When we’d head west, we would drive right through the night, hardly ever stopping, because Good Boyfriend Gerald got paid more if he got the load there early. We’d all sit in his truck, Mom in the middle, holding both of our hands, and it was fun to drive on the highways of America like that, sorta like a family. GBG was pretty damn old and didn’t ever say much, but he had a kind, wrinkly face—he loved to smile, and even though he was really big and was rough-looking with a gray bushy beard, he was the type of guy you trust right away, sorta like Santa Claus or something like that.
After he’d drop his load off, we’d drive back east a little more leisurely, and GBG used to take us to see cool stuff too. The best thing he ever showed us was the Grand Canyon. Word. We went there in December when there was snow all around the edge, and looking down into that big beautiful gap in the earth was sorta like a spiritual experience for me. I remember that there were so many shades of brown and tan inside that majestic hole that it didn’t even look real. And the clouds—those were like looking at something too beautiful, like it actually hurt your eyes to see something so gorgeous. I wanted to hike down into that canyon, and will one day—word—but Mom was against it, saying that it wasn’t safe in the winter, even though tons of other people were doing it with huge backpacks and spikes strapped onto their boots. Hard-core.
GBG paid for a hotel in Arizona, and after eating dinner at this little greasy diner of sorts, Mom and I went for a walk while GBG took a shower in the hotel room, because he never could shower if I was in the room, saying it wasn’t proper, which was sorta noble of him, like he was a knight from olden times. I remember walking, holding hands with my mom in this dumpy little town, and once we got away from the main drag, once we walked far enough down this empty road, my mom told me to look up.
Holding her hand, I tilted my head back and then watched my gray breath climb up toward a billion stars. Tiny blue diamonds the color of gas flames were everywhere. It was so beautiful. My mom and I just stood there in the road looking up for—like—forever. And looking up at winter stars in Arizona—this is Amber-and-her-mom moment number five. It was very cold, but I didn’t care. I had never seen so many stars—and out in the open, with no one else around, I remember praying to JC, thanking him for the stars and my mom and that moment and for sending us GBG so that we could see things like the Grand Canyon, which is one of God’s masterpieces if you ask me. It was a nice moment. Word.
That winter we took a lot of trips like that with GBG, who never said much but seemed to like having us around. I really thought he was going to be the one for Mom—the one who would make her an honest woman. But then one day at the end of the school year, GBG went on one of his trucking runs and simply didn’t come home. Mom held out hope for weeks, saying he would be back, but then the landlord visited us, saying that the rent hadn’t been paid for two months, and soon after that Mom and I moved in with yet another one of her boyfriends—Crazy Craig, whom I don’t even want to talk about, that’s how crazy he was—and GBG was nothing but a memory.
I often wonder what happened to GBG, the silent abandoning one who got away.
The second week of fifth grade, take two, I was removed from class by a strange woman who wore a frilly blouse. In the hallway, the woman said, “I’m Mrs. Pohlson. I’m not a teacher, but a social skills coach, and I’d like to invite you to join a very special club.”
“Am I in trouble?” I asked her, because it seemed like Mrs. Pohlson might be lying to me.
“No. Why would you think that? Did you do something wrong?”
“You don’t have to do something wrong to be in trouble,” I told her.
She nodded appreciatively and led me to a small room at the end of the hall that had no windows and sorta reminded me of a big closet. Inside the room was a round table that took up almost all of the space, and seated around the table were four boys, the very boys that would eventually become my boys—Franks Freak Force Federation.
None of them said anything to me when I sat down at the table and said, “Hello.”
“Boys, this is your classmate, Amber Appleton. Don’t you want to say hello to her?” Mrs. Pohlson said.
“Ricky Roberts says hello to Amber Appleton. Hello. Yes.”
“H-h-h-h-el-el-o.”
“Hi, Amber,” said the boy in the wheelchair.
“Hey,” said the black kid.
“This is Ty, Jared, Chad, and Ricky. All classmates of yours, although they are in the other two fifth grade classes. We’d like you to join our club,” Mrs. Pohlson said.
The only black kid in town. The kid who couldn’t speak properly. The tiny wheelchair kid with a big head. The retarded kid (I didn’t know what autism was back then). And suddenly me. I wasn’t so smart back in the day, but even I knew that I’d landed squarely in Club Freak. I wasn’t all that upset about being admitted into Club Freak, because I was a freak too, and I sorta knew it—word—but I was worried that there would be punishments, like extra homework.
“What sorta club is this?” I asked.
“We play board games twice a week in this room,” Mrs. Pohlson answered.
“Why?” I asked, and then looked around at the other boys who were all looking at their laps. “Won’t we get in trouble for missing class?”