Burger Wuss

by M. T. Anderson

  I shouldn’t have worried, because they were just these kids who had been going around town correcting all the grammatical errors on signs, which Diana thought was hilarious. When we stopped them, they were working on:

  Diana talked to them. She was so enthusiastic about their work on the posters for Berringer’s Contact Lense Bananza that they let us travel around with them that night, let us take them from place to place in my parents’ car, the four of them in the back seat (they were skinny) and the two of us up front, which was an adventure, and was amazing, except that one of them licked the velour armrest just to be freaky. We drove around and told jokes and laughed. The moon was out. When we stopped, we could hear rodents in the grass and bushes. We were doing what they called a major strike, which meant going around the town border to every sign that said “Billingston: A Great Place to Live In,” and fixing what they called its dangling preposition. We’d pull over, get out. There’d be the rattle of the ball in the spray can, then the cool hiss, the look of cross-eyed attention on their scrawny faces, and then the can lids being popped back on. Presto:

  I thought at first that Diana knew them, but it turned out she didn’t, she had just heard about them, and we had both seen them around at school but hadn’t noticed them, because they were just four more skinny kids in plaid shirts, but Diana was so amazing that it was like she had always known them. She laughed at all their jokes and when I was driving them around I would turn my head quickly to catch a glimpse of her, and she would be looking at me in this way, like she was admiring me for driving them. I was shy with all of them around. I was quiet. But her eyes were friendly when she looked at me.

  They asked me to drive over to the town forest. I did whatever they said. It was on the other side of town. Our windows were open, and we could smell the wet hay. It was so sweet it was stuffy.

  At the entrance to the town forest, there was a parking area for the ski and hiking trails. They told me to park there. I did.

  We walked into the woods. We could see everything that night, because of the moon. One of them had seen some bad grammar in the woods a few days before. We had to walk about a mile to get to the grammar. Diana and I were walking in the middle of them. They were all around us, reciting the dialogue from a Japanese cartoon. They knew it all by heart. I guess it had been dubbed, because when they recited it, they moved their mouths even when they weren’t talking. I asked how far we were going. One of them said, “We’re almost there.” We kept on walking.

  In the woods was a giant concrete wall. I don’t know what it protected. Something governmental, I guess. One of the four said, “There it is.” It was in blue spray paint. It said:

  They all started laughing. They slapped each other on the shoulder blades. They slapped us. I thought they were going to choke. “An apostrophe! An apostrophe! Oh, that’s rich! . . . Like it . . . ha ha ha ha ha! . . . like it . . . ha ha ha ha! . . . takes the genitive!” Two of them fell on the ground.

  Diana and I had to stand against the wall, side by side, while two of them climbed up on us to reach the apostrophe. They sprayed it out. I could feel Diana’s shoulder against mine. She wiggled it. Her arms were bare. I couldn’t tell if she was trying to get closer to me or trying to get farther away so we wouldn’t touch. I thought about saying something to her, about how close we were. I guess it wasn’t a very good moment, though. There was a rotting sneaker (size ten) on either side of my head. That’s not a romantic thing for people.

  Walking back through the forest, Diana and I fell behind. They were ahead, reciting comedy sketches in some kind of Viking accent. We could see their long, thin bodies hopping all over the path.

  I said, “I’m glad we did this. For me, this is adventure.”

  She said, “It is for me, too. I never do this kind of thing.”

  “That’s — I mean, I’m surprised. I thought you did this kind of thing all the time.”

  She said, “I don’t go out much.”

  “What about with all those kids you hang out with? Jeff and Sue and Mark and stuff?”

  “No. They get boring fast. Really fast. All they care about are their cars and their beach parties. I’m like, is this all there is to life? Some day I want to be out there, really living.”

  Diana and I were walking side by side. The pine woods were darker than the rest of the forest. It didn’t make any sense not to touch her. I thought she probably wanted me to make a move. I thought she was waiting.

  I am not sure what it is that finally allows people to just turn to each other and touch. There is some hidden trigger. There is a secret language people learn, so they can signal to stop talking and just move. I don’t know it.

  So instead I kept talking. I said, “I always thought you were someone things happened to.”

  “What sorts of things?”

  “You know. I thought you led a life of risk and adventure.”

  She shrugged. “Here’s what I know: People will think that, if you have a certain kind of hair.”

  My brain was racing. I was thinking of her in a new way. I was trying to picture her as being this person who longed for some adventure, just like me, and now I really wanted to kiss her, especially because it seemed like she might be lagging behind with me on purpose. The idea that she might be thinking about me and how she wanted to kiss my face, my face behind which was a brain wanting to kiss hers — I am telling you, that idea was like this new force of gravity pulling me silently toward her like in an asteroid disaster film where there’s an asteroid flying around at a billion miles an hour and of all the places it could go in outer space like

  — the Rings of Jupiter

  — Alpha Centauri

  — the Horse Head Nebula

  it is instead headed right for the corner of Broadway and Fourth.

  “It’s a beautiful night,” she said.

  “Yes,” I replied. “The interstate sounds like a mountain stream.”

  Now I was in a panic. I knew there was a good chance that we both wanted to kiss, but I didn’t know how to say it. I couldn’t just say some sleazy line like, “Do you want to make out now?” because I didn’t want to be one of those baconheads who force themselves on girls. On the other hand, I thought, at least those baconheads get what they want — but no, I thought, I am too much Mr. Nice Guy, and plus who wants to kiss someone and have her say something like “Plluugh!” and wipe her mouth with the back of her hand? I didn’t want to be like one of those guys you see in the city who yells after strange women, “Hey baby! I’ll be thinking about you to-NIGHT!” and you think, You know, buddy, there’s a reason you’ll only be thinking. So I guess what I’m saying is that I was really liking her, and I didn’t want to disgust her, but I couldn’t just do nothing, because doing nothing either was pathetic and I was Pathetic Boy, or it was kind of gross and I was like a lurker, you know, wearing a trench coat and stealing women’s addresses, building shrines of hair clippings, and following them in an unmarked forklift. . . .

  So I decided to play it safe and say that we were falling behind and we should catch up. Then we’d move up and be with the rest of them. She would never have to know what I was thinking in the secrecy of my brain.

  “We’re falling behind,” I said. “We should catch up.”

  She stopped. We were standing in a rut. She said, “Don’t you want to be the kind of person things happen to?”

  I can’t remember how we started kissing then. I can’t remember who moved first. I can’t remember a thing.

  I just remember hearing the footsteps ahead of us stop. Hearing them turn. Hearing them yell, “THE KIND OF PERSON TO WHOM THINGS — whoops. Hot damn.”

  That was a few months ago, just before school got out. For the next two months, we had a great time together. We went through automatic car washes relentlessly and were sarcastic for hours at Toys “R” Us. We hung out after school and I went over to her house and she came over to my house and we watched movies about alien intestinal viruses and commandoes on
golf carts.

  One day I took her canoeing — can you believe it? canoeing? — I took her canoeing like Mr. Wholesome and we went down the river and behind the orchard, and crept up the bank inside the fence and stole apples, lots of them, filling the fronts of our shirts with them, and when our shirts were filled, I could see her belly and her bellybutton underneath all the apples, and even the soft line of her lowest rib, and we carried our apples back to my parents’ canoe and dumped them in, and then I was going to kiss her, until the man in the plaid shirt started to throw rocks, and pushing off became a really really good idea.

  For once I was doing things with people other than Rick, and my parents stopped hovering over me and asking me, “Do you have any friends? Do you have any friends?” because she was not just my girlfriend, she was my friend, and she came over and actually talked to my parents sometimes, and made them laugh too, and then, when she left, my parents would say, “She’s such a great girl!” which is like completely embarrassing but is better than them saying, “Why don’t you go out and try to meet some young women at the Bowl-O-Drome?”

  Well, all I’m trying to say is that it was great being with her, and everything seemed perfect to me. Everything was like an adventure.

  She said that the next summer we should hike part of the Appalachian Trail together. I suggested we bike it on Big Wheels. This was something we looked into. It excited both of us.

  She was smart. She was sure of herself. She knew when it was getting boring to be cheerful. She had a sense of humor that was quick and harsh and which always surprised me, for example now I remember her saying that she was sick of the O’Dermott’s Happy Lunch, man, and wasn’t it about time to deal with reality and do the Desolate Lunch instead, with games on the box like “Can you help Kermit get to safety?” and the answer is “No,” and “Can you find these words in the puzzle?” and the answer is “No,” and “Can you connect the dots?” and the answer is “No,” and “Can you tell three things wrong with this picture?” and the answer is “No,” and inside for a prize there is broken things or dust.

  I guess I could not tell what was wrong with the picture. Diana didn’t say anything, so I couldn’t know, and maybe she didn’t know either, and so I went to the party with the others, and was standing there, and we danced for a while, with me doing one of my extra-funny Laughing Contortionist dances, but that night no one really thought it was funny. People were serious that night about getting drunk and the music was serious. The beat was strong and the rugs were rolled back. She kept on talking to people I didn’t know. She didn’t introduce me. Finally, I couldn’t find her.

  I was drunk, which, being that I don’t have much body weight, means I’d swigged two beers and was already more looney-tunes than Porky, and the point is I was not having fun and I wanted to see her. I went around from room to room. Rick and Jenn walked around with me. They said things to each other like, “Hey, Jenny Jujube,” and “Hey, Tricky Ricky,” and “Hey, Jenny Gin Mill,” and “Maybe Diana’s like gone milk carton. Remember? Milk carton? Missing?” We looked for Diana high and low.

  I did not know Turner at that point, so I did not recognize him when I found him on top of her on a sofa. They had some of their clothes on. A few. She had his green sateen O’Dermott’s jacket around her shoulders. She was laughing at something. She was very drunk.

  Rick said, “She’s in here. Horizontal.”

  “Shouldn’t they be standing up to talk?” Jenn said.

  Rick said, “He just bit her lip.”

  Rick and Jenn turned away. They patted me on the shoulder as they walked back past me and left me there.

  I felt like I was standing on the last tip of something big that was sinking — didn’t know what to do. Stood by the door. She hadn’t seen me. Go up? Jab him? Yell and punch? Yell and wait for him to get up? Take it outside? Right here? Let her go? Say something short, something quick, something hard that would hurt, say it and turn and leave, sneer in the halls? There were no swearwords dark enough, nothing cutting enough — because I wanted words then to cut, and thinking this now, and remembering his green sateen jacket draped around her shaking shoulders, I want that again, want my thoughts to be a blade, my brains to detonate, to punch, to scream, to find some way to hurt.

  So I ran away. I turned around and started to run out of the house. She saw, called after me, “Wait — omigod! — Anthony! Wait! I’m sorry!” I stopped and waited. I went back a few steps. I was in the shadows. Turner was sitting up now. He was very tall and wide. He had lifted up one hand, with two fingers raised limply to caution her. He was saying, “Shh! Shh!” He waited. He said, “I think he’s gone.”

  She covered her eyes with her hand. She said, “Oh God. I’ll have to talk to him tomorrow. Oh man. What a mess.”

  Turner said, “Don’t sweat it. He’s a little wuss.”

  She said, “Yeah, but he’s really nice. You’re sitting on my leg.”

  Turner said, “Bendy-boy’s a little wuss. He ran away.”

  She said, “You’re sitting on my leg. He’s really nice.”

  I was glad I was really nice. It was really nice to be really nice. I walked outside. Jenn and Rick were tagging after me. They were saying how sorry they were. They said that, man, they couldn’t believe her. They said she obviously didn’t understand about love.

  I heard Rick whisper, “That wasn’t her green sateen jacket, was it?”

  Jenn whispered back, “Would you call that green or loden?”

  They both started to giggle but then Rick said, “Shh, he’s really messed up.” They said that wow, like what was I going to do? They said they didn’t know what they’d do if they were me. They said bye. I walked home. On the way I punched an oak. An oak. I didn’t punch him, I punched an oak. It really hurt my knuckles.

  I couldn’t go to bed. I wouldn’t be able to go to sleep. I paced in my room. The next morning, I called Rick, who ever since he and Jenn realized one night that they were more than just friends had been the guru of love. I found out about Turner. He just graduated from high school in the next town over. He’s going away to college. He works with her at O’Dermott’s. He goes out with a lot of girls. They say his appeal is that he’s handsome and dangerous. He always seems to know what he’s doing. Guys respect him. He’s six-two. He goes by his last name.

  She called me later that morning. My mother was glad to hear her on the phone. I could hear my mother say, “Oh hi, Diana! It’s great to hear from you! How are you these days? I bought some more cheese popcorn for the next time you come over.” I was in the bathroom, looking at myself in the mirror and wondering why I was so damn ugly. I thought about avoiding her, but I went and took it. My parents were standing by, listening and smiling like: “Ah, young love!”

  I said, “Hi.” Flatly.

  She said, “Hi. Anthony, I feel really bad.” Sheepishly.

  I said, “I feel pretty bad too.” I wanted that to be coldly, but it sounded just like I was sorry for something I’d done. I hadn’t done anything.

  “Anthony, just, we were drinking, and like there was this chemistry. I couldn’t . . .”

  “Chemistry,” I said. “Just this chemistry.”

  “I couldn’t help it.”

  I said, “I was working in the lab, late one night.”

  She said, “Anthony.”

  I said, “When my eyes beheld a fearful sight.”

  “Anthony, please don’t do this. God, I can’t believe you’re doing this.”

  My parents were laughing. They had big grins like: “Our son the riot!”

  My father started singing. “Oh the monster from his slab began to rise, and suddenly, before my eyes . . .”

  “Diana —” I said. I felt sick. I turned away from my parents into the corner of the room. Their shadows were cast across me. They were dancing. They did the monster mash.

  She was saying, “Look, Anthony, it’s better this way. It wasn’t really working out anyway. I mean, I really like you and a
ll, but I think it’s better —”

  My parents sang, “The Monster Mash!” — “It was a graveyard smash!” — “The Monster Mash!” — “It caught on in a flash. . . .”

  She was saying, “Is that your parents singing?”

  “Diana — please, Diana —” I said. I thought of her bellybutton in the sunlight, of her lying with the green sateen jacket around her shoulders, of her lying with Turner on top of her; I was almost crying.

  “I really think it’s better we just be friends.”

  “Vutever happened to my Transylvania tvist?”

  “Why not working out?” I said. “Diana, I really like you.”

  “No, don’t think I didn’t have a good time. Because I had a really good time. All the time.”

  My parents were watching me. They were quieting down. They weren’t dancing anymore. I tried to be cool on the phone. I controlled my voice. I said, “Why don’t we go out for lunch?”

  My father said, “You can take the car. I don’t need it!”

  She said, “I don’t think we should. Can we just put this whole thing behind us? Not hurt anyone’s feelings?”

  I couldn’t answer with my parents watching. They were listening to every word. So instead I said cheerily, “I’ll just drop it off at your work. Is that okay?”

  She said, “What? Anthony, what are you talking about?”

  I said, “No, thanks, I’m done with it. Turned out I didn’t need it. I’ll just drop it off at your work.”

  “What are you —?”

  I laughed what was supposed to be a cheerful laugh, but it was a cackle. “Oh, ho ho ho! In Magic Marker, too? All over the shackles?”

  “Would you be serious? I’m trying to be serious.”