Character, Driven Page 5

  NO! You’re not supposed to say that. You’re supposed to say, “Hi. Want to have sex?”

  “Uh, what do you mean?” I asked.

  “He wants to touch me all the time,” she said. “Why do guys want to touch girls?”

  “Because we don’t have stunningly awesome breasts of our own to fondle.”

  Yeah. You know I didn’t say that. I probably didn’t even think of that reply until hours later when I was safely under my covers, and simultaneously uncovered. I can’t even remember what I said. And it doesn’t matter, because the conversation ended at that point, thanks to a combination of me having no idea at all how to respond and her deciding to hurry to her next class.

  I had no clue what her game was. Or whether there was a game. Maybe she just wanted to touch a boy who couldn’t touch back. Lucky me. I didn’t even know who she was dating. It was probably a guy from another school, since I’d never seen her committing a public display of affection in the halls of Rismore High.

  Robert and Butch had gotten way ahead of me, so I was walking by myself toward Physics. Just before I reached the door, I felt someone slip up behind me.

  “Keep walking,” he whispered.

  I kept walking, going past the door.

  “Don’t look down,” he said as he moved to my right and matched my stride.

  I didn’t look down.

  “Take it.” Another hoarse whisper.

  He placed an object in my hand. It was slim and light. Not Russian, for sure. Probably not British. He turned off as we passed the corridor for the new wing.

  I tore open the brown paper wrapper that had been neatly folded and taped around the package, revealing a paperback copy of Slaughterhouse-Five. Well worn, but in readable condition. I’d heard about it, but never read it. I liked that it was thin. There’s nothing wrong, and a lot right, with hunkering down for days or weeks with one of the weightier, longer works of literature. I’d spent three weeks with the last book he’d given me, The Name of the Rose. It was worth every minute. But a thin volume, if it was good, was like a lightning storm.

  Bam! Blah-bam! Babam!

  Flash upon flash, boom upon boom, in rapid succession, and then the skies clear, leaving you flash-boom dazzled, ozone dazed, bright-light blazed, strangely changed, and eagerly evangelizing the novel to your small circle of friends.

  Mr. Piccaro liked lending books to me. He also liked James Bond. He liked George Smiley even more—whoever that was. Sounded like a weird name for a spy. Might work better for a dentist. Or a salesman. Better yet, a dental salesman. Mr. Piccaro hadn’t given me a bad book yet. One or two weren’t what I was in the mood for at the moment, but he had a batting average double that of the best major leaguers. I’d especially liked Edisto and The Periodic Table. He also seemed to get a kick out of wrapping the books in paper. Sometimes he’d scrawl plain brown wrapper on the plain brown wrapper. After I finished each book, I returned it to the “dead drop,” which was actually the last locker before the boys’ room on the second floor, which never got assigned to anyone, because the lock was broken.

  I walked to Physics, took my seat, and skimmed the back cover of the book. I had a feeling I was going to like this one a lot. It was nice to have something to look forward to. Though I guess I was also eager to work on my painting. When I got to the Art House, I saw that Jillian had filled in her canvas with a very detailed drawing of six objects against a flat background. Damn, she had talent. If she could paint as well as she drew, she was going to create something dazzling. I turned my attention to my own painting, which I felt could also be pretty awesome, and got to work.

  The rest of the week passed without any further falls, collisions, or massive drool spills. By Friday, Jillian’s painting—which I swear I wasn’t obsessively staring at as a surrogate for staring at her—had progressed to the point where her talent was indisputable.

  The background remained a solid blue. It looked like cobalt blue, lightened with just a touch of titanium white. At least she hadn’t settled for a color straight out of the tube. But there was no shading, or a suggestion that the blue was anything other than a featureless setting for the objects that floated in front of it.

  She’d been working slowly. So far, she’d started to paint only one of the objects she’d drawn—a half-peeled orange. Jillian had rendered it with intricate detail. I felt if I scratched the peel, I’d see a spray of oil and smell a scent of citrus.

  I stared for a while, transfixed by the skill displayed in that image. Each year, when I looked at the works in the student art show, it was obvious there were kids who were pretty good, kids who were awful, and a small handful who were great. I liked to think I was solidly in the “good” category. I didn’t know if I could ever be great. But maybe I could be good enough to do some sort of art for a living. Not that I could take any art classes in college while I was still at home. Dad would hit the roof if I signed up for something that he considered a waste of money, even if it was money I’d earned. And art would definitely fall into that category.

  Damn—Jillian was beautiful and talented. Doubly close to being dangerously out of my league. I wondered whether she was smart, too. She hadn’t said much in class. But I had a suspicion her mind was as exceptional as her body.

  My thoughts were broken as Abbie walked by on her way to the supply closet. She sniffed, as if Jillian’s background had been painted with cow dung, tinged with a touch of fox urine, and said, “How mundane and plebian. Photo-realism is so last week.”

  “And calling something ‘so last week’ is so last year,” I said.

  She awarded me with a parting sniff of equal disapproval and slithered off.

  Inter Lewd

  HOLD ON.

  Something else just hit me.

  Whenever I start to read a novel, I assume the main character is just like me, until stuff pops up to show me I’m wrong. I guess it works both ways. I assumed you’re just like me, too. But I realize I could be totally wrong about who you are.

  And that could cause trouble.

  I’ve been talking to you like you’re one of the guys. But you could be older, or younger. And you might not be a guy. Which means, the whole time I’ve been extolling the glories of female breasts, recounting my overwhelming desire to have sex, or revealing the wild nature of my fantasies, you might not have been thinking Yay! Breasts! so much as You pig!

  Whenever I used “he” for an unspecified subject, I might have pushed you slightly further away from the heart of the story. There are so many ways my lazy assumption could ruin our relationship. Narration, it seems, contains some uncomfortable similarities to life in the real world.

  As hard as it is for us to see ourselves as others see us, I have to hope that you can not only see me as I see myself, but also let me speak to you as if you are one of the guys. It’s my native tongue.

  Parm for the Course

  SATURDAY, AFTER A long morning frying Moo Fish’s bacon-wrapped sausage-and-haddock breakfast biscuit and wondering how I managed to get through a shift without throwing up, followed by two hours of bagging groceries for unhappy people at Cretaro’s, I had a chance to spend quality time with Billy Pilgrim, the hero, to use the word loosely, of Slaughterhouse-Five. It was time well spent.

  Mom was at the kitchen table, reading the paper, when I wandered out of my room. She looked tired. Her day starts ridiculously early. People want to buy bread at 6 A.M., which means someone has to start the mixing, kneading, and baking process at 3 A.M. As Mom turned the page, I let out a gasp.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked. Her eyes widened briefly, in the typical maternal overreaction to any sort of offspring-generated rapid respiration.

  I pointed to the ad on the bottom left, beneath the half-page red-white-and-blue WE BUY GOLD AND DIAMONDS announcement. “I didn’t know they were playing here.”

  “Is this one of the groups you like?” she asked.

  “Big-time.” I guess headphones had gone a long way toward helpi
ng people keep their musical passions to themselves. If Mom or Dad had to name three groups I liked, or even three songs, they’d be in trouble.

  “The Mack and Mary Zymosis Zone,” Mom said. “That’s a strange name for a group. But it can’t be too expensive. They’re playing at the college.”

  “I hope so. I’ll go check.” Just as “the city” meant New York to me here in North Jersey but Philadelphia to my cousins in West Chester, Pennsylvania, around here “the college” was Saint Jasper’s. It was local, and a lot smaller than Rutgers, in New Brunswick. Mom was probably right about ticket prices. The concerts I’d gone to there hadn’t been very expensive.

  My laptop died last year, and my phone was on the cheapest voice plan, so my only real Internet option at home was the ancient desktop PC and monitor Butch had dredged up for me from her basement right before school started. I got online and checked for Mack and Mary (as hard-core fans called them) tickets. The cheap ones were sold out. I guess tickets had been on sale for a while. The few remaining seats were out of my range. It looked like I could forget about the concert.

  * * *

  THAT NIGHT, MY parents and I did something we hadn’t done in months. Mom’s boss had given her back the hours she’d lost at work, along with a bonus. I guess the people who owned the bakery had noticed how hard she worked, and saw what happened to sales when she had fewer hours. She’d decided we should go out to dinner to celebrate.

  Dad didn’t like the idea of splurging on a meal. But Mom convinced him it was important for families to do stuff like this once in a while, even if money was tight. “We’re not buying a meal,” she’d said. “We’re buying a memory.”

  I wasn’t exactly wild about going out with them, but Mom had made a reservation at Stenardo’s. Their chicken parmigiana was awesome. They pound the crap out of the chicken, so it’s almost as big as the plate, fry it to crispy perfection, melt mozzarella cheese on it, and serve it over thick spaghetti, with lots of tangy sauce. The garlic bread was world class, too. They didn’t use garlic powder. They used chopped-up bits of garlic. Vampires beware.

  An hour before it was time to head out, Mom went upstairs to get ready. I stayed where I was in the living room, reading more of the Vonnegut novel, since all I had to do was change my shirt.

  Dad came in from the war room, carrying the newspaper. As usual, he’d circled a bunch of listings in the help-wanted section. “You didn’t even try to talk her out of it,” he said, smacking the paper down on the table. “I could have used some support.” He shot me an Aren’t we on the same team? look.

  “It wouldn’t make a difference. I have no influence with her,” I said. “She wants to go. We should go. It’ll make her happy.” I was about to add She works hard enough. But I caught myself. That was not Dad’s favorite topic.

  “No appetizer,” Dad said. “They really jack up the prices on them. That’s where they make all their money. That and soda. If people understood the economics of the food industry, they’d never eat out. You’re getting water.”

  “Sure. No problem.”

  I waited to see if there would be further instructions, such as Don’t you dare order something you’ll enjoy, or a suggestion that I should offer to wash dishes at the restaurant in exchange for my meal. At least I knew the chicken parm was relatively inexpensive, compared to some of the steaks and seafood on Stenardo’s menu. And the garlic bread came with the meal, so it wasn’t like I’d be asking for something extra.

  Mom drove us there. I guess she didn’t want to give Dad anything else to grumble about. When we got seated, Dad ordered spaghetti with sauce. No meatballs or sausage or anything. Mom had a Caesar salad with grilled salmon. I had chicken parmigiana, of course.

  We were at a table in the main dining room. The cocktail lounge was off to the side, but there wasn’t a real wall between that area and where we sat, just some columns. So I had no trouble hearing the angry shout from the bar, and the punctuating crash that followed it.

  Tenure Itch

  SOMEONE HAD THROWN a glass at the mirror behind the bar. The encounter shattered both objects, and the ambience.

  “You don’t cut me off!” the guy shouted. “I ordered another drink. You bring it to me!”

  People seated at barstools on either side of the guy were scrambling away like he was a bomb with a lit fuse. Well, I guess he was lit. And bombed.

  The bartender, a middle-aged guy in a white shirt and black vest, had one hand out, like he was trying to say calming words. He didn’t seem scared. I guess he was used to handling angry drunks.

  I stood up so I could get a better look at the action. Oh, hell. The angry drunk was Mr. Tippler, my Government teacher. Apparently, he didn’t restrict his yelling to the classroom. He continued to shout at the bartender, but there was enough other noise surrounding us—including increased chatter at all the occupied tables—that it was hard to extract any meaning from the slurred sounds. My brain took the shouts and warped them into lecture words. Quorum! Legislature! Two-thirds majority! Fungible document!

  The external wail of a siren quelled some of the interior noise and drew everyone’s anticipatory gaze toward the entrance.

  Cops came.

  It was pretty much like the way they show it on TV. Except there was no dramatic music, or gorgeous female detectives with their blouses open to the third button and a perfect overbite with which to tease their lower lips as they contemplated the crime scene. Nope. There were just the same violins that had been playing on the canned background music throughout the meal, and two cops who looked like they’d much rather be dealing with someone who hadn’t replaced all his blood with alcohol.

  The police marched Mr. Tippler out in cuffs, half-carrying him. He must have been heavily sloshed. As he passed by me, two tables away, his head dangling like a man preparing to try on a guillotine for size, our eyes met. No, my eyes met his. His met air. Or water. Or maybe a kid with the head of a goat and a three-foot tongue. I’m pretty sure he wasn’t seeing much of anything. Not anything real.

  And then he was out the door, and for a moment, the only sound was the background music and, in counterpoint, the scrape of straw against wood, and the tinkle of glass as the bartender swept the floor behind the bar, gathering the shattered fragments of Mr. Tippler’s life into a long-handled dustpan.

  Mom stared toward the door as the red flash against the window faded. “That poor man,” she said.

  Dad had already swung his attention back to his spaghetti. But he muttered, “What a loser,” between slurps.

  As I turned my own attention back to my chicken, I wondered whether Mr. Tippler would be out on bail and back in the classroom by Monday. I figured they might not even put him in jail.

  But everything we do is public these days. It turned out some guy at Stenardo’s had captured most of the shouting, and all of the arrest, with his phone and posted it online. By Sunday afternoon, as word spread, every kid in school, and I guess every parent, had seen the video. So nobody was surprised when Mr. Tippler wasn’t in class on Monday.

  I figured maybe they’d let us go to study hall for the rest of the year, since there was only one marking period left, and since we were seniors. Everyone who was going to college had already been accepted. Everyone who wasn’t going to college had other plans, none of which required the knowledge contained in the final marking period of a high school Government class.

  But Mr. Tippler also taught freshman Social Studies. Maybe that’s why there was a sub in the room when I got to class on Monday, and not a disgruntled teacher who’d been snagged for unexpected study hall duty. It was an old guy. He looked like he hadn’t gotten much sleep. I think they call substitutes pretty early in the morning when they need them.

  As the sub was writing his name on the board, Clovis made a farting sound. I’m assuming he did it with his mouth, since no stench accompanied or followed it, other than the stench of moral decay that permeates his existence.

  The mouth fart was pretty
juvenile, but it had an effect. The guy whirled around and yelled, “Stop that!”

  “Mr. Tippler encourages class farticipation,” Peter said.

  “That’s not funny,” the substitute said. “All of you. Shape up and act your age. No more rude noises.”

  His reaction was a big mistake. Others joined in with random fart sounds and burps throughout the period. As these seniors performed their sophomoric actions, the sub, Mr. Strawbroke, tried his best not to turn away again. But that’s hard to do when you’re fidgety, like to pace when you talk, and need to write things on the board. Halfway through the period, the assault escalated. The Thug Nuts started throwing stuff. Erasers. Pencils. Wads of paper.

  I guess I could have done something brave, like tell them to stop. I glanced at Jillian as I thought about speaking out. Would she admire me if I did that? It was pointless to ask the question. I might as well have wondered whether she’d admire me if I flew out the window, sailed up toward the clouds, and blew enough smoke out of my ass to skywrite, SURRENDER YOUR HEART TO ME, JILLIAN. There was no way I was going to do anything that would make me Clovis’s favorite target for the rest of the year. The random hit with a football had been bad enough. I knew I could never survive a concentrated and dedicated assault.

  Mr. Strawbroke almost made it to the end of the period, which would mean he’d made it through the day. Almost. Finally, about three minutes before the bell, right after a well-aimed pink eraser plunked off the top of his head, he slammed down the book he was reading from, yelled, “It’s not worth the money! I don’t need this!” and stomped out.

  The thugs exchanged triumphant howls and vigorous high fives. Luckily, the bell rang before they realized there were no authority figures in the room to prevent them from pinning a student to the floor and disemboweling him with their pencils. Though I guess there hadn’t been an authority figure in the room all period.