The Dark Days of Hamburger Halpin

by Josh Berk

  As I write, I look up to see Derrick storm off. Then he lands—right at my table. It is like a meteor crashing onto my deserted island. He doesn’t even acknowledge me, however. He just looks right through me, chugging his little jug of milk and chomping his fried ravioli with a clenched jaw. Then, to my shock, he pulls out an AP English book, Great American Writers. He spreads it on the table, half under his tray. Is he afraid his friends will make fun of him for reading? I pretend to be still looking in my notebook, but I can see that he’s opened to a chapter on Emily Dickinson. Something from one of her poems comes to mind: “I’m Nobody! Who are you? / Are you—Nobody—too?” Then he moves on to Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart.” I suddenly want to tell him about how I totally get that story, about how the DEAF CHILD AREA sign under my bed has been taunting me like a pocket watch under the floorboards. It is a little insane, but I go for it.

  “I know exactly how the narrator feels in that story,” I write. I float the note over his book. He looks at it like I crapped in his milk carton.

  “Dude,” he says, “don’t write me notes.”

  We stare at each other for a long moment. For some reason I am not intimidated. Somebody who reads unassigned Poe and Dickinson at lunch just isn’t a tough guy, no matter how much he wants to be. We could really be friends, I think. Dude. But then the bell, presumably, sounds. I see a sudden mass exodus, and with it the possibility of friendship dissipates into the air. Story of my goddamn life.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Before we even begin getting changed for swimming, Fatzy comes storming into the locker room. He is brandishing a clear plastic bag that contains something wet and brown and, uh … poopish. He holds it up like a lawyer presenting the surprise piece of evidence sure to nail the killer. We all look at it with collective confusion.

  “Don’t pretend (something something) what this is, Smiley,” McFatpants says. All eyes go to Devon, who clearly has no idea what Fatzy is talking about.

  “Come again?” he says, cocking his head like a confused dog struggling to grasp the commands of a lunatic master. Fatpants then adjusts the bag so its contents become clearer. Ah, a swimming suit. He points, his finger shaking with anger, at the waistband. There, someone, presumably Mrs. Smiley, had written “Devon ” in humiliatingly permanent marker.

  “Do you know how (something something) emergency plumbing services to (something something) remove this from the drain?”

  So, Devon’s shorts clogged up the pipes. The school had to spend a lot of money to get a plumber to fish them out. And now Fatzy is furious—with Devon!

  Devon tries posing the logical question: “Why would I flush my own swimsuit down the toilet?”

  “Well, then, who did?” Fatzy asks.

  Devon pauses. Clearly, he does not want to rat out those actually responsible for the old flag-and-flush. Will someone step up and fall honorably on his sword? Of course not.

  “Are you telling me that someone other than you (something something) flushed your shorts down the toilet?” Fatzinger asks.

  Devon nods.

  “And that you have no idea who it was that did this?” Fatzy yells. “Someone pulled off your shorts and flushed them down my toilet without you noticing who it was?”

  Devon nods again. And get this! He ends up being the one who gets punished. I am thunderstruck. What is this delusion that makes people think that kids who are good at sports are somehow also blessed with a whole host of other positive traits? It should have been obvious to Fatpants that Pat is constantly torturing Devon.

  “I bet you flushed these so you could get out of swimming,” McFatpants says. “Well, I hope you’re happy, because now you will have to sit on the sideline for a week while the rest of us enjoy free swim.”

  Fatzy’s reasoning is stunning. Why is the punishment for ruining the plumbing the exact thing that the punished wanted anyway? All right, then, time to start flushing my own suit on a daily basis. And maybe my math book, my history book, and my lunch. I’ll flush my entire life if I can find a toilet big enough.

  “Now the rest of you get changed and quick,” McFatpants says. “We’ve wasted enough time already.”

  And then, perhaps because of all the talk about toilets, or maybe the fried ravioli, I know I cannot “get changed and quick.” My stomach is lurching and diving like a pilot on a kamikaze mission. If I try to swim, the plumber might have to come back to drain the entire pool. What to do? Try to explain to this most sensitive of educators, Mr. Fatzy McFatpants, that I am feeling sick to my stomach, and elsewhere?

  As I sit on the horn of this particular dilemma (ouch!), I realize I don’t have a pen and paper on me. Hmm … It is a long shot, but the sign for “diarrhea” is actually pretty vivid: you sort of pull your thumb out of your fist over and over again like your hand is shooting out a turd. I try it on Fatzy, but he just looks confused and really miffed.

  Devon is sitting on a bench, pleased to be avoiding gym but shaken up over his dressing-down. He smiles weakly at me. I point to myself and spell “S-I-C-K.” I do the sign for “diarrhea” to him, and he gets it. He points to himself and then to Fatzy like he’s saying, “You want me to tell him for you?” I nod. It’s almost like a real conversation.

  Devon skitters up to Fatpants with a scared yet determined look on his face. I have to stop being so hard on Smileyman. Fatpants writes me a pass to the nurse. I smile and scurry down the hall, walking in a butt-clenched crab step inspired by my condition.

  As soon as I see Nurse Weaver, I feel panic. It’s her job to make sure I’m succeeding at this school. I’m sure she will notice that I’m not wearing my hearing aids. Why didn’t I grow one of those floppy hairstyles that would cover my ears?

  She gives me a look of tight lips and raised eyebrows. Crap. I’ve been busted. But she is a kind lady and recognizes the crab walk, so she gives me some Pepto-Bismol and lets me use the toilet in the nurse’s office. We’ll probably have to have “a talk” about my progress sometime soon. But, for now, there are other pressing matters.

  It’s possibly sad when a quality crapper is the high point of your day, but this john is really first-rate. There is a padded seat, a little basket of stuff with a sweet smell, and toilet paper that, unlike in the rest of the school commodes, does not seem to be leftover sandpaper from woodshop.

  Can I just sit on this toilet all day, maybe actually move in here and make it my house? But wait. What if a line of fellow ravioli eaters has formed at the door? They could be knocking and I’d have no idea. What if they get out a battering ram and knock down the door, thinking I have died, Elvis-style, on the crapper? I finish up and rush the heck out of there. And someone else is waiting to use it. A beautiful, sad someone.

  Leigha has a sickish green look on her face as she brushes past me to enter the little toilet room. But even while I am sort of worried about the smell I left behind, I feel somehow sure that Leigha and I are destined to make a real connection. So I do the boldest thing I’ve ever done. And maybe the most brilliant? Or the stupidest?

  I take the letter I had written to Leigha out of my binder. Then I take my pen in my hand and, with my heart in my throat, I scrawl “Love” before “Will.” Done!

  I slide the note under the bathroom door, turn to run, and smack right into Purple Phimmul. The collision almost sends her sprawling to the linoleum floor. Her sunglasses skid across the room. A bead or two flies off of her dress. She struggles to regain her balance, her little sausage-y arms flailing like a T. rex. I pick up her glasses and hand them to her. She plucks them carefully from my sweaty palm like you’d pick a dirty tissue up off the floor.

  “Sorry,” I sign sorrily. My head is spinning so fast that I forget she has no idea what I am talking about. But then my head spins even faster when she signs something back.

  “How did you learn?” I ask.

  “Deaf uncle,” she responds. “Now I have a question for you.”

  I signal that she should go ahead and ask.

&nb
sp; “What did you put under the door?” Her eyes narrow, and even her hands take on an unfriendly tone.

  “Nothing,” I sign with shaking hands.

  “I brought Leigha down to the nurse because she was feeling sick. I’ve been sitting here the whole time. I watched you,” she signs with really quite impressive sign language.

  “It was nothing,” I sign again.

  She stares at me, her eyes narrowed to slits. Feeling spooked, I just keep making that sign for “nothing,” two O shapes exploding into emptiness. And then Purple looks away from me suddenly. Leigha is coming out of the bathroom. And I am running down the hall. Away! Away!

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  For the whole rest of the day, I cannot stop imagining Leigha’s response to my note. I play out a thousand possible scenarios. I work hard to try to convince myself that the good ones (me and Leigha making out in a shed) are likely, or at least no less unlikely than the really bad ones (me getting murdered in a shed). Why do all these scenarios involve a shed?

  Luckily, on the way home, I become distracted by some bus shenanigans. Planders is whooping it up, yelling about how great the football team is and how Pat is the best CHS quarterback ever, yakety-yak. But what I really want to see is at the back of the bus. Gabby is again trying to soothe A.J., who again looks infuriated. And where is Teresa Lockhart?

  Is this really all about Pat’s exclusive party? Or maybe he is mad because Teresa is off with somebody who is not him? Does he secretly pine for his bus mate? I enter in my notebook: BUS LOVE TRIANGLE? Burning question. But I have no desire for a repeat of the GAJBF, so I try really hard to keep from being seen.

  Should I get some sunglasses like Purple’s so no one can see my eyes? Given how little people around here seem to know about being deaf, they might think it would be normal if I wore sunglasses all the time. Would I be the cool “impaired” guy with the shades? Like Ray Charles or Stevie Wonder. Except fat. And white. And not really all that musical.

  For now I just have to peek once in a while. I catch some fragments of the conversation. Gabby is trying to keep A.J. from being upset, but it isn’t working. The one word I see her say a bunch of times is “ace.” Do they somehow know about my Ace? Speaking of which, is he whizzing in the basement at the moment? Nah. But every time I look up, the word “ace” is there as clear as day. What on earth could she be referring to?

  I focus as hard as I can and get one long bit of conversation that provides a clue to something I had been wondering about for a while. Something gross.

  “Well, maybe you should have known better than to ask Leigha,” Gabby says to A.J. “You’re lucky all Pat did was take away your invitation. I know they broke up, but he still won’t let her go out with anyone else. And, seriously, if anyone so much as texts Leigha, he’ll kill them.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Huzzah. The day of the field trip to Happy Memory Coal Mine has finally arrived. I am so excited that I put on my best outfit, lovingly sculpt my hair, and skip out the front door. Who would not be excited to stand in a dark coal mine with the cretins who make up my history class?

  Better and better, Jimmy Porkrinds is our bus driver for the trip. As we cruise up the highway, I amuse myself by copying down what I surmise to be Jimmy’s thoughts on life into my notebook: “YOU UNGRATEFUL TURDS. ONE DAY I WILL DRIVE THIS BUS RIGHT OVER A CLIFF!” And then I detect a rumpus in the back of the bus. A group of loyal subjects is encircling King Chambers. He has his arms up on the seat back, a picture of relaxed power.

  “I don’t know,” Pat says. “Maybe I’ll take A.J.’s jack and give it to Planders.” Several lords and ladies laugh like this is the funniest freaking thing in the world. A.J., now banished to the middle of the bus, sinks farther into his seat. Might he cry?

  “No!” chimes in Purple. “Give it to Smiley!” An eruption of laughter. Purple loves her own joke so much that she starts fanning herself like a Southern belle suffering from the vapors.

  In the last week, chatter about Pat’s fast-approaching party has increased geometrically. From what I have pieced together, the Chamberses are renting the ballroom of a fancy hotel and are having Vegas showgirls flown in. There has been a rumor that the whole reason that hotel was built a few years ago was that Mr. Chambers knew he was moving here and wanted an acceptable place for his son’s party. I don’t believe this, just like I don’t believe that the new football stadium was built just to woo Pat away from the private school across town. But one never knows.

  Another hot rumor is that a celebrity DJ is being paid twenty thousand dollars to provide music. I want to say DJ Kumquat—but that can’t be it, right? How can it possibly be worth it to pay twenty thousand dollars just so the guy can select the music? The other true-mor, which nobody doubts, is that Pat will get a Lexus or BMW or some obscene vehicle at the end of the night. It’s all so annoying. And it’s all anyone can talk about.

  Even Pat’s dad’s indictment on corruption charges only adds to the glamour. I’ve seen him on the news in an expensive suit, handcuffed and getting hauled away as part of the corruption scandal around Senator Laufman. It has to be hard to get arrested for bribing a senator, since it is my understanding that bribery is more common than actual lawmaking down in Washington. Pat Senior apparently went that far beyond business as usual.

  In keeping with my CHS duty to stay well informed on all matters Chambers, I spent the previous night online reading up on the case. Some leaked e-mails were posted citing evidence that Mr. Chambers clearly bribed Senator Laufman in order to get a license for his casino and to make sure that all other bids were denied. The competing bidder had already started construction, resulting in a huge loss for them while Pat Senior lined his pockets. All this apparently only adds the sheen of the outlaw to the party, like Pat and his dad are real bad boys being persecuted by the Man.

  “Oh no,” Pat says. “Smiley’s a king o’ hearts for sure.”

  Between Jimmy Porkrinds’s psychotic babble up front and this weird discussion in the back, the whole world suddenly seems to make very little sense.

  I feel a tap on my shoulder. ‘Tis my buddy. We’re not allowed to text, even on the bus, so Devon asks me in letter-speak: “W-H-A-T A-R-E T-H-E-Y S-A-Y-I-N-G?”

  I guess we are too far away in our front-of-the-bus Siberia for him to hear their conversation. I tell him what Pat said, in painfully slow letter-talk (leaving out the comments about him). Devon grins and tugs on his ponytail.

  “I K-N-O-W E-X-A-C-T-L-Y W-H-A-T P-A-T M-E-A-N-S,” he says.

  Realizing that Purple Phimmul could be watching us and figuring it all out, I hand Devon my notebook. I dig out another pencil from my bag, which also holds the sweater and gloves Mom made me bring even though it is completely warm out. (“It’ll be cold in the mine!” she had said. “You sure you don’t want gloves? You sure? You sure? You sure?” I gave in. At least she didn’t try to pin them to my sleeves.)

  I slide the writing tools over to Devon and see that he also has a little bag of warm clothes. Does this make me feel better or worse?

  “You want me to write instead of signing?” he writes. Again, he has perfect grammar and also a delicate penmanship style that strikes me as very girlie. I will not put up with any i’s with little hearts.

  “Yup,” I scrawl.

  “Remember how we were talking about the casino theme for the bash? And how he’s giving out fifty-two invitations?” he writes.

  I nod and have to stop myself from making fun of him for using the word “bash.”

  “Each playing card in the deck has a value, so each invite has a value. Like a hierarchy.” He pauses. “Do you know what a hierarchy is?”

  “Duh,” I write.

  “Just asking,” he writes. “Sometimes my vocabulary weirds people out.”

  “I read a lot,” I write. “Besides, there are a lot weirder things about you than your fancy-ass vocabulary.”

  “Hey!” he writes.

  “Just kidding.” />
  “The kings and queens are the best. Leigha Pennington is no doubt the queen of hearts. Purple will be a queen too.”

  Leigha is the queen of my heart. (I can’t help myself.) I start thinking about her and feel my stomach lurch as Jimmy Porkrinds pilots the bus around a hairpin turn. Since the whole toilet note thing, she has looked right through me. It’s as if I am transparent. And believe me, I’m not.

  “Aces are like this wild card he’s holding to the end,” Devon writes.

  So the aces are A.J.’s last chance to get an invite.

  “Jacks are pretty desirable too,” Devon writes. “I think all the face cards are at the head table. A.J. was going to be a jack, but he ticked Pat off somehow. Get this: I heard Pat joking about giving it to Kevin Planders. Ha-ha.”

  Pat is assigning values to human beings. Travis is a jack, Leigha is a queen, Gabby Myers would be a solid six, and Devon would be a negative twelve. Can’t we all just be tens, like me?

  “What are you thinking about?” Devon writes. But before I can answer, I see Pat stand up. All eyes are on him, including Leigha’s, whose gaze is burning with a surprising intensity. Even the adults—Porkrinds, The Dolphin, Arterberry, Mrs. Stepcoat (who volunteered to chaperone, to Marie’s eyeball-rolling horror)—are watching. Is Pat going to make some sort of announcement?

  I feel confident that I can turn around and make no secret that I am reading his lips.

  “Attention, ladies and gentlemen,” he says. “As you know, my fiesta is fast approaching. Forty-eight of you have been lucky enough to receive your playing cards. But what of the remaining four? I have been saving four aces, four aces up my sleeve. If you, Will …”

  I can’t believe it! I am getting an ace! I start to stand up. Then Devon gives me a really sharp look and yanks me down. Pat reaches into his sleeve and pulls out four invitations, which look exactly like oversize playing cards. Possibly he was saying “If you will”? Oops.