Blazed (36 page)

I'm shaking. “Right.”

“Oh, I can't wait to see you on Sunday. I look ten years younger, Jaime. It's incredible. This is a fresh start for us. Me and my boy.”

“Good.”

“I love you, Jaime.”

“I love you, too, Mom.”

“And tomorrow I'm going to wake up and remember this conversation. It's exciting.”

“Yes, it is.”

“Me and my boy back together in two days and your father worlds apart from us again, where he can't hurt us or lie anymore.”

“Yeah.”

“Cos that's what he does best.”

I don't say anything.

“He was nothing like his father, and that was a shame.”

“Whatever you say, Mom.”

Pause.

“Whatever you say . . .”

KRISTEN COMES RUNNING UP THE
street in shorts and a drenched-in-sweat T-shirt. I'm sitting on the grass in the front yard with the guitar, working on a new song called “Graveyard Loving” and that other song, “Sticking to My Guns.” “Graveyard” would be perfect for Skullburns since it's got this nice surfey, psychedelic rhythm to it, but it ain't gonna happen. Maybe we can work on it later at practice after we're done going through the set for tomorrow night. Who knows, though? Most likely it'll stay with Tiger Stitches, like the other song.

Taking her headphones out, she goes, “What the hell happened to your face, dude? I'm gonna kick someone's ass.”

“It's okay,” I say. “It was my fault.”

“Who did it?”

“I don't know. So it doesn't matter.”

“Jesus, man. You're always scraping. Showed up here with some damage and just as it was almost gone, you got more.”

“Damage,” I say, grinning. “Consider it an accessory for me.”

Kristen falls onto the ground now and stretches out.

“I forgot how nice it was to be up early and run. I feel great right now. I'm so excited to have Tyler out of my life and to be done with the partying. I've already put together a dress, and I've got a contract with this band Pops to do another one for a show in two weeks at the Independent.”

“Dope,” I say. “That's awesome.”

“I'm also making something for you to wear tomorrow night, dude.”

“Really?”

“Yup. And you gonna look good, baby doll.”

She grabs my arm and squeezes it.

“About the other night,” I start.

“Don't,” she says. “It's fine. I don't feel weird about it or anything. I wanted to do it. I really did.”

“Me too.”

“That's the difference between you and a troll like Tyler. You consider other people. You've got real feelings, not just mood swings based on being high or coming down. That's what I'm excited about the most. Feeling everything again.”

“Me too. I'm done with those blues.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

“I'm so proud of you. Is it weird?”

“A little bit, I guess. I'm a little shaky. I feel like I got a cold. Sweating a lot. But beyond that, I'm good. This is good. My mother's sober and clean now too. It'll be better when I get back. So much better.”

“So you're definitely not staying,” she goes.

“I can't.”

“Yes, you can.”

“No . . . I can't.”

“I get it, Jaime. You're terrified of what your mother might do if you leave her. You don't want that on your conscience. Who would? That kinda guilt ruins lives. I've seen that play out in my family.”

“So you know that I can't.”

“Thing is,” she says, “how did having you there with her all these years make a difference? She still almost died.”

“She partied too hard.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really,” I snap. “What else do you think happened?”

Kristen shrugs. “I don't know . . . my father said that she had shattered her right pinkie somehow and had to do surgery on it when she was in the hospital. Then I'm on your Tumblr last night.”

“Okay.”

“Watching your videos, and I notice the date on one of them. It was recorded the day before she OD'd, and your face, it's fine. No bruises, no bumps, it's totally normal.”

“What the fuck are you trying to say?”

Shrugging again, she says, “I don't know, Jaime. Cos I don't know what it all is or means. What I do know is that something seems a little off about it.”

“It's none of your goddamn business.”

“It is. You're family.”

“Again,” I snap, “this is none of your fucking business.”

“The thing about the truth, Jaime, is that it's powerful. There's a reason for that old saying, ‘The truth will set you free.' It's liberating, man. The lies I've been telling myself for months about Tyler were destroying me inside. I haven't felt this free and clear in so long. And it all started by getting to the truth, then acknowledging it.”

“Stop it,” I snort. “Just please stop this and let it go. Okay? This is my shit, nobody else's. It's mine.”

“You've been alone for so long, Jaime. So fucking long, man. I know this is tough, but you need to realize now that you're not alone anymore. There's people here who love the fuck out of you and will do anything to help you.”

“No,” I say. “Just stop.” Pushing myself off the ground, I go, “I'm really happy for you, by the way. And I'll see you tonight.”

“Jaime,” she says.

“I'm done,” I go. “I'm leaving. It's over now. Okay?”

She doesn't say anything and I run into the house, lock myself in my room, and lie in bed and listen to Future Islands.

DOMINIQUE'S TEXT MESSAGE COMES TO
me while I'm walking on the beach on my way to Brandon's house for our last practice before the show. It's long, too. It says . . .

Thank you for apologizing, Jaime. I know you mean it, and it's really nice to know someone who means what they say. That said, you really hurt me last night. I just wanted to help you. I knew you were taking Oxy but I didn't know you were that far gone, and I don't want that in my life. Even if you are leaving on Saturday, I can't have someone I love and adore putting themselves in those kinds of fucked-up situations and letting it bleed into my relationship with them. I just can't have it, and I'm not sure I want to see you before you leave. I won't be at Savannah's opening tonight because I can't see you right now. I have something for you, though. Maybe tomorrow. I don't know. Maybe I'll just send it to you or give it to my mother to give to your father. Sorry, love. What happened last night shook me to my core. I've come too far in my recovery to let someone else just fuck my world up. It's selfish, man. I didn't take you for a selfish person before last night. I love you. Have fun tonight.

By the time I'm done reading this for the third time, I've stopped walking and am throwing up in the sand. Here I've been, my whole fucking life, resenting my mother for her
behavior and what she's put me through, yet the first time I'm allowed the freedom to have a life, the first time I find a girl who cares about me and loves me and thinks I'm great, who is so nice to me, I act exactly like my mother.

It's so sick. And this is why I have to go back, because we deserve each other. Misery loves company, and I don't deserve to have these amazing people in my life. They're better than me. Better than my mother. This is the truth. My decision is final.

THE DETAILS FOR TOMORROW NIGHT
are these: At seven forty-five our set starts in the parking lot right next to this bar called Thee Parkside, which is also a show venue, and they've okayed us to play for a half hour. We're meeting at Eddie's at six. We're playing four songs. They've got a cameraman all lined up to shoot the show. We plug in. We rip. Destroy. Shred. Smile. Then it's over and I go home and fly far, far away. But it's all on record. We've got the songs online. We'll have the show online too. This is the point. Making something dope, something you're stoked about, and pushing it on the world to give yourself a larger meaning and longer existence than your own life.

“Art is the only immortality we have,” Eddie says. “To be able to positively affect people for generations after we're dead. This is what it's about. We're kids and we have everything we need to change someone's life. You need to have the dedication. That's it. Dedicate your life to making good shit and push it on the world. I get a fucking boner just thinking about it.”

• • •

We skate to my father's gallery in SoMa. Doors opened just an hour ago, and there's already three hundred people
there. That dude Joel from the Brian Jonestown Massacre and the movie
Dig!
is spinning records.

Savannah looks stunning. And she looks so happy and relieved. Anyone who's ever put their heart and soul into their art, that kind of dedication, the amount of work, the insane hours spent alone making things that can dramatically change some people's lives, stimulate some people's lives, the weight of it crushes you every time. It buries you and suffocates you and isolates you, and when you're finally done, you can't hide the relief. It's washed all over you, yet you're also sad because it's gone suddenly. You've given it life and given it wings and it's taken flight for the world to hopefully see.

She's wearing this dress that Kristen made this morning. It's black satin and strapless. It's got all these different white cloth shapes sewed onto the front and back of it. She's wearing these black leather boots that run up to her knees. Her hair is pulled up and back. Her lips are covered with bright, shiny red lipstick. And she's got a black bandanna tied tightly around her neck and pushed to the side.

Eddie, he goes straight for Kristen. Me, I go straight for Savannah. She's standing in a group that consists of James, Michael, and Renee from Lamborghini Dreams, some members of Thee Oh Sees, Terry Malts, the Fresh & Onlys, and the Richmond Sluts.

“Yes,” says James. “My man.”

He gives me a hug and introduces me to everyone. Just like I wished for, I'm able to shake John Dwyer's hand and tell him how much his music means to me and how rad his band shreds.

James tries to hand me a glass of white wine.

“I'm good,” I say.

“No one here cares, dude.”

“It's not that. I don't give a fuck about anyone here. It's some personal shit right now. That's all.”

“I respect that,” he says. “Heard you got a show tomorrow night outside of Thee Parkside.”

“Who told you that?”

“Your lovely stepsister. She's been bragging about you all night. Maybe I was wrong the other day.”

“About what?”

“Maybe these people really fucking care about you, man.”

I look at Savannah and she winks at me.

“Maybe,” I say, before James tells everyone how he found his skateboard in the back of a closet and took it out for the first time in seven years. He says how he went to the DMV parking lot all by himself and for an hour, he grinded the pavement and pulled off every trick he ever knew how to do one by one and when he was done, he took the board and threw it in the garbage.

“I just wanted to prove to myself that I still had it. That I'm still as young as ever. It was rad. A youth check every few years is necessary at my fucking age. I haven't felt that young in ten years. I still got it, baby. I'm still good. Spring break, spring break, spring break forever,” he says.

And this right here is why the man's a fucking hero.

I'VE BEEN WATCHING MY FATHER
for the last fifteen minutes from across the room. Savannah's already sold three paintings at ten thousand dollars each. There's probably six hundred people here too. And that Yeah Yeah Yeahs song “Soft Shock” is playing from the invisible speakers.

My father's been on the phone. Texting furiously. Looking around to make sure nobody's near him. He even ducked into the bathroom to make a phone call.

It's strange. So when he sneaks out the back door of the gallery, I follow him.

Sure enough, just like I thought, there's my father and there's Tyler and there's my father about to buy cocaine from Tyler.

Anger shoots right up through me.

I burst outside, startling both of them, and I go, “Really, dude? Are you fucking kidding me?”

“Jaime, go back inside,” my father snaps.

“Screw that.”

“Scram, you faggot,” Tyler says, smirking and laughing. “You fucking loser.”

“Hey,” my father snaps at Tyler. “Just watch it.” Turning back to me, he goes, “Jaime, please. Go inside.”

“Get lost,” snorts Tyler.

Me, this is when I lose it. I snap. I run right at Tyler and deck him in the face, knocking him backward. Then I hit him again.

“Jaime,” my father screams, then grabs me like a fool.

I push him away from me and when I spin back around, Tyler clocks me in the side of the head, then drills me in the ribs, right in the same spot I was kicked the night before.

“Ahhhh!” I scream.

When Tyler comes at me again, my father cuts him off and just starts jacking him so hard and so fast.

Just
BAM!

POW!

CRACK!

POP!

Tyler's staggering around, bleeding now, and right as my father is about to land another blow, a fucking cop car blasts down the street right at us.

Tyler, he swallows, like, three bags of coke and then runs at my father, who's not paying attention, but I cut him off now and pop him one more time right as the cop car comes to a screeching halt and two cops storm out of it, guns drawn.

It all happens so fast too. Like a blur. I don't even really remember it. Just that in less than a minute, me and my
father are on our butts on the sidewalk next to each other in handcuffs. And Tyler, he's in cuffs on the other side of the street.