Read The Screwed-Up Life of Charlie the Second Online
Authors: Drew Ferguson
The Screwed-Up Life of Charlie the Second (11 page)
“Bink, mauve's a color. Just think of it as purple on an iron-poor diet. Lavender-ish.”
“Mauve. Lavender-ish. I swear, you better not be making this crap up.” I laughed, but Bink didn't think it was funny. “Listen, Charlie, you've got it so much easier. You can stop in a 7-Eleven, buy Rob a carnation and be done with it. Some of us actually have to think. Talk to you later.”
I hadn't thought about Rob and homecoming. Should I ask him? Who'm I kidding? Guys don't ask each other to dances. Well, not at South, anyway. But what if Rob doesn't know that?
What if he asks
me
instead?
Friday, September 7
We won our soccer game tonight, but I didn't get to hang out with Rob afterward. He had to take care of his mom, 'cuz, I guess, his dad had to go into the city for work. It's just as well. First was waiting after the game. More driving lessons.
No, your other right, Einstein. That stop sign wasn't put there for a decoration. Just because they're called bumpers doesn't mean you have to test them against everything.
I didn't let First get to me. That's 'cuz today I learned that the most important person in the world is meâat least according to the lame-ass, inspirational multimedia presentation we had to suffer through this morning.
The whole thing was this flashy, over-the-top production with C-list celebrities who probably only appeared in it as part of their court-ordered community service. The presentation was so lame I just know that some guidance counselors and child psychologists totally creamed their pants thinking it up.
We've got to make it really “connect” with today's youth. It should be MTV, but with a message. We'll get 'N Sync to talk about date rape or something. They're popular, right? I saw one of them in the news not too long ago. He was going out or something. Remember, people, this is bigger than all of us. We're saving lives here. If we make just one skinny 13-year-old girl stop going at her wrists with a hacksaw long enough to eat a piece of celery, we've done our jobs.
The idea was that we were supposed to “say no” to drinking, drugs, sex, racism, and picking on the chess club dorks. They wanted us to say “yes” to living a clean life, having friends whoâas long as they weren't devil-worshipping socialistsâcelebrated our differences and used the products manufactured by the video's corporate sponsors.
Since we had to miss first hour for the assembly, Mrs. Bailey made us take notes so we could “journal” our responses. Well, it gave me something to do with my pen besides poke out my eyes.
Here's what I
won't
be turning in:
Apparently, I'm smarter than every goddamn adult on this planet.
What happens to people after they turn thirty? Do they suddenly get retarded? It's got to be that, 'cuz there's no other reason to explain why they become a bunch of hypocrites. For instance:
Just Say NoâThe Sex Edition:
Did you actually think making our health class teacher show us slides of a guy's dick rotting away from syphilis would stop us from fucking? C'mon, it didn't stop
you
, did it? And all those slides on abortionsâanother brilliant idea. Click.
This is a dilation and curettage, also known as a D&C. Here the abortionist
(never a doctor, because only butchers do this)
inserts a loop-shaped knife inside the uterus and hacks apart the baby and the placenta, then scrapes them both out.
Okay, so the slides stopped a few girls from putting outâfor two weeksâbut moms, here's the deal: You didn't solve anything.
Sure, you convinced your daughters that abortions are gross, but you also got them believing that their vaginas have a solvent that's so powerful it can eat through anythingâcondoms, IUDs, diaphragms, sponges, the Pill. Everything except for sperm and disease. So instead of your girls letting Trey or Matt or Justin go in through the front door, they let 'em in the back. Abortion worries over, 'cuz butt babies don't live.
Peer PressureâThe “Do As We Say, Not As We Do” Edition:
If all your friends jumped off a bridge (and just how often are they doing that, really?), would you? Yeah, probably. But so would you. You're the people who bought a camper we never usedânot even once in our own goddamn drivewayâbecause the neighbors had one. Of course, ours had to be bigger and better, for all the good it did. You're the ones who bought laserdiscs in the late '80s, swore by the tech sector in the late '90s, and voted for Bush, 'cuz after 9/11 he was the only guy with balls big enough to take on the “evil-doers.”
Seriously, I'm embarrassed for you.
Just Say NoâThe Drugs Edition: This is your brain. This is your brain on drugs. Any questions?
Yeah. You did them, so why not us? Because you know better now, you learned your lesson, and except for the occasional cigarette, Valium, amphetamine-laced diet pill, scotch-on-the-rocks, or white wine spritzer to unwind, you'd never do them? Is it because the drugs you guys did were so much safer? Yeah, that's gotta be it, 'cuz I just know the farm hicks out in Harvard and McHenry spent the last twenty years growing some superbreed of pot that's so powerful that after one puff, I'll be all Lou-Reed-waiting-for-the-man in some Cabrini Green alley with a needle in my arm. That is, when I'm not mugging little old ladies, knocking over a gas station, or blowing truck drivers to score my next fix.
You made the War on Drugs go guerilla, dipshits. You're the ones who pushed it underground. We may not be smoking meth or pot, but now the whole cheerleading squad is sneaking off campus for Chloroseptic Slurpees. Your generation sent Tim Parker to rehab 'cuz you caught him sucking the nitrous out of his mom's Reddi-wip cans.
And who can forget Jim Corley?
After he simultaneously took himself out of the running for and won South's Most Likely to Be an Idiot for Life Award with his stupid stunt
(Hey, you know what'd make for a totally awesome high, man? Scotchguard!),
the school administrators dragged in an earn-your-degree-in-locksmithing-online therapist for an all-school assembly on the five stages of grief. It didn't help. The whole school had pretty much worked through 'em five minutes after we heard Corley bit the big one.
Denial:
There's no way anybody could be that stupid. I mean, really. Scotchguard? That stuff'll waterproof your lungs. Seriously, dude, no one's that much of a retread. You're sooo making this up.
Anger:
Great, 45 minutes of listening to this dumb-ass talk about “feelings” and “sadness.” Corley, you jagoff. This totally blows. I wish the paramedics kept you alive so I coulda killed ya. This is sooo gay.
Bargaining:
Please, God, if I'm gonna die let it be some cool way. You know, like, having sex on the kitchen table with a pair of, like, hot lesbian twins. Okay, how about just having sex? Okay. Okay. How about not dying a virgin? Just please, God, don't take me out like you did Corley. And God, please, please, just make sure my parents don't find that stash of porn under the bed. God, if you just give me this one thing, I swear I'll stop jerking off. Well, at least to the Japanese anime of underaged schoolgirls I downloaded.
Depression:
This sucks. Jim-bo was my ride to that party in Lake in the Hills this weekend. What am I supposed to do now? Stay home and watch TV with my parents? I'd rather die.
Acceptance:
What do I care? I didn't know him. So, yeah, anyway, Weir had me do the ice cube thing on him once. You're right, I should really try it with menthol cough drops.
I know; you had to destroy your children to save them.
Â
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Sunday, September 9
Big fight with First today. After church, I made the mistake of not immediately harnessing my nose to the grindstone of homework, chores, college application essays, memorizing some motivational best-seller like
Who Moved My Highly Effective Parachute?
, or developing and presenting to Stockholm a successful unified field theory. Stupid me, I just had to open my mouth and ask First if, when I was done with everything he suggestedâinstead of relaxing, like, for a whole ten secondsâif he wanted me to strap on a yoke and go out and plow the back forty. First went off on me, saying that if I didn't grow up soon, there was going to come a day when my mouth wrote a check my ass couldn't cash. Mom said he was the one who needed to grow up and stop riding me so hard.
I think First was going to let Mom's jab slide, but when she closed the drapes and turned up the stereo, letting our neighbors know that Michael Stipe felt just peachy about the apocalypse, First readied himself for another verbal round of bobbing and weaving.
“Jesus, Charles,” Mom said, sighing in a stage whisper. “Give us all a break for once and stop trying to be the benevolent dictator.”
Benevolent dictator? What the hell did she mean by that? Was it supposed to be, like, a toddler-friendly Idi Amin? A Muppet Hitler? Hi, kids, today we're going to learn about sharing. Do you know what sharing is, little comrades? It's when we go out to the sandbox and dig a mass grave for the traitors to the cause who have betrayed our dear leader.
First smiled, but I could tell he was pissed. “That's right, Laura. I'm always deciding what's best for everyone. It's always my way or the highway, right?” His voice was all self-righteous indignation. “Forget the fact that I'm working sixty hours a week so we can have enough money to pay off a few damn bills and maybe, just maybe, have something left to help get our kid into a good school.”
“You have an excuse for everything, don't you, Charles?” Mom said in a voice that was as sharp and cold as frostbite. She shook her head. “I suppose I was the one who put the gun to your head and made you run for state's attorney.” Mom turned her back to him, like she couldn't be bothered with his next excuse.
“Is
that
what this is about? Jesus, how many times do we have to go through this? Fine, Laura, I'll drop out of the race, hand in my resignation at the office, find a job at some Chicago law firm. I'll work partners' hoursâ¦nights, weekends, holidays, vacations, Charlie's graduation. Is that what you want? Me never being around? Because I sure as hell thought you wanted something different. I thought we both did.”
For a moment, Mom stood with her back to First, saying nothing. Their silence was so bad that it almost had a physical pain. I turned in my seat at the kitchen table and looked at First. I don't know what I was expectingâmaybe him to be looking at Mom with this smug, cocky, self-satisfied grin on his faceâbut that wasn't how he looked at all.
He looked weak, defeated, almost too small to be human. His face was somehow olderâhis cheeks slack, loose, jowly; a five o'clock shadow before noon. First's eyes were dull, and I think, if there had been even the slightest trace of hate in them, I could have spent the rest of my life despising the man. But looking at him then, it was like I was an intruder into life's backstageâthe department store Santa dressing, the stroke victim struggling to clean herself on the toilet.
Mom never did say anything. Eventually, she walked away and locked herself in their bedroom upstairs. First, he grabbed a bottle and rocks glass from a cabinet, went out on the deck, and sat on a lawn chair, pouring himself shots until well after dusk.
I don't know what to think. It's almost nine now, and Mom's still in her room and First's still on the deck, spilling more scotch than he's slurping.
It'd be easy if I still thought of First as the heavy, but that doesn't seem right anymore. Not entirely.
Monday, September 10
First's still in the doghouse with Mom. That's hardly surprising. After yesterday, I wouldn't be surprised to see him gnawing on rawhide, chasing cars, or trying to sniff the ass of the neighbors' Jack Russell terrier.
When I got up this morning, First was standing at the kitchen counter, shoveling spoonfuls of Honey Smacks into his mouth and getting milk all over the sleeve of his suit. I guess I'd never noticed it before, but First's clothes, in their own way, were worse than mine. His suit pants had a too-often-pressed sheen that was missing from their coats; the cuffs on the coats looked a little frayed, and his dress shirts were yellowing and stiff at the armpits. Maybe there'd been some truth to what he'd said about money, about trying to make things better for the family.
I felt sad for him and almost told him I loved him, but part of me thought it'd just make him suspicious, like he'd think I was working an angle and trying to play him off of Mom. Even if I had wanted to say something to him, I wouldn't have gotten the chance. Mom came downstairs, looked at him, shook her head, and told me to get dressed. The two of us were going out for breakfast.
By the time I was ready for school, Mom was in the Jeep. The motor was running. She was blasting a Police CD while lighting one cigarette off the cherry of another. Her music choices were beginning to worry me. Nothing says angry-slash-angst-slash-artsy misunderstood, sensitive middle-aged, all-my-dreams-are-dead soccer mom like a blind devotion to Sting and REM.
I didn't ask where we were going. Hostages don't have that right. With Mom doing 50 through the subdivision and shouting her own lyrics to “King of Pain” (
There's an asshole lawyer I want to choke today/It's the same old shit as yesterday
), I figured she wasn't interested in hearing from me.
At the restaurant, we were greeted by an ancient hostess, Leona. She was one of the concerned-citizen types who basically hated First 'cuz he never wanted to support the referendums she drafted to bulldoze elementary schools (with or without the kids in 'em) and block low-income housing developments, even though First was supposed to be a Republican. And since First had decided to run as an Independent against John Fisk, his colleague and the McHenry County Republican Party's poster boy for gassing the homeless, waterboarding unbaptized atheists, and clubbing liberals, Leona hated him.
