Sorta Like a Rock Star (17 page)
Read Sorta Like a Rock Star Online
Authors: Matthew Quick
Tags: #Humour, #Young Adult, #Contemporary, #Religion
I go to the morgue.
I see the facts.
It’s worse than anything I could have ever imagined.
My howling stops them from uncovering more than Mom’s head and shoulders.
I don’t want to see any more.
I crumble.
I melt.
I evaporate.
They cover what’s left of my naked mother back up with a sheet and push her into a wall, which is when I realize that she is in some sorta freezer.
I do not talk for three days.
I sit.
I stare.
I see my mother’s naked dead body in a dark freezer.
Sometimes I shake.
It seems like I am in a constant nightmare.
Donna brings me soup and crackers and toast—and takes care of BBB’s needs.
At my request, Donna pays to have my mother cremated.
Fire. Warmth. It’s better this way.
I promise to pay Donna back, and she says it’s not necessary.
The very next day, at my request, Father Chee performs a private ceremony at the bench where Mom and I used to feed ducks.
BBB is the only other person invited to the ceremony, because this special childhood place is mine alone—it’s what I have left, so I don’t want to share it with anyone except FC and BBB. Not even Donna and Ricky are invited.
Father Chee does a very good job eulogizing my mom, especially since he never met her. He says a lot of things about Mom going to heaven and my seeing her again, which is pretty nice, especially since Mom was never baptized or confirmed as a member of the Catholic Church—and I’m pretty sure she never went to confession—so I know FC is supposed to say Mom was going to hell and all.
Maybe the Pope is pissed?
I don’t care.
FC says he doesn’t care either.
I’m not going to tell you exactly what Father Chee says at Mom’s funeral, but it was very beautiful—as beautiful as Private Jackson’s best haiku, which is saying something. True.
We spread Mom’s ashes on the water and grass around the bench—and I pray flowers will bloom there in the spring, which is a girly and maybe silly sentiment, but a nice thought too.
Donna takes me in, buys me a bed, gives me my own room, and begins sorting through the legal red tape involved for her to become my legal guardian, which is complicated since no one knows if my father is still alive or where he might be—and I don’t know of any living family I may or may not have since my mom left her home out west early on in life, hitchhiked east at the age of thirteen, and never told me anything about her parents whom she hated and refused to even name. I never even knew my own mother’s maiden name.
Donna says she knows enough people to keep me out of the foster care system at least until I turn eighteen this summer, provided that I will state before a judge that I want to stay with Donna and Ricky, which I do.
The police arrest a man with huge brown glasses and strange hair.
I am sure you read all about him in the papers or see him on television.
His face is everywhere.
He becomes famous.
He admits to doing what he did, but his lawyer stresses that the whole thing was random, an accident even, because my mother’s killer went off his medications, but is now back on meds, as if that matters at all to anyone.
Along with the families of the other victims, the prosecution contacts me and says I will be made to testify, which I will hate doing, even though I have Donna to help me out—and I’m not going to tell you about the trial, because it will prove to be too horrible.
My mother’s killer uses my name whenever he talks to the press.
Through the media he apologizes to all of his victims’ family members, but the only name I really hear him say is Amber Appleton.
He says he is sick.
He says he deserves whatever he gets—and his unfeeling mechanical voice makes me shiver.
He has a long criminal history.
He is a registered sex offender.
Looking into his eyes makes you believe that life can be absolutely meaningless.
He is like every other man who makes people disappear in horrible unimaginable ways.
He reminds me of a Nietzsche quote I found while doing Joan of Old research: “A casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows that faith does not prove anything.”
Donna tells me this man will go to jail for life, that he will be punished in terrible ways over and over again by the other inmates—and I tell her I don’t really care about any of that—in fact, I never want to talk about that man ever again, and I do not really care what happens to him.
I do not go back to school.
I lose fifteen pounds.
I am always cold.
I become very jumpy; any old noise will scare me horribly.
Donna tries to get me to see a therapist, but I refuse.
I cannot stand listening to Ricky’s autistic nonsense, and I yell at him a lot—until he finally gets the message and just leaves me alone in my room.
I decide to quit being Amber Appleton, which isn’t to say that I change my name or anything. I just decide that I can’t keep living the way I used to live—swinging for the fences, believing that things are going to work out, that everything is worth fighting for, and that I am brave and strong enough to change my reality, because I’m not and I can’t.
Joan of Old was right.
I get her now, and what she said about life being a hell that I was only beginning to experience—that makes sense suddenly.
I’m not a kid anymore.
Ty, Jared, and Chad-in-a-backpack come over to Donna’s and—in my new bedroom—they say a lot of dumb things.
At first, they say they are sorry, and ask what they can do, and when I don’t say anything, they get sorta fidgety, and start talking about the recent Halo 3 games they have played in The Franks Lair, and how they are organizing an all-night video game tournament to help the football team raise money for new safer pads and helmets and other sundry equipment.
This seems important to them.
Back in the day, that news would have pissed me off, because Lex and company are obviously just using my boys—but listening to Ty, Jared, and Chad go on and on, I can’t even shrug.
I just stare at my boys with what I suppose is a very blank look on my face until they leave.
That night I tell Donna I don’t want to see Ty, Jared, and Chad anymore—but she doesn’t respond to my request.
Father Chee jogs to my house every single morning and comes up into my bedroom—even on Sundays, before he presides over Mass.
He never fails to show up.
If I am up, he’ll ask if I want to talk.
For weeks, I do not want to talk, so FC just sits next to me for an hour, and we sorta breathe together.
We just sit on the edge of my bed breathing, occupying the same space, which is okay with me, because I really like my Man of God, even if I am mad at God Himself.
If I’m not up, or if I am pretending to sleep, or if I am just lying there like usual, staring at the ceiling, Father Chee will kneel by my bed and bow his head.
If I ask him what he is doing, he’ll say he is lifting me up to God, asking God to help me be whoever I need to be at this moment of my life.
He comes every day, and I don’t mind his coming.
Franks sends me a card that reads:
Dear Amber,
We were very shaken by the news.
I am always here if you need me.
We miss you down in The Franks Lair.
I’m praying for you, and will be looking forward to your return.
Be well,
Franks
I throw his card away.
I throw away all of the flowers and cards from classmates and community members.
I don’t even sniff or open any of those.
I do not want any of these flower arrangements or sympathy cards to exist, so I ask Donna to burn them in the backyard, but I never see any smoke rising past my window, so I don’t think she is honoring my request.
This zombie-type mom in need of extra cash starts coming to “tutor” me, since I’m not going to school right now.
She’s large.
She smells like mothballs.
She never laughs or smiles or tells a joke.
She reminds me of a robot caked in meat.
Her name is Mrs. Redman.
My real teachers give her assignments that I am supposed to complete. At first, there are little handwritten notes on the assignments—encouraging words from my real teachers—but these notes disappear after a few weeks or so, which is when I realize that my teachers have given up on me. It didn’t take them very long.
Because I still want to go to Bryn Mawr, I do all of my assignments and show Mrs. Redman my work three times a week when she comes to visit me.
She gives me all A’s, even when I answer incorrectly on purpose.
I think she is afraid of me, or something.
“Father Chee?”
“Yes, Amber?”
“Why does God allow men to go mentally insane?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’ll never lie to me, will you?”
“No.”
“Promise me. That you won’t tell me lies like everyone else. That you won’t BS me.”
“I promise—I will never lie to you.”
Prince Tony calls me on the phone from time to time, but I don’t really listen to what he says to me. It’s all crap about the seasons of life and the ebb and flow and other blah-blah stuff adults tell you when they don’t know what the hell to say. “Do you understand?” he always asks me at the end of the conversations, and I always say yes.
“Father Chee?”
“Yes, Amber?”
“Why are dogs more humane than humans?”
“I don’t know.”
Right about the same time my mom’s name starts showing up in the news, Private Jackson begins sending me one haiku a day in the mail.
He doesn’t write a letter stating that he is sorry for my loss, nor does he ask how I am doing or any of that other crap that doesn’t help. He just sends poems. And his haikus are not aimed at inspiring me or making me feel better or helping me deal with the loss. With words, he simply takes snapshots of simple things for me—like a leaf, a bottle cap, a snowflake, a bird in flight, an ant, a single breath—and when I read these haikus I sorta trip out on the image that is never good or bad, happy or sad, exciting or boring.