by Larry Buhl
“Tyler, I was extremely careful not to photograph anyone with alcohol because I was afraid of just that.”
“Well! Not careful enough, it would appear!” I sounded like a bad Shakespearean actor.
She shook her head. “Wait. You were suspended Monday but the story was published yesterday.”
“So?”
“Tyler, I’m sorry about what happened but I’m not to blame.”
“Doesn’t Steve Nicks approve every story that goes out? Maybe you gave him the photographs on Monday. Was this whole thing a set up? Invite yourself to the party so you’ll have some dirt to write about?”
“You invited me.” I could tell she was becoming angry. “I don’t like this conversation.”
I didn’t like the conversation, either. If I could have split into two people right then, the rational Tyler would have slapped the crazy, spittle-spewing Tyler. But those things only happen in movies. Or maybe they don’t happen in movies. I don’t see many films.
Rachel spun and stormed back into the Clarion office.
Here’s why I was angry, the real reason. I understand this now. It wasn’t just the speed I took, although that didn’t help. I had been trying to please everyone. Not just Caltech’s faceless admissions committee. There was Milagro Sanchez, Mr. Proudfoot, Principal Nicks, Carl and the ever-unsatisfied Janet, and every other FoFa. Who had cleaned the floors of every FoHo and kept the bathrooms spotless when the biological children left their garbage all over the place? I had. Who was polite and respectful when the biological children were insolent? I was. Who made an effort at innocuous chitchat when the biological miscreants spent countless hours in their rooms playing video games? Again, it was I.
Furthermore, who cooked and cleaned for his BiMo? Who stayed up all night to make sure she would arrive home safely? Who called the hospital when she had one of her episodes? Who turned his entire life inside out for her? That would be me.
None of this had anything to do with Rachel. She was just someone who foolishly cared about me for a while.
**
To: All Staff
Re: Inspections
Two weeks until state inspectors arrive. Things have been pretty sloppy. We need better habits. Starting tonight, you will be assigned to a clean up crew. The instructions will be included in another memo. See me if you have any questions.
Cecelia Platt
**
After a night of triple disinfecting, I could eat a meal off any surface at Colonial Gardens. I almost did just that, in fact, after I dropped a piece of cherry pie on the table in the lounge.
Even Kel was cleaning, which was his official job, though I had never seen him doing it until tonight. I caught him in the B corridor, mopping the same spot over and over. I told him about my reaction to the yellow jackets and how I flipped out at Rachel. The implication behind my words was that he had given me some stronger stuff, possibly laced with poison. He was more stoned than usual. He didn’t catch my subtle accusation. He leaned on his mop and gazed at the flickering overhead light. “Sucks about your girlfriend,” he said. “Probably ought to get her something nice. One time my girl caught me having sex with her sister and this other girl. But it turned out all right because next day I bought her tickets to this concert—”
I cut him off. “You said you used yellow jackets.”
“Many moons ago, my friend.”
“Maybe the potency has changed. Am I going to have any long-term effects?”
“Chill. It’s not like acid. But if you want some acid, it’ll cost ya.”
“I don’t need acid!”
We both saw Mrs. Platt at the end of the corridor. That was the end of the conversation.
Beyond the stricter adherence to cleanliness, the upcoming inspections had brought other changes in the third shift routine. We were not allowed to simply check off boxes on patients’ charts. Courtney was apoplectic at having to write detailed notes on each page and log them into the electronic files, something I had been doing all along.
Nurses’ aides on other shifts were under closer scrutiny as well. They had to see that residents were actually taking their medication. I learned this during rotations, when it was apparent that Milagro Sanchez had been heavily sedated. The pills in her Box o’ Crap were gone.
At five o’clock, as I scrubbed the corridor handrails with bleach for the second time, Mrs. Platt approached.
“Thank you for alerting us to Milagro,” she said. “Nobody on the second shift actually watched her take her pills. Typical. Sometimes I think you and I are the only ones doing our jobs around here.” She handed me a heavy, photocopied document, then she peered into my eyes.
“I’m fine,” I said, a little too defensively.
Milagro was awake, barely, at shower time, and kept slipping out of our arms. If I didn’t know better—and I didn’t know better—I would say she was trying to throw herself to the floor. Courtney became so frustrated she literally tossed Milagro at me and told me to “handle it.” I couldn’t hold up a slippery woman and the shower curtain and the water nozzle at the same time. I placed Milagro in her wheelchair and rolled her to her room. When I eased her into bed, she wouldn’t look at me. She knew I had told Mrs. Platt about the pills. I wasn’t going to leave it at that. I would have the last word, at least. That wasn’t so hard to do, given that she was unable to speak.
“There are rules. I was doing my job. I need this job. Do you know what the economy is like out there?”
As I was clocking out, Kel approached and asked me what pills I had taken that day. I told him Claritin, a multi-vitamin, Sudafed, and two yellow jackets in the morning, and one yellow jacket and Sudafed before work. With coffee.
“Sheeee-it man. You only hafta take one yellow jacket.”
“You said two. I heard you. Two. I remember.”
“Not with Sudafed. That’s a fuckin’ speed ball.”
“Sudafed is for congestion. I get congestion.”
“Bull-sheeeeit.”
I was shouting now. “I have allergies and I need to stay awake because my grades are falling and I can’t do homework on my shift.”
“You shoulda said so, bro. Brain meds. Take Ritalin. I can get that for you. Yellow jacket and Ritalin.”
“One Ritalin and one yellow jacket.”
“Twice a day.”
“Both twice a day?”
“Uh, yeah.”
“And what about B vitamins and Sudafed?”
“No bro.”
“No bro what?”
A nurse’s aide from the A wing approached. Kel shared a flirty look with her. We all stood there in silence until the woman clocked out. When she left, Kel said, “my man you’ll just hafta…” He lost his train of thought.
Uber-dummkopf. After all those years being wary of others, I had trusted a tattooed stoner who gave out free pills.
Janet picked me up on time, as usual, at 7 a.m. The ride back to their house was silent. I probably could have made some small talk, but I was brain fried from my shift. I had to clench and unclench my butt muscles in order to keep from falling asleep. By the time we reached the corner of Flamingo and Sunset, I became miffed that I had to worry about staying awake for her benefit. And since the night of the German club party, I had been miffed about how they kept their son, Scott, a secret.
I had spent too much time and mental energy on non-important things, on making chitchat with Carl and Janet, on Milagro’s photos, on my doomed romance with Rachel, and on the plight of the honeybees. I had been worrying about all of that too much. Caltech was still the ticket to my future. I decided to visit Caltech, as Mr. Proudfoot suggested. Not just for a campus tour. I would do damage control. I would schedule an interview. I would explain the suspension. I would make up for my mediocre essays.
That was the plan. The interview was the only thing that mattered now. I needed to not care so much about the little things. I had to keep my eye on the big thing.
NINETEEN
&nb
sp; Interviews were optional at Caltech. Originally, I opted to not participate, because of the time and expense of traveling, and because I thought a face-to-face with an admissions officer could only hurt me. Now, the interview was my possible salvation. If admissions knew about the suspension, I could explain the circumstances. And maybe I could wow them with my effervescent personality, ha-ha. I would bring Mr. Proudfoot’s letter. Before presenting it to admissions, I would need to discreetly determine whether they knew about my infraction, without spilling the beans. The letter was more about Principal Nicks than about me. It was a laundry list of jerky things he had done to Mr. Proudfoot and the Firebird High faculty over the years.
I had a plan and talking points. According to Mr. Proudfoot, my Achilles’ heel was not my suspension, nor was it my lack of extracurricular activities. It was the fact that I had not spent a full year doing college-level research with a professor. There was no way to make up for this deficit at the last minute. But I could spin the experience I did have to my advantage.
More importantly, I could show admissions that I was unique. I could not transform myself into an Eskimo, but my life history, which I had avoided on my essays, could be an asset. How many refugees from the Foster-go-Round applied to Caltech? I had no statistics for this, but I could assume it wasn’t a large number.
I packed a bag with two of everything, in case something got ruined. Two pairs of khaki pants, two pairs of socks, two boxer shorts, two striped ties, and two dress shirts. I had only one pair of dress shoes. The trip would take four hours, driving at the speed limit. We would leave on Sunday to allow me to miss no more than one day of school. The admissions office was gracious enough to schedule my interview for Monday morning. Colonial Gardens was gracious enough to give me time off. Levi was insistent enough to drive me.
In our last tutoring session, I brought up the fact I was going to Pasadena. For the rest of the session Levi wouldn’t stop talking about how great it would be if we could go together. He said he had never been to California, and he would love to go to Disneyland. His offer did make financial sense. We would share a motel room. He would pay for everything, including gas, and I would tutor him as he drove. I hadn’t decided whether I would charge him for the tutoring session. If I did charge him, I might come out of the trip ahead a few bucks.
I spent the entire day looking for signs that the trip and the interview would turn out well. Levi arriving on time was a good sign. Janet’s hectoring was an inconclusive sign. “Where will you eat? Do you have enough money for the motel? Do you have enough money for food? What will you do if you run out of gas? You will call when you get in. Do you feel safe letting Levi drive?”
I politely told her I had everything under control, and there was no reason to panic. Then she became snippy. “Pardon us if we want to see you arrive alive.”
Janet and I stood in the foyer and I wasn’t sure what else she wanted from me. It occurred to me that she wanted to hug me goodbye, but that would have been strange.
She gave me a quick, half-hug and a pat on the back. “Have a good trip.”
“You, too,” I said, reflexively.
As soon as Levi pulled away from the curb, I received a bad sign, not about the interview and my chances for admission, but about my life expectancy. It was instantly clear that Levi was a terrible driver, far worse than my BiMo. She never nearly sideswiped a telephone pole while bending down to reach for a spilled soda. As his float-y old car weaved indiscriminately over the center line, my body went rigid enough to mimic rigor mortis.
“You have to keep your eyes on the road,” I shouted.
“If you’re going to act like that, it’s not going to be a fun trip.”
If we end up dead, the trip will be less fun. That’s what I wanted to say. But I decided not to say anything until he was able to stay in one lane for at least ten minutes. Tutoring him while he drove would be out of the question.
After he reached cruising speed on the freeway, I asked what he was going to do with the camping gear in the trunk. He told me he gave his parents a story so they would let him go to California. He was going camping, alone, so he would be able to pray in nature and be closer to God. They bought it, surprisingly.
Twenty minutes out of Vegas, we passed an outlet mall with an incongruous roller coaster. Levi said, again, how much he was looking forward to Disneyland. I informed him that it was at least sixty miles from Pasadena, we wouldn’t have time, and that it was expensive. He said he would pay for both of us.
“It’s far,” I repeated.
“Not that far on the map.”
“Map distances are misleading.”
“You said you’d think about it.”
“I said I’d think about another tourist attraction. Anywhere but Disneyland.”
“Disneyland is the happiest place on earth.”
“That’s a slogan and it’s idiotic,” I said. “A place can’t be happy because a place has no feelings.”
“People are happy when they go there.”
“Then that should be the slogan.”
Levi punished me by putting in a CD of nothing but pounding surf and seagull sounds.
After thirty minutes, his driving improved. It seemed likelier that we would live. When we passed the last exit in Nevada, Levi frowned at the terrain. “Nothing much changes when you cross the border,” he said.
I informed him that the state line was an arbitrary dividing point and that California was huge enough to contain every kind of climate and geological formation.
“I was making a joke. You take everything so literal.”
“Literally.”
“I’m not stupid.” He slammed his fist on the horn. No sound came out.
The Lincoln cruised up a steep incline, past the rocky outcroppings pocked with dry dots of sagebrush. The high desert terrain looked like old poppy seed buns.
I tried to call the motel to reconfirm our reservations. I didn’t realize until Janet picked up that I had accidentally dialed her cell phone.
“What’s wrong?” she said, panicked. “Where are you?”
I told her nothing was wrong and that we were still in the desert.
“What’s that screaming?”
“Seagulls,” I said.
“Put me on speaker,” she demanded.
I obeyed her.
“Drive safely, Levi.” Her voice was so loud over the speaker it was making my phone buzz. “And call when you arrive, all right?”
Levi said he would call.
“She meant me,” I said.
Janet put Carl on the line, which was totally unnecessary. “What I wanted to say before was, good luck and have a good time,” he said. “And be careful of those college women.”
“I’ll be careful,” Levi said.
“He meant me,” I said.
“Who’s screaming?”
“Seagulls,” Levi and I said at the same time.
“Fine, you don’t have to tell me,” Carl said, disappointed. I ended the call.
The hum of the road and Levi’s seashore sounds and enveloping pillow-seats put me to sleep. I woke up when Levi swerved suddenly, throwing me against the side window.
“I almost didn’t see that truck,” he said.
I informed him, as politely as I could, that a clean windshield would help. He turned on the wipers. An anemic jet of blue spray drizzled onto the glass. The wipers smeared the bug carcasses.
I remembered the time my BiMo moved us to Nevada. She was driving her ancient blue Subaru, “blubaru” she called it, while singing to a Joni Mitchell CD. There was a splat. She screamed. Suddenly the window was opaque yellow. I knew right away it was a thick swarm of bees meeting their untimely end. I urged her to pull over to the side of the freeway. She did, and I scraped off the wings and pollen. She had no cleaner, so I had to make do with some Gatorade and a snow scraper. When I finished the job, she was nowhere to be found. I searched the rocks by the side of the freeway. The contrail of a plane o
ver a mountain range, the hiss of traffic, and faraway train tracks were the only signs of life. I wandered around in the brutal sun for ten minutes, calling her name. She emerged, smiling and waving, from behind a giant rock. “The bees got me to thinking, so I went to look for something.” I didn’t ask what she was looking for. She was always searching for something, and often she had nothing particular in mind.
A little after six o’clock, when we attempted to check in to our motel, I received a very bad sign. Suspecting that we were underage, the clerk asked to see identification. He rejected my fake license and made a sarcastic comment about enjoying my films. I was rather dismayed that it was easier to score alcohol than shelter with a fake I.D.
It took another two hours to find a motel that accepted minors. We got lucky with a dump that had the advantage of being overpriced, far from campus, and featuring only rooms with one bed instead of two. While I signed the registration form, the cadaverous clerk referred to Levi as my friend. I didn’t like the way he said, “friend,” especially when we would be sharing a bed at a motel that had a condom machine in the lobby.
“He isn’t my friend. I tutor him.”
When we reached our musty, nicotine-stained room, Levi flopped on the bed and began languidly flipping through my Caltech brochures. “In loco parentis. Is that German?”
“Latin.” I pulled out my green striped tie from the overnight bag. It had an unidentifiable stain. This was a very bad sign.
“It means ‘parents are crazy,’ right?”
“It means ‘in place of the parents.’ The university takes care of you.”
“Loco means crazy in Spanish,” he said.
“But the phrase is Latin,” I snapped. I examined my other tie. It, too, had a small stain. I uttered several cuss words in German and English.
I found the source of the stains. An ancient protein bar had ricocheted around the bag, creating grease splotches on everything, including both pairs of dress pants, almost like it had an agenda to sabotage my entire wardrobe.
