Charlie Joe Jackson's Guide to Making Money

by Tommy Greenwald

  “That’s nice. Charlie Joe, I really need to make sure you know what you’re doing with this party. How many kids are coming, anyway?”

  I didn’t really want to go into details. It turned out that a lot of people were interested in cow jumping. I handed out about forty invitations, and thirty-six kids said yes.

  “A bunch,” I said.

  “A bunch?” Megan repeated.

  “A lot,” I clarified.

  Megan shook her head. “Seriously? And a live band? This is insane. We better hope the cops don’t come.”

  Cops? Insane? Suddenly I was getting a little freaked out. “It’s going to be a really short party,” I said. “Over by nine o’clock. What could happen?”

  “Life,” Megan said, still combing. “Life could happen.”

  Oh, yeah. Life.

  Let’s party.

  Charlie Joe’s Financial Tip #7

  DO AS LITTLE WORK AS POSSIBLE. BUT DON’T DO SO LITTLE THAT IT ENDS UP MAKING EXTRA WORK.

  I’m not going to sit here and say you never have to work in your life. That would just be dumb. Everyone knows you have to do some work to get by. So don’t be so concerned with doing no work that you end up doing more work. (Advice I myself have ignored, by the way, more than once or twice.)

  Like say you’re cleaning some dishes, and you rinse a glass but you’re too lazy to dry it, and because it’s still wet it slips out of your hand and crashes to the floor. Now you have to get the dustpan and broom and clean up a bunch of broken glass.

  Way more work.

  Or say your best friend asks you to do something, and you really don’t want to do it, because it feels like work. If you don’t do it, you’ll spend tons of time trying to make up some sort of excuse, and tons of time trying to admit you were wrong without actually apologizing, and the next thing you know, you realize it would have been a heck of a lot less work doing the thing in the first place.

  So do as little work as you can. But remember, sometimes no work actually means more work.

  Part Five

  THE UH AND THE OH

  46

  The party got off to a great start.

  By 6:20 p.m., I had already made $862.00.

  It was incredible: after a kid got dropped off, he or she would come straight over to me and hand me a check. I would hug (girl) or high-five (boy) them, thank them, and point them toward the food.

  We’d turned the garage, driveway, and backyard into the party zone. The band was set up in the garage, the driveway was going to be the dance floor, and all the food and drinks and some chairs and stuff were in the backyard. Megan and Willy had bought tons of pizzas, snacks, cookies, and sodas. She also had to buy paper plates and cups and napkins and stuff. (She said I owed her about two hundred bucks for all of it. Would it be considered rude or ungrateful to ask to see the receipt?)

  At first, people were happy just eating, drinking, and hanging out. Katie’s band was playing some weird music as a warm-up. (Pete Milano was pretending to dance to it by jumping around like an epileptic baboon, but Phil Manning and Celia Barbarossa were slow dancing like it was some big romantic song or something.)

  When the band took a break, I asked Katie what kind of music they were playing. She said it was inspired by Ethiopian tribal chants.

  “I don’t get it,” I said.

  She did the classic eye-roll. “The cow-jumping ceremony? It comes from Ethiopia?”

  “Oh, right.” Oops.

  “Where’s Zoe?” Katie asked.

  “Who?” I said, acting like I had completely not even noticed that Zoe hadn’t shown up yet.

  “Zoe? Remember her? The whole reason you’re jumping over a cow?”

  “Oh, her. Well, she’ll get here when she gets here.”

  “Right,” Katie said, not buying my casual act for a second.

  As she started up the music again I asked, “Do you guys know any Beatles?” but she was already midchant and didn’t hear me.

  * * *

  At 6:45, I went inside to make sure everything was ready for the big moment.

  The first thing I saw was a cow in our kitchen.

  Let me explain: about a week earlier I’d told Mark Lichtman, whose dad owned a house-painting company, that I’d give him twenty dollars if he could make a plain white sheet look like the back of a cow. He’d done an amazing job—the black spots looked incredibly real. Then Megan cut holes in the sheet for the head and the legs, and stapled the bottom together so it made like a kind of smock.

  Now Moose was wearing it, and it fit perfectly. The cowbell tied around his neck sealed the deal.

  I figured that considering it was pretty dark outside, he could definitely pass as a cow.

  Moose was wagging his tail, perfectly happy with his new outfit, but Coco was acting weird. Either she was jealous, or had a thing against cows, but she was barking and running in circles around Moose. I decided to distract her with a couple of chewy snacks, which worked for the six seconds it took for her to eat them. Then it was back to the barking and the running.

  Nareem came in. “Are you ready to commence the big performance? It’s time.” He was jiggling his feet nervously, with a candy bar in one hand and a cup of grape soda in the other.

  “Are you okay?” I asked.

  “I’m fine,” he said, but he didn’t sound fine. I figured he was just a little nervous since he was going to introduce me.

  We took Moose outside and led him to the small area in the backyard where he liked to nap. Immediately, people started murmuring.

  “Hey, that’s a dog,” Gina Green said.

  “I thought this was a cow jumping,” added Lily Romann.

  “Are you jumping over a dog?” asked Bill Winston.

  “Who cares?” said Pete, coming through in the clutch. “Dog, cow, whatever, as long as the cupcakes are fresh.”

  “I WOULD LIKE THE AUDIENCE TO PLEASE BE QUIET!” Nareem shouted. That shut everyone up. None of us had ever heard Nareem raise his voice above a very polite and gentle murmur. He looked around, pleased with himself, although his legs were still going a mile a minute. “Ladies and gentlemen, if I could have your attention, please. It is true; this is not a cow. This is Charlie Joe’s dog, Moose. However, Charlie Joe has done his research, and he has been assured by the proper authorities that for this kind of ceremony, if you are not able to procure the services of an actual cow, then a dog will suffice, provided it is dressed up to resemble a cow.” (My research, by the way, had involved asking Timmy what he thought, and Timmy saying he thought using Moose was a great idea.)

  “BOOOO!” yelled a bunch of kids, but they were kidding around. I hoped.

  Nareem looked at me nervously, and I gestured for him to keep going. “We are gathered here tonight to bear witness as Charlie Joe Jackson, in keeping with the ancient Hamar tradition, becomes a man by jumping over a cow. Or, in this case, a dog.”

  Moose picked this moment to decide he was sleepy, and so he lay down and began to nap.

  “Hey, doesn’t he have to be standing up?” some kid asked.

  “Yeah,” some other kid answered. “Otherwise, what’s the point? Anyone can jump over a sleeping dog.”

  I realized we had to make this happen, and make it happen quick, so that we could get people back to the stuff they liked: food, music, dancing, and hanging out with the opposite sex without parents around.

  I had prepared a short speech, and I asked Katie for her microphone. “Thank you all for coming,” I said. “This is a very important and meaningful day for me. I have watched so many of you go through bar mitzvahs, confirmations, and other ceremonies, and I’m so happy to finally have the chance to participate in my own special ritual.” I raised my glass of cream soda, and everyone else raised their own glasses. “Tonight I become a man.”

  I pointed to Katie, and she cued the band. The plan was for her to play “Jump” by Van Halen, and right at the beginning of the first chorus I would sprint forward and jump over my cow-dog.r />
  She was just finishing the intro section of the song when the music stopped.

  And the lights went out.

  And the power went out.

  And the party went south.

  47

  After the power went out, nobody said anything for about ten seconds, until Becca from Katie’s band shouted, “I think we blew a fuse.”

  Everybody looked at each other. Then everybody looked at me. I wasn’t sure what to do. Should I go through with the jump? Should I try to fix the power? Should I admit to everybody that I had no idea how to fix the power?

  I was standing there trying to figure out my next move when I heard a voice say, “I got this.” It was Willy, Megan’s boyfriend. He and Megan were heading toward the house. I ran over to them.

  “You guys know what to do?” I asked.

  Willy put his arm around me. “Yeah, I’m sure it’s just a circuit breaker, shouldn’t be a big deal. We can’t let a little blown fuse get in the way of the big night, am I right?”

  I could have kissed him right then. I knew that was Megan’s job, but still.

  We went into the furnace room, which was where the circuit breaker box thingie was. By then it was about 7:00, still pretty light outside, but not a lot of light in the basement.

  Willy looked at us. “You guys know where a flashlight is?”

  Megan and I shook our heads.

  “A lantern? Penlight? Anything?”

  More shaking of heads.

  Willy shook his head. “Unbelievable.”

  Then he remembered he had a flashlight app on his phone. He opened up the fuse box and tried to read the labels, but they were in my dad’s completely unreadable handwriting.

  “What language is this?” Willy muttered.

  “Fatherese,” I said, trying to lighten the mood, but no one laughed.

  Willy started flipping switches but nothing happened.

  Just then Timmy came running in. “What’s happening? Everyone wants to know what’s going on. Also, we need more root beer.”

  Katie followed thirty seconds later. She put her hand on my shoulder. “Sorry bout that. Were we playing too loud?”

  “Of course not,” I said.

  “Nothing but Beatles for the rest of the night,” she said, which made me feel a little better.

  Willy kept fiddling while we all watched. Then he said, “Wait, I think this must be it,” and he flipped one last switch.

  The power came back on!

  We all cheered and hugged each other and slapped Willy on the back. For the second time in less than five minutes, I felt like kissing him. Timmy and I got some more root beer from the fridge, and everyone headed back outside, ready to get on with the big show.

  By the time we got to the garage, we could hear some strange sounds coming from outside. Sounds that sounded like human screaming.

  When we got outside, we saw the strangest thing.

  It was raining in the backyard. On a perfectly clear night. And everyone was getting soaked.

  Then a siren started blaring, like the kind you hear in movies when a city is about to get bombed.

  As we covered our ears and dodged the raindrops, Megan yelled, “Uh-oh.” Willy yelled something much worse. And Katie, Timmy, and I just stood there and tried to understand what was happening.

  When Willy turned to Megan and said, “I wish your Dad didn’t have such bad handwriting,” I suddenly got it. He hadn’t just turned the lights back on. He turned everything back on.

  The lights, the outdoor sprinkler system, the security alarm.

  Everything.

  * * *

  For a second no one said anything.

  Then it was complete craziness.

  Everyone started yelling, running around, crashing into each other, spilling food, spilling drinks, slipping on spilled drinks, falling down, getting up again, and falling down again.

  Phil Manning took off his shirt to remind everybody that he was the strongest kid in the grade.

  Celia Barbarossa hugged Phil to remind everyone that she was going out with the strongest kid in the grade.

  Eric Clumpsty and Mark Lichtman decided to see if they could scream louder than the siren, until Eric dissolved in a coughing fit, which ended only when Evan Wilson gave him the Heimlich.

  Eliza Collins and the Elizettes ran around screaming “Ew,” even though there’s absolutely nothing gross about being drenched with water. Annoying, yes. Gross, no.

  And Pete Milano grabbed a plastic tablecloth, threw it on the ground, splashed water on it, and turned it into a Slip ’n Slide. With a mouthful of cupcakes, he let out a banshee wail and slid down the tablecloth, landing headfirst in a rose bush. “Yes!” he screamed, picking thorns out of his face.

  Say what you will about Pete, he knows how to make the best of a bad situation.

  Almost everyone was soaking wet. I saw cell phones coming out—kids calling their parents to come and pick them up. Then one girl started crying because her cell phone was ruined—I think it was Margaret Petlow, whose main claim to fame was wearing sweaters every day of the year, even when it was boiling-hot out.

  Now she’d be famous for being the first one to cry at my Cow Jump.

  Coco, meanwhile, decided that Moose should not be a cow anymore. She wanted him out of that costume right that very second. She tried to rip it off him with her teeth, which Moose did not appreciate. They started chasing each other, and Coco plowed into the drinks table, sending cups of Mountain Dew and Dr Pepper flying into the air and landing on people’s heads. Coco finally caught up to Moose, and he allowed her to de-cow him. They sniffed and made up. But Moose was definitely still a little shaken up.

  I could tell because he walked up to Hannah Spivero and peed on her leg.

  Hannah looked down, kind of shocked. Jake yelled, “Hey!” and Moose ran away, knocking over Becca Clausen, the five-foot-nine soccer player and guitarist, who had wandered over to see if she could help. Becca looked kind of shocked. I don’t think she’d ever been knocked over before.

  Meanwhile Hannah, who was wet and dirty and had dog pee on her leg, ran over to Moose and hugged him. “It’s not your fault, Moosie,” she said. “I still love you.”

  I almost fell right back in love with her that very moment. But I was too busy wondering what would go wrong next.

  I didn’t have to wait long.

  Out of the corner of my eye I saw this blurry shape sprinting like a crazy person. I turned my head to see him coming right toward me.

  “I WILL JUMP THE COW! I WILL JUMP THE COW!”

  It was Nareem.

  Remember when Nareem said he had a “crazy side?” It turns out that his crazy side comes out to play when he has a lot of sugar. And it turns out that seven cupcakes, four snickers bars, twelve chocolate chip cookies, and nine cups of grape soda qualifies as a lot of sugar.

  Which explains why he had decided that someone had to jump the cow, and that someone had to be him.

  Oh, I almost forgot to mention—for some reason Nareem decided that I was the cow.

  Everyone looked up from ducking the sprinklers and running for shelter to watch this lunatic flying at me at full speed. I ducked just as he made his leap, but I think he would have cleared me even if I had been Lebron James. I mean, he jumped HIGH. He soared over me, arms over his head, with a huge smile on his face, as everyone burst into a huge cheer. I bet it was the best moment of his life.

  Too bad it was immediately followed by the worst.

  Nareem was so excited to make his giant leap for mankind that he forgot to check out what was behind me. It wasn’t until he was in the air, directly over my head, that he saw the glass table.

  He had about .8 seconds to absorb that fact, and then … crash.

  Actually, more like … CCCRRRRAAAASH!

  Some people screamed. Other people closed their eyes. Katie buried her head in her hands. Everyone held their breath.

  Nareem lay there for about twenty seconds, then slowl
y got up. A smile slowly spread across his face. He didn’t have a scratch on him. The table wasn’t so lucky.

  “I’m okay!” he announced. “I jumped the cow!” Then he raised his arms to the sky and shouted it to the world. “TONIGHT I BECAME A MAN!”

  Katie marched up to her boyfriend and looked at him like he’d just grown a second head. “You are definitely not a man,” she snapped. “You are a crazy idiot who could have just killed himself!”

  Nareem’s smile wavered for just a second. “I jumped the cow,” he reminded Katie, a little less confidently.

  “Nareem’s definitely a man!” Pete confirmed. He started chanting “NAREEM! NAREEM! NAREEM!” and soon everyone joined in. “NAREEM! NAREEM! NAREEM!” Nareem went all over the yard, accepting high-fives and congratulations from his new fans, as Katie stared at him as if seeing him for the first time.

  Then, somewhere around the tenth “NAREEM!” the sprinklers turned off.

  And then the alarm turned off.

  Everybody let out a huge cheer. A small part of me wondered who managed to find all the switches, but most of me was ecstatic. We were saved! My money was still in my pocket, we weren’t being rained on anymore, and I was still going to Ohio! Things were looking up!

  I was just about to tell Katie to fire up the amplifiers again when I felt a tap on my shoulder.

  It was a familiar tap.

  Horribly familiar.

  I turned around and looked directly into the faces of my mother and father.

  Megan was right behind them, her face the color of red licorice.

  My parents looked around for about a minute, taking it all in—the drenched kids, the broken glass, the scattered instruments, the mangled bushes, the ripped plates, the spilled cups, the soaked chips, the waterlogged dogs (one with part of a cow costume still on his back), the destroyed grass, and the tall Indian boy who had just become a man.

  My mom sat down in shock. My dad looked at me and smiled the nicest, kindest, most insincere smile in the world.