by Josh Lieb
“Randy,” says Randy miserably.
“Whatever you’re calling yourself today,” says Broadway, refusing to concede anything. “Now move to another table. And if I see you bothering Oliver again, I’ll report you.”
Randy sighs72 and walks out of the cafeteria, leaving his lunch behind. Maybe I’ve pushed him a little too hard this time. But nuisances like Randy Sparks shouldn’t be encouraged, and since there’s no way I can apologize, I do the next best thing and finish his pizza for him.
Coincidentally, it’s pizza night at the Watson house (Mom burned her tuna soufflé), and we are all digging into a large pie from Big Fred’s.
Daddy is nibbling at his half of the pie, which is covered with pepperoni (which I find repulsive). “So,” he asks, trying to muster up something that resembles excitement, “how’s the campaign going?”
I’ve waited patiently through his entire dinnertime lecture (tonight’s topic: “Let’s make the politicians fight the wars!”) for him to give me this opening.
“I’m president,” I say, through a mouth full of anchovies and hot peppers.
Daddy makes his obligatory attempt to contradict me. “No, you have to be elected first.”
And this is where I get to drop my bomb.
“Nuh-uh, Daddy. Liz and Jack dropped out, so I’m the only one running.” I speak slowly, both to savor the moment and to make sure he hears me right. “So I get to be president. Just like you.”
The entire point of dropping a bomb is to get an explosion. Mom obliges, and is out of her seat and hugging me,
Twombley style, in no time flat. But that’s not the explosion I wanted.
My eyes are on Daddy, who sits there, eyes unfocused, fondling his glasses, looking concerned. Confused. What bitter truths must be racing through his brain right now? What new, grudging respect for his only son is forcing its way onto his consciousness? His mouth opens. Here it comes. Here it comes. . . .
“I’m sorry, Oliver.”
No.
He should be staring down at his plate, rethinking his entire youth, realizing just how empty his school-age accomplishments were, since I can equal them.
Or he should be looking at me with admiration. With realization. He should be slapping me on the back, giving me a proud and hearty “Good work, kid.” Not that I want that.
Or he should be weeping. Just weeping. Weeping would be fine.
But not this. Not pity.
“Oliver won,” says Mom, confused.
“No, dear. Oliver’s going to be president. But he didn’t win anything,” says Daddy. He gives me a rueful smile—the one that means he’s about to teach me a very important lesson. “I think Oliver knows what I’m talking about.”
For once in his life, Oliver doesn’t have a clue.
“We live in a democracy.” He says the word like it’s something holy. “And the important thing in a democracy isn’t winning an election—it’s participating in it. The struggle. The campaign. I mean, if you just walk into the office, well . . . it’s wonderful to be so valued by your peers”—here he gives me a condescending wink—“but really, you haven’t won anything, have you? It’s like something you’d see in a Communist country. Or some banana republic where the elections are fixed. Would my victory in tenth grade have been as sweet if I hadn’t had to beat Louis Goldberg? It wouldn’t have been a victory at all.
“The beauty of the American system is the crucible of ideas. Two people—or more—being thrown into the ring and having to win the hearts and minds of their fellow citizens. That’s what keeps government strong. And that’s what keeps student government strong.”
I think my heart has stopped beating.
My God. He actually believes this crap. And, in his eyes, I have accomplished nothing.
Does he think Rocket-Firing Boba Fett Dolls grow on trees?
He’s convinced one member of his audience. “I’m sorry, Oliver,” says Mom. “I didn’t understand. . . . Maybe you’ll get to run against somebody next year.” She gives me her most loving smile.
Daddy gives me a playful punch on the shoulder. “I guess it just wasn’t meant to be, huh, Champ?”
I nod, and I try to swallow, but it feels like I’m swallowing chalk dust. I can feel my features hardening into a permanently blank mask. What do I have to do to impress this man?73
I tap my left foot once. . . .
My internal organs are melting together—I can feel them—congealing into a stew of red-hot lava. They threaten to spew out my mouth and all over his rotten smirk.
I tap my left foot again. . . .
I can feel my hair turning into freezing cold fire. It’s drilling into my brain.
I tap my left foot a third time. . . .
“Why is she doing that?” sweats Daddy.
He’s looking down at Lolli, who is glaring up at him with hate like he’s never seen before. She sounds like she swallowed a chain saw. Her nostrils are wide and foaming. Her eyes are as flat and dead as two dirty pennies.
“She needs a walk,” I say.
“She just went out before dinner,” says Mom.
“She needs a walk,” I say, and I jump to my feet. My faithful hound, my loving, loyal dog follows me out the door.
Lollipop needs a walk? I need a walk.
I need to let my temper cool before I accidentally tap my left foot a fourth and final time—and Lollipop does something neither of us can take back.
And more than that: I need an opponent.
Chapter 17:
I AM IN A FOUL MOOD
Do you like video games?
Of course, you do.
Come here. You’ll love this one.
You know the game where you have a plastic guitar, and you hit buttons that make the little guitarist on screen strum along to whatever song is playing? This is like that game but better.
I am sitting in the amphitheater, a part of my Control Center I don’t use much. I am playing with a plastic guitar. There’s a thick curtain in the center of the room. My technicians are getting the game ready behind that curtain.
“We’re done, sir,” says Chauncey the technician (who’s been much more respectful lately).
“Excellent. Let’s begin!”
Chauncey pulls back the heavy velvet curtain, revealing two stacks of the largest stereo amplifiers you will ever see in your life. There’s a marionette hanging in the air between them. What’s interesting about this marionette is that it is a real person. A fourteen-year-old boy, in fact, in a pair of Knight Rider pajamas. There’s a bag over his head.
And one more thing: There’s a guitar strapped to his chest.
“Bag off,” I order. A technician pulls a string, and the bag is yanked into the rafters. Oh, look—the marionette is actually Alan Pitt! I’m surprised the bag fit over his zits.
“Hi, Alan!” I say, perfectly friendly. “What do you want to play first?”
“Who is that?” says Alan, who is still wearing a blindfold. “Where am I? What’s going on?”
“We’re having a playdate. What kind of music do you like? You a classic-rock guy? You look like a classic-rock guy.”
He turns his flabby pink ear toward me. “I know that voice. You go to school with me. Who is this? Parker Albanese? Because I flushed your iPod down the toilet?”
“No . . .” I drawl slowly. The tension in the air is delicious.
“Randy Sparks? Because I peed in your gym locker? I will crush you for this. . . .”
“Maybe . . .”
“Ted Philips? You only thought I kicked your ass last time. That was just a warm-up. Or maybe that fat kid who drinks chocolate pudding through a straw. I spit in your hair one time. Did you know that?”
I decide to play Cream’s “Tales of Brave Ulysses”74 first. I really love Clapton’s guitar work on that song, even though pretty much everything he’s done since then gives me diarrhea.75
As the first quiet, spooky notes creep out of the speakers, and Jack Bruce start
s singing about “shiny purple fishes,” my fingers delicately touch the buttons on my controller. The ropes tied to the marionette jerk into action, forcing him to gently strum the guitar.
“What . . . hey . . . this is . . .”
Ginger Baker’s drumsticks CRACK down like the Auction Hammer of God, and Eric Clapton begins an almost ugly pounding stomp down an endless guitar staircase. My little fingers sweat on the buttons as I try to keep up.
The marionette is doing some really impressive stuff now—bobbing, jerking, strumming, kicking, windmilling.
Once, when I’ve hit enough notes in a row, the marionette goes into a split, ripping his pajamas.
“Ow! Who’s doing this? Just stop!” That’s the marionette talking. It keeps saying those things, no matter what buttons I push. Maybe if I play long enough . . .
Sheldrake joins me halfway through “Sweet Jane.” I turn down the music so we can hear each other. Lollipop, who’s curled up on top of my bare feet, whines with appreciation; she’s wearing special noise-canceling earphones I devised for her, but I know they don’t keep out all the sound.
“You want a go?” I ask.
Sheldrake glances at the marionette. “Not to criticize, but you’re torturing a child.”
I snort. “He’s taller than you are. Heavier, too.”
But he shakes his head. “Nah, I’m no good at video games. Congratulations, by the way.”
“On what?”
“On the election.”
“It’s not over yet.” My fingers slide across the sweat-slick buttons.
“What do you mean?”
“Daddy says I can’t win without an opponent.”
“Oh,” says Sheldrake. “When did he—”
“Tonight.”
Sheldrake looks at me funny. Then he looks at the marionette funny.
“I’m gonna get you—ow! I’ll make you sorry—ow!” threatens the marionette, as he does a double somersault.
Sheldrake puts a hand on my shoulder. “Maybe you should play this game when you’re a little less”—he searches for the right words—“on edge.”
“But I feel like playing it now.”.
He reaches for the controller. “I’ve changed my mind about playing.”
But I won’t give it to him. “I’ve changed my mind about sharing.”
I’m a fan of Lynyrd Skynyrd, too. Their songs are full of brutal, punishing guitar solos. I end up playing every track on their first three albums.
Chapter 18:
WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING AT, BUTTHEAD?
Sorry. I just felt like saying that.
I sleep a lot in class. It’s sort of expected of me. Nobody ever seems to wonder why dumb children are so much sleepier than smart ones. It all depends on the dumb child in question. Some of them have chores to do, or younger siblings to take care of, or crappy parents who fight all the time and won’t let them sleep. Some of them are true morons who stay up all night watching TV. And some of them burn the midnight oil, running secret global empires.
Most teachers are happy to let their worst students sleep, so that their better students can learn. Not Lucy Sokolov.
She’s jabbing me with a yardstick. That’s the first of my senses to be engaged—I feel the yardstick in my ribs. Then I hear the baboons around me laughing, and Sokolov’s vinegar-thin voice above the din: “Wake up. Now.” When I open my eyes, I see Tatiana, skewed sideways, smirking down at me from her desk.
But that’s significant: She’s smirking, not laughing. Not like the animals. I smell her sweet, cheap aroma—fabric softener, bubble gum, and ChapStick; it wraps itself around me, sends its scented fingers down my throat. Suddenly, I can taste the saliva in my mouth, alkaline and hungry. And I’m reminded of why I’m so hungry in the first place.
Then Sokolov walks between us and ruins it all.76 “Face off the desk,” she orders. I comply with a bare-thigh-on-vinyl rip (some of the saliva has leaked from my mouth). She pulls out her roll book. “Watson, Oliver,” she reads.
“Here.”
I hate study hall.
Randy Sparks, the Most Pathetic Boy in School, is sharpening a pencil. Sokolov gives him a quick glance, then gives him an abrupt order: “Randy Sparks. Please go to the front of the room.”
When she says “please,” it sounds wet and bloody, like somebody clubbing a baby seal to death.
Randy gives her a puzzled look, then, eager to please as ever, walks to the front of the room and turns to face the class. He has a strange, hopeful smile on his face. What could this be about?
Ms. Sokolov says, “Your fly is unzipped.”
Everyone in the room stops looking at Randy’s face and starts looking at his crotch. His fly isn’t just unzipped—it’s gaping. And the tighty-whities he’s wearing don’t look very clean, either. His fingers fumble as they yank his stubborn zipper back up. Now our eyes go back to his face. He’s blushing so badly it looks like someone has dipped his head in the stuff they use to make red candy apples. The smile is still on his lips, frozen there, but now it is the saddest, most hopeless smile on earth.
He honestly looks like he might cry. He is having a very hard time deciding not to—
Then the bell rings and he rushes out the door. I feel like sprinting out myself—but I get stuck in my chair for the briefest of moments, and by the time I extricate myself, Tatiana is blocking the door. She leans negligently against the wall like some B-movie villain, picking at the electric-pink spackle on her left thumbnail. She doesn’t bother to look at me.
“Going somewhere, Fats?”
“Geometry.”
“Forget geometry. You’re going to the top, Tubby. The top.” She points her remarkably razor-sharp chin in my direction. “I’m glad it worked out for you. Too bad my little trick didn’t do it.”
I goggle at her. What trick is she talking about?
She rewards me with a sneaky smile. “See, I’m like your secret campaign manager. I’m the one who told everybody you were dying. So they’d vote for you, see?”
Ah! So it was Tatiana who started that rumor! I should’ve known! My classmates are far too feebleminded to come up with such an ingenious story without some master-mind pushing them in the right direction. Little gears in my head start clicking into place—no wonder she’d been so gleeful when everyone else felt bad for me.
She pauses, reconsiders. “Actually, I only told three people. They told everybody else. That’s how rumors work.”
Even for Tatiana, this is impressive. Few middle-school students have such an advanced understanding of the art of rumor spreading.
I dart a worried glance at Sokolov, who sits at the front of the room with her nose buried in a book.77 Tati follows my gaze. “You think that thing over there cares what we talk about?”
I’m impressed by her ability to dehumanize La Sokolova.
“She’s probably your favorite teacher.”
“What? ’Cause she’s so nasty? Nah.” Tati wrinkles her nose. “She’s nothing. Just a broken sofa spring that sticks through the cushion. It makes you bleed when you sit on it, but not ’cause it wants to. It’s just what it is. She ain’t mean. She’s just broken.”