by Andrew Smith
She was the kind of mature and outwardly confident, perfect girl who really could have a forty-year-old airline-pilot boyfriend, and you wouldn’t think twice about their relationship.
My mind raced. I began to feel flushed with embarrassment at the thought of asking Cade Hernandez to drive me to a 7-Eleven so I could buy a pack of condoms. I began to sweat.
It was ridiculous.
Hurry! Hurry! Step right up and see the epileptic boy try to purchase his first pack of rubbers!
“Can I bring Laika?” I squeaked.
Julia smiled. “If you want to. Just promise you’ll come.”
When she said that last word, my throat knotted so tight, it felt as though I’d swallowed a horseshoe.
“Um.”
I was such an idiot.
And I thought, Cade Hernandez probably has plenty of condoms. I hoped I could save myself the desperation of standing eye-to-eye with some liquor-store clerk as he scanned the price code and waved a box of condoms around for every fucking set of eyes in Burnt Mill Creek to see.
Maybe I could just ask my best friend if he would loan me some.
Loan?
That made me feel sick too.
I moped the rest of the way home, which wasn’t too far. Power Plant No. 1 was only six miles up the canyon from my house.
Julia said, “I know what you’re thinking.”
That terrified me even more. I hoped she wasn’t tuned in to the fact that I was actually thinking about having sex with her, and how I could obtain some condoms, and how a guy even used a condom in the first place.
I knew enough to never have sex without condoms. Tracy—Mom—had a most awkward talk with me about the subject near the end of last baseball season, during our school’s spring break. Mom had been my nurse, after all, and was more intimately familiar with all my most embarrassing atoms than anyone on the planet of humans and dogs. So who better to talk to a sixteen-year-old boy about condoms and sex?
Mom had apparently heard rumors about Cade Hernandez and Monica Fassbinder.
Rumors spread like a diaspora of atoms in the knackery of the universe, always getting rendered into something else and something else.
Mom had methodically explained all the possible consequences involved in having sexual contact without using condoms. She structured her lesson to save all the scariest parts—infections that settle in on the insides of boys’ penises and testicles—for the very end. I’m sure Mom was going to have an entirely different “lesson” when my sister, Nadia, turned sixteen or so.
Her one error was in asking if I wanted her to buy some condoms for me. What sixteen-year-old boy would ever say yes to such a question posed by his mommy?
It was a lose-lose situation any way you looked at it. But it would have been so much easier for me, I realized as I sat sweating inside Julia Bishop’s Ford Mustang, if I had simply told my stepmother yes.
Julia nudged my shoulder and added, “But don’t even try to guess what it is, because I’m not telling till your birthday.”
“Um. Okay.”
• • •
Julia Bishop parked in the semicircular driveway at the front of my house.
Most of the homes on the east side of the canyon had grand driveways with arching iron gates. My house was gateless.
When we got out of her car, I saw that Mr. Castellan had been standing at the edge of his property, watching us through the metalwork on his fence.
Manuel Castellan not only moved like a gaited horse, but when he stood still, he was like a chameleon—he blended in perfectly with the dry-earth colors of San Francisquito Canyon.
He wagged a finger at me and smiled. “You see, Caballito? This is how things will always go. A boy like you has remarkable taste. And luck, too, I should say!”
Mr. Castellan was quite obviously admiring the girl walking next to me.
“What did he call you?” Julia asked.
“It’s my bullfighter name,” I explained.
• • •
Mom made iced tea for us when we came back from our visit to William Mulholland’s great failure. We sat in the living room and did what teenage boys and girls do when they’re being observed by one of their parents—fidgeted in awkward silence.
Nadia, being the perfect example of six-year-old-sibling femininity, squeezed herself down on the couch between me and Julia, so she could put her powder-scented hands on both of us.
She does the same thing when Cade Hernandez comes over, but Cade and I generally don’t sit with our knees touching. That would be awkward.
Girls always know exactly what they’re doing.
I sighed. “Do you really have to sit right here, Nadia?”
My sister patted our legs and said, “Yes. I like Julia too. And I love my big brother.”
If Tracy—Mom—hadn’t been there, I probably would have fought with Nadia, who was quite obviously calculating some unspoken communication about Julia and me maintaining our physical and emotional distance from each other.
I was not above fighting with my six-year-old sister.
Mom gave the three of us her most contented look. It was like a moment from a television sitcom.
And what can a guy possibly do besides give in when he’s all alone in a room with three powerful females?
My brain became a twelve-billion-gallon flood of stupidity. I found myself staring dumbly at the spot on the floor where I’d blanked out and pissed myself the night Julia and I first truly met, while I kept fantasizing in terror what it would be like to climb through Julia Bishop’s bedroom window at midnight, nervously strip myself naked, and have sex with her. I replayed in my mind the talk Mom had given me about condoms and sexually transmitted infections inside my penis, and thought about how, later that week, I’d have to talk to Cade Hernandez about everything and ask for his advice.
That was very stupid.
Then Mom said to me, “Did you ask her yet?”
I was horrified. Ask her what?
I said, “Huh?”
Mom let out a disappointed breath. “Julia, we’re going to have a little party for Finn on the sixteenth. It’s his birthday. Mike and I would love it if you could come.”
“And me, too,” Nadia said.
“Yes. Nadia wants you to come too,” Mom agreed.
I was so embarrassed—again. The atoms inside me were busily cranking out all kinds of sticky hormones that day.
But Julia saved me and said, “Oh, Finn did ask me to come, Mrs. Easton. Thank you very much. Of course I’ll come.”
“Yeah. I asked her,” I croaked.
THE DRIVING RANGE
When you think about it, the theoretical science behind the Lazarus Doors in my father’s The Lazarus Door kind of made sense, and also contributed to the level of outrage and craziness that resulted in reaction to the book.
Here’s how it worked: Since the cannibal-angel-aliens lived on a moon so far away from the planet of humans and dogs, blasting their personalized atomic-size doorways out into space would mean that some of the doors would land on Earth before others. And, over so great a distance, just a little bit of “time” would mean that some of the Lazarus Doors would open thousands of years before others.
Look: You know how awkward it is when a lonely, early guest shows up hours before the party is supposed to start.
What do you do?
So the book hinted—strongly—at the idea that what the authors of the Bible and the Koran described as angelic messengers from God were actually hopped-up, hungry incomers who wanted to rape and eat human beings—and got away with it too! And, later, that cannibalistic serial murderers, like Jack the Ripper and Boone Helm, the Kentucky Cannibal of the 1850s, were also early party guests who’d arrived before the real invasion began and doors started opening by the hundreds of thousands—right here in the modern era.
Imagine that.
Time gets all messed up when you travel so far through space.
I never do well in situat
ions where I feel like I am in the spotlight of attention. I get ridiculously nervous and confused.
I believe that trait finds its origins in all the months spent in the hospital after that dead horse fell a hundred sideways miles off the Salmon Creek Gorge Bridge and landed on me. People—grown-ups—hovered over me constantly, touching me, feeling me, dressing and undressing me, eyeing me, poking me, bathing me. I always looked at that time in the hospital as being my actual birth, because I remember nothing of my life from before those days.
For all I really knew, I could have come through a Lazarus Door.
A lot of times, I believe I did, and that my dad’s book was more about me than he’d ever let on.
• • •
“I need condoms,” I said. “How do you work up the nerve to just walk into a place and buy a box of condoms?”
Cade Hernandez nearly choked on his tobacco.
“Dude.” He coughed. “You fucking what?”
I cleared my throat. “I told you.”
Cade and I were spending the afternoon hitting golf balls at Vista Driving Range in Burnt Mill Creek. It was the day after my date with Julia Bishop.
We enjoyed hitting golf balls together. I knew it was a safe activity Cade and I could escape to during our summer break, one that didn’t make me feel guilty for not inviting Julia Bishop to come along. I needed to talk to Cade, and I needed to do it alone.
Julia Bishop did not golf.
Monica Fassbinder had gone back to Germany the week before.
Cade Hernandez had been noticeably edgier.
What could you do? He said he was working more hours at Flat Face Pizza in order to save up for a trip to Germany, where he hoped to scatter as many of his atoms as possible.
I had told him that we’d need to change his nickname now.
It made him very sad.
And Cade had said to me, “You’ve got soft hands, Finn.”
My response to him was this: “I will punch you in the fucking mouth, Cade.”
So my announcement at the driving range caused Cade Hernandez to hook his driver badly and send his ball careening into the protective nets at the front of the parking lot.
There was nobody else on the range. The day was too hot for most golfers, so I felt at ease speaking in the open about sexual issues with Cade Hernandez.
“Say that again,” Cade said.
“I need condoms,” I repeated.
“What do you need condoms for?” Cade asked.
“Um, I need condoms so my sperm does not escape into anyone. I also need condoms to protect my penis against getting a nasty infection inside my urethra and having it spread painfully into my testicles. That is why I need condoms,” I explained.
Mom’s speech had really sunk in.
“Wow,” Cade said. “Is that what you use condoms for? Because I was wondering if it was science-fair time or shit like that. What I meant was, do you need condoms for Julia Bishop?”
I kept my chin down. I swung my five-iron. The ball sailed—maybe one hundred-eighty yards. It was a good swing.
“Yes,” I said.
Cade spit a brown blob onto the padded Astroturf mat at his feet.
“Shit,” he said.
“I was hoping you’d have some extra condoms and could maybe give me a couple so I wouldn’t have to go to a fucking store and buy a pack of rubbers,” I said.
“There’s no such thing as extra condoms,” Cade explained. “There are only ones waiting in line to be used. It’s like waiting for a roller coaster. It’s a long time getting to the front of the line, but when it’s your turn the ride is always worth it. Duh.”
“Um, so—”
Cade Hernandez looked at me for a moment.
Twenty miles.
Then he bent down and placed a range ball on top of the rubber nipple sticking up from his practice tee.
He said, “Have you ever had sex?”
“No.”
I watched him when I said it. I never took my eyes off Cade’s face. I noticed he looked relieved when I told him that I was still a virgin.
“Did you actually— Um, I mean, did Julia tell you to get some condoms?”
I replaced my five-iron and took out a three-wood.
“Well, Julia told me she wanted to give me something special, and that to get it I had to come to her bedroom window the night before my birthday at exactly midnight. What else could that mean but she wants to have sex? But I’ll be honest: It’s scary to me. I don’t know if I actually feel ready to have sex with someone.”
I swung. Decent.
Cade said, “Oh.”
“Yeah.”
Cade sliced his next shot. He was a quivering mass of tightened-up, sticky nerves since Monica Fassbinder left Burnt Mill Creek. And I’d just made things worse for him.
Cade Hernandez was deep in thought, and clearly the last thing on his mind involved the mechanics of a good golf swing.
So I asked him: “How about you? Have you ever had sex with anyone? Well, I mean, with a girl? And not just with her hand?”
Cade Hernandez actually turned red. He wrapped his fingers around the grip of his driver and said, “Yes.”
“Monica Fassbinder?” I asked.
“No. Monica’s a virgin. Well, technically she’s a virgin,” Cade answered. “I’ve had sex with Iris Boskovitch.”
Iris Boskovitch had just graduated from Burnt Mill Creek High School. She had been president of the school’s Equestrian Club. Anyone who ever saw Iris Boskovitch immediately thought this about her: That girl’s head is shaped exactly like the sign above Flat Face Pizza.
If I had been chewing tobacco, I would have choked.
Iris Boskovitch?
I said, “Iris Boskovitch?”
“Yeah.”
“Did you use a condom?”
“Dude. Don’t be a dumb fuck. You have to use a condom. Only dumb fucks don’t use condoms,” Cade said.
He swung again. This time he missed the ball entirely.
“I quit,” Cade said. “No more driving range for me today.”
“Okay.” I put my club away too. “Well, do you have any?”
“Yeah,” Cade said. “No problem. Whatever. I’ll give you a couple rubbers, dude. Happy fucking birthday. I’ve got some in my truck.”
I was so relieved.
I’d also totally ruined Cade Hernandez’s day.
I NEED AN EXTRA BAG
“Here,” Cade said.
As soon as we climbed into his truck in the parking lot at Vista Driving Range, Cade reached across the cab and pulled open the glove box. He fumbled through the stack of crap that invariably accumulates inside glove boxes and uncovered a strip of individually wrapped condoms. I had never seen packaged condoms like this before.
Oddly, they reminded me of candy.
There were four of them, stuck together in perfect two-inch square, perforated tear-off foil packets that were colorfully labeled in glossy blue print.
Cade detached two of the squares and handed them to me.
He said, “Here are your roller-coaster tickets.”
Holding the actual devices in my hands was a little strange. I could feel the contour of the condoms inside each packet, how they squirmed around beneath my pressing fingers because of all the slippery lubricant on them.
I wondered if the lubricant had been derived from the rendered bodies of dead horses.
I also remembered that I’d heard in health class that it was not a good idea to store condoms inside the glove compartment of your car, so I reminded Cade of this fact.
“In health class, they told us that condoms should never be kept in your wallet or in the glove compartment of your car,” I pointed out.
“Dude, that’s just a conspiracy against horny teenage boys,” Cade said. “Where else is a kid going to keep condoms? Just laying around in the open, on display at his parents’ fucking house?”
It was a fair question.
I had no idea where I w
ould keep condoms, especially since I didn’t drive.
I turned the things over and over in my sweating hands.
“Um. Are they easy to put on?”
Cade Hernandez shook his head and laughed. “You are so fucking dumb, Finn. It’s as easy as putting on your socks.”
I thought I could handle that.
“Uh, Cade,” I said. “I just noticed something.”
“What?”
“These condoms have an expiration date on them. They expired two months ago. See?”
It was a frightening thought.
Expired condoms.
What do you do with expired condoms? Expired condoms are like nuclear waste: There’s nothing sensible you can do with it.
I held the little packets up so Cade could see the black date stamped across the foil.
“Dude, it’s not like milk. They’re rubbers. Even milk is still good after the expiration date,” Cade argued.
“You drink expired milk?”
I was horrified by my friend’s disregard for boundaries.
“You are fucking nuts, Finn,” Cade said.
He started the truck and turned the air-conditioning on full blast. I needed it. I was sweating like a pig at the front of the slaughterhouse waiting line.
I argued, “I suppose you’d get on that roller coaster even if the car in front of you skipped the tracks and splattered everyone riding in it all over the pavement.”
Cade thought about my question.
He said, “Dude, when you’ve waited a long-ass time and you’re finally at the front of the line, you’re going to get on the fucking ride. You’ll see.”
I put the condoms back inside Cade Hernandez’s glove box.
“Well, I am not going to use expired condoms,” I said. “I like my penis just the way it is.”
I shut the glove box with a finalizing click!
And Cade said, “Fine. I am driving your ass to the 7-Eleven right now, and I am going to make you suck it up, go inside, and buy yourself a box of condoms.”
“Uh.”
I really did not want to go.
But what could I do? I had already buckled my seat belt on the Cade-Hernandez-is-driving-you-to-buy-some-rubbers ride.