“I know. I’m sorry. But he was watching racing last night and I thought—”
“You thought . . .?”
“I wanted to . . . It seemed like a good opportunity.”
“Fine,” I said. “Just tell me what happened.”
Michael smiled. He really wasn’t such a strange looking kid when he smiled.
“So I told him there was this rumor—”
I held up a hand. “Why are you starting at the end?” I said.
His face began to fall.
“And you can’t get upset when I give you constructive criticism, Michael. It’s just a part of the lesson plan.”
Michael nodded.
“Where’d we leave off?” I asked.
“Leave off?”
“Where were we last time I saw you?” I said.
“I was . . .”
“Oh, yeah. At the bookstore, right? I left you at Jimmy Flap’s . . . Friday? Friday. That’s where you should start.”
“Okay, well, I did some research at Jimmy’s—”
“Was he happy to see you?” I said.
“I guess.”
I sighed. “It’s the details that make a good story, Michael. So you walk back into Flap’s and he’s beside himself, of course.”
“He’s what?”
“Probably started fussing over you the minute you walked through the door,” I said. “‘Michael, thank God! Where have you been? Was Woodrow mean to you?’”
It took Michael a second.
“I’m not sure I . . . Why did your voice—?”
“I was pretending to be Flap,” I said. “Pretty good, huh? Uncanny, even.”
“Uh . . .”
“Never mind. Sense of humor comes later,” I said. “So you walk into Flap’s, he’s hysterical for a while. Then what?”
“I did some research,” he said, still a little uncertain.
“That?” I asked, pointing to the notebook.
He nodded.
“At Flap’s? He’s got a section on racing?”
“No. I used his computer.”
“Oh.”
“Actually, it was hard to concentrate,” he said. “Jimmy kept asking me where we’d been and when I was going to call his doctor.”
“Did he wonder what you were doing?” I asked.
“He couldn’t figure out why I was looking at racing stuff.”
“What did you tell him?”
“School project.”
“Not bad,” I said. “So you did your research Friday. When did you drop the rumor on Gut?”
“Last night.”
“That’s right. You said that . . . Wait.”
“What?” he asked.
“I thought you didn’t know who his favorite driver was.”
“I asked my mom.”
I didn’t say anything for a second, then nodded slowly. “Not bad,” I said, giving him a little pat on the shoulder. He winced at first, but accepted the pat with a weak smile.
“So where were you guys?” I asked.
“Watching TV.”
“Excellent. What was he wearing?”
“Huh?”
“What was he wearing? Details, Michael!”
“A t-shirt, I think . . . and pants,” he said.
“Did the t-shirt have sleeves?”
“Yes.”
“Damn it.”
“But he was watching racing,” Michael said. “Well, actually, it wasn’t a race. It was a weekly wrap-up thing. The next big race isn’t until—”
I held up my hand. “Did you sit down and watch with him?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“Confused him, didn’t you?”
Michael smiled. “Yeah . . . He said, ‘I’m not turning it.’”
I waited. Then, finally: “And?!”
“Oh . . . and I said, ‘Good. I want to see the highlights.’”
“Well-played, sir!” I said, clapping him on the shoulder.
This time he grinned.
“Continue,” I said.
“Well, he stared at me, but I pretended like I was interested in the show . . .”
Michael kept talking. I got the story out of him, but wasn’t impressed with the presentation, so I’ve decided to recreate the scene myself.
After all, I tell a much better story.
Michael slumped down on the filthy couch next to his stepfather.
“I ain’t changin’ it,” Gut growled from behind his lit cigarette.
“Good,” Michael fired back. “I want to see the racing.”
Gut’s head whipped around. He turned his icy stare on Michael. Michael kept his eyes locked on the dusty, flickering television screen.
“What did you say?” Gut asked dangerously.
“I said I want to watch the racing,” Michael said.
“Since when do you like racing?” Gut demanded.
“Always have.”
“You know there’s no elves or dragons in racin’, right?” Gut said with a sneer.
“I’ve been watching for a long time,” said Michael, ignoring Gut’s humorous but nasty remark.
Gut grunted like a pig. “Like hell you have,” he said. “Who’s your favorite driver?”
“Don James,” said Michael without missing a beat.
Gut shifted positions to get a better look at his hated stepson.
“You like Don James?” he said, incredulously.
Michael nodded, his eyes locked on the unholy glow of the television. “He’s consistent.”
“What’s his number?” Gut said.
“Four.”
Gut continued to stare in speechless amazement.
“You like Ricky Earl, don’t you?” Michael ventured casually.
“Yeah. So what?”
“He’s gay, you know.”
Gut’s cigarette dropped from his bottom lip to the couch below. He jumped up, cursing, plucked the cigarette from between the couch cushions, and angrily stabbed it out in a nearby ashtray.
“What did you just say?” he said, menacingly.
“Maybe he’s not,” Michael said, “but if you’re leaving Killers at two in the morning with a ‘friend’ you just met . . .”
Gut swore.
“Maybe he’s not,” Michael said. “I’m just surprised you hadn’t heard yet.”
“That’s a bunch of shit.”
“I heard he might pull out of the SteelWheel 500,” Michael said, turning back to the TV.
“He’s not racing ’cause he’s got a bad leg,” Gut said.
“Well, that’s what his people are saying,” Michael said quietly.
“What the hell’s that supposed to mean?!”
“It just seems strange that, all of a sudden, his leg’s giving him trouble again,” said Michael. “It’s been almost a year since the crash.”
Gut was speechless. Michael stood.
“Hey, let me know if they say anything about Ricky Earl,” Michael said over his shoulder, leaving Gut on the couch to stew in a haze of cigarette smoke and armpit funk.
“So wait a minute,” I said. “Is this guy really pulling out of the Steel . . .
this Steel thingy?”
“Excuse me.” A small, owlish kid was staring up at me.
“Yes?” I demanded.
“My . . . I need to . . .” he stammered, pointing at something behind me.
“His locker,” Michael said.
“Oh.” I grudgingly stepped to one side. “Anyway,” I said, shaking my head, “is this guy really pulling out of the Steel—”
“SteelWheel 500,” Michael said. “It’s the next big race.”
“And he’s pulling out because of his leg?”
“He injured it in a crash about a year ago, but he re-injured it, so he’s going to have another procedure.”
“But he’s really pulling out?”
Michael nodded.
“Do you know how incredible this is?” I asked.
Michael smiled.
“It’s unbelievable,” I said. “So he’s really pulling out? And it was on the news?”
Michael nodded.
I shook my head in disbelief and turned to the owlish kid next to me who was trying to open his locker.
“Can you believe this shit?” I said.
“What?” he asked, looking frightened.
I turned back to Michael. “I’m a genius, Michael. Do you know that?”
“Yeah . . . I guess.”
“No, there’s no guessing involved, Michael. I am,” I said. “This is perfect. I mean, just planting the rumor would have worked, but this guy pulling out is such a bonus. It sounds completely believable now.”
“I put them together,” Michael said quietly, looking down at the tiles.
“What?”
“I put them together,” he said.
“Put what together?”
“Never mind,” he said.
“Don’t you ‘never mind’ me,” I said. “You put what together?”
“The thing about the driver pulling out. I put it together with the rumor we made up.”
“The rumor I made up.”
“Fine.”
I almost launched into a lecture about our roles but, just in time, I remembered who I was dealing with. This was Michael, not Wanda or someone with a higher skill set. An overly long “mean” look would be more than enough to put him in his place.
And besides, this whole thing was supposed to be about Michael. I could take the credit later, perhaps when I write my autobiography.
It was hard, but I finally managed to give him a pat on the head. Not a real one, of course. I’d just washed my hands.
“Well, you did do a lot of research,” I said.
Michael looked up from the tiles.
“And the timing was perfect,” I added.
Michael regained a bit of his earlier flush.
“We’re both geniuses, or genii, or whatever the word is.”
Michael opened his mouth. I held up a hand.
“I don’t really want to know, Michael.”
“Oh, okay.”
“Now,” I said, “it’s time to think about Stage Two.”
The bell rang. We automatically started walking down the hall.
“Stage Two’s going to be a little different than Stage One,” I said. “It’s—which way are you going?” I asked.
Michael pointed.
“Me, too,” I said with a nod. We headed down the hall together. “Keep talking to him about racing,” I said. “We want him thinking about the rumor as much as possible. But don’t just walk up and say, ‘So, heard anything about your gay driver?’ Start talking about the next race or some other guy, or how great some car is. You know what I mean?”
Michael nodded.
“Don’t worry. Whenever racing comes up, you’d better believe he’s going to start thinking about his driver. But, Stage Two . . . Stage Two has to be different.”
“Why?”
“Balance,” I said. “We’ve got to expand our focus. We need to attack everything that makes Gut, Gut.”
“And then we push him over?” Michael asked.
“You’re looking forward to that, aren’t you?”
“Yes.”
We weren’t far from Astronomy.
“I’m going to think about Stage Two during my study block,” I said, nodding toward the classroom.
“Isn’t that Astronomy?” Michael asked.
“I don’t like Astronomy anymore. I do other things in here.”
I had signed up for Astronomy thinking we’d get to go on lots of field trips to the planetarium and look at stars, but apparently, astronomers don’t look at the sky anymore. They just do math problems and listen to physics lectures.
“Okay, well . . . should I . . .”
“Should you what?”
“Should I call or something?”
“Call who?”
“Call you . . . so we can talk about the next stage.”
“You look better with a little color,” I said, pointing to his cheeks. Michael was very red. “You should try a little rouge once in a while.”
“What?”
“Never mind. Just say, ‘See you later.’”
“Okay, see you later.”
“No calls, please, unless it’s an emergency. I don’t like the phone. I’ll find you when I’m ready for Stage Two,” I said.
Turning to go, I almost plowed into Dennis. Dennis lives down the street from me. When we were kids, he used to come to my house once in a while, until his mom found out about the Dennis Game, which involved sticking Dennis in a tomato cage and sliding in as many tomato stakes as possible. Eventually, he’d cry, and my mom would come running.
These days, we say “Hey” when I’m unable to avoid him in the neighborhood and occasionally exchange forced small talk when I inadvertently find myself walking next to him in-between classes. By this point, he’d probably have forgotten all about it, except that, on the rare occasions our social paths do cross, I like to bring it up when he’s chatting with a nice young lady.
“Dude, that was Michael,” Dennis whispered.
“Yep.”
“What the hell?”
Something came to me as we walked. Not Stage Two. More like Stage One and a Half.
“Michael’s a badass,” I said.
“What?!”
“Didn’t you hear?” I said. “He got jumped last night and beat the shit out of three guys.”
“No way.”
“Nathan was there,” I said.
I don’t know Nathan very well, but he’s the kind of guy who always seems to either witness or participate in any/all events of interest.
“He saw it?”
I gave Dennis a few more vague details, then headed for my seat. Even though I was still working on the home front, why not plant a few seeds for the upcoming school campaign?
I sat in Astronomy and considered Stage Two. People like Gut aren’t very complex; their world is black and white and no in-between (and I’m not talking about the racial stuff). For example, I can already tell you that Gut likes classic rock. I can also tell you what he thinks of music that isn’t classic rock. Gut loves his Chevy or Ford or whatever “American” car he drives.
Gut knows what men do and what women do and gets very uncomfortable when somebody moves across the line. Take employment, for instance. Men lift things. Women cut hair. Men fix things. Women care for children. Computers are baffling. Men who work with computers are suspect and, at the very least, probably effeminate.
It’s fairly easy to knock someone like Gut off-balance, but it’s also easy to make him angry. He’s the statue and we have the crowbars. Tip him a little too soon, however, and he might topple backwards on you.
I took out my notebook. Michael needed to develop a sudden interest in classic rock—Boston, Eric Clapton, Steve Miller. Michael needed to infringe on Gut’s territory a bit more.
But it was awfully hard to think with the teacher yammering away. I propped my book up in front of me and put my head on the desk. I’m guessing that most social workers aren’t expected to perform their duties while fighting off the side effects of an Astronomy lecture. (There are quite a few, but the explosive diarrhea is the worst.)
Oh . . . and Michael needed a nickname. Spike . . . the Hammer . . . something completely inappropriate.
For some reason, “Ducky” popped into my head, and I knew I was falling asleep.
I wondered when my teacher would come out of her trance and realize half the class was asleep. Probably just before she retired. That’s what they should give people who can’t sleep—an Astronomy lecture. I let go and began to float, hoping I wouldn’t end up in a puddle of drool upon my return.
Tuesday came and I decided I needed a day without any Michael work. I deserved one after the racing victory. I passed Michael once, on my way to lunch, and thankfully he wasn’t pinned up against a locker. He flushed and smiled when he saw me and held up a hand. I gave him a serious nod, just to see what he would do. The hand dropped back to his side. He looked perplexed.
I decided to make an in-home visit after school on Wednesday. Michael and I needed a strategy session and Mom said she’d be working from home Wednesday. That was kind of weird—Mom rarely worked from home, and this was the third time in two weeks—but I’m smart enough not to ask questions when things go my way. I decided not to tell Michael about the strategy session. I didn’t want him cleaning up or chasing family out of the living room.
On Wednesday afternoon, after hanging out a little after the last bell with Jack and a couple other kids—no sense in getting to Michael’s house before he did—I headed our for Michael’s.
I did some sightseeing on the way. I decided that some of the neighborhood houses weren’t that bad. There only seemed to be four different styles of house, though: one-level, two-level, smaller one-level, and smaller two-level.
Most of the bricks were a shade I’d call “exhausted pink” and may have been “pre-owned” bricks the developer got on sale. Most looked like they might fall apart if you ran a hard finger over them.
I know I’ve mentioned a career in law enforcement as well as social work, but pursuing either would probably be a slap in the face to the architectural community. I clearly have a gift. However, both architects and social workers spend a lot of time in school, and I’m just not prepared to do that.
Even with the pre-owned brick façade, most of the houses weren’t awful. But Michael’s block—there just wasn’t any way around it. They were bad. I wondered if they’d ever looked new. Did everyone in the neighborhood start junking-up their houses at the same time, or did it start with one guy who just didn’t care? Maybe it was a couple families that didn’t care. Then everybody else said, “Well, if they don’t care, we don’t either.”
Or maybe the guys that built them didn’t care. Maybe they left things half-finished. Or maybe they left all their crap around when they were done. But how come not one person cared about the rusty swing set slowly falling in on itself, or the flock of empty snack bags cartwheeling across the front yard? Or how come one person didn’t say, “You know what? I’m never going to use all these old engine parts. Think I’ll take them to the dump or something.”
Changing Michael Page 6