They’d have to lock me
in a padded room.”
“It’s true,” Twig said.
“She’d be a lunatic
without you.”
Pops touched my cheek,
and we didn’t speak, as
nurses squeaked
by and a baby
began to cry
from somewhere
out there.
“So how was your
poetry tour?”
Pops asked,
and I grinned.
“Cool,” I answered.
“It’s too hard to
make a
long story
short. I’ll try to
explain it
later. By
the way,
this is Jake.
He saved
my life.”
Pops was a
gentleman,
even in a
dress, and
he shook
Jake’s hand.
“Pleased to meet
you, Jake,” he said.
“Thanks for
looking out for my
baby girl.
She’s the
only one
I’ve got.”
“No problem,”
said Jake.
“He’s my
best friend,”
I said, but then
Twig glared.
“After Twig,”
I said.
Pops rubbed
his head, a
faraway gaze
in his faded
blue eyes. “When
the pain in my chest
started,” he said,
“I had a vision
of you two—
Twig and Laura—
and you were
big stars, driving
fancy cars and
signing autographs.
Then I saw Mom,
right before everything
went black
with the heart attack.”
“Wow,” I said,
and took a big
breath. “Pow.”
I sat down
on the edge of
Pops’s bed.
“So how’s
Mrs. Smith’s
been?” I asked.
“Same old
game,” Pops said.
“Cherry pies
churning out
like flies.”
“Pops works
in a pie factory,”
I explained to Jake,
no longer ashamed.
“A pie factory,” Jake said.
“Cool. Free pies.”
Pops’s eyes gleamed,
and he seemed to
really be liking Jake.
“What’s the meaning of
the Chinese blue tattoo?”
Pops asked.
Jake smiled
and held his
arm to the light.
“Dream, Believe,
Fly,” Jake said,
and then we
all got quiet
and watched
the light of Pops’s
beating heart.
Lesson 22
Never Take Your Friggin’ Soul Mate for Granted
I was back
in the House
of Crapper,
and I was
happier than ever,
back in the ’hood.
It felt good—
like home,
only better.
Pops never said
one word about me
wrecking the Firebird,
and he laminated and framed
the news photos of me and
Twig, hanging them all
over the walls.
Back in my toad-colored,
gloom-pillowed room,
with my waterbed
and lava lamp bubbling
water-red, I felt content.
Pops—my ’rent—
was recovering,
and I was hovering:
fluffing his pillows
and dispensing his pills
lined up on
the windowsill.
I was filled
with gratitude,
and my latitude
and attitude
were cool with Pops.
“It’s wonderful
to have your music
blaring from the bedroom,”
he said. “I’m so glad to have
you back home.”
I got a job
at Bibliophile
Bob’s Books,
the only bookstore
for miles,
where the floor
had black and purple tiles,
and the ceiling was painted
with strange deranged angels
playing electric guitars
instead of harps.
“Aren’t you Laura Crapper?”
asked the customers, and
I got looks of respect
mixed with envy
because they’d
seen the headlines
in the local paper
about my poetry caper.
“A.K.A. Sister Slam,”
I replied.
Twig was working
at Wild Child’s
Beef Jerky,
and we called Scarecrow
to tell him that
we were back home.
“You’re letting your
apartment go?” he asked.
“Bummer.”
“It was a good summer,”
I said. “But Pops needs me.”
Jake and I talked every
day—about everything from
temporary hair dyes
to lemon pies. We
dragged out our good-byes,
and Jake said that I
was his light on moonless
nights, like he was mine.
“You two make me sick,” Twig
complained. “You’re like a crack
addict, except that you’re
addicted to Jake.”
“You’re just jealous,” I responded,
“because your brand-new boyfriend, Ron,
drives a rattletrap Honda
and isn’t nearly as hot as Jake.”
On Halloween,
his face painted
lizard-green,
Jake came and we
went trick or treating,
with me teetering in glittery
red Wizard of Oz
shoes. Twig’s costume
was a floozy, and her
doozy of a boyfriend
didn’t even need a mask.
Thumbing our noses
at the ridiculous Banesville
rule about not being
over thirteen for trick
or treat, we walked
door-to-door, collecting candy
in pumpkin buckets.
“Let’s see how many
treats we can eat before
midnight,” Jake
said, and Twig,
thinner than ever,
was the big winner
of a miniature
candy-bar dinner.
In November,
I drove Pops’s
Chevy, alone,
(Pops was too tired to go,
he said) to Jersey
and had Thanksgiving dinner
in an expensive restaurant
with Misty and Vince
and Jake.
“Everybody say
what you’re grateful for,”
said Misty,
and we listed gratitudes.
Mine included
Pops, my job, Twig,
and of course Jake.
“I’m grateful for Laura,
my car, and my guitar,” said
Jake. “In that order.”
Late that night, I hated
to leave Jake waving
in the rearview mirror.
“Peace out!”
he shouted. “Ciao!
Keep your eyes
on the road.”
I blew him
an invisible kiss,
then drove
home thinking
about how
Jake’s eyes
caught the star glow.
He called
as soon as I
got back home.
“Just wanted
to say that I
really meant
what I said,”
he said.
“What: Peace out?”
I asked. “Ciao?
Keep my eyes on
the road?”
“No, crazy,” Jake said.
“About being
grateful for you,
the car, and the guitar,
in that order.
No girl’s ever had
that honor before.”
“Well, this is one
flattered fat chick,” I said.
“Laura,” said Jake,
“please don’t say stuff
like that. Don’t call
yourself fat. You are
the coolest girl I know.”
But then,
in the beginning
of the freezing
winter season,
for no reason
that I knew,
from out of
the cold blue on December
twenty-two,
Jake’s calls stopped,
and my pillows
were sopped
from sobbing.
“I’m wrecked,
a mess, in distress,
feeling less
alive than
to Twig.
“It’s not even been a week,”
she said. “Maybe he has
laryngitis and can’t speak.”
I tried to
be cool,
but I felt
like such
a fool.
“There are
lots more sharks
in the aquarium,”
Twig said.
“We’ll go to
the Guy-arium
and buy one
on sale.
Dudes are
a dime
a dozen.”
“Maybe he
found some
hussy,” I fussed.
“So bust him. Call.
E-mail. Drive to Jersey.”
I shook my head.
“I don’t want to
seem desperate,
even though I am,” I said.
“Forget him,” said
Twig. “He’s only
one of a trillion
mal
e species beasts.”
“But Twig,
Jake is my friggin’
soul mate.
I’m wiggin’ out without
him, not diggin’
it big time.”
“Get a grip,”
said Twig.
“It’s been only
three freakin’
days, Laura.”
“But I hate
days without
Jake,” I said. “It’s
like German
chocolate cake
without the icing.
Like blades
slicing my
heart, or
Cupid shooting
poison-ass darts,
or somebody
stealing my
Pop Tarts.
Life farts without
Jake in it.”
“Ohmygod. It’s been only
three days,” Twig repeated.
“But three days
without Jake is like
a year without anybody
else,” I muttered,
and Twig shuddered.
“It’s not like he’s water
or air,” she said.
“You don’t need him to survive.
You can stay alive
without a drink of Jake.”
Twig grinned.
“Hey, I just had a brainstorm!
How about I fix you up
with that divorced guy Norm,
from my work?”
“He’s a jerk,” I said.
“I don’t want some
beef jerky dude.
Not to be rude,
Twig, but no thanks.”
“Listen, Sister,” Twig said.
“You’re a girl who doesn’t
need pearls or curls or
a romance with a man. You can
stand on your own two
combat-boot feet.”
I was bummed,
and my cup
was empty. I
was a Humpty
Dumpty fallen
off the wall.
I tried to call
again and again
but just kept getting
the beeps of the machine.
There was a
blue hole in my soul.
I coped with a poem:
I’ve paid the debt
of deep regret.
Lamented, repented,
yet stuck in cement.
I can smoke another cigarette,
get myself a red Corvette,
eat another crepe suzette,
drink lots of anisette.
But there’s one thing
I can’t forget:
the shadow of his silhouette.
“Get a grip,” Twig said.
“You don’t smoke
or drink.”
“I think that I might
start,” I said.
Then I went
to bed, feeling dead
in my head,
and in my legs,
and most definitely
in the red of my heart.
Lesson 23
Dream, Believe, Fly
It was Christmas Eve,
and our holiday doorbell
chimed to the tune of
“Silent Night.”
“We have too much
annoying joyful noise
in this house,” I groused to Pops.
Pops is into all this animated
Christmas stuff: Santa snoring,
Mrs. Claus pouring milk,
motion-activated elves putting
toys on shelves.
Pops and I had
cookies galore
from the
Wal-Mart store,
but still, I felt