MY BEST
“Hello? How are you? That’s good. Dad? Oh, he’s not here. I’m in school. I’ll tell him you said hey. Not much. Yeah, just wanted to hear your voice.”
This time, after I put the phone away I don’t feel better. After getting the heave-ho from Mr. Morgan and wandering the halls, I’ve settled at the front entrance of the school, where the doors are freezing cold from the outside wind. I feel, well, cold, but also naked, sort of like how it is in a dream, where you’re naked in a public place like a classroom or stadium or bus stop and you can’t do anything about it. Can’t find clothes, can’t hide in the bathroom, can’t even cover yourself because your hands don’t work.
I must spend about a minute touching my coat, my jeans, my hat—anything to convince myself that I really am clothed. Then I rest my face on the cold glass doors. A few small black birds chirp outside, a large black crow squawks, and it just seems that everything is in black and white all of a sudden. The street, the cars, the birds, the mat, the clouds—everything is in black and white, like I’m in an old movie. I realize maybe I am in a black-and-white movie, like I’ve traveled back through time, but then I remember that even in the days of black-and-white movies people lived in color, and I notice the sign for Blueberry Hills Middle School has mold on it, the first sign of color. The tops of the B, H, M, and S are dark green, like month-old mashed potatoes.
I throw my bag on the ground and all I want to do is lay my head down. Somewhere. Anywhere. Just tip over. Timberrrrrrrr … But it’s the same feeling as the high dive. I can’t tip. I want to, but my body screams, “NO, STOP, YOU MORON! YOU MAROON! DON’T BUST MY FACE!”
I don’t know where to go. I don’t want to face Mrs. Q or Mr. Morgan, and I know none of my teachers from the previous year will let me in their classes. They won’t even let me stand outside their door. I could go to science or history, maybe get kicked out again, but not going to class is so much easier. On everybody. The more I think about it, the more I think it’s actually noble of me, heroic even, to cut class instead of bothering my classmates. I’m sacrificing my playtime for their education. You’re welcome, fellow students. You don’t have to thank me now, but one of these days you’ll recognize my contributions.
I picture myself going to an awards show, dressed up in a tuxedo. The show will be filmed in black and white. Mr. Morgan will be the presenter, and after telling a few corny jokes, he’ll say, “And now, the moment you’ve been waiting for: The winner of the sacrifice award is…” and he’ll announce my name and everyone will cheer “Do-nuts! Do-nuts!” and with a rose between my teeth I’ll strut to the stage, where Mr. Morgan will hand me a plaque that reads:
This recognizes Denny “Donuts” Murphy for his selfless acts of courage in humbly accepting his lack of a future, and the heroic choice to further the advancement of more talented, better-looking individuals than himself.
So I walk the halls.
I peek into the lunchroom, looking for Marsha. The lights are off and the tables are stacked, but I can see her in the back, wrapping up some food. I don’t have anywhere else to go and I could use a bit of advice, and, strange as it is, she’s the closest thing to a relationship expert I can find.
* * *
I walk to the lunch counter. Marsha is still in the back, now scrubbing pots, her hairnet swaying from side to side as she sings a Disney song about wishing upon a star.
My mom liked that song and I open my mouth to tell Marsha that, but another lunch lady hustles over to me, waving her arms hysterically, yelling, “Lunch is over, honey! We closed three minutes ago!”
“But wait,” I plead. “I—”
“Sorry, kiddo. Maybe you’ll come on time tomorrow.”
“Yeah, maybe. Look, can I talk with Marsha?”
“She’s busy. Doing her job. See, honey?” She points at Marsha, who wipes her brow with her forearm.
“Marsha!” I shout, leaning over the counter. “Hey, Marsha!”
“Hey, baby!” She puts a pot down in the sink and walks over to us. “It’s all right, Gilda,” she says. “He’s no stranger. This here is one of our best customers.”
“Make it quick,” Gilda snarls. “The both of yous.”
As Gilda storms to the back of the kitchen, Marsha asks me, “What’s a matter?”
I take a breath and come out with: “Remember how you said women are relationship beings and that guys aren’t?”
She chuckles. “Yes, sir, never seen a better quote than that.”
“Quote?”
“Yeah, it’s on a piece of paper behind the lunch counter. That’s where I keep all my favorite quotes. Come around the counter, baby, and I’ll show ya.”
Something feels wrong, like hearing some old guy tell you he’s got something special for you waiting in his car. Still, I let her direct me to the other side where, at the top of the lunch counter, she has pasted a whole slew of typed quotes, written quotes, and fortunes from fortune cookies.
She gives me the grand tour: “Okay, baby, let’s see, ‘It’s better to be, rather than to seem,’ ‘Made with you in mind,’ ‘Women are relationship beings,’ ‘Whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re probably right.’ Henry Ford said that last one. You know, like Ford trucks. Built Ford tough. Henry Ford.” She sucks her teeth. “He wasn’t a nice man but he had a nice quote. Oh, and over there, look over there.” She points to a piece of gray construction paper with black writing. “‘Same, same, but different.’ That’s from Thailand,” she says. “My niece went there. It’s on the other side of the world and some of them still speak English. Crazy, right? Yeah, I’ve collected a lot of good quotes over the years. My favorite one is about—”
I’ve heard enough. “Let me get this straight. All that stuff about relationship beings … that was just a quote? You mean it wasn’t your own idea?”
“Heck no, sugar.”
“So you really don’t know how relationships work?”
“Ha! If I did, I wouldn’t have been divorced three times!” She slaps herself on the knee in a brief fit of laughter. “But it’s better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all. That’s a darn good quote, too.”
“So you—you lied? I can’t believe that you—”
“Your horses,” she says. “Hold on to ’em. I didn’t lie or plagiarize. I put quotation marks on them, see?” She points to a few squiggly apostrophes. “But I suppose I should have told you. Lies always catch up to you eventually, see. You should always tell the truth. Always.”
“So you think I should tell the truth? I mean, to my girl—a friend, a girl who is/was a friend of mine?”
“Just do it,” she says, chuckling. “I got that quote from Nike, but it’s a good quote. Smart man, that Nike. Wish I had thought of that. Oh, and ‘the truth will set you free.’ Wish I thought of that one, too.”
She smiles crookedly and adds, “Now we both know why you really came up here…” She runs into the back and returns with a tray. Beaming, she hands it to me. “French fries, made with you in mind.”
I don’t want to eat. All I want to do is lie down, but last time I checked, lying down in the back of the lunchroom wasn’t the most socially acceptable thing to do.
* * *
I find the nurse at her desk, flipping through fashion magazines. As usual, her lips are pursed—decades of smoking have left them permanently in that position. Even though she can’t possibly be a day over fifty, she looks eighty.
With my arm, I wipe my nose, which still feels painful and red and puffy. But the nurse doesn’t notice. She never notices anything. When I ask her if there are any empty beds, she peers up from an article in Vogue and, looking really put out, says, “Didn’t your mother teach you any manners?”
“Pardon me,” I say, smiling weakly, “are there any free beds?”
She slams her magazine on the desk. “Why don’t you see a doctor?”
“I didn’t know you had one.”
“We don�
��t.” She grins. “You don’t listen very well, do you?”
“But I thought you said—”
“I said, ‘Why don’t you see a doctor?’ If we had a doctor, I would have said, ‘Why don’t you see the doctor?’ or ‘Why don’t you see our doctor.’”
“Right. Sorry, nurse. Don’t know what I was thinking. Now can I lie down?”
“Only if you promise to go see a doctor—your own doctor—when you get home.”
“I promise.”
“Third bed on the right,” she says. “Don’t forget to close the curtain behind you.”
My head feels heavy enough to break a bed. Or the green cot in front of me. I lie down and I close my eyes and look around for some sheep. I count sixteen before the nurse nudges me in the back.
“You’re snoring. It’s bothering me. Now get up.” She grabs my arm. “I’m not leaving until you get up.”
Like I said, you can’t hibernate in middle school.
I roll off the green cot and try to stand up. The room spins. Once the nurse walks away, I sit back down, crouch into a ball, bury my head in my lap, and breathe through my nose so I don’t puke. I pull open the curtain and head toward the exit.
The nurse is back at her desk, flipping through a fashion magazine. I try to think of something nasty to say to her for waking me up, but you have to have energy for that. As I stagger out of the nurse’s office, I feel homeless. I mean, I know I’m not, really, but I just outstayed my welcome on the only bed in town. I can’t stay in the bathroom because that’s gross, I can’t go to any classes that I don’t belong in (gods and goddesses of every subject seem to care about that sort of thing), I don’t want to talk to Manny, I can’t roam the halls because of Chad …
I figure that since I can’t keep my eyes open any longer and I have no place to go, I may as well go nowhere. So I stay put. I remain standing. I lean a little bit on someone’s locker, but I don’t actually move.
I feel like that football player on my sheets, the one with the blue uniform who is just cradling the football in his armpit, the one who isn’t pumping his arms or legs. I’m not moving either, not even to the side or backward. That’s what I’ve become: that frozen blue football player. The funny thing is, I sort of feel jealous of him. I mean, I know he isn’t real or anything, but when you think about it, he gets to spend his whole day on somebody’s bed, sleeping the day away. And because he’s frozen, he doesn’t have to worry about anything. I pretend for a second that I, too, am frozen and incapable of thought, but when you try not to think about something, that’s all you think about.
I try to sing a song to keep my mind off my mom, but every song reminds me of her. Even joyful tunes like that old-school Kokomo vacation song from the Beach Boys makes me feel like crap. Sure, Bermuda and the Bahamas sound nice, but then they have to go and ruin it by mentioning a pretty mama. So I try another, and another, and some songs don’t mention mothers but even the word “son” reminds me of her. And “son” sounds like “sun,” so any reference to the sun or a sunny day or “here comes the sun” or “the sun will come out tomorrow” is more than I can handle.
The longer I lean on that locker, mumbling old songs, the more I feel like the only man left on the planet. I really do. I even invent a game called “The Only Man Left on the Planet,” the point of which is to prove that I really am the only man left on the planet. Every time somebody passes by and doesn’t look at me, I give myself a point. If someone looks at me funny, I lose a point. If someone speaks about me, I lose two points. If someone speaks to me, I lose three points.
After what seems like an hour but is probably only a minute or two, I’m winning the game, but I don’t want to. I don’t want to be the only man left on the planet. I want someone to talk to me. The longer I lean on that stupid locker, the more awkward I feel. I convince myself that I’ve been standing or leaning there for twenty years and that my social skills have withered away. Any minute now I’m sure that someone will pass by and I’ll stumble and blurt out the lamest thing ever said.
And then it happens.
Two girls walk past me talking about the dance. Actually, only one of them is talking, but she’s talking enough for the both of them: “You should totally come with us. Well you can’t actually come with us, because our group is already, like, way too big, but you should ask around. Soon. OMG!” She doesn’t have a chance to finish because, being the only man left on the planet, having been on the corner without talking to anyone for twenty years, I stagger forward and yell, “The dope will make you a dope!”
The loudmouthed girl puts her hands on her hips. “Excuse me?”
“Don’t believe the hype,” I say, bracing myself on the locker. “The dope will make you a dope.”
She scrunches her face. “Um, excuse me, are you crazy?”
“No, are you?”
“Um, excuse me, does your head hurt?”
“No, does your nose hurt?”
The quiet girl tugs the loudmouth on her arm. “Maybe we should help him.”
“That’s Donuts,” Loudmouth explains. “He’s just being funny.”
“Ohhhh,” the quiet girl says, obviously relieved.
They both start laughing, so I laugh too, and the harder I laugh, the more I stumble. And the more I stumble, the harder I fall. The more I try to get up, the harder I fall back down. And the harder I fall down, the more I feel like the only man left on the planet. And the more I think about it, being the only man left on the planet doesn’t feel so bad. So I laugh.
“He really is funny.”
I laugh.
“Um, excuse me, are you okay?”
The way she says it makes me laugh even more. And thinking again about that scene with those laugh-deprived teachers makes me laugh harder, and I feel like rolling around on the floor in the eggnog with them. I mean, I know they’re not there, but rolling on the floor sounds pretty fun, so I do it.
“Um, excuse me, you’re freaking me out.”
My face hurts from laughing so much. No, it hurts from smiling. I don’t want to smile because I’m not happy, but you can’t laugh without smiling unless your jaw is wired shut. Chad should’ve stepped on me harder so my jaw could get wired shut and I could laugh all day without cracking a smile.
“Um, excuse me, are you crying?”
Maybe it’s the air, like the way the air at the mall makes you tear up because of all the perfumes and colognes, but I start crying, which is funny because I don’t cry, ever, not even at my mom’s funeral. I want it to keep coming, but I haven’t cried in so long the pipes are jammed up and only a few tears come out, so I laugh—loudly. Not as loud as a fire alarm, but louder than the guys on National Public Radio, and the more I laugh, the more my face hurts.
“Um, excuse me, do you want me to get help?”
Then I get really tired suddenly, probably from all the laughing and smiling. I shut my eyes and look around for some sheep. Some of the sheep are tired like me and some of them are beautiful like Sabrina.
“Um, excuse me, I’m going to get help.”
I try to think of happy things and start to hum that song my mom used to sing to me. The one about me being her sunshine. My eyes are heavy and I couldn’t stand up even if I wanted to, which I don’t, because the sheep look so warm and fluffy. It’s getting dark outside, or inside, which makes the sheep hard to see. I try my best to count them, I really do, but my best isn’t good enough. It’s never good enough. The sunshine goes away like it does every day and my eyes are closing and it’s getting too dark to see anything and the skies are gray and then dark gray and soon I can’t see anything at all.
HOMEY DON’T PLAY THAT
“How do you feel?”
The sunglasses are off. His eyes still look like a white owl’s. About to feast on whatever owls eat. Hopefully not donuts.
“Denny, knock it off and get up. How do you feel?”
“Tired.”
“Up,” he says.
“Up?” R
ight, still on the floor, Roger that.
“Get up.”
I do as I’m told. “Detention,” he says.
“Oh.”
“And I’m calling your parents—your dad, I’m calling him.”
I want to remind him that it’s not on my dad’s afternoon agenda to visit me at school, but Mr. Morgan is already helping me up with hands as strong as a lumberjack’s, and I’m too tired to argue, especially with Sabrina standing beside him.
* * *
The windows are closed, but the shades are open. It looks cloudy outside. Not partly cloudy, completely cloudy. And cold. The whole room is cold, including the armrest desks, but I don’t say anything because he’s got an index card on his desk with my dad’s contact information in my handwriting and he’s on the phone.
“Mr. Murphy?” He isn’t talking to me.
The conversation doesn’t last long. Nor will this detention. My dad says he’ll be here in five minutes, which means at least ten, but it’s still not a lot of time.
“Get some work done,” Mr. Morgan tells me, as he turns the newspaper page from Leisure to Local News. I lean forward and squint to see if our upcoming dance has made it to Local News yet. Negatory, no dance, but I see an ad for a local production of Les Misérables at the Forrest Theater. Great. And an article about the economy crippling schools. Even better. And Mr. Morgan’s impatient eyes. “Work, Denny,” he says. Splendid.
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