Chapter 12

School ended after several tedious, repetitive periods, all seeming to be exactly the same, all the same kids, all the same words spoken. It was all the same without the median, the balance, the variety and fresh coolness of Ericka Reno. The day was a dreamy haze, an eternal moment that absorbed me all at once. I stared at the clock for about seven minutes thinking about Linda Couch's house. Her funeral was next Sunday. 

“Dad where are we going? This isn't the way home.”

“I thought we would go get something to eat. I know you don't eat lunch at school,”

“That's because the food there is prepackaged s**t from India that gets transferred here on a f*****g boat, and when it finally gets here a year and a half later, the lunch ladies have the audacity to put it in the freezer for another six months until its frozen, rotted s**t from the third world.”

“You learn something new everyday.”

“And I did eat at lunch. I ate food from home.”

“Well, I am hungry, and I say we go somewhere.”

“Dad, I have homework.”

“Annie, would it really kill you to have a lunch with your father?”

“Murder.” She pulled out her phone and started tapping the screen.

“Why don't you read a book instead of staring at your phone all day. I saw you on that damn thing during class today. Who is so important that you have to text in the middle of class, instead of doing your classwork. And how can you have homework, it's the first day back, no one gives homework on the first day back.”

“My homework is doing your classwork.”

“Why didn't you just do it during class?”

“I was in the middle of a very important conversation.”

“Was it a boy?”

“Yeah dad, it was my husband, Frank F*****g Faulkner.”

“That gives me a good idea.”

“What?”

“Lets go to the bookstore. You need some good literature in your life. Maybe not Faulkner, but something like Bradbury or Vonnegut.”

“What the hell kind of names are those, are they from f*****g India?”

“Will you watch your f*****g mouth? Its like Henry Miller crawled in there and died.”

“What the f--. Who the hell are you talking about?”

“Here we are, keep you're eye out for a parking spot, there's a lot of a******s at the bookstore today. Look at all these a******s. Look at that guy, Annie. Look his ears. Who puts s**t like that in their ears?”

“I think it's kind of cool.”

“No you don't. If you do you're just as brain dead as them. That's why we're gonna get you some fantastic novels today. What the hell is that guy doing walking out of a bookstore anyways, he doesn't read.”

“How do you know?”

“Look at him. If he is reading books, it's probably Twilight or some s**t. Or buying drugs.”

“Hey, I read Twilight.”

“You did?”

“Yeah.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

“When?”

“Like eighth grade.”

“Did you like it?”

“Yeah I guess I did back then, but now that I think of it, it wasn't that great.”

I drive past the entrance of the bookstore, stopping to let an elderly cross, and I notice Lucas sitting at a table. He looks up and sees me at the one moment I happen to notice him and he smiles and I look away and turn around and drive out onto the street and tell Annie the actually I am quite famished right now and would prefer to eat as soon as possible, because I took my medication earlier today, and I need to eat right f*****g now.