Me Being Me Is Exactly as Insane as You Being You (10 page)

15.
 Giving the world the middle finger

16.
 Falling in with the wrong crowd

17.
 Being a druggie

18.
 Dropping out

19.
 Hating life

20.
 Exhibiting defiant behavior

21.
 Keeping your parents up at night

22.
 Maintaining

23.
 Not giving a fuck

24.
 Keeping it real

1
Citizen of Patiostan Who Is the Obvious Second Choice Once Darren Can't Find Derek. Hint: She's Wearing That Ring with the Six Rings in It

1.
 Zoey Lovell

4
Techniques Darren Employs to Get Up the Nerve to Approach Zoey Lovell in Order to Ask Her to Take Him to the El for $3

1.
 Says “Fuck it” to himself

2.
 Just starts walking

3.
 Reminds himself that he is a bit of a badass for cutting classes and going to Ann Arbor without his dad (or at least planning to)

4.
 Looks straight down at his shoes until he can see her boots, which appeared way off to the right, because apparently he wasn't exactly walking in her direction

7
Objects or Groups of Objects That Would Equal the Difference in Weight between Darren and Zoey

1.
 A rather large bag of concrete mix

2.
 A week of groceries for the Jacobs family, pre-divorce and pre-Nate-going-off-to-school

3.
 Sixteen toy poodles

4.
 The combined weight of all the bowling balls eight young children would use at a bowling birthday party for a seven-year-old girl, plus the bowling-ball cake

5.
 Zoey Lovell, age thirteen

6.
 A 350-watt bass combo amplifier

7.
 The four boxes/crates of his own belongings (plus the lamp and iPod docking system his dad bought for him) that Darren himself carried into his dad's apartment when he set up his new room there

Acts That Are Cooler and Maybe Sexier Than the Way Zoey Exhales Smoke off to the Side While Still Looking at Darren, Who Says, “Hey . . . Uh. Yeah. Look, Could You Maybe Drive Me to the El So I Can Get Downtown to Union Station and Then Get on This Bus to Go Visit My Brother in Ann Arbor? Because . . . Because, Well, There's Some Stuff That Happened and So I Can't Really Go with My Dad Like I'm Supposed To. I Just Can't. Okay? Do You Think You Could? I'll Pay You Three Dollars.”

10
Adjectives Darren Might Use to Describe Zoey Based on the Slightly New and Muddled Sense of Her He Somehow Gets Just from Following Her to Her Car

1.
 Freaky

2.
 Decisive

3.
 Quick

4.
 Mysterious

5.
 Awesome

6.
 Dangerous

7.
 Thin

8.
 Unhealthy

9.
 Quiet

10.
 Pure

4
Distractions That Keep Darren from Noticing That Zoey Is Driving in the Opposite Direction of the El, at Which Point He Asks, “Isn't the El in the Other Direction?” And to Which She Answers, “I'll Take You to Union Station If You Want,” This Being the First Full Sentence Zoey Has Spoken to Darren Since She Was Seven Years Old

1.
 This is the coolest thing Darren has ever done, so screw Maggie.

2.
 He's not even sure how much of a big deal his dad being gay is. It's clearly not
not
a big deal, but it's not like his dad died or anything. But being gay is weird, even if it isn't bad weird. Because it's not exactly a coincidence that it's also called being “queer.” But then maybe not telling Darren for so long is what made his dad weird more than anything else, meaning maybe his now-officially-gay dad will actually be less weird from now on. And so maybe Darren's stupid for ditching his dad like this, who is going to be more hurt than pissed.

3.
 He thinks Señor McLaughlin said he'll drop everyone's lowest vocabulary quiz at the end of the semester, so it's not such a big deal he forgot to study, but it still kind of blows.

4.
 Zoey's car is cleaner than he expected, even though it reeks of smoke, but at least the music sounds good.

5
Streets or Highways They Drive on to Get to Union Station

1.
 DEMPSTER STREET

There's some pretty fast indie-rock tune sung by a rather upset woman coming through the speakers of Zoey's car. Darren almost recognizes it, but only almost. He's trying to think of something to say and considers:

a) Cool song.

b) Who is this?

c) Hey, thanks for taking me. Seriously.

d) You skip class a lot?

e) What happened to you that you started dressing like that and everything? Not that I don't like it.

f) Did the one above your eye hurt?

g) Gross day.

h) Can I have a cigarette?

i) So, uh, what's up?

But then Zoey asks first, “Going to see your brother?”

2.
 THE EDENS EXPRESSWAY

Though maybe she just said it.

Either way, Zoey's an extremely good driver. It's kind of weird how good. Something about the way she merges onto the expressway. It's like she's a really calm professional racecar driver. Darren's pretty sure she's an even better driver than his mom, his dad, or Nate, all of whom seem like very good drivers to him.

“Hey,” Darren says a couple minutes later. “Are your parents divorced?”

Zoey's head starts turning toward his, but then it stops. She doesn't answer for a while. The new song, sung by some British dude, is exactly 50 percent angry and 50 percent bummed. Darren steals a couple of looks at her, and her expression is something like 18 percent bummed and 82 percent refusing to give a shit.

“No,” she finally says.

“Oh.”

“But they should be.”

She says this 100 percent deadpan.

Darren laughs but then stops himself, because maybe she didn't mean that to be funny. Only then she smiles. Or does something close to smiling.

3.
 THE KENNEDY EXPRESSWAY

“My parents are going to kill me,” Darren says.

Zoey doesn't say anything. Darren notices—maybe he noticed it before, but not really—that there's a lot of writing on her right hand. Some numbers, maybe some words. And then some designs, too. Lines and stuff. Some of it's smudged. All of it's black.

“My dad especially,” Darren says. “No, actually, my mom is going to kill me more. Shit. I don't know.”

“You piss your parents off a lot?” Zoey asks, a little bit like she expects the answer to be yes—not that she would think it's such a big deal.

Darren wonders how to answer this. Lying is one option.

The Willis Tower, which everyone in Darren's family still calls the Sears Tower, has come into view. If it wasn't so overcast and he wasn't such a coward, maybe he'd ask Zoey to go up to the top with him. Forget Ann Arbor. Forget everything.

“No. Not really,” Darren says.

The rest of the skyline starts showing up through the clouds or the fog or whatever that is.

“You'll be fine,” Zoey tells him, like being fine isn't all that much better than the alternative. There might be more writing on her wrist, but it's hard to tell, since it's pretty much covered up by her sleeve.

“Do you piss your parents off a lot?” he asks.

They exit the expressway.

4.
 WEST JACKSON BOULEVARD

Maybe she didn't hear him. Some new song that sounds a lot like electric mud had just come on, but Darren's pretty sure he asked it clearly. He doesn't feel like asking again.

“Ann Arbor,” Zoey says, maybe just to herself.

“Yeah,” Darren says. “Yeah.”

They're waiting at a stop sign. She looks at Darren and nods her head, maybe because she approves of his plan, but who knows, she could be approving something else.

He a little bit wishes Union Station was still another two hundred miles away. If he had a lot more money, he'd offer her a bunch of it and see if she'd drive him all the way to Nate.

5.
 SOUTH CANAL STREET

They've arrived. Or Darren has. Whatever. Zoey's car is done moving for now. He should get out. But he doesn't want to, not exactly. The last, totally horrible song is over and thankfully nothing else has come on. He's trying to think of something to say and considers:

a) Hey, it's really awesome you brought me all the way down here.

b) Maybe instead of me giving you that three dollars, we could go out sometime.

c) You know, Zoey, you're a really good driver. I mean it.

d) Thanks for the ride. It's the coolest thing anyone has done for me in, like, forever.

e) You should totally come with. Ann Arbor is pretty cool.

f) So, I'll see you around.

But what comes out instead is, “Sweet! I still have like twenty-five minutes before the eleven forty-five bus leaves. Thanks.”

Zoey puts the car in park and turns all the way to look at him. Her face looks like it might want to actually say something. Like a whole, normal sentence that might lead to a whole, normal conversation. This possibility excites Darren a great deal.

But instead of saying anything, this little spot on her lip right below her nose twitches or something. In a good way. Like her face just said something kind and friendly that her mouth wouldn't. Or can't. Darren almost says, “What?” in the way you say it when you're trying to get someone to say whatever they're thinking and probably really wanting to say but aren't saying for some reason. She nods slightly. Happy, sad, maybe both.

“Say hi to Ann Arbor for me,” she says. Actually, she just whispers it.

“Okay,” Darren says, nodding his head. “I will.”

He walks toward the station, the back of his neck desperately trying to figure out if she's still watching him, the rest of him praying that she is.

4
Authority Figures inside Union Station Who Darren Is Suddenly Worried Will Bust Him

1.
 Hefty security guard just inside main entrance

2.
 Bespectacled guy at the information desk whom Darren decides not to ask, “Where do you get tickets for the Superbus?”

3.
 Female police officer buying a sub sandwich

4.
 Old man who sells Darren his ticket for the bus, which actually picks up just down the block from Union Station

2
Compliments Nate Bestows upon Darren After Darren Texts Him,
Gonna Make the 1145!

1.
 
Stud.

2.
 
Total stud.

6
Feats That Have Ever Been #1 on the List of Darren's Gutsiest Feats of All Time, the Last of Which Has Just Been Bumped Down to #2

1.
 Agreeing to have his picture taken with the terrifyingly enormous Mickey Mouse at Disney World when he was three

2.
 Attending this gymnastics sleepover party at Twisters Gymnastic Center when he was only four and a half and definitely the youngest kid there without an older sibling, since Nate decided the morning of the sleepover that he was sick of gymnastics and didn't want to go

3.
 Going down the Point of No Return waterslide at Noah's Ark water park when he was only eight, which wasn't actually that scary, though his bathing suit did go super far up his butt

4.
 Riding his bike when he was ten off the skateboard ramp that Bugs's neighbor Carl Getz built, which was maybe two or two-and-a-half feet high, and that actually wasn't that fun to go off, since Darren's bike didn't really go up at all; it just sort of went straight down off the end of the ramp, which wound up bending his front rim

5.
 Going with Nate and Ricky Chen just after Darren's eleventh birthday to put three M-80s in the Culligans' mailbox, the front of which blew open so hard that the left hinge broke off, plus it might have been the loudest thing Darren had ever heard

6.
 Shoplifting a Baby Ruth from CVS when he was thirteen and then feeling so bad about it that he went back the next day (he couldn't get himself to eat it anyway) to sneak it back into the box he stole it from

8
Travelers Already Waiting for the Same Bus as Darren

1.
 Sort of chubby college-age girl with brown hair, chewing gum and playing with the handle of her red and black plaid roller-suitcase

2.
 Middle-aged heavy black woman whose right earlobe is super puffy for some reason

3.
 Short guy in black acid-wash jeans and a Pearl Jam tour shirt who either is growing out a Mohawk or just has a very strange haircut

4.
 Almost-old woman with big glasses, yellowish-gold hair, fake leather purse, and pale blue pants made out of a material Darren is unfamiliar with

5.
 Tall young guy with his hand in the pockets of his shiny Detroit Tigers jacket, with a pair of big headphones covering his ears and listening to music so loud, Darren can almost identify the song

6.
 Short Hispanic guy (even shorter than the Pearl Jam guy) who has a sort of kind, round face, except for the pale finger-length scar running from his jaw to his forehead

7.
 Nearly pretty woman in her forties (maybe fifties) with dyed light brown wavy hair that is growing out noticeably and who appears responsible for