square_the_circle_chapter_7_ crOwl back when the unexpected snowstorm hit the interstate outside of chicago, clara, riding with her yuppie mother in her bmw 535i, who was just realizing she made a wrong turn out of the rest stop, sighed. she pressed her forehead against the heated window and blanked out like she always did. it was just another mistake in a long, convoluted line of blunders her mother had made. clara could trace them throughout her schooldays, like one takes a pushpin along a map, marking memorable, life-changing places. there was the affair she had with her real estate agent when clara was six. she still cringes remembering walking bleary-eyed into the bedroom to ask for a drink of water and seeing a strange man's naked backside and only her mother's head making a strange up and down bobbing motion, her bright red fingernails gripping the stranger's behind. and then two years later at her piano recital, clara was on stage in the closing stages of debussy's serandae for the doll, angrily pounding at the keys because her mother never showed. suddenly the doors at the back of the auditorium opened and there she was falling down drunk, slurring her apology to clara, tripping on her van eli stilletos, while the entire crowd hushed, and then couldn't help but look on and listen, shocked, sharing clara's obvious pain and embarrassment. times in the years following when she would catch her friends whispering, recounting what their parents had told them about mrs. dupont and how they should be thankful that their mothers weren't like her. and where was her father? he's busy, she was told. he's in london this week. will he be able to see me in the nutcracker? unfortunately not. he'll be in brussels at a conference. fast forward to her freshman year at an exclusive private school outside of phoenix. glass breaking at a christmas party in the living room of their million dollar home in scottsdale. her mother, drunk again, tossed a bottle of moet&chandon at her father for catching him kissing some gorgeous mutual fund associate. it hit the murano sconce and smashed it into a thousand pieces and even slightly injured a few of the guests, one of them the mayor of mesa. clara learned to deal with it in her own teen-aged way, choosing to escape, giving in to the easy methods of numbing the disgrace through her own binge drinking. alcohol, that is the really good stuff, was always accessible, but she was worried about the smell that lingered, especially when her friends told her they couldn't hang out with her anymore. even though they wouldn't tell her why. so she started popping her mother's prozac and stumbled about the hallways of her school in a glassy, zombie-like daze. the boys who she would catch staring at her rapidly developing body, soon caught on to her spiraling descent and lured her into their lairs with weed and x. they would listen to her anguish, her gushing, sobbing longing to have parents who actually cared about her, while they nibbled on her neck or slipped their thumbs under the edge of her bra or slid their grubby fingers inside the waistband of her panties. when her mother announced they would be moving to reno, unbeknownst to clara because of an internet affair she was having with a trial lawyer in vegas, she was introduced to meth and was soon hooked like a dumb, hungry fish. clara's grades plummeted in the black mountain christian school that her parents put her in, this ridiculous effort a desperate act to change her decadent ways. and one day when the school's english literature teacher was fired for having sex with a student, eveyone knew why and with who. so, it was off to upstate new york to start over. to erase the past. begin again. fuck this, clara thought. i need to find a connection or i'm going to kill myself. and that's why she grabbed kayla's hand and rushed her into the woman's bathroom at the rest stop in indiana. i'll give her sex and maybe she'll hook me up. her friends look like stoners. scroll down to clara in the holiday inn bathroom puking her guts out. what tim didn't know was she had popped five of her mother's percodan right before she wriggled into her tight black skirt. she had skipped past her mother passed out in the bed, blankets pulled over her head. standing before the mirror, naked to the waist, she gazed at her reflection, at her nearly perfect breasts, pert and large, nipples like tiny, swollen rosebuds straining to bloom. kayla will love these, she thought. she pulled the t-shirt on, ran a dab of gel through her streaky pink and blonde hair, stepped into a small burst of perfume and checked the tiny pocket of her skirt. along with her mother's car keys still in there from when she had braved the snow to get the stoli for her and some magazines, she had three more percs, just in case. she grabbed the vodka and hurried to room 526. she was so bummed kayla wasn't there. but maybe the weed would help until she got there. it didn't. along with the stoli, the absence of food, and the percodan her body was a turbulent volcano that eventually erupted, spewing out not only the contents of her stomach, but everything she carried with her all these years, all the fucked up frustrations, let downs, disappointments, lies, and lack of love. her very desire to live. "clara!" it was kayla, suddenly present. "oh my god! tim! what the fuck happened?!" tim had left clara for a brief moment to run to the locked door unaware that her condition had rapidly declined from the fit of spasmodic vomiting to unconsciousness, even while kayla banged on the door. he yanked it open. he was as white as a ghost. scott would never forget the look of helplessness on his ravaged face. kayla burst past him, having seen clara's bare legs flat out on the bathroom tile. she knelt beside her on the cold vinyl floor and cradled her flopping, doll-like head like a mother. "CLARA!" COME ON GIRL! WAKE UP!" she frantically patted her cheeks. scott filled up a plastic cup with water, the same one that clara last drank her vodka from, and threw it in her face. no reaction. tim's right hand was smashed against his own mouth. his throat was never so dry. kayla trying to stay calm but slowly losing it, shook her shoulders. clara's head rolled from right to left, lifeless. scott bent down and firmly checked the pulse on the artery in her neck. he shook his head. there wasn't one. "she's fucking dead." tim said. "NO!" kayla screamed. she put her ear against clara's mouth in a desperate attempt to hear her breathing. nothing. "he's right," scott said, matter-of-factly. kayla rolled clara off her lap and started cpr. scott helped her while tim stood looking out the bathroom window. it was still snowing. he could see it swirling down in front of cars slowly moving in the parking lot. "holy fuck," he kept saying over and over. "OH GOD! SCOTT!" kayla screamed. she kept trying to give clara air. scott was doing compressions. clara was cold as stone, already turning pale. "DON"T JUST FUCKING STAND THERE TIM! CALL 911! YOU IDIOT!" kayla continued to breathe into clara's mouth. tim knelt down next to scott and kayla as they tried to revive her and unexpectedly reached into the small pocket of clara's skirt. he found what he hoped was there. her mother's car keys. "WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING?" kayla yelled. she couldn't believe it. she grabbed his hand to stop him. tim pulled away, clutching the keys in his fist. the percodans tinkled on the bathroom floor. all three looked at each other. they put the pieces together. kayla sunk down and put her hands to her face. "so what are you going to do now, huh tim?" scott asked. he sat down and leaned against the bathtub. "i'm getting the fuck out of here." kayla glared up at him. "it's a new bmw," tim said, his voice trembling. "i'll wait for five minutes. you guys can come with me if you want. i'm not going to jail." he turned around, grabbed his coat and carry on and was gone. 050108 ... unhinged they both stared at each other as the door shut. frustrated tears leaked out of kayla's eyes as she held clara's head in her hands. this couldn't be happening to her. not again. please god not again. 'clara, clara, oh please clara...scott, hey scott?' kayla's voice was frantic. scott was sitting on the bed nearest the bathroom with a blank look on his face. he vaguely remembered a similar story with a similar face. paige, one of those nights he could barely remember, paige telling him when she found someone passed out on the bathroom floor. was it her dad? uncle? he couldn't remember; he just couldn't remember. kayla kept going with the cpr. she knew it was useless but she couldn't stop. this wasn't happening again. she thought she felt some breath coming from clara's nose...wait. there it was. there it was! 'SCOTT...she's alive. where are you?' she needed him to be there. 'scott....SCOTT.' he slowly made his way to the bathroom door. 'kayla, she wasn't breathing...' 'that is what cpr is for asshole. look.' clara's chest was shallowly moving; up, down. 'go find tim quick. before he steals that car. please...' her voice was still filled with urgency. scott rubbed his face with his shaking hands. this really wasn't the scene he had been hoping for. but it looked to be worked out for now. he walked across the room and picked up his coat. he glanced in the bathroom as he walked to the door to see kayla holding clara, bent over her slumped body. she must have been crying from the way her body slightly shook. scott quietly left the room and ran down the hallway to the elevator. all the cars in the parking lot were blanketed with snow. tim had no idea which side of the building clara's family car could have been parked. he frantically ran from car to car pushing the remote unlock button looking for any flash of headlights or the beep of a horn. nothing. 'damnit, god fucking DAMNIT' and the cold snow and low storm clouds swallowed his screams. 'this will teach me to ever ever get a chick drunk ever again' he thought desparately to himself. he had to get out of here. he couldn't go back to jail. being locked up for weed dealing was one thing; murder...god he couldn't go back in the fucking slammer. finally, he found the car as he pushed the remote unlock button next to a pile of snow and brake lights started flashing. he could hear someone calling his name from about ten feet away. 'tim...TIM...where the hell are you? tim...god...TIIIIIIM.' scott started to yell out at the top of his lungs. and then he saw him scraping away snow off the car with his hands in a hurried attempt to make the car drivable. scott began to run, but the deep snow hampered his progress. by the time he reached tim, he was panting. he pulled him around by the shoulder 'dude, don't do this. kayla got her breathing again man. don't steal this car.' tim's knees gave out and he fell to the snowy ground. 'you better not be shitting me...are you shitting me?' 'dude, i wouldn't shit about something this serious. clara's breathing again, but we probably should get her to the hospital.' and then scott noticed the tears on tim's face. 'what's wrong man?' 'i can't go back to the slammer dude. i didn't touch her...i swear to god. and if i would have known she was a popper i would have never rolled the joint, i would have taken away the bottle. i swear man. i fucking swear to god...' tim was rambling a mile a minute, his side of the story tumbling out of his mouth between sniffles and coughs. 'come on dude. let's go back in.' scott held out his hand to help tim up and tim grabbed it. kayla's tears were gathering in puddles on clara's cotton shirt. two big wet spots quickly formed. she glanced at the bright blue pills on the white tile floor. kayla realized then why she was really crying. she didn't know clara, although a brush with death this close would upset anyone, it wasn't that that made her tears a steady stream down her tired face. clara reminded her of someone; herself. she probably had a nasty older boyfriend just like kayla. and overbearing parents. and hardly any real friends. a little sob was wrenched out of kayla's mouth at the thought; and suddenly a hand was grasping hers tightly. kayla looked down and clara's eyes were open. 'oh clara...clara,'she sniffled 'you almost died this time kid.' 050108 ... crOwl screaming sirens. flashing red lights. from the window of the hotel lobby, tim watched the slow moving ambulances and illinois state police cars weave their way through the snow and snarled traffic. he sighed heavily and dug at his bottom lip as they pulled into the parking lot of the hoilday inn, and came sliding into the loading only area of the front entrance. the snow was still coming down like torn cotton balls. two paramedics jumped out from their flung doors and slipped and sloshed their way to the back and then trudged through the piling snow and drifts, pushing their stretcher towards the automatic doors of the lobby. tim heard their radios squawk. he heard the static. a dispatcher's voice mention room 526, was that o-d? he wasn't sure. white. female. teen-ager. yeah. he heard that. "fuck this," he muttered to himself. he slung his bag around his shoulder and stepped through the doors, still open. out into the night, away from his living nightmare. he pulled the collar of his jacket around his neck, put his head down, and headed right, down the sidewalk and out of sight. it was the hispanic grandmother that called 911. she heard kayla's screams coming from the room across the hall, peeked her head out the door, saw tim's ghost face, watched him flee. scott found her sitting on the edge of the bathtub, her grandson asleep on her shoulder. she was next to kayla who was still hunched over clara, gently rubbing her face with a warm washcloth, smoothing her hair back and off her forehead. clara's eyes were fluttering. her breathing was shallow with quick desperate breaths. scott was alone. "where's tim?" kayla asked. there were tear streaks on her cheeks. her eyes were bloodshot. she gave the washcloth to the grandmother and she ran it through the hot tap water, wrung it out and gave it back to kayla, trying not to wake her grandson. he stirred, sucked at the air, and turned his head the other way, still asleep, oblivious to the fragility of life around him. "don't tell me he stole that fucking car!" scott held up the keys. kayla sighed heavily with relief. "he's all fucked up though," scott said. "he's in some kind of shock. he said he can't even look at clara." "where's he at ?" "i talked him out of leaving. i left him in the lobby." kayla gave scott a look of respect that scott wasn't used to from a girlfriend. as if she was actually pleased with him, for doing something right. "you know what?" she said, still looking at him, burning a pleasant warm hole in his soul. "you saved clara's life." "no," scott said. "i gave up. you saved her." scott moved closer into the bathroom and nodded to the grandmother. she smiled briefly and they both looked down at clara. scott shook his head. i don't know, he thought. doesn't look good. but watching kayla's motherly care filled him with a hope, even if it was a flicker. he realized if clara would die now they were all fucked. "did you call 911?" he asked bending down next to kayla. the sirens had stopped but ribbons of red light flashed intermittedly into the small square on the wall. before she could answer the commotion in the hallway became so loud that all three of them stopped to look towards the door of the room. scott hadn't closed it all the way and they listened as it burst open and banged against the side wall. it was clara's mother. she was frantic. she clutched a piece of crumpled paper with clara's handwriting. "mommy," it read. "i'm in room 526 with friends. see you later. c." "WHERE IS SHE!?" she wailed. seconds later, the paramedics pushed into the room behind her. bits of snow from their boots and blue uniforms made a small trail to the bathroom. kayla squirmed backwards and out of the mother's way as she practically dove to the ground and scooped up clara. scott stood and straightened himself stiff against the wall. the grandmother inched her way out into the room, avoiding the paramedics as they worked with precision. "m'am, you'll have to let us get to the girl," the first of the two paramedics said. he was tall with a flat top haircut and a tightly trimmed goatee. he had plastic gloves on his hands and was gently applying pressure to mrs. dupont's shoulders in an effort to assure her that he had to take over. she had been rocking clara back and forth but calmed down at the medical presence and allowed him to proceed. she backed out of his way, stepped into the bathtub and watched, nervously pushing her loreal colored hair behind her diamond studded ears with trembling fingers. he began to fire out questions as he checked her eyes, nose, and mouth and then applied an oxygen mask. "did she vomit? what was she drinking? did she take any drugs?" "she just came over to visit her friends," mrs. dupont interjected. "why do you think she's a criminal!?" she reached out and put her hand across clara's forehead and smoothed back her hair. "oh my angel. what did they do to you?" the other paramedic, a slightly overweight woman with a too blonde pony tail approached kayla and scott. she was holding a clipboard and pen in her gloved hands. she was waiting for them to answer, a suspicious glare in her gaze. just then, two illinois state troopers stood at the door, stomped the remaining snow from their boots and entered. 050109 ... unhinged 'we weren't here when she got here. we left the room to get some ice and pop and maybe some snacks and when she came back our roommate for the night was in the bathroom with her while she was puking.' kayla tried to stay calm in the face of the state troopers. she had enough stolen prescriptions in her purse to lock her up for awhile. 'do you know how much she vomited ma'am? what it looked like?' 'no. she was passed out when we got back.' 'passed out?' 'yeah. she wasn't breathing.' kayla's hands began to shake. clara's mom moaned. 'me and scott started cpr. i just kept going til she was breathing again. she eventually opened her eyes and grabbed my hand pretty tightly but she still hasn't said anything. we found car keys and some pills in her pocket. the pills are on the counter in the bathroom.' 'thank you ma'am.' the blonde paramedic took her clipboard into the bathroom with her. the few words that drifted out into the bedroom sounded hopeful. the taller of the state troopers stepped up to the bed kayla was sitting on with a bottle of stoli in his hand. 'where did this come from ma'am? i would like to see some i.d.' 'what?....uuummm, ok. sure.' she looked for her purse and her heart jumped. if she opened her purse this stupid asshole cop would be sure to see all the pill bottles. she saw it in the corner and her heart slowed down a bit. she squatted down with her body between the cop and her purse to look for her i.d. in the meantime, clara's mom jumped forward and grabbed the bottle from the officer. 'this looks like it's mine...' she had diverted the attention of the other smaller officer. 'what do you mean ma'am?' the blonde paramedic came back into the bedroom with the percodans in the palm of her hand. 'these were the pills we found. recognize them?' she was talking to the officer but again, clara's mom had a frantic flash of recognition and her shoulders sagged. 'ma'am are those yours too?' she nodded. 'do you have a history of drug abuse with your daughter?' she nodded again. 'mrs. dupont, you do realize that it is your responsibility to steer her clear of these things?' clara's mom melted into a puddle of tears. 'officer, she is just so uncontrollable. i have other children; i can't spend all my time looking after her. she's just so difficult, especially since we moved...' kayla recognized the same endless prattle from the reststop in indiana but with a frantic, tear-filled edge. god, this lady never shut the hell up. the smaller officer waved off his partner. 'come on ted. it looks like these guys had nothing to do with this. do you know where your friend is?' scott spoke for the first time since the paramedics and troopers started their interrogation 'i think he left.' the grandmother from across the hall had silently sat down at the table. she suddenly spoke up 'si si, i see him leave earlier.' she had been suspicious of tim ever since he boarded the bus. boys with tattoos were trouble; she held the proof of that in her arms as he quietly murmured and chewed on the sleeve of her nightgown. 'you think he left?' 'yeah, i'm not sure. he freaked and went outside and i went after him to try to convince him to stay but he didn't follow me back up.' 'ok. thank you sir.' the paramedics carried clara out of the bathroom on a stretcher. kayla ran over to her and grabbed her hand. she started to cry again. kayla was violently yanked around by mrs. dupont. 'you get your hands off my daughter. i saw you in indiana. talking to her,' her eyes narrowed. 'i know my daughter better than she thinks i do. GET YOUR HANDS OFF OF HER.' kayla dropped clara's hand, her mouth hanging open nothing coming out. 'hey...HEY.' the bigger trooper separated mrs. dupont from kayla and led her out of the room. suddenly the room was quiet and empty. grandma got up and walked over to kayla 'you do a good thing dear. you save that girl's life. god sees this things. He sees you. angel, no cry. no cry dear.' and she held kayla's face in her empty hand and pulled it gently down towards her lips to kiss her on the forehead. she turned without another word and took her grandson back to bed across the hall. kayla and scott were left alone together. 'oh god scott...that could have been me,' her lip began to tremble and scott crossed the room to gather her in his arms. she began to sob in his chest and he squeezed tighter. as tim began to walk in the snow, he realized he wasn't getting anywhere in all this shit. maybe he could crash on the bus if he could get on it somehow. when he walked over to the bus, the driver was sleeping in his seat behind the wheel. he knocked on the door and the driver clumsily woke up like he didn't know where he was. 'can i help you sir?' 'could i sleep here with you tonight dude?' 'what's wrong with your room?' 'i got kicked out.' tim winked at the driver. the driver remembered tim, kayla, and scott asking for a key together and he sighed, but smiled at tim. 'sure kid. it's not too warm in the back where you've been sitting though.' tim anxiously climbed up on the bus and walked about halfway back. 'thanks a lot mister. thanks a lot.' 050109 ... crOwl square_the_circle_chapter_8_ 050110 ... a must read red blathe . 050731 what's it to you? who go blather from