Gravity Brings Me Down (2 page)

Everything in Sunnyview is only a few blocks from everything else. What’s more, we have only one main street, which everyone calls The Drag, for obvious reasons. I mean, it takes less than half an hour to walk to the city limits from my place. A moped is all you really need, end to end. Except that mopeds have to be the lamest transportation on earth. But obviously nobody
told Tod. Only a loser would be misguided enough to ride one, let alone own one. But Tod’s proud of the fact. He even keeps a matching gold helmet strapped to the back, just in case he convinces some other loser to take a ride with him, I guess.

He’s the editor of our school newspaper,
The Peak
, which everyone calls
The Puke
, because it sucks so bad, and he’s always asking me to submit something. He’s the kind of guy parents call “nice,” but really he’s the kiss of death to anyone hoping for a social life of any kind. I’d be nicer to him if it were possible, but if I so much as glance in his direction he asks me to marry him. It’s so irritating. I feel sorry for him, though, because he has an even worse name than me. There are no homonyms for Tod. The only logical derivative is Toad, which some jock already figured out, and now Tod is stuck with it for life.

The cops inch closer.

“We can help you,” the bullhorn blasts. “Life is worth living!”

I try to explain that I’m just researching a sociology project, but a gust of wind hits me and I lose my balance. My notebook flies from my hand into the gushing water, an unrecoverable victim of the gravity machine. The crowd gasps. The old woman keeps coming. I’m flapping my wings like an idiot, fighting the invisible forces, when Miss Marple grabs me by the shirt, pulling me from the mouth of certain death.

She says, “Marie! I’ve been looking all over for you,” in this British accent, then tries to wipe the mascara from under my eyes with a snotty old hanky.

I’m so stunned, all I can do is stare at her. I almost died! My whole body is shaking. I wish I had my journal so I could write this feeling down.

“Dear girl, you were supposed to meet me at the library at noon,” Miss Marple says. “It’s well past one o’clock. Did you forget?”

“I’m not Marie,” I say.

The cops surround us.

“Dear, dear, dear,” the old lady says, stabbing at my eyes with her hanky. “Have you been crying?”

“What seems to be the problem?” the officer asks through the bullhorn, even though he’s standing right next to me.

“Officer.” Miss Marple steps in. “This is my daughter, Marie. She was supposed to meet me at the library this afternoon. It’s just a misunderstanding.”

The cop looks to me for confirmation. I open my mouth to tell him I’ve never seen the old lady in my life when I realize the out she’s given me. So I smile instead, tilting my head back and forth in a noncommittal, I’ m-not-lying-but-I’m-not-telling-the-truth kind of way.

The officer turns his bullhorn toward the crowd. “Go home, folks. There’s nothing to see here.”

I have to wonder if this expression is in some kind of manual they hand out at cop school, or if they learn it from old TV shows like
Dragnet
. I’d like to write that thought down, too, but unfortunately, my journal is at the bottom of the Sunnyview Dam.

The crowd looks downright disappointed that I’m not going to jump to my death today. They shrug their
shoulders, kicking pebbles as they slowly leave. A few geeks and younger kids hang around, just in case I change my mind, I guess.

Tod fires up his moped, puttering toward me. I turn to exit, stage left.

“Aren’t you coming for lunch, Marie?” Miss Marple asks.

“I’m not Marie,” I say again.

“I was so looking forward to seeing you, dear.” She reaches for my hand but I pull it away.

“I’m sorry,” I say, as I leave her standing on the dam. I don’t look back because I don’t want to encourage her, and because I know everyone is staring at me. Walking away, I pull out my Gauloise, the preferred smokes of Jean-Paul Sartre. They’re the only good thing available in this lame town. Striking a match, I light a cigarette and inhale deeply. I always use box matches, not a lighter, and
never
a disposable. Disposables are déclassé. Besides, there were no disposables in Jean-Paul’s time.

Tod cruises up beside me. “Was that your grandmother?”

“As if,” I say, tapping ashes in his general direction.

He swerves to avoid a stone on the road. “Were you really going to jump?”

“What do you think, Tod?”

“I don’t know. But there are people who can help you. Hotlines and things like that. You shouldn’t smoke, you know.”

I want to freak out on his head, but when I turn to look at him, all I can see is the spit collected at the
corners of his mouth. He pushes his Clark Kent glasses up on his nose.

“There’s a superhero festival at the Cineplex.”

“Not interested.”

Most people would be put off by this, but not Tod. He just says “Okay,” then continues to coast along next to me. It doesn’t matter how mean I am to him, he just keeps trying. It’s enough to make a person crazy.

“Have you thought about submitting an article to
The Peak?”
he says.

I sigh, blowing a particularly large plume of smoke in his face. “I almost died today, Tod.”

We’re getting dangerously close to school and I’m about to tell him to moped along when I notice he’s driving straight toward a manhole cover that’s missing a big chunk from one side. Before I can say anything, it’s already too late. He hits the hole and dumps his ride. I’m so embarrassed, all I can do is cross the street and leave him flopping like a fish on the ground.

Back at school, the skaters are in their usual spot, making relentless attempts at impossible manoeuvres along the retaining wall at the front of the building. It doesn’t matter how many announcements the principal makes, they just do it anyway. I have to admire their indifference. I nod to the PIBs in their strategic location across the street, then run the gauntlet past the groups of stoners and jocks who line the sidewalk leading to the stairs. One of the stoners whistles as I go by. One of the jocks calls me a freak. I could care less what they think; I just hope they didn’t see me with Tod.

I haven’t even reached the stairs when Chocko draws first blood, bursting from the school.

“Smith! You know the rules about smoking on school property!”

I toss my cigarette to the ground, grinding it beneath my shoe.

“Pick up your trash,” he demands, pointing at the spent butt.

I pick it up and toss it into the garbage.

“That’d better not start a fire,” he says, trying to get a rise out of me.

But he’s wasting his time. I totally ignore him as I walk past, cool as a retributional goddess can be.

The second I step through the school doors, my friend Sharon grabs me.

“Oh my God, I heard what happened at the dam. Steve Ryan said you almost jumped. Hey, your mascara looks great—in a Marilyn Manson kind of way.”

I notice instantly she’s got a purple nylon wrapped around her wrist. Sometimes I really wonder about her.

“Steve Ryan is an idiot. Why are you wearing nylons on your arm?”

Sharon holds up her hand. “My aunt gave me all her fishnets from the Seventies. I’m wearing it in honour of our bra-burning sisters of old. I brought one for you, too.”

She produces the withered leg of an old stocking from her purse and begins wrapping it around my wrist, securing it with a knot as the bell rings. The zombies flood into the school and we have to fight our way to
our lockers. When I get to mine, I see something sticking out of the grille. It’s the corner of a small envelope. I pull it out and discover my name printed neatly on the outside in gold metallic ink.

S
haron snatches the envelope from my hand. “Who’s it from?”

I have no idea who the mystery envelope is from but, secretly, I want it to be from Darren Walker. He’s tall and dark and so terminally tragic with his long hair and tattoos. Definitely top monkey on the Goth chain. He sits at the back of the class and never talks to anyone. He wears a long black coat, even in 180-degree weather, and somehow, he’s managed to skip every gym class since high school began. And he has the best homonym of all: Darin’. God, I love him.

Sharon hands me back the envelope. I open it. There’s a small popcorn bag inside with a poem actually typed on it with an old typewriter or something.

“What is this crap?” Sharon jeers over my shoulder.

I think it has to be from Darin’. He’s the saddest person I’ve ever known in my life.

“Isn’t that from some ancient Elton John song?” Sharon says.

“I don’t think so.”

“Yes, it is. I should know. My dad’s subjected me to that poncy crap since I was born—probably even earlier.”

“No, it’s not.”

“I swear to God, it is.”

“Okay, fine. Maybe it is from an ancient Elton John song. So what?”

“Why would someone give you something like that? It’s so … old.”

“Maybe that’s the point,” I say, trying to make the best of the fact that I’ve been given a popcorn bag covered in lyrics sung by some old ponce. “Who would know about that kind of music?”

“A teacher …” Sharon says. “Or maybe one of the janitors.”

“You are truly whacked.” I crumple the popcorn bag and toss it to the bottom of my locker. I don’t want it to get around that I’m being stalked by a janitor that loves Elton John. But when Sharon isn’t looking, I flatten out the note and press it between the pages of my
Great Thinkers
text because I’m hoping that the note really is from Darin’. Who else would do something so blatantly bizarre? I mean, it’s ridiculously brilliant in a twisted kind of way to give someone something so old and weird … isn’t it?

Sharon and I make our way to philosophy class. Once there, I decide to uncover the source of the mystery note by sitting at the back in the seat next to Darin’. Tod comes in and sits in front of me. I poke him lightly with my pen. He turns casually around, as though everything is normal.

“Yes?”

“Uhh … what are you doing?”

“Sitting.”

“Yeah … why are you sitting in front of me?”

“It’s a free country, isn’t it?”

Just as he says this, über-jock Biff Johnson comes in, smacks Tod across the head and shoves him to the floor, taking the seat for himself. His jock sidekick, Steve Ryan, sits in the seat beside him. Usually they both sit on the other side of the room, so I have no idea what’s going on and I’m not about to ask. In my estimation, Biff is proof positive that God doesn’t exist. If he did, would he allow someone like Biff to roam freely across the earth? The answer is a definite NO. Biff turns around and leers at me while Steve gives me a look like a guilty puppy.

Thankfully, Sharon follows my lead, sitting on the other side of me in the desk normally occupied by April Showers. I swear that’s her real name. Her parents must hate her to condemn her to the barrel for the rest of her life with a name like that. And what’s worse, she’s the most nondescript, overlooked girl in the school but she doesn’t seem to realize it. She tries to interact with the top monkeys all the time, even though
they ignore her completely. It’s so painful to watch. I just wish she’d clue in and stop trying to make friends outside her chain because all they do is make fun of her. Anyway, when she sees Sharon sitting in her seat, she looks all confused, hobbling her head around and opening and closing her mouth like a goldfish. Sharon produces her famous brain-melting look, causing April to shrivel into the next available seat, one row over. The whole time, April’s eyes are glued to our purple nylon wrist things.

“Are you guys some kind of cult?” she asks.

Sharon snorts. “Yeah. A cult of two.”

April keeps staring, until I acknowledge her. “Yes, April?”

“What?” she says.

“You look like you have a question.”

“Do I look like I have a question?” she says. Then she turns to Tod and asks, “Do I look like I have a question?” She proceeds to ask everyone around her, including Biff and Darin’ (who pretend she doesn’t exist) if she looks like she has a question until she finally turns back to Sharon. “Do I look like I have a question?”

“You look like you have a mental condition,” Sharon says.

This makes Darin’ smile and I love him even more.

Fifteen minutes into class, Chocko finally shows up, wearing his shades and staring around the room like he’s seeing us for the first time. He plays AC/DC’s “Back in Black,” then starts blathering about some concert somewhere. Normally, I’d express my disapproval by
pulling out a novel and reading, but today, I’m actually happy about it, because I know he’ll drone on for most of the class and I’ll have lots of time to conduct my investigation. I begin documentation:

1:24 p.m.: Exhibit A: the note
.

I adjust the popcorn bag so the edge sticks out from my
Great Thinkers
text, just enough to be recognizable. I gauge Darin’s response by staring at him from the corner of my eye without turning my head any more than I have to.

1:29 p.m.: So far, nothing. Darin’ hasn’t even registered the popcorn bag or anything else, it seems. He’s one cool customer
.

1:34p.m.: Still nothing
.

1:45p.m.: Nothing. Chocko drones on. I honestly think I’m going to lose my mind
.

It’s bad enough that classes are an hour and a half long, but with Chocko, it seems even longer. It’s as if he has his “free and easy” fingers all over the gravitation remote, ramping up the levels. This makes me think about what Dr. Armstrong said: that everything is affected by gravity, even light and time. He said that if the force of gravity were to increase significantly, like if a black hole were to suddenly appear, time would literally slow down. Black holes are so dense and have so much gravitational pull that if you could safely observe an astronaut falling into one, time would move so slowly you’d never actually see the astronaut fall in. In essence, time would seem to stand still. Like in this class.

The only logical conclusion: Chocko’s mouth is, in fact, a black hole.

And while I’m at it, who thought alternating time slots for classes during the week was a good idea? It’s supposed to stimulate learning but all it does is confuse us. As if it makes a difference to anyone if you have philosophy first thing in the morning or immediately after lunch. As far as I can tell, it’s still an hour and a half of torture—or longer if Chocko’s mouth is in the room.

So I don’t go completely insane, I decide to shift gears and focus on my Cultural Paradigms project (henceforth to be known as my CPP). I wonder what being dead is like. I think it would be neat if you could come back as a ghost and haunt all the people who bugged you during your life. Chocko would definitely be top of
my list. I would want to be one of those sexy vampire-type ghosts who look amazing until you piss them off, and then they turn all hideous and freaky. I think more people would check out early if they knew they could tap into some kind of immortality, demonic or otherwise. Honestly, I have to wonder what keeps people going at all. Life is just suffering and responsibility and pain, and then you die alone of some terrible disease. So what’s the point? I mean, at least if you take matters into your own hands, you get to decide when and where. I ponder this for a while, then inexplicably find myself thinking about the old woman at the dam. Who is she? Why did she keep calling me Marie? I can’t deny the fact that she saved my life today. I think it means I owe her something … or not.

I check my watch: 2:05. Will Chocko ever shut up? He’s really on a bender. Darin’ is sleeping, apparently. I continue to struggle with life’s most profound mysteries. After intense exploration, I’ve come up with a graphic representation of death. This is what I think it’s like:

At last, class is over. Darin’ didn’t so much as glance at the popcorn bag. I decide he has incredible willpower, which is a very alluring attribute. He gets up from his seat without acknowledging me. I’m watching him stroll from class when Biff Johnson turns around in his seat and smiles as if he’s posing for a magazine. He slips me a note, like he’s taken a vow of silence or something and can’t actually speak. I unfold the note and there, in his grade-3 scrawl, are these words:

How about it?

I have no idea what the “it” is he’s referring to so I just stare blankly back at him until he gets up and leaves— but not before rapping on the top of my desk with his knuckles like a chimp. Steve gets up and follows him, glancing back at me with that same guilty puppy look. I just can’t figure out what’s going on.

I hand the note to Sharon as we exit the class. “Don’t ask me to explain because I have no idea.”

“What is this … Write Sioux a Note Day?”

“Beats me.”

“Do you think Biff wrote the other one, too? Maybe it’s some kind of jock conspiracy.”

“Whatever.”

“Do you think he likes you? He’s not
that
bad.”

“Are you out of your mind?”

“He’s kind of cute … in a sporting sort of way. He’s got a great body. Maybe you should just go out with him to see what he’s really like. You could write about it.”

“I’d rather eat my own vomit.”

“Fair enough.”

We endure an hour and a half of English: some riveting discussion about
Gulliver’s Travels
, in which Tod answers every question Mr. Farrell asks, to the point where he starts to ignore Tod’s hand altogether. I don’t know why he thinks anyone else is paying attention because no one but Tod has
ever
answered
any
of his questions. He actually scopes in my direction but I freeze him out with my iciest stare and he glides right past. I think I scare him. Sharon thinks he has the hots for me, but get real: Mr. Farrell looks as if he wandered off the Shire.

After an interminable amount of time, class is finally over. Two Gauloise with the PIBs and several lengthy deliberations later (none of which include Biff or
Gulliver’s Travels)
, Sharon and I decide to take our party to the Coffee Tip. It’s really an old Coffee Time, but the new owner changed the name to “Tip,” using masking tape to cover the last two letters of “Time” then adding a “P” with black Magic Marker. I guess he didn’t want to pay for the franchise, but you’d think he could have come up with something better than “Coffee Tip.”

I have to confess, I have a secret fascination with the names of places. I always wonder about the people behind the names, how they came up with them and why. Some of my favourites are:

Peace Karate
PHO Q DINNER
SUPERMODEL PIZZA

Sharon and I think it’s funny to invent better names for places. We play this game on the way to the Tip. She suggests “Coffee Grime” and “Coffee Crime,” which seems fitting, given the sludge they brew up. I suggest “Coffee Mime” and imagine the entire wait staff dressed like clowns, miming out coffee for the patrons. In the end, we decide that “the Tip” is the best name of all because we like the irony: it’s not on the tip of anything, and consequently, we rarely leave one.

The whole way to the Tip, Tod is trailing about a block behind on his moped. He thinks I don’t notice, but I could spot his gold helmet from outer space, it’s so bright. Sharon does not tolerate Tod. Which means that I can’t either, even though her intolerance makes little sense to me. I mean, on a relative scale, Tod is
way
more acceptable than Biff, but she actually suggested I go out with the animal. Regardless, I’m about to tell Tod to vamoose when I notice something funny. It’s Miss Marple, in the middle of the street, cars swerving all around. She seems confused and scared but nobody slows down or stops to help. They just blast their horns as they go by. One of the drivers even screams at her to get off the road.