The Spectacular Now

by Tim Tharp

  And I’m, like, shaking my head over the notion that her mother’s had her slaving away in the paper route mines since she was prepubescent.

  “Back then,” she goes on, “my big sister was still helping with the route, so Mom would drop me off with a bag and I’d deliver my houses walking while she and Ambith delivered another section. It wasn’t till I was fourteen that she let me drive sometimes. So I was walking along kind of daydreaming—or actually, I guess you’d call it early-in-the-morning dreaming—and all of a sudden this man walks out from behind a hedge, totally naked!”

  “Jesus. What’d you do?”

  “I dropped my bag and took off running. I must’ve run four blocks before I saw our truck, and I stood in the middle of the street waving for Mom to come down and get me.”

  “Did she call the cops on the dude?”

  “Uh, actually, no.” She looks down at her limp pizza. “She made me go back and get the bag and throw the rest of my houses.”

  I can’t believe it. What a mom! “I’ll bet you were pretty scared walking around there with some naked maniac in the bushes.”

  “I was,” she says. “I kept thinking I heard something sneaking up from behind me. Later, I saw him walking around from the back of another house, but this time he got in his car and drove off. It was a Lexus. I always thought that was odd.”

  “Next time that happens, don’t let your mom make you go back.”

  “Next time? Do you think it’ll actually happen again?”

  “Well, no, maybe not that exact thing.”

  I’m getting ready to explain some of my theories on the prevalence of the weird in daily life, but I’m interrupted when some girl I don’t remember ever seeing before barges up and says to Aimee, “So, he finally got here, did he?”

  Aimee’s head sinks toward her shoulders. “Hi, Krystal.”

  I stand up the way a gentleman should and put out my hand. “My name’s Sutter Keely. Glad to meet you.”

  She doesn’t take my hand. “I know who you are.”

  Aimee goes, “This is Krystal Krittenbrink.”

  And Krystal’s like, “We’ve been friends since second grade.” Somehow she makes it sound snotty, like I’m an insignificant insect in the scheme of their glorious friendship. I know her type—all her life her parents spoiled her and told her she was “the most specialest little honey-bunny snookems in the world” and she never figured out that the rest of the universe doesn’t necessarily share that opinion.

  The fact is she’s very much a non-beautiful fat girl. Whereas Cassidy’s voluptuous with grand monumental curves, Krystal Krittenbrink is what you’d call amorphous—a blob. She has a very little face in the middle of a big pink head. Her mouth alone is about the size of a dime. But the real clincher is she has her dull brown hair done up in this weird ponytail that starts at about the crown of her head. You have to know she looks in the mirror every morning and thinks that is the height of style.

  She’s Aimee’s friend, though, so I invite her to have a seat, but she just turns to Aimee and says, “Hurry up. The meeting starts in like five minutes.”

  “Oh, what kind of meeting is it?” I ask, trying to show some polite interest.

  But Krystal’s like, “French club. You wouldn’t know anything about it.”

  So Aimee goes, “Why don’t you go ahead, Krystal? I can be a little late.”

  “Don’t be stupid,” says Krystal. “The whole meeting won’t last but like five or ten minutes.”

  Aimee looks a little stung, but you can tell she’s used to Krystal calling her stupid. “I guess that’s right,” she says and turns to me. “Actually, I guess I’m going to have to go. I forgot about the meeting. I’m sorry.”

  “But you haven’t finished your pizza.”

  “She can take it with her,” says Krystal.

  “Yeah, I guess I can just take it with me.”

  “Don’t forget about tutoring me for Algebra.”

  A smile pops back onto Aimee’s face, but Krystal goes, “That’ll be a waste of time.”

  I just ignore her and keep my gaze fixed on Aimee. “Why don’t you give me your number?”

  “My number?”

  “Yeah, your phone number.”

  “Like my home phone number?”

  “Yeah. Or your cell phone number.” She seems to be having a hard time comprehending the concept. Maybe no guy ever asked for her phone number before.

  “It’ll have to be my home number. I don’t have a cell phone.” She starts digging through her backpack for a piece of paper and a pen, and Krystal’s right at her shoulder going, “Come on, let’s go.”

  Aimee gets the number dashed off and hands it to me. There’s a smiley face at the end.

  “I’ll call you and we’ll set up a time,” I say. “When are you home?”

  “Who knows?” says Krystal as she practically drags Aimee away. “You think all she has to do is wait around the house for you to call?”

  Chapter 23

  Surprisingly, my mother really does phone me at home around two o’clock to see if I’m living up to the rules of my magnificent groundation. She’s all stern and everything, giving me the Mister this and the Mister that. I don’t know why calling someone Mister is supposed to underline the seriousness of a situation, but it seems to be a pretty common tactic among adults.

  I’ve got to hand it to my mom this time. She really has stuck to her guns. Again, she comes with the line about the military academy. To be honest, though, it was kind of shitty of me to set Kevin’s suit on fire. But it’s not like I did it on purpose or anything.

  Ricky’s cocked back in the recliner about five feet away during the whole conversation. When I hang up, he’s like, “Dude, do your folks really think you’re buying this military academy yarn? I mean, you’re graduating in like three months. Even if they did stick you in there, what good would it do for three months?”

  “Yeah, I know. It doesn’t make sense. I think it’s just their way of letting me know how much they think I suck.” I head for the bar. I don’t have to work today, so it seems like a good time to mix up a pitcher of stout martinis.

  “I’ll tell you what,” Ricky says. “They wouldn’t think it was too fucking fortuitous if you got spit out into the real military and they sent you over to Iraq to get blown up like Jeremy Holtz’s brother.”

  “I don’t know. They like to pretend they’re all patriotic. It’d be the best thing that ever happened to them if I got blown up over there. They’d be bragging about it for years. Might even get their pictures in the paper pretending to cry over my flag-draped coffin.”

  And Ricky’s like, “Oh right. As if that’s real patriotic. People like that go around acting like if you want peace, then you’re some kind of anti-American, anti-military traitor scum. Seems more pro-military to me if you want to stop getting Americans killed. I’ve grown up around military people all my life—my dad, my uncles. I don’t want them even leaving town if there’s not a damn good reason for it. This fucking war pisses me off. You know what it is?”

  “A quagmire?”

  “Oh, it’s quaggish to the extreme, dude. It’s a sewer swamp. With turds the size of ottomans. I mean, is that what the politicians think of us, that the youth of today are nothing but roadside-bomb magnets for their trumped-up invasion? My dad was in the navy, and I wouldn’t mind joining it myself, but I’m not about to now. The whole thing’s run by vampires, dude. Virulent atomic vampires. And their leader is, like, this ancient, bulbous-headed bloodsucker named Generalissimo Hal E. Burton. Jesus. You think I’m fighting in an atomic vampire war? Give me a break. Sign me up for the protest movement instead. But where is it? There isn’t one. It’s like everyone’s lazy. Or brainwashed.”

  “Look out,” I say. “You better stop that kind of talk, you damn hippie. Generalissimo Hal might have this room bugged right now. Next thing you know we’ll be over in some Cuban prison chained to the floor without a lawyer in sight.”

 
; “Dude, that’d be funny if it wasn’t so real.”

  When I get my pitcher of martinis just right, I offer Ricky one, but he declines it. “I’m watching my waistline,” he says sarcastically.

  I wave the glass in front of his face. “Come on. You know you want it.”

  “No, really, dude. I’m cutting back.”

  “That’s okay. More for me.” I sit down and flick on the TV.

  “It’s my new resolution,” says Ricky. “No more partying during the week.”

  “What about the herb?”

  “I’m cutting back on that too.”

  I study him for a moment. “Listen to you,” I say. “The king of weed. One date, a weekend full of phone calls, a Monday lunch, and already Bethany has you remodeled.”

  “That has nothing to do with it, dude. I’m just worn out with it. It’s old. I need a change.”

  I hold up my glass to the light. “The perfect martini never gets old.”

  “I’m serious,” Ricky says. “It’s not working for me anymore, not doing it all the time. Back when it was new, that’s when it was fabulous. Everything’s fabulous when it’s new. Like when you’re a little kid. Everything is a sparkling wonder.”

  “Oh yeah.” I take a long pull on the martini. “Childhood was a fantastic country to live in.”

  “No doubt,” says Ricky. “I remember going to a bank with my dad when I was like four or something. And, you know, nowadays a bank lobby is the most boring place in the world next to the post office, but back then it was magic. They had this little pool of water in there with a fountain in the middle of it. I couldn’t believe my eyes. A pool of water—indoors! I’m calling my dad over, telling him to look at this, and he’s like, ‘Yeah, it’s a fountain.’ Like it’s nothing special at all.

  “But then I see that it’s not just a pool of water—it has coins in it. So I’m like, ‘Dad, look, there’s money in there!’ And he goes, ‘Yeah, people throw coins in fountains and make wishes.’ Wishes! Dude! This is getting better all the time. It’s a magic fountain. I’m in total awe. But there my dad is, writing out a deposit slip with no idea of how completely amazing the world is.”

  “Yeah,” I say, “I had a moment like that with my mother and a dead cow along the side of the road.”

  “So then what happens?” Ricky asks. “You get to be about eleven or twelve and everything’s old hat. They’ve drummed the miraculous out of you, but you don’t want it to be like that. You want the miraculous. You want everything to still be new. So when you take that drink or you smoke that blaze, it’s like you’re getting that back.”

  “Gotta love the miraculous,” I say. “Does all this mean you want a drink after all?”

  “No, dude. I’m saying that stuff gets old too. It has its own built-in obsolescence like everything else. That’s how our system works. It’s a giant con game. One thing gets old, then you have to buy the next thing that gets old, then the next thing. Our whole society’s a training ground for addicts.”

  “You think so, Professor?” I love to get him rolling with his theories.

  “Of course, dude. I’ll bet a million bucks someone’s already invented a perpetual motion machine, but the atomic vampires squelched it. Same thing with fabrics that never wear out.”

  I’m like, “Yeah, I bet they have golf tees that never break and corndog trees too.”

  “You may be joking,” Ricky says, “but you’re probably right.”

  “I’ll miss it when you stop smoking weed and don’t have any more theories like this.”

  He scoffs at that. “I don’t need the weed to fuel my theories, dude. It’s all right in front of your face. I mean, look at MTV.” He points to the TV. The screen’s filled with hard-bodied college girls and guys in swimsuits flailing around to some schlock song.

  “They’ve even turned our own bodies into products, dude. Abs and mamms and glutes and pecs. You have to buy the next workout equipment or diet book or whatever. Or you have to go into the plastic doc and have him tuck your tummy or suck the fat out of your ass.”

  I’m like, “Yeah, it’s weird, dude. Embrace it.”

  But he’s all, “I’m not embracing this bullshit. Don’t you see what I’m talking about? They’re turning us into products, dude. The same atomic vampires are behind it. They send out their minions to hypnotize you with the latest pop-singer-slash-stripper, or the newest video game or cell phone or the latest blam-blam-kablooie! movie at the cineplex. And then, once they have you hypnotized, they lure you into their huge mega-electric castle.”

  “A mega-electric castle? Cool.”

  “No, it’s not cool. Because once they get you in there they run you through this CAT-scan-looking machine called the de-soul-inator, and when you come out on the other side, you’re nothing but a product.”

  “And what’s this product called?”

  “Emptiness, dude, that’s what it’s called. And for the rest of your life, they sell you over and over, right to the end when they package you one last time and plant you in the ground.”

  “Wow,” I say. “Are you sure you haven’t partaken of the weed today?”

  “Not a puff.” He gives his head a weary shake. “I’m telling you, dude. I need a change. I’m fed up with the atomic vampires. I don’t want to be their product. I don’t want to be the sacrament for their Holy Trinity. You know what their Holy Trinity is?”

  “Beer, wine, and whisky?”

  He waves that off. “No, dude, the great Holy Trinity of the atomic vampires consists of the sex god, the money god, and the power god. The sex god pays tribute to the money god, and the money god pays tribute to the power god. The power god is what ruins it. The others would be okay on their own, but he’s an asshole. He’s the one that sends out his minions to hypnotize us with the Next New Thing. But it’s not the miraculous. It’s just a substitute for the miraculous. It sucks. Now, I’m not saying I don’t want to have fun anymore. I just want to find something that sticks for a change.”

  I pause to make sure he’s finished and then hold up my drink. “Amen, Brother Ricky! That was one helluva sermon.”

  “Is it true or not?”

  “Absolutely. We all want something that sticks.” I don’t mention that wanting it is a whole different thing from actually believing you can get it.

  “Well.” He raises an imaginary glass in the air. “Give me another amen, Brother Sutter!”

  “Amen, Brother Ricky, amen!”

  “Hallelujah, brother, Hallelujah!”

  We’re both laughing pretty hard now. I take a nice slug off my martini and say, “I’ll tell you what, after today, I’ll join in with you—no more drinking till the weekend. Then we’ll throw an extra big drunk.”

  “I thought you were grounded.”

  “That never stopped me before. I’ve got a window in my bedroom, you know.”

  He doesn’t come back with anything right away, but finally he lets it out that he’s going to some concert with Bethany on Friday and having dinner with her and her parents on Saturday.

  I’m like, “Dinner with her parents? Jesus, dude. You are getting the makeover treatment.”

  He shrugs. “I just want to be with her, like you wanted to be with Cassidy.”

  “Yeah, but I didn’t want to be with her the whole weekend every week.”

  “Why don’t you ask out your paper route girl for Friday or Saturday? Aren’t you supposed to call her up sometime this afternoon anyway?”

  “Hey, I told you—I’m not going to ask her out for a date. Let me repeat, she is not a girl I’m interested in having sex with. Not now or any time in the future. I will not have sex with her in a car. I will not have sex with her in a bar. I will not have sex with her in a tree. I will not have sex with her in a lavator-ee. I will not have sex with her in a chair. I will not have sex with her anywhere.”

  “Oh right, I forgot. You’re out to save her soul. Give me a hallelujah for Brother Sutter and his messianic complex.”

&
nbsp; “My what?”

  “Messianic complex. That means you think you have to go around trying to save everybody.”

  “Not everybody. Just this one girl.”

  “Hallelujah, brother!”

  Chapter 24

  Sometimes I have trouble sleeping. It’s weird—I can feel exhausted but still, I just lie there wide awake, staring up into the dark with all sorts of ideas bombarding me like dead pelicans. Tonight, for example, I get to thinking about Geech’s stale military school proposition, wondering if maybe it’s not such a terrible idea after all.

  Maybe I should’ve joined up when I was about fourteen or fifteen, worked hard for a year—marching ten miles a day, hustling through obstacle courses, scuttling under barbed wire with a wooden rifle cradled in my arms. Then come back home muscled up and spit-shined and tight as a snare drum on the inside. How else are you supposed to know when you’re not a kid anymore in this society?

  I remember reading about these primitive initiation rituals in school. They had one where they take the kid way out into the wilderness and drop him off and he has to get back by himself without any weapons or tools. He’s just out there with his bare hands, digging up roots to eat, making fires with rocks and sticks or whatever. I mean, he could starve or a mountain lion could eat him or something, but that’s all part of the test. When he gets back, he’s a man. And not only that, he finds his Spirit Guide. Talk about embracing the weird.

  But nowadays they don’t do anything but leave you at home by yourself with a kitchen full of potato chips and soft drinks. Then, in your bedroom, you’ve got your TV, video games, and the Internet. What do they expect you to get from that? A big fat case of I don’t give a shit?

  These days, a kid has to go looking for his own initiation or make his own personal war to fight since the wars the atomic vampires throw are so hard to believe in. It’s like Ricky says—every time they trump one up, it gets worse.

  If I was in charge, it’d be different. You wouldn’t have to go to military school or get dropped off in the wilderness or fight in a war. Instead, you’d head off for what I’d call the Teen Corps. It’d be like the Peace Corps, only for teenagers. You’d have to go around and, like, pile up sandbags for people when hurricanes blow in and replant trees in deforested areas and help get medical attention to hillbillies and so forth. You’d do it for a whole year, and then, when you got back, you’d get the right to vote and buy alcohol and everything else. You’d be grown.