It’s quiet.
Really, really quiet.
I slam the door, lock it, and put on Agnostic Front, “Call to Arms.” LOUD.
Vinnie Stigma lays down a vicious blast of rage.
And then he starts playing guitar.
I think about calling someone.
But I don’t really have any friends.
Except El Hella.
And he doesn’t count.
I’m in the library with B’los.
It’s like nothing happened.
I don’t say shit about the fight.
He doesn’t say shit about the fight.
Might as well talk about breathing.
Someone donated a box of comics. The Basilisk confiscated all of them except one, saying they were too violent, even though twice I’ve seen him in his office with his feet up, flipping pages. The only one we were allowed to keep is some lame piece of crap called The Adventures of Desktruktor-Bot and Manny Solo, Boy Mentor. B’los takes it out of my hand, rips it into three pieces, then throws it in the garbage.
“There’s a lot of junk goin’ around. Peanut thinks you talked. Scuttled the bout. He and Conner are pissed. Might be they gonna make a run at your ass.”
“I know.”
“So did you?”
“What?”
“Talk?”
“No.”
“You for sure?”
“Yes.”
He stares at me, deciding. I don’t bother trying to convince him.
“Either way, man. Nothin’ I can do to help you out.”
“I wasn’t asking.”
“Would if I could.”
“I know.”
He restocks a book.
“What you in here for anyway, Sudden?”
“Man, I killed someone.”
“Get out.”
“Offed his ass.”
“For real?”
“Dude was asking for it.”
“No shit?”
“Yeah shit. I’m just playing.”
“Okay, though. Serious. What you in for?”
“The truth?”
“Yeah.”
“The truth is, I don’t really want to talk about it.”
Looper wants to talk. I can tell. Mostly because she’s sitting on the porch, Stroh’s between her knees, waiting for me.
It’s Saturday morning. I’m late for practice.
I put down my git case and lean against it. “What?”
“Was wondering if maybe you had a minute, bud.”
“Don’t call me bud.”
“Okay, bud.”
I stare at her. “I got practice.”
“Practice’ll hold, and you know it. Sit that fanny on down, huh?”
I’m tempted to turn and walk. But I like Loop, even if she is planning, through the nefarious miracle of modern chemistry and a lab geek with a fifty-thousand-dollar turkey baster, to knock my mom up.
“Tell you what, budette, you crack a Stroh’s for me, you just bought yourself a Stroh’s worth of talking time.”
Looper reaches into her cooler, slid conveniently under the chair, and opens one, putting it on the little plastic table between us. I sit and pretend to take a sip.
“One.”
“Yeah, yeah, and brush my teeth.”
“Look,” she says, and then bites her thumb. “Look, I don’t even know where to start.”
“Try the beginning.”
She doesn’t laugh.
“There’s just no way for me to express some things to you, since I know exactly how you’ll hear it, since I was sitting right where you are not too long ago. I mean, I know for damn sure I wasn’t hearing anyone back then. So why should you be any different?”
“Come again?”
“Youth is wasted on the young, that routine. How you’re doomed to make an ass of yourself until you’re finally ready to listen up about a few things. But by then it’s almost always too late.”
“You got anything worth listening to, Loop?”
She nods. “Yes, I do.”
“Will this listening entail descriptions of lesbo dorm sex by any chance? Hot girl-on-girl action?”
She sighs. “Doesn’t it just bore you to tears to be such an unrelenting prick all the time?”
I think about it for a minute. “Yeah, actually.”
“Okay.” She grins and toasts, taking a swig. “Progress.”
“Can you get to the point? I gotta roll.”
She looks off into the backyard. “I played rugby in college. Don’t know if I ever told you that.”
“You did not, Loop. And I have to say, that’s one of your best qualities.”
“What is?”
“How you’re never on and on about the glory days. No trophies around the house. No bragging about all the touchdowns you scored and cheerleaders you banged.”
She laughs despite herself. “Yeah, well. Point of my mentioning rugby is to say how playing used to amp me up. Man, I loved hitting. I loved nailing someone at full speed.”
“You do realize it’s now entendre central around here, right?”
She ignores me. “Senior year, our first game, I’m so wound up I’m all over the locker room, kicking doors and stuff, positive I am gonna bust my hump downfield the first play and stick whoever catches the ball. Like peel back her scalp and plant her a foot deep in the turf.”
I look at my watch. The one I’m not wearing.
“So it’s raining. The field’s a little sloppy. I unscrew my normal half-inch cleats and put on the one-inchers. This girl next to me, she’s third string, freshman, doesn’t even play. But she leans over and says, ‘Hey, you’re gonna blow out your knee if you wear those long cleats. The grass isn’t wet enough.’ I look at her like she’s a moron. I say some dumb macho thing like no guts no glory. Then I go out there in my one-inchers, race downfield, make one cut, and BAM, there goes my knee.”
“Ouch.”
“Yeah, ouch. Full reconstruction. Never played again. Still hurts if I don’t sit right.”
There’s a deer on our lawn. It’s eating a shrub. Looper throws half a beer at it, missing by about twenty yards. The deer stares at us and keeps chewing.
“Point is, I’ve spent my whole life wondering why I didn’t listen to that scrub. Why was I so arrogant I couldn’t see she was right? Girl’s probably a doctor or on a TV show or something now. But me and my about-to-be-thrashed knee knew better.”
“Because if you did listen, you would have made the big tackle, impressed some scouts, and then turned pro?”
“Hilarious. But no. Because if I didn’t spend two years having surgeries and rehab and Vicodin breakfasts, maybe I would have, you know, left town. Maybe not gone somewhere better in the long run, but somewhere different at least.”
“I get where you’re coming from, Loop. Seriously. Okay? Listening is a good thing. Certainty is foolish. Can I go now?”
“See, man, you mouth the words, but it’s just the same old Ritchie act.”
“What act would that be?”
“Tough kid dealt a tough hand. The young cynic. It’s a con. You know it and I know it. And the reason I know is, I was exactly the same. Man, being eighteen, it’s like being in a cave. You can’t see outside yourself. And then, five years later, you’re five years older with nothing to show but the attitude you leaned on so hard, and how it was all bullshit.”
I start to wonder just how drunk Looper is.
“Uh-huh.”
“Yeah, uh-huh. I guarantee in five years you’re gonna have a crappy job and a crappy apartment, lying in bed while that cute little Lacy’s snoring next to you.”
“Snoring?”
“You’ll owe on the rent, and the fridge will be empty, and you’re gonna think to yourself, why didn’t I tell my mom I loved her? Why did I have my head so far up my butt that I thought I was the only one carrying the water on how Beth died?”
I squeeze the beer can, spilling it across my lap and the
floor.
“You don’t even know me, okay? So where do you get off telling me you know anything about Beth?”
“Yeah, Ritchie, I do know you. I know you so well it hurts. I was you. And now I’m someone different. ’Cause I took the time to learn a few things. Or was made to learn them.”
“Oh my god. Do you hear what’s coming out of your mouth?”
Looper’s eyes flare. And then she sighs.
“Yeah, I know. This speech, it’s strictly from a movie. I mean, not what I’m saying, but that I’m trying to say it to you at all. It’s hopeless.”
I laugh. “For such a knob, you’re actually okay, Loop.”
“I am far from okay. And please don’t call me Loop.”
I stand, grabbing The Paul.
“Your mom’s having a tough time, Ritchie. The fact that you act like she’s a ghost isn’t helping a whole lot. You’re angry, sure. Maybe every inch of it is justified. I’m not saying you got to hold her hand and go shopping together. But maybe cut her a little slack. She’s trying, just like everyone else.”
“Listen to the pool lady full of advice,” I say. “Like she’s Donna Trump and not drinking away another Saturday morning. You got any other gems you want to lay on me before I go?”
“See now?” Looper says. “That’s exactly what I… That’s such a front I can’t even start to be mad about it.”
“You can’t start to be mad?”
“You’re such a hard case. Such a badass.”
“Thanks for the beer, Loop.”
“You can go fuck yourself, Ritchie. I’ll be expecting a letter from you. Five years from now. When you apologize and tell me you remember this conversation and appreciate what I tried to lay on you.”
“Yeah, but how will I know where to send it? You’ll be three moms away by then, shacked up with someone else’s vulnerable waitress.”
Looper stands and grabs me by the wrist. She’s ridiculously strong. She yanks me toward her and then shoves me back into the wall. These stupid little paintings of boats that Dad Sudden hung a million years ago crash around my feet.
“Ouch.”
She does it again, this time harder.
It really hurts.
The last painting falls, breaking in the corner.
Looper raises her hand, and even midflinch I’m thinking, She’s actually pretty cute. With her blue eyes and pixie haircut and stupid feather earring.
But she doesn’t smack me.
She pulls me into her arms. And hugs me. Hard.
I just let it happen, my head on her shoulder.
I could cry.
She could cry.
Neither of us does.
Too much like out of a script.
After a minute, Looper sits back down, cracking a fresh one.
“Go to your practice, Rich-tard. And don’t worry. No one has to know about it.”
“Know about what?” I say, rubbing my head.
“About the fact that even total badasses need a hug every now and again.”
I put the guitar in the back and fire up the Saab, taking a leisurely route, window down, whistling corny stuff like “When the Saints Go Marching In” and “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.” Around the corner from Elliot’s, I stop whistling and pull over. Through the trees, I can see them standing by their cars. Lacy and El Hella laughing, set up and ready to go. Chaos unloading his equipment. Half our songs aren’t fully arranged. Lacy doesn’t know all the lyrics. There is no way, absolutely none, that I can blow this practice off. The Saab hiccups. Chaos looks over and sees me. He waves. I put my forehead on the steering wheel, pound it a few times.
Go. Stay. Stay. Go.
“Hey, Ritchie!”
Do not, under any circumstances, drive away.
“Yo, Sudden!”
Pull the keys out of the ignition and toss them in the woods.
“Dude, we’re waiting!”
I put the Saab in gear and leave a patch, speeding up before I can change my mind. My cell immediately starts ringing. Vrrring. I immediately start ignoring it. Which is hard, since it’s the New York Dolls going, “That’s when I’m a lonely Planet Boy, and I’m tryin’, baby, for your love!” Three times. Six times. Nine times. I can picture Elliot screaming into the phone on the other end. Throwing it against the side of the house, the thing smashing into fifty pieces of rage.
And it scares me.
But not nearly enough to turn around.
“Hey.”
“Hey.”
Ravenna is standing in her parents’ driveway looking incredibly hot. She’s got one of those white thigh-length baseball shirts on, the color and outline of her bikini nudging through, over little terry-cloth shorty shorts and sandals. Her hair dangles all the way down her back, glossy and black as a cliché about things that aren’t really that black: night, kettle, Sabbath, ace of spades.
“Let’s roll,” I say.
She shakes her head. “You gotta meet my dad.”
“I gotta what?”
“I’m not allowed to go unless you come in first.”
“You’re shitting me.”
She just stares. Her bottom lip is insanely pouty.
After a while it becomes clear she is not shitting me.
“But look what I’m wearing,” I say, looking down at what I’m wearing: khaki shorts, skull belt, ironic vintage Warrant “Cherry Pie” tour shirt with the sleeves cut off, no socks, and Israeli paratrooper boots.
“You look fine. You look great,” Ravenna says, then hands me a pair of her brother’s golf pants and a light blue Van Heusen button-down. “But put these on anyway.”
The dress shirt has a little penguin over the heart.
“Fuck that,” I say.
She leans over and kisses me, letting her tongue slip gently, like an advance scout, between my lips.
I kill the engine and suit up.
“Yes, sir, goodtameetcha, too.”
We’re on a porch out back, the kind that’s screened off and has a bench swing and green AstroTurf carpet, no chance any fraction of outside might sneak in. Her dad is wearing green pants that match the patio furniture cushions. He has Ravenna’s same pained, sarcastic expression etched into his jowly face. He has the same million-miles-away eyes hidden behind thick glasses. He and Ravenna are like the Chang and Eng of intimidation. Also, there are ducks everywhere. Wood, ceramic, plastic, stuffed. Ducks ducks ducks.
“You ever duck hunt?” he asks, and I’m not sure if he’s kidding, the guy with a sly sense of humor maybe. But his stare does not waver. He’s not kidding.
“No, sir, I have not.”
“Huh,” he says, nursing what looks like a Bloody Mary. It could be just tomato juice.
“But I do know a duck joke.”
He raises one eyebrow. I start to sweat, wondering why in hell I just said that. Ravenna is now off in the kitchen with her mom, supposedly helping straighten up, but I know they’re listening.
Her father pulls at the dark wiry hairs on his knuckles with his other hand. A magazine beside him is opened to an article about Iran—three pictures, three turbans, three beards.
“Let’s hear the joke.”
I clear my throat. Ravenna’s mom brings me a glass of milk without asking. I take a sip and try not to grimace.
“Okay, so, uh, this duck waddles into a diner and eyeballs the menu. The specials are on the board, but the duck has lousy eyesight, and anyway, he can’t read. The waitress finishes serving a couple truckers, tops off some coffees, and finally walks over. The duck says, ‘So what’s good today?’ The waitress looks back at the cook, puts her hands on her hips, smooths her apron, and says, ‘Burgers are good. Potpie’s not bad. I don’t really recommend the meatloaf. But it hardly matters, does it, since we don’t serve duck here.”
He doesn’t laugh, doesn’t even crack a smile.
“Ravenna says you hope to study prelaw next fall?”
Ravenna zips into the room, puts some crackers o
n the table between us, bending over to give me a panorama of décolletage, and winks.
“Yes, sir.”
“Where are you applying?”
“Uh.”
“Pepperdine,” Ravenna says, putting her hand lightly on my shoulder. The pants I’m wearing are a size too big. The shirt is buttoned haphazardly. I am beyond a fraud.
The fraud me nods.
Her dad nods back.
“California, eh?”
I am only 26 percent sure that Pepperdine is in California, but am 97 percent suspicious that it’s a trap and I’m about to blow my cover.
“The Golden State,” I say.
“Good school. I suppose.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Taken your LSATs yet?”
“Next weekend, actually.”
“You roll double seven hundreds like I did, getting accepted will be no problem.”
“Exactly my thinking, sir.”
He nods. The wife brings him another Bloody Mary. Insects buzz safely from the other side of the screen. We sit there for a half hour and he doesn’t say a single other thing.
Just looking at me.
And then the ducks.
Me.
Ducks.
Me.
Ducks.
Me.
Siouxsie and the Banshees blare from the radio.
“Yuck,” Ravenna says, making a face. She snaps the dial, yawns, and stretches, the wind blowing her hair in intoxicating waves. Inviting waves. Hypnotizing waves. Medusan waves. Wavy waves.
My phone rings again. I have fifty-three messages, all within the past half hour. I turn it off.
“That was brutal,” I say.
“What?”
“Your dad. He so hated me.”
“No, he liked you. Totally.”
“Oh, that’s good. ’Cause I liked him, too. Totally.”
Ravenna frowns. I decide it’s wise to change the subject to almost anything else. So I do.
The lake is empty, as usual. It’s a state park, but there’s no beach, just the water and about a mile hike over rough terrain to get to it, which keeps most of the picnickers away. I know a path that leads to this real secluded place in one of the coves.
It’s a nice hike, sun, birds, dappled green. I hold Ravenna’s hand, helping her over rocks and logs. She digs the chivalry. We get to the sheltered opening and just talk for a while, sitting in the sun on a huge boulder overlooking the water. Everything feels right. Calm and easy. She laughs at my jokes. I laugh at hers. She tells me she’s always thought I was cute. I tell her I’ve always thought the same.
Wise Young Fool Page 16