Totally Joe

by James Howe

  As for Skeezie, he lives with his mom and two younger sisters in this little ranch house (painted a truly unfortunate mushroom-soup color) over on Wellington. His dad left town a couple of years ago, and Skeezie hasn’t seen him much since then. His mom works pretty hard, so Skeezie ends up having to take care of his two younger sisters a lot. I know he loves them and all, but I get the feeling he’s not too happy having to act like a dad to them sometimes. His house is even messier than mine, and everybody seems tired. His sisters—Megan and Jessie—are kind of whiny, but I think it’s because they wish their mom was around more. When she’s not working, Allison (that’s their mom) tries to be a good parent, I think, but she has this habit of falling asleep. When that happens, Skeezie gets so angry at his dad for doing this to their family that he just grabs his sisters and takes them to the movies where they all pig out on popcorn and try to forget.

  Bobby’s family has had a hard time of it, too. His family is only him and his dad, Mike, because his mom died when he was seven. That’s still kind of a hard thing for me to talk about because I loved his mom (she was a big hugger, like my dad), and I remember when she got sick, and it made me sad, but even more than that, it scared me to think that your mom could die. Bobby and his dad are really close, and Mike is nice to everybody and always orders out pizza for us when we hang out there—even though I know for a fact that they watch every dime they spend. Bobby even has to work part-time to help out.

  The thing is, in all our families—mine and Addie’s and Skeezie’s and Bobby’s—we have a lot of room to be whoever we are. (Aunt Pam said that to me once.) Even if I haven’t exactly told my parents everything about who I am, I guess I know deep down that it will be okay when I do, because they’ve never been uptight about, you know, the dolls and my dressing up and, until the lasagna incident, the Easy-Bake oven phase. Except for not wanting her to play with Barbies, Addie’s parents have pretty much encouraged Addie to be her own true self. And Skeezie and Bobby—well, I think their parents are so busy worrying about putting food on the table that they can’t be bothered with much more than making sure their kids don’t get into trouble.

  It’s only Colin who doesn’t have the room to be himself. He told me one time that his parents never get mad, they just get disappointed. I said, “You’re lucky they don’t get mad.” He said, “I’d rather they did get mad.” I think I said something brilliant back like, “Huh?” Because I didn’t get it. But now I do. Totally.

  LIFE LESSON FOR PARENTS: Love your kids. Let them play with Barbies. Let them pick out the stuff in their bedroom. (Hello.) And don’t tell them that “people like that” make you uptight, because for all you know your kids just might be “people like that,” too.

  G is for

  THE GANG OF FIVE

  THE GANG OF FIVE IS WHAT BOBBY, SKEEZIE, ADDIE, AND I HAVE CALLED OURSELVES SINCE THE SECOND GRADE. MISS HASKELL WAS out of school for a week with the flu or something, and we had this sub named Mrs. Esley, who, trust me, was a TOTAL NIGHTMARE! Anyway, Skeezie, trying to trick Mrs. Esley into thinking he was a lot dumber than he is (which, no offense to Skeezie, isn’t that hard to do), kept giving her the wrong answers to everything. For example, one day he insisted that 2 + 2 = 5. At lunch he said, “We should call ourselves the Gang of Five, because remember: Two plus two equals five.” This is an example of Skeezie’s humor at the time. He was so not funny.

  Even though this happened in April, we didn’t think much about being the Gang of Five until the next fall. Remember how I said that Bobby’s mom got real sick and died? Well, that happened during the summer after second grade. When we started school again in the fall, Bobby was quieter than ever (and if you know Bobby, you know he can be really quiet) (unlike moi). Even though he didn’t come right out and say it, I think Skeezie and Addie and I understood that his being so quiet had to do with his being sad and maybe a little scared.

  And then this really creepy thing happened.

  We were out in the playground at recess, and this mean kid—I don’t remember his name because he had just moved here and he moved away a month later, so I’ll just call him MK (for “mean kid”)—came over and said to Bobby, “What’s your name?”

  Bobby said, “Bobby.”

  MK said, “That’s not your name.”

  Bobby: It is, too.

  MK: It is not. I heard it’s Little Orphan Bobby.

  Bobby: What is that supposed to mean?

  MK: It means your mommy died. So you’re an orphan!

  Then he started singing this “Little Orphan Bobby” song he made up! Bobby’s eyes got all, like, watery. Skeezie told MK he was a jerk. I told him he was a double jerk. And when he wouldn’t shut up, Addie slugged him.

  MK said he was going to tell the principal, but Addie said if he did, she would tell the principal what he’d said to Bobby, and Mrs. Wishnie would punish him by making him clean every single toilet in the whole school. For the rest of his life. With his bare hands.

  (I never thought about it before, but maybe that’s why he moved away.)

  Anyway, afterwards Bobby said thanks to everybody for sticking up for him, and Skeezie said, “No sweat. We’re the Gang of Five, remember?” And that’s when we remembered we were the Gang of Five, and we’ve never forgotten.

  It’s more than just being friends, this Gang of Five thing. We need each other. We’re the kids the other kids make fun of. (Although maybe that’s changing now that three out of four of us are going out with kids who are more or less popular.) The problem is that the kids who have laughed at us or called us names have never bothered to get to know us. All they see is this fat and quiet kid (Bobby). And this tall, skinny, and not quiet girl. (Earth to Addie: It’s okay to shut up once in a while!) And … well, I’m not sure what they see when they look at Skeezie. He’s got this whole 1950s, Elvis Presley kind of thing going, and, as more than one teacher has been known to remark, he “marches to his own drummer.” I guess you could say that’s true of me, too, but with me, it would be more like, “He dances to his own soundtrack.”

  Anyway, we have each other and we don’t really care what other people say about us. We know that the Gang of Five totally rocks. And now, after running for student council a few weeks ago (and losing, but, oh, well) and actually having the nerve to get up in front of the entire school at the campaign assembly, maybe we’re not the only ones who think so.

  Starting at the beginning of the sixth grade, we (the Gang of Five) have met every week for something called the Forum (Addie came up with the name) (I still don’t get it), which is where we meet at the Candy Kitchen and talk about Important, News-Breaking, World-Shaking Topics while eating ice cream or other junky food. Addie usually comes up with the Important, News-Breaking, World-Shaking Topics (which are so not), and she writes down everything we say. Personally, I don’t think everything we say deserves to be written down, but it’s easier just to let Addie have her way about most stuff so she can think she’s the genius of the century.

  These are the minutes from our last Forum:

  Addie:

  Today’s topic is “What I’d Do for Love.”

  Skeezie:

  Do we barf now or after we’ve eaten?

  Joe:

  That is so CosmoGIRL!

  Addie:

  Meaning?

  Joe:

  Meaning: cool!

  Skeezie:

  Well, I don’t think it’s cool. Just because the three of you have gone and fallen all goo-goo in love doesn’t mean I have to roll around in it.

  Bobby:

  Roll around in what?

  Skeezie:

  The goo-goo. The mess. What are you looking at?

  Joe:

  The goo-goo? You are so strange.

  Skeezie:

  “Thank you. Thank you very much.” But can we please talk about something else?

  Addie:

  Like what?

  Skeezie:

  Like when is our food going to get here?
>
  Addie:

  All you think about is food.

  Skeezie:

  Why shouldn’t I? You can eat food. You can’t eat love.

  Joe:

  Ooo. Addie, did you write that down? “You can’t eat love.” Brilliant. Can’t you just picture it on a T-shirt?

  Skeezie:

  Shut up, doofus.

  Joe:

  Be nice, Schuyler. No name-calling, remember?

  Addie:

  Thank you, Joe. What I wanted to say was this: Yesterday, DuShawn said this kind of mean thing about somebody—

  Joe:

  Who?

  Addie:

  It doesn’t matter. Anyway, I’m embarrassed to admit this, but … well, when he said it, I just kind of let it go.

  Bobby:

  What do you mean?

  Addie:

  I didn’t say anything.

  Skeezie:

  Wait. Addie Carle, whose first words were “In my opinion,” didn’t say anything?

  Addie:

  That’s right. And then I thought, Oh, no, I’m letting him get away with this because … because, you know …

  Skeezie:

  Because you loooooooove him.

  Addie:

  Shut up. But yes.

  Bobby:

  Maybe you didn’t want to make him feel bad by pointing out that he was being stupid.

  Addie:

  He wasn’t just being stupid, he was being mean.

  Joe:

  What did he say?

  Addie:

  It doesn’t matter.

  Joe:

  Was it about me?

  Addie:

  No, Joe. It was not about you or any of us. It was about someone in his family, if you must know, and I don’t want to repeat what he said. The point is, if you love somebody—and Skeezie, if you start singing some dumb Elvis song, I’ll squeeze this entire ketchup bottle down your shirt, I swear—if you love somebody, do you go along with them even when you don’t feel right about it?

  Joe:

  Hmm. I know what you mean. Colin wants to keep our going out a secret—and I understand, I really do, but at the same time …

  Addie:

  At the same time, that is so last century.

  Joe:

  Right. But I don’t want him to feel bad or break up with me, so I’m going along with it.

  Addie:

  What about you and Kelsey, Bobby?

  Bobby:

  Oh, we don’t have any problems. Of course, we don’t talk much.

  Skeezie:

  Big surprise there.

  Addie:

  I don’t know. Sometimes I think it’s easier to stand up to the whole school—or the whole world even—than it is to stand up to one person, especially if that person really matters to you.

  Bobby:

  That makes sense to me. I have trouble telling my dad things sometimes. I don’t want to let him down.

  Joe:

  It’s the same with me and my dad.

  Addie:

  But you both have the best dads.

  Bobby:

  So do you.

  Skeezie:

  Okay, another thing? Can we not talk about who has the best dad? Oh, hey, our food! Oh, man, I didn’t ask for a BLT! I asked for a grilled cheese with bacon!

  At that point, Addie stopped taking notes. It almost always ends up like this. We talk until the food shows up. Then, no matter what Skeezie has ordered, there’s something wrong with it, and he has to throw a hissy fit and be a big drama queen about it. We never get back to what we were talking about. But that’s okay because there’s always the next time—and, trust me, Addie never runs out of Important, News-Breaking, World-Shaking Topics to talk about.

  LIFE LESSON: As somebody said in a song once (I don’t think it was Elvis), “You gotta have friends.”

  H is for

  HALLOWEEN

  OKAY, SO HALLOWEEN IS MY ABSOLUTE, numero uno favorite holiday. I mean, come on, we’re talking about DRESSING UP here! Ever since I can remember, I have loved dressing up. And I’m not just talking about in my mother’s clothes. Although: Been there, done that. There’s this video of me when I was about three parading around the house in my mom’s very high heels (I was also wearing one of her necklaces, my Oscar the Grouch underpants, a tutu, and a Superman cape). Anyway, every time we show this video it’s a real crowd-pleaser—up until the part where I fall down the stairs and MY FATHER KEEPS TAPING! Everybody goes, like, “Dave, how could you have done that?!” I don’t know, maybe he thought he’d win a million dollars on America’s Funniest Home Videos or something, but this was his child’s life we’re talking about! Fine. It was only, like, two steps and there was knee-deep carpeting everywhere, but still.

  Anyway, the point is that I love to dress up, and not only on Halloween. It’s just that Halloween makes it legit. Even my brother dressed up in drag one Halloween a couple of years ago, although he was all very “Yuck, yuck, look at me, I’m a woman, watch me jiggle my melons and shake my booty.” So gross. Not to mention Guy-Guy Behavior Supreme-O. In fact, they weren’t melons, they were soccer balls. He must have used up a whole roll of duct tape to keep them on. My mother told him there was no way he was leaving the house looking like a walking silicone nightmare, and he said if I could dress up in girls’ clothes why couldn’t he, and Mom said that I wasn’t insulting women when I did it. That’s when he stormed out of the house, shouting, “Double standard!” Which surprised me, because I didn’t think he even knew what “double standard” meant.

  (This may have been around the time Addie came to her senses, in terms of my brother not being suitable crush material.)

  It’s funny. Even though I have done lots of dressing up in girls’ clothes around the house, I have never worn drag on Halloween. Okay, almost never. I was Dorothy in kindergarten. But being Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz is kind of like being Mary in the Christmas pageant. Sacred-like, you know?

  Anyway, I am so looking forward to Halloween this year. A whole group of us is going trick-or-treating (we figure it’s our Farewell Tour, since we’re kind of outgrowing it), and then we’re going back to Addie’s house for a party. I hope we get lots of candy, because I can just imagine what the refreshments will be like. This is a family that every Thanksgiving has tofurky.

  Colin and I have been talking about our costumes for the last two weeks. We want to do something where we kind of go together—like salt and pepper, or Rose and Jack. (Titanic.) (Hello.) We actually considered that last one, thinking we could go as the part where they’re floating around in the icy water. We were going to, like, cover ourselves in blue makeup and make little icicles to hang off our noses, but then we figured if my mother wouldn’t let Jeff out of the house with his Pamela Anderson boobs, she was not about to let us go anywhere dressed as half-dead disaster victims. Besides which, we had already come to the conclusion all on our own that the idea would be Breaking New Ground in Bad Taste. (Although maybe Aunt Pam already did that with the Titanic cake.)

  Oh, and dressing up as lovers? And one of us being a woman? And going out in public? Uh. No.

  It was Pam who came up with the brilliant idea of Bert and Ernie.

  Okay, I have to admit this right here, right now. I totally love Bert and Ernie. Personally, I think it’s not only un-American not to love Bert and Ernie, but so uncool.

  Problem was, both Colin and I wanted to be Bert. But since Colin is taller, he won. I don’t mind. I do Ernie’s laugh better, anyway. And, needless to say, I have in my possession a rubber ducky. More than one. Okay, five.

  So Pam is making our costumes and doing our hair and makeup and everything. No plastic masks for us! “Right, Bert?” “Right, Ernie!”

  I’m going to write more later. Bye for now! And …

  Happy Halloween!

  It is now later.

  How do I put this? Let’s try: THIS WAS THE WORST HALLOWEEN OF MY LIFE!! And on top of that: I may have lost my
one true love (i.e., Bert) forever!!

  I am so not being dramatic.

  Okay, where do I start?

  Our costumes were Fab. U. Luss. Except for our heads, which remained melon-instead-of-football-shaped, we looked just like Bert and Ernie. Besides being a painter, Pam works in the cosmetics department at Awkworth & Ames Department Store, so she was able to put together this perfect yellow and orange makeup (yellow for Bert/Colin, orange for Ernie/me). She put it on our faces and over these bald caps she found somewhere and added long strands of black crepe hair (the kind you make fake beards out of) to the tops of our heads. And she made a unibrow out of the same stuff for Colin that looked just like the one Bert has. By the time we put on the big noses and the costumes she’d made (I don’t know how she found material that looked just like their shirts, but she did) (she’s awesome) (she could be a Hollywood designer, I mean it), we could have been celebrity doubles!

  Everybody was like, “Oh. My. God. You guys are amazing!”

  And nobody had to guess who or what we were, unlike Addie, who was a stalk of broccoli, but most people thought she was either an alien or the Jolly Green Giant.