Crazy (14 page)

I recover first. "We have a musical mission to accomplish, Dad. Do you want to come with us?"

"What? Are you kidding me?" Shelby says, and Pete sets his hand on her shoulder.

CRAZY GLUE
:
Good ol' Pete.

Dad smiles, exposing his yellowed teeth and swollen gums. "A musical mission? Will the Furies be there? The horrible Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone?"

"Cool," Haze says. "Who are they?"

"No, we're safe, Dad. Come on—let's get our coats on." I turn around and we all go back to the entrance hall, where Dad and I grab our coats. I try putting mine on, but it hurts to lift my arm, so I just carry it and tell everyone I feel kind of warm.

We step outside, the first time I've been out all day, and I'm hit by the brightness of the sun. It cheers me even though it's only about ten degrees out. I shiver and limp with the rest of the gang toward Haze's van, holding on to my dad's arm. I feel bruised about the body and still a little shaky.

We reach the van and we all climb inside. I tell my dad to get in the far back and I push him from behind. Then I climb in and sit down next to him. I look to the front of the van and spot the two grocery bags holding the violin and bow in the passenger seat, one turned upside down on top of the other.

We all get settled, Dad and I in the back, Shelby and Pete in the center, and Haze and the Stradivarius up front.

As soon as Haze turns on the ignition, the car explodes with the sound of hip-hop and it rocks the van. Our musical mission has begun.

H
AZE LIVES IN ONE
of the new neighborhoods around here that have these gigantic houses and acres of fancy lawns. The roads are really wide and there are all these young trees planted at evenly spaced distances along the grassy strips running between the houses and the streets. It all looks well tended and perfect—like a fantasyland. Looking at Haze in his rumpled clothes and bizarre makeup and driving around in his industrial-size van, it's hard to imagine he actually lives in one of these homes.

We turn onto his street, Honeysuckle Circle. Haze shuts off the radio and says, "Well, there it is." He points to a four-story brick mansion with porches and balconies jutting out from both sides. "That's the whorehouse."

CRAZY GLUE
:
Yup, hard to miss. Looks like there's more than one loony-tooney parent on the loose.

Spray painted in large black block letters across the front of Haze's house is the word "whore," and I notice as we pass the huge, four-car garage that the center door has a Hummer-size hole in it.

Pete laughs. "You don't lie."

"Yeah, right? I told you." Haze chuckles.

AUNT BEE
:
How nice to have a sense of humor about it.

SEXY LADY
:
Jason has a sense of humor; it's just that nothing's funny.

We drive for a minute or two more, and then Haze slows down and says, "Shit!"

We look up ahead and see the mail truck. "What's wrong?" Pete and I both ask.

Dad says, "Is it the Furies?" He grabs my sore arm and I wince.

"The open door is on the sidewalk side," Haze says. "We can't just roll up and drop it in. Shit! Someone's got to get out and walk past the truck."

Pete and I both volunteer. "I'll do it," we each say.

I repeat more firmly, "
I'll
do it."

CRAZY GLUE
:
Way to go. You've got a busted arm, goob. Why can't you just shut up sometimes?

AUNT BEE
:
He's doing the right thing.

Haze pulls up alongside the mail truck and looks inside as we drive by. "Good, he's not there. Let's drive around and find out where he is, first."

"Where's the music?" Dad asks. "Just, where's the music? Have we lost the music? This is very dangerous." He puts his hands over his ears.

Haze turns the radio back on but keeps it down low. We ride about half a mile and find the mail carrier turning away from someone's bricked-in mailbox. Haze continues driving, but we all look back to see in which
direction the carrier is headed. Unfortunately, he's moving toward his truck.

"That's okay. It's okay—we've still got some time."

"Let's just hope you don't have any nosy-bodies poking their faces out the windows around here," Shelby says, speaking for the first time since we got into the van.

"So what," Pete says. "Let's just do it."

Haze speeds up. "This street makes a full circle, so I'll just keep going. Jason, get up front and get ready to jump out with the vi—vi—viceroy," Haze says, shrugging and looking at Dad for his reaction in the rearview mirror.

Dad doesn't notice the slip-up. He's too busy keeping an eye out for Furies lurking in bushes and behind houses.

I get up from my seat and make my way to the front of the van, my shoulder throbbing with sharp stabs of pain and both my hips aching.

FBG WITH A MUSTACHE
:
I bet you anything your collarbone is broken. Give the job to someone else. Have some sense.

I catch Pete watching me. "Really, Jason, I don't mind doing it," he says, but I shake my head.

"I got it."

CRAZY GLUE
:
You had your chance, goob, and you just blew it.

He's
my
dad.
He
stole the violin, remember.

I climb into the front passenger seat, making sure I don't step on the violin that now sits on the floor of
the van. I take a deep breath and let it out. I feel lightheaded from the pain, and I lean back in my seat and brace myself with my right hand as we speed around a curve, wheels screeching.

"Great way to not draw attention to us," Shelby says. "Your broken muffler's bad enough—think you could slow down?"

Haze shakes his head. "No can do. If he comes around that corner, he'll see us, so I don't think we've got too much time."

I see the mail truck up ahead again, and Haze slows while I lift the bags into my lap.

"I'm going to pull in right behind the truck. You jump out, put the—
it
in the seat, and hop back in, got it?"

CRAZY GLUE
:
Roger Dodger.

"Yeah, yeah, I got it. I got it." I feel dizzy now and my heart's pounding. My hands are sweating and wilting the sacks where I'm holding on to them. I swallow hard and Haze slows to a stop. I open the door and slide out of the van, leaving the door open. I look down the sidewalk in front of me. No mail carrier. I look at the nearest house diagonally across the street from where we're parked. I study the windows a second, but most all of them are covered in some gauzy stuff, so I can't tell if anyone is standing behind one of them watching me or not.

"Go! Go!" Pete says in a loud whisper.

I jog up to the truck with the violin held out in front of me. I get to the door and it's closed, not open the way Haze claimed it would be. "Shit!"

I hold the bags in my bad arm and try to open the door with my good one, praying it isn't locked. The door slides open with a bang and the bag slips out of my hand so that all I'm holding is the empty, top grocery bag. The bottom one hits the sidewalk with a
thunk
and the violin falls out of the bag. I hear Dad call out, "My violin! Jason, my violin!"

I glance back at the van and see Pete get up out of his seat and go toward my dad. I hear Dad call out to me, and then Haze and Pete are yelling at him. I turn back to the violin and grab it off the sidewalk.

CRAZY GLUE
:
Fingerprints, goob!

Jeez! There's no time to wipe it down or examine it for damage. Haze, Pete, and Dad are yelling at one another and I can see the mail carrier coming around the corner. "Don't look up. Don't look up," I warn the carrier under my breath.

I thrust the bow and violin, with its neck now exposed, into the truck and run back to the van, still holding on to the empty grocery bag.

I jump back into the van and yell, "Come on, let's get out of here!"

That's when I notice Haze has left his seat in order to help Pete calm my dad down and hold him in the van. I look back and see arms and legs flailing; then I
scramble over to the driver's seat, ignoring the screaming pain in my shoulder.

AUNT BEE
:
But you can't drive! You don't know how!

LAUGH TRACK
:
Uh-oh! (Nervous laughter).

The motor's running, so I put my foot on the brake.

CRAZY GLUE
:
Brilliant!

I mess with the gearshift a few seconds trying to get the thing to shift, and I finally move it into gear. I press the accelerator and we shoot backwards. I slam on the brake and we jerk to a halt with a screech.

CRAZY GLUE
:
We're all gonna die!

I look through the rearview mirror and see everyone except Shelby picking themselves up off one another. Then I look out the windshield and see the mail carrier watching us.

"He sees us!" I yell. I jam the gearshift into drive and floor it, and we shoot forward. I turn the steering wheel just in time to keep from hitting the mail truck. I keep going, weaving left, then right. I don't know what the hell I'm doing.

CRAZY GLUE
:
Not quite the piece of cake you thought it would be, huh, goob?

We roll up onto the sidewalk, then back onto the road. I see the mail carrier dart behind one of the brick-post mailboxes and hear Shelby scream, "Don't hit him!"

I'm driving mostly with my right arm because
my left arm is killing me. We ride up onto someone's grass, just past the driveway where the mail carrier is hiding.

FBG WITH A MUSTACHE
:
Watch the road, son, not the mail carrier.

"Shit!" Shelby yells.

"Shit!" I yell, bumping off the lawn and taking the curve too fast.

"Slow down! Slow down!" Pete yells.

"Keep going. Hurry up!" Haze yells.

I hear Dad crying and mumbling something about his violin.

"Shit!"

I keep driving, weaving all over the place.

FBG WITH A MUSTACHE
:
Get it under control, son. Do it now.

CRAZY GLUE
:
We're gonna do a rollover at the speed you're going.

I take another curve and Haze, who has managed to get to the row of seats just behind me, tells me I can slow down now. "Stop and I'll take over," he shouts.

I keep going. I don't know what I'm doing.

"I said, stop the van!"

I slam on the brakes; Haze falls forward and we conk heads. The hit just about knocks me out. I see stars circling my head—I swear I do, just like in a cartoon.

"Oh man!" Haze says, shaking his head, trying to shake off the pain. He rubs at his temple. "Oh man, that kills!" He shakes his head again and tells me to move over, his voice still whiny with pain.

"Yeah, gladly," I say.

I start to slide over, and everyone yells, "Put it in park!"

"Shit!" I put the car in park and scramble to the passenger seat, not caring if I rip my whole arm off in the process. I know that at any minute the mail truck is going to come careening around the corner after us.

Haze jumps into the driver's seat, puts the pedal to the metal, and tears out of there. When we turn out of the neighborhood and no truck is following us, I look into the back of the van and see peace-loving Pete sitting on my dad's lap with Dad squirming beneath him. "Oh, the indignity!" he cries, pushing against Pete's back.

Pete braces himself against the bench in front of him. "Are you going to be still now, or do I have to sit on you all the way home?"

"I am in possession of secret and mystical powers on loan from Zeus himself! Get off me or I will be forced to use them!" Dad pushes again, but Pete doesn't budge.

I smile, happy to let Pete deal with Dad for a minute; then I glance at Shelby staring out the window, her mouth set in a straight line, and she seems deep in thought. I know all this mess has taken her away from her mother for the past two days, and I feel bad for this.

CRAZY GLUE
:
Maybe you can comfort her—hmmm?

Well, I need to find some way to make it up to her. I face forward and nod to myself. Yeah, I'll find some way to make it up to all of them. That is, if the police don't haul us in first.

Dear Mouse:

Don't print this in the paper. Just answer me by e-mail, ok? If you do print this, I swear I'll kill you.

So, I'm in a sort of gang—well, yeah, I'm in a gang, and I want to get out, but they'll crucify me if I even try. I've done some bad shit, okay, and I had to do it, but I don't feel good about it anymore. I never felt good about it. I don't think anybody—well, we're all scared, you know? Well, you probably don't. But I figure I got two career choices, prison or death, unless you know of something else. So what do I do? You can't answer that, can you? Didn't think so. You're not so smart, are you, Dr. Gomez?

DOA

Dear DOA:

You're right. I can't answer that, 'cause if I did, I'd tell you to run away, which is probably not the right answer. If I were you, or if I were me in your situation, I'd fake my death somehow, so no one would come after me or my family, grab some money, and run away
to some whole other state. Maybe I'd take off for the woods, live up in the mountains in a cave. But I'm not you and that's probably a dumb idea. If I were Dr. Gomez, I'd know what to tell you to do. Maybe you should ask her. She's all right as far as shrinks go.

Mouse

I stare down at my answer. What a dumb answer. What am I doing? I can't even run my own life and here I am telling people what to do. Run away? How can I tell DOA to run away? Man, how did I get into this, anyway?

CRAZY GLUE
:
So what. At least you know you're not the only one with problems.

AUNT BEE
:
You're not so alone anymore. You have friends. You have these letters.

FBG WITH A MUSTACHE
:
Maybe you think you can save yourself by helping others.