Sophomores and Other Oxymorons (16 page)

L
ee wouldn't tell me where we were going. All her dad would say was that this was their traditional day-after-Thanksgiving outing.

“Does it involve a human sacrifice?” I asked.

“Relax, Scott,” he said. “If I were planning to kill you, I would have left Lee at home.”

“Dad!” Lee said. “Not funny.”

“Sure it is. Right, Scott?”

“Yeah, hilarious,” I said.

We headed up the Northeast Extension of the Turnpike to the next exit, then drove along a road off 209 that wound northwest, skirting a stretch of state forest. Several miles later, we pulled into a parking lot in a large clearing by a four- or five-story metal building that turned out to be an indoor climbing gym.

“I thought you weren't big on sports,” I said as we walked inside.

“This is not a sport,” Lee said. “It's an adventure.”

We took turns climbing far higher than anybody needed to go. It was actually fun. Though the thing I enjoyed most was watching Lee climb. I tried not to watch her too closely, or with too much admiration for her form, since I was sure her dad would be able to sense any heat waves emanating from me.

He held the rope when I climbed. I had a feeling he liked knowing my life was in his hands. Lee and I held his rope together.

“How fond are you of him?” I asked as he neared the top of the climb, and reached the spot where we'd all slipped at least once.

“You're as bad as he is,” she said. But she said it with a grin.

“Hardly.”

“Fond or not, I think my mom would be sad if we returned without him,” she said.

“We can't have that,” I said. “Let's not let him fall.”

“Agreed. Let's not.”

• • •

Mom and Amala had gone shopping. Along with almost every other person in the country. Dad was in the garage. I said hi to him, then headed up to Bobby's room.

“Where'd you go?” he asked. He was sitting on the edge of his bed, playing his guitar.

“Lee's dad took us rock climbing.”

“Sounds risky,” Bobby said.

“Girls' dads are scary,” I said.

“Tell me about it. Amala's dad is like six foot eight.”

“Seriously?”

“Close. He played football in college.”

“What's he do now?”

“Mostly, he struggles to keep from killing me. In his spare time, he's a foreman at a company that makes caskets.”

“Is that a joke?” I asked.

“I wish.”

“Well, if he kills you, at least he'll probably feel guilty enough to make sure you're buried in style.” I sat on his bed next to him. “It's nice having you here.”

“It's nice being here.”

• • •

Sunday was the last day of the month. And the end of NaNo-WriMo. Maybe next year I'd try again. For now, it was sort of a relief to accept that I'd failed.

Bobby and Amala were planning to head out after dinner. While Bobby and Dad were in the driveway playing around with something under the hood of the Plymouth, Amala poked her head into my room.

“Thank you for being so welcoming,” she said.

“You're pretty easy to welcome,” I said. I got up from my desk and walked over to her. “I like you. You're good for Bobby.”

“How so?” Amala said.

“He's settled down. He used to be a bit . . .” I didn't want to say anything bad about him. But I wanted her to know he wasn't a choirboy.

“Wild?” she guessed.

“Yeah.”

“So was I,” she said. “So were
we
,” she added.

“You and Bobby?”

“We go back a ways. We crossed paths a lot.”

“Really?”

She smiled. “Do you remember last year, when Bobby was in Ohio?”

“Sure.” I'd never forget the day he took off.

“That's where I was,” she said.

“At college?”

“Right. He came out one time before that, too. We were wild. But we got all of that wild out of our systems. I think we calmed each other down. You know what it all comes down to?”

“What?”

“I love him. Totally. With all my heart. With all my soul. With all my being.”

“
Anaphora
,” I said.

She stared at me.

“Sorry. Bad habit. I've been sort of immersed in figures of speech.”

She laughed and gave me a hug. “I love you, too, my little brother.” She let go and stepped back. “Bobby chose well when it came to siblings.”

“So did I.”

As if on cue, Sean let out a wail.

“At least, the first time,” I said.

T
he gloom of our adolescent moods contrasted jarringly with the early December mid-afternoon sunlight that dappled the ledges of the waist-high bookshelves in the antiquated ninth-period English literature classroom (for it is in Zenger High School where our story begins), when the overly stern educator Mrs. Gilroy hefted a leather-bound tome and intoned an overly emotive rendition of the opening narrative.

“It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents—except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness.”

“That's awful,” I whispered to Lee. I hoped this wasn't an introduction to our next reading assignment.

“Impressions? Reactions?” Mrs. Gilroy asked.

Hands went up. I kept mine down. Teachers hate it when
you criticize the writing they bring into the classroom.

After listening to various responses, ranging from “highly poetic” to “literary,” Mrs. Gilroy said, “Most people with an ear for prose feel this is an awful sentence.”

I flashed Lee a grin. Mrs. Gilroy flashed me a glare, then continued talking. “This deathless prose is the opening sentence of a novel by Edward Bulwer-Lytton.” She paused to write the man's name on the board. “It has inspired an annual contest that encourages people to write the worst possible opening sentence. I encourage all of you to give that exercise a try.”

“Why would you want us to write something bad?” Julia asked.

“Would anyone like to venture a guess?” Mrs. Gilroy looked around the room. Nobody was willing to take a shot.

I was pretty sure I knew the answer, but I didn't raise my hand.

“To write something really bad, you have to know what makes something really good,” Mrs. Gilroy said, echoing my thoughts. She looked right at me as she added, “That's a lot harder than it sounds.”

That was when I decided I was going to win the contest.

• • •

Kyle's father came over to the house again that evening, with some papers for Dad to read through. He brought Kyle, who didn't look any more thrilled to see me than I probably looked to see him.

“Hey, Scott,” Mr. Bartock said. “We're just running errands. You guys can hang out for a minute while I give these to your dad. Is he in the garage?”

“Yeah,” I said.

Mr. Bartock scooted down the hall. Kyle and I stared at each other.

“Our dads seem to think we should get along,” I said.

“That's one more reason not to,” Kyle said.

“You sound like Lee.”

“Who?”

“You know.”

“Oh, yeah. Her. The guys on the team call her Weirdly
.
”

“You've called her worse,” I said. “She's my friend.”

“You deserve each other.”

“Why are you so mean?” I asked.

“Why are you so stuck up?”

The approach of our fathers cut the discussion off before we could reach common ground or critical mass.

As Mr. Bartock was leaving, he shook Dad's hand and said, “It's a relief to be back on my feet. It's been a rough year.”

“This will be a good start for both of us,” Dad said.

“Rough year?” I asked after he'd left.

“He had some real bad luck,” Dad said. “Not his fault. Two of his businesses got sideswiped by the economy.”

“That's brutal,” I said.

“And it's scary,” Dad said. “You work hard. You work smart. And then bad luck comes along.”

“So what do you do?” I asked.

“Keep working,” he said.

I heard Mr. Bartock's car starting up. I knew there'd been a lot of tension at Kyle's house last year. I realized we hadn't hung out there as much freshman year as we had through elementary and middle school. Last year, we'd usually gone over to our friend Mitch's house, until he'd dumped us. Or Patrick's. Until he'd moved.

• • •

I guess Mr. Bartock really wanted Kyle to learn about business, or rekindle old friendships, or something, because he brought him again the next evening, when he came to give Dad some good news.

“I know it's been a long wait. But we're finally in good shape,” Mr. Bartock said. “I wanted to tell you in person. I have a deal with Sherman Construction for the Kingston units I need to sell. The guy's a jerk, but he always seems to have lots of cash on hand.”

“I'm just glad we're almost there,” Dad said.

“I'll be signing papers with him next week,” Mr. Bartock said. “And we can sign ours as soon as he hands me that check.”

“Great,” Dad said.

They shook hands.

“Really great,” I said, giving Kyle my biggest grin. He might still look for some way to hurt me, but at least soon he'd no longer be a threat to Dad.

December 8

Sean, I spent all week trying to write a bad opening for the Bulwer-Lytton contest. I totally failed. I suck at being bad. Ironically, that's not good.

I
'd managed to convince my parents that they needed to get out of the house once in a while. They were just going down the road for pizza. But it was a start. What I really wanted them to do was go out for New Year's, which was two and a half weeks away. I was hoping they'd let Lee come over, too.

“We'll be back as soon as possible,” Mom said.

“Or sooner,” Dad said.

“Relax. I've got this,” I said, trying to sound more confident than I felt. Sean seemed just fine in his playpen.

“Are you sure?” Mom asked.

“Positive,” I said.

I suspected she wanted to get seven or eight more reassurances from me, but Dad ushered her toward the garage.

“Totally sure?” she called from the hallway.

“Totally,” I yelled back. “Enjoy your pizza.”

I heard the door close.

“Looks like it's just you and me, little brother,” I said, sinking deeper into my seat on the couch.

Sean started crying.

The very same kid who, an instant before, had been quietly chewing on a rubber ducky and drooling copious quantities of saliva, had morphed into a red-faced howler monkey. His eyes were shut tight, and yet still produced a stream of tears. Liquid snot magically began to stream from his nostrils as if he'd been tapped on an unseasonably warm day during maple-sap season. I walked over to the playpen.

“Hey, Sean. It's okay.”

Apparently, those words meant nothing to him.

“Sean, calm down.” I rubbed his back.

That's where the volume switch was hidden, I guess. Because he got louder.

I started to pick him up, but I immediately pictured a thousand ways in which that could go terribly wrong, from dropping him to getting sprayed point-blank in the face with baby puke. Nope. I wasn't lifting him off that nice, safe padding.

The phone rang. Great. It was Mom.

I thought about taking the phone to the bathroom and closing the door. But I was afraid to go where I couldn't see Sean.

I moved as far away from the crib as I could while still keeping Sean in sight, then pulled my sweatshirt up to just below my eyes. I slid the phone under my sweatshirt, so I could talk, and let the top end stick out past the collar, near my ear.
With luck, the sound of crying would be muffled enough to be unrecognizable.

“Hi. What's up?” I asked.

“Just checking in,” Mom said.

“Everything's fine. If you keep calling, you'll drive Dad crazy.”

“You sound funny,” she said. “All muffled.”

“I think I'm getting a cold.”

“Don't breathe on Sean!”

“I'll grab a dust mask from the garage,” I said.

By the time I convinced Mom to hang up, Sean had passed out. That was good, since I got five more calls from Mom before they finished their pizza.

It was also a good thing they didn't stay out late. We got slammed with snow that night. It was still falling late Saturday morning when I got out of bed.

Mom and Dad were at the kitchen table.

“Looks like we'll be shoveling for a while,” Dad said.

I heard the plow go by. I might not be able to identify cars by the hum of their engines, but every kid who lives in a snowy region knows the sound of a steel blade scraping the street clear.

“We'll take turns,” Mom said. “Two of us shoveling, one of us watching Sean.”

“I don't mind shoveling. You and Dad can swap Sean-watching duties.” I said. I didn't want to risk having Sean get hysterical when Mom and Dad went outside.

“Weird,” Dad said, looking toward the garage.

He stood up. So did I. The plow sounded really close.

“Someone's in the driveway,” I said.

Dad and I went to the living room window. One of the town's snowplows was clearing the driveway. That's not something they normally do. We headed for the door.

“Jackets,” Mom called.

But we were already on the porch.

The plow driver waved at us. We waved back.

“New job?” I yelled.

“Yeah,” Wesley said. “But I think it's seasonal.”

He finished our driveway, came in for a cup of cocoa complete with tiny marshmallows, then headed out to get back to work clearing the town streets.

December 21

This is the first day of winter, Sean. I'll wait until you're older to explain seasons and solstices to you. For now, it's more important to know that Christmas is almost here. I'm hoping Mom will dress you in a silly elf hat. I can get Lee to take pictures, and we can embarrass you with them when you get a girlfriend. I don't think Bobby has anything like that to spring on me when I start dating. Of course, he might be in a retirement home by then.

Monday after school, I grabbed a snack, sat on the couch, and flipped on the TV. There was some kind of breaking news announcement on the local station. A vacant apartment building on Kingston Street that was being renovated had caught fire.

I watched for a moment before I switched the channel. The fire was already mostly out.
At least nobody was hurt
, I thought.

I was wrong.