FLIGHT SCHOOL

A lot can be said about my brother Cody. He is, above all else, dead. When Stepdad Carl found out that Cody had passed he cried for two days. He told me later that something bad happened to my mom when she heard the news. Something deep down inside. It’s not that she didn’t expect Cody to die - we all knew it would happen. You know what they say. “Everybody dies.”

No, mom was sad because of all the supernatural signs after his death. The day mom found out, the toilet flooded. Cody loved stuffing things down the toilet. Cody’s pot disappeared a few days after he died, too. Cody loved smoking pot. Aunt Karleigh thought our sister Sara and her boyfriend Gunner might have smoked it but they said they didn’t even come into the house for a few days and I ain’t got no reason to say they’re lying. 

Mom was really stressed out. Besides the toilet and the pot, she kept seeing reminders of Jesse and wondered when they’d stop. Every time she went to the cemetery she was reminded of her son at home in a ceramic salt shaker next to the signed picture of Marc Harmon. Every time she saw his picture on the dash in the Tercel she’d think of him. 

Mom was waiting hard for the pain to be over. Sara told me that she knows that mom didn’t have sex with Stepdad Carl for two weeks after Cody died.

So when mom finally let Stepdad Carl in they were going real slow because it had been a while and you don’t just jump into an old car and fire it up and drive off at 100mph - you gotta let the car warm up and get all the oils and lubricants in the right places, if you know what I mean. Well mom’s letting Stepdad Cody fill her with the good news and she notices that Tank, Cody’s brown cat he found inside a Safeway, was watching them closely. Aunt Jeanne said it means nothing -  animals are real perverts and that’s why god said we can kill them. Sara says animals have some spirits and that she thinks Cody might have been sending a message to us in the family through Tank. You know? Like, you should go back to living your lives. Do the things that make you who you are. 

I miss him a lot. Cody and I used to be tight. Sometimes he’d take us to Barstow and we’d visit this pizza shop where the owner’s sister sold good crank. I smile thinking about the time we stayed up for days spray painting cars in the Olive Garden parking lot. These memories last a lifetime. I guess for Cody they only lasted three weeks but for me it feels like it’s been a lifetime. 

But where do I go now? Sara moves away cause Cody died. “No reason to stay,” she says.  I think about my life. Sure, Cody wasn’t my dealer but he knew where to get the best stuff and could usually get it in a few hours or days. Cody also wasn’t a good cook but he had an ex-girlfriend who worked at Applebee’s and two that worked at some Mexican restaurant near AB’s Laundry over on Royal Ave and he’d go and flirt and they’d give him a meal and he’d always bring back some. Cody was real good with the ladies. 

I’m still here doing chores for mom and working my ass off for her ex-boyfriend Greg and now Cody is dead, Sara’s gone, there’s no more primo weed, and I don’t get leftover steak twice a week. 

I need to find one thing that will keep me from moving to Barstow.  

Last week Stepdad Carl rushed in the house talking about a truck he tipped. That’s Stepdad Carl’s code for stealing and mom doesn’t like it. But sometimes he brings her something special to make her feel like a woman. Today he brought us a bunch of computers and musical instruments. He found an Italian ice machine and mom had always wanted one from Service Merchandise when she was a kid but after they closed she was fired and couldn’t find any other place that sold them. 

I was playing Halo on Cody’s Xbox and Stepdad Carl comes in with a computer, a guitar and a pair of red headphones. 

“I know you ain’t over Cody yet,” he says glancing at the player 2 controller, “so I got you some things.”

I was shocked that Stepdad Carl would think of me.

“Where’d you tip this from?”

“Oh that place down next to the UHaul shop.”

“Yeah. What is that place?” I ask “It’s not an airport cause Sara and I tried to buy tickets to Barstow but they said they’re don’t sell plane tickets.”

“Honey! What’s that place out of town on Barringer near Chuck’s UHaul?”

“Your brother Cody loved that place when he was little.”

She started to cry.

“I think it is some sort of flight school.”