by Chris Lynch
I wasn’t even afraid. Maybe the magic ingredients of EU had seeped all the way up to my brain.
“Mr. Sphinc, what are you, stuck up now? You can’t talk to your comrades? Just because you’ve achieved a certain status with the ladies, you don’t know anybody anymore?” This was the man himself talking.
“Huh?” I was walking down the steps headed for the cafeteria, but when Darth gently nudged me toward the exit, I went with the flow. Outside, with the sun shining on my head, I got somehow woozier, breezier, easier. We sat in the grass.
Silently I drew the twenty-dollar bill out of my pocket, the one my mother had given me for the vet appointment I ditched. In a way, yes, I kind of stole it, but I reasoned that Ma was pretty well attached to me by now, and me being dead in the filthy river might upset her more than the twenty.
“This is just part of it, I know. But—and by the way, it really, really works—”
“I can tell by the way you’re sitting,” he said, satisfied with his work. “I love doing things for humanity.”
“But I’m working on getting you the rest—”
Darth held up a hand. “I don’t want to talk about that now. I know you’ll make it up to me, one way or another.”
You heard that, right? So I’m not paranoid. There was something a little unsettling just happened around the second part of that statement, right?
“Hey,” he said, clapping his hands. “Are you listening to me?”
“Sorry, shoot. I mean, continue.”
“I just wanted to say, that word’s out on you, boy.”
Oh boy. Now I remembered the scary stuff.
“People are quite impressed with you. The way you’re leading the league in girlfriends, getting all buff and such. This is turning the heads of some very important folks.”
I was way beyond being able to speak to any of this. Anyway, I don’t think I was expected to.
“Congratulations,” he said, and then, inexplicably, punched me in the shoulder hard enough to tip me over backward into the grass.
I lay on my back, squinting into the sun. “Was that a good beating you just gave me, or something I should be worried about because you’re just getting started?”
He laughed. “I swear, Sphinc, you don’t know how to not be funny.”
“I could learn,” I said quickly. “You want me to learn? Gimme like a minute, and I swear...”
Just then, Metzger, who must have seen us through the glass doors of the school, came flying out into the yard. “Go on, Darth,” he screamed, like you do when you’re in a crowd watching a fight, only it sounds particularly stupid when the crowd is one guy. “Hit him again. Finish him. Kick his ass. Don’tcha hate him... thinks he’s so damn funny...”
All nine feet and seven hundred and fifty very hard pounds of Darth stood up now, throwing a shadow over Metzger, and me, and half the cars in the parking lot.
“He is damn funny,” Darth said, in a voice that sounded like god’s father.
This was a moment I could enjoy. Except it didn’t rightfully belong to me. It was like at the dance when Sally was easing up on me, saying we were square, dancing with me because she thought I’d done the right thing.
“You want me to kill him, Sphinc?”
In my mind we were starting to blend, me and Metzger. Like Darth beating Metz was not really different from Darth beating me, just a matter of time.
Blended too, like being Darth’s friend—or his pet, or his court jester or whatever I was—and being his victim. It wasn’t hard to feel both at the same time.
What to do? Metzger, the bully. Bane of my unspectacular-as-it-is existence. Menace. Stood there shaking, eyes closed, apparently praying—praying, right there in the midday sun—with at least three different very obvious wetnesses appearing on his body that were not there when he ran through that door a few minutes earlier.
But Metzger, who was at least being Metzger. In his cavemanlike integrity, doing his thing. While I was what?
I’ll give you a hint. I was dying one of my thousand deaths as I thought about it.
“That’s okay, Darth,” I said. “I think I’d rather see you not.”
Darth started to laugh, did a double take. “What?”
“He wants you to let me g-g-g-go,” Metzger whispered.
“Oh,” Darth sneered. “Then, g-g-g-go!”
And g-g-go he did, three times as fast as he ran on the way out.
Darth sat back down, cross-legged, and like he was wiping a blackboard clean, proceeded as if Metzger had never been there.
“By the way, speaking of your gut... it’s a little smaller, if I’m not mistaken. Your girlfriends must love that.”
I didn’t think we had been speaking of my gut, but sometimes it just sort of involves itself in the conversation.
Momentarily thrown. “Ya think so?” I asked, tugging my shirtfront down tight over my bod. “Wait, my girl-whats?”
“Can’t even keep track, with the old mad social whirl you’ve got swinging. And that’s why, that and the joking, why you’re in rare company.”
Did you hear something in there? Something just a little bit scary again? Ya, so did I. We do need to stay alert when talking with this guy, no?
“Rare company?”
“You betcha. Only two freshmen have ever been at any of my parties. One’s Frankie. The other’s you.”
Darth extended a hand like he was going to do that buddy thing I’ve seen guys do, where they help each other up off the ground simultaneously. I had always admired that move, and now...
He shook my hand. “Saturday night. Ten o’clock.”
Holy smokes, this was a lot. “Sure,” I said. “I just have to, you know, check with my mom...”
You know how sometimes you’ll say something and before the words have even had time to reach the other person... I was grabbing at those stupid words, could see them, in balloony cartoony print.
He was pretty darn stunned. “Check with your mo—” He stopped himself. He pointed at me and said, “Ahhhh,” as if we were sharing a great joke. “You never stop, do ya, ya friggin’ goof,” he said.
“Friggin’ goof,” I said, throwing my hands up in the air. “Like you said, I just don’t know how to not be funny.”
And a sudden, very reasonable panic overtook me. I was getting in deeper and deeper and deeper here and it seemed the closer I got to telling Darth what I really really needed to tell him, the harder it got to actually do it. Rare company, for godsake. I couldn’t enter rare company with this black spot on my record. This had to be fixed, or bad things... “I got to tell you—”
“You will bring your date, or dates,” he said, getting to his feet, dusting off his backside. “You can bring as many as you want, as long as one of ’em is that Sally girl, right?”
Shiiiit. Shit shit shit.
He glared at me. “Nobody’s ever said that to one of my invitations before.”
“Oh,” I gasped. “Oh, oh, no. I sat on a rock, is all. Didn’t mean to say anything. Party sounds great.”
“Cool. You started to tell me something before?”
“Huh? Oh. That? Oh... right. You like puppies? I was thinking I could pay you in—”
“No. Don’t like puppies. See you Saturday.” Darth headed back toward school, where in all likelihood they were holding off lunch just for him. “Ten o’clock, don’t forget.”
Forget? Ah, probably not.
Bread
“PARPIES?” BARBARA ASKED. “PUTTIES? Elvin, I’m having trouble understanding you.”
I was handling the telephone with even more mastery than usual. Easy boy. Calm. Breathe. Better. Girls like it when a guy can breathe.
“Puppies,” I said, very calm, very breathy. Good, don’t start with the party thing. What kind of animal calls a girl for the first time and invites her to a filthy late-night orgy. That’s like second-date stuff.
Puppies, though. Puppies are another thing entirely. Puppies are the opposite of orgies
. Bet you didn’t know that, did you?
“Hello,” she said. “Hello, Elvin? Are you still there?”
Guess I was working that out for a while.
“Ya, sorry. Puppies. I wanted to know if... you remember, the puppies I was telling you about, at the dance...”
“Right, the puppies.”
“Ya, the puppies...” I was really cruising now. This was going very well. Much better than I’d expected. You couldn’t even tell, probably, that I’d never done this sort of thing before. And just wait till her parents met me...
“Hello? Elvin, are you still...”
Whoops. “Puppies,” I said.
“Yes, we’ve established that,” Barbara responded. “Now whadya say we try laying a verb in there, huh, Elvin?”
Say. I like that. Peppery dame, isn’t she?
“Sure. Sure, I can do that. Ah, okay, puppies... gotta love ’em.”
Smooooth, there, Bishop. Straddle that line. Kiss them babies. Eat that apple pie. Say nothing she could possibly disagree with. “Gotta love puppies...”
“Make me,” she said.
Make me? Make me, love puppies? Holy smokes, what kind of a devil woman had I... I mean, Darth not liking puppies was one thing... I started squirming in my seat, nowhere to go, until I heard her giggling on the line. Whew.
“Are you calling me for a date, Elvin Bishop? Or are you trying to sell me a dog?”
“Well... ah... which one would you be more likely to say yes to?” Good thing you can’t hear sweat over the phone. I added a completely accidental and nervous-sounding ha-ha at the end. Dope. You never laugh at your own material. Jeez, this was so hard, it was so hard, why was it so hard? Like, boxing, hard. The bell, the bell, mercy where’s the bell?
“Lemme go see what I have in my piggybank,” she said.
That made me feel better. Good tension-breaking. Well-timed joke. God, there was something great about this person.
“Hey, good one, Bar—”
I stopped short at the sound of her actually dropping the phone on a hard surface.
“Hello?” I called hopefully. I heard her footsteps doppling away from the phone. “I can’t believe this,” I said out loud. “I didn’t really want her to—”
Stopped short again, wouldn’t you know. By more footsteps. These, however belonged to my mother, who was now bounding down the stairs.
I had not, up till this point, so much as mentioned Barbara’s name to my mother, which was something even I didn’t understand. Something wild was happening to me, and the more real Barbara was becoming to me, the more I felt like hiding from Ma. Not that that was possible. She knew something was up from the very first zing of the string of my heart, but I was not up to facing it. Facing her. No, facing it.
The footsteps got closer, closer. “Pick up the phone, for the love of... pick up...” I murmured to Barbara, who was probably standing there having a quick sandwich and listening to my teeth gnashing.
Ma hit the bottom step, pivoted, and came my way.
“Shit,” I said.
That pried something loose. Barbara broke out in a laugh.
Ma came right up to me, acting as if she just had to get something from the kitchen. Right, how often does a person need something from the kitchen? Think quick, Bishop.
Bang. I half threw, half fumbled the receiver to the floor. Exactly like in the reality cop shows, when the perp throws the drugs on the ground and says, “No, sorry, that’s not mine, officer.”
“Hello?” The tiny, transistor radio voice came from the floor.
Oh, and don’t think my mother, uncommonly comical mother that she is, didn’t have herself a good old time with this.
“That for you?” she asked sweetly.
“Is what for me?” I asked, sitting tight in the telephone-table seat, doodling the name Barbara in the telephone-side notepad. Yes, at this point I did realize how I looked, but where was I supposed to go?
“Hello?” the little voice interrupted.
“Ah, that,” Ma said, pointing down at the voice.
“That?” I asked, doodling mightily, casually, mighty casually. The pen had torn through the top three sheets of paper. “No, that’s not for me.”
“Hello?” The damn voice. “Hello, Elvin? Elvin?”
Ma didn’t even smile. Oh, she’s very good.
“It thinks it’s for you,” she said.
“It’s confused,” I said, leaning down toward the phone, pretty much giving myself away, don’t you think? “What are you laughing at, Mother?”
“I’m not laughing. When you are a mother it’s called beaming. You’re so cute. Why don’t you just pick up the phone? Is it a girl? It’s a girl, isn’t it? Oh Lester,” Ma said, looking up toward heaven, which according to all reliable information is definitely not where Lester is.
I pointed at the ceiling. “This is none of your concern, Lester.”
“Hello?” the phone said. “I’m gonna hang up.”
“Oh god, no!” Ma and I both said at the same time. We also both made a grab for the phone. She beat me.
“Well hello,” Ma said, looking at me. “Yes, I am Mrs. Bishop. A pleasure to meet you, Barbara. But I’m not exactly meeting you, really, am I? We’ll need to correct that. You’ll come for dinner.”
“Ma.” I snapped. “Slow down.” This was killing me. I was so embarrassed. But you didn’t see me stopping her either, did you? And in the middle of it all, Ma slipped me the wink.
We both knew I could use a lot of help here. I suppose a lot of guys might not want their moms making their dates...
But I’m not a lot of guys. I’m just barely one. And she’s not your regular mom.
She slapped me on the leg, and I relinquished the telephone seat. “How’s Thursday night? Excellent. Now what do you like to eat?”
I listened. Plans were made. I hovered, poised to snatch the phone away at the first hint of an uncomfortably cute Elvin story. Nothing. All clear. Ma passed me the receiver.
“Ya,” I said to Barbara. “She is. Very. Uh-huh. No, you’re right, it’s pretty much round-the-clock fun around here...”
Ma gave me the A-OK sign and skipped off to the kitchen.
“So,” I said tentatively, “it’s, like, done then? You and Ma, you made a date?”
She hesitated. “Kind of sounds different when a boy’s mother says it. Less serious, you know? But now...”
I panicked, thinking I was losing her. “You want me to put Ma back on the line?”
I could hear her relax, which made me relax. Sort of.
“You’re a hoot, Elvin.”
“That’s good, right?”
“That’s good. So I guess... you think? This is a date, what we’d call this thing?”
I practically whispered. “If you wouldn’t mind that.”
“I wouldn’t mind,” she repeat-whispered. I’d never heard anything like that sound, and never felt anything like what it did to me. Like she was biting right into my chest.
I said good-bye then, without firming up plans, without setting a time, without telling her how to get here or asking where I could meet her. Because that I could do later. If I lost my mind and babbled and thanked her and cried and sang “It Had to Be You,” like I was sure I was about to, there probably would be no later.
So I sat, stupid and safe, smiling and serene, over the lifeless telephone. I breathed it in, as if she were coming through the line.
“Yoo hoo,” Ma called from the kitchen.
Like waving ammonia under my nose.
“No,” I said, and started for the stairs. “You’re going to tease me.”
“Come on now, Elvin, don’t be like that. Come in here; we need to talk.”
I had to concede that she was right. I could hardly pull off a dinner without her cooperation. But I knew she was going to make me squirm.
When I entered the kitchen, she was hunched at the table in that inscrutable pose of card players and movie detectives. Elbows propped o
n Formica, hands cradling and blocking most of the face, leaving just eyes exposed, squinting from amusement, or pain, or confusion, or a million other things. We could presume humor in this case.
I sat across from her and did the smart defensive thing, assuming the same pose. I stared at her.
She stared at me. I wasn’t going to give her anything. I’m good. But she is better. She taught me everything I know, and I knew that any second she was going to reduce me to a puddle on the floor. All in good fun, of course.
The pause was unbearable.
She dropped her hands.
“What do you think? Stroganoff?” she asked pensively. “I think Stroganoff makes a nice impression. We want to make a nice impression, because she sounds like a really nice girl.”
I waited. Ma and I had a sort of unspoken arrangement: We never went more than a couple of minutes without at least one of us cracking wise. At least since Lester took the Big Victory Lap, or the BVL as we called it (see?), that was always how we did it. But this was real. This was touch-and-go here.
“I think whatever you think, Ma. I think you’ll know all the right things to do.”
“Well,” she said, “I don’t know, Elvin. It’s not as if you provide me a lot of occasions to practice my hostessing skills.”
Ah, that’s more like it.
I stood, leaving her scribbling madly with a stubby little pencil on a four-by-six notepad. “Artichoke hearts,” she muttered. “Artichoke hearts are nice.” She looked very happy.
“Ma,” I said, turning around in the doorway. “Now remember, when she’s here, if you can’t control yourself you can make a joke about me here and there. But absolutely no naked baby pictures, right?” Don’t ask me why, but there’s no known photograph of me wearing clothes until I reached school age.
“Oh, Elvin. Not even the one where you took Mr. Potato Head and—”
“Especially not the one where I took Mr. Potato Head and...”
She didn’t answer. She didn’t need to. Just went back to working her shopping list, and I went back to watching her. This really was something different, a new look, a variation on Ma. Maybe I really had never given her a shot at this.
