Antsy Does Time

by Neal Shusterman

  “You’re still not cyanotic,” I said to him. “But if it’s that important to you, you can buy some blue lipstick and pretend that you are.”

  He turned to me then. I could tell he was hurt, even though it didn’t show in his face. Part of me felt glad about it, and another part of me felt ashamed for saying something so nasty. I found myself mad at both parts.

  Gunnar gave me a cold gaze and said, “That would have been much more effective if you bought some for me as a Christmas gift,” then he left.

  “Wish I had thought of it,” I shouted after him. Actually, I had thought of it, but I wouldn’t sink so low as to get him a cruel gift. Besides, I didn’t want to be seen buying blue lipstick. Even if no one saw me, there are surveillance cameras.

  I found Kjersten up in her room watching Moëba, a zany cartoon about ethnically diverse single-celled organisms in Earth’s primordial ooze. It seemed odd that she’d be watching this. In fact, she was so absorbed, it took her a moment to notice I was there.

  “Antsy!”

  “Hi.” It came out sounding like a one-word apology.

  She stood up and gave me a hug. “You’re not having much luck with photographers lately, are you?” I could see the special Antsy edition of the New York Post on her desk.

  “No,” I admitted, “and now there’s an animated version on the YouTube.”

  “Could be worse,” she said, although downloadable e-humiliation is about as low as it gets.

  The moment became awkward, and she glanced back at the TV, where Moëba was punching out a dim-witted paramecium.

  “I used to love this show,” she said.

  “So did I,” I told her. “When I was, like, eight.”

  She sighed. “Things were simpler then.” Then she turned off the TV. “So, is that for me?”

  “Oh . . . yeah,” I said, handing her the gift. “Merry Christmas.” Again, I sounded like I was apologizing for something. It was annoying.

  “Yours is still under the tree,” she said. I hadn’t even noticed a tree downstairs.

  She opened up her package, to reveal a NeuroToxin jacket.

  “It’s from their Bubonic Nights tour. Look—Jaxon Beale’s autograph is embroidered on the sleeve.”

  “I noticed,” Kjersten said. “I love Jaxon Beale!”

  In case you’ve been living on a desert island, Jaxon Beale, former guitarist for Death Crab, is the guitarist and lead singer of NeuroToxin.

  She thanked me, and put the jacket on. It looked good on her, but then, what didn’t? It made me feel good that I could, at least for a few minutes, break her out of a world of repossessed cars, furious neighbors, and a brother on deathwatch.

  “You want to do something today?’ she asked.

  To be honest, I hadn’t given the day much thought beyond handing her the jacket. “Sure,” I said. “How about a movie?”

  “Something funny,” she said. “Let’s make it something funny.”

  “Why don’t you pick—there’s a whole bunch of new movies at the Mondoplex.” Then I added, “You can even drive. I’m over that whole macho thing about riding shotgun with my girlfriend.”

  This was, I realized, the first time I used the word “girlfriend” with her. I watched to see if her reaction would be positive, negative, or neutral. It was negative, but not because of the word “girlfriend.” Her problem was with the word “drive.”

  “We can’t drive. My dad borrowed my car this morning.”

  I wondered if he had borrowed it to go gambling, but decided not to ask. “Your mom could drive us . . .”

  “My mom’s spending the holiday with family in Sweden, and she parked her car at the airport.”

  Why, I wondered, would she choose to pay for airport parking instead of just leaving her car for her husband to use? Again, I decided it was best not to ask. The whole family was a can of worms waiting to happen, and I, for one, was not going to supply the can opener.

  “Sweden, huh?” I said. “Sounds like fun—why didn’t you go with her?”

  “It’s Sweden, and it’s winter—isn’t that reason enough?”

  “I bet there’d be snow.”

  “Snow, and ice, and eighteen hours of darkness. I hate it.”

  “Well, I’m sure it’s a whole lot better than Christmas in Brooklyn.” She shrugged gloomily, so I tried a different tack. “Well, I’m glad you didn’t go, because now we can see each other all vacation.”

  That made her smile, and it wasn’t just a polite smile, it was a real one. I silently reveled in the fact that she actually did want to spend time with me. We bundled up against the windy afternoon, braved the neighborhood dust bowl, and took a bus to the Mondoplex.

  For several reasons, I will not give a blow-by-blow description of our darkened-movie-theater experience. First of all, it’s none of your business, and secondly, anything you think happened is probably better than what actually did.

  But for those of you who have never experienced the phenomenon called a movie-theater date, there are a few general things I can tell you:1. Your hand completely falls asleep after about fifteen minutes around a girl’s shoulder, especially if she’s taller than you. It’s better just to hold hands.

  2. While holding hands, you can’t manage both a tub of popcorn and a drink. One of them is bound to spill. Pray it’s the popcorn.

  3. If you ever come within six inches of actually kissing, you will suddenly become more interesting than the movie to the entire audience, including one creep with a laser pointer, who you’ll be ready to kill long before the credits roll.

  As for the movie itself, it wasn’t the movie I expected Kjersten to choose. I thought Kjersten might pick a love story, or a foreign film or something . . . instead she chose this lowbrow teen comedy that I might have gone to see with Howie and Ira, but never thought I’d see with her. It wasn’t even one of the better lowbrow movies either. I mean, I’ve enjoyed my share of amazingly stupid movies, but this one was so bad, and so unfunny, it was embarrassing. This was a film that would actually insult Wendell Tiggor’s “intelligence,” and with every dumb, raunchy thing that happened on-screen, I kept expecting her to slap me for the mere fact that I was a guy.

  Eighty-six agonizing minutes later, the movie was over and we were walking down the street holding hands—the first time we actually held hands while publicly walking. She didn’t quite tower over me, but the difference was enough for me to be self-conscious about it. Every time someone nearby laughed, I involuntarily snapped my head around like maybe it was directed at us. Kjersten had no such worries.

  “Did you like the movie?” she asked.

  “It was all right, I guess.”

  “I thought it was funny,” she said.

  “Yeah.” I searched for something worth saying. “When the fat guy got stuck in the Jell-O-filled swimming pool naked, that was funny.”

  “You didn’t like it,” she said, reading right through me.

  “Well, it’s just that . . . I don’t know . . . you’re on the debate team and everything. I thought you’d want to see a movie that would, uh . . . broaden my horizons.”

  “I’m happy with your horizons just where they are.”

  I should have felt good about that. After all, it was unconditional acceptance from my girlfriend . . . but like Gunnar’s “acceptance,” it was all wrong. Not that I wanted her to go through denial, fear, and anger while dating me—although a little bargaining might be fun. The thing is, I knew she chose the movie because she thought I would like it. What did that say about her opinion of me?

  Yeah, yeah, I know, guys aren’t supposed to think about stuff like that. I should be happy that I’m successfully playing out of my league, batting a thousand, and have earned bragging rights. I guess that was enough at first, but not anymore. I blame Lexie. She was the one who first broadened my horizons.

  Kjersten’s car was in the driveway when we got home, which meant her father was there. I would have gone in, but Kjersten didn’t want to
make any waves. She kissed me quickly at the door, ducked inside for a moment, and came out with a long, skinny box, wrapped perfectly, with a golden Christmas bow. “You can open it when you get home,” she said. “I hope you’ll like it.”

  And from inside I heard Gunnar shout, “It’s a skateboard.”

  She growled in frustration, and handed me the box, accidentally knocking the wreath off the door. Quickly she scrambled to put it back up, but not quickly enough. I got a clear glimpse of the notice pasted to the front door that had been hidden by the wreath. She knew I saw it—but what could she do? She made sure the wreath was hung firmly on the nail, and pretended it hadn’t happened. “See you tomorrow?” she said.

  “Yeah . . . Yeah, sure, see you tomorrow.”

  Before she closed the door, I caught a glimpse of Gunnar watching me from inside, his eyes filled with fatalistic doom, as unnerving as a dozen dying yards.

  It was a nice skateboard. High-quality Spitfire wheels, cool design. I sat on my bed that evening, running my fingers over the grip tape surface, and the smooth polished back. I spun the wheels, and listened to the satisfying clatter of the bearings. It was everything you’d want in a skateboard, except for one thing. I didn’t want a skateboard.

  See, there’s a time for everything in life—and everyone’s clock is different. There are guys who use skateboards right up until they get their license—after all, it’s a useful mode of transportation. Then there are guys like Skaterdud, to whom skateboarding is like a religion, and they’ll do it all their lives. I’m sure the Dud won’t just fall off that aircraft carrier, he’ll roll off it. But my skateboard phase ended the summer before ninth grade. I kind of outgrew it—and everyone knows the second you outgrow something, it’s like poison for a couple of years, until it becomes historically significant in your life and you can look back on it fondly.

  It was all starting to make sense now. Especially after seeing that awful notice plastered on their front door.

  HOUSE IN FORECLOSURE RESIDENTS ARE HEREBY GIVEN THIRTY DAYS TO VACATE PREMISES

  It was far worse than any field of doom Gunnar and I had created. Thirty days. How do you cope with the world coming down around you, when your parents just seem to be running away? Is it easier to believe that it’s the end of everything rather than face it, and start carving tombstones like Gunnar? Or maybe you just go into full retreat, like Kjersten—who wasn’t interested in bringing me up to her level, but rather wanted to come down to mine—or at least what she thought was my level. Dumb movies, cool skateboards, and awkward fourteen-year-old advances. Because “things were so much simpler then.”

  Lexie had been right. Kjersten was dating “the idea” of me.

  Could I be what Kjersten needed? Did I want to be? As I sat there running my hands along the edge of the skateboard, I realized that the Ümlaut can of worms was a big old industrial drum, and I was already inside, eating worms left and right.

  What the Ümlauts really needed was time—and not the kind I could print out of my computer, but real time. And as for Kjersten, if I really cared about her—and I did—I realized the best I could do was to become “the idea of me” as much as possible for her. I couldn’t give her time, but maybe I could give her a little time travel.

  So I got on that skateboard and rode it around and around and around, trying my best, for the rest of Christmas vacation, to recapture the earliest days of fourteen.

  15 Mona-Mona-Bo-Bona, Bonano-Fano-Fo-Fona

  “Hey, Kjersten—I can play ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ in armpit farts; wanna see?”

  “Antsy, you’re so funny!”

  There’s something to be said for immaturity—acting your shoe size instead of your age, although in my case they’re starting to get close. Once I gave in to it, it was fun. Dumb jokes, bathroom humor, pretending to care about stuff I gave up in middle school . . . who could have known dating an older woman could be like this?

  “This is just, like, the coolest video game, Kjersten. You’re driving a killer Winnebago, and everyone you run over becomes a soul trapped in your motor home. Isn’t it totally great?”

  “You play, Antsy. I’ll just watch.”

  I was Kjersten’s escape. It made her feel good, and that made me feel good. I even learned to make myself get red in the face and look all embarrassed, when I actually wasn’t.

  “See these scabs, like, on my elbows and stuff? They’re from skateboarding. I’ve been, y’know, like, practicing my varial kick-flip and stuff. Like.”

  “So the skateboard I got you is a good one?”

  “It’s the best!”

  The problem with stunting you own growth like that, though, is that it doesn’t leave you with anything lasting. It’s like eating cotton candy all day, although not quite as bad on your teeth. It’s also exhausting. After a day with Kjersten, I’d just want to go home and read a newspaper or something—or even bus tables at the restaurant, just to gain back some basic level of age appropriateness. Unfortunately, I was still banned from the restaurant, and I didn’t know if I’d ever be allowed back.

  “What’s with you?” Mom asked. I had just spent an energy-intensive day with Kjersten at the arcade and was now lying lumplike on the sofa, staring at the stock-market quotes scrolling on the financial network.

  “Nothing,” I answered, so Christina took it upon herself to elaborate.

  “His girlfriend is using him to recapture her lost youth.”

  This confused Mom. “What do you mean ‘lost youth’? She’s only sixteen!”

  “You know how it is,” Christina says. “Everything starts younger and younger these days.”

  “It’s not a problem,” I told her. “I know what I’m doing.”

  Mom shook her head. “Lost youth! What is she gonna have you do? Wear diapers?”

  “Yeah, and she burps me real good, too,” I said.

  Mom threw her hands up as she left the room. “I didn’t just hear that.”

  My return to school after the holidays was met with much congratulations and pats on the back from friends and kids I didn’t even know. At first I thought it was kudos for being publicly seen dating Kjersten, but it was all because of the New York Post. Dumping water on a senator and getting front-page exposure made me a school hero, but it was not the kind of fame I wanted.

  “I could say ‘I knew you when,’” Howie told me, as if this would launch me into full-on celebrity status. “Have you gotten any talk-show invitations?”

  For a moment I imagined myself holding a pitcher of ice water next to Clicking Raoul on a talk show, but I shook the image away before it could do any damage.

  People had no idea how the ice-water incident had affected my family. How it strained my father and the restaurant. I just wanted it to go away—why couldn’t anyone understand that?

  I also wanted Gunnar’s rally to go away. A fake rally about fake time, when real time was ticking away. Twenty-three days until he and his family had to be out. Were they even doing anything about it?

  It actually snowed on Tuesday night—the first snow of the winter, and I hoped we’d have a snow day, postponing or even canceling the rally on Wednesday night. But who was I kidding? There’s got to be woolly mammoth walking down the street before the New York City schools call a snow day.

  Gunnar came up to me at my locker on Wednesday morning. Considering the looming foreclosure, I decided not to take my frustration out on him—even if he was at the root of it.

  “What are you going to say at the rally tonight?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” I told him. “What do you think I should say?”

  “You’re not going to ruin it, are you?”

  Did he really think I would tell everyone the truth now? How could I? I was like his partner in crime now—an accomplice. The only way to make this go away was to go through with it. Who knows, maybe as wrong as it was, it was the right thing to do. Didn’t some famous dead artist say that everyone gets fifteen minutes of fame? Who was I
to stand in the way of Gunnar’s?

  “Maybe I oughta turn the whole thing into a cash collection for your mortgage,” I told him. I don’t know whether he thought I was serious or just being sarcastic. That’s okay, because I didn’t know either.

  “Too late for that,” he said. “Knowing my father, the money wouldn’t go to the mortgage anyway.”

  “Do your parents know about this rally? Do they have any idea how far this Dr. G thing has gone?”

  Gunnar shrugged. Clearly they had no idea. “My mom got snowed in in Stockholm. She won’t be back until late tonight. And my dad . . . well, I guess he cares more about his cards than his kids.”

  I was really starting to understand Gunnar’s phantom illness. The Ümlauts were losing everything they owned; Gunnar’s father was gambling away whatever was left and had practically abandoned his wife and kids in the process. In some ways it was probably easier for Gunnar to think he was dying than have to face all that. I thought about my father and how everything had gotten so frayed between us—but as bad as things were, deep down I knew it would all eventually blow over. We would recover. But there was no promise of recovery between Gunnar and his father. They were like the Roadkyll Raccoon danglers. Rescue was a slim hope, at best.

  “I’m sure your father cares about you,” I told Gunnar. “He’s just messed up.”

  “He doesn’t have a right to be messed up until he takes care of the messes he’s already made.”

  I didn’t know how to answer that, so instead I answered his original question.

  “I’m going to give a speech about Pulmonary Monoxic Systemia, and thank everyone for their time donations. I’m going to say decent things about you. Then I’m going to call you up to the podium.”