Storky (16 page)

I thought if anyone would know how not wonderful it all is, it would be Aunt Marsha. Even Nate says it’s not so bad. He thinks it’s funny. Yeah, easy for him to laugh.

Maybe he could live here and I could go live with Nate’s mom at his house. I know his mom’s an alky, but at least she already had menopause so she can’t wind up pregnant. But their house is so smoky. Anyway, Mom would never let me.

I guess Grandma’s on my team about all this. Not exactly a good thing.

When she came over for dinner tonight, Mom and Vermin told her the wonderful news. Grandma said some mean stuff that I never thought of, like if Mom gets remarried, Dad won’t have to pay her alimony anymore. And how Mom will be almost 60 when the baby graduates from high school. And how she wasted 2 years in law school because she’ll never work as a lawyer now.

Mom said in this wimpy voice that she hoped to graduate and work part-time, and that Vermin would cut back his dental practice to help out. But Grandma just rolled her eyes and gave a huge sigh. Huge meaning it practically depleted her body of all air. I’m glad she’s not my mother.

Mom started crying. It’s weird how she acts like a little kid around Grandma. Of course she cries a lot these days anyway. I guess she’s got it pretty bad, with Grandma yelling at her, and her kids pissed off, and barfing all the time.

This is really sick. But I can’t help thinking about it. Nate says you can tell when Verm and Mom did the deed by counting back 8½ months from the due date. So being a perv, and good at math, I counted.

They made the baby right on New Year’s Eve. The night I said it was okay for Vermin to sleep over.
I
did it. I mean, not really. They did it, of course, but if I hadn’t been Captain Sensitive about Verm sleeping over, they’d never be getting married and having a baby and ruining my life.

I bet they kept all the condoms or whatever at Verm’s condo. They probably figured Mom wouldn’t get knocked up just from one time at our house without protection. Didn’t they ever take sex ed in school? They should give a talk at the middle school about how they messed up their lives by not using a condom.

The “Spring Flings the Thing” posters are driving me crazy. The student council people plastered them all over school today. I just want to walk around with a marker, putting apostrophes in the word
Flings.
This makes me either very sensitive or a complete nutjob. I bet no one else even noticed the apostrophe problem.

Should I ask Sydney to the Spring Fling? Nate says I should. He thinks she’s totally into me. I don’t know.

 

 

 

Verm wants to hire me and Nate on Saturday to help him clean up his condo. He has to get it ready for the big open house so he can sell it, move in with us, and destroy my life.

Nate really wants the money. I could use the $8 an hour, but I don’t want to hang with Verm all day. Plus, by getting his place cleaned up I’d be helping him shack up with Mom. Something really creepy about that.

After being up from 1:46 A.M. to 4:18 A.M., and talking to Nate during lunch, I made 2 decisions. One, I’m asking Sydney to the Spring Fling. I’m tired of being a wuss. Two, I’ll help Verm with his stupid condo on Saturday. Just for the money so I can pay for the dance.

Now, how do I ask her? Great. Figuring that out will probably keep me awake again tonight.

Earned $52 today. Me and Nate spent 6½ hours cleaning Verm’s condo. We had to straighten out his garage, pack all these boxes for Goodwill, wash the windows, everything. Verm’s a real slob. Not like Dad the Neatfreak. At least Verm won’t be after me and Amanda all the time to clean up our stuff. I hope not, anyway.

Didn’t find much real interesting. No
Playboy
s or ladies’ clothes or anything. He had a box full of bowling trophies that we tossed. Leafed through his high school yearbook. I was right, he was a real geek back then. He had short hair cut above his ears when everyone else had long hair. Plus he was in the honor society and the science club.

One thing I really wish I hadn’t seen is Verm’s bed. It’s a waterbed. Now I have to think of them sloshing around in it all the time. Gross!

Duke had a stroke.

He looks horrible. Someone from Golden Village called me this morning, and Mom took me to the hospital, and he was just lying there, not moving, hooked up to all these machines like a fly caught in a spiderweb.

He never wanted to be like that. He said to shoot him if that ever happened. I sat next to his bed staring at him, thinking, I don’t know how to use a gun and I’m not even sure how to get one. When it comes down to it, I doubt I could kill anyone anyway.

I started crying, and Mom gave me this huge hug. I said, “I don’t want to crush the baby,” but she said it was okay. I felt like a little boy. For the first time in a long time, I was so glad Mom was around.

I told her Duke didn’t want to live like this, lying in a hospital bed all wired up to machines. Then she showed me the Do Not Resuscitate order hanging from his bed. So if his heart stops, they won’t shock him with those paddles or anything like on
ER.
They’ll just let him die. I guess he got everything set up before he had the stroke. He’s so smart. Was so smart?

He never opened his eyes the whole time we were there. I guess that’s good, because I could barely look at his face. I felt almost embarrassed for him, lying there being stared at.

Mom kissed him on the cheek, but that was too weird for me. When she went out to find a bathroom, I gave his shoulder a pat and said how much I appreciated his advice on Scrabble and other stuff. Then I started crying again, so I just stood there gripping his shoulder until Mom got back.

Visiting Duke today was probably the worst thing I’ve ever had to do. I don’t want to think of him in that spiderweb bed. I just want to picture him putting a 7-letter word down on the Scrabble board with that big obnoxious smile on his face.

Felt so bad, I canceled on Dad. I had to explain who Duke was. Dad called me Champ when I told him what happened. He said not to worry. Right.

Nate’s a good friend and all, but he doesn’t understand about Duke. He keeps telling me I’d better ask Sydney to the Spring Fling before anyone else does. I guess he doesn’t realize how bummed I am, that I can’t act all macho and stuff with Sydney and plan out what to say to her when I keep thinking about Duke.

My brain just has no room for the Spring Fling. With Mom being pregnant, Dr. Vermin getting ready to move in, and Duke lying near dead in a hospital bed, everything’s spinning in my head like a Hot Wheels car racing around one of those yellow tracks.

I don’t care what Nate says. Or who asks Sydney out. Well, I do care about that. But I’m going to wait to talk to Sydney about the dance.

I need at least a week. I’ll ask her on Friday, March 25. Unless Duke gets better before that. Who am I kidding? Oh, God.

Mom offered to drive me to the hospital again tonight. I just couldn’t go. I feel like a pig, but I didn’t want to see Duke looking like death again.

I hope other people are visiting him. He seems like someone who enjoys having company. Maybe there’s even another teenage guy he played Scrabble with. He might even go to my school. We’re probably both so embarrassed about visiting an old geezer and playing Scrabble, hardly anyone knows but Duke and me and the other kid.

Mom wanted to buy flowers. I thought it was too girly. So we ended up sending this balloon bouquet that looked kind of cheesy but was better than flowers. Mom tried to hug me, but I moved away. Last Sunday’s hugfest was enough for a long time.

There’s no other teenage guy who visits him. I’m a jerk.

Went to see Duke. Guess I grew a backbone last night. I want to write how he’s getting better, how he called out my name or blinked in this big significant way like in a TV movie. But really he just laid there. It’s hard to type this. He looks so bad. He needs to die soon.

I guess in a TV movie he’d coach me from the hospital to win the world championship in Scrabble. Actually something cooler, like kickboxing or surfing. And everyone would be so impressed, I’d get totally popular and have a big love scene with Gina at the end.

At least I got a little better at Scrabble though. At least I got to know him. At least I got up the guts tonight to hold his hand in the hospital and squeeze it tight, even though he never squeezed back.

Duke died last night. His heart stopped and they followed that Do Not Resuscitate order. The first thing I thought when Mom told me is, Now I don’t have to visit him this weekend. I’m a pig. Duke dies and I just think of myself. I guess I’m glad he doesn’t have to suffer and all that. But really I’m just a selfish bastard who’s happy he’s gone so I don’t have to look at his half-dead face and his raggedy old body.

Man, I’m crying. I can barely see the monitor. The real truth is I already miss him, even though he was just an old geezer who gave me Scrabble tips. But also he was someone I could always bike over to see. Who gave me advice not just on how long to hold the
s
’s and blanks and where you could put a
j
, but on girls and families and school and stuff. Who said anyone would be proud to have me as a son. Oh, God. I have to stop typing.

I thought this would be a really sad day because of the memorial service, but actually it wasn’t. I mean, deep down I feel totally bummed. Glum, as Duke used to say. But for most of the service I smiled or laughed. Maybe it’s because old people are so used to everyone dying on them, or maybe because they don’t get out much. But Duke’s friends mostly joked around, almost like we were sending him off on a cruise instead of to heaven or wherever he is.

Most of the people at the service were real old, all slumped over in their wheelchairs or the cheapo plastic chairs in the Community Room at Golden Village. I kept wondering whether they were imagining their own memorial service. When you get real old, maybe you think about death 97% of the time. Like when you brush your teeth, if you still have any, maybe you say, What’s the point, I’ll be dead soon anyway. Or maybe you refuse to think about dying, because it’s way too depressing. Maybe everyone at Golden Village thinks they’re the person who’ll live to 120.

Learned a lot about Duke today. I guess he was kind of the life of the party, if you could call living at Golden Village a party. This one little old man said Duke hired a stripper for his 90th birthday. She came into the cafeteria dressed as a nurse, and next thing everyone knew she was sitting on the dude’s lap in a G-string.

This lady with no teeth said Duke told her she was the prettiest thing in all of Golden Village, and she believed him until she heard him say the same thing to Fat Frieda, who I guess is dead now too. Then another old lady waved her cane and shouted that Duke told her she was the prettiest thing in Golden Village. We all cracked up so bad, the blue-haired lady fell out of her wheelchair and this old man had to get out his inhaler.

I did more of a serious speech, about how great a Scrabble player he was and how he always listened to me. Then I got carried away by everyone else, and said Duke had great tips for getting the girls.

I know I spent the day with a bunch of old geezers in an institution remembering our friend who died, and maybe it’s pitiful, but it was the most fun I’ve had in a long time.

That memorial service kind of cleaned out my brain so I’m not constantly thinking about Duke anymore. More like 88% of the time. Now I guess I can decide how to ask Sydney to the Spring Fling.

Still don’t have a plan. I should have that cabdriver invite her, the one who asked Gina to the Snowball. Hahaha.

First of all, where do I ask her? Spanish class is too crowded. I don’t need 30 other people hearing me get rejected. I could go to school early and hang out by the pool while she’s at swim practice. But if she’s in her bathing suit, I might not be able to concentrate. Strike that idea. I could wait for her at her locker, but that could be just as crowded as Spanish class. Maybe I could pull her aside at lunch, like Nate did when he asked Heather to the Snowball. Or I could call her. But that seems so wimpy since I see her in school every day, like I’m too much of a wuss to look at her when I ask her.

I think lunch is the best idea. She only eats with one person, Miranda Moran, so it’s not like a whole bunch of girls will be laughing at me. Only Miranda and Sydney will.

Okay, lunch. But what should I say? First I have to make small talk. I could complain about the Spanish midterm, and maybe tell her I like whatever she has on. According to Amanda’s Cardinal Rules of Dating, you should always give a girl one compliment. More than one is phony and desperate, but girls like to hear one good thing.

But what if Sydney’s wearing like a plain sweatshirt and jeans? I can’t really compliment her on that. I could say her hair looks good. Except she almost always wears it the same way, back in barrettes, so a hair compliment seems fake.