* * *
The truth: I don’t drink orange Gatorade anymore because my mom always handed it to me on the soccer field. It makes me sad.
The truth: “Sabrina. I like you. I want us to romance—be romantic—be partners in a middle school romantic romance. But I’m afraid.”
The truth: “Dad, it’s my fault, too. I don’t like to talk either. I still don’t, but I’ll try if you do. I’ll need you to go first, though.”
The truth: I used to wish Mr. Morgan was my dad. I don’t anymore.
The truth: “I’m sorry, Mrs. Q. I think you’ll make a good teacher. You really will. Your three-strikes-and-you’re-out policy is a good idea. If you used that on the first day of school, I never would’ve messed with you. But it’s not your fault. It’s mine.”
* * *
“Sabrina, I need to tell you the truth.”
“That’ll be nice,” she says.
“Okay, here goes.” Deep breath. “Manny and I had a business.”
“With the candy…”
I nod. “We had a business. To increase our compatibility quotient—”
“Huh?”
“Popularity. For people to notice us. Like us. Or at least want to go with us to the dance. As dates, real dates, instead of groups. We were desperate, we were losers, and then I met you and I didn’t feel like one anymore. That kiss under the table in Victoria’s Secret, that was … my first. I felt for you. I fell for you. But Manny has been my friend since I was two, and this fund-raiser that wasn’t really a fund-raiser…”
She looks dizzy. More confused than angry.
“We made a lot of money that Manny wanted to use to ask eighth graders—”
“What? Like who?”
I peek down at the cheerleaders. “Allison,” I tell her. “And her friend. But I wasn’t ever going to go with them anyway, because I like you, I do, I really do, and then I was robbed and—”
“You were robbed?”
“Yeah, but the point is I was going to use the money for us because I want to be near you—I mean, close to you—I mean, with you—and that’s why I was acting so weirdly around you and just plain weird in class and why I couldn’t stop laughing even though nothing was funny, Sabrina. I mean, we laugh at things together and I hope you think I’m a little bit funny, but I’m not being funny now and I still want us to be with each other—I mean, together, if not now, then after the dance—”
I want her to slap me, hold me, hug me, say something—anything—but she’s walking away, and I want her to turn around and say something but she doesn’t, and soon I’m alone on that second floor of the gym. From below, Chad is looking up at me, grinning. And barking so loud it rings in my ears.
I sit down and try to gather myself, but I feel broken, like there are too many pieces to pick up, and I decide that if someone comes up to me and hands me a sympathy card that reads “I’m sorry for you’re lost,” I will correct their spelling.
It’s supposed to read “I’m sorry for your loss.”
You can lose people.
DAYLIGHT
When I get home from school, prepared for a long night of self-loathing, I try to assemble my old G.I. Joe tent on the side of my bed, but the supports get all tangled and it takes more energy than I currently have. I’m out. Of energy, luck, and friends.
I count 874 sheep before I fall asleep and dream in black and white.
* * *
The sound of snapping plastic forces me to open my eyes.
“Your tent. I think one of the legs is almost bent,” my dad says, breathing hard. “It shouldn’t have even been here in the first place, why are you sleeping, I said that I wanted to talk.” He sits on my green and white football sheets, covering at least sixty yards of the football field. The mattress creaks.
“Okay, we’ll talk later,” I mutter.
“No, I said that I wanted to talk.”
“I was asleep.”
He wipes his forehead.
“Oops, I fell back asleep again.”
“Denny, come on—”
“I’m going to start snoring any second and I’m a pretty loud snorer.”
“I told you we’d talk after dinner.”
“You always say that. Let’s talk when. Let’s talk when. Let’s talk when. It doesn’t mean anything.” I don’t mean to say that, but I’ve just woken up, and other than pretending you’re still asleep, it’s really hard not to tell the truth right after you wake up.
“Dad, you always tell me that you want to talk, but you never do. Why should I have thought tonight would’ve been any different?”
He looks puzzled, like I’ve thrown him off his script.
I sit up. “And I can’t believe you smacked me during the conference. I know I shouldn’t have cut class, but I didn’t deserve that.”
“I—” he starts. I don’t interrupt him; he just stops talking.
“I what?” I say, gaining confidence.
Again, that puzzled look. He’s forgotten his lines, needs to improvise.
“What?” I say, continuing on the offensive. “What is it?”
He looks down at my bedsheets, rubbing his eyebrows with his thumb and index finger. I feel sort of bad for him, the way he keeps touching his face. I want to tell him that I’m sorry—for cutting class, for not initiating conversation, for not being a more successful son—but what comes out is this: “You shouldn’t have hit me. And you shouldn’t eat so much fried food and watch so much TV. And you shouldn’t—”
He breathes heavily. “Now you listen to me. I don’t tell you how to live your life. Why are you telling me how to live mine?”
“Don’t you see, Dad? I wish you did. I wish we spoke about things. Not just the Phillies. And movies. And food. Lots of things. But we don’t. I want to ask you about your day and your job, and I want you to ask me about girls and grades and dances and Manny and my gods and goddesses—”
“Gods and goddesses?”
“My teachers, I mean, and my afternoon and my hobbies and movies and shaving and hair and everything else. I want to just … I don’t know, talk. I didn’t always, but I wouldn’t mind doing it now.”
Even though his eyes are open, he isn’t moving. Not even blinking. Frozen. Like that football player on my sheets.
I think I see him move his head but it’s just the sweat dripping down his face. He doesn’t answer me. He’s not going to answer me. I’ve opened up, said what needed to be said, what had to be said, what a parent should say, and gotten nothing. I’m talking to myself.
“Thanks for the talk,” I say, scrambling out of bed. I trip over the tent, but he steadies me with his arm against my shoulder.
“But wait—Denny.” He leaves his arm there. His face smells of soap. “I’m sorry, I mean, we can talk—another time—another time, that’s okay, we can talk.” He can’t pronounce sentences but at least he’s trying. “We can—I mean, talking is okay, another time…”
“It’s okay,” I tell him softly. “I’m glad we talked.” He nods his head, which normally would’ve pissed me off, but not now. Not in the least bit.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “For everything.”
“I’m sorry, too,” I say.
He exhales. Then he turns away, toward my bed. His eyes get cloudy and his nose is running. “I know I haven’t … been there. I miss … your mother. Very much. I miss her very…” He slurps snot back up from his nose. “I was sad, Denny, you know?”
I nod.
“I didn’t know what to do, where to turn. I wanted to disappear … I wanted the days to pass, wanted to fast-forward a few days, a few weeks, a couple of months, a year, you know? All I wanted to do was fast-forward … and I sort of did.”
“But you never talked about her. You just…”
“Don’t you think I wanted to? I did, Denny, I did. But I felt that if I let myself talk about her, if I let myself be sad and get down, then I…” He touches his cheek and sighs. “Then I’d never get back up agai
n. It was easier to pretend, is easier to pretend. Can you understand?”
I can. Now I can. Operation I.M.P. was based on a distraction, based on pretending, based on a lie, based on fast-forwarding time, and I feel bad, awfully bad for pretending … with everyone, and for not understanding him, and his body is shaking.
“Sorry you’re lost,” I tell him.
He looks up, confused.
“Sorry you’re lost,” I say. “I’m lost, too.”
“Denny, I don’t even want to watch TV and eat and … I don’t want to disappear. It’s just—it’s hard to stop. It’s hard to start. It’s hard to do anything.”
I would give him a hug, I really would. I want to grab his wide shoulders and pull him close, letting his snot drip on my shoulder, for there’s so much—not snot, I mean, though there is a lot of that—much more to say, but it’s buried too far below and I’m afraid to keep digging. I know what I want to say and I can see myself up on the high dive again. The drop is steeper and farther than I’ve ever seen and it makes me dizzy, makes the world spin around and around, and I need to jump. JUMP! I tell myself, and soon it doesn’t matter because my dad turns around, nudges me gently out of the way, and walks out of the room. He continues all the way down the hall until he reaches his room and shuts the door.
* * *
Hours later, precisely five hours later, my dad and I are yelling at each other. Actually, only he’s yelling this time. It seems he doesn’t like to be woken up at three in the morning by a phone call from one Emmanuel “Manny” Templeton, former friend, apparently prank-calling as retribution.
“It’s for you!” my dad hollers, barging into my room, tossing the phone at me. The way he says it makes it sound as if he’s upset the phone wasn’t for him, but I know better than to start an argument in the dead of night about his enunciation.
“Hello?” I rub my eyes.
“Donuts?”
“Yeah, Manny, how many donuts would you like? A dozen?”
“My apologies for the phone call at this unseemly hour but I needed to—”
“Rub it in, I know. Get me in trouble. I said I was sorry. I am. I’m really sorry, but there was nothing I could do. Chad and I were alone in the hallways—”
“That is what I am calling about. You see, I played back our conversation from every angle. I played back your story in my head, over and over again—had nothing better to do, really, and plus it was a ton of money, my money, sort of—”
“Manny, I said I was sorry.”
“Please stop your sniveling. I did not call for an apology. I called to inform you that you may have been recorded.”
“What?”
He clears his voice. “Donuts, in most secondary schools, especially ones as busted as ours, there are cameras. In the stairwells, in the halls…”
“The HALLS!”
From down the hall, my dad hollers for me to shut up. Then he says “please.”
“Yes, the halls. Why do you think I was clandestine in my candy selling in the first place? Our school has eyes. Everyone knows. At least those as plugged into the social pipeline as I am. I should have told you in the first place. Alas, I was blinded by rage and refused to go dateless into the night.” He pauses. “That is from a poem, to which I now add for you: ‘Now go make this right.’”
The last part sounds a little dramatic and his poem sounds clunky, but I can see, for the first time in a while, a bit of daylight in this long dark tunnel of a year. I just don’t know how to get there.
“What—what do we do now, Manny?” I stutter.
“It is your call. All I will say is the following: you have been let go. Fired. When your money was stolen, you compromised our business. You are too much of a liability. Businesses do not want drama. But assuming your story is true, you have been a hardworking employee at International Monetary Prudential, and like any respectable business industry that treats its former employees with any semblance of decency, I shall offer you a severance package—a going-away present, if you will—of $100 in thanks for helping me turn a rather large profit. A profit so large it is flabbergasting.”
“Thanks, but what do I—what do I do? About Chad?”
“I am not the one who got jumped in the halls and I am not the one who has to face him and I am not the one with a reputation of a court jester and I am not the one with a pastry name and I am not the one who has a semi-quasi-ex-girlfriend and I am not the one with a dad that erupts like Mount Vesuvius and I am not the one who is left only with a severance package because I am not the one with the money stolen…” The longer he goes on, the more I know, without a shadow of doubt, what I must do.
I know for sure what I must do.
I know what I must do.
I think I know what to do.
I make an educated guess.
I make a not-so-educated guess.
I flip a coin.
I take a wild stab.
I pray for a miracle.
LAST STAND
His desk is cluttered with papers and folders and an old football. His office is cold and smells of leather. He’s in his chair, scribbling a note, when he hears me knock.
“Why, ah yes, Mr. Murphy, do come in, won’t you?” Mr. Softee gestures toward an empty chair. “Don’t mind the mess. How are sales? Come to talk business?”
I take a deep breath. “Mr. Soffer, sir, I didn’t want to tell you this in person. It would’ve been much nobler to leave my name out of it and surprise my teachers, but I’ve made a donation to our esteemed school.”
He leans forward. “A donation? I don’t understand. What about your fund-raiser? And your entrepreneurship … I thought you had lofty business goals, Mr. Murphy…”
“See, that’s the thing. I realized that successful businesses need to give back to the community. I’m sure they taught you that at Wharton Business School, right, sir?”
“Well, of course!” He’s breathing hard. “Of course they did. Wow, Mr. Murphy, I am very impressed with your generosity! Very, very mature of you!”
“Well, I wanted it to be an anonymous donation, sir, but I worry that my donation hasn’t made it to the school’s budget.”
“Good heavens, what do you mean? Where did you donate?”
“I gave my donation, a rather large donation, sir, to match my enthusiasm and love and respect for our school—”
“Who did you give the money to? You must tell me, Mr. Murphy!”
I exhale. No turning back. Here goes nothing …
“I gave it to Chad.”
“Chad?”
“He’s the school’s treasurer, yes?”
Mr. Softee touches the side of his face. “Well, yes, of course.”
“Don’t get me wrong, sir. I’m sure Chad is an upstanding citizen, but the teachers here are first-rate and the sooner they get their hands on better technological equipment, the sooner bright minds such as mine can learn.”
“Well, how much did you donate?”
Let’s see … Chad stole $700, plus inflation, plus “the cost of heartache” as Judge Judy once mentioned … that all comes out to … well, that Smart Board is a pricey piece of equipment …
“One thousand dollars is what I gave him. A cool grand.”
His eyes shoot out from their sockets. “ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS?”
“Indeed.”
“Oh my heavens … one thousand exactly? Perhaps there was some change?”
“Well … how much does a Smart Board run again?”
“On the low end, around a thousand dollars.”
“Right … I believe it was … yes, I donated $1,111. I’m sure of it now because I intended for Mr. Morgan to receive a new DVD player and for Mrs. Q to get a Smart Board to replace her junky overhead projector. And yes, I remember it now, I donated exactly $1,111 because our school is Number One, after all. I tried to use symbolism in my donation. Mr. Morgan taught me about symbolism in his wonderful English class. And anyway, that’s what everyone around here says:
There’s only one Blueberry Hills Middle School and we are Number One.”
I do feel a bit bad for going so overboard, but his leathery face beams with pride. “Well, that’s just—the nicest—I can’t—” He wipes his right eye with the back of his hand. “How can I ever—thank you, thank you, thank you!”
“It’s my pleasure, sir. Make sure you get the money from Chad at once. I’m sure he already put it in an escrow or some other holding account and that he was waiting for the right time to surprise you.”
“Yes, of course!” He reaches for the loudspeaker: “Will Chad Watkins please report to the principal’s office at once. Chad Watkins, please report at once.”
“Excellent, sir. Now if for some strange reason—not that I expect this, but if for some unforeseen reason he tries to protect me by refusing to disclose my donation, or denies the amount was actually the very symbolic number of $1,111, I suggest you check the camera hallways, second floor, on Wednesday, around, say, three ten? That’s when and where I handed him my donation. You do have cameras to keep us safe, right, sir?”
“Why, certainly we do. Safety is a priority around here.”
“Great. You’ll have to excuse me, sir. I’d rather not be here when he arrives, considering my anonymous donation and all. As someone of your business stature, I’m sure you can understand.”
He leaps to his feet, races around his desk, and hugs me. Hugs me tight. “Bless you, Mr. Murphy. You’re a saint, an absolute saint. A star. A rock star is what you are.”
A rock star …
If only everyone around here thought so.
* * *
After my meeting, I camp out at Sabrina’s locker. I mean, really camp out. All I’m missing is some marshmallows and a fire, but as I said before, lighters and fires are illegal in middle school. I sit cross-legged on the floor in my G.I. Joe tent, munching on handfuls of granola, and wait until she comes. It’s great that I’m already on the ground because if begging is required, I’m willing and able and already in position.
I wave to Mrs. Q, who is on her way to make copies, nod at Mr. Softee walking with a black briefcase, and when I see Sabrina’s blue Converse sneakers down the hall, I know it’s time. I chew as quickly as I can and scramble to my feet.
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