Adam (5 page)

Adam locked on to his missile launcher and threw a grenade. “So you're saying you'll be exactly the same.”

Brad laughed. “Dick.”

Adam imagined walking out into the hallway and creaking open his parents' bedroom door. Dad would be snoring. He'd tiptoe through the dark over to Mom's side of the bed.
“Um, Mom, I think I changed my mind . 
.
 . can we, like, cancel the whole New York thing?”
He looked over at the clock: 3:09
A.M.
In less than an hour, his mom would be knocking on his door, freshly dressed and ready to drive him to the airport. She'd surprise him with that care package he saw on the dining-room table when he and Brad had snuck downstairs for the beers. A neatly folded little brown bag with Keebler cheese and crackers, a chocolate bar, and dried apricots for him to eat on the plane. The thought of it killed him. He had to go to New York, if only because of that stupid care package.

***

“Adam? Adam!”

Adam opened his eyes. He and Brad had crashed out on his floor, their PSPs still in their hands. His mom was in the doorway, fresh and dressed just like he'd imagined she'd be. She was holding a camera.

“Adam! Now get all your bags together, and I'm going to take a picture of you.”

Adam kicked Brad awake.

“What the fuck?” said Brad. He looked around, disoriented. “Ugh, I can't believe you're getting on a plane.” He got up and crawled into Adam's bed.

“Hurry up!” said Adam's mom. “We have to leave in ten minutes, and I want this photo.”

Adam grabbed his red duffel, strapped it onto his back, and hoisted up his two other bags, one in each arm.

“Ready?” said his mom. Her eyes were bloodshot. Adam could tell she was trying not to cry.

“Ready.” He plastered on a big toothy grin.

*Flash*

***

Adam had only flown by himself once before. He had been eight, going to visit his grandparents, and a stewardess had clung to his side the entire time. She snuck him extra bags of M&M's and ruffled his hair with her long fingernails that dug into his scalp with the most pleasurable sensation imaginable. He remembered trying to hold on to that tingling feeling for as long as he could after she'd do it. It was the first time he felt in love. Now he was seventeen, and he felt old and cool, a young man getting on a plane to go seek his fortune. Even if his fortune was his parents paying for him to live with his sister for the summer.

In the boarding area, he looked for girls his age who might be traveling by themselves too. He'd go up, introduce himself, and they'd end up sitting next to each other on the plane, maybe even have sex in the bathroom. (
“Ever heard of the mile-high club?” “I've been waiting my whole life to join.”
) They'd decide to be boyfriend/girlfriend, go into New York City to meet his sister together (who'd be really impressed), and then it would turn out that the girl had an apartment Adam could live in with her, and at the end of the summer they'd move back home, and she'd transfer to EBP, and he would show up at school with her on his arm, and everyone would be like,
“Who is she?”
and he would be like,
“Guys, this is . . . this is . . .”
What would her name be? Adam's eyes floated across the boarding area: A fat couple. An old couple. Another fat couple. A Hasidic man. Woman with three screaming children. Adam slumped on the floor to wait.

On the plane, seated next to the Hasidic man who was reading the Torah or whatever, Adam dozed, the muffled airplane sounds incorporating into his half-conscious dreams. The early morning sun cut through the window, blinding him in a pleasant, hypnotic way. His eyelids hung down, and he saw murky orange-redness—
capillaries
, he thought, millions of them. A thickly woven blanket of blood. And then the orange-red became a drowsy brown, and then through the brown, a blurred-out face. Wavy red hair, light eyes, pink lips.
This is the girl I'm going to New York to meet.

CASEY HAD TOLD
Adam to take the M60 bus for $2.75 all the way from LaGuardia Airport to 116th Street, which was right in front of Columbia.

The bus arrived and Adam claimed the corner seat in the back, as he always did, as every teenager he knew always did. It was weird to him that the whole civil rights movement had pretty much started over a fight to not have to sit in the back, and now the back was the only cool place to sit. Especially for black kids. A lot of times Adam had gotten on a bus, hoping for a back seat, but had to take something up front because a crowd of black kids had already staked the area. And, no, he could not just “join them.”

Adam looked out the window. The inside of the bus was a pretty mixed group of people, but out on the streets every single person he saw was black. The storefronts read:
JAY'S BARBER SHOP BEAUTY SUPPLY, DRUGS AND SURGICALS, SOLANGE HAIR DESIGN, HAIR AND BODY CONTROL, FOOT CARE CENTER
(foot care center?), a fake Kentucky Fried Chicken called
KENNEDY FRIED CHICKEN
, and
SHAE SHAE'S SALON.
He wondered what part of New York this was.

There were nine black kids who went to EBP. Yes, nine. Out of 152. Adam wasn't friends with any of them. Even though they were spread out among the grades, they were all friends and ate lunch together (all except Nyiema, who didn't eat lunch with anyone except the six stuffed animals safety-pinned to her backpack). There was this one girl, Kandis, who Adam was kind of scared of. She had transferred to EBP mid-semester and was the only black kid in Adam's American history class, and whenever they were talking about civil rights or racism, Kandis would get all huffy and groan really loudly any time a white kid had an opinion. Their teacher, Mr. Grossman, totally played into it, always making sure Kandis got the last word on whatever they were discussing—like she was the necessary period to any sentence. Other teachers tried really hard
not
to single out Kandis or the other black kids when race topics came up, acting overly nonchalant about their opinions, like:
“Hmm. Maybe, maybe not. Just because you're black doesn't make what you say any more valid.”

Or maybe Adam was just crazy. He hated the way he'd think obsessively about race whenever he talked to one of the black kids. One time Adam had come to school in a new hooded sweatshirt, and this black kid named Jonari had told him he liked it when they passed in the hallway. The sweatshirt had immediately become the coolest item Adam owned. Colin had a black friend who lived in San Francisco that he'd been friends with “since before they were born,” because their moms were in some baby group together. Colin was always going on and on about how tight he and Devon were, even though Adam had only met Devon a couple times over the years at Colin's birthday parties and Devon had always looked as if he were just waiting until he could leave. One of Colin's favorite things to say was that he “totally forgets Devon is black.” What did that even mean? Adam was pretty sure if Devon went to EBP, he'd be hanging with the nine other black kids—not Colin.

Berkeley High was racially mixed, though, according to Sam, still really segregated. As far as Adam could tell, most of the gay kids Casey and Sam hung out with there were white. Casey had never really talked about race much, and Adam had been pretty sure she felt just as awkward about it as he did, but ever since Casey went away to college, all that had changed. Now Casey was constantly throwing around phrases like “white privilege” and “white guilt” or, most often, just plain referring to things as “white.” As in: “I just don't want my summer job to be really white, you know?” Apparently Columbia had given her a “change of consciousness about race”—but as far as Adam could tell, that just meant talking about being white all the time.

The bus pulled up to the 116th stop, and Adam gathered his bags and got off. He was here. New York City. Columbia University. Where Jack Kerouac used to hang out and play football and stuff.
On the Road
was Adam's all-time favorite book. Of course Casey hated it. “
On the Road
is responsible for probably ninety percent of America's white male jerks and their fucked-up idea of what it means to be ‘cool.'” Adam thought she was just jealous.

He crossed the street to Columbia's tall wrought-iron gates. Two Greek-looking sculptures stood guard on either side—to the left, a man holding a sphere that read,
SCIENCE
, and on the right a robed woman holding an open book. Adam lugged his two heavy bags and duffel on his back across the bricked quad in search of Casey's dorm. He would never get into a place like Columbia. More like Diablo Valley community college. Living at home and taking the bus there every morning. Or, possibly worse, when the time came to apply, his mom would send out some desperate mass e-mail to everyone she knew who worked at a “real” college to try to get him in.
“I'm writing on behalf of my son, Adam, who, despite everything, really is a good boy and tries very hard.”

Adam rounded a corner with his bags. Columbia certainly was a classic-looking place. The towering stone buildings with names like
HOMER, HERODOTUS, PLATO, ARISTOTLE
chiseled on them. People who went here turned into people like that. In the center of the campus sat a giant sculpture of a woman, her arms outstretched—a serene welcome to those who had been accepted, and inert bronze disinterest to those who hadn't. Adam passed a guy and a girl reading together on the crisp green lawn. The guy held his book with his arms wrapped around the girl, who leaned in between his legs, her book on her knees. They were both reading Thucydides'
The History of the Peloponnesian War
, the two identical books bobbing up and down on top of each other, making Adam feel as if he had double vision.

JOHN JAY
.
Finally.
Adam walked in and released his bags with a
thud
onto the floor of the foyer. He gave the guy at the desk his name to call up to Casey. As Adam waited, two men in security uniforms unlocked the large doors to his right. The doors parted and Adam could not believe what was revealed inside—the most magnificent, elaborate, mind-boggling buffet banquet he had ever seen. He stepped over to get a better look and was hit with a puff of warm, buttery air. There were rows of grilled chicken breasts, crispy roast beef, pork chops with mushrooms, heaps of greasy French fries, mashed potatoes, butter-drenched corn on the cob. In the center of the room was a sprawling salad bar; to the left, a sandwich-making station; to the right, a glass tower sectioned off with Lucky Charms, Cocoa Puffs, Froot Loops—every kind of sugared cereal he was never allowed to have. Next to it there was a fucking ice-cream-sundae-making station. He was
starving.

“ID,” said the banquet security guard, bored.

“Uh, no, just looking,” said Adam. He awkwardly pivoted around, pretending to be immersed in the various flyers taped to the walls: “Ultimate Frisbee on the Quad—Saturdays,” “Stand-Up Comedy Night at the Village Pourhouse,” “Horror Movie Club, This Tuesday: Wes Craven vs. John Carpenter,” “CU Bellydance Presents!” Jesus. College was like some perfectly crafted, honest-to-god
utopia.
Fuck.

Casey appeared before him. “Took you long enough, loser!”

“Shut up, retard.” They greeted each other with their customary kicks to the shins.

When they got off the elevator onto Casey's floor, the unbelievable Pleasure Island that was college continued. A bunch of doors were open, and Adam could see beanbag chairs and widescreen TVs. Rap music mingled with rock, drifting out from different directions. Nailed to the hallway wall was a little plastic basket filled with colorful condoms, a sign reading:
FREE
!

“This is my shithole,” said Casey, opening the door to her room. “And this is June.”

June was clearly gay. Like, no doubt about it, this was a lesbian. Casey, who had long hair and often wore skirts, wasn't obviously gay—which is probably why she got away with Mom and Dad not knowing. June, meanwhile, had a shaved head and a giant bull nose ring, and she was wearing a baggy T-shirt that read:
I WON'T GO DOWN IN HISTORY, BUT I'LL GO DOWN ON YOUR SISTER
. Just in case the shaved head and bull nose ring hadn't tipped you off.

“Hi,” said Adam, offering his hand.

“He's so polite!” June said to Casey, laughing and ignoring Adam and his hand.

Adam decided that he hated her.
“And you're
so gay
!”
he said back to June in his head.

“June is living with us in Brooklyn,” said Casey, flopping onto her bed.

Great.

“You'll meet Craigslist when we get there. God, it's gonna be so weird not calling Craigslist ‘Craigslist' anymore!”

“I
know
,” said June, flopping down next to Casey, staring at her with drooling eyes. June was clearly in love with Casey.
Loser
, thought Adam.
No way are you good enough for her.
Sam would beat you to a pulp.

Casey rambled on. “We're totally gonna be like, ‘Um, Craigslist—
I mean Ethan.
'” Casey and June burst out laughing.

Ethan?
Adam had just assumed they'd be living with another girl. Well, that was cool. He'd have a guy there to be on his side, maybe show him around a bit. He could already tell he'd want to be spending as much time as possible out of the apartment and away from June.

Casey and June chattered away about the apartment, debating whether they should make a cooking/cleaning chore wheel . . . Adam tuned them out. He sat on the floor, leaned up against the bed, and stared into the dorm room across the hall from Casey's. A girl's shorts-clad legs lolled on her bed, a giant economics book obscuring her face, calculator resting on her stomach. Suddenly, she let the book drop, revealing a gorgeous face and loads of heavenly red hair. Was
this
the girl Adam had seen in his daydream on the airplane? Had she actually arrived so soon? Adam's heart was racing. What if this was her? What if God was giving him this chance? It was now or never. Use it or lose it. But what was he supposed to do? Just get up and go introduce himself? Casey would think he was off the fucking wall. Fuck Casey, he wasn't going to let her get in the way of him and his destiny girl. But if it was destiny, shouldn't it happen without him really needing to make any effort? Wasn't that the point of destiny? But maybe he did need to do something. Just give her a certain look. Then she would do the rest, bring them together. Adam sat up straighter against the bed, made eye contact with the girl, and formed a tentative smile. The girl stood up, walked over to the door, and slammed it shut. A piece of paper taped to the door with the name
LINDSEY
wafted briefly: a sad little wave goodbye.
So long, Lindsey. 
.
 . 
.
It was nice while it lasted.
Adam turned back to Casey and June.