by Joe Weisberg
I go over and stand by the bleachers and I look around and I immediately see Renee and Lenea and Cindy in the middle of the stands (upwise) and the middle (sidewise) then there’s a bunch of other people around in different places and a few teachers so I just sort of stand there which is cool because other people are standing around too and people are coming and going and also just because there’s so many people around from other schools because of all the games including Bedford South which is sort of a minor rival for us and Willdon which I don’t know anything about and who knows who’s who and what’s going on. So I’m cool just standing there and I watch the 1st couple innings by the way it’s pretty warm and fortunately not raining and the sun’s going down but it’s nowhere near all the way down so it’s not hot it’s just sort of perfect and beautiful. What a great day.
I try not to look a lot at Renee because 1 of the truest Laws Of Physics is that if you look a lot you will get busted. Not that they’d be looking at me but they could be looking in the general direction of me and then accidentally bust me looking at them plus now that Renee really knows me pretty well maybe she might look at me for a second and think “there’s Jeremy Reskin from Spanish.”
Which is sort of what happens but in reverse. It’s the 3rd inning we’re losing 2 to nothing John McKnight by the way has struck out twice and you can see he’s getting pissed we’re playing Weston-Barley which is a very working class school from Weston and Barley so they’re good at sports and they come up to bat in the 3rd inning. I look around for no particular reason and then I look over around Renee and then I notice her head is pointing in the direction of me versus looking at the field and instead of looking away I can’t stop I look right at her and she’s looking right at me and she waves. And I wave except what my hand actually does is kind of a retarded 1/2-wave and then she waves again but this 1 looks like a “Come Here” wave and because my mind has a mind of its own totally without meaning to I do that thing where you look around like you think the person is talking to a person standing there behind you and then Renee laughs and points her finger at me like she’s saying “No you moron!”
So I start to go. I go up into the bleachers and then I’m right next to Renee.
“Hi Jeremy” she says.
“Hey” I say. “What’s up?”
“Sit down” she commands and I sit down next to her.
“Good game” I say.
“Oh it’s so boring” she says.
“Yeah” I say.
“John struck out twice” she said.
“Yeah” I said. “That guy can pitch.”
“What?” Renee said.
She was watching the game and not looking at me.
“Nothing I just said he was a good pitcher.”
“Number 17 has a cute butt” Cindy said.
She was talking about a guy on the other team. Renee Lenea and Cindy were all drinking Tabs then Renee kind of 1/2 looked at me and said “Do you want a Tab?”
“No thanks” I said.
“I do like that butt” Lenea says.
“Jeremy you know Lenea and Cindy don’t you?” Renee said to me.
Suddenly I realized I didn’t know if I knew them or not I mean of course I knew who they were but I’d probably never said anything to them so “Yes” and “No” were both kind of not true and also might seem not true and bother them but I saved my own ass by suddenly just saying “Hey”.
“Hi” “Hi” they both said.
“Jeremy’s the genius of our Spanish class” Renee said and for a second I wasn’t sure if she was serious or joking and also then if maybe I wasn’t as bad at Spanish as I thought but then she laughed not in a mean way in a way like it was just a little joke and I laughed and I said “I’m pretty good but Renee is totally fluent” and we both laugh and then Lenea said “I should of taken Spanish French is a waste of time nobody speaks French.”
“They do in France” Renee said which was funny because it was funny and also because Renee lived in Japan and went around the world so she knew more about that kind of thing (Not that you have to know that much to know they speak French in France.)
“Jeremy do you play on the soccer team?” Lenea said.
“Yeah” I said.
“I thought so you play in the back right?”
For a second I didn’t know what she meant then I realized she meant I was a fullback.
“Yeah” I said.
“You guys sucked this year” Cindy said.
“Yeah I guess we did” I said.
Let me describe what Cindy was wearing it was warm and she’s got this very very very curly blond hair and she’s wearing this purple shirt that’s shiny but the key thing is the top 3 or 4 or 5 buttons are unbuttoned so even though Cindy always had medium to medium-small size Tits suddenly when she leaned over to say something or something you could basically almost see them not quite everything but a big chunk of the tops and her bra too which was black by the way and also I think maybe they’d been growing but either way they were like “Wo” and then also the looking down-in factor. Even though I was in love with Renee and thought about her all the time when I saw Cindy in the hall or now I really liked her she had sexy hair. Lenea was different 1st of all she had black hair and no curls and her skin was very very dark so she looked kind of like she was Greek or something like Claire and then her face is sort of tall. What she looked like was 1 of those totally-grown-up models in their 30s in an ad for pantyhose or something walking down the street and the winds blowing and their hairs flying and maybe they’re walking a dog. You know like “La la la.” I would say Lenea is the oldest looking girl in our class. People think she’s very good looking and I know what they mean but she isn’t my type but I guess I would probably definitely fool around with her if she wanted to. She’s also more serious and not as ditzy as Cindy. Which is why I was surprised to hear her saying stuff about butts but I guess all girls talk about butts basically because guys don’t have tits.
Anyway it’s around the 6th or 7th or 8th inning between innings so the games been going on for about 95 hours. I haven’t said anything in 3 innings and neither has Lenea and Renee hasn’t said much except answering questions from Cindy who’s like a fountain of talking. Don’t get me wrong I still think she’s hot and also don’t get me wrong the stuff she says isn’t that bad sometimes she’s even a little funny and she’s not totally ditzy as much as I thought but still the more she talks about every 5000 words the amount I think she’s hot goes down but I still think she’s got a great body. She’d be a great robot. And I could flick the Talk Switch to off. Or Pause. Anyway John comes up in the bleachers between innings his uniform has dirt all over it from this dive he made for a ball he didn’t get (he plays 2nd Base) and he’s standing in front of us but the 1st thing he says is “Jeremy what’s up man?”
“Hey” I say.
“You look cute in that dirty uniform” Renee says.
John pretty much ignores this comment.
“Who’s #17 on the other team?” Cindy says.
“Some asshole” John says.
It turns out this guy is talking shit all game which is like shut the fuck up already.
Lenea hands him her Tab and he takes a swig which is kind of surprising because Tab is basically a drink for girls on diets. I suddenly wonder where Randy is because I don’t know if I’ve ever once in 2 years of High School and 2 years of soccer seen John without seeing Randy but I look down and there he is sitting on the bench picking dirt out of his cleats Randy is actually a pretty good baseball player and has the best batting average on the team.
“I’m on fire today” John says but he’s being sarcastic.
“You suck” said Cindy.
“I’m trying to get Jeremy to play ball” John said.
“Oh are you going to play baseball?” Renee said to me.
The whole thing is so weird because it’s the middle of the season anyway and you can’t just start playing in the middle of the season
plus I can’t play baseball but I say “I’m thinking about it.”
Then John goes back down. Renee Lenea and Cindy look at each other after he goes back down and giggle a little like “Oh John was here”. Anyway it’s near the end of the game and pretty soon I realize they’re all going back in someones car and I don’t want them to see me going to the bus which is kind of for losers so I think about going to the bus now but they might see me sitting there so I think about just leaving but it’s about 20 miles back to Hutch Falls and there aren’t a whole lot of other ways to get there so finally I decide to go get on the bus now and get down low and wait.
“See you guys later” I say and I stand up it’s the 9th inning now.
“Bye” says Cindy.
Lenea looks at me but she didn’t say anything.
“How are you getting back?” Renee says.
“Um I don’t know” I said.
“Come with us” Renee says. “Leneas got a car.”
“Oh” I said.
But now I was standing up.
“I’ll see you guys in the parking lot” I said.
“OK” said Renee.
They started watching the game again and I went down to the parking lot I diverted towards a few of the other fields and looked at the games going on and stood around where no one knew me and then I went to this place where they have gardens and I walked around because I had a whole inning to kill I wanted to walk towards the parking lot at the same time they were. When I finally went I saw them coming and I walked like I was Mr. Casual and sort of followed them to Leneas car. I said “Hey”.
John blew off the team bus to go with us and he sat in front with Lenea and I sat in back with Renee and Cindy I was between the window and Cindy who was blabbing away about butts and other things. She was wearing pretty short shorts and I was wearing normal shorts and our legs were pretty much permanently touching because it was crowded back there but I don’t think she even noticed but I noticed because her leg was great.
It was nice of them to give me a ride. I think Renee thinks of me as her Spanish friend so she didn’t want to leave me hanging there. But it was weird being with Lenea and Cindy who don’t know me at all and with Cindys leg and mine all over each other without her even noticing probably. John I don’t think is serious about this whole baseball thing he would give anyone a ride because he’s like that. A solid good guy. Even in the halls he’s nice to people saying hi and always answering people who say hi to him and everything. He’s basically The Great Gatsby. “He smiled understandingly - much more than understandingly. It was one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it, that you may come across four or five times in a life. It faced - or seemed to face - the whole external world for an instant, and then concentrated on you with an irresistible prejudice in your favor. It understood you just so far as you wanted to be understood, believed in you as you would like to believe in yourself and assured you that it had precisely the impression of you that, at your best, you hoped to convey. Precisely at that point it vanished-” Anyway in the car I didn’t really say anything and pretty soon we were back at school. John went to the locker room and the girls drove off somewhere and I was just standing around so I went home. If I had my license I’d give them a ride somewhere to say thanks if they needed 1 but fate decreed I can’t do that until June 16.
CHAPTER 20
KATHS GRANDMOTHER BITES THE DUST
Kaths Grandmother had a stroke. Basically her brain exploded she was living alone in an apartment in Philadelphia and she was sleeping but it wasn’t 1 of those things where you decompose and you start to smell until the neighbors call the police because they smell it in the hall Kaths mother called the building superintendent when she didn’t answer the phone and he went up to the apartment and found her dead in there.
Gillian called and told me and then she said “Kath wants you to be there”. We hadn’t been out in a couple weeks me with them I mean. I hadn’t been out on the balcony either basically we were smiling fake smiles in the hall but it was practically like before we were friends Douglas was the only 1 where we still stopped and talked a lot Caroline wasn’t much of a stopper and talker anyway and Kath I didn’t run into a lot because she was sick and we had different schedules. Gillian I think was ignoring me or trying not to be there if I was anywhere. There was just this very big tension between me and everybody it was like some whole waterfall had started and we were just stuck in it. Meanwhile I was talking sometimes in the hall to Renee and John McKnight and Lenea and Cindy if they were with Renee and sometimes when I’m talking I see Gillian or Douglas or Caroline go by and I know they see me and they’re probably like “Why are you talking to them?” except with Caroline it’s a little different because she’s so mellow about stuff and doesn’t really care what you do and when she goes by sometimes she says “Hi there”.
Anyway the funeral’s on Thursday so for starters I’m missing school in 1 of those “Nobody’s going to complain about you missing school” situations. My Mom drops me off at the funeral home which is in Chastleton nearby. I have 4 Grandparents and 1 died before I was born and 1 died when I was really young and I didn’t go to the funeral which was in California and 2 didn’t die so I’ve never really been to a funeral before. I’m wearing a blue Mo Levitskys shirt and a tie and when I get to the funeral I see everyone but Kath standing out front Caroline in an even for her pretty gutsy move is wearing a very short black leather mini-skirt that shows off all her legs and a black part see through dracula type top and puffing away but nobody seems to notice (everything’s kind of different at funerals like you can do anything). Anyway I go up and we all hug even me and Douglas and Gillian’s crying a little in that way where you cry a little and stop then cry a little more then stop and she says Kath’s really upset and freaked out and won’t talk to her and Gillian seems really messed up and Douglas looks stupid in a suit I can’t explain it it fits and everything but it just looks like he is 1 person who shouldn’t be wearing it.
We go inside and there’s a service. People talk about Kaths Grandmother and say they loved her so much and what she did in her life which was basically she grew up in this little town in Wisconsin and she left. I could see the side of Kaths face up in the front row. Then we went out to the cemetary where I stood next to Gillian while they lowered her into the ground. It wasn’t that sad because she was so old and everything.
When we were leaving the cemetary Douglas and me were walking and he said “I think I’ll get cremated”.
“Why?” I said.
“I’m not rotting down there with bugs eating my eyes.”
“Very nice” I said.
Anyway here’s the main thing. We go back to Kaths house for the post-funeral party her house is packed and there’s a lot of food which is good because I didn’t have breakfast and it turns out funerals make me hungry. So we get there and I’m in the food line surrounded by other people and I don’t see anyone anywhere so I get my food and I walk around and finally I see Gillian and Douglas and Caroline standing together in the den I’m sort of 1/2-acting like I don’t see them but it just feels weird and I’m about to just go over when I suddenly turn around and head towards the living room and in the hall I run right into Kath.
“Oh Jeremy” she says and hugs me. I hug her back and she starts crying a little but not totally. Then she stops hugging me.
“Hey” I say.
“Thank you for coming” she says.
“Yeah” I said.
She was wearing this blue dress and as you know she’s pretty hefty but her cheeks were messed up from where she was crying and her make-up was going all over the place and she actually looks kind of pretty.
“It’s good to have your friends around at times like this” I say.
“So we’re still friends?” she says and she smiled but her face was kind of sarcastic but not in a mean way.
“Yeah” I say.
“OK” she says.
“The f
uneral was um” and I don’t know what to say.
“Grandma would of liked it” Kath said. I don’t know about that because who likes a funeral when it’s theirs.
“How’s your Mom?”
It was her Moms Mom who died.
“OK I think she’s in shock.”
We stood around for a little while. We talked about death.
“It’s so strange that she’s never coming back. And I don’t know where she is” Kath said.
“It’s really weird” I said.
“And she died all alone” Kath said.
“That sucks” I said.
“It’s so sad.”
She shook her head a lot. Eventually I finished my food and I wanted some more and Kath knew I wanted more and she gave me another hug of the “I’m going to the den to talk to everybody else now” variety and she said “You should come out on the balcony.”
“Yeah” I said.
I guess I should of said hi to everyone but I didn’t. I left soon. Mom picked me up and asked me all about the funeral and everything but I was like “uh-huh” so she’d leave me alone because you want to be left alone after funerals and I was thinking in the car (cars really make me think) about going to a baseball game and getting there late after it’s over and everyone’s gone except John and Randy are out on the field with about 5 players from Helgrove facing them and John and Randy are like fuck you to them and the 5 guys are trying to start a fight and talking about their mothers and calling them pussys. 2 of the Helgrove guys are huge and when I see what’s happening I go up from behind and stand next to John and Randy.
“What’s up guys?” I say to John and Randy.
“Hey man” they say.
“Looks like the odds are changing” I say.
The 5 guys don’t look so confident anymore but they still outnumber us 5-3 and then the biggest 1 says “Who the fuck are you? You want to get your ass kicked too?”
“I don’t see that happening” I say.