This could be the real world now

Getting jolted awake to a watery red-eyed mother scared me. I quickly asked what was wrong. She looked down at me with a look that said my life as taken a hard corner and I can't grip the wheel. She proceeded to let me know a good friend name Candy Bryson died on Christmas day. Like someone with a dry-eraser wiping the bored clean, my mind was blank. Then like the rush of the curtain close everything faded to black.

I shook her hand with an unease knowing that my mother had just told me she was a lesbian. I was good Christian boy who just moved to this little neighborhood in San Marcos and never encountered a lesbian. She said her name was Candy and it was nice to meet me. I thought it didn't matter I will be going to middle school everyday and I won't see her at all. But at that moment it was summer. Good grief. She introduced me to her partner Stephanie. Steph as I later came to know her by had two kids. One was a girl who lived with her dad in Sacramento. The other was C.J. and I wasn't ready for the bond I would be making in his friendship. Chris is mentally retarded. Which I found hard to believe. To me he was just loud and laughed a lot. They told me the only real thing wrong with him is that he was born deaf but now can hear. Hence the loud talking I thought to myself. The two women also said the only other thing is he can't read and write. But in my opinion I know people who can do both and none were half as great as Chris. My family and C.J.'s spent a lot of time together over the coming years. They took us camping, or when they moved to Lake Elsinore, we went to some Storm baseball games. Even though we moved away we still stayed close. We went to C.J.'s Special Olympics events and he showed up around our house every blue moon or so. When my mother told the family that Stephanie had just died of cancer it was a real shock. Poor C.J. had just lost his mother. But Candy being the great woman (who reminds me of Ron White) took him as her own. Candy had been struggling with the death for a while but turned to my family and her close friends to seek comfort. The whole time, no matter what, we loved her and Chris. In the end I think that would be the reason our family was so close. Because we loved first. I would come to respect Candy and look forward to our encounters and conversations because they would be memorable.

Getting up from the couch I was sleeping on I started to feel the effects of going to bed at 3am affecting my body. I made my way up the stairs to the bathroom. In the distance I can hear my frantic mother calling my father asking him how far he was and when he would get back home. Poor Dad never made it to work. He had just gotten down to the bottom of the mountain and was getting gas when the bomb was dropped on him. Then it hit me as I started to head to my room. Mom had said that the funeral was today and that it was at 1pm. As soon as those thoughts entered my head, then into my room my mother did ascend. I need you to throw some clothes on and be ready to go in half and hour is what she said. A phrase I have heard all my life. I objected with needs of a shower, shaving, and brushing my teeth. So in haste I did those things. After leaving the warm steamed bathing room I heard people acting in a panic haste running about like scared rabbits. I got dressed in my black slacks, and black shirt. I tied it off with my black tie and black armbands. One had spikes and the other bullets, which Missy had given me for Christmas. In the five seater Mercedes we all crammed. The girls, Heather and Megan on one side. The baby Emery in the middle and me on the other in the back. Away we went.

She was in shock. She couldn't believe what I had just done. The blood was filling in her face as she looked down on me. I thought you were supposed to be a Christian! she bellowed. I felt like I had just stole money from the poor. She had caught me taking a cup off a table in a pizza place where we waited for food. I had filled it with soda and had begun to pass it around to my siblings next to me. There I stood as Candy was judging the Christian faith on my every action. I knew I had destroyed something inside of her. Not on purpose, but almost like I ruined someone’s dream of better things. I tried to say sorry, but the rebuttal was that of a person not seeing a reason to turn to Christ or believe that this child would ever be good hearted in her eyes again. At that moment I wanted to take back the stupid thing I did. Could we just rewind and go back to the times when I would come over and asked to borrow this James Bond guy's videos. No. It couldn't be taken back. In time she would see me as a better person, but never see Christ in me again.

It was 12:48pm and we've been driving for 2 hours straight. Mom was on the phone trying to get a hold of Mary, Candy's current partner. The funeral was to start at 1pm but we were an hour and a half away. After finally finding her Mary told us via her sons cell phone that the viewing had already happened and now the funeral was starting. My Dad continued to bob and weave like a frantic boxer through the cars to get us there in what little time we had. It was understood from Mary that there would be a reception at the Rainbow Scales in Temecula. After learning the news we still aimed for the church. We arrived at the church just as it ended and uncertainty struck. Mom and I got out of the car and went to the mouth of the Chapel. There was Mary in tears and hysterical of the recent evens that have transpired. She sputtered when she spoke and made the chilling declaration to my mother when she tried to ask how Candy had died. She shrilled that C.J. was just taken by his father! She spoke on how at the end of the speeches C.J.'s father went up and grabbed C.J. by the hand and declared that C.J. was his son and he was coming with him. Tears rolled down her face as the recently dyed black hair stuck to the damp spots on her cheek. She stumbled to say the next words that his father had so much hate in his eyes as he lead Chris away. My mother asked why no one stopped him. She replied that she was shocked and stunned and couldn't move. The rest of the church didn't know what had transpired. While her boys did make a valiant effort it was to no avail C.J. was gone.

It was the fourth of July 2004 and I was arriving to a Lake Elsinore house I haven't seen in 3 years. This would be the last time I would come to this house. I didn't know. But this was the last time that we as a family would all be together. I was different then the last time Candy and C.J. saw me. But being back there felt like nothing really had changed. I did what I could to help Candy with getting the fireworks ready. In the shuffle of moving some wood to place the fireworks, a monstrous rat barrels across the yard and headed straight to the crowd awaiting the lethal color shower. Burgers and hot dogs were the meals we had and too much soda is why we were full. The night ended and the people started to filter out of the previous show satisfied of how the night went. But my family was still there. We sat there and reminisced about topics from life to technology. After we had grown tired we said our goodbyes and made the long drive home. I never knew that would be the last time I would see both Candy and C.J.

Mom and I returned to the car to tell the tale that had been relayed to us. We needed to come to a conclusion on what to do. Being in shock I suggested we go eat. So to ease the rising tension in the car from hunger, stagnation and shocking new developments we stopped to eat. We pulled up to Rosa's Cafe to have a family breakfast/lunch. Since rushing out of the house no one not even the baby had anything to eat. This complied with racing to not miss the funeral made for a stressful car ride. As we started to devour the meal before us, the question was raised on the best course of action after we finished what seemed like our last meal. I spoke up to the point out that we shouldn't go to the Rainbow Scales reception. I noted that with C.J. gone that we had no connection to anyone there. We would feel like the hot girl that ended up at a comic convention instead of the fashion show. Just awkward. I spoke on how the day was a near miss and stressful trek. My mother finally decided that we should enjoy Candy's memory and our day with family fellowship. In an ironic turn of events, when Stephanie died we went to a Mexican restaurant to eat and remember the good times with Candy. So in a creepy state of events on the day of Candy's death we could be found at a Mexican restaurant as well thinking on her and enjoying family.

I know you're gone, but you are within the pages of my life.

The night ended with us driving home and stopping for ice cream and Starbucks. Then home we arrived. The day had turned into a odd day compiled with sitting in a car for hours with two little girls that seemed to have A.D.D. Normal people would be shocked at the events that have happened in my life or just today. I just listened to the All American Rejects sing what I was repeating in my head. This could be the real world now.