The Screwed-Up Life of Charlie the Second

by Drew Ferguson

  “Bullshit,” Nurse Julie said. “I’m talking about a living, breathing person. She needs this treatment now or she’ll get worse.”

  “Okay, we put her on your machines. Then what? She’s never getting better. It must be nice knowing how other people should live their lives. I only know what she wants—and it sure as fuck isn’t this.”

  Julie burst into tears. Mr. Hunt told her—in a voice so calm it was scary—to get her crap and get out of his house. I crept from the kitchen, making sure my bare feet didn’t make any sounds on the hardwood floor. When I felt carpeting, I turned and saw Mrs. Hunt’s profile. She was in her chair, facing an open window. She’d heard them. I felt sick. When she saw me, her eyes smiled. She struggled to say something, but no words came. I sat across from her on an ottoman and touched her hand. It wasn’t withered or anything, just curled into a fist.

  “It’s pretty bad now, isn’t it?”

  Her eyebrows arched. Was that a yes?

  “And Rob doesn’t know?”

  Her eyes closed, then opened slowly. No.

  I didn’t know what to say. Gee, sorry you’re dying. That’s kind of a bummer, isn’t it? Can I getcha something? No? You sure? Coffee, maybe? Okay. Why am I standing here with my thumb up my ass, looking sorry for you? ’Cuz I don’t know what else to do. The whole dying thing isn’t exactly a conversation-starter. Wanna see the hickeys your son gave me last night? That’d go over real well.

  What I couldn’t figure out was why Mr. Hunt hadn’t told Rob his mom was in such bad shape. Maybe he was worried Rob couldn’t handle it. That he’d totally lose it and turn into this chain-smoking, vomit-and-piss-stained, raging drunk, guzzling rubbing alcohol straight from the bottle; crashing at flophouses; selling blood, plasma, sperm, spinal fluid, and the fillings from his teeth to scrounge up a handful of change for a bottle of Mad Dog 20/20 banana-flavored wine. Or maybe he was freaked Rob would off himself and he’d find him swinging from the rafters in the attic, bicycle chain around his neck, toppled chair at his feet. I decided it was probably best just to keep my mouth shut for once. Hard to believe, right?

  Half an hour later, Rob came downstairs wearing only his Calvin Klein underwear and rubbing sleep from his eyes. He conned his dad into letting us skip church, but only if we made sure Rob’s mom had her medicine and her Robert Ludlum book-on-tape, and that we checked on her once in a while.

  Rob asked why Julie couldn’t do it, and Mr. Hunt said he’d let Julie go. She couldn’t provide the support he needed anymore. I guess it wasn’t a total lie, but still. Rob shouldn’t worry, though. Mr. Hunt was looking into other options.

  We spent the day playing video games, talking about which guys on the team needed to play better, telling stupid jokes, and bragging about all the crap we’d do once we were out of school. Rob said that if they’d let him in, he’d go to some famous New York music school. What was weird was Rob talking about the stuff he’d do with his parents—like going back to New York to visit family over Thanksgiving and finding a way to get Mrs. Hunt to one of our games.

  After dinner, Rob drove me home. He didn’t want me to leave—I think he wanted more bed time, too—but Rob needed to practice for an audition he has on Tuesday with some piano teacher in Chicago. I guess the guy plays for the symphony or something big like that and only takes the best students. Afterward, Rob and his dad are going to visit Rob’s uncle in Lakeview.

  Rob was really cute when he pulled into my driveway. Every time I tried to get out of the car, he’d grab my shirt, pull me in, and we’d kiss. Then he’d complain I did it wrong and said I had to keep doing it until I got it right.

  We were in the middle of a long kiss—Rob’s hand cupping the back of my neck—when he stopped and jerked away. He grabbed the steering wheel, white-knuckling it, and sighed really hard. Rob looked at me, opened his mouth, stopped, and then blurted out something so fast it sounded like he was speaking Korean.

  “What?” I asked.

  “—go out with me. Be boyfriends?”

  I ummm-ummm-ummm-ed and couldn’t stop myself. My throat started making these weird choking and gurgling sounds. I must’ve seemed like a complete moron. All I managed was a tiny, “Okay.”

  “Awesome, pup,” Rob said.

  I smiled. I could get used to him calling me pup.

  He pulled my face into his. We kissed, only this time it was different. It was slow, like there was this charge between us. An electrical current arcing from his lips to mine. I didn’t want it to stop, but Rob pulled away. He needed to get going or his dad would kill him. I promised to call on Monday, gave him one last peck on the cheek, and got out of his BMW. He flashed the car headlights at me. I waved good-bye and he pulled away.

  Inside, the Ps had left a note—they’d gone out and would be home later. Fine by me. If they’d seen how giddy and bouncy I was, they probably would’ve gotten all D.A.R.E.-this-is-your-son-on-drugs suspicious, sat my ass down, shined a flashlight into my eyes, and checked my arms for track marks. With the house to myself, I raced upstairs and stripped. My boner snagged on my Jockeys as I tugged ’em off. I hopped on the bed face down, humped the mattress, and frenched the pillow, pretending Rob was under me.

  I have a boyfriend. Not that I can really tell anyone without getting a prison-style beat down, but still, I have a boyfriend.

  Today sucked though. First made me help him replace a bunch of his “Elect Stewart” campaign signs. Seems someone has been changing the L in “Elect” to a J, which had First ready to chew 16-penny nails and made me kinda wish I’d thought of it.

  Since First had me out most of the night, I just now got a chance to call Rob. Mr. Hunt answered, saying Rob was in bed already. I insisted he tell Rob I called. I didn’t want Rob thinking I’d freaked out about being his boyfriend. I must’ve sounded panicked, because Mr. Hunt only stopped laughing to say, “Relax, I’ll tell Rob you called. Now go to bed, Charlie.”

  It’s 11:30 p.m. and I still have homework.

  I have a boyfriend. How cool is that?

  Tuesday, September 4

  I finally did it. I bit the bullet and told Dana I was sorry for ruining her party. Actually, she browbeat me into doing it. Doesn’t matter either way. It’s done.

  Before first period, I looked for Rob, forgetting he had his piano audition today. I stupidly walked into the Pit where Kyle Weir—just ’cuz he’s an asswipe—tripped me. My books skidded out of my hands and a bunch of seniors grabbed ’em and passed them around the Pit. As I got on to all fours, Josh McCullough stepped on top of one of my hands to keep me from getting up, calling me a fag. My face burned and my eyes watered. I shoved McCullough off me, got up, and rushed to creative writing, not even trying to get my books. That would’ve made me look like a bigger dork.

  The room was empty. Mrs. Bailey was probably in the teacher’s lounge spiking her coffee. Not that I blame her. I’d drink, too, if I had to spend my mornings listening to vitamin D-deprived-pseudo-Goth girls reading poetry about how the color of their souls was black. I found a desk I hadn’t sat in yet. With my luck, today Bailey would announce that the mark of a true genius was finding one’s place on a well-crafted seating chart.

  “I don’t know why I’m doing this, but here.”

  It was Dana. She dropped my stuff on the desk.

  “Gee, Dana. Thanks,” I said with zero appreciation.

  That was a stupid move. If I had faked some sincerity, she would’ve left. Instead, she jerked a desk around, plopped in it, and tugged at the bottom of her T-shirt. Her nipples were pointy and hard and one of ’em poked out so far the eye of the Latin American revolutionary on the shirt looked like it was about to explode. It was gross.

  I don’t know what Bink sees in her. To hear him talk, he likes everything about her—the plaid schoolgirl skirts, knee-high white cowboy boots, cheap plastic butterfly barrettes, the smell of her shampoo, even that she was “quirky.” Quirky? For God’s sake, quirky isn’t something you date; it’s something you make
fun of until it totally loses it, runs to its bedroom, throws itself face down on its Barbie comforter, and sobs into its diary about how everyone’s so mean.

  “You know what I don’t understand, Charles?” she asked. Her voice let me know she wasn’t interested in my answer. “Why do you have to hate everyone as much as you hate yourself?”

  She opened her handbag, grabbed a tube of out-out-damn-spot lipstick, and slathered a coat of war paint across her pucker. Dana eyed herself in her compact and smacked her lips, making this disgusting popping sound.

  “Look, Dana,” I said, still with no enthusiasm. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I was such an ass at your party. I’m just sorry.”

  “You are sorry.”

  She stepped from her desk and planted a kiss in the middle of my forehead. My fingers touched the lipstick.

  “Don’t bother, it’s practically waterproof.” She smiled at me. “Truce.”

  Soccer practice was shorter than usual—running laps and free weights mostly. Afterward, I wanted to call Rob to see how his audition went—hell, just to talk to him—but First was in the parking lot, leaning against the Oldsmobile’s fender. I pretended not to see him, but he ran after me, grabbed my shoulder, and spun me around.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” he asked. “You’re going to learn to drive if it kills me.”

  “Kills us both is more like it,” I said, yanking the keys from his hand. As I got behind the wheel, First made this big production about how, even in a vacant parking lot, my driving was the same as playing Russian roulette with a revolver with only one empty chamber. I wanted to gun the engine and drive us into a lamppost. With my luck, I’d end up a paraplegic and First’d insist on teaching me how to drive my motorized wheelchair.

  Having your dad teach you to drive’s no rite of passage. It sucks. It really, really sucks. We spent two hours in that damn car, drove thirty miles, and never left the lot.

  Chip, check your mirrors.

  Why? Is my mascara running?

  Let’s try to parallel park again. Don’t use that tone of voice with me. What are you going to do when they make you parallel park during your road test?

  Find a valet?

  It wasn’t fun for either of us. First had to be praying he’d hear from the God of the Old Testament—the one he empathized with; the divine micromanager who got off on asking fathers to kill their sons. Screw any Johnny-come-lately angel types telling him to stop ’cuz it’d only been a test of faith. First’d not only demand a grade, he’d be a total apple-polisher, saying how he was the only one that actually finished the test, how his knife was sharper than Abraham’s, how Abraham had only bound Isaac, but First’d trussed me up and even made a lovely sage dressing with walnuts and prosciutto.

  After driving with First, I knew I should call Rob, which wasn’t exactly as easy as it sounded, mostly ’cuz I was worried about total chickenshit things. Like, what if my voice wasn’t deep enough, and Rob, thinking I was some four-year-old girl who’d mistaken a real phone for her Fisher-Price version, hangs up? What if I talked too much and then revealed every single embarrassing moment of my life—like how when I was two First made Mom take me to the pediatrician ’cuz he thought my potty training was taking too long to kick in and I wasn’t getting “housebroken” fast enough—and Rob realized just how big of a freak I am, decided he could never speak to me again, and begged his dad to send him back to boarding school? What if I didn’t say anything? What if he didn’t? What if the two of us just sat with the phones glued to our ears, trying not to breathe too heavily into the mouthpiece?

  Overanalyze much, Charlie? Maybe, but what was I supposed to do? It’s not like the people that I know who are together are stellar examples of the art of conversation. Bink and Dana? What they do can’t really be called talking, it’s more like Bink blocking out Dana’s incessant car-alarm complaints about how nobody cares about the suffering in Uganda or Utah; how her summer trip to Europe taught her that Americans are fat, sinful, and lazy ’cuz they can’t make real coffee, they insist on indoor plumbing that includes both hot and cold running water, and they think cheese is an appetizer (it’s a dessert, Bink); and how the Irish saved civilization and the French saved culture (from whom exactly? England, Germany, Russia, the United States, or just about any other country whose population includes a small asthmatic child with a slingshot or really sharp, dirty fingernails?).

  And the other couples I know aren’t exactly role models. Mom and First? All they seem to do anymore is fight about car payments, who didn’t refill the gas tank, missed anniversaries, Mom’s nylons being draped over the shower curtain, and First’s boxers and black dress socks never making it to the hamper. Mr. and Mrs. B? I suppose they talk and all, but it’s all about boring stuff like social justice and school carpools for Bink’s sisters.

  So after an hour or so of beating myself up over what I’d say to Rob and how I’d sound, I carpe diem-ed and picked up the phone.

  “Hi, is Rob there?”

  “Hey, pup. What’s going on?”

  “It’s me, Charlie.”

  “I know. I’m not the kind of guy who calls telemarketers pup.”

  “Oh, okay. That makes sense, I guess,” I said, practically choking on my own stupidity. I blushed and was sooo glad Rob couldn’t see me. “Ummm…yeah…I was just calling to say hi.”

  “You already said hi. Are you going to hang up now?” Rob laughed, sounding completely relaxed. Me on the other hand, I sounded like somebody had put my lungs in a vise and was quickly squeezing the air from them. If I did end up suffocating, that was fine by me. I wanted to die. A slow painful asphyxiation would be better than my self-inflicted death by chronic embarrassment and terminal idiocy.

  “I’m sorry. I guess I’m nervous.”

  “About what? You haven’t called someone you’re dating before?”

  “Have you?” I asked, defensively.

  “Charlie, it’s not like you’re my first boyfriend. I dated a guy at Phelps last year. We broke up when he graduated.”

  It was stupid, but I got a little jealous. Like part of me actually wished that Rob had never thought about liking guys until he met me.

  “What about you?” Rob asked.

  “Me. I’ve dated plenty of guys,” I said, trying to sound so cocky and full of myself that Rob would know I was joking. “The Great Lakes Naval Academy…I dated everyone there. Broke all their hearts. When last year’s class of graduates had to ship out, guys were throwing themselves off their boats to be with me. It was sad, really. I was on the dock and they’d be trying to climb out of the water, and I’d just have to push their heads down with my foot and tell them, ‘No, go back to your ship. Serve your country.’”

  “Really?” Rob asked in mock disbelief. I started crushing hard on the sound of his voice. It was something I could imagine waking up to for the rest of my life, even if it was only to hear it nagging about where cheddar fell in the dinner lineup, dirty laundry, or Rosa Parks’ bus route. “Well, Charlie, you’re a regular Casanova.”

  “That’s me, alright.” I was feeling more comfortable, and so naturally my verbal diarrhea kicked in. “I saw this TV special on him…Casanova…and in it, they said one of the reasons he got so much action was ’cuz he’d tell hot women that they were smart, and smart women they were hot. Apparently, he figured the way you got a chick to pull up her skirt during the Renaissance was by giving her the compliment she didn’t expect to hear.”

  “So, Casanova,” Rob said, “how would you compliment me?”

  I felt my central nervous system completely collapse. My nerves, spinal column, brain, they all went dead. No matter what I said, I’d be screwed. If I told Rob I thought he was hot, he’d think I thought he was too dumb to swallow his own drool; if I said he was smart, he’d think I thought his pants weren’t worth getting into. I did the only thing I could do. I was honest.

  “I’d say I just want to be in the same room as you.”

  Rob got qui
et for a bit, so I figured I must’ve said the right thing. We talked for a while longer—about how he did on his auditions—awesome—school, the soccer team. Toward the end of the call, Rob said he used to think he’d miss New York, and he still kind of did, but he was glad he met me, ’cuz I made things easier.

  “How?” I asked.

  “Well, it’s being with someone who’s funny and cute.” That’s when he noticed it was past ten and he said he had to get off the phone or his dad would kill him. We did the good-bye thing, saying how much we missed each other and couldn’t wait to see each other at school tomorrow.

  How awesome is it that Rob thinks I’m cute? At least I hope he really thinks I’m cute. What if he said that ’cuz he thinks I’m smart? I need to go to bed before I give myself an ulcer.

  Wednesday, September 5

  Today was incredible. Kyle Weir totally got busted for calling Mr. B a fucking Jew. Even more awesome, Rob and I traded hand jobs. I still can’t believe it. I got a hand job. A real one. With somebody else’s hand. I came all over the place—Rob’s hand, my chest, neck, face—which was kind of gross, but really cool. I used to think that when it came to sex, I did my best work alone, but now I’m all about the teamwork.

  It happened in choir, but only ’cuz Mrs. Reed was out sick and we had this substitute teacher who didn’t know music. We were supposed to fend for ourselves while she read Woman’s World or Better Homes & Gardens. Choir kids don’t exactly have a reputation for being hell-raisers, so it’s not like she had to worry about us going all The Lord of the Flies and shouting “die, Piggy, die” as we chased Tom Benson around the practice room.

  Everyone spread out across the room and cracked their books, but I grabbed Rob and dragged him to the sub. I asked if the two of us could go to one of the private practice rooms and rehearse. She must’ve been totally oblivious, ’cuz when I said “rehearse,” my voice didn’t just put air quotes around the word, it spelled out what I really meant. Gee, can Rob and I go to a practice room so we can, like, roll around together and maybe play with each other’s knobs? The sub didn’t bother looking up from her celebrity recipe for a no-fuss-no-muss-no-bake tuna casserole and nodded.