Part 13 (1/2)

Across the table from me, Grandmother frowned the way that G.o.d must have frowned when He heard about Adam and the apple. ”A polite young man answers when he's asked a direct question,” she said.

”I guess I'm not a polite young man.”

She reached across the table and smacked my ear, almost knocking me out of my chair.

I cried. I hated myself for that, but I couldn't help it. Too much had happened-my discovery of Volumes I through II, the fight with Steve, ”Ollie the b.a.s.t.a.r.d,” Mother and Keith, and now this.

”A polite young man does not talk back,” Grandmother said. ”Neither does he bawl like a baby when punished.” She stood. ”You will sit here and think about that until I say you may get up.” She left the kitchen.

I put my head on the cool tabletop. When I couldn't cry anymore, I kept my head down and imagined that I was a poisonous turtle. I would dart from my sh.e.l.l and bite off the hand of anyone who came close.

After a long time, Grandmother returned.

”Have you learned anything?” she asked.

”I hate you,” I said.

She raised her hand to smack me again, but I was ready for it and didn't cringe. She lowered her arm without hitting me.

”You'll go without supper until you apologize,” she said. ”You'll remain at the table.”

She went away again. The sky outside the kitchen window became dark. I had to pee, but I swore that I would explode before I would ask for permission to go to the bathroom.

Finally, Grandmother came into the kitchen with her purse on her arm and her car keys in her hand. ”Get up,” she said. ”I'll not put up with a sinful child. You're going home.”

That was fine with me. If Mother wasn't back from her date yet, I would watch TV late into the night.

Grandmother made me sit in the back seat of her car while we crossed the city. The pain in my abdomen was so awful that I was afraid I might pee my pants, but I clenched my jaws and held it. I wouldn't give Grandmother anything else to say about me.

When the car stopped, I flung open the door and ran for our building. As I reached the main door, I could hear Grandmother telling me to wait, but I ignored her and went inside, charging up the stairs to theapartment.

Mother kept a spare key hidden in a crack beside the doorjamb; so I grabbed it, put it into the lock, and opened the door. I wanted to get to the bathroom fast.

I stopped after two steps. A lamp was on in the living room, and Mother and Keith were clutching each other on the floor. They were naked.

Keith saw me first. ”Oh, s.h.i.+t,” he said.

Then Mother saw me too, but she didn't say anything.

I stumbled out backward, slammed the door, turned, and collided with Grandmother. She was staring at the apartment door, her lips pursed. She had seen. I was sure that she had seen.

She went down the stairs and out to her car. I stood alone on the landing, dizzy and sick, and would have vomited if there had been anything in my stomach.

After a while, Mother came out, wearing clothes, and took me inside. Keith left as soon as I was in.

Mother closed the door behind me, and at that sound I looked down and saw that I had wet my pants.

Mother did not go out with Keith again. Instead, she bought more books on UFOs, Edgar Cayce, and spiritualism.

She had been healing herself, and I had destroyed it.

Yet even while Mother was slipping back into weirdness and I was roiling with anger and guilt, there was something in which we both rejoiced: On Sunday, July 20, Neil Armstrong stepped onto the surface of the moon.

I bounced around the apartment trying to duplicate a moon walk, and I jumped off a kitchen chair to simulate the ”giant leap” off the LEM. Meanwhile, Mother sat in the living room, watching the television and smiling wistfully.

”Maybe they'll let us join them now,” she said.

I was bounding through the living room. ”Who?”

She didn't answer, and I bounced into the kitchen again.

She wasn't able to go to Woodstock.

Gretchen Laird took command of the pilgrimage. She told me what to do, and I did it. It was comforting, because it relieved me of responsibility. Yes, officer, I fled to Oklahoma, but after the Chisholm Trail Rest Stop Waterbed Motel, I was only following orders.

We prepared to leave the motel at eight o'clock Sat.u.r.day evening. Gretchen would drive the Jaguar and choose our route, and I would follow on Peggy Sue. According to Gretchen, the Jaguar had a computerized map display in the dashboard, so it only made sense that she should be in charge ofnavigation. In addition, she said, if I attempted to take off on my own, she would hunt me down and break my fingers and toes.

The bathroom in our odious room had no shower, so I tried to make do with dunking my head in the sink. As I did so, I became aware of the itch caused by the stubble on my throat and cheeks.

”Hey,” I called, ”do you shave your legs?”

Gretchen, who had been watching Buddy on TV, appeared in the bathroom doorway with murder in her eyes. ”What's it to you?”

I tried to look ingenuous. ”I thought I could maybe borrow a razor.”

She glared a bit longer and then left, returning in a moment with a disposable razor. ”Think fast,” she said, tossing it. It landed atop the toilet tank beside the plastic tubes containing my contact lenses.

”Anything else?” Gretchen asked sardonically.

”You wear contacts?” I asked. ”I need some wetting solution.”

”I have perfect twenty-twenty vision,” she said. ”I have perfect everything. Now hurry it up. The night won't last forever.” She left the doorway again.

The bathroom had no mirror, so I shaved blind with soap and water, sc.r.a.ping my throat in the process.

As I finished, a small plastic bottle flew past my head and landed in the grungy water in the sink.

”Eye drops,” Gretchen said behind me. ”The kind that gets the red out. I figured it'd be better than nothing.”

I thanked her and took my lenses from the tubes, rubbing them with the eye drops before inserting them.

They still hurt.

Then, with Gretchen telling me to get the lead out of my a.s.s, I left the bathroom and pulled on the Moonsuit. For breakfast, I took a squashed package of chocolate cupcakes from a pocket, wolfed one, and offered the other to Gretchen.

She sneered. ”No wonder you're in such rotten shape. I've got trail mix in my backpack, and I'll eat in the car so you don't try to swipe any. Can we please get going now, junkgut?” She dropped the room key onto the bed for the manager to find.