The Genius of Little Things

by Larry Buhl

  I was momentarily miffed that she was still forbidding me to ride my bike. But we had begun to have a nice conversation. It seemed unwise to ruin it. I thanked her and promised to ask her for a ride sometime, knowing I wouldn’t ask her.

  I should have studied that night. Instead I rummaged through my Box o’ Crap while I listened to one of my BiMo’s CDs on my laptop computer. There was a medley of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” and “It’s a Wonderful World” that I listened to every year on the anniversary of my BiMo’s death. I hated the song. Listening to it was an act of self-abuse.

  My BiMo would not have stayed put like Carl and Janet. She moved once a year, at least. Sometimes it was her choice, sometimes the landlord’s, sometimes her boyfriend of the moment. She thought the most important thing was being in motion. One time, we even moved from a great place with a pool, though I still didn’t swim in it, just because she thought the building’s “vibe” blocked her creativity. But she didn’t have any better luck at the next place. She began keeping things in boxes, in case she needed to move again suddenly. At times I wondered if moving was more of a compulsion than a joyful act of seeking freedom.

  “Don’t end up like me,” she said. “Find out what you’re good at and do everything you can until you succeed at it. Don’t let anything stand in your way.” She gave a lot of advice about life. Some of it was useful, like the many times she told me to study hard, go to the best school, and “you get what you settle for.”

  I started culling from my Box o’ Crap. I removed some of the obviously useless stuff, like the avocado pits and the dead pens. Then I went for some of the BiMo stuff, like the take-out menu from Thai Me Down. I didn’t need to look at any of that, ever. It went into a manila envelope and into the trash.

  I said I wasn’t going to bring up my BiMo anymore, but I’m afraid it’s going to be necessary.

  TEN

  Guten morgen! Guten tag! By initiating the first German club in Firebird High School’s history, not only have I shown leadership qualities, I also have experienced the joy thrill ecstasy pride that comes from saving the day picking up the gauntlet blazing a trail taking the bull by the horns padding my application.

  SCHEIZEN. CUT.

  **

  College application padding was complete.

  Firebird High’s fledgling German program consisted of two small classes, but Caltech wouldn’t need to know that. Our teacher, Frau Soto, thought the German club idea was wunderbarste.

  One person showed up on time for the kick-off meeting, a slightly pudgy brunette with a doughy complexion. Her German class name was Annette-Barbel. She was a little bit too excited about the club. “We’re like the Continental Congress of Firebird’s German program,” she gushed.

  We agreed that I would be chancellor and she would be vice-chancellor. Choosing officers was my only agenda item. I was about to adjourn the meeting when a guy ran into the room, out of breath and wild-eyed. It was Jann-Otto, the one who had complained that he wouldn’t be accepted to Stanford on grades and SAT scores. When Annette-Barbel informed him that we had chosen officer titles, he became irate. “You couldn’t wait till everyone got here?” His voice was nasal and screechy. I made a mental note to keep my voice low, clear and resonant, just like Ms. Gurzy taught us in the Creative Soul vocal exercises.

  “Everybody was here and I don’t think it’s fair to interrupt a meeting already in progress,” Annette-Barbel said. “If you had a conflict, you should have informed Helmut.” Helmut was my German class name.

  Jann-Otto wouldn’t let it drop. He told us he was going to graduate summa cum laude—as if that mattered—and said he had the idea for German club weeks ago. She told him he should have expressed his idea at the time.

  He kept clicking his pen fast enough to cause a thumb sprain. “So we’re going to be undemocratic? We’re just going to let this guy run things?” Again, he meant me. I never appreciated being referred to in the third person.

  I stood and told them both that I would iron out issues such as what title to give Jann-Otto—I was thinking of some very special titles—at the next meeting.

  “I should be an officer right now,” he said. “My application deadline to Stanford is in less than three weeks.” I really, really hated his voice. His insistence on padding his application, as I was doing, made me suddenly want to run the club for real. But I had planned nothing for the first meeting. I needed to get out of there and look for a job.

  “Meeting adjourned!” I slapped my hand on the desk. This was the new Tyler, powerful and assertive, ready to slam his hand down hard enough to make it sting.

  As I rushed toward the nearest exit I passed the Clarion office. The door was open. I slowed down long enough to glance inside, acting nonchalant in a way that suggested I’m walking very slowly and there’s nothing else to look at in this hallway, so I might as well take a peek.

  I stopped. Rachel was sitting at a desk, reading. She had a way of biting her lower lip when she was writing or thinking. She was doing it now. I found it appealing.

  Her shirt said, Why don’t hedgehogs just share the hedge?

  I laughed. Just a quick, ha.

  Rachel looked up. So did the two guys at the desk behind her. We were all frozen in time. I know that’s not scientifically possible. It’s just an expression I heard once. Rachel stuck her tongue out. I pivoted and fast-walked out of the building.

  **

  October 13. Activities with FoPas, in no particular order:

  · FoPa Three. Helped them wash the dogs. It was my idea because they smelled. The dogs smelled, I mean. I also joined them and their four other fosters and three biological children at an interminable UNLV basketball game. Was almost left behind.

  · FoPa Two. Went to their biological daughter’s middle school band concert. As they bleated out a noxious rendition of some current pop song, I considered how many pints of blood might gush out of my body before the concert ended, if I should stab myself in the throat. It was difficult to estimate. There were three variables: whether I was standing or sitting, the length of the concert, and the tightness of my shirt collar.

  · FoPa One. Went to his Pentecostal church three Sundays in a row. On the third visit, I went through the motions and even spoke in tongues, which pleased him until he realized that I was loudly reciting the periodic table of elements. He never dragged me there again.

  · FoPa Five. Joined them on several trips to an upscale furniture store when they were redecorating their house. Learned the differences in colors and fabrics.

  · FoPa Four. I can’t remember any.

  · Carl. A driving lesson???

  **

  On Saturday morning, I passed Carl in the driveway when I was on my way to the pharmacy. He was sitting in his red VW GTI and staring straight ahead, as if his mesmerized by the steering wheel. He didn’t notice me, and I didn’t want to disturb him in case he was in deep mediation. I was concerned that surprising a person in a deep trance could cause a heart attack or other bodily trauma. I walked by him without waving.

  Down by the strip center, Carl pulled up to the curb next to me. He asked me if I needed a ride. I almost told him no, because I was so close to the store. But he seemed extraordinarily eager to help me out. I agreed to let him take me the final hundred or so feet. I thought he would drop me off and be on his way. But when I left the store, he was still sitting in the car, with that same look of concentration. I tentatively got in the car. He perked up again, as if he were a child’s toy and someone had just shoved new batteries in his back.

  “How about that lesson? Do you have time?” Several times over the past three weeks he had offered to give me a driving lesson. As with the birthday party Janet threw for me, I thought these invitations were theoretical.

  I told him I had a little time.

  As he drove toward the I-15 freeway he explained displacement, torque versus horsepower, the value of manual transmissions in sporty cars, and other finer automotive points. It
was becoming clear that Carl was a bit of a nerd, like me. If we ever could agree on a topic, we could conceivably maintain a long conversation.

  He stopped the VW in the middle of an enormous lot near a motorist pit stop. He was shockingly cheerful. “Rrrrready when you are!”

  I walked around to the driver’s side. Carl hopped into the passenger seat. He guided me though the process. “Don’t put your foot on the gas yet… keep the clutch in, and shift into first… now put your foot on the gas, just a little bit.”

  After a few gear grinds, I got the hang of it. The rhythm—clutch-shift-accelerate—was like a dance. When I was in sync, the VW would repay me with a satisfying engine buzz and seamless gear changes. Other times it gave me a head jolt and a growl of protest.

  Carl started talking about his life, cars, and his life in cars. In college he had an unreliable MG convertible, and then a 71 Cutlass, which was a “babe magnet.” Fifteen minutes and several automotive anecdotes later, I was ready to thank him and call it a day. Carl asked how the college application process was going. I told him it was fine. In reality, I had 190 pages of essay slush and about two usable paragraphs.

  He asked whether I was still set on Caltech. I told him I was.

  “It’s good to have fall back schools,” he said.

  I forgot to take my foot off the gas. The engine revved. I stepped on the brake and the car lurched to a halt. The red and yellow lights stayed on, shaming me.

  Carl told me to “start ‘er up again.” I turned the ignition and depressed the clutch. I shifted to first, and then to second, then third. When I settled back into the rhythm, Carl said he and Janet had always planned to pay for their son’s college and they still hoped to do that. Strange, I thought, as I tried to concentrate on shifting. Why was he planning to save money for a son? They were much too old to start having babies. They had to be at least in their mid-fifties.

  Carl kept talking while I tried to concentrate on the clutch-shift-gas sequence. It was starting to annoy me. It’s like he had taken me out there not only to teach me how to use a manual transmission, but to bore me with his life story. “We’re going through some financial problems, as you’re probably aware. But you’re welcome to stay with us after you age out of the system. It could be helpful if you want to stay around here and go to UNLV.”

  Clutch, shift… something… gas petal, shifter. I was confused. Carl waved his left hand. I shifted, skipping a gear. There was a grinding sound. The engine revved with ferocity. Carl gestured helplessly at the gearshift. My left leg had gone rigid and pushed the clutch all the way to the floor. I did a ninety-degree turn going forty. The car skittered off the pavement and onto a dirt embankment.

  I slammed on the brakes. The car lurched to a stop. The instrument panel lights glowed. We sat in silence for a few seconds as dust settled around us.

  “My grades and scores are good enough for Caltech,” I said.

  “I’m thinking in terms of practicality. Since I teach in the system, there might be some financial incentive for you to go there.” That made no sense to me, because I was not his son. There was, as far as I knew, no discount for foster children of part-time professors. “Of course, you have the smarts to go anywhere. It’s amazing what you’re doing. A little quiet but I think we’re working on that.”

  We’re working on that? It occurred to me that, for two people who insisted on having conversations with me, they were just as bad at conversing as I was. They both could talk a lot of scheizen. And then he said one thing I hate almost as much as smile, it’s not so bad. “Considering what you’ve been through, you’re doing great.”

  I told him I had to study, even though I really didn’t. I thanked him for the lesson and said I didn’t need another one.

  On Sunday, Carl and Janet left the house early. I sat at the breakfast nook with my cup of coffee. Because I was alone, I felt comfortable loudly humming “Urge for Going.” I noticed the message on the white board. It was in Janet’s slashy handwriting. Nevada Child and Family Services called about your “emancipation.” Is this a mistake?

  It wasn’t a mistake. The letter with my hearing date was still in my Box o’ Crap. The Foster-go-Round was expecting me to call back and confirm. I had neglected to do so because… well, I wasn’t quite sure. If I could have some kind of guarantee of not being uprooted again, and if Carl and Janet didn’t try to act like they were my real parents, then I wouldn’t mind staying in the foster system, and staying with them.

  I couldn’t explain all that on the white board, so I wrote no.

  ELEVEN

  Moments after I left a pet store with an application for a non-existent job, the sky opened up. The desert storm was short, more like a like a violent cloud sneeze. It lasted just long enough for the rain to plaster my shirt to my torso, making me look as skinny as a freshly shampooed cat. I ran for shelter in the wrong direction.

  I stopped to get my bearings at a nursing home called Colonial Gardens. The receptionist, Kate, smiled at me Mona Lisa-like, and asked how I learned about the job opening. I looked at her blankly. She informed me they had just fired two aides on the night shift, and more were going to get the ax. “I haven’t even had time to advertise for the positions and I’m not looking forward to sifting through a bunch of applications.”

  I hadn’t planned to seek a job there. I didn’t even know the place existed. Of course, I asked to apply.

  As with the Starbucks application, there was an open-ended question and half a page of blank space. I rewrote part of a Caltech essay attempt from memory, and it seemed to fit the question well. What are three examples of your consideration for others? My knowledge of germ-fighting techniques came in handy. I had just read an article on MRSA, the antibiotic-resistant bacteria common in hospitals and nursing homes. I wove my knowledge of that together with the techniques I would use to keep surfaces clean and keep the residents safe. When I finished, Kate told me that the staff of Colonial Gardens did God’s work. “Unfortunately God’s pay scale starts at ten dollars an hour.”

  That was more than I had hoped for. It was thirty-eight hours a week, because they had to provide benefits at 40 hours. Three eighty a week, minus taxes, FICO and social security, for ten months would give me approximately fifteen grand for tuition, room, and board. Patients would be asleep on the night shift, wouldn’t they? I could do homework and get paid for it. I wanted that job.

  “We’re like family here,” she said. “That’s what we strive for.”

  “Me too,” I said, dumbly.

  I assumed Kate would tell me to come back for an interview at a time when I was prepared and not dripping wet. Instead, she said the executive director, Mr. Wofford, was waiting for me. This was peculiar. To my knowledge, she hadn’t told him I was there. She had been sitting in front of me the whole time I filled out the application. If she had let him know about me, it was via telepathy.

  Mr. Wofford wasn’t much taller standing than sitting. His handshake was surprisingly firm and he seemed intent on crushing my little finger.

  “You made quite an impression on Kate.” He led me into his office and gave my wet clothes a quick glance. He turned to the window. The sun was shining. I fought the urge to explain that it had been raining hard, for exactly four minutes.

  He asked me to sit. I perched on the end of the guest chair so my moist clothes wouldn’t dampen the entire seat. The A/C was on full blast and blowing against my wet shirt. I heard squeaking coming from somewhere in the office.

  He scanned my application. “These are some impressive academic achievements. You’re planning on college?”

  This was a gotcha question. What if they were looking for aides who would stay around more than a year? They wouldn’t want to train someone who would leave.

  “Probably UNLV,” I said, choking a little.

  “You say you’re a helper,” he said. “Can you elaborate?”

  “I’ve helped many people. I helped my... I saved my BiMo…biological mother’s l
ife a few times.”

  “You know CPR?”

  “Yes, I do.” But I couldn’t save my BiMo when it really mattered. “I learned it when I was ten.”

  Mr. Wofford smiled. “So young, yet so pragmatic. But what we’ve been missing in our aides is empathy. Many of our residents are tossed aside. Ignored by society. Some are ignored by their families. Might as well be flotsam.”

  “I can relate,” I said, too eagerly.

  He blinked rapidly.

  “I’ve never been in a nursing home, but I will be,” I said. “Eventually. I wouldn’t like to be… flotsam.”

  I recognized the source of the squeaking. My legs were pumping up and down, causing the chair to protest. Mr. Wofford asked if I wanted hot tea. I politely declined even though my shivering threatened to devolve into a body quake. It must have made him uncomfortable, because he cut the interview short.

  “I can c-c-come back with r-r-recommendations,” I said, through chattering teeth.

  “Not necessary. I’d like you to start next week.”

  “O-k-k-kay.”

  The job came with conditions. Within six months of my start date, I was required to complete two courses in nursing at a local community college. And there would be a probationary period. For one week I would be shadowing an experienced aide in the afternoon. If I didn’t screw up, I would start on the third shift, starting at 11 p.m. and ending at 7 a.m. I was told never to call it the graveyard shift, for obvious reasons.