Jeremy Stone (10 page)

My Mom in the Kitchen Staring at an Unopened Pack of Smokes

Yes, she'd do this sometimes.

A test.

One she almost always failed.

The patch, she said. I'm going to try the patch again. Look at you, all clean. No more mud. Did you know in the old days, some of the people would coat themselves with mud while fishing to keep the mosquitoes and black flies from biting them.

Did it work?

It must have. I never tried it. I used Muskol instead. Or sometimes I could use my mind to keep the bugs away. When I was young and innocent. That is what my grandmother said to do. She claimed she could use her mind and that never once in her entire life was she bitten by a mosquito.

Do you think it was true?

No. I think it was just a story. My grandmother told me lots of stories when I was little that I soon learned were bullshit. But it was really good bullshit and made me love her more for it. It's what we believe that shapes who we are and what we believe is not necessarily true.

I'd been thinking a lot about Jimmy

and why he had appeared now in my life so

this seemed like as good a time

as any to mention this to her.

I think you can buy cigarettes made from lettuce. Maybe I could smoke them while on the patch.

Mom?

Yes, Jeremy.

You remember Jimmy?

Jimmy Talltree who ran the little store back in the community?

No, Jimmy Falcon.

I don't remember Jimmy Falcon.

(This seemed impossible

but then maybe my mom had lost some

memory. There had been a lot of drugs.)

Jimmy and I were friends. He used to

hang out at

our house all the time. Skinny little

kid. Always had a runny nose.

Could have been any one of your friends, I guess. But I don't remember him.

Remember, he died when we were

both eleven?

Eleven?

He got sick and didn't get better.

Holy fuck, my mom said.

What?

Jimmy?

Yeah.

Jimmy was the name you gave to your imaginary friend. The one you had since you were really little.

No, Mom. He was a real kid like me.

She reached for the pack of cigarettes, broke open the cellophane, and took one out.

She shook her head. We thought you'd never give up on him, she said.

That can't be right.

She lit up the cigarette. Sorry, she said. It's one of those times.

Think hard. Jimmy Falcon.

We used to wrestle in the living room.

When you were eleven, my mom said, staring at the smoke she exhaled,

your grandfather died

and your father went off

the deep end.

And you kept asking me

What happened to Jimmy?

And I just had to keep repeating,

I don't know, Jeremy,

I just don't know.

Awkward Moments in the Kitchen

Let's face it, my mom screws up a lot of things and makes lots of mistakes. She'd be the first to admit it and I always forgive her. Like I say, she did a whack of drugs. I couldn't name them all but she had memory lapse and sometimes got confused and called me by different names. So this could have been one of those times. Unfortunately, she said this:

Jeremy, I'm clear as a bell on

this.

You made Jimmy up

and I went along with it 'cause

it helped to keep you happy.

Otherwise, you'd get so lonely

and sad

after your grampa passed.

I couldn't remember my grandfather dying.

I guess

when he died

he came right

back.

Old Man

never

left.

Maybe we need to take you

back for more tests.

I don't

want

any

more

tests.

Your doctor said you

were cured

when you told him to fuck off.

I had only

stayed

silent

because

I

didn't have

anything to say.

I understand that perfectly.

Whatever can be said has probably

already been said by someone.

Mom?

Yeah, hon?

You telling me the truth about Jimmy?

Big exhale of smoke. A whole

cloud of it.

My mom opens a window.

Nods yes.

But I was glad you had Jimmy,

she says.

Every kid needs a best friend.

Back to the List, the Plan

Me in my bedroom wondering why Old Man is not nearby to help me with this one.

Old Man?

Nothing.

So (gulp) Jimmy Falcon was from my imagination.

From my subconscious.

Told me to help Thomas cheat,

gave me the answers,

and disappeared.

(Just as a test, I called out inside my mind.)

Jimmy! Help me!

No Jimmy.

Maybe once you have doubt about something, someone from the other place,

they go away

and you're left

alone

with no one

to talk to

but people

who are living.

(I didn't want that.)

Damn.

(My
brain is latching onto something now. I feel a kind of panic. I'm forgetting how to breathe.)

Oh fuck.

Paper Clip.

What did he say?

Suicide for Amateurs

No, not me.

I'm thinking about Jenson Hayes.

I'm hoping my computer doesn't work so I don't have to do this.

But it's on, the wireless is working.

I Google Jenson Hayes

and get a shitload of hits.

Thank God.

But

the first Jenson Hayes is a champion long-distance cyclist,

another a lawyer from Baton Rouge, Louisiana,

one is a Grand Prix race driver,

another is an architect in Pocatello, Idaho.

(I feel the panic rising like a lump in my throat.

Be cool, Stoney. There's always someone, many people,

with the same name. It's a small planet with a lot of

people and not enough names to go around.)

I type in
Jenson Hayes Suicide

and get a whack of stuff

but nothing about Caitlan's Jenson.

I type in his name again

and the name of our town

(and hesitate—there has to be something; it must have been in the papers, in the news).

My finger hovers.

(Old Man, where are you? I know you hate computers but could you hang with me on this one?)

Fuck.

Click.

More stuff:

Jensons and suicide,

Hayes and suicide,

but nothing I can find

(as I scroll down

twenty pages of

web listings)

about the Jenson Hayes

I know.

The World According to Jeremy Stone

I want to call Caitlan and ask some questions.

I want all this to make sense.

I want to ask Thomas Heaney some more questions about Jenson. (Of course, he was lying.)

I want to find some of my old childhood friends. (Yes, I'm sure I had real friends. I wasn't always lonely.)

I want more answers from my mom about Jimmy. Maybe she can't remember 'cause of the drugs.

I want something.

Something. (I smash my fist into the keyboard.)

And then

Hold your horses,

Old Man says. Just

hold your horses.

Where were you? I demand. Why couldn't I find you?

There's no easy answer to that.

Don't give me that bullshit. (I've never ever said anything like this to my grandfather before.)

Well, if you must know, I was away. Kind of a retreat.

I'd been advised I was too attached to my past,

to the people I love. That includes you.

But I need you.

I know, Stoney.

So don't worry. I'm not

going anywhere.

I could see there was something different about him but couldn't quite place it.

Maybe it wasn't him. Maybe it was me. Something different about me.

I was full

of doubt.

Jenson, I said. What about Jenson? I'm not sure there ever was a Jenson.

Well, that's true and not true.

You're using doublespeak.

I know what you mean.

It's just that sometimes you have to hold two

opposing ideas in your head

at the same time.

Bullshit.

I know. Maybe it's like your mother's

cigarette smoke. You can see it, you can smell it

but you can't reach out and grab it.

Maybe it's like that.

I sat silently. I'd always, always trusted anything Old Man had ever told me.

But it was you who introduced me to Jenson.

And I spoke with him.

Did you just put him in my mind? Did you make him up?

No.

Did I create him like some kind of hallucination?

No, Jeremy.

Caitlan invented

Jenson Hayes.

But you helped me buy into her … what?

Illusion?

I did what I had to do.

You did this to help her?

In some ways, yes.

And to help you, too.

But Jenson seemed as real as anyone.

As real as Thomas Heaney.

As real as Caitlan.

As real as Jimmy?

Yes.

Jimmy was all yours. Not mine.

But they both seemed as real as …

As me?

Yes.

Old Man looked very old now, older than I'd ever seen him.

You're gonna have a hard time sleeping tonight.

So I'll stay in that chair there while you sleep.

And this will all make sense in the morning?

Old Man tried to straighten his back but went right back to being hunched over.

Like someone had put a heavy load on his shoulders.

No, he answered. Probably not.

Crazy Horse

I don't know if I was actually asleep

or whether Old Man did something

but I was not in my room. I was

on top of a hill surrounded by brown

dry hills beneath a bright sun.

And Old Man was walking towards me.

He looked a lot younger.

This is better, he said. We'll start here.

Let me tell you about Crazy Horse.

He was born near here and was a warrior and great leader.

Like Geronimo?

Yes.

See that bird.

A red-tailed hawk flew toward us and then away.

Let's go, Old Man said. Crazy Horse followed a red-tailed hawk one day and he had many visions.

We started walking south.

Following the bird, Crazy Horse went into the spirit world where he could see that the spirit world was the real world and the physical world was just like a place made up of shadows of the spirit world.

In that spirit world, Crazy Horse was told that he could move freely between the two worlds if he needed to do so and that when he was going into battle, he could slip out of the physical world and see what was going on behind it all to understand what was really going on. That way he would not get injured and he would be safe.

He was told that he needed to be the protector of his people and that he'd have help from the spirits of his ancestors. He was to keep an eye out for a white owl that would be around to help protect him.

Later, he was also given a black stone from a man named Horn Chips, a medicine man, and he put that stone behind his horse's ear to protect the horse and make man and animal become one in battle.

But he was killed, right?

Not before he had been in many battles and become a great warrior. We all have to give our bodies back to the earth eventually. He did what he needed to do and then he moved on.

It was about then that I thought I was going to wake up.

But I opened my eyes and realized

I had not been asleep.

It had been some kind of trance, maybe.

Old Man, the older Old Man, was sitting there

beside my bed in the dim light of morning.

I'm not saying you should be engaging in battles like Crazy Horse or Geronimo. That time is past.

Today, it's kinda complicated being a warrior. It's not about fighting your enemies anymore.

It's about conquering your fears, conquering yourself, and protecting what needs to be protected.

Protect who from what?

He laughed. It varies, he said.

Sometimes it means learning to help someone protect themselves from what is within.