The Schwa Was Here

So they hadn't even noticed I was gone. But that was okay. I could live without being the center of attention. I didn't need my face on a billboard, or on a mug shot. And it occurred to me that going unnoticed sometimes meant that you were trusted to do the right thing.

"Don't worry about it," I told them. "You go take care of Frankie."

20 The Weird Things Kids Do Don't Even Come Close to the Weird Things Parents Do

The way I see it, truth only looks good when you're looking at it from far away. It's kind of like that beautiful girl you see on the street when you're riding past in the bus, because beautiful people never ride the bus—at least not when I'm on it. Usually I get the people with so much hair in their nose, it looks like they're growing sea urchins in there—or those women with gray hair all teased out so you can see their scalp underneath, making me wonder if I blew on their hair, would it all fly away like dandelion seeds? So you're sitting on the bus and you look out through the dandelion heads, and there she is, this amazing girl walking by on the street, and you think if you could only get off this stupid bus and introduce yourself to her, your life would change.

The thing is, she's not as perfect as you think, and if you ever got off the bus to introduce yourself, you'd find out she's got a fake tooth that's turning a little bit green, breath like a race­horse, and a zit on her forehead that keeps drawing your eyes toward it like a black hole. This girl is truth. She's not so pretty, not so nice. But then, once you get to know her, all that stuff doesn't seem to matter. Except maybe for the breath, but that's why there's Altoids.

The Schwa wanted to know the truth more than anything else in his life. So now he was looking at bad teeth, bad skin, and a funky smell.

I know what happened in my house that night, but what happened in the Schwa's house after he got home I can only imagine. All I know is what happened after. The radioactive fallout, you might say. But I've had plenty of time to imagine it, and I'm pretty sure it went something like this:

The Schwa gets home to find his father sitting up, feeling help­less. He's too much of a wreck even to play guitar, because for once, he's actually noticed that his son wasn't home. Maybe he's even been crying, because the Schwa is more like the father, and he's more like the kid.

The Schwa comes in, sees him there, and offers no explanation. He waits for his father to talk first.

"Where were you, do you have any idea how worried, blah blah blah—"

He lets his dad rant, and when his dad is done, the Schwa, still keeping his hands calmly in his pockets, asks, "Where's Mom?"

His father is thrown. He hesitates, then says, "Never mind that, where were you?"

"Where are Mom's pictures?" the Schwa asks. "I know there must have been pictures. Where are they?"

Now his father's getting scared. Not the same kind of fear hr had as he waited for the Schwa to get home, but in its own way just as bad. The Schwa's afraid, too. It's the fear you feel when you're off the bus, standing in front of that beautiful/horrible girl

"Don't tell me you don't remember," the Schwa says. "Tell me why there aren't any pictures."

"There are pictures," his father finally says. "They're just put away, that's all."

"Why?"

"Because she left us I" he yells.

"She left youl" the Schwa screams back.

"No," his father says, more softly this time. "She left us."