by Chris Lynch
“Okay,” I said. “Thanks, I got it.”
We were heading out the door at the end of that long and trying day, when I was stopped. Another one of my new fans.
“Hi there Mr. Ferlinghetti,” I said queasily.
“Well good afternoon, Elvin,” he said. He was acting all cool, like this was just a casual accidental meeting even though he had himself planted in front of the main exit, and he was without a book.
“See ya, friend,” Frankie said. “Can’t help you with this one.”
Ferlinghetti led me silently up the stairs into the detention room, where there were four other detainees already there policing themselves.
“Go on, get out,” he said to them as we walked in.
They sat there, stunned.
“I mean it,” he said. “You’re free to go. Emancipation Day, 1863. Go on before I change my mind.”
Say this for the boring old crock: He was never at a loss for a mind-numbing historical reference to suit any occasion and send ’em heading for the aisles.
“Now you,” he said to the only “you” in the room, me. And he said it just like Frankie had.
“How many million days of detention are you going to give me, Mr. Ferlinghetti?”
“None. You’ve already sentenced yourself. Cowardice is its own hell.”
So was this. It’s a hard word, isn’t it? Cowardice. Made me flinch when he said it. Made me retreat.
“Me? Oh I see. You think I was running away from a fight there on Friday. But that wasn’t it at all. I wasn’t running from a fight, I was running toward love. And it paid off. Guess what happened to me later on? Go on, guess.”
He stared down at me like one great carved stone leader of many armies, many nations. A figure so sure of himself in his bravery and wisdom and true-blueness as to be the complete inverse of myself. He didn’t even care about my big news.
“A coward dies a thousand deaths,” he thundered, in a voice that would bring god to his knees. He pointed me toward the door.
There was no retreat from it this time, though. The word, the concept seemed to have my name embedded in it. And it couldn’t really have all that much to do with Metzger, could it?
I was off my balance here, off my game. I could handle an exchange like this normally, but something was wrong.
“That’s it?” I asked. What did I want? I was getting off easy. Wasn’t getting off easy a good thing? Wasn’t it, in fact, the focus of my life until recently?
Yes, until recently.
I needed a real, tangible punishment for fleeing, one that would clear my conscience and let me get on with my simple little existence. “Come on, Mr. Ferlinghetti, is that really it?”
“A thousand deaths isn’t enough for you, son?”
“No, I mean, I can go? You’re finished with me? There will be no further punishment for running out like I did?” There should be, if you ask me.
He stared hard at me, growled, then got all revved up for one last blow.
“Be a man. A coward dies a thou—”
“I’m going, I’m going,” I said, scurrying for the door before he shook out the beams and the building collapsed and left me with only 999.
But really, the only thing I was escaping was the building.
“You’ve gotten awfully popular all of a sudden,” Ma said when I finally came in after school. “You’ve gotten a whole slew of phone calls this afternoon.”
“Me? A whole slew? How many’s a slew?”
“Two. But one of them was a girl.” She giggled the word “girl.” Like this was some kind of big deal. As if I didn’t get calls from girls all the time.
“A girl?” I gasped. Back off, Elvin, back off. Be cool. “I mean, oh, a girl. That’s nice. Who else called?”
“Somebody named Metzger.”
I wondered how long a thousand deaths take.
“And the girl’s name?”
“Sally.”
“Really? That’s the girl from the dance.” I fingered my tube in my pocket. “Did she leave her number?”
Ma started frowning. About the VD thing, I figured. “I didn’t realize it was that girl. She didn’t sound diseased over the phone.”
“Mother?”
“Don’t call me Mother.”
“Fine. Medusa?” I asked. “Did Sally leave her number?”
“Why don’t you call Metzger back first. He seemed more anxious to talk to you anyway.”
“I bet he did. Where’s the number, Ma?”
She tipped me off, letting her eyes drift over to the note stuck to the refrigerator. I made a dash for it.
She made a dash for it. We got to the refrigerator at the same time. We both seized the note, and a mighty struggle ensued.
“Give it up, lady,” I said, trying to peel her fingers open. She had the note in her fist.
“You’ll thank me for this, Elvin. She’s no good for you.
“I know she is,” I panted. “That’s exactly what I’m after. Gimme the number.”
“Call Janey,” she grunted, holding tight. “She’ll go to the movies with you.”
“Janey’s my cousin, Ma.”
“So what? That stuff doesn’t matter till later.”
I broke away, gave up, threw in the towel. My eighty-year-old mother was stronger than me.
“I’m thirty-five, Elvin, and very wiry. You have nothing to be ashamed of.”
Once we had established that she was tougher than me, and could manhandle my life however she wanted to, she handed me the paper.
I dialed. Waited. Three rings. Just like the circus, I thought. “Hello? Is Sally there please?”
I must admit, on the phone I am everybody’s dream date. Nice manners, melodious tone... and the guilt I was feeling probably gave me just the right hint of bad-dog whimper.
“This is Sally.”
Angelic herself. Her voice made my blood sugar rise—made me feel all was right with the world. We could get through this. We could get past any bad thing I might have done. She probably didn’t even know what I said about her, so maybe I could make her like me enough before it got back to her...
“This is Elvin Bish—”
“You swine!” The yelp was so piercing it shot straight through my left ear all the way to my right, giving me two simultaneous earaches. “You worm. You deluded, doughy little mushroom.”
She had heard. And now I would hear. How could I have thought...
No, she was right, I was a deluded mushroom.
I paused to let her breathing get slower, and less audible, while mine got louder. Then I began at the natural starting point. “I’m sorry.”
“Why are you doing this to me? I have gotten six phone calls just today. All seniors from your school. They all want me to go out with them.”
Oh boy. Who’d have thought... something I said would have so much weight. “You hear from a guy named Darth?”
“What? No. Not today, anyway. He’s called me before but... no, he’s a cool guy. I’m going to get calls from all the other kinds now, thanks to you. You probably scared all the Darths away, ya rat.”
I had a small moment of relief over this. There seemed to be a bright side. “Well, maybe that’s not so bad, broadening your—”
“Every one of them wants to make a date for six to eight weeks from now.”
I was way out of this conversation, and falling fast. “That’s not right. You shouldn’t have to commit so far in ad—”
“And I’m gonna kill you for it!”
“Hey, that’s enough now. I’m on my mother’s phone, for godsake.”
She started hollering into my mother’s phone. To make an indelible audio impression that would still be echoing later when Ma picked it up. “You should buy your son clothes in his size, Mrs. Bishop!”
“I’ll hang up,” I threatened.
“Try it,” Sally dared.
I tried. Got the phone one inch away from my ear. Couldn’t do it.
This was a girl I h
ad here on the line, for cripes sake.
“I’m really pissed, Bishop.”
There seemed nothing else to do but retreat into my comfy delusions. Reality was too hard.
“Hey, did I get this mad when you gave me VD?”
“I DID NOT GIVE YOU VD!!!”
I sighed. Details, details.
“Oh, well, not exactly. But you did give me a sexually transmitted dis—”
“I did not.”
“Well, scabies, you gave me—”
“Not! Not!. It was a joke, you moron.”
I paused now with the memory. Oh yes. The joke.
What was I apologizing for?
“Oh, right, the joke, me moron. Well guess what? Now you have psoriasis and a reputation. I guess we’re both pretty funny people, huh Sally?”
The screaming resumed.
Click.
I did it.
What the hell. As long as I was on a roll, Metzger’s phone number was right here on the same slip of paper. Why not call up and chew the fat with ol’ Metz. Or maybe I’d call him ’Ger. Probably, he wants to arrange a little cease-fire. A meeting of the minds.
“Here’s what I’m gonna do to you,” he said. There followed a goose-pimple-raising screechy noise, louder than Sally, but not as loud as a train smushing an abandoned car.
“Was that a cat?” I asked calmly.
“And I like him,” he said as a response.
“I want to help you, Metzger,” I said. Phones always made me brave. No thousand deaths for me as long as I could phone my life in. “Can I call you ’Ger?”
“Screw.”
“Okay then. So listen, I think talking to me just makes you crazier. So I’m gonna give you another number that’ll help you mellow out. It’ll cost you three bucks for the first three minutes and fifty cents for each additional minute, but you’ll feel a lot better. Tell ’em I sent ya. Just mention my name, and I betcha they moan.”
“Oh, you’re gonna moan, all right.”
“Except for ‘moan,’ I don’t believe you heard a word I said.”
“Cut the jokes, all right, Bishop? Everybody’s laughing at you enough already. You can’t just run away forever, you know. I’m gonna catch you eventually, and then you gotta do something. So why don’tcha just cut the crap and be a man for once, grow the hell up, huh, Bishop, ya wimp? Ya fat loser? Everybody knows what you are, you know. And everybody’s laughin’. But they ain’t laughin’ at what you think.”
Well then.
Mr. Metzger surprised us all, didn’t he? Did what nobody expected.
He shut my mouth. That short speech had to count for at least two deaths right there.
“You know what shithead Ferlinghetti said to me?”
I really wanted to believe that Ferlinghetti didn’t talk to Metzger. You know, like he gave me the talk because he saw something more in me, something salvageable.
“He said it’s better to die on your feet than to live on your knees.”
There’s that death thing again. How come Metzger’s talk only included one and mine was a thousand? “What were you doing on your knees, Metz?”
“Keep laughing, funny boy...” he said. Click. This time it wasn’t me. And I wasn’t laughing.
EXTREME UNCTION.
I was lying on my bed in my underwear, looking at the label.
EXTREME UNCTION.
What the hell is unction anyway? One might say it would be the intelligent thing to find out before I slathered an extreme dose of it on any of my favorite and most necessary parts.
Dictionary says it’s an act of anointing. Well, I suppose, if we want to make an official ceremony out of this...
Or something soothing and comforting.
There we go. EXTREME comforting and soothing? That’s for me. Bring on the unction.
I disrobed completely. Was lying there, exposed. Tube in hand. Looking at the tube. Looking at the ceiling. Looking at the tube. Looking out the window. A bird flew past the window and I quickly pulled the comforter over me. Started again. The tube. The window.
The door opened.
“Jesus, Ma, you could knock!” I pulled the spread up to my tearing eyes.
“I’m sorry,” she gasped, slamming the door shut immediately.
That wasn’t good for either of us.
“I’m sorry” she pleaded again outside my door. “I’m sorry I’m sorry. I’ll go now. I’ll leave you alone.”
“Thank you,” I said, relaxing slightly.
Until I realized what she thought.
“I wasn’t doing that!” I yelled as she padded back down the stairs.
“No, certainly you weren’t,” she said. “Just... forget I was there, and go on about your business.”
“Ma! Ma! I wasn’t doing that.”
Downstairs, I heard her pick up the phone.
“Oh, my, god,” I said, scrambling up and into my thick white terry-cloth robe. I flew down the stairs.
She was already at it. Nodding, nodding to the other person.
“I didn’t,” I insisted.
She smiled sweetly and nodded. She put her hand over the receiver and spoke to me, “Go fix yourself a snack—you’re probably hungry now.”
“I’m not hungry, and I don’t... do that.”
She patted my cheek. “I do the laundry, Elvin, remember?”
I went and got a snack.
She pulled away from the receiver again and said to me as I popped a couple of Vienna sausages from the can, “See, they say it’s perfectly natural. You have nothing to be ashamed of.”
Cripes. The Sons without Fathers helpline. That’s how she spends her three dollars per minute and fifty cents for each additional...
Every time they tell her to tell me I have nothing to be ashamed of, it humiliates me like mad.
Nobody’s Fool
“YOU THINK I’M A fool, Franko?”
“Cripes, El, is this what this is all about? You gotta prove something?” Frankie asked as he led me shivering down the stairs to the basement level of the school. Into the inner sanctum of cool-guy territory, Darth headquarters. “Sure, you’re a fool, but you’re an awesome fool. You’re great at it.”
I followed him down, down. Didn’t say anything. I thought about what he’d said and didn’t disagree with it. He was not trying to hurt me. Fool was my thing, my gift. It didn’t just happen to me; I cultivated it.
In other words, it was my own fault.
“Well what if I don’t feel like being that anymore? I mean, what if lately I find myself feeling, like, embarrassed to be me. I should change that, don’t you think?”
At the foot of the concrete steps, he turned around to face me. “Ya... well... ya, fair enough. But is this really where you have to start? You know, nobody just gives back something to Darth. Especially if he’s expecting to be paid for it.”
“Right,” I said, maybe being a tad optimistic, but hey. “But he’ll have to understand. I didn’t use the UNCTION at all. My condition is getting better on its own. I never asked for any ointment, he just forced it on me.”
“Well,” Frankie said, “that’s kinda what he does.”
“Well, I never asked for it, didn’t need it, and don’t have that kind of money to pay for it. So I’d have to be a jerk to take it.” I puffed myself up and breathed deeply before making my big statement. “And I have made a decision not to be a jerk anymore. Starting here.”
He shook his head and led me farther on. “El, buddy, you do make your own life as difficult as you can possibly make it.”
“I live for challenge. For danger and intrigue.” I still had a little jerk left in me, obviously. But a little might get me through.
“Well, boy, you found it this time,” Frankie said as we stood in front of the throne room of the Dark Kingdom of Christian Brothers Academy. “I don’t know what intrigue is, exactly, but I do know what danger is, and it’s right in here.” He pointed at the black metal door, with the ominous words stenciled on it
in white.
PHOTOGRAPHY CLUB
DO NOT OPEN DOOR IF RED LIGHT IS ON.
The red light was on.
“It’s not too late, Elvin,” Frankie said. “You can change your mind. Not for nothin’, but I don’t want ya to do it. Maybe we can get the money. I’ll do, like, a kissing booth or something...”
I shook my head. “Don’t worry about it. I don’t think he’ll even be thinking about the money, once I tell him that I lied about Sally.”
Frankie just grabbed me by the shoulders and shook. We didn’t even attempt to have the obvious discussion about the latest of my thousand deaths. Just the grabbing and the shaking.
I pointed grimly at the red light.
“Sally will get over it, Elvin. That’s just nuts, man. You’re risking—”
“Not much.” I held up a hand like I was trying to answer a question in class. “How often am I serious, Frank?”
He gave it a moment of thought. “Not a lot.”
“Right. So at this moment, about this thing, I am really serious. And you can see that it’s, y’know, important.”
Frank continued to stare at me. Took a breath like to argue, then nodded. He rapped out a bizarre series of beats on the door. The light went out. We went in.
“Yo, Frankie,” somebody said. I recognized that somebody as the number two knucklehead, Obie.
“The Photography Club, Yo-Frankie?” I asked. “You and your wicked hombres hang out in the Photography Club?”
He whispered desperately to me. “Shut up, El, or I’ll have to hit ya.”
“You’ll have to what?”
“I’m not supposed to let anybody wise off to me without smacking him. That even means you, and I don’t want to have to do that, or even know if I’ll be able to. And I also don’t want to find out what happens if I’m supposed to hit ya and I can’t do it. It’s the code thing. So if you talk to me in front of them like you usually—”
He was still whispering in my ear when I yelled out, “No, Frankie, for the last time, I will not touch you there, I don’t care if you do have a pack of Rolos in your pocket!”
My, did we get some looks from the gang.