Page 36 - WTP Vol. XII #2

Dominoes (continued from preceding page) ~
I always know when my mother’s episodes are com- ing. I read once that epileptics sometimes smell burn- ing rubber right before a seizure hits, and it’s similar for me. I smell something like sour licorice right before things take a turn, and that’s when I send Carol to our neighbor on the top floor, Mrs. Santos. Mrs. S.
is an old Portuguese woman who doesn’t speak much English, but understands perfectly well what’s going on in our apartment. She has gentle hands and makes the most delicious custard tarts. When I bring Carol to her, she puts on her Fado records and plays them at top volume, so my sister won’t hear the commotion downstairs. She has trouble pronouncing my name and calls me Shirlee instead of Charlene. “Shirlee stays too,” she says, gesturing for me to come in, but
I never do. It’s better if I keep an eye on my mother. Her episodes pass more quickly if she has someone to vent to. It’s mostly a lot of yelling and paranoia. She almost never hits. The trick is to let her get it out of her system. After it’s all over, she gets gentle and af- fectionate and that’s when I let my sister come home.
~
I look up now and see Mrs. S. sitting by the top floor window. She likes to watch the kids playing on the sidewalk, and is almost always there in her rocking chair. I flutter my fingers in her direction, and she gives me an exaggerated wave back, like she’s wash- ing the window. Not everyone in our building is a fan of Mrs. Santos. The other tenants don’t like her loud music and they think she’s strange looking, which she is. Her back is all hunched over and she’s completely bald, except for three clumps of gray hair, which for some reason, she lets grow down to her waist. Even David isn’t sure of her, and says the way she sits up on the top floor in her rocking chair reminds him of the mother in Psycho. I’m not afraid of Mrs. Santos. Sensing who I can trust is another one of my special abilities. Mrs. S. lets Carol stay overnight whenever it’s needed, and together, we keep my little sister safe.
I look at a photo of a long-haired John peering out through his round glasses, wanting us all to give peace a chance. “I wish I’d known. I could have warned him,” I say.
“Please. Like you could pick up the phone and get through to John Lennon,” David says. “And don’t forget the butterfly effect.”
He’s referring to a Ray Bradbury story that we read in class about a guy who time travels back to dinosaur days and goes off the path, even though he’s specifi-
cally told not to. He steps on a butterfly by mistake but doesn’t realize it until later, when he finds it dead in the mud caked on his boot. When the guy returns to the current day, everything has changed. The dead butterfly altered the entire course of evolution and world history. The story blows our minds. David and I can talk about the butterfly effect for hours, debat- ing whether certain events in history warrant the need to be altered. We talk about whether we’d go back in time and save JFK, or warn the captain of the Titanic about the iceberg.
David is always against intervening. “You never know how one seemingly good change could set a series of dominoes in motion, with all sorts of horrible conse- quences.”
~
When the school bus arrives, I hop up off the steps. “See ya,” I say to David, and out of nowhere he gives me an awkward hug goodbye. Maybe it’s related to John or maybe it’s more about the situation with my mother. Either way, it’s weird.
“What’s going on?” Carol asks once we get inside the apartment. She saw David hugging me, and now her eyes are wide with worry.
“Nothing,” I tell her. “David has a crush on me.” Carol doesn’t need to know about John Lennon being killed, or that I’m worried about our mother, so I lie to reassure her, which I do a lot. As the words leave my mouth though, I realize something I hadn’t be- fore. David actually does have a crush on me, and has for some time. Just because you’re psychic doesn’t mean you can’t miss things that are staring you right in the face.
Three more days go by and still, my mother does not come home. I find her address book and call her art- ist friends, but nobody’s heard from her. She’s never disappeared for this long without a phone call. I tell my sister that our mother is away on business and make us batches of my special macaroni with WIC cheese and powdered milk. It’s creamy and deli- cious, if I do say so myself. On Sunday, I take Carol to church, because the little weirdo likes to go, and we visit the corner store afterwards, armed with change from my mother’s dresser drawer. I let my sister pick out a whole dollar’s worth of candy while I browse the tabloids. According to The National Enquirer, John and Yoko had a daily consultation with a psy- chic named Dezia, who claims to have predicted his death. I’m not sure why John and Yoko didn’t listen
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