Anything You Want (3 page)

Anyway, I wasn't sure what Darius's advice had been. He told me I was stupid. But I didn't ask him if I was stupid or not. He also said Maggie didn't love me, which clearly wasn't the case. Mom said that I shouldn't listen to Darius when he said mean things, and wasn't he being mean by calling me stupid and not loved?

Whatever. I got very quiet. I meditated to try to communicate with Mom's ghost. I heard nothing. I tried to summon the Tibet baby that I dream about that might be Mom. I couldn't do it. And I thought,
Maybe that's your answer. Nothing!

Right? Nothing! Do nothing!

Because honestly, while I was sure Maggie loved me, I wasn't sure she could yet love me like the gem I am.
That settles it!

Sorry, lady pal! No. Doing. It.

I felt very good about this decision, very smart and mature.

After school, Brad Schwartz came over, and we had a good talk about democracy. The lessons he brought home in both English and social studies had to do with democracy. Using the little boys in their underpants killing one another with sticks and rocks from
Lord of the Flies
, Brad tried to convince me that democracy is doomed to fail.

“We have a base nature,” he said. “We're more animal than creatures of reason.”

“You're wrong!” I said. “Those kids on the island are just kids. They don't have the maturity to make good choices. If they were a couple years older, like our age, they wouldn't have crushed one another's skulls with rocks. They'd have figured out democracy—no problem.”

Brad rolled his yes. “Have you seen the cafeteria without a lunch monitor? You're delusional, Taco.”

“No, I'm not,” I said.

He shrugged and left.

Later when Maggie Corrigan showed up after cheerleading practice, she said all she could think about was my body.

“This body?” I asked.

She nodded. Then she gently removed my bear slippers and my pajama pants, careful not to hurt my coccyx, and she carefully put her naked knees on either side of my hips and leaned over. As she breathed in my ear, she whispered, “I love you so much, man.” That was when I decided we should definitely do it.

And we did! It kind of hurt Maggie, which made me worried, but she said she was okay. We fell asleep. Then—wait for it—we did it again!

It was great! I couldn't wait for my broken butt to heal so I could actually move while we were doing it! I mean, so great! Oh my God, I love Maggie. I'm a junkie for her for real!

But here's the deal, dingus: Life begets life.

I read that in a biology textbook. Or maybe it was the Bible?

I can't remember.

For the rest of my broken butt convalescence, Maggie came over to the suite after every cheerleading practice. Good times! We were celebrating our love. Of course, sex is sex even if you call it a celebration.

And then my coccyx was ready to attend school!

It was great to get back. Everybody was so happy to see me. Jocks, jerks, dweebs, dinks, doinks, dickheads, burners, boners, geeks, brats, preps, and trench coat loners all high-fived and hugged me that first day. “It's like the school lost its beating heart,” Ms. Tindall said. I knew she was right. Ms. Tindall is the health teacher. She has access to academic articles and school transcripts and understands a school's culture. She knows the what-what.

I couldn't play football, of course. There weren't football pants big enough to fit around my inflatable doughnut, which would protect my healing coccyx from offending helmets. That didn't mean I couldn't be involved though. I became the best equipment manager and water boy Bluffton High School has ever known. Coach Johnson has a son who played at Iowa, and he coached a kid who got a full ride to Stanford as well as a bunch of other guys who play at small colleges. He actually said as much. “Son, I appreciate how far up my ass you are. You're doing a fine job, but could you take a step back?”

“Yes, sir. Yes, sir!” I said and saluted him.

During games, I got to hand out Gatorade on the sideline and cheer, which meant I was close to Maggie and her kicking legs and her jumping booty and her total love. She'd blow kisses at me and lick her fingers like she was eating a sexy ice cream cone. Being water boy also meant I got to be in the locker room for Coach Johnson's inspiring pregame, halftime, and postgame speeches.

But Maggie was changing just like the seasons.

It was October, at a game in the hills of Richland Center, when I first noticed Maggie's changing moods. I came limping out on the field after halftime just in time to see Maggie refuse to climb to the top of the cheerleader pyramid. Without Maggie, they were a cheerleader trapezoid, which wasn't impressive at all. She stood behind the tower of her teammates with her arms crossed while the other girls shouted at her. She shouted back, sort of crying, her face the color of a cherry slushy.

“What's wrong?” I shouted. I ass-hobbled over to her. The cheerleader trapezoid collapsed to the ground.

She just shook her head at me, tears in her eyes.

“Seriously. What's wrong, Maggie?” I put my hand on her shoulder.

“My boobs hurt. I can't jump anymore. They ache,” she whispered.

“Oh?” I said. “Should I ice them down when we get back to the suite?” That's what guys on the football team do when a body part aches.

“Okay,” she said.

“Okay,” I said. She nodded, but I don't even think she heard my words. Her eyes looked far away, even beyond the stands, like deep into the hills and past the trees and deer and cliffs, off into the deepest darkness of Wisconsin.

“Okay,” I whispered. Then the football team came back on the field, and I cheered and cheered because I loved football.

After the game Maggie said her boobs were fine. I didn't have to ice anything. She was very uncomfortable and sweaty and weird though. She was also huggy, like she didn't want to let go of me, which I liked, but it was pretty out of the norm for her. Usually Maggie stayed at the suite long enough for us to hang out and do it. Then she'd walk home by like ten thirty. But that night she stayed until 1:00 a.m., and we just talked and talked and hugged until her dad showed up and asked if she needed a ride home. Mr. Corrigan's face was all gray, and there were these big circles under his eyes. It looked like he wasn't too pleased to be awake, but he was wearing one of his jackets with the elbow patches anyway. Man, is that guy classy.

Then Maggie went quiet on me for the weekend.

She spent Saturday and Sunday at her big house, doing yard work and cleaning the basement and the attic and painting her and Mary and Missy's bedroom. (Apparently I'd scuffed up the walls with my shoes during the summer.) So I didn't get to see her.

I didn't get a glimpse of her again until Sunday night, when I visited her at Dairy Queen, because I figured she wouldn't mind the company there.

But at Dairy Queen she hissed at me. “You! You did this!”

“What?”

She pulled me into the men's bathroom and told me her boobs hurt and asked me if I had any idea what that might mean. I told her I had no idea. Then she glared at me and called me a child.

So I said, “I'm your boyfriend. I'll take care of you. How about you come over after work, and we'll ice your boobs so they don't ache?”

Maggie turned all cherry-slushy face again and threw me out of the store. I didn't want to leave, but she threatened to call the police—kind of like her mom might do. So I limped home and got a big headache to go with my butt ache and my heartache because I was so confused.

And then I got even more confused. Two hours later she showed up at my house in her family's fantastic Subaru wagon and acted like nothing had happened at the Dairy Queen.

“What was that about, Maggie?” I asked, standing at the door.

“Oh, I don't know. You were just being annoying.”

“You would call the cops on me for being annoying?”

She grabbed my ears and pulled me to her lips. “I'm sorry. I love you. Let's just do it,” she whispered. So we did, and then she cried great heaving sobs.

“What's wrong?” I cried.

“It's okay. I don't know. I'm sorry. I'd better go,” she said between sobs. Then she left!

After that she barely talked to me for several days, which made me sick to my stomach.

Then on Thursday after school, I had a short football practice. It was the day before a game, so all I did was pack up the first-aid kit. Maggie's cheerleading was canceled too, and we ran into each other outside the gym. She said, “Let's go get naked.”

I was all like, “Oh yeah? Really? Maybe…if you think you won't cry for no apparent reason and then leave me and not answer my phone calls.”

“Ha-ha!” she said like I was making a joke, which I wasn't. “Let's go!”

When we got back to the suite though, she couldn't do anything but take pees. She went like twenty-five times until she squealed, “Spotting! Maybe I'm okay?” Then she left again.

I didn't have a laptop or a smartphone or even a cell phone. Darius had one, but he couldn't afford two, so I had to use the landline. But we did have the Internet. It was hooked up to my mom's old desktop, which sat on our kitchen table so that both Darius and I had access to it.

After Maggie left, I sat down at the computer and looked up hurting boobs and spotting, which I found out often have their root cause in the menstrual cycle. Maggie was having her “little friend,” which is what she called her period. Suddenly her crazy behavior made sense.

The next day at school, I hugged her. “Of course your boobs hurt, and you're spotting, lady pal. You've got your little friend.”

Maggie hit me. “You don't know shit from Shinola.”

I figured she might be right. I might not know shit from Shinola because I didn't know what Shinola was. But Maggie didn't seem like she was in the mood to hear that, even if I was agreeing with her.

That night we had a home game against Lancaster. Maggie was totally normal. She jumped and cheered and laughed while our team got our asses handed to us in the first half. At halftime she climbed to the top of the cheerleader pyramid. And right before the start of the third quarter, right before we received the kickoff, Maggie kissed me square on the lips in front of everyone.

“I want you so bad!” she told me. But after the game, she called her mom to pick her up and take her home from the stadium. She said she was having cramps.

Shit from Shinola?

Later, I sat in my dark kitchen at mom's old computer. I looked up shit from Shinola. It turns out Shinola is shoe polish that was very popular during World War II. I began to wonder if maybe a World War II ghost had invaded Maggie, and maybe that's why her boobs hurt and why she had to pee all the time. I'd heard about similar cases on the TV show
Ghost Adventures
, which Darius likes to watch sometimes.

Even later that night, I sat on my doughnut on the couch in the living room and read a biography of Thomas Jefferson, which had been assigned for English. Jefferson, it turns out, was a pretty crazy man, so I enjoyed myself, forgetting about the haunting of Maggie Corrigan's boobs.

About 10:00 p.m., the front door opened, and the smell of tainted fish and stale beer enveloped me as Darius stomped in, pulled off his fish clothes, and complained about the grease that was giving him zits.

“Did you drink beer and then drive?” I asked.

“Not your business,” he said before microwaving some nachos.

When he finally settled down on the couch to eat, I asked, “Have you ever known anybody who's been possessed by a spirit or maybe a devil?”

“What? No.” Darius stuffed a bunch of chips in his face.

“Maggie's possessed, I'm pretty sure,” I said. “One minute she says she loves me so much, but like a minute later she's screaming at me because I'm annoying—like so annoying that she feels the need to call the cops. And her boobs hurt. They didn't hurt when we first started dating. And she has to pee a lot. And she cries for no reason.”

Darius stared at me. He said quietly, “That's funny.”

“You wouldn't think it was funny if you saw it happening,” I said.

Darius blinked. He held chips in both his hands (unwashed hands, I'm sure, so the chips surely tasted like fish). He blinked some more but didn't move. He didn't jam those chips in his mouth. He just stared and blinked.

“What?” I asked.

“I can hear what you do,” Darius said very quietly.

“What do I do?” Fear bloomed in my heart because now Darius seemed haunted too. “What do you mean?”

“You do it. You and Maggie Corrigan do it all the time. Again and again and again,” he said.

“Right. We like to celebrate our love,” I said.

“Jesus Christ, Taco. Is she on birth control?” he asked.

“No.” I laughed. “Why would she be?” As I tend to be delusional but not totally stupid, I began to think.

“Oh shit. Are you using condoms?” he asked.

“No. We're not serious about it, okay? We're just having fun.” Then I started to really think because that sounded like a very, very dumb statement.

“Oh shit, Taco,” Darius said.

“What? What are you saying?” Oh balls, dingus! I knew what he was saying!

Darius sat forward, so a couple nachos fell on the floor. “I'm supposed to be the dumb one, Taco. I'm supposed to be the one who doesn't understand causes and consequences—the one Mom said needs to take a big breath before I act because I'm liable to fall off a damn cliff without noticing.”

“Well, you do have a certain history,” I said.

“Haven't you taken health class?”

“I'm in health two this year,” I said. “Ms. Tindall thinks I'm smart.”

“First thing we learned about in my class was pregnancy and how you get pregnant. You don't have to want to get pregnant to get pregnant, dumb ass.”

“I know that,” I said. But what started to play on repeat in my mind was, “Oh shit. Oh shit. Oh shit.”

“Is your girlfriend trying to get pregnant?” Darius asked.

“I don't know. I don't think so.”

“You idiot!”

“I know,” I whispered.

Oh, dingus, did I know. In health class during freshman year, we learned about sperms and eggs and…oh shit. I knew it all. And given the fact that Maggie and I were doing it like monkeys, you would think that I'd have considered the possibility that my seed would find a perch in her misty jungle. For whatever reason, doing it didn't seem the same as having sex. But sex is sex! It's what people and animals do to make babies.

“Tender boobs, spotting, mood swings, peeing,” I recounted.

“Maggie Corrigan is pregnant, you idiot. What the hell are we going to do?” He looked down at his nachos. “My cheese is cold! Shit!”

“Just microwave it,” I said.

“I'm too overwhelmed to get up!”

So even though I was the guy with the broken butt and the potentially pregnant girlfriend, I was the one who stuck Darius's nachos back in the microwave to melt his cheese again.

Of course, I wasn't thinking about his cheese or my butt. I was thinking about Maggie.

After I delivered the heated-up nachos to Darius's lap, I moved my doughnut to the kitchen table to research early signs of pregnancy. Ms. Tindall had indeed covered all this in my freshman-year health class.

I was dumbstruck. I stared at sad Darius, who had passed out (from beer probably), his greasy nachos on his lap. I thought and thought and thought.

I thought some more.

And even some more.

Until deep into the dark night, when Darius tipped over and snored on the couch, covered in those nachos. He and his beer drinking made me sad. I pictured Darius when he was a little boy, before beer, playing in the sandbox behind the mullet house. Mom was in her lawn chair, soaking in the sun next to him, and I pictured me as a baby bouncing on Mom's knee as she sang me hippie songs about bullfrogs and butterflies and how they get born and reborn. And then I thought about Mom covering me in her motherly kisses and Maggie covering me in different kisses, but they were still love kisses, real kisses that made my heart sing hippie songs, important kisses. And as the night got darker and deeper, I got excited because I love life. I love parents, and I love Maggie. I thought about how I wanted to make a good home for a baby because my family was all broken and sad at the moment. But I wasn't sad, and Maggie wasn't sad. Mom was gone but not sad. And you know what? I was Taco, right? I knew that I'd be a great dad, the best dad! I could pass on my mom's amazing lessons to a baby! Oh yeah, I got so, so, so warm and happy.