For some reason I start thinking about the time I asked my mom for a tent, which is all-time Amber-and-her-mom moment number four:
When I was maybe seven or so, I saw this sitcom on television where the mom and daughter spend the night in the backyard. The little girl gets a tent for her birthday and then she wants to sleep outside instead of her room, so the mom sets up the tent for her, and they have these great times pretending that they are explorers pioneering across America back when it was inhabited by Native Americans, back in the day. It looked like fun, so I begged my mom for a tent.
Mom didn’t get me a tent, but she made me one out of blankets and broom handles one summer night and we attempted to camp behind the apartment complex we were living in at the time, back when Mom was with a different boyfriend, Trevor, who was only around for a few months or so.
By flashlight, Mom and I read books I had checked out of the library, and then she told me silly ghost stories before we went to sleep.
I woke up in the middle of the night feeling some sorta slime on my face.
“Mom?” I whispered. “Mom?”
“What’s wrong?” she said.
“I think there’s something on my face.”
“Go back to sleep,” Mom said.
“I really really think there is something on my face. Can you check?”
Mom turned on the flashlight and started to scream.
I sat up and started to scream.
There were slugs all over the inside of the blanket tent, all over our sheets, and a few were even on us.
Both of us ran out of the tent, and we couldn’t stop screaming.
Eventually, the cops showed up with their guns drawn, because someone reported a disturbance.
We were so freaked that we couldn’t even talk.
Mom just pointed to the tent.
The cops actually aimed their guns at the tent and started to talk very mean to the slugs. “You’re surrounded. Come out with your hands up. We can resolve this peacefully.”
It was pretty funny to hear the cops talking to slugs like that, so I started to laugh.
The cops didn’t like that, and started questioning us, and soon they understood that they had drawn their guns on a tent full of slugs, so they had to laugh too.
After Mom had explained the situation, she offered to buy the cops a cup of coffee to make up for the misunderstanding, and when they agreed, we got to ride in the cop car. I asked the officers if they would put on the lights and sirens, and they said, “Sure.”
We rode super fast to the all-night doughnut shop, where Mom flirted with the cops and I got to eat doughnuts in the middle of the night, which was pretty killer.
When the cops dropped us off back at the apartment building, we went inside and, since Trevor had to work in the morning, Mom slept in my bed with me, which was really nice, especially since the bed felt so comfortable after trying to sleep outside on the grass for a night.
What I wouldn’t do to be in a bed tonight.
In the present moment, after taking BBB out for one last pee worrying the whole time that the local rapist murderer will get me, back on Hello Yellow—even though I really don’t feel like it—I force myself to pray for everyone on my list, asking God to help us all be who we need to be. And I pray really hard, even though I can’t feel God tonight, and I wonder if He is mad at me or something, which makes me feel as though maybe my day wasn’t so kick-ass after all.
I’m cold without the comforter, but BBB keeps me warm—his little body inhaling and exhaling against my chest—and I eventually fall asleep.
When I wake, I cannot remember my dreams—but Mom is outside smoking a Newport, and everything begins once again.
PART TWO
Freak Scene
CHAPTER 8
After another frickin’ freezing night in Hello Yellow, my butt has finally thawed and is now all nice and toasty. I’m singing in the back of Donna’s Mercedes. Again, heated leather seats. So nice.
We’re listening to Dinosaur Jr.’s “Freak Scene,” which is my favorite D. Jr. song, pretty much because it is also Donna’s favorite, and I like watching her sing it like a teenager.
Donna is driving too fast, bobbing her head to the beat, singing all of the lyrics at the top of her lungs, her hands pounding out the beat on the steering wheel as Ricky counts inaudibly.
I think it’s funny that Donna listens to songs about freaks, because she is so cool and hip and stylish and smart and together and she is definitely what every woman wants to be as far as I’m concerned—certainly not a freak like me.
Maybe she just listens to music like this so she can relate to her son Ricky and The Five.
Maybe.