Faster, Faster, Faster

by Jonah Black

  I knew that he was back at Masthead because Betsy had told me. And now that I’d seen him, I realized what I had come to Masthead to do.

  I was going to punch this lowlife loser’s lights out and tell him to stay away from Sophie.

  It was actually pretty funny to even think about punching someone since I’ve never punched anybody in my life. And given Sullivan’s size and the fact that he’s never liked me anyway—he wasn’t going to take it well. I would punch him once and then I would get flattened. But as long as I could punch him the one time, I didn’t care what happened after that.

  Sullivan stopped by the pay phone in the quad and picked it up. I started toward him, my hands balling into fists.

  Then someone grabbed me by the elbow of my bad arm and put a hand very firmly on my back and said, “Let’s keep walking, Mr. Black.” It was a woman.

  I turned to find a woman cop with mirrored shades and a white hat shoving me toward the parking lot. Sullivan looked over at me, and I’m pretty sure he recognized me. The last time Sullivan had seen me, I’d been in the back of a cop car, driving away into the night. He gave me the thumbs-up sign, like getting arrested was my big aim in life, and now I’d done it again.

  “Which car is yours, Mr. Black?” said the security guard. I couldn’t even talk. I pointed at Dad’s Mercedes. “Get in,” she said. I got into the car, and she walked around and opened the passenger side door and sat down next to me.

  “Drive,” she said.

  “You want me to—”

  “Drive,” she said again.

  I put the car in gear and I pulled out onto Lancaster Pike. I didn’t cut the turn very well, though, and I just narrowly missed this fire hydrant on the corner. The whole car lurched as we bumped over the curb.

  “Jesus, Jonah,” the guard said. “Your driving hasn’t gotten any better.”

  I looked over at her, and she was kind of grinning at me. Then she took off her white hat and sunglasses.

  “Betsy,” I said. “Whoa. I thought you were a cop. I thought you were going to arrest me!”

  “I should,” she said. “Are you out of your mind, sneaking around campus? That girl you saw in the art room called Security. Lucky for you, I was the one who got the call.”

  “Since when are you working for campus security?”

  “Since my father got sick and we can’t afford Masthead tuition anymore without work-study.”

  Betsy looked great. There was a wisp of brown hair falling down on the right side of her face. She had a blue vein on her throat, too, that I’d never seen. It was very cool and confident-looking, pulsing under her white skin. Why had I never noticed that before?

  “Wow. I’m sorry.”

  “It’s all right, Jonah. I’m okay. But I want to know what the hell you’re doing at Masthead. What the hell you’re doing in Pennsylvania.”

  I kept driving down the turnpike, very slowly, through the snow. I thought about the road up here, with Honey at the Museum for Retired Ventriloquists’ Dummies and the World’s Largest Monopoly Board. And about Sophie locked up at Maggins. How was I ever going to get in to see her? In the glow from headlights of an oncoming car I could see Sophie’s face, pleading, Help me, Jonah.

  “Oh, no,” Betsy said. “You’re not.”

  “I’m not what?” I said, all innocent.

  “You’re not up here to get Sophie O’Brien out of Maggins, are you?” Betsy asked.

  I just shrugged. And then I blushed deep red.

  “Stop the car,” Betsy said. “Now.” That vein on her throat pulsed again.

  I pulled over. Cars on the Lancaster Pike honked at me.

  Betsy got out a pair of handcuffs and snapped one cuff around my wrist. Then she snapped the other one around the wheel. She turned on the radio and turned the dial around. The fundamentalist Christian station came on. She turned the volume way up.

  Then she opened the door and got out of the car. “I’m leaving,” Betsy said.

  “You’re what?”

  “You heard me.” She put her white hat and sunglasses back on. They made her look pretty dangerous and sexy. “I should have arrested you,” she said. “I should have hit you in the head with my flashlight.”

  “Why?” I said. “What did I do?”

  “Because,” Betsy said. “Practically a year has gone by, and you haven’t learned a damned thing.”

  And then she walked down the sidewalk, back toward Masthead, leaving me handcuffed to the steering wheel of the car, the traffic snarling around me. A preacher on the radio was sermonizing. “Repent,” he said. “Repent.”

  Feb. 11

  I’m home after my first day back at Don Shula. Since I’ve already done eleventh grade once, it doesn’t seem like I missed anything.

  We pulled into Pompano Beach around 8:30 a.m., and we thought it would be funny if we just went straight to school, like we hadn’t been away at all.

  As soon as I walked into Miss von Esse’s homeroom, all these girls kept coming up to me and asking questions or stealing furtive looks at me from across the room. I guess Northgirl was right; there were a lot of rumors about me flying around.

  Yvonne Wainwright came right up to me and said, “Were you in L.A.? I used to live in L.A. My dad used to be a screenwriter, you know. Did you ever see that movie Getting Out? My Dad wrote that. Well, he wrote the first draft. After that some big studio—”

  Yvonne speaks about a hundred words a second and while she talks, she moves her hands around like she’s interpreting herself for the hard of hearing.

  “Yvonne,” I said, interrupting her. “I wasn’t in L.A.”

  She looked surprised. “You weren’t?”

  “No. I was in Pennsylvania, seeing my father.”

  “So you’re not going to UCLA?” Yvonne said. “You aren’t diving for them?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “We have a whole other year till college.”

  “Well, you should think about it,” Yvonne said. “It’s a good school.”

  Over in the corner there was this sudden burst of laughter, and Cilla Wright and her little group of girls looked over at me. Cilla was blushing. Then Cecily La Choy came over and said, “Jonah, everybody says you got married. That’s not true, is it?” She looked at me with this urgent expression, like the answer was really important to her.

  “No, I didn’t get married,” I told her. “I didn’t even get engaged.”

  Cecily looked thrilled. “That’s what I thought,” she said, triumphantly.

  “Actually, it’s more like I got divorced,” I said. And, when I thought about it, that’s kind of what it felt like, leaving Sophie behind. For good.

  “Oh,” said Cecily, nodding like this made sense to her, when it couldn’t have.

  Then Linda Norman came over with her white jeans and white tube top and gold earrings and white nail polish.

  She looked me up and down. “I can’t believe they let you out,” she said, popping her gum.

  “Out?” I said.

  She looked at me like I was trying to hide something, but she knew better. “Like, on parole,” she said.

  I just shrugged and sat down at my desk, wondering what she thought I’d done.

  Just then Thorne walked by the open door of my homeroom, on his way to the Zoo. He saw the crowd of girls around my desk, and gave me the thumbs-up.

  I think I’m going to have to murder Thorne. Then I’ll really have to go to jail.

  When Honor and I got home, Mom and Mr. Bond were on the living room floor sitting cross-legged with their eyes closed. It was like they hadn’t moved the whole time we’d been gone. Mr. Bond had his hands on mom’s breasts again, and Mom had her hands on Mr. Bond’s breasts, which are pretty big for a guy.

  “Oonnngggg,” Mr. Bond chanted.

  “Hi, Mom, Hi, Mr. Bond,” I said.

  “Jonah,” said Mom, opening one eye. “We were just getting tranquil.”

  Honor looked at me and shook her head. “Hiya, Ma,” she s
aid.

  “Honey,” Mom said, and closed her eye.

  “It’s Honor, Ma,” said Honor.

  “It is?” Mom opened her eye again, suspicious.

  We left them there and headed down the hallway to our bedrooms. Before I went into my room I said, “Hey, Honor. Thanks for the road trip. I needed that.”

  Honor tossed her suitcase on her bed and turned around, “I know,” she said. “Thanks for keeping me company. Who knows, maybe someday you’ll get your own driver’s license, and you can drive me around. You might want to cruise up to Harvard next fall and check it out. Me and Max can show you around.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Will you tell Max thanks for me?” I said. “If you’re in touch with him?”

  Honor went over to her bed and unzipped her suitcase. “I’m definitely gonna be in touch with him,” she said.

  “An eye for an eye, a kiss for a kiss!” said Electra, from inside the suitcase.

  AMERICA ONLINE MAIL

  To: Northgirl999

  From: JBlack94710

  Northgirl, who are you?????

  Feb. 14

  I came home today and in the kitchen there was a big box of chocolate hearts with a string attached to the bottom and a card that said HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY, JONAH. LOVE, MOM AND ROBERE. Nobody else was home. Cool, I thought. A surprise gift from Mr. and Mrs. Tranquility. I wondered what I was going to find on the other end of the string. Maybe a new computer. Or an electric guitar. Or a telescope.

  So I followed the string down the hall, into my room, out the sliding glass door, into the backyard.

  And there, standing on the dock, was a brand new Schwinn. Light blue. With three gears.

  Gee, Mom. What a great present. If I was eleven years old, I’d really love it. Still, I guess it was pretty cool of her. She tries.

  Feb. 15

  Well, here’s the e-mail I got this morning, from guess who:

  Jonah! Are you all right?

  I wanted to say I’m sorry, but you already know I’m sorry. I guess you know me pretty well, Jonah, better than anyone.

  Anyway, I’m back in Maine. It feels good to be home.

  I’m sorry if I disappointed you or anything. I’m sorry about everything.

  You’re still my hero.

  Love forever,

  Your Sophie

  I felt so relieved when I finished reading that. I think I was afraid Sophie was going to tell me she’d escaped from her father and now she was hitchhiking South to see me or something. It was a relief to hear the she was okay, home safe.

  I thought about Sophie walking by the ocean in Maine, looking out at the lighthouse blinking in the fog. A plane flies by overhead, but she’s not on it. Maybe Sophie’s going to be all right, taking a little time away from everything. I hope so, anyway.

  Feb. 16

  I found the picture of our whole family on vacation, the one that Honor said doesn’t exist. Mom, Dad, me, and Honor are all standing around some stalactites and behind us is the sign that says Mammoth Caves.

  It’s actually a very sweet picture. Honor looks like this perfect little girl, in pigtails and a little pink dress with a big red strawberry on the front. I remember when she used to be like that, like a million years ago.

  I took the picture into her room and I said, “Honor, look at this. Remember when you said we didn’t take this vacation? Here’s a picture.”

  Honor looked at the picture for a long time. Then she handed it back to me. I said, “Well?”

  And she said, “That’s not me.”

  Feb. 17

  Today I was riding by First Amendment Pizza on my new light blue three-speed bike, and suddenly Mr. Swede came running out onto the sidewalk.

  “Yonah!” he cried, “Yonah!”

  I stopped and looked at him. His apron was covered with sauce. There seemed to be more gray hair at his temples. He was sweating more than usual.

  “What’s up, Mr. Swede?” I said.

  “Come,” he said, flapping his hand at me. I leaned my bike against a fire hydrant and Mr. Swede nodded at it approvingly. He ushered me inside, and said, “First Amendment, losing shirt.”

  “I’m sorry,” I told him.

  “Come back,” he said. “Yonah deliver pizzas. Deliver videos. Deliver DVDs!”

  “DVDs?” He didn’t used to have DVDs.

  “What about Doober?” I said. “I thought he was working for you.”

  “Dooba in jail,” Mr. Swede said, shaking his head in sorrow.

  “Okay,” I said. “I’ll work for you again, Mr. Swede. But only twice a week, okay?” I wanted to keep my options open.

  “Good boy, Yonah,” said Mr. Swede. He handed me a stack of videos. “Make delivery now. Yonah Black, Dependable Boy!”

  I took the videos and cycled up to Federal Avenue to start delivering them. I kind of liked being Dependable Boy, even though I felt like a loser riding a three-speed.

  The first tape I had to drop off was Pretty Woman, and it was going to a house near the airfield. I passed the Goodyear Blimp Base, and noticed that the blimp was still missing. What had happened to it? It had been gone for weeks now.

  Then, about a half a mile later, I suddenly put the brakes on and stopped cold.

  There, on the corner, were the remains of a seedy bar. There’d been a fire, and the place was charred and falling down. The windows were all boarded up. There was glass on the sidewalk.

  There was a sign, half-burnt. The F— it read.

  I remembered the match book the Indian girl had dropped when I chased her through the parking lot at our last diving meet.

  The Fur Room? I wondered.

  Of course, there was no way of knowing what the name of the place had been. It might have been The Firehouse, or The Front Porch, or The Fantastic House of Chicken.

  I wondered for a second whether the girl who’d dropped the matchbook really existed at all, or if I’d imagined her, just like I imagined Sophie, in a way.

  I bicycled onward feeling sad and happy at the same time. I delivered Pretty Woman to a pretty ugly dude cooking Polish sausages in his backyard. I headed back down Federal Highway. The palm trees swayed in the wind. It was good to be home.

  Feb. 18

  Today I got a second job working on Thorne’s dad’s boat, the Scrod. The good news is that Posie and Thorne are working on the boat, too, which makes it more like having fun than having a job. Most of the time, Thorne and his Dad are the ones catching and gutting fish. I get to steer the boat, which is totally cool. Posie is first mate, which means she lies around on the deck in her orange bikini reading Wahine magazine.

  I agreed I’d work one day a week, on Saturdays, as long as Posie and Thorne were there, too.

  I made pretty good money—$120 for the day! Now I will actually have some extra money for stuff, like going out. Except that I don’t have anyone to go out with.

  When we were on the boat Thorne said, “So what’s up with Molly Beale?”

  “I don’t know,” I said, keeping my eyes fixed on the horizon. I was trying not to run over any sailboats. “I was thinking I should call her. So we can talk. You know, work things out.”

  “Talk?” Thorne said. “Are you insane, Jonah? Forget it, man. You got your troops out of there. You keep them out. You have the advantage.”

  “Since when are girls like, a country you have to invade with troops?” I asked.

  Thorne scratched his goatee and laughed. “Since, like, the beginning of the universe.”

  “And you think I need to keep my troops out of her territory?” I said, going along with his little metaphor.

  “Definitely,” Thorne said. “If you send in your peacekeepers, they’re gonna get blown up. It’s a disaster waiting to happen.”

  I looked over at Thorne. He was wearing a Hawaiian shirt, basketball shorts, a gross fish-gut-stained white apron, and black rubber boots. He looked completely ridiculous.

  I steered the boat around a catamaran with luffing red sails. �
�You know what, Thorne? I actually don’t have a clue what you’re talking about.”

  “Jonah,” Thorne said, rolling his eyes like I was an imbecile. “You ditched her. Then she came back and apologized to you. Girls aren’t supposed to do that.”

  “They aren’t?”

  “No. C’mon man. It’s against the Geneva Convention. Apologies are for dudes.”

  “Why?” I said.

  “’Cause we’re the ones who always screw things up,” he said, grinning like an idiot.

  “Well, I don’t know, Thorne. Don’t you think I should like, give Molly one more chance?”

  “Hello?! Dude, are you listening?” Thorne shouted. “No way. If I was you, I’d maintain the Code of Silence.”

  “Huh?” He was speaking in code again. The Thorne Wood Code of Nonsense.

  “If you call her up, it’s just giving her the chance to yell at you,” Thorne said. He shook his head. “I don’t know about you, man, but I got enough girls calling me up to yell at me. That’s why I got caller ID.”

  Thorne’s Dad came up on deck and stood there wiping his hands on a towel. He was wearing a fish-gut-stained apron, too. It’s practically the only outfit I’ve ever seen him in.

  “How’s it going, boys?” said Mr. Wood.

  “Good,” we said.

  Mr. Wood looked out at the horizon. “Hold her steady, Jonah,” he said.

  We rocked on the waves in silence for a while as I held her steady. The boat smelled like fish and gasoline. There was static on the radio. Posie was sitting on a lawn chair up in the bow, wearing sunglasses and her orange bikini. She turned a page of her magazine and took a sip of her Coke.