Phoenix Rising Read Free Page A

catches .
    Blah blah blah. I’m so profound .
    The other day Bambi told me the most amazing thing. When she was thirteen she got really depressed one night when her parents were out and she was all by herself. Totally down, like life was too awful to bear, and like she couldn’t do anything right and never would .
    So she rode her bike to the drugstore and bought a box of SleepEze and went home and took all of them, then lay down on her bed .
    After awhile she got scared and she didn’t want to die anymore, but she didn’t know what to do. Her parents came home and she was afraid to tell them because she knew they’d hit the roof. So she just went to sleep and hoped for the best .
    I’m the first person she’s ever told, she said, because it sounds so stupid .
    No it doesn’t. It sounds sad .
    Bloomfield came by tonight .
    After he left, Mom said: “Doesn’t Richard ever smile?”
    At first I didn’t know who she meant. Everybody except the teachers calls him by his last name .
    Yeah, he smiles sometimes, I said. Usually when something’s not funny. He’s not the kind of guy who goes around grinning. Mostly he just smirks .
    I don’t know why I like him. We argue all the time. It’s stupid, but we keep on doing it, like it’s some kind of game we have to keep playing .
    I don’t know. He’s not even good-looking. Well, yes he is, in a way. He has a good face (when he’s not sneering) and all that curly hair. Too bad he’s such a jerk .
    Tonight he said: “Want to go out on Friday?”
    Me: (surprised) “With you?”
    Him: “No, with my father. Mom’s out of town.”
    Why can’t he just be nice? He’s so sarcastic I end up being that way too, in self-defense. We’ve always got our dukes up .
    I think I love him .
    But I’m not sure because I don’t know what that kind of love feels like. If it feels like wanting to kiss and sock him, wanting to hug him and push him down the stairs, sweet and prickly and happy and sad —
    Then I love him .
    He’d sure be thrilled to hear that .
    Lucas keeps practicing the same song in his room, but it sounds like he’s under this bed. It’s a Beatles’ song; I forget which one. He’d flip if I said that .
    Too bad he wasn’t a teenager in the sixties. That’s when it was all happening, he says. It’s like he got to the party after the band left. In my opinion, he’ll never be happy. He’s a perfectionist and the world is too screwed up. Nobody he knows takes music as seriously as he does. He’s so good at it, he’s always alone; he’s out on the edge by himself. Maybe someday he’ll find people who share that special place. Unless Dad kills him first. He’d better turn down that amp .
    Jessie thinks Lucas is smoking dope, but he always acts so strange it’s hard to tell .
    I really like that big orange cat at the clinic. His name is Chemo and he’s such a ham! The patients and staff stuff him with goodies so he’s enormous, though lots of it is fluff. He’s some kind of exotic breed; part pig, according to Dr. Yee .
    I was telling Jess how much I like that cat, and she said, “Oh, they just have him there so the patients will forget what kind of place it is.”
    So? Anyway, that’s not Chemo’s fault. Jessie’s in a bad mood lately. I try to talk with her, but she won’t talk. Things get so tense around this house sometimes, it’s crazy .
    Part of it’s me, I guess. But I’m feeling pretty good these days. I wish they wouldn’t worry .
    I forgot to mention that Bloomfield brought me a present: a can of smoked oysters. They tasted blue-gray. Some boys bring you flowers; Bloomfield brings fish .
    Jessie says he’s a pain in the drain .

4
    In a spontaneous display of brotherly affection (no doubt brought on by my mother’s tearful pleas), Lucas has