SOME KIND OF WAY OUT by BARBARA GORMAN A thesis submitted to the Graduate School-Camden Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Fine Arts Graduate Program in Creative Writing written under the direction of Prof. Lauren Grodstein and approved by ______________________________ Prof. Lauren Grodstein Camden, New Jersey October 2013 i THESIS ABSTRACT SOME KIND OF WAY OUT By BARBARA GORMAN Thesis Director: Prof. Lauren Grodstein Sixteen-year-old classic rock and blues guitar aficionado Drew Gilmore and his fourteen- year-old sister Cori have been helping their divorced mother Michelle cope with her advanced multiple sclerosis for the past two years to the best of their ability, but the severe sensory pain and uncontrollable muscle spasms have left Michelle, a former grocery store cashier, confined to a wheelchair most days and unable to sleep most nights. A concerned social worker and a few school staff members have begun to question whether Drew and Cori’s needs are being met at home. Drew is resistant and at times hostile toward any suggestions that Michelle may be unable to take care of them, insisting that he and Cori have plenty of help from family and friends in their working class neighborhood of Gloucester City, New Jersey, and that their father Frank, a prison guard who lives in Trenton, New Jersey, with his new wife and toddler son, does the grocery shopping and takes care of the bills. But Drew knows that things at home are far from okay, forcing things at school to a breaking point. By March he has more than doubled his allowable absences for the school year and has resorted to cutting classes frequently in order to take care of his ailing mother, whose condition continues to decline alarmingly. To top it off, Cori’s recent questionable behavior adds to Drew’s list of adult responsibilities and threatens to undermine the one bright spot in his life: his serious ii crush on tenth-grade sweetheart Tiffany Cortland. When all of the forces beyond his control collide and force him into a heart-breaking situation, Drew’s music ultimately gives him the strength to face his difficulties and the means to deepen his relationship with Tiffany. iii 1 Some Kind of Way Out Chapter 1 No one would believe it if I told them, but I actually didn’t mind school, Tiffany Cortland being a huge part of the reason, and if I didn’t have to cut—which, by the way, is a major felony at my school—I wouldn’t. But other than a few drug dealers and gang bangers who were just waiting to turn 17 so their moms could sign them out, I’m pretty sure I held the record for cuts and attempted cuts, and I knew that day that I would be adding one more to the list. Before we left for school, my sister Cori stood at the door to our mom’s darkened room, gazing in at her fidgeting form in the bed. When she turned to me for an explanation, I told her that Mom was fine, just really tired and not ready to get out of bed yet. For only being 14, Cori worried like an old woman, and I didn’t want to give her one more thing to stew about. Our mom had multiple sclerosis, or MS. Bad. And ever since that time in November, when I found her slumped against the hot radiator in the bathroom, the filmy material of her shirt melted into her arm and back, I never felt comfortable leaving her alone in the house for too long on her really bad days. And it was clear from the start that the day was going to be bad. “Two hours,” Mom said when I got her out of bed, her legs spasming beneath a tangle of sheets and blankets. “Only two freaking hours! I can’t do this anymore.” Throwing an arm over her face, she sobbed like baby, and all I could do was lean across her legs to hold them steady, to give her some peace from the constant jerking 2 until she cried herself out. It scared me to see her so low, but I never wanted her to know that, so after she settled down a little, I told her that maybe she should just take her morning pills and go back to bed after she went to the bathroom. Now, I’m pretty sure most guys my age would rather not have to wait on the other side of the bathroom door while their mothers took a piss or did whatever, but I didn’t have a choice. MS made my mom prone to falling. She didn’t say a word as she got back in bed. I smoothed out the blankets and told her that she would feel better after a few hours’ sleep. “We have a half-day today,” I lied. “For night conferences. I’ll be home in a few hours.” She just looked at me like I had said the wrong thing and turned her face away. We never discussed my absences and cuts. I made up the time in four-hour Saturday detentions, when Cori was home. Most Saturdays they were both still asleep when I got home at 12:15 anyway, so it was no big deal. I was so worked up that I left the house without breakfast. My rumbling stomach an hour later during an English test made everyone within a three-desk radius crack up. Tiffany, my lab partner in Biology and pretty much the sweetest girl in the 10th grade, smiled and whispered, “That was epic, Drew.” I smiled back, feeling my face get hot. And for one or two super stoked seconds, I forgot about Mom, MS, my absences, and all the other shit that weighed me down and just looked at her face. Her dimples killed me. She smelled good, too—clean, like oranges and grapefruits. So I stayed in school as long as I could bear it, watching the clock and biting the calluses on my fret hand, knowing I would be sorry later in the day when I pressed the 3 new pink skin of my fingertips against the steel strings of my guitar. It was the only thing that kept me in my seat for the three hours and twenty minutes I was forced to be there. Slipping out the cafeteria doors between fourth and fifth period, I wondered if—even hoped—Tiffany would be disappointed when I wasn’t in Bio. I got the vibe that she was into me, at least the part of me that played guitar, but I was pretty sure that she could have any guy she wanted, so what would she want with me? Outside in the clearing that separated the high school from the elementary school, I stood watching a couple of birds pecking around on the bald ground, like I was stuck in a glitching video game. I shivered deeper into my hoodie. Spring was only a few weeks away, but it was definitely still winter in New Jersey. I knew I should get moving, but dread filled my sneakers with hot cement. That was what my life had become in the last year—a cycle of sprinting and paralysis, running away when I should stay put and then slamming on the brakes when I should get moving. The eerie buzzing from the high tension wires seemed to grow louder. I swore I felt a charge—a tingling that danced along the surface of my skin beneath my clothes— whenever I got too close to those towers. They creeped me out. Skeleton scarecrows in a single file, one outstretched arm hooking down, locked and loaded, ready to spike 500,000 volts at kids who cut school. But it was the late bell for fifth period that electrocuted me instead, jolting my feet into a sprint that carried me through the clearing and across Market Street, where the digital sign in front of the chiropractor’s office alternately flashed 11:26 and 39°F. Though I was tempted to keep running, I set a fast walking pace down Greenwood, our usual route home. I would look guilty as hell running through that 4 neighborhood, with its neat, lookalike houses, edged lawns and above ground pools. That section of town was known as Highland Park. I’m not sure where the name came from, but there was a bar called The Highland a few blocks away on Orlando, making its home among houses a bit bigger and nicer than those on Greenwood. Tiffany lived a few streets over on Sylvan. She had been wearing that yellow shirt, the one where the neckline scoops down just to the point where her boobs swelled upwards. That picture of her on Facebook in a white bikini flashed into my mind. I felt myself getting — “And just where the hell do you think you’re going?” Hollering through the opened passenger window of the old driver’s ed car, Mrs. Sheehan, the school’s attendance officer, scared the shit out of me. I squashed the impulse to run. Though she was short and fat and pretty old, it was accepted as fact that Mrs. Sheehan could, on the trail of a kid who was cutting, hurdle three-foot fences without breaking stride. And you were totally screwed if she caught you. Kind of like resisting arrest in her book.