by Adam Rapp
Because of what had happened the night before, I’d decided that I wouldn’t be staying at home anymore.
I grabbed a pack of cigarettes and put them in my back pocket. I also took a bite of a candy bar that I had bought on my way over. I was pretty hungry and I had no idea how I was going to feed myself. I only had like thirty bucks that I’d scrabbled together. I could totally feel that Jerry Willems guy watching me. When I finished with the bag, I stepped up to the wall, dipped my roller in the paint, and got to work. The wall was pretty moldy, and in addition to the dragonflies and mosquitoes that I described earlier, there were all these bugs swarming in and out of the cracks. The paint fumes were pretty potent, too, and after a while I started to feel a little stoned.
At some point, maybe after like a half an hour or so, Jerry Willems came over with what appeared to be a long broomstick.
“You should attach this to the roller,” he offered. “Might make things a heckuva lot easier.”
I took his advice and he was right — it totally made it easier.
Jerry Willems watched me for a few minutes, saying things like “Not bad technique” and “Use your legs more,” and then he left me alone. He pretty much just stayed over by where he had parked his big red pickup truck and talked on his cell phone.
For the next two hours, I just zoned out and painted the wall. My Adam’s apple was still sore from getting choked, and every time I swallowed, I was reminded of my dad’s face over mine, how swollen and weird it looked, how lost we both were. I wanted to feel bad about everything that had happened — I really did — but more than anything, I just felt sort of blank. Even when I thought about my mom, I felt blank.
I had to stop painting a few times because my stitches were itching like crazy. I had this weird urge to pull them out and just let my shin bleed everywhere.
While I was down on a knee, Jerry Willems came back over.
“What’s wrong with your leg?” he asked.
“A few days ago I fell on some glass,” I lied.
“Ouch,” he said. “How many stitches?”
“Like sixty-some,” I replied. I really had no idea how many the doctor had sewn into my shin, but that sounded right for some reason.
“Well, I just came over to tell you it’s your lunch break. There are sandwiches and pop in my truck.”
We walked over to his truck, and I ate like four ham sandwiches and drank three orange Fantas.
When I was just about to head back to the wall, Jerry Willems came around from the other side of his truck holding two baseball mitts.
“Have a catch?” he asked, hiking up his Bermuda shorts.
I said, “Like a catch catch?”
“Sure,” he said. “Get fifty feet between a coupla fellas and let her fly.”
I thought for a second.
“It’s good for clearin’ the head,” he added.
“Maybe not,” I said.
“Okay,” he said, and turned and walked back toward his truck.
I felt sort of bad rejecting him like that. I mean, I know he was just trying to be nice to me. I guess I just wasn’t in the mood for a catch.
I went back to work on the wall and started thinking about that letter from the gifted school. I had been planning on going over to Carroll on Monday and signing up for a summer-school writing class. I had never been very interested in writing, which is pretty ironic because of what you’re reading right now. The only book I’ve ever really liked was this one called The Basketball Diaries, by Jim Carroll, which is about this white kid in New York City who’s this totally amazing basketball player but he doesn’t even care because he’s all into shooting heroin and getting into trouble with his friends. It turns out that Jim Carroll really did live on the streets of New York City and he really was this talented basketball player and he really did have this whole love affair with heroin and other various urban drugs. Man, that’s the only kind of book I like — one that’s so real you want to find out everything there is to know about the person who wrote it, like how tall he is and what kind of music he likes and whether or not he really went through all the stuff he was writing about.
It took me the rest of the day, and I wound up climbing up on that rickety old scaffolding, but I eventually got the whole wall painted. I was pretty tired at the end, but it was that good kind of tired, when you feel like you’ve actually accomplished something.
When I was finished, Jerry Willems came over and shook my hand.
“Not bad,” he said. “Good luck with everything, and stay outta trouble.”
I nodded, grabbed my bag, and headed into downtown Foote.
15.
So it was official.
My temporary homelessness had begun.
But before I go on with that, I have to tell you what just happened here at Burnstone Grove.
That Silent Starla girl just came into my room and sat on my bed. Just like that. She didn’t even knock — she just sort of waltzed right through the threshold. I was at my desk with my pen and my composition book, crossing out things and rereading what I think will be chapter 14.
“Hey,” she said.
“Hey,” I said back.
“What’s that?” she asked, pointing to my journal. She had a lot of dark eyeliner on, which made her eyes look spooky and beautiful at the same time.
“Oh, it’s nothing,” I said. “I’m just writing this thing.”
“Is that a diary?”
“Sort of.”
“Don’t let anyone see it.”
“I keep it hidden,” I said, which is true. I keep it in this hidden pocket in my mom’s old suitcase that I brought here.
Then she sort of bounced a little on the bed and said, “So what’s been up?”
“Not much,” I answered. “What’s been up with you?”
“I’m just chillin’,” she responded, which was weird because that’s sort of homeboy or something, and I’ve never seen that side of her.
Then there was this long pause. You could hear the fluorescent light tube over my desk buzzing. Silent Starla sort of gave me this look. It was half-bored, half-mischievous.
I said, “What?”
She bounced a few more times and said, “So, I really like all that music you gave me.”
“Really?” I said.
“Really,” she said. “That Cat Power chick is pretty good. I mean, she’s sad as shit and sort of lost in that please-come-home-with-me-I’d-like-to-sleep-with-you-now-get-the-fuck-out-of-my-life kind of way. I mean, I’m right, right?”
“Totally,” I said.
“And Interpol. They’re sort of post-punk but kind of mysterious and they can rock petty hard when they want to. I like that song ‘Roland.’”
“Yeah, ‘Roland’ rocks.”
Then she shot me another one of those looks and said something that totally caught me by surprise, which was, “So, do you wanna make out?”
I said, “Make out?”
“Uh-huh.”
Inside I was like, “Whoa,” but I didn’t say that. In fact, I didn’t say anything. I almost stopped breathing, if truth be told. My hands suddenly got all clammy and I started making fists to hide this fact. She looked so good sort of bouncing at the end of my bed like that.
Then Silent Starla said, “I mean, we don’t have to.”
“No, I’d like to,” I said. “I’d just feel a little weird, I guess.”
“Why?”
“Because of Shannon.”
Silent Starla said, “Shannon?”
“Yeah,” I said, “Shannon Lynch.”
“What about him?”
“I think he likes you.”
“Well, I don’t like him.”
“Oh,” I said. “You don’t?”
“No,” she answered. “And besides, everybody knows he’s gay.”
“Really?”
“I mean, it’s not like in-your-face obvious or anything, but he is.”
“How do you know?”
“Because since he’s been here, he’s tried to kiss like four different guys.”
I was pretty shocked to hear that. I guess mostly because it made me feel like a statistic. I was Number Five.
Silent Starla then said, “So come here, Gray Grouper,” and patted the spot next to her on the bed.
I went over and sat next to her, and she undid my fists and sort of pressed her thumbs into my palms.
“So, is your name really Starla?” I asked.
“It’s really Sinead. But I changed it to Starla last year after I dropped acid for the first time. You can call me Sinead if you want.”
“I like Starla,” I said.
“Good,” she said. “Lean toward me.”
“Okay,” I said, but I just sort of froze there — I was really nervous. But she sensed it and helped me out by sort of placing her hand between my shoulder blades and gently pushing me toward her. We totally made out for like fifteen minutes. Her mouth tasted like cigarettes and Cherry Coke, which, as strange as it sounds, is a surprisingly good combination. It was mostly French kissing and some rubbing on thigh areas, which all felt pretty masterful, I must say.
So I think I’m in love with Silent Starla, who isn’t all that silent after all. In group she hardly ever talks, and in the cafeteria she just sort of stares off in this dreamy way. She’s from Oak Park, Illinois, and when she left my room, she said, “We can go together, but I won’t fuck you without a condom. I like your eyes.”
Then she left, just as mysteriously as she had appeared.
I hope that we have sex as soon as possible.
I hope I hope I hope I hope I hope I hope I hope . . .
I just had to say that, and now I will stop complaining about my virgin curse and I’ll return to the subject of my temporary homelessness in downtown Foote.
Even though I had eaten those ham sandwiches during my community service lunch, I was starving again. I stopped at a diner near the Century Civic Center. It’s this totally old-fashioned, fifties-looking place called Jack Palomino’s. The booths are all red vinyl and riddled with cigarette burns, and the old-fashioned jukebox isn’t even plugged in and there’s a crack in the glass. Another thing that I’d like to describe are the walls, which at the time were plastered with movie posters. Man, it seemed that everywhere you looked in downtown Foote, there were movie posters. Three overly tan studs in sunglasses. Four noble-looking women staring off into the horizon. Some old Scottish guy in a Lamborghini smiling knowingly at a swimsuit model with fake breasts. He’s like an international spy or whatever and she’s the sexy scientist with the Transylvanian accent.
There were about three people, all in different booths. The air conditioner was obviously broken, as a pair of matching fans whirled feebly in opposite corners.
This middle-aged waitress with dyed red hair sort of limped over to my table. Both of her knees were wrapped in Ace bandages and she seemed pretty bored about things.
I ordered a hot dog with extra crispy French fries and a glass of ginger ale.
In the far corner, there was this little blond girl sitting in a booth by herself. She was probably ten or eleven, and she was so dirty it was like someone had made her up that way for Halloween. She was exhibiting some pretty restless behavior. First she was sitting, then she’d get up and walk around and slide into the other side of the booth. She’d stay that way for a minute, playing with the salt and pepper shakers or whatever was there, and then she’d get up on her knees and stare out the window. She never sat still. Sometimes when she was at the window, she’d breathe on the glass and draw initials in the steam with her finger.
Every few minutes, the waitress would tell her to keep her feet off the seat and the little girl would take them down, but as soon as the waitress would turn her head, she would put her feet right back up on the seat. A true rebel in the making.
Besides the girl, there was this elderly, white-haired lady reading a paperback, and this heavyset guy wearing spandex shorts and a mesh tank top. He was sitting right in front of one of the fans, and I think it was making the whole place smell funny.
I was pretty beat and in need of a shower. Where this would take place, I had no idea. My shoulders ached from all that painting, and the back of my neck felt raw and sunburned. I wanted to take off my Red Wing boots, but I knew I would have been thrown out. I had my dad’s Marine Corps bag under my legs, and I kept checking it nervously as if the few things that I had packed might have dematerialized or something.
The little girl kept eyeing my hot dog. At a closer look, I could see that she had been eating mustard and ketchup packets. That dirt on her face was probably dried condiments. She had neatly lined up the empty packets on the table in rows of three. My guess was that she probably got them from the McDonald’s down the street.
For a second I thought the waitress was the little girl’s mother because of how she was telling her to keep her feet off the booth seat. I was even going to ask her if they were related, but the waitress disappeared into the kitchen.
When I looked back at the girl, she wasn’t there. I scanned the diner. I met eyes with the old woman reading the paperback. Her mouth was sort of half-open, and she looked like she felt sorry for everyone and everything. Her eyes were gray the way wood goes gray, like an old rowboat.
“Hey,” a voice suddenly called to me over my shoulder.
I turned and it was the little girl. She was sitting in the booth behind me. A pair of dirty elbows and a head. Up close you could see that she had a few freckles and that one of her front teeth was chipped. She was wearing a T-shirt that had a picture of a pickle on the front. Just a pickle and nothing else. Like her face, the T-shirt was stained here and there with ketchup and mustard.
“Hey,” I said back to her.
“You gonna eat all that?” she asked.
I gave her the rest of my hot dog, and she wolfed it down in about three bites.
“Why you bald? You got bugs or somethin’?” the girl asked between mouthfuls.
I was like, “Um, no.”
“You a skinhead?”
“I’m a Crip,” I said. “I just got in from Cali.”
“You ain’t no Crip,” she said. “Lemme feel it.”
Before I could say anything, she was palming my head. She felt it for a second and said, “It’s like a dog’s tongue.” Then she took her hand back. “Like this German shepherd I used to know. Carlos.”
I went, “You know a dog named Carlos?”
“The lady next door owned him. He had a blue eye and his tail got caught in a car door,” she said, smelling her hand. “Your head stinks,” she added.
“It’s my brain.”
“What’s wrong with it?”
“It’s rotting away,” I said, half-serious. “That’s why I gotta keep my head shaved.”
She said, “Don’t sucker me, sucker.”
I could see into one of her ears. It was full of brown wax. She really was dirty. I felt pretty sorry for her. And just as I was about to give her this little hug, she reached over and grabbed my pepper shaker and blackened her tongue with it.
“You like pepper?” I asked.
“Kills germs,” she said. “Bugs and blackteria and stuff.”
“Bacteria,” I said, correcting her.
“Bacteria, blackteria, same difference. Makes you burp, too.”
She swallowed and then showed me her tongue, which had returned to its original pink.
Then she said, “Hey, you wanna have a burping contest?”
“Not really,” I said.
“Too chicken, huh?”
“I’m not very good at it.”
Which was true. Dantly can burp so loud, it sounds like a Harley. I’ve never been able to do it, though, which is probably a good thing.
The girl went, “I can out-burp every kid who comes in here.” She made this face like she was being filled with some great, unspoken holy knowledge, then she swallowed a gulp of air and burped impressively.
&nb
sp; I was like, “Not bad.”
“Anytime you’re ready to go head-to-head, just let me know.”
I was suddenly starving for a cigarette. I could have eaten one, I swear, but the Foote no-smoking laws had been instated only a month before and I would have been kicked out.
When I looked up, the girl was eyeing my bag.
“Why you runnin’ away?” she asked.
I was like, “I’m not.”
“I ain’t stupid,” she said. “What’s your name, anyway?” she asked.
I said, “Nitro,” just to mess with her.
“Nitro,” she said. “Nitro Chickenhead. It’s prolly like Dave or somethin’.”
“It’s Steve,” I said.
“Lemme have some fries, Steve,” she said, grabbing a handful. She totally chewed with her mouth open.
I looked over at the heavyset guy. He was eating a huge slice of apple pie now. He was pretty pleased about it, too.
“What’s your name?” I asked the girl.
“June.”
“June what?”
“Just June.” Then she slid into my booth and said, “Knock, knock,” reaching across the table for my ginger ale, making it hers, and guzzling it down in a very impressive three-part move.
“Who’s there?” I said.
“Yougot.”
“Yougot who?”
“You got blue paint all over your shirt. Knock, knock,” she said again.
“Who’s there?”
“Orange.”
“Orange who?”
“Oranja glad I didn’t pinchya in the arm?”
“Good one.”
She shifted in the seat a bit and said, “You got a girlfriend?”
“No” I said, checking out the front of my shirt, which had blue paint all over it.
“That’s too bad. You’re cute.”
“Thanks,” I said, realizing that she’d just finished all my fries. I managed to get my ginger ale back from her and took a gulp. She was a total con artist, this girl.
