“I guess.”
“I could kiss you, Lacy Duplais.”
“You’re an asshole, Ritchie Sudden.”
“Well, even an asshole needs an assholette, so your timing is perfect.”
“Whatever.”
“I’ll pick you up in the morning. Just don’t wear anything black.”
She doesn’t answer.
“So are we friends again?”
“We were never friends.”
“True.”
“But I suppose I can put abjectly hating you on hiatus for a while.”
“I’ll take it,” I say. “Just be ready when I swing by.”
She is. We get to school even earlier than expected, sneaking down the hallway for a peek in the teachers’ lounge. A bunch of them are having breakfast. Mr. Hmung and Vice Principal Paste and Miss Menepausse scoop up instant eggs. Dice is by the watercooler, trying to charm the new art teacher, who looks like a heavier, cross-eyed Susan Sarandon. She’s laughing at his dumb joke. He’s leaning closer and touching her wrist. Menepausse rolls her eyes and says something to Paste under her breath. He lets out a nasty little laugh.
“It’s perfect,” Lacy whispers, and she’s right. Dice is fully occupied, practically bungee jumping down Sarandon’s shirt.
We sneak into his classroom. I use bolt cutters duct-taped along my leg to snip the Master Locks. They open like butter. Then I use a mini pry bar on the spot welds. They pop like margarine. We yank all the components, pulling wires rudely from the wall, and hump them into the storage closet in the back of the room. I arrange them into a neat pile. Lacy slips a perfumed note from her pocket and lays it on top. She dials up a tube of Fiery Furnace and makes a lipstick kiss at the bottom. We sneak back out and tiptoe down to the boys’ room at the end of the hall, changing into Chaos’s brother Carlton’s leathers. Carlton apparently races motorcycles in France or something equally impossible and exotic. I borrowed a pair for each of us, head-to-toe black, boots and gloves and two helmets with smoked visors. Lacy looks like a tough, if petite, dude. Ten minutes later, when the halls are full and Dice is in front of his classroom making jokes and spreading charm, we bust out of the bathroom and run full-speed through the crowd, yelling, “Look out! Look out!” while holding empty cardboard boxes. It clears a path the entire length of the hall. Kids watch us, mystified, and shy away, but no one seems too worried. Lacy and I bang out the rear doors and then curl around the side of the building instead of toward the parking lot. We yank off the leathers and dump them in the woods and then sprint back around front. Now I’m wearing khakis and a nice shirt. Lacy is in a pink dress. People are still buzzing about the two guys who just stormed through.
“Hey, did you see those dudes in leather?” I ask as we walk in.
Lacy’s like, “Whoa! What the heck was that all about?”
There’s a rising buzz of confusion and gossip.
Dice calms and shushes, telling people everything’s okay, just go to class, no need to get wound up.
“Any idea who they were?” I ask.
“Nah,” a few people say. “We were just wondering ourselves.”
Lacy nods, and then says really loudly, “Well, whoever they were, I just saw them out in the parking lot loading a ton of stereo equipment into this jacked-up truck.”
Dice turns white, zipping to his room in a panic. Two seconds later there’s a torrent of swearing. Everyone packs in behind him, standing around the Teaching Tower, which leans to one side, looted, empty. It looks like Charlie Brown’s Christmas tree.
Dice starts yelling. “Call the cops! Call the cops!” Then takes off in his squeaky loafers. Half the school follows, everyone pouring out the back door. Amazingly, there are no dudes in black leather in the parking lot. There is no jacked-up truck. There are no stolen components. Just a quiet, sunny day.
People start laughing and making jokes, punching one another’s shoulders.
“Wow, man, looks like they got away.”
“I can’t believe someone just jacked Snake Eyes! Took him off clean!”
“Hey, Dice, you current with your insurance premiums?”
The look on Mr. Isley’s face is beyond severe. It’s molten. It’s bloodless. He has zero pigment, eyes slit in fury. You can see chest flexing through his dress shirt.
“That’s really a shame,” I say, with utter sincerity. “Hey, guys, give Dice a break; that totally sucks.”
“Shut up, Sudden.”
“How’d you like to have your gear thefted?” I ask.
“Brownnoser.”
Twenty minutes later, every cop in Sackville has the school on lockdown. They tape off the crime scene, and in a move of sheer genius, lift fingerprints from desks that already have fingerprints from every kid who graduated in the past ten years. Dice is sitting on a chair in the middle of it all, head in his hands, nodding while some detective who looks like he was born in wing tips and a trench coat jots in a little notebook. Lacy and I try not to look at each other as the rest of the teachers herd everyone back to class. An hour later, we’re in the middle of Computers Are Our Future, when there’s a round of yelling.
“I don’t believe this!”
Some uniform finally got the bright idea of opening the closet door.
The note Lacy left taped to the equipment said, HA HA! GOTCHA! LOVE, MISS M.
An announcement roars over the loudspeaker. “Miss Menepausse, report to Mr. Isley’s room, please. Miss Menepausse? Can we see you a minute, please? Right now.”
Ten minutes later there’s crying all the way down the hall. Denials are answered by barking questions. Every kid in school giggles while Dice and Miss Menepausse are escorted to Vice Principal Paste’s office by two cops, the word lawyer dropped like a cold meatball every third step. They send Dice’s class to study hall, everyone in it letting loose a cheer. Which, conveniently, leaves the door to Dice’s room open.
I look at Lacy and wink.
While she stands watch, I sneak in and lower the preamp, the speakers, the compressor, and the mixer out the window. When she signals, we zip around the building, grab the components, and put them in the woods next to the leathers. Then we just play it cool the rest of the day, go to lunch and our other classes, making sure a few teachers see us leave empty-handed.
That night, I pick Lacy up again. We cruise by school, which is totally empty, not a single car in the lot. It’s a cakewalk to load the stuff in.
Safely across town, I pull behind Scumbies.
“That was crazy,” she says. “I was scared shitless.”
“I know.”
“And then the look on Dice’s face?”
“I know.”
“Pretty freaking awesome.”
“That’s life as a rock star, babe. That’s what it’s like being onstage, the adrenaline, the roar of the crowd.”
“When have you ever been onstage?”
“Well, technically never. But I spend a lot of time rocking out in front of my mom’s mirror.”
She laughs.
I lean over to kiss her.
I have no idea why.
Giddy with the rush of the perfect crime, I guess.
Or just wanting her to know that I’m glad we’re cool.
Bad move.
Lacy turns her head and leans away, making a face.
I lay one on her cheek to avoid feeling like a complete douche.
“You were fabulous,” I say, trying to cover. “You are now so part of the team.”
Her eyes narrow.
“I earned my stripes, huh?”
“Totally.”
“Well, I guess it was easier than spreading my legs again.”
“Ouch!” Ghost Beth says from the backseat.
I look out the window. Some kids walk from Scumbies with four cans of whipped cream. Two guys walk out with a case of beer. Three girls walk out with micro-burritos. It’s weird how you never see anyone walking in.
“Yeah, and also?” Lacy says, as the mixer
and compressor glint in the neon light. “Hilarious as that was? I thought you said this prank wasn’t going to be illegal.”
“I guess I lied,” I say, thinking that Eyelied, She Lied would be the perfect name for a really shitty emo band.
“I didn’t tell the whole truth,” I say.
“Exactly what percentage of it did you tell?”
“Well, B’los and I weren’t dancing; we just said that so we wouldn’t get busted.”
“I see,” Dr. Benway says. I can tell she doesn’t believe me. The counselors reported back. Everything in the dayroom was fine.
No problem. No fights.
Instead of rejoicing, it seems clear that she now thinks, officially and clinically, that I am full of shit.
“I mean, the movie deal? That was genius. Especially one as boring as Beethoven. Took the steam out of everybody. But somehow they know I told you. Or at least Peanut does.”
“And how could he know that?”
“You must have said something to Yunior. Or The Basilisk.”
“Sounds very complicated. And conspiratorial.”
“Exactly.”
“I promise you I didn’t say a word.”
One thing I’ve learned in life is that you should never try to convince anyone of anything. They’re either with you or not. They believe you or not. After that, you’re just digging a hole.
“You think I’m a total Bueller, don’t you?”
“You are referring to Ferris, I take it?”
“No, Ted Bueller. Of course Ferris.”
“What about him?”
“Like I made it all up. Undercard. The bouts.”
She shrugs. “Maybe.”
“Yeah, okay. And my bruises? Self-inflicted?”
“Maybe.”
“Do you really think I’m that nuts?”
“No one knows what anyone else is capable of.”
“Ah, yes. The central tenet of incarceration.”
She raises an eyebrow. Either impressed, or her eyebrow itches.
“Well, I’m not.”
“Not what?”
“Crazy.”
“Good.”
“All the voices in my head say so.”
“You hear voices?”
“No, usually just a laugh track. My head can’t afford a live studio audience.”
Dr. Benway has food on her desk. What’s left of her lunch. After she takes about a million notes and adds half a ream of paper to my file, she points her pen at it.
“Do you want some?”
I don’t want her pity.
I don’t want her handouts.
I don’t want to touch anything of hers.
“I’m not hungry,” I say.
And then wolf the entire thing down.
“It’s tacos. Why don’t you come on down and stuff your gullet?”
It’s the second time Looper has knocked on my door tonight.
“I’m not hungry.”
“Tacos,” she says again, as if the allure were self-evident.
I turn off Talking Heads’s Fear of Music. It’s their only album I really dig. Musical disdain. Anti-chart. Anti-sales. Percussive as hell. Plain black cover. Not one iota of giving in to the forces of having to give a shit.
Looper pokes her square head in the door. “Smells in here.”
I look around to make sure I haven’t left a jerk-sock out. “Even if I knew what that meant, I have no response.”
“You coming to dinner or what?”
“Is I’m not hungry suddenly Polish around here?”
“Nyet.”
“That’s Russian. And why do you care? I’m sure you gals have private gal stuff to natter about.”
Looper plays with her earring, lowering her voice. “Listen, Ritchie. Your mom wants you at the table tonight. So why don’t you pull your head out of your wise ass for a second and do something, just once, because she wants you to?”
I think about laughing. I think about slamming the door. I think about telling Looper to fuck the fuck off and mind her own business.
Then I get up and toss a shirt on, following her downstairs.
Mom’s got the bowls all laid out: chopped tomatoes, ground chuck, grated American, iceberg, sour cream. Mexican food that not a single Mexican has ever eaten in their lives and wouldn’t recognize as a taco if it were wearing a HI, MY NAME IS TACO! name tag. Mom’s got makeup on. Looper’s sporting new khakis. And possibly for the first time ever, lipstick.
“Oh, Ritchie, I’m so glad,” Mom says.
We all sit down.
I fork a bunch of orange meat into the hard shell, which immediately gets soggy and splits down the middle. Looper grabs a pinch of tomato, a pinch of iceberg, and throws it on my plate. “Taco salad.”
Mom laughs. Looper cracks a Stroh’s and holds it up in a silent cheers. They’re both sort of half grinning. They’re either stoned or…
“What, you’re getting married?”
“Nope.” Looper laughs. “Still illegal in this state.”
Mom doesn’t laugh. “No.”
“Thank god. I swear, you guys are freaking me out with the happy domestic routine.”
“But there is something,” Mom says.
I put down my fork. “There’s always something.”
“Ritchie, I don’t know how to say this.”
“So don’t. Man, I should have known this wasn’t just dinner.”
Looper kicks me under the table.
Mom turns half a shade whiter than pale. “Well, the truth is, Looper and I…”
“What? Will you spill it already?”
“We’ve decided to try to—”
“Your mother and I are going to get pregnant,” Looper says, raising her arms. “Woo-hoo!”
Mom turns red and glares at Looper, who shrugs.
“No way,” I say. “You can’t.”
“Can’t what?”
“Basic physiognomy? The, uh, total lack of dong?”
Mom turns purple. Looper looks like she wants to bury her fork in my neck.
“It’s called artificial insemination, Ritchie. You ever heard of that?”
“Yeah.”
“Well,” Mom says. “I’ve seen a specialist. We’ve been going together. Amazingly, my eggs are very… healthy. I didn’t want to say anything because, at my age and so forth, the success rate is not very high.”
Looper squeezes Mom’s hand. Mom raises Looper’s hand to her mouth and kisses it.
“Are you serious? I mean, seriously, have you two thought this through?”
“Yes,” Looper says. “Very much so.”
“Um, okay, Mom,” I say, my voice rising. “Let’s just take things one step at a time. Assuming this wasn’t an insane idea in the first place, given, you know, your previous success or relative lack thereof with the raising of children, excluding, of course, my own overall excellence and maturity, why would you be the one to carry it?”
“It?”
“Looper’s ten years younger than you are. At least.”
“I can’t,” Loop says.
“You can’t, as in, I have too many pools to clean can’t, or you won’t, as in, Think what that would it do to my figure.”
Looper stares at her lap. “I’m not physically able.”
“Oh.”
I consider for a second acknowledging this fact. Maybe even being somewhat empathetic about it. But then don’t.
“Well. Let’s move on and envision a little mini Loop tearing around here, smashing into things and eating paint chips and juggling rusty knives. Who’s gonna watch it?”
“Again with the ‘it’?”
“Me, of course,” Mom says, dabbing her lips.
“You? Like, you you, or a full-time, live-in nanny you?”
“Hey now,” Looper says.
I try to contain the hysteria rising in my gullet, but it’s not working. My cool is as gone as it’s been in a very long time. I point at Mom. “But you’re never here! You
haven’t been here in years!”
“That’s not fair.”
“Fine. So say you quit your job. Suddenly you’re back housewifing. And this time you’ve got it dialed. What happens when she leaves? You really think Looper’s in for the long haul?”
“Not cool,” Looper says, more mildly than you’d figure. I jab her arm with an empty taco shell.
“Who exactly is this chick? Huh? She’s not even a stepdad. A stepmom. She’s just. You know. Here. I mean, is the Perfection Pools van parked in our garage for good?”
“When did being such a shit become so casual for you?” Mom asks, throwing down her napkin.
“I don’t know. When did liking chicks get so easy for you? Remember Dad Sudden? All those years with a guy? What if you bun up, ready to knock out a kid, and then decide to switch teams again?”
Mom sighs. Her face is moist and streaky-red. She looks terrible. It’s hard to figure what Looper sees in her. “I knew you wouldn’t—”
“Wouldn’t what? Understand? Like that’s not a total cliché? Oh, it’s just about me understanding or not, right? That’s the real problem here? Me not being open-minded about your lifestyle? Okay, problem solved. My mind is now officially opened. I’m the alterna-kid poster boy. But, you know what? Me and my lifestyle never really got consulted, did we?”
I push my plate back. Grease lips off the edge and soaks into the tablecloth. I knock the chair over, get up, think for a second about the ridiculously dramatic scene I’m causing and how I could be so much cooler about the whole thing. About how maybe it’s not so terrible after all. About how I’m sinking the dagger in less because I really care and more because for some reason being a judgmental dick is making me feel better, even though it should, by all rights, be making me feel much worse.
“Hey, you and Looper want to have Beth Two? Go ahead. Have Beth Two. Go through the whole thing all over again. Who gives a shit what I think?”
They’re both staring at me, appalled.
It’s weird.
I’m being appalling.
There is a certain logic to it. A certain pleasure.
It’s also dirty. Sickening.
But, you know, in the end, I’m way too far in to stop.
So I cram an entire taco into my mouth, let the juice run down my chin, turn, and stomp up to my room.
Wise Young Fool Page 15