Going Nowhere Faster (16 page)

“Well, we’ll see. Bail we can do immediately.”

“Thanks, Mrs. . . . Van . . . Va . . . Mump . . .”

“Think nothing of it, Smith. I will call you when the amount is set. You may now leave my office.”

I walked to the park and sat on the bench. The ducks were still there. The bread crumbs were still there. I sat in the sun and absorbed feelings of martyrdom, which floated down in long yellow waves. If they wanted to come get me, they could get me. Whoever it was. The Barbie-doll leaver, the mystery tire slasher, the muscle car run-overer. I was too tired to care anymore. Bring ’em on. Besides, the ducks would protect me. “Right, guys?” I asked, causing the few ducks at my feet to go screeching off in fear.

Just as I was about to leave, full to the brim with self-pity, someone tapped my shoulder.

“Gaaah!” I said, which even ol’ ponytail Steve Seagal will tell you is not a really cool or tough thing to say, and then jumped about three feet sideways.

“Whoa. You okay?”

It was Ellen Rigby. Yes,
that
Ellen Rigby.

“No, I’m not.”

“Your mom said you might be here.”

“She was right.”

Ellen was wearing a ripped T-shirt and a Catholic schoolgirl/rocker skirt. Her shirt said
BEEYATCH
in red letters.

“I overheard what my mother said. So I called your house, and your mom answered. She was real helpful.”

“That’s my mom all right.”

“You have a black eye,” she said.

“So?”

Ellen shrugged. “And a swollen wrist. And cut elbows. You’re not one of those
After School Special
kids who purposely hurt themselves, are you, Stan?”

FIVE WAYS I WAS GOING TO HURT MYSELF IF SO INCLINED:

1. Repeatedly poked in ribs with comfy pillow

2. Shoulders rubbed with aloe until painfully relaxed

3. Forced to endure untold hours of Scantily Attired Nurse footage

4. Feet held under lukewarm water until overly wrinkled

5. Subjected to Hungarian “Purring Kitten” torture

I frowned, gently touching the swelling around my eye. Why should I pretend? Why sit here and make small talk? I leaned forward.

“So why in hell did you kiss Miles? And why in the hell did you even go out with me?”

“It’s like that, huh?” Ellen shrugged and then sat down. “Hell if I know, Stan.”

“How can you not
know
? It’s not a vocabulary quiz.”

“That’s true, Stan, and if boy geniuses could treat the whole world like a vocabulary quiz, they wouldn’t have such a hard time living in it, would they?”

She had a point there. I didn’t say anything.

Ellen shook her head and took a deep breath. “I dunno . . . it’s like you had an idea of who I was in your mind, you know? I could see it written on your forehead, the panting and staring every time I came into Unhappy Video.”

I pictured myself, at the counter. Yup, there I was, panting. Loser. I wondered why we deluded ourselves that we weren’t being obvious when we were being
so
obvious. It’s like when you recognize someone walking down the street but pretend you don’t. And they recognize you and pretend
they
don’t. And then you both just keep on walking.

“So, after a while, I decided since you like movies so much, I could play a role for you. Rita Hayworth in
Little Prissy Out on a Date.
”

“So you did go out with Chad Chilton?”

She blushed a little. I had the feeling it was all she was capable of, a barely reddish spot about the size of a dime on her cheek.

“Not for very long.”

“But why bother? Why pretend? And why me?”

Ellen played a drumroll on her thigh, faster and faster and finally spread her hands, palms up. “For an egghead you sure are stupid. I like Miles. It isn’t obvious by now?”

It was obvious. It was so obvious it was ridiculous.

“I’ve liked him for a long time. But there was always Cari. And he just kept ignoring me. And then there was you, looking at me with those hungry-dog eyes.”

I scuffed my shoe in the dirt. There were spelt chunks arrayed in the grass, uneaten, that I could swear spelled out
CHUMP
.

“You still lied to me.”

Ellen wiped some lipstick from her front teeth with her pinkie. “You ever lied to anyone, Stan?”

Hmmm. Tough to argue there. I shrugged. “Well, Miles is free now. You should call him up. Single and willing.”

“No, sir,” she said, faking a hillbilly accent for no reason I could tell. “I done changed my mind on that one.”

”Why?”

“He’s a lousy kisser.”

I actually smiled. It was pretty funny.

“Quick!” she said. “Movies about relationships that don’t work out!”

My brain automatically shuffled down an enormous group of titles, and I nearly began, in a dull monotone, a list that started with
Annie Hall.
Then I caught myself and said
“Fatal Attraction”
instead.

“Clever boy.” She nodded. “As always.”

“At least it’s not a role. Good or bad, it’s just me. Stan.”

“Listen,” she said, touching my arm. I drew away, but it wasn’t easy. It still felt good to be touched. “Listen, I know what I did was kinda crappy. I’m sorry.”

I felt like VanderMumper. Ellen had drawn some knockers on me and shot me full of arrows.

“But you play saxophone,” I said lamely. “And you like good movies.”

“So?”

She was right. Why had I thought that meant something? Idi Amin probably played saxophone. Charlie Manson liked good movies.

“I guess I thought it made you . . . different.”

“Different than what?”

I didn’t know what to say, and I’d forgotten to take my
Mentasis Futilis
pills, so I came up with this gem: “You didn’t by any chance rob Happy Video the other night, did you?”

Ellen got up. “Have a good life, Stan.”

“How about dolls?” I called. “You own any red dolls?”

She turned and walked away, after a while disappearing among the trees. It was just me and the ducks. When they flew out to the center of the pond, all together after some mysterious silent signal, it was just me.

I dragged my bike back over to the pay phone. It made a loud scraping noise the entire way and left white marks on the pavement. The pack of kids on their BMXs were still there, a miniature tough-guy gang with their sneers and their perfect tires.

“Ha-ha! Nice ride!” one said.

“What a dumb bike,” the other said.

I nodded, letting my bike fall on its side with a crash. “You’re right. It is a dumb bike.”

They looked at one another, amazed. And then at me, in unison, amazed. It was probably the first time anyone had ever told them “You’re right.” About anything. The sneers vanished.

“You sure spend a lot of time on the phone, mister.”

“It’s important,” I answered.

“It’s important,” one kid told the others. “Give the man some room.” They all backed up, saying stuff like “Give him some air,” waiting for something to happen, maybe for someone to give birth or a bomb to explode. Everyone in the world had seen
way
too many movies. Of course, nothing did happen except my dialing. Eventually, the leader shrugged, and they all rode away in a pack.

The phone rang four times before Miles answered.

“Yo.”

“That’s how you answer the phone?” I asked. “What if the president’s calling?”

“The president is
way
cooler than you think,” Miles answered, without missing a beat. “He’d be like
‘Whassup, dog?’”

Neither of us said anything, fifteen seconds of silence during which the fight officially came to an end. I suddenly realized it was time to go, clear and clean and obvious. Leave. Split. Jump. Run. It was time to
become.
I was a bird. I was a bird that tweeted all the time about hating this nest but never having enough giblets to just get up and fly away. To see what happens when you’re alone and no one’s handing you free worms anymore.

I cleared my throat. “You wanna know something?”

“What?”

“We’re going.”

“Where?”

“California. You ready?”

“Are you serious?
”
Miles said, laughing. The way his voice wavered I could tell he was jumping up and down. “You better be serious, Jet Li, or I’m gonna come over there and punch you.”

“You better bring an extra three people,” I said. “I only showed you half my moves the other day.”

“Awesome.
Such
the right decision.”

“Start packing,” I said. “Now.”

“Right,” he said, and hung up.

I rattled the change in my pocket as a cruiser pulled alongside me, Officer Dave in the driver’s seat. He lowered the tinted window and then lowered his mirrored shades.

“Vandalizing public phones is a crime.”

He looked even smaller and skinnier in the cruiser, with his seat belt and shorts and kneesocks.

“If by vandalizing you mean putting in way too many quarters for a lousy three-minute conversation, I am absolutely and completely guilty.”

Officer Dave grinned like a shark. “Nice one.” He put three sticks of gum into his mouth and chewed them angrily. “That stolen?”

I looked down at my bike. He looked down at my bike.

“Yeah,” I said. “It is. While I was in the bike store at about midnight last night, I considered taking something shiny and expensive, but in the end this one just called to me.”

Officer Dave blew a big bubble, which popped loudly. Sweat glistened in his crewcut. “I know about you,” he said. “The smart kid.”

“You do?”

“All you smart kids.”

“You mean smart like
smart-ass,
or smart like
beat up three times per chess-trophy
?”

Officer Dave revved the engine. The car bucked forward half a foot, and then stalled. He started it again with a roar. I wanted to tell him I knew about him, too. The kid that got picked on in school. A lot. The kid who got a badge and some sunglasses and a gun but hadn’t changed a bit.

“So you want me to hit the siren?” he asked, approximating the noise in his throat.
“Wheer wheer.”

“No,” I said.

He looked confused. “Kids usually like it when I hit the siren.”

“I’m seventeen,” I said.

He wasn’t convinced. “So?”

I started to walk away, pulling the bike along with me.

“Looks like you could use a ride,” Officer Dave called.

For once he was right. I was tired. And it was a long way back to my parents’ house. “Can I have a ride?” I asked.

“Nope,” he said, raising his window before pulling away. “Police policy.”

I carried the bike on my shoulder half the way and dragged it the rest. By the time I got home, dinner (grilled formed vegetable protein with hearty cauliflower sauce) was on the table and my mother was annoyed I was late.

“Sit down, Stan,” my father said.

“Hey, Stanny,” Olivia said, sitting in the chair my father had invented for her. It was a big fluffy spider seat on a lever that moved her up or down and was controlled by a foot-pedal under my mother’s chair. Smith’s Toddler Tuffet. It was a prototype.

“Hi, Big O,” I said, and kissed her forehead. Then I wiped some formed protein off her chin.

“So let’s talk about Berkeley,” my mother said, before my butt was even in its seat.

“So let’s not.”

My father sighed, helping himself to a big ladleful of mush.

“I’ve got too much on my plate right now as it is,” I said, mostly meaning the huge mound of formed protein, but also the fact that someone was stalking me. “Someone is stalking me.”

“And this stalker,” my mother asked, “this is the person who has given you the bruises and destroyed Happy Video and is the reason behind all your strange behavior?”

“Yes,” I said.

“We had Alpo frogurt,” Olivia said, the tuffet leaning to one side.

“Stan did a terrific job putting that store back in order,” my father said, too quickly, hoping to avoid the subject of real ice cream. “A lot of hard work.”

“Terrific,” my mother said. “So no college, but a great future in carpentry.”

“Script writing,” I said.

Chopper groaned and lifted his leg.

“Don’t even think about it,” my mother warned, pointing.

Chopper put his leg back down. Then there was a long and silent dinner, one with no dessert and no resolution and no way to even begin explaining why it suddenly felt so right to go to California. With Miles. For no reason at all. With no money. Or job. Or a big comfy, slightly leaning bed to hide in for a week. Either way, I needed to tell my parents. I opened my mouth, but just couldn’t make my brain kick in. My tongue started to get dry and my jaw started to hurt, but no sound came out. Olivia looked at me. My father looked at me. I pictured myself standing on a chair in a safari outfit, cracking a whip at my growling brain while trying to make it jump through a hoop. It reared up and bit my calf instead. My mother reached for the ladle, spooning out seconds.

After my parents had gone up to their room, I snuck back downstairs and made a long-distance call.

“Hello?”

“Uncle Stu? This is Stan?”

“Hello? What? Who?”

“Stan? Your nephew? Calling from Millville?”

“Of course,” he said, even though it was obvious he had no idea who I was. “My favorite nephew. Stan.”

“Listen, Uncle Stu, I wanted to ask you a question about your script.”

“Who is this?” Uncle Stu snapped. “DJ Forty-Foot Burrito’s lawyer? Listen, the lawsuit is over, okay? You lost. This is harassment! You want a harassment charge now, too?”

“Uncle Stu, this really is
Stan,
” I said. “Your sister’s son? I’m calling because I’m thinking of writing my own script. Or maybe not. To be honest, I can’t decide. And also I have no ideas. But I need to figure if I’m wasting my time, you know? And so I thought maybe you could help. Like, let me know if it’s worth it. Or how to start. And finish. And the middle too, you know what I mean?”

“Harassment,” Uncle Stu said. A noise got louder in the background. It sounded like the motor for a hot tub. “You want another taste of my lawyer? Just keep it up.”