“I’m glad you came by,” she said. “I’ve been thinking about you.”
“You have?” I instantly wondered what she was thinking, and why, and whether I should feel embarrassed, flattered, or awkward.
“There’s this new boy at school who sounds like you. I keep hearing him in the lunchroom. It’s very distracting.”
“Yeah,” I said. “If he sounds like me, he must be distracting.”
She laughed at that. “It’s only distracting because I keep expecting it to be you.”
I sat across from her in the living room and got right to business, telling her the reason for my visit. I expected her to be full of wisdom, and maybe give me a road map into the mind of Kjersten Ümlaut. Instead she just folded her arms.
“So let me get this straight,” she said. “You’re telling me you’ve been kissed by a beautiful girl, and you want me to give you advice about it.”
“Yeah, that’s the general idea.”
I could already tell this was going south. I’m not the most observant guy in the world, but I’ve learned that reading Lexie’s body language is very important. See, lots of people put on fake body language, making you see what they want you to see—but since Lexie doesn’t think in terms of sight, her body language is always genuine. And right now she was genuinely peeved.
“So, a girl kissed you. Why does that have to involve me?”
“She’s not a girl, she’s a JUNIOR, and every guy in school would give their left arm to go out with her—but she kissed me.”
Still, Lexie’s all cross-armed and huffy. Even the dogs are looking at her like there’s something wrong.
And then I finally get it.
“Are you jealous?”
“Of course not,” she says, but her body language says different.
“How can you be jealous?” I ask. “You’re dating that guy who clicks, right?” The guy I’m talking about is this blind dude with the very rare gift of echolocation. By making clicking noises, he can tell you exactly what’s around him. It’s kind of like human sonar—he’s been on the news and everything.
“His name is Raoul,” says Lexie, all insulted.
“Yeah, well, if my name was Raoul, I’d rather be called 'that guy who clicks.’”
The scowl on her face scares away at least four of the dogs. I figure it’s time to backtrack a little bit, so I give her the whole story—about Gunnar, and his weird incurable illness, and the extra month, figuring if she has the background, she might not be so annoyed by the whole thing. The second I mention the free month, she unfolds her arms.
“You gave him a month of your life?”
“Yeah, and that’s why his sister kissed me—so she says.”
“Antsy, that was a really nice gesture!”
“Yeah, sure, but we’re not talking about that right now, we’re talking about the kiss.”
“Fine, fine—but tell me, what did that boy say when you gave him the month?”
By now I’m getting all exasperated myself. “He said 'thank you,’ what do you think he said? Can we get back to the other thing now?”
But if there was any hope of getting advice on the subject, it flew out the window when Old Man Crawley came traipsing in, having eavesdropped on the whole conversation.
“What did he give you in return for signing away a month of your life?” Crawley asked.
I sighed. “Nothing. It was a gift. Kind of a symbolic gesture.”
“Symbolism’s overrated,” said Crawley. “And as a gift, it’s just plain stupid. It’s not even tax-deductible. You should have gotten something in return.”
So out of curiosity I asked, “What do you think a month of someone’s life is worth?”
He looked me over, curling his lip like I was a bad piece of fish at the market. “A month of your life?” he said. “About a buck ninety-eight,” and he left, cackling to himself, profoundly amused at how I had walked right into that one.
“Well,” said Lexie, no longer peeved at me. “I think a month of your life is worth a lot more than 'a buck ninety-eight.’” She reached out for my hand, and I moved it right into her path so she didn’t have to go searching for it. She clasped it, smiling. Then she sighed and reluctantly said, “As for the kiss, my opinion, as your friend, is that it does mean something. There’s no such thing as a 'thank-you kiss’. At least not in high school.”
5. People Sign Their Lives Away for the Dumbest Reasons, but Don’t Blame Me, I Just Wrote the Contract
I don’t think it’s possible not to be selfish. Of course that doesn’t mean everyone’s gotta be like Old Man Crawley either, but there’s a little bit of selfishness in everything. Even when you give something from the bottom of your heart, you’re always getting something back, aren’t you? It could just be the satisfaction of making someone happy—which makes you feel better about yourself, so you can balance out whatever awful thing you did earlier in the day.
Even Howie, who gets screamed at for always buying the wrong gift for his mother, is getting something out of that; each time he gets smacked for getting flowers his mother is allergic to or something, he’s left with the warm-fuzzy feeling of knowing some things never change, and his universe is all solid and stable.
My motivations were getting very muddy when it came to my so-called good deeds for Gunnar, and it was starting to feel more and more like disguised selfishness, because of the Kjersten complication.
Lexie believed that Kjersten’s kiss meant something. I put a lot of stock in what she said, not just because I trusted Lexie’s judgment, but because deep down, I was pretty sure it meant something, too. At the very least it was an invitation to make it mean something. Was it wrong to perpetrate good deeds when attention from Kjersten was one of the perks?
I, Mary Ellen McCaw, being of sound mind and body, do hereby bequeath one month of my natural life to Gunnar Ümlaut, that month being the month of June, which shall be taken from the end of my natural life, and not the middle.
Mary Ellen McCaw
Signature
ANTHONY BONANO
Signature of Witness
Thanks to Mary Ellen, the word about “time shaving” had spread quickly. She bragged to the known world about how she donated a month of her life to poor, poor Gunnar Ümlaut, and how the idea was all hers, although I may have contributed a piece of paper.
As people were not entirely stupid, they saw right through Mary Ellen and realized she was leeching off of my idea—so the next day about half a dozen people came out of the woodwork wanting to donate some of their time. Gunnar was more than happy to accept whatever months came his way, and Kjersten was sufficiently impressed.
“This is just what Gunnar needs,” she said when I showed her Mary Ellen’s contract. “I don’t know how to thank you.”
I could have given her some suggestions.
There was this one girl—Ashley Morales—who was clearly in love with Gunnar—even more so than most of the female student body. She wanted her month to be special. “I want my month to be his last,” she told me. “Can you make sure that he knows my month is his last?”
Since no one else had claimed the honor, I was happy to oblige.
I, Ashley Morales, being of sound mind and body, do hereby bequeath one month of my natural life to Gunnar Ümlaut. The month shall not be this coming May or June, which are months already reserved by others. The month shall be taken from the end of my natural life, and not the middle. The month shall be the absolute last additional month of Gunnar Ümlaut’s life, beyond which there shall only be afterlife, if applicable.
Ashley Morales
Signature
Neena Weyler
Signature of Witness
Then there was this other guy who had come from confession, and his priest wanted him to say like fourteen thousand Hail Marys for writing obscene graffiti on the Gowanus Expressway. He negotiated it down to one month of community service. I guess the kid figured a month donated to Gunnar was just as good.
The kid was all worried about it, though, and took it even more seriously than Ashley.
“I don’t want to give up a month if I’m gonna croak tomorrow or anything,” he told me, “because it means I’ll owe days from last month, and I don’t need that kind of grief.”
“C’mon, it’s not like it’s real or anything,” I remind him. “It’s just to make Gunnar feel better.”
“Yeah,” he says, “but what if turns out to be real after all—like those chain e-mails you gotta forward to ten people, or you die?”
“Those aren’t real!” I tell him.
“Yeah,” he says. “But how can you be sure ... ?”
I think about that and get all uncomfortable, because I have been guilty of forwarding those stupid e-mails, too. But I usually just send them to people I don’t like.
I sigh. “Okay. What if I make your contract void if you’re scheduled to croak before next month? That way you won’t owe any days, and you can enter the pearly gates totally free of debt.”
He thought about that some more, finally agreed, and happily went back to his priest, mission accomplished.
I, Jasper Horace Januski, being of sound mind and body, do hereby bequeath one month of my natural life to Gunnar Ümlaut, subject to the stuff listed below:
1. The month shall not be this coming May or June, or the last month of Gunnar Ümlaut’s life, which are all already reserved by others.
2. The month shall be taken from the end of my natural life and not the middle.
3. The donated month shall be null and void if my own expiration date is less than 31 days from the date of this contract.
Jasper Januski
Signature
Dewey Lopez
Signature of Witness
I have to admit, it felt good to be doing something positive for Gunnar, in spite of the fact that it hadn’t brought forth a second kiss from Kjersten, regardless of how little salami I ate, or how much mouthwash I used. I think maybe her reluctance came from the picture Dewey Lopez published in the school paper of our first kiss. Luckily it wasn’t on the front cover, since he also snapped a picture of Principal Sinclair coming out of the bathroom with his fly open and a piece of shirttail hanging out. Definitely front-page material. Still, the page-four article was seen by the whole school, with the unpleasant headline LOVE SKIPS A GRADE.
I don’t know how it affected Kjersten’s social standing, but it sure did elevate mine. Everybody wanted to know about it, but I kept quiet, because I figured Kjersten might respect a guy who didn’t kiss and tell—even if that guy was one year and seven months younger than her. (Yes, I snuck into the office and checked her school record to find out exactly how much older than me she was.)
Kjersten never mentioned the article or the picture or, for that matter, the kiss. But she did continue to tell me what an entirely great guy I was, which meant another piece of Trident might only be a few days away.
“It’s so, so special that you’re sensitive to Gunnar’s little problem,” Kjersten told me when I handed her the month Howie gave me—which was month number seven and counting.
At the time I had laughed, and wondered how she could call it “a little problem.” I’m not wondering anymore. And I’m not laughing either.
I, Howard Bernard Bogerton, being of somewhat sound mind and body, do hereby bequeath one month of my natural life to Gunnar Ümlaut, subject to the stuff listed below:
1. The month shall not be this coming May or June, or the last month of Gunnar Ümlaut’s life, which are all already reserved by others.
2. The month shall be taken from the end of my natural life, and not the middle.
3. The donated month shall be null and void if my own expiration date is less than 31 days from the date of this contract.
4. Should Gunnar Ümlaut use my month for criminal acts such as shoplifting or serial killing, I shall not be held responsible.
HOWIE BOGERTON
Signature
Ira Goldfarb
Signature of Witness
By Friday, I had gotten Gunnar a full year.
6. A Nasty Herd of Elephants That Are Nowhere Near as Embarrassingly Adorable as Me. Don’t Ask.
Nobody gets up early on Saturday morning in our house anymore. Friday night’s a late night for the restaurant. Mom and Dad are usually up even later than me—and that’s saying something. I slunk into the kitchen at around eleven that morning to see Mom, clearly still on her first cup of coffee, trying to comfort an inconsolable Christina.
“But I don’t want to put Ichabod to sleep,” Christina said through her tears. “It’s inhumane.”
“It’s inhumane to let him suffer.” She looked at our cat, who was now lying on the windowsill in the sun. If he was suffering, he wasn’t showing it. It was actually the rest of us who were suffering, because poor Ichabod was so old he had forgotten the form and function of a litter box, and had begun to improvise, leaving little icha-bits in unlikely places.
“It’s the way of all things, honey,” Mom said sympathetically. “You remember Mr. Moby—and what about your hamsters?”
“It’s not the same!” Christina yelled.
Mr. Moby was Christina’s goldfish. Actually a whole series of goldfish. She named them all Mr. Moby, the same way Sea World named all their star whales “Shamu.” Then she graduated to hamsters, which were cute, cuddly, vicious little things that would devour one another with such regularity you’d think cannibalism was in their job description. But Christina was right—this was different. A cat was more like family. Besides, in my current state of mind, mortality was kind of a sore spot.
“Mom,” I said, “couldn’t we just let nature take its course, and let Ichabod go when he’s ready?”
“I’ll clean up if he misses the litter box,” Christina said. “Promise.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Maybe she can levitate it out the window.”
Christina scowled at me. “Maybe you could give Ichabod one of your friend’s extra months.”
This surprised me—I didn’t even know she knew about that, but I guess word gets around. Fortunately it flew miles over Mom’s head.
“You know what?” Mom said. “I’m not gonna worry about this anymore. It’s on your head.” Then she poured herself a fresh cup of coffee.
I went over to Gunnar’s house that afternoon, using our Grapes of Wrath project as a cover story, but what I was really hoping for—and dreading at the same time—was seeing Kjersten. It turns out she had left early for a tennis tournament. I was deeply disappointed, and yet profoundly relieved.
We were halfway through The Grapes of Wrath and had decided that, for our project, we were going to re-create the dust bowl in Gunnar’s backyard, then arrange for our class to come see it. The dust bowl is what they called the Midwest back in the thirties, when Oklahoma, Kansas, and I think maybe Nebraska dried up and blew away—which has nothing to do with Gone with the Wind, although that movie was made during the same basic time period.
Mrs. Ümlaut fretted a lot when we told her about our plan. Fretted: that’s a word they used during the dust bowl. (“Fretted,” “reckon,” and “y’all” were very popular in those days.) But since the backyard was mostly crabgrass already going dormant for the winter, she reluctantly agreed to let us kill the whole yard as long as we promised to redo everything in the spring. I couldn’t help but glance at Gunnar when she said that, because what if he wasn’t around in the spring? Then again, maybe this was her way of implying to him that he would be.
I figured the biggest problem with the dust bowl was Gunnar’s unfinished gravestone smack in the middle of the yard. By now Gunnar had finished his first name and begun working on his middle name, Kolbjörn, which he was worried wouldn’t fit on one line. “I may have to start over on a fresh piece of granite,” he told me. I just nodded. I decided it was best if I didn’t involve myself in tombstone-related issues.
Before we began murdering helpless vegetation, Gunnar took me up
to his room to show me what he had done with the twelve months I had gotten for him. He had three-hole-punched them, and put them in a binder labeled Life. He displayed it proudly, like someone else might display a photo album.
“I consulted with Dr. G yesterday,” Gunnar said. “He says I might make nine months—maybe more, because my symptoms haven’t been getting worse.” Then he patted his Binder of Life. “But maybe the real reason’s right here.”
I let out a nervous chuckle. “Whatever it takes, right?”
I still didn’t know if he was serious, or just playing along. The kids who donated their months were, for the most part, treating it like a game. I mean, sure, they were hung up on the rules, but it was more like how you argue over a Monopoly board, and whether or not you’re supposed to get five hundred bucks if you land on “Free Parking.” The rules say no, but people still insist it’s the cash-bonus space. In fact, my cousin Al once busted a guy’s nose over it—which sent him directly to jail, do not pass “Go.”
The point is, even when a game gets serious, there’s still a line between game-serious and serious-serious. If I was sure which side of that line Gunnar was on, I’d have felt a whole lot better. Apparently I wasn’t the only one who felt a little unsettled around Gunnar. Sure, girls flocked to him, but when it came to our literature circles, they divided right along gender lines, with all the girls going for things that sounded romantic, like East of Eden. We had four guys in our group to start with, but they had all migrated to other novels. I suspected their migration was, much like the farmworkers in our book, driven by empty plains of death. In other words, they couldn’t handle Gunnar’s constant coming attractions about the end of his life.
“I’ll never forget,” he said to Devin Gilooly, “that you were my first friend when I moved here. Would you like to be a pall-bearer?”
Devin went bug-eyed and vampire-pale. “Yeah, sure,” he said. The next day, he not only switched to a different novel, he switched to a different English class. If it were possible, I think he would have switched to another school altogether.
Antsy Does Time ab-2 Page 5
