Freaks and Revelations (2 page)

I start to shiver on the outside too, even though it’s not at all cold. I want to cry or have my mom here to tell me a story or sing one of the songs she used to make up when I was a little kid. But Mom’s taking care of Carl. Who could die, all because of a…

“…nigger.”

I try it out in the lowest of all whispers, then hold my breath, in case God or someone strikes me down.

“Nigger.”

My lips don’t even have to move, only my tongue pushing off behind my teeth. I like how the word feels in my mouth, how the sound is clear, hard. It’s like pushing the button on David Steele’s back.

It makes me feel strong.

It makes me feel like I know what to do.

1975

FIVE YEARS BEFORE

LOS ANGELES COUNTY

Mom and Carl are both in the kitchen when I get home from school. Mom’s grinning. Carl isn’t.

“They caught him, Dougie,” Mom says. “They got the bastard that shot our Carl. Finally.” She hands me the
Tribune
. “Look. It’s all right there.”

Carl doesn’t seem all that happy about his name being in the newspaper, but Mom sure is. She rubs his shoulders and musses his hair, gives him a kiss on the back of his neck. He rolls his eyes and tries to shrug her away. She doesn’t notice. He got his name in the newspaper. They caught the bad guy. This is what counts. She picks up the phone to call Chelsea. Carl ambles off to his room. I go to mine.

The only good thing about my sister moving out is that both us boys now have our own room. Carl put a black light up in his, with posters of Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin that change when it’s on. He locks himself in there whenever he’s home, to play guitar or hang out with his friends. They smoke pot when Mom and Dad are out of the house, and won’t ever let me in. He ignores me when his friends are around. I’m just his stupid little brother. He makes fun of how tall and skinny I got. I don’t care. Let him do what he wants, I can take care of myself. I have friends. Well, two. Besides, in seventh grade, you can get your own pot.

I miss Chels, but she likes living with her boyfriend better, anyway.

Turns out everybody at school saw the article. My homeroom teacher mentions it to me after class, asks if Carl’s okay. Kids are looking at me weird, though, so I try to get ready to stick up for him, if I have to. At snack, I wait to know which way it’s gonna go, when Evelyn Anderson and her friends crowd around.

Evelyn has tits already. Big ones.

“Did he really get shot?” she asks.

“Uh-huh. Right by the heart.”

“Oh! Is he okay?”

“Yeah. He’s fine now. But he still has the
bullet
in him.”

I like how the word makes a little explosion in my mouth as it comes out, how the sound of it makes people stand very still. “Too close to his spine to operate.”

I like the general “ooooh” that ripples through the group.

“Oh my God,” Evelyn Anderson says.

“Yep,” I answer. I’m having a hard time keeping my eyes on her face. “Now he has to go testify. In court.”

“Is he scared?” her friend asks.

“Nah, not my brother.”

“What if the guy gets off and comes after him again?” Evelyn asks.

“The guy who shot him? No way. He’ll be doing some hard time.” I heard my mom say this to my grandma, on the phone. She didn’t know I was listening. “It’s not his first arrest, you know. That nigger’s got a record as long as your arm.”

No one speaks. The air sizzles briefly and seems to take form around us; it feels heavier than a second ago. Evelyn’s eyes get real big; she looks back over her shoulder. I feel my cheeks get warm.

“What?” I challenge.

“Nothing,” she says, but she doesn’t look in my eyes now.

“You shouldn’t say that word,” whispers her friend.

“What word?
Nigger?
Why not?”

“Because.” Evelyn looks around. Who does she expect to see? Only white people go to this school. She whispers too. “You just shouldn’t. It’s not a nice word.”

“He’s not a nice guy.”

“Still—”

“So what
should
I call him?”

“I don’t know, but not that.”

“Yeah, well, just wait till somebody shoots your brother. See how you feel then.”

I don’t know what else to do, so I walk away, my face red, feeling stupid, like I should’ve just kept my mouth shut. In math class, a couple of guys look at me funny, like they know something. Nobody else asks about Carl. At lunch, when I come around the corner to the picnic area with my buddy Glenn, a whole bunch of girls start giggling. Evelyn Anderson is one of them.

“Just ignore them,” Glenn tells me.

Easy for him to say. He’s not the one being laughed at.

After school, we go to Glenn’s but his grandma comes home early and makes me leave. Fine. Nobody wants me around, what do I care. I don’t feel like going home—Carl’s probably there—so I head over to Caroline’s house.

Caroline Tuttle was the first person I met when we moved here. She’s one of my best friends even though she goes to Catholic school and lives down almost by Pomona. I’m not supposed to hang around with her because her mom’s never home, just her big brother, Evan, who dropped out of school. We lounge around on their front lawn while he works on his motorcycle. Carl’d be jealous.

“Want to go inside?” Caroline asks. Usually, this means we can make out on the bed in her mom’s room.

“Nah.”

“How come?”

I tell her. She gets it.

“I would have said exactly the same thing,” she says. “What do those stupid girls know, anyway? Huh?”

“Yeah. Their brother didn’t get shot.”

“That’s right. They’re just bitches.” She leans over and kisses me right in front of Evan. He whistles.

“Shut up!” she says to him, but she’s smiling. She kisses me again. “Hey, you want me to make you a tattoo?”

“What?”

“You know—a tattoo. You said you wanted one.”

That’s true, I had been talking about it for a while now. “Shit yeah. I do.”

“Hey, Evan?” she says.

“Gotcha covered, Babygirl.”

Evan’s got even more tattoos than Carl. He designs his own. He does all his friends. He got all the stuff, including the India ink. We go into the house. He boils a needle to sterilize it, and shows us how to strap it to a pencil with thread. You wind the thread around both the pencil and the needle, up to the tip almost, real tight.

“It can’t wobble, or you mess up,” he says, then smiles and holds it up. “Your rig.” He sticks the point in a lighter flame, then wipes it with rubbing alcohol. “No fun if it gets infected.”

Evan hands me a Coors and tells me to chug it. I tried my first beer way back in fifth grade, so this is no big deal, but I usually don’t drink this fast. I don’t really like the taste. I get dizzy immediately. He hands me another. This one goes down real smooth.

“You got a design?” he asks.

“Yep.” I burp. “Sorry. I want a ‘13’ right here.” I point to the top of my forearm.

“Oh, perfect, Doug,” says Caroline, “exactly where your dad can see it. And your teachers.” I was actually thinking of Evelyn Anderson, but I get her point.

Evan explains it’ll hurt less where it’s fleshy, though after that second beer, I doubt I could even feel pain. I decide across my stomach’d be good. I lie down on an air mattress in the garage and Caroline draws a
13
in pen, right near my belly button. It looks fine and I nod. She takes her rig and dips the needle and the top of the thread wrap into the bottle of India ink. She pokes a hole. Then another. Evan watches, coaching her. She has to get under the top layer of skin but not go too deep or the ink could poison me. She dips and pokes again.

I’m wrong about the beer. The needle hurts like hell, but with Evan standing there, grinning down at me, I just suck it up. Every few punctures, Caroline wipes off the blood. Tattoos bleed A LOT. It kinda makes me sick to my stomach.

“Hey. Don’t puke on the mattress,” Evan says.

“I won’t.”

Caroline finally finishes and pours rubbing alcohol directly on it.

Evan or not, I yell. He laughs.

“It’s done, little man,” Evan announces. “Now you just got to take care of it.”

I look down at a red, swollen mess of skin; I can’t see the tattoo itself. Evan smiles. “It takes a couple of weeks.” He peers closely. “She did good, don’t worry about it.”

The beers wear off. I get home and rummage through Mom’s bathroom cabinet for anything that might help, but she’s either hidden it all or used it up. I dab on the alcohol like I’m supposed to, get woozy from the pain. I can’t get near the liquor cabinet when my parents are home, so I take a bunch of aspirin. Dinner comes, and I somehow manage to shovel in food without anyone noticing that every time I move, I catch my breath. It’s like razorblades slicing.

Dad’s actually in a good mood tonight—everybody at work saw the article and now he’s a big shot. Even Mom’s into the conversation about justice and how sometimes good guys do win, and all that crap. Carl keeps glancing at me. Oh, now he wants to be my friend? Like I could do anything? I ignore him. After dinner, I escape to my room, pleading homework. A few minutes later, Carl comes in.

“Okay. What’s wrong?” he asks.

“Nothing.” I won’t cry to my brother. He’ll just tell his friends.

“Bullshit. You look dead, like when that car hit you. Remember? Remember that?”

“No, really? I got hit by a car? Wow. I forgot.” I make a face at him. I have a fricking metal pin in my hip, what does he think? He opens my window and lights a cigarette, blows the smoke outside. “Do that in your own room.” I want him gone; I need to lie down.

He holds out the cigarette pack. “Want one?”

“I don’t smoke.”

“Yeah you do. You also get pretty busy in the liquor cabinet.”

How did he know? “What do you want, anyway?”

“Nothing. Can’t a guy hang out with his brother?”

“You must want something.”

“Why are you so weird tonight?” He puts the cigarette out on the windowsill, tucks the butt of it in his pocket.

“I got a tattoo, okay? It hurts.”

His whole face changes. “My little brother, damn. Show me.” I lift my shirt to show; I’ve already undone my pants.

“Is it a ‘13’?” He peers close. “I got one of those.” He grins at me. “Who did yours?”

“Caroline Tuttle.”

“Not bad. It’s not too clear yet, but it’ll probably get better.”

“Sure as hell hope so.”

“Got anything for it?” When I shake my head no, he winks. “I do. Bourbon and Coke. You bring the Coke.”

I go downstairs for a couple of cans. Mom and Dad are so busy talking about Carl they barely notice me. I go to my brother’s room. His black light’s on and Jimi Hendrix looks amazing. He puts on “Purple Haze” and gulps down half of one of the Cokes. He fills the can with bourbon, sloshes it around.

“Check it out,” he says, handing it to me and fixing one for himself. It burns going down, but that’s okay. I like being here. I drink more. We shoot the shit. I tell him about Evelyn Anderson’s tits.

“Yeah? Wait till you hear about Lucy,” he says, taking a gulp of his own drink, then proceeds to give me a blow-by-blow of this girl he just slept with. My brother is so cool.

Sometime later, he walks me upstairs to my room. Good thing too, I’m pretty wobbly. Lying down on my bed is the last thing I remember until morning.

I survived that night because I didn’t yet understand about love or families or how life is supposed to go.

Or maybe I survived so I could tell my story. Whatever, Doug’s right—apologies don’t change things.

1975

FIVE YEARS BEFORE

SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA, CALIFORNIA

{1}

I’m dreaming I’m on the back of Dad’s chopper, zooming down the highway with a bunch of his Hells Angels buddies, doing just fine until the cops start chasing us. They get closer and closer and their sirens get louder and louder. I’m getting scared until I wake up and find out it’s not a dream at all. The sirens are here, at our house. Two fire trucks and an ambulance are in our yard, flashing red and yellow lights on the trees and Grandma and Grandpa’s little back house. Firemen are unhooking hoses.

I scramble down the stairs. Everybody’s in the living room already. The front door’s open; Mom and Dad stand there as a fireman comes up on our porch.

“Where’s the fire?” he asks, his face turning red, then yellow, then red.

“There’s no fire,” Dad says. “Not here.” Mom peeks around him, holding her robe closed tight at her neck.

“Uh, let’s see—” The fireman glances at his notepad, looks at my mom. “Are you Mrs. Cooder?”

“Oh dear God,” Mom says; Cooder’s her maiden name. She pushes past Dad and runs between the trucks to Grandma and Grandpa’s house. Dad follows with the firemen. All five of us kids huddle in a clump on the grass to see what’s going on.

Grandma stands on her porch, white wispy hair sticking out of long braids, her robe flying open, flapping her arms wildly. She doesn’t look like herself. I take Marianne’s hand.

“I smell it, I smell it! The fire! It’s in the basement, it’s gonna burn us all up!” Her eyes look scary and she won’t stop screaming. Mom grabs her shoulders, tries to calm her down.

“We’ll check, lady, we’ll check,” the fireman says. “Come out here, come into the yard.”

Grandma keeps shrieking. “Where’s my Bob? Get Bobby!” Does she mean Uncle Bobby? Did she forget he doesn’t live here now?

“He’s gone, Mama,” our mom says. “Bobby’s gone. You know that.” The firemen storm into the house. Grandpa stands to the side, shaking his head.

“Get the hoses! Get the hoses!” Grandma cries. “It’s going to burn us! Put it out! Go find Bobby! Where’s my son?”

The firemen check the house, garage, backyard, even the houses next door and across the street. They wake up the entire neighborhood. Finally, they turn off their lights and pull their big trucks out of our yard.

Mom and Grandpa help Grandma back inside their little house, and we go to ours. Davy falls right to sleep. Kaitlyn too. Paul and Marianne stay up, huddled on the couch, talking too low for me to hear. I try to sit next to Marianne.

“Not now, okay?” she says.

Everything’s weird. Paul won’t look at me; he hides his face. I go into the kitchen for cereal. My dad’s already there, sitting at the kitchen table, a bottle of whiskey and a glass. He smiles, pulls out a chair, and tilts the bottle like he’s offering it. I know he’s teasing, but I shake my head no.

“Cheerios or Sugar Pops?” he asks, getting me a bowl.

“Sugar Pops.”

“Crazy night, huh?” He pours the cereal and hands me the milk carton. “Scare ya?”

“Nope. Just a bunch of old fire trucks,” I say, sounding braver than I feel.

“Scared the shit outta me.” He pours himself another glass of his whiskey. I chomp on my cereal.

“When’s Mommy coming back?”

“Probably not tonight. I think she’ll stay with Grandma,” he says.

I nod, taking this in. Grandma was the scariest part. “Is Grandma all right?”

“Sure, she’s fine. She just made a mistake.” He sips his drink, watches me. I don’t like his expression. I wish we were hanging out in the garage. “She made one helluva big mistake.”

I chomp my Sugar Pops, pour in a few more. “Oh, you mean Uncle Bobby?”

“Why would you say that?” Now his voice is scary too.

“Because he moved,” I explain. “And Grandma thought he was getting burned up.”

“Did she?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Well, that was silly, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah.”

He scratches the side of his head with his little finger, and suddenly I stop eating and stare, a huge grin growing on my face.

“Daddy—are you wearing a hairnet?”

He makes a funny face. “Hey now, don’t be talking about my hairnet.” He adjusts it slightly, patting both sides. “Cool hair like this does not come easy.”

{2}

Mom looks up from cooking to check on us playing cards at the kitchen table—all except Paul, who’s never home for dinner anymore, and, of course, me, sitting in the corner. I catch her gaze and smile, but she doesn’t smile back. She sweeps the zucchini into a pot, fills it with water, and turns to put it on the stove. The front door slams.

“Daddy’s here!” Davy cries, running to greet him.

“What about Go Fish?” Kaitlyn whines. She slaps her cards down, folds her arms across her chest, makes a pouty face. Marianne shakes her head at her.

“Stop being such a baby.”

“I’m not a baby!” Kaitlyn whines louder.

“Wipe your feet, Joe!” my mother yells.

“No Paul?” Dad asks as we settle in for dinner. He asks this every night now and Mom shoots him one of those grown-up “shhh” looks. He sighs and shakes his head. He gently pats his Elvis hairdo then reaches for the chicken-fried steak. I grab firsts on the Tater Tots and, for once, get more than Davy.

“Your hair’s gonna fall right off your head, Dad,” Marianne teases. “You used my whole can of spray!”

“And he wears a hair net!” I add, giggling.

“There is nothing wrong with hairspray or hairnets,” he says, touching his hair again. Davy reaches for the last of the Tater Tots and almost drops the bowl when Dad farts.

He cuts a big one, like gunfire.

“Geez, Dad—” Davy says.

“Oh, Daddy, gross!” Kaitlyn says, and covers her face. I go out of control laughing. Mom shakes her head at him.

“Joe, please. You’re setting a bad example.”

“It’s not me,” Dad says, throwing his palms up. “It’s that damn elephant.”

“Daddy!” Kaitlyn frantically waves her hand in front of her nose.

“Shit. There he is again!”

“Where is he, Dad?” I ask.

“Under the table, of course.” He shrugs and holds his hands out, palms up. “Don’t know how he does it!”

After dinner, I follow Dad out to the shop where he paints the signs that go on the side of those huge eighteen-wheeler trucks. He’s famous for this because he doesn’t use a stencil—he designs his own. Truckers from all over California pull their big rigs into our driveway. They know him by name. Dad brings out the beers he keeps in the little fridge; I get to have a sip and help put the signs onto the side. He tells jokes. The truckers laugh. I laugh too, even when I don’t get the punch line.

I try to get out here every night; it’s my best time. I sit with Dad in the big double garage he turned into a workroom. Down one whole side is a long wooden table where he rolls the signs out. In the corner he has his easel for painting. He makes magical, glowing, velvet paintings. People buy these too. He did Elvis for Mom. She loves it. It’s in their room, on the wall by their bed.

I have my own tall stool where I sit and watch. Right next to it is Dad’s Harley; sometimes I climb up on that. Sometimes we don’t talk at all. I just watch him sip beer and do his art. Sometimes he asks me questions.

“How’s school?”

“Great.”

“Yeah? How you doing in history?”

“Pretty goddamn good.”

“Watch your mouth now. Don’t let Mom catch you cussing.”

“I sure as hell won’t.”

He glances over and shakes his head a little, then laughs. “Chip off the old block, huh?”

“Damn straight.” I get a grin a mile wide.

When he’s done with the sign, Dad sets up his easel, then pulls out the smaller one he got just for me. He hums Roger Miller’s “King of the Road.” I chime in at the end: “
Ain’t got no cigarettes!
” He puts a fresh canvas on mine and cocks his head in my direction.

“Want to do another dog?” he asks. I nod and he sketches it out, rolls over a cart with paints. He goes to his painting and I start mine. These are my best times and I know I will never ever forget them. My dad’s the best.

{3}

Paul doesn’t come home that night or the next, and the day after that, Mom calls the cops. It takes them two weeks, but they find him, over in Oakland with Aunt Dora, my father’s sister, and a bunch of her Hells Angels friends.

“Go get your father,” Mom tells Marianne when two cops show up with Paul. He stares at the ground, arms crossed over his chest, looking mad. Dad comes up from his workshop. He’s mad too. Me, Kait, and Davy get sent to our rooms; Marianne’s almost Paul’s age, so she’s allowed to stay. We try to hear what’s going on, but Mom sees us peeking and closes the door. They go out to the yard to talk. Ten minutes later, Paul’s gone, in the car with the cops, Marianne’s crying, and Mom closes herself up in her room. Dad heads back to his workshop without saying a word.

*   *   *

Aunt Dora and her husband roar into the yard an hour later, two of their friends trailing. They swerve and park their choppers in a row. Me and Davy go running out to meet them, but stop short when Dad gets there first. We stand very still and hope we won’t be noticed. We need to find out what’s happened to Paul.

“What the hell did you think you were doing?” Dad says. “You should’ve called us.”

“He didn’t want me to,” Aunt Dora says.

“He’s my kid, Dora. You shoulda let us know.”

Mom comes out of the front door and across the yard. She’s in her yellow dress and has her black hair curled and tied back. My aunt’s wild red hair flutters in the wind. Her leather jacket flops open. I think of all the Christmases the two of them hung out and laughed together.

“You need to go, Dora,” Mom says.

“I want to see Paul. I want to be sure he’s okay.”

“He’s not here.”

“Where is he then?”

“That’s none of your business,” Dad says.

“Go,” Mom says. “I don’t want to call the cops again.”

“Fine.” She gets on the back of her husband’s bike. “But you can’t just pretend it didn’t happen. It happened, okay. You can’t blame Paul for it either, or—”

My parents’ heads snap to me and my brother.

“Shut up, Dora,” Dad says.

“You kids go inside,” my mom says. “Help your sister clean up the kitchen.”