Please Ignore Vera Dietz: Part One

The pastor is saying something about Charlie’s vivacious and intense personality.

I picture him laughing in there as the winch lowers him into the hole.

The reception is divided into four factions.

I think the number one thing to remember about my dad is that no matter the ailment, he will suggest working as a possible cure.

My parsimonious father doesn’t understand that a senior in high school shouldn’t have a full-time job.

I don’t care if it messes up my hair, because I need to look a mix of crazy, disheveled, and apathetic to maintain the balancing act of getting good tips and not getting robbed.

I don’t care if it messes up my hair, because I need to look a mix of crazy, disheveled, and apathetic to maintain the balancing act of getting good tips and not getting robbed.

It’s his idea of endearing small talk.

“It’s like you were destined to be a pizza delivery technician,” he adds, then slams the cash drawer shut and struts into the back room with me, where he slaps a deposit bag onto the old desk in the office and removes his hokey MC Hammer leather coat from the hook on the back of the door.

The words came out garbled and stuttery.

Marty had been Mom and Dad’s podiatrist.

There are no deviations from the class schedule.

And he’s cute and he likes to listen to the same kind of music as me. He calls it eclectic...

I grab the red-and-black-checkered hot bag with their order and open the door to the smoky, dingy dive and Tammy Wynette singing “Stand by Your Man.”

I grab the red-and-black-checkered hot bag with their order and open the door to the smoky, dingy dive and Tammy Wynette singing “Stand by Your Man.”

Once you get through the crowded old suburbs where the large Victorian homes sit on the hill and past the rows of cupola-topped row houses, it’s an ugly town—a mishmash of 1940s asphalt shingles, multicolored bricks, and gray concrete.

He says it’s not the Mexicans’ fault that the city council would rather spend the city’s money on new arts initiatives and a big, flashy baseball stadium than more police on the streets.

I drive back the long way, over the mountain on the dangerous S curves, toward the enormous, glowing, gaudy pagoda that watches over our town.

I drive back the long way, over the mountain on the dangerous S curves, toward the enormous, glowing, gaudy pagoda that watches over our town.

Most people think the pagoda is a cute tourist attraction and a quirky addition to our otherwise boring little nowhere city. I think it’s a monstrosity.

Most people think the pagoda is a cute tourist attraction and a quirky addition to our otherwise boring little nowhere city. I think it’s a monstrosity.

Sindy said it was sacred because it was so close to the pagoda, even though she never cared enough to hear its sordid (and very not-sacred) history, and I liked it because it was secluded and far away from the trashy suburb we’d both grown up in.

Sindy said it was sacred because it was so close to the pagoda, even though she never cared enough to hear its sordid (and very not-sacred) history, and I liked it because it was secluded and far away from the trashy suburb we’d both grown up in.

Sindy raised a brood of chickens one year and sold the organic eggs at the local farmers’ market.

They climbed into the front window with the black Labrador puppies and beckoned with flat, paper-like fingers.

The Ungers had three faux-Grecian birdbaths and a garish assortment of rose-and-blue-tinted lawn balls.

He protected hikers and hunters and tree-climbing little urchins like us, and he created the most sacred tree of all, the Master Oak, for us to grow up in.

I mean, I ignore plenty of stuff, like school spirit days and the dirty looks I get from the Detention-heads while I try to slink through the halls unnoticed.

“You working New Year’s Eve?” Marie asks, counting out his commission.
“You kidding?” he says, shaking his head. “Count me out, man.”
“We could really use extra drivers. I’ll pay double commission.”

Charlie answered, “HAPPY NEW YEAR!” and it was so quiet from the insulating snowfall that it sounded like he was standing right next to me, even though he lived a hundred yards down the road and a skeletal woodland separated us.

There’s usually a run or two to Fred’s Bar at midnight, and parties—
sleepovers with giddy preteens or drunken college dropouts who have access to beer.

“I heard you were talking about me,” he said. He was livid. Every muscle was tensed.

...all that did was get her hooked on an array of antidepressants and land her in a shrink’s office once a week.

I reach under my seat and grope around for the cold glass.

I looked as serious as I could and didn’t laugh, even though I wanted to because when Charlie got testy, it was funny.

“Yeah,” I agreed, though I never knew anyone like him, who scribbled those secrets on napkins and ate them, or stuffed them in their pockets, or burned them ceremoniously on the rocks around the pagoda.

Then we snuggled into our sleeping bags and said good night—and after that, all we could hear was the loud screech of cicadas and crickets.

I had too much on my mind to digest this. I was still digesting the whole mother-was-a-stripper thing on top of the mother-never-coming-back thing.

My shoulder is killing me. I stop in the downstairs bathroom to look at it in the mirror and there’s a big red welt.

He’s raising me while my mother is off...with some retired bigwig doctor who likes to play poker.