Текст книги "Palo Alto Stories"

Автор книги: James Franco

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“The skull bong!” said Fred. And everyone else said, “The skull bong!” Because the bowl of the bong was shaped like a grinning skull.

“And the official first crop of the Chambers homegrown!” said Barry, and everyone cheered. Then he put the bong to his mouth and lit the bowl, and in the light from the flame his round face turned orange as he sucked and the water bubbled, and the glass of the base was thick with smoke. Barry pulled on the stem and the smoke went up into his throat. He held it in and made little guppy sounds and then let it out and coughed and everyone cheered.

The bong went around, and when it got to me I sucked as hard as I could, and when I saw the green tube was packed tight with smoke I sucked it up like a soul. It went right to the center of me and I knew that that one hit was going to take me over. I let it out and choked hard and by the time I got my breath back I was already high. I didn’t mind Bill or Fred or anything. The bong kept going around and I started smiling.

Bill patted me on the back again. “See, Teddy, all is gooood.It’s like we’re at the fucking beach.”

“The beach?” I said. Bill was smiling so big, so many teeth.

“Yeah,” he said, and giggled. “Can’t you feel the sun, buddy? We’re at the fucking beach.” He really liked that idea because he was looking up at the ceiling with his arms spread as if there was a sun up there and he was soaking up the rays.

“You’re a Mongoloid,” I told him. He laughed.

“A mongo-what?” he said, but he didn’t want an answer because he started laughing and couldn’t stop.

Then across the circle Fred said, “Hey, Barry, where the fuck is April? Did you fuck her yet?”

Everyone got interested and Barry was quiet for a second. Then in a low voice he said, “Yeah, I did.”

“No shit? Did the deed?” said Jack. “Your fucking first, right?”

“Yeah,” said Barry, but he was being a little shy.

“That’s fucking great,” said Bill. “I told you to fuck that shit!” and he started laughing at himself again. Everyone congratulated Barry: “Nice one,” “Good work, pimp,” “She’s fucking hot,” “That ass…” He let them say their stuff for a minute, and then he said, “No, it’s bullshit.”

“You didn’tfuck her?” I said.

“No, I did, but the whole situation is bullshit. She’s fucking crazy. I mean reallycrazy. Like I think she got molested or something.”

“Why the fuck would you say that?” I said. “Did she tell you?”

“No, but I can just tell,” he said.

“Wadda you mean?” I said. “You mean you’re just making that up because you thinkyou can tell.”

“You cantell those things,” said Fred.

“Oh, shut the fuck up, Fred, no you can’t,” I said. “And how the fuck would you know, you little troll, you haven’t been with a girl in your life.”

“Fuck you, Teddy,” said Fred. “You’ve only been with Horse Face, Dog Bite Shauna Woo.” Everyone laughed and oohed.

“Shut up, Fred,” I said. “You don’t know shit.” And that was the end of it. I couldn’t bring up April again. Barry had done it with her, the girl I loved, and it had meant nothing to him; Tanya would die and no one would care; and there were billions of bodies alive on earth and they would all be buried and ground into dirt; and Picasso was a master at age sixteen and I was a perfect shit.

Everyone smoked more and we listened to music. Bob Marley was on and there was a line in a song he kept repeating: “The stone that the builder refuse / Will always be the head cornerstone.” After the third time he sang it Barry asked everybody what they thought it meant.

“It’s from the Bible,” I said. “The meek will inherit the earth, or something like that.”

“Why will the meek inherit the earth?” said Ute. “I never understood that.”

“Jesus said it,” said Jack.

“I know, but why?” said Ute. “Why will they? And how?”

Ed said, “They won’t.”

Everyone thought about that and shut up.

I had a bad weekend. I didn’t do anything. I just watched Point Breakagain and read some of Crime and Punishment.On Tuesday I went back to the Towers after school. I was almost done with all my hours, and then I knew I would never go back there. When I got to twelve Brian was there, carrying the television. The screen was cracked and there were dark spots behind the cracks. The TV wasn’t big but Brian was struggling a little.

“Hey, help me with this thing,” he said. I took one end and we carried it together into the elevator. “One of the zombies fell on it and knocked it over.”

“Is everyone okay?”

“Yeah, I think so. The guy was fine. They won’t even miss it; they can’t understand what they’re watching anyway.”

“Yes they can.”

“Are you kidding me? Those people are gone.They don’t know what’s happening. Two of them thought I was their son, and I’m Chinese.”

“They’re still people.”

“Whatever that means. The more time I spend here, I think more and more about how they’re just these bags of guts being wheeled around, and it’s like the gears are turning inside, but just out of habit, nothing is alive.”

At the ground floor we went outside and around to the back where the Dumpsters were. We did three windup heaves and then let the TV go into the back of one of the Dumpsters. The screen shattered and the body settled among the papers and cardboard.

Back upstairs, one of the orderlies came up to me. His name was Manuel, he was about twenty-five, and had a kind face.

“Hey, Tanya’s daughter came by and saw the pictures you made of Tanya. She liked them.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, you should go see her. Room twelve twenty-six.”

I walked over to Tanya’s room. Inside, it was dark. The overhead light was on, but it was weak and had a green cast. There were two beds in the room; Tanya was sitting on the edge of one, staring at the floor. The other bed had a naked mattress on it. I said hello and she looked up, and when she saw it was me she gave me her smile. I walked over and sat on the empty mattress across from her. Our knees were almost touching because the room was so small.

Then I noticed the two pictures framed on the wall behind her. They looked like a memorial.

“How are you?”

“Fine. I fine,” she said, smiling.

“I see you put the pictures up,” I said.

“Pretty. You draw so well.”

“No. I think I’m crap,” I said. “Sorry, I mean, I’m no good.”

She slowly reached over and took my hand. Her hand felt like sticks in a sheet. She cradled my hand with both her hands.

“You good,” she said. “You so good, a good boy.” She lifted my hand and held it to her face. Her cheek was softer than I expected. I moved my thumb around a little and felt her wrinkles. They were just there, skin folding on itself.

“You good,” she said again. “You captured me good.”

She smiled and I felt the soft skin bunch under my fingers. I looked into her smile. There was someone in there.

Part III

April

Right before eighth grade I moved from Phoenix to Palo Alto with my parents and older sister, Tiff. My dad came to work at ROLM. I could play soccer and I smoked more than anyone. But in Palo Alto, even when the other soccer girls were nice to me, something didn’t fit.

Mr. B was my soccer coach. His first name was Terry, and his last name was Brodsky. He’d been “Mr. B” for years, he said. He was forty-two. He had all his hair and tan skin and wore a purple baseball cap a lot. After a week, he told me I was the best soccer player in the eighth grade. He told jokes about dogs and horses and skeletons and I laughed at them. “A skeleton walks into a bar and says, ‘Give me a beer and a mop.’” The ones about horses were even worse, and sexual, but I laughed. He would also make fun of the boys in my class. “I saw Teddy Morrison changing the other day and I think he’s missing the hair under his arms,” then he’d laugh.

After two months in Palo Alto I had made some friends, Shauna, Sandy, and Alice Wolfe. And our soccer team was doing well. At the end of practice one day, Mr. B asked me to babysit his son, Michael. “I have a date this Saturday,” he said. “I know, stupid.” I told him it wasn’t stupid.

“I don’t know why I even try, it’s going to be dumb.”

“I can’t Saturday, Shauna is having her bat mitzvah.”

“ Bat mitzvah?Ha.” He was sweating at his temples from coaching us. “You going to go make out with some Jewish dudes at the bat mitzvah?”

“No, but she’s my friend.”

“I know she’s your friend, she’s great—a little horsy in the face, but—no, sorry, that’s mean, I didn’t mean that. Look, you should go, but if you did this for me, I’d consider it a personal favor. I don’t think I’ll be out late. I’m going out with a teacher. Just bring your dress and you can change at my place and I’ll drive you to the party after.”

I thought about it and then I said okay. Shauna Woo was on the team. She was nice, but also just a girl. Her dad was Asian and her mom was Jewish. She was rich and she had just about everything, but she had been bitten on the face by a dog when she was younger. There were two jagged lines across her left temple and the top of her cheek.

On Saturday I went to Mr. B’s at five thirty and he left for his date. His son, Michael, was five, he had a round head that was a little pointy on top, and unlike Mr. B he was blond. He was nice but he was just a kid, empty and selfish. He sat on the floor and looked up at the TV and played his video game.

“What are you playing?”

“The Legend of Zelda.” He was controlling a green elf walking around a graveyard.

“What are you doing with that flute?”

“It’s an ocarina. It does stuff. Like, you can call fairies, or call your horse.” The elf played a song on the flute and day turned to night and then lightning hit a grave and it exploded. Then the elf jumped into the grave.

My older sister, Tiff, had given me a joint for the weekend and I went out on the porch and lit it. It was nice to smoke alone. I leaned on the wooden rail and it was wet from dew but I leaned on it anyway. The sky was black with a dark blueness at the horizon, and different from a Phoenix sky, sadder. I watched the blueness sink below the houses until there was only black and stars. I smoked half the joint and licked my fingers and put out the end and put the unsmoked half in my Reds pack. I lit a cigarette and sucked hard. Shauna and everyone were at the party already. She had become a woman that day, but she would always have her scars.

When I went back in Michael was still playing. The elf was riding on a horse, galloping across a grass valley. I told Michael he should stop playing so we could watch a movie. Mr. B had a videotape of Fast Times at Ridgemont High.Michael said he wasn’t allowed to watch it but I let him. We sat on the couch together. Sex in a baseball dugout, sex in a pool house, an abortion. The joint made all of it funny. Michael didn’t laugh or say anything. He was really quiet when the boobs and vaginas came out. Then it ended.

“I don’t want to go to bed,” he said. I picked him up and carried him into his room. I put him under the blankets and I lay next to him above the blankets. I guess he should have brushed his teeth but I thought, “Fuck it.” There was nothing to say because he was a little kid. I stared at the ceiling. I thought about my sister. Sometimes we laughed so much that I thought we’d never stop. But we hadn’t done it much lately; she had a boyfriend now. Then Michael was asleep.

At eight Mr. B came home. “What are you watching?” he said. I was watching Cheers.He sat on the couch a little away from me. On TV Cliff was joking with Norm and Sam. He said, “Well, ya see, Norm, it’s like this. . . . A herd of buffalo can only move as fast as the slowest buffalo. And when the herd is hunted, it is the slowest and weakest ones at the back that are killed first. . . .” He was going to tell a joke but Mr. B started talking. “Well, that was a shitty date.”

“What happened?” I said.

“ Nothing.That’s the thing with teachers, it’s always nothing. Boring. I feel like I’m back in school or something. I can’t believe you have to listen to those people every day. At least I can go home if I want.” He laughed at his joke.

“I don’tlisten,” I said.

“You don’t? You listen to me.”

“Well, yeah, of course I do that,Coach.” I smiled because I liked him.

“You fucking better,” he said. We both laughed and he told me to get dressed and he’d drive me to the bat mitzvah.

“What about Michael?”

“He’ll be fine, it’ll take five minutes. It’s over near Gunn, right?”

I went into the bathroom and put on the dress. It was light lavender. It was my sister’s and too big for me in the boobs.

I walked out and Mr. B stood from the couch.

“You look amazing,” he said, and walked over. I said I hated dresses, but he wasn’t listening. When he was near me he put his thick hands on the bottom of my face and tilted his head to the side; he kissed me. His face was close, and I smelled a strong smell, and everything seemed full, and bigger, and his chin was scratchy, and his lips were full of a thickness of feeling; he held his lips on mine for a long time. Then he pulled back, looked into my eyes.

“You shouldn’t smoke so much,” he said. And then he kissed me again. An older person, but still a kiss. His mouth opened and I knew that part; his tongue came through like a little fish and I met it with my tongue. Everything was thick inside my mouth.

“April, you’re the most important person to me.”

“ Me?Why?”

“When you get to be my age, there is nothing you appreciate as much as a real person. You’re real.” We kissed one more time, softer, and then I said we should go. We went out toward his purple-blue 4Runner. When I went around the side of the car, I lost sight of him for a moment, and the streetlamps flared in their plastic coverings.

He drove me over to the temple. We listened to Jimi Hendrix and didn’t say anything. Jimi was along the watchtower and the streets were glistening with wet. At the temple Mr. B pulled into the lot and there was a large unexpected bump because the entrance was slanted in a strange way, and we both jerked forward. He turned the car and parked us in a corner where it was dark.

“I really fucking like you, April.”

“I like you too,” I said. We sat there and there was moisture in his eyes, glistening from the dashboard lights.

“When you know life like I do,” he said, “you know that there isn’t much that is good. But I know that you’re good. Really good.” One of the lights in his eyes was red. I said thanks and he kissed me on the cheek and told me I should go. I got out and started walking across the parking lot. Mr. B’s car turned and drove out over the dip and into the road; red taillights into black.

The lot was dark but there was a pulsing glow coming out of the high windows of a building across the lot. Then I could hear music. I took out my pack of Reds and slipped one into my mouth and lit it with my little black lighter. The cigarette was good after kissing Mr. B. I walked toward the building with the glow. I wasn’t good. I was regular, or worse.

Someone called to me. I saw it was Teddy off a ways in the darkness. There was also a person crouched on the ground near him. That was Ivan. Ivan’s face was so pale. I asked what they were doing. I got closer. Ivan was holding a bullet on the ground and was tapping the back of it with a thin hammer. I stood a little away.

“Should you really be doing that?” I said.

“Shut the fuck up, they’re my stepdad’s,” said Ivan.

“I don’t care whose they are,” I said. “Isn’t it bad to have bullets at a synagogue?”

Teddy laughed. “Well, it’s not even fucking working.” He was wearing a black dress shirt and had gel in his hair. He looked nice. He always did. Ivan was always pale and scary. “Why are you so late?” Teddy said.

“I was babysitting,” I said. Ivan kept tapping.

“Oh, well, the party kind of sucks, old people and bad dancing. Want to go across the street to Gunn and drink?” Gunn was the other high school, the one we wouldn’t go to the following year.

“Let me see Shauna first,” I said. I went over to the building with the music and the lights and stood in the doorway. Inside, people were dancing to ABBA’s “Dancing Queen,” fast and awkward. Some people were laughing. There was a long table along the side of one wall with lots of food and cakes. I had never been to a bat mitzvah. In Phoenix I didn’t know any Jews. I saw Shauna across the room of bodies. She was dancing and laughing with her mom and brother. She had a bunch of makeup on. So much I could hardly see the two scar lines.

I saw other girls from the team but I didn’t want to talk to any of them. They all knew Mr. B.

I walked back into the dark and told Teddy I wanted to go to Gunn.

Ivan picked up his bullets and put them in his pocket. We walked down a hill in the dark and I could hear the bullets clinking in Ivan’s pants.

When we passed the cemetery, Ivan said, “That suicide guy just got buried there.”

“How do you know?” I said.

“He did,or what’s left of him,” said Teddy. The kid had stepped in front of a train at the East Meadow crossing.

“My stepdad knew his dad,” said Ivan. “Said he was a prick, probably why the kid killed himself.”

We walked across Arastadero to Gunn. There was a large electronic billboard on a post. Above the electronic part there was a black part with fancy red lettering that said GUNN and TITANS. The electronic part said, BEAT PALY! GO TITAN FOOTBALL. 10/10, 6 P.M. Paly was going to be our high school the next year.

We walked through campus. The buildings were made of cement, and in the dark the place was like a bunker. We made our way through the shadows to a grassy area. In the center was a huge oak tree that rose above the roofs of the classrooms. There was moonlight all around and it made the top of the tree silver-white. The ground was a little wet but we sat on the big roots, which were dry. We all leaned our backs against the trunk. Teddy had a little bottle of peach schnapps and he passed it around. I asked if they wanted some of the joint I’d been smoking and we passed that around.

“That’s pretty good shit,” said Ivan.

“What do you think about that suicide?” I said.

“I think the parents made him do it,” said Teddy.

“He wasAsian,” said Ivan. He was on the other side of Teddy and I couldn’t see him.

“What does that mean?” I said.

“That they worked his ass like crazy and pressured the shit out of him.”

“Do you think it hurt?” I said.

“For a second,” said Teddy. “But if it’s all going to be over anyway, then why does it matter? Pain only matters if it’s prolonged.” Ivan was sucking long on the joint, then he said, “If I was going to kill myself, I wouldn’t waste it. I would do a bunch of crazy shit first. Maybe kill some people I didn’t like and take ’em with me.”

We all thought about that. Then I said, “Wouldn’t it be better to do a bunch of crazy goodthings before you died instead of killing people?”

“Like what?” said Teddy.

“I don’t know. Give your life to save a bunch of kids or something.”

“But that’s what you’re supposed to do every day, not if you’re suicidal,” he said. “If you’re suicidal you’re probably only thinking of yourself.”

I drank the syrupy alcohol.

“I try to be good,” I said.

“Me too,” said Teddy.

“Fuck good people,” said Ivan, and we laughed.

We finished the joint and I gave them both cigarettes. The stars were dots between the branches. On the other side of Teddy, Ivan started carving in the tree with a knife. He carved SUICIDE RULZ. Teddy was next and wrote FUCK GUNN. They told me I had to write something.

“I feel bad, the tree is so old.”

“Fuck you,” said Ivan. “Do it.”

I drew a heart. It was hard to make it round because of the bark, so it was jagged on one side.

*   *   *

Eighth grade continued. For a month Mr. B acted like nothing happened. Our team was doing well and he just acted like a coach so I just acted like a player. But it was hard, because it was like I was just one of the other girls. He told his jokes to everyone but I didn’t laugh as much.

Then on Halloween Mr. B asked me to trick-or-treat with him and Michael. I was surprised but I said okay. I dressed as a cat in black tights and Tiff drew whiskers on my face with black lipstick. Mr. B was dressed in a 49ers jersey and football pants and a helmet. He said he was supposed to be Steve Young. On the back of the jersey it said YOUNG and there was a big 8. Michael was dressed as Link, the elf from his video game. He wore green and had a little sword and a plastic jack-o’-lantern for candy.

We walked around and Michael would go up to each door and get candy and we would wait for him on the sidewalk. We talked a little about the soccer team. The championships were coming up and we were tied for first place with Mountain View.

He told me a joke: “A horse falls into a mud puddle and can’t get out. So a chicken ties the horse to the bumper of his Mercedes and pulls him out. Later, the chickenfalls into the mud, but the horse just stands close and says, ‘Grab on to my thingy and pull yourself out.’ The moral is, if you’re hung like a horse you don’t need a Mercedes to pick up chicks.” I said it was funny, but I didn’t laugh.

Later we went back to his place. He let Michael pick three candies to take to bed with him and made him leave the plastic jack-o’-lantern on the coffee table in the living room. While they were back in the bedroom I waited on the couch. I ate one of Michael’s Baby Ruths and then I took a roll of Smarties. They were really sour so I just had two and put the rest in my sock with the Baby Ruth wrapper.

Mr. B came back out; he didn’t have the helmet on. He sat on the couch and asked if I wanted any of Michael’s candy. I said no.

“You’re a very pretty cat.”

“Why don’t we talk at school anymore?”

“You know why.”

“I know, but you could at least be nice to me. It’s like you don’t even like me anymore.”

“Are you crazy? I’m in love with you, April.”

I told him I had to go, that there was a party that the girls were having and I was late. I stood up, but he stood up too and grabbed my shoulders.

“Listen to me, I love you. Okay? I loveyou. I have just been weird because I didn’t want anything bad to happen. But I don’t care now. I want to be with you. We’ll work it out. You can just come babysit all the time or something.” He laughed a little and tried to get me to laugh by looking into my eyes and squeezing my shoulders. I pushed against him.

“I have to go.”

“April, why? So you can hang around a bunch of little boys? Come on, you’re better than that. Stay here, with me. We’ll just watch a movie, I’m sure there is something scary and stupid on.” I wanted to stay but I was feeling emotional. I pushed his hands away and left.

The next week our soccer team played in the championships. They were a week long at a junior high school called Egan in Los Altos. Mr. B seemed like he wanted to be nice but I stayed away from him and just played. On the last day we lost to Mountain View. When the team came out of the locker room Mr. B asked if anyone wanted a ride home. Shauna and Sandy said they did. He looked at me.

“April? Would you like a ride?” The other girls were looking at me so I said yes. In the car everyone was sad about losing so we didn’t say much. He dropped Sandy off first because she lived in the nice part of town. He told her she had played very well.

When he dropped Shauna off he said, “You’re the best team I’ve ever coached.”

Then we drove. I was in the front seat. He wasn’t driving toward my house but I didn’t say anything. It was getting dark. “April, you really are the best player.” I didn’t say anything. “You want to hear a joke?” I didn’t say anything so he didn’t tell it. I took my cigarettes from my bag and I lit one. He didn’t say anything but he cracked my window.

At his house he parked and told me that Michael was still at day care. He got out, and after a second I got out. Inside, he got me some water from the kitchen but I didn’t drink it. I just kissed him. I did it hard because I was angry with him and sad because of the game. And sad because soccer was over and it was the thing I knew how to do best. We went to the couch. I was wearing sweats and he undressed me and got a condom and I lay on my back and we did it, simple. And then it was over. I was fourteen. We got dressed and he drove me home. At my house I saw the Smarties from Halloween on my desk. I undid the plastic wrapper and ground each one into powder.

For the rest of the year, I went to Mr. B’s all the time. Sometimes to babysit and sometimes not. We’d sit in his living room, in the dark, and watch TV. Most Saturdays we’d watch Saturday Night Live,and weekdays we’d watch reruns of Cheers.He had a good body, good hair, and a nice smile. He was funny; he liked television and funny movies. He wasn’t older and I wasn’t younger. We went to the mall sometimes too and got clothes. We always took Michael to the mall.

The next year I went to high school at Paly but I still went to Mr. B’s all the time. My parents thought I was babysitting. I would tell Mr. B that I loved him and he would tell me. My sister was the only one who knew. She said it was okay as long as we were in love.

After everything had been going on with Mr. B for almost two years, I went to a party one night. I usually didn’t go to parties because I spent so much time with Mr. B. I went with Shauna and Alice. They were my only friends and that was only because I saw them at soccer.

When we got to the house everyone was sitting around the living room; some were on the couch and some were

on the carpet. The carpet was beige and so was the couch, and the walls were dark wood paneling. Everyone was being pretty quiet. The girls and I went to the kitchen and got some beers from some junior guys, Denny Johnson and Beau. I wanted to be like the other girls so I laughed when the guys said things.

Back in the main room, someone put on Menace II Society,so then everyone was sitting around the floor watching the big brown TV on the beige carpet. The movie was stupid. It tried too hard. It was trying to show a tough kind of life, but also be cool about it. There were shootings and sex and car jackings and everyone was too tough to care. I watched for an hour and drank three beers. After an hour I went outside to smoke.

Teddy was out there. There were a few other people off in the dark. I hadn’t talked to him in a while because he was in the smart classes. I pulled out my pack of Reds, but it was empty. I asked Teddy for a cigarette. Teddy handed me a Camel Light. I lit it with my black lighter and tasted the difference. I saw Teddy’s reflection and my reflection in the sliding glass door, and behind the reflections was everyone else inside, watching the movie.

“That’s a stupid movie,” I said. Teddy laughed and I could tell he was drunk. He asked me why I thought it was stupid. “Because,”I said. “We know the ghetto is bad, that’s why it’s the ghetto,but that movie is making it look cool. Like Ivan and all those guys are getting all excited about O-Dog because he shoots innocent people and laughs about it. That’s not cool—the guy is a fucking murderer.”

Teddy laughed again, then he said, “I like the part when the crack addict guy says, ‘I’ll suck ya dick.’”

“You like thatpart?”

“Yeah, it’s funny because it’s just like this part from Boyz n the Hood,where this woman crack addict says, ‘I’ll suck your dick’—it’s like the exact same scene, but in Menaceit’s a guycrack addict who says it. It’s like they’re trying to make the movie even crazier than Boyz n the Hoodbecause a guysays ‘I’ll suck your dick.’”

“I guess,” I said.

“And then O-Dog shoots the guy. He thinks the offer somehow makes himgay. And it’s like the movie is saying gay people are the worst kind of people. Like even if everyone is living in a ghetto and it’s hell, the gay person is the worst. Like a man sucking a dick is the most desperate you could get.”

“Maybe,” I said. “But why the hell would that make you like that scene?”

“I just mean I think it’s funny, I don’t likeit.”

“I just think it’s a stupid movie,” I said. “I think most movies and TV shows and video games are stupid.”

“Okay,” he said, and sucked his cigarette hard and then let out a big thing of smoke.

“You’re crazy, right?” he said through the smoke. I said I wasn’t and he said that I was.

“Why do you think I’m crazy?” I said.

He took another drag and said, “Because you don’t care about anything.”

“I docare,” I said. “I care too much, but it never works. Like now—I’m trying to be here, I’m trying to do things. But it doesn’t work, I can’t find anything, so maybe that’s what makes me crazy.”

“What does that mean?”

“Nothing. I think youdon’t care about anything, Teddy, not me.”

“I care about you,” he said quietly, then he looked at me from the side of his face.

“Oh, shut up,” I said. “You hardly even see me.”

“Well I wish I did. I try to call you all the time, but you’re always gone.”

“I have soccer and shit,” I said.

“I love you,” he said. I laughed because he was drunk. But I could also tell that he was a little serious. I looked right at him and it was in that moment I knew it meant nothing to say that. I got very quiet and looked away and we sat staring at our reflections. Then I said, “You remember that night in eighth grade, after Shauna’s bat mitzvah, we went to Gunn and sat under that tree? And I carved a heart in it?”

“Yeah.”

“I wish we could go back to that night.”

“Ivan and I cut it down.”

“The tree?” I said. He nodded in the reflection and smoked. “You cut down the whole tree? It was huge.”

“I know. One night last year we used his stepdad’s saw. Just me and him. It took a long time. That thing was probably there since the Civil War. Now it’s gone.”

Sitting there with Teddy, I knew I was making a decision, but I didn’t know what.

We smoked. The Camels weren’t my brand but they were okay in the night air.

After that I stopped seeing Mr. B as often. He said I was being a baby. I told him I needed to spend more time with people my age, but when I wasn’t with him I just ended up sitting in my room at home. Tiff wasn’t even around. One night Mr. B asked me to babysit Michael because he had something important to do. I told him no.

“ Please. He likes you, April.”

“No he doesn’t.”

“Yes he does.If you don’t do it for me, do it for him. He’s used to having you around.”