Dear Life, You Suck (23 page)

I’m still grounded, but Mother Mary and Sister Elizabeth are in Bar Harbor for the weekend at some religious hoedown, so I should be in the clear unless one of the other nuns finds me missing and rats me out.

Another reason I’m up early is so I can raid the petty cash box in the walk-in pantry. All I have in my wallet are a few dead moths and a few live moocahs. I need to pinch some dough, otherwise I’ll be drinking a glass of Parmesan cheese for dinner and making Wynona pay for her own slice. I know she knows I’m not rich or anything, but I can’t get the image out of my head of her standing at the pizza counter thinking,
Jesus, you can’t even scrape up enough cash to snorkel me a slice of pepperoni, you cheapskate
.

The sun’s barely up, and I’m in the east garden with my broken rake. It’s a giant circle of wild rose bushes with an enormous red maple tree in the center that’s surrounded by prayer benches. Mother Mary Meditation sends me in here often.
Think about what you’ve done, and ask the good Lord for forgiveness
. On days when I don’t need forgiveness, she sends me in to rake. It’s not bad on account of the roses smell super sweet, except they’re big and bushy and they block the view of the briny deep, which I like to gaze at when I’m contemplating my existence. Which is what the red maple is for.

I commence my ascent. The view from the peak of this Scarlet Delight is magnificent, but the sway glories my soul a splendiferous agitation. If one branch snaps, there’s a lot of air between me and ground zero, and that landing’s gonna end my tree-climbing days permanently. Makes me wonder if catching glimpses of sublimitacious grandeurs is worth the risk.

The sun’s at that height where it looks perched on the horizon. It’s casting a jetty of light across the surface of the sea from it to me, like it’s daring me to leap aboard and run for my life toward the engulfing flames. Speaking of which . . .

Chick stuff is tricky. When I’m with Wynona, I’m bamboozled into feeling that maybe it won’t end. Our relationship, I mean. When we’re staring at each other, or holding hands, or kissing, it feels detached from reality, and my mind weakens and starts whispering to my soul like,
Who knows, maybe
. But I know that’s just mushy fairy-tale gobbledygook.

The reality is, we’re graduating in the spring, and there’s no way Mr. Incredible is sending his only daughter to the Naskeag Institute of Cosmetology. Hell, she’ll probably go to college in Alaska or Hawaii to get as far away as possible from Roxanna the Hun. Before her first semester is over, she’ll meet some
GQ
cover model who can buy her the whole Pizza Palace instead of one stupid slice.

Going on another date with Wynona is stupid. I should cancel. Do it nice and friendly so I don’t hurt her. Maybe be totally honest and tell her all the stuff I’m feeling. No, that wouldn’t work, because they’re not feelings, they’re fears, and I’d come off sounding like a pussy.

Then again, if I know it’s gonna end, and I know
how
it’s gonna end, and I know it’s gonna hurt, and it’s inevitable anyway, why not just float as far as the hypnotic helium carries me and let the crash happen when it happens? I’m already floating in the clouds anyway, and the drop won’t be much greater, so what the hell? I feel like Professor Marvel in
The Wizard of Oz
right before he sails off in his hot-air balloon.
“Frightened? You are talking to a man who has laughed in the face of death, sneered at doom, and chuckled at catastrophe. I was petrified.”

During a break on my favorite boulder, I hear footsteps approaching, so I snuff out my joint on my boot heel.

“Don’t worry, I ain’t gonna rat you out, you juvenile delinquent.” Caretaker stands beside me with his hands on his hips.

I don’t know what to say. He knows I party, but he’s never caught me in the act.

“You should cool it with that shit, though,” he says. “Ain’t you ever seen them TV commercials? It fries your brain like a sunny-side-up egg.”

“Good. People will have something to eat at my funeral.”

Caretaker chuckles. “You got a twisted sense of humor, Cricks.” He sits down beside me and stretches out his long legs. “You give any more thought to my idea about you boxing professionally to pay the bills?”

“Nah, some goody-two-shoes teacher at school is trying to finagle me into college.”

“Hmm, interesting,” he says. “Cricket Cherpin goes to college. Sounds like the title of some old Capra movie.”

“More like a Three Stooges skit.” I look at his face. His skin is wrinkly, in a smooth, low-tide sand ripples way. “I’ll keep training, though. Just in case they give me the boot.” He smiles and raises his left eyebrow. I wait for him to say something he thinks is funny.

He doesn’t. Just slaps my knee and climbs to his feet. “You got time to give me a hand fixing that broken storm window in the dormitory? That ocean wind’s blowing mighty cold at night and it’s only gonna get colder.”

“Yeah, sure,”

He extends his hand and pulls me up. Jesus, he’s strong.

I jump into the death seat beside Grubs. Before I can close the door, he floors it, the tires squeal, and the door slams on its own.

“Shit, dude, you almost took my leg off.”

Grubs laughs and takes a pull on his forty. He stuffs the bottle between his legs and hands me a small wooden box. “Wanna bump?”

“Nah, I’m good.” I slide the box onto the dashboard.

He looks at me like I pissed in his beer. “Really? It’s primo Peruvian.”

I don’t answer.

He pulls a joint from his shirt pocket and waves it in my face.

“No, thanks.”

“What the fuck, dude?”

“I’m just chillin’.”

“Since when does the psycho Cherpin chill without the influence?”

I gotta feed him an answer or he’ll never shut up. “I’m hung, dude. Partied hard last night.” That’s a lie. I stayed in and read and then watched
An Affair to Remember
. Didn’t party at all, actually, which is rare. I don’t know why. I couldn’t get Wynona out of my head. Not like I was trying. I like having her in there. Sometimes. Sometimes I kick her out and stomp her into the dirt. I can’t get that memory of her saying she’s a virgin out of my head. Every time I replay that reel, I feel her warm mound squished against Mr. Happy. To know she didn’t funk any monkey business with Pitbull is a relief.

“Suit yourself, faggot. Leaves more for me.”

The whole situation with Grubs is fucked up. Here’s this drug dealer speeding around this tiny-ass town burning rubber and running red lights with blow in a box and weed in his pocket and booze between his legs, and he never gets in trouble on account of he rats out bigger drug dealers speeding around bigger towns with bigger stashes in bigger trunks. Meanwhile, I pop an asshole a few righteous shots in the noggin and I get kicked out of school for a week. I’m tellin’ ya, chain me to an Uneasy Bake Oven inside the upside-down cake factory.

On Main Street, we get stuck in traffic, which is unheard of in this pissant whistlestop. I see a limo parked in front of Saint Mary’s and a crowd of fancy-schmancy folks stream out of the church.

“Oh, for the love of Christ!” Grubs yells, slamming the steering wheel.

“Someone musta just tied the knot.”

“More like tied the noose.” He chuckles.

“If Toni gets her way, you two will be next.”

Grubs swings his arm and slams me in the chest. “Don’t even fuckin’ joke about that, dude.”

We see men in suits loading a casket into the back of a hearse.

“Oh, shit,” Grubs mumbles.

We ride around for a couple hours making collections. Everyone pays up, so I don’t have to get out of the car once. Which gives me plenty of time to think about collecting with Grubs. I don’t want to do it anymore. And I definitely don’t want to deal. I’m gonna tell him once we’re done for the day.

He pops open his third forty and fires up a joint.

“Hey, why don’t you let me drive home,” I say.

“Fuck you, I’m fine.”

“You’re all over the fucking road, man.”

“I’ll take Roller Coaster Alley so we go undetected.”

“Oh, great, that’ll be safer.”

Grubs coughs a laugh and blows smoke in my face.

Roller Coaster Alley is this curvy street that loops around the landfill. They call it Roller Coaster Alley ’cause it has wicked steep drops that give you belly tingles like a roller coaster.

I’m not too worried, ’cause Grubs knows the Alley like the back of his hand, and he’s driven it in worse condition. Plus, the Alley’s almost always deserted, so it’s safer than going through downtown.

At the top of the Alley, Grubs jams the gearshift into first and revs the engine. He grins at me with his teeth clenched, like he’s trying to show me how white they are. “Ready?”

I grab the dashboard and look down the first steep drop. I feel like I’m at the peak of a roller coaster at that split second right before the car nosedives down the track. “Yeah, just take it easy. You’re drunk.”

He revs the engine again and the car shivers. I feel the vibration in my feet, thighs, and back.

“I ain’t drunk. I’m at that perfect place. Just beyond buzzed but just before shitfaced. I’m like one of them religious yogis.”

I look at Grubs and can’t help laughing. He’s got a shit-eating grin on his face like a kid who just farted in church.

“Just take it easy, Yogi Bear.”

He laughs and revs the engine. “Here we go, Boo-Boo.”

He pops the clutch, the tires squeal, and we lurch forward. All of a sudden, we’re flying down the steepest section of road at seventy miles an hour. Grubs is clutching the steering wheel like it’s a poisonous snake and grinning his crazy, teeth-clenched grin.

We hit the first bump and I fly out of my seat. I get a wicked flutter of tingles in my belly. I’m pretty sure the tires left the road. We hit the second bump and I don’t get the tingles as bad ’cause I’m expecting it, but the car swerves wildly to the left when we land. Grubs doesn’t overcorrect, just snaps the wheel a little right, then a little left, and taps the brakes. I’m shocked at how well he controls the car considering his condition. We’re still going something like fifty, but we’re past the bumps and almost to the bottom of the road where it meets Route 6. I breathe, for the first time since the top of the hill.

Grubs lets out an enormous sigh and reaches for his beer. “Oh, shit,” he says, looking down at his tipped-over beer and drenched crotch.

We both crack up laughing.

He grabs a handful of napkins from the glove compartment and starts dabbing his crotch.

I glance back at the road and see a dump truck barreling onto Roller Coaster Alley from Route 6. He’s clipped the corner, so he’s in our lane and only about fifty feet away.

“Grubs, look out!”

Grubs looks up, and his face wrenches. He slams the clutch, downshifts, and yanks the steering wheel sharply to the right. We start to fishtail, and for a second I think we’re gonna spin out of the truck’s way and be flying in the opposite direction before it hits us, but then I see the truck’s headlights smash into the driver’s side window. Grubs raises his hands and screams.

That’s the last sound I hear. Grubs’s girlish scream. And the sound of the truck’s headlights smashing through the glass. Two thoughts screech through my head before everything goes black.

Shit, the Little Ones. What will they do without me?

Shit, Wynona. She’ll think I stood her up
.

Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

So, Heaven’s actually pretty sweet. Confusing, but sweet. The sweetest slice of upside-down cake I’ve ever chumpadiddled. God doesn’t want to toboggan your ass down a black diamond of despair too fast and furious, so He eases you into the helter-skelter hereafter slow and steady by submerging your senses with the familiar. For me, it’s my Silky Jets. Not a bad place to spend eternity, if I may say so myself. He hasn’t poured me a stiff one or fired me up a bambalacha Buddha, but I imagine that’s coming soon enough. Saint Peter will stroll down the jetty in a tuxedo with a maxi pad draped over his forearm and silver-platter me all manner of jolly juices, herbalicious sizzle sticks, scallops wrapped in bacon, and apricot tartlets. God’s a wicked serious munchies connoisseur.

Blessed are the meek: for they shall possess the land
.

It’s a woman’s voice. I don’t hear the words so much as feel them. Inside. Her voice is gritty and worn. Is it . . . ? Impossible. How did she find me? When did she get out of jail? What the hell is she doing here?

And what’s all this crap about the meek inheriting the earth? The meek don’t inherit shit. Except beatdowns and bruises. The Little Ones are proof of that.

I gaze at the sea and see clouds. I gaze at the sky and see waves. I look down to see if I’m standing on my head. No, I’m right side up. It’s this place that’s upside down.

Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.

Southern Comforted,
hopefully, ’cause this place is freaky. Not at all what I expected.

What do you imagine awaits you on the flipside?

Well, Moxie, it sure as hell wasn’t this. Not this sunny darkness and straight-as-an-arrow confusion. I mean, I got the job done, no thanks to me, without the long, drawn-out pain of the experience, but now that I’m here, I don’t know if it’s a good thing or a bad thing. What was all that hocus-pocus about
all will be revealed?

The black sun sets into the surf. Psychedelic colors burst from the clouds like fireworks. Talk about God Art. I feel like I’m inside a painting. A skinny stalk of a boy on a million-acre jetty beneath a zillion-gallon ocean.

An image of Wynona floats in front of a cloud. The scenery darkens. A wave crashes inside me. I’ll never see Wynona again.

Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after justice: for they shall have their fill.

I look around for my thermos. It must be here somewhere. Jesus liked to pull a cork.