By Rochelle Weber (Guest Blogger)
Rock
Crazy
by Rochelle Weber:
Abandoned, pregnant and bi-polar, Katie McGown’s going crazy
on that God-forsaken rock the Moon!
Hello, everyone. Today I’m
interviewing Scott McGowan from Rock
Crazy, by Rochelle Weber. We’re
sitting at a table at Jake’s Place. It’s a sort of “al fresco”
place across from the town square in Rockton, inside Mt. Aragaeus on
the Moon. The tables are separated from the square by a low fence
and only the kitchen is enclosed. We sit well inside, near the
kitchen. The waitress looks to be about thirteen and is, in fact,
the owner’s daughter. She glides up to the table, her blonde
ponytail half-floating in the low lunar gravity, unruly wisps
floating at the sides.
“Hi, Scott.
S’prised you’re here on Katie’s day off. But then, she’d
prob’ly get upset if she saw ya with a lady, even if she is out
with Don Larsen.” Anger flashes from her dark blue eyes as she
proffers her hand. “I’m Lena Johnsrud.”
A man glides
out of the kitchen with a slight limp.
“Be nice,
Lena. Scott is giving this lady an interview.” He grins, his blue
eyes twinkling. “Jake Johnsrud. What can we getcha? We grow real
Angus beef. Only place in town that has real beef. And the wife
made cheesecake.”
Lena, her
grin mirroring Jake’s, nudges him with an elbow. "I helped,
Daddy!"
“Um,
cheesecake and coffee are fine. I’ve read about your wife’s
cheesecake, and your help, Lena.”
“Cheesecake
and coffee comin’ up.” He turns to his daughter. “C’mon,
Lena. Let’s let these people get down to business.”
“Okay,
Daddy.”
Q: Now,
Mr. McGowan, What's your story/back story? Why would someone come up
with a story about YOU?
Scott: I’m
just a regular guy. I spent several years in the Navy’s nuclear
program riding submarines. I was an engineering lab technician, in
charge of safety and radioactive waste, which means I did more
paperwork than engineering. Now I’m a rent-a-tech, working outages
at various nuclear power plants around the world, and now off-world.
My
wife’s the colorful one in the family. She has severe bi-polar
disorder. I’m working an outage on the Moon and I’ve divorced
her to try to get her to face her disease and have a chip implanted
in her head that’ll regulate the hormones and proteins that control
her moods—especially her rages.
Q: Can
you tell us more about your wife?
Scott: Wow!
Katie! I really do love her, but I’m reaching a point where I
can’t live with her any more. Her bi-polar rages are getting more
and more violent. We want a family, but even Katie’s afraid if we
have a baby she might go off on him or her and hurt it or worse. The
only answer I could come up with was to strand her on the Moon. If
she has to stand on her own two feet, maybe she’ll finally face her
disease and have the surgery.
Q: Are
there any more complications?
Scott: Katie’s
pregnant! I’m gonna be a dad! She's agreed to have the surgery,
but the doc says she can’t until the baby’s born and
she has to go off her meds. We’re all in for a rough ride.
Q: What’s
your next move?
Scott: I
told Katie I still love her and I want us to be a family, but she
wouldn’t take me back! When I let her go I knew she might meet
someone else, and she doesn't know it, but I’ve been keeping really
close tabs on her. Before we came up here, her brother arranged for
her to get a job waitressing here at Jake’s Place and Jake and
Annie Johnsrud agreed to keep an eye on her. She wasn't even seeing
Don yet when I offered to take her back, but she says she can’t
trust me anymore.
Jake
says I really hurt her. I told her I only dumped her so she’d get
help. She said I only want her back because of the baby. I said
with her disease, I didn’t need to take her back to get the baby.
Boy, did she get mad. I guess that
was the wrong thing to say. I never expected to really
lose her!
Q: But, isn’t Katie dating someone else?
In fact, aren’t they on a date right now?
Scott: Yeah.
He’s a miner named Don Larson, and he’s a nice guy. We’re
friends. Man, I guess I really screwed up. She’s never dated
anyone else in her whole life. She said she wants to see what it’s
like dating other people.
Promiscuity
can be one of the symptoms of the manic side of bi-polar disorder.
Katie’s symptoms run more toward rage, but what if she starts…
They should be back from the Apollo 11 site by now. I shoulda taken
her there before we split up, but I started work as soon as we got
here, and I didn't have any days off. Aw, man… What if she likes
him?
Q: It
sounds like maybe you have to work to get her back.
Scott: Yeah,
but that's hard to do when I'm working an outage. Not many days off—
Lena passes
our table carrying a stack of empty plates. “Hey Scott, Katie and
Don’re up the hall a bit, and it looks like they’re headed this
way.”
Scott: He
must be bringing her here for supper. I gotta go. If she sees me
with another woman, she might think… Geez, I don't know what
she'll think.
Scott leaves just as Lena brings my
cheesecake.
“Good think Katie didn’t see you two
together. She’d really get mad.”
“She didn’t see Scott get up from the
table?”
“Nah. You
guys're sitting far enough inside, she probly wouldna seen ya from
the hall. She just saw him leave. Anyway, hope you like our
cheesecake.”
The
cheesecake is every bit as delicious as advertised.
Excerpt:
This
is the beginning of Rock
Crazy.
Red
Rage
Champaign, Illinois
September, 2065
They were on Earth, at a
bar near Champaign, Illinois, part of the Chicago metropolis, which
had sprawled across the Midwest and even down to Cairo, Illinois,
where it merged with the equally sprawling Greater Memphis Area. They
were there to sing karaoke, and Katie McGowan was ‘sober,’ as
usual. She was on too many medications to mess with alcohol.
She didn’t remember,
later, what the woman said that triggered her. She didn’t remember
deciding to react. She just remembered the hot, red rage. And the
split. She watched herself do it as The Voice kicked in.
“You can’t do
this,”
it said. “This
is inappropriate behavior.”
Katie tried to stop
herself, but she couldn’t. Her arm rose, as if of its own accord,
and poured the pop on the woman’s bleach-blonde, over-processed
head. The woman came off the stool and shoved Katie. She flew across
the room, seemingly in slow motion. Of course she threw her right arm
out to break the fall, and she still hit her head on the floor. But
the pain in her wrist was worse than the headache.
“I told you not to
do it,”
The Voice said. “Now,
at least stay down. Don’t try to fight her. You’ve already lost.”
Katie lay there gasping
for breath, smelling the old, stale, spilled booze and beer that had
seeped into the floor. Someone helped her up. It was Scott, her
husband, and she was wrapped in his arms while holding her wrist. The
woman wanted to come after her again, but people restrained her.
The screaming started.
Katie cowered in Scott’s arms screaming and screaming and
screaming, while The Voice told her to stop acting this way, and
people tried to restrain the angry woman, pop dripping from her soggy
bangs.
“Get her out of here!”
the manager demanded.
“Looks like her temper
matches her red hair.” She heard someone comment.
Scott half-carried her
outside. She was hysterical and still screaming. The other woman
followed them out to the car.
“What the fuck’s
wrong with you, you crazy bitch?”
Katie couldn’t answer.
All she could do was scream. Just scream. No words, just that
high-pitched wail that was a good octave above any note she ever
managed to reach when she sang.
“Now why can’t
you reach this pitch when you sing?”
The Voice asked. “Stop
it or you won’t be able to sing at all. Ever again.”
She threw herself across
the hood of the sky-car, feeling its warmth. She kept screaming, and
the pain flared in her wrist again. Her throat was sore, and her
voice was going…gone. The screaming subsided, and she began
sobbing, hoarsely. Damn it. Her physical voice really was gone! The
Voice was merging into the background, but now her mother was there.
Linda Snodgrass had been dead for over five years, but she still
appeared and yelled at Katie.
“You stupid bitch!
I told you ladies don’t fight. What the hell did you think you were
doing?”
“I don’t know why I
did it, Mama. I think I broke my wrist,” she mumbled.
“Serves you right.”
“I’m sorry, Mama.
I’m sorry.”
“Quit whining, or
I’ll give you something to be sorry for.”
Her mother faded away,
and she started hearing what was going on around her again.
Scott was there, and the
manager, and the woman who had shoved her, and several bystanders,
but all she could do was cry and say, “I’m sorry,” over and
over.
“Who’s she talking
to?” the woman asked. “She really is fucking crazy!”
“Katie’s bi-polar.”
She heard Scott explain.
“Get her out of here!”
the manager yelled.
“I’m so
sorrrrrreeeeeee,” Katie wailed hoarsely. Someone stayed with her
while Scott went back inside to get her sweater and his keys. She was
powerless to stop this stage, as well. The sobbing and apologizing
would go on for another hour or so. It was part of the pattern. She
would apologize to everyone she met. And she would cry until she
dehydrated herself and ran out of tears.
Scott came out of the
bar and handed her sweater to her. She reached for it with her right
hand and dropped it. He picked it up and put it across her shoulders.
Then he unlocked the sky-car and helped her into it.
“Your wrist’s
swelling up fast, baby. I brought you some ice from inside.” He
handed her a bag of ice wrapped in a bar towel. “Your eyes look
more red than green right now, and you’re so pale your freckles
really stand out on your nose.”
“I’m sorry, Scott.
I’m really sorry.”
He was oddly supportive
this time. “I know you’re taking your meds. I’ve been giving
them to you myself. And you still
went off.”
“W-why?” Katie
sobbed. “W-why? I’m s-sorry. I’m s-so s-sorrrrreeeee!”
“I don’t know. I
don’t think the meds’re working,” he said. He reached over to
pat her hand, but she was holding her right wrist, trying to cushion
it and keep the bag of ice steady.
