“Maybe you shoot join your son in rehab, Jack,” she said. “Work it out—I need to sleep.”
Then she was gone. I reached into the bag and grabbed a nugg, feeling the resin stick to my fingers, leaving a trail like a slug on the pavement during a hot summer night.
“Put that down,” Jacob said weakly, but there was no point, because I was holding my father’s weed, and there was nothing, absolutely nothing, he could do to stop me. All the anger drained out of me, and as I stared at the magnificent specimen, I realized that I had been wrong all this time.
It wasn’t Burn who saved me from this man. It was Felicia all along. Just by showing up at my house that Thanksgiving, as if by magic, and then again and again, all the other times and now, she had saved my life again.
If there was such a thing as a soul mate, then mine was a thirty-three-year-old Slovakian woman who never stopped being beautiful.
Sorry, Christina, if you thought it was you.
Chapter Eleven
How Me and Burn (and the Rest of Us) Adjusted to Meadows
“I can already see that we have a special class.”
These were the first words I heard as a student at Meadows High School.
Staring out the window at a perfect September morning, I tried as hard as I could to listen to Mr. Connelly tell us about what to expect for the semester in freshman English.
I was two weeks into some new ADHD medication (for me at least), as in Adderall, and my mom was hopeful that I would finally be able to focus on my work.
After two weeks, I felt absolutely no different.
Except that I wasn’t sleeping at all.
Just in time for high school, I was officially labeled a 504 kid, which is some kind of special plan that is apparently designed for learning-disabled kids, which also meant that I was entitled to special accommodations to help me study and take tests, but which also meant that I had to go to a special class with other 504 kids, who, I already knew, were the biggest losers in middle school and bound to be worse off in high school. I don’t have to tell you that this caused more than one major fight in my house, with me telling my mom no way was I going to that class with those losers and her getting Jacob on the phone (which she almost never did), who told me that I had better respect my mother (like he was the fucking voice of God) and buckle down (or buckle up, whatever).
Plus, I was supposed to see this lady doctor once every three weeks to check on the medication levels in my system and talk about how I was feeling.
Which left me pretty much thinking that high school was going to be nothing but a four-year suckfest.
And, as if to prove my point, this angry-looking middle-aged bony dude with the pointiest nose I had ever seen was telling us that nothing that we did in middle school was going to prepare us for his class, which was going to prepare us for everything else in high school and college, and if we took it seriously enough, every other high school class was going to be a breeze by comparison.
So I was actually trying my hardest to listen.
“Our curriculum will include reading the following books and other literature,” he said. “To Kill a Mockingbird, Lord of the Flies, Of Mice and Men, The Old Man and the Sea, and two books chosen by you for your own personal project. In addition, you can expect to read The Crucible, and for those of you who have no previous experience with William Shakespeare, you are in for a treat as we will be reading Romeo and Juliet and watching several movies based on Shakespeare’s plays. You will also be keeping a weekly diary to enhance your ability to express yourselves, and we will, of course, be writing short stories, one a month. Also poetry, writing and reciting, and, finally, we will create a class project. Be prepared to spend at least two to three hours a day on our assignments. There will not be time to catch up if you miss a class or ignore these assignments. Any questions?”
I looked around the room.
Other kids, swear to god, were taking notes, and I was still thinking about what happened to summer, and what was I supposed to be writing down, because it didn’t seem to me that he was saying anything worth writing.
Also, it seemed to me that almost every kid in that class was like supersmart genius material: Kenny, Sarah, Evan, Madelaine Brancato, Mark Duncan, John Kramer, and sitting in the back, David Burnett, next to this new kid, someone I had never seen before.
There had to be some mistake, putting me into this mix. There had to be some kind of easier English class where the not-so-smart kids were.
Then I spotted Bosco and thought maybe it wasn’t going to be so bad.
But then the new kid raises his hand and asks whether the structure of the curriculum was intended to incorporate some kind of unified theme, because it seemed to him that many of the book titles had animal references.
Some people laughed at this. I, of course, did not get the joke, not even remembering what the book titles were in the first place. But Burn turned to him, looking like the new kid had out-Burned him, and gave him this congratulatory look, like, good one, dude.
I was fucked.
Fucked for two reasons actually. One, no way was I going to do as good as these kids in this class. Two, no matter what kind of ADHD medication I was on, no way was I going to be able to read all of those books. All my life, I hated books, didn’t matter what kind. Textbooks, stories, comics, whatever, they were all the same to me. I felt like I was in prison every single time I was forced to read. So clearly I didn’t understand how other kids actually got pleasure out of it (like Lindsey, who could stay in her room for hours just reading while me and Jamie watched virtually everything there was on TV with Medusa curled up on the couch next to us).
Also, wasn’t that the whole point of movies? So you didn’t have to read? I wondered how many of the books that Connelly listed were made into movies. I wondered a lot of things while Connelly was busy calling out the names on the class list quickly one after another, except that he stopped when he got to Burn, who looked all clean and polished, sitting up with perfect posture while the rest of us slumped over our desks. I was thinking that maybe he had gotten taller over the summer, or maybe he was used to sitting at attention from his days in that school that he went to. Whatever. My mom told me that he was adjusting very well to his life back at home, although I hadn’t seen him since the night of the play.
“Aren’t you Roxanne’s brother?” Connelly asked, and I wondered whether that was a good thing or a bad thing.
“Yes, sir.” Burn sounding real formal. According to my mom, he was spending most of his time at April Walker’s house and they were virtually inseparable. Mrs. Burnett assured her that David was absolutely ready to tackle the challenges of Meadows. From what my mom had told me, Mrs. Burnett was now having issues with Roxanne, but I couldn’t get her to tell me what they were.
“She’s an interesting character, I must say,” Connelly remarked. I wasn’t sure whether he meant it in a good way or a bad way.
“You’re the brother with the problems, I assume,” Connelly then added, and you could see by Burn’s face that this comment did not sit well with him.
“No, sir,” Burn shot back. “I’m the other brother.”
He was so confident sounding and so sincere about it that I had to wonder if, in fact, the Burnett family actually had another child I didn’t know about. Call me stupid. Sometimes I’m a little unsure of comments like that, especially when teachers are involved.
Connelly shot him back a look. “Aren’t you the one they call Burn? The one who comes to us from the Clinton School? The school for emotionally disturbed kids? Aren’t you the one who tried to set McAllister Elementary on fire?”
So now he was pegged. The rest of the class laughed nervously as some of them remembered the incident. How did this guy know? That was like ancient history. No one ever even talked about that anymore.
“Old news,” Burn said. “I’ve moved on to other things.”
I had to wonder what “other things” Burn had in mind when he sai
d that. Connelly did not ask. He went back to the roster.
“Sarah Cohen.” Which caused Sarah to raise her hand high enough so everyone could see that she had developed a brand-new set of breasts over the summer. Everyone was staring at them in awe. Everyone except Burn, who seemed, at least to me, to be still seething over Connelly’s remarks.
“Steven Crashinsky.”
I reluctantly raised my hand. I already knew that Lindsey had Connelly as a teacher. She called him the toughest teacher she ever had, one of the few teachers she had hated. Enough, in fact, to actually feel some level of sympathy for me in getting him.
“Brother of Lindsey Crashinsky,” he said matter-of-factly. “You can relax, Mr. Crashinsky. I see that you are 504. No one here will be expecting you to be the student that Lindsey was. Lightning doesn’t often strike twice, and I really don’t expect much of a spark from you. That is, unless you and Mr. Burnett decide to once again display your pyrotechnical abilities.”
I saw some kids writing down that word. I figured that he was talking about the McAllister fire, which, again, I was not actually involved in, except as a potential victim, and I was about to tell him, to set the record straight, but he had already moved on.
“So this class is special indeed, because I have the dubious honor of having Crash and Burn in the same class. How fortunate for me,” he said to more nervous laughter.
“Mark Duncan?”
After hearing how Connelly totally skewered me and Burn, Mark looked really scared about having to raise his hand. I wondered what he had to hide.
It was immediately clear to me that this guy Connelly was going to be one major asshole.
It wasn’t just me thinking this.
In the hall, after class, kids were coming over to me, saying how everybody knew that Connelly was a dick and that he had no right to talk about me like I was a retard. Burn walked by, gave me a nod, like we were in it together. I nodded back, uncomfortably, knowing that we might be targets, but for entirely different reasons. I was going to ask him how he was doing, but he cruised past me, over to where April Walker was standing with a bunch of kids I had never seen before.
“That guy’s fucked up, eh?” the new kid offered, sticking out his hand on our way to the next class. I was thinking that he must be from like Canada or something because of the way he talked, but he said “Boston” in an unusual accent. Then he said, “I’m Alex. Everyone calls me Newman.”
He seemed like a nice-enough kid.
“I’m going to call the principal first thing tomorrow,” my mom said when I told her what happened. Actually, what I said was:
“Mom, you absolutely have to get me out of Connelly’s class.”
I told her what he said to me and Burn and she was beyond upset. She immediately went for the phone and called Burn’s mom. Right away, she started in with Mrs. Burnett, in her irate-mom voice. Can you believe what this teacher said and how inappropriate and how did he expect to instill confidence in children when he is insulting and embarrassing them and shouldn’t the principal know what’s going on, even Lindsey complained about him, and she didn’t expect this to be an easy year for me, but to hear this on the first day . . .
And on she went as I headed for my room, thinking about school and how much I hated it. Math, science, health, gym, and history went much better, at least the first day, but I already knew that my notes were not going to be good enough to figure out what I had to do for homework in any class.
I set up a PlayStation game, one of the Final Fantasy games, and tried to play.
I was tired and wired at the same time, focused and yet unable to concentrate. I didn’t know if it was me or the Adderall, which other kids were swearing by. And this school thing was definitely on my nerves, because it was light-years until the last day of class, and I wasn’t seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, not one bit, because all I was seeing in my mind was Connelly’s pointy-nosed face smirking at us, actually mostly smirking at me, and I knew, I fucking knew that he was going to be trouble, big trouble.
Not only him. I couldn’t shake this feeling of doom that I was experiencing, this instinctive knowing that something was going to go majorly wrong. What made matters worse was the fact that whenever I had these feelings, I was always right, and for some reason I was getting them more often on this new medicine.
My mom came up after her call with Burn’s mom.
“Don’t worry, honey. You will not have to stay in that monster’s class.”
She was gone, but the bad feeling was not.
And, as it turned out, I did have to stay in his class. So did Burn.
We ended up meeting in Principal Singh’s office two mornings later, with our moms being all kinds of agitated, talking over Principal Singh’s voice as he unsuccessfully tried to calm them down. Burn was sitting superupright in his chair, and I was on the cluttered green couch, wishing I was anywhere else. And then Connelly walks in, puts his hand on Burn’s shoulder, which I can see is making Burn superuncomfortable, and then Connelly apologizes for his comments, both to our moms and then to us directly, assuring us that he did not intend to be mean-spirited, and he understood why were upset, we had the right to be upset. He had crossed the line, he acknowledged, and he promised us it wouldn’t happen again, and then he politely bowed forward and dismissed himself, closing the door behind him, leaving the four of us with Principal Singh, who asked that we give Connelly another chance. When Mrs. Burnett asked why should we, Singh read a letter to us, holding it close to his face, like he had an eye problem or something:
“A few words in support of Mr. Connelly,” it started. “He may be a difficult man who appears to lack compassion, but I can honestly say that I learned more in his class than in any other class that I have had at Meadows.”
Imagine our surprise when he handed us the letter.
It was signed by Roxanne Burnett.
On our way back to class, as I walked with Burn, neither of us said anything until I asked what was up with his sister. He said that he had made the mistake of siding with his mom on certain Roxanne issues and that pissed her off and that he was sorry that I was collateral damage in his family battles, but you don’t cross Roxanne and expect it not to come back and bite you in the ass. I kind of knew what he was talking about from my limited experience with her, but I hadn’t done anything to her. I was going to ask him what could have pissed her off so much, but we were already at his classroom and I was late for pre-algebra, but then before he went in, he grabbed my arm to stop me, and I figured he was going to apologize for me getting stuck with Connelly and all. Instead, what he said was:
“Are you still seeing Christina Haines?” Which of course I wasn’t, as I didn’t actually spend any time with her after the night of the play, so I told him that there was nothing going on with me and Christina. He said he was happy to hear that, because he liked her, as in really, really liked her, so I asked him, wasn’t he all about April?
“She’s fun, but she’s not long-term, Crash,” he said. “Guess how many BJs I got this summer?”
I shrugged, in one way not caring, but in another way kind of pissed that he was getting them and I was not, as I no longer seemed to be making any connections with girls, which trickled down to no contact whatsoever by the end of the summer, for some odd reason.
“Go ahead, Crash, guess.”
“I don’t know. Like twenty-four?”
“Exactly twenty-four. How the fuck did you know?” He had this all-screwed-up look, paranoid, like I had somehow peeked into his mind, which I could sometimes do with other kids, thanks to the Adderall. After his initial shock, he recovered enough to ask, “What do you think the record is for a freshman?”
I said I didn’t know, and he went on about how it was all because of me that he had all these new friends and did I want to go over to April’s that weekend because she was having some camp friends over. Then he asked about Christina Haines again and all I knew was that I was going to get hell
for getting in so late to pre-algebra even with a pass from the principal’s office.
Burn never mentioned the party at April’s after that, and I wondered if she had decided that having me over was a bad idea or something. Point was, as the month progressed, I was more and more off my game. By the end of September, I was behind in everything. I was beginning to think the Adderall was making me worse, because I was having those bad feelings all the time, but other kids in the 504 program were constantly telling me how great it was.
Caroline Prescott went to school to advocate for me and ended up hiring a tutor, who showed up just once, then made some excuse not to show up again, and I was feeling like a totally lost cause.
Then my mom has this superbrilliant idea (she’s the only one in the world who could think of this): have Lindsey tutor me. She tells us this like it’s going to make both of us happy, and both of us look at each other and know, just know, that it’s not going to work. I mean, Lindsey was getting a little mellower by then, being a junior and all and way more into boys and her friends than school for the first time, so now she wasn’t on 24/7 bitch patrol, and while she didn’t actually act like she liked me, she seemed, for the first time in our lives, indifferent to my existence. Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t feeling the love. Just not the hate.
I didn’t know at the time, but this was around the point in junior year when Lindsey discovered weed, which, while she never became a stoner, she did seem to like, as it took the edge off her. Regardless, no way was Lindsey going to be able to handle me.
But give her credit, she tried for a few weeks. Coming home every day after school, going through my backpack, extracting the sand-crusted gummy worms and half-eaten snack packs and the overfolded handouts, always with the same cringe face, cleaning up like she was a mom, then going through my notes, stretching out the crumpled papers and organizing them with plenty of clear tape and staples.
Crash and Burn Page 17
