The Boomerang Effect

by Gordon Jack

  At that moment, Eddie texted me. How was Dawn’s?

  I groaned.

  Not only had I failed my parents, but I’d also let down my friends. Eddie would be forever tainted in Dawn’s eyes through his association with me. If he tried to ask her to homecoming now, she’d probably douse him with a bucket of holy water. Spencer, who had a date, would never know the joy of slow dancing to Aerosmith, because his mother feared his escort wanted to steal his organs. These guys were depending on me to save them but instead I let them sink to the bottom of the ocean. Maybe Audrey was right about Odysseus after all. Maybe he was a selfish prick whose recklessness doomed everyone he came into contact with.

  With nothing else to do, I decided to get shitfaced.

  I know, that’s not the most healthy response to emotional setbacks, but at this point I didn’t care. I was failing at everything else. Why succeed at sobriety? Besides, everyone already assumed I was a stoner. Why disappoint them?

  Rather than respond to Eddie’s text, I sent a message to Adam, Will, and the two Nates. Party at my house after school? Within seconds the guys all texted me back with variations of Fuck yeah!

  I stayed in bed all morning watching all three Hangover movies in a row. After lunch, I drove to a liquor store on El Camino where one of the two Nates’s older brother worked. It only took two hundred dollars to convince him to purchase a pony keg for me and transfer it to my car parked down the block. After threatening me repeatedly to return the empty barrel, tap, and ice bucket after hours lest he lose his deposit, he took down my address and said he might swing by later with some friends. I figured I wasn’t in a position to disinvite him, so I said, “Sure thing, Brad! Spread the word!” Having a death wish really takes the edge off catastrophic decisions like this.

  First thing I did when I got home was disable the video cameras downstairs. Dad wouldn’t check in on me until after seven, and by then the party would be winding down. It was a school night, after all. Most of my guests would have to be functional tomorrow for the homecoming assembly, game, and dance. I for one would rather sit through all that stupid pageantry with a hangover than pretend to be interested in my school and its lame traditions.

  I hauled the pony keg out of my car and set it up on our back lawn. Looking at the pool, I debated whether or not to cover it. It was too cool to swim, but kids at house parties were known to treat covered pools like waterbeds. I decided to leave the pool open, as it was easier to fish someone out of the deep end than clean up the mess created by motion sickness.

  By three o’clock people started arriving. Will, Adam, and the two Nates were the first to show up. They entered giving me hearty Welcome back! slaps on the back. They installed themselves on the back patio after filling bowls with munchies from our dry goods closet. A steady stream of guests pushed their way through my front door for the next hour. Each one greeted me by shouting, “Where you been, Lawman? We missed you!”

  I wished I could say the same. I barely knew these people. Most of them were regulars on the party circuit, the ones who showed up at every get-together, whether or not they were invited or knew the host. All of them were a little fucked up, to be honest. You had to be to rally this fast on a school night. Their presence at my house meant that this was indeed party central for Thursday evening. I guess that should have made me feel good, but all I did was count the number of Solo cups in people’s hands and make mental calculations of the cleanup I’d have to do later.

  Someone had hooked up their iPod to our music system in the living room and was blasting some lame One Direction song. I winced at both the selection and volume. There was enough distance between our neighbors and us that the noise wouldn’t bother them. More likely, they’d be pissed off about the number of cars parking on the sidewalk, filling empty spaces the families surrounding us guarded despite having four-car garages.

  The guys had started a game of quarters on our kitchen counter and were busy giving every drink to Stephanie Jenkins, who looked like she was three sips away from barfing. “Shtop picking on me,” she said after downing the glass. “I’ve got a shtatishtics tesht tomorrow.”

  “Hey, Lawman!” Adam said. “Come join us.”

  I squeezed in. People around me slapped me on the back, which only made me feel hollow. Adam passed me the quarter and told me to take a shot. The quarter bounced in the cup, which I passed to Will. “Drink up,” I said unenthusiastically.

  Will pounded the beer and slammed the cup back on the counter. One of the Nates refilled it from a pitcher I had never seen before. I bounced the quarter off the counter and watched it drop into the cup again. This was weird because I was notoriously bad at quarters and never landed shots like this. I passed the cup to Nate and smiled.

  “Asshole,” he said.

  “Thanks, Lawrence,” Stephanie said. “How’s it feel, Nate?”

  “Awesome!” he shouted, and slammed the cup down. The other Nate refilled it.

  “Dude, there’s gonna be a killer party tomorrow night,” Will said.

  My quarter bounced again into the cup. I passed it to Will.

  “Really?” I asked.

  “Some girl Chester knows is throwing a rager in Santa Cruz,” Adam said.

  I bounced the quarter into the cup and passed it to Adam.

  “Dude, you’re on fire,” Will said. “You been practicing?”

  “I don’t know what’s happening,” I said. “Being sober probably helps.”

  “Well, let’s put a stop to that,” Nate said.

  I bounced the quarter into the cup and passed it to Nate.

  “Fuck, dude, we’re moving this cup farther away,” Will said.

  Nate left to refill the pitchers of beer from outside.

  “You should come tomorrow,” Adam said.

  Nate returned and filled the cup with the overflowing pitcher. Adam positioned the cup a good foot away from where I was shooting. I still landed the shot.

  “Shit, dude,” Nate said.

  I passed the cup to Nate.

  “So what do you say?” Adam said. “We could use a driver.”

  “I may be going to homecoming,” I said.

  “Me too!” Stephanie said. “’sgonnabeawesome.”

  I bounced the quarter into the cup and passed it to Adam.

  “Okay, now I’m getting bored,” Stephanie said, pouting.

  “Who you going to homecoming with?” Will asked.

  “Zoe Cosmos.”

  “That freak?” Nate said.

  I bounced the quarter into the cup and passed it to Nate.

  “Were you high when you asked her?” Adam asked.

  I bounced the quarter into the cup and passed it to Adam.

  Something was happening. The gods were not going to let me take a drink. I was going to keep landing these shots until everyone around me was passed out in their own vomit.

  “She asked me,” I said.

  “But you said yes?” Nate said.

  I bounced the quarter into the cup and passed it to Nate.

  “I didn’t really have a choice.”

  Wait a minute. I do have a choice. Now that I’m being shipped off to Langdon, I don’t have to worry about Zoe’s blackmail anymore. It was the one silver lining in this mushroom cloud. I could go to this party tomorrow with the guys. Or take someone else to the dance. Tomorrow night was my last hurrah before being shipped off to military school. Who did I want to spend it with?

  Will moved the cup behind the pitcher of beer, nearly two feet away from me. “If the quarter lands in the pitcher, you have to drink the whole thing.”

  “Don’t fuck up, Lawman,” Adam said.

  A crowd gathered around the table to watch my shot. They all started chanting, “Lawman, Lawman, Lawman.”

  I took a deep breath, but I knew I was going to make the shot. It was fate. I’d never felt the gods’ presence so strongly before. It was like Dawn said. All I needed to do was submit myself to a higher power.

  “We’re
waiting,” Will said.

  I bounced the quarter high over the pitcher. There was no way it was going to land in the cup behind it, not unless a sudden gust of wind blew it off its course toward Stephanie’s forehead. A more sober person might have ducked to avoid the collision, but Stephanie wasn’t sober. She just sat there and let the quarter bounce off her face and back into the waiting cup.

  The crowd went berserk.

  I passed the cup to Will and left the table amid the wild uproar. Everyone was so busy comparing their videos of the shot that no one noticed me turning on the surveillance cameras as I left the room.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  A few minutes later, I pulled up in front of Audrey’s dilapidated home and cut the engine. To be honest, I didn’t know what I was doing here. All I knew was that when I asked myself who I wanted to spend my last night of freedom with, her face floated into my consciousness.

  I grabbed my backpack, which hadn’t moved from its resting place in the backseat since my Starbucks date with Dawn, and dug out my copy of The Odyssey. I didn’t think I’d be able to find the right words to apologize to Audrey, but I was sure Homer had them. I flipped through the pages, and the gods helped me again by showing me the perfect passage. Unfortunately, it came from Odysseus’s mistress, Circe, and not his wife, Penelope, but I wasn’t going to argue at this point. I dog-eared the page and walked up to Audrey’s front door.

  Her grandmother answered the door and barred my entrance. She was a short, squat woman who looked like she’d spent her formative years on a farm. I could imagine her breaking the neck of a chicken with a twist of her rough and calloused hands. “Audrey’s sick,” she said. “No visitors.” She slammed the door in my face and bolted it shut.

  I stepped across the front lawn to Audrey’s bedroom window. The light was on, so I rapped lightly on the glass, hoping Audrey would peel back the lace curtains and allow me to mouth the words “I’m sorry.” She didn’t come to the window, so I leaned in close to the peeling window frame and spoke the lines as Romeo would to Juliet.

  “Wassup, Audrey? You in there?” Okay, this did not have the Shakespearean eloquence I intended. I took a deep breath and began again. “I want to read you something from Homer because he speaks more eloquently than I’ll ever be able to. Here goes. ‘Come then, put away your sword in its sheath, and let us two go up into my bed so that, lying together in the bed of love, we may then have faith and trust in each other.’”

  I waited for a response. Nothing. Shit. I hoped she didn’t take that “let us two go up into my bed” part literally.

  “I’m not saying we should have sex. Right now, that is. Eventually, that’d be nice. I guess I just wanted you to know that I have faith and trust in you. It doesn’t matter to me if you’re the Viking or not. Actually, I know you’re not behind all these pranks because ever since I met you, you’ve only wanted to help me. And not help me like I tried to help you. You don’t want to turn me into anything I’m not. I know what that feels like now and it’s pretty shitty. Last night, someone tried to convert me into a good Christian, and don’t get me started on my parents. They’ve never accepted me for who I am. I’m sorry if I made you feel like you weren’t good enough just because you aren’t like everyone else. The fact that you’re so different is actually what makes you so awesome. Anyway, I just wanted to tell you that. Okay. Goodnight.”

  I waited for the windows to open and for Audrey to welcome me into a bosomy embrace, but nothing happened. When I pressed my ear to the window, I think I heard a toilet flush.

  “You asked me earlier why it was so important for me to catch the Viking,” I continued, more to myself than anyone who might be hiding behind the curtain. “To be honest, I don’t care if the Viking gets caught. What I liked was spending time with you. The Viking was just an excuse to do that.”

  I slogged back to my car and watched Audrey’s house from a distance, but it was too dark to see anything. At 8:45 my phone pinged with a message from my dad. Get home now, it said. I started my car and prepared myself for certain death.

  It was nearly nine o’clock when I got home. My street was still crowded with parked cars, but the night was quiet. A gentle breeze rustled the leaves on the maple tree outside my house. Off in the distance, a neighbor’s dog barked.

  Entering my home, I expected to see the floor littered with Solo cups, surfaces stained with the condensation of cold drinks, shards of potato chips sprinkled on the furniture, but the place was immaculate. It even had the lemony scent of furniture polish. “Estrella?” I said, thinking she had returned early from her trip down south.

  “It’s me,” my dad said. “I’m in the kitchen.”

  I walked into the spotless kitchen and found my dad sitting at the counter in front of two red Solo cups, an open laptop, and a bowlful of car keys. He motioned for me to sit next to him, which I did. He moved a frothy cup of beer in my direction and then held his aloft for me to toast. “Nice work, son,” he said.

  I tapped my cup against his and took a long sip. If this was my last meal, I might as well enjoy it.

  “You want to tell me what that was before we call your mom?” he said.

  “It was a party.”

  “It was a giant ‘fuck you’ is what it was.”

  I shrugged. “You want me to be popular. That’s what popular looks like.” I was surprisingly calm on the eve of my execution. Maybe because I wasn’t high or drunk or anything. I could even look Dad in the eye and for once stare him down. I was completely unashamed in his presence. I was the injured party here. Not him.

  Dad finished his beer in one gulp and then upended his cup on the counter.

  “How did you get the place so clean?” I asked.

  “It’s easy to motivate people if you have footage of them doing things most parents and college admission officers would disapprove of.” He pushed the bowl full of car keys in my direction. “You’ll have to return these to your friends tomorrow.”

  “They’re not my friends,” I said.

  “Not anymore, that’s for sure,” he said, laughing. “Why’d you leave your own party?”

  I shrugged. “The party didn’t need me,” I said. “And I didn’t need to be at it anymore.”

  My dad looked at me. I mean, really looked at me. You know when you have a lousy Wi-Fi connection and the images on your screen are slow to load, then suddenly the network improves and everything syncs seamlessly? That’s what this moment felt like.

  “I think I get the message, son,” Dad said. He picked up our Solo cups and placed them in our recycling bin below the sink. “Let’s call your mom.”

  A few seconds later, Mom’s face appeared on the laptop monitor. Her bedroom was dark except for the reading lamp on her bedside table. She looked like she was calling from a military bunker. Her glasses reflected the computer monitor, making it hard to see her eyes.

  “Hi, honey,” she said, bringing her face close to the camera. She didn’t sound pissed, but of course Mom wasn’t the one who yelled. She counseled. “Your dad and I have been talking and we think that maybe we’re not ready for Langdon.”

  “Seriously?” I looked over at Dad, and he nodded.

  “I’ve been thinking a lot about our family while I’ve been confined here at Aunt Lucy’s,” Mom went on. “It’s crazy here, you know. But the craziness, I don’t know, it seems healthy, certainly healthier than our family dynamic. I think we’ve tried to make things easier by eliminating conflict, but now we never talk about anything important. We’re like people having a long-distance relationship in the same house. If we send you to Langdon, it will only get worse. And your father and I want things to get better.”

  “Me too, Mom,” I said. “Only without the chats on masturbation.”

  My dad started coughing violently.

  “Deal,” Mom said. “But I want everything else on the table. Including your drinking habits.”

  “Deal,” I said.

  “You’re still getting punished
for tonight’s party,” Dad said.

  “What’s that going to be?” I asked.

  “For the next five months, you’ll be working at my office every afternoon after school.”

  “Work?”

  “Yes, work. After you finish your schoolwork, you’ll help my assistant with some of her office duties. It will teach you some responsibility and I’ll be able to monitor you more effectively in person.”

  This was my father’s way of saying he wanted to spend more time with me. As with everything, he communicated this as if he were giving a managerial lecture to his employees.

  “We’ll talk more about the specifics when Mom gets home.”

  “Which should be next week!” Mom said, raising her arms in victory. “God, I can’t wait to be vertical again. When I’m better, we should take a yoga class together, Lawrence. Wouldn’t that be fun? It would get us off our screens and help us be more present in each other’s lives. Actually, this might be something that would appeal to a lot of families, don’t you think? There are so few activities parents can do with their teens these days. Yoga would be a great way to combine exercise, mindfulness, and family bonding. It could be part of a whole line of family wellness centers . . .”

  “Why don’t you work on standing upright first, dear,” Dad said, rolling his eyes off camera. He knew where Mom was going with this, probably already pictured the cover of her next book, Bonding with Buddha.

  Mom took a deep, cleansing breath. “Okay, we’ll talk more when I get back. I can’t wait to see you two.”

  Mom kissed the monitor and signed off.

  “She’s drafting her business plan right now, isn’t she?” I said.

  “Most likely,” Dad said. “Better start practicing your downward dog.”