I unlocked the door and checked out our room. Complimentary copy of USA Today on the desk near the front window. Desk chair missing. Old color TV with aluminum foil wadded around its rabbit ears. Nightstand topped by an alarm clock and Gideon Bible. One king-sized bed with McCullough’s stuff covering it like he had dibs. It’s a miracle he hadn’t pissed on the comforter to mark his territory. The shower was running, which explained where the chair was—wedged under the doorknob inside the bathroom.
I guess Josh was freaked he’d be trapped in a homo version of Psycho, where I’d sneak into the bathroom—in a granny dress, of course—jerk the shower curtain back, and then plunge Mr. Five-Incher in and out and in and out of Josh’s tight little jock butt. Like that was gonna happen. He was probably showering in a pair of swimming trunks.
Since McCullough was being a dick, I decided to be one too. The only thing separating the bed’s headboard in our room from the headboard next door was two pieces of quarter-inch drywall and some insulation. So, I climbed on the bed, kicked Josh’s crap out of the way, and jumped up and down. With each crash of the headboard, I moaned things like, “Oh, yeah, McCullough, keep taking it. Oh, yeah. You know you like it. God, that’s sweet.”
It didn’t work the way I’d hoped—the team thinking that I’d used Josh like a prison bitch. I’d been having too much fun shouting stuff—Damn, that’s hot, dude. Yeah, Josh, you’re so tight. Charlie likes!—that I didn’t notice Bales, hands cupped around his eyes, peering through the window. I stopped jumping.
“Sad, man,” Bales said, a laugh snorting through his nose. “Really sad.” He walked away.
I got off the bed and pulled the blinds closed just as Josh came out of the bathroom, fully clothed—and I mean, fully clothed—socks, shoes, blue jeans, undershirt, T-shirt, sweater, bubble wrap, duct tape, mummification gauze, biohazard suit, deep sea diving helmet. He scowled at me, grabbed the newspaper and the Gideon from the desk, crumpling their pages and dropping them around the bed. I asked what he was doing.
“Protection, faggot. If I fall asleep and you try to jump me, I’ll hear the paper move. And if I don’t—”
I bit the inside of my cheek while Josh explained his Russian-nesting-doll theory of pajama armor from unwanted, pervert-making dick-on-dick swashbuckling. Under his jeans, he’d said, he was wearing a pair of boxers, under which were a pair of tighty whities, under which was a jockstrap, under which was a cup, under which, he said, I sure as hell was never gonna see.
“Christ, McCullough, I know I’m not going to see it. In the four years we’ve been on the soccer team together, I’ve never seen it once in the showers.”
“Ha, ha,” Josh said coldly.
“You think I’m joking? I’m not. During freshman year, a couple of guys on the team seriously asked me if there was something wrong with you, like, medically.”
“Bullshit.” McCullough threw a pillow at me and I batted it away. “I’m fucking bigger than you, pin dick.”
“You been checking me out, Josh? Did you like what you saw?” I asked. I grabbed Mr. Five-Incher, gave Josh my best you-sooo-make-me-wet-down-there softcore porn look, and ran my tongue along my teeth. It killed me not to break out laughing.
“I’m telling Coach. You’re fagging out.”
“Yeah, McCullough, that’s exactly what I’m doing. I want your cock, even though the thing is smaller than those mini ears of corn you get in Chinese food.”
Josh’s face went red. He gulped, practically swallowing his Adam’s apple.
“The chicks don’t think I’m small,” he said, his voice cracking. He sounded like he was trying to convince himself it was true.
“What chicks?” I asked, laughing. “Midgets?”
“Lots of girls…you wouldn’t know them. Ones up in Canada.”
“How convenient.”
“Whatever. When my family was in Montreal this past summer, this one chick couldn’t stop playing with my dick.”
“Did she think it was cute?” I asked, setting the bait for Josh’s further indignities.
“Hell, yeah.”
“Figures,” I said, stroking my chin like I was contemplating some deep truth. Actually, I just wanted McCullough to bite so I could piss him off even more.
“Whaddja mean ‘figures,’ asshole?”
“McCullough, don’t tell me you never noticed how girls are always saying little things are cute…kittens, puppies, babies.”
Josh’s eyes looked runny and he sniffed his nose. I was breaking him and it felt good.
“Well, even if your imaginary girlfriend in Canada thinks you’ve got a massive dick, that’s not what the girls at South think.”
“Shut up.”
“It’s true. One day, at lunch, a bunch of senior girls came up to me, wanting to know what all the guys were really like.” I was lying, but it didn’t matter. McCullough was eating it up. “They wanted to know all sorts of sex stuff. You know, did Binkmeyer have red pubes? Was Kyle as wide as a beer can? Did Piers, the foreign-exchange student, have a foreskin? If he did, did it really look all gross and stuff, like a turtleneck pulled over someone’s head?”
Josh shifted nervously in the bed. His body tensed and he locked his arms across his chest for double-extra protection.
“They asked if it was true that you had an innie,” I said. “And they weren’t talking about your belly button.”
McCullough chewed his lip. His forehead was pinpricked with sweat.
“Whaddja tell them?”
“It doesn’t matter,” I said, tugging the spare blanket around my shoulder and rolling over. “Good night.”
“No. Whaddja say?”
“I said I didn’t know.”
The bedsprings creaked. I popped my head up. Josh’s face was in the pillow and he was mumbling how it wasn’t true.
It’s been three hours and McCullough hasn’t come up for air. He keeps whimpering, “I’m not an innie. I’m not an innie.” About a half hour ago, I was feeling bad for him, so I told him that chicks know some guys are grow-ers, not show-ers, but that set off a crying jag. Now I just wish he’d shut up and go to sleep, ’cuz I’m tired and can’t think of anything else to write.
Monday, November 5
They say Granite City trounced us four-to-one on Saturday. I don’t know. Thanks to a skull-sloshing, Grade 3 concussion during the game, I don’t remember Saturday at all. Sunday’s a blur. Today’s been fair-to-partly-cloudy at best. According to Dad, I checked out for about five minutes after diving head-first into a goalpost for a save. Mom says (she’d driven downstate once she got off work Friday night, I guess) she nearly flipped when the referee didn’t notice that I wasn’t getting up right away.
Supposedly, when I came to, I was completely out of it. My pupils were way huge, which I guess isn’t a good thing. I couldn’t count backward from ten without getting stuck at nine. Dad said that while I was arguing with the ref about how I could still play, I opened my mouth so wide I looked like a snake dislocating its jaw, and blew chunks—hosing the ref, shirt to shoes. After that, it was an ambulance to the emergency room and an overnight stay for observation.
The hospital absolutely sucked. They put me in one of those hospital gowns that barely covered my practically nonexistent butt. I felt like such a dork. Any time I had to piss, somebody—Mom, Dad, the nurse, but no, never the cute blond orderly with the freckles and forearms—had to walk me to the bathroom and wait outside in case, I don’t know, I, like, keeled over dead. On top of that, it felt like spinal fluid was leaking from my ears. The doctor wouldn’t give me anything but these orange-flavored, chewable non-aspirin painkillers, which made the headaches worse ’cuz I had to chew ’em. Then EVERY S-I-N-G-L-E HOUR Saturday night, some nurse with old-lady orthopedic shoes thundered into my room to wake me up.
Sleeping all right?
Not anymore.
Sorry, doctor’s orders. We want to be sure you don’t slip into a coma.
I should be so lucky.
Yeah, you keep waking me up to tell me.
I don’t care if this makes me seem like a baby, but I was glad Mom and Dad spent the night. No matter how tough I tried to act, I was scared. The nurses had me freaked out about comas and strokes; every time I drifted off to sleep, I had nightmares about everyone thinking I was dead when I really wasn’t. (Okay, so I’m more than a little irrationally creeped out by the idea of being buried alive.) I don’t care, go ahead, hand me a binkie, I didn’t want the Ps to leave. I was in the hospital and, for as much as I rag on them, the Ps have been awesome when it comes to my “dire” health crises—real or imagined. It really takes a special class of people to ply you with dry toast and flat ginger ale, after they’ve spent God knows how many hours sitting on the edge of the bathtub, pressing a cold damp washcloth to the back of your neck as you vomit against a just-bleached toilet seat. Hell, back in first grade, I had my tonsils out, and I remember that Dad stayed home with me for a few days after my surgery, and the two of us gorged ourselves on mint chocolate chip ice cream for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. When I was nine, Bink and I managed to get both of my ankles sprained at the same time (don’t ask), and Dad spent the week lugging my scrawny ass up and down the stairs in our house. And who can forget seventh grade, when Mom basically spent three days as my seeing-eye dog after I wound up getting both my corneas scratched and matching eye patches in gym class? Leave it to me to make square-dancing a full contact sport. I don’t always like admitting it, but Mom and Dad have always been there for me—whether it’s been me in a pair of footie pajamas hollering for a drink of water, or me in a T-shirt and a pair of Umbros shouting for them ’cuz I was convinced that the wood grain patterns on the back of my bedroom door looked like a hell-bent, knife-wielding psychopath ready to spring on me and carve my heart from my ribcage. I don’t care how old you are, there’s just times when you need your Ps.
On Sunday afternoon, when the neurologist was convinced I wasn’t any more brain damaged than normal, he gave Mom and Dad a rundown of what to expect from me. Keep in mind, he’s probably going to feel nauseous and have headaches on and off for the next few days…no soccer, no gym, no exertion for two weeks. He may experience some disorientation, irritability, sleepiness, sensitivity to light.
“I take it you don’t have any teenagers of your own, doctor,” Mom said with a laugh.
The only time Mom and Dad argued, if you could even call it that, was before the drive home. Mom wanted to take me in her car, but Dad said it’d be better if I was in the Olds because I could stretch out in the backseat. Dad even handed her the keys and said he’d drive the Jeep back to her place.
I spent the rest of Sunday and most of today at home resting, listening to Mom and Dad try to piece together as much of Saturday for me as they could. They seemed surprised I couldn’t remember that the guys’d stopped by the hospital to tell me I’d been named MVP for the season—probably on a pity vote. Even still, that had to make Rob’s ass chew gum. After dinner, when I was resting on the couch, the phone rang. Dad answered. He said it was Josh McCullough calling to see if I was okay, but when Dad asked him if he wanted to talk to me, he said no, he should probably let me rest.
“It’s nice that your teammates care,” Mom said. “That has to make you feel good.”
“A new head would feel better.”
Dad laughed and made like he was going to tousle my hair, but when I flinched, he thought better of it and chucked my shoulder.
Maybe I’m still out of it. The more I think about things, nothing makes any goddamn sense. Mom and Dad staying together under the same roof. Josh McCullough calling to see if I was okay.
Something doesn’t add up. I’m too beat to figure it out.
Tuesday, November 6
Today was Election Day, which for the average American meant it was just another Tuesday.
For me it meant hauling my ass out of bed at five in the morning and joining Dad at the makeshift polling place at West Beach’s field house. While he was shaking hands and begging for last-minute votes, my job was to hand out doughnuts, coffee, and pamphlets to the busloads of the Fixodent and fixed-income set who only skipped their breakfasts of tinned cat food with prune juice chasers to vote down a referendum to provide school kids with heated classrooms, text books, and running water. After Mom dropped me off, I expected her to vote and head home. But she actually stuck around, grabbed a stack of voter’s guides from me, and helped pass them out before she had to take me to school.
“I don’t get it,” I said as we climbed into the Jeep. “Are you and Dad getting back together?”
The sun was coming up, which still bugged me a little, so I slipped on the Ray-Ban Wayfarers I’d been wearing since Sunday. There’s something about sunglasses that lets you get away with stuff you normally wouldn’t. Like people won’t call your bluff when they can’t see your eyes. I thought they made me look good in a geeky-cool kind of way. Mom didn’t agree.
“You look like a drug addict wearing those,” she said, looking over her hands as she lit a cigarette. She waved the pack at me, offering me one. I shook my head. “I know, I know. I should be the one telling you not to smoke. But if you smoked, I wouldn’t feel guilty doing it.”
“Yeah, Mom, that makes perfect sense. So are you?”
“Am I what?”
“Getting back together with Dad?”
Mom exhaled, smoke streaming from her nostrils like a cartoon bull. “Your father’s worked hard for this. The least we can do is show him some support.”
“So, are you letting him move back in?”
I wasn’t sure I knew what I wanted her answer to be. I actually kinda missed not having him constantly breathing down my neck—at least, a little bit.
“We’ll see.” Ending the conversation, Mom fiddled with the radio dial, searching for something other than WAIT’s Iraq War–boosting broadcast (“Rock the Casbah” and “Midnight at the Oasis”). She’d almost breezed past what sounded like the Velvet Underground, but I grabbed her elbow and made her stop.
“This?” Mom asked, snickering. I nodded, and she threw her hands up in a what’s-to-understand shrug as she pulled into the entrance of South’s parking lot. Then Lou had to go and embarrass us, ordering Severin to taste the whip, kiss the leather boots. I couldn’t have gotten out of the car faster if I’d been pushed.
Even before classes started, things were different at school. The guys from the soccer team wanted me to sit in the Pit with them, wondering why I hadn’t been there all season. Funny, if I’d known a concussion’d get me entrance to South’s sanctum sanctorum (who’da thunkit, nearly three-and-a-half years of Latin and I finally find a use for it), I’d still wanna sit in the cafeteria. Jon Bales kept telling anyone who’d listen about me Technicolor-yawning on the referee (It was totally volcanic—we’re talking Mount St. Helens. The ref actually stopped the game so he could shower and change.) and how Josh went batshit-crazy on Bob, earning himself what had to be a one-of-a-kind state record—a red card and immediate ejection from the game for spitting, unsportsmanlike conduct, violence, and swearing—all directed at a teammate.
The way Bales tells it, Coach decided Bob should sub for me. After Bob blew our lead, giving up four shots back to back, Josh lost it. He got right up in Bob’s face and started shoving him around, screaming about how much better the team was when it had a real fag for a goalie. The problem with guys like Bob was they let in anything and everything. I guess Bob, trying to be a team player, said something about showing the Crusaders that we came to play. Not missing a beat, McCullough mouthed off, “Oh, yeah, Collins, you asshole, you came to play all right—with yourself in the shower.” Then Josh spit in Bob’s face, snatched his red card from the ref, and stormed off the field, saying that he should’ve joined the golf team four years ago, ’cuz at least in golf all the queers are rug-munchers.
After Bales shut his mouth, Marshall wanted to
know if it was true I couldn’t remember anything from Saturday (wow, just like amnesia), and then Bink complained about his Mom wanting to bring me chicken soup. (She’s whining, Neil, it’s Jewish penicillin, and I said, Mom, he’s got a concussion, not pneumonia.) And Dana—Dana was as humorless as always. She berated me for trusting the neurologist and thinking I only had a concussion, because for all I knew, it could be a contusion, a hematoma. I could go from being fine one moment to suddenly stroking out and bleeding out of my eyes.
Trying to get to third-hour choir during passing period wasn’t easy. After years of being the dork who even preschoolers would point and laugh at, I was suddenly, maybe not popular, but at least not invisible. I got What’s up?s and Dude, how’s it hanging?s from guys on the varsity basketball team. Chicks—and not just the fat ones who asked me to school dances, but ones Bink said he’d like to bang—tugged me into their fog of hairspray, perfume, and Binaca, wanting to know if I was okay. They’d heard from Bales that I, oh, my God, went into a coma right there on the field and, can you believe it, almost totally died in the hospital. And then, this was way too weird—Have you ever, like, you know, tried doing it with a girl? Dana says some people with head injuries, like, get whole new personalities, you know?
I ended up getting to choir late, but I wasn’t worried. I’d just tell Mrs. Reed I’d felt a little light-headed before class and needed to sit.
The problem with choir, though, was wearing sunglasses and trying to navigate the dark corridor separating the entrance from the rest of the room. It wasn’t easy. I felt my way through the dark, groping for the walls and trying not to trip over my own feet.
“Jesus,” someone said as I staggered into the room, “it’s true. Charlie’s blind.”
Mrs. Reed covered her mouth, trapping a short gasp; the tenors reeled backward, blinking wildly; a high-strung soprano, looking too much like a horror-movie chick about to take an axe to the head, dug her fingernails into her cheeks; but it was Rob who actually shocked me.
The Screwed-Up Life of Charlie the Second Page 22
