I'm with Stupid

by Geoff Herbach

  “Where’s your mom?” I asked.

  “She’s shut in her room. She’s shut in there all the time,” Abby said.

  “Sounds familiar.” Jerri had done pretty much the same exact thing a couple of years earlier. I recognized the state of affairs. Of course, my house is a lot smaller and shittier in the first place, so the change wasn’t as noticeable.

  Abby’s place was a freaking disaster. Seriously.

  But not her bedroom. It was clean. Super clean.

  Abby led me to her bed. We sat down. “I’m glad you’re here.”

  “Me too,” I mumbled.

  “You don’t seem okay,” she said. “Are you okay? Are you mad at me?”

  “No. Why would I be mad at you?”

  “I don’t know. People get mad at me.”

  “I’m having a bad month, I guess.”

  Abby nodded. “I’m with you, man. My life’s been terrible since volleyball.”

  “Divorce stuff?”

  “I don’t know. Yeah. Probably. I can’t concentrate.”

  “You should’ve told me before because then we could hang out and not concentrate together,” I said.

  “Yeah.” Abby smiled. “Hey. Have you ever had a fuzzy navel?” Abby asked.

  “What?” Was she talking about her own belly button? Did she want me to have her navel somehow? “I…I have some hair around my belly button,” I said.

  “No.” Abby laughed. She lifted up a plastic cup from her bedside table filled with what looked like orange juice. “Fuzzy navel. Orange juice and peach schnapps, man. It’s delicious.”

  “What is schnapps?”

  “Sweet liquor. My mom drinks it all the time. She has like a hundred bottles. You want one?”

  Somewhere deep in my head, I heard the voice of my little brother Andrew saying, Think before you act, Felton. Then I thought of Pig Boy and my dad and the State of Wisconsin, and even though I’d puked from alcohol and my stomach still ached in a weird way, I said, “Yeah, I’d like to try.”

  ***

  An hour later, everything was totally great. Abby put on the country music station, and we tried out the swing dancing that we learned in seventh grade. She shoved me when I stepped on her foot and I fell through her closet door and we laughed really hard.

  Then we sat in the closet on the floor holding hands.

  “I can’t believe I didn’t drink before now! I should’ve been drinking fuzzy navels since I was born!” I shouted.

  “I know! Can you believe we let Cody tell us to not drink for like our whole adult lives?” Abby said.

  “Cody doesn’t have problems. He doesn’t need the navel, man.”

  “He doesn’t understand us,” Abby said. “Plus, he’s always so worried about you, but he never asks me if I have problems.”

  “Why’s he worried about me?” I asked. “I’m a champion.”

  “Because you have a crazy mom and your dad and you’re jumpy and you help him win and I don’t matter. I’m just nobody,” Abby said.

  “No. You’re everybody. You’re the best student.”

  “Second best now. Gus beat me because I can’t concentrate.”

  “He’s smart.”

  “I’m a better student. I work harder. I used to work…”

  It’s true. Abby took AP English as a junior and quit track so she could take all this advanced science at the college. She was the most motivated student in the world. “You are better. Gus is just a super genius.”

  “But Felton…shh.” She put her hand on my mouth. “I have to turn in my grades at the end of the year. The only way I can do college without Dad…the only way I can go to Madison is with the Regents Scholarship.”

  “You already got that,” I said. She did too. They awarded it in November.

  “I have to turn in my grades and I can’t concentrate and the professor told me to drop cell biology on Friday. He said I’m not ready for college.”

  “No,” I said.

  “You want some spaghetti?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  Then we stood in her kitchen, which was spinning around because I was pretty drunk and also pretty happy because Abby was cooking me some spaghetti, which I love, and I knew we belonged together and I knew we were soul mates and would probably get married in the next few months and we’d have some kids and live on an island where we’d drink in a hot tub.

  Then Abby sat at the table in her robe. I could still smell her lotion and it made me thirsty. I wanted to drink her in my cup. Her shoulder kept slipping out of the robe and she has a really pretty shoulder. Nolan was nowhere to be found. “In the basement,” Abby told me. I could hear the TV on in her mom’s room. “She has a bathroom in there. I see her like once a day,” Abby said. “Dad’s really mean to her, so she sleeps all the time. She’s never had a job, you know?”

  “Your dad’s nice to Jerri.”

  “He used to be nice to me,” Abby said. “He used to sing me songs when I was a little kid. I don’t understand what happened.” She spun spaghetti noodles around her fork. “He’s really, really mean.”

  “Yeah?” I asked.

  “What are we going to do? What’s wrong with us?” Abby asked, her face hot.

  This fuzzy navel oozed warmth through my body. Abby’s face. You have to see Abby’s beautiful face. “You want to make out or something?”

  “Probably.” Abby nodded. “But have you ever been happy?” she asked.

  “No. Except I like playing football.”

  “I used to like everything. I wanted to be a doctor in Africa or Mexico to help the kids.”

  “I was happy when I helped Pig Boy.”

  “See!” Abby shouted. “But now I can’t do anything. I don’t know why. And I don’t have any friends, Felton.”

  “Me.”

  “But Jess and Cody are glued together like Ken and Barbie, and Jess doesn’t care that I’m…I’m…”

  “Maybe we need to be a team, Abby. Like Cody and Jess.”

  “Me and you. Ken and Barbie?” Abby asked.

  I tried to picture Ken but instead pictured the offensive coordinator at Wisconsin, with his slick hair, and my throat tightened and I grabbed my fuzzy navel and took a big swig. “Listen, Abby, I don’t want to be like that asswipe Ken,” I said.

  “Yeah. Ken is an asswipe. So is Barbie. She’s a bitch and she doesn’t even return my texts like half the time and she knows that my life is hell and Dad is mean and Mom is a total basket case.”

  “Are you talking about Jess?”

  “I want to be the opposite of that! What’s the opposite of Barbie?”

  I knew in a flash. “We need to protect dipshits,” I said. “Ken and Barbie are mean to dipshits!”

  “Cody’s not mean to dipshits.”

  “Karpinski says he needs to keep the dipshits in line,” I said.

  “So we stop him? Like you protected the pig kid? How do we do that?”

  I thought of those Northwestern football players shoving each other. I thought of Karpinski. “We should be mean to mean people,” I said. “Right? Wouldn’t that blow their minds if we just did mean stuff to them? A little reverse medicine for those doctors of mean shit?”

  “Mean to mean people,” Abby said.

  “Yeah.” I nodded.

  “I’m good at being mean.”

  “I know.”

  “It makes me feel bad.”

  “But if you’re on the good team?”

  Abby squinted at me. She pursed her lips in a sexy fashion. “Can our team get drunk and study together too? I have to study and I can’t be alone anymore. Will you drunk study with me please?”

  “I will drunk study your ass off,” I said. I didn’t want to be alone either.

  “Okay.” Abby nodded. She swallowed. She
exhaled. She closed her robe around her and then sat on her hands. “Okay.” She looked down at her lap. “Also, maybe we should try to have sex. I’m tired of Maddie and those girls calling me Virginia.”

  “They do that? Mean.”

  “Yeah,” she said.

  I nodded. I clapped my hands. “Yes!” I said. “Sex is a great idea!”

  “Really?” Abby asked.

  “Definitely. Know why? Ken and Barbie totally can’t do it. They don’t have the parts! They have nothing downstairs! Barbie has those big boobs but nothing going on in her…her undercarriage! Ken’s wang area is flat as a pancake. We’ve got the parts to totally have sex all the time!”

  “Yeah,” Abby said. “Okay. Let’s put that down on the to-do list.”

  “This is great! Do you have any paper?”

  “I think I ate too much,” Abby said. “I’m going to throw up.”

  ***

  Abby was asleep five minutes later. I rode my bike home and crashed twice, which hurt, and then slept on the couch in front of the TV. Around 3 a.m., I stumbled to the bathroom and tried to throw up. Somehow I got back to the couch. My head swam and my guts burned and I couldn’t believe it was morning when morning happened because it seemed to happen a second after 3 a.m.

  My alarm blared. I rolled and sat up.

  The room spun for a minute. I had to meet Pig Boy. For the first time since Curtis. Monday morning meeting day.

  Then I noticed a piece of paper. Lying on the floor next to the couch was a list I apparently wrote out before falling over when I got home.

  Here’s what it said:

  1.Be mean to mean people to protect the weak.

  2.Study while drunk a lot.

  3.Have massive amounts of sex because Ken and Barbie don’t have wangs.

  The list made me laugh, which made my head pound and my stomach ache. I still found it funny.

  Problem: I didn’t love Abby in the morning like I did the night before. I don’t know why. I didn’t feel that thing, which made me feel bad for her.

  Chapter 26

  Pig Boy Needs Help

  My body moved slowly. I pulled on my “I’m with Stupid” shirt for only the second time because I wanted to show Abby how serious I was about sticking it to the people who should be stuck. (I wanted to be on her team.) I planned to sit on the right side of Karpinski at lunch.

  When I went upstairs for a bagel, Jerri materialized out of my haze and grabbed my arm.

  “You unplugged the phones.”

  I nodded.

  She squinted at me. “Good. I got into a screaming match with a man from Milwaukee on Saturday.”

  “Sorry.”

  She sniffed the air. “What time did you get home last night?” she asked.

  “I don’t know,” I mumbled. “Midnight.”

  “That’s too late on a school night, Felton. You’re not an adult yet. Don’t think I’m not watching.”

  “Okay, I won’t think you’re not watching.” The room felt tilted toward the stairs. I worried I’d stumble a couple of steps and fall down them.

  “You leaving this early?” she asked.

  “Meeting. Freshman mentee.”

  “I won’t be home for dinner. I’ve got class tonight and then I’m meeting with Terry.”

  “What’s your definition of meeting?” I asked.

  “Ha, ha,” Jerri said.

  “Terry’s a bad person,” I said.

  Jerri paused. She shook her head. “You don’t know anything, Felton. Divorces aren’t pretty. Whatever that Abby is telling you isn’t the whole truth.”

  “That Abby isn’t telling me anything. I just don’t like Terry.”

  “Mind your own business, Felton.”

  “You mind your own business,” I said. “You’re not watching me anyway.”

  Jerri stared at me.

  “I have to go,” I said.

  ***

  When I got to school (after a frozen-face and gut-roasting bike ride), Pig Boy was already sitting in his homeroom. He had his notebook out and he was drawing. He looked up when I walked in.

  “Nice shirt,” he said.

  “I’m with Stupid,” I said.

  “Did you wear that so I’d feel stupid?” he asked.

  “No,” I said. My guts bubbled and I had to reach out and steady myself on the dry-erase board, which erased something Mrs. Callahan had written on it. “Shit.”

  Tommy turned the page and began drawing another picture.

  I sat down next to him. “You doing okay?” I asked.

  “No,” he said. “You smell like booze.”

  “I do? I showered. How do I smell like…” My heart began thumping.

  “You drank it so it comes out your skin all day,” Tommy said.

  “Oh no.”

  “You need to shower your insides,” Tommy said.

  “I don’t know how.”

  “You can’t.”

  “What’s wrong?” I mumbled.

  Tommy thought I was asking him instead of asking myself. He answered. “My mom keeps showing up at my house and screaming at my dad that he killed Curtis, and Dad had to go to jail this weekend because he punched her arm.”

  I blinked. “What the hell, Tommy?”

  “Good question,” he said. “My grandma can’t even cook toast anymore. She sits on the couch or shakes like she needs to sit on the couch. My brother’s bed is just there in my room. I can’t get it out by myself. I don’t want to see that bed.”

  Then I thought of Dad hanging, twitching in the garage. “I’m so sorry, man.”

  “You’re not. You won’t email me back. I emailed you nine times and you won’t talk to me.”

  “I wasn’t in school because…because…and I can’t check all my email,” I said.

  “Why not?”

  “There’s too much for me to read because…Wisconsin people want to beat me up.”

  “Oh yeah, I heard about that,” Tommy said.

  I took a deep breath. Tried to steady myself. “Okay…Okay…Who killed your brother?” I asked. “I saw that email before the shit storm.”

  “Confession!” Tommy said.

  “What? No.” I didn’t want to hear that Tommy killed his brother.

  “I did. I killed Curtis.”

  “No.” I shook my head. It wasn’t possible. The intercom called for Tommy when Curtis shot himself. “No, you didn’t. You were at school.”

  “Yeah. But before school, I told him he should karate-chop Ryan Bennett…”

  “Ryan Bennett!” I spat.

  “Yeah. I told Curtis if he didn’t fight Ryan, he didn’t deserve to walk among the proud, didn’t deserve life. Then he came home and died.”

  Tommy put down his pencil and put his face down on the notebook.

  “Oh man.”

  He looked up. “My counselor lady that the school gave me says that’s not my fault. She says kids just talk. She’s wrong. I wanted Curtis to stand up like I stand up. They can hit me all they want. But I won’t cry.”

  “Did Curtis cry at school?”

  “I don’t know. Probably,” Tommy said.

  “We have to fix this,” I said.

  “We can’t. Curtis is six feet under.”

  I saw Dad in the ground. “You know my dad killed himself?” I said.

  Tommy’s mouth dropped open. “Really? What did you do with his bed?”

  I paused. Stared at him. “I don’t know. My mom might’ve burned it. She might still sleep in it though.”

  “I want to burn Curtis’s bed,” Tommy said. “I really, really don’t like it being in my room.” He blinked at me. Then Tommy started crying, then he started coughing, then he sneezed on the desk.

  “That’s what you want? To burn
Curtis’s bed?”

  “Yeah,” he wheezed.

  That’s what Jerri wanted to do. Burn Dad’s stuff. She did too, out in the backyard of our house, while I cried and Andrew stared.

  Snot poured down Tommy’s face. I ran up to the teacher’s desk and grabbed a bunch of Kleenex. “We better get cleaned up. School’s going to start in a couple of minutes.”

  He tried to clean up. Didn’t work that great.

  “I’ll help you get his bed out of your room,” I said. “We can do that. No problem,” I said.

  Then the bell rang.

  Chapter 27

  I’m With Stupid

  I didn’t think about my dad or Badger fans the rest of the morning. I thought about poor Pig Boy lying awake at night staring at Curtis’s empty bed.

  I did sit next to Karpinski at lunch. I did make Abby laugh with my “I’m with Stupid” T-shirt, but I didn’t care so much. Karpinski said, “Oh yeah, that’s a really funny joke, Rein Stone” when I put my arm around him. “You’re full of funny jokes. Wish I would’ve thought of grabbing the Wisconsin hat.”

  “You weren’t recruited by Wisconsin though.” I didn’t actually say that to be mean, but it might’ve come across as mean.

  Cody stared at me. “That’s a dickhead shirt,” he said.

  “I know,” I said.

  “Whatever, Ken,” Abby said. She walked over and hugged my head. Her chest pressed into my face and I could smell her skin and I thought I might love her for a moment.

  “What do you mean, Ken?” Cody asked.

  “Yeah?” Jess asked. “Ken?”

  “Nothing. I have to go to the college for class,” Abby said. “See you tonight, Felton.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Good.” I imagined her sliding off that robe.

  “What’s up with you two?” Karpinski asked.

  I got up and left for my locker. Help Pig Boy. Have sex with Abby. That’s all.

  Except it wasn’t all. Mr. Linder was losing patience with me.

  I’d failed to do any of the reading for AP English, and Mr. Linder called on me again and again because I didn’t know crap about The Dead and Linder was tired of my weeks of nonresponse.