Grape!

by Gabriel Arquilevich

  “Is okay, Grape.”

  “Did you get my birthday cake?”

  “Sí.”

  “An Elton John cake?”

  “Is a surprise.”

  Cool. An Elton John cake.

  “Oh, but that girl you invited—”

  “You mean Clair?”

  “Yes, Clair.”

  “What about her?”

  “She can’t come.”

  “What do you mean? Why?”

  “¡No sé! I don’t know! Her mom left a message.”

  “What do you mean you don’t know? Why? What did she say?”

  “I don’t remember, Grape. I just get home, and there was message from the principal and one from the girl’s mom.”

  She grabbed some Mentos out of her purse.

  I leaned my head against the car window and closed my eyes and didn’t say anything.

  “Grape, is okay. Is okay. You want to play that song, that Clair song?”

  I went to my room and got under my blankets and wondered what was wrong with me.

  No. I didn’t even wonder that.

  Mrs. C, I was what was wrong with me. I felt like the stupidest kid in the world.

  My mom sat on my bed and rubbed my back, then she put my dad on the phone. He mumbled something about the winds of life blowing different ways.

  Lou called a bunch of times.

  By dinner, my mom was getting upset. The thing is, she didn’t like it when I didn’t talk, and really didn’t like it when I didn’t eat.

  “Grape,” she said, “get out of bed and come eat. Is school tomorrow, and you need food.”

  “I’m not going to stupid school tomorrow,” I said.

  “The principal said you have to go.”

  “No way,” I said.

  “Grape, I will wake you up and you will go to school.”

  “No way.”

  “Okay, is fine. Then no birthday party,” she said. “I call everyone and say you’re sick.” Her voice was shaking.

  I peeked out from under my blanket. She had her apron on and her hair was super messy.

  “But that’s not fair!” I said.

  “Sometimes life not fair.”

  “You sound like Dad.”

  “Grape, is your choice.”

  “Okay, I’ll go to stupid school so I can have my stupid birthday!”

  That night I huddled deeper under the blankets and heard my parents talking in Spanish, then I heard footsteps, then my door opening, then my dad’s hand patting my leg.

  “Son, it is me.”

  I wanted to tell him I knew it was him. He was my only dad, and the only guy who brought that blueprint ammonia smell into the house, and the only guy with an accent from Argentina who lived with me.

  The corner of the bed sank.

  “Sometimes,” he said, “life is not fair.”

  Oh, no.

  He talked about the time our puppy ripped up a whole roll of his blueprints, and it was a month’s worth of work, and he did it all over in a week, and the time I hit my head as a baby and he fainted, and when there was the oil crisis and how he had to get his car in line at the gas station in the middle of the night and sometimes he had to sleep in the car, and how sometimes it rains and sometimes it shines and sometimes the wind is at your back and sometimes in your face and sometimes the water is calm and then it’s rough.

  And, Mrs. C, he just sat there patting my leg and saying all these things about life, about good days and bad days, and the thing is, I wasn’t really listening to what he was saying anymore.

  I just liked being with him.

  I mean, I was in trouble again, and I was kicked off the whale watching trip, and my dad wasn’t mad at all.

  “Grape,” he said, “do you remember the basketball coach?”

  Of course I remembered him.

  “That coach was wrong,” my dad said.

  “I thought you were mad about that.”

  “Let me put it this way, you should have talked to us, and not say ‘you jerk’ to the coach—”

  I peeked out from the covers.

  “No, Dad, I called him a jerk-off.”

  “Okay, a jerk-off—”

  “And then I called him a jerk-off jerk!”

  “Okay, but what you did take guts.”

  “It did?”

  “The coach was wrong.”

  “And what he did to Sherman was wrong,” I said.

  “And this teacher is wrong, too.”

  I started crying.

  “And people will do wrong things to you again, and one day you will do wrong things, and I hope you will say sorry.”

  That would mean a million sorrys.

  “But not this time.”

  Now I was crying harder.

  “Dad,” I said, “am I an idiot?”

  He stopped patting my leg.

  “No! You are a good boy. You like a girl and you sing to her and you forget about classes. Grape, you are a poet.”

  Mrs. C, my dad hugged me, and even though my face pressed against his architect pencils and he smelled like ammonia, I didn’t care.

  In the morning my mom woke me up and I got dressed for school.

  I brought a book like Principal Kelly said.

  When I got to the kitchen my dad was sitting in his chair drinking coffee, but the thing is, he should have been at work, but he wasn’t, and he wasn’t in his work clothes, either.

  He was in his floppy hat and he had super white sunscreen on his nose.

  I guess he needed a day off.

  “Grape,” he said, “is a good day to be alive!”

  I poured my bowl of cereal and thought about Lou and Clair and how they were probably at the marina already, and so I looked at the clock, but something was weird about the clock.

  It was five thirty in the morning.

  “Hey, Dad—”

  My mom walked in, and the thing is, she was wearing a floppy hat, too!

  “Come here,” she said, “lots and lots of sunscreen.”

  “We will leave from Marina del Sol,” my dad said. “The harbor where the schools meet is crazy. It takes an hour just to get out. Let me put it this way, is like they’re going to see other boats instead of whales.”

  Mrs. C, that day we saw three whales, and I got to meet the captain, and I only threw up once, and for my birthday I got Elton John’s new album and an Elton John black light poster and Lou got me the new KISS album even though he knows I don’t like KISS, and Clair’s mom dropped off a card with Clair’s name on it.

  And then guess what, Mrs. C?

  On Monday, we got Tammy back!

  THE TROUBLE WITH STREAKING

  June 10, 1976

  Mrs. C, have you ever been to Yosemite? When I was seven my mom and dad took me there.

  “Is beautiful, Gaby,” my mom said. “Betsy showed me pictures.”

  “We climb to the top of a waterfall,” my dad said.

  It sounded exciting, but I didn’t understand how you could climb a waterfall.

  “They have stairs next to it,” my dad said, “and is a long hike, but we will go slow and steady.”

  Mrs. C, my mom and dad were right. Yosemite is super beautiful!

  We stayed in a log cabin near a meadow under these tall cliffs, and we saw lots of deer, and a bear, and turkey vultures, and a bald eagle, and climbing to the top of the waterfall was super fun because we got sprayed but it was also scary because it was steep and we held onto this metal handrail because the stairs were wet and slippery, and my dad kept saying to go slow and steady and to remember it’s the journey that matters, and my mom kept saying, “¡Cuidado, Gaby!” and when we finally got to the top, it was super pretty, with all these pine trees and a little lake.r />
  And on the other side of the little lake there were naked people.

  Mrs. C, they all had long hair. One of them was swimming, and the rest were kind of just hanging around on a blanket under the pine trees.

  And the thing is, I didn’t care that they were naked.

  But my mom did.

  “¡Gaby, no los mires!” she said.

  “Why not?”

  “Is not okay!” she said.

  “Why not?”

  “¡Javier, dile algo!”

  “Gaby,” my dad said, “is not allowed to be naked outside. Is against the law.”

  “Why?”

  “Is a good question. Let me put it this way—”

  “¡No los mires!” my mom said. “And is time for more sunscreen!”

  Mrs. C, I still remember those people. I remember their boobs and seahorses and long hair and how calm they were, like they were part of the forest, but I never told anyone because I guess my mom and dad are right.

  Being naked outside is a big deal.

  A super big deal.

  Big enough for the Academy Awards.

  Remember how I said my mom loves the Academy Awards? How Betsy and Lou come over and we get to stay up late even though it’s always on a Sunday, and we get pizza and ice cream, and our moms dress up and wear fancy earrings and high heels and have a list of who they think will win, and how this one time Lou and I surprised them and got all dressed up, too? Well, it was time for Best Picture, and Lou was already asleep with his head on his mom’s lap, and the host was introducing this super famous actress named Elizabeth Taylor, and then all of a sudden this guy ran across the stage naked! I mean, you couldn’t see his seahorse, but his chest was super hairy and he was smiling and making a peace sign!

  And the thing is, the audience went crazy!

  “¡Dios mío!” my mom said. “¡Grape, no lo mires!”

  “Oh my God!” Betsy said.

  The host guy joked about the naked guy and Elizabeth Taylor came out and joked about the naked guy, and even though Elizabeth Taylor was super famous and it was Best Picture, you could tell everyone was thinking about the naked guy.

  At the bus stop the next morning, I explained it to Lou.

  “It’s called streaking,” I said.

  “I know what streaking is, Grape.”

  “You do?”

  “Yeah, it’s on the news all the time.”

  “It is?”

  “Yeah,” Lou said. “I watch the news with my dad.”

  “But the news is boring.”

  “Well, not anymore. My dad says streaking is an epidemic.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Like a disease.”

  “Oh.”

  “Did you know the Academy Awards guy got arrested? That’s what my dad said.”

  “You mean for streaking?”

  “It’s against the law.”

  “But everyone was laughing,” I said. “Even Elizabeth Taylor!”

  That night I sat next to my dad to watch the news. I think he was a little surprised.

  There was all this stuff about President Nixon and a tape, and it was super boring, but just as I was about to fall asleep, the main guy said, “And on a lighter note, streakers have hit again! We go now to our reporter at the Denison Mall parking lot.”

  This reporter guy was interviewing this lady.

  “What did you see?” the reporter guy said.

  “Well,” the lady said, “I was coming back to my car with my shopping and all of a sudden there’s a bunch of people, maybe ten people—”

  “Men and women?”

  “Oh, yes! And believe you me they were in their birthday suits! Except for their sneakers, of course.”

  “That must have been quite a shock! What was going through your head?”

  “Ah, I thought it was terrific,” the lady said, and then she laughed a little. “Looked like they were having a blast! Wait…Hey! Look…there they go again!”

  “My God, she’s right!” the reporter guy said.

  “Can you tell us more?” the main guy said.

  “Oh, my God,” the reporter guy said, “it’s just so…oh my God, there they go!”

  Mrs. C, the thing is, the reporter guy looked so happy, like he wanted to take his clothes off, too, and I thought maybe Lou’s dad was right, maybe it is a disease, like once you see streakers, you have to streak, and the thing is, the main guy kept asking the reporter guy to describe the streakers but all he could say was, “Oh, my God!”

  “Well,” the main guy said, “I guess they got their fifteen minutes.”

  I asked my dad what he meant, but he didn’t know.

  “Maybe they go to jail for fifteen minutes?” I said.

  “I don’t think so.”

  I asked my mom, but she didn’t know.

  I called Lou, but he didn’t know, either.

  The next day at the bus stop, Lou showed me a newspaper article, “Parking Lot Streakers on the Loose in the Southland,” and the thing is, Mrs. C, there was a picture of their butts! Now I wanted to watch the news and read the newspaper.

  But mostly I wanted to see streakers.

  So after school my mom dropped Lou and me off at the mall. We walked around the whole parking lot twice.

  “Grape,” Lou said, “nobody’s streaking.”

  “I know.”

  “You wanna go inside?”

  “Okay.”

  “I can show you the streaking T-shirt.”

  “There’s a streaking T-shirt?”

  “Yeah, and buttons and all sorts of stuff.”

  Lou was right! They had this “I’M A STREAK FREAK” button and a Richard Nixon streaking watch and a streaking key chain and a “KEEP ON STREAKIN” T-shirt with two naked guys smiling, and it must be winter because they’re wearing ski goggles and a scarf, and the guy in front blocks the other guy’s seahorse and they’re smiling like crazy.

  It was the coolest T-shirt ever!

  “Hey, Lou, how much money do you have?”

  “Five bucks.”

  “Me, too.”

  The shirt was eight bucks. I begged and begged, and he let me borrow the money.

  “But Grape, there’s no way your parents will let you wear it.”

  “I know.”

  I put the T-shirt in a shoe box, then hid the box under Sigmund, then I went back to the mall a few days later and got a pin and a keychain, and I put it all in the shoebox, then I asked my mom where my dad puts his old newspapers, and she said in the garage, and so I went into the garage and looked through old newspapers, and I found some articles about streakers.

  Mrs. C, remember how you said to be completely honest? But you also said what I write is between you and me? The thing is, I really don’t want to get anyone in trouble.

  But I also really don’t want to go to Riverwash.

  So I’ll tell you.

  There was this one article with a picture of a streaking parade! Everyone’s seahorses and boobs were covered with black lines, and some of them wore masks, like ski masks or President Nixon masks or big nose and mustache masks, and some people rode bikes, and some people even had their dogs, and the thing is, in the picture, one of the ladies with a fancy ball mask was wearing a Dodgers hat and she had a dog.

  And it was a bulldog.

  And it was missing its left ear!

  It was Dog! It had to be!

  And if it was Dog, it was Tammy!

  And if it was Tammy, it was Tammy’s boobs!

  Mrs. C, Tammy’s boobs were in the newspaper, and it was super cool and funny!

  Tammy is the coolest teacher ever!

  The day after I saw Tammy’s boobs in the newspaper I decided to wear my “I’M A STREAK FREAK” button un
der my flannel shirt.

  At the bus stop, I whispered to Lou.

  “Hey, Lou?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I got a job.”

  “Why are you whispering?”

  “Because it’s top secret.”

  “Grape, what are you talking about?”

  “I’m a detective.”

  “Huh?”

  “I’m a streaking detective.”

  “Stop being stupid.”

  “Want to see my badge?” I said.

  “Sure.”

  I opened my flannel and flashed the “I’M A STREAK FREAK” button.

  “Detective Grape reporting for duty!” I said.

  “Grape, if Tammy catches you with that you’ll get in trouble.”

  “I know,” I said. “That’s why it’s top secret. You’re the only one I’ll show.”

  At recess I showed Sherman.

  “Very funny, Grape. But if you get caught they’ll take it from you and you’ll get in trouble.”

  “I know. Just don’t tell anyone.”

  At lunch I showed Roman.

  He laughed and pretended to shield his eyes.

  “Something tells me you’re not allowed to have that, Grape,” he said.

  “I know, but just don’t tell anyone.”

  And then, after dodgeball, I was in line at the drinking fountain.

  “Hey, Grapeface, someone said you have a streaking button.”

  It was Bully Jim.

  How did he find out?

  “Um…yeah,” I said, “but it’s mine.”

  “Let me see it.”

  I opened my flannel shirt.

  “Ha-ha. That’s funny. Cool pin, Grape.”

  Mrs. C, I couldn’t believe it. Everybody loved streaking! I wore my pin every day, and every day new kids walked up to me and asked to see it, and everything was super great.

  And then Tammy asked me to stay during recess.

  Mrs. C, I was a little nervous. I mean, Tammy is the coolest teacher ever, and she never sent me to a yellow plastic chair, and she said I was a good writer even though my sentences were long, but the thing is, she never asked me to stay during recess, and ever since I saw her in the newspaper I couldn’t stop thinking about her boobs even though there was a black line across them.

  “Just a minute, Grape, I think Dog’s hungry.”