“I’ll just talk to him, see what’s up, tell him I’m here to help if he needs it,” I said earnestly and with great sense of upstanding moral duty.
“Shit man, you really better be getting community service hours for this.”
“I’ll see if I can get Darcy to sign off on it,” we laughed.
Mr. Darcy smiled at me after class with one of his signature head nods of understanding as I went to chat with our man Kenneth.
“Hey Ken—”
“Yeah?”
“I thought about what we talked about some more, and I just wanted to let you know that I’m here for you if you wanna talk, or anything; hell, I’ll even proofread some more of your stories if you want.”
“I am working on a novel,” said the boy earnestly and with importance.
Oh, greeaat, I thought, “Oh, how cool, what’s it about?” I said.
“I’m thinking of typing up my journal, changing the names and seeing about getting it published. I’d love for you to take a look at it when I’m ready.”
So, he thinks he’s important or even interesting enough to be the character in a novel. Prick. “Sure, I’d be more than happy to,” I said, and remembering Mr. Darcy I thought to add, “Ken, what’re you doing next weekend?”
“Nothing, I don’t think.”
“Well, if you’re free, do you wanna hang out Saturday?”
“Sure, sounds good, talk to you later, my dude.”
What have I gotten myself into?
. . . . .
Things had kind of seemed to calm down at home, or at least they reached a comfortable state of discomfort. The parental units were talking again, just about the day-to-day status quo things though, two separate people under one roof. Things stayed like this for a bit, teetering on the knife’s edge; I tried to tip the scales toward order and peace, but as always, entropy won out, and we (they) were thrust back into discord. I was able to practice my normal escapism during the week, staying late to clean up the boathouse after practice, doing anything to minimize my time on the front lines at home. But, come Friday, I knew the weekend wouldn’t be so easygoing.
I listened in on shouting, a bedroom door slamming, footsteps, a refrigerator door opening and closing, and the plastic-leather of a couch compressing under the weight of an occupant, and the muffled drone of the television.
I walked to the refrigerator and got a bottle of water. Returning to my room, I kissed my sitting mother on the top of her head and whispered, “I love you, mom.”
In my room, I opened my laptop, checked Facebook, checked YouTube, checked Outlook, and then closed those windows and hovered the cursor over ‘shut down.’ I reopened Outlook and wrote and rewrote an email to Mr. Darcy. I always got nervous, or at least very self-conscious when writing an email to an English teacher, I felt like they’d always judge my grammar and syntax.
I broke down and typed out the email asking him if I could join him for dinner that Saturday.
I deleted it instead of sending it. I still thought the whole idea was still a little weird, and I certainly didn’t want to impose. I didn’t want to be a burden to him, or to anyone for that matter, but especially him.
Saturday came and went, as did the next week in anticipation of my scheduled play-date with Ken. I picked him up after practice from his huge, beautiful home in Coronado; I always love driving across the bridge from the city to Coronado. I met his parents, starting pleasant small talk, and Ken quickly told them to shut up so he could leave. Top down, he directed me to a place near the beach where we got boujee Coronado Mexican-ish food to go and ate it in the car parked by the shore. You know, really bromantic shit.
We hadn’t had the chance to just talk for such an extended period of time before, and it was good. We talked about a lot of things. He told me more about his little sister and taking care of her when his parents weren’t there. How he couldn’t wait to get a car so he could drive his sister to and from school; it terrified him when his mom drove strung out on meds. His parents didn’t seem to care about him, just throwing money at any problems that arose. He told me he hated them.
I told him that they seemed nice, that he should be kinder to them, and that he should be grateful for what he does have.
He seemed disappointed in me and began almost lecturing me, “Alex, it’s like if you only watch the last half-hour of an action movie, and only see the parts where the hero comes in and tortures, fucks-up, and kills the bad guys, you’d get the idea that the roles were reversed; you’d think that Bruce Willis is some sick fuck and Alan Rickman is just some helpless foreigner. You didn’t see the whole first part of the movie when the bad guy is really the bad guy. That’s what it’s like when you come over and see me ignore or argue with my parents and tell me to be nicer to them. I’m done being nice to people like that.”
“Your parents made you walk on broken glass?”
“Fuck you too, man,” we laughed, which was a nice change of pace.
He then went on a bit of a tirade against the entitlement of other people at the school, and the cliquiness, and all the other things he generally doesn’t like about high school and losing touch with his friends. High school does just suck, but that’s life.
“I don’t get, it, I just don’t get it. Homecoming was awful, and then they all go and have fun at their parties afterwards. Why do they get to have all the fun? We go to the same school, but we live in different worlds,” he said, “it’s just so goddamn segregated at school, it’s the populars and everyone else.”
“Yeah,” I let out, “but are we really that different? I mean, we’re all just kids still you know?” he agreed, and I continued, “We are pretty much the same underneath all that social bullshit. We like the same things, we like to do the same things, and you’re right, why can’t we just get along more?”
“Well, uh, that’s just not it though. I don’t know, it just doesn’t work that way.”
“Why not though, I mean, why doesn’t it work that way, you know?”
“Because they don’t have to like us, they’re different, we’re different, that’s just it. I don’t know.”
“Okay,” I said. I didn’t know whether to be insulted or feel complimented that he included me in his perceived group. Either way though, I didn’t really like the suggestion.
“I don’t know if I even want to try anymore,” he said.
“Why’s that?”
“I just keep getting rejected, I put my heart out there and just keep getting rejected, I don’t know what these girls could want.”
This wasn’t really a conversation I wanted to have.
“It happened again today,” he continued.
“What?”
“I see it everywhere, and it takes so much of me to act like it’s normal, and not just grab one of those fucking yuccie, yuppie rich kids and just shake them. I hate entitlement, entitled to something, all these people. Entitled to a car. Entitled to a good education, entitled a good grade, that’s really what they’re after. I just can’t stand it, kids that have been given everything, kids who never know anything other than having, never know anything other than being entitled to having.”
I thought this opinion was a bit strange coming from someone as well off as him.
“They don’t know what it’s like to have to fucking take care of anyone, even themselves. Entitled to a goddamn new phone. Your phone breaks, daddy gives you a new one, everyone and their fucking iPhone. Crash your car, you get a new one, mommy and daddy bought you a car, now they’ll buy you a new one because you’re entitled to it just like how you felt entitled to the road and didn’t have to pay attention to them, this actually fucking happened,
and they just walked away. It’s a sheltered culture of entitlement, and I’m sick of it. And I’m fucking sick of giving every part of myself to these girls with fucking nothing in return, why won’t they like me, spoiled bitches.”
I didn’t really want to contest him, so I just nodded and sympathized with the rejection and tried to move on. And we did, we talked about books and movies and TV, and I drove him home before dark. I knew what I’d gotten myself into, and some of the things he said really, really stuck to me, and they concerned me too. I guess I’m glad that he let me in, I’m just worried about all that anger. I mean, I used to be angry too, I just knew it didn’t do anything for me.
He’s so caught up in all of the drama, the cliques, the inclusion and exclusion, and the girls. He feels so intensely. His rage and his love. I’ve just given up on that, the less I open myself to feeling, the less hurt I can get, the less disappointed. I don’t know which is better though. It doesn’t mean I don’t hope things would happen, I just don’t get my hopes up. Rage and love, apathy and hope.
Thinking about it, I think that there’s a real difference between growing up in a certain generation and growing up poor in that same generation, all your tech and cultural touchstones are usually five years behind the new stuff, so looking back you identify more with the older generation a bit. Like I went to public elementary school, and we learned on those clucky beige plastic box computers that were as old as I was, when at the same time those big clear colored plastic iMacs were becoming popular everywhere else, especially among the kids I’d later go to school with at Twain Pacific. And it’s the same thing now, I had a flip phone when everyone else was getting iPhone 3G’s. Plus now that I finally have an iPhone, I really just don’t get that whole broken iPhone thing that’s popular now. These rich kids would so much rather have a broken expensive thing than a perfectly fine cheap thing. And they don’t care about breaking things either, they’re just cavalier with that too.
. . . . .
I returned home after dark to find my mom sitting on the couch, in her nightgown, waiting to scold me and ask why, where, and with whom I was late. She yelled, and I apologized. I didn’t bother to argue like I normally would, I didn’t bother telling her that I had already told her I didn’t know when I’d be home, that I had told her before not to wait up and not to worry; I instead just took her yelling, and I kept apologizing. I was sad and exhausted by the time I got to bed.
CHAPTER 9.
A Proper Polish Welcome
IT WAS FRIDAY, November 25th and the three of us (my parents and I) went out to dinner that night for my 17th birthday after I spent the day nonchalantly at school. Around then and after that, things seemingly evened out at home, and the good days came to outnumber the bad as December break approached. I was busy enough studying for the SAT I’d take in January and finishing up mid-term exams to be concerned with too much else, and when break finally did come I looked forward to the relaxation it would bring. I’d hang out with Dan playing video games, I’d read, and I’d watch movies or television. I’d spend the days at home with my mom, doing my own things and doing fix-up work around the house and yard, and then we’d have dinner as a family almost every night. And it was really nice.
And after about a week of this, I thought I’d go insane. Stir crazy, cabin fever, or whatever. It didn’t help that being home with my parents that much also meant we had so many more opportunities to get on each other’s nerves. It got to the point that almost everything they did annoyed me. I didn’t bring it up to them though, I know it was irrational, so I didn’t want to really trouble them with it. They still fought though.
An argument between my parents usually started as a misunderstanding that spiraled downward from there, reopening old wounds, rehashing old fights, bringing up things that were said were forgiven. And they weren’t even arguing, they were just fighting; contentious, belligerent, and at times downright cruel. Now, I really needed to get out; Dan and his parents didn’t mind, they actually enjoyed when I’d stay over, but yesterday they drove up to NorCal for the week. I tried to just bear it at home, but the fighting once again became more frequent. I swear if I started to plot out the ebb and flow of their clashes I could come up with some sort of tidal pattern to it all.
During what I guessed to be high tide, I knew I just needed to be somewhere other than home. I called Dan to see how he was doing; I usually had to be relatively quiet or nondescript on the phone, as my mom often had the ‘accidental’ habit of listening in from the other room, but she was out for the day running errands (so I called Dan in between furious bouts of getting to jerk off home alone for once).
“Have you been up to anything since I left?” he asked.
“Not really, just hanging around home.”
“You’re just staying home still? Jesus, I’d go crazy. I’d honestly take Darcy up on his dinner offer if I was you, that’ll at least get you out of the house.”
“Yeah, I guess I’ll email him tonight. I don’t know how I’d phrase that to my parents though, dinner at a teacher’s house seems a bit weird.”
“Eh, just tell them, what’s the harm?”
“You know my mom, though. She probably thinks we’re ‘smoking dope’ right now.”
“So dinner with a fifty-year-old man is out?”
“And his family, and yes. I’ll just tell them that I’m at yours, if that’s cool with you.”
“Because your conservative mom just loves when you hang out with your gay best friend.”
“Oh, she doesn’t know. As far as she’s concerned you just haven’t found the right girl yet.”
“And you?”
“She thinks kissing is a big step in high school. She’d die if she ever saw what went on at parties here.”
“When have you ever ‘seen what goes on at parties here’?”
“I mean I’ve heard stories...” we laughed.
. . . . .
That evening, I hesitated to send that email to Mr. Darcy, and I wrote and deleted three separate drafts, but finally, I sent the fourth and final one late that night.
I woke up the next morning to a reply from Mr. Darcy, very enthusiastically extending an invitation to dinner the next night. Goddamn, I thought, he even got up early during break.
. . . . .
It took a little while to decide where on the spectrum from formal to casual my attire should fall, and it took less time to lie to my parents that I was going over to Dan’s for dinner.
I arrived at their La Jolla home ten minutes before six and waited in my parked car for nine minutes. They had a beautiful home, his wife was a well-paid doctor, and he loved teaching so things worked out. I knocked; Mr. Darcy opened the door, and welcomed me in, he mentioned something to me about my timeliness as he called to the kitchen to his wife and upstairs to his daughter that their guest had arrived.
I walked into the kitchen as Mrs. Darcy took off oven mitts to shake my hand asking if I wanted anything to drink. I thanked her for her hospitality and asked if there was anything I could help with.
“No, thank you,” as she checked the oven.
I sat down in the dining room as Mr. Darcy said “well, the lawn does need mowing, and the fence could use a fresh coat of paint,” with a chuckle.
“I’d apologize for my father, but I’m sure you already know him.”
I turned around to find the owner of the voice to be a slender yet voluptuous frame silhouetted by the light from the kitchen. The wisps of her deep-amber hair that floated on the top of her head were illuminated from behind like a halo, and I could see the outline of her elegant legs through the thin fabric of the maxi-skirt that flowed from her thin waist and cascaded down her hips.
I stood
up and reached out my hand, “Alexander.”
She stepped into the light of the dining room to meet my hand, and I could see her beautiful face, “Delila” she replied and smiled.
She was a sophomore at Twain, I’d seen her around before; everyone knows of everyone else at that school, but I never had the formal introduction until now. She sat down at the table opposite me, and soon dinner was served. They talked about the normal things, work, school, and asked me about school and extracurriculars and writing; they were such a smart family, they read books and talked about them, talked about current events and politics, it was great. Lila’s older sister was a sophomore at NYU, she was staying up there for the break, she loved it there and loved the city. Mr. Darcy and family were going to fly up and visit her for a few days after New Year’s. I was glad I caught them for dinner in the window after Christmas and before their trip. They had a beautiful Douglas Fir minimalistically decorated with only white string lights in the corner of the living room. They were spiritual, but not religious, from what I had gathered, like just about everyone else these days.
My mom, on the other hand, was pretty Evangelical and my father fairly Catholic. We didn’t talk about it much, and my Agnosticism was kind of a don’t ask, don’t tell subject; I was as Christian as they were in their minds. If you think about it, everyone’s an atheist to other religions, I’m just an atheist to all of them.
There was sorbet for dessert and coffee. We finished our meal, I thanked them and said goodbye with a handshake from the Mr. a hug from the Mrs. and a wave from the youngest; I already felt welcomed by this family.
I drove home through the cool dark down The 5 from La Jolla to Point Loma with the top down, my windshield picking up the stippling dew of the marine layer mist, blasting ‘Semi-Automatic’ and the rest of my new CD of twenty-one pilot’s Vessel; such a great night-driving song, I feel like I’m Ryan Gosling in Drive. I love driving, but I love night-driving even more. I had the aux cord ready to be plugged into my charging phone, but tonight the CD felt better. My parents were asleep by the time I got home, but the porch light was left on to greet me. I curled up in my covers and slept until the next afternoon, happy. I envied Lila and the life she had at her home.
No More Dead Kids Page 5