Extreme Elvin (12 page)

“Jeez, he is so stupid!” I screamed. “Do something, Grog! Defend yourself!” I turned to my mother. “He doesn’t even know he’s being attacked. When do you suppose it’ll register?”

“Elvin?” Ma asked, prodding me.

“What?” I said. “They are rats.”

“Elvin? You’re in denial.”

I have superior denial skills. Watch.

“I am
not,”
I said. So much for that.

“El, what’s the big deal? It’s a pleasant surprise, that’s all—”

“Mother,” I snapped. “After a lot of years of confusion, I finally figure I’ve got all the gears grinding the right way... then this.” I gestured with an open palm toward Grog the miracle dog and his children. “You’re telling me now he’s had babies? Now what, I have to start over and try to figure the whole gender thing all over again?”

“We made a mistake,” she said calmly.

“Did we now?” My turn to be sarcastic.

She giggled as she spoke. “Well, Elvin, they
told
me it was a male...”

“They lied, I think.”

“Who could tell, with all the folds and the hair and everything...”

“You bought me a pregnant dog.”

“Not really... they gave it to me. I
wanted
to buy you the monkey.”

I stared hard at Grog. In amazement. In anger. This was too much. Not now. Not now. This was supposed to be
my
day, the day I changed everything, the day
I
started socializing in a big way. I really didn’t want to know about this right now.

“No,” I said.

“It’s a tad late to just say no, Elvin.”

“How could this be? Wouldn’t he have to... you know...
move,
to get this way?”

Ma covered up her mouth with her hand. She was laughing hard now. “That’s not the best part,” she said. “Go have a look up close.”

“I don’t wanna,” I said.

“Go on.”

Slowly I approached. I crept, I crept. I got close, tapped one of the offspring on the shoulder. It stopped dining to look over its shoulder at me.

“Oh my god!” I squealed, jumping up, jumping back, bouncing off a trash barrel and scurrying back behind my mother. “Ma, did you
see
that?”

She nodded, covering her lower face now with both hands. “Horrific, no?”

I could thank Grog for one thing. He gave me something to be distracted about while I sweated the approach of the single most important event of my life. The dance that would change me irrevocably, that if I botched I would not have any reason to ever leave the house again...

You see, I needed the distraction.

For a while neither of us could speak. I did a little shallow, noisy breathing, some stretching exercises, and a good deal of perspiring. Mike did nothing lifelike. I knew what was wrong with me. But I did not know what was wrong with Mike, because nothing was ever wrong with Mike. He was, as we neared kickoff, slipping into dance weirdness mode, just like the last time.

Fortunately I knew what we both needed. To talk about something else.

I tried to describe the situation to Mikie as we sat stiffly in the stands of our gym, waiting for our sisters to arrive so we could dance with them.

“What do you mean he had babies?” Mike asked. “Elvin, that’s impossible. And I’m very surprised your mother hasn’t had this conversation with you yet. Y’know, she leaves all the hard stuff for
me
to do...”

“I know how it works. Apparently, Grog is not a boy dog.”

“You’ve had him for almost a month, El. Y’know, you could have checked by now.”

“It’s not my fault,” I protested. “He’s got all that hair, the loose skin, the folds... even his ears sweep the floor, on the rare occasions when he walks.”

Mikie nodded sympathetically. “He did come with a lot of extra material, huh?”

“I knew he was a girl all the time,” Frankie said from his spot flat out on the bench. He was lying there, stretched out, facing the ceiling but with eyes closed, hands folded across his chest. He was concentrating. Frankie treated dances and parties the way starting pitchers treated the opening game of the World Series.

“Right,” Mike said. “How did
you
know?”

“Because I’m Frankie,” he said, and it didn’t even sound like a boast, just like information, like info from the phone company. “If he’s a female, I just know it, that’s all.”

“Ya,” Mike popped, “and if he’s female, odds are you’ve dated him.”

Frank sprung up in his seat, the way dogs do when they hear something nobody else can. “That’s cold,” he said with a smile, carefully smoothing out the front of his shirt, then standing to do the same with the razor-sharp crease of his pants.

“And you guys should
see
how ugly these creatures are.” I added. “You can’t even tell what kind of animals they’re supposed to be.”

“See,” Frank said, starting his descent down out of the stands just seconds before the door opened and the girls filed in, “I’m cleared. If I really was Grog’s boyfriend, those would be damn handsome puppies.”

With Frankie and his bizarre yet enviable pride to lead the way, the entire freshman class walked down out of the stands, and stopped. We stood, in one fine, motionless row at the foot of the stands, on our side of the gym, across from
them,
the girls, lined up identically over on their side, as if we were all here for nothing more than a boys vs. girls game of Red Rover Red Rover.

Only this time was different. This time, we were experienced. We knew how short an hour could be when you were trying to meet some girls.

And, they weren’t
girls
anymore. They were
a
girl, and a bunch of other persons. A very different thing really. Scarier, even. Sweeter. Scarier.

“Cripes, Elvin, what
are
you doing?” Frankie wasn’t waiting for anybody, and when he started into their territory, I was close behind—because he had me by the shirtfront. Followed by a lot of second-and third-tier dancing fools.

“Yo!” Brother Cletus called before we’d gotten three quarters of the way across. Brother Cletus was the guy who was assigned to manage these things. We figured he was the most qualified because he had moussed-up hair and wore one of those gold Italian fertility horn pendants on a chain on the outside of his black holy-business shirt.

He was pointing at Frankie. “I’m watching you, Frankie. Keep that in mind. I’m going to be watching you.”

“Okay Brother, watch me,” Frankie said politely, without slowing down. Then he whispered back to me, “He’s gonna go blind watching me.”

Frank went straight to June, and was already on the dance floor before anybody else even started with their chat-up lines. Then I was there standing in his wake, having sort of blindly followed along behind him, into June’s circle of friends, where I was face-to-face with Sally.

Was this what I’d intended? This wasn’t what I’d intended. Wait a minute. What was I intending?

“Did you do the right thing?” Sally said, grim look on her face.

Holy smokes. Holy, holy...

“Course he did,” Frankie said from a few feet away. Dancing, listening, talking to June for himself, talking to Sally for me. Taking no chances. Working all the levers.

“You did the right thing?” She was not convinced, but she was willing to be. Her face brightened a bit.

The right thing. The right thing? Did I even
know
what the right thing was? I could almost hear the snappling in my head, like a frayed electrical wire.

“Elvin Bishop,” Sally said, snapping her fingers in front of my face.

“Elvin,” Frank called, making the
get on with it
rolling gesture with his hands.

Voices. Music. Stuff. Ugly puppies. That buzzy feeling in my belly. There was a point. Where was it? Did something bad. Wanted to do something good.

“She got a friend for me?” came the voice of the individual glommed like a mussel to my stern. It was the fat kid.

I wanted to be kind. I am kind. I used to be fat. I used to be kind.

It used to be simpler.

“I told you. Nobody’s got a friend for you.”

“Ya,” he said, “but you got lots of girls. Couldn’t you introduce me to one?”

Lots
of girls?

I was looking straight at Sally, who was looking up at the ceiling. I was thinking about... who, now? Somebody else. Confused, I was here now... Sally... Sally is very pretty, isn’t she... Sally, who was now tapping her foot, checking her watch, whistling—the fully mimed version of time passing.

And passing it was. Frank had by now circled around behind me, placed his hands on my hips, and was guiding me toward Sally. “Ya, it was hard, but Elvin’s a stand-up guy in the end. He did the right thing, Sally, and your rep is back in order.”

She smiled. Not, like, joy, or love or anything. Just, okay, good enough. So she tugged me out of the harbor and into the deep water. Mid dance floor.

I was at first just happy to be there. Found myself mostly just watching, as Sally danced in front of me, dancing, yes, like girls dance. Which is to say, dancing well. Her weight shifted from one foot to the other, smoothly, a slow transfer of power in the middle of a fast dance. She looked into my face, and nodded, and one of her hands flew up and away, like a bird, out, flutter, then returning, to her hip. All done like it was supposed to be done just that way, no other way. As of this point, it was not quite eating at me, that I was here as a fraud. That I was, in fact, still the rat she thought I was. That, if she knew the truth... ooohh, let’s not go there. Let’s go back. Her face. Sally’s neat unblemished peach-colored confident face showed nothing that shouldn’t occur to a face on a dance floor. You could not tell she was thinking about dancing, the way I was sure you could see the whole complicated process on my furrowed, sweaty brow. You could not see calculations or pressures or who’s-looking-at-me on Sally’s face, because it was apparent that Sally did not care. You could not see that I had told a lie about Sally, and that there were probably a lot of people in that hall thinking about that lie at that minute. Why couldn’t you see that? I would expect to see that.

“I suppose I deserved it... a little,” Sally said, looking off over my head as she said it. “I pulled one on you, you pulled one on me. Now that we’re all clear, we’re square.”

Oh. Ow.

I stopped dancing. I stood flat-footed and, I guess, stared at her. Reality, just when you’re getting the engine started up on your denial, is a cold shot. We were not all clear. We were not square.

“I’m still pulling one,” I said, not loud enough to be heard over the music.

But loud enough to be heard by my mentor. “Excuse us,” Frankie said, bumping me, manhandling me off the dance floor while both of our partners continued dancing without us. He hustled me all the way to the snack table, where Mikie was.

“Talk some sense to this guy,” Frank said to Mike as he grabbed himself a drink. “He listens to you. Tell him not to blow it with Sally.”

Mike cracked a huge cookie in half, gave me the smaller piece. “Okay. El, don’t blow it with Sally.”

Frank finished his drink, made a snort noise. “Fine,” he said. “I got business. Can’t be wasting my time...” And he was gone back to the dance floor.

“I’m afraid I’m disappointing him,” I said. But as I said it, I realized I couldn’t manage to care. “I’m going to tell the truth about Sally. I meant to already, but got sidetracked. Anyway, know what? Know what’s weird, Mike?”

Mikie waited. This was an old, old story. The difference was, this time I was
saying
it was weird before he had to tell me.

“I’m not, like, all upset that Sally’s not gonna like me. Even though she’s great and every guy probably wants to go out with her.”

He turned to look her way. There she was, still dancing, but not by herself anymore. I looked at the guy dancing with her and thought, for no good reason, Ah, she could do better. She could have...

“Hey,” I said, “why don’t you talk to her? Now
that
makes sense.” The more I thought about it, the more sense it did make. “Ya. Right. That’s what bothers me, I think. I don’t fit there. But you do. Interested?”

Mikie continued looking, started smiling, looked interested. Then turned to me.

“Nope,” he said, shrugging.

That appeared to be that. No, though.

“How come?” I asked, and it was surprisingly hard coming out.

“Truth?” Mikie asked me.

Simple enough proposition there. Truth. Truth? Like in, did I
want
the truth? Well, easy, no? Isn’t the answer to that always yes?

No. Of course it isn’t.

But.

“Yes,” I said. “Truth.”

Best friend I ever had. Makes a difference.

“Truth is, El, I have no idea. I mean, really, I have no idea why not.” He shrugged.

It was a big shrug. Not an
I don’t care, either movie is fine with me
shrug. It was more of a
no answer there, let’s shelve this for now
shrug.

“What about you?” Mike asked. “What’s your excuse?”

This was one of those moments, one of the million moments. Where without necessarily telling me anything, Mikie told me something. But then he told me not to pursue it, either. And so I would need to tell him something too. Not as a trade, but as a
want.

I scanned the place, suddenly, madly, seeking. I put a hand on Mike’s shoulder so he could be ready when I wanted to force him to see what I saw. Then my eyes rested, off to the side, just off the main dancing area of the floor, where that girl, the round-faced curlicue girl who would not tell me her name, where she passed by with a cookie and a Kool-Aid.

“That’s the girl I can’t stop thinking about,” I said.

He looked at her. Looked at her, nodded, then looked at me.

“So
don’t,”
he said.

Right there. That was the moment. If Mikie said so, I knew I was right.

“Help me,” I said.

“No way.” He backed up like I had yet another creepy medical problem. “That’s not my game. Get Frank to help.”

“Impossible. Frankie had a plan for me, and I’m breaking from his plan so he’s gonna be all mad. And besides...” It hit me then, like it was personal, like somehow I was wounded. “Frankie thinks she’s... I don’t know. Not quite. Not, like,
enough,
or something.”