King Dork Approximately (9 page)

I guess the problem was that Shinefield and his friends were more like skater hippie stoners than regular stoners. You can tell them by their knit caps and stinky white-boy dreads, and the Grateful Dead skulls on their skateboards. Actually, though, the real problem is just that all things nowadays suck so much more than they used to. The only suspense lies in trying to guess the precise ways in which they will suck more, and to what degree. But you could sure see where Shinefield’s busy drumming problem came from: the guys on the CDs were all over the map too, though at least they tended to stay at a steady tempo. And unlike Rush, who have the “too much drums” problem too, they were not redeemed by a cartoon-character-sounding vocalist trying to be Ayn Rand. As for what they
were
trying to be, well, if you put a gun to my head I couldn’t tell you, nor could I make even an informed guess as to what the songs were supposed to be about.

What I’m saying is, I suppose, that I’d have preferred the kibble mines.

Sam Hellerman was in a state of blissful oblivion through
most of it, courtesy of two Valium with a vodka chaser, so he was spared the terrible music as well as the grim spectacle of Celeste Fletcher grinding all over Shinefield, making out with him like it really was the end of the world and this was her last chance for all eternity to have the opportunity to lick another person’s face. Then, when they led each other upstairs, presumably for some apocalyptic ramoning in the bathroom or something along those lines, it really felt like something was breaking inside me, in spite of my most strenuous efforts not to care. The song on at that moment seemed to be about tweezers or some damn thing, but between the lines all I could hear was: worst year ever, coming right up.

Then, when the countdown thing happened on TV, and the jam hippie girls kissed the jam hippie boys happy new year, Celeste Fletcher came up to me.

“Happy New Year, Elvis,” she said.

“Fiona,” I said, for obvious reasons.

She kissed me Happy New Year lightly but with a bit of a lip bite at the end and didn’t recoil when my hand of its own accord somehow happened to wind up cupping her ass under her long coat just as lightly. The hand didn’t go too far down, or up, or in, if you know what I mean: it was just on the outside, halfway down and without much pressure, the whole thing designed to seem casual enough that it could be claimed to be accidental if necessary. But, and this is the point, it wasn’t necessary. She didn’t recoil. I mean, Jeez Louise and all her angels and saints, what was this girl trying to do to me? She then kissed Sam Hellerman’s comatose forehead as well, and I suppose the relative levels of intimacy on display here kind of established our precise rankings in the hierarchy of her affections. I win, Hellerman. Kind of.

Little Big Tom picked us up at twelve-thirty as arranged,
and it looked like Y2K hadn’t started out all that well for him, either. A Little Big Tom who was fully himself would have tried to counsel Sam Hellerman out of his stupor. But all he said was “Looks like we need to get this cowboy home to bed.” Beyond that, there was total silence in the truck on the way back. My thoughts during this silence ran as follows: Man, I should have done just a bit more with that ass when I could, because there’s a good chance I’ll never have another chance with it, while simultaneously I pledged to myself never to mention that to anyone because it would just make me look pathetic and maybe also kind of psycho. Asses per se aren’t supposed to matter that much to a person. What can I say? Asses do funny things to my brain, especially that particular one.

Now, I’m about to tell you something that you’ve probably never noticed before. I only noticed it myself recently, after logging several thousand hours as Sam Hellerman’s sidekick on those Jeans Skirt Girl “fieldwork” stalking stakeouts. I feel I should warn you, though, that noticing it will change your world, and that I’m about to make you notice it, and that what has been noticed cannot thenceforward be unnoticed, if “thenceforward” means what I think it does. It is toothpaste that cannot be put back in the tube. Like the A-bomb.

So skip to the next chapter right now if you’d rather not take the risk. For those of you brave enough or stupid enough to forge on despite my warning, here it is:

Nope, in the end I just couldn’t do that to you. Sometimes you can make the world a better place by just stopping what you’re doing before it does too much more damage. And that applies not only to slap bass but to all sorts of other things too, including narration. See, I’ve made the world better for you, just like that. I am a great American.

But I should back up, because I didn’t tell you about “Christmas.”

So, reading
Dune
while pretending that it was one of the books my dad read when he was a kid was working. I had liked it the first time, but to be honest, I don’t think I really “got it.” But seeing my dad through its eyes, if a book can be said to have eyes you can see a dead person through, added a whole lot to it, and I was able to plow through to the end almost effortlessly. It’s kind of hard to say what it’s about, but there’s this kid named Paul who is the son of a duke in a space empire where dukes and barons rule whole planets, and they’re on this desert planet with these giant worms that produce this spice drug and they ride the worms all over, and it turns out that the main kid is like the messiah of the sand people. And his messiah name is Muad’Dib, which means “a mouse.”

Duke Leto reminded me of my dad: authoritative, kind of gruff and brusque, but also pretty gentle and encouraging at the same time. And he really reminded me of my dad when he was murdered by this psycho doctor who implanted a poison tooth in his mouth in a plot to assassinate this great big fat guy
named Baron Harkonnen. As for this baron, I find it difficult to believe that the author of the book had never met Mr. Teone, because the descriptions of him were eerily accurate. I mean, Baron Harkonnen pretty much
is
Mr. Teone. No one could mistake it. I should look the author guy up. If it were to turn out that he went to school with my dad and Mr. Teone, back when he was called Tit, I wouldn’t be at all surprised.

I was glad to have the distraction too, because things had been pretty rough, even for Christmas. My unexpectedly violent table tipping hadn’t made me too popular at home. I may be tense, enraged, and bitter in my secret heart, but on the outside I’m usually a pretty quiet, easygoing person, and I tend to shy away from drama of any kind. On the rare occasions when I don’t shy away from it, no one knows how to react. My mom and Little Big Tom spent a lot of time hovering, unsure whether to be mad at me or merely concerned that I was cracking up. The result was a sort of hostile compassion that was hard for me to take and, I would bet, just as hard for them to sustain.

The thing is, if Amanda had tipped the table, no one would have cared all that much, because she always has outbursts and people just expect it and make allowances. Call it the curse of the easygoing guy. No one gives you any credit for being nice, but the minute you stand up for yourself or complain about anything to even the slightest degree, everybody acts like you’ve just kicked a puppy across the room.

Little Big Tom did his best to be kind and supportive, but he didn’t understand what he was up against. Basically, I was irritated because no one seemed to give a damn. My problem was with the whole world. He was trying to address it by reassuring me about how adolescents “go through changes” and how it’s “okay to have feelings” and stuff like that.

It didn’t help matters that my mom and Little Big Tom were still strifing it up, maritally. Some of it was in the form of whispered arguments you could hear coming from their bedroom, though I could never make out anything they were saying. But mostly it was just a lot of unspoken tension. My mom could be pretty distant to everyone, but it was clear somehow that this time, the focus was on Little Big Tom, and he sure was suffering from it. He was still trying to go through the motions of being his usual jaunty self, but you could tell his heart wasn’t completely in it. That’s why I tolerated so much more of his counseling misfires than I usually do: it was painful to see him little-lost-lambing around everywhere, and as annoying and ridiculous as he is, your heart just goes out to him sometimes whether you want it to or not.

So, like New Year’s, our actual Christmas hadn’t been too much fun. As I’ve said, we don’t tend to make a big deal out of Christmas. My mom and Little Big Tom see Christmas gifts mainly as opportunities for social engineering, as an opportunity to try to turn you into something you’re not, so as usual I got some sports-related items—a basketball, a soccer calendar, and a baseball jersey and cap—while Amanda received stuff that was supposed to encourage her to be more academically inclined, like books, school supplies, and a calculator. We each got sixty dollars too. I turned around to Amanda, gave her a twenty, and said, “Merry Christmas, sister-type figure.” She handed it right back to me and said, “Merry Christmas,
nice-looking boy
.” That’s what we always do.

Later that night Amanda claimed to have intelligence on the conflict between Little Big Tom and my mom.

“I think he’s cheating on her,” she said. “There was underwear in his gym bag.”

Now, I had to laugh at this, it was so implausible. Little Big Tom is like a big, dumb, rambunctious little gray golden retriever. His overdeveloped sense of loyalty is one of the things that make him so pitiful and mockable, but without it, you just don’t have Little Big Tom. He’ll play fetch with you all day long, bounding back repeatedly with a slobbery ball of motivational counseling regardless of your total lack of interest; if you’re sad, he will settle himself next to you with the frowny face of sympathy and nuzzle you gently, making plaintive little noises till you reward him with a grudging smile and a scratch behind the ears; if you try to lose him in the woods, he will find his way home and knock you down in a face-licking show of affection and gratitude for letting him back in that will eventually make you decide you can’t really bear the thought of rejecting the affections of a creature that goofy after all. And when you mix a raw egg with his food, it makes his coat lustrous and glossy.

What I’m saying is, while I may not be knowledgeable about the full range of factors in “adult relationships,” and while I’m hardly an expert in the ways of the world in general, I was pretty sure that any disloyalty in the present situation probably wasn’t coming from him. Just give him a bone, or a biscuit, and Little Big Tom will love you fiercely and forever: it’s an immutable characteristic of the breed.

“She found underwear in his gym bag,” Amanda repeated dreamily.

Merry Christmas to her, I guess.

As far as I was concerned, whatever the problem was, my mom and Little Big Tom could work it out, or not, on their own time without any input or interference from me. It’s what I would have wanted.

Still, it’s hard to spend that much time in a domestic pressure cooker without it affecting your peace of mind. That’s why
Dune
had come in handy, for the long stretches of insomnia with no one but my centipede to keep me company. But now that it was over, I either needed (a) to make a new friend, preferably not another silent scar-tissue arthropod, or (b) to choose another book. Choosing a book seemed far more doable. And so, emboldened by my success with
Dune
, I vowed, pretty recklessly, as it turned out, to close my eyes, stick my hand in the basement book box, and read whatever I happened to grab. Call it Book Roulette, or leaving it up to God. Whatever you call it, the result made me blanch slightly when I opened my eyes and looked at what I was holding.
Pride and Prejudice
was the title. From the cover, I could tell that trying to will it to be about my dad between the lines was probably going to be a bit more of a challenge than
Dune
had been. But a reckless vow is a reckless vow. If you start breaking reckless vows, there’s no telling where you’ll end up.

The first pages consisted of some Pythonesque dialogue between a woman and her husband about how to trick some rich guy into marrying one of their fairly numerous daughters. I think. It was kind of hard to tell what it was really getting at, to be honest. But lots of dirty jokes begin that way, so it possibly had potential. It was going to take some effort to get to the dirty parts, I could tell that right off the bat. Show me what
you got, Jane, was kind of my attitude, because the author’s name is Jane.

Fortunately, there was a backup. Because besides the aforementioned r. v., another idea had been forming in my mind, the vague outlines of a plan, the basic thrust of which was: why not do my own damn lawsuit? Everybody else was doing it. And even though I didn’t have any clue how to go about it, I was pretty sure I would be at least as good at doing lawsuits as my mom would have been. Maybe her apathy was a blessing in disguise with regard to lawsuits, in that it left the path wide open for me.

So my centipede and I spent some of our insomnia making lists and notes and organizing my Catcher Code materials for an eventual presentation to Sam Hellerman. Because I was pretty sure that no matter how good I turned out to be at doing lawsuits, Sam Hellerman was likely to be a whole lot better.

I’m trying to add it up, and I think I’ve seen Sam Hellerman admit to being surprised by anything precisely three times in my whole life. One was when the end of the world didn’t happen as scheduled on Y2K. Another was when I noted that Deanna Schumacher, the fake fake Fiona (not to be confused with the real fake Fiona, Celeste Fletcher), had the same last name as the coroner in the case of my dad’s death. And the third was when I revealed to him that I was scheduled to attend Clearview High instead of Mission Hills.

It is part of his shtick to act like he knows everything, and to do it in such a way as to leave the impression that he not only knows it all but has somehow had a hand in orchestrating
everything down to the tiniest detail. The world is his stage, he wants you to think, and the people merely his puppets. Including me. And you. But as I said, he was shaken by the news about Clearview.