Dear Life, You Suck (25 page)

“Fine,” I grunt.

He raises his left eyebrow. “You look like you went twelve rounds with Mike Tyson.”

“No, it was twelve rounds with your wife.”

Caretaker chuckles and throws a pretend punch at my head.

I introduce him to Wynona.

He gives a little bow when he shakes her hand. “What in tarnation is a pretty young woman like you doing with a juvenile delinquent like Cricket?”

“I’m a delinquent in disguise,” Wynona whispers.

“Lord, help us,” Caretaker bellows, laughing and slapping his legs. “It’s the modern-day Bonnie and Clyde.”

The drugs are pirouetting fruity thoughts in my head, so I don’t catch all of Wynona and Caretaker’s discussion, but I can tell from their tone that they’re getting along swell.

“Well, I’m gonna hit the road, Cricks. Them Prison chores ain’t gonna complete themselves.” He nods at Wynona. “Try to keep this boy out of trouble if you can, beautiful.”

“I’ll do my best,” she says.

At the door, Caretaker turns. “Cricket, you probably noticed that I held my tongue from dishing you out a well-deserved ‘I told you so.’ I did that on account of your fragile condition.” He gives me a salute and walks out, then pops his head back in the doorway for a second. “Cricket.”

“What?”

“I told you so.”

Wynona looks around to make sure the room’s empty, then slips something into my hand. It takes a few seconds of rubbing to figure out it’s my old friend Ignatius Podiddle. At least I can sneak some tunage while I’m here.

She touches my cheek and smiles. She’s looking at me the same way she looked at the ocean that day we went horseback riding. Like she’s seeing deep, deep beneath the surface of the waves.

I smile. I’m having trouble keeping my eyes open. I feel Wynona’s lips on my cheek. Then I feel Wynona’s love in my heart. Then I fall asleep.

When I wake up, the room is darker. And empty. The hall is deserted. I hear a sniffle beside me. Wynona must still be here. I turn.

It’s not Wynona. It’s Nurse Bitchalot. She’s crying into a mountain of tissues.

I grumble a hi and startle her.

She jumps up and starts to leave.

“’Sup?” I ask.

She stops. I’m confused on account of I don’t know her from anywhere, so I can’t figure why she’s all busted up about me being all busted up. Then it hits me. “Were you guys friends?”

She nods into her tissues. “My name’s Toni.” She blows her nose.
Gross
. “Did Gregory ever talk about me?”

Shit. Toni. Grubs never said she was a nurse. “Yeah. He liked you a lot.”

She sniffles. “You’re lying.”

I remember something Grubs told me one night when we were getting high in the state forest. Something he had supposedly said to Toni when they were having this serious discussion about life and marriage and shit like that.

So I tell her. “Grubs told me once that he didn’t think he’d make a good husband or father on account of all his partying and dealing and staying out and shit. He said he was scared about fucking up a good thing and, maybe worse, fucking up a kid. He said if he wasn’t so scared of them things, he’d hunker down and marry Toni.”

It’s obvious from her reaction that he really did say this to her ’cause it completely demolishes her, but in a good way. It makes me feel happy because at least she knows I wasn’t lying about Grubs, and she knows he really did like her a lot, and if there could have been one special chick for him, it would have been her. That probably sounds like some psychological horseshit, but that’s what I feel as I watch her exorcise them pain demons.

After all the crying and moaning, she leans over and kisses me on the forehead. It’s a long kiss, like she’s trying to press something into my mind through her lips and wants to make sure it sticks. She hands me a piece of paper and leaves. I squint at it under the red glow from the heartbeat machine. It’s short and sweet and to the point. Grubs to a T.

Last Wilted Testicle of
Gregory “Grubs” Dillar.

I ain’t got shit but my ride, Crick, so if I bite it early it’s all yours.

You need all the help you can get with the chicks anyway, faggot.

If there’s any stash in the trunk help yourself. But the fuzz have probably snatched it by now if you’re reading this.

Enjoy the ride my friend.
G

I fold the letter, stuff it under my pillow, and jam my earbuds in to drown out the sound of my crying.

I’ve been in the hospital for two weeks. I would have been out sooner, but a hunk of metal that harpooned my thigh was rusty and germed me up an infectious calamity. It freaked the doctors out for a few days on account of they were worried about the juices leaking into my bloodstream and killing me off.

Except for the constant ache from being on my ass all day, I don’t mind it. It’s peaceful. No responsibilities, other than scarfing down three squares a day and getting poked, prodded, and sponged down. I like the sponged- down part. Usually it’s Toni who scrub-a-dub-dubs me sweet and gentle, which is cool ’cause she’s wicked nice to me now and even teases me a little with a naughty grin as she sponges up my thigh higher than she’s supposed to. She never sponges all the way to Naughtytown, but she knows she’s getting me all hot and bothered. I mean, it’s kinda obvious. Every now and then this fat old bitch nurse washes me down, which sucks balls on account of she’s dick-shriveling gross to look at, and she scrubs me raw like she’s scraping burnt cheese out of a lasagna pan.

After the first week, teachers started bringing me homework assignments. I didn’t mind. It helped kill the time. Moxie Lord brought me a bunch of college brochures and scholarship applications. Holy higher education enemas, Riddler. Me in college. Pass me another slice of upside-down cake.

I have a bunch of other reasons for my Dear Life letter, but I’m not in the mood to scribble them into fruition. Finishing the letter doesn’t feel as important now. I guess I have what they call writer’s cock.

Today Mother Mary’s bringing a gaggle of Little Ones to the hospital for a storytime visit. She says they’ve been hounding her something silly about when I’m coming home so I can finish the Apollo Zipper story. She told me about it yesterday, so I’ve been scribbling notes on the back of the prescription pad I lifted from Doc Hollywood’s coat pocket.

Toni wheels me into the rec room, where the Little Ones are waiting. I don’t get a hero’s cheer because Mother Mary warned them to keep their little yaps shut while in the hospital, but their goofy grins and jittery waves are good enough for me. I gotta find out what the hell they put in the oxygen here on account of it does a number on my eyeball glands. I tamp down my emotions hard and fast and wheel myself down a path between their little bodies to a spot by the window.

I scan their anxious faces. “Jeez Louise, I finally get away from you noisy numbnuts and you find me anyhow.” The Little Ones laugh under their little hands. My head feels like a hot-air balloon that’s about to pop.

“So, you wanna hear what happened to our old pal Apollo, eh? Well, I guess it’s fitting that I finish the story here in the Naskeag Hospital on account of this is exactly where Apollo wound up after his transatlantic journey with Wanony and some of the other Kefian ruffians. In fact, I found out from a nurse here that the room I’m staying in is the exact same room Apollo stayed in after his ship reached the coast of Maine back in 1875.”

The Little Ones
oooooh
and
aaaaah
.

“Now, Apollo knew that they were in for a long and treacherous journey, so he took Wanony aside to explain the risks to her and make sure this is what she wanted to do. She told him that she didn’t care how dangerous it was. She wanted to sail far away from Kef, because she didn’t want to stay a kid forever. She wanted to live under the bright glow of the sun, even if it meant growing old and dying.”

I pan the sea of little heads peering up at me. Their faces radiate a calm excitement. It makes me think that this is what little faces should look like all the time.

I tell the Little Ones how Apollo, Wanony, and ten other Kefians stole a ship from a neighboring island and set sail for America. I tell them all about the long and difficult journey and how they survived by snorkeling with spearguns and shooting birds out of the sky with slingshots. And how, after three months at sea, they finally spotted land and Wanony was so happy, she kissed Apollo right on the lips!

The Little Ones groan in unison.
“Eeeeehhhhrrrr.”

“Big, wet, and juicy! With tongue and everything.”

“Eeeeeeehhhhhhrrrrrrrrr.”

I tell them how Apollo sailed their ship straight into Naskeag Harbor and how they used the timber from the ship to build a giant house right on the shore.

“And guess what that house is today?” I ask.

“Our house,” little Andrew hollers.

“Our house,” I say quietly. “And the Kefian kids grew older and bigger and stronger now that they were living above ground instead of beneath it. And Apollo and Wanony got married and had kids, and their kids grew up and got married and had kids, and so on and so on, and guess who one of their descendants was?”

Gregory Bullivant jumps to his feet. “Zachary Zipper! The old man from the library!” he screams.

Mother Mary rushes over and shushes him.

“Exactamundo, Greggplant. And the Zipper family lived happily ever after in the lovely state of Maine for many generations to come.”

The Little Ones jump up and clap and cheer until Mother Mary and the other nuns get control of the ruckus and settle them down.

“Oh, and by the way,” I say softly. “Save those seashells I gave you on the day I started the Apollo Zipper story. They’re from the island of Kef.”

Toni’s with me on checkout day, helping me get dressed and teaching me how to walk on crutches and change my bandages and stuff. She keeps getting teary-eyed and hugging me.

While I’m packing, I find the Bible Mother Mary was hugging the day I woke up. “Does this stay here?” I ask Toni, waving the Bible at her.

“No, that belongs to that big fat nun. The wicked mean one.”

I smile.

“She was like a friggin’ crazy person with that Bible,” Toni says as she stuffs get-well cards and drawings the Little Ones did for me into a Salvation Army bag.

“What are you talking about?”

Toni brushes a few straw-colored wisps off her face. She’s pretty in a rough-and-tumble kinda way. “We all knew you couldn’t hear her, but she wouldn’t quit. We were like, ‘He’s in a friggin’ coma, weirdo.’”

“What do you mean? She was reading it to me?”

“All day and night while you were out. Over and over. It was friggin’ annoying.”

I open to a page marked with a yellow sticky. The Beatitudes. I read a few lines. I get a freaky déjà vu feeling.

Toni sets the bag on the bed. “Yeah, that first day she refused to leave when visiting hours were over, and she raised such a ruckus that Mrs. Barrett finally told us to bring in pillows and blankets so she could sleep in the bed next to you. I ain’t bullshitting about her being crazy, either. Some of my shifts are overnighters, and I swear to God that psycho witch was up all night reading that stupid book out loud. It got to the point where we all knew the lines by heart and were repeating them to each other in the hallway.
Blessed are the poor, blessed are the hungry, blessed are the thirsty
.” Toni laughs. “It was wicked funny.”

I turn to the window so Toni won’t see the tears.

Tomorrow’s my first day back at school. I’m anxious to get back. I don’t know why. Maybe on account of I’m a celebrity from surviving a deadly car crash. Or maybe I want to see Wynona in a normal-life setting. Or maybe I’m curious to see if my cracked Great Wall of China will hold up outside the Prison. They’re tiny cracks, but still. Or maybe I just want to get busy so I can stop thinking about Grubs.

I probably shouldn’t be so anxious to go back. I’m sure Pitbull’s got an elaborate revenge plan figured out by now. Maybe I’ll get lucky and he’ll be content with the ass-knocking he gave me the other day in the courtyard.

I hobble to the cliffs with the cane Caretaker lent me. I hate using it, but my ribs are still wicked sore, and I can barely walk to the bathroom without something to lean on. I’m supposed to use crutches, but leaning on them makes me feel like a pussapalegic. I crash on a nice flat boulder and take out my pen, notebook, and thermos.

I have one final Dear Life letter to write. This one’s for my eyes only. I take a sip of lodka and venomade and start scribbling.

Dear Life, You Cut
The Story of My Ring
By Cricket Cherpin

I was seven. My dad took me on a drug deal with him. He always took me along so he could hide drugs in my socks and underwear. He told me never to take them out until he gave the thumbs-up.

We were in this ratty warehouse with a bunch of guys he’d never done business with before. They pulled guns and knives on us and told my dad to hand over the stuff or they’d slice me up. My dad said “Fuck you,” and the guy cut me. Cut me bad. Dragged that shiny silver blade down the right side of my face. It hurt more than anything in my life. Blood gushed out like crazy. I was sure I was gonna die. I screamed and cried, waiting for my dad to flash me the thumbs-up.

He never did, so the guy cut me again.

My dad still wouldn’t hand the stuff over, so they beat the shit out of him and dumped us in an alley. When we got back home, my dad gave me his ring for being brave and not ratting about the drugs. He couldn’t take me to the hospital ’cause he didn’t have money or insurance, so the cuts scarred up pretty noticeable.

The letters on the ring are my father’s initials. BC. Boone Cherpin.