ânormalâ preteen as possible. As her best friend and protector, I vowed to do whatever it took to help make that happen. Which meant there was no turning back from the impending potential crisis that would be junior high if something didnât give and give quick.
For starters, the homemade clothes and hippie food werenât going to cut it. They just amplified my existence as an easy target, so theyâd be the first to go. Instead of going back to tie-dye when seventh grade started, I decided to cultivate my own look. I moved away from creating clothes from scratch and instead started embellishing clothes that already existed, changing them to suit my needs. I convinced my mom to buy bowling shirts and full-length skirts dirt cheap at the thrift store. And because my parents encouraged self-acceptance at home, because they sincerely believed that I was a perfect, capable, creative being of light, they didnât argue with me. The same held true for lunch. As long as I packed my own most days and included at least a couple of healthy things, no questions were asked.
For the most part, it worked. I survived seventh grade, and I still got to hang out with Agnes for much of each school day. Boone Craddock was there, but our schedules didnât cross much. That was just as well, since I didnât plan on ever talking to him again anyway, not after what he did to Agnes. He was there for the first part of eighth grade, too, and then he was just ⦠gone. It wasnât until after the winter break that I heard his father had died. I have only vague memories of Booneâs dad. Sometimes Iâd see him pick Boone up after school in a beat-up Chevy truck. Once he came to get Boone from Agnesâs birthday party, but he didnât come up to the door and say hi or anything.
âShould we call him?â Agnes wondered out loud as soon as we heard the news.
âYou can call him,â I said. âIf you want to.â I felt bad about the thing with his dad, but what was I supposed to do? Just ring him up out of the blue like nothing had ever happened, like he hadnât gotten Agnes hurt? I wasnât that big of a person. Well, I was that big of a person, but only in the literal sense.
Â
16
BOONE
DAY 85: APRIL 1
That first winter Mom and I were on our own was the hardest thing Iâve ever had to get through. My dad had always been protective of his expensive sledgehammer and wedge; since heâd only recently allowed me to start using those tools to split firewood by myself, I still wasnât very good at it. I tended to either not tap the wedge into the wood deep enough, so that it fell away when I brought the sledge down, or Iâd sink it too deep into a knot. In that case, my only option was to hammer at the stump over and over again until it finally split open and the steel cone could be pried loose. God knew we couldnât afford a new one.
Dad and I had loaded a bunch of big Douglas fir rounds onto the truck bed the day of the accident. Weeks later, when I realized how low the wood supply was already getting, I started splitting them. It wouldnât be any easier to chop and stack the stuff once the really serious weather set in come January, that was for sure. It was hard, inefficient work getting the rounds cut down to pieces that would fit inside our old woodstove, but the work helped me focus the blackness within. It helped me compartmentalize the near-constant current of rage running beneath the surface of my skinârage at my father for not being there, for leaving me alone to take care of Mom, who had all but stopped speaking, who would mutter only single-syllable words through her closed bedroom door in response to my questioning: âMom, are you okay?â
âYes.â
âDoes soup sound good for dinner?â
âSure.â
I felt like a complete shit heel being so angry about the whole thing. If anyone was really suffering, it
For starters, the homemade clothes and hippie food werenât going to cut it. They just amplified my existence as an easy target, so theyâd be the first to go. Instead of going back to tie-dye when seventh grade started, I decided to cultivate my own look. I moved away from creating clothes from scratch and instead started embellishing clothes that already existed, changing them to suit my needs. I convinced my mom to buy bowling shirts and full-length skirts dirt cheap at the thrift store. And because my parents encouraged self-acceptance at home, because they sincerely believed that I was a perfect, capable, creative being of light, they didnât argue with me. The same held true for lunch. As long as I packed my own most days and included at least a couple of healthy things, no questions were asked.
For the most part, it worked. I survived seventh grade, and I still got to hang out with Agnes for much of each school day. Boone Craddock was there, but our schedules didnât cross much. That was just as well, since I didnât plan on ever talking to him again anyway, not after what he did to Agnes. He was there for the first part of eighth grade, too, and then he was just ⦠gone. It wasnât until after the winter break that I heard his father had died. I have only vague memories of Booneâs dad. Sometimes Iâd see him pick Boone up after school in a beat-up Chevy truck. Once he came to get Boone from Agnesâs birthday party, but he didnât come up to the door and say hi or anything.
âShould we call him?â Agnes wondered out loud as soon as we heard the news.
âYou can call him,â I said. âIf you want to.â I felt bad about the thing with his dad, but what was I supposed to do? Just ring him up out of the blue like nothing had ever happened, like he hadnât gotten Agnes hurt? I wasnât that big of a person. Well, I was that big of a person, but only in the literal sense.
Â
16
BOONE
DAY 85: APRIL 1
That first winter Mom and I were on our own was the hardest thing Iâve ever had to get through. My dad had always been protective of his expensive sledgehammer and wedge; since heâd only recently allowed me to start using those tools to split firewood by myself, I still wasnât very good at it. I tended to either not tap the wedge into the wood deep enough, so that it fell away when I brought the sledge down, or Iâd sink it too deep into a knot. In that case, my only option was to hammer at the stump over and over again until it finally split open and the steel cone could be pried loose. God knew we couldnât afford a new one.
Dad and I had loaded a bunch of big Douglas fir rounds onto the truck bed the day of the accident. Weeks later, when I realized how low the wood supply was already getting, I started splitting them. It wouldnât be any easier to chop and stack the stuff once the really serious weather set in come January, that was for sure. It was hard, inefficient work getting the rounds cut down to pieces that would fit inside our old woodstove, but the work helped me focus the blackness within. It helped me compartmentalize the near-constant current of rage running beneath the surface of my skinârage at my father for not being there, for leaving me alone to take care of Mom, who had all but stopped speaking, who would mutter only single-syllable words through her closed bedroom door in response to my questioning: âMom, are you okay?â
âYes.â
âDoes soup sound good for dinner?â
âSure.â
I felt like a complete shit heel being so angry about the whole thing. If anyone was really suffering, it
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