by Larry Buhl
I walked around the drab neighborhood looking for a store that sold stain removers. I found none. Fortunately, the front desk clerk had plenty. I wouldn’t have guessed this from the many discolored patches on the blankets. When I gave up trying to de-stain my clothes—I basically blended the grease blotches into the fabric rather than lifting them off—Levi had fallen asleep, face up, mouth open. I was not about to spend an evening a dingy room with a drowsy tutee that smelled like orange chemicals and mold. I mean the room smelled that way. Levi always smelled like bacon and pine deodorant. I said I would be back sometime before midnight. He grunted his approval, or disapproval. Or maybe it was a half-snore.
I took a bus to campus. My self-guided tour of the university was exhilarating. I had no idea there were so many styles of architecture—consistency was the hobgoblin of small universities. Hello, Beckman Auditorium, where I will hear fascinating lectures by visiting scholars. Hello, stream by the library where I will kiss a girl at dusk. Hello, Asian guy who looks like a grown-up Eddie Kim.
On a kiosk near one of the cafeterias I saw a flier for a dorm party. There were fliers on walls and doors as well as kiosks. How’s that for an advertising policy, Principal Nicks? I made a beeline for the dorm. The building was accessible only with a student card key, but a guy held the door open for me, as if I belonged there. That was the best omen so far.
Inside, a dozen guys watched a basketball game on a TV in a corner. A table stocked with wine and cups suggested more might arrive. I stood a few feet away from the guy-cluster so they wouldn’t think I was intruding. Then, I decided standing alone made me more conspicuous, so I went back to the wine table. I expected someone to say, hey, you’re a high school kid. You don’t belong in this dorm and you aren’t old enough to drink wine. Someone call security! Nobody said this.
More students arrived, including a few women. College women. I attempted to paint, through strands of conversation, a picture of what my life would be like. “It’s a debate of ideas without ideas. Why does it smell like that? They couldn’t make a basket if their lives depended on it. I’m all about milk thistle these days.” The picture was cloudy.
Someone very interesting arrived. She was short and thin, with a dark complexion. Indian, maybe. She wore a Caltech t-shirt, running shorts, and flip-flops. She headed for the wine table, her footwear slapping. She glanced at me as she poured a cup of red wine from a jug. She looked around at the room. Deciding there was nothing of interest—though she hadn’t looked at me yet—she pivoted and flip-flopped away.
I ran over and pretended to walk directly into her. I apologized.
“I don’t know why people say they’re sorry when they bump into you,” she said. “It’s like we’re all afraid of touching.”
“I’m not afraid of touching,” I said, too eagerly.
“I see that,” she said, taking a sip and stepping back.
I told the truth. I bumped into her so that I could talk.
“Okay,” she said, expressionless.
“I threw a better party two weeks ago.”
“Here?”
“No.” Scheizen! She was not supposed to know I was in high school. And if I said I threw a party on campus, she would be suspicious. I stood there, unable to talk, imagining what might happen if she took me to her room. The room would be filled with stuffed bears and smell like baby powder and lilacs. I would to reach out and kiss her. But would I be cheating on Rachel? No, of course not. We were an item for less than 24 hours. A night of kissing and intimate touching did not a relationship make. Even I knew that. And she probably wouldn’t talk to me after my speed-fueled tirade. I was free to play the field.
The thick metal door clicked with finality. The flip flop beauty had left the party. I threaded my way between clumps of people for another ten minutes, like some dummkopf ghost. I tried not to view the party as a bad sign for my collegiate social life.
Levi was gone when I returned to the motel. His car was gone, too. It was eleven. I assumed he had gone to Disneyland after all. He had not returned by eleven-thirty, or by midnight, or by the time the couple next door—or maybe it was a trio—decided to have vigorous, wall-thumping sex.
Sometime in the night I migrated from the chair to the bed. I woke up to a shaft of sunlight hitting the figure of Levi, next to me. There was crusted blood on his pillowcase and a scab just above his left eye. It looked like he had been in a fight. I must have hovered too close. He jerked awake as if a bomb had gone off in his solar plexus, sending all parts of his body in different directions.
“Are you all right?”
He muttered something unintelligible and pulled the blanket over his head.
“What day is it?” No response. “Who’s the president?”
His voice was muffled by the blanket. “I’m not stupid!”
For the record, I was asking these questions to check his mental functions. My nursing class instructor said people can die from even minor head traumas. Memory loss and disorientation are the first signs of trouble.
It was almost nine and my interview was at ten fifteen. I told him to go to a clinic. He groaned.
“If you die of inter-cranial pressure, I will not take the blame.” No response. “I’ll meet you at the designated spot. Which is… where?”
“Bridge.”
I took no yellow jacket—I was already pumped with adrenalin—and headed to campus. Outside the admissions building I checked my voice mail messages. There were four.
“It’s Janet. You said you would call. It’s after seven. You should be there by now. Call us.”
“It’s Carl. Janet was worried that you were… well… she worries too much, but it is after ten, and you said you would call when you arrived. Call us and let us know you’re all right. You don’t have to talk long. A text message is okay. We’ll stay up for a little while.”
Carl: “We’re both concerned now. It’s eleven. Just give us a ring. Okay?”
Janet: “Inconsiderate. That’s what it is. You may be smart, but you have a lot to learn.”
I found the men’s room and took care of my morning business. All of the stalls had doors. Caltech cared about its students’ privacy. Chew on that, Principal Nicks! I splashed water on my face and dried off with two paper towels. I stuffed paper towels into my shirt, one under each arm, to prevent pit sweat from causing unsightly damp spots. I certainly didn’t need any more splotches on my clothes.
I stared at my face in the mirror and forced a smile. This was the moment I had been waiting for. All of my problems could be spun into assets, all of my losses into victories.
I popped a menthol cough drop in my mouth as I strode down the hallway. I stopped at the door of the admissions office. I pulled out my cell phone and typed a message to Janet. Don’t worry. I’m fine. Then I added, Doing great!!! The act of sending that text made me believe I had created my own good fortune. I believed that for at least thirty seconds.
TWENTY
The admissions receptionist seemed helpful and kind. When I told her my name, she acted like she had been expecting me and was glad to see me. Excellent sign. Then, she told me, “smile, it’s not so bad.” I thought I had been smiling. Less-than-excellent sign.
She said they were running late and I should have a seat. I asked whether any new correspondence had arrived from Firebird High.
“Transcripts?”
“A letter from my high school. From the principal?”
She smiled meekly and told me I should ask Mr. Bingaman, the head of admissions. Bad sign?
The paper towels under my pits were making scraping noises. I considered removing them, but the receptionist would notice that, surely. And where would I put them?
A mother, father and son sat on the other side of the waiting room. The son wore a tie and a blazer with a prep school insignia on the pocket. His clothes had no grease spots that I could see. His parents kept casually touching his shoulder and his arm. They probably spent thousands of dollars for SAT
prep courses. I scored in the 95th percentile without a single prep class, thank you very much. Father of Blazer Boy leaned over and muttered something. They all laughed. They annoyed me. Annoyance was better than panic, but not as good as confidence, and I was running low on confidence. I tried to rehearse my interview talking points, but they were getting jumbled up in my head.
I picked up an alumni magazine. After scanning the same first paragraph seven times, I focused on title of the article, “Caltech scholars try olive-growing.” I attempted to turn it into an anagram. I came up with Call: Tyler saves two gringo choirs.
“Tyler.” It was a deep baritone voice. A hefty man with gray, curly hair stood in front of me with his hand outstretched. He introduced himself as Mr. Bingaman. As I rose and held out my arm, a clump of damp paper towel fell from my armpit and became lodged between my shirt and my torso. This made me pull back a little. Mr. Bingaman’s hand caught only the ends of my fingers, as if I were a queen allowing him to kiss my ring. I made a mental note to shake his hand vigorously on the way out.
He led me into the office and gestured to a chair across from him. I walked in sideways to avoid showing off the granola grease on my pants. He dropped his bulky body into an expensive-looking leather chair and asked whether I had any questions for him.
“What correspondence have you received from my principal?”
He frowned and moved some papers on his desk. Each time he held up a paper he pursed his lips and set it aside. “I have some recommendations.”
“From the principal?”
“No. Your chemistry teacher had some great things to say.”
“But not the principal?”
“Was he supposed to send something? You might want to ask him to send it again.”
“I’ll do that. Don’t call him, please.”
He leaned back and asked why I was interested in Caltech, as if he had asked it ten thousand times.
I was prepared for this one. I threw out all of the statistics I knew. I explained how it would fit into my life plans. “Most of all, I like the idea of a community of scholars. That’s a phrase in one of your brochures. As a foster teen I have experienced a lack of a permanent home. I feel that Caltech is welcoming, a place where I can have a sense of belonging.”
That should have been a slam-dunk. Perhaps I had dropped in the foster teen remark too casually. Mr. Bingaman didn’t appear to be intrigued. He was expressionless. I continued.
“I’m drawn to research. I’ve done quite a lot of it, under several mentors. It hasn’t been under the same mentor and not at the college level. That’s because I’ve moved around so much. Did I mention I’ve been in the foster system for four years?”
His eyes were unfocused but generally aimed at a piece of paper in his hand. I suspected it was part of my application letter. I was becoming uncomfortable with the silence. I laid out the basic facts—father unknown, BiMo dead, many FoFas, many schools, and that my BiMo was the reason for my interest in biology.
“You say in the essay it was your fourth grade teacher who introduced you to biology.”
He’d actually read it. I should have been encouraged.
“My fourth grade teacher was the catalyst for my interest in science, but my BiMo, I mean my biological mother, spurred my interest in biomedical engineering and immunology.”
Mr. Bingaman shifted in his seat. I assumed he wanted me to go on, because he wasn’t telling me not to go on. I already played my diversity card. If I were to reveal any more, I would have to explain how my BiMo died. I didn’t want to go there.
I went there anyway.
“My biological mother had allergies. Shellfish and eggs were the worst.”
Mr. Bingaman was looking at me now.
“She died eating Thai food with shrimp and egg. She thought she had cured her allergies through some kind of pseudo-science. But she hadn’t. That’s why I am committed to real science. She was found a few blocks from the restaurant, on the sidewalk. She might have been saved if someone had found her sooner, but they didn’t because nobody walks in Las Vegas. Except for me.” I made a spastic arm gesture and the paper towel under my other armpit slipped down my shirt. Now there was a clammy, moist roll at the top of my beltline.
“That must have been traumatic,” he said, without emotion.
“I’m sure. I mean it was. For me.”
I wanted to take it all back. I didn’t want to be admitted based on pity, though I would have reluctantly accepted it. Why the fark wasn’t he asking any questions?
“I want to know why people kill themselves,” I said. “I mean why our bodies kill us. Why our immune systems go on overdrive and react to things that should be benign, like pollen or nuts or shellfish, and treat them like invaders. Dust. Think about it. Dust is mostly flakes of human skin. So in a way, we’re rejecting ourselves.” I had just enough saliva to keep talking for another thirty seconds. I switched topics.
“My biology II teacher went to Caltech. He liked it. Mr. Proudfoot. I don’t know his first name. He says he had a great time.” At that moment I realized that the meth lab Mr. Proudfoot mentioned may have been something he participated in.
Mercifully, Mr. Bingaman’s phone rang. He apologized and took the call. This offered a minute-long opportunity to reflect on how I was doing. I judged myself harshly.
He finished the call and re-focused on me. “Sounds like you’re set on Caltech. Any questions for me?”
I had none. Everything was clear. My clothes were spotted with protein bar oil. I was too skinny, my handshake was feminine, my voice was squeaky, and my shirt had two growing orbs of sweat. I didn’t come with biological parents. I had spoken a bunch of scheizen and revealed that my BiMo died in the stupidest way possible.
I hurried through my closing statement. “My biological mother called me ‘the genius of little things’ because I paid attention to detail. Science is a lot of little things that add up to big things. But you can’t see the big things until you understand the little things. I forgot to mention, I’m saving the bees. In a science fair. But, maybe, I’ll be saving the world’s food supply if I can pull it off.”
He scrunched up his face in the way people do when they think they might have heard something profound but don’t really get it.
He stood and thanked me for interviewing him. He extended his hand. This time I didn’t pull back, but I forgot to be vigorous. His hand enveloped mine and squeezed it to the point of pain. On the way out, I stopped at the receptionist’s desk and thanked her for her help. Even though she hadn’t helped. At that point nothing could help.
I spent the next two hours fast-walking across the university quads and gazing at people I would probably not see again. Bye, guy with big silver thermos. We might have been roommates. Bye, professor-looking man with white hair. I might have enjoyed your course. Bye, sarcastic flip-flop wearer, wherever you are. I hope you get an A on your sociology paper.
I found Levi sitting on the low, concrete bridge. The bandage on his forehead was too small for the scab it was covering. He looked up, then back at the water.
“How did it go?”
“Could have been worse,” I said. I was tired, suddenly. My feet hurt. I sat down next to him. “We can’t go to an amusement park. But there’s a great museum in Pasadena. It’s close.”
“If it’s all the same to you, I’d rather head back. I’m sort of not feeling a hundred percent, so to speak.”
“Did you go to a clinic?”
“Nah, the front desk guy gave me a bandage when I checked us out.”
I hoped it was a clean bandage. Given the look of the motel, that was not certain.
In the parking lot, Levi’s car came into view. The front fender was smashed and it looked like someone had taken a sledgehammer to the hood. There was a web of cracks in the windshield. He said nothing about the damage and didn’t notice my what’s going on expression.
Our first and last tourist stop was Denny’s. I ordered a grilled chick
en sandwich and Levi ordered a California burger, which was, as far as I could tell, a regular burger with avocado. I asked why the presence of avocado made something “Californian.” Levi didn’t know. For the record, I wasn’t expecting an explanation. I was just making conversation.
For five minutes he noisily sipped his iced tea and stared out at his wrecked Lincoln. I was getting ticked.
“Are you going to tell me what happened last night?”
“Why do you care? You’re not my friend. You’re my tutor, right?”
“What are you talking about?”
“You keep saying ‘Levi’s not my friend. He’s this idiot I teach.’”
“When did I call you an idiot?”
“I’m not his friend. I’m Tyler and I’m so smart. I would never be friends with him.” He used a singsong tone to mimic me. I never sounded like this.
“I don’t think you’re an idiot,” I said.
“I wouldn’t be around if Levi wasn’t paying me, or driving me. Tutor, tutor, tutor.” His voice was annoying me.
“I’m both, okay?”
“You’re both what?”
He could be so dense. “Tutor and friend. But you look like scheizen and so does your car.”
“What’s scheizen? Oh. Right. Thanks.” He emptied sugar packets on the table and made little white mounds. If I were his therapist I could wait fifty minutes for him to say something important. That’s a therapist’s trick. They think you’ll get tired of saying nothing, and then you will burst out with some teary confession at the last minute. It never worked on me. I was able to run out the clock, every time.
But I wasn’t a counselor. I wasn’t being paid by the hour. I was impatient. I brushed the sugar mounds off the table. “Are you going to tell me where you were last night?”
“I went sightseeing.”
“At night?”
“Yeah, at night. I drove.”
