Two Roads from Here

by Teddy Steinkellner

  Arthur Mpare was lamely attempting to explain to Mr. Pargo that the poem is about hopes and dreams or some dog doo. I wish he would explain why last year he booted me from Black Student Union for “insubordination,” even though he let mad undeserving white kids stay in the group. And I look forward to hearing how he explains the big drinking-and-gambling party he hosted last weekend, once I pass along an “anonymous tip” to the vice principal’s office.

  Thuy Nguyen got reprimanded by Pargo for falling asleep in class. Perhaps she’s finally getting her comeuppance for the time she said there was a special place in hell for people like me and that I would never find love unless I changed my “sinful ways.” Speaking of sinful ways, maybe the reason homegirl is so tired is because rumor has it that she and her youth group leader have been sneaking into the bathroom and getting all Sodom and Gomorrah every night after Bible study.

  Finally, and most irritatingly of all, there was Allegra Rey. Slouching in her dowdy red fleece. Frowning her frumpy frump mouth. Feeling all sorry for her friendless baby self. Guh. I wish just once I could expose that little goody two-shoes, teacher-you-forgot-to-give-us-homework, rodent-eyed, curly-fry-haired, weeble-wobble-shaped, British-people-mouthed, fake-nice bee-yotch for the fraudulent waste of humanity she really is.

  Say, what was with that look on her face? Why was she frowning so hard, anyway?

  Oh my Gerd. Wait.

  Could it be?—could the gerd Lord be so great?—could she actually possibly have gotten rejected from—

  “Cole?”

  Pargo was standing directly above my desk, wearing a “caught you in the act, didn’t I?” expression.

  “Hey there, Cole. You with us?”

  I glanced up. “Hmm?”

  “What do you think the poem means?”

  I buffed my nails on my chest like the laziest lion. I forced myself not to yawn.

  “In my opinion, this notion that Frost’s narrator so much as took ‘the road less traveled by’ is fundamentally fallacious. Sure, it may look in hindsight like moments in life amounted to a decision between two divergent paths, leading to two drastically different outcomes. Yet the truth remains that we can never know which was indeed the road less traveled, because in point of fact, we faced no choice at all. The pathways Frost presents are identical-looking, therefore the end points are opaque and arbitrary, ergo our futures are unknowable. Consequently, if you want to get all Greek philosopher about it, fate is leading each and every one of us to the exact same place, whether we like it or not. And I’m not saying death, but yeah, I’m saying death.”

  As I finished, I clasped my hands together and went full cheese on a big ol’ smile.

  The class looked back at me in still-faced silence.

  Pargo nodded vigorously. He applauded exuberantly.

  “Bravo, Cole,” he said. “Excellent interpretation.”

  See?

  I told y’all I’m a star.

  • • •

  “Mmkay, changeling,” I said in the hallway after English, during nutrition break. “Whadja bring me?”

  Everyone knows I despise everyone, but even a coldhearted succubus like me can’t help but adore Neil. He’s my little sophomore baby. I call him my “changeling,” like the Indian changeling baby that Oberon and Titania fight over in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and not just because he’s Indian, and not just because he has lustrous eyelashes like an American Girl doll, and not just because I’m saucy like Titania and king of the fairies like Oberon. No, Neil Bhansali is my changeling because I can get him to change into absolutely anything I want him to be: homework doer, math tutor, rehearsal partner, garbage digger, and of course, town gossip.

  “I had a productive morning,” Neil said. “I think you’ll be pleased.”

  “Then go ahead and please me.”

  “Well,” he said. “I was hiding in the men’s room before first, and I heard J. P. Hamblen on the phone with his girlfriend. He sounded really freaked out. I think she missed her period.”

  “Damn,” I said. “She pregz?”

  “Perhaps,” Neil said. “Or anorex.”

  “Or what if . . . ?” I lowered my voice. “Most scandalous of all . . . she’s in fifth grade.”

  Neil covered his mouth and convulsed. I love making him giggle at my inappropro ways.

  “Dude,” I said. “Did you hear about the AP Comp Sci cheating ring?”

  “Yup. Three weeks with the Bear for each of them.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Can’t believe they let themselves get caught. I hate when people cheat like idiots.”

  “Cheating is wrong,” Neil said. “Whether one does it intelligently or not.”

  “Less moralizing, brah,” I said. “More rumor-izing.”

  “Okay,” Neil said. “Here’s my best scoop of all. I don’t know whose this is yet, but I found it in the recycling outside the ladies’ locker room.”

  He unfolded a square of graph paper and handed it to me. I didn’t have to read long before I came across such phrases as “ride me like a pony” and “make me quiver.”

  “Jackpot,” I said, my eyes bugging out, my heart swelling with pride. I reached inside my pocket. “Sidekick, my boy, you da real MVP. You have definitely earned yourself one of these.”

  I pulled out the Slim Jim and tossed it to him. Neil caught the jerky stick and immediately began chowing down. Naturally, him being Indian and all, his parents don’t allow beef products in the house, so every time he unearths an especially salacious piece of goss, I am able to reward him with cow meat in a cruel-but-generous way.

  “We are going to do some obscene damage,” I said.

  “Yesh,” Neil said, his mouth half full.

  I dangled the sex note. “If anyone crosses us, they’ll just have to deal with this.”

  “Sho good,” Neil said.

  “This must be what heroin feels like,” I said. “Or getting into college.”

  As I said it, Neil nearly choked.

  “Yo. You okay?”

  He gulped down the Slim Jim. He lowered his eyes to the ground.

  “Um,” he said. “That reminds me.”

  “What reminds you?”

  “I have . . . one more piece of info.”

  “What? Out with it. Spill.”

  “It, uh, concerns Allegra Rey. . . .”

  • • •

  “So . . .”

  It was Philanthropy Friday, the afternoon before the homecoming game. I was standing next to Allegra at Casa de Maria, where old dementia people go to play bingo and die and where young overachievers go to scam their way into college. The frumpster and I were ladling Dumpster-smelling broth into mildewy bowls for cranky, unloved grandmas. I had my glorious mini-fro in a little hairnet. Allegra was wearing a sweater the same exact color as the soup.

  “Heard you got some news the other day.”

  “Oh,” Allegra said. She sounded all monotone and quiet. She stared into the soup. “I think she’ll be okay, but no one knows for sure. I hope she can beat it, but I don’t know. It’s really hard.”

  “Lady,” I said. “You ain’t makin’ none of the sense.”

  I took a breath and transformed my face into the fake-ass smile I normally reserve for talking to my mom when I want to make her feel bad.

  “I was asking about Stanford—heard you might have gotten in? Congrats, chica!”

  “Oh,” Allegra said, still being a sad hobo. “Right. Stanford. It’s definitely an honor. I don’t know, though. With my mom being sick and everything, I might have to defer my acceptance, or even stay local for school.”

  I tilted my head so it went from “jaunty theater boy being fun” to “are you fa-reakin’ kidding me?”

  “I don’t want to say ‘gurl, please,’ ” I said, “but, gurl. Please. Look, I’m sorry to hear about your mom—so sorry, that’s horrendous—but what the frick-and-frack are you saying right now? Don’t you realize I’d give up my beautiful, symmetrical, award-winning face if I
could guarantee a spot at Stanford? This is the dream right here—you got to snatch it.”

  Allegra didn’t respond right away. She sighed and stirred. She did eventually look up at me, but she tossed her signature sloppy curls in front of her face as she did it, hiding herself behind a tangled thicket of frizz.

  “Don’t worry, Cole,” she said. “I’m sure you’ll get in too. You have so many of the same qualifications as me. You applied early, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “But you’re retaking the SAT to see if you can do better on math this time, right?”

  “Um, what? Who told you that?”

  “You did,” Allegra said. “Last Philanthropy Friday.”

  I tilted my head from “OMG, who been talking mess about me?” to “You know what, frumpy butt? Let’s change the subject.”

  “It’s no big deal,” I said. “You’re totes right. I’ll kill the SATs tomorrow morning, and we’ll go off to Stanford together, and a year from now we’ll be in the same freshman dorm, in the same coed bathroom, and we still won’t be able to get this gosh-darn geezer smell out of our clothes. Eau de Depends, am I right? Lolz.”

  But Allegra did not lolz at that. She didn’t even :) at that. And it’s like, I’m sorry chica. I know your mom’s not well, but you can at least pretend for one second to be fun.

  “You know, Cole,” she said. “If I could give you my spot right now, I absolutely would.”

  I placed my hand on her shoulder. I looked her square in the eye.

  “And if you were stupid enough to give it to me, I’d absolutely take it.”

  • • •

  Early this Saturday morning, on my way to the big test, I stopped at the gas station mini-mart, where I bought two things:

  A pack of Parliaments. A bag of super-size Slim Jims.

  I drove to campus and pulled into the student parking lot. I stepped out of the car, where I watched the other SAT takers as they walked down the hill, toward the cafeteria, right into the most important test of their lives.

  I smoked as I watched them, filling my lungs with the same shit that’s killing millions of people every single day—who knows, maybe even Allegra’s mom.

  It felt so good.

  I thought about my plan one last time.

  See, my problem the last two times I took the SAT was that I didn’t have a plan. I thought I could handle the math, and I figured that since my dad is a statistics professor at the city college, that maybe he’d be able to help me raise my scores.

  But I was wrong. None of that nonsense worked out.

  But that’s okay. Because now I have a plan.

  And with it, I will dominate the world.

  Over the summer, I “discovered” that I had “anxiety” and that I “couldn’t focus.” When I went to consult a therapist about it, the same woman who used to see my dad before he had to move up north, she referred me to a psychiatrist, who admired me for having the “bravery” to come into his office and who diagnosed me with ADHD.

  A couple of months ago, I contacted the College Board, which administers the SAT. I told them about my newfound learning disability. And wouldn’t you believe it, they responded by granting me unlimited time on all sections, plus my very own test room and proctor.

  So today, once I identify the math questions I can’t solve, I’ll write them down on my scrap paper. Then, because I’ll have unlimited time, I’ll make numerous visits to the bathroom, and I’ll bring my paper with me. The proctor won’t notice, of course, because proctors are blind and stupid, like blind, stupid dolphins.

  When I get to the bathroom, I’ll pull a secret phone out of my shoe, and I’ll text pictures of all the scrap paper problems that I can’t solve over to my best friend, the boy whose trust I’ve been cultivating these past twelve months, the boy who owes me eternally for teaching him how to cease being a loser, the boy who just so happens to be our school’s foremost math prodigy. Then, when I make another visit to the bathroom a few minutes later, Neil will have solved all of the problems I can’t do for me.

  And once I have my perfect math score, how can Stanford not say yes to me?

  And once I’ve attended the top college in the world and made connections with all of the most powerful future leaders of the world, how will I not eventually dominate the world?

  Climb on my knee, Planet Earth. And pull down your pants.

  Daddy needs to give you a spanking.

  • • •

  As I sucked in my last cigarette, I watched the other test takers head into the caf, where their uncertain futures awaited them.

  I wonder if cheating will make me a bad person. I can’t quite shake this nagging feeling that I’ll somehow regret it if I game the system, that it’ll be a big fat slap in the face to those regular ol’ kids walking down that hill, leading their regular ol’ lives.

  Then again, just look at those kids. Remember who they are. The baseball player, Nate Sullivan, who called me “faggot” in the third grade, back before I knew what that word meant, and again in ninth grade, when it cut me like a blade. The stoner, Woo Quian, who came up to me baked at lunch two weeks ago and asked what’s with my family, why do I have such a crazy dad. The stress case, Sandra Allenby, who publicly accused me of cyberbullying last year, took her case straight to the principal’s office, and damn near vaporized my chances at Stanford right then and there.

  What if those people are just assholes? What if they deserve to be taken advantage of, to have gossip spread about them? What if they deserve to be squashed like snails by the likes of Almighty Me?

  And at the end of the day, what if my decision to cheat doesn’t even matter? After all, as strange as it feels to admit, my entire future might be preordained regardless. That’s what I took from Robert Frost’s moronic poem. Why should real life be any different? What if it’s all one long, inevitable path, and there’s no veering off course, even if you try?

  What if I’m a bad person no matter what I do?

  I stamped out my cigarette. I watched the students trudge into their testing room. I wriggled my toes in my sock, where the phone felt warm beneath my foot. I glanced back at my car, where the Slim Jims were sitting on the passenger seat.

  Multiple-choice tests are just the worst.

  ROAD ONE

  * * *

  FALL

  * * *

  1. WILEY OTIS

  * * *

  I don’t give a crap about football, but it was a perfect night for football. The lights were bright. The cheerleaders were bronze. The air was chilly, but in that awesome way that makes you say screw it, I’m gonna cuddle up to the girl beside me. There was something so, I dunno, American about that night. It was like we were all being painted by Norman Rockwell while we shot automatic weapons at terrorists and pounded ice-cold Buds.

  And not that I care about crap like this, but even the Bulldogs were winning. With a minute left in the first half, we were up by three touchdowns. This was kind of surprising, given that our star left tackle was sitting on the bench, wearing sweatpants, a hoodie, and the wacked-out expression of a three-year-old who just stuck his finger in a light socket.

  “Poor guy,” Allegra said, standing in front of me on the sideline. “This must be difficult for him, watching the team perform so well in his absence.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Sucks to be him.”

  I turned away from her.

  “All right, boys,” I whispered to the rest of the brass section. “You ready?”

  J.P., Travis, Kevin, Pranav, and Fat Isaac all took their hands off their trumpets and trombones and gave me big thumbs-ups.

  “Perfect,” I said. “Sixty seconds until showtime.”

  Sixty seconds until she finally learned the truth.

  Sixty seconds until the rest of my life.

  • • •

  As brilliant as Allegra is, and as wide-ranging as her intellectual interests may be, she’s not exactly a cinema buff. Since she spends most of her time calc
ulating complex equations and taking care of her mom and whatnot, it’s only natural that when it comes to movies, she wants to take a break from thinking and soak up some lovey-dovey feelings goop. I mean, my number one film of all time is something like Citizen Kane, or The Graduate, or Rashomon, or The Deer Hunter. Allegra’s favorite movie is 10 Things I Hate About You.

  Yet as questionable as that choice is, it also provided me with kind of the perfect opportunity.

  Allie’s favorite scene is the part where Heath Ledger confesses his love to the nerdy girl by having the whole marching band play a romantic song on the football field in front of the entire school. She watches that scene on YouTube over and over, and every time, she says something like wouldn’t that be incredible, wouldn’t that be the best.

  So tonight, that was my goal. I was going to give her the best.

  The band had to be on the field anyway as part of the homecoming halftime show. The principal was going to walk out and name the homecoming queen. The band was going to play “Isn’t She Lovely” as she got crowned, and then we were supposed to step off the turf.

  Only me and the brass boys, we weren’t going anywhere. My plan was to grab the microphone and tell one very special flautist that I had an important announcement of my own. The brass section would then strike up a new song, the theme song from Allie’s other favorite teen movie ever, and mine too, “Don’t You (Forget About Me)” from The Breakfast Club, a song that happens to carry with it a maybe-not-so-subtle personal message. As we finished, I would ask Allegra to be my homecoming date, and my girlfriend also, and as I ripped off my sousaphone and let it drop to the ground, and as she jumped into my arms for a gigantic, last-shot-of-the-movie kiss, the brass guys would begin playing “All Right Now,” which is the Stanford football fight song, and everything was really going to be all right now, because Allie and I were finally, happily, about to have the one thing that both of us so desperately need.