Amped Up: Why Is My Name Jason?

My father, for some reason, never appeared. I don’t know why. Something happened that caused him to randomly disappear. I tried asking Aunt Lizz about it, but she had no answer for me. This bugged me; I needed to talk to her and my father about why he changed and what he was like before Mom died. It, unfortunately, wasn’t until Uncle Frankie came over the following morning that I came to understand why my father wasn’t around. “Betsy, I have a message for Jason,” he announced upon walking through the door.

“What is it, Frankie?” she asked.

I stood at the very top of the steps listening to what Aunt Lizz and Uncle Frankie were discussing. It involved me anyway. “Apparently, my brothers had a performance to give and won’t be back until tomorrow. Therefore, Nick and Joe asked me to help Jason with learning Lovebug; I know the song just as well as my brothers so I can teach it to him.”

Upon hearing this, I quickly ran downstairs. “My father completely left for a performance and didn’t mention it to me. Why would he do something like that?” I wondered.

“Because it’s you, Voorhees!” Garrett called.

I grimaced. Where did my brother get the nerve to continuously call me Voorhees? Didn’t he understand that the more times he did that, the more I wanted my brother punished for calling me that? Karma would get him. Pretty soon, my brother and sister would get theirs for always calling me Voorhees. Ignoring him, I turned to my uncle for an explanation. “Uncle Frankie, why wasn’t I alerted as all of this yesterday?” I asked.

“No clue,” he replied.

I hesitantly followed my uncle out and the questioned him about what was going on. “Why did they go out to perform? I don’t remember hearing anything about this performance.”

“It was last minute,” he told me.

“Of course,” I grumbled angrily. “Now, what about my guitar and my mother’s mandolin? Both of them are still at Uncle Joe’s. How exactly are we supposed to get them?”

“Backseat,” he said. “Kyra dropped them off early this morning when she told me about my brothers’ performance. Even I didn’t know that my brothers planned on giving a performance. But, in any case, I’m the one who will be teaching you how to play Lovebug. Nick and Joe taught me how to play it years ago in case I decided to join the band; I didn’t, but rather continued doing my own thing. It seemed to have been a good thing that they taught me the song because I can help you learn Lovebug. Maybe you can convince Kevin to start playing the song again. Amanda definitely loved hearing that song.”

“Yeah, I know,” I said quietly.

Uncle Frankie looked over at me. “Anything wrong, Jason? You haven’t seemed like yourself. In fact, you haven’t seemed right since your birthday. What’s going on here, Jason? Why is it that you’ve been acting so strange around everyone?” he asked me curiously.

Remembering that he was the only one of my uncles that didn’t know about my ability to speak with my mother’s ghost, I quickly came up with a lie to throw him off the trail. Uncle Frankie couldn’t know the truth about what was going on. The fact was that I didn’t want him to either. “Oh…uh…I’ve just had other things on my mind. As I’m sure you remember, the anniversary of my mother’s death was my seventeenth birthday. So, I’ve been kind of upset about the fact that she’s been unable to watch me, Maddie, and Garrett grow up.”

Uncle Frankie laughed. “Yeah, right.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“You can see your mother’s ghost,” he said.

“What makes you say that?” I asked.

“Years ago, when I was young, I overheard a conversation that took place between your mother, aunt, and Nick. They were talking about ghosts. It was at that moment that I realized what Amanda and Betsy could do. I also became aware of the fact that one of you would possess the ability as well; considering the fact that I was around when Kevin and Amanda were picking names for you three, I had suspected from the moment Amanda died that you would be the one to possess that ability,” Uncle Frankie told me.

“Why?” I asked.

“Ask your father,” Uncle Frankie told me. “It’s probably best if he told you himself. Maybe then you’ll understand the reason that your father ignores you so much. Well, the fact is that it’s somewhat your mother’s fault that this happened. She was the one who suggested this because of something that your father did. Then, when she died, Kevin began to hate you because of Amanda’s decision to do that to you. You remind him of her.”

My jaw dropped. No one ever mentioned that to me before. Why though? Why was Uncle Frankie the first person in the world to mention this to me? Mom, Dad, or Aunt Lizz should have mentioned this to me, not Uncle Frankie. I was going to have to ask them about this. “Uncle Frankie, is this really true?” I asked when we got to his house.

“Yeah. Don’t ask me why though. It’s best if you hear it from Betsy or your parents. Which, while I’m thinking of it, don’t mention my knowing about the ghost thing to anyone. I’ve kept that to myself ever since I found out; they all believed that I was too young to understand what was going on. I mean, sure I was eight at the time, but I still would have been able to process the fact that my eldest brother’s wife and her sister could see ghosts.”

I nodded. “Got it. No telling anyone about all of this.” With that, Uncle Frankie and I went inside to practice Lovebug. After all, I did need to learn this song as fast as I possibly could.