Dunk (18 page)

He slapped me hard enough to shut my mouth, then grabbed my shirt with both fists. The taste of blood bittered my tongue.

I swore. He slapped me again. I didn't care.

“Stay away from my mom,” I warned him.

“Listen, you little piece of garbage. Your mother is about the nicest person I've met since I got here. But I'm not interested in her. Not that way. I'm not interested in anyone.”

He stood up, lifting me from the floor. I heard a rip as my shirt tore in the back.

“I had a wife. I had a son. They're dead.” He shot his arms out, tossing me across the room. My legs hit the couch and I rolled over it, smacking into the wall as I tumbled to the floor. Chips of plaster showered down around me.

Malcolm crossed the space between us and stood over me. “Dead. Gone. So don't tell me your troubles. Your friend's still alive, right?”

I didn't answer. The image of Malcolm as a husband, as a father, stole my voice.

He leaned over and shouted in my face. “
Right?
”

I nodded.

“This girl. This little case of puppy love that you think is the end of the world. Is she dead? Are her ashes scattered at sea? Is she dead?”

I shook my head.

“Then get the hell off your sorry little ass and get back into the world.”

He moved away from me to the other side of the couch and stood there, panting. A moment passed. He looked around the room. I sat up and looked, too. It wouldn't have been much worse if a tornado had swept through.

“So,” he asked, “you interested?”

“What?”

“The tank, you moron. Yes or no?”

He had to be kidding. He barges in, slaps me around, wrecks the place, calls me names, and wants to know if we can be pals?

I didn't say anything. But I was silent for another reason. Something inside me had changed, and I was only now aware of it. In the fury, in the rage, part of the gray world had burned away. Part of the shroud had fallen loose.

I
CLIMBED BACK OVER THE COUCH, WINCING AS A BURST OF PAIN
shot through my shoulder.

“Wait right here,” Malcolm said. He opened the door and rushed outside. I heard his footsteps travel up the stairs and then across the room above me, followed by the rasping sound of sliding boxes. After a brief silence I heard the clatter of a bunch of small stuff tumbling to the floor. Then more steps, returning. Malcolm dashed back in and dumped an armload of junk on the table. I stared at the pile. Videotapes. And some books.

“Study these, for starters,” he said. “The Bozo is just another role. You need to find your interpretation of the part. That's the key.” He headed toward the door, then glanced back. “Want help with the couch?”

I shook my head.

“Let me know when you're done with those. I've got plenty more. Remember, we've only got three weeks.” He walked out, closing the door behind him.

I managed to tip the couch back, then straightened up the mess. When I finished, I stepped outside. For the first time in ages I felt sunlight on my skin. In my mind I saw myself as an insect that had been dormant in some dark place for eons and was now unfolding shaky legs to join the daylight world. Emerging. The wood on the porch felt rough and sandy beneath my bare feet.

Life still sucked, but one thing had changed. I realized I had a choice. I could roll over and die. Or I could fight back. I had a second chance to do what I should have done in the first place. I took a deep breath of the oven-warm air. Did I have the strength? Was it worth it? I wasn't sure. But I wouldn't know unless I tried.

Everything I wanted was out there. But it all had a price. I could see Gwen, but I'd have to deal with the fact that she liked Anthony. I could go into the dunk tank, but I'd have to do it Malcolm's way. I could be with Jason, but I'd have to accept what was happening to him, however unacceptable it felt.

I went inside and checked out the stack of videos and books Malcolm had dumped on the table. Most of the movies looked like old comedies. There were a bunch of people I'd heard of but not really seen—W. C. Fields, Groucho Marx, and others. And some people I knew, like Robin Williams, Eddie Murphy, and Adam Sandler. I grabbed a couple of the old comedies. I still wasn't sure I wanted anything to do with Malcolm or his movies, but I figured it wouldn't hurt to take some with me to the hospital when I went to see Jason. I owed him a visit. I owed him big-time.

On the way out I spotted a sheet of paper in the corner behind the television. It looked like a printout from a webpage. Probably something Corey had brought over.

At the top, it said, “Wexler-Schiff Antibody Syndrome.”
Below that, in smaller letters, it said, “A chronic, progressive autoimmune disorder.” That sounded bad. That sounded like Jason was going to get sicker and sicker.

There wasn't much information. It was a rare disease. About one case for every half million people in the country. It “tended to affect males of northern European ancestry” and usually showed up anywhere from the age of twelve to sixteen. Sometimes it started in the lungs. Other times it began by paralyzing the vocal chords. I guess Jason was lucky it hadn't taken his voice away. There were some experiments with new treatments, but there wasn't any cure yet. This thing made it sound like there was no hope. That
had
to be wrong.

I crumpled up the page, tossed it in the trash, and headed to the hospital.

“Miss me?” I asked when I stuck my head into Jason's room.

He didn't answer, so I figured he was pissed. I couldn't blame him. I'd abandoned my best friend when he'd needed me. Well, if he was pissed, I'd just have to deal with it. I walked over to the bed. A moment later he opened his eyes halfway. “Chad. Hi.”

I felt this awful pressure in my face, like tears were trying to burst free. I glanced toward the hall and thought about running out, then forced myself to turn back. Jason looked way worse than the last time I'd seen him. He'd lost so much weight that his cheekbones cast shadows across his face. His eyes were flat and dull. I wasn't even sure he knew I'd been away.

“How you feeling?” I asked. Man, what a stupid question.

He shrugged.

“Getting a lot of visitors?” I checked the wall. There were no new cards since my last visit. The balloon sagged on a drooping ribbon, its silver skin puckered and loose.

“Some.”

This wasn't going well. I was glad to see that the cart with the VCR was still there. “I brought some movies,” I told him, holding up the tapes. “Want to watch one?”

He nodded.

I raised the head of the bed. “How's that?”

He nodded again, looking so old and weak that I pretended to study the movie boxes, just to give my eyes somewhere safe to rest. This wasn't Jason. This was Jason's ghost.

I picked a film called
Horse Feathers
and loaded it into the VCR. It was ancient, and it wasn't in color. But it was hilarious. The guy, Groucho Marx—he's the one everyone imitates now with the glasses, mustache, big eyebrows, and cigar—was insanely funny.

“Reminds me of you,” I said to Jason after Groucho had gone off on a particularly silly rant. Actually, that wasn't quite true, since Groucho had a harsh edge to his humor. Jason could be wild and crazy. Groucho was wild, crazy, and brutal. But Jason smiled at my comment. It was obvious he was enjoying the movie.

“Another?” I asked after
Horse Feathers
was done.

“Sure,” Jason said. “That'd be nice.”

I popped in one called
You Can't Cheat an Honest Man
. This had W. C. Fields, the guy with the big nose and the funny voice. It was great. For a while, as I watched the movie, I actually forgot how awful things were. If this was all it took to get a shot at the tank, I guess I could do things Malcolm's way.

Jason started laughing, too. Not much. He didn't have the breath for it. But he laughed. Then, toward the end of the movie, his laughed turned into a cough. His body doubled over as the coughs got worse.

“You okay?” I wondered whether I should call a nurse.

“What are you doing to him?” Jason's mom stormed into the room and switched off the monitor, pushing the button so hard that the whole cart rocked against the wall. “I thought we'd gotten rid of you.”

“We were just watching a movie,” I said.

She rushed over to Jason and patted him on the back as the coughs shook his whole body. “Don't you ever think?” she asked. “Can't you see he needs to rest? He'll never get better if he doesn't rest.”

“But—”

“And you call yourself his friend.”

“Sorry.” I ejected the movie and gathered up the rest of the tapes.

Jason had stopped coughing. He lay back with his eyes closed, breathing in jerking gasps.

“See you,” I said.

He opened his eyes. “Come back and visit me tomorrow, Chad. Okay?”

His mother glared at me. I glanced from her face to his. “I don't know . . .”

“Please.”

“Sure.” I hurried from the room. This sucked. She'd never stop blaming me. No matter what I did, she'd find something to get mad about. It wasn't my fault he'd started coughing. I was so angry that I was halfway home before the important part sunk in.

Come back and visit me tomorrow, Chad
.
Okay?
That was the longest thing I could remember Jason saying all morning. My visit had been good for him. Maybe he needed a friend nearby to help him get better.

Then the words on that sheet of paper came back to me.
Chronic, progressive
. . . He's not supposed to get better.
Give it up. You can't help
. I forced those thoughts from my mind as I walked the rest of the way home.

Except for the part where Jason's mom had tossed me out, I figured my first attempt to return to the real world had gone okay. I was beat, though. I felt like I'd been working on a roof all afternoon. As much as I wanted to go see Gwen, I'd had enough for one day. I knew I was still traveling along the edge of a cliff. Or maybe the edge of a razor. If I went to the Cat-a-Pult and saw Anthony hanging around with her, or hanging on to her, I was afraid it would blow me so far away, so deep into the gray world, I'd never find my way back.

I didn't want to spend too much time indoors right now, so I dropped off the tapes and put on my cutoffs. Before I left for the beach I grabbed a couple of Malcolm's books. I was curious to see whether they were as good as the movies.

Ellie was at her post. I went over to the lifeguard chair and said hi to her.

“Nice to see you,” she said.

“Nice to be here.”

That's what I liked about Ellie. She didn't make a big deal over things. And she didn't make me feel guilty about running away from the world.

“Been to the hospital?” she asked.

I nodded. “I was just there.”

Something passed between us, like a conversation from my eyes to hers and back.
It's bad. Yeah, it's real bad. Let's not talk about it right now. Let's deal with it later
.

We talked about other stuff for a couple minutes. Then I found a spot on the beach, spread my towel, and stretched out with my eyes closed and my face tilted toward the sun. After a while I rolled onto my stomach and picked up one of the books. It was about acting, and it was way over my head. The first chapter covered all this stuff like motivation and rhythm. I closed that book and tried another.

This one was a lot easier to get into. It was called
Rapier Wits: An Account of Famous Minds at Their Sharpest
. It took me a moment to remember that a rapier was a kind of sword. Buried behind that fancy title, I discovered a book of insults. It had examples of putdowns that all sorts of famous people were supposed to have said. I found a couple that reminded me of lines Malcolm had used in the tank.

There was this one guy, Winston Churchill, who was England's prime minister during World War II. He must have been great to hang out with—as long as you were on his side. He sliced people up with his tongue like it was a sword. According to the book, a woman at this dinner party gave him a hard time about drinking. She'd said, “You, sir, are drunk.” He'd shot right back with, “And you, madam, are ugly. But tomorrow I'll be sober.” I remembered the first time I'd heard Malcolm. He'd used a version of that in the tank.
I'm wet
,
but you're funny looking
. Another time, someone had said to Churchill, “If you were my husband, I'd put poison in your tea.” He'd told her, “If you were my wife, I'd drink it.”

I understood why Malcolm wanted me to read the book. He didn't use the exact words from it, but he'd taken what was in there and built up a supply of ideas. It was like learning to be a better ballplayer by watching the way the best players moved. Whatever reason Malcolm had for loaning me
Rapier Wits
, I wanted to share the book with Jason. He might complain about the Bozo being cruel, but he'd laugh just as hard as the next guy at a good insult.

At five thirty the lifeguards quit for the day. People can keep swimming, but nobody's going to notice if they go under. At six, after she was finished with her work in the lifeguard shack, Ellie came over and plopped down on a corner of my towel.

“What are you reading?” she asked.

I showed her the cover and said, “Insults.”

“Why?”

“Research.” I grinned, then shared one of the Churchill quotes.

Ellie sighed. “I guess it beats spending all day lying on a couch in a dark room.”

“Big-time,” I said.

She patted me on the leg as she stood back up. “Well, I'm glad you're back among the living. It wouldn't be summer without you.”

“Hey . . .” I said as she started to walk off.

“What?”

“Can you think of any reason a girl wouldn't go out with me?”