The Rule of Won

by Stefan Petrucha

  It’s not enough. I’m not enough. The door’s rusted shut. The rung threatens to break, rotted by time and ocean. I give it one last try.

  A few last tiny bubbles roll from my lips up my face. Just as I’m about to give in to the suicidal longing of my body to inhale, the door gives, just an inch. In an instant, the sea floor is bathed in incredibly warm, soothing light, the light of God, of the universe, of the ultimate.

  Then I wake up.

  And everything I’ve dreamed is true.

  It ended. Everyone looked up, but no one spoke. All you could hear for a while was the steady rain outside. The meditation, or whatever it was, made about as much sense to me as one of Mrs. D’s poetry assignments, but I was feeling unusually calm, groggy even. I had to wonder if it was one of those secret subliminal hypnosis tapes, the kind that reprogrammed you without you even knowing.

  Ethan spoke again. “I want everyone here right now to find themselves a mesmory. Pick the first one that comes to mind, anything—something in your room, a moment from a vacation, something cheerful if you can, but something that feels totally real.”

  I wasn’t trying to make fun or anything, but the first thing that came to my mind, for whatever freaky reason, was that spork snapping against the french fry during lunch. It was a pretty solid memory—the plastic, the sound of the crunch, the roar of the cafeteria, that special oily french fry smell—so I went with it. I mean, why not? I was there, right?

  “Got it? Hold on to that and chant with me, ‘Screech Neck High will get more funding. Screech Neck High will get more funding.’ ”

  A few kids mumbled the words. I sort of whispered them to myself.

  “I know it feels silly,” Ethan said. “But trust me. Trust the book. Be willing to feel like a jerk at first. It’s okay. It’s going to work.”

  He sure was right about the feeling like a jerk part. That aside, I wasn’t exactly clear on what school funding had to do with a breaking spork, other than that maybe we should have better eating utensils in the lunchroom, but this didn’t seem like the time to ask.

  So we all did it, a little louder: “Screech Neck High will get more funding. Screech Neck High will get more funding.”

  Most of us anyway. I think that big Goth, Landon, was just moving his black-lipsticked lips.

  We chanted a few more times, and out of nowhere, the image in my head changed. Instead of breaking, the spork stabbed the french fry, and I was able to pop it into my mouth and eat it.

  You know what? It tasted pretty good. Not the best fry I ever ate, but not the worst either.

  “Screech Neck High will get more funding. Screech Neck High will get more funding.”

  Ethan clapped his hands again. “That’s it, everyone! That’s imanifesting! Get into that state of mind, then you can chant, draw, sing, paint, sculpt, whatever works for you, whatever helps you express your desired reality. If everyone does that just a few minutes a day, by next week, Screech High will be rolling in dough.”

  Or at least stronger sporks.

  That was it for the second meeting. Erica was first out the door. She must have seen me and felt as embarrassed about the chanting as I did. I was starting to feel bad that I hadn’t talked to her all this past week, and with things not going so well with Vicky I didn’t want to lose my only other friend.

  As for Vicky, I knew she was pissed about the way I spoke to Master Ethan. I was planning to ask her to share an umbrella so we could talk about it, but when I turned around, she wasn’t even in her seat.

  I hopped up and went to the door, hoping to catch either Vicky or Erica.

  Vicky was out in the rain, sloshing her way across the parking lot. I thought about running after her but realized how pathetic that would be.

  “See you next meeting,” Ethan said, right behind me at the door.

  From far off, Vicky turned back and smiled. At him.

  I got this pang. Jealousy. Defeat. Both. Weird as Ethan was, there was something about him that seemed pretty cool, and I worried he was better than me. Or at least that he looked better to someone who didn’t appreciate my slacker ways.

  A few more steps and Vicky vanished into the gray.

  The rain came down harder, which made me realize I needed a bathroom, so I headed back into the school. Even with the lights on, the place was dark, and with the students gone, very empty. The slosh of my wet sneakers against the linoleum echoed along the hall.

  I walked into the bathroom, pushing in the worn old door. Someone else was there. It was Landon, the guy who wanted an Xbox. He was washing his hands at the sink. Between the rushing water and the rain pelting the window, I guess he hadn’t heard me come in and figured he was still alone.

  His face was all serious, and he was looking down at his soapy hands, rubbing them, chanting softly to himself, “Screech Neck High will get more funding. Screech Neck High will get more funding. Screech Neck High will get more funding.”

  “Right,” I thought. “When hell freezes over. When pigs have wings . . .

  “ . . .when Vicky starts seeing me again.”

  5

  As I left the school, my bus was pulling away from the stop. Rather than stand in the rain another twenty minutes, I booked, my feet slamming puddles, sending water spraying up.

  Wait, wait, wait!

  But it kept moving.

  Wait, wait, wait!

  Just for the hell of it, remembering the spork, I tried as hard as I could to imagine the bus stopping for me. All at once, it hissed to a standstill and the doors flopped opened. Just like I’d imagined.

  Coincidence. Had to be.

  I got on, flashed my pass, paid my quarter, and thanked the man. No seats, of course, but through a sea of backpacks and soggy hair, I caught a glimpse of Erica hunched over her notebook. I ambled over, squeezing between wet umbrellas and coats.

  As I got closer, I could see that the skin on her face was wet. Drops of rainwater beaded on that hat of hers. It was a good look.

  “Hey,” I said.

  She looked up. “Hey, stranger. Slouching towards Bethlehem?”

  “Huh?”

  “Yeats. ‘And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?’ ”

  “I’m a rough beast?”

  “No, Mr. Dunne,” she said. “But you could stand up straighter.”

  So I stood up straighter. Some water dripped down my face.

  “Rain sucks,” I said.

  Her brow crinkled. “Odd. I like it.”

  “Yeah, I could tell by that huge grin on your face,” I told her. I nodded at the open notebook in her lap. “Catch-up for all the creative writing classes you’ve ditched? If I could be any animal in the world . . .”

  She shook her head. “No. Algebra.”

  I leaned in and squinted. “Don’t see any numbers.”

  She turned the book my way. On it, over and over, in her neat, tiny handwriting, it said, “I will ace my algebra class. I will ace my algebra class. I will ace my algebra class.”

  The words covered the page.

  I wanted to ask her if she really believed that junk, but that’d be a pretty stupid question, right? I mean, why fill a page like that if she didn’t? So I decided to play along.

  “A little Rule of Won freelancing?”

  “I already did a page of ‘Screech Neck High will get more funding,’ so I thought I might move on.”

  I leaned forward and whispered conspiratorially, “I think I may have just gotten the bus to stop for me.”

  “Maybe . . . but I saw you coming so I shouted to the driver to stop. I can be pretty loud.”

  “Oh.” Made sense. I was surprised to feel a little disappointed. “Thanks. So . . . think that’ll help your studying?”

  Her brow furrowed as if I’d missed the point. “Study? What for?”

  Usually that’s my line, but math was never a big problem for me. “Are you kidding? Not at all?”

  “Non, mon ami, je ne devrais
avoir à,” she said. “C’est la Règle.”

  “I don’t speak Italian.”

  “French. No, my friend, I shouldn’t have to. It’s the Rule.”

  In spite of myself, I was doing that face-scrunching thing big time. Was she pulling my leg? Would I look like an idiot if I believed her?

  “Well, maybe, but studying wouldn’t . . . hurt, would it?” I sort of stammered it out in a way that reminded me of All-den.

  Erica pursed her lips. “Oh, but it does, like a hot stick in the eye. I’ve studied until I’m blue in the face and gotten nothing. Writing, meditating, I can handle. This is much, much better.”

  “Well, good luck with that.”

  “Why, Mr. Dunne, don’t you believe?”

  I shrugged. I still didn’t buy the magic if you want it, here it is part, but was it really totally stupid? It brought a bunch of people together, and now they were all at least thinking about the school in a good way.

  “Maybe in some cases. For math? I don’t know.”

  “But you’ve read the book, right?”

  I rolled my eyes. “Not yet.”

  A dark, wry smile crossed her features. “Caleb, why are you in the Crave?”

  I blew some air through pursed lips. “To open my horizons?”

  “Good. At least you’re not just trying to impress some ex-girlfriend who’s running for president so you can get back together with her.”

  My brain shot right past the whole sarcasm thing. “What do you mean, ex?”

  Erica went back to her writing. The rest of the trip was quiet.

  When I got home—home being a one-bedroom apartment in a subsidized housing project, with a dozen locks on the door—the place was empty. It’s a little dark here later in the day, but they’d fumigated recently, so at least the roaches were gone. Mom got home from work late so often I was forgetting what she looked like, and Grandpa Joey, well, you never knew whether he’d be around or not. He runs his own auto repair shop in town. Sometimes he’ll spend all night working on a car, sometimes, despite his honest streak, he won’t show. Drives his customers nuts.

  Maybe that’s why business wasn’t so good.

  I cracked some windows to let out the bug-spray stench, then, again for the hell of it, chanted, “Screech Neck High will get more funding” a few times.

  It felt stupid, so I started singing it to the tune of “American Idiot” by Green Day. That was kind of fun: “Screechneck high will get more funding—dehdehdehdehdehdehdeh.”

  Even that got tired fast, and I figured I’d done my part for the day. When it didn’t work, no one could blame me.

  I had no homework, and that damn book was sitting on the table where I’d left it since the previous week, so I picked it up, hopped on the couch, and opened to page one. That wasn’t really for the hell of it. I wanted to be able to tell Vicky I’d at least cracked it open, and yeah, by now I was curious. I mean, the thirty million people who bought it couldn’t be totally out of their minds, could they? Maybe some of it was okay.

  I thought Vicky had been making fun of me when she’d said it was an easy read. Nope. Not only were there plenty of pictures, it was also printed on thick paper with huge type, which made the book look a lot longer than it actually was. I also felt like I’d already read most of it, since everything Ethan had said was practically a direct quote.

  Yadda-yadda-yadda, people ruin their own lives with negative thoughts, yadda-yadda-yadda, you can have it all, yadda-yadda-yadda, imanifest your mesmories, yadda-yadda-yadda . . .

  I was halfway through when a voice called out, “Caleb!”

  My heart nearly lurched up into my eyeballs. A short thin figure stood in the bedroom doorway. It was my mother. She’s a pretty woman—dark brown hair, dark eyes, a little heavy, but healthy looking. Her retail business suit was so familiar it looked like a second skin.

  I’d thought I was alone, but I guess she was napping before her evening shift.

  “What, Ma? What?” I shouted as I threw myself into a seated position and made ready to grab her and run out of the apartment. I thought the building was on fire, or she was being attacked by a robber.

  She grinned. “You’re reading! Guess my hard work really is for something.”

  I exhaled. “Not if you scare me like that again. Trying to kill me?”

  “Sorry, sweetie,” she said, and then she came over and mussed my hair. As she did, she looked down at the title and made a face.

  “Something wrong?” I asked.

  She quickly shook her head. “No. It’s just that everyone at work is reading that thing, and I never thought of you as faddish. At least it’s got words in it.”

  “What do you think of it?”

  Late for work, she was already edging toward the door. “Can’t say. I haven’t read it, but it reminds me of something I read when I was your age, Out on a Limb, by Shirley MacLaine. All about reincarnation and mysticism.”

  “Mom,” I said, a little annoyed. “I think this is a little more scientific.”

  “I’m sure it is,” she said, but in a way that made me think she was sure it wasn’t. I winced inwardly, worried she’d heard my earlier electric-guitar chanting. She smiled and opened the door. “Gotta go, sweetie.”

  Alone again, I settled back onto the couch and returned to the book. Like I said, it was an easy read, and I cruised through the rest faster than a graphic novel.

  I was just about finished, still lying on the sofa, trying to shift so the loose spring wouldn’t poke my spine, when the door rattled, and my peace was again disturbed. This time by Grandpa Joey.

  He’s a gnarled old guy, but gnarled in a way that makes everything about him seem strong, the way a knot in a piece of wood is tougher, denser than the rest. He insists I call him Joey. It’s not his name, just the name on the sign of the repair place he bought forty years ago, Joey’s Auto Repairs. Since all his customers call him Joey, he tells me he’s getting too old to answer to too many names. Mom still calls him Dad.

  “What the hell’s going on?” he said, slamming his tool case down with a thud. He always dropped it in the same spot. The wood in the floor there was scratched and worn. “The TV isn’t on. You sick?”

  “No, I’m reading. You’re just like Mom. What is it with you guys? I read sometimes.”

  “Right. And sometimes I like to put on ballet tights and do a few pliés.”

  I held the book up, to prove what I said was true. He squinted at it.

  “What’s it about?”

  “Positive thinking.”

  He laughed. “I’m positive you’re wasting your time. That positive enough for you? Why don’t you read a Chilton’s or something useful?”

  “This could be useful,” I said. I pretended to go back to reading, even though I was up to the index.

  He shook his head and kept walking. A few paces toward the kitchen, he stopped short, then turned around to look at me again.

  “It’s for some girl, right?”

  Joey’s still got a lot on the ball.

  “Any use lying?” I asked.

  “Nah.”

  “Then yeah. Pretty much.”

  Chuckling, he came back and patted me on the shoulder, as if he were proud of me and sorry for me at the same time.

  That’s Joey. I’d like to say he was my father figure if he weren’t so much like a freaking lawn gnome with attitude. But I love him nearly the same as I love Mom.

  Actually reading the book didn’t change my opinion. Believing in The Rule still felt like believing in Santa Claus, without the having-to-be-good part. Even so, when I went to bed that night, I thought of my spork and said those words to myself over and over, “Screech Neck High will get more funding.”

  Might as well, right?

  Next morning, when I saw Vicky in the hall, I didn’t call to her, I just snuck up and spun her around.

  She looked annoyed until I said, “Read it.”

  “Really?”

  “Cover to cover. Eve
n the index. Had no idea how many words start with ‘X.’ ”

  “That’s great. I’m so proud of you, Caleb,” she said.

  She got so excited, she gave me a hug, wrapping her arms around me and clicking her painted fingernails together across my shoulders. I think they had little eyeballs on them that day, but they went by so fast, I couldn’t be sure. It felt nice, don’t get me wrong, but it wasn’t exactly a boyfriend/girlfriend hug, more a brother/sister thing.

  Sometimes, even when I know what’s up, I still go through the motions. It’s the downside of being a slacker, I guess, not being willing to change direction unless you absolutely have to, because it requires effort.

  “So, can we go out again sometime?”

  She froze, face still smiling, only now she wasn’t smiling because she was happy, more like she was buying time.

  “Sure,” she finally said.

  Then there was an even bigger pause.

  “Maybe we can get together with some of the kids from the Crave,” she said.

  “That’s not exactly what I had in—”

  She kept going, like I hadn’t even opened my mouth. “Isn’t the book amazing? Isn’t Ethan amazing? I mean, he really understands, and he really believes. You can just see it in his eyes, and he talks like he’s on fire.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “And did you check out his shoelaces?”

  Instead of responding, she kept talking. I nodded a whole lot until Vicky said she had to go do something or other and I said I had to do something or other, too, so I trudged off, all but convinced we had just broken up.

  I was heading toward trig when I spotted All-den struggling to stuff books into his overpacked locker. This guy was always stuffing things, grunting and shoving, just like a cartoon character.

  I scooped up a few and held them out to him.

  “Caleb,” he said.

  “All-den,” I answered.

  We stood there a second, me holding out the books, him unable to grab them because he couldn’t move his hands. He nodded toward the pile he was holding up. I rolled my eyes and moved in.

  I shoved the books I was holding on top of the pile, then held the whole mess in place as he slammed the locker shut.