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“Come…you must learn to keep moving,” she said, dragging me the rest of the way home. When we got to the shop, I was too tired to retreat to my fortress of solitude and just collapsed on a sun shaped couch in the waiting room. Marija spent the rest of the afternoon hovering over me with the biggest first aid kit I had ever seen. She kept reading the instructions over and over again like some kind of chant against the evil spirits of bacterial infection. Valeska told her what happened and Marija wanted to call the principal. I cringed at the thought and just silently prepared myself to get the crack beaten out of my ass on a daily basis. Luckily, Char set her straight.
“Oh, Honey that’s just going to make it worse. Nobody likes a snitch.”
“But?” Marija pleaded.
“But, nothin’! The boy just needs to find his place. Besides, it took me a few years before I discovered Drama Club,” he said, sashaying his way back to his office. Marija eventually gave up and just continued to fuss over me. Valeska told everyone about my scar, which sparked a three hour long debate. Raven believed that its shape reflected my secret maternal instincts. Valeska stuck to her theory about the cat offloading a large steamy pile of bad ju ju onto me. However, Marija stood on chair and declared that the cat was simply sharing its natural ability to land on its feet. Char poked at my bruised legs and giggled, “Man, that cat must have been clumsily as hell!” For the first time in weeks, I actually laughed.
The Love Line
From that point on, I started to show up at meal times just to hear their comedy routines. I even let Valeska walk me to the bus stop, since it did cut down on the amount of peroxide I had to endure. However, to quote Esperanza “I was born at night, not last night.” I still made a note of every shifty-ass thing that went down over the rainbow. At all hours of the night I would hear pacing coming from Marija’s room, muffled arguing, and then the front door would slam signaling the end of their nocturnal hissy fit. Valeska’s room didn’t even have a bed in it, only a closet full of Mall-Goth gear. One night I was searching the fridge for some Devil’s food, when I got a bad case of chicken skin on the back of my neck. I turned to see Valeska sitting at the table with her head down and shaking like a coked-up rattler. I dropped my plate and she lifted her head up with a quick jerk.
“Love is meant to hurt…yes?”
“I…I…don’t know,” I stuttered, trying to remember if she was there when I came in, or if I had heard the sound of bat wings.
I backed up slowly, and she whispered through the dark, “Me neither.”
~~~
“Hey, are you excited about the big baseball game tomorrow? I predict a big win,” Raven said to me one day, as I ventured from my room for a Captain Carnage snack. Red foods always set the mood.
“What are you talking about?” I asked, opening the kitchen cabinet and fishing around for a cherry fruit roll-up.
“Well, I heard Marija on the phone with your gym teacher, and it sounded like you were involved,” she said. She quickly tied a piece of sea-shell covered dental floss around my neck. Without saying a word, I rushed down stairs and yanked back the curtain to Marija’s booth.
“Tell me you didn’t sign me up for the family baseball tournament!” She let go of pimply teenager’s hand, just as she was about to explain his love line or lack thereof.
“Your teacher made it out like it was mandatory,” she gasped.
“Man, did you get played! They do that so people will come. Now they are going to expect me there with an adult who can at least catch a ball!” Char emerged from his office balancing a box full of aromatherapy candles.
“Oh, don’t you worry your pretty little head over it, Marge. Tomorrow you just call me Aunty Char,” he laughed.
Char showed up to the game about two innings late wearing a replica of A League of Their Own Rockford Peach uniform. Before I had chance to duck out, the coach forced me to find my “aunt” a bat because the fifth grade team was down by five, and he refused to lose to the first graders again. Hardly any fifth-grade parents showed up, and the few who did were either dainty dental hygienists or uncoordinated accountants. I sat in the dug-out trying my best to disappear. The entire fifth grade busted a gut, as Char pranced up to the plate and blew me a melodramatic wet one. Between that and the giant “Go Team” banner Raven, Valeska, and Marija were waving in the stands, I thought about just strolling into Liberty City blindfolded and becoming one of those stray bullet statistics.
He missed the first pitch and turned to the stands and apologized for being rusty. Then, he smacked the ball clean out of the park on the second try. Everyone went berserk as he rounded the bases.
Char played every position like he was some kind of ghetto Barbie all-star. We beat every grade in the tournament. The coach even asked him to be his assistant coach in the spring.
“I thought you were just one of those theatre fairies,” I said, handing him a bottle of water between innings.
“Well, theatre was my first love, but pops wouldn’t fill out the field trip forms if I wasn’t enrolled in something with a few balls in it,” he laughed.
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About Christina Ginfrida
