90 Days of Different

by Eric Walters

  “Fine, I’ll do it. Maybe I’ll have just one or two.”

  DAY 30

  I opened one eye and then shielded it with my hand, blocking out the light. Why was it so bright…wait…it was morning. And it all started to come back to me. My eyes adapted to the light and focused a bit more. I was lying on the living-room carpet. Ella was just a few feet away on the couch, sound asleep, snoring a little—she usually snored when she slept. I always found her snoring a little cute, although the drool running down her cheek this morning took away from the general cuteness. Maybe I should take a picture of her snoring and drooling and put it up as my new cover picture, I thought.

  I tried swallowing, but my mouth was really, really dry and tasted terrible. It felt like I had a dirty sweat sock in my mouth. I looked down and was relieved to see both socks still on my feet. Ella’s feet were tucked under a blanket, and for all I knew she could have been wearing only one sock.

  I pushed myself up to a sitting position, and then I saw it sitting on the coffee table, staring at me. The bottle of vodka—or at least the remains of the bottle. I got up, and on unsteady legs walked over and picked up the bottle. I gave it a little shake so that the liquid swirled around inside. There was still almost half a bottle. That meant that we had either drunk or spilled the rest. Judging from the taste in my mouth and the fogginess in my head, I didn’t think we’d spilled much.

  I stared at the bottle. How could something so clear, so transparent, so water-looking, be so bad? I had the feeling the eagle on the bottle was staring back at me and, worse, was taunting me. Just how much had I drunk to be thinking such strange thoughts? There was only one thing to do in response.

  I carried the bottle to the kitchen sink, tipped it over and watched the clear liquid run out of the bottle and down the drain. Then, just to make sure it couldn’t get back up, I ran cold water to flush the sink and force it down into the sewer, then pushed the plunger in place to seal it in. If I’d learned anything from that horror movie, it was that the monster was never as dead as you thought it was.

  I bent over, turned my head and started drinking from the flow of water. I kept drinking and drinking, hoping to rehydrate myself or at least wash the sweat-sock feeling out of my mouth.

  Satisfied, I opened the kitchen cupboard and tossed the empty vodka bottle into the recycling bin. At least the bottle could do some good now.

  My phone started ringing, and it felt like I was being stabbed in my left eye. I rushed over and grabbed it before it could stab me a third time.

  “Hello!” I practically yelled and then regretted the volume of my voice.

  “Soph, are you all right?”

  It was my father.

  “Sure, I’m good. I’m just a little…a little—”

  “A little hungover?”

  I was shocked. I didn’t want to lie to him. “Yeah, I guess a little. How did you know?”

  “I’m one of your friends on Facebook and followers on Twitter, remember?”

  Then it came to me in a rush of jumbled memories. Ella and I had gone online before we’d gone to sleep so that I could post what was happening, although I had only the vaguest memory of what I’d written.

  “Sorry for drinking.”

  “You’re eighteen. In some places that’s the legal drinking age so it’s not the worst thing.”

  “Sorry you had to find out that way,” I said.

  “Most parents never find out—or find out when their child staggers home drunk or is arrested or ends up in the hospital or something worse. This was much better.”

  “Really? Did I say much?”

  “A couple of pictures—”

  Okay, I remembered taking some pictures.

  “—a few tweets and a blog with a few typos.”

  “I’ll fix those,” I said. If I didn’t just take them down.

  “Take care of yourself first. Drink plenty of water,” he said.

  “Already on it.”

  “Is your head hurting?”

  “A combination of being hit with a hammer and stabbed with a knife.”

  “A couple of aspirins will help.”

  “Sounds like you have some experience with this,” I said.

  “I wasn’t always old. I did a stupid thing or two myself when I was your age.”

  I heard my brother’s voice in the background.

  “It sounds like your brother is up. How about if you find the aspirin, and I’ll fix him breakfast and call you back later today.”

  “Sounds good. Love ya.”

  “Love you too, honey, and remember, be safe but not too safe.”

  I hung up the phone and went to my iPad. I was more than a little worried about what I’d written.

  My first tweet had gone out at 3:13 AM. It was obvious that we were well into the bottle at that time.

  With my old BFF, Ella, and my new BFF, Mr. Smirnoff!

  Attached was a picture of me, Ella and the bottle. Ella and I both had goofy looks, and the eagle on the bottle really did look like it was smirking.

  Okay, it could have been worse. It had been retweeted seventeen times and liked twenty-three times. That was more than almost anything I’d tweeted before. That was good, and it wasn’t really that bad a tweet or picture of me. I looked a little glassy-eyed, but all right—good, in fact. Better than Ella did. I hated myself for even thinking that or caring.

  Next was the blog.

  It was short and rambling, with more than a few grammatical errors and a spelling mistake. Obviously, drinking and writing were far less lethal than drinking and driving, but not any better. I could always fix it. No, I’d leave it and add what I was thinking now.

  Last night I did a new different. I drank vodka. I’ve never drunk vodka before. Really, I haven’t drunk much of anything before. Last night my friend and I drank too much. This morning I’m going to be drinking even more. Water, lots and lots of water, to go with the aspirin to ease my headache. I’m going to keep doing differents. Some are better than others. This one wasn’t worth repeating.

  DAY 33

  “So have you ever been in the back of a police car?”

  “Of course not!” I exclaimed.

  There were no handles on the door, so I couldn’t get out even if I wanted to. I was trapped, separated from the front seats by a metal mesh screen. I was wearing a bulletproof vest, and over that an orange sash that said CIVILIAN in big white letters, as if that was the only thing that revealed I wasn’t really a police officer.

  “I didn’t think so. You don’t look like a hardened criminal,” the younger of the two officers—“just call me Todd”—said. He didn’t look much older than I was. He reminded me of a kid at the eighth-grade dance who’d borrowed his father’s sports jacket, except that tonight he’d borrowed his father’s uniform and gun.

  “You know that some of our ride-alongs are part of the Scared Straight program,” the older officer—“call me Sarge”—said.

  “I don’t know what that means.”

  “Teenagers at risk of getting in trouble with the law or who have already committed minor offences experience what it’s like to be in the system,” Sarge explained. “They get picked up at home, thrown in the back of the car, processed, printed and tossed in the cells for the evening.”

  “The hope is that they can be scared straight and won’t become criminals,” Todd explained.

  “I’ve never even had a detention at school before,” I said.

  “Never?” Todd asked in disbelief.

  “Never. From kindergarten until I graduated.”

  “I had days in high school where I was given more than one detention,” Todd said.

  “That I believe, Junior,” Sarge said. “The first time they put you in my car, I thought you were here for a ride-along.”

  “I guess when you get to be as old as you are, everybody looks young,” Todd said.<
br />
  “I wish I could still give you a detention every now and again. So, Sophie, why are you doing this? Are you thinking about a career in law enforcement?”

  “No, never!” I exclaimed and then thought better of my reaction. “Not that there’s anything wrong with being a police officer. It’s just that I’m not good with unpredictable things.”

  “We get a lot of unpredictable,” Todd said. “Unpredictable and dangerous is what gives us our rush.”

  Sarge laughed. “Ninety-nine percent of what we do is predictable, and as exciting as watching paint dry.”

  “And the other 1 percent?” I asked.

  “That’s where we earn our pay and gray hair.”

  The non-gray hair on my arms stood up.

  “But probably tonight the most exciting thing that’s going to happen is watching Todd eat. That’s dangerous, unpredictable and a little—did you see that?” Sarge asked, his voice suddenly changing.

  “Saw it. On it.”

  “Saw what? On what?” I asked.

  They ignored me as Todd barked out letters and numbers into the radio and the sergeant put on the red lights.

  “He’s not stopping,” Todd said.

  “He might not have noticed or doesn’t think we’re after him. Give him the siren as well.”

  Todd hit the siren. It got my attention and that of the driver of the car. His brake lights flashed, and he pulled over to the curb and came to a stop. We pulled in a couple of car lengths behind him. The officers left the lights on but turned off the siren.

  “What did he do?” I asked.

  “Erratic driving. He veered badly out of his lane,” Todd explained.

  A staticky voice came over the radio.

  “No wants, no warrants, no warnings on that plate,” Todd said.

  “Don’t let your guard down because of that. Remember, SOP—standard operating procedure.” Sarge turned to face me through the mesh. “I’m going to open the back door as I get out. That doesn’t mean you should get out of the car. I just want you to be able to get out if you need to.”

  “Why would I need to?”

  “You won’t, so don’t get out, okay?”

  I nodded. He didn’t have to worry.

  They got out, and Sarge opened the back driver’s-side door, leaving it slightly open so it wouldn’t relock. I fought the urge to pull it closed to seal me inside, safe and sound.

  Sarge walked directly to the driver’s door of the vehicle. Todd walked to the other side, stopping well short of the vehicle. I’d seen enough TV police shows to know that’s how they did it—Todd covering the sergeant in case the driver pulled a gun or something. How silly was I to even think about that? The driver of the car was probably some soccer mom who’d wandered out of her lane because she’d dropped her cell phone or the baby in the backseat had cried or—

  Sarge had reached through the open window of the car and was struggling, wrestling, with the person at the wheel! Todd charged over, reached in and grabbed the man as well, and the two of them pulled the man out the window and tossed him onto the ground. The man bounced to his feet. He was big, much too big to have been pulled through the window of a car. He tried to run, but Todd grabbed him by the neck. He spun around and punched Todd!

  Todd staggered backward, and at the same instant the sergeant tackled the man, knocking him to the ground. Todd recovered and leaped on top of him too. Lightning fast, Sarge whipped out his cuffs and locked them onto the man’s wrists. He and Todd hauled the man to his feet. They dragged him to the police car and threw him on the hood with a thud. The car shook, and I reacted by screaming! The man, his head pressed against the car, looked up, saw me and, despite his situation, winked at me.

  I turned out the light, but I didn’t think I’d be able to sleep. There was still adrenaline in my veins. How many nights had I sat at home watching TV shows that involved the police? Today it was like I’d been in one. Maybe it was that leftover adrenaline talking, but it wasn’t completely crazy to think it would be pretty exciting to be a police officer.

  I reached over and turned on the light. Maybe I’d just add a little more to my blog before I went to sleep.

  DAY 35

  I continued to get notifications throughout the day. Of everything I’d posted, nothing had gotten such a reaction. I was amazed at how many times the picture had been retweeted, favorited, liked and commented on. My Facebook friends now numbered over 1,600, Twitter was over 600, and Instagram had leaped to 743 followers. Apparently, being dressed in a Wonder Woman costume was a big hit. I went back into my blog entry.

  It was like being part of the biggest, strangest, Halloween party ever, and that party was taking place in the middle of the summer. But of course it wasn’t a party, it was a convention—a Comic convention. While costumes weren’t mandatory, they certainly were plentiful. Every single cartoon and comic superhero from Star Wars, Star Trek, Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones, Hunger Games, X-Men and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles seemed to be represented there. I really did like the Turtles and always had a soft spot for Leonardo—I used to watch the show with Oliver and pretend I was April O’Neil, ace reporter. She was fun and full of adventure and wasn’t afraid of anything. I admired that about her. I still do.

  Ella insisted we couldn’t truly go to Comic Con without costumes, and she picked out ours. If I’d known what she was going to pick, I might have fought harder. I went as Wonder Woman, and she was Catwoman. I couldn’t believe how little material went into my costume and how tight hers was. But once we got there, I learned that those are the two essential elements of any female costume—tight and revealing. Well, those are the ones that get attention, and we got attention. In some ways, though, we did seem a little old school compared to those dressed as Katniss and Storm.

  The males—who far, far outnumbered the females—had their share of costumes featuring less-than-usual amounts of clothing, and somehow it seemed like those who most should have covered up didn’t. Superman, as far as I can remember, had a six-pack and not a keg.

  Of course, that was only true of some of the Supermen. There were lots and lots of them. Plus dozens of stormtroopers—who would want to be a stormtrooper?—and enough hobbits to actually find the one ring to rule them all.

  Before we went I was pretty sure I knew what sort of person goes to a Comic convention. And I guess I was right and wrong. There were some people who were a little fanatical—after all, painting yourself completely blue like an avatar or green from head to toe like the Incredible Hulk is not a sign of what most people would call balance. And why were there so many Incredible Hulks to begin with? Is there something in the male psyche that makes them want to wander around shirtless, in ripped pants, while painted green and making grunting sounds? Maybe a bunch of these guys were computer nerds who live in their parents’ basements and have never had a girlfriend because they are too busy playing online video games.

  What surprised me more than those people were the participants who were so different. As we started talking to people, we found husbands and wives, people with kids and grandkids. We talked to people who were lawyers, mechanics and doctors—including my family doctor. Weird.

  He was dressed as Gandalf the Grey. If he hadn’t come up to me, I never would have recognized him underneath the robe and fake beard. Obviously he didn’t feel bad or embarrassed or he wouldn’t have come up to say hello. In fact, he was very proud of his costume and talked about some of the other conventions he’d been at across the continent. I don’t think I can ever see Dr. Watson again without thinking about him in costume—and I’m almost due for my annual physical. Maybe it isn’t so bad to have a physical done by a wizard. Thank goodness he wasn’t dressed like a Smurf.

  He wasn’t the only person we ran into that we knew. One of our high-school teachers—I guess now that we’ve graduated, a former high-school teacher—Mrs. Van Norman—was dressed as Catwoman as well. Sh
e was, however, Catwoman dressed in so little material that it seemed like Ella was dressed in a full-length robe by comparison. She was so friendly and gave us both a big hug. I had trouble making eye contact as we talked, but then realized there was no place else safe to look at her.

  What I also noticed were the looks she was getting. Every single guy who passed by stared at her. Apparently, little-dressed Catwoman was equally appealing to hobbits, stormtroopers, Captain Americas and those not dressed as anything except themselves.

  It’s easy to make fun of something you’ve never done. What I saw on the surface was a bunch of people dressed in strange costumes. What I found underneath the costumes were people who were friendly and kind, committed and knowledgeable, passionate and playful. Maybe a bunch of them are nerds. Maybe I’m one of them.

  I’m not going to go to next year’s convention, but I’m not saying I won’t ever go again.

  Let the force be with you. Live long and prosper. Cowabunga, dude. May the odds be ever in your favor. And always remember, not all those who wander are lost.

  DAY 37

  “Okay, let’s go over the signals one more time!” the spotter yelled from the back of the boat. Ella was sitting beside him while I lay on my stomach on top of the tube, bobbing up and down.

  We went through the signals for faster, slower, stop and go home. He was satisfied I knew them.

  “And this one is the signal for I want to throw up,” Ella said, putting a finger in her mouth.

  “That doesn’t happen—well, hardly ever,” the spotter said. “Are you ready to go?”

  I nodded, gave a thumbs-up and tried for a smile. The signal worked, and the engine noise increased as the boat started to move slowly away. The slack in the rope lessened as it snaked through the water, getting taut, and then I was jerked forward. Instinctively I tightened my grip on the handles.

  The boat went faster. My feet skimmed the surface as the tube skipped along. We continued to travel in a straight line away from the shore and out into the middle of the lake.