Reality Boy (17 page)

“Rule number three,” I blurt. “No talking about TV. Especially reality TV.”

She stares at me. “But that’s all I do.” Then she can see I’m hurt or concerned or whatever I am and she says, “I mean, I have to watch what my parents are watching because we only have one TV, and that’s all
they
watch. But it’s not all bad, Gerald.”

“I’m not telling you what to watch or what not to watch, but just don’t talk about it with me. I don’t watch TV. At all.”

“Wow,” she says.

“It’s not as hard as you’d think,” I say. “There are plenty of other things to do, you know.”

She pulls out her notebook and flips to the blank back page. “So rule number one was no saying
retarded
,” she says, then looks at me. “I still can’t believe you’re okay with that word.”

“You’ll understand one day, I promise,” I say. Shit. I’m not sure I even understand it, so I have no idea how I’ll explain it to her. Maybe a letter.
Dear Hannah, I’m not really retarded. My mom just insisted that I be retarded for some reason I can’t figure out yet. Love, Gerald.

“What was rule number two?” she asks.

“No musicals.”

“Right,” she says, and scribbles. “And rule number three is no talking about TV or reality TV.”

“Right.”

“Like, can I mention that I watched it?”

“Nope.”

“And I can’t share a funny part?”

“To me, there
are
no funny parts,” I say.

She nods. “I get it.” She stares at the list. “So, I guess rule number four is that our parents can’t know and my brother can’t know.”

“Or my sister. Ugh.”

“Right. Or your sister,” she says. “Didn’t she go back to college or something?”

“She lives in our basement. And I’d rather not talk about it,” I say. “But that’s not a rule. I will want to talk about it, I guess. Just not now.” She nods. “And what’s with your brother? Will he come after me and chop my dick off?”

She chuckles through her nose. “He’s in Afghanistan. But he’s very protective of me, and my parents are, too.” She sighs. “They seem to think that I’ll become a statistic.”

“Oh,” I say. “So that works with my next rule. Number five. No physical contact for two months.”

She looks at me. “What the fuck? Seriously?”

“You think that’s too long?”

“Um—yes?” she says. “Two months is, like, sixty days.”

I shrug. “I have trust issues. You do, too. We see shrinks and shit. I think we should take it slow.”

“But two months? You’re on crack,” she says. Then she
leans in close to me. “I was hoping to kiss you later. Or maybe on our date. Or maybe at work on Wednesday. Dollar Night, right? Who couldn’t use a kiss on Dollar Night?”

“I still stand by rule number five,” I say. I just don’t want this to go wrong. I want it to be real. Not sure how to express this to Hannah.
Dear Hannah, Up until now, my only choices were jail or death. Love, Gerald.

“Look,” she says. “I’ll write it in, but I think it’s excessive. And I think it’s a rule we can break. Deal?”

“Deal.”

She closes her book. “Can I ask you a question?”

“Sure.”

“Is reality TV real?”

“Are you seriously asking me that?” I ask while simultaneously thinking,
I can’t believe she just asked me that.

She nods innocently and I look at her for a minute, feeling my broken ribs throb underneath my shirt. Have I told you yet about her freckles? “It’s so far from real, you have no idea,” I say.

“So, you weren’t anything like the kid I saw on TV?” she says awkwardly. “Like, you didn’t do those things or you did?”

I take a deep breath. “I did those things. But you guys never saw the real us. You only saw what they chose to show you to make it more entertaining. The nanny wasn’t even a real nanny. She was just some actress. Did you know that?”

“Did you really punch her?”

That episode was widely publicized. “Yes,” I say. “And I’d do it again, too.”

“I’ve seen it on YouTube. The punch scene. Man, it’s funny,” she says. “Like, six million views so far.”

I shrug.

She says, “For a six-year-old kid, you had a hell of a right hook.”

“This is breaking rule number three,” I say.

“Oh, come on. Have a sense of humor,” she says.

I give her a stern look and feel my face go hot with anger.
And there it goes, asshole. Didn’t even last twenty-four hours. Told you so.

AFTER SCHOOL, HANNAH
finds me at my locker and asks for a ride home. I’m still mad at her about saying that thing after lunch.
Have a sense of humor.
Just thinking about it makes my face heat up again.

“Sure,” I say. I don’t say anything else.

When we get outside, it’s colder than it was this morning and I’m suddenly freezing without a coat on. As I wait for the heater to come on, Hannah sits in the passenger’s seat, reading texts on her phone. I open my phone and check my texts, too. There’s one from Lisi, which is a first.
What do u want 4 ur bday? Shld I just get u a gift card?

And one from Joe Jr.
We leave today for SC. Then FL. Dentist clown still not funny.

I text Joe Jr. back:
See you soon. Send me your FL address.

Then I text Lisi back.
Send shovel for bd. Digging tunnel to Scotland.

That’s the best I can do for Lisi. Joking. I know she knows I miss her. I don’t think she knows how much I need her, though. I know it’s selfish, but sometimes I don’t know how it was so easy for her to leave me here with these people. How could she do that and then not even call me?

I ask Hannah, “What’s your number?”

She tells me and smiles at me when she says the numbers and I feel my anger subside.
Maybe I do need a sense of humor.
I add her number to my contacts and I write her a text.
Just because I made rule #5 doesn’t mean I don’t want to.

Her phone jingles and she reads it and adds me to her contacts and then texts back.
I know.

“So, you remember how to get to my house?” she asks me once we’re free of the school parking lot.

“Yep.”

“Not an easy place to forget, I guess,” she says. “Nor is the fact that you are now dating the junkman’s daughter.”

“You aren’t the junkman’s daughter,” I say.

“I know who I am. You don’t have to break it to me, you know. I’ve lived there my whole life,” she says. “It’s a huge pain in the ass.”

I nod.

She adds, “Do you know how many parents send their girls to the junkman’s daughter’s house for a sleepover party? None. Do you know how many parents send their kids over to play? Yeah. None. And how many come trick-or-treating? That would be… none.”

“Trick-or-treaters are a pain in the ass, anyway,” I say.

She nods her head and asks if I want to hear her punk rock song about being a junkman’s daughter and then she sings it to me without my saying yes. I’m not sure it can qualify as a song because all it is, is yelling and some screaming in the middle and then more yelling and a lot of swearing in the middle and then a big scream—like a death scream—at the end.

“Very cool,” I say.

“You should hear it with a guitar. It’s way better,” she answers.

“You play guitar?”

She fiddles with her hair. “Uh, no. Uh—my ex did.”

“Oh.”

“Sorry.”

“It’s cool,” I say. “It’s not like neither of us had lives before now.”

Although when I say that, I realize that I haven’t had a life before now. Well, I guess I did have a life but—uh—
Have a sense of humor, Gerald.

Once we’re on the road Hannah asks me, “Are you sure you don’t want to stop at the baseball park and make out?”

“I really don’t think we should break a rule on the day we made it,” I say. “That would just kill the viability of all future rules.” Truth: I can’t imagine the pain of making out right now. My chest feels like it’s going to collapse and I can’t wait to get home to Mom’s medicine cabinet. I plan on hitting her prescriptions for this pain.

“Do you want to park and just talk?” she asks. “Because I don’t feel like going home yet. My to-do list is way too long today. I’ll be up all night, I bet.”

“Really?” I ask as I pull into the baseball field’s parking lot. “I forget regular classes get so much homework.”

“I already did my homework,” she says. “The to-do list is the usual Tuesday-night bullshit. Wash, mostly. Then dinner. Then dishes. Then folding wash, some leftover review homework, then cleaning. Then bed. Before midnight if I’m lucky.”

“You do your own wash?” The idea of it makes me feel babied. My mom still washes everything of mine. She folds my boxer shorts into perfect little squares.

“I do everybody’s wash,” she says. Then she laughs. “Fuck. I do everybody’s
everything
. I’m a full-service junkman’s daughter.”

I smile at her while feeling like a mama’s boy for the boxer-shorts squares.

“Except the junk,” she says. “I don’t sell junk, deal in junk, stack junk, buy junk, or have any fucking thing to do with junk. But everything else, I do.”

“Huh.” I think back to Nanny’s 1-2-3 lectures about responsibility and how chores make you independent, but this seems excessive. “Why?” I ask.

“They’re too busy watching TV and waiting for the phone call that never comes about my brother being dead.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah,” she says.

A minute slips by. “Is that why you see a shrink?”

She shrugs. “Nah. My mom thinks the shrink will help me be—uh—less weird.”

“You’re not weird.”

“We’re both weird,” she corrects. “What you mean is,
There’s nothing wrong with being different
.”

“Totally.”

“Yeah, my shrink doesn’t buy it. She’s, like, the Martha Stewart of shrinks or something. She’ll have me dressed right and scrapbooking in no time.”

I laugh. “No scrapbooking. We should make a rule about that,” I say. “And don’t listen to your shrink. You’re perfect just like this.” I look at her for a second too long and she gets self-conscious and looks at her lap.

“I guess we should go,” she says. “Or we could go to Ashley’s house and I could say hi to the fish,” she adds.

I really want to do this, but I can’t skip my meeting with Roger. I tell her, “I have my shrink appointment in an hour. Maybe tomorrow?”

I pull out of the baseball parking lot and drive down her road. When we get to her mailbox, she says, “Just drop me here.”

She leans in as if to give me a quick good-bye kiss, then pulls away and says, “Psych.” Then she slams the car door shut.

I blast the heat and take off for my meeting with Roger. I don’t know why I’m so cold. Then I look at the passenger’s seat and there’s Snow White holding an industrial-size tub of peach ice cream.

“Jesus,” I say. “You scared me.”

“Scared you?” Snow White laughs. “Why, I don’t think I’ve ever scared anyone in my whole life, Gerald.”

“Shit,” I say. Then I look at her and she’s smiling at me and I feel bad for cursing in front of Snow White.

Christ, Gerald. Have a sense of humor.

“HOW’S YOUR ANGER?”
Roger says.

“It’s angry, I guess. I wouldn’t know. I haven’t seen it,” I say.

We look at each other.

“None at all?”

“Nope.”

We look at each other again.

“Seriously?”

“Seriously,” I say. Truth: I’m a little high on the pain pills I took out of Mom’s medicine cabinet.

“Proud of you, man.” He pats me on the arm and I can feel it vibrate all the way to my bruised, semi-numb ribs. “Last
meeting you were still working on the feelings you had about your sister.”

“She’s a douche,” I say.

“Anger level?”

“Maybe a three or four,” I answer. “Nothing too bad. She called me a loser yesterday and I didn’t care,” I lie.

He looks at me like he knows I’m lying. “You on mellow pills or something?”

“No.”

“You know,” Snow White says. “You should probably tell him the truth.”

“Anything going on at school?” Roger asks.

Shut up, Snow White.
“I’m good at algebra,” I say.

“Algebra? Huh. Good for you, man.”

“Thanks.”
Yeah. Thanks for not noticing that most high school students are good at algebra two years ago and I’ve been purposely retarded by my own mother.

Mental note:
Shit. You really need to think on that, Gerald.

Why would my mother want me to be retarded?

And, more important, has her inherent need for me to be in SPED class made me the face-eating, Jacko-beating asshole I am today?

Snow White pipes up. “You can make it sound like you and that boy were just fighting in the ring. That’s not bad, is it? He couldn’t have expected you to last this long without getting into the ring.”

I shoot her a dirty look.

“Is something wrong?” Roger asks.

Everything is wrong. Everything is always wrong. Everything will always be wrong. But Roger doesn’t need to know any of this. Roger just needs me to get better. His supervisor needs to see annual improvement on my anger-survey scores and a decrease in incidents. That’s all Roger needs.

“Did something happen?” Roger asks.

“Nope.”

He squints at me as if to say
Come on
.

“I met a girl,” I say.

I half expect a slap on the back and raucous laughter, even after his warnings. Men talking about girls. Girls: the answer to all of our problems.

Instead, Roger winces. “Dude. Be careful.”

“She’s cool,” I say.

“I get it. You’re, like, seventeen and you like girls. I really get it,” he says. He taps his fingers together and looks for something else to say. “Just be careful. As much as you like her now, she’s going to drive you over the edge one day. I mean, this calm you have… it’s temporary.”

Snow White makes that annoying giggle in her throat. “Temporary. Oh my. We didn’t expect that, did we?”

“Gerald?”

“Yeah?” It’s like he’s the Crapper and he just crapped right on my joy.

“Did you hear me?” Roger asks.