The Boomerang Effect

by Gordon Jack

  “Can we schedule our meetings at this time and place?” Spencer repeated.

  “Uh, sure,” I said. It probably wouldn’t hurt me to start out each day in the company of someone who reads about quantum mechanics at breakfast. These morning meetings would also help me avoid my wake-and-bake routine at home. Plus, there were fewer people at school this early who could hassle me for spending time with such a nerdy freshman.

  “Can I ask you a question?” Spencer said.

  “What’s up?”

  “Why did your friends write that word on your face?”

  “Oh that,” I said, instinctively touching my forehead. “It was just a joke.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  “Get what?”

  “What’s the joke?”

  “Oh, see, I passed out and they thought it would be funny to write the word ‘loser’ backward on my face so I would see it in the mirror.”

  Spencer stared at me, expressionless. “I have trouble understanding humor,” he said finally.

  “That’s okay,” I said. “It’s not really funny.”

  I pulled out a map of the school I had printed from home. I was in the middle of highlighting the safest bathrooms for freshmen to use at lunch when the bell rang. Spencer packed up his belongings, nodded curtly, and walked off with his wheeled backpack. I followed closely behind, not saying anything about the rolling monstrosity he dragged behind him. First period was about to start and I needed to make the transition from teacher to student. We could address the backpack issue at our next meeting.

  SIX

  The rest of my morning proceeded without incident, which made conjuring a satisfactory emotion for Mom’s video challenging. My hope was that I would come up with something in fourth-period Yearbook, which was a class with minimal supervision. All Mr. Koran, our “adviser,” did during the period was grade his English papers and bid on baseball cards on eBay. Occasionally he’d confer with Crystal Nguyen, our editor in chief, about an approaching deadline, but other than that, the class was an opportunity to chill with my former best friend, Eddie Salgado.

  Eddie was the main reason I looked forward to fourth period. He and I had been tight in middle school, but moved into different social groups when we came to Meridian. We weren’t athletes or nerds or musicians, which left us with no real crowd to join. I was adopted by the stoners, and Eddie joined the cheerleading squad after falling in love with its hottest member, Dawn Bronson. “It’s so not gay,” he argued when I said the sport was hurting his image. “You know how much strength it takes to catch a falling one-hundred-twenty-pound girl from a pyramid? A lot more than catching a stupid football, I’ll tell you.”

  “Yes, but those uniforms.”

  “What? If I were holding a tennis racquet instead of a megaphone, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

  He was right on every count. But still, there was something decidedly girly about the whole concept of cheering, right? Teenage boys aren’t supposed to be enthusiastic about anything. We’re supposed to snort and scoff and call things gay even when we secretly like making macaroni portraits of Katy Perry. Forget I said that.

  As you can imagine, the stoners and the cheerleaders rarely socialized with one another, which meant Eddie and I drifted apart. Truth is, we were both embarrassed to be associated with the other. Eddie would see me emerge from a smoke-filled car and look the other way, just as I did when I was forced to watch him perform a handspring at school pep rallies.

  Being in Yearbook helped us reconnect and remember how much we liked hanging out. Eddie never drank or got high, so we talked about things that mattered, like which girls in our class were on birth control and which teacher was headed for a nervous breakdown. Today, we were working on our layout for the football team pages, which was hilarious because we thought most of the players were major dicks. We were struggling to find the perfect caption to a photo of two football players kissing on the bench at the last game. The players weren’t actually kissing, but through some genius Photoshopping, Eddie was able to make the image look like a scene from a gay Viagra ad.

  “How about ‘Jerry Tortelli Completes a Pass,’” Eddie suggested. Jerry was the quarterback of our team and the king of the major dicks.

  “Too vague.”

  “‘Jerry Tortelli Fumbles the Balls.’”

  “Too specific.”

  “‘Jerry Tortelli Loves His Tight End.’”

  “Perfect,” I said, typing the caption into our layout.

  “No, no, no,” Crystal said. For someone so stealthy, she certainly had a rigid appearance and demeanor. Everything from her bangs to her moral judgments was cut precise and straight, leaving no room for mystery. With a swift move learned at Mac Camp, she highlighted the image and deleted it from the screen.

  “What?” Eddie said.

  “The yearbook is not the place to push your personal agenda,” Crystal said.

  “What personal agenda?” I asked.

  “Your ‘everyone is gay’ agenda. This week it’s Jerry Tortelli. Last week it was Principal Stone.”

  “You have to admit that photo of him and Officer Hetrick was suggestive.”

  “They were demonstrating the Heimlich maneuver!”

  “Yes, but with such enthusiasm,” Eddie said.

  “This has got to stop. Eddie, as a gay Latino, you of all people should see that these jokes are offensive.”

  “I am not a gay Latino!”

  “You’re not?” Crystal stepped back, struggling to squeeze Eddie into a new mental box. “Isn’t your last name Salgado?”

  “It’s Portuguese. I’m European-American.”

  “Oh, sorry. What about the whole cheerleading thing?”

  Eddie made one of those exasperated grunts people use to indicate they want the conversation to end, pushed his chair back, and stormed out of the room. Crystal looked at me and mouthed the words “What the fuck?”

  “Eddie’s not gay,” I explained.

  Crystal recovered from her shock quickly. “I knew that,” she said. “I was just making a point about hurtful stereotypes. Maybe now you two will be a little more sensitive.” And with that, she stormed off, her short black hair bouncing behind her like an overexcited puppy.

  I walked outside to see if Eddie was okay. He was nowhere in the hallway, so I went to the place where everyone goes when they want to cut class: the library. He was sitting in the stacks where they shelve the books on sexually transmitted diseases.

  “’S’up,” I said.

  “You know the worst part about being a male cheerleader?” he asked.

  “Having a penis?”

  Eddie punched me in the shoulder. Hard. “I’ve been cheerleading for two years hoping Dawn Bronson would notice me and I’m no closer to dating her now than I was when I was a freshman.”

  Eddie had been in love with Dawn Bronson ever since he met her at orientation. At the time, she was a sophomore in charge of leading the new students through a school scavenger hunt to help them become more familiar with the campus. The way Eddie describes their first meeting, it sounds like Dawn floated down on a cloud of cotton candy and handed him a scented map, saying, “Use this guide to find my secret treasure.” Even though she was older and Fox News beautiful (the legal commentators are my dad’s favorites), Eddie convinced himself he had a chance with her. So he joined the cheerleading squad and participated in student government and basically followed her around like a sick puppy only to have her develop an allergy to dog hair and throw him in the pound with all her other abandoned admirers.

  “Now that she’s a senior, this is my last chance to get her to notice me. I was hoping to ask her to homecoming.”

  “Isn’t she dating Jerry Tortelli?”

  Eddie moaned and banged his head against a book called Sex, Lies, and Hook-Ups: What Teens Need to Know.

  I patted Eddie on the back and tried to think of a solution to his problem. It seemed impossible, though. Dawn was the president of th
e senior class, head cheerleader, and in charge of any hurricane relief effort. She was way out of Eddie’s league. He’d have better luck with one of the girls who form the base of the cheerleading pyramid rather than the girl standing at the top.

  “Homecoming’s lame anyway,” I offered, trying to make him feel better.

  “Homecoming’s not lame. It’s the one week that unites our school around our shared values of achievement, community, and respect.”

  I backed off, seeing I’d touched a cheerleading nerve. Apparently, Eddie could mess with individual football players, but school spirit was off-limits.

  “Sorry,” I said. “I’ve been kinda moody since I gave up weed.”

  “Really?” Eddie said. His mood did a complete 180. “Good for you!”

  “And I’m going to college,” I said, hoping to pump him up even more.

  “That’s awesome!”

  I could probably say I was going to cure cancer and Eddie would be supportive. It made me feel good to have my own personal cheerleader helping me fight the angry gods who were out to destroy me.

  It suddenly occurred to me that Eddie was on his own odyssey back to Ithaca. Dawn was his Penelope and he had sacrificed everything to connect with her. Despite all the trials and tribulations he had experienced, he never lost sight of his goal: to hook up with the hottest girl at Meridian. Maybe he could teach me something about focus and commitment.

  “Wanna go to the taco truck?” I asked. We had five minutes until the bell rang. Just enough time to pick up our stuff from Yearbook and head to the moving health code violation parked in the back of the school.

  “That would be great,” Eddie said.

  This felt good, I told myself. Like I was moving toward something instead of driving around in circles.

  “Want to help me with a video?” I asked on our way back to class. “My mom wants me to share something personal.”

  “Tell her about giving up weed.”

  “She doesn’t know I smoke weed. Okay, she probably does, but she’s never wanted to talk about it.”

  “What’s the point of the video then?”

  “To show that families can still be close even when they’re far away.”

  “Sounds like a slogan.”

  “That is her slogan, actually. She’s promoting her book now in New York.”

  “Talk about who you’re going to take to homecoming.”

  “I’m not going to homecoming.”

  “Then talk about someone you like.”

  “I don’t like anyone.”

  “That’s sad,” Eddie said.

  It was sad. Incredibly sad. Here I was with all these friends, and I’d never felt so alone. Was this the detox talking? Two days without weed and my emotions were all over the map. I felt tears well up in my eyes and there was nothing I could do to stop them.

  “Dude, you okay?” Eddie asked, pausing in the hallway.

  “Fine,” I said. “Actually, this is perfect.” I held my phone at arm’s length from my face and started recording. “Hey, Mom. Just thinking about how fast things are changing. I can’t believe I’m a junior. Pretty soon, I’ll be graduating and leaving for college. I wish I could just slow things down, you know? Go back to a simpler time when you used to bring me to your office and let me play with your fax machine. Anyway, enough of this moping. Can’t wait to see you. Bye!”

  I stopped recording and posted the video on our family site.

  “Dude, that was amazing.”

  “Yeah. My mom will eat that shit up.” I sighed. “Now let’s go get our lunch.”

  SEVEN

  After a very satisfying taco platter, Eddie left me to attend a junior class meeting in the science wing.

  “You should come,” he said. “We’re brainstorming homecoming float ideas.”

  “That’s okay,” I said. As much as I liked hanging out with Eddie, I wasn’t quite ready to join his crowd of pep-squad enthusiasts. Don’t get me wrong, I liked Meridian just fine; I just didn’t see the need to celebrate it during the precious few hours in my day when I’m not being lectured or tested.

  “Besides, I have homework to do,” I said, giving him a fist bump and heading toward the center quad.

  On my way, I passed a group of football players huddled around their quarterback, Jerry Tortelli. Jerry was standing on some elevated platform, holding court like he was Coach Harkness running through a complicated play. I steered clear, careful not to draw any attention to myself. I wasn’t a target for these guys, but I knew it didn’t take much to piss them off. Some of them responded to eye contact with a punch in the face.

  I was hugging the opposite wall, keeping my head down, when I noticed the object Jerry was standing on to address his bloodthirsty crew. It was Spencer’s rolling backpack. My little mentee’s hand was still clinging to the elongated handle, and he looked agitated and uncomfortable.

  What’s a mentor supposed to do in this scenario? My mind quickly ran through my options. I could bravely stand up to a bunch of assholes hopped up on Red Bull and steroids and demand they release my little buddy from captivity. This didn’t seem advisable, however, unless I didn’t mind spending the rest of the year in a body cast. I could run and snitch to the administration, but this might also lead to bodily disfigurement. Besides, no one in the front office would believe me after the number of pranks I had pulled. That left me with one other option: keep walking and silently pray for the gods to intervene.

  I picked up my pace and kept my eyes focused on the ground, trying not to feel guilty. My hands started to sweat, making me smell like moldy cheese baking in the sun, another stinky side effect of my detox process. I made a quick detour toward the parking lot so I could douse myself with the Axe body spray I kept in my car for just such an emergency.

  After freshening up, I closed the top of my convertible for some privacy and reflected on my actions. Should I have intervened? I mean, who was Spencer to me anyway? We’d met twice and exchanged a few words. Did we have the kind of relationship that required me to sacrifice my life in order to save him from embarrassment? Is that what good mentors do? I didn’t see anything in the Buddy Club charter that required me to damage my reputation and/or face in order to help my mentee “more fully integrate into the Meridian school community.”

  Normally I wouldn’t get this worked up over something so minor. I mean, being picked on by jocks is a rite of passage all freshman boys go through, right? At least they weren’t dumping Spencer headfirst into a trash can or toilet. If I were still getting high, I’d be able to forget about the incident or at the very least find something hilarious about it to share with my friends. But I wasn’t getting high, so now I had to deal with all these big feels, which sucked.

  A squirrel paused in its dash along the fence that separated the parking lot from the football field. It turned and looked at me. “You did well to run away,” he said, giving me a tiny thumbs-up.

  I shook my head. I thought these visions only came when I was high or hungover.

  “Heroes’ lives always end in tragedy,” the squirrel said. “And snitches get stitches.”

  Then he darted off.

  I rolled down the window and released the toxic cloud of Axe body spray that had polluted my car and brain.

  Despite the squirrel’s pardon, I still felt bad for leaving Spencer to fend for himself. So after school I drove to REI and bought Spencer a normal, shoulder-strap backpack, which I presented to him at our breakfast meeting the following day.

  “What’s this?” he asked.

  “It’s a backpack,” I said.

  “I see that, but why are you giving it to me?”

  “It’s standard issue. All new students get them. Don’t feel obligated to write me a thank-you note or anything.”

  Spencer glanced at my peace offering and said, “Thank you, but I prefer this model.” He pointed to his rolling suitcase, now cleaned of Jerry’s footprints.

  “But the other one you don’t have to wh
eel around.”

  “Those wheels relieve the stress on my neck and back,” Spencer said.

  “Yes, but they damage your reputation,” I said.

  Spencer raised an eyebrow.

  “Your freshman year is when you create the impression that will last the four years you’re in high school,” I began. “Just ask Freddy Wilmington. He snarted in class his first year and graduated with the nickname Stinky. You have to take control of your reputation early or others will define you by their terms.” (I could have used myself as an example here—some people still refer to me as “Snore-i-gami” in reference to the numerous origami presentations I made in seventh grade—but I didn’t want to lose face in front of my protégé.)

  “Are you referring to the incident with the football players?” Spencer asked.

  “What? No. Did you have an incident? That’s weird. I had no idea. What were they doing? Like, harassing you?”

  “It was upsetting, but it ended as soon as I directed Mr. Tortelli’s attention to something of greater interest.”

  “Which was?”

  “Miss Dawn Bronson’s flirtation with a wrestler.”

  “Dawn was flirting with a wrestler?” Maybe there was hope for Eddie after all. “You think she and Jerry broke up?”

  “I believe they are in a period of transition. Miss Bronson recently removed the photo taken of them at last year’s winter formal from the cover of her binder.”

  “How do you know this?”

  “Miss Bronson is in my calculus class.”

  “Can you give me a minute?” I took out my phone and texted Eddie the news. Within seconds my phone rang.

  “Holy shit,” Eddie said by way of greeting.

  “I know.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “That’s what Spencer said.”

  “Who’s Spencer again?”

  “The kid I’m mentoring,” I said, resisting the urge to ruffle Spencer’s hair. “He and Dawn are in the same calculus class.”

  “He’s a freshman?” Eddie asked.

  “Yes.”

  “And he’s taking calculus?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “And you’re his mentor?”