Going Nowhere Faster (13 page)

1. Water

2. Sprouts

3. Sprout-water

4. Half-washed yam

5. Dirty yam

Of course, that’s if I ever saw him again. I wasn’t even getting up for socks, and Happy Video was way across town. So the math was against it. Maybe, in a month or so, he’d visit me bedside. Maybe he’d come in with a canvas tunic and a crown of laurel and splash me with lavender water. Isn’t that what they did with martyrs? Or did they burn them over a pile of Dura-flames? Either way, I wasn’t going to work.

WEDNESDAY: “Listen, Stan, this is ridiculous! You
have
to get out of bed. Really. I called Dr. Felder. He says you
have
to get out of bed.”

But I didn’t. Have to. At all. It was revelatory. It was amazing. Day three, and it just kept getting better. It wasn’t like one of those things you thought when you were little, like maybe you could poke your plastic shovel into the sand and dig a hole to China, but only got a foot down before the ocean poured in and destroyed your hard work and swept your sand away. And your hopes and your girlfriend. And who really wanted to go to China anyhow? Who wanted to go anywhere, for that matter? We all had beds, didn’t we? Give me a round-trip ticket to my Serta Sleeper. Give me a six-day, seven-night all expenses paid trip to my duck-feather comforter. Plus, there was the doll. Okay, I admit it. It scared me to death. It might still be on the doorstep. Or, standing in the hallway. Waiting.

I wasn’t going anywhere.

THURSDAY: Olivia whispered through the keyhole, “Stanny?”

And that, finally, was what it took. Plus, I was starving. I was dreaming my pillow was a cannoli. It was covered with drool. Also, my back hurt and I stank. Olivia didn’t say anything, just climbed onto the bed and curled up at my feet like a cat. She was carrying a doll. I almost screamed, but it was just a normal doll. Not red. Not painted. Not with my name on the forehead.

“You okay?” she asked.

“Yeah,” I said, looking at the doll again. Double check. Triple check. It looked back at me with a tiny plastic smile. “Everything’s great.”

“There’s something wrong with you and Ellen, isn’t there?”

“What makes you think that?”

Olivia shrugged. Her little chin was turned up and her eyes were sad and brown and I felt bad for making her concerned.

“Everything’s okay. Really.”

“You don’t have to lie, Stanny,” she said. She held my foot like a pillow and closed her eyes and we napped together. I had another dream. I was running on the beach and someone was following me with a stick and they kept hitting me with it every time I told them that I hated when people told me about their dreams.

When I woke up, Olivia was gone. My mother was back. The door was open. She sat in the tiny divot where Olivia had been, like time-lapse photography. Scary.

“Mom . . . ,” I began, but she held up her hand. She played with her big hoop earring for a while and then took a deep breath and said, “Your father tells me I embarrassed you. Certainly I didn’t
mean
to, and frankly I still don’t understand how, but I will say that I am very, very sorry.”

“It’s okay,” I said, tucking my chin near my armpit. I could smell myself. The long crinkly and reasonably new hairs under my arm, acrid and oily but not entirely unpleasant. It made me uncomfortable to be sniffing my armpit with my mother so close, though, so I stopped.

“No, Stan,” she said, “it’s
not
okay.”

“Yes, Mom,“ I said, desperately wanting her to go away, “it
is.
”

She shook her head and I knew she was thinking of some phrase she’d seen on a talk show or read about in a book on the woes of dealing with teenagers, or something Dr. Felder told her, like,
When they’re difficult, take a deep breath and really try to FEEL where they’re coming from.
Still, I didn’t want her to get mad and I didn’t want to waste the small advantage of being apologized to, so I went ahead and explained.

“Ellen? Eleanor? And me. It’s over. Before it even started. So the whole thing? With the car? It doesn’t make any difference.”

“Is
that
what all this is about?” My mother shook her head. ”I thought this was about Berkeley
.
”

Berkeley. I’d forgotten all about it.

“Yeah, what about that?” I said. “All of a sudden I’m accepted to some school? That I didn’t even apply to?”

“I know, Stan. It’s just . . .”

“It’s just what?”

She took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. She played with her skirt, which had elephants and giraffes running across it, followed by cartoon poachers. “By going there, you have a chance to finish what I started. Can you understand that?”

“But I don’t want to go to Berkeley. I want to make a movie. I want to
write
a movie.”

She frowned. “You do?”

“I think.”

“I’m not sure that’s the smartest idea I’ve ever heard, Stan.”

“Why not?”

“Well, for one thing, it’s something you can easily do
after
college. Besides, why haven’t you ever said anything about it before? Here I am driving you to the chess clubs and the dinosaur clubs and the math clubs and the algebra addicts, but never once anything about a script?”

“I work at a video store, Mom,” I said. “I watch about twelve movies a day.”

She sighed. “True. It’s just . . .”

“It’s just what?”

“After the whole thing with your uncle Stu? “

Uncle Stu was my mother’s brother. He was also small and dull and smoked long cigarettes that smelled like burnt cat.

“What about him?”

“Well, I assumed your father had told you. His script? I thought that’s where this was coming from.”

“Uncle Stu wrote a
script
? I thought he was retired.”

“Well, he is,” my mother said, shaking her head. “At least as a dentist. He somehow got a patient to show his script to their cousin in exchange for a bridge and two crowns. That cousin was an agent and apparently loved it. So Stu moved to Hollywood. He lived there for three years, but the movie was never made.”

“Then what?”

“Well, as you know, your uncle is now very wealthy and living in Hawaii.”

“Did he sell his gold tooth collection?”

“No, he won a lawsuit.”

“What kind of lawsuit?”

My mother sighed deeply. “Well, his script was about a prison. A women’s prison.”

“Why didn’t
I
think of that?” I said, slapping my forehead.

“Yes, well, this movie that was never made was called
Prison Girrlz.
It seems some rapper’s group stole the name and put it on their records and Stu sued them. For a lot. Of money.”

”
Rapper’s
group?” I said, laughing. “
Prison
Girls?”

”Two
R
’s and a
Z,
” my mother said.

“No way!”

“Yes way.”

I couldn’t believe it. Just when my family was at its absolute quota of maximum weirdness. Olivia yelled “Mom!” from downstairs. Then she did it three more times, “MOM-MOMMOM!”

My mother got up. “We can talk more about this later. But for now, why don’t you go take a shower?” She held her nose and made a face. “Or two showers? And I’ll make you something to eat. And then call Keith. You’re late for work. And call Miles. He called about twenty-six times. And call Dr. Felder. You missed your appointment. He said you were ‘off the hook,’ whatever that means.”

“Okay,” I said.

As she stepped out the door I suddenly remembered the message on the back steps. Somehow I’d refused to think about it. For even a second. “Mom, did you find a doll outside?”

She looked in at me. “No, why?”

“A red doll? Like, a scary one?”

“Take a shower, Stanley,” she said, walking down the stairs.

I threw the covers on the floor and got up for the first time in a week. It was like being born. Again.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

RAGING actually pretty calm but probably hungry and not at all happy BULL

I rode into town an hour early, feeling like I owed Keith for missing (at least) two shifts. I figured I’d make it up to him by explaining the advantages of his new sprout-water diet.

I locked my bike to the Dumpster and then walked in the front door. The lights were off and Keith was standing in the middle of the store talking to a policeman, who was taking Felder-ish notes in his pad. Video cases were all over the carpet. Ceiling tiles hung at odd angles, and wiring was pulled down and exposed. There was broken glass and broken video equipment and posters torn in long strips. The register was on its side, yanked open like an oyster. Hundreds of pennies were strewn across the floor. The word “nats” was spray-painted all over the walls in red. NATSNATSNATSNATS. It was everywhere, impossible to keep your eyes off of. Had the store been robbed? It’d definitely been trashed. It was unbelievable.

“What’s going on?” I asked. NATS.

Keith stared at me for a minute and then picked an Almond Joy from the rubble and stuck it in his mouth.

”Careful,” I said, unable to stop myself, “that could be evidence.”

Keith didn’t laugh. I didn’t blame him. I knew it wasn’t funny, but I didn’t know what else to say.

“Sorry.”

”Where you been, Stan?” Keith asked.

The cop looked me over, squinting. “
This
is Stan?”

Keith nodded, his enormous perm even more enormous than usual. “Yup, that’s him.”

“Where you been, Stan?” the cop asked, writing in his pad. NATS. He looked familiar and it took me a minute to place him. Dave Munter. He was the older brother of a kid in my class and had been out of high school for a few years. He’d been picked on a lot (join the club). Even now, when his car drove by the school, everyone would yell and whistle and laugh. He was not a friendly guy.

“What are you writing?”

“I asked you a question,” Officer Dave said. He was thin, with a thin mustache and thin, angry eyes. He wore shorts and his knobby legs were sunburned. He had about eight thousand pounds of equipment on his belt and mirrored sunglasses pushed on top of his head. He chewed gum with an accusing snap.

FIVE POSSIBLY MORE ACCURATE NICKNAMES FOR OFFICER DAVE:

1. Officer Jane

2. Mr. Burn and Peel

3. Pee Jay Hooker

4. Captain Kneesocks

5. The Angry Inch

“Um . . . ,” I said, stalling. What could I tell them? Where
had
I been? I couldn’t really say that I’d refused to get out of bed for a week. I couldn’t say I’d joined the Brotherhood of the Sheet. NATS.

“I’ve . . . uh . . . been sick,” I said.

“Sick,” Keith said.

“Sick,” Officer Dave repeated, chomping his gum. He wrote something in his pad.

“That’s not what your mom said.” Keith peeled open another candy bar and offered it to Officer Dave, who shook his head without taking his eyes off me. Keith swallowed it in one bite.

“My mom?”

“Yeah, your mom. When I talked to her on Monday. And Tuesday. And Wednesday. Days you were supposed to work. Days she said you were just in bed. Lying there. Like you were feeling too guilty to get up.”

I was sweating. NATS. There was a knot in my stomach. NATS. There was no sign of my friend Keith inside this large angry man. There was no smile there at all.

“Sorry,” I said again.

Keith threw an empty
The Way We Were
box on the ground. “Why would someone do this? To my store? Sure, steal the cash, whatever. You know what they got away with?” He was staring at me. “About fifty bucks.”

Officer Dave nodded sympathetically.

“But then why trash it?
Why
?”

“Drugs,” said Officer Dave. He pointed his thumb in my direction, like I wasn’t even there. “These kids?” He shrugged and flipped his pad closed, as if it completed his thought. “And what’s with this NATS business?”

“Yeah, Stan,” Keith asked. NATS. “Do you know what that’s all about?”

“I bet it’s some new drug,” Officer Dave said.

I swallowed hard. It was like the old eye-cue test all over again. “Um . . . I guess it’s STAN backward?”

Keith looked at Officer Dave. Officer Dave nodded and then looked at me slyly. “Very smart. Use your own name to throw us off the scent? Wow. That’s what we police call advanced criminal thinking.”

“What scent?” I said. “Keith?”

“No one’s accusing anyone of anything,” Officer Dave said. “Yet.”

I wiped my neck and then my forehead. I couldn’t believe it.

“Listen,” I said. “Okay, the other night I come home and there’s this doll, right? A red doll that —”

“A red doll?” Officer Dave said, smirking at Keith. Keith shook his head and wiped nougat off his mustache. Officer Dave didn’t write “red” or “doll” in his little pad.

“Okay, forget that,” I said. “Someone tried to run me over. In their car? Like, I was riding my bike and —”

“Run you over?” Officer Dave said, rolling his eyes. “You look okay to me.”

It was hopeless. Why was I even bothering? They stared, like Laurel and Hardy. Except Hardy was big and mean and wanted to eat my leg for lunch. Laurel was skinny and weird and wore his socks way too high.

“Chad Chilton,” I said, but they didn’t even hear. I dabbed my underarm with a copy of
The Accused.
Jodie Foster’s nose soaked in my sweat. “Umm . . . I know this is a dumb question, but, do you need me to work my shift?”

Keith laughed. Officer Dave laughed.

“Work your shift, Stan?” Keith said. “Maybe you should try looking around.”

“Happy Video is now a crime scene,” Officer Dave said.

“Happy Video is now officially closed,” Keith said. “Even if you weren’t fired. Which you are.” He kicked some boxes out of his way and turned and walked back into what was left of his office.

“Don’t leave town,” Officer Dave warned, then left himself.

Outside, my bike had two new flats. Both tires had long horizontal slashes across them, ugly jagged rips that looked like they were made with someone’s teeth. I looked around. The parking lot was empty. No traffic, no kids, no birds, nothing. What was going
on
? I unlocked the bike and walked it alongside me.
Fired?
Fired. From Happy Video. It was like being fired from breathing. How could Keith look at me that way? Blank, like a fish. Did he really think I had anything to do with robbing the store? Could things possibly get any worse?