Mosquitoland (17 page)

Devou Park

September 3—late at night

Dear Isabel,

I was eight.

Dad was drinking beer, working on his motorcycle. He never rode, just worked. This was one of the many missing pieces of my father, his aptitude for the unfinished. Whatever pleasure he found in the toiling means, he rarely found in the rewarding ends.

The three of us were in the garage. Mom was trying to explain how a record player worked. (I can't remember exactly how these conversations went, because, well, I was eight. So I'm paraphrasing, but you get the gist.)

“Yes, Mom, but
how
does the music get from that needle”—I pointed my chubby little finger to the record player—“to my
heart
.” My earliest memories of music had nothing to do with listening, and everything in the world to do with feeling.

“Right,” said Mom, blowing the dust off
The Doors
. “That's called the stylus. And it runs along these grooves, yeah? And then something else about vibrations or something, and an amplifier I think, and then there's another thing, and then
voilà
.
Music.”

Dad, who was now polishing his spic-and-span motorcycle, snorted.

“Frog in your throat, love?” said Mom, setting the vinyl on the turntable.

He mumbled something I couldn't hear, sipped his beer.

“Get me one of those, will you?” said Mom.

Dad left the garage. We sat on Mom's old College Couch and listened to Jim Morrison break on through.

“This feels weird,” I said. “Like he's singing crazy.”

Mom nodded. “That's because he
was
crazy. A lot of famous rock stars were.”

“Like who?”

“Well, remember Jimi Hendrix, the one who played
S
tar Spangled Banner
?”

God, did I. (Are you familiar with this particular rendition, Iz? Inspired.)

“Yes,” I said. “His guitar sounded like this man's voice. Like”—I shook my head, pondering the nebulous intricacies of rock stardom, and how to wield such wildness into words—“like . . . just . . . crazy and good and
crazy good
.”

Mom laughed, and it was full of the Young Fun Now. She let her head drop back against the rough plaid of her beloved couch.

“The Jimi-man went crazy, too?” I asked.

“Yeah. Jimi-man went good and crazy.”

“But why?”

“Well, different reasons, Mary. Drugs and fame and I-don't-know-what . . . I guess when too many people like you all at once, it can sometimes make you go crazy.”

“What are you doing?” interrupted Dad. His voice was quiet, but I remember it startled us. He was standing in the open air, just outside the raised garage door, a beer in each hand. I could see Mom wondering how long he'd been there, carefully choosing the words that followed.

“Nothing,” she said. “Just talking.”

Dad didn't move. “She's eight, Evie. What the hell?”

For a second, we remained still. No one said a word. Eight or not, I usually had a pretty good handle on things, but I remember being confused. I couldn't figure what it was about our conversation that had angered him.

“I don't mind,” I whispered, tucking my legs underneath my bottom, trying my best to look cute. Looking cute sometimes stopped the fights before they got bad.

Dad set the beers on the ground, then walked over to the couch and picked me up in his arms. “Not everyone goes crazy, honey.”

Mom stood to get her beer. “Blimey, Barry, I didn't say
everyone
went crazy.”

“You said enough.”

Later in life, it would occur to me how strange it was that this obsession of my father's—that something was wrong with me, serious enough to warrant serious drugs and serious doctors and a life full of serious remedies to avoid serious madness—was driving him mad in his own way. Later in life, it would occur to me that despite his actions, my father really did want what was best for his family. As to how he would accomplish that? He had no idea. Later in life, it would occur to me that this was the ultimate dichotomy: for a person to want what's best but draw from their worst. Dad did just that. It wasn't enough to help the old woman across the street. He had to produce a fucking firearm and tell her to haul ass. His methods weren't just ineffective, they were insane. Such were the fates of good men once succumbed to the madness of the world.

Later in life, I would come to realize all these things.

But just then, as he carried me from the garage, attacking my forehead with kisses, whispering sweet comforts in my ears—as if Mom had just beaten me senseless—just then, I hated him. I hated him good and hard.

Inside the house, he plopped me down on the living room floor. “You can watch TV for as long as you want, honey.”

I grabbed our giant remote off the coffee table, ran to the kitchen, and placed it in the microwave. Two minutes on high did the trick.

And those were my first fireworks.

And Mom didn't come inside for hours.

Signing off,

Mary Iris Malone,
Crazy and Good

THE ONLY THING
more beautiful than bright stars on a chilly night is bright stars on a chilly night with Beck and Walt.

I stuff my journal back in my bag, turn off the interior cab light (leaving the radio on), then join them in the bed of the truck. After the game, we found a spot in this nearly abandoned park overlooking the Cincinnati skyline. Beck has been taking advantage of the view, snapping photos left and right; Walt, after spending a few minutes looking at something in his old suitcase, fell asleep on his back.

I plop down in the middle of the truck bed, pull one of Walt's extra blankets over me, and stare at the sky. The radio is crackling a song about an undertaker, which the deejay classified as a “new oldie.” I have no idea what that means, but under this kind of picture-perfect panorama, the song's lo-fi, starry-skied, smoky-eyed recipe is exactly what the scene calls for.

After a slew of nighttime photos (and more than a few terrorized nocturnal critters), Beck sits next to me and leans his head against the cab window. “Do you believe in God?” he asks, his breath visible in the cool night air.

“Jeez, Beck. Just like that, huh?”

He smiles. “Willy-nilly. It's the only way.”

Something about these stars made the question inevitable, I guess. Clusters of them blink and shift in the sky, taking the shape of a tall bubbly-skinned man whispering pithy truths in my ear.

“You ever see a guy with a really deformed face?” I ask. “I mean like, just grossly—”

“It was a serious question,” interrupts Beck.

I sit up and round on him. “Beckett? Chill. I'm going to tell a serious story, and that's going to be my serious answer. Mmkay?”

Smiling, he nods. “Continue.”

I clear my throat, summoning my best Morgan Freeman narrator voice. It's no
March of the Penguins
, but it'll do. “When I was little, maybe four years old, I went with my mom to a bank. It could have been a pharmacy or a fish market, but I remember it as a bank. I held her hand in line while she talked to someone behind us. A man stood in front of us—he wore a trench coat, and was tall. Like a giant.”

“You were four,” says Beck.

I shake my head. “His tallness wasn't contingent on my shortness. By any standard, this guy was tall. Anyway—God, this is weird—I remember he smelled exactly like a slice of Kraft Singles. Like milky and sweet and sticky or something.”

“Gross,” whispers Beck. “Also, specific.”

“I remember reaching up and touching the hem of his trench coat. When he turned around . . .” A shiver runs up my spine to my cortex, raising the hairs on my forearms and navel.

“What?” says Beck, sitting up.

I touch my left cheek. “This entire side of his face was just a mound of bubbling skin. Like foamy toothpaste, or a . . . pile of zeroes, or something. It was just all bubbly. I don't know how else to describe it. I remember he smiled down at me, which just made his condition worse. Like his smile was a butter knife, cutting through all those—”

“Mim!”

“Sorry. Anyway, I tried to wrap my infantile brain around what I was seeing. I compared his bubbly face to what I knew of the world, but drew a blank. It just didn't make sense. So with the tact of a four-year-old, I pointed right at his cheek and asked what happened. He smiled even bigger and said God made him that way.

“‘Did he mess up?' I asked.

“‘Nope,' he said, smiling like a fool. ‘He just got bored.'

“I have no idea what happened the rest of the day. Mom probably jumped in, considering the guy looked like a blistered caveman.”

Chuckling, Beck slides down on his back next to me.

I lower my voice to a whisper. “Ever since then I've wondered—if that's what God makes when he's bored, I'd hate to see what he makes when he's angry.”

For a second, we just lie there, enjoying the specific silence of nature. The bubbly skinned constellation is gone. Hell, it probably never existed.

“So is that a yes?” asks Beck.

I consider the original question and answer the only way I know how. “Honestly, I don't know. The prospect of there being a God scares me. Almost as much as the prospect of there not being one.”

The undertaker song climaxes into a final smooth chorus and draws to a close with that mystical power so many songs attempt, yet few achieve: it leaves me wanting more.

“What about you?” I ask.

“What about me?”

“Do you believe in God?”

“Oh, definitely.”

Considering my own spiritual wrestling, Beck's conviction takes me off guard. I sit up on one elbow and stare him down. “How can you be so sure?”

“Did you know, at birth, our bodies have three hundred bones? Over time, they—”

“Hey,” I interrupt. “I asked you a question.”

He raises an eyebrow. “Mim? Chill. I'm going to tell a story, and that's going to be my answer.
Mmkay
?”

I wave a hand in front of me. “Continue.”

“So. Over time, those three hundred bones fuse together into two hundred and six. Don't even get me started on how weird this is. More than
half
of those are in the hands and feet, which are four of the smallest human features. And yet, if you add up all those bones, the entire skeleton is only responsible for fourteen percent of the total body weight.”

“You're a science freak.”

“Possibly. Well. It's been suggested.”

God, I could eat him. “So what's your point?”

“My point is this: My heart must
continue beating in order to pump a red liquid called blood through tiny tubes called veins throughout this unit called a body. All my organs, in communication with my heart, must work properly for this carbon-based life-form called Beckett Van Buren to exist on this tiny spinning sphere called Earth. So many little things have to be
just so
, it's a wonder we don't just fall down dead.”

“That happens, you know.”

Beck
ha-ha
s, then puffs a breath ring into the air. “I guess I just think life is more mysterious than death.”

“How very philosophical. You should write a book.”

Another
ha-ha
, and I'm suddenly aware of my own sarcastic mitigation. Possibly due to the late hour, though more likely owing to my borderline-drunken fascination with Beck, I'm acting like a freshman at prom; blasé, elbowy, incapable of original thought. In an effort to steer the conversation toward higher ground, I say what I should have said the first time. “So you believe in God because you're alive?”

“Guess I should just say that next time, huh?”

The radio is playing a new song, and it's nice, but if it ended, I would be fine. Nothing like the undertaker song. That fucking tune left me ravished.

“Where was your dad?” Beck asks.

“What?”

“In your story, at the bank or fish market, or wherever. Where was your dad?”

“He was never around back then.” I pause. “Actually, I don't know why I said that. He's always been around, but even when he's around, he's not . . .
around
, you know? Not present. Or at least, not since Kathy ruined everything.”

Something howls in the distance.

“What do you think?” I say. “Coyote?”

“What if you're wrong?” says Beck.

“Yeah. Probably just a wild dog or something.”

“Not that. About Kathy.”

“What do you mean?”

Beck shuffles, uncomfortably. “Nothing.”

“Uh-uh. Out with it.”

“Look, I'm sure I don't know the whole story, but you've mentioned this bitch of a stepmom more than a few times, and I don't know . . . you've never really given any good reason for not liking her.”