10th Grade

by Joe Weisberg

  “I can’t explain it. You’ll experience it some day.”

  I didn’t know how she knew this but she seemed sure in her own crazy Caroline Zisko where you know things you don’t know and don’t know things you should way.

  Then she said “I was with a guy over the summer when he smoked Pot for the 1st time. He just giggled for about 3 hours everybody was like shut up. But we all thought it was funny too. It’s annoying.”

  A minute later I said “what happened to you over the summer?”

  “What?”

  “You said before, a long time ago it was really bad and you didn’t want to talk about it.”

  She didn’t say anything and I thought she was asleep or didn’t hear me because she was hi. Or she just didn’t want to say anything. But then 2 or 3 minutes later she goes “Oh I just stopped eating and got sick and tried to kill myself and fooled around with every guy in Glades Florida.”

  I was like ‘Uh-oh’. I figured if she tried to kill herself she could try again and I wanted to say the right thing so she wouldn’t, and I said “Wow.”

  “I hadn’t seen my Dad in 3 years just about and I had this super-smart idea I’d spend the summer with him. In Florida. You know my Mom she’s nuts but she’s not crazy you can have a conversation with her she has some idea what’s going on in like hello reality but my Dad is like you can’t even say anything to him he just moves around like some old guy and doesn’t say anything. He didn’t leave my Mom for another woman you know or anything like that he lives by himself in this apartment. He likes the weather there. And he doesn’t mind if I’m there he’s just in the kitchen filling up his stupid thermos all the time anyway. But it’s like I don’t know Night Of The Living Freaking Dead there it drives you nuts. Anyway I meet this guy at the shirt shop I’m working at and he turns out to be a jerk. So are his friends and I’ve lost 20 pounds in the 1st 2 weeks I’m there. At work they’re like “Caroline”. But I swear just the idea of food makes me sick. I almost got a job as a hostess. Thank God I didn’t get that job.”

  She stopped talking and took a really deep breath that was like “Oh man”. Then she said “So I took 26 aspirin. They pumped my stomach. I did something to my intestines. Don’t take aspirin if you ever want to kill yourself.”

  I figured I was supposed to be giving her advice on not killing herself versus her giving me advice on how to kill myself and I said “You should never want to die.”

  Caroline puffed up her cheeks with a mouth full of air and then a second later said “I know.”

  “What did your Dad say?”

  “He brought me flowers. Red roses. At the hospital like I was getting married. Then at the hospital they’re like Your father’s so nice and You have to start eating and You have to go into counseling and change your life. I did start eating. I don’t know why I guess I was hungry.”

  After a long time nobody came back and although we thought it was possible they’d been killed or eaten by a bear or a lunatic psycho killer we figured they were just lost and it was getting cold so we went back. We laid down again in Carolines room with our heads next to each other but not as close finally I heard everybody coming in the door and I sat up pretty fast. “It’s soooooooo beautiful out” Kath said. She was sort of leaning on Douglas the truth is Kath looked happier than I ever saw her before in her life which almost makes me think Pot not only isn’t bad but maybe people should smoke it all the time. Gillian says “Where were you guys” and I said “We came back” and she said “We were worried about you” and I said “It got cold.” Douglas wasn’t really listening he came up to me and said “How are you man?” and I said “Fine” but I said it slow like I was hi like “Fiiiine” which was moronic but they were probably way too hi to notice anyway. Then Gillian said “You should try new things. Loosen up Jeremy stop being such a stick in the mud.” I felt like saying “Sorry I don’t want to kill all my brain cells and probably get arrested some day” but I didn’t and I could tell by her face Gillian felt bad and then she said “To each his own”. “Or her” Caroline said and she’s been totally quiet since they came back so it was like the dead person on the floor suddenly saying something and we were all like “Oh - Caroline’s here.”

  “That’s not the expression” Gillian said.

  “So what” Caroline said.

  “It’s not the expression it’s to each his own” Gillian said.

  “You’re the big feminist” Caroline said.

  “This is very negative” Douglas said.

  They shut up.

  We lay around at Carolines until really late. I called home and told my Mom I’d be late I had to call if I was coming home after 12:00 on a weekend. Douglas drove us all home because he had his license now. Carolines mother never came home and they smoked again in the back behind the building and we all got super mellow. Caroline played Yellow Submarine by the Beatles and it was kind of like “Whoa we’re in the 60s” but mostly just nobody was mad or unhappy and it was like time or something was moving kind of slowly all over us and I felt like sometimes you find people just like you and these guys were.

  CHAPTER 12

  DOUGLAS HERO FOR A DAY

  There’s this guy Christopher Lemon in our class who’s Mr. Student Union and Mr. Plan Homecoming and Mr. Do Everything and everyone lets him do everything because who cares and somebody’s got to do it. He wears a tie to school for no reason and he’s friends with this group of guys who sit around and think a lot. Anyway Christopher’s up giving this speech during MooSoo (Mandatory Student Union) about apathy and how it’s rotting the student body from within and how it’s a cancer we have to cure and we have to all care more about everything. When he’s done talking he asks if there are any questions and a few people make comments about how apathy is bad I’m sitting next to Gillian all the way on 1 side in the middle and I whisper to her “People care he’s just pissed because they don’t care about the same things he cares about like keeping the halls clean. And class spirit.”

  Gillian whispers back “That’s a really good comment you should say that.”

  “Now?” I say.

  “It’s a really good comment.”

  I’m like I don’t think so. Then Gillian says “well if you’re not going to say it tell Douglas to say it.”

  So I tell Douglas the comment and then I say “Gillian thinks you should say it.”

  And Douglas raises his hand and Christopher calls on him a second later and he gets up and says “In my opinion you think there’s so much apathy because everyone doesn’t care about precisely the same issues you care about. For example school spirit. And how clean the Lunchroom is hygienically speaking. But people do care they just care about different issues. For example how cool they are and who’s dating who and what they’re wearing.”

  Douglas sits down and people start cheering. Christopher starts trying to argue. Finally we end up making a resolution which passes that apathy is a cancer and the student body of Hutch Falls High School will have less apathy.

  The whole rest of the day people are coming up to Douglas and saying “Great Comment” and some girls are smiling at him and you’d think he just read the declaration of independence or something. Plus what he said was kind of weird because he was saying it was fine to just care about your clothes which was not exactly my point but nobody really paid attention to that they were more just like “that was cool”. People can be narrowminded like that.

  Anyway I’ll tell you now what’s so amazing about Gillian she just really understands people. I walked her home after school which I do a lot because we live mostly in the same direction and it was cold and I had on my big blue down coat I just got because I got too tall for the red down coat I had in 8th Grade and Freshman Year I knew that coat looked stupid like the Michelin Man but it fit so I figured I should still wear it until finally I could go to my Dad and show him it really didn’t fit anymore. Beth of course gets new coats every year and my Dad harumphs a little about it but doesn’t s
ay anything because girls have to worry more about fashion and how they look. Anyway Gillian who wore many types of clothes had on a red scarf wrapped around her mouth and a hat (I think it was black) with a white pom on top. It was cold but I don’t wear hats. There was some snow on the ground from a few nights before when it snowed all night and I made a snowball to throw at nobody in particular and Gillian said “So do you wish you made that comment?”

  “No. Douglas made it” I said.

  “But he got all the credit” Gillian said. “For your comment.”

  “That’s OK” I said.

  “I guess” she said. Then she said “I could never make a comment in front of everyone.”

  “Why not?” I said.

  “Oh I don’t know I’m too insecure.”

  “No you’re not.”

  “I am.”

  “I don’t mind talking in front of people but I don’t like to get up and make a big deal out of every little thing” I said.

  “Oh” said Gillian.

  “There’s better things to do with your time” I said.

  “I suppose.”

  We walked a little bit and over Gillians scarf I could tell her eyes looked sad or something and I said “what’s new?”

  She said “Nothing. With you?”

  “Nothing” I said.

  “I suppose it would be nice well to be less shy” she said.

  “Being shy isn’t the end of the world” I said.

  “I’d just like to be oh I don’t know more confident.”

  I couldn’t believe Gillian didn’t think she was confident because even though I noticed before she was more insecure than I realized I thought she was very confident even more than me. She was almost like the leader of our little group.

  “You’re confident” I said. “You’re very confident.”

  “Do you think so?”

  “Yeah” I said.

  “Well I didn’t like Douglas getting all the credit for your comment” she said.

  “Oh” I said.

  “And it was my dumb idea.”

  “But I wouldn’t say it so it’s better he said it than nobody saying it.”

  “I suppose” Gillian said.

  When we got to her house she said “Do you want to come in for some coffee?”

  I said “Yeah. It’s freezing.”

  We sat in her kitchen and she made coffee in the coffee pot. It was really strong. Gillian was sitting there at the kitchen table which was round and wood and had salt shakers and stuff in the middle you could see out into her back yard through the window in the back door and also see the tops of trees there through the windows over the sink. She said “I’m just the kind of person who believes life’s a journey you know? And you can let your journey go past you or you can go on your journey. And it’s a waste of what Gods given you if you don’t go.”

  “God?” I said.

  “Well whoever.”

  “And who knows what your journey is? I mean does my Dad know if my journey includes college? No. That’s the journey he wants me to take” I said.

  “I suppose. But you should go to college.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it opens up the world. It gives you more opportunities more journeys you can take from there.”

  “I guess” I said.

  The truth is I was bummed out a little even though Gillian was definitely my closest friend and we were drinking coffee and hanging out and everything was great I don’t really know why not because of Douglas and the comment. Maybe more just because things were going along and sometimes things just going along is kind of a bummer. Maybe I learned that from Gillian but maybe I learned it somewhere else in the story.

  CHAPTER 13

  OUR DAY IN THE CITY

  Stuff happens and you learn to live with it. We all have a lot in life. A fate. A destiny.

  For example I am Jeremy Reskin and I live in Hutch Falls New Jersey and this was my fate. I have 2 sisters Claire and Beth 1’s a pain in the ass 1 isn’t. My Mother loves me and worries about me and isn’t as crazy as most other mothers. Her and my Dad are still married because it’s the destiny of other people like Gillian and Caroline that their parents are divorced. My Dad makes pretty good money. He likes being a father. He commutes to work in New York. And he loves more than just about anything Mo Levitsky.

  Mo Levitsky is the guy who owns Mo Levitskys. Mo Levitskys is where my Dad buys his clothes. And sometimes my clothes. It’s down all these weird little streets on the 3rd floor of this building that looks like nobody’s been in it in 50 years in the Garment District in New York. Which if they asked me before they named it I would of told them we don’t really call them garments anymore. But whatever. Anyway once a year there’s a day when I skip school and spend the day in New York with my Dad it’s called Our Day In The City and maybe other kids on a day like that would go to a baseball game or go for a bike ride with their Dads but we go to Mo Levitskys.

  The thing is this year I’m not psyched to go not that I was ever that psyched but it was OK and it beat school but now I want to see Renee in Spanish and the only day my Dad can go the week he wants to go is a Wednesday when we have Spanish not to mention I want to hang with Gillian and everybody on the balcony so at dinner when my Dad says “Jeremy how about Our Day In The City this Wednesday” I say “that’s not really a good day.”

  “Do you have a test?” my Dad says.

  Like having a test would make me not want to miss school.

  “No” I say.

  “Then let’s go.”

  My Mom is looking at me with her “The world’s caving in” look and I say “I’m not really supposed to miss school you know when you’re a Sophomore and everything.”

  “But you like missing school” my Dad said.

  “VTS.”

  “What?” my Dad said.

  “Very True Statement.”

  “Don’t you want to have Our Day In The City?” he said.

  So I said “Yeah but what about Thursday” when there was at least no Spanish.

  “I can only get free on Wednesday and it’s Mo Levitskys Overstock Sale this week you want to go to the Overstock Sale don’t you?”

  The night before we were going when I went to bed here’s what I thought about that Russia was going to invade America tomorrow and they’d break into Hutch Falls High and go to Spanish and because Renee was the hottest girl there they’d say “Come veeth us!!!” and no one would ever hear from her again. Meanwhile me and my Dad would be in Mo Levitskys which the Russians probably couldn’t even find. But I’d say I had to go help Renee and my Dad would try to talk me out of it but I’d go to the Russian HQ and I’d see through the fence the building they were taking her to and I’d dig under the fence and elude the sentries and climb into a window and she’d be tied to a chair with her shirt off but her bra on and there’d be all these soldiers around and from the looks in their eyes even though they were speaking Russian we’d all know they were going to rape her and she’d know too and she’d look over and see me at the window and I’d give her a signal not to look because they’d see me and she’d look away and I’d realize I needed a plan because there were about 10 or 20 of them and I couldn’t beat up that many. So what I did was I went in another window to the room next door and I started a fire in the garbage can and then I yelled really loud in this weird voice so they wouldn’t know I was yelling in English like “Yooowwweennaaasaaaaaaaaahh!!!” and then I went back out the window and back in the other window and most of the soldiers had gone to see what the noise was all about but there were 3 of them left and 1 of them was ripping off Renees bra and her Tits flew out and then he ripped her panties off with 1 hand and there she was with her pubic hair, just sitting there and you could see a little under it and she went “Oh!” and I could see she was shaking from being so scared and just as he was about to grab 1 of her Tits with his dirty Russian hand I said “excuse me” and he turned around and I grabbed him in a wrist lock and
threw him into the other 2 soldiers who were coming at me and they all toppled to the ground and Renee went “Oh. Jeremy” and I untied her but then the other soldiers were coming back and I stood next to the door and kept elbowing them in the face when they came in but finally 1 of them got by and pointed his gun at me and I knew it was curtains for me when Renee went “Hey” and the soldier turned around to look at her and she smiled and took 1 Tit in her hand and kind of squeezed it a little and pointed it at him and his mouth opened and his face just about fell off his head and then I kicked him in the balls and grabbed Renees hand and I said “thanks”. And she said “It was my turn”. And I lifted her up and out through the window and when I climbed up after her I looked around for her clothes and I found her panties and she put them back on but I couldn’t find her bra so her Tits were going to have to stay naked and we ran into the woods and when we were pretty far away we stopped and Renee put her hands around me and she said “what are we going to do? The Russians have taken over”. And I said “I’ll take care of the Russians”. And she smiled and turned around and then she leaned forward against a tree and said “I think you need a little reward”.

  Anyway I slept late and my Dad went downtown to get some work done. Then I went to the train station it was raining a little bit and I got that weird feeling you get when you’re supposed to be in school and you’re not and everyone else is. Like you’re the only person left on the planet. And you’re going to get in trouble for not being there. In New York though there are lots of kids out because there always are I don’t know if it’s because a lot of kids in New York don’t go to school or if everyone in New York just gets to sign out for lunch or they’re tourists or what. I go to my Dads building which is this black building with black windows and a really fancy lobby with marble floors like The Acropolis in Ancient Greece and I go up to his office which is on the 35th floor. I breeze right past the secretary at the front and I stop at the door of my Dads office until he looks up and says come in. His office is pretty medium-size and really messy with papers and folders and law books all over the place. He’s not ready yet and he goes into his drawer to get out this set of blocks that he’s been giving me to play with since I was about 3. They’re in a little yellow box there’s about 6 of them 1 square, 1 round, 1 square with like an arrow shaped chunk cut out of it, 1 like a tube, and I can’t remember the other ones. They’re all different colors pretty faded after all these years yellow and red and green wood. Here’s what they look like.