Chapter 20 — Pam 2.0

After mom’s funeral I never did go back to Pasadena but drove to a house in Buena Park to live with my sister Veronica. It turned out that on my eighteenth birthday, the settlement money came in from my accident and since my father was now my conservator, he’d decided that the best thing to do was put her and Don and her kids and I under one roof. The situation was strained from the start. Veronica was eight months pregnant with my niece Amanda, and Don had just gotten out of rehab. To make matters worse, she was already raising a four and a two-year-old and had to keep an eye on me too. Not that I helped matters any. I kept getting out at night and going for walks while Veronica slept, and Don was at work. Sometimes I’d get lost somewhere in the neighborhood, while once I ended up all the way over by Knott’s Berry Farm, when the phone rang, she had to go get me. “What the hell are you doing out here!” she screamed as she grabbed me and pulled me into her car.

It went on like that for the first few months before she decided to put a lock on my door, and I only got out when I had to go see Dr. Katz or go to my classes at Cypress College since they let me record all of my lectures. I tried going to the Braille Center in Anaheim first, but after only one day I decided there was “no fucking way” I could ever learn braille. Dr. Katz was some shrink that the program I was in recommended and every week he would come over to visit and sometimes take me out for some ice cream. He was also costing me an arm and a leg, but since the bill went straight to my father, I didn’t care. He put me on some new medication to help me deal with what he called my “black moods” and told me that for things to get better, I needed to keep myself occupied.

“So, let’s see in addition all of my pain medication, and the shit that I’ve been taking for seizures, you want me on this stuff as well?”

“I put you on the lowest dosage, just give it a try. If you don’t feel any better in a couple of weeks, we can try something else. But mainly, you need to find something to keep yourself busy.”

“So, true to my word, I signed up for classes during the week, then went out to some of the clubs around town on the weekend even though I was only eighteen. Every week, my dad would come over and bring me some of my settlement money, so every time I wanted to get out of the house, I’d just pick up the phone and call me a cab. Sometimes, Veronica tried to get me to come out of my room to eat dinner with her and her family, but I usually just stayed inside and called out for pizza. By that time, Trey was working at Dominos and they’d let him drive out to see me even though I lived outside of his delivery area.

“So how is Tatania?” he’d ask me when my sister let him into my room.

“All right I guess,” I told him. “Care to join me for dinner?”

“Uh, no,” he answered. “If I told you how they made that shit, you’d never order a pizza again!”

“You still hear from Erika?” I asked pulling a slice from out of the box.

“I still see her sometimes.”

“Can you give me her number?”

“I’ll have it for you next time I come,” he paused. “That is if there is a next time.”

“Of course,” I answered, then took another long deep bite and dabbed at the grease on the side of my mouth. “How about Randy?”

“He and Cindy are married now. But it’s pretty fucked up since after the accident he can’t have any children.”

“You mean?”

“Yup. His gonads. Crushed like a pair of grapes,” he said clapping both of his hands together.

“Ow!”

We briefly hugged, then I walked him out through the front door. When he came back later that week, he handed me Erika’s number, so we started calling each other again. She said that her and Jeff were “on again, off again” and that she was thinking about going to beauty school. But I remember as we hung up the phone, she no longer called me her BFF. Then one morning, Dr. Katz called me and had an idea.

“So let me get this straight.” I asked him. “You want me to work for you at St. Jude’s?”

“I really think it will do you some good,” he said. “And besides, I think your story would really help others. It would only be as a volunteer, so I can’t pay you or anything, but I’m sure it will help you get some experience if this is what you decide to do with your life.”

So, the next week I went back to the place where I spent the last day with my mom, and eight months of my life learning to live all over again. Only this time, I was wearing a badge and had my own office. Yet it wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows. The first person that they gave me to work with was a little girl who was only eleven. She had a head injury similar to mine when her mother got drunk and crashed her car into a tree. When she got here, she wanted to fight everyone, hitting and spitting at all of the doctors and nurses. I remember she tried to hit me as well but one of the nurses who was standing there with me reached over and grabbed her hand.

“Hello, young lady,” I said, “my name is Pam.”

“Fuck you!”

“Ok, let’s try this again. My name is Pam. What’s your name?”

“Go away!” she screamed, then threw a glass of water at me.

Then one of the nurses finally spoke up. “Amber honey, this is Pam. She was in a bad car accident too.”

The next time when I came over to visit, she didn’t try hitting or spitting at me. I told her how pretty she was and that no matter how bad things were now, they were going to get better.

“But my stepfather died, and my mom just got out of the hospital! Not only that, but they also had to shave off all of my hair!”

“My boyfriend died in the car I was in.” I told her. “And they shaved off all of my hair as well.”

“So?”

“So, look at me now.” I said shaking my head all around. “Grows like a weed. And from what I’ve been told, your step-dad is in heaven with God.”

“But I don’t want him in heaven, I want him down here!” She screamed and then started to cry. I walked over and bent down and held her then we both cried together until one of the nurses came in to get me.

I went to see Amber every day until she was transferred. One day, her mother came in and gave me one of her pictures from school. From what I could see she was very pretty—long blonde hair and piercing blue eyes. She’d be okay, I thought to myself, but I couldn’t be sure. Everyone there that I saw had scars on the outside that one day would heal, but the scars on the inside, that would be harder.

One day, when I got home from the hospital, Erika called. She said that she was moving to Vegas and that her and Jeff were going to get married. We called each other every day, then one day I got the message that her number had been disconnected, then my sister came into my room and handed me a letter from her.

“Should I read it?” She asked me.

“Sure,” I said.

Then she took the letter out of the envelope, put on her glasses, and carefully unfolded the paper.

“Dear Pam. I’m starting my life over in Vegas. You know, getting the hell out of here.” Then there were a few lines about our friends and our teachers from high school and even one about Marty before she continued. “So, what I’m trying to say, is that I don’t want you trying to contact me. I need to forget what happened, and as long as I keep on talking to you, I can never forget.” Then there was a few more lines about Randy and Trey, but still no apologies about what happened with Marty, and then one final conclusion. “So, while I wish you the best, I need to ask you not to call me again. In fact, I’d rather you just forget about me altogether. Good-bye. Sincerely Erika.”

I just sat there, too stunned to speak, let alone cry. So, I called up Trey and asked if he had Randy’s number. But when I tried to call him, he just blew me off. The same thing with Diane and Lisa and all of my friends from Troy. I had become persona non grata.

That night I went out to one of the clubs where they’d let me in without any questions and decided to have a few drinks—well maybe more than a few. On my way home, I got lost in one of the parks, then sat down on one of the benches until a police officer came and took me back home.

“Next time, I’m taking her down to the station,” he told my sister as they both stood outside the front door. And when she got back in, my sister was pissed.

“You need to stop all of this shit right now!” she screamed as she walked in the door. “With all of the meds that you’re on and you’re going out drinking? What, are you trying to die?”

When I shrugged back at her, the screaming erupted all over again until her kids started waking up in their room. “Now look what you’ve done! You’ve gone and woken up the entire house!”

“But Veronica,” I tried to say.

“Don’t but Veronica me!” she shouted back, her face now reddened and glowing with anger. “I’m sick of your bullshit! All of the shit I’m dealing with and you’re becoming my biggest problem!”

“Oh, I see,” I told her. “But of course, it’s no problem when dad sends you my money each month to pay for this house!”

“Shut up! Will you just shut up!” she screamed as her kids were now crying and the oldest was getting up out of his bed.

“I wonder if they know that your baby sister is paying your rent?” I went on.

“I have no baby sister!” she screamed and got right in my face. “It’s just your fucking head injury talking again. My baby sister is dead! You’re just someone that they sent to replace her!” Then she turned and put her kids back to sleep then walked into her room slamming the door.

The next day, I asked myself if she was right. Was Pam really dead, and if she was dead, then who was I? Was I dead as well? Was I just someone that God sent back to play some cruel joke on my family, not to mention on me? It all made sense now, I thought. No wonder my friends wanted nothing to do with me. No wonder my family treats me like shit! I’m just a burden, a bother, a girl who should have died in the accident!

The next morning when my sister left for work and grandma came over to get all the kids, I went into my sister’s bedroom and opened the closet. Then I moved around some of the clothing, and there it was standing straight up in the corner. I remember the long steel embrace and the smooth wooden handle that sat on the linoleum floor. I picked it up, took it over into my room, then slowly began to feel for the trigger. A few more seconds it would all be over; I’d never bother anyone again! As I leaned forward, I opened my mouth and a metallic tang filled up in my throat and rang out in both of my fillings. I prayed for God to forgive me, then I closed my eyes and reached for the trigger. The next thing I knew a piercing clangor blared in my head and cut through the room with an earsplitting din. The phone! I thought. Goddammit, the phone!

I put down the gun for a second then went over to make the sound go away.

“Hello?” I said in a voice that was almost a shout.

“Pam? Pam? Are you okay?”

“Trey?”

“Yeah, what the hell’s going on? You sound like someone’s pointing a gun at your head!”

I couldn’t help but laugh a little. Then we started to talk and to joke with each other. The next thing I knew an hour had passed and I almost forgot about the gun on the floor.

“Trey, you’re never going to believe this,” I said. “But God must have a sick sense of humor. That thing you said about having a gun to my head? Well, I don’t, anymore.”

When I hung up the phone, I put the gun back into their closet then moved all of the clothes the way I had found them. The irony was that if Don or Veronica ever found out, they’d probably want to shoot me themselves!

The next week, when my father came over to give me my money, he was with some woman who I don’t remember seeing before.

“Pam, this is my girlfriend, Betty. Betty, this is my youngest, Pam.”

“Nice to meet you, Pam,” she said as she tried to give me a hug until I pushed her away.

“She’s been through a lot,” I heard my dad whisper putting an arm across her shoulder.

Then he counted my money and invited us out to lunch with them, but I not so politely declined.

“So, what you’re saying now, Dad is this is soon going to be my new step-bitch?”

“Look, you’re getting too far ahead of yourself, and besides, Betty is nothing like Billie,” he said. “Why don’t you just give her a chance?”

The following week she came by herself, did all of my laundry, and cleaned up my room.

“So, this is where they’re having you stay?” She asked me as she tucked in my sheets and fluffed up the pillows.

“Yup,” I answered. “How do you like it?”

“It’s so small,” she exclaimed. “It looks like the smallest room in the house.”

For the next few months, she started coming over twice a week to clean up my room and take me to lunch. Then one day she came over and said that she had some sort of surprise.

“Let’s get you dressed, I’m taking you shopping!” she said, as she walked in through the door.

First, she took me to her beauty salon where they cut and styled my hair. Then she took me out to the mall, and we spent the day trying on clothes.

“This would look so nice on you!” she said as she held up an outfit and walked with me into one of the fitting rooms.

“It’s awfully bright.” I told her but still she insisted on buying it for me.

“Every time I see you, you’re all in black,” she said. “You need to start looking more cheerful.”

When we sat down in the food court and started to talk, I looked at her from across the table and just asked her, “Why? Why do you want anything to do with me since no one else does?”

“Well, maybe it’s because I’m not anyone else,” she insisted. “Maybe it’s because I want everyone to see what a beautiful girl you really are.”

Then, slowly, I began to not only trust her, but I looked forward to her coming to visit. When we went out shopping together, I asked her if I could buy her something, but she always refused. Well, this is different. I thought. But I still insisted each time we went out.

That year for Christmas my father went out to get her a ring that he hid inside the smallest of five boxes like one of those Russian dolls you see at a gift shop. So, the following year it was official, I had a new stepmom and also a younger stepbrother.

I didn’t have much time to notice. Starting right after Halloween, I was spending five nights a week at the Crystal Cathedral acting in the Glory of Christmas. It was Dr. Katz’s idea that I try out, but after the audition went well, they decided to put me into the show. The week before Christmas, my family came out to see me. They all sat down in the front on either side of my father and Betty. The night they were there, I was a shepherd, and as the angels announced their “tidings of great joy” I couldn’t get my sheep to be quiet. “Shish!” I whispered. “Shish, the angels are talking.” But my stupid sheep kept bleating away. Then I noticed that people were starting to laugh and some even uttered “ah, isn’t that cute?” So, I just stood there and smiled and took it all in as the “glory of the Lord shone all around.”

After the show, all anyone talked about was “that pretty young lady and her sheep.” Some of the attendants even asked me for my autograph. As a shower of light echoed between the lofty crystalline towers and spilled at my feet in a bright rainbow prism, I could hear my dad’s voice beaming with pride, “That young lady right over there,” he said then pointed over to where I was standing, “that’s my daughter!”