My Kind of Crazy (21 page)

She sits up. “Shit! The candle!” We fell asleep with it burning, and now the bookcase is on fire and it's spreading fast.

I leap out of bed and try to tamp down the flames with a T-shirt that's on the floor, but that only seems to make it worse. The flames defiantly snap, spreading from book to book, leaping higher, consuming whatever is in their path, and making it almost impossible to reach the door without becoming a human torch. The room is as hot as Miami in July, and the smoke is getting thicker. I cover my mouth with the bottom half of my T-shirt. I yell at Peyton to open the window.

She tugs and pulls on it, but it does not budge an inch. “It's stuck again!” she yells frantically.

Panicked, I look around for the heaviest thing I can find, which happens to be a lamp, and I smash it through the window. Now there's an opening, but with all the jagged edges of glass, we would impale ourselves trying to climb out.

I grab a shoe from the floor and set to work shattering the remaining pieces to minimize the danger and then order Peyton to climb out the window. There's a rushing noise and the flames kick higher, licking at the posters and slowly climbing the wall. I'm about to give her a boost so she can crawl out the window when she turns to look behind her and her jaw hangs open.

“Look,” she says and points up toward the ceiling, transfixed. One by one, the forty-fives warp and spin as the vinyl mutates and melts in the heat. It would be kind of cool if it wasn't so completely terrifying.

“Go! We've gotta get out of here!” I shout.

She leverages herself and starts to shimmy out the window, but her hand catches on a shard of glass I missed. She cries out in pain. There's no time to waste though; she's got to get out of this room—and so do I—or we're both going to be crispy.

I can hear the sirens wailing in the distance as she falls to the grass outside, coughing and catching her breath. The trucks come barreling down the street, and the sirens become shriller. It's like déjà vu from the night I lit the sparklers on Amanda's lawn. I begin to feel light-headed and nauseous.

“Come on, Hank! Hurry!” Peyton yells, but her voice is muffled over the roar and hiss of the fire, and the air is so smoky I can barely see.

I stumble to the window, my lungs gasping at the fresh air. I trip over something and go down. My brain is commanding me to move, that I have to get out of here, but my body won't respond.

I lift my head, and I can make out the fireman climbing in the window. He's reaching for me with his hand, but I don't have the strength to reach back. My lungs are screaming.

The fireman is in my face now, but it's like I'm seeing him in double. He's all blurred and his features are fuzzy. He keeps saying my name over and over, and that I need to stay with him. Maybe it's the shortage of oxygen to my brain, but I swear his voice sounds exactly like Mickey's. “Hold on, buddy,” he says.

That's what Mickey used to call me. I try to focus, to see Mickey's face, but I can't see through my tears and his mask. I hear my brother's voice again. It's so distinct I'd recognize it anywhere. He says, “Everything's gonna be okay, Hank. Just keep breathing.”

As I slowly feel myself losing consciousness, I try to ask Mickey how I can hear him so clearly through his mask and over the roaring, rushing noise from the fire itself. But that's the last thing I remember as his arms encircle me and everything goes black.

• • •

I wake up to the sound of someone crying. It's not loud, hysterical crying, but quieter, pained sobs. I open my eyes slowly to adjust to the light. I don't recognize where I am. There is a big, fluorescent light fixture overhead with two long, rod-shaped bulbs, one of which is brighter than the other. A TV is suspended from the ceiling in the corner. My eyes drift to the walls, which are painted a soft robin's-egg blue. Wires connect me to the machines next to my bed. It feels like tubes are jutting into my nostrils. I grip one of the metal rails that run alongside my arms. I must be in a hospital.

I hear the noise again, the crying. Someone is hunched over in the chair next to me, their body heaving up and down slowly. It takes my eyes a moment to focus on who it is.

“Dad?” My voice comes out all raspy, and my throat feels parched and sore. My mouth has an awful taste to it, as if I've eaten the contents of an ashtray.

He looks up at me, and his face is a mix of deep grief and joy. He reaches for my hand and clutches it in his own. I don't remember my dad ever holding my hand, not even when I was little. His skin is calloused and rough.

“Hank, you're okay. You're going to be okay,” he assures me, then calls to the nurse, letting her know I'm awake. This must be a big deal because she's in there like a shot, taking my vitals, letting me know I've given them all a scare. Apparently I inhaled quite a bit of smoke, and by the time the fireman got to me, I was about to lose consciousness. I'll be fine, but my lungs will need time to recover.

Just hearing the story again sets off my dad, and when the nurse leaves, he squeezes my hand again and says to me, “I was so scared. First your mom and Mickey, and when this happened… You're all I've got left in this world, Hank. You and me. You're my flesh and blood. I swear to God, I don't know what I would have done if I had lost you too.”

“Mickey was there, Dad,” I say. “I heard him.”

Dad smiles and wipes at his eyes. “I believe he was, Hank. I believe he was.”

Slowly the night starts to come back to me. “Is Peyton okay? Is she here?” I try to sit up, but it's uncomfortable.

“She's fine. Don't worry. She'll be back in a few hours. I sent her back to our house to get some rest. She's been here all night with you, and she refused to leave until the doctors assured her you would be all right.”

“Her mother will think she started the fire. She'll send her away,” I say, panic rising in my chest.

“No one is sending her away.”

“No, Dad, you don't understand—”

“Actually, I do. Peyton told us everything, and Monica and I spoke to her mother. Because of the fire and Peyton's allegations about her mother's neglect and abuse, we convinced her mother it was best for everyone if Peyton stayed with us right now. It was that or call Child Protective Services, and I think her mother liked that idea even less. With a short list of options, she relented pretty quick.”

“Thanks, Dad.”

“It's the right thing to do.” He pats my arm, and his face brightens. “Peyton told me you have an interview at a fancy art school in Boston. I'm real proud of you.”

I let those words sink in. He's never said he's proud of me before. But then I get paranoid that he's baiting me to tell me all the reasons I can't go.

“I'm sorry I didn't get a chance to tell you, Dad. But don't worry, I don't need to go to art school. I mean, I know you need me here too.”

He shakes his head. “You're going. You have to take opportunities like that when they come your way. If you never take a single chance in life, you know what you'll get? Nothing. You've got talent, Hank. Somebody is going to notice that. Clearly they already have. Hell, I've seen your stuff. It's great.”

“How have you seen my drawings?”

“You leave it lying around that room of yours all the time. You think I haven't noticed? I may have been out of it after your mother died, but I'm not blind. I especially liked that one you made where your superhero guy—”

“Freeze Frame. His name is Freeze Frame,” I say, not even caring that my dad has probably riffled through stuff in my room if he's seen my comics. He's seen my drawings. He likes them. That means more than I could ever explain to him.

“Yeah, Freeze Frame. I liked that one where he tries to stop that mad scientist from turning people into life-size ants because the scientist was plotting to make Earth into a giant colony and enslave everyone as workers. Except, of course, him and that other scientist guy.”

“Dr. Kingsley,” I tell him.

“He was pure evil. But it was great how Freeze Frame defeats them by stopping time and putting the ant formula into their coffee so the scientists drink their own poison and turn into giant ants that then get squished.” Dad chuckles and he gets all these lines at the corners of his eyes.

“Yeah, that was a fun one,” I say. “So you really liked it?”

“I loved it,” he says, and he seems genuine. “When you're given a talent like that, you don't waste it. That's something even money can't buy.”

“I won't,” I tell him.

“Maybe someday they'll sell
Freeze Frame
at that shop where I bought you that Captain America comic. Then I'll go there and tell everyone you're my kid.”

He
does
remember. I smile and say, “That would be pretty awesome, Dad.”

“You're like a real-life superhero, Hank,” Dad tells me. “You saved Peyton's life. Probably in more ways than one. If you hadn't helped her get out of there when you did, she'd be lying here too, or worse.”

“It wasn't anything anyone else wouldn't have done. I just made sure she got out.”

“You did good, Son.” His face gets serious again, and tears well up in the corners of his eyes. “You've put up with a lot these last few years, especially from me. I was just so angry—angry with them for dying and angry with myself for living. It never occurred to me you might have those same damn feelings. I let you down. And when I got the call that you were here and I thought you might die…”

He takes a deep breath, trying to compose himself. I know this kind of stuff is not easy for him. He shakes his head and says, “I had no right to call you chickenshit all those times, because the truth is, you have more courage than anyone I know.”

“Thanks, Dad.” I know this is his form of an apology, and even though it can't erase years of hurt, it's a start.

My eyes begin to feel heavy again, like there are weights beneath the lids. Whatever the nurse shot into my IV when she was here is making me groggy.

“I think I need to take a little nap, Dad. I'm feeling sort of tired,” I tell him.

Maybe it's the drugs, but I swear before I drift off again I hear him say, “I love you.”

The next time I open my eyes, Dad is gone and Peyton's asleep in the chair next to me, her body curled in a ball, her mouth hanging open. She's snoring lightly, and she looks so peaceful that I don't want to wake her, but given how medicated I feel, I have to seize these moments of clarity while I can.

“Hey,” I whisper. She stirs. “Peyton, hey, wake up.”

Her eyes flutter open and then she excitedly leans forward, grabbing my hand. “Hey, you're finally awake.”

“I am. It's kind of hard to sleep too long when they wake you up every few hours to poke you and take your blood. I'm not entirely convinced that they're not secretly vampires.”

“They're just making sure you're okay. You inhaled a lot of smoke.”

“Is that why the inside of my mouth tastes like I smoked a carton of cigarettes?”

“Pretty much.”

I try to scoot to the side and pat the space beside me in the bed. “Come lie next to me.”

“You must be feeling better. You're up for thirty seconds, and already you're trying to get me into bed with you,” she says. “There're all these wires. We might set off an alarm.”

“I don't care,” I say, gathering the tubing to the side to make room for her.

She glances at the door, then grins, gingerly lying down beside me. She puts her head on my chest, and I wrap my arm around her. I run my fingers through her hair and down her cheek, and kiss the top of her head.

My lungs hurt. I cough. It makes her jump. “I'm fine,” I assure her and she curls back into me.

“I don't know what I would have done if you hadn't made it, Hank,” she says. “This was all my fault. All of it. I lit the candle. I'm the one who fell asleep before putting it out. When the paramedics got to you, you were barely breathing—”

I silence her. “It's not your fault, Peyton. I could have blown out the candle too, but I didn't. Accidents happen. I'm still here. And so are you.”

“I'm glad.”

“Me too,” I say. “My dad says you told him about the whole art school thing. He thinks I should go.”

“Of course you should go,” she says.

“Well, that depends,” I tell her.

She looks up at me. “On what? You just said he told you that you should go.”

“On you.”

She hesitates. “I don't know about the whole gallery thing. Why would they hire me? I don't have any experience.”

“You could always be an entrepreneur,” I suggest. “Like sell your photographs. Or open a market where you sell only foods that have no skin or pits. You could call it Pitskinno's.”

She laughs. “Now you're really thinking out of the box.”

“So does this mean you'll go?”

She repositions herself, and then she leans down and kisses me. Her mouth is warm and soft against my cracked, dry lips, and I imagine she must feel as if she's kissing a piece of sandpaper. If she minds, she doesn't show it.

It would be incredibly romantic, us lying in a hospital bed making out, except for the fact that I have tubes sticking out of my nose and an IV in my arm, and they are completely getting in the way. If only we could get away with hospital sex. That would be totally frickin' hot.

Ironically, I miss prom because I'm in the hospital, having nearly bit the dust in a totally different fire. What are the odds?

Nearly dying makes you realize who and what really matters. By the end of the following week when I finally get to go home, I know there's something I need to do.

I show up at Nick's house unannounced, and lucky for me the gate is open. There are a bunch of cars in the driveway. I'm hesitating, thinking I've probably come at a bad time if the Giulianis have company, when Nick drives up behind me in his dad's black Mercedes, music blaring. To say he's surprised to see me is an understatement.

He climbs out and heads toward me. “Hey. What are you doing here?” he asks.

“I wanted to talk to you,” I say. “Actually, I've wanted to for a while, but I was kind of in the hospital.”

“I heard about that. Jesus, you okay?”

“Yeah, I'll be fine,” I say. “Worked out in my favor, really, because I didn't get stuck going to prom.”

“Lucky you.” Nick pops the trunk. It's filled with ice.

“You need a hand with that?”

“Sure. Good timing. You saved me from frostbite carrying these things,” he says and hands me a bag of ice to carry and grabs the other bag for himself. “I would've stopped by, but I wasn't sure if you'd want to see me.”

“I know things have been weird lately. But that's why I'm here. I'm hoping we can put all this crazy shit behind us, you know? Keep moving forward.”

“Forward is good. Listen, I'm sorry, man.”

“I'm sorry too. Things got a little out of hand.”

“So we're good?”

“Definitely.” I follow him into the house. “So what's all this ice for?”

“Giovanna's engagement is back on so my parents are throwing a party. And false alarm on the pregnancy thing. Turns out the wedding jitters made her late for her monthly bill, so at least we won't have to be looking for a place to hide her fiancé's body anytime soon.”

We bring the ice into the kitchen, and as soon as Mrs. Giuliani catches sight of me, her face lights up like she's won the Publishers Clearing House sweepstakes. “Hank! Oh my God!” She rushes over to give me a hug. Same as the first time we met, she enfolds me into her ample bosom, but it's extra awkward because I'm still holding the bags of ice. Nick pulls me to safety.

“Ma! Seriously, give the guy some air.”

The next thing I know, Mr. Giuliani is shaking my hand and pulling me into the living room, telling everyone about the fire and how I was in the hospital. Suddenly, the party guests are fanning out in a circle around us, wanting to hear all the details. Unfortunately, I don't really remember most of them. But I'm overwhelmed by how genuinely glad Nick's family is to see me and their concern.

They offer me a drink and plates of food, and I glance at Giovanna because I'm sure she's pissed that I've diverted all the attention from her special occasion, but she's sitting there as rapt as the rest of them. I'm not used to being the center of attention in a good way, and it feels pretty amazing. Then Nick's mom says the capper.

“It's so wonderful to see you, Hank. Nicky would give us updates, of course, but we were all so worried. You just take things slow, and if there's ever anything we can do, you don't hesitate to ask, you hear me?”

I turn to look at Nick, but he's busy stacking a cracker with salami and cheese, completely avoiding eye contact. “Thank you, I will.”

Nick tells his parents we're going to go hang out in his room, and on the way up the stairs, I say, “So you got updates?”

“It was no big deal. I asked Peyton to keep me in the loop and let me know what was happening. Like I said, I didn't think you'd want to see me.”

“For the record, I would have, but I get it. No hard feelings,” I say.

“So are hospital nurses as hot as they are on TV?”

Same old Nick. I laugh even though it still hurts to do so. “Not even close.”

Upstairs, Nick tells me about prom. He took Amanda, and at first things seemed to be going well, until sometime between the main course and dessert, she excused herself from the table to go to the bathroom, where she apparently hooked up with Clay Kimball, who was having a hetero moment, and they took off. As in, left the dance. It took Nick nearly an hour to realize she wasn't coming back. It's a pretty awful story, and I feel bad, especially since I was the one who encouraged Amanda to go with him, so I tell him the truth.

When I share that I was actually the one who started the fire, he's practically rolling in the aisle. He thinks it's all pretty funny, and looking back on it, I guess it kind of is.

Graduation blows by, and then it's the beginning of summer, and with it, Peyton's eighteenth birthday. It's truly a celebration because she's finally free to make decisions for herself. Monica even bakes her some cupcakes, which turn out exactly as you'd expect, but it's about the gesture and people showing up for her, celebrating her.

Peyton's been staying with us, and Monica helped find her a counselor who she talks to once a week. She's doing so much better, says she feels more in control of her emotions. She's even mentioned reaching out to her dad at some point and perhaps trying to work things out with her mom, but that's all way down the line. The main thing is that she's hopeful again and working to try to heal as best she can. It will be a long road, but at least she's not traveling it alone anymore.

Before I know it, it's August, and I'm packing my life into a bunch of brown cardboard boxes I snagged from the recycler at Shop 'n Save, getting ready to move to Boston.

On our last night together for the foreseeable future, Nick, Peyton, and I are driving around in Nick's dad's Mercedes trying to figure out something special to do to mark the moment. Nick suggests bowling, but we all agree that's lame and anticlimactic. Peyton suggests a movie, but it defeats the purpose of spending the evening together if we sit in the dark and don't talk for two and a half hours. We come up with several other equally lackluster ideas, and then, as we loop down Main Street for the fourth time in a row, it hits us. It is so obvious it's crazy we didn't think of it right from the get-go.

Ziggy's.

It's on.

The three of us sit at a corner table, and when the waitress comes by and asks if we're ready to order, we most definitely are. We order three How High burgers (no tomatoes for Peyton), a large order of fries, and three Cokes. The waitress rings the giant bell by the register and announces to the kitchen in a booming voice, “We got three How Highs!”

Nick points to a blank spot in the row of pictures of those who have successfully finished their burgers. “That's where mine is going. Right there.”

“If you can finish it without puking,” Peyton tells him.

“The rules merely say you have to finish. It doesn't say anything about puking afterward,” I point out.

“Truth,” Nick says and pulls a stack of about fifteen napkins from the metal dispenser on the table. He notices us both watching him with great interest. “What? I'm getting prepared.”

“Clearly,” I say. He grabs another just to piss me off.

Nick turns to Peyton and asks, “So what's the story with you two? I mean, now that Hank's going to be in Boston, are you guys gonna live together or something?”

“Or something,” I say as the waitress brings our Cokes. I pull the wrapper off my straw, jam it into the iceberg floating on top, and take a long sip.

Peyton explains, “Actually, Hank's going to go and get settled, and I'm going to stay here with his dad and Monica for a while. Hank talked to his old boss at Shop 'n Save, and he hired me to pick up some of Hank's old shifts, so at least I'll have that going on until I figure out what's next.”

“I've gotta assess the roommate situation,” I add. “He sounds totally chill and says he's completely down with Peyton staying there so it shouldn't be a problem. He has a girlfriend who goes to Boston University, so he said he'll probably be at her place most of the time anyway.”

“I've been talking to this woman at this gallery on Newbury Street, and she said she might be looking for a gallery assistant,” Peyton says. “I'd love to do that and save up to take some photography classes next semester.” She lights up like a candle as she tells Nick about it. She seems so hopeful and excited.

“Nice. Sounds like you have a good plan.” Nick leans back to take a sip of his Coke, only to have the block of ice crash forward with the liquid and hit him in the mouth. Smooth.

I hand him one of the sixteen napkins from his pile. “So how about you? You're gonna be freezing your balls off in Chicago, huh?”

“I can't wait to blow this clambake,” he says. “Plus, those Midwestern girls are smokin' hot.”

It's funny the things you talk about when you're hungry. Our conversation slowly degenerates into a discussion of where would be the safest place to survive a zombie apocalypse. (Our answer: one of those wholesale club warehouses. Not only do they have all the food and supplies you could ever need, but you can't get in without a membership card.)

And then the moment of truth arrives. The bell rings again, and seconds later, amid a chant of “How High, How High!” from the entire kitchen and waitstaff, three beauteous fifteen-dollar burgers the size of our heads are delivered to our table in all their greasy glory. They are a true culinary masterpiece. I'm not even sure I can get my mouth around the thing.

“Let's do this,” Nick says. We raise our burgers as if we are making a toast, and then we all take our first bite at the same time.

The rush of flavors hits my mouth all at once: the melty cheesiness of the mozzarella sticks, the spice of the jalapeño poppers, and the lukewarm, runny egg yolk are balanced by the coolness of the secret sauce, lettuce, and tomatoes. It all perfectly meshes with the ground beef and salty strips of bacon. It's pretty much the best thing I've ever tasted in my entire life.

Nearly thirty minutes later, we finish the damn things and the waitress snaps a picture of the three of us for the wall with an ancient Polaroid camera. Before she can put the camera down, Nick bolts from the table and heads to the bathroom, looking slightly ill. They put our picture up on the wall, and as I look at it, I know that we're savoring the final moments of something special. We may remain friends, but as time progresses, there will be new experiences, a loss of common ground, and inevitably, the connection will never be quite the same again. Not because we don't care about each other, but because you can't hold on to the past forever. That photo on the wall is already a memory.

We drive around in Nick's car for a while after that, laughing and talking, with no particular destination in mind. It feels good to be together, and for the first time in a long time, I feel a sense of belonging and family. Family isn't about sharing the same blood in your veins; it's about the people who come into your life and see how completely messed up and nutter you are and then stick around anyway. I wish I could freeze-frame this moment because I don't ever want to forget it.

I gotta be honest. I have no idea what the hell is going to happen next. I don't know if my relationship with Peyton will work out and be great forever, or if it's just great right now. I don't know when I'll see Nick again.

That's the amazing thing about life: you can be sure you know what's going to happen next, but you never really do. Anything can happen, and amazingly, that doesn't scare me.

In fact, it's pretty frickin' cool.