“Shall we begin?”
See, that was the kind of thing that betrayed him. Using words like “shall.” The Lonely Rebel, even after his series was canceled, NEVER used a word like “shall.” It was what, in the poker world, they call a tell. In fact, despite his hip rep, it was immediately and entirely obvious that Dr. Felder knew less than nothing about the world, and without question got beat up a lot in school (hey, buddy, join the club). He only got away with it now because he had degrees on the wall and expensive sweaters and an office with a leather couch and a skull on his desk and a half-eaten tuna grinder on the windowsill, just like a set from a sitcom where the characters make jokes about Freud that no one but the writers understand.
Why, then, you might ask, had I not told him to stuff it a long time ago?
Well, for one thing, the school district told my parents it was either Felder or expulsion after I got caught lighting Chad Chilton’s locker on fire.
Wow, huh?
I know, I know, I should have mentioned that before.
Definitely. Without question.
But it’s like I said, I’m trying not to lie, and sometimes part of not lying is just not mentioning things, which isn’t really a lie, it’s an omission.
Okay, I know that’s pretty weak.
I apologize.
On the other hand, deal with it, all this apologizing is starting to stifle my creativity.
Besides, technically, I didn’t light the locker itself on fire. What I did was, I casually (okay, not so casually, in truth, very carefully) stuck a match through the vents, where it fell onto his leather jacket and his carton of cigarettes and his muscle shirts (Miles was keeping lookout), and then smoke sort of not so casually started to pour out the top. I have no idea what else we’d expected to happen. It’s like, for a couple of weeks I joked about it, and Miles goaded me (you’ll never do it), and then I joked about it and Miles goaded me (Ellen’s his, not yours), and then suddenly it was actually happening and we were both too amazed to run. But the teachers weren’t too amazed. The principal didn’t fail to run. In fact, they ran straight for us. Mr. Camacho put the fire out with a quick shot of the extinguisher and then looked at me with disbelief.
I was nailed, red-handed.
In the end, I claimed Miles had just happened to be walking by, so he only got a talking to. I got a month off (suspended) and then probation (two years). I also signed a document promising regular attendance at Dr. Felder’s Hipster Training Seminars, at least until the last day of school.
Which was funny, ’cause the last day of school was two months ago, and for some reason I was still coming.
“Had the urge to light anything on fire lately?” The Feld asked.
I sighed. The locker was the only thing I had ever lit on fire. It was the only thing I was ever going to light on fire. I’d explained this to him a million times.
“No.”
It was also the only reason I didn’t get arrested. No one could believe I’d actually done it (including me). It had to be a mistake. I’d never been in trouble before. Plus, Cobble and Vanderlink testified in my defense and much was made of my eye-cue and potential and all, not to mention all the wonderful poems I’d written in Assisted Learning, and also how a permanent mark on my record would surely ruin my chance to attend the prestigious institute of learning I would undoubtedly be attending, so in the end, I got off easy.
“Sent out any applications?”
“No.”
“That’s off the hook, Stan, and you know it.”
I considered explaining to him what “off the hook” actually meant, but decided it was funnier to let him keep saying it.
“I know, Doc.”
“So how’s your script coming?”
“Really, really, really great.”
“What’s it about, again?”
“An evil computer. With legs. That downloads people to death.”
Dr. Felder frowned. “What’s it really about, Stan?”
I scratched behind my ear. I blushed. I started to explain and then stopped. “It’s stupid. It’s full of clichés.”
“Don’t play yourself, Stan. I’m sure it’s better than that.”
“That’s a nice thought, Doc, but the thing is, it’s not. It’s definitely not better than that.”
“Okay. So what’s the problem?”
I pursed my lips and really thought about it for a minute.
“I dunno. It’s weird. Like, I work in a video store, right? I’ve watched a million movies. But no matter how many movies I watch or plots I see, I can’t seem to come up with a good, original idea. I just keep copying the same things I hate, like I’ve been infected with Freddie Prinze Jr. disease. And then when I finally think I’ve come up with something good, as soon as I put it down on paper, it becomes just another dumb cliché. And it’s driving me CRAZY.”
“You’re not crazy, Stan.” Dr. Felder chuckled.
”What are you chuckling for? I didn’t mean really crazy, Doc. God!”
Dr. Felder sniffed. He looked alarmed that I’d raised my voice.
“Maybe you just need some real life experience, huh? I’d imagine it’s hard to be a writer when all you know is Millville. Hemingway traveled around the world and didn’t even start writing until he was in his thirties.”
I couldn’t believe it. Dr. Felder had actually said something that made sense. He’d given me some good advice. There was a real, genuine chance he was maybe, sort of, actually right. I was so stunned, I didn’t say anything. So, of course, he jumped into the void and ruined it.
“How’s it coming with the lists?”
I covered my face with my hands and sighed. “One? Bad. Two? Worse. Three? Horrible. Four? Beyond repair. Five? Really terrific.”
Dr. Felder wiped his forehead with his sleeve. “So . . . any other concerns this week?”
“Umm . . . well,” I said, pretending to think, “. . . Chad Chilton wants to kill me?”
“Yes, Stan, you may have mentioned that once before. Many, many times before.”
“It doesn’t make it any less true.”
“It very well may make it less true, Stan.”
“Okay, how about how someone tried to run me over the other night? And then there’s the slashed tires. And . . .”
“Sounds like a movie plot,” Dr. Felder said, chuckling. He wrote something on his pad. Then he rubbed mustard off his pants. Why didn’t anyone believe me? It was the oldest cliché in the book. I felt like Snuffaluffagus’s dumber little brother.
“Doc, when I’m dead, are you going to miss me?”
“No one’s dying, Stan.”
“There’s a billion people in China,” I said. “I bet some of them are.”
“You realize, Stan, don’t you, that you retreat into semantics as an avoidance mechanism every time you’re asked a difficult question?”
“You know, you’re right, Doc. It’s off the hook, and I apologize.”
“Good. Excellent.” He beamed, notating some sort of breakthrough with manic scribbles. It was almost too easy.
“Am I your favorite patient, Doc?”
“You know I can’t make those kinds of judgments, Stan.”
“When can I read my file, Doc?”
“You know I can’t let you see your file, Stan.”
“Can I check out the skull on your desk?”
“Let’s try to focus, okay?”
I sighed. There were at least another forty minutes left.
“So tell me about the sighing,” he said.
By the time I walked home it was almost dark and my mouth felt like a tennis sock, but at least the beer had worn off. My father was sitting at the kitchen table, an envelope open in front of him. He was rubbing the skin beneath his glasses, which made his fingers look huge.
“Hey, Pop,” I said, drinking water straight out of the tap.
“Where’ve you been, Stan?”
“Umm . . . Dr. Felder’s?” I guessed.
&n
bsp; He nodded, looking extremely tired. “What did you say to your mother earlier?”
“Why?” I asked, getting peanut butter (organic) from the refrigerator and spreading it on a (Smith-grown) carrot (limp).
“Well, for one thing, she came home this afternoon and locked herself in our room. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear she’s been crying.”
“No way,” I said. “Mom?”
“You’re on some roll this week, Stan.”
“Dad!” I protested, my voice rising in an annoying way, but I couldn’t stop it. “If you had anyidea the stuff she said. How she ruined everything. Ellen will probably never talk to me again.”
“Ellen?” he asked, and then nodded. “Stan, I know your mother can be a handful, but . . .”
“Dad, she brought up condoms.”
“Hoo boy,” he said.
We sat there, looking at each other. He played with his beard. He wrote some numbers on a napkin. He sketched a circle and then added it into a formula.
“Want a carrot?” I asked, poking one at him. He waved it away and then held up an envelope. “Do you have any idea what this is?”
It looked official. “Mom’s resignation as Mom? Effective immediately?”
“This, Stan, is your acceptance and offer of a full scholarship to the University of California at Berkeley.”
“What?” I coughed, an orangey spray of carrot flecks covering most of the table. “It’s a mistake. I didn’t even apply there.”
“I was confused a bit at first, myself,” he said, wiping the table with his sleeve, which was already covered with grease and made the table even worse. “It seems your mother applied for you.”
“GOD!” I said, not sure how mad I really was, too tired to pretend. “Isn’t that, like, illegal? Isn’t it cheating?”
“I don’t know. It may very well be.”
“I can’t believe this,” I said, shaking my head. “Is she going to take the classes for me, too?”
“Stan . . .”
“Forget it,” I decided. “I’m not going.”
He sighed. “Your mother went to Berkeley, you know.”
That stopped me, like a quick left to the chin. Had I been told about Berkeley? Was that something I’d just forgotten? Did she get in on an Extra Tall scholarship? I always assumed, I suppose, that she’d gone to some organic farm collective where they wrote papers on tree bark and danced nude in the rain a lot.
SIX THINGS MY FATHER COULD SAY THAT WOULD BE A BIGGER SURPRISE:
1. “Your mother is a man.”
2. “Your mother is a carrot.”
3. “Your mother is part giraffe.”
4. “I come from a heavily bearded planet and flew here in a bio-diesel saucer.”
5. “I want you to forget all this college nonsense and write a script instead.”
6. “Ellen Rigby is waiting upstairs in the Voice Activated Hot Tub.”
“She was a brilliant student,” my father continued. “Of course, once she was pregnant with you, she had to drop out, so she only finished two years.”
“Why didn’t you ever tell me?”
“She’s a bit ashamed to have left without graduating.”
“I didn’t know,” I said, a bit ashamed myself. My father had worked nights, putting himself through community college. I’d assumed my mother had as well.
“It may be time, Stan, despite your cranial capacity, to accept the fact that there are many, many things you don’t know.”
I put down my carrot. It looked like a gnawed zebra bone. I was an angry lion in the Serengeti. I could lie in the sun or I could eat an antelope. I could pick a mate or climb on a rock or yowl at the moon. Choices.
“Like, for instance,” he continued, “how remarkably similar you and your mother are.”
I laughed. “Me? Like Mom?”
“When I first met her, she was almost exactly like you are now. Difficult. Arrogant. Infuriatingly certain about everything and nothing.”
“Where did you meet her?” I asked. “Like, on the Internet? www.Hippie/InventorLove.com?”
“There was no Internet then, Stan. You know that. Well, technically, there was, but it was owned by the air force and was used as a primitive . . .” He shook his head, annoyed. “Stop trying to get me off track.”
“Are we on a track?”
“Yes. The one where you realize it’s time to stop acting so self-centered. There is a whole world around you, but that doesn’t mean it revolves around you. In fact, it absolutely doesn’t. In the scale of things? Ten billion people on the planet? You are a tiny Stanley-speck.”
“Wow, Dad,” I said. “Don’t pull any punches.”
“You have no idea,” he said.
“Just part of raising a teenager, though, huh?”
He handed me the envelope and got up. “It’s easy to pretend you don’t care about anything, Stan. It’s also cowardly.”
“Dad,” I said, but had nothing to follow it up with.
He pulled at his beard and walked toward the stairs. He opened a door that turned out to be a closet, shut it angrily, and then found the right one.
I was alone in the kitchen. Just me and the envelope.
Berkeley.
Ridiculous.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
TAKE THE what MONEY AND where? how? RUN
In the morning, the phone rang. I ran downstairs and picked it up.
“We’re on, Stan Musial. Tomorrow night.”
“Who is this?”
“You. Me. Ellen and Cari. Out to dinner, then a movie.”
“Aunt Judy? I thought the nurse took away your phone privileges.”
“Ha-ha,” Miles laughed. “Ha.”
“You better not be screwing with me, Miles.”
“It’s no joke, Doubting Thomas. She’s all set. Took some doing, but it’s done. Can you handle it? Can You Dig It?”
“God, Miles, you rule.”
“Yes, it’s true,” he laughed, and then said, “I do?”
“What time?”
“Seven thirty. I’ll pick you up at Crappy Video.”
“If Keith heard you say that, he’d put mustard on your leg and eat it,” I warned.
“Yeah, yeah, just don’t be late,” he warned back, which coming from Miles was like telling the sun not to be yellow.
“You know, coming from you —” I began, but he hung up.
Treatment for the feature-length film titled
GOING NOWHERE FASTER©
Written by Stan “Right Cross” Smith
Who doesn’t love a love story? Who doesn’t story a love love? Anyway, this movie is about a man and a woman who meet online. The man is a shy office worker who’s been hurt before and has trouble meeting women. The woman is a single mom with a smart and lovable daughter who is doing her best to set Mom up with a good guy. Mom tends to go out with losers, and we see a montage of them, the Dumb Football Guy, the Porsche-Driving Jerk, the Crazy Conspiracy Guy, and the Guy Who Hates Children. The man and woman are about to go on their first date, and the daughter is helping Mom dress while rehearsing funny things to say at dinner. The man is having a comical time getting ready. A button comes off his pants. The dog pees on his socks. He can’t find his car keys. Will the man and the woman overcome these zany obstacles? Does it all depend on whether the Nice and Knowing Maître d’ (played by Hector Elizondo, or someone just like him) puts them at the right table? Will they comically order the wrong wine? Or frog’s legs? Will a coffee spill cause a rift that needs another five slapstick scenes to repair?
God, am I stupid.
The next afternoon I took a long shower and dabbed on cologne. When I was getting dressed, a button popped off my shirt. Chopper farted near my sweater and I tried spraying it with Lysol, but it smelled even worse, so I had to pick a different one. Olivia stood in the doorway and coached me on my choice of footwear. Sneakers or sneakers?
“The white ones.”
“Are you sure?” I asked, holding u
p my trusty blue Keds.
“Definitely white,” Olivia said, moving to the edge of the bed, her toes dangling in Chopper’s fur. She squeezed and kneaded his ribs. He occasionally winced, but otherwise just lay there.
“How about this shirt?” I asked. It was a black button-up. Black seemed right, from Johnny Cash to Mötley Crüe, I couldn’t go wrong.
“Definitely not black,” she said, really giving Chopper the works. “Makes you look like a funeral guy.”
“Mortician,” I said.
“Who?”
“Never mind.”
I put on a red shirt and then picked out my favorite jeans.
“Too wrinkly,” Olivia said, scrunching up her nose.
I opened the closet and rooted around in a pile of Belt Turbines and Tie Engines and Perma-knot Knot Machines and Talking Shoehorns, and finally found the Smith’s Instant Iron-a-rama. It looked a lot like a waffle press, but bigger.
“Are you sure you don’t just want an iron? I bet Mom has an iron.”
“Mom has never ironed anything in her life,” I said, and stuck my jeans into the contraption. There was a large yellow switch on the side. I flipped it and nothing happened.
“It’s not on,” Olivia said, pointing to the cord.
I plugged the Iron-a-rama in. It made a loud wrenching sound before a huge billow of steam rushed out, almost scalding off my eyebrows. Chopper barked. Olivia yelped. A buzzer went off and I pulled out the jeans, which were at least twice as wrinkled as before.
“Try again,” Olivia suggested.
When the buzzer went off the second time, my jeans were four times as wrinkled as before, and had a long black stain on the back. Olivia shrugged.
“Want to see what eight times as wrinkled looks like?” I asked, almost positive I had an extra pair of khakis somewhere at the bottom of the closet.
My mother was downstairs in the kitchen with Prarash. They were eating noodles out of the same huge bowl, a handmade ceramic one that had monkeys linking arms all the way around. I’d always liked that bowl. Not anymore.
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