"May I presume on your kindness again, young man?"
"I guess."
"Could you buy the milk for me? They don't let you bring animals inside."
"Okay, or I could hold Little Sasha and you could go in and get what you want." He doesn't say anything. Maybe he thinks I'll run away with the cat. "I wouldn't hurt him. You can trust me."
"Oh, I trust you. But see, they don't really want people like me coming into their store." He sticks his finger through a hole in his jacket to show what kind of people he means. "And I don't like to go where I'm not comfortable."
Think of that—not ever going where you don't feel comfortable. If that were the case, where would I ever go?
CHAPTER 12
His name turned out to be Ben—the kid in my art class who marked the teacher. He must be a real loser in this school, because why else would he be waiting for me again after class the next Friday afternoon?
"Hey."
"Hey."
That's all we say to each other as we walk down the hall toward the gym. Just past the trophy case he nudges me to the wall, then whispers, "I got some ish. You interested?"
I don't know if I am or not. "Ish?"
"Yeah, some tree ... herbal ... smoke—man, where did you come from, anyway?"
"Intercourse."
"You got that right."
"No, I mean the town where I grew up in Pennsylvania was called Intercourse. The Amish named it."
Ben's grinning. Every kid grins when I tell him where I was born. "So you went to Intercourse High?"
"Intercourse Elementary, yeah."
Kids are rushing past us, going both ways. Nobody seems to be looking over, which means he's not a totally weirdo kid. He reaches into his pocket and then opens his hand between us, so only I can see. In his palm is a long, thin cigarette that looks like he rolled it himself.
"I'm skipping next period. Why don't you come with me?"
Skip class and smoke marijuana—is he crazy? "No, I don't do that stuff."
"That's cool. You don't have to. But come with me anyway."
"I've got gym now. I shouldn't miss it again."
"You hate it, right?"
"Yeah."
"So why are you running off to do something you hate?"
He's got a point. I'd do anything to get out of changing into those stupid gym clothes and showing my scrawny legs. Still, what if I get caught with a kid doing drugs?
Ben grabs my arm and pulls me down the hall to a door marked "Janitor." He checks both ways, then opens the door and yanks me through.
It seems like I've fallen into one of those video games where you slide through a pipe into a different world. I follow him down some grated metal steps to a large open area. It's loud and strange, like descending into the boiler room of the Titanic.
Ben leads us around stacked-up chairs and beat-up old lockers and a huge box marked "This End UP," with the arrow pointed down. We duck under a large white air duct and turn into a room the size of a bathtub. On the floor is a straw mat and a blue plastic dish filled with butts.
Ben pulls out the cigarette and licks the wrapper to seal a loose edge. "It's my secret place. I never brought anybody here before."
"What about the janitors? Don't they come down for stuff?"
"They're cool. You slip them a few bucks and give them a hit and they leave you alone."
I can't imagine Felix taking a hit of oregano, let alone marijuana, but I figure Ben knows what he's talking about. He strikes a match and lights the cigarette. It takes him a few puffs to get it going, and then he holds it out to me.
I shake my head.
He blows out the smoke and then takes another long drag. It smells like burning weeds.
Ben leans back against the cinder block wall and then slides down it until he's seated on the mat. I squat down so nothing's touching the floor except my sneakers. He flicks the ash off the cigarette. "I know a kid named Hitler."
"Adolf?"
"No, Ron."
"Ronald Hitler? You're kidding."
He takes another drag, squinting his eyes as he does it. "At this camp I got sent to last summer there was this kid named Ronny Hitler, and the thing is, he was really cool, you know. Not a skinhead or anything."
"I'd like to be named Genghis. Genghis Brown—what do you think?"
"How about Ben the Ripper?"
"Or Devon the Hun?"
A clunking noise scares us to our feet, then turns into a hum. Ben leans back against the wall. "It was just the boiler starting up."
"Maybe we should get out of here before somebody catches us."
He looks at the stub of the joint burning toward his fingertips. "One more drag."
He takes a long hit, and we stay there for a minute, listening to the boiler. It's as if we're underground, and the whole world above us has disappeared. Maybe if we were the last two kids alive on earth, I'd try the marijuana. But seeing his saliva on the end of the cigarette makes me feel sick. It's also a little exciting, though—me, Devon the Straight, Devon the Quiet, Devon the Polite, doing something totally wrong right under the feet of the teachers.
CHAPTER 13
I hate my name. "Devon" sounds like a stuck-up WASP rich kid, which I'm not—at least the stuck-up part. I don't feel rich, either. I'm pretty sure my parents are, though, because they have two jobs and only one kid. They bought a big Colonial house in Belford, which is a fancier town than Amherst, and our new place sits high on "The Hill," as everyone calls it, which is obviously the rich part of town since it looks down on everywhere else.
After school on Friday I went to the Belford Free Library and checked out a book called How to Change Your Name to Anything You Want. From what I can figure, I could change my name in Massachusetts for less than a hundred dollars. Of course, Mom and Dad would have to give me permission to do it since I'm not eighteen, and that could be a problem because I'm not thinking of changing to Jeremy or Jesse or Josh or Jason or any other stupid J name. I want something different. Mozambique sounds good to me. I like the way it looks in big black letters on the cover of an old National Geographic we have at home. Except people would probably just shorten that to Mo or Moe. I could accept Mow as a nickname, but you can't count on people spelling your name like you want. There are other possibilities, such as Sandwich—Sandy for short—or maybe Asphalt, Fur, Soap, Rivet...
Dr. W. taps his desk with his pen. "Devon, can I have your attention?"
"Sure, take it. I'm not using it."
"That's very funny."
"Really? I wasn't even trying to be funny. I'm never funny if I try."
"Well, today I'd like to start with a game."
I figure he means Connect Four or Stratego, like I played with Dr. Castelli, but he takes out a deck of cards. "I want you to pick a card and then talk for one minute about the statement written on it."
"Why do I have to do that?"
"Because it's the game."
"You mean I lose if I talk for fifty-five seconds ... or two minutes?"
"No. There's no winning or losing."
"So it's not really a game."
"Think of it as an exercise."
"That's good, 'cause my dad says I don't get enough of that."
Dr. W. spreads the deck, and I take a card from the middle, exactly between his hands. I turn it over and read to myself: Imagine you are taking over as principal of your school. What would you do first? This is easy. "I'd shoot myself."
Dr. W. leans forward to see what's written on my card. I look at my watch. It only took me two seconds to say this. I still have fifty-eight seconds to go. I'd shoot myself. That's all I can think of. I hate this game, because why should I have to talk more than I need to? Once you shoot yourself, time stops for you, doesn't it? So why does it keep on going in this stupid game?
Dr. W. looks at his watch. "You have a lot of time left."
"I'd shoot myself. Shoot myself. Shoot myself. Shoot myself. Shoot myself."
"Okay, Devo
n. I get the idea."
Maybe he gets the idea, but my minute isn't over and I'm going to play this game exactly by the rules. "Shoot myself. Shoot myself. Shoot myself. Shoot myself..."
My sixty seconds are up. Dr. W. takes the card from me and puts the deck back in his desk. I guess he doesn't want to play this game anymore.
"We haven't talked much about your new school, Devon. How do you like it?"
"It's like regular school, only the kids are smarter."
"How are you doing making friends?"
"I don't know. How many am I supposed to have after a month?"
"There's no set number. Some people have lots of friends, others need just one good friend."
"I don't need friends."
"Do you want friends?"
"Yes ... no ... I don't think about it."
"Everybody needs friends. You know, studies show that people with friends are healthier and happier, and they..."
Here we go with another friends lecture. My father says it's a medical fact that people with lots of friends live longer. I can see the bumper sticker: Friends Help Friends Live Longer. The thing is, I don't care about living longer. Maybe when I'm ready to die I'll care about it, but not now.
"Friends can be very helpful to you, Devon."
"Okay, I've made a friend already. There's this girl I eat lunch with sometimes. I think she likes me."
"That's good. Is there a chance you might ask her out on a date?"
A date? Is he crazy? I don't think Tanya's going to jump from Alonzo to me. "We're not that kind of friends."
"What about boy friends?"
"Boyfriends?"
"Friends who are boys."
"Oh, yeah, I got a kid who's a friend, too. He asked me to do something with him last week during school." What he asked me to do was smoke weed with him, but I'm not going to mention that.
"That's nice. What's he like?"
"I don't know what he likes, the usual stuff, I guess."
"I mean, what is he like."
"Oh, he's got purple hair and he wears army boots and he's kind of skinny like me and he calls everybody a Nazi."
"Sounds like a lively boy. How did you meet him?"
"He just started talking to me one day after art. He probably doesn't have any friends—that's why he came up to me."
"Maybe he has other friends and he just wanted to get to know you in particular."
"Actually, he's probably a loser like me. One loser can always tell another."
Dr. W. stares at me for a while and then stands up and goes to his file cabinet. He pulls out a notebook covered in plastic.
"I like to be clear with my clients as to what my goal is in these sessions, and with you, Devon, it's figuring out what makes you anxious, what compels you to do things ... eat a certain number of M&Ms, for instance. There could be a chemical imbalance in your brain, or perhaps you've developed a way of interacting with the world based on some experiences early in your childhood. Another possibility is that you have diminished self-esteem—you're not sure how you fit into social situations with people, and so you're always trying little tricks to make sure things go right for you. For now that's the possibility I want to address." He opens the book, and I see it isn't a real book at all. "These are motivational tapes. I'd like you to put them on your tape player as you walk to school, or listen to them in your bedroom. I think you'll find them pretty powerful."
I take the book and run my hand across the smooth, cold plastic. Sure, I can use motivation, but to do what?
The tapes are pretty powerful, just like Dr. W. said. What I especially like is that you don't really have to think at all. You just listen.
The first thing I'm learning is that I can do anything I want in life, if I just have enough self-esteem. The man on the tape says, "You, too, will be able to produce miracles." I guess he means getting rid of my tendencies—that would be a miracle.
I've already listened to cassette one, and it's made me hungry. So I go downstairs and help myself to a bowl of Jell-O and a blueberry muffin and a Kudos bar and four Hershey's Kisses and a big glass of Newman's Own Old-Fashioned Roadside Virgin Lemonade, which Mom buys just for me, so I'm allowed to drink it out of the carton. It tastes better than regular lemonade, and I like the name.
It's surprising how simple this self-esteem really is. I always thought you got it from making A's in class, being the star at sports, and other stuff like that. But the tape says that self-esteem isn't about achieving anything—it's what you think about yourself not achieving anything.
All you need to do is think good thoughts about yourself. The way you do that is by getting rid of all the bad thoughts other people are putting into your head about you. The tapes even give you magic words to do this—"Cancel Cancel." When somebody calls me crazy or looks at me like I'm weird, I'm supposed to think to myself: No matter what you say or do to me, I'm still a good person. Then I'm to say, "Cancel Cancel," which erases the negative thoughts.
I wonder about that. Why isn't one Cancel enough? And if two Cancels are good, why aren't three better? I bet four would be perfect for me.
***
When Mom comes home from work, she stops by my room and sticks her head in the door. She's holding her large leather briefcase, which means she has work to do tonight.
"How did your session go today, Devon?"
"It went."
She gives me her irritated look.
"It went okay. Dr. Wasserman gave me some motivational tapes, and I've been listening to them. They're pretty powerful."
"What are the tapes supposed to motivate you to do?"
That's what I was wondering. Mom thinks like me sometimes. Or maybe I think like her.
"Get self-esteem. The doc thinks I don't have enough of it."
"Well, I'm glad you're enjoying going to him. Your father should be home soon, and then we'll have dinner."
With that she closes my door, leaving me wondering how she could think I enjoy going to a shrink.
The difficult thing with self-esteem is keeping other people from interfering with it. For instance, when Ms. Hite in English asked this kid Carl to define antebellum, he said "beautiful aunt." I thought he was making a joke and laughed. Nobody else did. Everybody looked at me. I felt terrible for laughing at him, especially since he looks kind of like an ostrich. I'm not making fun of him, really—I'm just describing how he looks. Anyway, Ms. Hite gave me the most surprised expression I've ever seen on a teacher. How does she know me well enough to be surprised about something I did? It's only been five weeks. Maybe I'm one of those thoughtless kids who laughs at other people all the time.
Then in gym class Coach got so mad at me for showing up without my Baker shorts and T-shirt again that he threw a ratty old uniform at me and told me to put it on. It looked like it had been worn by a thousand kids who'd forgotten their gym clothes over the years. I picked up the shirt and shorts, and they smelled like ammonia. I walked to the locker room as if I was going to change into them, then just kept going to the nurse's office. I told Mrs. Cahill I felt sick, and she let me lie down on her couch. The room smelled like Bactine. I fell asleep.
After a day like that I need a hit of self-esteem. So I put away my schoolbooks and lock myself in the bathroom with the tapes. Then I strip down to nothing for the Nude Mirror Exercise. With the sink in the way, I can only see the top half of myself, which is good because I don't think I'm ready to try self-esteem on the bottom half of me yet.
I start at the top of my head. How can anyone be born with red hair? It's unnatural. God, I look like a flamer! Cancel Cancel. "Okay," I say out loud, because that's what the tape tells me to do. "I'd look pretty lame without any hair at all, wouldn't I? And it is curly—girls like curly hair. There, two positive things about my hair."
With that taken care of, I move on to the other parts of my face. "Ears, I'm sorry you're so small—no, I'm not sorry. I love small ears. They're better than big ears any day. Eyes, I shouldn't wish you
were blue. You look great muddy brown or whatever color you are. And crooked teeth, well, obviously you're why I never smile and people think I'm depressed all the time. But that's okay because I am pretty depressed most of the time. Ears, eyes, teeth—I love you all!"
I lean over the sink, and even though the tape doesn't say to do this, I figure I deserve a quick kiss on the lips for being so lovable. Actually, now that I think about it, the lips are the only place you can kiss yourself in a mirror. That's kind of cool.
CHAPTER 14
Tanya and I have gotten our lunch routine down. I talked to her a few times in English before Alonzo showed up for class, and now she comes out on the back steps to eat with me every Monday and Friday. The other days she has clubs or other stuff to do.
Today's Friday, and she's three minutes late. I open my lunch bag and see the four plastic bags—carrots, wafers, M&Ms, and sandwich. I reach in for the wafers—I even open the bag—then put them back. I've never started eating before she came, so if I do this time maybe she won't come. She could be sick, or in trouble. She could have gotten back together with Alonzo. Or maybe I disrespected her again and didn't know it. There's an awful lot to think about with a girl.
"What's up?"
It's Tanya, and she's wearing a yellow jacket with black stripes on the arms, the colors of The Baker Academy.
"Nothing. I was just getting ready to eat."
She sits down next to me, on the left, where I always leave room for her.
"Isn't it hard eating with those gloves on?"
"Not really. I'm used to it, and these aren't very thick gloves."
She wiggles her fingers. "It's not even that cold today."
"I know, but I have this problem with my circulation. My blood's kind of thin, so it doesn't move around my body right, and my hands get really cold."
"Let me feel."
She puts her hands out in the air between us, waiting for me to take off my gloves.
"Well, they wouldn't feel cold to you. It's on the inside they feel cold, to me. So it wouldn't be any use you feeling them."
Not As Crazy As I Seem Page 6