“Sorry. I was just thinking.”
“What about?”
“Bad stuff.”
“I figured that. Would you like some iced tea?”
“Yes. Thank you.”
“Come inside then.”
“Okay. Thanks.”
***
Aleah is an odd person. I found that out right away. She’s extremely intense all the time. This is not reserved for piano playing. Her piano playing is just a normal part of how she is second to second, minute to minute, day to day. On fire.
“I love human drama,” she told me.
“Oh.” I wasn’t sure I agreed.
“Your family’s weird.”
“Yes. That’s true.” She was certainly right.
“I’m weird. It’s okay to be weird.”
“I don’t know.”
“I embrace being weird.”
“Oh.” Huh?
We sat on opposite ends of Gus’s couch in the living room. She’d poured me some really sweet iced tea that tasted almost like blueberry juice. She sat cross-legged, facing me. She was wearing a white V-neck T-shirt and jeans and a red bandanna tied over her hair. I couldn’t exactly turn toward her because my legs are long. They felt twenty feet long. I’m spaghetti man. So I had to keep them on the floor in front of me because if I tried to sit cross-legged, I’d fall off the couch. I didn’t tell Aleah, but just three years before, Gus and I had made a fort out of this couch’s pillows. We’d written out a list of people who weren’t allowed in the fort, which included our mothers. We then played with super balls inside the fort. We named the balls after honkies (a couple of whom I’d eaten lunch with that day), and we threw them hard against the wood floor, saying crap like “Take that Karpinski!” Several times, the balls bounced off our faces, which hurt and which made us even madder at the honkies. You want to hear about weird, Aleah?
“I’ve always been weird,” Aleah said. “But I’m weirder now than ever.”
“Where’s your dad?” I asked.
“He’s teaching. Then he goes for a glass of wine with another English prof.”
“Wine?”
“Yes.”
This was not to be an intervention.
“Does your dad know I’m here?” I asked.
“Of course. Daddy suggested I invite you over. I would’ve anyway. He’s worried about you, you know?”
Okay. “Tell me what happened last night, okay?”
It wasn’t as bad as I thought. There was no screaming or breaking and entering or talk of turnips or engagement or Tito. Jerri didn’t mention me or Andrew at all either. She’d just knocked on the door sometime after midnight. She said she only knocked because the light was on. She looked like she’d been crying. She told Aleah’s dad, who’s named Ronald, that she had a lovely time talking to him. He agreed it was nice to talk. Then she left. “Daddy said she smelled like alcohol, but she wasn’t acting drunk,” Aleah said. “We both thought it was odd, of course, but not that odd. My mom acted much crazier than your mom.”
“Oh. Okay. That’s not so bad. I figured Jerri kicked in your door and killed your cat or something,” I said.
“We don’t have a cat.”
“I mean, not literally.”
“Yes, well, there’s a little more.” Aleah nodded.
Aleah was playing piano around 3 a.m. when the doorbell rang again. Ronald came bounding out of his bedroom in his pajamas, looked at Aleah, and said, “This is a little much,” assuming Jerri was at the door. But it wasn’t Jerri. It was a police officer.
“Sorry to bother you. Saw the light on. Just wondering if you know Jerri out there?” The police officer turned and pointed to Jerri’s car, parked out front.
“Oh, shit,” I said.
Ronald told the officer that he did know her. The officer asked Ronald to dump out the bottle of wine he’d found on the front seat.
“She’s asleep,” the officer said.
“That’s the bottle of wine she brought over when she came for dinner,” Ronald told the officer, which was a lie, of course. “She didn’t drink much of it.”
The officer paused for a moment, stared at Ronald, looked over at Aleah, then told them to be nice to Jerri. He said that he’d known her all his life and that she’s a good girl. He said she’s had a rough life.
“Oh my God. That cop was Cody Frederick’s dad.”
“The policeman said he’d call your mom in the morning to check up on her.”
“I don’t know. I don’t know if he did.”
“Why has your mom had a rough life, Felton?” Aleah asked.
“Ummm, suicide?”
“Suicide. Your dad?”
“Ummm, yes. But Jerri’s never been…She’s never been bad off. She’s always been okay until this year. I think.”
“It’s getting dark! Let’s go for a walk!” Aleah said, jumping off the couch.
***
There is one social class in Bluffton I’ve failed to mention. It’s the class, I guess, that Jerri probably belonged to, at least when she was a really young girl. You’ve got your honkies. You’ve got your poop-stinkers. You’ve got your college kids. Then you’ve got this big group of sort of hidden kids whose parents work at Kwik Trip or Subway or in bars or not at all. It’s a pretty fine line between honkies and these people sometimes, and the big difference is parents that drink a lot of beer and are noisy when they do, which is maybe why Jerri was sort of one of these people. (My grandpa, who died of lung cancer when I was a baby, owned a bar, made a lot of noise, drank a lot of beer.) The reason she wasn’t exactly one of these people is that her mom, Grandma Berba, who now lives in a condo in Arizona, sold insurance, divorced my grandpa, and didn’t drink a lot of beer. Plus, Jerri is really smart and was really good at school, which means she turned honky, or almost college kid, from how she described it. This class in Bluffton tends to ride in the back of ugly cars, live in ugly houses close to Main Street or in trailer parks on the outskirts of town, wear clothes from garage sales, swear a lot, get into fights when they’re in middle school (or pregnant in eighth grade), then sort of disappear when they’re in high school. If they don’t disappear, it’s either because they’re serious criminals, or loud, raspy girl-drunks, or because they’ve migrated into honkiness, which means they’re probably okay at school or sports. You might call them townies or burners or druggies. Gus calls them dirt balls, but it didn’t catch on with me because the name made me feel bad for my grandpa and for Jerri. It’s the serious criminals you have to watch out for.
Herein lies the story of how Aleah was made aware of townies (or dirt balls) because of an interaction with a couple of serious criminals, Rick and Rob Randle.
Aleah and I left her house and walked out onto Hickory Street. The sun was setting, and the sky was all orange and purple. It was really pretty.
“I really love how the air smells here,” she said.
“Like poop?” I asked.
“Is that poop?” she asked.
“I’ve always thought of it as poop,” I said.
“It smells like the country,” she said.
“Like poop,” I said.
“Chicago smells worse in the summer,” she said.
“Chicago smells worse than poop?”
Aleah laughed.
“Uh huh,” she smiled and nodded.
“Do you miss Chicago?” I asked.
“No. Not really. I’ve had a bad year.”
“Why?”
“My mom.”
“Suicide?”
“No. Not even close! Too much life in her. That’s what Daddy says.”
“Oh.”
We turned right on Davis Street and walked along the curb. There aren’t many sidewalks in this newer part of town.
“So,” I said, “how does it feel to be the best piano player of your age group in the universe?”
“I don’t know,” she said, and she tilted her head and squinted like she was thinking.
“D
o you think there might be really good piano players in China or Russia or something, so you can’t be sure you’re the best?”
“I sometimes wonder, I guess, about other pianists. Not very much though.”
“I guess you won’t know for sure until you’re older and can fight it out with them in competitions for adults.”
“No,” she said. “I don’t think about that.”
“No?”
“No. I practice at night.”
“That’s pretty dedicated. That probably tells you you’re the best, huh?”
“No, no, no.”
“No?”
“Stop saying no!”
“No.”
“Stop!” She grabbed my arm and squeezed. She laughed. Then she slid her hand down and grabbed my hand. We walked holding hands, which made me totally dizzy and sort of sweaty.
Om shanti shanti shanti.
“Go on please,” I exhaled.
“While I’m playing, I sometimes wonder if there’s a girl like me in London—that’s where my mom lives.”
“Wow. That’s cool.”
“Yes. Not really. I mean London is cool, but my mom isn’t.”
“Oh. Because she’s got too much life in her?”
“I guess. And she’s crazy and mean.”
“I hear that,” I laughed. Aleah laughed too. I’m not sure what we were laughing at.
“So I wonder about a girl playing in London or in Germany or Japan or something, who’s playing during the daytime because it would be daytime there while I’m at the piano, and maybe she’s practicing the same piece as me, a girl who loves it as much as I do.”
“I bet you beat them with a stick,” I said.
“That’s not what I mean,” Aleah laughed.
Just then there was a loud booming sound behind us. Loud guitar and drums, heavy metal music. We both spun around, dropping our hands. The sound came from an old car that was driving really slow. The car stopped and then its engine revved.
“Who’s that?” Aleah asked.
“Townies,” I said.
Then whoever was driving jammed on the gas and accelerated like crazy, heading right toward us. Aleah and I jumped up on the curb. As the car passed, someone within shouted “Squirrel Nuts!” An egg crashed at my feet.
“The Randles,” I said.
“What?”
The car squealed around the corner. We heard it accelerate down the block and then squeal around another corner.
“Hmm,” I said. “They’re probably coming back around.”
“What are they going to do?” Aleah asked.
“Just be jerks,” I said. “Let’s cut through yards back to your place.”
We walked quickly behind the nearest house, tripping in the dark. The car came squealing around the corner onto Davis Street. As it passed, someone yelled, “You doin’ Aunt Jemima back there, Squirrel Nuts?”
“Oh my God. I’m so sorry. I…I can’t believe they said that,” I said. We cut through several backyards, heading in the direction of her house. I was a little worried that we’d trip motion sensors and get caught in spotlights.
“Said what?” Aleah asked.
“That Aunt Jemima thing. This town sucks.”
“I hear worse than that at my private high school in the city, Felton.”
“You do?”
“I’m more concerned that you’re part of a gang fight.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Why did they come after you?”
“They didn’t.”
“They threw an egg at you.”
“That’s Rick and Rob Randle. They throw eggs at everyone. They’re criminals.”
“Are they your friends?”
“No. Of course not.”
“How do you know their names?”
“This is Bluffton. I know everybody’s name.”
“Weird.”
We crossed another couple of yards and then were back on Hickory Street, Aleah’s street. As we got to her house, another car squealed around the corner and skidded to a halt under the streetlight at her corner. It was a new Honda. There were three smashed eggs on the hood. Jamie Dern leaned out the window. “Yo, Rein Stone. Have you seen the Randles? They egged Reese’s car.” Jason Reese was driving. A couple of other honky football players sat in the backseat. They leaned over to look at us.
“Yeah. They were just over on Davis.”
“Who’s that?” Jamie nodded at Aleah.
“This is Aleah.”
“Okay. Nice to meet you,” Jamie said to her. Then he shouted “Let’s go.” They were obviously pretty mad.
“He’s very polite for a gangbanger,” Aleah said as we stood in her driveway.
“Jamie? His dad’s a dentist.”
“Do you think he’ll shoot the Randles when he finds them?”
“No,” I laughed. “Plus, he won’t find them. There’s like a million miles of streets and highways and county roads, not to mention all the gravel roads. Jesus, the Randles could drive all the way to the Mississippi on gravel roads. Reese will just drive around and around and around until they get tired and stop for a Quarter Pounder. Then they’ll probably go to Kwik Trip for a slushy or maybe to Walmart to walk around.
“What if they do find the Randles?”
“Probably cut them.”
“Really?”
“With their knives.”
“Shut up.”
“Okay.”
“Seriously, Felton. What will they do if they find the Randles?”
“There could be a fight but probably not. The Randles don’t want to fight football players because they’d get smeared. Football players don’t want to fight the Randles because they’d get in trouble. There could be some shouting, I guess. Probably somebody will flick the bird, shout some names, you know, “You jerks, clean up this egg from my mom’s car or I’ll punch your nuts off!” But it won’t be a big deal. Tomorrow night, the same thing will happen all over again. Eggs. Chasing. Quarter Pounders. Crap goes on and on. Ten years from now, Jamie Dern will probably be a dentist.”
“Weird. What about the Randles? What will happen to them?”
“They’ll go to jail for stealing cigarettes. Their stinky kids will eventually be on Main Street playing video games.”
“Really?”
“That’d be my guess.”
“Weird.”
“It’s the circle of life.”
“I like this town.”
“Are you crazy?”
“The stakes are low.”
“That’s true. Low stakes. Yup.”
I followed Aleah back up toward her house. I wanted to go inside with her. She stopped me on the stoop.
“It’s time for me to practice,” she said.
“Piano?”
“Yes.”
“Okay.” Oh, man! No!
“I’ll be playing for you when you drop off the paper.”
“Don’t you ever sleep, Aleah?”
“All day long, all summer long.” Then she leaned over and kissed me on the cheek. “See you in the morning, Felton.” She opened the door and went in.
I stood there for a second, stunned. Then I called after her, “I’ll tell Jerri not to come over tonight with her wine,” but the door had already shut behind her.
Then my cell started buzzing in my pocket.
***
“Where the hell are you? You left two hours ago. Aren’t you tired of riding your bike?”
I’d just answered my cell and was in Aleah’s driveway climbing on my bike one-handed so I could speak. “Why are you awake, Andrew? Are you okay? What’s wrong?” I was sincerely scared.
“I’m hungry.”
That’s not so bad. I exhaled. “Is Jerri awake?”
“No. She hasn’t been up at all.”
“Get yourself something out of the fridge.”
“I don’t want to go upstairs. Can you come home please?”
“I’ll be there
in a couple of minutes.”
Andrew hung up. I rode home slowly, sort of split between the monkey elation of Aleah’s lips touching my cheek and wariness over the Randles making a return and a mess of me with their eggs and also wariness over the Reinstein-Berbas making a mess of me with their true-life drama. The stakes weren’t really so low either. There aren’t low stakes. Jerri grew up in this town and married a professor that killed himself. The Randles probably wouldn’t die in gang violence, but they could easily get drunk and explode their Chevy against some tree out in the country. That definitely happened from time to time. Are the stakes low for the poop-stinker kids who get their arms ripped off by farm machinery? “Oh, no problem. I’ve got a whole other arm, Pa. Let’s bale that hay!” Easy come, easy go. Just another day in rural Wisconsin. I told Aleah a whole bunch of crap about driving around and being a honky or a criminal, and the fact is, I don’t know anything about it. Me, Peter, and Gus used to drive around sometimes, and I witnessed honkies shouting at the Randles and the like, but I have no idea what they do afterward. Would I find out, now that I’d been adopted into Honk Honk Honky culture?
Her lips touched my face. The stakes aren’t low.
I entered the house from the garage. Andrew was lying on the couch watching a horror movie. He didn’t even look at me. I pushed up his legs, sat down on the couch, grabbed the remote control out of his hand, and flipped the channel.
“Don’t watch that crap,” I said.
“Why not?”
“You’re afraid to go upstairs as it is.”
“Just don’t want to see our mother,” Andrew said.
“Yeah, she’s a horror movie,” I said.
“She certainly is.”
I pushed myself up and climbed the stairs to the living room. No lights were on. With a twinge of fear, I moved to the hall light switch. The last thing I wanted to see was some grizzly death scene involving Jerri. But when I turned on the light, she was nowhere to be found. I moved down the hall and could hear Jerri breathing in her room.
A voice came from her bed.
“Felton, is that you?”
“Yeah. You okay, Jerri?”
“I feel like shit. Probably shouldn’t drink wine.”
“I guess not.”
“Is Andrew okay?”
“Yeah. He’s watching TV in the basement.”
“Good. I’m going to get some sleep.”
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