Текст книги "Forgive me, Leonard Peacock"

Автор книги: Matthew Quick

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Текущая страница: 5 (всего у книги 13 страниц)

FIFTEEN

Baback’s playing is one of the few things around here that actually make me feel better, and since I’ve already made up my mind to shoot Asher Beal and off myself, I don’t want to risk listening to Baback work his violin. I’m afraid his music might seduce me, trick me into living for another day—like it has so many times before. So when I enter the auditorium, I say, “Baback, I won’t be listening to you play today.”

“What?” he says with a mock-horrified face. He’s wearing dark jeans, checkered Vans, and a Harold & Kumar T-shirt—and I think about how much he’s changed, been Americanized, even if he’s still unlike the other students here. “And just why are you breaking tradition, may I ask?”

Instead of answering his question, I pull out his present from my backpack—an envelope wrapped in pink paper—and I say, “This is for you.” My voice booms and echoes in the huge, empty auditorium.

He looks me in the eye and says, “What is it?”

“I just want you to know that I really, really enjoy listening to you play your violin and that the lunch periods I spend lost in your music—well, let’s just say you have no idea how much your violin music has saved me over the past few years. So many days I wouldn’t make it if I didn’t hear you play. You’re a really gifted musician. I hope you’ll never stop playing. I want to give you something to express my gratitude—to let you know that I value your playing more than you realize. It may just look like I’m sitting in the back of the room sleeping, but it’s so much more than that—your music gives me something to look forward to each day—and it’s like a friend to me. Maybe my best friend here at our high school. I just want to say thank you.”

I can feel my eyes welling up, so I look down at my feet and extend the pink rectangle toward Baback.

He takes the envelope and says, “Why are you telling me this today, Leonard?”

“I just needed to give this to you. It’s a present.”

“Why’s it wrapped in pink?”

“The color isn’t really significant.”

“Am I not getting something here?” he asks.

I sort of hope he’ll figure out it’s my birthday, but I’m not sure why. Still, I get excited thinking that he might guess it.

He peels off the wrapping paper, opens the envelope, reads the check I wrote out to True Democracy in Iran, and says, “Is this some sort of joke?”

“What? No. It’s a check to help aid the freedom fighters in your country.”

“You really expect me to believe this is real?”

“It’s my college fund. I’m not going to college. I didn’t even take the SAT.”

“Why are you messing around like this? Do you even know what it’s like for people living in Iran? This isn’t a joke, Leonard. Some things you can’t joke around about.”

“I know. That check is real. I swear to god. Send it to the cause. You’ll see. I hope the money helps the struggle. It’s my entire college fund. My grandparents left me a ton of cash.”

“What’s wrong with you?”

“I thought you’d be happy.”

He sighs and runs his hands through his hair, which is hanging freely to his shoulders today.

“Listen, I appreciate your sticking up for me when we were sophomores and I appreciate your . . . support. I get that you’re a little off. That you march to your own drummer or whatever. I’m okay with that. But I’ve never done anything to you—never been mean at all—and yet you walk in here and insult me with this fake six-figure check. My grandparents have endured innumerable . . . you have no idea how hard it was for my family and . . . you know what,” he says while putting his violin away, “I don’t think I’m going to play today. And I don’t think I want you listening to me anymore. Your being in the back of the auditorium—just sitting there every day—it’s really starting to creep me out.”

“The check’s real,” I say.

“Okay, Leonard.”

“I’m fucking serious. That check is real! You’re being an asshole. Go to the bank right now and you’ll see what an asshole you’re being.”

“Why are you wearing that hat?” he says. “Did you cut off your hair?”

I look at him and can tell he doesn’t really like me.

I was right; just as soon as you take the first step toward getting to know someone your own age, everything you thought was magical about that person turns to shit right in front of your face.

He’s looking at me like he loathes me—like my face disgusts him—and I just want him to stop.

“Maybe you should talk to someone,” he says. “Like Guidance.”

“I tried talking to you and look where that got us.”

“Listen, you obviously have problems, Leonard. I’m sorry for that. I really am. But there are people with worse problems than yours, I can assure you this. Leave this town once in a while and you’ll see that I’m right. First-world problems. That’s what you have.”

He strides through the doors and I realize I must have really pissed him off, because it’s the first time he hasn’t practiced when the auditorium was available during lunchtime. The first time in three school years.

I pick up the check he left behind, sit down in one of those old-ass creaky seats, and ponder what he said about there being people with worse problems than mine. It takes me all of three seconds to conclude that’s such a bullshit thing to say. Like the people in Iran are more important than me because their suffering is supposedly more acute.

Bullshit.

I like thinking all alone in the auditorium even when there is no violin music.

Maybe I never even needed Baback to begin with.

Maybe he’s just like all the rest.

It’s better here when I’m by myself.

Safer.

How do you measure suffering?

I mean, the fact that I live in a democratic country doesn’t guarantee my life will be problem-free.

Far from it.

I understand that I am relatively privileged from a socio-economical viewpoint, but so was Hamlet—so are a lot of miserable people.

I bet there are people in Iran who are happier than I am—who wish to keep living there regardless of who is in charge politically, while I’m miserable here in this supposedly free country and just want out of this life at any cost.

I wonder if Baback will regret demeaning my suffering when he turns on the news tonight.

I kinda hope he’ll feel responsible somehow—that it will make him so regretful he gets sick.

SIXTEEN

I see Asher Beal in the hallway. I make my hand into the shape of a gun and fire at him as he passes.

I miss twice, but then score a head shot.

“Dead!”

“What’s wrong with you?” he says, shaking his soon-to-be leaky skull.

“Everything!” I yell. “Nothing! You choose!”

People in the hallway are looking at me like I’m crazy—like they wish I would disappear.

Asher Beal just walks away.

“I know where you live!” I yell at him.

Knowing that this will all end tonight, that I will cease to be—that makes this day so much easier. It’s like I’m in a dream, floating through some ethereal world.[27]27
  Untethered from my awful future.


[Закрыть]

Two presents left to deliver, and then I can open the P-38 and go out on the same day I came in.

Happy birthday to me!

God, I can’t wait.

“Leonard?” Mrs. Shanahan says.

My guidance counselor is wearing a lemon-yellow dress and has her red hair up in a bun today. She has these sky-blue glasses that dangle from her neck on a silver chain in a crazy ironic way, because she is way too young to wear her glasses on a chain. I wonder how she dresses when she’s not in school and I see her as an after-hours punk rocker maybe. She’s younger than most faculty members—Herr Silverman’s age, probably.

“I’m hearing reports that you’ve been acting strangely today. Is that true?” she says to me right in the hallway as tons of kids pass by.

“What? I’m always strange, right? But I’m fine otherwise,” I say, mostly because I don’t want to miss Herr Silverman’s Holocaust class, which is where I’m headed now.

I usually don’t mind going to Mrs. Shanahan’s office because she keeps a jar of lollipops on her desk and I always enjoy a root beer sucker midday, but I have to say good-bye to Herr Silverman before I exit the planet, and I don’t want to miss his class. It’s the one class I actually like. So I decide to put on a show for her.

“What’s going on under that hat?” she asks.

“Just a haircut.”

“Mrs. Giavotella said—”

“I’m not a very good barber, I’m afraid,” I say, smiling and looking into her eyes all Hollywood. I’m a convincing actor when I need to be. “I’d show you my new look right now, but I’m a little self-conscious about it, hence the hat. Can I swing by eighth period? Would be happy to show you then and talk about whatever you’d like.”

She looks into my eyes for a long time, like she’s trying to tell whether I’m bullshitting her.

Deep down she absolutely knows I’m bullshitting her, I’m sure of it. But she has a million problems to solve, hundreds of students who need her help, endless asshole parents to deal with, mountains of paperwork, meetings in that awful room with the round table and the window air-conditioning unit they run even in winter because the meeting room is directly over the tropically hot boiler room, and so she knows the easiest thing to do is believe me.

She’s fulfilled her obligation, assuaged her conscience by finding me in the hallway and giving me the chance to freak out, and I’ve played my role too, by remaining calm, pretending to be okay, and therefore giving her permission to cross me off her things-to-do list. Now she can move on, and I can too.

Once you understand how adults are controlled by the system, manipulating them is elementary.

“I’ve put aside a few root beer lollipops for you, because I was getting low,” she says, and then smiles back at me.

If only you could solve all of your problems with candy, I think, Mrs. Shanahan would be relevant.

“We’ll talk eighth period, right? Promise you’ll come see me. I always look forward to a visit from Leonard Peacock.”

She says that last bit almost like she’s flirting with me, like we’re going to have sex in her office if I show up. A lot of female teachers do this—flirt with male students. I wonder if that’s the only way they know how to interact with men. Like they use their sexuality to get what they want. And I have to admit it works, because I really want to go see Mrs. Shanahan now, and if I hadn’t already decided to kill myself, I would most certainly go to her office later—if only to collect my root beer lollipop and fantasize.

“Absolutely,” I lie. “I will definitely come see my favorite, most beauteous and astute guidance counselor later this afternoon.”

She sort of blushes and then smiles at me all pleased with herself.

When she turns, I say, “Mrs. Shanahan?” because I can’t help myself.

“Yes, Leonard,” she says, and spins around all Marilyn Monroe—her dress even flares out and rises a little.

“Thanks for checking up on me. You’re a good counselor. One of the best.”

“You’re welcome,” she says, and then lights up like the sun at noon, because she doesn’t understand what I’m really saying.

She’s just a high school guidance counselor after all. She can tell you what grade point average you need to get into Penn, but expecting more than that is pushing it. I was lucky to receive so many lollipops.

Just before she goes, almost as if she wants to acknowledge the fact that we’re playing a game here—one with rules—she adds, “You will come visit me eighth period, right?”

“You know it,” I lie.

I think about how she probably has my birthday written down in a file somewhere, but she deals with so many kids that I can’t really be mad at her for forgetting.

In elementary school the teachers always remembered your birthday, and that was nicer. There were cupcakes or brownies, or at least cookies, and everyone sang in a way that made you feel really special and a part of something, even if you really hated all of your classmates deep down. There’s a reason the elementary teachers did that. It wasn’t just for fun. It was important.

And I wonder at what age it’s appropriate to stop keeping track of everyone’s birthday. When do we stop needing the people around us to acknowledge the fact that we are aging and changing and getting closer to our deaths? No one tells you this. It’s like everyone remembers your birthday every single year and then suddenly you can’t remember the last time someone sang the birthday song to you, nor can you say when it stopped. You should be able to remember, right?

But I can’t pinpoint an exact year. The whole deal just sort of slipped away from me somehow without my noticing at all, which makes me sad.

I watch Mrs. Shanahan stride down the hall. She seems bouncy, like my compliments validated her self-worth and made her feel as though her career is actually germane.[28]28
  I try to imagine being married to Mrs. Shanahan, eating root beer lollipops for every meal. Having a guidance counselor for a wife—she’d probably take good emotional care of me, or maybe she’d be so tired of taking care of people all day that when she came home from work she’d just be a selfish bitch. I can’t decide which I believe. Probably the latter, I think.


[Закрыть]

And then she’s gone.

SEVENTEEN
LETTER FROM THE FUTURE NUMBER 3

Hi, Daddy!

It’s S, your daughter. This is so weird! I don’t understand why I have to write you because you just left on the boat with Papa, and Horatio the dolphin was there, like always, to keep you company.

Momma says you’re sad, but she also says that we’re writing to you when you were a little boy, which I don’t really understand. She makes me do a lot of strange school assignments, so I guess this is just another of those. You tell me to listen to Momma, so I do. She’s helping me write the letter. She says I should tell you things you already know about me, which seems dumb, but here it goes.

My favorite color is dolphin gray.

My favorite constellation is Cassiopeia, because it’s so much fun to say!

My favorite food is corn chowder with bacon. (Ha-ha! Joke!)

My favorite game is Who lived here? I love listening to the stories you make up about what it was like to live in the city underwater—what you call Philadelphia.

Once we found an apartment in an old skyscraper you called Liberty Place and you told me how some people used to live like kings and queens in the sky, looking down on all the people who had to live near the ground, but now you have to be really rich to live on the ground these days, which you said is ironic.

We went through the home and found dresses that proved a queen had lived there. The dresses were shiny and colorful. There were so many! And you said your mother had designed one of them, which was nice because you never talk about your mom.

And we found a chest of gold jewelry in the bedroom too. You let me keep the gold we found. We’ve been collecting gold from chests like that all over Outpost 37. I keep it under my bed just for fun in old poly-frozen food containers, although I really don’t understand why people in the past loved gold so much, other than it’s shiny. You call me a princess and sometimes we put on as much gold as we can, and you call me “Jay-Z,” and then laugh so hard.

My favorite bedtime story is Philadelphia Phyllis, the little girl who used to solve crime mysteries back at the turn of the century. You tell me so many Philadelphia Phyllis stories, and my favorite is the one where she stops a bully from picking on kids at school when she finds a magical weapon that gives her power. I often wish there were other kids here, but your stories about bullies make me wonder if I’m lucky it’s only me.

My favorite song is the one your dad wrote called “Underwater Vatican,” which you sing for me sometimes, because you miss your dad. (Mom helped me spell Vatican and says it’s where some important guy used to live but she couldn’t really explain why he was important. She says we don’t have guys like him anymore.)

Daddy, I can’t think of anything else to write.

I love you.

I’m sorry that you were sad when you were a little boy, but you’re hardly ever sad now, which is good, right?

Momma says I should tell you to hold on.

Hold on to what? I wonder.

I don’t know.

But hold on.

There, I wrote that. Mom better give me full credit for this assignment.

Can’t wait to see you at dinner tonight. I think we are having corn chowder with bacon AGAIN, because that’s what we have the most of, so we have to save the other types of food for special occasions like birthdays, and mine’s coming up in a week or so. You said you have a really special surprise for me.

I wonder what it is!

You never ever forget my birthday and you always make it special.

Is it true you don’t have a birthday, like you said?

I wish I knew when your birthday was, because I would find you the best birthday present ever. Horatio would help me search Outpost 37 until we had the perfect prize.

Why won’t you tell me when your birthday is?

Mom says it has to do with bad memories.

Why don’t I have any bad memories? I ask her, and she says it’s because I have such a good dad.

That makes me smile.

You are a good dad!

Love ya!

S, your “Jay-Z Princess”

(What is a “Jay-Z”? You never tell me!)

EIGHTEEN

Herr Silverman stands tall at six foot three or so. His body type would best be described as wiry. His hair is prematurely salt-and-pepper, and in ten years or so it will be entirely silver, at which point his last name will be appropriate. He always wears a solid-color tie; a long-sleeve white shirt; green, tan, or black pants with no pleats; black or brown suede lace-up shoes with a clunky heel; and a leather belt to match his shoes. Simple, but elegant—and most days he looks like a waiter at a fancy restaurant. Today he has on black pants, tie, shoes, and belt, and has shaved the beginnings of a goatee.[29]29
  Herr Silverman is forever experimenting with facial hair. Last week he had an ill-advised Abraham Lincoln beard going. Students make comments about his various facial-hair stylings, but he never gets mad. He returns their digs with this smile that is more like a wink. It’s like he’s immune to the comments of other people, which I think is admirable.


[Закрыть]

At the beginning of every class he greets all of his students at the door, shakes everyone’s hand on the way in, smiles at you, and looks you in the eye. He’s the only teacher who does this, and the process often creates a human snake in the hallway. Sometimes the handshaking takes so long that there are still people lined up after the bell has rung, and this pisses off the other faculty members something awful.

Once our principal saw the line and yelled, “Get to class, all of you!” because he didn’t see Herr Silverman in the door.

Herr Silverman said, “It’s okay. We’re just in the middle of our daily greeting. Everyone deserves a hello. Hello, Andrew.”

Our principal made this really weird face, finally said, “Hello,” and then walked away fast.

Today, when Herr Silverman shakes my hand, he smiles and says, “I like your new hat, Leonard.”

It makes me feel so good, because I believe he really likes it, or rather he likes the fact that I’m expressing myself—that I’m wearing something no one else is wearing, and I’m not afraid to be different.[30]30
  That’s basically the mantra of Herr Silverman’s teaching—think for yourself and do what’s right for you, but let others do the same.


[Закрыть]

“Thanks,” I say. “Can I speak with you after class? I have something for you.”

“Certainly.” He nods and gives me an additional smile—a real smile, the kind that uses all the muscles in your face but doesn’t look forced. Herr Silverman’s smiles always make me feel better for some reason.

“Why does he have to shake everyone’s hand every day?” this kid Dan Lewis says about Herr Silverman as we take our seats.

“He’s so fucking weird,” Tina Whitehead answers under her breath.

And I want to pull out the P-38 and blast them both in their übermoronic heads, because Herr Silverman is the one teacher who cares about us and takes the time to let us know that—every day—and these stupid asshole classmates of mine hold it against him. It’s like people actually want to be treated poorly.

Although once when we were talking after class, Herr Silverman told me that when someone rises up and holds himself to a higher standard, even when doing so benefits others, average people resent it, mostly because they’re not strong enough to do the same. So maybe Dan Lewis and Tina Whitehead are just weaker than Herr Silverman and really need his kindness because of that, but I certainly wouldn’t take the time to look them in the eye and smile every day if they talked like that behind my back. Herr Silverman is smart enough to realize that being different has consequences. He’s always talking about that in class. Consequences. But he never bitches about the consequences he has to deal with, which makes him stand out.

“So,” Herr Silverman says to the class, and I notice that once again he has refrained from rolling up his sleeves. “It’s ethical-question day. Who has a question?”

We do this thing where someone asks a hard question related to the Holocaust—one with no clear right or wrong solution, like a moral dilemma—and then the class debates the answer.

Mine is the only hand in the air today, and so Herr Silverman says, “Leonard?”

“Let’s just say that an American teenager inherited a real Nazi gun from his grandfather, who captured and executed a high-ranking Nazi officer. What should be done with the gun?”

I’m really curious to hear how my classmates respond. I’m sure their answers won’t match mine. It’s amazing how different they are from me.

Also, it’s sort of thrilling to mess with their heads—to see how stupid they are, because they would never dream I have a gun, even though I basically just told them I do. Tomorrow they will look back on this discussion in a very different light, and they will realize just how unbelievably moronic they are.

This girl Lucy Becker is the first to answer, and she basically says that my gun belongs in the Holocaust museum in DC, and makes a speech about the importance of documenting our mistakes so we are not doomed to repeat them.[31]31
  This is probably the standard answer that would score you the top mark on the essay portion of the SAT.


[Закрыть]

“Counterpoint?” Herr Silverman says.

This kid Jack Williams who is kind of smart and interesting argues that the gun should be destroyed and talks about the rise of neo-Nazis who collect such things. Jack argues that if all Nazi propaganda were destroyed, no one would be able to use it to recruit new Nazis. “That’s why President Obama buried Osama bin Laden at sea,” Jack says. “So no one could use his grave as a symbol.”

“Very interesting rebuttal, Jack,” Herr Silverman says. “Responses from the class?”

Kids in my class go back and forth about what to do with the gun, and—even though I asked the question—their answers start to freak me out a little. I mean I have a real Nazi gun in my backpack and everyone is talking about what to do with it, only they don’t know that my hypothetical ethical question was real—they don’t know that I have the gun on me right now.

They are all so remarkably stupid—but still, I start to worry that maybe one of them will put it together and guess why I asked that question on this particular day, and then they’ll all lynch me.[32]32
  You may think that lynching is a means to an end if I wish to die, and I do, but being ripped apart limb by limb by übermoronic classmates is hardly a picturesque way to go. Death by übermorons is überunappealing.


[Закрыть]

I worry so much that I start to sweat in my seat.

I feel really mixed up, and it’s like I just want it all to end—everything.

And yet at the same time, I want someone to figure it out, to piece together all the hints I’ve been dropping all day long, for years and years even, but no one ever figures it out, and I’m beginning to see why people go mad and do awful things—like the Nazis and Hitler and Ted Kaczynski and Timothy McVeigh and Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold and Cho Seung-Hui all[33]33
  You should read about all of those killers. They all have a lot in common. I bet they felt lonely in many ways, helpless, FORGOTTEN, ignored, alienated, irrelevant, cynical, and sad. Read about them. You really should. You can learn a lot. More than I can explain here.


[Закрыть] did and so many other horrific people whom we learn about in school and—You know what? Fuck Linda for forgetting my birthday—FUCK HER—because how do you forget giving birth to someone eighteen years ago today and IRRESPONSIBLE and IRRESPONSIBLE and selfish and culpable and inhumane and—

“Leonard?” Herr Silverman says.

Everyone has turned his or her head and is looking at me.

“Concluding thoughts?”

I’m supposed to summarize the points of view regarding what to do with the P-38 and say which side I think won the debate, but I haven’t been listening and I can’t exactly say what I really think.

“I don’t know. I just don’t know anything today,” I say, and then accidentally sigh.

Herr Silverman looks into my eyes until I look back into his and then I sort of plead with him using mental telepathy, thinking, Please just move on. It’s my birthday. I only have a few more hours on this planet. Please. Be kind. Let me off the hook.

“It’s a hard question, Leonard. A good one. I don’t know either,” Herr Silverman says, totally saving me.

The übermorons roll their eyes and exchange glances.

He moves on to the lecture part of the class, discussing the concept of doubling, or being two different people at once—the good WWII German dad who eats a civilized dinner with his family at a formal table and reads bedtime stories to his children before he kisses their foreheads and tucks them into bed, all after spending the entire day ignoring the screams of Jewish women and children, gassing away, and heaving corpses into awful mass graves.

Basically, Herr Silverman says that we can simultaneously be human and monster—that both of those possibilities are in all of us.

Some of the stupid kids argue with him, saying they aren’t like the Nazis and never could be, because Herr Silverman says we all double in some ways. And everyone in the class knows exactly what he’s talking about, even if they pretend they don’t.

Like how the kids the teachers think are the nicest are really the kids who drink tons of alcohol on weekends and drive drunk and date-rape everyone all the time and are constantly making less popular and truly nice kids feel shitty about themselves. But these same awful students transform themselves in front of the adults in power, so they will get the good college letters of recommendation and special privileges. I’ve never once cheated on a test or plagiarized, and Herr Silverman is probably the only teacher in the building who would write me a college-recommendation letter if I wanted one.

Our valedictorian, Trish MacArthur, got character letters from the most popular teachers in the building, and every student at this school knows she throws the most insane parties, where booze and drugs are prevalent and cops are regular visitors—but since her dad is the mayor, they just say, “Keep the noise down.” A kid OD’d at her house last year and ended up in the hospital. And, magically, Trish MacArthur’s reputation among faculty members remained untarnished. She’s in A.P. English with me and she offered me two hundred bucks to “help her” with her Hamlet paper. She batted her eyelashes at me, crossed her ankles, pushed her boobs together with her shoulders, and said, “Please?” all helpless, just like she does with the male faculty members. They love it too. That girl really knows how to get what she wants. I told her to fuck off, of course. Called her a “broken valedictorian” and a “sham,” at which point she uncrossed her ankles, let gravity do what it would with her boobs, stopped blinking like her eyelids were butterfly wings, and in a gruff, age-appropriate voice, she said, “Do you even have a purpose here at this high school? You’re useless, Leonard Peacock.”

Then she flipped me off and walked away.

That’s our valedictorian.

Our finest.

Trish MacArthur.

“How do you know what you would have done if you were forced by your government to commit crimes but you still wanted to be a good parent?” Herr Silverman says. “Were the Germans evil or were they responding to the social and political climate of their day?”

My classmates are mostly baffled.

As I listen to their whiny answers and attempts to place themselves on high moral pedestals, I realize the gap between them and me is widening as we get older.

The lies are so vivid, they’re beginning to burn out my retinas.

Today’s lecture pisses off the übermorons big-time, like the truth always does. And yet it makes me feel comforted somehow, not because Nazi officers did horrible things, but because Herr Silverman is trying to expose what everyone else in the world hides at all costs.

It’s a depressing reality, how my classmates make love to their ignorance, and I mostly tune out and wait for class to end so I can give Herr Silverman his present and be closer to the Leonard Peacock finish line.