Carter's Unfocused, One-Track Mind

by Brent Crawford

  EJ can’t get Aunt Jenny to start because he’s using the wrong key. “Scoot over, drunkie!” I yell, and slam the correct key into the ignition. As the only sober actor in this horror movie, it’s up to me to save us!

  The fire is rushing toward us like it’s pissed. I smash down on the gas and rip the big old steering wheel around as Aunt Jenny hauls us to safety and shoots crap all over the CRX.

  The little car is right behind us when we jump the ditch and blast back up onto the main road. We haul ass toward QuikTrip and make an anonymous call to the Merrian Fire Department on the old pay phone.

  Everyone is too wrapped up in their own issues to notice that I’m an awesome stunt driver and not burned at all. I won’t share the details of my escape for a few weeks, until it’s less obvious that my wuss instincts served me so well.

  My boys’ skin is gross, and EJ’s leg gets nasty quick. Our parents are suspicious, but nobody’s folks can afford to pay for a forest fire, so all punishments are enforced vaguely and internally. Before the fire department got it under control, our “connection with nature” torched over a hundred acres of scrub forest. This area will no longer need to be cleared. You’re welcome, McMansion developers (sorry, squirrels)!

  The blaze made the newspaper and local TV news because the firemen found a bunch of marijuana plants growing back there. You’re welcome, Merrian P.D. (sorry, potheads)!

  I expect the cops to show up at my house any time, because the rumor mill has spread the story faster than the fire gobbled up that forest.

  And this part of Grey Goose Lake is technically in Nortest High’s territory, so when they heard it was set by Merrian dudes, they assumed we did it on purpose to screw with them. So a gang of Nortest guys came over and tagged the brick wall behind the art wing: BURN THIS! COUGAR POWER! They used house paint and one of those rollers to make block letters. The janitors couldn’t wash it off of the brick, so they used a belt sander. The paint came off, but BURN THIS! COUGAR POWER! is now permanently etched into the side of the building. Retaliations are being planned.

  Great.

  24. THE TRANSITION

  February is almost over and I’m spacing off in geometry class (shocker). Mrs. Wang is demonstrating a problem at the front of the room, so I’m looking in that direction, but my problem is snakes and mice today. Bart and a bunch of senior guys broke into the biology department at Nortest High last night and released thirty snakes and over a hundred mice (they’ve only located half of them). If I went to Nortest, I’d transfer. I can barely concentrate without snakes in the vents and light fixtures and toilets! My daydreams eventually flow to lunch plans and then on to the sexual progress that Abby and I made on Valentine’s Day (let’s just say I needed both hands!) and then I think about what Mrs. Wang looked like as a teenager.

  I’m sure she was a nerd, but I bet she was a cute one. Somewhere along the way she definitely stopped trying, though, and the nerd side took over. Being hot is probably a bad thing in math circles, so she rocks the semi-mullet and sensible sandals with socks these days. She keeps her slacks high on the hip to show off her camel-toe and announce to the world that it’s closed for business. I hope my wife never breaks out “slacks” on me. I think that’s a bad sign. Like she made an investment in not being sexy.

  I really can’t afford to space off in this class. I got an A on the last test, but I had a detention and a Saturday School to help me prepare. I can’t get cocky! Wang is reviewing the old material before she adds to it. I just have to hook back into the lesson before she makes the transition.

  Clint, the guy playing Roger in RENT, is in my class. This is his second try at sophomore geometry. I’ve decided I like him, but Wang hates his ass because he doesn’t just look like a stoner/slacker—he’s the real thing. I feel bad because usually I’d be deflecting some of her rage, but I’m selfishly kicking ass in all of my classes right now.

  Today’s lesson is on equilateral polygons, so Clint is battling the Grim Sleeper. His long hair is covering his face and his breathing is all heavy. His shoulders are drooping lower with every breath, and his neck seems to be looking for something to take over the job of holding up his head. His locks flop as his muscles go into spasm and try to jump-start him back into this class. Unfortunately, Mrs. Wang’s soft voice is lulling him to sleep.

  Once he’s totally out, he’s not as fun to watch, and I feel kind of creepy for doing it. So I look back at the board to see what’s happening and…Dang it! I missed the friggin’ transition! Math sucks. If you miss one piece of the puzzle, you’re screwed. Everything builds off of the step that comes before the one you’re working on. Now I have to go to the Meth Lab and try to sort this crap out (someone switched the “a” in our math lab sign back in October and no one has changed it back).

  I’m writing “METH” on my arm when I feel a hand touch me. It’s the girl with the lazy eye who sits next to me. She’s gesturing toward the hall. I’m so glad she pointed because I can never tell where she’s looking.

  Abby’s out there laughing at me. I hope she hasn’t been watching for very long, and I really hope I wasn’t talking to myself. She’s motioning for me to join her in the hall. She’s the type of nerd who can just get up in a class and go pee or run to the library if she wants to; she doesn’t realize how difficult it is for students like me and Clint to leave a room (especially when you’ve earned a reputation as a “dawdler”).

  She doesn’t get why I’m shaking my head. She obviously wants me to get the toilet pass, because she’s miming a guy peeing. It’s funny, and kind of hot when she does the zipper gesture. I mouth the words, “Yeah, go for it!”

  She shakes her head and whispers, “Stop it! I need you.”

  I grab my chest, and mouth, “I need you too!”

  She flips me off, so I make a bunch of sex faces and gestures. “Oooh, it’s like that, huh?”

  Abby whispers, “Focus!” and points at Mrs. Wang…who seems to have been scowling at me for a while. Actually, the whole class (except for Clint) is looking at me.

  “Hey. Any chance I could use the restroom, Mrs. Dub?” I ask.

  She sets down her marker and picks up the bathroom pass. “I don’t see why not.…Take your time.”

  Uh-oh. She used a sarcastic tone, as if she doesn’t care what I do. How did we get here? It’s not okay for a math teacher to give up on me. I get away with a lot more now because teachers are under the impression I’m a hard worker. If she realizes I’m a good-for-nothing…I’m screwed.

  In spite of Wang’s snarkiness, I grab the pass and split. Abby gives me a hug and says, “Amber went into labor in gym!”

  “Ewww, gross!”

  She whacks me on the shoulder and says, “It’s not gross.”

  “Did she have it in the locker room?”

  “Nooo,” she explains. “It’s not like TV. It takes hours to give birth. Her dad and Rusty came and picked her up. Can you come to the hospital after rehearsal?”

  “Uhhh, sure. I was going to go to the Meth Lab, and fight club is tonight, but I can blow that junk off.”

  I know she’s responding to my statements, but her shirt is gaping open at the boob and I’ve got a little view of a turquoise bra. I don’t have a record of a turquoise bra. It must be new. Have her boobs grown? I don’t think they’ve shrunk. She’s still eating salad all the time. I wonder what kind of clasp that sucker has? I doubt it’s a front lock; that would be too easy. Like Mrs. Wang, Abby likes everything so damn complicat—

  She stops talking and blocks my view by crossing her arms. “Okay?” she asks suspiciously.

  “Yeah. I’m…uh, taking you to the hospital?”

  She seems frustrated. “No. Jeremy and I are going there now, but your scenes are up at tonight’s rehearsal.”

  “So I’ll meet you later.” I start to write on my arm, but I see “METH” and “FC” already written on it. “Oh no, I have fight clu—”

  Abby’s glare suggests that we’ve already covered thi
s subject. “I mean, I am skipping that and uh…am I going to the math lab?”

  Abby looks worried that she’s been making out with a retarded boy all this time. She says, “You’re going to the math lab before rehearsal because McDougle is starting with Kathy and Clair’s duet. What happened to your assignment notebook?”

  “This is easier. Can’t lose my arms. Unless I get into a horrible accident, and then I probably wouldn’t have as many activities.”

  Abby can’t help laughing. No way I’m actually retarded. She’s way too polite to laugh at a handicapped guy. She says, “Seriously, you need to stop fighting. You’re getting brain damaged.”

  “Brain damaged? You’re wearing a new, scalloped, demi-cup, underwire bra with a racer back. It’s got reinforced shoulder bracing and triple hooks in the back. Who’s brain damaged?”

  She rolls her eyes. “You are. It’s only double hooks, by the way.”

  “Slut.”

  She smiles. “I also got a haircut.”

  “And it looks great.”

  She gives me a kiss before jogging down the hall toward the parking lot. I watch her go and then hustle back into geometry.

  25. BABY WING

  My boys are waiting for me after rehearsal, but I tell them I can’t do fight club tonight. Of course they want details; they’re like detectives. They’ll trip you up if you try to lie, and they don’t mind beating a confession out of a guy.

  “I am going to the hospital to see Amber and her baby.”

  “You mean to see your baby?!” Nutt asks.

  “Shut up.”

  They’ve all heard about Amber Lee going into labor. Bag heard that she was screaming and cussing up a storm. Doc heard that Ms. Van Dyke (the gym teacher/softball coach, whose real name is Van Dam) fainted when Amber’s water broke. EJ heard that some drill team chicks carried her to the nurse’s office like a wounded soldier, and the janitor took forever to clean up Amber’s water, and some Vo-Tech kid slipped in the mess on his way to the parking lot. When people told him he had birthing fluid all over his jean jacket he started puking, and the tardy janitor yelled at him in front of everyone, and the Vo-Tech kid started crying, and then the janitor started weeping too, but not because he felt bad about what he said, more for poor decisions he’d made earlier in life that resulted in him mopping up puke and birthing fluid. Who the hell knows what really happened?

  You’d think that my boys wouldn’t want anything to do with something like this. They’re all covered in dirt, and still wearing their stinky baseball gear, but they have this fascination with horror movies and gross stuff. They just love trauma.

  Nutt says, “Let’s go see this kid. I bet it looks just like Carter!”

  We’ve all been to the Emergency Room a bunch of times, so we just head for that area of the labyrinth that is Merrian Med Center.

  As Nutt climbs out the passenger window he yells, “We have come for your babies!”

  We appear to have the only ’69 Dodge. The parking lot is filled with Mercedes and BMWs, so we shove each other into them and set off their alarms. I doubt we look like future medical students.

  We walk through the sliding glass doors and start wandering the halls like a pack of stray dogs. Nobody is excited to be here anymore. Death is in the air, and not the dangerous, fun kind. Everyone seems to be waiting for something bad to happen. People are seriously depressed around here: the nurses, the doctors, the visitors, and especially the sad sacks lying in those wheelie beds! You know you’re in trouble when they put wheels on your bed.

  My boys are wearing either floppy Adidas sandals or baseball cleats, so we’re making quite a racket. Especially when Nutt says, “If you can’t go pee by yourself, they shove a tube in your dick!” And we all scream in horror.

  A young nurse marches up to us with a scowl on her face. “Can I help you guys?”

  Bag replies, “Sure, honey, we’re looking for the section with babies?”

  Her scowl gets more intense when she says, “‘Honey’?”

  Doc slaps Bag on the back of his neck and says, “Sorry about that, miss. It’s called a ward, right?”

  “I think she understood what I meant,” Bag says. “She’s obviously an intelligent young woman.”

  “We’ve got a girlfriend in here who’s ‘with child’!” Nutt adds.

  The nurse glares at us while we giggle. She’s cute, and there’s no shortage of dirty nurse pornos on the Internet. She shakes her head as if we’re not the first teen guys she’s encountered recently. She points down the long hall and says, “Just go through oncology and you’ll find the baby section.”

  “Oncology means cancer, right?” Doc asks.

  She nods, and J-Low asks, “Uhhh, is there any way around the cancer area?”

  “You’re not going to catch cancer, dude!” Doc says.

  Bag yells, “No one thinks you’re smart, Doc! His nickname is supposed to be ironic, miss!”

  The nurse seems nervous when she asks, “Are one of you boys the father of this baby?”

  In unison we say, “Nooo,” “Nope,” and “Hell no!”

  I’m not sure why everyone is laughing until I see that Nutt is pointing at me.

  I shove him into a wall as the nurse is saying, “Just head down that hall, quietly, and ask for your friend at the desk.”

  She walks away, but we stay put because her pants don’t have back pockets and you can totally see the outline of a tiny triangle at the top of her butt cheeks.

  “G-string theory,” Levi whispers.

  After the fantasy scenarios have played out, we head toward the cancer section.

  There is nothing sexy about an oncology ward. Yikes!

  Andre says, “It smells like death!”

  “Shhh!” I scold, but I was thinking the same thing. It’s just so quiet and sad…because everyone has cancer! I look into a room and make eye contact with a guy about my age who’s bald. His eyebrows are gone too, but it’s not funny like it was when we shaved Bag’s off. He looks sick and doesn’t seem to care that I’m gawking at him. It takes everything in my power not to just burst into tears.

  We press on, and everything gets better when we cross into the maternity ward. It seems brighter, and there are flowers and balloons and cake! Everyone is happy. There’s even a T-Pain song playing.…Never mind that it’s just Bag’s ring tone. It seems weird that they’d put these two wards next to each other. One is bringing them in and one is checking them out. I guess it’s been about fifteen years since I’ve been in a maternity ward. I don’t remember it. It stinks like a hospital, but it’s way better than the rest of it.

  The nurses are giving us dirty looks. I’m guessing they don’t love having a fifteen-year-old chick here to begin with, and then here we come…the actual cause of teen pregnancy…the true enemy of Planned Parenthood clomping right down their hall: teen boys! We avoid their glares.

  I look into a few rooms and find Rusty sitting in a rocking chair holding a little baby in his arms like it’s a football he doesn’t want to fumble. Rusty’s talking softly to the thing, so he doesn’t notice us staring at him. When he finally looks up, he’s not a bit embarrassed. It’s like the guy with cancer; he’s got more important things to worry about. He’s smiling like a goof when he whispers, “Hiii.”

  We’ve mostly heard Rusty grunt in the past, and I’m the only one who’s seen his jacked-up grille before. I can tell that EJ’s not a hundred percent sure it’s even him until Amber’s dad waddles around the end of a wheelie bed. He draws a curtain and says, “Hey! Look who’s here! Movie Star, how you doin’, boy?!”

  My boys all look at me, so I say, “Good…um…congratulations, Grandpa!”

  He laughs. “That’s the first time I’ve heard that! Good one.”

  “Hi, Carter!” Amber says from behind the curtain.

  Her dad slaps my back and says, “Look at ol’ Rusty holding that kid like a pro. Little girl was howling like a hyena until her papa picked her up, and she shut rig
ht up. Rusty’s got the touch!”

  Rusty smiles again (yikes) and gives his baby-daddy-in-law a nod. Wow, the maternity ward is magic. Some people are coming to life, and others are changing shape!

  A two-hundred-pound mother-hen-type nurse busts into the room and asks, “What’re you boys doing back here? How did you get in here?”

  The only thing we can come up with is “Uhhhh,” so she motions for us to follow her. We trail behind and try not to look at her granny-panty line and crinkle butt. Sometimes thicker pants are a good thing. As we come around a corner we hear the distinct sounds of a high school party in full effect. About thirty kids are being obnoxious in the waiting room. There are sodas and pizza. It’s like any other Merrian High party except no one is smoking or drunk. It makes me feel better that our welcome was worn out before my boys and I even arrived. Abby gives me a hug, and asks, “What are you guys doing?”

  My friends are saying hi to Jeremy when I say, “Sorry, they really wanted to come.”

  “No, it’s fine,” she replies. “Amber will be excited that so many people came. I meant, why didn’t you come through the main doors?”

  “Oh, we decided it would be better to cut through the cancer wing.”

  “Didn’t you see the huge sign out front that says OB-GYN?” Jeremy asks.

  We’re supposed to magically know that means “maternity ward”? Hospitals suck. Abby tells us that Amber had her little girl about an hour ago. She mumbles, “Her name is Cinnamon, but she’s totally healthy.”

  “Cinnamon?!” Bag gasps.

  “Shhh!!!” Abby scolds.

  EJ whispers, “I was worried this kid was going to have an easy life.”

  Normally, Abby wouldn’t put up with Amber-bashing, but I can tell she’s not on board with the name Cinnamon, either.

  “Is her middle name Toast?” I ask.

  She laughs. “No.”