life; the never-ending rollercoaster;4

CHAPTER 4

I looked at the ground and almost fell out of the tree. Lord, I was high up! A lot higher than eight feet! More like twenty! Okay, it was probably eight. My fear of heights, doubtlessly, kicked in then, too, so it probably only felt like twenty feet. Why on earth had I climbed this tree? Stupid!
Stop thinking about it, dimwit, and you won’t notice! I thought.
Man, I had to stop having these conversations with myself! Look! I’m still doing it! Oh, shut up, already! Oops, I said that last one aloud. I don’t think Jason noticed. I’m sorry, let me correct myself: I hope Jason didn’t notice. Phew! It looks like he didn’t.
Now I knew I had shocked Jason, with what I said before, because he wasn’t moving or saying anything – this was immensely out of character for him.
When Jason finally comprehended what I had said, he, like I had, had to choose which approach to use. Finally, he disregarded this dilemma and went with part of his instinct. The other part probably wanted to slap some sense into me. That’s what I would do. What the heck am I saying? That I’d slap some sense into myself? Maybe I am going insane. Most likely; Funny farm, here I come.
“Jamie,” Jason stood and called up to the tree. “Jamie, we’ve already been through the yelling thing, so please don’t make me do this again!” I took ignoring him back up, but shook the tree branch above Jason’s head so that last night’s rain fell on him.
“Come on, Jamie, you stupid drug addict! I don’t want to do this! What is wrong with you?!?” Well, there you go. Now I’m sure he believed me when I wasn’t being serious about the whole crack thing. Let that be a lesson to you all: Never joke with a person who takes everything in the category you’re joking about seriously. Got it?
“Then leave!” I shouted back, my voice steady.
“No!” He shouted, then realized how stupid he had sounded, and added: “ Not unless you’re coming with me.”
I jumped wobbily down from the tree, and kind of collapsed on my injured ankle. I heard a weird noise. Ah, God, that hurt!
“Arghh!” I cried. Jason winced.
“ Oh! You’re insane. Now if you broke something--”
“I’ll just add it to my list.” I said rudely, interrupting him. “Dang, I think I popped it out. Arghh!” I cried, more to myself than to him, as I stood up and tried to stand on it. The pain was horrible. Then I bent down and felt my ankle gingerly. Yep, I definitely popped it out. I don’t think that I would be able to mistake it. Oh, man, that hurt. So, I reached down and grabbed my ankle with two hands.
“Er, Jamie,” Jason walked quickly up a few steps, and said, anxiously. “I wouldn’t do that, if I were you, that really kills if you—” But I did it. Pain was no longer enough to describe it. Try agony. Torture. I almost retched. I cried out and my face screwed up. Then, my cry heightened into a kind of squeak. I saw Jason make a face, close his eyes, and put a hand to his head. But that pain only lasted a few seconds. It didn’t linger.
“Yeah, well,” I said, getting back up and trying my ankle out. I winced once, and then – nothing. It didn’t hurt anymore. I straightened up and looked into Jason’s eyes, my face inches from his. “I’m not you.” Jason just looked at me. He knew that I wasn’t him; if I were Jason, I wouldn’t be in half of the trouble that I was in now.
I stared hardly into his eyes, trying to invoke the same fear that my stepfather gave me when he did that, into Jason. I knew that my face was too frightened and tearful, though.
“Why don’t you just go back to school like a good boy so your precious Ashley won’t worry.” I said, bringing up the only last resort to make him leave that I had. Wasn’t there an S.O.S. thing for things like this? I was trembling, and I wished my voice would stay steady, but it hadn’t. But, my voice was cold. That was enough.
The harsh way I spoke, probably reminded Jason of the Disney movie ‘Don’t Look under the Bed’ when Larry was turning into a bogeyman. He had watched this many, many times with his little brother, Sam, when he was on his ‘Disney channel movie’ spree,(And Jason complained to me about it. That was how I knew.) Jason had always compared everything to something from a movie or book. That’s just what Jason did. It was one of his trademarks. Well, used to be. After I started to bug him about it last year, he never said anything that had to do with that aloud again.
“Look, Ashley isn’t a part of this, what is, is everything I say –“ Jason cut himself short and continued without shouting. “ – comes out a yell. And I said I wasn’t gonna scream…stupid temper…” I snickered, wondering if he meant him or me. It applied to both. We were both hot headed numbskulls. Except for the part where I get Bs and Jason gets 'B's and 'A's. I guess we’re just numbskulls in general.
“Please, your temper would show the devil up.” I muttered. And so would mine, I added silently. Jason read my mind.
“Oh, look who’s talking! You stormed out of school,” But, not really acting as if he wanted to get in a fight again, Jason added. “But, I don’t blame you; is it just me, or did it smell really bad in there?” Jason’s cheerless smile grew fainter when I didn’t show any recognition that he had spoken.
I hadn’t even heard him. I was amidst in my own cynical thoughts about how I had messed up the rest of the day.
I let Jason go on with his monologue, although I was sure, Jason noticed my vacant expression.
The only time I came out of my trance-like state, was when Jason mentioned ‘going back to school.’
“Oh,” I spoke for the first time in minutes, though absentmindedly. “Are your parents going back to school?” Jason looked at me incredulously.
“No,” He looked fearful for my sanity. “You are……?” It came out a question.
“What? I can’t go back! Are you crazy? It’s been like an hour; do you have any idea how much trouble we’ll be –” Jason butted in.
“And delaying it will make it better?”
“Let me try to understand this,” I began to imitate him, but in a rude, sarcastic way. “Delaying something only makes the thing that you’re delaying harder to face when you have to deal with it? Wow, I never knew! Thank you, Dr. Phil!” Jason gave me a look.
“First of all,” Jason mimicked the way I imitated him. “You sound like a catty cheerleader!” I had to laugh at that. I mean laugh a lot. Like, until I couldn’t breathe for mirth. I must have looked like an idiot, then, laughing my butt off while Jason just stood there looking pleased to see me laughing, yet a little freaked out. Jason was chuckling, too, but at the way that I had doubled over laughing so much that I couldn’t stand up.
The only thing keeping me from falling over was my grip on Jason’s arm. Then I did fall over and I was on the ground. Jason sat next to me, patiently waiting for me to calm down, as I had him that morning. He was watching me with a very slightly bewildered look on his face, and he was slowly shaking his head.
I think he found it funny that I could go from furious and full of angst, to laughing until I cried. Ow, now my ribs ached. But it was so funny…
“Come on, it wasn’t that hilarious…”
It usually annoyed me, the way that Jason could always get almost anyone to smile. But, today I was grateful for his way of lightening situations. The undercover class clown. The one that, even if everything you cared about was dead and gone, he could make you feel better in less than three sentences. Even if he didn’t know what to say. I had never met anyone like that before; Jason was one of a kind.
All of the teachers loved him, because he never made fun of the way they were cross-eyed, or the way that when they spoke their mustache fluttered or their toupee slid – or, they thought that he hadn’t made fun of them. Chances are that, if it wasn’t anything particularly nasty that would really hurt them if they found out, he had. Watching Jason was very entertaining, like watching an action movie that left you wondering what he would do next, and flabbergasting you when he did it. But he could be serious, too. Oh, Lord, could he be serious. He could be cracking a joke one moment and telling you that his grandmother was in an irreversible coma the next. That had actually happened once last year. We don’t talk about it. Neither of us agreed not to, it was just a kind of silent understanding.
It probably had only been hours since the last time I had laughed, yet it felt like days. The heck with days – it felt like years! Then my head pounded something awful. That sobered me up pretty quickly. But the laughter never left my face.
“No one’s gonna get us; do you forget whom you have with you?” He motioned at himself.
It was true; Jason had an uncanny way of getting out of treacherous waters. I recalled a time when he had bribed the school librarian, Miss Leighham, with supermarket coupons for an extension on a book I had left, overdue, at my house for three days. The Odyssey, I believe. That kept her from sending a letter to my step dad. Now, for someone in the seventh grade (which I was in at the time) that may seem like a stretch to read, but it was actually normal for me. I didn’t look like the kind of person who would do it, but I actually read a lot. But for some reason, I don’t do that well in every subject but reading…
Another time, he had complemented his way out of another detention with the music director, Miss Burdette, in fifth grade. Jason had belched ‘This Land is Your Land’ through 2 verses, or, until Miss Burdette could find who was doing it. I frowned.
“Yeah…… I don’t think giving the principal movie tickets will clear this up, this time.” Jason looked thoughtful.
“Now, although I haven’t tried that,” This time I gave Jason a look. “Yet. “ He elaborated. “You’re probably right.”
“ And when aren’t I?”
“A lot.” Jason paused. “ Um, Jamie?”
“Yeah?”
“Well, um, you, uh, aren’t really on crack, right?” He laughed a little uncertainly. I hesitated, although I already knew the answer. What really was being on crack, anyway? I thought about all of those people who were really on it, on it, the people who threw their lives away and sold everything, just to get a hold of it. They were addicts. I wasn’t like that, because I never did -- ever. I drank more often, and I’ve drank about three times in my entire life. There are a lot of dealers around my town that sell everything illegal under the sun, and/or moon, but I’ve never paid attention to that. Not around Jason’s – his neighborhood’s all right, because he lived in one of those fancy developments where everyone’s a ‘good person’, and there’s no, well, scum. Let’s just say that mine’s not the greatest. I knew which alleyways sold what and how much this cost and junk, but I’d never done any of it. Anyway: Never in life have I snorted.
I wasn’t dumb enough to try to drink every time my step dad got me really good, because I knew the hangovers were terrible, and my chances of getting anything in the first place were slim; who sells alcohol to a fourteen year old kid? – Well, I probably looked twelve to them, because they didn’t know me. Curse being short. You can never get it right with height: You’re always too short, too tall, or too much like everyone else. Plus my height made me look a little younger. Maybe ten going on eleven instead of fourteen going on fifteen. I might be exaggerating, but that’s for you to see for yourself. Lately, people have been treating me as if I’m a bit younger that that, even: Just around two days ago, I saw an old lady in the supermarket, and asked her where the soda was. I was there by myself, on order of my stepfather, and armed with ten dollars to buy soda and cheese. She told me where to go, but raised the opinion that “Aren’t I too young to be here by myself? What grade am I in, fifth? Maybe sixth?” I corrected her stiffly, thanked her for her help, and brooded off to the designated isle.
Another time around a week ago, at the same store, a store-clerk walked by me while I was in the shoe dept. That was the only thing that my step dad allowed to fit me: Shoes. So I was there looking for sneakers (again, by myself), and a clerk comes up to me and asks where my parents are. I tell her that I’m there by myself. She looks rather surprised and tells me that the children’s shoe dept was three isles to my left. I think that I gave her an unpremeditated glare, and felt the need to point out that I was going to drive next year. She looked rather shocked, and asked ‘what age do they teach driver’s Ed. at, now?’ When I mumbled out ‘sixteen’, she looked rather taken aback and apologized. I muttered a: ‘no problem’, and stalked away with the sneakers in my hand, not really meaning it. Everyone’s going crazy: How do I look any younger than I did three months ago? Then it hit me. I had just spent three months alone with my step dad, practicing the skill of insignificance, because the last thing I wanted to do at my house is being noticed. If my stepdad noticed me, then I was in for it. I if were noticed when my step dad was in a bad mood, then I would run, or stand my ground in fear. If my step dad was in a horrible mood, then I was as good as dead. So I was, out of instinct, trying to look insignificant, and because my step dad was rather reluctant to reward me with food, I was a little on the skinny side. That made my clothes baggier on me. Plus the fact that I just plain looked younger than I was, because of lack of whatever else my step dad deprived me. When I had looked in the mirror that morning, I hadn’t really studied myself, because my head had been pounding on the doors to the devil’s house. I mostly saw from memory, so I vowed to take a real good look when I got home and see how I could look my age. Sleeping might help. I hadn’t slept in, literally, a week. If I got home. I thought that I might not even go.
Then I realized that Jason was watching me. What were we talking about?, I asked myself. Oh yeah. Jason wanted to know if I was on crack. Oh, right -- who cares if you’re about to get into the worst mess that Pennsylvania has ever seen, you want to know if your friend is a junkie. Well, I’ve got news for you, Jason. I’m not. Jason was apparently a bit nervous, though, because I had to think about it. That made me consider the fact that he didn’t really believe that I was. I smiled weakly at him.
“No?” I said, and although it was true, it came out interrogatively. Jason got the sense that there was more to it than that.
“Are you sure?” He laughed at how I answered.
“Yes, I’m sure. I never have. I never will, so don’t say that I do or will, because I won’t. Got it?”
“Yeah,” Jason looked playfully taken aback.
“And I bet,” I said, smirking, “that you’re as clean as the rest of your little bubble of purity that you call a ‘development’.”
And Jason sighed, blowing his mouth out, said, “You would think that, wouldn’t you?” I blinked, then closed my eyes and opened them wide, before realizing what he was talking about.
“Doing E once during the summer, when you were in the scummiest town in the world on ‘vacation’, does not count.” I he expected too much of himself. I thought a minute, studying an ant crawling on a blade of grass. “Why was your family vacationing there?” I asked.
“Hey,” Jason pointed at me and narrowed his eyes. He smiled, “ I prefer the term ‘business trip’,” He bit his lip and sighed again, “and that counts in my book.”
“You seriously need to lighten up,” I flopped back onto the ground and Mother Nature forced me to close my eyes, by way of the sun shining brightly through the tree leaves.
“I can’t lighten up, on anyone, because you'll die, Mom will forget to take Sammy to preschool, Luke’ll still hang out with that Mark jerk, and Mike’ll forget to eat.” He eyed me as if he was buying a cantaloupe. “When’s the last time you ate, Paris Hilton?” I glared at him.
“Ignoring that last comment,” I said in my best half bewildered and half catty voice. “I meant lighten up on your self expectations.” You’ll die, He had said. I shivered to think of the truth of that statement.
“I can’t, or I can’t set a good example for the little people,” He ruffled my hair. I bit him. “Ow!”
“I demand an explanation!” I exclaimed. He raised his eyebrows and shook his head while staring me in the eyes. I think that that meant that he was amused that I was hopeless.
“I don’t want you to have the same bad habits as I would if I lowered my self expectations, because you’re around Fido too much to think all of that isn’t normal, therefore you’d start because you have more problems that a penguin in the Sahara, and because your step dad doesn’t care if you’re dead in an alley, I have to, or you will be.” Jason said all in one breath, bringing up the subject of my step dad again. How did Jason know he didn’t give a crap about me? I gaped.
“That’s got be that longest sentence I’ve ever heard.”
“Yeah, well it’s the longest one I’ve ever said,” Jason answered.
There was a short silence before I said, “ You know, I just wanted to know why you called me a little person.” He turned his head and stared at me for a second, before letting his burst of amusement escape.
But I wondered; why did Jason give a crap about me? Hy didn’t he think I could handle myself? Then I remembered. I couldn’t. It was around the sixth grade, just a few months after my mom died. A couple of guys had caught me in one of the halls. They were older than I was, but I couldn’t tell by how much:
“Hey, look, guys!” One of the guys, with cold gray eyes and black hair, said, being overly enthusiastic. “It’s our old buddy – the mute!”
“Yeah,” Another with red hair and a Harley’s jacket on said, joining in. “Gonna talk today, or are you just gonna sit there with your stupid little mouth shut?”
“Hey,” yet another blonde boy chimed in. “Leave the poor idiot alone! It’s obvious that he’s way too stupid to talk, or he would have been defending his brainless --- already. What’s his name? Jacob or somethin’?”
“Yeah, my man Jacob’s way too dumb to talk, ain’t you, Jacob?” I felt my ears burn, and they closed in around me, menacing like a pack of jackals. I backed up (and into a locker), stammering:
“I-I—my n-name’s – it’s J-J-Jamie.” Several of the guys cried out as if a miracle had happened:
“He speaks!”
“The mute have been given voice!”
“Halleluiah!”
“OH,” One said slapping himself in the forehead. “HOW could we have forgotten?” He lost his sarcasm. “We’ve got a little wise mouth on our hands.”
“Jamie,” Someone sniggered. “What a name. Isn’t that a girl’s name? You queer. That’s a girl’s name. My brother’s girlfriend’s name is Jamie!” Laughter stung me, inside and out.
“And, anyways, no one likes a smart mouth, do they, boys?” They all shook their heads and tightened the circle around me. Someone grabbed my arm so tightly that it bruised, because I had tried to walk away. “No. No, they don’t. That’s why we’ve got to teach you a lesson. If you can’t say anything nice, then go back to not saying anything at all.” Then the fight started, and I was dodging punches from every direction. One of the biggest ones pinned me against the lockers, despite my squirming to get away.
“We’ll teach you to be a smart aleck.” Just as he was about to beat the bologna out me, I heard someone say something that was just as sarcastic and threatening, but I recognized the voice.
“Well, well, well,” I saw Jason break through the crowd of unfamiliar faces. “You guys aren’t going to murder my good friend Jamie, are you? Because, if you are,” he laughed. “I’ll have to kill you.” He walked up to me and put a hand on my shoulder.
Jason stood in front of me and I could see that he was still intimidating them, even though he was younger than they were. He was scaring them, so they obviously didn’t notice the age difference. That was because Jason was tall for his age. A few seconds later, the leader (the one that had pinned me up against the locker) told the others to back off. They then retreated into the shadows of another hall. When they were gone, Jason stopped glaring at them. He asked me if I was all right. I told him that I was. But, even as I answered, I looked not at Jason, but down the hall where they had disappeared, as if they would suddenly run back toward me, Jason or not. But they wouldn’t: Because I had Jason on my side. And that was really the only thing that kept me from dying, ‘till this day.

That was one way that I knew Jason gave two cents about me. It was a kind of landmark on our road of friendship. Looking back, the only reason that those guys backed off was because Jason scared them. They didn’t know that he was my age, younger than they were, because he was tall and looked older than I look. So, for all they knew, he was older than them and me. That’s one reason why I hate height: because it makes people assume stupid things about other people that they don’t even know, and usually, those assumptions are wrong. A bit like the ‘all blondes are dumb’ thing. It’s just stupid to assume something that significant. It’s completely brainless to think that Jason would beat them up, just because he was taller than they were.
Another thing that’s dumb is the reason that they started on me. I got really quiet after my mom died, and that was a big change for everyone around me. I went from wisecracking to not opening my mouth unless my life depended on it, because I knew that if I didn’t keep my mouth shut around my step dad, I’d catch it. Then, I gradually applied the same logic to school, and my friends weren’t used to me being quiet. But that happened in the sixth grade and I’ve been like that ever since. But, maybe I’ve gotten a little better, because some kids started calling me psycho a year after that. I talked a little more after that year. They were starting on me because I was smaller than they were, too. So what: I’m short world; get over it.
And, Jason’s usually really nice to people that he doesn’t know, so he wouldn’t actually hit those kids unless they had hurt me. He wouldn’t do anything before they did (and when he’d gotten there they were about to), but because they hadn’t done anything to me yet, he didn’t do anything to them – yet. But, if they had made an obvious threat, like a bad one that he had witnessed, then I’d watch out. And if someone even hinted that someone had badly threatened someone in his family, then if you were the instigator, I’d watch out. Jason would go to the ends of the earth for his family, and he would get anyone who hurt them back.
It doesn’t matter, Jason knows that I hate my step dad, and he probably thinks it’s because he gets drunk a lot. That sounds ridiculous, I know, but all that thinking was making my head hurt, so I’d prefer not to.
Jason contemplated my thoughtful silence with a good-old:
“Hey, Jamie?”
“What?”
“Can I ask you something?”
“Yes,” I said suspiciously, because normally, he doesn’t really ask whether or not he can ask someone something. And even if he did, what’s he supposed to say ‘Can I ask you if your dog died?’? I mean, if you think it’s going to do damage, then why ask if you can say it. I’m getting sidetracked.
“Why are you almost never at your house?” He looked at me, and the sun lit up his face from above. I could see every freckle he had. I didn’t really know how to answer that, so I shrugged. Jason didn’t say anything, just looked disappointed and gazed dejectedly at the ground. And then I remembered why he asked if he could ask something. He only asked someone that if he was about to ask them a very serious question. And, then, if someone didn’t really respond, he knew that they didn’t trust him with the answer, or were too uncomfortable to answer. Now he probably thought that I didn’t trust him, and he knows that everybody else knows that they can trust him with anything. I guess a shrug wasn’t the best answer. I took a deep breath, wondering if I should say the miniature speech that was forming inside my head. Eventually, I decided something like: ‘Jason’s my best friend, and I can trust him enough to tell him junk and he’ll take me seriously.’ Then I told him this:
“Because I have to get away from him. Sometimes I just can’t take it anymore, and I need to so bad that I just storm out of the house and into the alleys. I just can’t stand him. I hate him with every fiber of my being, and the only way to forget that is to leave. My house is a living hell. It’s mostly only over the summer and on weekends, when I’m with him a lot, and I have to. It’s just escape. Literally.” The words poured from my mouth as if someone else was saying them. I hadn’t planned any of them. Suddenly, Jason whipped his head towards me.
“Wait a minute, that is all about him? He’s had custody of you for almost four years! How long have you been doing that?!” I sighed. He meant ‘how long have you been wandering the streets at night in a dangerous neighborhood’.
“Um, almost four years. Since I was, uh, around ten or eleven. Basically since my mom died and left me with him.”
“Where the heck to you go?” Jason said expressively.
“The woods,” I said without hesitation. Jason’s eyes grew in something that resembled anger, fear, defiance, and disbelief all in one. He elbowed me in the stomach. Hard. That was a bit out of the ordinary, so I prepared myself for whatever he was about to say.
“Stupid!” Jason cried. “Do you know how many girls get raped in those woods?” I groaned. I knew when a lecture was coming.
“That’s girls,” I pointed out, and almost regretted it as soon as I said it.
“Do you know how many perverted guys are in those woods, looking for other guys and not girls?!” Jason informed me, emotionally. “Do you know how many weirdoes with guns go around there? Do you know how many twelve year old kids with BB-guns shooting things they think are squirrels there are there?” I almost never saw Jason this scared about something. Least of all me. That somewhat scared me, the way he was talking, as if I should be dead thirty thousand times over.
“You,” Jason looked at me with flaming eyes, “could have been raped and shot, like, ten thousand times!” I flinched and held my elbow with hands, tight to my stomach. I shrunk in size to Jason’s rant; why did he have to freak me out now? “And all because your stupid idiot of a step father forces you to leave your house.”
Jason cursed my step dad with everything under the sun.
“I’ll kill him, I swear, I’ll kill him...” He muttered to himself.
“Sorry.” I said, startled. He looked at me.
“Me too,” He said. “Just, don’t ever do that again, please. Okay? Never go in the woods alone again, or I might have a heart attack and die before I figure out what Mike’s saying in Spanish all the time.”
“Fine. Just don’t kill me, dude,” For a minute, neither of us spoke. When I looked over at Jason, he seemed to be trying to figure something out.
“How often do I really yell at you like that?” Jason asked thoughtfully. “Or anyone else?” I shook my head and wondered why he wanted to know.
“Not that often,” I said, “why?” He shrugged and didn’t answer. I thought it was because he didn’t want to yell at anyone.
“You’re never going into the woods alone again, and if I find out that you did, I’ll probably find out in the paper. Don’t put me through that.” He pleaded. I laughed a little.
“Yeah, I’ll live longer, but not because of the lack of near-death experiences; because I can’t tell you how many times I got caught up and didn’t come home ‘till three A.M. My step dad won’t kill me. That’s why I’d live longer. Came close to murderin’ me once or twice, before.” As soon as I said it, I could have kicked myself. I clamped my mouth shut and my eyes got wide a moment after I realized what I had said. Jason looked at me more intently, studying my horrified face.