Changing Michael

by Jeff Schilling

  Oh, well—another day.

  All things considered, the evening was picking up nicely. Something was going down at Michael’s house and I had scored another win at home.

  And the papers, I reminded myself. Don’t forget the papers.

  It wasn’t a long drive, but I couldn’t stop thinking about Michael’s phone call. What the hell was Flap doing at Michael’s? It was a little late for a friendly game of Magic, and Michael’s books were all well organized.

  The possibilities were a little too overwhelming, and after a few minutes, I stopped guessing and turned up the radio. For all I knew, a massive house party was underway, and Michael was uncomfortable and wanted to leave. An image suddenly came to me: Flap and Gut grinding in the middle of the living room with Wanda pinned between them.

  I almost had to pull over. The vision was that disturbing.

  Eventually, I rolled to a stop near the Hole in the Wall sign. Michael was huddled on the stairs, reading.

  “Good to see you again,” I said, as he slipped in the front. “Did you guys have a good time? Wanda pregnant?”

  “What?!” Michael said, freezing as he reached back for his seatbelt.

  “Because sex with Wanda is about the only reason I’ll accept for being stranded with Gut.”

  “Oh,” Michael said. Maintaining eye contact, he slowly strapped himself in, as if afraid I might suddenly kick him out the door the moment he got close to buckling.

  Good. Let him think it’s a possibility. Who knows? I just might.

  “I’m really sorry about that,” he said.

  It wasn’t great, but it was something.

  I watched him latch his belt, kept my eyes in Aggressive Mode a moment more, then pulled away from the curb.

  “So you want to go to your father’s?” I asked, bulling my way onto Route 30 and pointing us toward the highway.

  He didn’t answer.

  “Okay . . . so why is Flap at your house?”

  No answer.

  “House party?” I asked, nervously.

  Silence.

  Car horns blared as I jerked the car to the side of the road.

  “What are you doing?!” he yelled, grabbing the dashboard.

  “I’m not your fucking chauffeur!” I snapped. “Either you start answering questions or you can hop out right now.”

  “Okay, fine!” he said.

  I stared at him a few more seconds, then pulled into traffic again—not a popular decision with the other drivers. “Quit your honking!” I yelled out the window.

  I turned to Michael. “Start talking.”

  “My stepfather called Jimmy,” he said.

  “Why?”

  “They’re . . .” he started, but his face drifted toward his window.

  “Michael!”

  “They’re concerned about me,” he managed, as if I’d asked him to finish an unpleasant green vegetable.

  “The Wanda thing?”

  “And Jimmy told them about the dreams.”

  “God, what an old woman!”

  We drove in silence for a while.

  “Well, I suppose I can haul you up to Baltimore,” I said.

  “Thank you.”

  “But I’ve got a couple of conditions.”

  “Okay,” he said, hesitantly.

  “One: I want to know what the hell happened to you and Wanda. Where did you go?”

  “I’m sorry about that,” he said, again.

  “Never mind that. Where’d you go?”

  “Tyler.”

  “Tyler Elementary?”

  He nodded.

  Tyler is about a mile from Alexander High School.

  “What the hell were you doing there?”

  “We sat in the parking lot and talked,” he said.

  “How long?”

  “A while—an hour, I guess.”

  “Yeah, right.” I laughed. Wanda didn’t talk to anybody for an hour.

  “We did,” he insisted.

  “About what?”

  “A lot of things.”

  “Did you talk about why you decided to play the trashy couple, then leave me stranded?” I asked.

  “Actually, Wanda has an interesting theory about our characters,” he said, beginning to flush.

  “Oh yeah?”

  “She thinks it was the house.”

  “What?”

  “She thinks the house influenced our characters—that the house reflected what it’s seen in the past,” Michael said.

  Hearing this felt like finding a big piece of fat in the meat I was chewing.

  “The house made you do it,” I said.

  “Right,” he said, heating up. “See, Wanda doesn’t pick out her characters ahead of time.”

  “I know,” I said.

  “She said she decided on one in the car, but then, right before we went in, something pushed that character out of the way. I felt it, too. Right when she was touching my hair.”

  “So, the house decided for you?”

  “We think maybe it’s seen the same old thing over and over again,” he said. “Maybe it only knows one way.”

  “We?”

  He nodded. “There’s a behavioral theory about kids who’ve been abused—that even after they’re out of the abusive situation, they’re always trying to recreate it. Supposedly, their brains are unconsciously trying to work out what happened in the past and looking for a way to master the situation. They’re trying to find a way to win.”

  “The house is trying to win?” I said sourly.

  “Maybe it’s trying to make sense of its memories,” he said. “Would you want all that negative energy inside you?”

  “Michael, houses are wood and glass and plaster someone nailed together! They aren’t alive!”

  “But don’t you think it’s possible that we give a house some kind of life by breathing and eating and dreaming inside it?”

  “No!”

  We were quiet for a moment.

  “Why couldn’t you just have fooled around like normal people?” I asked.

  Michael didn’t say anything, but I could tell he was staring at me. Since Michael never looked at anyone longer than absolutely necessary, I was a little surprised when I glanced over and he didn’t look away. In fact, he stared so long, I finally gave in.

  “What?”

  “What do you believe in?” he asked.

  “Santa.”

  “I’m serious. I want to know what you believe in.”

  I sighed.

  “You make me answer all your questions,” he said. “Now I want you to answer some of mine.”

  “What if I say no?”

  “Then you can just drop me off here.”

  “On the side of the highway?”

  “Yes. And don’t—don’t come around anymore.”

  I turned toward him, but his face looked like it usually did—an easy target for anything I wanted to throw at it.

  I absolutely hated the idea of giving in to him, but Michael was the kind of person who would stroll down the side of a major highway at night. I imagined the headlights bouncing off his backpack as it bobbed up and down on the side of the road.

  Then I thought of all the guys who’d be real interested in giving Michael a lift. I was going to have to break one of my rules and give him a look at the real me. I didn’t think I could fake my way through.

  “I don’t know,” I finally said. “Me, I guess.”

  “What?”

  “Me. I believe in me.”

  “But what does that mean?”

  “It means I know I’m smarter than most of the idiots out there,” I said. “Maybe not smarter, but I know how to play them. I know how to work people. I know how to get what I want.” />
  “And that’s important to you?”

  “Of course it is.”

  “So what are you going to do? What are you going to be?” he pressed.

  “Happy and successful.”

  “And you’re happy now? The way you are?”

  “No, not perfectly happy,” I said. “I’m still in high school . . . I don’t have my own car yet.”

  “So there’s still something missing,” he said, like a detective catching the witness in a lie.

  “Of course there is. I’m not eighteen yet. I don’t have my own place.”

  “And once you—?”

  “Yes, Michael, once I have those things, I’ll be perfectly happy,” I said. “And I know what you’re going to say, so don’t say it. You’re going to tell me how shallow and materialistic I am. Well, you know what? You’re right. But you know what else? I’m okay with that.”

  “What about people?”

  “What about them? I have plenty of friends right now,” I said. “Too many, actually. I probably need to get rid of a few.”

  It was supposed to be a joke, but it didn’t sound even remotely funny.

  “What about someone significant? Someone you’re afraid to lose?” Michael said. “Are you going to be perfectly happy all by yourself?”

  “I am now, so why shouldn’t I be?”

  He was staring again. I let him take a good long look. What did I care?

  “You know what you are?” he finally said.

  “What?”

  “You’re a grifter.”

  “A what?”

  “A grifter. A con man.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “You’re a grifter,” he insisted. “You just said you know how to play people. It’s a game to you. Everything’s a scheme to get what you want.”

  “Whatever.”

  “Then maybe it’s entertainment. Is that what you’re looking for?”

  “Shut up, Michael. I’m not looking for anything. I’m just trying to help you.”

  “But what are you getting out of it?” he asked.

  “A massive pain in the ass.”

  I couldn’t help remembering the imaginary interview on my first walk home from Michael’s house—my conversation with the press about the good deed I was performing by helping this poor nerd.

  “I’m just trying to help you, Michael, but if you don’t want me around, I’ll be more than happy to disappear.”

  No response. I smiled a little.

  But just as I was beginning to calm down, he said, “Maybe it would be better.”

  “What was that?”

  “Maybe it would be better if you . . . if we didn’t hang out anymore.”

  We were closing in on Baltimore now.

  “Fine with me. I guess that means I’m not your chauffeur anymore,” I said. “Maybe I should just turn around and head back home.”

  “Can you still drop me off?”

  “Why should I?”

  “You owe me. You used me.”

  “Used you?!” I yelled. I was really mad now.

  “Or am I some kind of charity project?” said Michael.

  “You’re some kind of idiot.”

  “Or maybe I’m just practice—maybe I’m some kind of grifting experiment for you.”

  “I’m trying to help you, dumb-ass!”

  “You could have just been my friend. That would have helped.”

  “I am your friend,” I said. Michael didn’t say anything.

  “Did you hear me?”

  “Do you always call your friends ‘dumb-ass’ and ‘idiot’?”

  “When they’re acting like it, yes.”

  We retreated to our corners.

  I was done with Michael, I decided. Here I was, hauling him up to his father’s crack house, and he had the nerve to tell me I was some kind of grifter? How much time had I spent with him? How many hours of social work had I performed on his behalf? I glared at Michael, ready to unload, but he was turned toward the window.

  I clamped my jaw shut and stewed for the next twenty minutes. Although I’m sure it doesn’t seem like it, twenty minutes feels like a lifetime if you’re trapped in a car with someone you want to punch. At about the ten-minute mark, I almost started talking to him again, but then he coughed and the noise irritated me. I squeezed the hell out of the steering wheel until we found the right exit, turned off the highway, and headed into the city.

  “You’re going to have to help now,” I said, tersely.

  “Okay.”

  In an effort not to slap Michael every time he gave me a direction, I studied the city, looking for the line—the division—between urban and urban blight.

  It was even harder to spot at night. You could find something sketchy anywhere you looked: the guy on the sidewalk talking to himself; two guys hustling down the front steps of a building and into the middle of the road; someone coming out after them.

  I decided to look at buildings instead of people, hoping I’d see something familiar. The convenience stores we passed seemed to have more people hanging out in the parking lot than I remembered. Instead of one or two knots, there were several, and each knot seemed bigger and much more energetic than those of the day-shifters. The people looked looser, more comfortable, as if the sun was a bully who’d moved on to his next set of victims.

  I tried to stop stewing about Michael’s latest statements by deciding to give him a nice kick in the ass when we got out of the car.

  I passed his father’s place and kept going.

  “I think you—”

  “I know,” I said. I hooked a U-turn in the middle of the street and headed back.

  I took a right at the first cross street and found a good-sized gap between a couple of cars. Michael started to bail as I was trying to correct my pathetic attempt at parallel parking. “Well, thanks for the ride,” he said.

  “I’m not leaving you here.”

  “Why not?”

  “What if your dad’s not home?”

  Michael stared.

  “Did you call him?”

  He nodded.

  “And?” I demanded.

  “No one picked up,” he said. “But Chrissy’s probably home.”

  “Yeah, but what if she isn’t? What if nobody’s home? You gonna hang out at the convenience store?”

  He shrugged.

  I closed my eyes and bounced my head against the steering wheel a few times. Michael saw his opportunity and slipped out the door.

  “Oh no you don’t, you little shit . . .” I muttered, scrambling out behind him.

  I caught up with him at the second door—the one with the buttons.

  “What are you doing?” he asked.

  “Making sure you don’t end up wandering the streets.”

  “Worried about losing your experiment?”

  “Shut up.”

  He pushed the button for his father’s apartment. Someone buzzed us in almost immediately. Michael barged through the second door and headed up the stairs, knocking into a big guy in a long, black coat.

  “What the fuck?” the guy said, stopping.

  “Sorry,” I said. “My brother has trouble with doors. He’s . . . special.”

  “Whatever,” the guy huffed, shoving past me.

  I hurried up the stairs after my special brother. The hallways weren’t deserted like last time. People were coming and going, walking the corridors and hanging out by the stairs.

  We passed one lovely couple on the second floor landing. The girl was in a corner, her boyfriend a few inches from her. He had her penned in, arms straight out and pressed against the wall. They looked as if they were either going to make out or start throwing punches. I guessed it was love. The guy glared at us as we passed. I nodded and kept mo
ving.

  The third floor was empty, but it felt like only like a lull in traffic. Music still blared from every other door. Different genres competed for space in the cat-piss air. I followed Michael down the hall. He pushed through his father’s unlocked apartment door. I stayed in the doorway.

  The music was loud. His dad was just inside and to the left, sitting on the battered couch. He had an album cover on his lap and a beer in one hand.

  “Hi,” Michael said, nowhere near loud enough to get his father’s attention.

  His father didn’t look up.

  “Michael?” I said. Reaching for him, I tapped his shoulder.

  He shrugged me off. I tried to grab his shirt, but he stepped out of reach and into the living room. He stopped a few feet from his father, staring down at him. His father looked up, squinted for a moment, then went back to his album cover.

  Okay, that wasn’t so bad. Maybe he’s okay. Maybe he’s just having a quick beer.

  But in the pit of my stomach, I knew his father was well past number one. He should have been surprised to see Michael, but wasn’t.

  Michael’s father looked up again and waved Michael closer.

  As quietly as I could, I pulled the apartment door tight behind me. I couldn’t tell if Michael’s father had seen me yet and held on to the knob and the slim hope he hadn’t.

  I wondered where Chrissy was and felt a weird urge to make sure she was okay.

  Michael stood over his father.

  “Look at him,” his father said, pointing to someone on the album cover. “How old do you think he is?”

  Michael bent a little closer.

  I was reluctant to leave the safety of the door but found myself sliding to my left to see if I could get a peek.

  The album was old but not ancient. There were five or six guys lined up and leaning against what looked to be an old warehouse. Their clothes would pass as “retro” today. A young and energetic hipster would kill for a set or two.

  The guys on the front didn’t look old, but they didn’t look that young, either—at least a few years older than Michael and I. Two had blond hair that was almost white, and they looked enough alike that I assumed they were brothers. The other guys had long hair and beards that hadn’t seen a comb or cutting in a while.

  “What do you think?” his father asked, looking up.

  Michael shrugged, keeping his eyes away from his father’s.