Stop, Don't Stop

by Jonah Black

  JBLACK94710: I don’t know. Maybe that used to be true. But I think I’m looking at things differently now. I think I’m more into what is real now.

  NORTHGIRL999: Why? Because you’re in love with Posie now?

  JBLACK94710: Well, yeah. A little bit. I mean, that changes the way I see things.

  NORTHGIRL999: And you really think you’re over Sophie? Just because you’re in love with Posie now? Boy, you’re pathetic.

  JBLACK94710: IS THERE ANYTHING ABOUT ME THAT YOU DON’T KNOW????????

  NORTHGIRL999: I don’t think so.

  JBLACK94710: Mom? Honey? Miss von Esse? Mrs. Perella?

  NORTHGIRL999: Don’t be stupid. You think any of those people know you as well as I do?

  JBLACK94710: Thorne? Posie???????

  NORTHGIRL999: LOL!!! ROTFLMAO!!!!! You really don’t have a clue, do you?

  JBLACK94710: WHO IS THIS? PLEASE TELL ME!!! I’LL DO ANYTHING IF YOU’LL JUST TELL ME WHO YOU ARE!!!

  JBLACK94710: Hello?

  [Northgirl999 is not currently signed on.]

  Nov. 1, 9 P.M.

  Just got off the phone with Mom, who’s in Baltimore. She gave some sort of presentation at the Johns Hopkins Medical School, and the place was filled with doctors and teachers and everyone asking her questions about Hello Penis! Hello Vagina! I bet they didn’t ask her the most important question, which is How come your book says you’re “Doctor” Judith Black when you barely graduated from college? But no one asked her. I guess doctors like to trust people, and vice versa.

  Anyway, I asked Mom when she was coming home and she said next Tuesday, unless they extend the tour. She’s going to be on the Today show with Katie Couric next week. I can’t believe it.

  Actually, I like Katie Couric, even if she is like forty years old. One time, I saw her doing a Christmas show and she was wearing this little Santa hat and a Santa dress-thing that stopped like, in the middle of her thighs. She was climbing this ladder to put a star on top of the tree, and as she reached up to put the star on, the Santa dress rode up and for just this second you could see that she didn’t shave the tops of her legs, and there was this blond hair just above her knees and I was like, Hmm, maybe I should be a journalist one day.

  I guess I’m finally realizing that maybe my mother has written a book that is making a big impact on people. This whole time I’ve assumed that Hello Penis was just a crappy sex manual for teenagers, but I’m beginning to wonder if maybe there’s more to it than that. I guess maybe one day I’ll read it. Maybe.

  (Still Nov. 1, 11:34 P.M.)

  Oh, man. I think I just did the meanest thing I’ve ever done.

  I was lying here rereading the last couple of entries, thinking about Sophie and Posie and then about going to the Lemon concert with Cecily, and suddenly I realized I really couldn’t handle going to that lame-o concert with her. I mean, the only reason I was going was because I thought she’d go out with me if I went. But that was when I thought she was pretty and interesting, which I don’t anymore. I thought about Cecily sitting by my bedside in the hospital after I got hurt. It was pretty nice of her, but I liked her a lot more when I was pretending to be asleep than when I was awake.

  I guess what I really liked was the idea of somebody being in love with me, somebody who actually wants me to want them, instead of the usual stupid one-sided situations I always get myself into.

  But it’s not fair to Cecily for me to go out with her just because I like the attention. I mean, I’m not in love with her. I don’t think I’ll ever be in love with her. So then it is wrong for me to go out with her, right?

  Anyway, I finally picked up the phone and called Cecily and told her I couldn’t go to the concert. When she asked why, I thought about telling her the whole truth, that I’m not attracted to her in that way, that the only thing I really liked about her was the fact that she liked me. But then I realized I couldn’t say that to her. So instead I came up with this totally unbelievable excuse about how I had to help out with the swim meet tomorrow. If I was Cecily I wouldn’t have believed it; it was such a dumb lie.

  I heard her voice crack. “Okay, fine,” she said. “Forget it.” And then she hung up on me.

  I felt like a totally heartless jerk, so I called her back to say how sorry I was, determined to tell her the truth. But she wouldn’t talk to me, and this time her father got on the phone.

  “Jonah Black, don’t call here anymore,” he said.

  About twenty minutes after that, the phone rang and it was Cilla Wright and she said, “I just want to tell you what a total lowlife loser I think you are,” and then she hung up. And right after that, Kirsten calls me up.

  “Jonah Black,” she said. “You are total dirt, do you hear me? Dirt! Where do you get off breaking Cecily’s heart in half, you bastard? You should know that before morning every girl in the junior class is going to know what you did, and no one is ever going to go out with you ever again, okay? Do you understand?”

  I tried to interrupt and explain myself, but she just started singing: “’Girls together, girls are strong! Girls with power, all life long!’” And then she hung up.

  I sat there with the phone in my hand listening to the dial tone, and then I realized she was singing that stupid Lemon song.

  Nov. 20, 3:35 P.M.

  Today was kind of a momentous day, for a couple of reasons. First, it was my first day back in the water with the swim team. I only did a couple of dives, nothing too ambitious, but I did them well and it felt great. My head feels fine. Mr. Davis tried not to make a big deal out of it, but he was definitely watching me carefully to see how I was doing. I was totally psyched. I think I’ve missed diving a lot more than I realize.

  We have a big meet against Ft. Lauderdale tomorrow, and it’s not clear if Mr. Davis is going to let me dive in it or not. I know he needs me because Wailer and Ricky are still pretty lame, but he also doesn’t want to rush me. It’s all I can do not to get down on my knees and beg him to let me compete. But I’m trying to just accept whatever comes.

  The second thing that happened to me today was this weird moment I had with Mr. Bond, the senior class homeroom teacher. I was on my way out of Sadoff’s class after yet another agonizing day of the Civil War, and Mr. Bond stopped me in the hallway.

  “Jonah Black,” he said. “How are you enjoying American history? Do you like it?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “It’s okay. I studied it all last year, though.”

  “Yes. Yes, I’d heard that,” he said. He pushed those black glasses he wears up on his nose. “Well, what about the Civil War?”

  “It’s okay,” I said. I really couldn’t figure out why he was talking to me.

  Mr. Bond ran his hands through his gelled hair, and his eyes lit up like he’d just had an idea. “There’s a lot to learn from the Civil War,” he said, looking excited. “Take the Battle of Cold Harbor, for instance, or Grant in the Wilderness. You know what Grant did, Jonah? He just kept sending in more troops. No matter how many of his men got slaughtered. He just kept pressing his advantage, refusing to give up.”

  I nodded. “Yeah, I remember that,” I said.

  “Well,” said Mr. Bond. “You take care now.”

  I walked away, wondering if Mr. Bond had lost his mind. Maybe there was some kind of epidemic going around. First Miss Tenuda and now Mr. Bond.

  The third thing that happened today was I saw Thorne after practice. He was leaning against a car, making out with Donna Mannocchi, who I’ve always been kind of fascinated with because she brings her own grated cheese to school every day to sprinkle on her lunch. Thorne whispered something in Donna’s ear, and she jumped into her car and drove off. Then Thorne just stood there, waiting for me to walk up to him.

  “Hey,” I said.

  “Hey, Jonah,” he said.

  “So you’re with Donna Mannocchi now?” I said. “Man, you’re amazing.”

  “What’s amazing?” Thorne said.

  “It’s like you’re never s
atisfied,” I said.

  “Satisfied? Of course I’m satisfied! You know, that’s one of the things I don’t understand about you, man. When you fall for a girl it’s like one of those trapdoors in a gladiator movie or something, it’s like one minute you’re standing in front of somebody and the next minute you’re falling into the pit where all the alligators are,” Thorne said.

  “Is that good, or bad?” I asked him.

  “No, it’s good,” he said. “You’re lucky. I never feel that way about a chick, ever. I mean, to me they’re all like Disney World or something. Like one girl is Pirates of the Caribbean, and another one is Space Mountain and some other chick is like, The Bear County Jamboree.”

  “That’s beautiful, man,” I said.

  “I’m serious. It’s like, I can’t imagine going to Disney World and just riding the Haunted House again and again and again, like, never going on any of the other rides all day, just because I like the Haunted House,” Thorne said. “I’d go nuts!”

  “I think I’m losing you,” I said.

  “I know you are, man,” said Thorne. “That’s ’cause chicks aren’t like Disney World to you. They’re like, some whole other thing.”

  “I like to think of them as humans,” I said.

  “Just like you,” Thorne said.

  “Humans, but not just like me,” I said, smiling.

  Thorne shook his head. “What can I tell you, Jonah. You’ve got a philosophy, I guess.”

  “So do you, Thorne,” I said, and he laughed.

  “Hey, can I ask you a question? Honestly? Were you at my house yesterday afternoon?” I asked him.

  “Yesterday? No way, man,” Thorne said. “I was down by the dune with Elanor Brubaker. Why? Did someone say I’d been there?”

  “Nah. Forget it,” I said.

  “Okay. Whatever,” he said.

  Posie’s parents are going away again at Thanksgiving, and she and I are hatching a plan. She’s having Thanksgiving dinner with me at my house. And afterward we’re going to go over to her place and do it. Finally!

  I’m not sure exactly how I feel about this. Of course I’m completely happy about it, I’m more than happy. I mean, come on—sex with Posie! But I’m anxious, too. I want it to be the best thing that’s ever happened to us. I want it to be the most perfect, amazing experience of our lives. But if it is, then what? Is it all downhill from there? And if it isn’t, then maybe we shouldn’t do it. I mean, I don’t want to ruin what we already have.

  But none of this is enough to stop me from going ahead with it. No way.

  I guess it’s like Honey always says, “You never know until you try it.” And I definitely want to try it.

  Nov. 21, 8 P.M.

  The end of a pretty amazing day.

  Today we only had a half a day of school because of Thanksgiving. But in the afternoon was the Broward All-County Swim Meet, and Mr. Davis asked me to get suited up and sit with the team. Before the meet started he asked me if I was willing to dive and I said I thought so but I wasn’t sure. I mean it’s not like I’ve practiced much in the last month.

  Anyway, we were competing against two other teams—Ft. Lauderdale Episcopal and Ely High. Episcopal’s diving team was even more pathetic than ours, if that’s possible, although it’s not because they weren’t talented. It’s just that their divers were incredibly nervous and made some very basic errors, like this one guy who didn’t have enough of his foot off the board before starting a back somersault so he dove like he’d fallen out of an airplane. I would have laughed except that the last time I was in an official meet I wound up in the hospital, so look who’s talking?

  Wailer and Ricky were hanging in there, doing their best. And Martino Suarez did his one-and-a-half somersault.

  Eventually it came down to us and Ely High, and I have to say, those guys are really good. They have this one guy named Lamar Jameson who looks like some sort of statue. He’s about six three, black, a shaved head, and his whole body is like one solid muscle. Anyway, Lamar was doing these killer dives, including a couple of amazing Division II dives that pretty much left everybody else in the dirt. But Ely had these three other guys who are not in Lamar’s league, and they made some basic mistakes, too, although they weren’t as pathetic as Episcopal.

  Amazingly enough, Wailer did some very good dives. He pulled off a one-and-a-half somersault with a twist that was like a perfect textbook dive. Everybody went nuts, because the main thing Wailer is known for is falling off the board like a cement mixer. And Ricky Anderson was doing very well, too, although after every dive he always did the breaststroke to the ladder and it was so obvious that he wanted everyone to notice that he’s this championship breaststroker and not to judge him from his diving which he’s only doing because Mr. Davis forced him to.

  So there we were, and the stands were packed. A lot of people I know were in the stands, which is funny because you’d think most people would be off enjoying the break. Posie was there, and next to her were my mom and Honey. I wondered if maybe Posie got them to come to cheer me on, which was nice, except the only thing I was doing was sitting on the bench.

  At least this was true until Mr. Davis came over to me and asked if I wanted to give it a try. And I said, “Definitely.”

  I walked up to the high board and the PA system announced, “Jonah Black, Don Shula.” And everybody cheered. I mean they were stamping their feet on the floor and clapping like I was all the members of ‘N Sync in one body. I climbed up the ladder and I heard this voice shout, “Come on, Chipper!” Even though I couldn’t see him I thought, Whoa, even Pops Berman is here.

  Suddenly, I looked over at the bleachers, which I knew was going to piss off Mr. Davis, but I had to look. And there she was, Watches Boys Dive! She was sitting in her old spot by the window at the top of the bleachers. Her long black hair flowed down to her lap, and she was wearing a turquoise bead necklace. She looked at me and smiled.

  Again, Mr. Davis had signed me up for a simple dive, a one-and-a-half somersault with a twist. But I decided to try the Division I dive that I nearly killed myself doing last time.

  You’d think that this would be the stupidest idea I could possibly have had, and maybe it was. But somehow, standing up there I felt completely confident. I looked over at Posie, and I knew I could do it. The back two-and-a-half somersault with a one-and-a-half twist. Famous last words.

  So I stood at the end of the board, with my back to the water, balancing on the balls of my feet with my heels sticking out over the edge. And I let all my thoughts drain completely out of me until I felt like an erased blackboard. Then I pressed down on the board with all my strength and raised my hands straight up like I was going to touch the lights on the ceiling. Then I bounced once, twice, three times off the board and I was flying.

  Without thinking I did the somersaults, one, two, two and a half, still gaining height, and then, right at the top of my dive this bizarre thing happened.

  I guess I should have known what was going to happen because it was exactly what happened to me last time. I thought about Sophie.

  I had this visual image of myself starting to fall, tumbling through the air, my head whacking the board, and me falling into the water again. The ride to the hospital in the paramedic’s van. Spending the next day drifting in and out of dreams. I imagined Sophie on the beach, riding her horse, and I can see her hair blowing in the breeze off the ocean and I say to her, “Sophie, what are you doing here?” And she says, “Shush, Jonah,” and covers my mouth with her hand. I can taste her fingers and they taste like crayons.

  I kiss her one last time and she hugs me and I start to talk again but she just says, “Shush. You don’t have to explain. I understand. I just want to say thank you, Jonah. You’re a good man.” And I think man? I’m just a guy, but I think I know what she means.

  “Good-bye, Jonah,” she says, and she walks off down the beach and it’s all right. I’m not going to follow her.

  I started to fall and I did t
he twists and I tucked my head in perfectly and then, with barely a splash, I sliced into the water. I’d done it. The two-and-a-half somersault with the one-and-a-half twist. The Division I dive. And I hadn’t killed myself.

  There is this wonderful moment when you pull off a dive like this in a competition. It’s the three seconds while you’re still underwater and you know you’ve aced it and you can hear all the people cheering but the sound is muffled through the water. It’s like hearing this tornado or something in the distance and when you emerge out of the water you suddenly come into the world where the cheering is, and it just takes your breath away. I climbed up the ladder and looked into the stands and everybody was standing up and cheering for me. Then the judges posted their scores: 9.9/9.7/9.9/9.8/10.0.

  It was the highest score I’d ever gotten. Suddenly, without any warning, I was a hero. I didn’t even get in trouble for not doing the dive I was supposed to do.

  We still lost the meet.

  We lost because right after I did my dive Lamar Jameson got up and did the exact same dive.

  I just sat there on the bench, hanging my head. I think I knew what he was going to do while he was still climbing the ladder to the high dive. When he got to the top, he looked me in the eye, and then he turned around and got into position.

  Now I have to say that Lamar’s dive wasn’t as good as mine. The judges gave him 9.5, 9.5, 9.6, 9.8, and 10.0. The fact that that last judge seemed to be handing out 10s to pretty much anybody took some of the shine off the one he’d given me. Lamar’s head wasn’t tucked in all the way on the way down, which is the main reason they docked him the points. Still, it was a beautiful dive, and it was all the more impressive that he just got up there and matched me move for move. I had a feeling I’d be competing against Lamar Jameson again soon.

  Lamar’s dive was enough to ensure Ely winning, but that didn’t really make any difference to me. What mattered was that I’d pulled off the dive without even practicing it, and that I’d done something pretty cool while my family and Posie were there, watching. When I got up to head into the lockers with the rest of the team, I looked up in the stands, and there was Thorne, sitting in the back row. He was sitting next to Cecily LaChoy. They had their arms around each other, and they were both wearing T-shirts that said LEMON. Cecily looked like she was the happiest girl in the whole world. Thorne gave me the thumbs-up sign.