Daron's Guitar Chronicles Volume 12

977 Ultra Unbelievable Love

Ultra Unbelievable Love

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So the thing about Courtney going back east when she did was that it was before she could broker any kind of peace between our mother and Janine. Not that she didn't try. She did.

But Janine didn't pick up her phone. Twice we had gone by the house and no one was there.

"And you're sure she didn't take him off to a heterosexual brainwashing camp or something," I asked. Maybe I was being paranoid, but come on, this is my family we're talking about. Court had called Jake when we got back to the hotel who had said Landon was with him while Janine was at work, so everything was supposedly fine except for Janine avoiding talking to any of us.

It was, as you can imagine, a rough few days. That is, if you can imagine being haunted by the ghost of an older woman with her eyes misted with sadness, dogging your every movement while she hangs about, a spirit unfulfilled by her abandonment.

Oh yeah, Remo didn't come back. Now you get the picture.

This was him on the phone: "When's her next treatment? Next Thursday? I'll see if I can get away to be there for that."

In my imagination I could hear Melissa's voice saying something like "parenting isn't something you do in the appointment book" — she probably had said something like it in all the fighting that I had done my best to ignore.

You're probably wondering why Remo was talking to me instead of Claire on the phone to begin with. That's what happens when your mother tells her ex-lover that everything he says hurts her, so she doesn't want to speak to him.

"I won't hold my breath," I told him.

"Now you sound like her?"

"Do I? I just mean I'm not counting on it. Come on, Remo. You've got what we call competing priorities here."

"I know. I just didn't mean to leave you and her there like that."

"You didn't mean a lot of things, I'm sure." Shit, I was starting to sound like her. "Look, I know, best of intentions and all that–"

"Stay at the motel as long as you want. As long as you need to. They've got my credit card on file."

As long as you need to. I wondered just how long he was actually willing to do that.

I should skip forward until my next conversation with Janine, but I guess I should tell you something about what those long, empty days were like. Me and Ziggy and Claire, basically planning from meal to meal. We would meet for breakfast, even though none of us are big breakfast eaters, and have a little something and some caffeine, and then we'd sit around reading. At the motel they had the local paper and USA Today and most days I would go to the convenience store to buy The New York Times. The three of us would share the newspapers, and Claire would make an obligatory comment about how it was too bad it was winter or we could be sitting out by the pool every day.

I was learning all kinds of things from reading the papers. I already ranted about the PMRC, right? The censorship group who didn't like the fact that sex and drugs and rock and roll go together, and wanted to take the sex and drugs and profanity out of it? Yeah, fuck that. Anyway. You may remember the lady who started the whole thing was named Tipper Gore and she was the wife of a career politician named Al Gore, who was from Tennessee. Did I mention they were Democrats? I know, I know, you're used to Republicans getting the rap for being that brand of idiot, but it's not exclusive to the right wing.