The Trouble in Me

by Jack Gantos

  “How can I help this time?” I asked.

  I was eager to do anything I could for Gary because I was nervous about the wallet in my pocket. He wouldn’t be happy that Tomi had given it to me and told me the story about where it came from.

  “Seems that cop called Mercier about me being suspiciously linked to that missing tow truck,” he said. “You got a fix for that?”

  “You mean an excuse, right?” I asked.

  “Don’t make me hurt you,” he said, and narrowed his eyes. “I did enough fighting in Alabama—and I’m a smidge away from getting married and off probation—so my mood is fragile.”

  He held up his scabby fists for me to see what might be coming my way.

  “I can tell him that we were on a Sea Cadet training initiation,” I suggested. “I already asked my dad, and he said you can join and come on our cadet retreat.”

  “What kind of training initiation?” he asked.

  “Survival stuff,” I suggested. “Like spending a weekend in the Glades living off of wildlife and plants.”

  “I like the survival stuff,” he said. “Lots of blood. No telephones. Right?”

  “Right,” I agreed. “We can tell Mercier we had to toughen up just like we were stranded in real life—like it’s training for joining the marines, which we can say you are thinking of doing someday, like following in your dad’s footsteps.”

  “And when’s the retreat?” he asked.

  “This weekend,” I lied, making up the details on the spot. “At Birch State Park on the beach.”

  “Perfect,” he said, and clapped his hands together. “For how long?”

  “Two days.”

  “Excellent,” he said, nodding favorably. “I can slip up to Alabama and elope with Leigh and bring her back home. Mercier won’t know a thing. Problem solved.”

  “Not all the problems are solved,” I said quietly.

  He gave me a puzzled look. “Why?”

  “Can I ask you a question?” I asked. “’Cause now I have a problem.”

  “Don’t I usually punch you when you ask me a question?” he said, and cocked his fist back.

  “This is more than that,” I replied as I reached into my back pocket. I took my time pulling out the wallet and held it straight toward him as if I were revealing the evidence to a crime. “Tomi asked me to give this back to you,” I said. Then I stood still and waited for the punch.

  “Oh, crap,” he said, and took it from me as he glared over at her house. “She’s just making trouble like she always does. She thinks I’m going to get pissed off at you, but she’s wrong. She probably told you that pathetic story of hers that she tells everyone. I know her backstabbing version backward and forward, and I just bet she wants you to ask me for my side of the story.”

  “As a matter of fact, yes,” I said, feeling slightly relieved that he didn’t just haul off and punch me in the face. “That’s it exactly.”

  “And I guess you just stood there like a lovesick puppy and listened to her run me down. Right?” he asked.

  I nodded.

  “And you didn’t defend me?”

  “I wasn’t sure how to,” I said.

  “Punch her lights out—like this!” he hissed, and hit me so quick and hard on the shoulder I let go of the fence and fell backward on the grass, which was like landing on a bed of nails.

  “I’m sorry!” I cried out. “But I didn’t want to lie to you about where I got it.”

  “Save your lies for Mercier,” he said. “Don’t screw it up for me. Remember, I’m a breath away from freedom.”

  “Deal,” I said, and stood up and stuck out my hand.

  He flicked it away. “We’re friends,” he said. “That’s the real deal.”

  “Yeah,” I said, trying to mimic his bravado. “So don’t worry about Mercier. I can handle him like the last time.”

  “Okay. That you did.” He held up the wallet. “Yeah, I took this off the dead pilot,” he stated matter-of-factly. “I risked my life to do it, too, because after the crash he was strapped into his seat and on fire like one of those Buddhist monks. I burned my hands cutting open his flaming jumpsuit and pulling the wallet out of his pants. That’s when the spare tank blew and I barely made it out of there.

  “I figured I was going to give it to his family rather than let whatever he had in there go up in smoke. Once I opened it was when I saw the thousand bucks. I wasn’t sure what to do with it because I don’t often find that kind of money. Then right around that time Suzy, who was my girlfriend then, dumped me after she swooped down and stole Tomi’s rich boyfriend right off her arm. He was some prep-school kid. Jordan something.”

  “Abernathy,” I added.

  “That’s it,” he said, and snapped his fingers. “Suzy was so money-blind I stupidly gave her the wallet to try and get her back with me. That sure as hell didn’t work. I didn’t get her back, and she kept the wallet. Then the next thing you know Tomi turns up pregnant. She wasn’t my girlfriend anymore. Ask anybody. But mysteriously Tomi ends up with the wallet and the money. So who do you think gave it to her? Suzy? Of course not. But she must have been dumb enough to have shown it to Jordan and he stole the wallet from Suzy and secretly gave it to Tomi, because he was the dirty bird who got her in trouble.”

  “But why would he do that?” I asked. “Tomi said he was loaded.”

  “But he wasn’t loaded,” Gary said, and smiled wryly. “Get this. That Richie Rich act was all a fake. The chauffeur was Jordan’s dad, who worked for a limo company. They didn’t have a thousand bucks sitting around. And Jordan wasn’t sitting around either. After he gave Tomi the wallet nobody saw him again. He vanished. He didn’t want any part of those girls, and with the mess he was in he took off to who-knows-where. Hell, I would have run off, too.”

  “So it wasn’t you who got Tomi in trouble?” I slowly dared to ask.

  He smirked. “That story she tells about me is a tired old lie. That baby belonged to Jordan, which is why he was so quick to dump her and chase after Suzy. Just think about it for a minute and what I’m saying all makes sense.”

  I just stood there comparing the two stories like I was in the Garden of Eden wondering if I should bite the snake’s apple or not.

  “So who are you going to believe? Her?” He pointed to Tomi’s house. “She who goes around spreading lies about me? Or are you going to believe me, who has no reason to fear anyone, so I always tell the truth? Why do you think Leigh moved to Alabama? Because Tomi told Leigh’s mother I was the dirty bird. No one has a reason to be more pissed at Tomi than me. Being a coward is what makes people lie to themselves and to anyone who will listen to them. I can tell you this—I’m no coward!” He held his swollen red fist up under my chin like it was the apple. “Now,” he asked as his rising knuckles lifted me onto my tiptoes, “who are you going to believe?”

  Over Gary’s shoulder I saw Mr. Mercier’s Ford Falcon pull up in the Pagoda driveway. When he got out he glanced toward us and slammed the door behind himself, then pointed to the Pagoda house. “Inside, now!” he hollered like he was scolding a dog.

  “Whatever you say to him, make it a winner,” Gary whispered, and gave me a quick pat on the back. “Or else you’ll be the loser.”

  I had my work cut out for me because Mr. Mercier was angry and he had his facts together and he started up the moment Gary and I entered the house.

  “Somebody ratted you out and let us know you were in Alabama,” he said, angrily marching back and forth between what looked like two crushed La-Z-Boy recliners. “Not only is leaving the state without permission a violation, but you were up there harassing your old girlfriend.”

  “That’s not possible,” I cut in. “He was with my dad and me on a Sea Cadets trip.”

  Mercier turned and looked at me as if he could backhand me down the hall. “What are you?” he snapped viciously. “His midget understudy?”

  “His friend,” I said sincerely.

  Detailed lying was my strong
suit and by the time I finished telling how Gary and I had gone on a Sea Cadet survival trip and spent forty-eight hours bonding like real men in a raft on Big Cypress Swamp in the Glades with nothing but a flashlight, a paddle, water, and a fishing line, all Mr. Mercier could do was look at Gary with loathing and say, “Well, you didn’t seem to get much sun on your sensitive lying face.”

  “We covered our faces in zinc oxide,” I said. “We looked like snowmen—actually snow cones.”

  I laughed a little at my own joke. It helped strengthen the lie, I thought.

  “I think I’m the one being snowed,” Mr. Mercier said, but he didn’t question me any further and before long he looked at his watch and stood up. “I gotta run to court,” he said, sounding annoyed. “Believe it or not there are about a million Gary Pagodas out there on the loose, and I’m the guy who has to keep them on a virtuous path—before they end up behind bars living in hell on earth.”

  After that threat he pointed a finger at Gary. “No funny business,” he said. “Or I promise you I’ll run out of patience.” Then he swiftly turned to me and pulled a pad and pencil out of his jacket pocket. “What’s your dad’s phone number?”

  “We don’t have a phone,” I replied. “Look in the phone book—no Gantoses in there. We can’t afford one.”

  “Believe me, I’ll look,” he promised, pointing at me with a menacing glare.

  He snatched open the door and walked away without closing it.

  After a minute Gary slowly said, “Good job for now. But if he calls, you better pretend to be your father or I could be screwed.”

  “Don’t worry,” I said, showing off my cleverness. “We just recently got the phone. It’s not listed in the book yet.”

  Gary flopped down across a recliner. My chess set dropped to the floor and the pieces scattered. Gary reached down and picked up the white king and queen. He held one in each hand, then threw his arm over his eyes.

  He looked tired to me, so I took a chance.

  “Is this a bad time to talk about the puppy Alice was supposed to give me?” I asked.

  “We’ll talk about that later,” he replied. “Right now I’m in a crappy mood and I have to go down to Gus’s and make some phone calls.”

  “About what?” I asked.

  “Come over here,” he said.

  When I did he sat up and slapped me across the face so hard that I staggered toward the wall.

  “I owed you that for the last ten questions,” he said, and turned his face away from me. “How many times am I going to have to teach you that?”

  “A hundred thousand times,” I said in a hurt voice, then walked out the open door and around to my backyard. I stood there with my cheeks heating up as if I were in purgatory.

  Maybe it’s a good day to burn all my clothes, I thought. I had already decided to steal new ones. But then I saw Tomi standing behind her fence. I knew she was waiting just for me.

  “Talk to me,” she called out in that soft, sweet voice of hers. “You aren’t going to let that bully run your life, are you? Come over here and light my cigarette. Come on. I’ll blow smoke in your face and give you a kiss and you’ll forget all about wanting to be his boyfriend. You’ll be my boyfriend. There’s a lot more fun on my side of the fence—I promise you that.”

  I just lowered my head as if those words were a driving rainstorm. I walked blindly forward as she lashed out at me from behind.

  “Well,” she said loudly, “if you want a little bit of heaven come and see me. But if you gotta go to hell with someone it might as well be him.”

  That set me on fire.

  WORDS OF FIRE

  It was Saturday and I was rubbing my mother’s sore legs. They were swollen from her standing all morning at the bank. She was a teller and had to wear high heels and now that she was expecting a baby her lower legs had filled with fluid. She was going to quit in a week or two but until then was enduring the swelling to make the extra money.

  She was lying back on the couch with her legs up. I was happy to rub them and spend private time with her, but it was always a dangerous time because she could see deeply into the very heart of me and had a way of getting me to tell her what I wanted to hide. We were just too alike.

  As soon as I started warming up the skin cream between my hands she said, “I’ve noticed some changes in you lately.”

  “Yeah,” I replied. “I’m getting bigger.” I held up my right arm and made a muscle. “See?”

  She smiled, then continued. “Other changes, too,” she said more seriously.

  “Like what?” I asked as I pressed on her calves and began to slowly massage them.

  “Like you spend all your time lately with that Pagoda boy next door,” she replied.

  “I’m lucky to have made a new friend,” I claimed. “With all our moving I lose friends faster than I can keep them.”

  “But he seems so much older than you,” she remarked in a cautious tone. “His interests might be more adult.”

  “He’s only a few years older,” I said, honestly not certain how old Gary was. I only knew that he had failed some grades. I didn’t know how much time he had spent in juvie, but he was probably three or four years older than me.

  “You seem to follow him around a lot,” she said. “Is he bossy?”

  “A little,” I conceded. “But that’s just because he’s older and used to being his own boss.”

  “Does he listen to you?” she asked.

  “Sometimes,” I said.

  “May I give you some advice?” she asked.

  I really didn’t want any. She was going to tell me to “respect myself because if I didn’t then no one else would either.” She had been saying that most of my life. I was sort of a serial follower, so she knew how I operated. Only this time I was older and didn’t want to just be a follower. I wanted to be him.

  “With Gary I’m sort of the second-in-command,” I said proudly.

  “The second-in-command is my favorite role,” she said in a warm voice. “It’s like being a secret boss. The second-in-command can be a good influence and a clever leader by helping to point out the right path to the boss. Like me and your dad. He might be the boss because he’s the man of the house, but I’m the leader. I’m the one that gives him good ideas and makes him think he thought of them himself.”

  That was true. “But is that good enough for you?” I asked.

  “Yes,” she replied. “Because I know I’m the real leader and it’s the same for you and Gary. He’s the boss, but your job is to put ideas into his head and make him think they are his. That makes you the leader, and then the boss is just a lot of hot air. You see what I mean?”

  “Yeah,” I said, “but it sounds so complicated. Can’t I just follow him like a pal or right-hand man?”

  She raised up on one elbow and looked at me with an exasperated expression. Then she lay back against the cushions again and closed her eyes. “You can do a lot better than to be his stooge,” she said, which hurt. “You are smarter than that. Stand up for yourself. Just remember, he’s the fake boss but you are the real leader.”

  She’d made that point so many times already I finally got exasperated. “Okay, I got it,” I said, and tried to change the subject before she suspected what was really on my mind. I didn’t want to be the leader. For now I was the follower, but soon I would be just like him. I’d be his double through and through.

  I kept working on my mother’s legs until she curled up and fell asleep. Being the leader without being the boss must have been exhausting.

  I loved her so much. I looked at her and put my cheek against her upturned hip. I wished I didn’t make her life so uneasy, but with the new baby coming she’d worry less about me. I gave her a kiss, then hopped off the couch. Her breathing was labored. I wanted to respect myself like my mother wanted. But when I was alone I had to face who I was—who I really was—and I was so two-faced I couldn’t really be alone because each face took turns hating the other. I never
told her that. In the past I had told her things about myself that made her cry, and her tears were more unbearable than my own.

  I left her side and went into my room. I closed the door and locked it. I felt exhausted with still being the follower. Maybe I was nothing more than Gary’s puppy that lived in a shoebox at the foot of his bed. But if I wanted more than that I had to do more than settle for being his runt, as Alice had gleefully said. The runt insult haunted me because I feared it was true. But I had a cure for that.

  I knew what I had to do next. I pulled open all my dresser drawers. Most of the clothes I had outgrown, but almost all of them seemed to belong to some other kid that I had rejected. I went through my drawers and scooped out all my socks and underwear and T-shirts. I piled them up on the bed. Then I opened my closet and tossed all my shoes and shirts and pants and a few jackets on top of the others. When I finished I only had one outfit—my shoplifting outfit.

  I slipped down to the kitchen and got two plastic trash bags, then returned to my room and filled them equally with the clothes. I slung them over my shoulders and bent over from the weight of them as I marched down the hall. I looked like a runaway who intended never to return, but I was only going to the garage, where I hid them behind some sheets of plywood.

  I took a deep breath and when I stepped out of the garage I spotted Gary in his backyard.

  “Hey,” I called out, and waved that little Tomi King wave before I caught myself and lowered my hand.

  “Sailor Jack!” he replied, and walked over to the fence. “You ready to meet some real guys?”

  “I’m working at it,” I said, and smiled.

  “Well, get your motor running because tonight is your night. I have a little initiation in mind that I think you’ll like.”

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  “Are you asking me a question?” he said, and cocked his fist back behind his head.

  “No,” I quickly replied. “No questions. Only answers.”

  He lowered his fist and cracked his knuckles. “See you at the clubhouse,” he said, and told me when to show up. “And don’t be late.”