by David Lubar
I hadn’t meant to set him up for another round of humiliation. “Wait,” I called. But it was too late. He’d already gotten within range of Mary. There probably wasn’t any way I could talk him out of it. I watched him get his first rejection of the evening.
There was no school on Monday. It was Presidents’ Day. But we had rehearsal all morning. Given what happened to Lincoln in a theater, you’d think we’d get a break. No chance. I unloaded a ton of plywood and dozens of paint cans from a pickup truck. At least the rest of the crew joined in the painting.
On the way home, I bought this big chocolate heart at the drugstore. It was on sale cheap since Valentine’s Day was over. I figured I’d wait a month or two, and then give it to Lee. I’d just have to find the right moment. Something like April Fools’ Day or Roald Dahl’s birthday. She’d appreciate the irony. I still felt bad about that time when I’d told her I couldn’t talk to girls. Which, with a couple exceptions, was really the truth. And I felt bad about the time I’d mentioned the dance and then got worried she’d think I’d asked her.
Mouth stopped by my house late that afternoon. When I saw him on the porch, a thousand excuses raced through my mind. You cant come in. My mom’s pregnant. I have homework. It’s late. My dad’s taking a nap.
But he didn’t ask to come in. “Here,” he said, holding out a couple dollars.
“What’s that for?”
“I owe you this. Remember? For lunch.”
“Oh, yeah.” I’d forgotten about it.
I figured he’d spend another fifteen minutes describing the whole event, but he just said, “Thanks” and left.
Mom went on a baking spree right after dinner, making brownies from scratch. Then she made hot fudge sauce. Also from scratch. By that point, the kitchen smelled amazing. She sent Dad and me out for vanilla ice cream. On the way, I couldn’t help thinking about Mouth, who’d asked every girl in sight to dance, and me, who’d never asked one.
“Did you date a lot in high school?” I asked Dad.
“No. I was kind of shy.”
“You?” I knew he had to deal with a stream of people all day long at work.
“Yeah. I was the tallest kid in my class.”
From my perspective, I couldn’t imagine that being a problem. “Bobby’s real tall. And he dated like crazy. Even back in middle school.”
Dad shrugged. “I think there’s more to it than height.” He pulled up to the store and I ran in for the ice cream.
“You aren’t shy now,” I said when I got back to the car.
“I don’t have a choice.” He shrugged. “That’s part of growing up. You do what you have to.”
We brought the ice cream back home, then sat around the kitchen table and had dessert. All four of us. It was a nice way to end the long weekend. I ate three helpings. Proving that when you’re young, you also do what you have to.
After Dad and Bobby had slipped out to the garage, I helped Mom stack the dishwasher. “That was great. Thanks for baking.”
“It’s what I love to do.” She went over to the table and sat down.
“You look tired,” I said.
“I just don’t seem to be getting enough sleep.”
“I know the feeling.”
She patted her stomach. “I guess I’m sleeping for two.”
“If you figure out how to sleep for three, I think I can make us both rich.”
That made her smile. She reached out and put her hand on my arm. “If I could, you know I would.”
“I know.” We sat for a while. I could hear the sound of tools against steel in the garage. I looked at Mom’s stomach and couldn’t help thinking about my overstuffed backpack and all the schoolwork that lay ahead of me.
“I guess we’re both carrying a lot more of a load than we’re used to,” I said.
“But not more than we can handle.”
Tuesday I rode into the parking lot with Wesley, thinking that at least I had a short week ahead of me, and worrying about how I’d do on my algebra test. A couple minutes later, I forgot all about that stuff. I could tell something was going on because everyone was talking in little clusters.
I tapped a kid from my Spanish class on the shoulder. “What’s up?”
“You know Chuck Peterson?”
“Sure,” I said. Not well, but my gut twitched at the thought of bad news. “Did something happen to him?”
“No. But his mom works in the emergency room over at St. Mark’s. She was just leaving when they brought in a kid from town.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know. All I heard was suicide.”
“Oh crap. You don’t know anything else?”
“Nope.”
I raced to another cluster. “Anyone know who it was?”
“That weird kid,” someone said. They all nodded.
That weird kid …
When I heard those words, I almost forgot how to breathe. Lee had been depressed all week. And she was always talking about death. I ran through the halls, trying to spot her. What if I’d given her the Valentine’s present already, instead of waiting? Would it have made a difference? What if I’d actually asked her to the dance?
I raced to our homeroom, but she wasn’t there, either. Or at her locker. She must have changed the sign yesterday. All I saw was a big question mark. I knew she walked here from Hamilton Street, so I ran out the front door and headed that way.
I spotted her a half block from school. I was so relieved, I could even talk when I reached her.
“Trying out for the track team?” she asked. “I’d say you run like a girl, but that’s a sexist attitude.”
“You’re okay?” I asked.
She glanced down at her body, poked herself in the stomach a couple times, squeezed her shoulder, then looked back up at me. “Apparently. Shouldn’t I be?”
“I heard some kids talking … something about suicide.” I could hardly bring myself to say the word around her.
“You moron.” She glared at me. “You really don’t know me at all.” Then she smiled and put her hand on my cheek. “It’s sweet you were worried. Most people would probably prefer me dead. No chance—I have a zest for life. And far too many unread books.”
As she took her hand away, I noticed her wrist. There was a mark there. It looked like an old burn. That day when she’d said she’d done something stupid in the kitchen—she was telling the truth.
Lee headed toward school, leaving me standing there feeling like an idiot. I also felt relieved. But she was right. I really didn’t know her at all. I promised myself I’d be nicer to her from now on. And try not to say anything stupid.
I went back to the school and found out the rest of the rumor. It was Mouth. That’s what they meant by “the weird kid.” Nobody seemed to know for sure whether he was still alive.
It completely freaked me out that I’d seen him last night. What if I was the last person he’d talked to? I was such a complete jerk. Why hadn’t I been nicer to him? I knew he talked a lot. But I could have been more patient. He wasn’t a bad guy. It was obvious now that he’d been really down last night. I should have asked him if he was okay. I should have done something.
There was one small bright spot in all of this. By the end of the day, the rumors seemed to agree that he was still alive.
February 19
Hey, toe sucker. I handed in my sports article today. It’s getting easier to write about the games. It’s kind of like exercise, in a way. I can do more curls with heavier weights now than when gym class started. More pull-ups and push-ups, too. The first couple of times I wrote about basketball, I really had to think. Now it just rolls from my mind to my fingers.
Either way, it doesn’t matter. It’s just a stupid article. I need to tell you what’s really on my mind. You have no idea how rotten I am. Completely stinking rotten. Nobody has a clue. Mouth tried to kill himself. When I heard about it, my first thought wasn’t I hope he’s okay or Why would he do it? No. You know what my f
irst thought was? Maybe I can do the book reviews now. God, I’m like some kind of ghoul.
I suck.
“Is he a friend of yours?” Mom asked me at dinner.
“Not really. I know him from school.”
She kept looking at me, like she wanted me to say something more.
“Mom, I’d never do anything like that. Okay?”
She patted my hand. “Okay.”
I glanced at Dad. I could tell he wasn’t worried.
We had a special assembly the next day. This woman talked about what to do if we felt depressed, or if we thought a friend was depressed. But what about someone like Mouth, who didn’t have any friends to look out for him? At least, from the stuff they described, I was pretty sure Lee wasn’t depressed. Weird, yes. Obsessed with dark stuff, yes. Depressed, no.
She’d put a couple of the dead rock stars back on her locker. I pointed to one of them. “You think it’s cool, that he killed himself?” I asked.
“No. It’s not cool. I think it’s sad,” she said. “And so infuriating. What a waste.”
“Then why put up his picture?”
“Because I love his music. And I mourn for what might have been.”
• • •
I covered the last wrestling meet of the season on Friday. There were regionals and stuff, but they were in Hershey, which was far enough from here that I wouldn’t be going. Maybe Kyle would come back to earth now.
The last basketball game would be on Saturday. I was glad it was almost over. I could use a break. But I guess I’d just be stuck with baseball and track next.
I kept thinking about Mouth. He was probably all alone in the hospital. I tried to tell myself that he’d get lots of visitors. But I knew that was a total lie. Nobody would go to see him. He didn’t have any friends. Even if he did, the whole suicide thing was incredibly hard to deal with.
Saturday, after the game, I went to the hospital. When I walked in, I got the same creepy feeling as when I’d gotten the box from Tobie’s parents. That was stuff from a dead kid. This was a kid who wanted to be dead. A kid my age.
He’d tried to hang himself. Damn. I couldn’t believe how easy it was to think that. He tried to hang himself. And how hard it was to make sense of it.
Lucky for him the ceiling fan broke. He’d lived. But he’d screwed his throat up. He had a notepad because he couldn’t even talk right now. He didn’t even bother to write anything much other than Hi. So I just babbled about stuff. But he seemed happy to see me. Which made me feel guilty. After ten or fifteen minutes, I was just too creeped out. Every time I looked at him, I thought about him dangling from the ceiling. What if he’d tied the rope to something sturdier? He’d be dead right now. I made up an excuse and split. Which added another layer of guilt to my load.
I went back on Sunday. This time, I brought him some books. He handed me a book, too, along with a note: I was going to review this. Can you?
For a minute, I couldn’t talk, either. Or breathe. Or swallow. I felt like such a bastard. “I’ll try,” I said.
He moved his lips. No sound came out, but I could tell he was saying, “Thanks.”
I looked at the book, expecting another Bucky Wingerton adventure, but it wasn’t anything like that. It was a new collection of short stories about vampires. Some of my favorite authors were in it.
I read the whole book that night, but I couldn’t bring myself to write a review even though I was dying to tell people about it. I’d feel like a vulture if I did that.
By Monday, the jokes had started. It was always like that. No matter how bad something was, sooner or later people started making jokes. Sick jokes. I heard all sorts of versions of how Mouth just wanted to hang out or hang around. A real swinging dude. All choked up. None of it was funny.
Just as I was about to walk into my art class, Danny Roholm grabbed my arm and said, “I know why Mouth did it. He wanted to get away from hearing himself talk.” He started to laugh.
Something inside me exploded. I shot out my hands and slammed Danny against a locker. It happened so fast, I didn’t even know I was doing it. He looked like he was going to take a swing at me, but I stared him down. There must have been something in my eyes. My face felt like it was washed in flames. After he slunk off, I realized I was shaking. I’d never done anything like that before.
Damn. Where’d that come from? It was like something Wesley would do. Except if he’d done the pushing, Danny wouldn’t have been able to walk away. Maybe you are who you hang out with.
At the newspaper meeting, after talking about how awful we all felt, Mandy said, “Who wants to handle book reviews until Louden gets back?”
A couple hands shot up. I kept mine down. Mandy looked right at me anyhow. I shook my head.
“You sure?” she asked.
I nodded.
“I guess we’ll shift you to baseball and track, Scott,” she said. “Okay?”
“Fine.” That was probably just what I deserved.
Yet more sports appeared in my life. I went bowling on Thursday. Not by choice. I was riding home with Wesley when he got on Route 22 and took it over to the Hadley exit. We pulled into the lot at Melville Lanes.
I didn’t protest, since it wouldn’t do any good. And since we were doing something legal. Well, mostly legal. Wesley managed to get a couple sodas from one of the machines without paying. I’m not sure how.
On the way home, he said, “Did you know the kid who tried to off himself?”
“Sorta,” I said. Please don’t make a joke. If he said something stupid, I’d probably do something even more stupid. I really wasn’t in the mood to get tossed out of a speeding vehicle. Though maybe, out of courtesy, he’d pull over and beat me up on the sidewalk.
But Wesley just shook his head and said, “Bad stuff.”
“Yeah.”
“If I die young, it won’t be by choice.” He laughed and shook his head. “At least, not by my choice.”
{twenty-six}
Scott Hudson settled back in his seat and opened his notebook. As always, he glanced briefly to the side, two rows to his left, where Julia sat. As always, he sighed. Up front, his teacher began a lesson.
“We’re going to learn about viewpoints today,” Mr. Franka said.
Cool, Scott thought. He enjoyed the way his teacher was able to take a story apart without killing it. Mr. Franka was definitely a surgeon and not an assassin.
“In third-person limited,” Mr. Franka said, “we see the world of the story through the eyes, ears, and mind of just one character. We only know what he thinks and observes.”
Scott was already familiar enough with the concept. He thought about some of the books he’d read that used this viewpoint.
“In omniscient voice,” Mr. Franka said, “we can flit from person to person.” He scanned the rows of students, pleased to see that they were paying attention. It was a good honors class this year. “But some readers find that the omniscient viewpoint doesn’t allow them to develop a bond with the characters. At times, if handled poorly, it can even be jolting.”
I’m hungry, Kelly thought.
Mr. Franka discussed other variations of the third-person viewpoint. Then he said, “A few books use second person. But this is tough, and can be a bit of a gimmick.”
Sometimes, the writer could suck you right into the character so well that you were almost unaware of the viewpoint. You open the book and start reading. You feel like you’re actually in the story. You go right along with it. Though you probably agree that viewpoint can be used as a gimmick.
“And then there’s first person,” he said. “One of the characters tells the story.”
I listened as he talked about viewpoint for the rest of the period. It was all pretty interesting. I’d found that with some really good books, I had a hard time remembering what viewpoint they used.
As I was leaving class, Mr. Franka waved me up to his desk. “I’ll need your decision before the end of the month. How about you l
et me know by the twenty-fifth?”
“Sure,” I said. “No problem.” As I spoke those words, my mind searched for any clue to what he was talking about. I desperately needed a dose of omniscience, but his thoughts remained his own. Maybe if I could get him to talk some more, I’d get a hint. “You sure you don’t need it earlier?”
“No. That will give me plenty of time to gather the materials.”
“Yeah. I guess.” Still no real clue. “So, the twenty-fifth? Sure. I’ll make a note.” I hovered there, hoping he’d say something else.
When he didn’t, I headed for the door. I was almost out of the room when he said, “Scott?”
“Yeah?”
He pointed to the wall above the blackboard. I saw a poster that said april is national poetry month. I’d completely forgotten that I was supposed to come up with our topic for that month.
“You didn’t forget, did you?” he asked.
“Of course not.”
Thank goodness he wasn’t omniscient either.
March 3
It’s quiet. Bobby’s out somewhere. Mom and Dad went for a drive in the ‘vette, which is actually almost running. Dad’s put a ton of work into it. So has Bobby. Mom could hardly squeeze in the passenger seat. It was like watching someone stuff a roll of socks into a paper-towel tube.
My mind’s been stuck on the weirdest thing. The other day, I almost got in a fight with Danny. I’m glad I didn’t. Not because I’m afraid. But I was thinking. He’s already really unpopular. What if he got so upset about losing a fight that he tried to kill himself? It would be my fault.
I should go visit Mouth again.
The school finally found a new Spanish teacher. Ms. Phong seemed very nice. She smiled a lot. We communicated with gestures since she didn’t appear to understand English.
Even so, I was happy to see her because I was getting tired of doing calisthenics in class and hearing Mr. Cravutto shout, “Suck it up, bambinos.”
Nobody had the guts to tell him that bambinos wasn’t Spanish.
I went to the town library after school and spent a couple hours trying to figure out what we should study in English next month. We’d already covered everything I could think of.
