Crazy (20 page)

CRAZY GLUE
:
Out of the fat and into the fire. We got us another loony-tooney, here.

Reed keeps whining, "I didn't do it! I didn't do it!" He falls to his knees, the bloody switchblade still in his hands and tears running down his face. "I swear to God, I didn't do it!"

Sam orders Reed to set the knife down on the desk, but Reed just keeps whining, "I didn't do it!"

"Reed, put the knife on the desk. Do it now!" Sam barks. "Now, Reed!"

"But I didn't do it. You gotta believe me."

SEXY LADY
:
Oh, he's good.

Looking at his wide-eyed, pink blubbering face, even I almost believe him.

AUNT BEE
:
Oh dear, they're going to blame you for this. He looks so innocent.

Nobody moves. Sam raises his voice and shouts again, "Put the knife down on the desk. Do it now! Now, Reed! Now!"

Finally Reed puts the knife on his desk and collapses on his bed as if he's fainted.

Sam runs in and grabs the knife, and Mrs. Lynch runs to me. She helps me to my feet. Then she sees all the blood and she lets out an "Oh!" and then, "We need to go to the hospital, Sam."

CRAZY GLUE
:
Didn't we already do the ambulance scene?

LAUGH TRACK
:
Isn't it a shame?

All I can think of as I lie on a slab with my gut cut open is that I might get to see my dad again. But I don't. There isn't time and everybody's tired, blah, blah, blah.

Three hours later, I'm back in Sam's car on the way back to the Lynches' house with a bottle of pills in my hands, to prevent infection, the doctor said, and an aching stomach. I didn't understand half of what the emergency room doctor said to me except that the wound looks worse than it is, and there's no penetration of the peritoneal cavity, which he said is a good thing. All I know is, hell, I've been stabbed!

I'm sulking because I didn't get to see Dad, and I don't want to talk, but Sam has questions.

"Jason, you've got to tell me what happened. Where did the knife come from?"

"
I don't know! Reed's pocket." FBG WITH A MUSTACHE
:
Keep your cool, son.

"So it's Reed's knife?"

I shrug and stare out at the cars rushing past us. I know Sam's driving slowly on purpose. He wants to grill me before we reach the Lynches' house so he can file his report in the morning.

"I guess it's his," I say. "It sure isn't mine."

"Did you provoke him?"

I look at Sam. "Are you going to try to make this my fault? Did you actually believe that act of his?"

CRAZY GLUE
:
Uh ... yup.

"So you didn't provoke him?" Sam's looking straight ahead.

I stare out my window and say, giving in a little, "Yeah, I provoked him. He told me if I stepped over the line, he would slit my throat in my sleep. I thought he was bluffing. He looks so innocent."

"Those are the ones you've got to look out for," Sam says, "the innocent-looking ones."

"Now you tell me." I run my hand across my stomach and feel the thick bandage the doctor had put over this skin adhesive that's supposed to act like stitches. We'll see.

"So what did you say when you thought Reed was bluffing?"

CRAZY GLUE
:
Whoops.

"Okay, well, I told him that if he stepped over the red line and touched
my
stuff, I wouldn't wait until he went to sleep; I'd kill him right then."

"You were bluffing?"

I look at Sam. "Yeah, I was bluffing! I don't go around killing people for getting into my stuff, jeez!"

Sam glances at me, car lights reflecting in his eyes. "Well, let me give you a warning, okay? Some kids will kill you for a lot less than that, so no more bluffing. If you have a problem with someone, call me or tell the Lynches. Don't try to handle it yourself."

CRAZY GLUE
:
Now, there's some crappy bit of advice.

FBG WITH A MUSTACHE
:
You asked Dr. Gomez for help and look where it got you.

CRAZY GLUE
:
Yeah, riding with Garlic Head Sam and stabbed in the stomach.

As painful as the stabbing was, though, I feel that standing up to Reed, saying what I said, has kind of set me free. I feel different—looser. I feel like I can take on the world. Maybe I don't have to be afraid of swirlies anymore.

CRAZY GLUE
:
Oh yeah? Does that go for all the Dear Mouse hate mail you get, too?

I don't know, but maybe that's why I'm acting so pissed off with Sam. It just feels really good to know that I can stand up to Reed, to anyone, and survive it.

FBG WITH A MUSTACHE
:
You're pissed off. That's what feels good.

After a few moments of silence I ask, "So how am I supposed to keep this Reed guy from slitting my throat in the middle of the night? Do I wear a suit of armor to bed or what?"

"Oh, you won't have to worry about him. He's been removed from the house."

CRAZY GLUE
:
What? Been removed? By who? The pod people?

A weird science-fictionlike scene runs through my mind where men wearing white suits and white head covers come charging into the house and grab Reed, who's still hollering, "I didn't do it!" Then they stun him with their stun guns, suck him up into this human vacuum, and scuttle away.

CRAZY GLUE
:
Sounds like a good movie. I wanna see that one!

Back at the Lynches' house, I go into my bedroom, and my little scenario doesn't seem quite so far fetched. The room's been wiped clean of Reed's existence. Even his bed's been stripped and his desktop has been cleared off. All the shelves are empty—not a single military plane left. I don't like it. It's creepy how they could just get rid of him. Like he's, like we're all, just so disposable. Is that what they'll do to my dad? Suck him up and dump him somewhere where I can't find him, where nobody can, until nobody even remembers that he exists? You're here one minute and gone the next? I don't like it.

SEXY LADY
:
Don't worry yourself. You're tired. Go to bed now. You'll feel better in the morning.

I just wonder where they put homeless boys who stab other semi-homeless boys, that's all.

CRAZY GLUE
:
Well, then ask, goob.

FBG WITH A MUSTACHE
:
Maybe you don't really want to know.

I
FALL INTO BED
, exhausted and feverish, and sleep for days, waking only to pee or drink some juice with my pills. I keep seeing the other side of the room, one minute full of Reed and his planes and the next minute empty, everything gone. I dream I see him tossed into a cement mixer with his planes, and they swirl and fart until they disappear into the cement. Then he's set on fire by a giant blowtorch, and all the nuts and bolts that held him together explode. Then in another dream, he's with my mom and dad, and he's their son, and I'm screaming for him to get away from them, but they can't hear me because their ears have been stuffed with Oreos.

Reed turns up everywhere in my dreams. He's in school with Pete and Haze and Shelby. He's in Dr. Gomez's office discussing my "terrible situation" with Dr. Gomez. He's in my house playing the violin, using his switchblade for a bow and sawing off all the strings. He's also in my suffocating dream, only instead of suffocating beneath the ocean floor, I'm buried under him. I can't breathe through all the blubber. I wet
the bed. I know that I've wet the bed, but I can't rouse myself to do anything about it. I feel myself lifted and carried, but I just keep dreaming, and my wetting the bed just becomes part of one more dream.

While I sleep I shiver, then sweat, then shiver again. I hear voices all around me. I listen for my dad's voice among them, but his is never there.

Finally, after days and nights of dreams and voices, I wake up and it's morning. The sun is shining through the windows and I can hear birds singing. I see that the bed across the room from mine lies empty and someone is speaking; I think it's my mom, but it's only Mrs. Lynch.

She leans over me. "There you are. How are you feeling today? Any better?"

I look at her and I hear music. I hear "Puff the Magic Dragon," and I wonder for a second if it's coming from her somehow, but then I lift my head and look behind Mrs. Lynch and I see the little girl, little Gwen, holding a Talking Elmo CD player. I lie back, relieved.

From the doorway I hear, "Well now, he's alive after all," and a man comes into the room. I know it has to be either Mr. Lynch or Mrs. Lynch's brother, because the man looks so much like her, only taller and broader. He has salt-and-pepper hair, a thin, kind of turned-up nose, and lots of laugh lines around his eyes.

He holds out his hand for me to shake. "Hi, Jason,
I'm Tony Lynch. You can call me Dad or Tony or Captain, whatever makes you feel most comfortable."

CRAZY GLUE
:
How about Cap'n? Think he'd like that?

FBG WITH A MUSTACHE
:
Or just Cap. Call him Cap.

I shake his hand and his grip is firm. I can't look him in the eye. How can he think I would ever want to call him Dad? I
have
a father. And Tony's too personal. I'll call him Cap. Tough if he doesn't like it.

I look around the room and see my computer and backpack sitting on the desk. They've been to the house, my house. I don't know if I like this.

"How long have I been sleeping?" I ask.

"Four days," Mrs. Lynch says. "I think you were more exhausted than sick, but you did run a fever the first couple of days. How do you feel now?"

FBG WITH A MUSTACHE
:
That's four days down and ten to go until you see your dad.

I sit up and lean against the headboard. "I feel okay," I say, eyeing my laptop again and remembering the Dear Mouse letters. I need to mail those off.

"Good to hear it," Cap says. He steps over the line to Reed's side of the room and grabs the desk chair. He carries it back across the red line and sets it down beside my bed, and again I think about how disturbing it is to see no traces of Reed anywhere in the room. How could he just disappear so completely and so fast? I can't get the thought out of my head.

CRAZY GLUE
:
They're all looking at you like you're some bug specimen.

I look at the three of them smiling at me. I look away and notice one of the photos from my wall at home leaning against the side of the desk. It makes me mad. I feel invaded. How dare they take that down and bring it here. Do they think I'm going to put my photographs on these walls? I'm not sticking around that long.

CRAZY GLUE
:
Don't let them get their claws into you.

Cap clears his throat and I glance at him, then study my lap.

"So, if you feel well enough after breakfast, how about you and I going for a walk? I'll show you around the place, let you get your bearings. Then later we'll go to the post office and transfer your mail to our address. Sound good?"

No way! Jeez! I'm grateful they took care of me while I was sick or whatever, but I'm not making this permanent. No way!

CRAZY GLUE
:
Yeah, back off, Cap'n!

I shrug and don't say anything.

FBG WITH A MUSTACHE
:
You need a game plan, son.

CRAZY GLUE
:
You gotta scram. You don't wanna stay here. They're not your parents.

AUNT BEE
:
They are nice, though, and something smells pretty good in the kitchen. A good meal wouldn't hurt.

CRAZY GLUE
:
They know you wet the bed.

After a few more minutes of small talk...

CRAZY GLUE
:
Very small.

They leave me to shower and dress. Then I go to the kitchen, which is all cheery and warm with the walls covered in strawberries wallpaper. I eat a huge breakfast of French toast and scrambled eggs while Gwen talks a blue streak. She prattles on about Homer, who, it turns out, is a doll, and then about the snowman that she and Cap made and that she fears is going to melt. She names all the Cheerios left in the bottom of her bowl, then says she can't eat them because now they have names. I've never heard anyone talk so much, but I decide I'm glad she's here. She takes the heat off me.

I don't feel like talking and I guess the Lynches sense this, because they leave me alone pretty much. They tell me before I head back to my room that since it's Thursday, I can wait until after the weekend to go to school. That will give me a chance to rest up and prepare myself.

Whatever. FBG is right. I need a game plan. I don't feel like going back to school yet, but I don't want to sit around here, either. I want to see my dad. I wonder what's happened to him. I picture him dumped on some ash heap with Reed—the rejects. It gives me chills. I can't get it out of my mind.

Cap isn't ready for our walk yet, so I sit at the desk by my bed and open my laptop. It's nice to have an Internet connection again.

AUNT BEE
:
And a full stomach and a warm home.

Okay, okay, I know. I'm grateful, but I'm not staying here.

I send off my Mouse letters and read the new ones that have come in.

Dear Mouse:

I'm kind of a big mouth and a know-it-all, and I know I get on peoples nerves, so I don't have a lot of friends. The other day I ratted somebody out, one of my friends. It was the right thing to do as far as right and wrong go, I guess, but now I think I lost my friend. I don't know how I can get that friend back. Maybe I shouldn't have told, but then my friend would have been really hurting. Did I do the right thing? How can I get my friend back? I'd do just about anything to make it up to this person.

Tattletale

Dear Tattletale:

If your friend were really your friend, then...

CRAZY GLUE
:
Goob, this is Shelby.

No. Is it? She wouldn't write a letter, would she? She would talk to Dr. Gomez.