Dr. Bird's Advice for Sad Poets (20 page)

A conspiracy! An explanation!

Of course, I could also be completely, utterly, totally wrong.

“Thanks, Gina’s friends!”

I run out of there as fast as my little feet can carry me, hearing a frustrated growl from Gina Best, who might try to hunt me down for vengeance one day.

A FEW DAYS LATER
, as soon as I hear the evil voice on the morning announcements, I know what I have to do. I know what I
can
do.

“Principal Kunkel,” I mutter at the speaker while sitting in homeroom. The kid next to me glances quickly my way, but thinks better of making eye contact with the weird guy who appears ready to jump through the speaker.

I cannot look away from his sinister voice. The principal will know it all.

From homeroom I make my way straight to his office. Mrs. Berry sees me, sees my face, and knows not to mess with me.

I exude strength! I’ve always wanted to
exude!

He’s in his office. I’m in his doorway. He’s there with his bloated face and huge eyebrows and folded arms and head full of secrets.

Like Walt says:

It is time to explain myself; let us stand up.

“Principal Kunkel, my name is James Whitman and I’d like to talk to you about my sister.”

There’s a powerful buzz in my chest. I might be having a heart attack. I might be doing something incredibly stupid. From the look on Kunkel’s face, I am.

In his office, the principal doesn’t tell me to sit. He chews something in his mouth. Gum or the souls of prior offenders. He walks over to the windows behind his desk and turns his back on me. He looks like he was carved from arrogance and a hairy bar of soap. He’s going to talk down to me and I won’t be able to respond because the entire office feels like the deepest, coldest ring of hell.

“Mr. Whitman, I know why you’re here. But your sister is not coming back to this school. She is not welcome. She will not get her diploma. She had her chance and wasted it. She is not a good person. Or, at least, she is not a person that I want in my school. Violent. Inconsistent academic record. Poor attendance. Consistent lateness.”

He waits for me to object, but I keep my mouth shut.

“Good. We agree. Now. I will tell you that your next year in this school will not be easy if you continue to push the issue of her expulsion. You will accept that she is not welcome back and you will not have any problems. You will not bother Mrs. Yao or Mrs. Berry or Miss Tebler or Vice Principal VanOstenbridge.”

“Okay.”

“Good. Now get out of my office.”

I’m pretty sure I know most of what happened, though I am making a crucial assumption about why Jorie attacked Gina.

But I know enough to be here, pushing Kunkel’s buttons until he admits something, anything, everything.

“Principal, I have some information that may upset you.” My palms sweat and my stomach feels dense. “Gina Best is a drug dealer.”

I try to read Kunkel’s response. He shows no surprise, which could mean I’m right or very wrong.

“Here’s all I want. Jorie walks in graduation. I don’t reveal anything about Gina to other teachers, to newspapers, to the Internet.” I feel like a character on some crime show.

“Mr. Whitman, you and your sister seem to have the same problem.” He turns around and stands behind his desk, arms appropriately folded. “You think you know things and you don’t.”

He already knows I’ve been talking to all sorts of people, so he has to believe I know
something.
Then again, maybe I’m so wrong that I’m not a threat.

“Well, what if I went further and said that you know Gina sells drugs and you expelled my sister because she tried to tell you?” Dr. Bird whispers that I should be careful, that I don’t have facts, only emotions, that my goals are clear but my methods are dangerous. She puffs up to be noticed. I notice her, but I’m all action right now.

Still, he’s too calm. I
am
being disrespectful and he’s too calm. The old me would shut down, apologize, cower, look for a way to escape. But the old me is too tired to do a thing to stop the new me.

“How did you and the vice principal find out about Mrs. Yao’s laptop? Gina, right? She plays up Jorie’s outburst and you have no reason to believe my sister’s accusations.”

“I have to tell you, James, that you sound crazy. You accuse me of something ludicrous, and it’s disrespectful.”

“I think there’s something ludicrous and shameful about all of this,” I continue. “My parents kicked her out of our house and didn’t help her at all. They think she’s a fuck-up. The only fuck-ups I see are the ones running this school!”

“Watch your tone, Mr. Whitman! If you’re trying to earn yourself serious punishment, you are succeeding.”

“I’m not earning anything. I haven’t hurt anyone or damaged anything! I haven’t harmed anyone’s reputation. I’ve tried to clear the record. I’m not sure that’s too much to ask, especially since I struggle with depression and anxiety. It’s hard enough to get out of bed, never mind talk to people.”

“Oh, I love how easy it is for you kids to throw around your emotional problems when you get in trouble. As if it gets you out of things and makes you worthy of explanations! Your sister tried the same thing. Why can’t you Whitman kids take a little responsibility for your bad behavior?”

I want to hate everyone involved in this, but that means I have to hate Jorie, too, for hiding truths from me.

“Why all the secrets about Jorie? Why expel her for just a fight when other people fight and come back a week later?”

Principal Kunkel lets out a massive sigh.

“Your sister was arguing in the library with students, then with a teacher. You think no one saw your sister knock over Mrs. Yao’s laptop? Your sister was in my office that day because, yes, someone told on her. Not Mrs. Yao, not Gina, but two of the librarian assistants and the librarian. I could have suspended her that afternoon but didn’t. I resolved the situation. Miss Tebler and I thought it would be best if Jorie didn’t face punishment since she was clearly stressed out and needed help.

“Instead, the next day, your sister sent Gina to the hospital! Come on, Mr. Whitman. Isn’t it easy to accept that your sister did something that deserved expulsion? Don’t you think I make my decisions carefully?”

I’ll probably be imprisoned in some lower realm of the high school forever.

He tells me to leave and that I shall enjoy a month of in-school suspension and some other impressively restrained things.

I had expected him to lose his mind or scream at me, but he must be the kind of guy that bottles up his emotions.

I feel completely defeated.

AFTER SCHOOL, I’M NOT THAT INTERESTED
in what Beth and Roy say about the
Amalgam
website. I keep apologizing for not following their enthusiastic ideas. They’re kind, though. They explain the timeline for finishing and launching. They tell me that I don’t need to do anything except finish a couple more poems.

I nod and nod, tell them impossible things are possible.

“Why don’t you just go over and work on your stuff?” Beth says. “You seem like you need to just focus on one thing. Roy and I are all over the place!”

But sitting by myself with a pen and paper seems foolish. I’m a kindergartner staying inside at lunchtime. It’s not comfortable. I have no ideas.

I manage half a limerick about Principal Kunkel:

There once was a man named Kunkel

Who learned how to drink like his Uncle,

One week he was wasted

His own piss he then tasted

And . . .

I crumple up the page and the sudden crackle of paper lures Beth to me.

“How you doing over here, chum?” She smiles and sits.

“Just having one of those terrible days.”

“Tell me about it.”

“You don’t want to hear about it.” I make a strong effort to avoid eye contact. “Too much lunacy.”

“Well, then tell me something good!”

“Nothing’s all that good.”

“You’re here. If things were bad you’d be home or out hugging some trees.”

“I guess.”

“I’ll tell you something good—I dropped
Drama Mavens
like a hot potato!”

It takes a lot to laugh, but I manage it. Strangely, I’m not immediately filled with stupid hopes about hand holding, romantic walks, and smelling her shampoo.

“That’s good.” I smile. “That’s really good.”

“You seem less thrilled than I would hope.”

“I don’t have the capacity to be thrilled right now.”

“I needed to not be a part of his life. I need to be in charge of my life. Plus, this way you and I can hang out without guilt and mystery.”

I want to jump to conclusions, but I don’t.

“I mean, it seems like you need someone to confide in. Whatever that entails. I’m not dumping my boyfriend so we can make out and talk about poetry,” she laughs. “But now I can be a better friend, and that’s something I want to work on because you’re my only real brainy friend, who doesn’t look at me weird for running this poetry magazine.”

The rabid voice in my head, which usually makes me say too much or hope too much, fails to wrest control of my mouth.

“I guess this all sounds super weird. And you don’t seem in the mood to yawp.” She smiles, though I only see it from the top edge of my vision since I’m still staring at my pen and paper. “Did I use that right?”

“Yes.”

“So, that’s good news,” she says. “And now your day is a little better! And now you can tell me something good.”

“I failed.”

“A test?”

“Worse. My sister. I failed Jorie.” Here’s the moment where I think I could cry and then I realize girls—even girls that like poetry—don’t want to see a boy cry.

“I’m sorry, James.” Beth has a sweet voice, but I’d rather not be treated like a delicate bird.

“Beth, I feel like everyone is allergic to honesty.” I whisper some details about my meeting with the principal, but I don’t have the heart to reignite my anger. “I have a month of in-school, which will turn into an entire summer of being grounded. I stole money from my crap job. I can’t afford therapy. I can’t write any poems. I have no money for film or a new camera. And I forgot to put deodorant on today, so I feel like I stink.”

Beth puts her hand on my leg. She doesn’t say anything. We could hug. She could kiss my cheek. But this is as much as I can handle right now.

Later I stand around the corner of the pizza shop for twelve and a half minutes. I imagine various scenarios wherein Flip hurts me. The most elaborate ends with me being decapitated with the metal pizza shovel he uses to slip pies in and out of the oven.

Needless to say, he’s not pleased that I stole, though he’s not even sure how much disappeared from his register. (This works in my favor, since I spent some on therapy.)

I lose my job, of course. That’s fair. I am not the kind of kid who believes he can do whatever he wants. At least, I’m trying not to be that kind of kid.

“Don’t hold this against Derek, please. He had no idea.”

“Of course he didn’t. He’s not an idiot.”

I guess that’s the best I can expect. At least I don’t love the pizza. No need to find a new place to get slices.

DINNER WITH MY PARENTS.
Joy of joys. Sausage in the tomato sauce. Somehow my mother still thinks I won’t notice, or that I’ll change my mind about the putrid nature of sausage. I don’t bother starting an argument since I’ve been losing arguments lately. I get up to microwave some untainted sauce, but the Banshee informs me that she used the last jar. I put margarine on my noodles and explain to my father, again, that the processed bacon things in the salad are not made from real bacon.

My father asks his usual round of school-related questions: Did I learn anything, what kind of homework do I have, tests coming up, papers to write? He seems more annoyed at the weak curriculum than at me.

“What happened to challenging kids in school? College will kick your ass if you don’t prepare.”

My father did not go to college, but he is an expert because he reads things on websites and makes up other things that he figures would be true in his perfect world.

This could be a perfect time to bring up my sister. I’ve already had a freak-out at school, and I lost my job. I can complete my day by driving my parents nuts.

Instead, I eat bland noodles. I shake excess dressing off the iceberg lettuce. I eat cucumbers. I do not talk.

“Dale, I was talking with James a few days ago and thought that maybe we could discuss letting Jorie come back home.”

Ah, so much for a quiet, boring dinner.

“Yeah, that’s a swell idea.” He’s already unhappy with dinner—spaghetti being one of his least favorite meals.

“I didn’t say we should do it. I just think we should hear what James has to say about it. Maybe it would be good in the long run for our family.”

My father puts his fork down. It’s still jabbed into a piece of sausage. The image of all the bacteria and animal parts in there makes me squirm. He puts his elbows on the table and puts his palms together and taps his fingers against his lips. He stares at me, even though my mother has triggered the impending doom.

“Your sister cannot live here with our rules. I think we should just let her stay away and be happy with that.”

The energy to fight remains dormant. Somewhere, deep inside me, though, I sense a boiling urge to leap at my father and wrap my hands around his throat and tell him that he needs to understand my power. That one day he might wake up and find me, bloody-wristed, at the bottom of the stairs. That one day I might squeeze the life out of his body and mine because I
cannot fucking take it!

“You have anything to say?” my father, the Brute, asks. “Your mother says this is your idea.”

“Whatever you want, Dad. It’s your house.”

“James, you told me you wanted to talk to your father about this,” my mother, the Banshee, argues. “You said he’d listen to me and that you wanted this.” Now she’s staring at me. “I’m confused.”