Have Mercy (Have a Life #1) (4 page)

Early the next morning, I was working on my laptop, sitting at the kitchen table bullet pointing my case for quitting school when Tim and Captain Kirby rang the doorbell.  They wanted to practice even though I said I couldn’t join them for a couple of hours. “Just to get a couple of licks in, Mercy,” Tim said.  Like, how did they even coordinate to come at the same time?  They met twelve hours ago.  Were they texting already?

              “We’ll practice later.  I set the schedule,” I said, pointing to a schedule on the basement door which I filled in religiously with practice times.

              “Yeah, but before that we have a couple of ideas we want to work out,” Tim said, not really asking permission as he opened the door to the downstairs while I stared at my laptop.

              “Don’t worry,” Captain Kirby told me.  “We’re not taking off without you.”  She looked over my shoulder.  “You flunking math? What are you working on?”

              I closed the lid on the laptop.  “Nothing.  Just something for The Griffin.”

              I used to think that no relationship was more complicated than boyfriend girlfriend—even though my personal experience was nonexistent, I did have a whole high school full of players to observe—but lately it seemed that all my relationships were becoming more nuanced than I could deal with.  In the last day, my relationship with my band had turned into a power struggle over how to get The Griffin interested in us and instead of being happy to have allies, I felt like they were usurping my role as daughter.  I mean, what if he liked them better?

              “I’m presenting my case that I should drop out of school,” I told her.  “Do you know how many high school dropouts—and I mean high profile entertainers—have become millionaires?  Christina Aguilera, Drew Barrymore, Simon Cowell, Mischa Barton, Charlie Sheen…”

              “Charlie
Sheen
?  He’s like an
ad
for institutionalizing slackers.”

              “He’s still a high profile entertainer.  Very successful.”

              “You’re a moron if you drop out,” Captain Kirby said.  “I told you.”

              “So who are you?”

              “I’m two years older than you,” Captain Kirby said.

              “One.”

              “Two.  I repeated third grade.”

              “Well, if you couldn’t pass third grade, why should I listen to you?”

              “Because I’m older, I have more experience.”

              I opened my computer and went back to making bullet points to accompany the graph of high school dropouts and income.  Quentin Tarantino, Hilary Swank, Jessica Simpson, Johnny Depp, Jim Carrey.  Okay, I never really got Jim Carrey.  Is he supposed to be like a clown reflecting our own ridiculousness, or is he just ridiculous?  Even Mr. Dow, my social studies teacher, couldn’t answer that.  But the point is, Jim Carrey succeeded because he had the whole world telling him it wasn’t going to happen.  Wouldn’t you be more likely to become an artist or whatever if you had the whole culture telling you that you needed to get your educational ticket punched to get ahead?  It seemed to me, and I keyed this in as a starred bullet point, that if you allowed yourself to be put to sleep for eight years of high school and college, that you were just a hypnotized troll in a game that had been thought up to make you too numb to think for yourself. 

              “Look,” Captain Kirby said.  “Don’t get yourself so worked up over this.  I know it’s hard, your dad coming home only now and then.  But this isn’t going to get his attention the way you hope.”

              “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said.

              “Maybe.  Maybe not.”  Captain Kirby picked up the pencil hanging on a string on a tack on the Trap schedule and wrote in “band practice” in the ten o’clock time slot and drew an arrow straight down to the four o’clock slot I had already booked for us.  Then she drew a picture of a dog wearing a beret over it, which made my stomach spaz out seeing how it messed up the whole page.  She opened the door and followed the sound of Tim crashing through the head of our new song. 
Wanh, wanh, wanh, waaaaaaaaahn.

              I’d decided on a PowerPoint presentation, as usual.  Since I had only a limited time with The Griffin I found it was the best way to present my case for whatever I wanted.  For example, he upped my walking around money when I showed a graph on escalating snack costs and my stagnant income.  I got the idea from Mr. Dow who gave very convincing presentations on the uses and abuses of power using PowerPoint, also nature versus nurture trying to figure out why so many of us were so screwed up “before anything has actually happened to you,” he said, scratching his head contemplating our fairy tale innocence, while we scratched ours trying to figure out what planet he lived on.  Every kid I knew had something bad going on in their life, even though most kids would never admit their family wasn’t a replica of the Family Guy.

              I was finishing up when Jane came into the kitchen.  “God, what time is it?” she asked, opening the refrigerator and taking out the milk carton.  She sniffed it, said, “Ugh,” and poured it down the sink.  “Did you make coffee?”

              “The coffee’s cold,” I said.  “It’s late.”

              She looked at the clock on the stove, which was six hours off because no one bothered to set the time since we bought the stove four years ago.   

              “Shit,” she said.  “I have to be at the pre-prom worry session,” which was a meeting where the prom committee got together to make sure they didn’t forget anything like a streamer of crepe paper or plastic fruit punch cups.  “Do you mind?  I’m running late.”  Jane pulled out a cigarette. 

              “Come on!  Outside!  The rules.”

              “Everyone’s going to be smoking their heads off in here tonight.” 

              But she dutifully went out to the driveway to have her cigarette, and the music in the basement stopped.  I went to the dining room window and saw Tim and Captain Kirby chatting with her.  She was laughing and swishing the air with her free hand to keep the smoke out of their faces, which they didn’t seem to mind, and when she came back in she said, “I like your friends.  They’re funny.”

              “They’re not my friends,” I said, “They’re my colleagues.  They’re my band.”

              “And Janet can
cook
, can’t she?”  Jane opened the fridge, hoping for a different outcome.  She closed it again.

              “Captain Kirby,” I said, correcting her.

              “What do you mean, ‘Captain Kirby’?”

              “Don’t call her Janet.  Call her Captain Kirby. That’s what she wants to be called.”

              “I thought we had some bread around here.”  Jane opened the breadbox and pulled out some rolls left over from dinner.  She held them up, “Ta da!” before slicing one and sticking it on top of the toaster because it was too thick to fit down the slots.  “I’m in a good mood,” she said, leaning against the counter with her arms crossed over her chest.  “You?”

              “Splendid.”

              “Your friends are jumping out of their skins, they’re so excited to meet The Griffin.  I guess none of your friends—your band, I mean—are going to the prom.”

              “No, none of us.”  I guess we could have gone as a group, which would’ve been an awesome gimmick.  As the band’s leader it was my responsibility to schedule stuff, but I never seem to think of stuff outside the Trap in time. 

              “Well, you’re lucky.  I hate that this is all on the same night.  I’d rather hang out with you guys and the Griffin.”

              “No kidding.”

              “But it doesn’t last all night, thank God.  I’ll be back before two probably.”  She buttered her roll, took a bite, wrapped it in a napkin and went back upstairs.

              “Are you coming back from pre-prom to help get stuff ready?” I asked her.

              “Absolutely.  I won’t be long, sweetie.  I won’t stick you with everything.  You know that.”

              I knew nothing like that, but it sounded normal to hear her say it—yes, The Griffin, the male progenitor of our family unit was coming back from foreign wars bearing mortgage money and expensive baubles for Mummy and perhaps some affection for me, and we, mostly Mummy of course because she was the Mom, would order a cornucopia of takeout in honor of his triumphant return—and I smiled in spite of myself. 

Tim hadn’t tried to change his Saturday schedule at the Seven-Eleven like I’d asked him to.  His plan was to go in, and after an hour claim severe stomach cramps from eating one of the charred hot dogs that roll around for days on the Seven-Eleven rotisserie and are part of the Seven-Eleven mystique, then pedal home to change into his cool clothes, then race back to the Trap to await the arrival of The Griffin.  I was left with Captain Kirby to get the Trap ready for the onslaught.

              “You can come back later,” I told her.  “There’s no reason both of us should be tied up doing maid duty.”

              “Clean-up and prep are just as important as the main event,” she said.  “It’s like the first thing you learn in cooking school.”

              “There isn’t going to be any actual cooking going on here,” I said.  “Just to be clear.”

              “Oh, I know,” she said.  “It’s like a rock and roll road show.  Beer and pizza.  I’m totally cool with that.”  She had brought rolls of black, cobalt blue, and orange crepe paper and was festooning the Trap with them. 

              “That looks really good,” I said.  “It’s The Griffin’s colors exactly.”

              Captain Kirby smiled.  “I Googled your dad.  I mean I knew the words to the song we sang the other day without knowing I knew them, but I didn’t know who he was.  You know how it is.”

              “That’s okay.’

              “But he’s like
famous
.”

              “I’m just surprised you’re so anxious to meet him when you don’t even know his band.”
              “Hand me the staple gun,” Captain Kirby said.  She was on a ladder making an elaborate creation that looked, I swear to god, like a crepe paper eagle—she pulled out a roll of white for the head and chest—which she hung off the ceiling of the garage.

              “He’s going to love it,” I said.  “That’s awesome.”

              “You know, cooking school isn’t like just making a roast.  You have to know how to make a presentation.  Like ice sculptures for the shrimp bar and chocolate fountains and stuff.”

              “I never thought about that,” which was true because I had never seen a shrimp bar or chocolate fountain.  I wondered what her family must be like if she knew about stuff like that.

              “Even how the table’s set.  There’s so much more to it than people think.  That’s why I love it.  It brings out a part of me I like, the creative part.  Like writing music must do for you.”

              So, Tim hadn’t told her that my songs were, at best, grids for him to fill in.  If he hadn’t come along five months ago, we wouldn’t have anything worth playing for The Griffin tonight.  It made me feel kindly towards him, as if maybe he liked making music for me not for my parent.

              “You don’t have to hang around.  The action won’t start until later,” I told her.

              She climbed down the ladder and we went outside and sat down together on the front steps. 

              “I’ll just wait for some of your friends to come so you’re not alone.” 

              Which startled me for the simple reason that I don’t have any friends.  This was a big event, so of course my friends should be crowding around me but I don’t remember who my last friend was.  I didn’t want the scrutiny that a friend would subject my life to.  Like: Why’s your daddy never around?  Why’s your
mommy
dressed like that anyway?  When the questions start, I pick up the Fender and turn on the amps.  Captain Kirby was acting like a friend is supposed to, though, and she didn’t pry.

              “You might be waiting for a long time,” I told her.  “Really, you don’t have to stay.”

              “Do you
mind
if I stay?”

              “No.  No, I don’t.  I just thought you might have other things to do.  Your mom might want you to do something.”

              “No.”

                Three Goth girls came down the street looking at all the houses when one of them spotted our number on the mailbox and nodded to the other two.  They kept walking, more quickly now, mighty interested in their shoes, pretending not to see Captain Kirby and me on the stoop. 

              “And so it begins,” I said.

              “Groupies?”

              “Probably.”

              “You psyched?” Captain Kirby asked.

              “As a daughter or as a musician?”

              “Either one.  Both.”

              The Griffin came by on Christmas Eve last time.  He didn’t give us any advance warning and I thought my heart would jump out of my body I was so happy to see him.  He put on his full regalia—eagle head, lion’s tail—before he opened the bus door and I thought Jane was going to expire on the spot she was so excited.  “Come in, Griffin,” she begged.  “I won’t talk about anything you don’t want to.  I promise.”  But the thing about The Griffin, he never came in anymore.  He stayed in his bus and we came to him and he doled out his presents as if he were some sort of black magic Santa, the low watt lighting in the bus softening our edges, making us agreeable and happy to accept his presents in lieu of him.  A Fender for me “’cause I know you got the blood, I smell it!” and a Kia for Jane because her old heap of a Honda Civic was running on will power, even though I don’t think she ever complained about her car, but that was The Griffin.  He just
knew
what you needed.    

              “I listened to his stuff last night on-line,” Captain Kirby said.  “He’s good.”

              “Think you want to jam with him?”

              “Isn’t that what you want to do?”

              I shrugged.  I wanted to blow him away with my songs.  I wanted to play something so freakin’ awesome he would tilt back in his orange Barca Lounger that was anchored to the bus floor and tip his eagle head to me.  I wanted to see that involuntary nod of appreciation that wasn’t fake dad stuff cooked up to make you feel good about yourself.  Anyway, what does anyone want from their father, especially one that came with a mythology?  To vanquish him?   He had never said anything to me that indicated he really thought I had talent.  But then why did he give me the Fender and the Pink Fade drum set?  And wasn’t I part of him?  Something of him had to have rubbed off on me somewhere.                                                        

              It was only four o’clock but couples and three and foursomes strolled—trying to seem casual—back and forth in front of our house then went and stood across the street or on the corner waiting for the cry to go up on Twitter that The Griffin’s chariot had pulled into town. 

              “I find it very hard to imagine that The Griffin is even my father,” I told Captain Kirby, which is more than I had ever told anybody about The Griffin and probably more than I should have told her, because I didn’t know if I could trust her yet.  People will always take what you tell them and use it against you when you least expect it. “I don’t mean it like that,” I said.  “I mean because he wears a costume and everything.”

              “That’s okay,” Captain Kirby said. 

              “I think you should go home and change into something cool,” I told her.

              “Isn’t this cool?”  She stood up and vogued her baggy black chinos and tee.  “How about you?”

              I was dressed basically the same, although I had definite plans to debut my Michael Jackson military look that night.  If Tim and Captain Kirby didn’t want to go along with me, I would go without them.

              Captain Kirby did a pirouette and we laughed.  We were startled by a guy laughing louder, walking up the driveway, which I thought was kind of weird, because who did he think he was.

              “You waiting for The Griffin?” he asked. 

              I didn’t answer which should have told him go away.

              “Me too,” he said and plopped down on the lawn and lay back with his hands over his head.  “This is like the biggest thing to happen to Milltown.” 

              “It’s happened before,” I told him.  “He has a wife and daughter who just happen to live where you’re sitting.”

              “I just moved here,” he said.  He sat up and looked at me closely.  “So I didn’t know that.”

              He typed something into his phone.

              “What are you doing?” Captain Kirby asked.

              “Tweeting that I’m waitin’ for The Griffin.”

              “Do you go to school around here?” Captain Kirby asked.

              “No,” he said, and by the way he said it I figured he was lying.  People who are lying always look you in the eye to see if you’re buying.  And boy was he making big eye contact.  “I graduated two years ago from St. Albans,” which was the private boarding school in the next township that lawyers and doctors sent their kids to.  I didn’t know anybody who went there.  “I’m a musician.  Lead guitar.”

              “No kidding,” Captain Kirby said.  “St. Albans?  They have a great field hockey team.  We beat them in overtime in the finals. ”

              “Yeah.  They’re awesome.”  He stood up and walked over to us.  “I’m Rob.”  He extended his hand and we shook and had a chance to see how good looking he was, which was VERY.  “I guess I shouldn’t impose, though, on who lives here until The Griffin actually shows up.”

              “That would be a good idea,” Captain Kirby said.  “You should at least ask permission.”

              “Are you,” Rob said, pointing at Captain Kirby and looking a little astonished, “The Griffin’s daughter?”

              “I am,” I said.

              “What’s your name?”

              “Mercy.”

              “No kidding. What a great name.”  He started typing on his phone again.

              There were kids who Tweeted their every bite of a sandwich and there were those who didn’t.  I was about to ask him to move when Jane drove up in her Kia apologizing like mad as she ran across the lawn for being late and making me do all the work to get ready.

              She walked into the Trap which was lousy with crepe.  “That eagle is magnificent!  Who did that?”  Her gaze swept past me and Captain Kirby and landed on Rob.  “You?”  

              He smiled.  He didn’t deny it.  Pants on fire.

              “Why don’t you come to the gym and work some of your magic there?” 

              She was flirting with him, like so openly, and I felt embarrassed for her, but he seemed to not mind.  She swept into the house.

              Rob looked after her.  “And that is….?”

              “The Griffin’s
wife
, Jane.  Also my mother,” I said. “You going to Tweet that?”

              “Absolutely,” he said.