Signs of Life Read online

  I told her this wasn’t some book.

  I told her, “Redemption is the literary Santa Claus.”

  She was sorry I felt that way, but she liked that I used the word “literary” and that I employed a metaphor.

  She left chalk dust on my sleeve.

  My shadow leads the way, casting darkness over a crumpled napkin and an empty Fritos bag. Foreshadowing before I step on them.

  Next comes a Dunkin’ Donuts coffee cup. I dodge that one, though part of me wants to smash it.

  There’s no satisfaction in smashing Styrofoam. There’s no crunch at all. And those little foam specks, they can’t be good for the environment. That’s what Doll would say, for sure. She would say, “Joey, throw the cup in the garbage.”

  I’m sorry, Doll. I don’t wanna touch it.

  Want.

  I don’t want to.

  My memory, it’s a shadow inside me.

  It could’ve gone either way with me. With the gun.

  Doll. It only went one way with her. She was good, so so good. If there was such a thing as redemption, she would be it. So when I chose that way, her way—all that mattered was splashing through that puddle.

  To her.

  Dorothy – Then

  I wasn’t that far, I was right there really, just a

  few

  feet

  away, but it seemed to take

  forever

  for him to

  reach

  me.

  He was in slow motion

  and

  I was suspended

  filled with relief so

  all-consuming that I couldn’t

  make

  myself

  move.

  There were sirens

  outside,

  so many

  sirens and red

  lights flashing through the kitchen

  window, sweeping across the

  green linoleum and across

  us.

  And then he reached

  me.

  He was there,

  he

  grabbed

  me

  up

  in his arms and he said

  Joey – Now

  “Doll.”

  I say her name out loud. It just comes out sometimes, and when people are around, they look at me funny. Like I care.

  There’s no one here on the street. It’s creepy the way this town has no pedestrians. Where is everyone? I’m next to the House of Ale, door propped wide open, music low—some suicidal country song—only a couple of customers lurking at the bar. Two wizened guys slumped on their stools, downing their Bud. I see the lines in their faces from here. It’ll be a full House later. Right now, people are eating. Who knows, maybe some are heading to the meeting. They’ll be here, when the music gets louder and the place sounds like a hoedown. They always come, looking for something.

  Something different. Always.

  They come.

  This is not a put-down. It’s just a statement. I could join them, but there’s no point. All I got left is my sobriety. If she comes back, or I find her, I need to be sober for that.

  “Doll.”

  I said it again. So there.

  The shadow inside me stirs.

  I remember what it was like to hold her after I dropped the gun.

  Dorothy – Then

  It should have felt

  good, but I was too

  filled with so many other emotions, too

  spent and then there was still his

  dad

  behind

  us.

  And there was the gun …

  God,

  there

  was

  the

  gun …

  Joey – Now

  The hairs rise on the back of my neck. I could swear someone’s behind me, like they’re following me ready to press a gun to the small of my back. My body tenses, but I don’t even turn around because I know there’s no one there. This happens all the time. They call it post-traumatic stress disorder. When everything came out about Pop, my brothers and me got sent to a shrink. Warren still goes. He’s eleven. Not that beaten down yet.

  Wait. Is it my brothers and I? Crap. It’s I. I got sent.

  I pass the library, it’s next to the House of Ale. That’s how it goes here in Highland Park. A book or a beer? The choice is yours.

  Poor kid’s got a rotten name on top of everything else. Warren was Pop’s great-uncles’ name from the 1800s or some sh—something like that. We all got named by Pop, like he was mentally branding us. I’m the oldest, so I got his name, which makes me ill, but “Joseph” does blend. “Warren” is high on the nerd scale. Plus, it rhymes with foreign, and you know some flag-waving, shoot-to-kill, rah rah rah a-hole is gonna make something out of that at lunch. I mentioned him in Mrs. Baker’s class when we were introducing ourselves, and she smiled and said his last name should be “Peace.” Whatever that means. I let that one go by. I didn’t wanna look stupid on my first day. Or ever, really.

  Me, I passed on regular appointments with the shrink, even though the doc said we could work on trauma, like my brain was a transmission that needed rebuilding, or there was some belt in there that needed tightening. I couldn’t let him under my hood. Not after my diagnostic experience with Doll’s parents. Both psychologists, and they were clueless. I’m used to the PTSD, so I deal, and anyway I think if there was someone there and he did blow me away, he’d be doing me a favor. I been doing time here for nineteen years, ain’t that enough?

  Godddamn grammar. You know what I meant. I can’t constantly check myself, on top of everything else. Or maybe the checking myself is the thing that gets me through. Who the eff knows. Not shrinks, for sure. They’re all playing mental cee-lo with with our minds, that’s what I think.

  Dorothy –Then

  My relief had morphed to

  terror.

  I was immobile

  still.

  I wanted to tell Joey to

  turn

  around,

  wanted to

  scream that

  the monster

  was reaching for the

  gun, but it was like my vocal

  cords were

  frozen, like time was

  frozen, we were

  frozen in our

  embrace, but

  the monster,

  he

  wasn’t

  frozen.

  Maybe time wasn’t frozen, either. Maybe it was

  crawling like

  the monster

  was inching

  toward us

  with the gun.

  If I could have

  found

  my

  voice

  I would have warned Joey, but it was

  gone.

  Joey was paying no

  attention, he was

  clinging to me like I was a

  float in the ocean. He was

  done but his

  dad, he didn’t look

  done, not at all.

  Joey – Now

  I head past Mama Mia’s Old Time Pizza and my mode switches from paranoid to craving. That cheesy baking smell, it practically makes me drool and I’m not even hungry. I glance at the gumball machine by the window. It’s filled with the giant gumballs I used to love. You could bite them into two pieces and save half for later, but these are faded from the sun. I don’t know who the hell—heck—would want to chew them, but that’s the kind of town this is. Washed out.

  God, I wish I had a way to shock myself or something, every time I catch myself saying something wrong. Sooner or later I’d get the message, or collapse from the voltage. I’m looking down, watching my feet carry me, which is sort of amazing—that they could bear the burden of the rest of me weighing them down and still keep going—when I spot a rubber band lying across a sidewalk seam, like it’s bridging the gap. I pick it up and pull at it, then realize it’s just the thing for me. I slip it around my wrist. A perfect fit! Not so tight that my wrist’ll turn blue; not loose enough to slip off.

  I give it a snap. Ow! Good.

  It’s not electro-shock, but it hurts. It’ll do.

  Every time I catch myself using grammar wrong, I’ll snap myself.

  Some people would say this is a gift from above—that I asked for help and I got it. I say a mailman was here and dropped the rubber band that was around someone’s Bed Bath & Beyond coupon and their special offer for Dish Network.

  You could make a case for the mailman just as easy as you could for God—no easier, if you’re rational. But people always want to give credit to their higher power. I guess it makes them feel special or something. Ooh, I found a heavenly rubber band! What’s next? An image of the Virgin Mary formed in the grease on my pizza?

  I’m sure someone’s seen her floating on a bed of anchovies.

  Signs. They’re like assholes. Full of shit.

  Snap! Snap!

  Dorothy – Then

  The monster’s

  vein was

  bulging in his forehead, his eyes were

  bulging from their sockets, his fingers were

  wrapped around his

  gun.

  It tapped on the

  linoleum as he

  inched toward us, his

  gun was like a paddle row row row

  your

  way to blow your

  son

  away. Would he kill

  Joey, though Joey had spared

  him? Was the man capable of a rational

  thought, let alone gratitude

  or mercy?

  Then he was there

  next

  to

  us, right behind Joey, he had reached us

  unannounced because I couldn’t say a

  thing, I just stood there thinking about

  things that wouldn’t even

  matter

  soon because we’d be

  dead.

  And then I thought that if I had

  to

  die at least it would be in Joey’s

  arms.

  And

  then

  I finally screamed.

  Joey – Now

  Two doors down, I get my coffee at this sketchy bodega–oops, I mean: I purchase a cup of coffee at an unsavory bodega. Not too bad a slip, but I snap myself anyway. I’m pretty sure Mrs. Baker would be okay with the word bodega because it’s precise. She loves precision. I get that. I love the precision of a car engine—the feeling of knowing that everything is running just right. That’s why I became a mechanic (also my choices were limited because I sucked at pretty much every subject at school.) I gotta admit—oh, snap!—her excitement about the English language sometimes revs me up, too. (Is rev a real word? If it ain’t … it should be. Snap!) Sometimes, for a few minutes, I forget about my miserable life.

  Our last day of class, she was telling us about the book we’re reading for next semester, recommending highly that we read it over break so we have time to “digest it properly” without our other classes weighing us down, and some girl in the third row who always wears a big bow in her hair (what’s that about?) complained that it looked depressing. Mrs. Baker said, “Yes, it is depressing.” Then she said that one point of a book is so you can forget your own crummy life and read about someone’s worse one. She didn’t say it like that, but that’s basically what she said.

  My question is, what good is that, really? What good is an escape when you’re gonna—when you’re going to—get caught and locked right back up in your cell?

  That book really does have some messed up shit going on. Snap! Make that, unfortunate circumstances. It’s called As I Lay Dying.

  But reading about other peoples’ problems don’t help mine. Snap!

  Doesn’t help mine.

  Also, the title … God, I can’t even go there. Not if I wanna keep functioning. Snap!

  Want.

  I want to keep functioning.

  Will I ever learn?

  Dorothy – Then

  I couldn’t take it

  this third

  time. It was just too

  much, I

  screamed and screamed and

  even though Joey’s

  fingers clutched

  me I felt no

  comfort through my

  panic and

  madness. It was like my

  sanity had

  seeped

  out

  of

  me and melted into the

  slime

  green vinyl tiles. It was

  just

  gone.

  Joey – Now

  I don’t even want to keep functioning—but a promise is a promise. And that’s all I have left. Maybe one day she’ll know about all I’ve been doing, and she’ll be proud of me. And she’ll hug me. I’ll get to hold her in my arms …

  Yeah, right.

  But Doll would say that she’s beside the point. She’d say that virtue is its own reward. She always said stuff like that. She was like a self-empowerment speaker, but not full of it. (See, Mrs. Baker? I avoided the word “shit” twice!)

  Me, I say there is no reward. I say we’re all damned. And from the way things turned out, I don’t see how Doll could argue that one.

  Though I’d give anything to hear her try.

  Doll, she would’ve believed the rubber band was a gift. But she would’ve said that I manifested it myself, by wishing for it. She said that we’re each our own God. Really, she did. It was one of the last things she said to me, and I argued with her about it. Well, not argued. I told her I didn’t agree. I said, if we were our own gods, we had to be one heck of a self-hating society. She said no, she said everything would work out in the end. That we would make it work out for ourselves.

  If I could do it over, I’d tell her she was right. Even though she wasn’t. But I’d wanna make her feel good.

  Snap!

  Everything we say to people we love should make them feel good. Because it might be the last thing we get to say to them.

  If my life were a book, Mrs. Baker would call my rubber band symbolic—a tangible object representing something. Like Holden Caulfield’s hat. (She has a list of possibilities for what that hat could mean that makes me never want to read again. I mean, can’t the dude just like to wear a hat?) The coffin in As I Lay Dying, that’s clearer.

  I do like the word “tangible.” I want to be tangible. But I feel so goddamn shadowy. Snap!

  I’m a ghost man walking.

  I got my unsavory coffee (it smells like it was sitting on the burner for about three days, and it looked more like engine oil than coffee when I poured it.) It’s cradled in my left hand with a wad of napkins separating my fingers from the cup because it’s one of those thin paper ones. I’d like to know what sadist invented them, the temperature of the coffee comes searing through every goddamn time.

  Snap! Sorry. I gotta remember not to curse.

  I must remember not to curse.

  Also, I must remember to say “I’ve.” Snap!

  I’ve got my unsavory coffee in a searing paper cup, which must be better for the environment than Styrofoam, but still sucks for me. How ‘bout investing in some coffee sleeves over at the bodega?

  Snap!

  God, I hate grammar. What’s the point? Mrs. Baker clearly thinks there’s one. But she gave us this book with about the worst grammar ever. Of course, these people have about the worst suck-ass lives ever. Snap! Maybe that’s her point. Maybe it’s symbolic.

  Then there’s Doll. She made me promise to be the best person I can be. Grammar is a tangible way to be better.

  So there are points to grammar. I need to carry a little notebook and write all these thoughts to show Mrs. Baker I’m not a complete loser. Really, I want to show her she’s good at her job. The best. Why not give her tangible evidence?

  Most important point about grammar: it cuts off the clamor. My brain, it’s filled with noise like in As I Lay Dying. This guy Cash Bundren, he makes his mom’s coffin himself—while she’s still alive. Right under her window, where she can’t help but listen to the hammering and sawing. Is he proving his love, or is he torturing her? Maybe both. Maybe that’s the point.

  Me, I hear them too. The schrzzzzzzz of the saw and the hammer’s strike, strike, strike. No matter where I am really, inside my head I’m sprawled across my bed, cells dying off one by one, slowly suffocating in shame. I’m staring at the stark ceiling where there’s nothing but thumbtack holes and snow white paint rank with the scent of past pain: rotting remnants of shattered souls. Outside, there’s the uneven rhythm of my coffin being framed. Except it’s me doing the building. I can’t stop either one—dying or getting ready for it—but at least I can rest from that pounding, zig-zagging noise I’m subjecting myself to, either in atonement or damnation.

  Now I have this rubber band. I feel like it might be good for something other than punishment, but I can’t imagine what. Too small to be a slingshot. And who the hell would use a slingshot these days anyway? Just about anyone can get a gun. Not me, though. The convicted felon of our family. But that’s okay. I don’t want one. No effing way. It’s me and my shitty little slingshot against the world.

  Snap! Snap! Snap! That oughta—ought to—cover everything.

  Anyway, I’m grateful for Mrs. Baker and her grammar lessons that keep on giving. I’m grateful for this rubber band to keep me in line. And I’m even grateful for this lousy coffee. Because no matter what it tastes like, it’ll keep me going. I need to keep going. Or else there will be a day when I finish building that coffin, and I’ll bury myself once and for all.

  For sure, bad bodega coffee is better than going in Dunkin’ Donuts.

  Ain’t nothing worth that trip.

  Snap!

  The sting, it feels good.

  I haven’t felt in so long.

  Dorothy - Then

  “Shut up!” the monster

  barked

  at me.

  And somehow I