Текст книги "The Porcupine of Truth"
Автор книги: Bill Konigsberg
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Текущая страница: 17 (всего у книги 17 страниц)
WHEN I WAKE up in the morning, I find my nose being tickled by a bunch of rubbery strands. I sit up, and Aisha is standing there, a proud look on her face.
“Behold, the new, improved, softer Porcupine of Truth!”
I look down. Aisha has replaced the broom bristles with rubber bands that appear to have been cut in half.
I shake my head. “And you did this because —”
“Hey. Porcupine two point oh is a great improvement. Far fewer God-related injuries. Puncture wounds and the like.”
“I do prefer the softer version,” I admit, picking her up and turning her over and over in my hands. “I mean, who likes being attacked by a truth porcupine, after all?”
We take her upstairs to show Turk, who is breakfasting and thrilled with the change, since he had been one of the first to mention his discomfort with our bristly deity, on the plane.
“I like a God that is more approachable. Less prickly,” he says.
“True dat,” Aisha says.
He picks it up and admires her handiwork. “Finally, the rubber meets the God,” he says, and we look at him funny. “It was supposed to be a play on ‘the rubber meets the road.’ Sorry.”
“My grandpa would have had a better one,” I say, and Turk nods.
The Billings Zoo has some animals. Not like a ton, but some.
It also has some damn beautiful paths to walk down, and probably the biggest change, when I go back for the second time, exactly two weeks after the first, is that I notice this.
That, and I have my family around me.
Some of my family can’t be here. My dad, because it would just be too much for him. My mom, because she’d rather be with my dad. But Aisha and Turk are definitely my family now, and I certainly don’t feel close to alone anymore.
“You know how the sika deer got their name?” I say.
“I’m truly afraid to ask,” Turk replies.
Aisha hijacks it. “It was this one deer. A doe. Got totally tired of being around only other deer. Where were the walruses? The goats? She whined and whined until the other deer shunned her, and then she started her own breed: ‘sick-a deer.’ ”
Turk puts his arm around her. “Are you sure you don’t have a little Smith blood in you?”
“If only,” Aisha says, and she half rolls her eyes at me to show me she’s basically kidding, that my people aren’t so great either.
I elbow her in the ribs. “Hey. Anytime you want to decide that you’re straight and take my name, you know where to find me.”
Sometimes we make up stories about the animals as we walk, and sometimes we just look at them. I hate that they’re locked up; I really do. But I am also really glad I get to look at animals, because they make me think about what it means to be an animal. I am one. Sometimes I’m all up in my head, which is a very human place to be. Other times, I’m ruled by my body, and that’s okay too, I guess. I stare at the Siberian tiger and think about how powerful he is, and also how powerful I am. I never knew. I always thought I had zero power in this world. But look where I am, and who I’m with. I have to have at least a little power to change things if I got here with these awesome people.
It’s not like my life is perfect. I mean, my dad. That’s not perfect, obviously. Mom still talks like I’m her patient about 50 percent of the time. This morning she told me that it was important to feel my grief about my dad even now, that there’s grief even now. She’s right, but you know? I’d really rather have a hug. The difference is, this time I said that, and she looked a little annoyed, but she did give me a hug. Progress.
Our path diverges, with one sign pointing toward the bighorn sheep to the right and another toward the Canada lynx to the left. We follow Aisha to the left.
“It’s hard with my dad, because I’m just getting to know him, and what if he dies?” I say. “I don’t know if anyone can quite understand what that’s like.”
Turk stops walking. I turn around and realize that of course he knows what that feels like.
“I’m sorry,” I say.
“It’s okay,” he says. “Your grandfather was an idiot sometimes too.”
We walk in silence some more. I think about my grandfather. Who might have been an idiot, but Turk loved him anyway. So did my dad. So did my grandmother. That makes me feel happy and relieved, because apparently I have idiot tendencies too. It’s a Smith thing, I guess. And it’s okay. More and more these days, I’m realizing that I might be crazy, but I’m loved too. I don’t think I ever really knew that before, but I do now.
We stop for ice cream at this outdoor stand on Broadwater Avenue that Aisha recommends. I get a chocolate peanut butter cone that starts dripping immediately.
“So when should I break it to my mother that I’m flying back to San Francisco with you?” I say to Aisha between frantic Gomer-like licks. “That you and I will drive back?”
Aisha looks at Turk. Turk looks at Aisha. My stomach drops below my shoes.
“So here’s the deal,” Aisha says. “Can I tell him?”
Turk nods.
“So I’m actually going to stay in San Francisco,” she says.
“You are?”
She smiles, a beautiful, warm, happy smile. “I mean, I have no place to live here. And you’re going to go back to New York at some point.”
“But maybe you can come. With me. With us,” I say. “My mom said —”
She shakes her head. “This makes more sense. I can take care of Turk, and then maybe enroll in community college in the fall. Next year, if my grades are good, who knows?”
I feel like my body is going to cave into itself. I don’t want to feel these feelings.
“No, no,” Aisha says, seeing my expression. “It’s a good thing, Carson. We’re family now. Don’t you get it? I’m staying with your grandfather. We already told your folks. Your mom agrees. You can come visit any time you want. Turk will pay. And when you’re done with high school, if you wanna, you can move to San Francisco too. But for now, you have to be with your dad and your mom. Because you have a dad and a mom. Understand?”
I nod slowly. What two seconds ago felt like a kick in the gut is beginning to feel different. Like I can see how Aisha’s life will unfold, and it’s better, so much better than it was.
“Not to mention I could use the help,” Turk says. “My days of grocery shopping need to be over. If Aisha doesn’t show up, I’m about six months from a nursing home. Seriously.”
I simply can’t speak, because I’m so overcome with the emotion of all that’s happened in less than three weeks. Aisha’s life. Totally changed. My life. Totally changed. My parents. Turk. All the lives impacted, and maybe it’s not perfect. Maybe my dad will die soon. Maybe my mom is not the perfect mom. But despite all that, there’s change. Surprising, messy, wonderful change.
“I’ll call you every day,” Aisha says. “This isn’t good-bye, Carson. I mean, it will be, in a few days. But you will never be without me. I’m gonna be there on your phone and on your Skype ’til you’re sick of my ass.”
“Never,” I say. It’s ironic. I could not have been closer to people physically than I was in New York. Sometimes on the train, you’re pushed up against them. And yet I never really felt connected to people until I came West, where there are so many fewer people to connect with.
I guess in some ways, my grandfather and I took the same trip. Neither of us felt connected at the start, and by the end, we did. To me, that’s a huge thing. Because now that my heart is full, I just want my heart to stay full always. Even if it means losing my dad, I’d rather have him in my heart and then miss him than not ever have him in my heart.
Turk has to run to the bathroom. As we sit there, licking our cones, I try to imagine Billings without Aisha. It’s impossible.
“I’m gonna miss the shit out of you,” I say.
Aisha holds her cone away from her, then leans over and hugs me tight with her other arm. I bury my face in her neck, making sure not to douse her with my own cone.
“I’m gonna miss the shit out of you too,” she says.
I keep on hugging her for what feels like a long time, and what’s funny is that it doesn’t feel like a long time, really. It feels just about right. A long, right hug.
“I’ve never had a friend like you,” I say, finally pulling back.
“Black?” she says, raising an eyebrow, and I laugh.
“Exactly. That’s exactly what I meant.”
She smiles that Aisha smile, the one where her whole face gets involved. “I’ve never had a friend like you either. And we’re family now.”
“Yeah. We’re family.”
“In fact,” she says, rubbing her chin, “now that I’m kind of like your grandfather’s husband’s sort of daughter, I guess I’m like, I don’t know, your mom.”
I crack up, and I feel so much joy when she laughs too. Seeing Aisha laugh is like seeing something you only get to see a couple of times in your life. A waterfall or a meteor shower. Except you get to see it all the time if you’re lucky enough to be with her.
“I’m calling you Mommy from now on,” I say.
“Awesome. Imma hold you to that.”
That night, lying on a brand-new air mattress (thanks, Grandpa Turk!), I stare up at the ceiling that I cannot see and think about things.
I think about God. Is there a God? I prayed for help when we were sleeping in the park in Reno, and help came, in the form of an idea to do improv. But who’s to say I wouldn’t have gotten that idea without praying?
But is it possible that all this just happened randomly in the last few weeks, that I randomly met this girl, and we randomly came across this stuff, and we randomly set out on a quest, and by doing so, all our lives were forever changed?
I really don’t know. I don’t know what to think about God. Part of me wants to believe. Part of me has to believe. Part of me cannot believe.
Maybe that’s God, right there. The thing that lets us believe three different things all at once, three ideas in conflict, and yet it feels rational and normal and okay. Maybe that’s not God. Maybe that’s just my brain.
I remember what the meditation lady said in Wyoming. How prayer is like talking to God, and meditation is like listening.
So I listen. I listen for the thoughts-tripping-over-thoughts that is and always has been me. My brain that never shuts up.
And for once, that noise in my head is gone. I am lying in a basement in Billings, Montana, with my best friend asleep near me. My parents upstairs. My new grandfather too. I can hear my thoughts. They have slowed not to a crawl, but to a mere jog, and they aren’t tripping all over each other.
For once, I am quiet. Actually quiet. Which is different than not saying anything.
I remember something Aisha said to me on our never-ending drive across Utah. She said that during meditation, the leader said that when she started to pray for the first time, she was told that the basic prayer is one word: Thanks.
So I close my eyes and I say it. Not out loud, because I don’t want to get into a whole big thing about it. Just in my head. I’m not sure who I’m saying it to. I’m not 100 percent sure it matters.
Thanks, I say. Thanks.
SOME OF THE material used in Russ’s journals, most notably the puns found on pages 94–95 and 166, come courtesy of my father, Bob Konigsberg, who has been a professional punster for more than seventy years. His version of “Three Sightless Rodents” was sung to me as a child, and he is not sure if he made it up as a child, or if he heard it elsewhere. It is my great joy that these puns will be forever commemorated in this novel. Love you, Dad.
AS ALWAYS, I want to thank first and foremost my husband, Chuck Cahoy, who puts up with my frequent bouts of writer’s brain. I am the luckiest. Thanks also to my family: my mother, Shelley Doctors; my father, Bob Konigsberg; my sister, Pam Yoss; and my brother, Dan Konigsberg. You love me as I am, and I love you back as you are. To my editor, Cheryl Klein, whose reserved Midwestern sense matches perfectly with my New York “I never met an emotion I didn’t need to express” sensibility. This book would be in tatters without you. To Arthur Levine, for his support, kindness, and wisdom; the amazing team at Scholastic, especially Sheila Marie Everett, Antonio Gonzalez, Lizette Serrano, Bess Braswell, Annette Hughes, Emily Heddleson, and Tracy van Straaten. You are a dream team and I deeply appreciate your hard work and support. To my agent, Linda Epstein, who believed in me when I was faltering in that belief; Jennifer DiChiara, whose expertise is priceless to me; my dear friend Debbie Schenk, who played Aisha to my Carson on an epic research road trip; Richard Fitzgerald and Jeff Haliczer, my couchsurfing hosts, who put us up and helped me understand what it means to surf couches; Michael Abracham, my friend and San Francisco connection; the Piper Center for Creative Writing at Arizona State University; the writer friends who have been so helpful during this process, especially Brent Hartinger, Lisa McMann, Kriste Peoples, Lou Ceci, and Joey Avalos. Thank you all for your honest feedback. To early readers of Porcupine who gave me so much to think about, especially Kameron Martinez, Annika Browne, Alexis Redden, Adam Huss, Brandi Stewart, Evan Walsh, Emily Lesnick, Cathy Bonnell, and Alex Corey. You guys all changed this book for the better. To the authors/friends who amaze me with their words and inspire me to be a better writer, David Levithan, Alex London, Aaron Hartzler, A. S. King, Laurie Halse Anderson, Benjamin Alire Saenz, Jewell Parker-Rhodes, Tom Leveen, Andrew Smith, Daphne Benedis-Grab, Elizabeth Eulberg, and Martin Wilson, among others; Jeff Baranczyk for his hipster café suggestion; Eric Gaspar for his car repair expertise; and never least, to my fans, young and old, who interact with these characters I create and bring them to life. I love you and I appreciate you. Without you, these books would not exist.
BILL KONIGSBERG is the author of Openly Straight, which was named to the YALSA Best Fiction for Young Adults list and won the Sid Fleischman Award for Humor, and Out of the Pocket, which won the Lambda Literary Award. When Bill traveled the same route Carson and Aisha take here, he learned that “No Exit Next 100 Miles” means “Pee now. No, really. Now.”
Bill lives in Chandler, Arizona, with his husband, Chuck, and their Labradoodles of Truth, Mabel and Buford. Please visit his website at www.billkonigsberg.com or follow him at @billkonigsberg.
Text copyright © 2015 by Bill Konigsberg
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Konigsberg, Bill, author.
The porcupine of truth / Bill Konigsberg. – First edition.
pages cm
Summary: Seventeen-year-old Carson Smith is bored of Billings, Montana, and resentful that he has to help his mother take care of his father, a dying alcoholic whom he has not seen in fourteen years – but then he meets Aisha, a beautiful African American girl who has run away from her own difficult family, and together they embark on a journey of discovery that may help them both come to terms with their lives.
ISBN 978-0-545-64893-6 (alk. paper) 1. Dysfunctional families – Juvenile fiction. 2. Children of alcoholics – Juvenile fiction. 3. African American teenage girls – Juvenile fiction. 4. Friendship – Juvenile fiction. 5. Billings (Mont.) – Juvenile fiction. [1. Family problems – Fiction. 2. Alcoholism – Fiction. 3. African Americans – Fiction. 4. Friendship – Fiction. 5. Billings (Mont.) – Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.K83518Po 2015
[Fic] – dc23
2014027136
First edition, June 2015
Cover art and design by Nina Goffi
e-ISBN 978-0-545-64894-3
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