by Larry Buhl
After I finished calling everyone in my book, I told Carl and Janet I had to run a quick errand and that I would be back in a half hour.
“Now where are you going?” Janet snapped.
“He said he’d be back,” Carl said. As they began arguing over whether it was right for me to keep taking off, I escaped. I walked around their neighborhood, looking for guests. If I could round up at least two people, Janet’s work would not be completely in vain.
Half of the houses in the neighborhood either looked empty or were empty. The next-door neighbors, the ones who often stared out from their windows, were home. I knew this because they were staring out at me as I passed their house. I almost didn’t stop, because, frankly, their constant snooping was creepy. But I needed guests.
They were Bob and Betty Hansen, who were grandparent-aged. They wore matching white pants and floral shirts, and scowled even when saying something pleasant. There wasn’t time to invite anyone else. This would have to be good enough.
I introduced the Hansens to Janet. They seemed to already know each other and were not on the best of terms. I could tell this by the way Janet said, “I’ve been meaning to ask you over,” and by Mr. Hansen’s derisive snort.
On the patio, the Hansens and Carl sat in a semicircle, stone-faced, as if in the waiting room of a dentist’s office with nothing to read. I felt a nascent headache. This “party” was stressing me out.
A strange woman walked in without knocking. She was large but more muscular than porcine, and younger than Janet. Her red hair was tied in a ponytail. She wore tight white jeans tucked into red cowboy boots and a t-shirt that said Eat the Rich.
“Hello bee lover.” She thrust an envelope at me. Inside was a year’s subscription to Scientific American magazine and a $30 gift certificate to a bookstore.
Janet introduced the woman as her sister Fiona. They spent a minute catching up. I surmised that Fiona had spent several weeks touring India and experiencing food poisoning. “Good news is, I lost seven pounds,” she said.
Fiona turned to me, smiled, grabbed my arm, and led me to the patio.
For ten minutes Carl played talk-show host with the Hansens, prompting them to share the highlights of their lives. We learned they moved from Phoenix to Las Vegas because the weather was drier. Mr. Hansen retired from a company that made dog supplies, but they never had pets of their own. Mrs. Hansen found Las Vegas to be not as dry as she hoped. They paid too much for their house, they agreed.
Then, the Hansens ended the Q and A session. Mr. Hansen declared that Janet’s real estate business must be in “the crapper.”
“Janet says the market is coming back,” Carl said.
“Look around,” Mr. Hansen said. “All these new houses sitting empty. The black family left in the middle of the night.”
“They seemed shifty,” his wife added. “Guy had one of those Porsche-cars.”
Mr. Hansen corrected her, as if for the hundredth time. “Mercedes.”
“What’s a guy like that doing with a Mercedes?”
“Drug money.” This exchange seemed they had rehearsed it.
Fiona turned to Carl. “Are they serious?” He shrugged and looked up, helplessly, at Janet in the kitchen window.
Mrs. Hansen turned to Fiona and asked what she did for a living. Fiona took a big swig of iced tea and waited about ten seconds before answering. “I teach English as a second language to immigrants. They don’t pay me. The state does. Through your tax dollars.” She appeared pleased with herself.
That’s when all pretense of civility ended. Mr. Hansen was irate that his taxes were going to Fiona to teach those “illegal Mexicans.” He used the term “giver-mint,” instead of government, which was probably intentional because he said it three times. His wife overlapped him, going off about how Medicare was being overtaken by Socialist forces, and about some kind of terrorism plot. It wasn’t a discussion so much as a two-person anger aria.
Carl sat silently, looking pained. Fiona wore a beatific look on her face.
This was my fault. If I had told Carl and Janet the truth, that they should plan nothing for me because I had no friends, none of this would be happening. Carl and Janet would be doing their Saturday thing, Janet’s sister would be doing her thing, and I would be job hunting or trying to save the bees.
Fiona calmly reached into her bag and pulled out a cobalt blue glass pipe. She took out a pill bottle, pulled out a few buds and squished them into the pipe. Pot, I presumed. The Hansens stopped talking and watched Fiona light up. She inhaled and blew a cloud of smoke in their direction.
Mrs. Hansen sputtered. “Is that…?”
“Don’t worry,” Fiona said. “It’s from northern California, and no illegal Mexicans picked it.”
The sliding glass door thwomped open and Janet stuck her head out. She gave Fiona a withering scowl. Fiona followed Janet’s non-verbal summons to come inside. She took the pipe with her.
I stayed outside and listened to the Hansens as they berated Fiona as a “moonbat” and “illegal appeaser.” Carl weakly defended Fiona, but the Hansens weren’t having any of it. I began to wonder why the couple was staying. Maybe they really wanted the enchiladas and cake I’d promised.
Behind the kitchen window, Janet and Fiona were shouting at each other and using exaggerated gestures, like actors in an Italian movie with the sound off.
This was why I didn’t like to celebrate birthdays. Like my eighth birthday, when my BiMo suddenly decided to drive to Disneyland. She ran out of gas on the freeway. She sunk into a depressive funk for the next two days. We never made it to Disneyland. It would have been better if she hadn’t tried.
Fiona came back to the patio long enough to wish me happy birthday. “Big sister is sending me away because I peed in the punchbowl again.” There was no punchbowl at the party, so I hoped that to urinate in a punchbowl, like to clean someone’s clock, was a type of euphemism. She apologized to Carl and ignored the Hansens.
“Walk me out?” she said to me.
I escorted Fiona to the front door. In the foyer she leaned in and whispered to me. “Be good to those two. They’ve been through a lot.” She meant Carl and Janet, surely, not the Hansens, but for a few seconds I wasn’t sure.
She backed away from me, cocked her head and squinted. “You know who you look like?”
I waited for her to tell me.
“A drummer I knew. Animal.” The way she said animal, I wasn’t sure whether it was a good thing or bad. She forced the breath out of me with a sudden hug that was more like a frontal Heimlich maneuver.
The Hansens stormed out a few seconds after Fiona left. I thanked them for coming. Mr. Hansen responded by swatting the air with his hand as if shooing away a fly.
Janet followed them out. “You’ll miss the cake,” she said in a tone that was too perky to be authentic. Mrs. Hansen stopped for a moment, reconsidering, but her husband grabbed her arm and pulled her along with him.
Janet turned to me. “That went well.” It was clear that she was being sarcastic.
Later that night, Carl and Janet showed up at my bedroom door. Janet held out a wrapped gift and told me to open it. It was a new cell phone.
“Maybe it will help us talk,” she said. “I think you’re the last kid in America over thirteen to not have one.” I didn’t know the statistics, but I knew she had to be exaggerating.
Then something quite extraordinary happened. Carl handed me a check for $550. “It’s for the amount we didn’t spend on you for a month,” he said.
I kept staring at the check. No FoFa ever turned over any money the state gave them. I hadn’t asked for it. I didn’t expect it. I wondered whether it might have been a trick.
I thanked them for the check, the party, and the phone. I didn’t need the phone, but I wouldn’t ask them to take it back or exchange it. They had done enough for me already.
**
September 30. In Creative Soul, students expressed more confusion over the daily j
ournals. Ms. Gurzy explained, again, the purpose of doing them. When they continued questioning her, she snapped and told us we didn’t have to do the journals at all. Therefore, this is my last journal. Bye.
September 30. I can’t sleep. In chemistry class last year, I wrote a paper that laid out the dangers of everyday devices and substances used in millions of households. I pointed out that preliminary research on the link between mobile phones and brain cancer was inconclusive. There was no proof that cell phones caused cancer, but no proof that they didn’t cause cancer. How will I tell Carl and Janet this?
September 30. I don’t understand why they threw me a party. I don’t understand why they’re not keeping the state money. I don’t see what’s in it for them.
**
On October 1st, I received a letter from the Foster-go-Round with my emancipation trial date. I was to appear on December 14th, right in the middle of finals week, a day before I was to receive my verdict from Caltech. In legalese, the letter told me to bring character witnesses and job references. And, of course, I would have to write another farking essay.
I put the letter in my Box o’ Crap.
NINE
October 3. Terrible jobs I’ve had:
· Twirling a sign at an intersection to promote a new condo development. I learned the importance of a high SPF sun block.
· Washing dishes at a restaurant. Lasted until another dishwasher sabotaged me by planting dishes in my backpack. Final paycheck withheld. Can’t use as reference.
· Working for Clownfish Lady. I started out watering her plants and walking her dog. The job morphed into cleaning her toilets, negotiating with her bill collectors, spying on her ex-husband, and looking for an exact replacement for the expensive pink skunk clownfish that she said I killed. Can’t use as reference.
· Bagging groceries. For each rest room break, pay was docked a half hour. Forced to do unpaid overtime. Can’t use as reference.
· Covenant Catering. Can’t use as reference.
**
It had been a frustrating evening of job-hunting. The closest I came to a legitimate offer was at a small bakery. The owner said he would give me a few weekend hours and free massage. I declined both.
In a sliver of time between homework, saving the bees, and job hunting, I was at the house, resting on my bed. Carl came to my bedroom door and announced that Sun would bring Eddie Kim to the house for tutoring. “At least I think she said that. She was hard to understand.”
I imagined the Sun-Carl conversation.
“Eddie happy for make Tyler the teaching so now, okay?”
“Come again?”
“I come. Okay byebye.”
“I wish you would speak with her directly,” Carl said to me. “Your cell phone has voice mail.” He said this not in a sarcastic way, but in a manner that made him appear helpful. I had been keeping my cell phone in my Box o’ Crap, partly because of the brain cancer risk, but mostly because I didn’t have anyone to call.
I met Eddie at the front door. I was not certain he wouldn’t have an impromptu tantrum, so I steered him away from the living room—Carl and Janet were sitting there and having a low-grade argument—and marched him off to my bedroom.
“Who stole all your stuff?” I hadn’t thought about it until Eddie brought it up. There were no wall hangings, no posters, no photos. The only bit of color in my room was Eddie’s red and blue rugby shirt. He was bouncing on his knees on my bed, flapping his arms. A tropical bird in a cage came to mind.
Eddie insisted on candy before he studied. I left him alone in my bedroom while I searched in the kitchen for something that might satisfy him. I was on a health kick, and Carl and Janet never kept sweets in the house. When I returned with dried cranberries and green tea, Eddie was on the bed with his face in my Box o’ Crap.
He turned to me, holding two Petri dishes up to his eyes. “Come closer, I can’t see you.”
I calmly explained the importance of not touching someone else’s personal belongings. Either he didn’t listen, or he considered this to be a merely academic lecture, because he began fishing around for more treasures. He pulled out a photo of my BiMo. She was standing in front of the ocean, wearing a big yellow hat that was about to blow off. I liked to remember her that way, a little silly and carefree, and not, for lack of a better word, crazy. I had taken the photo. I must have been Eddie’s age.
I told him she was my biological mother.
“Where was this? Did you sleep on the beach? How far away is that? If you fly there how long does it take? If you drive there how long does it take? Did you see a meteor there?”
“I lived in Los Angeles for one year,” I answered. “I didn’t live near the beach, but in a place called the San Fernando Valley. It was 300 miles away, roughly, a 50-minute plane ride, and an unknown but long period of time by foot. No meteor sightings.”
Eddie pulled out some avocado pits from the box. Pre-empting his question, I told him my biological mother was going to use them to plant trees.
“Why didn’t she?”
“She lost interest.”
He dropped the pits and pulled out a publicity post card with my BiMo posing in front of a combo of musicians. She had a microphone in her hand. “Is she a singer? Did you make her mad? Is she nicer than your new mother? Where does she live? Why aren’t you talking? Are you in a bad mood?”
I ripped the post card from his hand with a force that surprised me. I told him the lesson was beginning.
Eddie finished his arithmetic homework with nary a peep. The sensory depravation of my empty bedroom may have been helpful. “You’re my best teacher ever,” he said, unprompted, before he ran out to meet Sun. He seemed sincere about this. I didn’t feel obligated to say he was my best student, because I would have been lying.
Later that night, I went to the kitchen for a bowl of cereal. Janet cornered me and said what a polite little boy Eddie was and how nice his mother was. I informed her that Sun was his housekeeper/nanny and that Eddie was usually a hellion.
“Does his mother work? Why does she leave him alone? Where is his father? They just leave the kid alone all day?” With every “I don’t know” I uttered, Janet grew more exasperated.
I wanted to change the conversation, so I told her I was on the verge of a breakthrough in the honeybee colony collapse syndrome. This was a wild exaggeration, but it didn’t matter, because Janet ignored what I said. She opened a bottle of wine with a fancy battery-operated cork extractor.
My BiMo never drank. I suppose that was a good thing. Adding alcohol to her mental and emotional turbulence would be like adding amine to sodium hypochlorite, or possibly acetone to chloroform in the presence of a base. That’s a chemistry analogy.
“Can you tell me why you’re not using your new phone?” Janet said, blocking my exit. “We both left messages for you.”
I promised her I would listen to them and use the phone to call her.
“I’m here now. Anything you’d like to talk about?”
There wasn’t, and for a moment I thought it might be a trick question. One FoMa approached me in that way, thinking I would confess about stealing money from her drawer. I hadn’t even gone in her room, ever. One of her sullen and pierced biological daughters had taken it. Or she had misplaced it. My denial didn’t sway her. I was moved to a new FoHo within days.
“How is… business?”
Janet uttered a growl of annoyance. It was kind of a no-win situation she put me in, demanding to talk, yet not informing me of off-limit topics.
“Last year was bad, but this year has been a shit storm. Sellers are turning to section eight. Good luck with that. They’ll find their places trashed. It’s not going to end until they bulldoze some neighborhoods. This area could end up looking like it did a thousand years ago. Might not be a bad thing.”
I saw an opening. I informed her that what was now the Las Vegas valley was, millions of years ago, the ocean floor. Thick deposits of Ordovician mudstone could be
seen in the nearby deserts, which was evidence of a great flood. I had covered all of this in a 7th grade geology report, “Soft Rock and Heavy Metals: What You Didn’t Know About Nevada’s Geology.” I added that they shouldn’t worry about flooding from global warming either, because the city was more than 2,000 feet above sea level. But the heat may make the valley uninhabitable.
Janet drained her glass. “Interesting,” she said, as if she didn’t want to hear any more. She poured another glass of wine. I stayed in the kitchen, in case she wasn’t done with me.
“Carl’s dad moved out here and bought this place because he thought the weather would be good for his health. But the desert doesn’t heal cancer. You probably could have told him that.”
No, because I didn’t know him then. That’s what I almost said.
“Then he dies and leaves the place to Carl and his other son. Carl bought out his brother at the top of the market. Then the market dropped and we couldn’t sell the house in California, and this place is worth a third of what it used to be.”
“It’s a nice house,” I said.
She lit a cigarette and blew the smoke toward the window, which was closed. “Hollow doors. Drywall had mold. Mold in the desert. But this stucco box had to stay in the family. Sentimental value. If Carl was so sentimental, why didn’t he buy the old man’s house in Michigan?”
It wasn’t clear whether I should answer the question. I didn’t know a lot about real estate. It was a personal matter anyway.
She stubbed out the half-smoked cigarette in a wooden African bowl. “What I said on the voice mail was, if you need a ride, ask us. I asked you not to ride your bike. There are no bike lanes and the drivers here are idiots. And you don’t have to pay us for gas.”
