Too Soon for Jeff

by Marilyn Reynolds

  Just before school started that year, when I got home from my annual summer visit to my grandma in Florida, my mom told me I looked like a bronze god. But that’s just my mom. I wouldn’t go that far.

  So where are we here? I was a junior, with a car and a pretty good body—a few very important things along the road to manhood. Oh, yeah. And I’d gotten my braces off in August, just before I went to Florida. That may not sound like a big deal, but believe me, if you’ve been wearing braces for most of your adolescent life, it is a very big deal to see your teeth again, and to be able to eat popcorn, and to smile without sticking your hand in front of your mouth.

  Anyway, it was at that debate party at Dashan’s, Septem­ber 17, that things got started between me and Christina. It’s funny. I can close my eyes and remember exactly how it was that night.

  “How do you like Hamilton High?” I’d asked her. (I’m not a great conversationalist.)

  “I like it,” she said, “but I miss my old friends.”

  “Where did you go before?”

  “St. Catherine’s.”

  “Really?” I’d said, laughing.

  “What’s funny?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve never talked to a girl from that school. Aren’t they really strict, and religious?”

  “No. Well . . . more than here. My dad wanted me to go to Mission High after St. Catherine’s, but I finally talked him into letting me come to Hamilton. My mom helped.”

  She told me she wanted to come to Hamilton because Mission didn’t offer sign language as a foreign language. Also because of Hamilton’s program for the hearing im­paired. She wanted to be an aide in those classes. She was only in the ninth grade, and she already knew she wanted a career working with deaf kids. She got interested in that kind of work when she was only ten years old and a three-year-old deaf girl moved in next door to them.

  “It was so sad,” she’d told me. “That little girl, Sarah, had to work so hard to communicate—and I saw that I could help. I understood her better than her mother did. I don’t exactly know why, but it’s like a special intuition. Sarah was already learning to sign, and I learned some with her. But I want to get better at it.”

  From the very beginning, I liked that Christy cared about people. Later, when I got to know her family, I saw that her mother was like that, too. Mrs. Calderon was always fixing food for a family where the mom was sick, or listening on the phone to someone else’s problems. As far as I could tell, Mr. Calderon mostly cared about being the big boss. But once he helped me replace some hoses on my car. I know he’s not all bad, he’s just often very difficult to get along with. Mrs. Calderon, though—she’s always nice.

  But back to the party where Christy and I first talked. We danced for a while, and talked. It was hot and loud in the house, so we went for a walk. There was a cool, light breeze and the air smelled almost clean. I remember how good it felt to be outside, walking along next to Christina.

  “Look. See that big house behind those trees?” I asked, pointing in the direction of a huge, run-down house at the end of the street.

  “Jeremy and I used to think it was haunted. Jeremy lives just around the corner, and we used to sneak down here at night when I’d stay at his house. We wanted to see a ghost.”

  “Do you believe in ghosts?” she asked.

  “Not anymore, but I did when I was little. Once Jeremy and I opened a door to a shed. Look. If you look right through there you can see it.”

  I stood behind Christina and put my hands on her head, turning it gently to the angle where I thought she could see the old shed. Her hair was soft and fine feeling. She smelled clean and soapy. I leaned closer to her.

  “I see it,” she said. “What happened when you opened the door?”

  “What?” I’d lost track of our conversation, wondering whether or not I should try to kiss her.

  “Your story, about ghosts,” she said, turning to me and smiling a half-smile, like maybe she’d read my mind.

  “What happened when you opened the shed door?”

  I could feel my face warming and I knew I was turning red. Thank God it was dark.

  “Well, when we pushed the door open, we heard this thud, and then a loud, frantic, flapping sound. We ran like crazy and didn’t stop ’til we got back to Jeremy’s.”

  “What caused the noise?”

  “We had it all figured out. According to our theory, a body made the heavy thudding sound, and when the body fell, that loosened the ghost inside it—which was what all the flapping was about.” I laughed. “We were ten. What can I say?”

  “I believe in ghosts,” Christina said.

  “You do?”

  “Yes. I believe every soul lives forever, and that people who have bad things happen to them in their lives keep hovering around as ghosts, and if you’ve done something bad to someone you might end up being haunted by that person.”

  Thinking about that conversation now, I suddenly real­ize that if Christy thinks this mass of cells she’s calling a baby is going to turn into a ghost and haunt her forever, she’ll never go through with an abortion. I hope she’s outgrown all that ghost stuff by now, but I doubt it. She’d been very definite about her belief in ghosts that night.

  “I don’t believe in ghosts at all anymore,” I’d told her.

  “Well, how about the ghost you and Jeremy found in the shed?”

  “It was no ghost, it was our imagination. We probably just knocked over a big bag of fertilizer—that was the thud. And it startled some birds that were nesting in there. Want to go see?” I asked, taking her hand and pulling her in that direction.

  “No!” she screamed.

  “Okay, okay. I was only kidding,” I said.

  “Don’t kid about ghosts!”

  I could see that she was truly frightened. I put my arm around her and she didn’t move away. In fact, she even leaned toward me. We walked back to the party, close, and got a soda.

  “Did Dashan ever sneak around that place with you and Jeremy?”

  “No. Dashan never did anything to get in trouble, even then. He was born good . . . See?” I said, pointing to where Dashan was dancing with his eight-year-old sister, Takasha, making her laugh.

  “I know, he’s really nice. Besides you, he’s the only guy in debate who talks to me. At first I thought . . . well . . . you know, a black guy . . . I’ve never talked to a black guy before, but now I really like him.”

  “You mean there weren’t any black kids at St. Catherine’s?”

  “Nope. Just us Mexicans and you white guys,” she said, laughing.

  “No Asians?” I asked.

  “Hardly any,” she said.

  “How boring,” I said, thinking that debate wouldn’t be nearly as much fun if we were missing the black kids, like Dashan and Michelle, and the Asian kids, like Trin and Hung.

  When it was time for me to go I told Christy, “I’d like to take you home, but I’m walking. I’ve got to wait until payday to put gas in my car.”

  “It’s okay. My mom and dad are coming to pick me and Kim up any minute now. My dad won’t let me go out unless he drives me to and from wherever I’m going. It’s kind of embarrassing.”

  “At least he cares,” I said, thinking about how long it had been since I’d been anywhere with my dad. “Can I call you tomorrow?”

  She hesitated, then gave me her phone number, which I stuffed way down in my back pocket so I’d be sure not to lose it.

  “Walk out with me,” I said.

  We walked together to the end of Dashan’s driveway. I gave her a quick kiss. She smiled. I loved that smile.

  “’Night, Jeff,” she said. I liked how she said my name. I liked how she looked, how she smelled, the way she danced, the way she looked straight into my eyes when I talked to her, everything. I liked everything about her. Even now I can remember how I felt that night, seventeen months ago.

  My mom was still up when I got home from the party, stretched out on the couch, watching
the end of some old Spencer Tracy, Katherine Hepburn movie. Books and pa­pers were strewn all over the coffee table—physiology, chemistry. She glanced at the clock and, I guess, decided not to hassle me for being twenty minutes late.

  “Want some hot chocolate?” she said, getting up. “I’m fixing some for me.”

  “No, thanks.”

  “How was the party?”

  “Fine.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “It was just a party,” I said.

  I followed her into the kitchen and sat at the table, watching her stir powdered chocolate mix into the pan of milk that was warming on the stove. She put two cups of hot chocolate on the table.

  “I don’t want any, Mom.”

  “Come on, it will help you sleep.”

  “I don’t have trouble sleeping. You’re the one who has trouble sleeping, not me.”

  “I don’t have trouble sleeping,” she said.

  “Why aren’t you asleep now?”

  “Because I can’t sleep until you get home. You know that.”

  “Then you have trouble sleeping.”

  “No. You have trouble getting home.”

  “Mom . . .”

  “I worry. That’s all. Not about what you’ll do. I trust you. I know you’re sensible, and a good person. But it’s everyone else . . . Did you see on TV last night, not more than three miles from here a boy was gunned down right in front of his house?”

  “That’s different, Mom. I’m not in a gang. That’s stupid gang stuff.”

  “It’s not only gang kids that get shot. You know that.”

  “Don’t start, Ma. You can’t always be worrying about me. I’m okay.”

  “I know,” she sighed. “I just can’t help it.”

  We sat silently, sipping our hot chocolate, which tasted pretty good after all.

  After a while I told her, “I met a girl tonight.”

  My mom put down her cup and gave me one of those intense stares, like already she knew something I didn’t know.

  “Tell me about her.”

  “She’s only fourteen . . .”

  “To your ancient sixteen,” my mom said.

  “She’s nice, though.”

  “You must have some feeling that she’s kind of special.”

  “Nah. She’s just a girl,” I said, rinsing my cup and putting it in the dishwasher. “See you in the morning,” I said.

  That night I’d climbed into bed and thought about Christina—her silky hair, her fresh smell, how soft she felt leaning toward me when I put my arm around her. Why hadn’t I tried to kiss her for real, not just that little, quick kiss? Why hadn’t I tried to hold her close to me? I could imagine how it would feel to have my arms around her, my mouth on her soft lips, her body close, close to mine.

  I was always telling myself I wouldn’t do that stuff again, but I admit, I used my hand to make me feel good while I thought about Christina. I was quiet, and careful about the sheets, but if I hadn’t done that, I think I’d have been awake all night long.

  Even though Steve had told me a long time ago, like when I was eleven and we had our sex talk, that mastur­bation was a perfectly natural thing, I couldn’t help feeling guilty.

  Benny’s older brother warned us once that if we were always getting ourselves off we’d get too much in the habit of hurrying. He said girls don’t like guys who are too quick on the trigger. I hoped I wasn’t some kind of pervert, or ruining myself for girls, but sometimes a guy’s just got to give in. That’s what I thought, and it’s part of my honest story.

  Anyway, since that night at Dashan’s party, Christy and I have been together. And in spite of all I’ve been saying, like how I’m trying to break up with her and I wish we’d never met, for a long time I thought she was the best thing to ever come my way, and I wanted to be around her all the time.

  That first semester we didn’t have the same lunch period, so sometimes I would take my lunch into the classroom where she was an aide. The teacher always had a hard time with this one kid, Max. He’d run around the classroom, throwing stuff at the other kids. But Christy could put her hands on his shoulders and he’d immediately give her his attention. They would “talk” in sign language, and then he’d sit at his desk and get to work. I was impressed that she had such rapport with Max when the professional teacher couldn’t even reach that kid. The teacher was impressed, too.

  But even though Christy was very talented in debate, and did a great job as an aide in the Hearing Impaired program, her dad treated her like she was a troublemaker. I guess he was just protective, but sometimes he was totally unreasonable. Like the first time she was scheduled to compete in an out-of-town debate tournament, he told her she couldn’t go. The whole team was depending on her, but he accused her of lying and said there was no tourna­ment, it was just an excuse for her to be out running around.

  When Mr. Rogers finally convinced Mr. Calderon that there really was an out-of-town tournament, he said it didn’t matter, girls shouldn’t be doing that kind of thing anyway. Although he gave in at the last minute, he put Christy through hell for days before he changed his mind.

  Sometimes Christy got so angry that she would leave the house, determined not to go back. Then I’d find her waiting for me after work. I’d hold her tight while she cried out her frustration. Then I’d take her home with me and my mom would talk with us both, saying if Christy needed an emergency place to stay she could stay with us for a day or two, but we’d have to call her house to say she was okay. Then Mrs. Calderon would answer the phone, crying, begging Christy to come home.

  By that time she would have managed to get Mr. Calderon calmed down, and I’d end up taking Christy home. Then her dad would give in on whatever they had been arguing about and everything would be okay until the next big blow-up.

  “I wish things were as easy-going at my house as they are at yours,” Christy often said. And she also often said she didn’t know what she would do without me—that I was the only one who had ever really truly cared about her. I don’t know why Christy thought her mom didn’t care. It seemed to me that her mom cared a lot, but Christy didn’t think so.

  “She always takes my dad’s side, no matter how stupid he’s being.”

  “She only does that to get around him,” I’d tell her.

  “But you’re the only one I can depend on in my whole life,” she would say.

  Anyway, I felt important, and needed, and for the first year or so I liked that feeling.

  Another thing, in the beginning, Christy and I used to laugh all the time. She could mimic all of the teachers and she had a way of doing the unexpected that cracked me up. It was never mean or anything, just funny.

  Also, I liked having sex with her, too. I really, really, liked that part. Just thinking about it now gets me all horny. That’s a problem I have.

  I gather dirty towels around the gym floor and dump them into the hamper and put the weights back in their proper places in the racks, getting ready to sign out for the evening. All of this looking back on my seventeen months with Christy reminds me that even though I want to break up with her now, I’ll never forget the good times we’ve had together.

  After work I drive past her house. I really need to talk with her. No one is home.

  Chapter

  5

  Mom left a note on the refrigerator for me. “Gone shopping with May—I’ll be back by eight with pizza.” I hope she brings back pepperoni and not that cheeseless vegetarian stuff she gets sometimes when she’s on a health kick.

  I bring my books to the kitchen table and start working on my D.I. piece for the March tournament. If my personal life weren’t so screwed up right now I’d be excited about the March trip. We’re going to San Diego and we’ll be compet­ing with kids from all over the state. Whoever qualifies in San Diego will go on to the national competition in New Orleans. I barely missed nationals last year, and I really want to make it this year. It’s my last chance. I think I can do it.
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  I’m trying to decide between two possibilities. One is from a play called “Sex, Drugs, Rock & Roll” by this guy Eric Bogosian. He writes about real life stuff, which I like. I may do something from his play about a homeless man who’s always trying to be positive even though his total food intake is only one egg sandwich a day.

  The other thing I like is from a short story. I have to decide. The short story, by Ethan Canin, is about a time in a sixteen-year-old kid’s life when his mom has decided he and his dad should get to know each other better. So, at the mom’s insistence, the kid hides in the trunk of his dad’s car to see where he goes when he takes Sunday drives.

  It ends up that the dad goes to meet a woman and they have wild sex in the back seat of the car, while this kid is just on the other side of the seat, in the trunk, getting all jostled around. It’s funny and sad all at the same time. It’s hard to choose. The one about the homeless guy gets more emotional, and that’s good for a D.I.—adds interest. On the other hand, it’s fairly common for debaters to use things from Eric Bogosian. Hardly anyone has even heard of this Ethan Canin guy, in debate anyway. It’s a definite advan­tage to be using fresh material.

  There’s a part in the Canin story I hate, though. On a trip, again arranged by the mom, the dad tells the kid, “You don’t have to get to know me, because one day you’re going to grow up, and then you’re going to be me.” I’m not going to include that part. Guys don’t always turn out to be exact replicas of their dads. I know I won’t. I’ll probably do the thing about the homeless guy, anyway. Right now I don’t want to think about sex at all, even if there’s humor in it.

  When I told Mr. Rogers I was having a hard time deciding between the two pieces, he gave me the advice he always gives. Look for something that touches you, he always says. You must have passion for your script. I guess the script I have the most passion for is that father/son thing. I’m always trying to fill in the blanks in my own life that have been left by my father’s absence. I feel very strongly about that topic. Okay, so I guess I’ve made my decision. Now all I have to do is decide how to tie everything together in a script.