The Screwed-Up Life of Charlie the Second

by Drew Ferguson

  “Does Rob like you?”

  “I dunno.” I tried answering, but my voice cracked.

  “I mean, maybe…I think so.” I jammed the straw in my mouth and sucked my iced tea.

  “He seems to. At least when the two of you are parked in the driveway.”

  I spat, spraying tea all over the place.

  “You’ve got to be more careful.”

  I couldn’t tell if she meant spitting my tea or what Rob and I had been up to. She handed me a wad of napkins.

  “It just went down the wrong pipe,” I said, cleaning up the mess I’d made.

  We didn’t leave the mall until after school would’ve ended, and Mom drove me to the Binkmeyers’ house. She told me to wait in the car while she discussed something with Bink’s mom. They chatted for, like, ten minutes, but I couldn’t hear them. They hugged and then Mrs. B waved for me. I got out of the car.

  “Charlie, it looks like you’ll be staying here for a few days,” Mrs. B said, giving Mom another squeeze. “Your mom and dad need time to figure things out.”

  “Whaddja do now?” Bink asked as I stepped inside. “Tell everyone you wanna be a girl?”

  I laughed, but Mrs. B cuffed the back of Bink’s head and told him not to be such a schmuck. Just because someone’s gay doesn’t mean they want to be a woman, she said. Look at Truman Capote. He didn’t want to be a woman, though you wouldn’t know it from the way he talked—that lisp!—or the way he dressed sometimes. Still, he was very successful. At least until he started popping pills and telling outrageous stories about his friends. Then everyone hated him.

  Mom came back later with my stuff—my new clothes, my book bag (Thank God this was in it—holy crap, imagine if one of them read it!), toothpaste, toothbrush, deodorant, zit pads, and shaving cream and razor (in case I miraculously needed to start shaving). She slipped some money into Mrs. B’s hand, saying there was no sense in me eating the Binkmeyers out of house and home.

  I followed Mom out to the car, telling Mrs. B that I wanted to say good-bye to my mom, you know, in private, and Mrs. B said she didn’t understand why teenaged boys acted like they would die if anyone saw them kissing their mothers. In her day, sons…who knows, gave their mothers sponge baths, full body massages, and…I stopped listening.

  I climbed into the car next to Mom.

  “So, do I get to know what’s going on?” I asked.

  “Things between your dad and I aren’t going so well.”

  “Really?” I said, arching my eyebrow. It was a lame joke, but we laughed anyhow.

  “Sometimes, Charlie,” she said, “when you’re with someone for a while, you find out that they aren’t who you thought they were. That you aren’t who you thought you were. Without ever knowing when or how it happened, you realize one day that the two of you’ve grown so far apart that the two of you are practically strangers.” She lit a cigarette and laughed softly to herself. The smoke curled at her lips. “Listen to me talking. What do I know? Whatever happens, Charlie, I don’t want you to worry.”

  She tried to be upbeat, but the way “I don’t want you to worry” sounded, she might have said something as equally uplifting and inspiring like, “we need to talk,” “you may want to sit down for this,” or “the doctor would like to schedule a time for you to come in and discuss your test results.”

  Mom squeezed my knee.

  “So, what’s gonna happen now?”

  “We’re going to talk. But whatever happens after that, I want you to remember that I love you very much and I’m doing what I think is best.”

  “C’mon, Mom,” I said, my voice catching on the tears I was trying to fight. “You’re making it sound like you’re walking out on me.”

  “Charlie, I’m not going to leave you. I’d never do that. Neither would your father.”

  I snorted and wiped my eyes and nose across my shirt-sleeve.

  “Tell me about it. The guy’s like quicksand.” I was trying to sound tougher than I felt. “It’s like he’s always there. Always pressing in around me. It’s like he won’t let you breathe.”

  “I know,” Mom said, patting my leg, “that’s something we’re going to talk about.”

  She kissed me good-bye, told me to call her if I needed anything, and promised to call. I watched her back the Jeep out, and I stood in the driveway waving to her until she rounded a corner and vanished.

  I didn’t want her going back to First without me. It wasn’t ’cuz I thought he’d hurt her or anything. For all his faults, First wasn’t that kind of guy.

  I just didn’t want to be alone.

  It’s almost midnight. I’m in the bathroom. It’s the only time I’ve had peace for, like, the last five hours. I forgot what a madhouse this place is—a family of seven and me in a three-bedroom house with one bathroom. It’s amazing no one’s killed anyone.

  I’m out of here. Someone’s at the door.

  Wednesday, September 12

  If I don’t get this down now, I’m not sure I’ll get another chance. We’re practically living on top of each other. I’m sharing Bink and Aaron’s room, sleeping on a rollaway mattress we dragged up from the basement. Bink says Aaron’ll be gone soon ’cuz he keeps talking about joining the Marine Corps, which has Mr. and Mrs. B less than thrilled. Neither of them is shy about showing it, either.

  At dinner last night, Bink’s parents double-teamed poor Aaron, saying no son of theirs—especially one they sacrificed for to put through college—was gonna throw away his degree and become part of the military-industrial complex, go overseas, and kill brown people’s babies.

  Don’t get me wrong; I love the Binkmeyers to death, but I’ll go out of my skull if I have to stay here much longer.

  Have I mentioned that unless you’re a total exhibitionist, it’s impossible to find a place to choke the chicken? Wherever you go, somebody’s always around. You can’t walk, like, three feet without tripping over one of Bink’s little sisters. If you manage to get to the bathroom and it’s empty, someone’s pounding on the door thirty seconds after you’ve locked it. And the basement? Forget it. Well, even if it didn’t look like it’d been repeatedly shelled with mortar fire, if I went near it, Mrs. B’d think I scarfed the Swiss Army knife Aaron got back in Boy Scouts and was planning on using the corkscrew to disembowel myself. But, Charlie, you have so much to live for. Look at Liberace…actually he’s not a good example, either. Completely tacky, a friend of Nancy Reagan, and he had AIDS.

  There wasn’t even time to spank it in the shower. To save time, Mrs. B basically has “her boys” on rotation—one in the shower, one on deck, and the other brushing his teeth. When Bink was showering and Aaron was brushing his teeth in his boxers, I was between them, cupping my hands in front of my crotch to hide an overeager Mr. Five-Incher.

  “What’re you so embarrassed about, Stewart?” Aaron said, absently scratching his furry stomach. I couldn’t let my eyes wander. Not even when Bink stepped out of the shower naked and dripping wet. Even a quick peek would’ve sent me over the edge. It’s already killing me to share a room with the two of them. I’ve always thought Bink was hot, but honestly, Aaron’s better looking. He looks tougher, thicker, and not as dopey as Bink. You’d date Bink; you’d beg Aaron to crush your head between his thighs.

  God, I hope there’s a sub in choir today. Five-to-one I end up dying of blue balls before Mom and First sort things out.

  Thursday, September 13

  I wish I could say I wasn’t a perv, but last night, just when I thought the Brothers Hot were finally asleep and I could milk one out in relative privacy, Aaron’s mattress started squeaking like crazy. The room was pretty dark, but I could still kinda see him tossing off. Aaron started to come and Bink threw a pillow at him, telling him to cut it out. He was trying to sleep. Aaron wiped himself with a pair of boxers he swiped from the ground and then kicked ’em past the end of his bed, right near my face.

  Okay, I grabbed the boxers. And, yeah, figure out the rest. Without going
into too many details, let’s just say when I woke up, Aaron was working the boxers from my fingers.

  “I’ll take those,” he said.

  I buried my head under the sheets, wishing I were dead. I hope Aaron thinks he kicked them onto the rollaway.

  Whom am I kidding? We both know he knows I fell asleep with my nose buried in the cotton crotch like it was some kind of security blanket. I should’ve taken it as a sign.

  Come stains are a poor substitute for a good old-fashioned Oracle at Delphi.

  I say this because, according to Mrs. Lardner, my ancient civilizations teacher, prior to the invention of hygiene, industrial pig farms, and assembly-line slaughterhouses, the entire western world functioned on the basis of superstition. If you wanted it to rain, you sacrificed a pigeon, goat, bull, nubile young virgin—whatever happened to be lying around—to the god of thunder. If you wanted to stop a torrential downpour that threatened to destroy nearly every living thing on the planet, you prayed to whatever anthropomorphized ADD-suffering autistic in the sky that was currently in vogue, built a really big boat, and promised not to look at your naked father, spill your seed upon the ground (Do socks count?), worship golden idols, or have hot man-on-man sex. If you were a citizen of the whackin’ big Roman Empire and you wanted to know if you should cross the Rubicon or just spend the day shooting craps (Iacta alea est, Cicero, and you got snake-eyes), you found a cute little chicken, gutted it and stared at its entrails for your answer.

  Anyhow, Aaron’s dirty boxers proved to be about as effective at predicting my day as a Magic Eight Ball. They did a really crappy job of predicting just how shitty today’s been. Things started going to hell in choir today and didn’t end until I got off the phone with Mom just now.

  When third period ended this morning and I was leaving the choir room, Rob grabbed the back of my neck and smiled so big that his dimples were practically the size of golf divots.

  “Hey, pup,” he said. “Follow me.”

  I might’ve asked where we were going, but it wouldn’t have mattered. Rob was all I’ve-got-the-world-by-the-short-hairs-and-I’m-gonna-pull determination. Most of the time, he’s only like that when he’s trying to talk me out of my Jockeys and into his bed, and even then, it’s not like I’d object. If I tried, even before I got the chance to open my mouth, Rob’d have my pants around my ankles, a hand cupping my bare ass, a tongue in my ear, and then I’d pretty much be begging him to push me down on all fours and ride me like a Preakness filly. Okay, so I’m horny right now. Crucify me. I haven’t gotten off since before breakfast Monday morning. If my nut sack gets put under any more pressure, my sperm’ll start dying of the bends.

  Anyhow, Rob kept his hand on my neck, his thumb tracing these really small, intricate circles along the skin there, and he led me to the stupid little closet of a room in the cafeteria where work-study students (AKA future early release reprobates) sold “everything bright young minds need to grow and blossom,” which apparently consists of green-and gold-folders, graph paper, protractors, used copies of The Grapes of Wrath, and gator-emblazoned stadium seat cushions. They also sold homecoming tickets.

  Rob and I stepped up to the counter.

  “Yeah?” said the cult of personality whose ass was fusing osmosis-wise to the stool she was sitting on behind the counter. She barely looked up from the copy of People that had her gums jawing as she sounded out the really hard words like “totally” and “cute” and “handbag.” I couldn’t remember the chick’s name, but I’d heard that back in junior high, the school shrink had her sent to reform school ’cuz she’d sewn her own fingers together during home ec out of boredom, and then, still feeling her eighth-grade ennui, haphazardly got the thread out with a stitch ripper.

  “Two tickets for homecoming,” Rob said, sliding a twenty on the counter’s faux laminate countertop.

  Little Miss Self-Seamstress made this overly inconvenienced sigh that sounded like a blimp emptying its airbag. She looked at the money, at Rob, at me, back at the money.

  “You’re ten bucks short,” she said. “Twenty for couples, fifteen each for stag tickets.” Yves Self-Mutilation Laurent plopped her ass down on the stool, slurped her thumb, and flipped a magazine page to what was probably some hard-hitting expose on how it was all the rage among celbutante heiresses to surgically implant tapeworms for maximum weight loss.

  “We’re a couple,” Rob said, making sure she saw his hand slip from my neck to the small of my back.

  “Rules say you aren’t,” she said with a shrug.

  “What do you mean ‘rules’? Like, ‘You must be this tall,’” Rob raised his hand to just above his waist, “‘to ride this ride?’ Rules like ‘No use of cell phones, flash photography or videotaping during the performance’? You gotta be kidding me. Just give me the tickets, alright.”

  Yves demonstrated her exceptional customer service skills by showing absolutely no concern of flexibility. “Guy and a girl. Twenty bucks. Two guys, fifteen bucks each. Two girls, fifteen bucks each. That’s how it is.”

  “That’s bullshit,” Rob said. His face was so red it looked like someone’d tied his jockstrap in double knots while he was still in it.

  Stupid me, I made the mistake of giving the chick the extra ten-spot instead of all Martin Luther Queen, Junior, on her by telling her it didn’t matter if Rob and I wanted to stretch each other’s sphincters, we still had the right to save a Hamilton on going to some lame school dance.

  When I got handed the tickets, Rob stormed off, shaking his head.

  Rob avoided me the rest of the day, and after practice tonight he brushed past me. I shouted for him to wait, but he blew me off. I ran after him as he beelined through the parking lot to his BMW. When I finally caught up with him, I grabbed his shoulder and yelled, “What the hell’s wrong with you?”

  “Just leave me alone, Charlie,” he said, dropping his chin to his chest as he massaged his neck.

  “No. Not until you tell me why you’ve been treating me like shit.” I spat my words at him. “Is this about the tickets this morning? Jesus.”

  “Great,” Rob said, leaning against the side of his car. He threw his head back and laughed—practically cackling at the sky. He looked unhinged, like he was one smart-ass remark from me away from completely losing it. “Just great. Now I’ve got to worry about your feelings, too. I’m so tired of making sure everyone in my goddamn life is perfectly comfortable.”

  Rob sank, his back sliding down the side of the car until he was squatting along the wheel well, his face shielded behind his arms and knees. He started talking again, only the anger—the madness—in his voice was softer, strained. I couldn’t tell if he was raging or crying. I sat beside him, trying hard not to set him off.

  “Rob, what’s wrong? Talk to me.” He turned to face me and his eyes were as wet and runny as raw egg, his shoulders shook. He looked small, breakable.

  “My mom,” he said, smearing the back of his hand along his nose. “She’s dying.” He leaned into my shoulder, and I felt hollow and tense all at once. I wanted to say something, but my lips were dumb, so I just pulled him into me and pressed my face to his hair.

  “I’m sick of nothing being fair. I want to be normal for once, you know?” Rob hugged my chest, curling against me. “I’m sick of everything being a fight.”

  “You don’t have to fight,” I said, holding him more tightly. “I’m here.”

  “But you’re not going to fight,” Rob said, matter-of-factly. It hurt, mostly ’cuz it was true. After this morning, I knew I had to be a better boyfriend. Rob deserved that much.

  “We’ll get through this. Everything will be okay.” We both knew I was lying, but it was the only thing that sounded right.

  We sat outside his car—Rob weeping against my chest, and me holding him hard and tight, wishing I could draw the hurt from his body. After a while, Rob stopped crying and said he was fine. He unlocked his car door and we kissed good-bye.

  “I’m sorry for being a shit,�
�� I said.

  “I know you are.”

  “Know I’m what?” I asked, smiling. “Know I’m sorry or know I’m a shit?”

  “I’ll never tell,” Rob said, laughing. We kissed again and I walked to the Binkmeyers, hoping the worst was over. It wasn’t. Mom called after dinner.

  In my family, bad news doesn’t get front-stoop delivery; it gets left in the gutter, we all pretend like we don’t know it’s there, and then finally, someone gets tired of ignoring it and goes out to get it. That’s why my conversation with Mom tonight went the way it did.

  After Mrs. B chatted with Mom for a bit, Mrs. B handed me the phone and shooed the rest of the Binkmeyer brood from the kitchen, saying I needed privacy. I wanted to tell her that if I ever got privacy, I wouldn’t be on the phone, I’d be attending to certain, more urgent needs, but I didn’t get the chance. Through the receiver, I could hear Mom asking, “So, how are things at the Binkmeyers’?”

  She sounded upbeat enough, so I decided to joke around some.

  “It’s like spending summer camp on a hippie commune. Mrs. B’s been making everyone listen to hairy-legged female folk singers so much that Bink’s talking in his sleep about how he’s woman, hear him roar. It got so bad that, yesterday, after he begged Mrs. B to lay off the Joan Baez stuff, Bink got all excited when Mrs. B said she’d play some Seeger. Poor Bink, he was hoping for some ‘Night Moves’ action, and Mrs. B’s trying to get everyone to jam to ‘Turn! Turn! Turn!’.”

  “And how’s Mr. B?” Mom asked, playing it straight, but I knew she was trying not to laugh. I could tell she was having fun. So was I. She sounded like her old self, so I kept going.