Character, Driven Read online

  Looking back at the actual event, I can now see that she spent most of her time scanning the area, as if hoping to spot someone more interesting who might take her on a real adventure, or at least sport her off to a better restaurant and better conversation. It was sort of like having a meal with an owl.

  I muddled my way through seventh grade, managing two more pseudo-dates. I didn’t see Maddie over the summer, but I saw her every night, in my fantasies. In early August, a friend, Charles Araby, invited me to go down the shore with him. His aunt had a place. It wasn’t near the ocean. It was on an inland waterway. But one night, in the middle of our week there, we took a bus, and then another bus, which delivered us to the boardwalk.

  Like most Jersey boys, I was no stranger to the boardwalk. But I’d never been there without my parents. I was especially eager to try my luck at the games, because my dad would never let me play them. He said it was like throwing away money.

  I skipped the milk can toss and the basketball game. I could tell those were pretty hard. Then I saw a game I figured I could win. It had stuffed cats that you knocked down with baseballs. In retrospect, the cats were 90 percent fur. Picture a pencil made much wider by the addition of six inches of insubstantial fuzz on each side. Now think about trying to hit it dead center with a misshapen baseball from ten feet away.

  The rules were simple: Knock down three cats with three throws, and you win a stuffed animal. There were bears and dogs among the prizes. There were fish. And, lining one side wall, hanging by their tails in all their four-foot velveteen glory, were rows of snakes dyed in bruiselike shades of green, blue, and purple.

  I want to win a snake for Maddie.

  I can’t explain the origin of the obsession. I’m sure the bears and dogs were cuter. I’m sure the fish were more whimsical. Maybe my young mind saw something symbolic in the snake. Maybe I’ll drop the serpentine search for symbolism and get back to the boardwalk.

  I paid for the three balls. My first throw missed. So did my second. In a world where mercy is an actual component, in a kind and caring universe that doesn’t want to see fragile middle schoolers snared in the sticky web of false hope, I would have missed my third and final throw, as well, and skulked off toward the roller coasters. But the universe took a dump on me and had a giant laugh. My third throw hit a cat and knocked it down.

  Knock one down, you win nothing. Knock two down, you still win nothing. Knock three down, you win Maddie’s heart. And maybe her breasts.

  I tried again for the trifecta.

  And again.

  I was like a lab rat pressing a lever for a jolt of sugar water. I’d hit one cat out of three. Or maybe two, separated by a miss. But never three. Far too soon, I went through everything I’d brought, except for a scattering of pocket change. My entire vacation fund was lying in the bulging pocket of a game barker’s change apron.

  I handed over my last dollar, in the form of two quarters, four dimes, and two nickels, and took possession of the three baseballs. I hit a cat on my first throw. I hit one on my second throw. I gripped the final ball, knowing I was destined to miss, because when the universe takes a dump on you, it doesn’t follow up the fecal splatter with a hug and a kiss. It follows through with a steaming stream of piss. I looked at Charley. He was a ball player. I looked at the guy running the game. He was disinterested.

  “Can I let my friend throw the last one?” I asked.

  “Nope,” the guy said.

  Had it happened three or four years later, when I was less daunted by authority figures, I would have been capable of presenting a variety of arguments to support my request. The only signs on display were for NO LEANING and DEFLECTED BALLS DON’T COUNT. There was not a word about the illegality of sharing. But I didn’t have the courage to argue.

  Knowing I was about to be both broke and humiliated, I threw the third ball.

  And I hit the damn cat dead center, knocking it flat on its back to complete the trio of prostrate felines.

  Choice!

  I had my snake. It was a stunningly cheap carnival creation, colored a shade of blue that doesn’t appear anywhere in nature, or even in good art. It was stuffed, by the feel of it, with straw and gravel. None of that mattered. I had my snake and I had my fantasies of presenting it to Maddie.

  I won this for you. Nah—it was easy. Glad you like it. Yawn …

  There wasn’t much point in staying on the boardwalk. I was broke. Charley was nice enough to offer to pay my bus fare.

  It started raining during the first part of the ride back. It started pouring before we got off the bus. There was an old shelter at the bus stop. It was a concrete building with a single wooden bench inside, barely lit well enough to keep us from stumbling into one of the walls.

  Charlie and I went inside to await our second bus.

  The rainstorm swelled from strong to torrential. Water rose on the floor of the shelter. There was a drain in the middle of the floor, but it was clogged with candy wrappers and other scraps of litter. I sat there, lost in heroic fantasies.

  “Your snake,” Charlie said, pointing next to me.

  My snake—Maddie’s snake—was right by my side on the bench, where I’d put it. But it dangled to the ground. The tail sat immersed in six inches of dirty water.

  I retrieved it, but even in the dim light of the shelter, I could tell it was ruined.

  There I sat, in the wet gloom of the Spartan concrete shelter, with an empty wallet, crushed dreams, and a soiled snake.

  I imagine Charlie laughed, though I don’t believe he tormented me with any prolonged or harsh mockery. Either way, that’s not important enough to remember. If he did laugh, I doubt it bothered me. I was too damaged to feel anything external.

  If you believe that things happen for a reason, I guess this happened to teach me something. The problem is, you can extract a dozen different lessons from the incident, ranging from Don’t try to impress girls to Watch where you dangle your snake. The other problem is, when it comes to life’s lessons, I’m not a fast learner. I could provide proof of that, but I’ve dredged up enough bad memories to hit my quota for the day, and to test your willingness to let me stray from the story.

  For now, inexplicably and yet inexorably (whatever the hell that word means), we are back at the moment I wedged my pain-racked, impact-bruised body into my seat in Calculus class—returning to my previous present, presented as that which has already passed.

  Falling Behind

  WHEN THE BELL rang, I lingered in my seat and watched Jillian leave. Right after I stepped into the hallway, Robert grabbed my shoulder hard enough to leave a bruise, pointed ahead of us with his other hand, and said, “Now that’s a perfect ass.”

  Robert had been placed on earth to spoon-feed irresistible straight lines to even the least imaginative of us. The obvious response would be, No, Robert. You’re the perfect ass. Or a subtler version, such as It takes one to know one. I could also have gone totally crude with, And it gave birth to you, Robert, you piece of shit.

  Given that he was pointing at Jillian, who glided down the hall ahead of us with the grace of a fawn, I decided to do the gentlemanly thing and backfist him in the solar plexus. I have a weak backfist, but Robert has a weaker solar plexus.

  “Oof!” He doubled over but didn’t crumple. “What was that for?”

  “Sexist, inappropriate comments,” I said. Even though I’d punished him for his words, he spoke the truth. Jillian did look as amazing from behind as she did from the front. Or the side. But there’s a huge difference between thinking about someone else’s anatomy and speaking those thoughts out loud.

  A biblical voice in my mind intoned: Thou shall not commit adulatry. Though I don’t think that’s a proper word, or commandment.

  I picked up my pace. I didn’t want Jillian’s perfect posterior to move out of range of my adulation.

  “He’s right, though. It is a nice ass,” Butch said. She slipped her hand through my arm and matched my stride. I winced as bolt
s of pain danced through my elbow, but I didn’t pull away. Butch rarely makes physical contact.

  “Here’s the plan,” she said. “You get to know her. Use all your awkward, boyish charm to captivate her. Then introduce me, so I can steal her away with my girlish charm. Okay?” She grinned and fluttered her eyelids.

  “I’ll give it some thought,” I said. I could feel my shoulder muscles tighten at the words “steal her away.”

  Butch is a little twisted, but in a good way. She has the largest collection of fake skulls I’ve ever seen, alternating on shelves all around her bedroom with My Little Ponies and Hello Kitties. She gave herself the nickname “Butch” toward the end of sophomore year. She felt it was ironic on several levels, and thus a perfect fit. We’ve been friends since fourth grade, back when she called herself Princess Bethany. That was followed by Calamity, Mrs. Frodo, Peach, and Yakitori. None of our teachers has ever used any of her nicknames. They all call her Penelope, which she hates. Or Penny, which she despises. I suspect she’s about due for another change. I can’t wait to see what she comes up with. I have a suspicion, and a fear, her next nickname will be made up of nothing but numbers, hand gestures, and glottal clicks.

  It’s interesting that we usually start out describing people’s hair, and not their hearts. In Butch’s case, I guess they were equally amazing. Her hair was long, halfway down her back, and so light, it was almost white. If the school ever put on a stage version of The Lord of the Rings, she’d snag an elf role for sure. Robert, on the other hand, had just recently decided that a shaved head, which he’d sported since freshman year, was not his style, so he was currently cultivating emerging growth and a long-term plan for dreadlocks. His family had been pretty much starving in Jamaica, so he was painfully skinny when he came here. He hasn’t bulked up much, but at least now you’d need an X-ray machine to count his vertebrae.

  What else is worth mentioning? Robert’s going to Rutgers next year to study business. Butch is going to Syracuse to study theater. Robert is about four inches taller than I am. Butch is a head shorter. I am exactly as tall as myself. Except when I slouch.

  As for Butch’s admiration of Jillian’s posterior, that was probably a joke. Butch has a boyfriend, Judah. He’s a sophomore at Princeton, so she doesn’t see him all that much. But she’s against “gendertyping,” as she calls it. And she likes to play with people’s minds. So her comment wasn’t surprising. She also has a black belt in aikido, and a framed certificate from the Universal World Temple of Hecate, giving her the power to officiate at wedding ceremonies. If she weren’t real, she’d make a great character in a novel, though probably not this one.

  Self, Aware

  HOLD ON. SOMETHING just hit me. You know what Robert and Butch look like, but I’m still a shadow. I probably should take a minute to describe myself. The problem is, I have no desire to offer a superficial laundry list of my features, traits, and tics. But you need a hook on which to hang my voice. How to convey this description? I could look in a mirror and report what I see. But I fear resorting to that cliché would reflect badly on my skills. There are subtler, more admirable choices available. I could stroll past the piano, if we had one, and gaze at last year’s family holiday photo, if we had one, noting the ways in which my features borrow or diverge from those of my parents, Samantha and William Sparks. Or I could boldly state a description without worrying about context, convention, or motivation.

  Yeah. I could do one of those things. And it would work well enough. But I’m eager to give you the truth. And the truth is, nobody sees himself clearly in a mirror or photo. It’s not possible. As the poet Robert Burns said, in more words than this, and probably in a virtually impenetrable Scottish accent with the reek of oatmeal-stuffed pig stomach and peat-smoked whisky on his breath, it’s a gift to see ourselves as others see us. A gift most of us lack. Happily, I am in possession of that very gift. Last year, on the first day of English, our teacher, Mr. Piccaro, had each of us write descriptions of people seated nearby.

  So, I have copies of my written description courtesy of the aforementioned Abbie Striver and the not-previously-mentioned Jimby Fasborne. I’ll tell you more about them, later. (“Later” because I don’t want to slow the narrative flow with interruptions, any more than I want to burden the prose with parentheticals. “More” because this isn’t a short story. This is a freakin’ novel of length, depth, and substance. Unless I lose interest or decide to skip a bunch of stuff.) For now, here I am, as seen by other eyes, sliced open and splayed out like an AP Bio specimen, gutted for your viewing pleasure and scrutiny by means of something mightier than the sword. Here’s what Abbie wrote:

  The boy [okay—I’m intruding here, but just to point out that she never even uses my name] sat slouched at his desk in the typical unhealthy posture of an aimless adolescent whose lack of direction or ambition doomed him to a life of servitude and squalor at minimum-wage venues. Dirty blond hair hung down his forehead with the limp sorrow of forlorn tresses yearning for a meaningful encounter with shampoo. [Me again. I’d washed it the night before.] His skin didn’t show signs of recent eruptions large enough to cause revulsion, though it did sport a scattering of faint scars from earlier encounters between unwanted pimples and unwashed fingernails. [Give me a break. I wash my hands. And all pimples are unwanted, so she could have cut that word.] His nose seemed both too long and too narrow for his face, giving him the aquiline visage of a second-rate medieval scholar or perhaps a rabid possum. [Seriously—what the hell?] Of his clothing, the less said, the better, but perhaps his manner of dress could best be described as a blend of indifference, ignorance, and rumpled dishevelment, punctuated with periods of confusion and misconception, capped off with wardrobial [that’s not a word!] delusions about the positive aesthetic value of anything plaid or checkered. His face, in general, offered the soft ruddiness of a carnivore fresh from a recent encounter with ethically inedible atrocities.

  On second thought, you don’t need to read the whole thing. The remaining seven pages really provide little additional detail, and even less in the way of an accurate description. Abbie, by the way, is an overachiever. But enough of her. Let’s switch to my pal, Jimby Fasborne. Here’s what he wrote:

  Cliff has light brown hair. It is not too long. It is not too short. Cliff has brown eyes. He has white teeth. [Told you they were great.] He isn’t skinny. He’s not fat, either. If I had to pick one, I guess I’d pick skinny. But not too skinny. I like his shirt. It’s plaid. Cliff looks at his watch a lot in class. Sometimes his shoelaces are green. But not today.

  Okay, Jimby was sort of vague in spots, and Abbie was more interested in the style of her prose than in the substance of my appearance. Maybe I should have gazed in that mirror and described myself, or strolled past that piano. But you get the idea. By the way, his name really is Jimby. That’s not a nickname. His mom named him after a slurred version of her favorite bourbon. Despite the warnings on the bottle, she drank heavily when she was pregnant. And before. And after. It sort of messed up her judgment a lot, and his brain a bit, but he’s a good guy. His backyard is diagonally across from mine. We hang out sometimes. And fear not—I didn’t come here to make fun of anybody’s disability. I like Jimby enough that I’d take a beating to protect him. I don’t care that he’s not super smart. Every one of us is messed up, one way or another. And every one of us is smart in some way. The problem is, we might never find that way.

  I wouldn’t mind trading heads with Jimby once in a while, just to be in a place where my thoughts aren’t all throwing punches at each other. Sometimes my brain gets in a shouting match with itself, or tries to wrestle itself to the ground. That’s one of the main reasons I’m writing all this down. If I can get it on paper, maybe I can get it out of my head. Besides, I find myself in possession of some unexpected but much-appreciated free time.

  Oh, hell. I promised to spin you an amazing story, and I got sidetracked letting a stuck-up girl and a nice guy tell you I have brown eyes and
limp hair of an unmemorable color.

  Sorry about that. Okay, I’m back on task.

  Drawn Together

  DESCRIPTIONS—whether of hair, hearts, or heartbreaks—exist outside space and time, which means we are still at the moment immediately following my response to Butch’s last utterance. And I was still watching Jillian from behind. My pulse quickened when I saw her pause by the door to room 238.

  Go in! Go in! Go in!

  She checked a piece of paper clipped to the front of her notebook, then slipped inside the room.

  Physics!

  We were in the same class again. The universe, in all its wisdom, was repeatedly throwing us together, trying to achieve fusion.

  I would have multiple opportunities to impress Jillian each day. Or fall on my face.

  That’s when I fell on my face.

  Literally.

  And, since there is growing confusion about that lonely word on the line above, I should emphasize that I literally mean “literally.”

  It.

  Really.

  Happened.

  I went down hard, face-first. Literally. Once again.

  Robert had tripped me. He’d stuck his skinny-ass excuse for a leg in front of my left foot and taken me down.

  I’ll spare you any creative descriptions of the pain generated by my landing. I’d rather just try to forget about it. “What was that for?” I asked as I got back to my feet.

  “Revenge,” he said. “You hit me.”

  “Dude, serve it cold,” Butch said.

  “What?” Robert asked.

  Butch let out a heavy sigh of mock frustration. She worked with sighs the way Van Gogh worked with swirls of raw sienna and Prussian blue. “What did they teach you in Jamaica? Don’t you know anything? Maybe that’s why they kicked you out.”

  “We weren’t kicked out,” Robert said. “We fled. By choice.”

  Butch pushed up her sleeve high enough to reveal the tattoo—obviously homemade—that circled her arm halfway between her shoulder and elbow.