never
happened. I don't know about sex either. Your mother and uncle were conceived
by
46
immaculate conception. No, wait. Actually,
immaculate misconception."
"Imagine trying to fly all that stuff by today?
Sure, I'm pregnant, but it's not how it looks. God did it, when I was just
minding my own business. I was sleeping, yeah. I wasn't even aware anything was
happening. Ri-ight."
"Covering up some hanky-panky, yesiree," Bomba
says. "Listen to us heathens. Lightning's gonna strike."
"Wait, here's Mom."
"Love you, girl," Bomba says.
"Love you, Bomba." I hand the phone back over.
Mom's forehead is sweaty. Freud saunters in all cool and swingy as if maybe
we've already forgotten his panicky tango up there in the tree.
"Nice try," I say to him as he strolls toward
the living room.
"Here, kitty, kitty," Chico says. But it's too
late. Freud is already gone.
Our house used to have a garage but didn't
anymore and that's how we each had our own rooms. You walked through Bex's room
to get to mine. She isn't in there, though, so I step over her clothes on the
floor and her pj's and her old stuffed dog, Syphilis, who she had since she was
four, and her most recent school project, a diorama of a scene from Holes.
I lie on my bed, on this Mexican blanket my dad
sent from some trip he took a few years ago. It has this mildly icky wool smell
that I love. I'm lying there for, like, a second and then pop up because I'm
already bored at being still. Being a waitress, everything goes so fast; normal
life seems as fast-paced as government-access television.
I pick up my guitar case, unclick the buckles,
and take my
47
guitar out like it's a sleeping baby, which it
kind of is. It's a beautiful old Gibson from the seventies--gold-toned,
mahogany, and I got it cheap from Trevor's cousin's pawnshop. I wake it up
slowly; try a little "Stairs to Nowhere" from Slow Change's Yesterday CD.
That goes all right, but when I attempt to play "Just Friends," I mangle it so
bad I get mad at myself. The thing is, it reminds me that I don't have the
inborn talent to be a member of Slow Change or any other band, not really, not
if I face facts. Here's a life truth: facing facts sucks.
Mom always says that no one should expect an
eighteen-year-old to know what he or she wants in life, because, hey, most
adults don't know. Look at me, she would say. I work in a
psychiatrist's office because I ended up working in a psychiatrist's office,
blown there like a weed. Or, when she was in a beat-up-on-Dad mood, she'd
say instead, Take your father, for example. He'll be eighty and still
wondering if maybe he should get his Master's in between renting out boogie
boards.
Maybe people shouldn't expect
eighteen-year-olds to know what they want, but people do expect
eighteen-year-olds to know what they want. Adults, they can accept the
resignation toward the accidental in other adults, they can understand one
another's giving up on the Big Dream, but there's no room for the unintentional
in a teen. Heck, in a child. It starts about age five, right? What do you
want to he? And even a five-year-old realizes they cannot just answer that
they want to ride their bike around the neighborhood or collect ladybugs; they
know they must choose something large with importance or bravery, a cowboy or a
firefighter. There must be focus and determination, an arrow aiming toward the
target. What are you going to be? You can't say you're going to be a good person, be interested in people, or be a waitress, even if you
love
48
to work as a waitress. What do you want to
be, Indigo Skye? I can just see Mrs. Ford, guidance counselor for alphabet
letters S through Z, asking me. I want to be a waitress, I would say,
because that would be the truth, and Mr. Mulgoon, guidance counselor for
alphabet letters A through F, would have to give Mrs. Ford CPR on the
career center floor, right under the " can't" is a four-letter word poster of
the
happened. I don't know about sex either. Your mother and uncle were conceived
by
46
immaculate conception. No, wait. Actually,
immaculate misconception."
"Imagine trying to fly all that stuff by today?
Sure, I'm pregnant, but it's not how it looks. God did it, when I was just
minding my own business. I was sleeping, yeah. I wasn't even aware anything was
happening. Ri-ight."
"Covering up some hanky-panky, yesiree," Bomba
says. "Listen to us heathens. Lightning's gonna strike."
"Wait, here's Mom."
"Love you, girl," Bomba says.
"Love you, Bomba." I hand the phone back over.
Mom's forehead is sweaty. Freud saunters in all cool and swingy as if maybe
we've already forgotten his panicky tango up there in the tree.
"Nice try," I say to him as he strolls toward
the living room.
"Here, kitty, kitty," Chico says. But it's too
late. Freud is already gone.
Our house used to have a garage but didn't
anymore and that's how we each had our own rooms. You walked through Bex's room
to get to mine. She isn't in there, though, so I step over her clothes on the
floor and her pj's and her old stuffed dog, Syphilis, who she had since she was
four, and her most recent school project, a diorama of a scene from Holes.
I lie on my bed, on this Mexican blanket my dad
sent from some trip he took a few years ago. It has this mildly icky wool smell
that I love. I'm lying there for, like, a second and then pop up because I'm
already bored at being still. Being a waitress, everything goes so fast; normal
life seems as fast-paced as government-access television.
I pick up my guitar case, unclick the buckles,
and take my
47
guitar out like it's a sleeping baby, which it
kind of is. It's a beautiful old Gibson from the seventies--gold-toned,
mahogany, and I got it cheap from Trevor's cousin's pawnshop. I wake it up
slowly; try a little "Stairs to Nowhere" from Slow Change's Yesterday CD.
That goes all right, but when I attempt to play "Just Friends," I mangle it so
bad I get mad at myself. The thing is, it reminds me that I don't have the
inborn talent to be a member of Slow Change or any other band, not really, not
if I face facts. Here's a life truth: facing facts sucks.
Mom always says that no one should expect an
eighteen-year-old to know what he or she wants in life, because, hey, most
adults don't know. Look at me, she would say. I work in a
psychiatrist's office because I ended up working in a psychiatrist's office,
blown there like a weed. Or, when she was in a beat-up-on-Dad mood, she'd
say instead, Take your father, for example. He'll be eighty and still
wondering if maybe he should get his Master's in between renting out boogie
boards.
Maybe people shouldn't expect
eighteen-year-olds to know what they want, but people do expect
eighteen-year-olds to know what they want. Adults, they can accept the
resignation toward the accidental in other adults, they can understand one
another's giving up on the Big Dream, but there's no room for the unintentional
in a teen. Heck, in a child. It starts about age five, right? What do you
want to he? And even a five-year-old realizes they cannot just answer that
they want to ride their bike around the neighborhood or collect ladybugs; they
know they must choose something large with importance or bravery, a cowboy or a
firefighter. There must be focus and determination, an arrow aiming toward the
target. What are you going to be? You can't say you're going to be a good person, be interested in people, or be a waitress, even if you
love
48
to work as a waitress. What do you want to
be, Indigo Skye? I can just see Mrs. Ford, guidance counselor for alphabet
letters S through Z, asking me. I want to be a waitress, I would say,
because that would be the truth, and Mr. Mulgoon, guidance counselor for
alphabet letters A through F, would have to give Mrs. Ford CPR on the
career center floor, right under the " can't" is a four-letter word poster of
the
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