Punkzilla (8 page)

Things at home are good. The fall seems to be flying by. It feels like it was the end of August just a few days ago. It’s been quite chilly this week. I just pulled all of the old wool blankets out of the trunk in the basement. You know how stubborn your father is about turning the heat up.

Edward just got word that he was accepted early to the University of Chicago undergraduate premed program. Your father and I were so thrilled! And I know Edward is relieved. I think his shoulders have dropped six inches since he got the news. He even went on a date last week. He took this nice young woman from the neighborhood to go see
American Gangster,
with Denzel Washington and that Australian actor your father likes so much. Afterward they went miniature golfing and had cheesecake at that little late-night café by the library. When he came home, his head was in the clouds and he seemed pretty smitten. I think he’s in love, and your father enjoys teasing him about it.

I have been spending most of my time fixing up the basement. I just had the new paneling installed, and the carpeting is going to be put in tomorrow. Your father wants to get a pool table, and we already ordered a flat-screen TV and an entertainment system. It’ll be a good place for you boys to blow off steam when you’re home from school.

So the main reason I’m writing, Jamie, is to let you know that your father and Edward and I are definitely coming down for Parents Weekend. We’re planning on staying in town, at the Comfort Inn. We’ll arrive Saturday morning, attend the Parents Welcome Brunch, walk around a bit — I know your father and Edward want to hit the golf course for a round — and then we would love to join you for the movie in the dining hall that evening. I understand they’re showing
Pearl Harbor,
which has that wonderful English actress in it, Kate Beckinsale (I think your father has a crush on her!). Then we’ll let you have the rest of the night to yourself and join you again for Sunday brunch and chapel and the football game. We’ll probably head back to Cincinnati after that, but you’ll no doubt be sick of all the doting at that point.

Maybe when your father and Edward are golfing, you and I could take a walk and just catch up one-on-one. I’d love to know what’s on your mind with regard to your future. I know you hate talking about that stuff, but a gentle conversation on the subject might be good for both of us. I promise I won’t push too much, scout’s honor.

Anyway, we’re very much looking forward to spending some time with you, Jamie. I can’t wait to see this short haircut!

October 17
^th
, 2007

Son,

Your mother informs me that you have decided to be a cynic and not answer her letters. You should know that she is heartbroken about your choice to discontinue your correspondence. The few replies you’ve written to her since heading to Buckner have given her great joy. I hope you will consider picking up the pen again and letting her know how you are doing.

Speaking of your progress, I have recently been in communication with the commandant’s office, and Colonel Stoops tells me that though you have shown some improvement on the drill field, you are still very much behind the others. Son, I would urge you to take the initiative and put some extra time toward it. Colonel Stoops assured me that if you made a formal request to your first sergeant, he could arrange procuring a rifle for you from the battalion logistics officer — I believe the cadet’s name is Captain Voskul. An extra hour a day working through the
Fifteen Count Manual
movements will definitely pay dividends. I know you are more than capable of excelling in this environment. The damn stuff is in your blood and in your bones, and we all know how smart you are. Those Buckner entrance exams don’t lie. So please go knock on your first sergeant’s door and make an effort.

As your mother told you in her last letter, she and I and your brother Edward are going to see you in a few weeks, at Parents Weekend. I look forward to visiting with you and hearing how things are progressing.

March 7, 2008

Dear P,

Today has been the shittiest day of my life.

I’m writing to you from the backseat of a Lincoln Town Car. There’s this really old lady in the front seat whose one eye keeps leaking. I don’t think it’s tears it’s more like some liquid form of LIFE leaving her. Her hair is so white it hurts to look at and she smells like diarrhea and old flowers. This man with blond hair is driving. He has a bald spot at the top of his head and a sunburnt neck. I think his name is Dale or Dave or maybe Dan and he’s one of those adults with braces. He’s really quiet and maybe like forty and he’s wearing a tie and a short-sleeved shirt and he drives with both hands on the wheel. They’re pretty quiet people. Every once in a while the old lady sighs. She might be his mom but she could be his grandmother too. I’m just glad I’m finally out of the rain and not dead.

The shittiest day by far P even shittier than that experience with Alan Skymer in the Super 8 Motel even shittier than when Mom and the Major took me to Red Lobster to tell me they were sending me to Buckner and I never thought things could get worse than that. I’m okay now but about ten hours ago I got jumped in the bathroom of the Greyhound station in Caldwell Idaho.

I didn’t think I was going to be able to write you again for a few days because my hand got so sore from the other letters. When I make a fist it feels like there are needles in it or something but I started getting the shakes again and I figured writing you would calm me so I’m going to give it a try.

I spent about half the morning hiding behind an abandoned Mexican restaurant staring at a big-ass cornfield and getting rained on. It’s been raining like a motherfucker all day and till Dale or Dave or Dan and this old lady with the leaky eye picked me up on the side of the highway I was seriously thinking about laying down on one of those yellow lines and ending it all like letting a semi blow right over me.

So anyway back at the Greyhound station in Caldwell Idaho these dudes jumped me and stole all my shit except for this notebook. I was the only one in that bathroom pissing at the middle urinal when I heard someone come in behind me. The next thing I knew a forty of Budweiser got busted over my head. It sounded like two cars crashing deep in the pulp of my brain. They got me right above my left ear and there’s a huge knot there now and I have a feeling that it’s going to keep swelling and I’ll wind up with a serious growth on the side of my head.

I had never been knocked out like that before P like waking up and having no idea where I was or what happened. When I came to I made this weird sound like AAUAUAUUAAUAULL all high-pitched and girlish. For a second I thought I was mentally retarded or some sort of vegetable man who lost the use of his brain. I could hear this faraway ringing sound and it took me a minute to figure out that the noise was coming from inside my head. I can still hear the ringing a little now. It’s sort of mixing in with the hum from the engine of this car. At first it freaked me out but ten hours later I’m finding it weirdly comforting.

They got my wallet and this turquoise belt buckle with a black bear on it that I got in Portland. My right eye is pretty swollen too and the side of my head stings like a bitch and my ear has been bleeding off and on for most of the day. I probably have a concussion so I’m trying to not fall asleep. The dude who picked me up keeps rolling the window down every few minutes because he thinks it’ll keep me conscious.

I remember learning about that concussion thing in health class when I was still in school in Cincinnati and how if you fall asleep when you have a disaster to the head that you can go into some kind of coma state and never wake up.

When I got off the floor of the bathroom I couldn’t walk so good and I had to go to a knee and then I got sick and puked in the sink. I spent about ten minutes picking little pieces of glass out of my ear where the bottle broke. I probably need stitches but I can’t exactly snap my fingers and wind up at a hospital plus I’m basically a certified runaway and who knows where I’d end up if the Major found me. To make things worse my bus took off without me and the driver that guy with the hockey mask knew I was in the station. He said he would wait but he didn’t.

In my Buckner gym bag I had around five pairs of underwear and some socks and another pair of jeans and some Listerine breath strips and that alarm clock and a Game Boy Micro 20
^th
Anniversary Edition that Branson stole for me as a going away gift. Even though it was from Buckner I liked the gym bag because it wasn’t too big and if I needed to I could use it as a pillow. I spent almost all the money you sent me on that ticket too. Remind me to never ride Greyhound again.

But the reason I’m seriously fucked is because they got my cut of the April Yon Collection which was around a hundred and sixty bucks! I’m just glad they didn’t take this notebook which has everything I’ve written to you so far plus the letter you wrote me at the beginning of December which is tucked into the inside pocket plus a letter from the Major and a letter from Mom and a card from her and another card from Buck Tooth Jenny and a letter from Edward and a letter from Grandma Beauty and a letter from Cornelia Zenkich and this other letter to Mom that I wrote but never sent. The notebook is mad thick like one of those ones you’re supposed to use for multiple subjects in school but I’m not surprised they didn’t take it. You can’t really get much for a spiral notebook especially with a bunch of shitty writing in it.

I felt like calling you P but I didn’t want to waste what little money I have left which I had stashed in my sock which is exactly sixteen bucks. It’s the change from the bus ticket. I swear I’ll keep all my money in my sock from now on.

After I picked the glass out of my head I cleaned the cuts with that cheap pink squirt soap stuff and went out to the waiting area and fell asleep on a plastic chair with lots of ballpoint pen graffiti on it and had a dream of flying gorillas. I knew I wasn’t supposed to fall asleep because of the concussion rule but I couldn’t help it. I think my body just needed to like shut down for a little while. The last thing I remembered was that in the ballpoint pen graffiti I thought I could see the face of Abraham Lincoln like with the beard and the black top hat and everything and check this out P it made me think about how Edward used to draw him in the margins of his textbooks how he would draw him sitting in a chair mostly but how this one time he drew him dancing in the middle of an ice rink. He didn’t draw skates on him he drew him wearing shoes and there were all of these kids skating all around him. It was a really detailed drawing P did you ever see it? Do you know the one I’m talking about? Seeing Abraham Lincoln’s face in the middle of that ballpoint ink graffiti made me think about how Edward has always had this secret talent of drawing Abraham Lincoln but how no one really knows about it and how he keeps it hid like he’s ashamed of it or something. Do you have any idea why he would be like that?

In my dream the flying gorillas didn’t have wings. They just flew with their arms extended and their fists pushed out in front of them. There were thousands of them and the sky was mad yellow and for some reason I knew that the color of the sky and all of those flying gorillas somehow meant the end of the world like as soon as they passed overhead everything would turn dark and murky before some atomic bomb would hit. I have to wonder if those gorillas have something to do with the gorilla that was on the sweatshirt of that girl Mags I spoke to at the University of Pittsburgh that skinny pale girl with the fuzzy cheeks who gave me five bucks. She had a gorilla on her sweatshirt too! It’s weird how something like that can turn into other stuff in your dream. A simple memory suddenly multiplies itself by a thousand and takes over your sleeping life. I’ve heard that that’s how acid works. You drop a few hits and suddenly cartoon people start walking up to you asking for directions to the ski lodge and shit like that.

I woke up in the waiting room of that bus station in a serious panic and it took me a minute to catch my breath and I’m really glad I didn’t wind up going into some death coma although I have to admit that at least part of me is a little worried that I AM in a coma P and this is all being written from inside my head and my body is frozen and I’m just a slab of meat on a table somewhere in the middle of Idaho with drool slipping down the corners of my mouth.

Do you remember when I fell off the front porch and cracked my head open on that fake doe in the wood-chip bed? It wasn’t the three ceramic deer that huddle it was the little doe off by itself the one that’s next to the mailbox now. I think I was like seven or four or something and everyone freaked out because apparently my head hitting the doe made such a loud noise and that neighbor lady with the big splotch on her face thought I had cracked through some nest of bones in my head or fractured my skull or something. It was Mrs. Loomis or whatever her name was and she had that splotch on her face and she had a shiny pink nose and Mom was always talking about how she never shaved her armpits properly. Do you remember how she came over with that neck brace thing and how Mom kept trying to put it on me? This situation is easily as bad as that P maybe even worse I shit you not. If you saw me you would believe me. Anyway remember how there used to be a fake rabbit next to that fake doe and how someone stole it and Mom thought it might have been that weird mailman dude with the old-school knee brace? Well I wanted to let you know that I’M the one who stole it P. I totally stole it and kept it in this box under all of your and Edward’s old report cards. It was in that General Electric box that the microwave came in and I would go down to the basement every so often with a black Sharpie and draw on the fake rabbit. I would draw like a mustache and some tiger stripes and a black eye. When I think about it now I feel sick like way sicker than I feel when I think about all the bad stuff I did this past summer all that stuff that sealed the deal for me getting sent to Buckner. It’s the rabbit that makes me feel most guilty and ashamed P.