Not As Crazy As I Seem

by George Harrar

  Tanya isn't laughing. "You do that—line your shoes up under your bed."

  "Well, sometimes. Not like every day or anything."

  "Oh."

  I knew she'd think I'm crazy.

  We're sitting on stools in the kitchen on either side of the marble island. I'm drinking cranberry and orange juice, mixed half and half. Tanya's sipping water and telling me about Alonzo.

  "He calls me every night at nine o'clock. He doesn't say a thing, just waits till I say hello a couple of times, then hangs up."

  "How come he calls if he's just going to hang up?"

  "He's checking I'm not out with someone."

  "Why did you break up with him, anyway?"

  "He was getting all over me, you know? Nothing hard-core, but I'm like, 'Hands off!' He didn't get the message, so I dumped him."

  A car pulls in our driveway. I know the sound of the engine.

  "It's her ... my mother."

  Tanya pulls lipstick from her pocket and looks into the side of the toaster to put it on. I open the back door and take a bag of groceries from Mom's hands. Then she sees Tanya.

  "Oh, Devon, I didn't know you were having company."

  "Mom, this is a friend from school. We were just talking."

  "Does your friend have a name?"

  "Oh yeah, sorry. This is Tanya."

  She hops off her stool and puts out her hand. "Hi, Mrs. Brown."

  "Hello, Tanya. It's nice to meet one of Devon's friends."

  "It's nice to meet his mother, too."

  "Thank you." Mom starts unpacking the bag and putting away the soup cans and cereal boxes. "Have you gone to The Academy long, Tanya?"

  "Two years. I went to public school first, then I won this scholarship to The Baker."

  "That's wonderful. I'm sure your parents are very proud of you."

  Parents—should Mom have mentioned them? What if Tanya doesn't have any? Some kids don't. They live with aunts or grandmothers or foster families.

  "Oh yeah, they're proud. My dad was like, nobody in this family ever won anything. He couldn't believe it."

  "Do you and Devon have classes together?"

  "Just English."

  Mom keeps asking her questions about school and doesn't stop until she's put away all the food. Then Tanya takes over and asks her what it's like being a lawyer and having people's fates in your hands. Mom pours herself a glass of water and leans over the island as if she's talking to an old friend. I can't believe it. I might as well not even be there.

  A half-hour goes by like that. Then Tanya looks at her watch and jumps off her stool. "Sorry, but it's time to head back to the crib. Nice meeting you, Mrs. Brown."

  She puts out her hand, and Mom shakes it again. "The crib?"

  "Home. The late bus leaves from school in ten minutes. Gotta run."

  Tanya puts her fist up between us, and I tap mine to hers. "Later."

  "Yeah, later."

  When she leaves, Mom gives me a look like she's got a million questions. I just shrug and smile, because I couldn't begin to explain how I made a friend like Tanya.

  CHAPTER 18

  The next Tuesday Ben comes up to my locker after school and asks me over to his house again. I've been making up excuses for weeks why I couldn't do something with him, and it's getting kind of embarrassing. We both know I'm lying.

  I actually do have a real excuse today—my first meeting with the Latin Club. But I found out that their secret project is building a Trojan horse to take to this meeting of other Latin Clubs, and I'm getting kind of nervous about it. What if they're planning to put all the kids inside the thing? I couldn't handle that. So I've got two things I don't want to do right now, and going to Ben's seems less bad.

  "Yeah, I'll come over."

  He looks at me like I'm playing a joke. "You mean it?"

  I lock my locker and tug on the lock. "Sure. Lead on, MacDuff."

  "What?"

  "Never mind. Let's go."

  His house is even closer than mine to the school, but almost in the opposite direction. When we get there, he tells me to wait outside while he goes in for sodas and food. That's worse than me—at least I let Tanya come in my front door. It's kind of cold sitting on the stone wall next to his driveway, and it takes him a long time to come back out. I start thinking that he's playing some stupid joke, letting me freeze out here. He's probably inside laughing at me. I hop off the wall to go when he comes out and hands me a Sprite and a bag of chips.

  "Sorry, I had to help my mom. She's kind of sick."

  "She have the flu or something?"

  "No, she drinks too much and forgets to eat. I had to make her a sandwich."

  "Oh." Most kids would lie and say, "Yeah, she has the wicked bad flu." I wonder if Ben tells the truth all the time.

  We drink our Sprites and eat chips for a while. I don't know what to say, but that doesn't matter because he does enough talking for both of us, like Tanya. He says he's Fing a couple of subjects and will probably get kicked out of school, which will make his father in Texas go crazy since he's paying for Baker. The way Ben says this makes me think he's flunking on purpose, but I'm not sure.

  Then he pulls a tube from his jacket—Manic Panic New Easy-to-Apply Atomic Turquoise Gel.

  "I'm getting kind of tired of purple hair, so I was thinking of trying this. It comes out looking like pond slime. We could both do it—that would really send Mrs. Cohen into orbit."

  He's serious. Me with slime green hair. I'd look like Swamp Thing. "No thanks."

  "It's not tested on animals, see?" He points to the words on the tube. "Cruelty Free."

  "That's great, but my parents would flip out."

  "So?"

  So. What can you say to a kid who doesn't care if his parents flip out? "Red hair looks odd enough already."

  "Yeah, I guess you're right."

  He takes a chip and then offers me the last one.

  "You want to watch A Clockwork Orange? I bought it last week."

  "What's that?"

  "You don't know Clockwork Orange? It's like the best movie ever made."

  That doesn't seem right to me. I've seen a lot of movies, and I figure I would have at least heard of the best one ever made. "I guess I could watch a little. It's okay to go in?"

  Ben nods. "Mom has her TV on. She won't even hear us if we're quiet."

  We go inside and he takes me upstairs to his room, which is the messiest place I've ever seen. There are piles of clothes in one corner and all kinds of sneakers in another. Under the window there are rows of Sprite cans three deep and ten wide. All over the floor are potato chip bags and gum wrappers. His bed is stripped to the mattress and the covers are bunched up at the foot.

  "Come on in."

  "Maybe I'd better go. It's getting late."

  He looks at me like I just told him his dog had died. "It's not even four yet."

  "Yeah, but—"

  "Just watch a little, okay?"

  He turns on the TV and hits the play button, then sits on the bed. "There's room here."

  "That's all right. I'll stand. I get tired of sitting all day."

  The movie is really weird. There are these English kids who like to bash and stomp people, and I don't know why. At one point the police get hold of the ringleader and strap him to a chair and put dilating drops in his eyes so he has to watch the video they show him, which is more people bashing and stomping. I guess it's some sort of therapy, like if Dr. W. tied me to his vinyl chair all day.

  Ben's sitting on his bed with his knees pulled up to his chin, his wet sneakers on the mattress. He stares at the movie like he's had dilating drops put in his eyes. Every once in a while he bites his lip or sort of spits. A few times he says, "Watch this" or "This is the best part."

  What am I doing here? I don't have a clue.

  After about an hour, Ben's mother calls for him and h^ quickly turns off the TV Then he leads me down the stairs and out of the house without a word. I think that's rotten that
he doesn't answer her, especially since she's sick.

  In the driveway he makes a snowball in his bare hands and tosses it at the porch of his house, just missing the front window. I can't tell whether he was trying to hit it or not. Then he blows on his hands. "I hate this place."

  His house is pretty depressing. The paint is peeling off like it's molting, and the post holding up the front porch has big gouges in it, like it's been gnawed by some large animal. I try to find something positive to say. "You've got a big yard."

  He gives me a strange look. "I don't mean my place. I hate this whole town."

  I've seen a lot of towns, and Belford seems better than most of them. Maybe there's something I don't know about yet. "What don't you like so much?"

  He grabs another mound of snow and crushes it between his hands. The water drips through his fingers. "Everybody acts like they're better than you. Everybody tells you what to do. Everybody."

  "I hate that, too."

  "They're all like Nazis. They think they run the world and can scare you into doing what they want."

  I should go home. The sun is going down, and it's getting colder. "Yeah, well, thanks for having me over."

  Ben grabs my arm. "Wait, I forgot something at school. Walk back with me, okay?"

  "The school? It's closed."

  "No, they don't get done with basketball practice until five-thirty, so the gym door's still open. I know a shortcut across the train tracks. It only takes a couple of minutes."

  I shouldn't go with him. But something occurs to me—maybe the advanced biology classroom is open. If it is, I could fix the crooked poster. I've been wanting to do that since the first day. Now could be my chance. I wouldn't ever have to think about that stupid poster again.

  ***

  Ben's shortcut means going down a driveway next to a house with a dog barking inside. Then we have to crawl through a hole in a fence.

  Night is falling fast, and he starts talking about Nazi teachers again. I'm beginning to think it's a bad idea hanging around a kid who has Nazis on his mind all the time. We walk up a little hill to the tracks, and he drops down and lays on his back between the ties. His head falls over the rail so that his neck is sticking up as if on a guillotine.

  I look back and forth into the tunnels of darkness stretching away from me. The train tracks start off parallel, then merge in the distance—the perspective they always teach you in art class. I know we'd hear a train coming in plenty of time, but it still scares me to see him lying on the track. I can see the headline in the paper tomorrow—"Boy Run Over by Train, Friend Stands by and Watches."

  "Come on, Ben, let's go."

  "In a minute."

  "Which way does the next train come from?"

  He lifts one finger and points toward Boston. "The five forty-five comes from that way. I think I can feel the vibration."

  I look toward the city and see a round white light in the middle of the tracks. "Okay, it's coming."

  He doesn't move. The light's getting bigger. I tap him with my foot. "Ben, let's go."

  "You really care if I get run over?"

  Sure, I care. I wouldn't want to see even a rat get run over by a train. "Yeah, I care, okay? Now get up."

  "Nobody's cared before. I don't know a single kid at Baker who'd lift a finger to stop me from getting run over."

  "Well, I'll give you a whole hand. How's that?" I stick out my right hand.

  He laughs and grabs it to get to his feet. He brushes a little snow off his jacket, then waves me toward an open spot in the bushes. He pulls back a loose part of the fence, and we slip through to the other side. In a few seconds the train rumbles past, sending a rush of wind over us.

  We run down a small hill and start across the icy field toward the gym. Ben is walking stiff-legged, like he's in the army. "This is how I come to school every day. Then I don't have to face the jerks on the front steps."

  "How come the kids bother you so much?"

  He leans his head back and spits his gum straight up into the air, then ducks out of the way." 'Cause they know I hate them, that's why."

  "Then why don't you stop hating them so much, and maybe they'd leave you alone?"

  "They hate me, I hate them. It's a primal thing."

  When we get to the gym door, he whispers to be quiet as we go inside. I can hear the showers running on the other side of the locker room wall. Then there's the sound of footsteps on the walk outside—someone else coming in behind us. Ben pulls my sleeve, and we sneak across the equipment room and out a side door into the main building.

  It's spooky with the lights dim and the hallway empty. It doesn't feel like a school without any kids here. Ben leads the way past the library and trophy case to the janitor's door. He turns the knob, and it opens. We go down the metal stairs under the school again, and then he stops.

  "You left something down here?"

  "Not really." He opens his jacket. In his inside pocket is a large can.

  "What's that?"

  He tosses it to me—"Rust-Oleum Spray Enamel, 16 ounces, Black."

  "You going to paint something?"

  "Nazi—I'm going to tag everywhere somebody's tried to push me around. And I took some squeeze bottles from art to make little swastikas." He reaches into his other pocket and pulls out a handful of different colors.

  I've never tagged anything myself, though I've always thought it was an interesting way to express yourself. But Nazi? "Are you Jewish?"

  He shakes his head as he pulls on a pair of black gloves. It's like he's going to rob a bank or something. "I'm nothing ... I mean, that's what I believe—nothing."

  I'm not sure what I believe, but I know it's a lot more than nothing. If you don't believe in anything, what keeps you from doing just anything you want in the world?

  I toss him back the spray paint, and he checks his watch. "We wait a half-hour, till everyone's gone, then we strike."

  "We"? What does he mean by that?

  CHAPTER 19

  "NAZI!"

  Everywhere you look in the school, it's scrawled and scratched and spray-painted. It's on flags and walls and doors. It's on lockers and chalkboards and clocks.

  I can't believe it. I saw Ben spray the trophy case, and that's it. How could he tag the rest of the school just in the time I went to advanced biology to straighten the poster? To tell the truth, I couldn't help fixing a few more things while I was in Mr. Torricelli's room, like the rows of desks that were out of line and the clock that's always three minutes slow. I had to climb up on a chair to reach it, then pry off the cover and move the minute hand. It wasn't easy. None of this stuff should matter to me. I'm not even in that class anymore. Still, just knowing those things were out of whack was bothering me. I took care of everything.

  "Can you believe it?"

  I turn around, and one of the guys on the basketball team is talking to me. I think he's a senior. "What kind of freak would do this to the school?"

  I shrug that I don't know, and he shakes his head. "Must be really messed up." Then he walks away.

  I start to go off, too, but I see two girls sitting in front of their lockers crying. I figure some kid must have died, like in a car crash, and I wonder who it was. Then one of the girls moves and I see "Nazi" sprayed across her locker. It amazes me that a word can make everybody so upset.

  The gym is overflowing. It feels like a pep rally before a game, except the only sound is the squeaking of sneakers on the basketball court as kids take their seats. I sit on the bottom row of the bleachers, trying to hold on to my space as guys squeeze in the middle.

  Headmaster Marion comes in with three assistants following him like bodyguards. He taps the microphone set up on the court and clears his throat.

  "This is a sad morning for The Baker Academy. Our school—your school—has a long and proud tradition as a place of learning, free from intolerance and fear and intimidation. In one night of vandalism, that tradition has been scarred."

  He pauses here a
nd looks across the rows of students as if considering each one individually. I wonder where Ben's sitting, and does he look guilty?

  "For the first time in my twelve years as headmaster, I am embarrassed for this school. I'm ashamed to think that any of you may have done this deed. I assure you, we will not allow this insult to our educational tradition to go unpunished. We will get to the bottom of this."

  The way he says this makes me scared. I didn't actually tag anything myself. All I did was go along with someone who did. I wasn't even with him most of the time. But still.

  Okay, my alibi is this: I went in the school with a friend—no, just a kid I know—to get a drink of water. I didn't know what he was going to do. I didn't know he had spray paint. He didn't tell me anything. I didn't spray anything, personally. I was in the advanced biology room straightening the amphibians poster and—no, that sounds lame. What I was actually doing was going to the bathroom. That's the reason I went into the school in the first place ... and to get a drink of water.

  That's a pretty good defense, I think. But I don't want to have to explain myself, because even though I didn't do anything they could still punish me for just being there. I remember that from civics last year: a person who helps with a crime or even hangs around when a crime is being committed can be considered as guilty as the person who did it.

  I don't think that's fair. Whoever wrote that law didn't remember being a kid.

  In English, Ms. Hite spends the entire period discussing the rise of the National Socialist Workers' Party in Germany. She explains the subjugation of the Germans after World War I and the nationalism that emerged from their humiliation. She talks of Jews as scapegoats. She describes the horrors of the concentration camps.

  It's pretty impressive how she can talk so long on history, which isn't even her subject. Still, I don't like her jumping to a conclusion about the tagging and making it seem worse than it is. So when she asks for anyone's thoughts on the subject, I raise my hand.