by Leah Thomas
I stared and stared and said nothing.
“Oliver,” said Mom. “Say something.”
“You remembered. I can’t believe you remembered the humidifier.”
I almost burst into manly tears. (Of course they would have been manly; I was thirteen now.) I’m pretty sure the deformed face I made to fight back those manly tears convinced all the people at the party who didn’t know me already that I was a nutjob, but that was okay. They didn’t have to understand. Liz did, and she put her arm around me until I could stop sniffling, laughing her light laugh. Mom looked teary, too, so I smiled and said, “Give me a tour!”
“Eat your cake first.”
After we massacred the towering skyscraper of a cake (Mom had shaped it into a fondant-coated amplifier) and the other guests started meandering, beers in hand, Liz and her friends took me around the living room to show me how all the illusions were created. There was dry ice in the humidifier, emitting clouds of white fog. There was a windup music box inside the gutted boom box. The speakers were really strange because they were made of cardboard.
“Where did you get all this fake stuff? Why would anyone ever make cardboard televisions? Not just for me, I mean.” I blinked. “This wasn’t made just for me, was it?”
“Tommy’s dad owns a furniture shop. They put out cardboard appliances and stuff so people can imagine what the furniture would look like in their own houses better.”
“That is so weird. People are so weird. Thanks, Tommy …?”
Tommy nodded at me. “Mmmph.”
“Well, I’m glad I’m not the only one feeling speechless.”
“Tact, Ollie. Where has it gone? He’s shy.”
“Oh. I’ve never met a shy person before. What’s that like for you?”
Mikayla burst into high-pitched giggles while Tommy stared at his feet.
“Omigod, Ollie. You’re just too funny!” Mikayla put her hand on my arm, which was weird. Liz gave her a look and steered me away from them, dragging me over to the bookshelf.
There were some books, presents from Auburn-Stache and Mom. (Mom knew I was getting really into medieval folklore, so she had some books on King Arthur, and Auburn-Stache has a sense of humor, so there were also copies of The Adrian Mole Diaries and some Terry Pratchett books.) But scattered among the books were some framed photographs—
My mouth fell open. “Whoa—wait, are these photos of us? Of me?”
“Yep! Happy birthday, Ollie UpandFree.”
There was one of us lying on the roof of the Ghettomobile, one of us up in the tree branches, one of us just standing in the woods: Liz crouching over something, me just watching her with this bemused expression on my face. I’d never seen a photograph of myself before; I didn’t know I was that gangly.
And Liz. No matter what, she looked pretty, even in the pictures where she was caked in mud and her hair was in disarray. It was like she was always lit up from the inside.
“But—how?”
Someone cackled behind me. Junkyard Joe cracked a grin. “You didn’t really think I was just sittin’ there on the porch takin’ pictures of birds, now, didja?”
“I did, actually! You said you were an ornithologist!”
Joe cackled again and took a swig of beer. “Hell no. I can’t tell a duck from a chicken. But I ain’t a bad photographer. I figured I was sitting far enough away, and there’s a helluva zoom on those lenses.”
I swallowed. “Thanks, Mr. Fay.”
“Ain’t no thing. It’s nice havin’ folks in the yard. You gave her a reason to come visit, you know.” He looked a bit sad for a moment. “You ain’t the only one who gets bored in the woods.”
I turned around and there was Mikayla again.
“Your hair is crazy. Why is it so curly?”
“Oh, stop it!” Again, she put her hand on my arm. It bothered me, though I couldn’t say why. “Your hair is crazy, too. I wish I had a Mohawk.”
“It wasn’t my idea,” I told her. “Where’s Liz?”
“Oliver! Come sit down!”
I left her standing there and joined Mom on the couch in front of the massive cardboard wide-screen television.
“You had better watch out,” Mom said, raising an eyebrow at Mikayla.
“What? Why?”
“How are you liking your party?”
“It’s awesome, Mom. Thank you. Was it your idea?”
She smiled. “Nope. It was all Liz. But you know, I wish I could really give you this.”
“You give me enough, Mom.” I tried to laugh. “I’m sorry I took all this away from you.”
“Tch! Up-shut.”
“I mean it, Mom. Sometimes I feel like—I mean. No humidifiers for either of us.”
“Meh. I never owned one anyhow.” She paused. “But I do have to admit something.”
“What?” Was she about to tell me something about my birth? An untold story about Dad and Auburn-Stache? About the mysterious laboratory?
“I do miss shit-coms sometimes.”
I sighed. “Yeah, sorry about that.”
“Let’s see what’s on TV, hey?”
She handed me a plastic remote devoid of batteries.
“Press the on button.”
“Won’t that shatter the illuuuuusion?” I wiggled my fingers. “When it doesn’t switch on, I mean?”
“Just do it!” came the muffled voice of Auburn-Stache, from the direction of the television. The tent canvas was trembling there.
“Um … sure, Possessed Cardboard Television Set. Why not?”
“Wait! First ask what we’re watching!” Liz’s voice.
“What are we watching?” I cried.
“A live concert,” Mom said.
I pressed the little red on button.
Someone popped the front of the box out, and who should be sitting there but Auburn-Stache, holding a harmonica. Squeezed in beside him and leaning on the frame of the screen was Liz with a toy microphone.
“Welcome to the inaugural Oliver Ages Hoopla!” said Liz. “I’m your announcer, Awesome Person. Please welcome the talented Lady Paulot to the stage.”
Mom stood up and left the tent, bowing at the whooping, slightly buzzed crowd of the Fay and Becker families. Moments later, I saw her edging into the screen from behind, holding an acoustic guitar.
I laughed. “You play the guitar?”
“I birthed you! I can do anything!”
I knew there was a guitar in the house, tucked away under Mom’s bed. I’d never seen her play it.
“Pay good attention, kiddo,” said Auburn-Stache. “We went to all this expense and you’re zoning out.”
“Auburn-Stache, you’re a harmonicist?”
“Nope. Never. But you don’t know any better, yes?”
Liz snorted. “It’s your first live show, UpandFree, so deal with it.”
She counted them off. They began to play.
I dealt with it, more or less, although my eyes kept welling up for some stupid reason, and my nose got runny. I couldn’t tell you what they played, there in my makeshift living room. They played folk songs, rock songs—songs I’d never hear otherwise, songs that weren’t ideal for glocking to. Liz wasn’t much of a singer—she may have been a bit tone-deaf, even. But that didn’t matter. The crowd of partygoers gathered around, holding bowls of popcorn and singing along as if they’d heard the songs their whole lives. They probably had. And today, I could pretend that I had, too.
Eventually Liz stopped screeching long enough to say, “We now interrupt our programming to bring you a message from our sponsors!”
At which point Mikayla pushed her way on-screen and advertised red pop by chugging an entire can of it.
Liz shoved Mikayla away again and leaned out of the TV, extending a hand toward me.
I reached out to take it, but instead she passed me something.
Not a paper airplane, Moritz.
It was that book light again, and I didn’t feel a thing but the warmth of her palm even though it was glow
ing white. I slipped it into my pocket. The buzz of it there no longer made me queasy; if anything, it seemed to charge me up, wake me up, fill my bones with the same glow Liz had.
As night fell, Junkyard Joe demanded we all “pop a squat” on some of the busted old cars and wait for some sort of “grand finale.” Liz was off helping him get something ready, so I leaned against an old Dodge truck beside Auburn-Stache. You would have loved this night, Moritz—everyone was being so noisy, so rambunctious.
“What do you think of your ‘dream life,’ Oliver?” For some reason, he spoke carefully.
“I think it’s the coolest thing anyone’s ever done for me.”
“You do seem to be enjoying yourself. I am happy to see you looking so well.”
“Hey, I always pass my health checks.”
“There are different kinds of wellness, kiddo.”
I noticed that his goatee was streaked with strands of white, and some of the crinkles around his eyes weren’t from smiling. “How about you?”
“What about me?”
“Well, how’s your wellness?”
“Why bother about me when that young lady is waiting for you to join her?”
“Good point, ’Stache. And you can join Mom.” I nodded to where she was standing on the other side of a bonfire. “She really cares about you, you know. Even if she hollers. Don’t just loiter on your lonesome.”
“You’re your father’s son.”
“I am?”
Was my needling finally paying off? But right then, Liz ran forward and grabbed my hand.
“Come on, come on.” I thought she’d drag me to the Ghettomobile, but she dragged me instead to the empty, pseudo living room and we sat on the couch. A rip in the canvas overhead gave us a view of the sky. We began counting down. Before long, the fireworks started. I had never seen those before, either. Junkyard Joe got them illegally somewhere; when I asked him about it later, he just tapped his nose all mischievously.
Hey, what do you see when you look at fireworks, Moritz? I bet you can see them a little bit, since they’re so loud. Or do you see the smoke? The ash? The gray debris?
As amazing as they were, I stopped looking pretty fast. I couldn’t get over sitting in that homemade living room.
“What’s up, Ollie?”
“This is just too … Look, I never thought I could have all these things, even for pretend. I didn’t bother dreaming of it, you know?”
In the sky overhead, the fireworks crackled and burst. Liz’s face was lit in purple and pink flashes. Like she was sunbathing in electricity, but there was no pressure at my temples. Only her, looking at me.
“You’re being too honest again.”
“No, because I’m lying. I did bother dreaming about it. I do dream about it. All the freakin’ time.”
Liz was never as quiet as she was in that mock living room. Then:
“I dream about that, too, Ollie. All the freakin’ time.” She laid her head on my shoulder.
So I guess that was the moment, the final moment, that sealed it for me.
It’s really cold in my room still, and my fingers are numb. I’m not ready to write about the terrible things that happened yet. Next time, I guess. I can’t stall forever. It’s been eating me up. Maybe that’s why I’m losing weight and it has nothing to do with not having tuna sandwiches.
I look forward to your letter, Mo. I want to postpone my next few.
~ Ollie
P.S. I still can’t shake that weird notion. I mean, maybe my dad didn’t die. And your mom didn’t, either. Maybe our parents are actually—well, our parents. And maybe that’s why I get you, and you get me. Wouldn’t that be wondrous?
Bro?
Chapter Sixteen
The Outfit
How can I express my growing concern?
You wanted to share your story with me. But if doing so will be detrimental to your health, stop it now, Ollie.
Do you remember when you first began writing me? You used to babble. You used to be curious. Used to wonder. Ask me any number of frivolous questions about television and the Internet. My thoughts on cartoons. You asked about my personal life. Nudged and pestered and needled. I thought that if ever I met you, I’d want to smack you in the face with an electronic device. Perhaps a video game console. To hush you and your illumination.
That was you. That was the same Ollie who was impossible to ignore. Who took me, for once, out of myself. The first one to make me smile in … I shiver to think how long. I shudder to recall the afternoons before I could await your letters. The afternoons spent in this dank apartment we struggle to pay for. Above this city of people who could not care less whether or not I listened to them before you began writing to me.
Before you.
I can no longer ignore that you haven’t seen the sun. You? The boy who used to climb trees and run away from home? You can’t get out of bed?
And now you write your story as if into emptiness?
I am here. I am not a void, Ollie. I am reading. I can’t take you from dark places, but I am listening.
If writing your biography is sinking you, stop writing. I would rather you told me about the humidity’s effects on your glockenspiel. Or the birds outside your window. The fibers in your T-shirt. The wrinkles in your face. Rather that than write a history that racks you with pain and guilt.
You speak of the best day of your life as if you don’t anticipate ever having another good one. Your fondest memory is of being shoved into a cheap imitation of things you can never have? Why weren’t you insulted by Liz’s display? That party was a mockery. The “living room” you could never live in? Why would anyone want to show you what others find necessary to life? Why would anyone want to change you? To “correct” you like that?
Why not celebrate what you do love? What you have accomplished? Your glockenspieling. Your calligraphy. Your burgeoning origami skills. Your storytelling!
Why not celebrate that you are a wonderful, funny, irritating, talented young man anyone would be gratified to know? Someone I would die to meet?
I am not kicking you while you are down, Ollie. I am telling you to celebrate what is real in your life. Celebrate who you are. Not who Liz wishes you to be. Claw your way out of this nostalgic hole you are digging.
Get out of bed.
For the last time, abandon the idea that we might be blood relatives. Nonsense. I spent a lot of time with my mother, even if I never understood her. My birth father was nobody. Nothing more than the person who impregnated my mother. He made a bastard and vanished. There is no sense in romanticizing it. Herr Farber is my father now. There is no sense in seeking the past.
The past is never any better than the present, and it is not what you have to look forward to.
We don’t have to be related in order to be close. Sometimes you are not as amusing as you think you are. Sometimes I think you are a child, Oliver.
Perhaps I should be kinder to you in your sadness. But nothing makes me so angry as the idea that you are letting yourself wither away. For the sake of a girl who does not appreciate you.
I will imagine that you asked about me in your last letter. Wrote a passage such as this:
I hope you enjoy your totally wacky trip to the Diskothek with Fieke! I think you made her swoon with your amazing rapping skillz. It sounds like she might maybe somehow be the right kind of girl to whip your goofy, pompous head into the proper shape! You realize this trip is probably a date, don’tcha?!
How kind of you to ask.
I don’t know how to dress for a Diskothek in general, let alone how to dress when meeting a boy under strange circumstances at a Diskothek. Under the watchful eye of his imposing sister. And her equally imposing boots.
“Who gives a crap how you dress,” Fieke said. “You’re still pretending to be blind, right? Wear a fluffing tutu. It’s not like you usually dress well anyhow.”
“Beg pardon.”
“Well, you’re color-blind. It shows. Puce pants
and a mustard-yellow shirt? Please, Moritz. Have you ever considered that people don’t avoid you just because of your goggles?”
It was the weekend. We were at the Kneipe again. I am half convinced Fieke lives there. The only time she doesn’t look irritated is when she is listening to the local performers reading their poetry. Singing their songs. Performing their irksome scatting. That’s the only time she doesn’t jingle and spit. She is quiet then, apart from the slight wheeze in her chest.
She accompanies me home some evenings, however, so she must not live there. We both live in Ostzig. The watchful eye she’s been keeping on me is peculiar. She must not entirely hate my company. I would say we were friends. She would snort derisively and stomp away from me if I said anything of the sort.
“Well, won’t you help me pick something out? Something that isn’t a tutu?”
“Fff. No. I didn’t even dress my Barbies as a kid.”
“Your Barbies were nude?”
“I tattooed them with permanent markers. They weren’t nude. They were art.”
That was unhelpful. I resigned myself to asking Frau Pruwitt for her advice. Pruwitt seemed intent on actually giving me work to do in the library, now that I could read all the book titles.
“What can you tell me about the customs of Diskothek attire?” I hazarded.
“I can tell you that it’s irrelevant to alphabetizing self-help guides, Moritz.”
“Ah.”
She sniffed down at me from up on the footstool. “Did someone ask you to go?”
“Not precisely. But …”
“Well, don’t let your newfound love life interfere with your studies.”
She climbed down. Shoved the step over one meter.
“Why should my studies matter here? It’s Bernholdt-Regen.”
“They matter if you ever want to get out of here.”
I had no intention of asking Frau Melmann.
I recalled your tale of dressing for Liz. There are no fedoras in my house. Father owns only two ties; usually he wears his workman’s clothes, suitable for welding. Although I have heard that some Diskotheken favor industrial music, I doubt I could pull off a full-body jumpsuit. Even if it was color-coordinated.
I decided to match Fieke. Yesterday I purchased an outfit from the secondhand shop. The salesclerk assured me it was entirely black. Black pants. Black shirt. Black boots for the rain.
