The Genius of Little Things (25 page)

We stopped at an indoor sidewalk crepe vender. I ordered two crepes for Levi—a ratatouille and a Nutella—and sodas for both of us.

“Cola has caffeine. My religion doesn’t allow it.”

I turned to him and attempted my best
you’ve got to be kidding
look.

“Cancel the sodas, please,” I said to the clerk. “Two coffees. Black.”

We sat at a café table where the din of the slot machines was nearly tolerable. Levi put a positive spin on his situation by insisting he was getting the culture fix he had been missing. “Paris is the best so far,” he said. “It’s like a whole city here. Security hasn’t hassled me for sleeping in my car for two whole nights.”

I asked him about his plans. He gave me a vacant-happy look, just as he had when I asked him, months ago, what he was going to do with his life. Now the situation was dire.

“I’ve lived my whole life in Las Vegas, except for that time in Utah. And, oh, we were in Idaho for a year, but I was too young to remember. Anyway, I’d never seen the inside of a casino. You always said I need to get out of my rut and see things.”

“I’m not sure that’s what I meant.”

“But you were right, whatever you said. Here I get to eat stuff my mom never thought to make. Crepes! Just about every day she makes chicken. For real. Chicken and potatoes, chicken casserole, chicken tacos, chicken at Easter, Chicken at Christmas, Chicken on Memorial Day—”

“You can’t wander around casinos forever,” I said.

“Chicken for birthdays, chicken for lunch, chick-en for dinner—”

“I get it.” The
Ch-Ck
sound grated on me.

“CHICK-en, CHICK-en, CHICK-en—”

“Okay!” I swiped my hand across the table, causing my coffee to topple onto the floor. I mopped up the spill with my stack of napkins while Levi kept talking. He said he was running out of money and needed to get the dents in his Lincoln fixed. It was bewildering how he could be more concerned about fixing the
scheizen
car than about securing shelter or food. He never fully understood that he might never be able to depend on his family’s beneficence. It was a lesson I had learned earlier than most. This guy, this awkward tower of gawkiness, had no survival skills. His job at Covenant Catering hadn’t taught him much, except to not use his iPod around a vat of gravy. He was without a home.

Levi was where I was supposed to be.

How many teens were dragging around Las Vegas, homeless and looking for a place to land at that very minute? I didn’t know, but it was probably many. If the stories I heard were accurate, some of them were turning tricks. Some were on drugs. Some were pregnant. At least I learned how to be an adult while I had a BiMo. For the last two years of her life, I was her parent. I cooked for her, cleaned, and made sure she paid the bills and got to work on time. It was quite an achievement for a nine-year-old to balance a checkbook. My BiMo would have never kicked me out of the house. She couldn’t. She needed me.

Levi tried to cut through his ratatouille crepe, but the plastic knife was too dull, and the sawing motion kept splattering sauce and mushrooms. I grabbed more napkins and announced that I would assist him, free of charge, in hunting for a job. I would take him around to look at apartment rentals. I told him I would help him find bargains in the store and pinch pennies. I would also help him prepare for the SAT—at deferred payment, because that was a lot of work. To cap off my offer, I said he could live with Carl and me for a few days until he got on his feet. I was fairly certain Carl would allow this.

“You have to forget your parents and learn to take care of yourself,” I said.

Levi looked down and opened his mouth wide, like he was going to swallow the whole crepe. Then he made a sound like the faraway shriek of a man falling off a cliff. This was followed by heaving shoulders and waterworks.

I offered him the last dry napkin, but his eyes were closed and spewing tears. I had to physically shove the napkin into his hand. I wanted to give him some advice, some statistic, some fact he could use. I could have told him I had spent the last four years on my own, even when I wasn’t technically living alone. I could have told him living without a biological family was just fine. I could have told him all that and more. But it didn’t seem right.

Suddenly, Levi’s crying turned off as if a timer had gone
ding
. He blew his nose in the napkin. “I’ll be all right. They’ll come around any day now. Holidays are coming up. I’m the one who always trims the tree.”

Fine. He could hold onto that fantasy if he wanted. I reiterated the offer to stay with me. He considered this, until he was distracted by two women walking past in revealing dresses. They were teetering on dangerous heels and sipping something from huge containers shaped like the Eiffel Tower.

“I think I’ll stay here,” Levi said. “And if I get kicked out, there’s other casinos I haven’t tried yet.” His eyes opened wide, with a new thought. “I’ve never even
been
to the
Bellagio!
It’s like a vacation in my own home town.” He smiled. “Yeah, that’s what this is.”

Sure. Whatever.

Levi couldn’t be helped, at least not by me. My shift started in forty-five minutes. We walked to one of the entrances, the one near a bar where a band played covers of old rock songs. The lead singer, a plump, youngish woman in a red shimmering dress punched up the lyrics to “Daydream Believer.” She was almost as good as my BiMo. She put a final flourish on the end of the song. The band stopped and she bowed, even though only two people were clapping, me and Levi. She put on a fake smile, pretending that there was a crowd who came only to see her. I wondered whether my BiMo experienced that kind of demoralization when she sang. She had performed at the old Frontier hotel for a while. Or maybe she sang just for her own enjoyment. I had no way of knowing. She never told me. But she did make it clear that her life had turned out to be a huge disappointment.

I locked eyes with the red dress singer. She smiled at me and blew a kiss. I was still clapping.

“He-
loooooo
?” Levi was waving his long arms in front of my face. “So, um, come see me sometime.”

I stopped clapping. “See you sometime? Where? In the parking garage of the Paris Hotel?”

“Or Bellagio. Or camping. I still have my camping gear.”

“Okay. I’ll look for you
somewhere
.” I was being sarcastic. He didn’t get it. I informed him that he had no phone.

“Yeah,” he said, as if he’d never thought of it.

Just then, I realized what I could do for him. I pulled my cell phone out of my vest pocket and told him to keep it. Janet would be pissed. She would have to get over it. I took off my vest and told him to wear it. I didn’t think to remove the saline solution, tissues, gum, Sudafed, and the last yellow jackets from the pockets before he took possession of it.

“Thanks man,” he said, stroking the fabric.

“One more thing,” I said. “
Dine eltern sind arschlocher
.”

“What does it mean?”

“I’ll tell you at our next lesson.” I thought this would make him more likely to see me again. It was like a cliffhanger at the end of a TV show. I’m not going to divulge what the phrase means, because it has a swear word. But I can say it combines
your parents
with an oft-maligned part of the anatomy.

I walked to Flamingo Road to catch a bus. As the dry wind scattered the noisy, dead leaves on the sidewalk, I momentarily regretted giving away my winter vest, even more so because my stuff was still in the pockets. A rumpled older guy got on after me and sat across the aisle. He leaned over. At first I was afraid he was going to cough or say something perverse. Instead, he showed me an iPod. “Found it in the trash and it works, too. God does miracles, and don’t you say he doesn’t.” I congratulated him.

Ten people were on the bus, none sitting together. Everyone around me except for the iPod guy appeared to be having a less than stellar holiday. By comparison, mine was great.

There weren’t any crazies on the bus this time. Just people going to and from work, with white shoes, smocks, hotel vests, and gloomy stares and slumped shoulders. Some were dozing. These were my people. I was thankful to be with all of them, on that bus, going somewhere. And I was thankful to have someplace to return at the end of my shift.

Just then I experienced something like an emotional swarm, several feelings at once, buzzing around, like bees. I pushed them all down. That’s what I always did.

I concentrated on what I would do next. I would punch in and do paperwork for Mrs. Platt. I would roll patients and clean their urine. I would make the place spotless for the state inspectors. Tasks. It always helped to think of tasks. Little duties and lists helped me put unidentifiable emotions back in the box where they could do no harm.

TWENTY-FOUR

I hadn’t seen Rachel since my paranoid rant at school, just before the Pasadena trip. I hadn’t called, either. But I had sent a text message. It said, simply,
I’m a dummkopf, sorry
. She didn’t write back.

I didn’t expect her to agree to date me, but at least I could put my jerkiness in context. She may not have known what
dummkopf
meant. That’s possibly why she didn’t respond. Or, more likely, she didn’t recognize the number, because I sent the message from a new, disposable phone after I gave my good one to Levi. She was probably trying to call me at the old number, and Levi was intercepting. Maybe he was talking with her. Maybe they were dating. Most likely, she was still ticked at me.

During a break in my evening nursing class, I called Rachel. “Did you get my message?”

“What?”

“I’m a
dummkopf
. It means idiot. I didn’t mean to say what I did and I’m sorry.”

“(static)”

“If you are not still mad, I’d like to meet for coffee later. Or tea. Tea is better because I don’t drink coffee, except in the morning. But it’s up to you.”

“(unintelligible) breaking up.”

“How can we break up if we’re not officially dating?”

“What?”

“At least meet me for five minutes.”

“I can’t (unintelligible) work until nine.”

“You start work then or end work?”

“(static) call me back!”

“
Do
call you back, or
don’t
call you back?”

There were three beeps, then nothing.

My nursing class ended at 9:00. I called Rachel back at 9:01. “It’s Tyler. Sorry about the bad connection. It’s my new phone.”

All I heard from her was, “(static) Starbucks (static) thirty.” The signal died before I could ask her which Starbucks. I called information and found the one closest to where she worked.

Rachel was sitting in an oversized leather chair with her legs twisted into some kind of yoga posture. She was sucking on something with a straw. I was happy to see her, but my mood was dampened by the fact that the farking “Somewhere Over the Rainbow/It’s a Wonderful World” medley was playing, just like the every time I had ever been to Starbucks.

“This must be the only song they play here.” I was off to a snippy start, and that was not my intent.

“It’s by Israel something,” Rachel said. “I can’t pronounce his last name. He’s Hawaiian. He died a few years ago because he was really fat. Well I’m not sure that’s the reason. But he was large. Isn’t it
great
?”

“Yeah, great,” I said, as chipper as I could pretend to be.

I began to explain why I had been such a jerk. I told her that Caltech meant so much to me, and I had been worrying myself sick about it. I was about to mention the yellow jacket usage when she told me not to stress out.

“Caltech would be stupid not to accept you. If they don’t, it’s their own loss.”

I hadn’t thought of it that way. I liked her attitude.

“About the photo,” she said. “You were partly right. Principal Nicks knew about the beer at the party before he saw the photo, but he confirmed it by looking at my picture. The editor, who will be forever named
assface
, turned over the beer photo without telling me. When I found this out I quit.”

“You quit because of me?”

“I quit because of the unprofessional cabal between the brownnose boys in the newsroom and the administration. But also because of you. So we’re fine?”

“I am. Are you?”

“Very.” She sat up and announced she had good news. She knew someone who knew someone at a popular blog that was interested in my sex and drugs speech. This sounded like bad news, but I let her go on. They also wanted to know why Principal Nicks considered me a troublemaker, which also sounded bad.

“But listen, this part is good. They want
me
to write about the stall door issue as part of a larger piece about student activism. I’m not going to get paid, but it’s great exposure, and the Web is where all the innovative journalism is happening. But we can’t have any more massages until I finish the story.” On the word
massages
, she used finger quotes. I didn’t ask her why writing the story would preclude physical contact.