Me Being Me Is Exactly as Insane as You Being You

by Todd Hasak-Lowy

  3. ZOEY LOVELL

  They actually went to elementary school together and were even in the same first/second grade split class. In fact, Darren’s pretty sure he was at her seventh birthday party. But then Zoey went off to private school for like eight years or something, so when she showed up at North High last year it took him a couple of weeks to even recognize her, because she was just a little girl back then but definitely isn’t now, even though she’s still pretty small.

  He hasn’t had a single class with her yet (she’s in eleventh grade, which doesn’t help), but they’ve sort of randomly wound up eating near each other in the cafeteria, and every once in a while he times his trip to the garbage can to coincide with hers. They’ve had maybe four conversations, or exchanges, just really brief things, like, he’ll make a comment about the unopened yogurt drink she’s throwing out. And she’ll always say something that doesn’t really mean anything, something like “whatever” or—well, she usually just says “whatever.” But one time, before saying “whatever,” she sort of looked at Darren, right at him, for a moment or two, her pale face either curious or confused, and it was then that he realized she may be the saddest person at North High, sadder than him, even. And so he would hug her if she ever asked.

  13 Adjectives Darren Wouldn’t Be Surprised to Hear His Peers Using to Describe Him

  1. Chubby

  2. Nice

  3. Awkward

  4. Smart, kinda

  5. Vegetarian

  6. Weird

  7. Quiet

  8. Slow

  9. Lame

  10. Curly haired

  11. Cute, sorta

  12. Unimportant

  13. Whatever

  1 Girlfriend Darren Has Had Since Fourth Grade

  1. MELANIE RUBIN

  At the end of middle school there was a big end-of-the-year trip to Six Flags for all the eighth graders. About a week before the trip, Jesse Desmond somehow decided that it would be cool for there to be couples, because then the couples could each ride all the two-person rides alone together. Like the Condor and the Orbit. The next thing Darren knew, there were like eleven new couples at school, not that the couples were really doing anything couply at all.

  And it wasn’t like Darren was super against being in one of these new couples, but that doesn’t mean he was going to do anything to become part of one either. Only on the bus ride to Six Flags, right near the end actually, Ashley Reeves, who got paired up with Mason Nichols the day before, walked down the aisle of the bus and whispered to Darren, “Hey, Melanie would go out with you if you want.” Darren said, “Okay,” as in, “Uh, I don’t really know how to respond to that information.” But when he got off the bus, and Melanie was waiting for him and smiling a little, he realized that Ashley thought he said a different kind of “okay.”

  Anyhow, he and Melanie didn’t even hang out that much. Because it’s not like Darren is a daredevil, exactly, but Melanie pretty much wouldn’t ride anything scarier than the Little Dipper, which is this tiny little roller coaster that the other kids rode only as a joke. They did share some cotton candy, though, just him and Melanie. After which Darren held her hand for a few minutes while they walked to Buzzy Bees. Their hands were sticky and sweaty, but Darren didn’t mind, and he’s pretty sure Melanie didn’t either. It was almost okay.

  All the couples pretty much just dissolved before the first week of summer was over, which was just as well with Darren, because Bugs didn’t have a girlfriend that day and was kind of mad at Darren for going off with Melanie like that. She moved to Deerfield that summer, so he hasn’t seen her since. Not even once. Now that he thinks about it, Darren’s not all that sure Melanie Rubin really counts.

  2 Places on a Body-Weight-Distribution Graph (for Someone His Height) Darren Could Be Plotted, with 1 Percent Being Extremely Skinny and 100 Percent Being Extremely the Opposite

  1. 76 percent: where Darren would plot himself.

  2. 64 percent: where his doctor would plot him.

  9 Actions, in Addition to Timing His Lunchtime Trips to the Garbage with Zoey Lovell’s, Darren Has Taken in the Past Year That Might Be Construed as Him Trying to Do Something about That Whole “One Girlfriend in the Past Seven Years” Situation

  1. Demanded that his parents take him to a place where haircuts cost more than eleven dollars, even though his fro still remains pretty out of hand most days.

  2. Started paying attention to which shirts he puts on when, so that he doesn’t wind up wearing the same one twice in the same week.

  3. Asked Emily Prince for her phone number about three months ago, which was officially because they were paired up for a science project on titration, but was also secretly because he was going to find reasons to text her jokes, or whatever kind of texts might be understood as flirting without obviously being flirting. But he couldn’t get up the nerve in the first few days, and now it would just be weird if he texted her out of nowhere.

  4. No more cheese fries. Unless Nate’s in town. Or someone else suggests it. Or he had a small breakfast and/or small lunch. Or they’re at Edzo’s. Or he hasn’t had them in a while.

  5. Smiled right at Jessica Brady three days in a row while walking into history class. She smiled back the first two days, but then just looked super confused the third time he did it.

  6. Talked to Maggie Block the way Maggie talks to most everyone else. Meaning lots of kind of unpredictable swearing. But she just laughed at him, in a nice way, and told him not to be such a “ridiculous shit-ass.”

  7. Decided to sit closer to this almost cute group of ninth-grade girls during lunch, even though he doesn’t know a single one of them by name.

  8. For about three weeks in March, splashed on a little of the cologne he got for Hanukkah, until Nate noticed when he was back home during his spring break. Nate said, “Dude, you smell like a giant French douche bag.” Nate went on to clarify that he has nothing against giant French douche bags, “per se,” but that Darren pretty undeniably isn’t one and so trying to smell like one might not be the best plan of action for him. Darren then thanked his older brother, which maybe wasn’t necessary.

  9. Stopped trying to do anything to get a girlfriend, because he saw some unquestionably cool guy in some unquestionably average movie say to his unquestionably uncool friend something like, “Hey, man, it ain’t gonna happen if all you do twenty-four-seven is try to nab yourself a honey. You just got to let it happen, bro, and it’ll happen.” But then Darren realized he couldn’t not do anything, because how the hell could that possibly lead to him nabbing a honey, or even just having a girlfriend, so instead he started focusing on being nice to girls in a totally unselfish way, which meant really listening to them if they were talking to him or telling him a story. He also started thinking, pretty much out loud in his head, when they were talking to him or telling him a story, It’s totally, totally okay if she’s not my girlfriend. But this had the weird effect of causing a number of girls (Grace Zonder, Mia Deutsch, and Beth Maschino especially) to talk to him a lot, as in way more than he could deal with, but in the way a girl talks to a guy she has exactly zero interest in ever going out with.

  4 Candidates to Replace Bugs as Darren’s Best Friend, and Why They Haven’t Panned Out

  1. Sam Goldstein. Talks too much. As in, literally never shuts up.

  2. Ray Campo. Just wants to blow stuff up. Or light stuff on fire. Or drop stuff out his bedroom window. Or put stuff in a blender (which was pretty cool actually, but only the first two times).

  3. Jesse Aronoff. Impossible to get him away from his computer. Which would be bad enough all by itself, but got way worse a few weeks ago when Jesse said, “Oh man, you’ve got to see this,” and then just started showing Darren one porn site after another. And it’s not like Darren hadn’t seen that stuff before, but, actually, he hadn’t seen a lot of the stuff Jesse was showing him, stuff that just seemed kind of out of hand more than anything, to the point that it all made Darren sort of wish no
one ever invented the Internet in the first place (especially the one with some guy in a gorilla suit—at least, he hopes it was a gorilla suit).

  4. Nicky Smith. Super nice. And super duper dumb.

  5 Specific Times since 11:00 a.m. That Darren Misses Nate, the Last One of Which Is Happening Right Now

  1. 11:09 a.m.—After taking an extremely quick shower near the end of gym class (Coach Rakowski made them run and Darren could tell that he was pretty stinky by the end), Darren passed Roy Brooks on the way back to his locker. Darren could feel that Roy was looking at his boobs. Darren’s pretty sure they’re smaller than they used to be, but he still thinks of them as boobs. Either way, Roy didn’t say anything like he would have a year or two earlier, because for some reason Roy is less of a dick lately, a fact that somehow made Darren feel even worse, which made no sense to him at all. He wouldn’t have told any of this to anyone, not even Nate. But who knows, if Nate had been there—which Darren knows was never really a possibility to begin with—maybe Roy wouldn’t have looked at him like that in the first place.

  2. 11:16 a.m.—In between third and fourth period, Darren let himself fart pretty loud in one of the stairwells at school, because Nate told him that’s the best time and place to fart, since because with all of the noise and people, you can get away with a pretty loud or even diabolically smelly fart there.

  3. 11:17 a.m.—Nate also told him that a really loud fart will echo like crazy in the stairwell if no one else is there, and Darren really wishes he could get up the nerve to fart like that but knows he would only really enjoy it if Nate were there with him, which is pretty unlikely at this point, now that Nate is at U of M.

  4. 11:46 a.m.—Darren thought again about going to visit Nate at school tomorrow, which at first made him happy, but then he realized that he’s only going to see him for about forty-eight hours before having to say good-bye to him again, which he’ll have to do like it’s no big deal.

  5. 12:48 p.m.—Darren goes to throw out his lunch at the same time Zoey Lovell goes to throw out hers. Or a split second after she goes, since that’s why he goes when he does. Darren stands up from his lonely, marginal seat in the cafeteria right after Zoey gets up from her similarly marginal spot. They reach the garbage can about a half second apart.

  He lets her throw out her stuff first, and right as she’s dropping a Ziploc bag and a wrapper for what was probably a granola bar into the garbage can, Darren notices a ring on her left pinkie he’s never seen before. It’s silver and made up of about six or seven separate rings, all of them kind of crooked and somehow held together. Without thinking much about it, Darren suddenly says, almost to himself more than to Zoey (but definitely out loud either way), “Cool ring.”

  Zoey sort of freezes and gives him this look that might be her daring him to try and make her happy. But maybe she’s actually asking him to and not daring him at all. Or begging, even.

  For a moment this garbage can isn’t such a bad place to be. Darren almost feels like it wouldn’t be totally impossible for it to transform, in some kind of magical, special-effects way, into a fountain. And then, all around, the whole cafeteria would follow, turning into something not entirely unlike that place the kids get to pretty early on when they’re visiting Willy Wonka’s factory (in the first movie). Where all the candy and stuff is just growing out of the ground. Not that the candy would be necessary right now. Just the rolling paths and the green-park feel of the whole place.

  “It’s really cool,” Darren somehow manages to say to Zoey, who doesn’t thank him for saying this. She doesn’t even directly acknowledge that he said it at all. But something happens with her eyes, the irises of which are almost perfectly black. The thing that happens lasts maybe two seconds, and as soon as it’s over Darren knows he’ll never be able to explain it to anyone, even though he might try later with Nate.

  What happens is that her eyes do something that somehow tells him, or makes him feel, even, that there’s an entire person connected to these eyes. Which isn’t exactly a surprise, because obviously Zoey is an entire person, but so maybe what happens is that her eyes remind him of this. Or ask him to really think about what this means. That she’s an entire person. Her eyes tell him, by opening a little more than normal and almost reaching out to his, something like, I know I barely talk and pretty much act like I’m not even here, but I’m totally here and have a million things to say, and me being me is exactly as insane as you being you.

  Or something like that.

  Zoey touches the ring with the fingers of her right hand, turning it back and forth. Then she walks straight out of the cafeteria. Darren’s eyes follow her, not so much because he’s trying to check out her butt or anything, but because he’s trying hard not to lose his conviction that whatever just happened actually happened. And also, even though the garbage can is still just a garbage can, he sort of wonders if it might be possible for a small, uneven line of wildflowers to sprout out of the ugly linoleum floor along the path of her exit.

  7 Variations on the Request Please Call Me That Darren Texts to Nate between the Beginning of Second Period and the End of Fifth Period

  1. Call me

  2. Cmon dude call

  3. Why wont you call

  4. Call dick

  5. Please just call please

  6. Im serious you gotta call

  7. Im gonna kick you in the nuts tomorrow if you dont call I mean it

  4 Months That Have Passed Since Darren Decided He Was No Longer Going to Contact Bugs Every Time He Wanted To, Which Might Explain Why Even Though Darren Really, Really, Really Wishes He Could Talk to Bugs Right Now, He’s Not All That Sure He’d Tell Him If He Got Him on the Phone

  1. January

  2. February

  3. March

  4. April (most of it, anyway)

  23 Text Messages Exchanged by the Jacobs Brothers After Nate Finally Responds

  1. Nate: Cant call at Stats review

  2. Darren: Fuck

  3. Nate: Whats up?

  4. Darren: Dad

  5. Nate: What about Dad

  6. Darren: Did he say anything 2 u?

  7. Nate: About what

  8. Darren: Did he

  9. Nate: What r u talking about

  10. Darren: Forget it

  11. Nate: Tell me

  12. Darren: No

  13. Nate: Tell me dickwad

  14. Darren: Dads gay

  15. Darren: Hes gay he told me

  16. Nate: Bullshit

  17. Darren: U didnt know?

  18. Nate: Ur lying

  19. Darren: Im not

  20. Darren: He told me this morning

  21. Nate: R gay dad. Funny psych prof talked about denial 2day

  22. Darren: Huh?

  23. Nate: Ill call you in a couple hours

  5 Events That Had to Take Place in Order for Darren to Become Oblivion’s Bassist, Even Though the Band Sort of Broke Up When Nate and Phil Went Off to School

  1. Nate bought a guitar with money he earned lifeguarding the summer after tenth grade.

  2. Nate, Phil Reed (drums), and Ricky Chen (bass) decided to form a band, which they first called Showtime.

  3. Sometimes Nate let Darren quietly watch their rehearsals.

  4. Ricky (who sucked anyway) quit the band or got kicked out, and when he quit/got kicked out he pushed over his amp (but luckily didn’t do any serious damage to it) and then just left without even bothering to take his equipment.

  5. A few weeks later Nate and Phil (who kept jamming together anyway and now called themselves Protest) had a friendly argument that started when Nate asked Phil, “C’mon, seriously, how hard could it be to play the bass?” Which eventually led to Nate saying to Darren, who was sitting on a milk crate in the corner of the garage and wondering why he hadn’t gone inside already to watch TV, plus he had homework, “Hey, Darren, come here.”

  The next thing he knew, the heavy instrument was hanging from a strap that ran between his neck and
shoulder. Nate took his brother’s left hand, held it under the bass’s neck, and placed the index finger on a certain spot on the top string and said, “This is a G; just play that steady like this,” and he showed Darren how to strum the thick string with the index and middle fingers of his other hand. Next Nate said, “Okay, so when I say so, move your finger to this string, that’s a C, and then back to G, and then we’ll go up here to D, then C, then G. You got it?”

  Darren said yes, because he always listens pretty closely to whatever Nate says.

  And even though it hurt the tip of his index finger, playing the bass was pretty easy, which wasn’t nearly as surprising as the fact that Darren kind of knew beforehand that it would be easy, he just knew, so the three of them jammed for about five minutes, Nate smiling at Darren in this way that made Darren ten times happier than he had been in a long, long time. Phil nodded his head like Darren was his new hero, and when they stopped, Nate said to Phil, “See what I mean?”

  9 Other Names Showtime/Protest Had Before Becoming Oblivion, and the Person Who Named It That

  1. The Elements (Phil)

  2. Acid Bath (Nate)

  3. Electric Eye (Nate)

  4. Colonel Punishment (Phil and Nate)

  5. Ax and Hatchet (Phil, and a little bit Darren (the Hatchet part))

  6. Sequoia (Nate and maybe Phil)

  7. The Ozones (Phil)

  8. Zero Gravity (Matt or Marc or Max Brodsky, some guy from Nate and Phil’s grade)

  9. The Meds (Nate)

  5 More Times Today That Darren Misses Nate, and This Is Getting Ridiculous Already, but Every Once in a While Darren Has a Day like Today, When Everything Makes Him Think of His Brother, and It’s Not Like Today Is Just Another Day Anyhow, So the Whole Thing Isn’t All That Surprising

  1. 1:35 p.m.—Darren correctly completes twelve of Mr. Gibbs’s sentences. The guy has this strange habit of pausing for a moment or two before saying the last word in a sentence, something Nate told Darren about when Darren told him he was going to have Mr. Gibbs this year. The record, held by Nate of course, is a will-never-be-broken seventeen, but twelve is still pretty good.