“I got it,” a voice says.
I turn around and one of the girls is locking the other hook onto my truck. “Can I pull it out? It’s my car,” she says. “My dad has a truck just like this.”
While I focus, my head nods “yes” without any internal debate. In the dark of a half-moon night, I see she’s short. Not midget short, but she would be lucky to convince someone that she’s five-foot-three. Despite being height-challenged, she leaps right into the truck, bouncing off the running boards like a gymnast. Through the back window, I can barely see her brown hair. There’s a pause, which means she’s screwing with my power seat. It’s going to take me five minutes to get it back into the perfect spot.
“Biggie, move or you are going to get hit,” Kyle says.
I step back and watch the small car roll out of the ditch.
“Hey, who wants midnight pancakes?” Jet asks.
“I could eat,” says one of the girls.
Although Friday has turned into Saturday, Perkins has few open tables. The hostess seats the seven of us at a rectangle table in the middle of the restaurant. One by one, a boy sits across from a girl until I sit down across from no one. All three of the girls are pretty in their own way. Each one of them is clean cut with straight hair surrounding makeup-covered faces. They each smile at witty and smart-ass comments. None of them is tall. The one on the far end across from Jet might be the tallest, but she’s no basketball player.
The Cavalier owner is the shortest of the three and is not really fat, but suffers in comparison to her two friends, who look like animated twigs. She looks like she could be younger than her thinner friends too. Because I was grabbing the tow cord and not involved in the initial chitchat, I don’t know their names. I’m sure if I just brought that fact up, they would repeat them, but I keep quiet. Instead of joining the conversation, I sip on the room-temperature water and search for our waitress.
“What’s your name?” a girl asks.
“Oh, shit,” Kyle says. “We never introduced Biggie. Biggie, this is Jenna, Amanda, and Courtney—she’s the one that drove your truck.”
“Hey,” I say.
“What’s your real name?” Courtney asks.
“Henry,” I mutter and quickly take a drink.
“We call him Biggie for reasons you guys can see,” Killer says. “He’s a big boy.” Killer stretches out ‘boy’ with a low baritone voice.
“Nice to meet you, Henry,” Courtney says.
Choking on water, I cough out, “Nice to meet you, Courtney.”
“Down the wrong tube?” Jenna asks.
With a crooked smile, I say, “Yeah.”
“You know I remember you.” Jenna turns her attention back to Killer.
“You do, huh?” he responds.
“You hit the game-winning shot last year in a basketball game against Madison Lake. That three-pointer ended my little brother’s high-school career,” she says.
Crushing an ice cube with his teeth, Killer says, “If you want an apology, you’re not going to get one.”
She smiles and shrugs her shoulder. “I’m just saying I remember you, that’s all.”
“Hey, I scored twenty-two points in that game,” Jet adds. “You should be dreaming about me.”
“You scored twenty-two, but where were you in crunch time?” Killer asks.
“Driving the lane and kicking out a perfect pass,” Jet claims.
“I don’t remember that.” Jenna smiles so big that I can’t tell if she is lying to flirt with Jet or really doesn’t remember what led up to the game-winning shot.
The waitress, a short, pudgy old lady with two pens slid into her silver-and-black ratty hair, asks us, “What can I get you?”
The guys each order breakfast platters full of pancakes, eggs, bacon, and toast. The girls decide to split a massive plate of fries. It isn’t on the menu, but the waitress, with Harriet on her name tag, says she can throw something together.
After Killer told everyone my name was Biggie for reasons everyone can see, I decide against ordering pancakes or fries or meat of any kind. With words that taste like vinegar coming out of my mouth, I say something I never thought I would say in a million years.
“I will take a Cobb salad with French dressing on the side and a large glass of ice water.”
“Biggie, you don’t get a salad at midnight at Perkins,” Killer informs me. “It’s midnight pancakes. It’s a tradition. He’s new to our group,” Killer tells the girls. “He’s kind of on a trial basis.”
Screw you, I think to myself. I don’t even want to be here. If he doesn’t want me to sit here and listen to him talk about how great a football and basketball player he is, I can happily leave. Good luck finding a ride home.
“Biggie tells really funny jokes,” Kyle says as Harriet sets down drinks.
My crappy small glass of water is replaced by a big crappy one, still no ice. Everyone else sips Mountain Dew, Diet Pepsi, or coffee.
“Tell us a joke,” Courtney says. “I love jokes.”
My joke telling doesn’t come naturally. It takes hours of research on more than a dozen websites to find a handful of funny jokes for Kyle. I normally do the research on Sunday afternoon. I find three or four good ones and share them at the locker. By Thursday, I’m out of good material.
“Tell the one about the butler. I like that one,” Kyle says.
I gulp enough warm tap water to refresh a marathon runner and stare ahead into the eyes of the six-person crowd. They look at me with complete concentration. Three girls, two that probably go to college, and three popular kids from my school, including one who may or may not be screwing the girl of my dreams, wait patiently for a joke that I’m struggling to remember.
There’s no turning back now. They are going to keep looking right at me like I’m Dane Cook on a Vegas stage until I say something, so I open my mouth.
“There’s this rich couple and they are going to a party on the other side of town, so they tell their butler, Jeeves, that they will be gone all night and he’s to watch the house.”
For reasons I can’t explain, a couple of people start to smile. Their cheeks get a little red and their eyes light up. The beginning of the joke isn’t funny, but they must just be excited with the expectation of laughter.
I continue, “Well, the party is all business talk and cigar smoke, so the wife tells her husband she’s going to take a cab ride home.
“When she gets home, the lights are all out and Jeeves is sitting in a chair in the living room. She tells Jeeves to follow her upstairs to her bedroom. She closes the windows and drapes and tells Jeeves to take off her dress.”
The girls look at each other, likely expecting this joke to turn dirty with some hardcore sex action. The giggles under their breaths give me a little confidence and I finish the joke.
“So he takes off her dress. She says, ‘Take off my stockings,’ so he takes off her stockings. She says, ‘Take off my bra and panties,’ and so he takes off her bra and panties.” Courtney takes a long drink of her Diet Pepsi as I get to the punch line.
“She then looks at him and says, ‘If I ever catch you wearing my clothes again, you’re fired.’”
Everyone at the table starts to laugh. Kyle even pounds the table. Courtney laughs, but not into the air. She laughs into the ice cubes buried inside her drink. This causes her to hop in her chair and bobble the glass. She avoids spilling the syrupy brown liquid on the table, but she can’t keep pop from getting stuck in her nose. With both hands she covers her nose and coughs like a longtime smoker.
“There’s pop coming out of her nose,” Kyle points out. “You know it’s a good one, Biggie, when you get pop to come out of a girl’s nose.”
While my joke brought some ha-has and chuckles, people are grabbing their sides and laughing hysterically at Courtney’s coughing and red
face.
Under the table, I pump my fist. As the guys keep hitting on the girls, I look around the restaurant. I can’t believe I’m in a Perkin’s at 1 a.m. I never thought it could happen with these guys, but it has. The gallons of tap water force me to hit the bathroom. While listening to the various noises one hears in a men’s bathroom, I imagine the distance between this urinal and my bedroom.
I am four miles from Cedar Falls, which is fifteen miles from Finch. Twenty miles. Feels farther. I flush the urinal and head over to the sink. As I wash my hands, I sneak a peek at the mirror. My thoughts drift back to Dr. Pence’s office, and my goals: the weight loss, the perfect game, Annabelle.
“I have a lot of work to do,” I whisper and head back to our table.
The chairs are empty. The table remains filled with half-empty glasses, sullied spoons, grimy forks, disheveled napkins, and plates filled with leftover pancakes, toast, and scrambled eggs. While the dishes are there, the gang is gone.
“They said you’re the rich kid who was going to pay for this.” The pudgy waitress returns.
“I’m not rich. I work at a convenience store,” I mumble.
She sticks the bill in my face. In large red ink, she wrote $62.18.
“You gonna pay the bill or do we have a problem?” she asks, obviously angry about another all-night shift.
Outside, Jet, Kyle, and Killer surround my truck, chatting about God knows what. My blood boils and my nose huffs and puffs like a Spanish bull. I want to grab their shirts, slam them against the truck and scream, “You owe me sixty bucks,” but instead I say, “Where did you go?” An idiotic question which I already have an answer to. I apparently have no spine.
“Out here,” Killer answers anyway. “Kyle, give him the paper.”
Kyle lifts his elbow to showcase a slip of paper wedged between two fingers.
“After you look at that paper, you won’t be mad about paying for grub,” Jet claims.
I snag the strip and unfold it. It’s a phone number. As if I’m trying to dumb myself down for these guys, I ask another dumb question.
“What is this?”
“It’s the combination to the girls’ gold safe,” Jet says. “What do you think? We got Courtney’s number. She’s single like you.”
I have hundreds of girls’ numbers in my phone and black binder, so having a girl give me her number is nothing new, but for some reason this sheet of paper feels slippery and fake. The area code, 319, is right. I count ten numbers, all single digits.
“She just gave this to you?” Finally, I ask a question without an apparent answer.
“I told her you liked her and wanted her number,” Kyle says. “I knew you would pussy out.”
None of that is true. I can ask a girl for a number if I want one.
“I mean, we get a guy a number and he complains,” Killer says to Kyle.
What am I supposed to do with this? Should I text her?
“It’s funny, Jet,” Killer says. “Now, you’re the only one without a girlfriend in the group.”
“Did you say I would text her?” I whisper.
“I have options,” Jet says. “Don’t worry about me. Just figuring stuff out.”
“Guys, should I call her?” I say a little louder, but my words are still being drowned out by their worthless chatter.
“Jet, are you talking about Becky?” Killer asks. “She wants nothing to do with you.”
“SHOULD I TEXT HER OR SOMETHING!”
Everyone in the Perkins parking lot, even the twenty-something married couple thirty feet away, freezes in silence. I just breathe and wonder when the last time was that I screamed in public. I’m not sure I ever have.
“Yeah, you should text her,” Kyle says. “This is a good night, Biggie. You saved a girl and she gave you her number.”
“This is how we work,” Killer says. “Drive us around, buy us Perkins, buy us beer, and we get you a girlfriend.”
“I didn’t ask for one.” My voice returns to a whisper.
Chapter 23
A Text
“You need to throw up,” Killer says. “Do you know how to do that?”
I really don’t, so I shake my head as a cop car pulls into the driveway.
“Craig won’t arrest us because we play football, but he will take your license,” Killer continues. “He always makes examples of the non-athletes. Go behind your truck by the tailgate, bend over, and stick your finger deep down your throat. Dude, you have like three seconds go. We’ll distract him.”
I can’t get busted for drinking. Mom would kill me. Damn, Henry, why do you drink with these guys? Okay, calm down and just put your finger in your throat. It won’t be that bad. I bend down behind my truck and stick my finger into my mouth.
“What are you guys up to?” the officer asks the guys off in the distance.
“Nothing, sir, just standing by a fire,” Jet says. “Isn’t it a nice night, officer?”
As I start to hear the officer walking toward me, I bend over, stick my finger down my throat, and choke. Reflex pulls my finger out of my mouth. Two deep breaths and I stick my finger down again, farther this time. My knuckle passes my two front teeth, my shoulders bounce, and my eyes water, blurring my vision. Once again, nothing comes up.
“I hear something,” the officer says. “Is someone behind the truck?”
I start to shake. I have to do this. As I hear footsteps, I put two fingers in my throat as far as I can. My spine comes alive and tries to escape the ribs and skin on my back. I feel liquid slither on the bottom of my hand. It’s surprisingly hot, almost burning my cold hand. I pull out the two fingers and bile follows all over the frozen gravel.
“Awesome,” Kyle says.
I look up and he’s holding Jet’s camera phone in the back of my truck bed. He must have sneaked in there while I was talking to Killer.
“I can’t believe you actually threw up,” he said.
Kyle leaps out of the truck like the bed’s on fire. To show off in front of his friends, he hurdles the side of the truck bed and, after a five-foot drop, lands awkwardly on the gravel. He uses his free hand to balance himself, but he still slips on the gravel driveway. Kyle wiping out brings more laughs from Killer and Matt, along with the officer who Kyle said could arrest me for drinking.
The officer is a guy named Craig. He’s about five-foot-seven, maybe, and a durable two hundred pounds, probably a former wrestler. He looks old with his face beat up from zit scars. The stubble on his chin tells me he hasn’t shaved for a day or two. He opens a pack of Marlboros and lights a cigarette. He takes a long puff and blows the smoke out over the flames of the bonfire.
Kyle makes the guys forget about his fall by pushing Play on my video—a fat kid hiding behind a truck with one, then two fingers down his throat. He has everything—the running behind the truck, the bending over, the failed attempt when I start to cry, and finally the puke flying out of my mouth like I am part of an exorcism.
The guys erupt with laughter. Craig grabs the phone to get a better look.
“I can’t believe you finally got someone to believe you, Killer,” Craig says. “I never thought you would pull this plan off.”
Let me translate what Craig’s saying: I can’t believe you found someone so stupid.
I wipe puke leftovers from my chin. I grip my jeans with both hands and clean as much puke off my hands as I can as I walk closer to the guys and the cop. Jet has long since retrieved the beer from the empty field, and although none of guys are drinking, the beer sits right next to his leg.
“Are you all right?” Kyle asks. “No hard feelings. We wouldn’t have tried it if we didn’t know that you’re always up for a good joke. Everybody is going to think this video is hilarious.”
I don’t say I’m fine or that I’m not. I just stand there, rubbing vomit onto my jeans. My mo
uth and throat hurt with a sharp dentist pain. My cheeks are soft from the cold and the tears, and my eyes itch, like someone waved pollen right in front of me. My hair sticks straight up from frozen sweat. I stumble when I walk. The bitter taste of bile on my tongue forces me to spit, but the more I do, the stronger the taste of vomit is in my mouth.
Kyle grabs a beer and hands it to me. I don’t want it. I need bottled water, not beer, but I take it anyway. He tells me it will help. It doesn’t. The beer mixes with the bile and I bend over the frozen ground and throw up again. The bottle slips out of my trembling fingers, and beer escapes and slips and slides around small pieces of gravel. The smell churns my beat-up stomach and if I had anything left in my stomach, I would upchuck that too.
“You need a doctor?” Craig, the officer, asks.
“No,” I say. “I’m okay. I just need some water.”
“I’ve got some in my squad car,” Craig says. “I’ll grab you a bottle of water.”
Kyle offers me a hand and then pulls me up. Upright, I use the top of my sweatshirt to wipe off even more vomit residue from my chin and lips. Kyle and I walk over to the other guys, who are still watching the video. Their foreheads are red from laughing so hard. They are probably watching it for the tenth time, while I continue to clean myself up.
“You threw up a lot,” Craig says. “I got a cold hamburger from Molly’s in my squad car. You can have it.”
It’s been two months since I’ve been to Molly’s. To be honest, I’m shocked the place is still open without my daily food purchases. Since I have stopped running with Laser, I’m relying solely on healthy eating to lose weight.
“No, the water’s fine.” I rip open a bottle of generic water. With bile still on my tongue, the water tastes dirty, almost like it was sitting in a bucket of pebbles before going in the clear, plastic bottle. The more I drink, the better it tastes. As I finish the sixteen-ounces, I feel all right.
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