Dear Life, You Suck (11 page)

“Don’t matter one way or the other. Tide’s out, you smash on the rocks. Tide’s in, you drown.”

Her voice is dark and heavy, like the sea. “It matters to me.”

The density crushes my chest.
Why?

Cloud soft. “It matters.”

Waves crash far, far away. So far away I feel them inside.

“I know what a struggle it can be, Crick. I know it feels like this darkness will last forever, but it won’t. You have to trust me on that. I know it’s a lot to ask, but you have to trust me on that one point.”

“No offense, but it’s your job to say that. That don’t necessarily make it true.”

“It’s more than a job, Cricket. You’re more than a job. You’ve been here a long time. Longer than anyone. Like me. You know I don’t lie to you. Good or bad, I’m always straight with you. You know that. True, I can’t predict the future. But I can speak from experience.”

The pressure in my head builds. I take a deep breath to keep from choking on my words. “I’ll be there in a minute. Tell Andrew to keep saving my seat.”

“He’s quite the celebrity tonight. Not that I can say I’m happy about the reason, but he’s enjoying the spotlight.”

Mother Mary’s shadow fades with the afternoon light.

“Don’t be long.” It’s weird how many shades of dark there are. “It’s pasta night. Sister Gwendolyn made her famous garlic bread.”

I listen as her footsteps disappear.

I want to say thank you to Mother Mary. Thank you for letting me live here all these years. Thank you for the warm, dry room. The bed, blankets, hot showers, and free eats. The soap and towels. The toothpaste and toothbrushes. The clothes, even though they’re hand-me-downs. The library card. The notebooks and pencils at Christmas. The trips to Principal LaChance’s office after the fights. The yelling. The punishing. The grounding.

No, I don’t want to say thank you for any of that stuff. I was just trying to sound normal. If I was gonna say thank you to Mother Mary for anything, which, of course, I’m not, it’d be for not locking me in the basement when I cried too loud. For not making me walk to the store to buy Lucky Strikes in bare feet in January when I complained about the holes in my sneakers. For not tying me to the bed when I wet it. For not piercing my ear with a drug needle. For not pushing me into street fights with crackhead culls twice my size and betting against me. For not beating the back of my legs with a ********. For not Scotch-taping matches to my **** and ************. For not ******************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************.

But like I said, thank-yous ain’t gonna cross these chapped lips anytime soon. ’Cause in the end, adults are all the same. Ain’t no difference in the what. Only in the when.

I pull the letter from my pocket and read Moxie’s words under the last glow of daylight. I could have read them just as well from inside my pocket.
Why do you want out?

When I turn, Mother Mary is a distant apparition.

I follow my ghostly shadow toward the darkening Prison walls.

I get a standing ovation when I enter the dining room. Don’t that beat off? Smash the bloody crap out of a mutant arse mole, and the Little Orphan Andys who’ve been raised their entire lives by Sister Turntheothercheek and Padre Peacebewithyou stand and applaud the evil marauder. Holy reality-flippin’ cartwheels, Batman. Pass me another slice of upside-down cake.

Sister Gwendolyn is doling out smellorific slabs of garlic bread when the ruckus erupts, so she drops the basket and claps her hands, but not for the same reason as the Little Ones. She’s trying to hunker control of the underdog ovation, but the jittery animals keep barking. The Little Dudes’ claps must be connected to some invisible, anti-gravity heart-pumping dingus in Sister Gwendolyn’s chest, because her plump cheeks are redder than a tampon dumpster at a that-time-of-the-month convention.

The crazy chimps finally stop tossing their feces around and sit down. I take my seat next to Andrew, who’s glowing like a little hunk of God Art that fell from the sky. Funny how life waddles and swaddles this way and that.

The Little Ones start firing questions at me about the Pitbull beatdown like I’m Muhammad Ali, but a funny thing happens: All of a sudden, I’m flooded with the nut-strangling realization of how easily the fight could have done a tumultuous backflip. One little slip, and the Little Ones would be pressing their palms together outside a hospital emergency room instead of inside this free-eats pavilion. Damn, life sure is carving crop circles in my ass tonight.

I wait until there are no nuns around and clink the congregation to order on my Mayor McCheese milk glass. “Dudes, listen up. You gotta hear me and hear me good on something. If I’d missed that first punch on Pitbull, he woulda pummeled me into mincemeat pie. Fightin’ ain’t all roses and fairy tales. Remember that if you ever decide to swing. It’s a two-way street, monkeys. Don’t go cracking open that giant pumpkin if you ain’t willing to swallow a few slimy seeds.” Yeah, I’m deep, I admit it.

Some of the Little Ones dribble out nervous giggles. Others cock their heads. I survey the rows of faces. Most of them realize they’re celebrating something they want no part of. Like how rugby’s fun to watch on the boob tube but being at the bottom of that pile would suck balls.

“And remember. I prepared long and hard for that throwdown by pounding heavy in the boathouse for two hours every morning while you ladies were cuddled in your beddy-byes, dreaming of sugarplums and peeing your panties.”

Their prepubescent screeches scale the mahogany walls. If you’re wondering what the Prison dining room looks like, think Newport mansion. I ain’t kidding. This place makes the high school cafeteria look like a kebab cart in Sarajevo. The walls are dark wood like in the chapel, and the dangling chandeliers are so giant that if one of them slinky links snaps, it’s mashed brains for dessert. There are four long wood tables like from a King Arthur movie, and stained-glass windows that make you feel like you’re eating your Last Supper. There’s twelve kids at each table, which is kinda funny, right, like it’s nosh time at Jesus’ crib. I wonder if the nuns planned it that way. We have forty-eight disciples here, not twelve.

The Little Ones deliver their dishes to the kitchen and follow me to the story room.

I get excused from cleanup on account of I’m an extra-fabulous fabulist. (It means phantasmagorical fable fabricator, Billy Shakemyspear.) Yeah, I’m a regular Brothers Dimm.

The storytime room used to be an open-air guard tower, but the charitable contractors who renovated the Prison decided it should be fancified for the homeless lads, so they removed the machine-gun turrets, added a roof, and wrapped the sides with floor-to-ceiling windows. The nuns plunked down a few stubby bookshelves, tossed in a couple of tons of previously-drooled-on pillows and previously-farted-on beanbag chairs, and voilà, the Poor Boys Fifty-Book Readatorium in the Clouds was born. It’s actually a pretty cool place. I sneak up here when there’s a thick fog on the bay, and it’s eerie, like you’re in a spaceship.

The best part is that to get here you have to pass through an ancient steel door with a menacing Do Not Enter sign bolted to it. Creeping in through that dungeon doorway gives my stories goosebumps they’d never have down in the game room.

Storytime’s popular with the Little Ones, so I always get a good crowd, like twenty or twenty-five. I do a separate storytime for the littler Little Ones on Sundays.

I motion to Charlie Brittlebones to close the door.

“Settle down, munchkins. And move in closer. I don’t want no outside ears eavesdropping on my testes-frying tribulations.”

Grins flash, whispers hiss, and scraggly-haired heads rubberneck. The Little Ones are used to my worditatious confabulations. Half the time they don’t get the crooked configurations, but they giggle anyway on account of the words sound silly.

“Can it, animals. I have some news.” I raise my arms like a modern-day Moses hushing the multitude.

Eyes bulge into perfect silence.

“It is time you heard the truth about this place we call home, this Orphan Island.” I say “Orphan Island” all deep and creepy to tingle the peach fuzz on their berry sacks into a bedwetting frenzy. I dim the lights and extricate a purple velvet bag from my knapsack. Necks crane to piddle a gander. They figure I’m gonna yank out an invisibility potion or dead bat or rattlesnake. Little Dudes are so goofy. I empty the contents onto the rickety, low-tide-smelling coffee table built from an old wooden lobster pot and a scratchy square of Plexiglas and step back so they can see.

The Little Ones gawk at the oddly shaped seashells.

“Any of you chowdaheads know the reality of how this palace sprouted from perdition to fruition?”

Freckle-faced Justin Bellamy raises a curled hand to his chin like he’s imitating a retarded meerkat.

I nod.

“Mr. Cherpin, Sister Sarah said Jesus changed the prison into our house the same way he changed five loaves of bread and two fishes into enough food to feed five thousand people.”

I imitate the gymnasium buzzer. “
Ahhhnnnttt
. And you believe that cow plop, Justin FellOnMe?” The Little Ones giggle. “No, Jesus had nothing to do with busting this prison into a playpen. He was too busy remodeling souls to be bothered with earthly renovation projects. But it was someone just as mystical and mythical.”

I pause to make sure they’re all paying attention.

“Now, before I commiserate this secret tale, I need every one of you snot-nosed ankle-biters to promise you won’t breathe a single word of it to a single soul outside this room. You got that?”

Heads bob.

“I need to hear it, jellysticks.”

Promises puke at my feet like the last gasp of froth at the end of a dead wave.

I punch my fist into my palm. “You rugrats know the punishment for breaking a promise.”

Mouths stretch and eyes stare.

“All right then.”

I pace in front of the black glass and glance around the room all CIAish. “Now, some of you are gonna think this story is a bunch of Harry Potter hogwash, but it ain’t. If you numbskulls spent the kinda time I do in the library instead of mining green gems out of your nose caves, you’d appreciate the geomorphic science behind it.”

I sit on the edge of the coffee table, corral the shells into the bag, and pass it to Sherman Tewksbury with a finger twirl. He removes a shell and passes it to the next kid.

“This is the story of the founder of Orphan Island—Apollo Zipper.”

Laughter erupts.

I jump to my feet. “You think making fun of a dude’s name is cool?”

Scary silence. The little nuggets catch on to their faux pas lickety-split.

“You think a dude ain’t got enough to deal with in life without you little scabs picking at his given name? That’s better.”

I settle back down and tell the Little Ones a goofy story I made up about this sixteen-year-old British kid who took a trip to Paris with his parents but never made it on account of his ferry was sunk by a rogue wave in the English Channel during the crossing.

“You’re probably wondering what this sad aquatic tragedy has to do with our silly little lives here on Orphan Island. Well, I’ll explain what it has to do with us, and I’ll edify you on how I know all these historical gee-whizzes.”

I fraudulate a tale about hearing Apollo’s story from an old-timer I met at the Naskeag Public Library a few years back who told me his name was Zachary Zipper and claimed to be Apollo’s great-great-great-great-grandson.

A little hand way in the back of the room goes up.

“Who’s that?” I ask.

Gregory Bullivant’s pudgy towhead floats above the sea of hair. He’s a brainy little sixth grade butterball who helps me tutor some of the other Little Ones.

“Yo, Bull.”

“Excuse me, Mr. Cherpin, but how could Zachary Zipper be a direct descendant of Apollo Zipper if Apollo died in the ferry accident?”

Faces scrunch, eyes squint, noses crinkle, and asses are diligently scratched.

I rattle my fist in the air like I’m clanging a front porch dinner bell. “Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. Well, I’m glad every pumpkin head in here ain’t mashed summer squash. How could this old dude be Apollo Zipper’s great-great-whatever-grandkid if Apollo died when he was only sixteen?”

Archie Dalper raises his hand. “Maybe his kids were orphans like us.”

I glare at Archie. “Archibald, if I had a stun gun, I’d zippity-zap your minuscule testicles.” The Little Ones giggle. “How can a dead kid adopt kids?”

“Oh yeah, right.”

Another sky-hunkering hand. “Maybe he had kids before he got on the ferry.”

“Well, slightly less retarded, but remember, this dude was only sixteen, and he didn’t have a permanent squeeze he was canoodling back home.”

Hands wave and mouths bullhorn.

“Maybe he had clone babies, like in a test tube.”

“Maybe he had brothers and sisters who had babies, so they was kinda like his kids.”

“Maybe God sent him kids like the Virgin Mary.”

“Maybe he didn’t die.”

I jump up and scan the ragged heads. “Who said that?”

“Me, Mr. Cherpin.”

“Who’s me, nub-ass? Stand up.”

Aaron Weidlemeyer slowly stands.

“What’d you say, Wienerschnitzel?”

Schnitzel is scared schnitzel-less, so he freezes.

“Come on, Wienerschnitzel, what’d you say?”

“I said, maybe he didn’t die, sir.”

“Wasn’t you paying attention, Schnitzelgruben? I said he was never seen again after the ferry tanked.”

“I know, sir, but you didn’t say he died. Maybe he banged his head and got amnesty or something and didn’t remember who he was, and some French people took care of him and raised him, like wolves do.”

“Well, well, well, Whineyschnitzel. You ain’t half as stupid as you look, you little frankfurter. Your story’s only half right, but it’s a hell of a lot righter than the mental macaroni these Chef Boyardees been dishing up.”

Aaron smiles big and wide, then sits.