Bus

That Monday, Carrie and I had to go to the police station pretty early in the morning again and sort out legal issues concerning Mom’s possessions (she didn’t have a will), and our aunt Sandy was there. God, she’d always been a little weird, but since we never stayed in contact with her, I’d forgotten just how odd she was for a while. They called her over because since she was the nearest in our family (we still had Uncle Paul and cousin Sal, but they lived over in Washington and Arizona).

She said she’d be the one taking us in, which was pretty good considering how much neither me nor Carrie wanted to have to uproot ourselves and move all the way across the country.

Mom’s house was being put up for sale while all the crap like heirlooms, antiques, and really valuable stuff (which was next-to-nothing, save for a few items of jewelry) were gonna be inherited by Aunt Sandy, which would later be inherited by me and Carrie. Everything else like furniture was gonna be sold and given to our aunt and hopefully she wouldn’t blow the money on cigarettes like I remember her doing when I was a little kid, at least according to Dad.

But the custody stuff didn’t take all day, and so I took that chance to head down to my school, check myself in, and pick up my makeup work like I already knew I’d have to do anyway. When I got there, we were halfway through fourth period, which meant for me that I was halfway into Spanish with my backpack slung over my shoulder, walking into class and trying to be incognito while failing miserably.

My Spanish teacher looked at me like I was nuts and said, “Doug, I thought you were excused for the week.”

“I just swung by to pick up the work I’m gonna miss,” I said quickly, eager to get it over with.

My peers were just kinda staring at me while she gathered up the worksheets she was gonna give them throughout the week. God, I hoped none of them knew what happened. What a pain in the ass it’d be to have to go through two more years of pity and fake smiles, intensified by everybody getting the memo that my family was insanely fucked up even more than they could already tell.

The teacher handed me the papers, and with utmost sincerity, she said, “Go home, sweetie. I don’t even care if you do this work, I understand.”

“I gotta swing by my other classes, though,” I told her, trying not to show anything other than a straight face.

She kinda laughed but didn’t object, just gave me a little pat on the back and sent me on my way. So I walked across campus to history, which was my fifth period, and figured I’d just work down to sixth and start again at first, second and third. I mean, I had a pass and everything, and technically I was excused, so it wasn’t like I could get reprimanded.

My history teacher, when he gave me my work, sounded pissed off at that I was actually having to do work and told me to take it easy and that he’d print out the presentations he’d be giving over the week.

My IT teacher apparently wasn’t informed of me being absent for the week and freaked out when I told her the reason why – though thankfully she didn’t broadcast it to her class – and wished me luck and didn’t give me any work.

My chemistry teacher gave me a bit of a lecture about life sucking, and then handed me a worksheet on specific heat.

My pre-calc teacher listened to my question but shook her head in that fashion that let me know that she knew what was going on and didn’t want me to worry about her class. (Not that I did anyway.)

And my English teacher apologized and said that if I ever needed to talk, I could come to her (which was kinda cool) but then she said if I got the chance, I’d have to read a few chapters of The Great Gatsby for class.

So with a whopping four worksheets and one reading assignment, I skedaddled out of my school and headed over to Carrie’s junior high right as the high schools were letting out. I stood at the counter of the front office and introduced myself as her brother, and they went over the mumbo-jumbo about having to prove myself real, and then I told them, “Look, I just wanna get the makeup work she’s gotta do over the week so she doesn’t get slammed with it the moment she gets back.”

The lady behind the desk said she’d print out Carrie’s schedule, a bit tentatively. And I didn’t need a map, seeing as how I’d been at the same school a mere two years before and with most of the same teachers.

I roamed around campus and walked into each of her seventh-grade classes, thinking to myself each time about how tiny all of those little pre-pubescent losers looked. (Funnily enough, I carry that same thought with me to this day, all the time.) Each time I walked in, all eyes were on me and I could almost feel the snickering vibrating through my nerves, it was so loud. I averted eye contact and instead focused on her teachers, some of whom recognized me from mere years before.

They’d all known about Carrie and I and our parents and our situation, and none of them said anything about makeup work that Carrie would have to do. They all, however, said that I looked so much older that I looked more like her dad than her brother.

I guess I did age a few years in those few days since Mom killed herself, but I didn’t really notice the bags under and over my eyes until I looked in a mirror that night. It probably didn’t help that I hadn’t shaved since then and I was already budding a little beard.

Fast forward sixteen years later, and I don’t think I’ve aged a bit. I still have the darkened eyes and permanent facial hair, but at heart I haven’t changed at all from the little kid whose world was tipped on its axis, and neither has Carrie.