by James Franco
The lot was dark but there was a pulsing glow coming out of the high windows of a building across the lot. Then I could hear music. I took out my pack of Reds and slipped one into my mouth and lit it with my little black lighter. The cigarette was good after kissing Mr. B. I walked toward the building with the glow. I wasn’t good. I was regular, or worse.
Someone called to me. I saw it was Teddy off a ways in the darkness. There was also a person crouched on the ground near him. That was Ivan. Ivan’s face was so pale. I asked what they were doing. I got closer. Ivan was holding a bullet on the ground and was tapping the back of it with a thin hammer. I stood a little away.
“Should you really be doing that?” I said.
“Shut the fuck up, they’re my stepdad’s,” said Ivan.
“I don’t care whose they are,” I said. “Isn’t it bad to have bullets at a synagogue?”
Teddy laughed. “Well, it’s not even fucking working.” He was wearing a black dress shirt and had gel in his hair. He looked nice. He always did. Ivan was always pale and scary. “Why are you so late?” Teddy said.
“I was babysitting,” I said. Ivan kept tapping.
“Oh, well, the party kind of sucks, old people and bad dancing. Want to go across the street to Gunn and drink?” Gunn was the other high school, the one we wouldn’t go to the following year.
“Let me see Shauna first,” I said. I went over to the building with the music and the lights and stood in the doorway. Inside, people were dancing to ABBA’s “Dancing Queen,” fast and awkward. Some people were laughing. There was a long table along the side of one wall with lots of food and cakes. I had never been to a bat mitzvah. In Phoenix I didn’t know any Jews. I saw Shauna across the room of bodies. She was dancing and laughing with her mom and brother. She had a bunch of makeup on. So much I could hardly see the two scar lines.
I saw other girls from the team but I didn’t want to talk to any of them. They all knew Mr. B.
I walked back into the dark and told Teddy I wanted to go to Gunn.
Ivan picked up his bullets and put them in his pocket. We walked down a hill in the dark and I could hear the bullets clinking in Ivan’s pants.
When we passed the cemetery, Ivan said, “That suicide guy just got buried there.”
“How do you know?” I said.
“He did, or what’s left of him,” said Teddy. The kid had stepped in front of a train at the East Meadow crossing.
“My stepdad knew his dad,” said Ivan. “Said he was a prick, probably why the kid killed himself.”
We walked across Arastadero to Gunn. There was a large electronic billboard on a post. Above the electronic part there was a black part with fancy red lettering that said GUNN and TITANS. The electronic part said, BEAT PALY! GO TITAN FOOTBALL. 10/10, 6 P.M. Paly was going to be our high school the next year.
We walked through campus. The buildings were made of cement, and in the dark the place was like a bunker. We made our way through the shadows to a grassy area. In the center was a huge oak tree that rose above the roofs of the classrooms. There was moonlight all around and it made the top of the tree silver-white. The ground was a little wet but we sat on the big roots, which were dry. We all leaned our backs against the trunk. Teddy had a little bottle of peach schnapps and he passed it around. I asked if they wanted some of the joint I’d been smoking and we passed that around.
“That’s pretty good shit,” said Ivan.
“What do you think about that suicide?” I said.
“I think the parents made him do it,” said Teddy.
“He was Asian,” said Ivan. He was on the other side of Teddy and I couldn’t see him.
“What does that mean?” I said.
“That they worked his ass like crazy and pressured the shit out of him.”
“Do you think it hurt?” I said.
“For a second,” said Teddy. “But if it’s all going to be over anyway, then why does it matter? Pain only matters if it’s prolonged.” Ivan was sucking long on the joint, then he said, “If I was going to kill myself, I wouldn’t waste it. I would do a bunch of crazy shit first. Maybe kill some people I didn’t like and take ’em with me.”
We all thought about that. Then I said, “Wouldn’t it be better to do a bunch of crazy good things before you died instead of killing people?”
“Like what?” said Teddy.
“I don’t know. Give your life to save a bunch of kids or something.”
“But that’s what you’re supposed to do every day, not if you’re suicidal,” he said. “If you’re suicidal you’re probably only thinking of yourself.”
I drank the syrupy alcohol.
“I try to be good,” I said.
“Me too,” said Teddy.
“Fuck good people,” said Ivan, and we laughed.
We finished the joint and I gave them both cigarettes. The stars were dots between the branches. On the other side of Teddy, Ivan started carving in the tree with a knife. He carved SUICIDE RULZ. Teddy was next and wrote FUCK GUNN. They told me I had to write something.
“I feel bad, the tree is so old.”
“Fuck you,” said Ivan. “Do it.”
I drew a heart. It was hard to make it round because of the bark, so it was jagged on one side.
* * *
Eighth grade continued. For a month Mr. B acted like nothing happened. Our team was doing well and he just acted like a coach so I just acted like a player. But it was hard, because it was like I was just one of the other girls. He told his jokes to everyone but I didn’t laugh as much.
Then on Halloween Mr. B asked me to trick-or-treat with him and Michael. I was surprised but I said okay. I dressed as a cat in black tights and Tiff drew whiskers on my face with black lipstick. Mr. B was dressed in a 49ers jersey and football pants and a helmet. He said he was supposed to be Steve Young. On the back of the jersey it said YOUNG and there was a big 8. Michael was dressed as Link, the elf from his video game. He wore green and had a little sword and a plastic jack-o’-lantern for candy.
We walked around and Michael would go up to each door and get candy and we would wait for him on the sidewalk. We talked a little about the soccer team. The championships were coming up and we were tied for first place with Mountain View.
He told me a joke: “A horse falls into a mud puddle and can’t get out. So a chicken ties the horse to the bumper of his Mercedes and pulls him out. Later, the chicken falls into the mud, but the horse just stands close and says, ‘Grab on to my thingy and pull yourself out.’ The moral is, if you’re hung like a horse you don’t need a Mercedes to pick up chicks.” I said it was funny, but I didn’t laugh.
Later we went back to his place. He let Michael pick three candies to take to bed with him and made him leave the plastic jack-o’-lantern on the coffee table in the living room. While they were back in the bedroom I waited on the couch. I ate one of Michael’s Baby Ruths and then I took a roll of Smarties. They were really sour so I just had two and put the rest in my sock with the Baby Ruth wrapper.
Mr. B came back out; he didn’t have the helmet on. He sat on the couch and asked if I wanted any of Michael’s candy. I said no.
“You’re a very pretty cat.”
“Why don’t we talk at school anymore?”
“You know why.”
“I know, but you could at least be nice to me. It’s like you don’t even like me anymore.”
“Are you crazy? I’m in love with you, April.”
I told him I had to go, that there was a party that the girls were having and I was late. I stood up, but he stood up too and grabbed my shoulders.
“Listen to me, I love you. Okay? I love you. I have just been weird because I didn’t want anything bad to happen. But I don’t care now. I want to be with you. We’ll work it out. You can just come babysit all the time or something.” He laughed a little and tried to get me to laugh by looking into my eyes and squeezing my shoulders. I pushed against him.
“I have to go
.”
“April, why? So you can hang around a bunch of little boys? Come on, you’re better than that. Stay here, with me. We’ll just watch a movie, I’m sure there is something scary and stupid on.” I wanted to stay but I was feeling emotional. I pushed his hands away and left.
The next week our soccer team played in the championships. They were a week long at a junior high school called Egan in Los Altos. Mr. B seemed like he wanted to be nice but I stayed away from him and just played. On the last day we lost to Mountain View. When the team came out of the locker room Mr. B asked if anyone wanted a ride home. Shauna and Sandy said they did. He looked at me.
“April? Would you like a ride?” The other girls were looking at me so I said yes. In the car everyone was sad about losing so we didn’t say much. He dropped Sandy off first because she lived in the nice part of town. He told her she had played very well.
When he dropped Shauna off he said, “You’re the best team I’ve ever coached.”
Then we drove. I was in the front seat. He wasn’t driving toward my house but I didn’t say anything. It was getting dark. “April, you really are the best player.” I didn’t say anything. “You want to hear a joke?” I didn’t say anything so he didn’t tell it. I took my cigarettes from my bag and I lit one. He didn’t say anything but he cracked my window.
At his house he parked and told me that Michael was still at day care. He got out, and after a second I got out. Inside, he got me some water from the kitchen but I didn’t drink it. I just kissed him. I did it hard because I was angry with him and sad because of the game. And sad because soccer was over and it was the thing I knew how to do best. We went to the couch. I was wearing sweats and he undressed me and got a condom and I lay on my back and we did it, simple. And then it was over. I was fourteen. We got dressed and he drove me home. At my house I saw the Smarties from Halloween on my desk. I undid the plastic wrapper and ground each one into powder.
For the rest of the year, I went to Mr. B’s all the time. Sometimes to babysit and sometimes not. We’d sit in his living room, in the dark, and watch TV. Most Saturdays we’d watch Saturday Night Live, and weekdays we’d watch reruns of Cheers. He had a good body, good hair, and a nice smile. He was funny; he liked television and funny movies. He wasn’t older and I wasn’t younger. We went to the mall sometimes too and got clothes. We always took Michael to the mall.
The next year I went to high school at Paly but I still went to Mr. B’s all the time. My parents thought I was babysitting. I would tell Mr. B that I loved him and he would tell me. My sister was the only one who knew. She said it was okay as long as we were in love.
After everything had been going on with Mr. B for almost two years, I went to a party one night. I usually didn’t go to parties because I spent so much time with Mr. B. I went with Shauna and Alice. They were my only friends and that was only because I saw them at soccer.
When we got to the house everyone was sitting around the living room; some were on the couch and some were
on the carpet. The carpet was beige and so was the couch, and the walls were dark wood paneling. Everyone was being pretty quiet. The girls and I went to the kitchen and got some beers from some junior guys, Denny Johnson and Beau. I wanted to be like the other girls so I laughed when the guys said things.
Back in the main room, someone put on Menace II Society, so then everyone was sitting around the floor watching the big brown TV on the beige carpet. The movie was stupid. It tried too hard. It was trying to show a tough kind of life, but also be cool about it. There were shootings and sex and car jackings and everyone was too tough to care. I watched for an hour and drank three beers. After an hour I went outside to smoke.
Teddy was out there. There were a few other people off in the dark. I hadn’t talked to him in a while because he was in the smart classes. I pulled out my pack of Reds, but it was empty. I asked Teddy for a cigarette. Teddy handed me a Camel Light. I lit it with my black lighter and tasted the difference. I saw Teddy’s reflection and my reflection in the sliding glass door, and behind the reflections was everyone else inside, watching the movie.
“That’s a stupid movie,” I said. Teddy laughed and I could tell he was drunk. He asked me why I thought it was stupid. “Because,” I said. “We know the ghetto is bad, that’s why it’s the ghetto, but that movie is making it look cool. Like Ivan and all those guys are getting all excited about O-Dog because he shoots innocent people and laughs about it. That’s not cool—the guy is a fucking murderer.”
Teddy laughed again, then he said, “I like the part when the crack addict guy says, ‘I’ll suck ya dick.’”
“You like that part?”
“Yeah, it’s funny because it’s just like this part from Boyz n the Hood, where this woman crack addict says, ‘I’ll suck your dick’—it’s like the exact same scene, but in Menace it’s a guy crack addict who says it. It’s like they’re trying to make the movie even crazier than Boyz n the Hood because a guy says ‘I’ll suck your dick.’”
“I guess,” I said.
“And then O-Dog shoots the guy. He thinks the offer somehow makes him gay. And it’s like the movie is saying gay people are the worst kind of people. Like even if everyone is living in a ghetto and it’s hell, the gay person is the worst. Like a man sucking a dick is the most desperate you could get.”
“Maybe,” I said. “But why the hell would that make you like that scene?”
“I just mean I think it’s funny, I don’t like it.”
“I just think it’s a stupid movie,” I said. “I think most movies and TV shows and video games are stupid.”
“Okay,” he said, and sucked his cigarette hard and then let out a big thing of smoke.
“You’re crazy, right?” he said through the smoke. I said I wasn’t and he said that I was.
“Why do you think I’m crazy?” I said.
He took another drag and said, “Because you don’t care about anything.”
“I do care,” I said. “I care too much, but it never works. Like now—I’m trying to be here, I’m trying to do things. But it doesn’t work, I can’t find anything, so maybe that’s what makes me crazy.”
“What does that mean?”
“Nothing. I think you don’t care about anything, Teddy, not me.”
“I care about you,” he said quietly, then he looked at me from the side of his face.
“Oh, shut up,” I said. “You hardly even see me.”
“Well I wish I did. I try to call you all the time, but you’re always gone.”
“I have soccer and shit,” I said.
“I love you,” he said. I laughed because he was drunk. But I could also tell that he was a little serious. I looked right at him and it was in that moment I knew it meant nothing to say that. I got very quiet and looked away and we sat staring at our reflections. Then I said, “You remember that night in eighth grade, after Shauna’s bat mitzvah, we went to Gunn and sat under that tree? And I carved a heart in it?”
“Yeah.”
“I wish we could go back to that night.”
“Ivan and I cut it down.”
“The tree?” I said. He nodded in the reflection and smoked. “You cut down the whole tree? It was huge.”
“I know. One night last year we used his stepdad’s saw. Just me and him. It took a long time. That thing was probably there since the Civil War. Now it’s gone.”
Sitting there with Teddy, I knew I was making a decision, but I didn’t know what.
We smoked. The Camels weren’t my brand but they were okay in the night air.
After that I stopped seeing Mr. B as often. He said I was being a baby. I told him I needed to spend more time with people my age, but when I wasn’t with him I just ended up sitting in my room at home. Tiff wasn’t even around. One night Mr. B asked me to babysit Michael because he had something important to do. I told him no.
“Please. He likes you, April.”
“No he doesn’t.”
“Yes he does. If you don’t do it for me, do it for him. He’s used to having you around.”
“Are you really going out?”
“Yes. I’d rather spend time with you, but I guess you won’t let me.”
I didn’t even kiss Mr. B when he left. Michael was seven now. He may have been used to me, but he still didn’t talk to me. He was in his regular position on the floor playing a game called Street Fighter. I sat on the couch and smoked.
“You’re not supposed to smoke in here.” I didn’t answer. I ashed in my Diet Coke can and watched him fight different characters. After my cigarette I told him that I wanted to play. I sat on the floor next to him and picked up the other controller.
“You have to pick. Who do you want to be?”
“I want to be the girl.”
“Chun Li? She sucks.”
“I don’t care, I want to be Chun Li.” He told me what to press. “Now how do I fight you?”
“You press the buttons,” he said. He was this Chinese guy and he beat the shit out of me. I pressed the buttons and my girl punched and kicked but it didn’t do any good. He killed me twice and the game was over. “Two cookies,” he said.
“What?”
“I get two cookies, I won.”
“What are you talking about?”
“That’s the rules.”
“No it’s not. Your dad said you get four cookies and you already had them.”
“Cindy lets me.”
“Who?”
“My other babysitter.”
“Who is she?”
“She’s my other babysitter. She lets me have cookies.”
I stood up and walked to the kitchen. He was telling me he wanted one Oreo and one chocolate chip when I walked out the back door.
I didn’t know where to go. I drove. Nirvana was in the CD player and I turned it off. I just drove and smoked. I didn’t want to go home. I smoked four cigarettes. I had only one more left so I drove to 7-Eleven. I bought some more Reds with my sister’s ID and a Diet Coke. Outside, I used the pay phone. First I called my sister, but she wasn’t there. I called Shauna and then I called Alice. Alice said there was a party and gave me the address. I got in the car but I didn’t turn the key. The lights inside the 7-Eleven made everything look yellow. The light fractured when I started crying.