by A. S. King
They both drank, and when they passed it to Charlie again, and he tilted his head back to drink, one of them said, “Hey! Kahn brought the good shit!”
Charlie turned to me. “Want some?”
I said, “Nah.” What I meant was: Who are you?
He reached into his cigarette pack for a smoke, but it was empty. He fumbled around his leathers and then turned to me. “Veer? Could you grab me the pack of smokes under the seat of the bike?”
“Sure,” I said.
Jenny Flick said, “While you’re at it, can you stop somewhere and find a personality?”
“Jenny,” Charlie said.
“What? I was kidding.”
“Wasn’t funny,” he said, and then turned to say something to me, but I was already walking up toward the parking area. I got Charlie’s Marlboros from under the seat and stuffed them in my pocket. I stopped and sat on the wall, and faced the pagoda and appreciated its bizarre, out-of-place beauty. I thought if I stayed up there for a minute or two, Charlie would come looking for me, but instead, I smelled pot smoke again, and realized no one gave a shit.
I gave myself a real Ken Dietz pep talk. “Vera, this is what kids do in high school. You shouldn’t be up here sulking. You should go back and be yourself. Cynical, funny, straight-up Vera Dietz.”
It didn’t work. It didn’t work because I knew not to give the best of myself to the worst of people. So I decided to ask Charlie to take me home. But when I rounded the corner of the pagoda and saw him showing Jenny Flick and Bill Corso and the rest of his new friends how paper airplanes (this time, Corso’s three interim reports to warn of his impending failure) soar in the fast, frigid current, I turned around and headed home.
I fast-walked down Overlook Road in the dark, thinking of Charlie, boiling. Fuck Charlie. Stupid asshole. Stupid roses. Stupid pagoda. Stupid losers. Stupid boots giving me stupid blisters. Stupid Vera Dietz.
When I walked in the door, up the steps, and into my room without a grunt, Dad noticed. He said up the steps, “Why don’t you come down and we’ll order pizza from that new delivery place and pig out?”
So we did—and he didn’t say one word to me about Charlie. While I put on my flannel pajamas, he moved the roses to the windowsill by the sink, which was nice, actually, because our garbage disposal had gone funky, so they helped cover the smell of old water and rotten vegetables.
The pizza place had a little coupon pasted to the box top. Two dollars off a two-pie order with Coke. As my father cut it out for his fridge coupon organizer, he saw the call for drivers.
“ ‘Must be eighteen,’ ” he read. “What do you think? That could be a fun job.”
“I won’t be eighteen until October. Anyway, I want to work at Zimmerman’s this summer, now that I’m old enough.”
Of course, Dad didn’t like this idea, but he knew it was a paying position, because I hadn’t stopped mentioning it since the first summer I’d volunteered at the adoption center.
After a second’s thought, I added, “Hold on—are you saying you’ll give me Mom’s car if I do this? Because I can do part-time and still work at Zimmerman’s if this means I get the car.”
“I do a pizza delivery guy’s taxes,” he said. “The pay isn’t bad, and he says tips are great. You won’t get tips at the pet store.”
“True. But I can’t cuddle and love pizza, either.”
The conversation took my mind off Charlie. It was nice. He cut out the “drivers wanted” part, stuck it on the fridge under a magnet, and said, “Heck, maybe I’ll do it. Could be a fun moonlighting job. Plus, I’ll be lonely around here if you start dating—or, uh, whatever it is you’re doing.”
I told him everything. The pagoda, the friends, the drinking, and the pot. I didn’t tell him about the paper airplanes, though, because I knew it would hurt him that a bunch of assholes stole a sacred Dietz thing.
He sighed and clicked his tongue. “Well, that’s disappointing.”
“To put it lightly,” I said.
He looked over at the flowers and back at me. “Veer, there’s got to be some explanation. He spent a fortune on those. It doesn’t make sense.”
“This is the kind of thing I’d have to put up with if he was my boyfriend,” I said. “Anyway, we’re best friends. I don’t want to ruin it. It’s better this way.”
He nodded and reached for my hand. “You’re a real smart little cookie—you know that?”
Of course, I was lying to both of us.
A BRIEF WORD FROM THE DEAD KID
Jenny Flick and I officially met in detention in January of our junior year. I got caught smoking outside the wood shop loading doors, and even though Mr. Smith liked me, he had to write me up because the metal shop teacher was with him, and he’s a hardcore asshole.
When I first got to the room, the Detentionheads were standing around, talking about a fight that was supposedly going to happen after school the next day. I didn’t recognize most of the new kids because I spent half days at Tech, but I did recognize Bill Corso and his two best football buddies, who looked like inbred hillbilly twins, and Jenny Flick from my times in detention the year before. Jenny Flick was leaning back in her chair with her feet on the desk. She wore a pair of soft leather construction boots, tight jeans, and a black Led Zeppelin T-shirt, and was chewing gum and blowing bubbles. I sat in the back right corner and ignored everyone like I did every other time I had detention.
The Special Education teacher, Mr. Oberman, was the detention teacher for the day, and when he came in, he wrote a quote on the board and as he was writing it he said, “We’re here for an hour, ladies and gentlemen. If you choose to use this hour wisely and do your homework or class-assigned reading, that would be a very intelligent decision. However”—he stopped and eyed Bill Corso—“if you choose to just sit here like a bored jungle gorilla, you will have to write out this quote as many times as you can during the next hour. I have paper and pencils on my desk for those of you who have arrived empty-handed.”
There was no doubt Mr. Oberman was gay. He didn’t hide it. I’d venture a guess that he was overly gay in the detention room because it irked the Detentionheads so much. Bill Corso was not going to be told what to do by some fag—so Oberman put on his extra fagginess just to make kids like Corso squirm.
The quote said: HOW MANY CARES ONE LOSES WHEN ONE DECIDES NOT TO BE SOMETHING BUT SOMEONE.
“What the hell does that mean?” Corso asked.
“What do you think it means, Mr. Corso?”
“I don’t know.”
Corso sat at the desk, his legs open wide, straddling the entire thing, as if his crotch was the mouth of a giant whale, and had his arms crossed across his chest. He had no books, no pencil, and no paper.
“Well, maybe if you fill this paper with it a few times, you’ll figure it out,” Oberman said, dropping a piece of lined paper and a pencil on Bill’s desk.
Bill shoved the things off his desk and onto the floor. “I’m not writing that shit. Heller and Frisk don’t make us write.”
Mr. Oberman stayed calm and smiled. “But I’m not Mr. Heller or Mr. Frisk. I’m Mr. Oberman, and if you don’t pick those up and watch your language, I’m giving you another month.”
They stared at each other. The rest of us watched in silence. I already had my math homework out and tried to pretend like I wasn’t watching because these kids were losers and no matter where I was from, I was not going to be a Detentionhead loser.
“I’m giving you one minute to pick those up, Mr. Corso. After that, you’re out and facing possible suspension.”
Bill didn’t move.
At the fifty-second mark, he looked over his right shoulder at Jenny Flick and raised his eyebrows. She shrugged.
At the minute mark, Oberman looked up from his stack of paperwork and pointed to the door. “Goodbye, Mr. Corso. You’ll be chatting with the office in the morning.”
When Bill got about ten feet down the hall he yelled, “FAGGOT!” and Jenny Flick
laughed, which caused the rest of the Detentionheads to laugh. Oberman continued doing his paperwork and I went back to my math homework and in another minute it was as if Corso had never been there.
The hour passed slowly. The minute I walked out the main doors, I reached for a smoke and lit it.
“I like rebels,” Jenny said. I had no idea she was behind me, so she caught me completely off guard. Plus—what do you say to that?
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. Got a light?”
I lit her skinny girly cigarette, put my lighter back in my pocket, and didn’t say anything.
“Wanna come to my house?”
“Nah.”
“My mom works nights and my stepdad doesn’t get home until eight.”
I shook my head. “Nah. Thanks.”
“I have pot.”
I said, “I have to get home.” When she didn’t say anything, I added small talk. “What does he do that he gets home so late?”
“He’s a manager. Tells people what to do all day. Then he comes home and tells me what to do.”
“Oh,” I said. “Like what?”
“What?”
“Like, what does he tell you to do?”
“The usual shit. Clean. Cook. Wash clothes. Walk the dog. Iron shirts. Shine shoes. All the stuff he’s too lazy to do.”
The minute she said this, I felt sad for her. I mean, I thought my dad was a dick, but I don’t think he ever made my mom shine shoes. “That sucks,” I said.
“Yeah. Same shit, different day, I guess.” She adjusted her hair after a gust of wind blew it across her face. “Are you sure you don’t want to come over?”
“I can’t.”
“I can give you head.”
I acknowledged her offer with that facial expression that says, Really?
“I can,” she said, dragging her cigarette deep into her lungs and then exhaling. I’m not sure how to describe what I was feeling. I was seventeen—and this was something out of a triple-X daydream. And yet, I could translate her language. In Jenny’s world, “I can give you head” meant “I like you a lot.” And so, I took it as a compliment. Who doesn’t like flattery?
At the same time, it stank of desperation and I didn’t like it.
I said, “What makes you think I want head?”
She laughed overly loudly. “Every guy wants head!”
“Are you saying you give it to every guy who wants it?”
I admit it was probably not the best thing to say in that situation, but I wanted her to say what she really meant. I wanted her to say “I like you, Charlie,” or something normal. Something classy.
She glared at me. “You watch your ass, Charlie Kahn. I know some pretty important people.”
“Okay. I’ll watch my ass,” I answered, but she didn’t hear me, because she’d already turned around and started walking back toward the school. I hadn’t noticed, but the Detentionheads were about a block behind us the whole time, Corso (her boyfriend) included.
After that, she started showing up everywhere, and started being extra nice to me. When I stood around with my Tech friends, talking about bikes and cars and stuff in the student parking lot while we waited for the buses to clear out, she would join the crowd and smile at me. She must have figured I didn’t respond to the hard-ass act after our walk from detention. Now, instead of playing the slut card, she played cute and smiled like a shy girl. In the halls between afternoon classes, she’d bump into me and apologize, or give a faint wave from a distance and mouth “Hi.” The next time I got detention, I sat in the back and ignored her, but the more I ignored Jenny, the more she pushed. The more she pushed, the more I admired her, the more attractive she seemed to me, and the more I “accidentally” got detention. I can’t explain this, except to remind you that I lived with a bully and a doormat. Also, I was seventeen and my hormones had taken note that Jenny was
Easy
Kinda pretty
Really into me
Now that I’m here, I see that Jenny Flick was like Darth Vader, and that the dark side is enticing. But why did I turn on Vera? I don’t know. Because I didn’t want her to see what I was becoming—a sneaky person who couldn’t stop himself from doing shit he shouldn’t do. Maybe because I knew Vera was falling for me and I knew I was falling for her. Maybe because I knew she was fine and didn’t need to be rescued, like Jenny and I did. Why do people think there are clear answers for things anyway? There aren’t. Why does my dad hit my mom? Why does John have a thing for boys’ dirty underwear? See?
A BRIEF WORD FROM THE PAGODA
Do you have any idea how old watching idiot kids drink and do drugs up here on the rocks is getting? The funniest part is, they all think they’re more cool than their parents were, and their parents did the same crap. Also—tossing beer cans? That’s a $300 fine. You’re lucky I’m an inanimate object.
THE PAGODA PIZZA CHRISTMAS PARTY—PART 2
The first person I see is Fat Barry’s son, who is staring wide-eyed at my head. He says, “Have you seen your head?”
I’m still on the floor. I just came to. Of course I haven’t seen my head.
James is here. “Vera? Vera? Are you okay?”
Everything is a blur except for the throbbing hotness on my forehead. I look up at James and the kid. I don’t see Mick. I don’t see Marie and her husband or Fat Barry.
“You need to go and look at your head,” the kid says again.
So I get up slowly and walk to the bathroom. James has his hand under my elbow as support, and is jabbering a mix of garbled concern. “I’ll take you home. Oh my God. I should kill that guy. Holy shit. Are you sure you’re okay? Oh my God. Can you walk? Can you see okay?” Two steps from the bathroom door, I reach my hand up and touch it. It feels like I’ve just sprouted a Ping-Pong ball on my hairline. And there’s blood, but not a lot. Just that familiar tacky feeling.
When I see myself in the old, peeling mirror, I sober instantly. When I emerge from the bathroom, James isn’t by the door, and I make my way, like a ghost, to the parking lot.
Though I know I am driving drunk, I do not feel like I am. I am very aware that I should not be driving, and yet I seem to be doing this without expending any thought or energy. I have no idea how I got on the highway. I don’t remember pulling out of the fire company parking lot. I don’t remember saying goodbye to James or anyone else.
I am not driving the car. Someone else is shifting the gears for me. Someone has just put on my right-turn signal and turned me onto Pitts Road. I drive to the hill at Jenkins’s field and I pull the car into my old stargazing spot.
Someone turns the light on in the car and I look at my lump in the rearview mirror. It’s huge, and it’s killing me. It could be the bad light, but it looks like there are bruises forming under my eyes now. This thought brings tears—the realization that I am going to have to explain this to Dad, who will surely pull some crazy shit when I tell him what happened.
I turn the light off.
Then, they are here. All thousand of them. Maybe a million. The field is wall-to-wall Charlies. They are glowing blue-white and I can hear them breathing. They exhale a word. Rest.
I can’t sleep here. I don’t even know if I can sleep, period. Maybe I have a concussion. Maybe I’ll slip into a coma if I sleep. Maybe I’ll die.
Rest.
I blink. A billion Charlies, glowing brighter. A trillion. Inhaling. Exhaling. Rest.
My head rests on the seat, and I curl slightly to my right, tucking myself into my coat. I make sure the doors are locked and close my eyes, and they are behind my eyelids, too. The Charlies. Infinite Charlies. Smiling, stroking my head, glowing blue-white light, and exhaling softly. Rest.
When daybreak hits, I wake up cold. I remember being woken up during the night. Hourly. I remember feeling Charlie nursing me, protecting me, making sure I wasn’t dead. I lie there for a minute or two and then reach up to my head, which now feels like I’ve grown a baseball.
My father is
going to have a shit fit.
Before the road starts carrying cars to Saturday shopping and work, I turn the key in the ignition and crank the heat up until I figure out what to tell Dad. There are good sides—I wasn’t having sex with James all night. I don’t even know where he is! There are bad sides—I have a concussion and probably need to see a doctor. I can’t say how many drinks I had last night, I had so many.
Times like these, I wish my father was a long-haul trucker or worked in the International Space Station. I pull out of the field with a sigh, knowing I deserve whatever I get. Fact is, I feel lucky I’m not dead. I feel lucky I’m not beat up and raped and in a heap next to a Dumpster outside Jackson Fire Company.
Here’s my father using fuck and shit in a sentence.
“Holy shit! What the fuck happened to you?”
I’ve never heard him swear before. He gets closer, sees the tears in my eyes, and his anger quickly merges into concern.
“Are you okay, Vera?”
“I’m fine,” I say.
“Uh—um, I, uh—” He’s panicked. He could never deal with medical stuff.
“Really, Dad. It’s okay.”
He’s all mixed up. I can see it. Before I got home, he wanted to lay into me. He wanted to read the riot act and make me call my mother again, and book me into some home for girls who love twenty-three-year-old men and like to drink. But when I walked in looking like this, his plan collapsed. Now he’s pacing and muttering to himself, tapping his fingertips together.
I get myself a glass of water and drink back three Advil. After two minutes, he takes a closer look at my head and says, “Get your coat on. I’m taking you to the hospital.”
“Don’t you want to know where I was last night?”
“No.”
“Don’t you want to know if I was drinking?”
