The Cake is a Lie (24 page)

A half hour later, during lunch, I got
a text from Oakley.

“
I’m so sorry Marco, I told
him it was you. He just kept saying, ‘Who are you believing over
me? Who are you putting this on? Who are you putting everything we
have on? He wouldn’t talk to me until I told h–”

Before I could even finish reading the
text I got a call from an unknown number. I switched my phone to
silent and pushed open the car door we were hot boxing for some
air.

“
Ohh I messed up.” I
announced to the car. “I told Oakley about Robby trying to get with
Carol last weekend.”

This produced a bunch of
laughter.

“
I saw the whole thing,”
Eric trumpeted, “That was so messed up, it’s good you told
her.”

My phone went off again. “Now some
unknown number won’t stop calling me.” My eyes were glued to the
menacing blinking screen.

“
Marco, I know what you’re
thinking right now.” Justyn chimed in gleaming. “‘I’m Marco, I’m
gonna be try and be tough right now, and say try and say some tough
shit and get my block knocked off.’ No, you’re not. no, no, no.
Don’t do it. Think about your future babies.” I was too scared to
laugh.

“
Think about little Marco
Jr. Caldirolis.” Justyn was cracking up.

The phone started blinking for the
third time.

“
Man, give me the phone,”
Eric finally said, “I don’t give a f.” I tossed the phone to Eric.
With a sunken head I listened to the one way convo.

“
Yo, who be this? Oh Brendo,
what up bro? Marco didn’t have your number dawgy, we didn’t know
who was calling. He can’t talk right now bro, he’s driving right
now, what up though? We’re about to go eat some burritos as big as
our faces. Oh ya? He mentioned that. Ya he knows he made a mistake.
He knows it’s not his business. I get he shouldn’t be talking shit.
Oh I know me and you are cool dawg. So ya gonna do me a favor and
chill out on my bro ok? Alright here he is.”

I put the speaker to my ear. “Ya?” I
didn’t say hey or anything cordial, I knew what was
coming.

“
I knew you liked her from
that night outside of Marks.” He yelled.

“
Ya.” I said again, sounding
defeated.

“
And now you’re up in my
personal business!” He went on shouting and threatening me, going
on different tangents but always immediately coming back to his
main talking point, “Why are you up in my personal business
homie?”

“
She really likes you,
Robby,” were the only words that I could get out.

Spring, 2006

Two months later, after
everything had long died down, I spoke to Robby on the phone again.
This time concerning one of my favorite phrases: “a draught.” I
loved saying it, we all did. A weed “draught” was a time to call
everyone we knew. We’d scroll through our contact lists one by one,
taking turns calling our childhood friends, 2nd cousins,
5
^th
grade crushes, anyone who’d given us the slightest inclination
they smoked cheeba.

“
I know you know someone,
Patricia, don’t play around. Come on, we’ve been down since honor
choir. It’s a crazy draught. Just make one call for me,
please.”

We used all our social power to be the
first to connect the dots and find some, all the while cursing the
draught every two seconds. It was my reason for ending up back in
Robby’s house, back in the gross space, with Eric and
Jay.

Robby escorted us into his garage/game
room, complete with a dart board on the wall and a poker table. He
retook his seat next to Chris at the poker table, we headed for the
lawn chairs further back in the garage. Chris nodded unemotionally
to each of us as we passed. On the poker table were piles of
discarded cigar tobacco, stems and seeds. The finished blunts were
stacked 30 high in the center of the table. A stereo was playing
softly but making a huge noise. “Money on my mind. Money on my
mind. Fuck bitches, get money. Fuck bitches, get money.”

“
This is the cut,” Robby
announced as he ran a lighter over a drying blunt. I’d never heard
“cut” used to describe a good song before, it was
genius.

“
What are you guys gonna do
with all those?” Jay asked.

Robby giggled wildly. “We’re going to
smoke them all this weekend.” It was an unbelievable claim, and yet
there they were, a pile of 30 blunts and counting. They’re crazy, I
thought. The sight was enough to leave a “no one’s home” look on my
face. Fifteen minutes later, I drifted back into the moment with a
question.

“
So what ya gonna do after
high school Robby? You going to college?” I asked with my most
genuine “just making conversation,” naive face.

“
Hehe ooh haha.” Robby’s
eyes kept dangerously coming back to me but his smile was all
forgiving.

“
I’ve been kicked out of two
high schools boii. I was held back a year, I’m 19. I got kicked out
of Garfield dawg.” At the end of the statement he glanced over at
Chris for approval. Chris nodded at him like “word up” as he tossed
another blunt into the stack. Garfield was in the city and had
metal detectors.

“
No I’m not going to
college. What do you learn at college anyways? I’ve been killing it
since grade school boii. I got something you can’t teach. Like a
newborn’s scream when the doctor spanks him on the bottom for the
first time. It’s not about money or looks either. I could pick up a
model naked. You know my steelo.” Robby glowed at his words like he
was awe-struck at himself yet again.

“
How you get good at
fucking?” He asked the group. Silence. “Come on, how you get good
at fucking?” Read a book? I almost guessed. “You fuck-a-lot.” He
let this set in while he laughed loudly at himself, one of the
constant reminders to everyone who his primary audience
was.

“
How you get good at
dancing? You dance-a-lot. How you get good at math?” The ashes from
the circling blunt fell freely to the cement floor without a
care.

“
So community college?” I
persisted.

Robby smiled even bigger.
“My uncle was telling me about this helicopter pilot program. He
said helicopter pilots make bank. I’m gonna fly helicopters.” You
could tell it was his 5
^th
or 6
^th
choice, but it was one of the cleverest
6
^th
choices I’d ever heard.

In a dim cramped stairwell I came
across Oakley and Robby alone. We were at some girl’s house. To my
frustration the party hosts were getting hella random, mean
nothing. Robby was hunched over in the middle of the steps. He
looked half conscious.

Oakley leaned in and put her hands on
him, “Robby, what do you want?” He swatted her away with a violent
hand motion.

“
I can’t even handle you
right now,” She struck back nastily with her words.

“
Tst, tst.” Was all he said,
“Tst, tst,” Then ructious laughter. A clown without his makeup. I’d
taken a watchful seat at the top of the stairs. Oakley saw me and
gave me a frustrated look, I shrugged sympathetically.

Robby jolted up and flailed his arms
against the walls like a beam. He froze there for scary moment
before stumbling down the stairs. He disappeared into the
basement.

Oakley walked up to sit next to
me.

“
He’s been getting like this
every weekend.”

“
Weird.” I’d seen enough to
know that was some serious drug stuff.

“
What are you doing after
the party?”

“
I gotta feed my dog, my
parents are out of town.” My house was only two blocks away from
this sorry excuse for a party. One of Oakley’s private school
friends appeared at the bottom of the staircase. Oakley had a
different private school friend with her every weekend. It was
incredible how she kept in touch with all her friends, she had so
many she still saw.

“
Can we come with
you?”

“
For sure.”

As we strolled, I asked
Oakley’s friend to tell me how they first met. It was soccer. It
turned out she hated Oakley at first sight. I reflected on how
obnoxiously talkative Oakley was in 7
^th
grade, when her great
charisma knew no tact. She was an easy target to hate.

For two blocks my imagination ran wild.
But the charade couldn’t go any farther than my front steps. I
couldn’t let them in, there were oxygen tanks in the living room,
wheel chairs and ambiguous pink bins in the basement. We were
stuck. I let my dog out on the steps, we all petted him as we
talked for a minute. I kept petting him while I watched them walk
off into the night.

Two weeks later, I was hanging out at
Oakley’s, watching her play solitaire on her computer. I was always
uneasy at her house. Constantly reminded about the time I ran
around her house drunk when I was 14, tearing through her underwear
drawer. Other than that I loved it. The fancy big kitchen, the
tidiness of everything that just emanated structure. Her younger
sister was studiously memorizing a puzzle of flash cards spread out
on the living room carpet.

Can you feel the love tonight played
tenderly in the background as I watched her furiously click the
screen.

“
I always wondered what the
great Oakley Carter did in her spare time,” I said from behind her.
The joke was in how dead seriously I said it.

“
I haven’t talked to Robby
in a week,” She said abruptly over her shoulder. “We’re dunzo. I
haven’t told anyone yet, not even my mom. You can’t tell
anyone.”

“
What happened?” I couldn’t
wait to hear the dirt on Robby. [13]

“
Have you ever been with
someone so long that you just can’t stand everything they
do?”

“
Oh definitely.” How many
relationships was this for her? 4? I hadn’t even had one, that was
how far behind I was.

[13]
The saddest
thing about Robby Blue is that soon he will be withered (if he
isn’t already), with even darker bags under his eyes—from all the
drugs, or the heavy weight of young adult malaise and regret he
must carry. Probably the drugs though. And no one will know he was
once as close to perfection as it gets. If I burned too bright to
fast…Well he was Icarus in a jet, plugging.

In Richmond Beach there’s a five
bedroom house that’s been deserted for 6 years. I visit it every
few month to get nostalgic. It’s like a secret tomb I have a key
to. The inside’s cluttered with rows of plastic shelves and
hundreds of dusty boxes. Rooms and rooms full. It’s overwhelming
enough to always make me pause for a while when I go in.

I look at the Bowflex covered in a half
inch of dust and remember the day my step-dad and mom bought it. My
mom gave her Bowflex stump speech for a week, about its convenience
and her and Allan’s goals to get in better shape. They never used
it once. Just like the treadmill and the foosball table. I take one
of the boxes down. (Most aren’t even sorted). Inside is a book, a
mini fan, some screwdrivers, and fishing wire. The next one’s an
orgy of baseball and magic cards, I pull gobs out and look through
them. Sentimental ornaments are my favorite finds–holiday
decorations, figurine collections. There’s microscopes, mirrors.
Paintings, lights, lamps, Italian fine china, silverware, vcrs,
board games. Biking helmets, sleeping bags, tents, ski boots,
computers. Above all are packages of photos, not just of us, people
I’ve never met, great aunts, keepsake keepsakes. And papers.
Financial documents diligently kept all these years, now as
valuable as seaweed.

It’s during one of these soal-searching
inventory expeditions that I find a bound notebook filled with worn
and fragile letters. They’re all post marked from Mexico, written
to my mom from my dad. My dad did community work there in his early
twenties. My age. My mom saved them all these years. I make it
three sentences before tearing up.

“
Today I was out working
with Francisco and Luis in “la milpa” and coming back in the
afternoon they showed me a small lake to swim in. I,
instantaneously, upon seeing the combination of the dry land and
flowing water and the landscape, thought of you and our “easy”
hours on the Mabton River, relaxing and talking and swimming and
beating the heat. It made me want to go swimming with you so much.
Even working in the fields I can’t shake missing you. I was
learning about how to grow Frijoles alongside the corn and I think
I must have turned to you and said, “Isn’t this something?” a
couple of hundred times in my mind…I was sitting outside this
evening watching the sunset, saying a few prayers, trying to relax
– but I realized several times that looking down, I was wearing the
U of W tee-shirt that you wore a few nights, and I began to think
of it on you, and saw your smile, and felt you hugging me and.. I
went inside and tried to read the most interesting book I could – a
social analysis of Mark’s gospel – no luck, by the first couple of
pages into it I was thinking of you. So I said, “I’m going to write
her for a while.” I like writing to you – I feel like you’re near
for a while and I’m talking to you. I love you, mi esposa, Talking
to you was so good, hearing about what’s been happening, how you’ve
been feeling. We’ve become a part of each other in a very sensing
way, in trust. I am sincerely and very serenely yours for as long
as you wish.