by Larry Buhl
“Great,” I said. He looked somewhat morose, so I repeated myself, with more vigor.
“I haven’t heard that Nina album since… when? I was finishing my dissertation at Berkeley. I had just met Janet. We were crazy in love. This was before our careers. And Scott.”
I held my cereal bowl and sat on one of the hard Indonesian wood chairs across from him. I decided to eat right there. I knew his one-sided conversation would last longer than the cereal’s crunchiness. I regretted my decision to sit down once Carl segued from 1980s nostalgia to 1990s nostalgia. He said he wanted to make a mark in the world, and he almost did that by taking his first software company public. But he was on the wrong side of the dotcom boom and the company went bust. Then there was another company, and another...
The longer I stayed with Carl, the more of my night with Rachel dissolved from my memory. In my head, I began listing the things I liked about her. The way she frowned when she concentrated, her smell, the way she tossed her head around in a small circle before her eyes came to rest on me.
My attention returned to Carl when I heard him apologize for Janet flying off the handle about my job. “She’s worried that we’re making the same mistakes we did with Scott. It’s been hard for us as you probably can guess.”
It had been a while since I had said anything, so I asked how long Scott had been their foster.
Carl was surprised. He said Scott was not a foster, but their son. That made sense. Scott must have been the kid in the photos.
I told him I had to get to bed.
“Thanks for not staying out late.” He jerked his head toward the bedrooms. “She’s… you know.” I wished he would stop saying you know in terms of Janet. I didn’t know.
Back in my room I forced myself to concentrate on Rachel. I tried recreating our abbreviated encounter, but her image was constantly eclipsed by Zoe’s. Worse, my mind kept drifting back to Carl’s statement. They had a biological son. Scott may have moved across the country, gotten married, and forgotten to write or call. They may have had a falling out. I had heard this was common with real families.
But there was one thing that bothered me. Carl chose his words with precision. That partly explained why it often took him so long to come to the point. So it was perplexing that he hadn’t used is to identify their son. I was sure that Carl used the past tense of the verb.
SEVENTEEN
November 19. A yellow jacket is an ephedra-loaded stimulant. Neon yellow is most common, but they also come in pink/purple, yellow/purple, and yellow/black. Side effects include irregular heartbeat, nausea, tingling, chronic sleeplessness, irritability, sweating, indigestion, tremors, numbness, loss of appetite, weight loss, diarrhea, and the possibility of heart attacks. I certainly don’t need any of those symptoms, and at 130 pounds I don’t need to lose any weight. Diarrhea would be especially unwelcome. Then again, wouldn’t diarrhea be uncommon? Kel said it was commonly known as “trucker speed.” Truckers can’t afford to stop often. Besides, Kel said he took yellow jackets and he insisted they were a mild stimulant. I will keep them and only use them for a worst-case scenario.
**
It was a good thing that Ms. Gurzy wasn’t reading our journals carefully. It was also a good thing that I was taking the Creative Soul class, because I would need some acting skills to cover up how much my schedule was endangering my health. Since starting at Colonial Gardens I had been experiencing an ever-growing sleep deficit. At times my limbs were like wet sand. When I was not concentrating on a quiz or dodging traffic on my bike, I often fell into a netherworld between REM sleep and full consciousness.
Even exercises in the Creative Soul class were not enough to keep me stimulated. During air catch, I faded into a microsleep, and didn’t realize that someone had sha-roomped me the ball. A guy next to me gave me a nudge, and I said, “woof,” an inappropriate noise for catching an air ball. During an exercise where we had to be animals, I improvised a cheetah napping on the jungle floor, a performance that involved lying on the ground and actually sleeping for a minute. Ms. Gurzy was not so impressed with this less-is-more performance. She said there was a difference between cleverness and laziness.
I told Carl and Janet, via white board messages, that I received near-perfect scores on my calc and physics midterm exams. That would be true only if the standard for “near-perfect” was pretty broad. I scored a 90 in calc and an 88 in physics, my worst scores in any math or science course in my high school career.
On Monday after the German party, I suspected something was wrong when Jann-Otto showed up to class with a bandage over his nose. He wouldn’t look at me and neither would Annette-Barbel. They both ran from me when I stopped to talk with them after class.
During the next period, I was summoned to Principal Nicks’ office. Without taking his eyes away from a paper in his hand, he commanded me to enter, close the door, and sit. Behind the door was my German teacher, Frau Soto. Next to her was Carl.
I sat in the empty chair. Principal Nicks leaned back and put his hands behind his head. “I’ve spoken with Mike Woodcock and Jennifer Blanchard.” I was stumped for a second because I had forgotten the real names of my club officers, Jann-Otto and Annette-Barbel. “They both testified that you procured alcohol at a school event.”
“I told him no alcohol at any German party,” Frau Soto said. She was lying, but Principal Nicks wasn’t paying attention to her. I noticed for the first time she had a faint Latin accent.
I was too nervous and mortified to have a coughing fit. I did consider the possibility that I would vomit.
“I don’t see the problem,” Carl said. “Nobody was hurt.”
Steve Nicks said yes, in fact, someone was hurt. “Mr. Woodcock testified that he broke up a fight between two UNLV students. He tried to stop them from vandalizing the house and he ended up with a broken nose.”
“Are you suggesting Tyler punched someone in the nose?” Carl said.
“I would not approve of college students at a German club party,” Frau Soto said.
“I’m suggesting,” Principal Nicks said, “that he created the atmosphere where danger could flourish.”
“Are you kidding me?” Carl said.
“May I say something?” Principal Nicks gave me permission to speak by raising his bushy eyebrows. I admitted that there had been a lot of alcohol flowing, but I insisted that I had not approved of it and that I had not bought most of it. I explained that it was a big house and there were a lot of people. I couldn’t watch over everything. Jann-Otto drank the lion’s share of the booze. Jann-Otto invited the jerks from UNLV. It was probably Jann-Otto who incited a fight with them.
“You bought two six-packs of beer,” Principal Nicks said.
“But how are the other things his fault?” Carl said.
I was watching a game, Carl against Principal Nicks. I was rooting for Carl, naturally.
Principal Nicks leaned back and flared his nostrils. “It’s about rules. And Tyler has been flaunting them.” He meant flouting. I thought it wise not to correct him. He informed Carl of my sex and drugs speech, and about my willful neglect of rules about posting fliers on school property.
“Tyler is one of the finest kids I’ve known,” Carl said. “Unless you have something other than alcohol—”
Principal Nicks cut him off. He started a monologue about his experience as a drug czar in the Bush administration—”the first Bush, the better one”—and about how a no-tolerance policy for substances saves lives and blah, blah, blah. The veins on Carl’s neck bulged and his face had turned red-orange. I no longer rooted for Carl. I liked how he stood up for me, at first. But he wasn’t going to keep me from being punished. If he continued to confront Principal Nicks, it might worsen my sentence. That, plus my queasy stomach made me long for a shorter meeting. I cut to the chase.
“I did a stupid thing and I deserve whatever punishment you think appropriate.”
That punishment was a two-day suspension. It was less severe
than I’d expected. Carl said it could ruin my chances to be admitted to Caltech. I hadn’t considered Caltech until he brought it up.
After the meeting, in the hallway, Carl said we should keep the suspension from Janet. His idea was for me to pretend to go to school, but instead spend the day at the library. That would be ideal, because my science fair proposal was due, and I needed to do some extra research on pesticides. The only problem was, if Janet found out, she would be not only mad at me, but at Carl as well. I wasn’t comfortable being a wedge between them. They didn’t need any more strain on their marriage. I had overheard at least three arguments in as many weeks. And I wasn’t there very much, so I imagined they argued a lot more.
The plan worked. Janet had no idea. I finished my proposal, which was brilliant. Without going into too much detail, I’ll say it was an investigation into whether a new pesticide played a role in the honeybee colony collapse disorder. I was able to get around the issue of having live bees in the fair—they were a risk to the attendees—by tracing the migration path of the honeybee.
I always thought that a suspension was a gift to the goof offs who got into trouble, like rewarding a diabetic with an enormous hot fudge sundae. But despite giving me time to save the bees, and sleep a little on the library desks, the suspension was a net negative. It would be on my permanent record.
On my first day back at school, between second and third periods, I saw Rachel in the hallway, rushing in the opposite direction. She breathlessly asked where I had been. Before I could respond, she told me, as she ran backwards, to look for the German club story in the Clarion.
At first glance, Rachel’s article made me seem like the savior of the German program. There were also statistics about how many schools in the U.S. still teach German, plus a graph of declining enrollment over the past twenty years in Las Vegas. There were a few quotes. “German is a venerable language and if it goes, what goes next? Killing programs is a slippery slope toward an academic abyss.” It sounded like me, although I didn’t remember saying any of that.
There was a picture of me giving a speech at the party. I didn’t even recognize myself at first. I was holding up a German textbook. I looked non-geeky, like someone a girl might want to date. Maybe I really did look like that actor guy, or like he did in the 80s. I made another mental note to check out Christian Slater’s films.
There was some activity in the background of the photo. Two UNLV students were behind me, laughing. Behind them, a couple was making out. At the edge of the photo was a guy’s forearm. And in his hand was a bottle of beer.
Principal Nicks oversaw every aspect of the Clarion’s publication. I had no evidence that Rachel had given him the photographs. I had no evidence she hadn’t. I didn’t call her that evening. I needed to think things through, and write down a few cost-benefit analyses of what she might gain by betraying me. I waited one more day before deciding that Rachel had betrayed me by informing Principal Nicks about the beer.
Yes, it was an absurd supposition. But, in my defense, I came to believe this only a few hours after I had begun a rather regrettable amphetamine addiction.
EIGHTEEN
Ever since Kel dropped the “gift” in my lap, I kept his yellow jackets in my vest pocket and vowed to use them only if absolutely necessary. Nodding off during a calculus quiz was a “break glass in case of emergency” situation.
The pills worked well for the first hour. I was alert and mildly warm. The side effects began the following period in the form of sweating and fidgeting and indigestion. The anger side effect kicked in during German class, when I learned that Jann-Otto and Annette-Barbel had not been kicked out of German club. In fact, Jann-Otto made an announcement for everyone in class, except for me—he singled me out—to come to the next German club meeting. Snake. I imagined him breaking down in tears and telling Principal Nicks that he begged me not to bring alcohol to the party. Principal Nicks would have been too busy to launch an investigation into what really happened. It was easier to go after the low-hanging Tyler-fruit.
After class, I stopped Jann-Otto in the hallway. His lip twitched and he backed up a step. He was afraid of me. I wondered for a moment whether the yellow jackets were making me appear aggressive or whether Jann-Otto really was that much of a wimp.
“You invited UNLV guys. You got drunk. You fought with them.” I was shouting now.
“It’s your word against ours.”
The bell rang. My right arm went up, not to hit Jann-Otto or even scare him, but as an exasperated reflex. He flinched. I almost made the gesture again, on purpose. I was enjoying the illusion of being threatening.
On my way to calculus, I had a revelation. If I had to choose between being like Jann-Otto and attending Caltech, or being a pseudo-normal person and attending UNLV, I would actually take the latter. That was one of the last rational thoughts I had that day.
After fifth period, I experienced yet another negative effect of the speed. My stomach gurgling became a cramp, which became an urgent need for the rest room. I made it in time, but I spent the better part of the lunch period there. As I waited on the toilet for the next wave of intestinal contractions, with my pants at my ankles, some guy stopped by my open stall and smiled. “Glad we have someone on SGA fighting for stall doors,” he said. That, I recognized as sarcasm.
By biology class my bowels had stopped threatening to detonate. My lab partner was irritated by the noises I was making—grinding my teeth and tapping my foot. I had experienced nearly all of the possible side effects of the yellow jackets except for the heart attack, and there was still time in the day for that.
After class, I asked Mr. Proudfoot to convince me that the suspension hadn’t ruined my chances for admission to Caltech.
“They’ll only learn about the suspension if Steve Nicks tells them. He’d only do that to be an ass. I give that a better than fifty-fifty chance. If that happens, just leave that to me.” He promised to write a second letter of recommendation on my behalf, explaining what a farking idiot Principal Nicks was. He didn’t use the word farking. I asked him to not write swear words in the letter.
The seventh period class was coming in and Mr. Proudfoot still hadn’t talked me down off my metaphorical ledge. I asked him whether it was too late to begin more extracurricular activities to satisfy Caltech’s need for diversity.
“Tyler, that’s not the diversity they’re looking for.”
“Then what?”
“Nobody has any idea what they’re looking for. They have unofficial quotas for everything. Extra points if you’re from BF Nowhere. Extra points if you’re an Eskimo. The only thing Caltech demands that you spend at least one year studying a college level subject. But it’s for the university’s benefit. So they’ll look at some kid and say, ‘hey this guy’s worked on robotic limbs for two years and that’s great because we can use him to get a research grant.’ That kid gets a free ride.”
“I should do a project on robotics?” I said, with urgency.
Mr. Proudfoot shook his head. “Robotics was how I got in. They want a full year of research with a college professor. Research on what? Nobody knows. It changes year to year. Depends on what kind of grant they’re going after. It’s a racket and it’s all about the school, not about you.”
“How can you have a year of research with a college professor when you’re in high school? Isn’t that what college is for?” My voice was whiny and petulant. I sounded like Jann-Otto, but at least I had the excuse of taking speed.
“I don’t know why you think Caltech is the be all, end all. What about M.I.T?”
“I don’t know,” I said, my voice pinched. “What about it?”
He sighed. “Have you ever been to Caltech?”
“No. I’ve been busy. I’ve been trying to save the bees and—”
“Go there. Take a good look at the campus and see if it’s a place you really want to be. Don’t be intimidated. And whatever you do, don’t ask about their meth labs.”
&nb
sp; The second bell rang. “What?”
He winked. “Scandal back in the eighties. I’ll tell you about it sometime.” Ghoulish laugh. Sideburn tug. Bulging eyes.
His seventh period students were in their seats, staring at me. One guy in the front raised his eyebrows and made a toke-up gesture with his thumb and forefinger. My reputation from my campaign stump speech had not completely dissipated.
By the end of the school day I was less jittery and angrier. I was suffering from a worsening headache. Coming down from a yellow jacket buzz was not the optimal time to confront Rachel about the photo.
She was inside the Clarion office, laughing with two other guys. She saw me and waved. “There you are. I’ve been leaving messages. Where have you been?”
“Where have I been? Being betrayed. That’s where.” I blame the withdrawal from the yellow jackets for my stilted syntax.
Rachel wanted talk in private. She called me out into the hallway in a soothing tone of voice that adults use when they want their children to stop making a scene.
I informed her I had been suspended because of the drinking at the party, and all of that would destroy my chance of attending any good college, and I hoped she was happy for setting me up. I was rambling and being overly dramatic. The more I talked the angrier I became.
“Slow down. What did I do?”
“The photos you took in the Clarion. Beers in hands. Beer, evidence.”
“Wait. You were suspended because of my photos?”
“Look at the picture,” I said. I didn’t have a newspaper in my hand. If I had one I would have waved it at her. “In the photo. People are drinking beer. You took the picture.”
“I’m not the editor.”
“Good excuse! Did you take a picture of me smoking pot, too?”
“I didn’t know you smoked.”
“I love pot! And heroin!” For the record I hadn’t tried heroin or pot. At the party I did inhale some secondhand pot smoke. Someone at the end of the hall heard me and gave me the thumbs up.
