Jamie Mayer - Painless

Jamie Mayer

this is a genuine rare bird book

A Rare Bird Book | Rare Bird Books
453 South Spring Street, Suite 302
Los Angeles, CA 90013
rarebirdbooks.com

Copyright 2017 by Jamie Mayer

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever, including but not limited to print, audio, and electronic. For more information, address:
A Rare Bird Book | Rare Bird Books Subsidiary Rights Department,
453 South Spring Street, Suite 302, Los Angeles, CA 90013.

Set in Minion Pro
Printed in the United States

eBook ISBN: 9781945572586

Book Design by starling

Publishers Cataloging-in-Publication data

Names: Mayer, Jamie C., author.
Title: Painless : a novel / Jamie Mayer.
Description: A Genuine Rare Bird Book | First Trade Paperback Original Edition | Los Angeles, CA; New York, NY: Rare Bird Books, 2017.
Identifiers: ISBN 9781942600855
Subjects: LCSH Sensory disordersFiction. | People with disabilitiesFiction. | FamilyFiction. | LoveFiction. | AlcoholismFiction. | DepressionFiction. | Graphic novelsFiction. | BISAC YOUNG ADULT FICTION / Coming of Age
Classification: LCC PZ7.M4594 Pa 2017 | DDC [Ficdc23

For my family

Contents

He has seen but half the universe who never has been shown the house of pain.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Do you feel what I feel?

Can we make that so its part of the deal?

Robbie Robertson, Broken Arrow

1 . Quinn

I g ot hit by a car on the day my dad died. The stupid jackwagon in the BMW just kneecapped meso it was fairly minor. I didnt feel a thing. Then again, I never do.

But hang on. Before I even say anything, shouldnt I say why Im saying it? Isnt it kind of bizarre when you read a book and people start going I did this, and I thought that when such-and-whatever happened, and youre like why are you telling me this stuff? Well, Im not just talking to talk, Im telling you because I have to. I cant say the reason now because you wont believe me, but youll eventually see what it is. Is that weird? What do I know, I dont even like books. Dont read em. What I do is draw pictures.

My eighth grade art teacher, Ms. Barnett, who was a whackadoodle in every other wayyou cant take someone in homemade shoes seriouslysaid one thing Ive always remembered. She said, Every mentally healthy person creates art, even though they might not think of it as art. It might be the way they wash windows, if thats their job, or the way they raise their kids. She said art was anything you did that interpreted the world, something that reached out and communicated to other people, Heres how I see things or even, Heres how I wish things were.

That was the last class I still bothered to go to before I just kinda stopped going to school altogether three years ago and no one even said anything. My mom was long gone. My dad was preoccupied, first just with being an angry bastard, and then with getting really really sick, and my older sister was too busy with her job and her husband and her kid, and taking care of my dad, and also totally fed up with me and my bullshit. So I just stopped going and no one cared. I dont mean to make my family seem worse than they arewhy should they care if I finished high school when the doctors all told my parents I would probably never live to be an adult anyway? So you could see it like they were being nice by not making me sit in a classroom for my remaining days on earth. And, like any fourteen-year-old boy, I didnt want to goso I didnt. But even three years later, I still remember that thing Ms. Barnett said. Though Id change her description to say that both mentally healthy and totally screwed-up people make art, because I am compulsive. I cant stop drawing. Graphic novels and such. Though Im not communicating anything to anybody, since I basically dont show them to anyone. Is it art if you draw a forest and no one sees it? So maybe she was right after all. The healthy people show their art.

Anyway, thats what I was doing before the car hit me. Sitting on our front steps in the crispy-brisk Boston sun, minding my own business, smoking my first cig of the day, listening to some rawk, and drawing the Shadow Man. Hes my signature character. A big badass guy, shrouded in blackyou never see his face, just slits for eyes.

This part of town had always been pretty roughthe only place my dad could buy a rowhouse on a firemans salarybut the rich folks liked the cute little rowhouses and cobblestone streets, and started buying and renovating stuff, acting like their money might get moldy if they didnt spend it right away, and then got stuck here when the economy got weird, so now its sort of this strange hybrid place. When I was a real little kid, it seemed like everyones family had been here forever, their grandmas and uncles and cousins all lived here and always had. But now theres less of that. More BMWs. And the BMW drivers are pissed because their home values havent risen enough to make them happy people, and the neighborhood is only half fancy. Maybe thats why that guy was driving so dickishly.

The front of our housewhere I was living with my dying dad, my sister Caitlin, and her husband and kidwas directly across the street from the concrete yard of an elementary school. Same school I went to. Same-but-different saggy teachers chatting with each other while the same-but-different snot-nosed kids pummeled each other at recess inside that same chain-link fence. And that morning, a particularly scrawny kid was being chased by other kids who were yelling words youd like to think fourth graders dont knowbut come on, they do. So I turned the music in my headphones up to keep it out, because I was trying to get this panel of Shadow Man rightwhich is why I didnt hear the front door opening behind me. First clue I had that someone was there was my headphones being ripped off my head.

Quinn, I said listen to me!

It was Caitlin. Not even 9:00 a.m. and she was already mad at me.

Im busy.

He askednicelyfor you to please come up and talk to him.

I doubt that.

You know he cant come down.

I dont like going up there.

Come on

I just lit this.

I took a long drag on my cig for dramatic emphasis, even though I knew it would piss her off even more. She hates that I smokeshe has to, shes a nurse, so its like official policy, even though Ill probably never get old enough to get lung cancer so who caresbut she gave up fighting with me about it a long time ago. Besides, I was pretty sure she was lying about our dad wanting to see me. We didnt talk, my dad and me; the feeling was mutual. I couldnt even remember the last time I spoke to him, definitely before he got sick. Even before that I didnt have anything to say to him. He had a lot to say to meor at mewhen I was growing up, especially after my mom was gonemostly stuff about what a terrible kid I wasand I just stopped talking back. Rage deflector shield up. Eventually, he gave up on me and I think we were both relieved. We lived like silent parallel lines, always aware of the others position, but never intersecting. So when Cait told me he suddenly wanted to talk, I called bullshit. I guess it was possible he had some pent-up rage he wanted to vent at me before he died, but I wasnt up for that either.

After a long pause, Caitlin just shut the door. Score one for me.