“And if my mom thinks your mom is stressed, then she must really be stressed, because my mom is as stressed out as a person can be.”
I didn’t think that my mom was stressed, until that moment. But his line got me thinking, as in, why was my mom stressed at all? She didn’t work; all she did was basically get us up for school, then to after-school activities, and feed us, plus she had people to clean the house and make sure to put away everything that I left out before my father got home and had a fit about it. Plus Isabel stayed with us whenever my mom went on vacation with my dad or her friends. Isabel, of course, was our au pair when we were younger (at least until she quit because of me not being in control, but that’s another story). So why exactly did Burn’s mom think my mom was stressed?
Pete got involved. “Dude, all moms are stressed. It’s how they are.”
Kenny agreed, which surprised us, as his mom was Chinese and she certainly seemed different from the rest of our moms. More calm, definitely. But then again, Kenny never, ever talked back to her.
This was the deepest conversation we had ever had. And we all seemed to be done with it. But Burn hadn’t finished. “My mom thinks your mom could really use a friend. She even invited us to Thanksgiving at your house. So hopefully you will have Final Fantasy by then.”
“My mom only invited you on account of your father dying in the Twin Towers” is how it came out when I said it.
Burn stared hatefully at me. As soon as I said it, I knew it was the wrong thing to say, but what was up with him and my mom? Still, all of the other kids at the lunch table shifted uncomfortably.
“Your mom invited us before she found out that my father was an innocent victim of the government’s secret plan to engage in Bush and Cheney’s personal war against the Muslims.”
Now Pete jumped in, our resident political know-it-all (this was before Newman came to town). Pete was saying that Burn was out of his mind, that there was no American conspiracy surrounding the destruction of the World Trade Center (and I instantly remembered Burn’s earlier statement to me—“my father was dusted in the towers”—and finally understood what he meant). Pete said 9/11 was the consequence of the United States not being able to control Islamist extremists, thanks to the Clinton administration, and that ever since 9/11 everything had changed, thanks to President Bush’s quick actions.
Now Burn was fully in gear and argued back, “Oh yeah, where the fuck is Bin Laden? And how come no one has been able to capture him? Perhaps because we’re not supposed to capture him?”
To be honest, I knew almost nothing about 9/11. Neither did most of my other friends. Exactly one kid at my school, who none of my friends knew, lost an uncle. Otherwise we were untouched by the event. None of us were all that big into current events in the first place, unless it was about Britney, Paris, Eminem, or some movie guy.
We were all too busy singing songs like “It’s Getting Hot in Here.” According to Mark Duncan, the Adam Sandler expert, the movie of the year was Mr. Deeds, even though some of my other friends would have considered Spider-Man or Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones or the first Harry Potter or even the third Austin Powers to be far better movies. For Pete, it was a horror movie called Cabin Fever. For me, as I said, it was Jackass: The Movie.
So yeah, the World Trade Center being destroyed was fucked up, but when all was said and done, it made not one bit of difference to us.
Other than Burn. And something always seemed to matter to Burn anyways.
Still, his father had been dusted.
“I’m sorry that it was your father instead of mine” is what I told him, all sincere. “He was a really good coach and all.” I remembered that Burn had a very close relationship with his dad, who wasn’t the asshole that mine was. Point being, my comment was not so much about Burn’s father living, but more about getting rid of mine. However, as it turned out, Burn was apparently deeply moved by my offer to substitute my father for his. He took it as a tribute to his dad and as the ultimate gesture of friendship, which apparently made up for the fact that I was his mortal enemy.
And after that he started doing things for me.
Like homework, for one thing. Not only giving me the answers, but explaining the concepts in a way that made me actually understand what was going on. Like getting me out of trouble with my mom for almost getting caught in a Jackass stunt that involved Lindsey, though she didn’t know it. Like getting me rides home with his mom so I didn’t have to take the bus, once asking me whether I knew if Christina Haines liked him. I told him how should I know, I haven’t talked to Christina Haines since, like, third grade.
He was also proving to be the supergenius that everyone said he was, getting perfect scores on standardized tests and acing his courses, breezing through the work and correcting teachers whenever they said something that he considered to be inaccurate, knowing all these minute details about virtually everything, like he was constantly preparing for a test that only he knew he was taking.
He went to the mall with us on a few Saturdays, came to the school pre-Halloween party as George Bush and stayed in character the whole night, and had playdates with like half the kids in the grade. He seemed comfortable around my friends (as comfortable as Burn ever was, at least), with the exception of Pete, who just didn’t like him and avoided him whenever he could.
Plus, going from a kid who kind of sucked at sports, Burnett was now a decent basketball player. So good, in fact, that he was tapped to try out for the Panthers, the middle school traveling basketball team. Actually, everyone was allowed to try out, but apparently Burn’s mom got a call from Coach Rhinehart that he was as good as in.
It was days before tryouts, and I was practicing in the gym after school with Evan and Mark Duncan and a few other kids when Burn walked in and all of a sudden barreled into me, knocking me off my feet, taking my breath away.
By then I had enough practice with falls and sudden impacts to keep my wits about me, so I rolled, turned, and scrambled away from him. “What the fuck, David?” It occurred to me then that he was back to the David Burnett who wanted to kill me, because there was a flash of a look in his eyes that I remembered seeing before, during the McAllister days, but it was gone a second later. Plus by now I was a proven survivor. Thank you, Steve-O.
“You shoot like shit.” He threw the ball to me, all back to normal.
“Fuck you.” I threw it back, and he turned, pivoted, and sank a three-pointer, nothing but net, then followed the ball, got the rebound, and laid it in again and again, finally tossing it back to me.
“Now you,” he challenged. “Go ahead. Three in a row.”
I chucked. Nothing but wall. He rebounded, second try. This time I hit the backboard, nowhere near the basket. He tossed me the ball again. Third time, nothing better. No big deal. I was streaky, could hit like ten in a row one day, then none the next.
“You’re taking the shot on the way down. As you run. Try it again on the way up. And arc your arm.” He demonstrated.
So I slowed down and did it. Just like he said. And three in a row. Like I said, streaky.
He trotted out of the gym, satisfied.
I was equally streaky during tryouts; could steal the ball from any kid, could defend the box and pass to anyone, but could not for the life of me hit the basket on the attempts they gave me. Coach Rhinehart, taking constant notes, had one of his assistants hand me the ball and asked me to shoot. So I stood at the foul line and, just like Burn said, moved up, not down, and extended my arc and dropped three in a row.
Then went zero for seven.
When it was reported back to me, the reason that I did not make the team was that I had talent and speed, but lacked control (story of my life . . . ).
Coach Rhinehart told my mom that maybe it was because I was on the young side and a little “rough around the edges,” but I should keep trying because there was always next year.
Which is how my mother described the call she got from Rhinehart earlier
that night.
My father described it differently: “I heard you didn’t make the team because you are too immature. You remain a dis-appointment” were his actual words.
I think he was baiting me to see if I would lose my temper, as always, so he could start a fight with me and make it out to be my fault, a pattern that I had come to expect. But I didn’t lose it, not that night. I didn’t much feel like fighting, and, not going to lie, I might have cried if I had to talk to him. So instead I went to my room, hearing my parents argue, as my mother did not appreciate my father’s negativity. She seemed to be getting increasingly irritated whenever she talked to him. Before I got to my bedroom, there was Lindsey, sticking her head out of her bedroom door, and she sneered her Lindsey sneer, telling me it was all my fault that they were fighting again. Fuck you too, Lindsey Crashinsky.
What my mom didn’t tell me, what she may not have known, was that I was on the reserve list, actually next up if any of the twelve players dropped out. One of the assistant coaches stopped me in the schoolyard the next morning to tell me that he thought that I did pretty well and that I should keep practicing. “You never know, Steven.”
Thing is, I already knew the roster, having IMed with my friends all night, so I was already aware of who was in and who was out by the next morning. There were a few surprises: specifically two kids, Leeds and Hartman, who shouldn’t have made it over me. My friends expressed as much outrage as you could put into an instant message.
Didn’t matter. Done was done. Or so I thought.
Later that day, during lunch, Burn stopped by our table in the cafeteria on his way to sit with the rest of the newly formed basketball team. When he saw me, he said, “Don’t worry, Crash, not all of the Panthers have their spots yet,” which is the way Burn sometimes talked. And which would have made no sense to me, except this was the second time in a day that I was hearing some potential reason to hope. Plus, I did have the element of magic on my side, historically. So I took the comments in and said nothing.
Pete, however, had been continuing to make it clear to the rest of us that it was either him or Burn. We were going to have to choose. With every day that passed, he seemed to start an argument with Burn, usually over nothing. Simple, stupid things. Burn claimed that he never needed sleep, and Pete argued that it was a medical necessity. Burn and Pete went at it over football stats, music, cars; whatever one brought up, the other objected to. We were basically getting used to the two of them constantly bickering.
So when Pete heard Burn basically promise me a place on the Panthers, he immediately started in, as usual. What Pete said was “Burnett, you jerk-off, panthers don’t have spots.”
Burn was, all of a sudden, in Pete’s face, saying, “You fucking cretin, the term ‘panther’ comes from Panthera, which includes the lion, the tiger, the jaguar, and the leopard. The black panther on your fucking jersey is just one variation of the species. . . .”
Now Pete was up and backing away from Burn, who continued to attack, pinning Pete against the wall and continuing, “And panthers are not necessarily black. They can be tan or even spotted.”
He was spitting the word “spotted,” still holding Pete.
“Consider, for example, the Florida panther—not the hockey team, but the endangered species. There are only like eighty left, and many of them are spotted.” Then he was getting louder and louder, keeping the pressure on Pete with his forearm against Pete’s neck. Pete struggled to free himself, but Burn just continued.
“And even if you considered only the black panther, then you must have forgotten that black panthers, especially when born, are spotted, and many panthers’ coats contain multiple pigments, black against blacker, so they remain spotted throughout their lives.”
He then let go of Pete and walked back to the lunch table. By then, the entire crowd in the lunchroom was watching him. Pin-drop quiet, I don’t have to tell you. That’s when I saw it: the exact look Burn gave me when he lit the fire.
And while the others who thought that Burn was actually going to hurt Pete were relieved to see him walk away, I was preparing myself for the worst. Especially since it all went down so quickly that none of us could react, and I didn’t know what to expect next.
And, as if on cue, as Burn was on his way to the basketball table, Pete, being Pete, wasn’t about to let Burn have the last word, and so he yelled out something like “What do you know?” which seemed innocent enough. But I guess that was all the fuel Burn needed, because he suddenly turned back and pounced on Pete again.
“Can you name one of the things that distinguishes Panthera from other cats?” Pinning Pete against the wall again.
Pete was under pressure to answer. Or, possibly, die.
This time I was better prepared and was able to get up, behind Burn. I moved toward them cautiously. I had Pete’s back and would not let him get hurt, at least not without getting hurt myself, which I was guessing was probably going to be the case, because I realized that Burn was beyond wired, in full psycho mode, and at that particular moment I fully believed that no one could have brought him down if they tried.
Still, I had Pete’s back if it came to it.
“Well? Answer me! What distinguishes Panthera from other cats?” Burn howled.
“I don’t know,” squealed Pete.
“Their ability to ROAR,” Burn yelled, roaring full blast, then laughing and releasing Pete as if it was all just a big joke, which it may have been. Who could tell, given Burn’s very strange sense of humor?
I looked at him and he looked back at me, and the look I saw before was gone. He was totally and completely back to being new Burn, the good one.
And of course, joke or not, by then Mr. Campbell, the principal of middle school, was behind me, along with half the teachers, motioning for Burn to go with them with two words—“Mr. Burnett”—and a hand signal.
“What?” Burn said. “Nothing happened.”
The male teachers surrounded him. One put a hand on his shoulder, and he shrugged it off, twisting violently.
“NOTHING FUCKING HAPPENED!” he roared again, but more like a very loud whisper this time.
He did not fight, he did not resist. Instead he very respectfully and cooperatively followed the teachers out of the cafeteria.
And then he was gone. Not in school for the rest of the day. Not in practice with the rest of the team. And that night, while I was watching SpongeBob with Jamie, the phone rang. My mom got it, gave it to me.
Coach Rhinehart.
I was on the team.
Next practice was Monday.
Chapter Six
How Thanksgiving Got Ruined, Part I: Another Day at the Office
After Burn was removed from the cafeteria, he simply disappeared. He wasn’t in any of his classes the rest of that day and didn’t show up at school the following day or the day after that. No one said anything or knew what happened to him. But we all figured that he was in some kind of trouble.
Which, as I said, made no sense at all, not really, because he hadn’t actually done anything wrong. OK, he argued with Pete, may have gone too far and may have been too loud, but the two of them never actually fought, so it wasn’t like he had done anything different than any other kid would do, in a way. Maybe he was a little more intense, but that was just Burn being Burn.
Tommy Leeds had come from a New York City school before he got to ours, and he said that Burn’s outburst would not even have been noticed in the school he went to. There were, he said, actual knives and weapons taken away from kids, and they had metal detectors on the doors and bars on the windows.
So Burn yelling about panther spots was really No Big Deal.
The funny thing was, barely a month after I had lost sleep over the fact that Burn was back, I was actually concerned about what happened to him. My mom tried reaching Mrs. Burnett all week and was told by Aunt Peesmell that she was out of town.
Over the weekend, I periodically checked my AIM account to see if h
e signed on. Burn was always signed in, as he almost always was on his computer when he wasn’t in school. Not this weekend, however. Not once in all the times I checked.
The following Monday, I got to my first basketball practice and realized that my spot on the Panthers was actually the spot that had originally belonged to Burn (duh . . . ).
Coach Rhinehart went through the roster to get acquainted with us. Burn’s name was not on the list. It was like he had never actually come back to town at all. Or like we were in some kind of science fiction movie, with one of us going missing and the others either not noticing or all pretending not to notice.
Except for Pete, who bragged about the fact that he got Burn suspended. In his mind this was a good thing because, according to Pete, Burn was a “motherfucking time bomb, waiting to explode.” Thing is, no one disagreed with him at the time, including me, not after recognizing the look in his eyes that I had seen before.
As for school, and lunches at the cafeteria, it was real quiet for the first couple of days after the blow-up, but then it pretty much went back to normal, with kids yelling at each other and arguing over sports, TV shows, video games, and whatever girls argued about amongst themselves. When Burn’s name came up, it was never actually about him, but all about what happened to him.
Then it was the beginning of Thanksgiving week, and we were off from school starting that Monday. Which would have been great, except that my mom and Lindsey had gone to Maine to see my aunt on Saturday. They weren’t going to be home until the following day, and for some odd reason, my father decided to take me and Jamie into work, as he still didn’t “feel comfortable” leaving me alone in the house for extended periods of time, which was absolutely ridiculous as my mom almost always left me in the house for extended periods of time.
Crash and Burn Page 8
