Revoltingly Young (19 page)

6:18 p.m. Somehow I got up the energy to Tobify myself and slunk off to work. I tried to see Uma on one of my rounds, but fat Marvin intercepted me and said I was officially banned from the casino property. He then hustled Toby bodily out the door, bending one of my signs in the process. Of course, he is going to pay dearly for that assault. Toby is back to sniffling through weddings, being even more acutely aware now that my own has been indefinitely postponed. One bride today reminded me of an older and less pretty Uma. She was marrying a total slob of a guy in a flashy polyester suit and bad hairpiece. I couldn’t imagine how she would want to crawl into bed with that creep, let alone sleep with him for the rest of her unnatural life. Stoney’s so right. Chicks are weird.

Veeva phoned while Toby was shuffling along Main Street. She didn’t seem wildly sympathetic when I told her about Uma, but then I suppose she regards her as the competition. She reported that she had approached her father about possible mystery cousins.

“
What did he say, Veeva?”

“
He said any questions I had about Aunt Sheeni should be addressed to Aunt Sheeni.”

“
Are you taking that as an affirmative?”

“
I don’t know, Noel. Possibly. Daddy can put on such a poker face when he tries. I think it’s from all those years of living with my mother. She can be so intrusive.”

“
Are you going to ask your aunt?”

“
I’ve already sent her a very delicately phrased e-mail. We’ll see how she responds. You know that Reina person?”

“
My brother’s old flame? Yeah.”

“
Well, I mentioned her to my father, and he was most interested to hear she was coming to visit Nick. I think he may have known her ages ago.”

“
It’s a small world, I guess.”

“
God, Noel, you sound so depressed!”

“
Mere depression would be a great improvement.”

“
Shall I come there to cheer you up?”

“
Will you?!”

“
I wish. My horrible mother has confiscated my American Express card for one entire week. How’s a person supposed to function? Daddy’s a bit pissed at you too.”

“
Why? You didn’t tell him about us, did you?”

“
Of course not, silly. Parents can be so unreasonable about their children’s sex lives. No doubt because their own is so unsatisfactory. My father’s rather intuitive though. He may suspect something is going on. And your Pickled Punks shot him down.”

“
What?”

“
Yeah, he went and talked to them about a recording deal, but they said he was too small potatoes for them.”

“
Really?”

“
Typical L.A. attitude. Even the obscure garage bands have delusions of grandeur.”

“
The Pickled Punks are no garage band.”

“
Yeah, well, they’re not exactly the Rolling Stones either!”

On his last round of the afternoon Toby had to duck into an alley when Scott Chandler himself passed by. I don’t think he saw me. Scott was looking very tanned and tremendously fit, like he’d been tugging on heavy anchor chains all summer. My guess is he grew an inch or two as well, and his light brown hair was now tinged with golden highlights, possibly from the tropical sun (or so he would have us believe). In other words, he had not been shanghaied by pirates, maimed by a shark, ravaged by dysentery, cut to pieces on a coral reef, or brutally assaulted in some dockside saloon. What’s worse, the twit was strolling in the direction of the Silver Sluice with a large bouquet of mixed roses in his manly hand. It was all I could do to restrain Toby from emptying a can of dog repellent in his steely blue eyes.

10:36 p.m. No call yet from Uma saying it was all a big misunderstanding. Grandma made me eat some dinner, then I got on my bike and cruised around Uma’s neighborhood. No sign of her, but I did see her vile aunt leaving in a car driven by some bald guy. They were both dressed to the nines. Could Uma have lined up a date for her already? I hope the guy turns out to be a notorious Protestant rapist wanted in 29 states, though he looked more like a salesman driving his bland company car.

I hope Nick didn’t feel this bad when Sheeni cut out on him. God, perhaps I should take up juggling to get through these interminable black hours.

FRIDAY, August 5 – Still in blackest despair, but at least my bladder is behaving itself. No obvious signs of overnight thumb sucking either. I’m not making any wild claims though, since I’ve been wrong so many times before. I got an e-mail from Awanee indignantly denying that I had ever given her a ring. I replied that I had slipped my grandmother’s heirloom platinum ring into the pocket of her shorts as a surprise, and that I hoped she’d find it soon since it was appraised last year for over $18,000 as the three antique pear-shaped diamonds were of a quality virtually unobtainable these days. I added if she didn’t find it, we’d both be in big trouble when my grandmother discovers it missing from her jewelry box. I’m not sure exactly why I wrote that, except Awanee seems rather gullible and perhaps I feel the need to spread some of my misery around. Besides, that chick had her nerve trying to dump me.

Toby shuffled past the Silver Sluice casino six time today, and at no time did Uma come rushing out to apologize for summarily ditching me. Yet each time as I approached the building a small flame of hopeful expectation flickered in my heart. So much for the eternal optimism of youth.

8:12 p.m. To cheer me up Grandma made my favorite meal for dinner: broiled pork chops. She left them under the propane flame until they were black and cinder-like all the way through–just the way I like them. I also like my toast severely burnt, which the timid cooks in restaurants rarely seem to understand–though I frequently send it back. Now my heart also is broiled to a crisp, which seems somehow appropriate.

At least there was something diverting on TV tonight. Some nutcase in Sacramento swiped a hearse that was idling in the driveway of a funeral home, and has now been chased halfway down the state on live TV. The Highway Patrol hasn’t tried to stop it, because they don’t want to risk having it crash and the governor’s deceased mother (the stiff in the back) getting accidentally cremated on the I-5 freeway. The news guys reporting the chase say it’s the biggest highway story since a confused O.J. Simpson tooled around L.A. in his white Blazer while holding a gun to his head. They’ve been speculating that the driver may be headed to Mexico since the hearse has two gas tanks and is capable of at least 700 miles. I hope the guy makes it and, while he’s at it, swings by here to pick me up.

9:37 p.m. Driven to desperate measures, I called Mary Glasgow to see if she had any news about Uma. She didn’t want to talk long because she said she was watching something interesting on TV and I was “a horrible filthy beast.”

“
Why do you say that?” I asked. “What did I do?”

“
You know what you did, Noel Wescott. And Uma is perfectly miserable. I hope you’re satisfied!”

She then hung up on me. Very confusing, but it was interesting to hear that Uma was suffering too. All this time I’d been imagining her engaged in unspeakable acts with Scott Chandler.

11:28 p.m. The guy made it all the way to Anaheim before ditching the hearse in the parking lot of Disneyland. They’re searching for him now with police dogs and helicopters equipped with infrared cameras. Half the cops in L.A. are on the scene, but so are a couple thousand park-goers wanting to get home. It’s a real madhouse. Naturally, all the bystanders they’ve been interviewing are saying they hope the guy gets away. More proof that civilization is just a thin veneer over our wild and crazed human species.

It’s a jungle out there, says Grandma.

She may be right. I hope so at any rate.

SATURDAY, August 6 – Stoney Holt dropped by early this morning with some amazing news. She burst right into my bedroom and had a good laugh at my morning boner pronging up under my thin blanket. Pure penis envy if you ask me.

She reported that the cops took some fresh prints off the hearse interior and have tentatively identified the escaped hijacker as a teen runaway from rural Nevada named Carlyle Bogy. The only point they’re a bit confused over is the hijacker was black, while young Carlyle is alleged to be white.

“
Oh my God!” I exclaimed. “That’s incredible! How did Carlyle get to Sacramento?”

“
Who knows?” she replied, sitting on my bed, then jumping back up.

“
Relax, Stoney. I didn’t wet it.”

“
You swear?”

“
I swear.”

She gingerly sat back down.

“
Here’s another interesting fact, Noel. While barreling down the freeway at 90 miles an hour, Jamal took the time to spray UPT all over the dashboard and headliner.”

“
He didn’t!”

“
Yup. He even managed to mark up part of the casket. They’re lucky he didn’t rape the stiff while he was at it.”

“
Oh, damn! I didn’t even know that idiot could drive.”

“
Yeah, well according to the radio, Jamal stole his first car at the age of seven when they were living in Idaho. It’s still a record for that state.”

“
Come to think of it, Stoney, I remember back in grade school his bragging about something like that, but I always assumed he was making it up.”

“
Yeah, me too. Guess he showed us.”

WEDNESDAY, August 10 – (Written in the abandoned hippie bus at the end of my road.) Sorry, blog readers, if you’re wondering what happened to the previous three days, I’ve been in the custody of the Winnemucca Police and Humboldt County Sheriff’s Department. I was locked up in juvenile hall along with some of my rather scary peers. Today I was released into Grandma’s custody, but I have a court hearing scheduled next week.

The cops arrived on Saturday with a search warrant and found my stash of spray paint with Jamal’s fingerprints all over the cans. They also seized Toby’s mocha greasepaint and nappy wig. Plus, my cell phone, my computer, and all its peripherals. Fortunately, they missed my $5 laptop which I had left in plain sight on the backseat of Grandma’s Honda. No e-mail now, though, since my laptop lacks a modem. Anyway, the cops now regard me as a fellow gang conspirator. They raided Stoney’s house too, but she had wisely ditched her paint cans in the Humboldt River. Too bad she hadn’t thought to alert me to do the same. The truth is, I’d forgotten all about them, since as I’ve stated here previously I’m not a big fan of graffiti. As if the cops believed that statement!

Grandma called my brother, who’s agreed to help out with my legal expenses. Unfortunately, he had to hear about this mess on the day that Reina arrived from Prague. He’s probably ready to disown me now.

The good news is I don’t have to dress up like Toby any more. After all the inflammatory (and wildly inaccurate) stories in the newspaper and on TV, Mr. Dugan phoned Grandma to inform her that I was canned. Apparently deciding it’s unwise to trust anyone except family, he’s given the job back to Rot–assuming they can find him another wig. Good riddance, I say, though I could use the money and it’s unlikely anyone else in town will hire a notorious gang member.

No, they haven’t caught Jamal yet, though the cops are convinced that I know exactly where he is. These people seem to have maddeningly one-track minds. Of course, they’re under big pressure from the authorities in California, who are pissed off that their governor got embarrassed on TV by some puny 15-year-old kid. The idiot TV news people keep referring to Jamal as the “Uptight Hearse Hijacker.” Don’t they realize that UPT stands for the Uptowners gang? Jamal is many things, but uptight is not one of them.

Now I wish I’d been a bit more circumspect in my blog. Fortunately, I’d protected my computer with a security program I downloaded off the Web that’s supposed to be hacker-proof. No way the cops are going to make me cough up that password. I’m familiar with the Bill of Rights and a citizen’s protections against self-incrimination. Not that the sheriff’s officers impressed me as being particularly computer savvy. Their booking software, I noticed, seemed so poorly executed as to be laughable. I suggested I might be able to improve it, but they told me to “just worry about my future if I don’t help them find Carlyle Bogy.” Very, very one-track minds. I’m thankful, at least, that my blog was only on my hard drive and no longer splashed publicly across the Internet. Still, I’m not taking any more chances. My laptop I intend to conceal here in the bus until everything blows over or I’m incarcerated.

I wet the bed nightly in juvenile hall, sparking great derision from my fellow inmates. The food was terrible, the communal shower room was a nightmare, and the only activities to pass the time were watching TV (tuned to the dumbest, most violent programs) and playing basketball. Not my favorite sport, and the inmates there play that game like it’s tackle football. I’m praying the judge gives me probation as not even gambling-rich Nevada can afford my hit on their prison laundry budget.

No word from dearest Uma, who I last saw and held in my arms one week ago tonight. My darling probably considers herself well rid of me now.

It’s all very confusing. I am now a criminal with an arrest record, although I’m not at all sure what exactly I did wrong.

THURSDAY, August 11 – Grandma’s diabetes sugar levels have been very high the past few days. She hasn’t said so, but I suppose it’s from all the stress induced by you know what. It didn’t help that her son has been calling and screaming that she should “throw that bum out on his ass.” He must not have liked my Father’s Day card. It has occurred to me that since Uma doesn’t want me and I might be going to jail soon, I have no compelling reason to go on living. It’s too bad that all the means of suicide I can think of are so scary. I’m such a coward when it comes to cutting myself, jumping off an Interstate overpass, or even suffocating myself in my own bed under a plastic bag. I’m amazed that people can work up the nerve to do such things. They must be in even worse shape than I am–if that’s somehow possible.