Struck by Lightning: The Carson Phillips Journal (2 page)

Every time I would hear my parents going at it, I would open up my crayon box and notebook and go to town. Suddenly, everything became white noise and nothing bothered me anymore. It’s how I held on to sanity in a crazy house.

Things with my parents came to a peak after Grandpa, Mom’s dad, passed away. Grandma came to live with us a year later when she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s.

She had always been my champion and savior. Whenever I was having trouble in school she would sit me on her lap and say, “Don’t let that teacher make you feel like you’re anything less than brilliant, Carson. She’s just pissed that the governor changed her pension plan.”

It was hard to watch her slowly fade away. Even as a kid I knew something was wrong.

When she was at home she was usually in the linen
closet wondering how her room had gotten so small. Our neighbors used to find her wandering the streets alone, wondering where she had parked the car she didn’t have anymore.

“This is the third time she’s been found wandering around town,” Dad said to Mom one night at nine o’clock.

“She just gets a little confused and forgets what the house looks like,” Mom said. “What’s your excuse?”

“I’m serious, Sheryl,” Dad said. “Either she goes, or I go!”

It was the first time I’d ever seen Mom speechless. I helped her pack Grandma’s things the next day.

Although she was getting more senile by the second, Grandma knew what was happening the day we put her in the Clover Assisted Living Home. She was very quiet and kept to herself. Mom did too, feeling the guilt of it all, I suspect.

“Why are you moving?” I asked Grandma.

“Because the people here are going to take good care of me,” she said.

“Can’t I take good care of you?” I said.

“I wish, honey,” Grandma said, and stroked my hair.

I felt so helpless, but I tried cheering her up the best way I knew how.

“I wrote you a story, Grandma,” I said, handing her a paper.

“Oh? Let’s see,” she said, and took it from me. “‘Once upon a time, there was a boy.’” She stopped reading—not because she wanted to, that was just all I had written. “Well, it’s a lovely story, but it could use some development.” She smiled.

“Mom said I can visit you every day after school. She said I could ride my bike here,” I told her. “I can bring you a new story every day!”

“I’d like that,” she said, a little teary-eyed, and hugged me. She was sad but I was so happy I could give her
something
to look forward to. And to date, I’ve never missed a day.

Despite my mom’s final attempts at making her marriage work, Dad eventually left when I was ten.

The whole neighborhood remembers that night. It was the series finale of
The Neal and Sheryl Show
and started at nine on the dot and stretched into the early hours of the morning.

“You can’t leave now! We just started going back
to counseling!” Mom screamed after him as he went to his car. He didn’t even pack, really; he just grabbed as many things as he could on the way to the door, including some Aztec decoration off the walls. Not sure what he was going to do with that.

“I can’t spend another second in this house!” Dad yelled back at her.

He drove off, tires screeching, into the night. Mom ran after his car, screaming, “Go! You can’t come back! I hate you! I hate you!”

She collapsed in the front yard and cried hysterically for another hour. It was the first time I realized just how much she cared about him. Thank God for the sprinklers; otherwise she might have been out there all night.

It’s been me and Mom ever since. Well, there was that one time Grandma escaped the assisted-living home and wound up back with us for a day or two, but mostly it’s been just the two of us.

Life without Dad was very different, mostly quieter. Even though Mom did try to pick her nine o’clock fights with me for the first couple of years, the house became pleasantly peaceful.

We found ways around having a grown man in the house. Mom never figured out how to put together the Christmas tree or lights, so she just told people in the neighborhood we converted to Judaism. There’s no one here to fix things, so small things have been broken for years around the house (and I’m certainly not gonna take a screwdriver to anything).

Mom’s never really recovered from the whole thing. She never went back to work, deciding to just live off the money Grandpa left us. She never dated or remarried, replacing my dad with wine instead. (And oh, what a love affair it’s been!)

She mostly spends her life on the couch these days watching
Judge Judy
and
Ellen
. She showers weekly (if I’m lucky) and has become known in town as “that lady who grocery shops in her bathrobe and sunglasses.” Perhaps you’ve experienced a sighting?

I’ve only seen my dad twice since he left; once on my twelfth birthday and more recently at Christmas two years ago. Yeah, he’s a real winner. He makes Carmen Sandiego look super reliable.

“Where the hell have you been?” I said the last time I saw him, not able to hold it in.

“I moved up north to the Bay Area,” he said calmly, like he was telling me what he’d had for lunch.

“Why?” I asked.

“To find myself,” he said.

I tried my best not to laugh at him but a smile broke through. “Still searching?”

He never responded.

I’ve spent a lot of time being pissed at my parents over the years. I’ve never understood how someone like me could come from people like them. I guess ambition is a recessive gene.

But I suppose I should always keep in mind that, through it all, I’ve still had it much better than others… until those people’s autobiographies outsell mine in the future. Then I’ll be back to feeling sorry for myself. (Unpopular opinion: Your story is only sad until you start making money off of it. Then I no longer feel sorry for you.)

Let me put a lid on the violin playing in the background and reiterate my original point: Life has been shitty, but
I’m getting out of here
. I’m moving onward and upward and I’ve never been so excited.

Well, I think my life story is enough of an entry for one night. I was originally skeptical about this whole journaling thing, but now I see how therapeutic it can be. I seriously feel less stressed than when I started. I feel really calm and centered and—
Oh shit, it’s midnight and I still have Algebra 2 homework! Gotta go!

10/3

What a DAY and it’s not even over yet. It started this morning when I woke up at the crack of ass, like I do every day.

Can I please just say that it has been scientifically proven that teenagers learn and test better when they go to school later in the day? Which I suppose would be taken into consideration if school wasn’t really just a government-funded day care meant to keep kids occupied. (I don’t know about you, but I’m most prone to committing crimes between the hours of 6 a.m. and 3 p.m.! Thumbs up!)

I eventually stirred to life after the fourth or fifth time hitting the snooze button. I stumbled into my bathroom and discovered I wouldn’t be going to school alone; there was a huge zit on the side of my face. Acne: God’s way of reminding you that, besides all your other flaws, you aren’t perfect. Thanks for the heads-up, God, almost forgot.

I got dressed, went into the living room, and, no surprise, found my mom passed out on the couch.
Only my mother makes every morning look like the morning after a Guns N’ Roses party when I know for a fact she was just watching
Beaches
on repeat last night.

I yanked open the drapes and let the light in. Every day I hope this will inspire her to get off the couch. Every day I also worry the sunlight will finally cause her to burst into flames.

“Mom, wake up!” I said, hitting her with a pillow. “You passed out again.”

She jerked around under the blanket like a seal caught in a fishing net.

“Wh-wh-what?” she said, finally becoming conscious.

“Congratulations, you survived the night,” I said. I like to greet her in the morning with supportive comments so she knows I care.

“If you were a decent person you’d just let me sleep!” she grunted.

“If I were a decent person I’d
put
you to sleep,” I said.

“Oh my God, my head…” She sighed.

“You know, the morning isn’t supposed to hurt.”
I brought her a glass of water and some Advil. She needed it.

I looked around the coffee table—or should I say, the wine and prescription bottle graveyard it had become.

“Are you sure you’re supposed to be drinking with all those prescriptions Dr. Dealer is giving you?” I asked her.

“It’s
Dr. Wheeler
, and why don’t you just leave that to the professionals?” she said, and took the Advil. “Those warning stickers are for amateurs.”

Over the last few years Mom has formed this sick relationship with her doctor. It’s sick because half the time I’m convinced she thinks they’re actually in a relationship. She literally makes up illnesses so she can visit him and is convinced if she doesn’t call him once a week he
worries
about her.

If I had a patient taking more pills than Judy Garland and Marilyn Monroe put together, I’d be worried too. But I’m not sure she means
worry
in the same sense.

“Go to school, get out of here,” she said, burying her face in her pillow. “And if I’m asleep when you get
back from school don’t you dare put my hand in a bowl of water again!”

I gathered up all of my school stuff and headed out the door. “’Bye!” I shouted back at her. “Love you too!”

When my grandpa died he left me his 1973 Corvair convertible, which sounds really great on paper. In reality, he left me a lemon, and since the car is the most stress-inducing piece of machinery of all time and he died of a heart attack, I think it’s safe to say he left me his cause of death.

It doesn’t start unless the key is in the ignition, the left passenger window is open, and the radio is turned to a Spanish classics station. Don’t ask how long it took me to figure out this combination. If it still doesn’t start when those three things are in place, the slamming of the glove compartment and a good kick on the rear license plate usually does the trick.

I have a neighbor across the street who I’m convinced chooses this moment every day to retrieve his morning paper so he can watch the struggle. That jackass drives a Mercedes.

One good thing about Clover is that people are
rarely late. Every location is about a five-minute drive from another, and it only takes about an hour to walk from one end of town to the other. Unfortunately, this also means everyone gets to the student parking lot at the same time.

Woof.
The student parking lot
. With all due respect to our veterans, I have yet to hear a war story that sends shivers down my spine more than flashbacks of the student parking lot. It’s a place where adolescents, most of whom haven’t even lived a full decade of wiping their own asses, are given keys to huge pieces of machinery than can potentially kill many in a matter of seconds.

Absolutely no traffic laws apply in the student parking lot. It’s every man for himself.

Signaling? Don’t worry, I’m psychic and know where you’re going. Speed limit? No need, the pedestrians should have heard you coming. Red zones? Don’t worry, girl on the volleyball team, that means it’s reserved just for you! Parking spots? Take yours and mine! Take several! Take as many as your Toyota Corolla needs!

And if this daily war zone wasn’t enough, survivors
then make their way inside to an even more hazardous environment: high school, society’s bright idea to put all the naïve, pubescent, aggressive youth into one environment to torment and emotionally scar each other for life. Way to go, society! Best idea ever.

When I stop to think about it, there aren’t many differences between a public high school and a state penitentiary. It’s paid for by taxpayers. No one wants to be there. It’s overpopulated. You make alliances in the yard. Shanking is frowned upon.

At least in prison, you get out sooner for good behavior. Maybe if I could graduate earlier I would filter what I say more; I’m sure my peers don’t like being called “cattle” as I walk past them in the hallways. But if the hoof fits,
get the hell out of my way—you walk slower than a turtle on crutches!

Luckily for me, I made it out of the trenches alive today (I say “trenches” because if the smell in the hallways after lunch on burrito day isn’t gas warfare, I don’t know what is) and into homeroom safely. Tragically, homeroom is Algebra 2.

My algebra teacher, who coughs every twenty seconds
for no reason and who I suspect plays with Barbies on the weekends, wrote an equation on the board:

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” I said, not able to stop myself. “What’s the
i
?”

“The
i
is an imaginary number,” he said, and coughed.

“There are
imaginary numbers
now?” I said in disbelief. “Are there
unicorns
in the next lesson?”

Don’t get me wrong, I’m a great student. If I’m having trouble with a subject I stay after school and get the proper tutoring I need for it. Given that, I do believe I have the right to say,
What the hell is Algebra 2?