by Wizner, Jake
CONTENTS
TITLE PAGE
DEDICATION
17 DOWN
What’s in a Name?
The Early Years
The Time My Parents Sent Me to a Camp Straight out of Lord of the Flies
The Time My Mother Used Emotional Blackmail to Deprive Me of the Only Thing I Ever Really Wanted
The Time I Got Caught with a Pornographic Magazine in Math Class
The Time I Got Hit in the Face by a Baseball at a Yankees–Red Sox Game
The Time I Watched a Pornographic Movie with My Mentally Unstable Grandmother
The Time I Visited a Sex Doctor
The Time I Saw My Father Get Drunk and Act like a Complete Idiot
The Time I Became a Published Author
SENIOR YEAR
September
October
November
December
January
February
March
April
May
June
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
COPYRIGHT
For Kira
17 DOWN
WHAT’S IN A NAME?
It’s hard to imagine what my parents were thinking when they decided to name me Shakespeare. They were probably drunk, considering the fact that my father is an alcoholic and my mother gets loopy after one glass of wine. I’ve given up asking them about it because neither of them is able to remember anything anymore, and the stories they come up with always leave me feeling like it might not be so bad to dig a hole in the backyard and hide out there until I leave for college next year. That is, if I get into college.
My mom used to tell me that she and my father put the names of history’s greatest writers and artists and musicians into a bowl and decided I would be named for whoever they pulled out. “I was hoping for van Gogh,” she said.
“Didn’t he cut his ear off?” I asked.
“Yes,” my mother said dreamily, stroking the side of my face. “To give to the woman he loved.”
My dad remembers that he and my mom always talked about giving me an “S–H” name to match the “S–H” of our last name, Shapiro. “We thought about Sherlock, Shaquille, and Shaka Zulu before we settled on Shakespeare.”
“You really wanted to make my life miserable, didn’t you?” I asked.
My father licked the rim of his martini glass. “That was the plan.”
The worst was the time my mom came running into my room and told me she finally remembered how she and my dad had come up with my name.
“We did crazy things when we were younger,” she said.
“Is this going to traumatize me?” I asked.
“Sometimes we would dress up in costumes.”
“I don’t want to hear this. You’re an insane woman.”
“We were doing a scene from Shakespeare on the day you were conceived.”
“I’m calling Child Services!” I yelled, running from the room.
Her voice shrilled after me. “Your father was Othello!”
Take a moment to consider the implications of a name like Shakespeare Shapiro. It’s the first day of middle school. Everybody is trying hard not to look nervous and self-conscious and miserable. I have intense pains in my stomach and begin to wonder if it’s possible to get an ulcer in sixth grade.
“Good morning, everyone,” the teacher says. “Please say ‘here’ when I call your name.”
Michael and Jennifer and David and Stephanie and all the others hear their names and dutifully identify themselves.
“Shakespeare Shapiro,” the teacher calls out.
The class bursts into laughter.
“Here,” I squeak.
She looks up. “What a fabulous name. I’ve never had a student named Shakespeare before.”
Everybody is staring at me and whispering. If the teacher doesn’t call the next name soon, the situation will become critical. Already I can see some of the more ape-like boys sizing me up for an afternoon beating.
“I bet you’re a wonderful writer, Shakespeare,” she says kindly.
I begin to wish for a large brick to fall on her head.
She looks back down at her roster.
Come on, I think. You can do it.
Her head pops back up.
“Just read the next name!” I blurt out.
And so, less than ten minutes into my middle school career, I’m already in trouble, and all because of my ridiculous name.
This is the story of my life, which has been a series of catastrophes, one after another. I’d like to say there have been some happy times, too, but the reality is that with seventeen years down, nothing much has gone right so far. As I begin my senior year of high school, here are the facts I wake up to each morning and go to sleep with each night:
1. After six years of elementary school, three years of middle school, and three years of high school, I have only two close friends: Neil Wasserman, whose favorite thing to do is discuss his bowel movements; and Katie Marks, whose favorite thing to do is tell me how pathetic I am.
2. I have never had a girlfriend, never kissed a girl, and spend most Saturday nights watching TV with my parents before whacking off to Internet porn in my bedroom.
3. My younger brother—two years younger—has a girlfriend, is extremely popular, and will definitely lose his virginity before I do.
I should warn you. Some of the material you’re about to read is disturbing. Some of it will make you shake your head in disbelief. Some of it will make you cringe in disgust. Some of it might even make you rush out into the stormy night, rip your shirt from your body, and howl, “WHY, GOD, WHY?”
Then again, maybe you’ll just sit back and smile, secure in the knowledge that your name is not Shakespeare Shapiro, and this is not your life.
SENIOR YEAR
SEPTEMBER
My high school is named after Ernest Hemingway, a writer who consumed tremendous amounts of alcohol, wrote simple declarative sentences, and eventually killed himself with a double-barreled shotgun. Hemingway High School claims to offer the finest writing program in New York. Every twelfth grader must take a year-long seminar, and it is in this class that we are expected to complete our senior project, a major piece of writing about our lives. These memoirs, often in excess of one hundred pages, have made the school famous. Not only has the award for best senior memoir eclipsed the valedictory award for graduation’s most prestigious honor, but also a major publisher has offered contracts to several past winners.
To guide us through this massive undertaking, we get either Ms. Glass, who is boring, Ms. McCurry, who is mean and boring, or Mr. Parke, who is completely off his rocker. In my years at Hemingway High School, I have often seen Mr. Parke wandering the halls, smiling and nodding at the throngs of students, or else deep in conversation with himself, completely oblivious to the commotion around him. Nobody knows exactly how old he is, but I’d guess he must be at least seventy. He has thick glasses and hair sticking out of his nose and wears old blazers that have been patched at the elbows. School lore has it that in his younger days he used to drink a lot and make passes at his female students. Even now there is something faintly lecherous about him.
I am in Mr. Parke’s morning class, along with the typical assortment of dumb jocks, pseudo-intellectuals, burnouts, computer geeks, freaks of nature, girls who don’t know I exist, and girls who know I exist but would never go out with me. A random sampling of my classmates might include Sylvester Valentine, who caused a stir by cross-dressing for an entire week last year; Rocco Mackey, who laughs every time Mr. Parke mentions periods or colons; and Dixie Crawford, who helps boys like Rocco Mackey reproduce.
The one
bright spot is Celeste Keller, who has been a star in my fantasy life since ninth grade. Celeste is moderately beautiful in that glasses-wearing, disarming-smile kind of way. She’s smart and outgoing and passionate about political causes, and she reads long books by writers with Russian names, though I try not to hold that against her. I would have asked her out by now, but when you struggle with issues of self-confidence, have a mortal fear of public humiliation, and know that your hair looks puffy, these things need to be handled delicately. So I pretend not to be interested and hope for the best.
The first day of class, Mr. Parke announces he will be sharing excerpts from the memoir prologues we submitted over the summer. This is not good. In fact, it is potentially catastrophic. I suffer through one selection after another, feeling the pains in my stomach intensify and wondering if it is possible to get an ulcer in twelfth grade. I’m such a nervous wreck I barely react when Mr. Parke pauses at one point, looks up at no one in particular, and states, “I’d give my left testicle to write a sentence like that,” before plunging back into the text.
Mine is last. He reads the section about my first day of middle school, then looks up with a wry smile. “Isn’t it terrible,” he says, “the way some teachers embarrass their students?”
At the end of class, he gives us our next assignment. We are to go home and write our obituaries.
Everybody starts asking questions all at once, but my head is already spinning with possibilities. I have spent a lot of time over the years thinking about how I might die. Usually I imagine my airplane going down or a piece of concrete from a construction job falling on my head. Sometimes I think about being buried alive, starving to death in jail, facing a firing squad, or being pushed in front of a train. But the idea of being flattened by a six-hundred-pound sumo wrestler is probably my most original concoction.
Shakespeare Shapiro, 27, Sumo Wrestler and Haiku Poet
TOKYO, September 9 (AP) Shakespeare Shapiro, an American-born sumo wrestler, died here today after being flattened by a 600-pound opponent during an exhibition match. Mr. Shapiro, who developed an intense interest in sumo wrestling while studying haiku poetry in Japan, gained international notoriety for his controversial use of the “nutcracker technique,” something he claimed was necessary to stay competitive with men more than three times his weight.
The son of an alcoholic father and a neurotic mother, Mr. Shapiro endured a torturous childhood, made worse by his social ineptitude and uncanny ability to transform any situation into a full-blown catastrophe. After barely surviving high school, Mr. Shapiro worked for several months as a crash-test dummy and sperm donor before enrolling in a local community college. It was in college that Mr. Shapiro first felt a woman’s breast, an event that led to six months in jail and a restraining order preventing him from coming within 50 feet of a breast-feeding mother. “It was a dark time in my life,” Mr. Shapiro later wrote. “I experimented with alcohol, drugs, and cross-dressing, but nothing seemed to work. Then I discovered haiku.”
In haiku, Mr. Shapiro found a poetic form that could perfectly capture what he had come to see as the essential bleakness and despair of the human condition. In one poem, he wrote: Everything is pain / Life a cloak of suffering / I was circumcised. His passion for haiku led to his second arrest, when he attacked a drunken man in a bar who was reciting limericks.
His fanatical desire to write the perfect haiku led him to Japan to study with the ancient haiku masters, but he became disheartened after learning that haiku does not necessarily need to have 17 syllables. “It was a dark time in my life,” Mr. Shapiro later wrote. “I experimented with prostitution, competitive karaoke, and self-mutilation. Then I discovered sumo wrestling.”
Shakespeare Shapiro competed in more than 200 sumo wrestling matches over five years, never winning and sustaining multiple injuries that left him hospitalized on numerous occasions. “He was just a horrible wrestler,” said his brother, Gandhi. “But then again, he was horrible at everything. Frankly, I’m surprised he lasted as long as he did.”
Mr. Shapiro is survived by his parents, his brother, and his pet goldfish, Sushi.
“Delightful, just delightful,” Mr. Parke says as he rambles into class with our assignments a few days later. “Some of you have lived truly magnificent lives.” He rifles through the papers. “Ah, here we are.” He begins to read Celeste’s obituary, and she puts her hands over her glasses and face—just for a moment—then looks up with that disarming smile. Celeste’s life, of course, is extraordinary: several prestigious journalism awards, the founding of a widely acclaimed women’s literary magazine, a Pulitzer Prize, and the realization at the age of sixty-five that her fame and accomplishments have left her unfulfilled. She dies, having spent the final twelve years of her life running a school for orphans in India.
“Bravo, Ms. Keller,” Mr. Parke says. “We should all be so noble.” He winks at Dixie Crawford, who is staring at Rocco Mackey and fingering her low neckline.
“Galaxy Veeder,” he says, pulling a second paper from the stack, “88, Astronomer.” Galaxy’s obituary is a clever play on her unusual name—her childhood dreams of wanting to be a star, her marriage to a former Mr. Universe, her addiction to moonshine. When Mr. Parke finishes reading, I expect him to make some crude reference to Uranus, but thankfully he just smiles and brandishes a third paper in the air.
“Mr. Mackey,” he says. “Quite an interesting approach to the assignment. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen an obituary with such a graphic picture attached.” He holds up Rocco’s paper, which shows a man being shot by several heavily armed thugs, and has the caption KINGPIN ROCCO MACKEY GUNNED DOWN IN MAFIA HIT. The class laughs, and Rocco flexes his arms and kisses his biceps.
When the class has quieted, Mr. Parke pulls a fourth paper from the pile. “We have among us,” he says, “someone whose remaining time is rather short.” And with no further introduction, he reads my obituary, word for word, beginning to end, to the entire class. People turn to look at me as he reads, and there are nods and chuckles, and I wonder what Celeste is thinking.
I’m convinced that if I ever do get a girl to go out with me, it will be because of my writing. I had a piece published in the school literary magazine last year, a retelling of the biblical flood story that explored, among other things, masturbation, incest, bestiality, and the proper use of pronouns. Celeste told me she thought it was very funny and touched my arm while we were talking. Is it possible that my obituary will produce an even more stimulating result?
“This,” Mr. Parke says when he has finished, “is the work of a writer who is not afraid to take risks with his material. Bravo, Mr. Shapiro.”
After class, a few people say they liked my obituary. Sylvester Valentine thanks me for the cross-dressing reference. Rocco Mackey high-fives me and says, with what seems like genuine admiration, that I have a sick mind. And Mr. Parke pulls me aside and says he hopes to see more of the same as the semester progresses.
Celeste is waiting for me by the door. She is wearing jeans and a black sweater, and her brown curls fall loosely to her shoulders. She smells like tangerines.
“I liked your obituary,” she says with a smile that makes me tingle.
“Thanks. I liked yours, too.” I can feel my hair puffing up and wonder whether I can pat it down without her noticing.
We walk out of the room in silence, and a million thoughts race through my mind. Say something witty. Ask her something about herself. Compliment her on her writing. Offer up an amusing anecdote. Don’t stare at her chest.
“What class do you have now?” I ask.
“French. Or should I say ‘Français’?” As the word rolls off her lips, she tilts her head and holds her hand to her breast. “That’s how Madame Broussard talks,” she says with a little laugh.
“I hear she’s crazy.”
Celeste nods. “She’s certainly passionate. I call her Madame Ovary.”
We come to the end of the hallway. “My class is upstairs,”
she says, taking off her glasses and polishing them on her sweater.
I suddenly become convinced my fly is unzipped, and I move my arm in front of my crotch as inconspicuously as possible.
She flashes that smile. “See you later, I guess.”
I watch her begin up the stairs. “Adiós,” I call after her. “I mean, au revoir.” Idiot.
Ten minutes later Ms. Rigby, my math teacher, calls on me when I’m not paying attention. Ms. Rigby is the kind of teacher who prowls for students not paying attention and pounces on them with undisguised delight. I’ve been staring at Jody Simons, who is wearing a miniskirt and sitting diagonally in front of me, and when Ms. Rigby calls my name, my head shoots up and my cheeks begin to burn.
“Shakespeare,” she says. “If you would devote as much focus to calculus as you do to Jody’s legs, you might learn some math this year.”
Everybody laughs, and Jody shoots me a sympathetic look, the kind you might offer to the parent of a brain-dead child.
In the hallway after class, I see my younger brother walking hand in hand with his girlfriend. Don’t look, I tell myself, you don’t need to see this. But it’s never easy to turn away from scenes of carnage and mutilation. I hurry to the cafeteria, get some food, and find Neil and Katie at our usual corner table.
“What’s up, loser?” Katie says as I sit down. She’s wearing her army jacket even though it’s probably eighty degrees in the cafeteria.
Neil surveys my tray. “I was just telling Katie about the gigantic crap I took last time I ate these school enchiladas. Remember that?”
Katie groans. “Are we going to spend this whole lunch talking about your bowel movements?”
Neil takes a bite of his enchilada. “Why, do you have something more interesting to discuss?”
“Anything’s more interesting,” she says. “Come on, Shakespeare, tell us what horrible things happened to you this morning.”
Sometimes I think Katie only hangs out with us because she likes being around people who are even more miserable than she is. Also, we’re probably the only people who would put up with her constant stream of cynicism and abuse.