I'm with Stupid (20 page)

Leave Him

Ten minutes later, Abby showed. She texted from the driveway. I pulled on a thick Bluffton Football hoodie and left through the garage, leaving the garage door open. It was wet but wasn't raining anymore. I still felt cold.

I climbed into Terry Sauter's Cadillac Escalade.

“Can't believe Terry said yes.”

“Yeah, me either,” Abby said. “What are we doing then?”

“Living the dream,” I mumbled.

“Dark, dude. Okay, I mean, what do you want to do?”

“Cal's. Please.”

“Uh-huh.” Abby turned the Escalade around and rolled down the drive. “I don't know, Felton. That's a bad idea.”

“No. Why?”

“First, duh. Remember what Andrew said? Second, I'm not drinking anything because my mom caught me and she's snapping back into reality and I don't want to be any more out of control than I already am. Third, Cal doesn't want us out there. He told us not to show up or he'd shoot us.”

“I'm Felton Reinstein. You're Abby Sauter. We can go wherever the hell we want.”

“Felton, I don't think so.”

“You don't have to drink. We don't have to. It's secluded out there and I would seriously like to hide for a couple of hours.”

“Are you sure?” she asked.

“Yes. Please,” I said.

Abby paused. She breathed deep. “If we go out there, will you please confess your trouble?”

“Yes,” I said. “At Cal's.”

“Oh shit,” Abby said. “Okay. Fine.”

Abby aimed the car at Cal's place and we rolled into the Wisconsin darkness in silence.

We didn't have a problem finding it. We rolled south toward Big Patch. We pulled onto the tiny gravel road down through a creek bottom with high bluffs around us and then onto the tiny gravel drive and up into the woods.

The Escalade's lights were so powerful that the valley of darkness was totally illuminated in front of us. We caught sight of the building. Cal's dumpy schoolhouse looked smaller than before (maybe because the Escalade is so huge).

“Hope he's not pissed,” Abby said, turning off the car.

“It'll be fine,” I said.

We climbed out and knocked on the door.

A little girl with tangled brown hair answered.

“Who are you?” she asked. Her big blue eyes were wide and her face pale. I could see a resemblance to Maddie.

“Are you Cal's daughter?” Abby asked.

“Uh-huh.” She stood staring at us.

Then Cal opened the door wider behind the little girl. He flipped on the light above the door. “What the hell?” he said.

“Uh,” I said.

“No,” he said. “I've got my kids this weekend. Go home,” he said.

“Please,” I said.

Cal looked at me. “I suppose I should be honored, right? Dickhead football star and his prom queen show up at my house in the middle of the dark night.”

“No. I don't want you to be honored. We just…we just have some problems that need to be sorted…We just need a place to hide out for a little bit,” I said.

Cal squinted at Abby and me. Then he said, “Well, aren't we angsty this evening? What's up your hole, brother?”

“Long, ugly story.”

“How long?” he asked.

“My whole life.”

“Ha. Stanford, here we come, huh?”

“Yeah.”

“Fine. Go on back. I might join you in a bit. Got to get the girls down to sleep first,” he said.

I stepped toward the door.

“No,” Cal said. “Go around. Go around.”

Abby and I walked slowly and blindly around the pitch-dark side of the house, stumbling over metal baskets and bike frames. I tripped, cutting my shin, and almost fell.

“Whoa,” Abby said.

I had to put my hands down to keep from planting my knees in the mud. From down near the ground, I saw something.

“Abby. Do you have a flashlight app on your phone?” I asked. My hands were caked in cold mud. I wiped them on my jeans.

“Oh, duh,” she said.

A second later, she'd illuminated the area around me. Right in front of my face, lying on the ground, was a tall, blue bike frame, a Schwinn Varsity frame, the same bike my dad had, that I inherited and rode constantly for three years, even when it was way too big for me, a bike I crushed to pieces when I found out who my dad really was (tennis star who knocked up his student, not a short, fat, gentle dude like Jerri had always said—he was a man like me).

“Oh shit,” I said. “My bike.”

“Is that really yours?” Abby asked. “I remember that bike.”

“Just like mine.” I pulled it off the ground. It had handlebars and a fork and a chain wheel, crank and pedals but no wheels and no chain. “It's not really mine. I broke my front fork and killed the derailleur with a shovel.” I carried the frame to the side of the barn and set it upright, leaned it against a wall.

“I always liked that bike,” Abby said.

“Me too. I loved it. I killed it.”

“Why?” Abby asked.

“It was my dad's bike.” I turned away and entered the barn.
Stop.

We had to turn the lights on in the barn, which was fine, except I couldn't figure out how to make the outlet with the Christmas lights work, so it didn't look like I wanted it to.

“Do you think Cal would mind if we drank something?” I asked.

“Felton, I said no. You just want to hide. You aren't drinking.”

“No. I'm here to drink.”

“Come on! Did you just flat-out lie to get me here? What about what Andrew said? What he told you about your dad?”

“I need to shuffle off my mortal coil.”

“What?”

“Seriously, Abby, I feel like I'm going to burst.”

“Why?” Abby asked. “It sort of seems like things are going great, Felton. Stanford and the video…”

“And the governor sent me a letter accepting my apology to the State of Wisconsin.”

“What?”

“Seriously.”

“So…” Abby stared at me for a second. “That's good. That's all good. Are you really worried about Karpinski? Cody is going to forgive you during track, you know? You're just not spending any time with those guys right now. You're just not together. It isn't that big a deal.”

“Abby,” I breathed deep. “Knautz kicked me off the track team.”

“
What?
” she shouted. “When?”

“Yesterday. That's what he was shouting about in the locker room. Not about being out of shape.”

“He can't just kick you off. Why would he do that?”

“Someone turned me in for drinking.”

“Oh no,” she said.

“Yeah,” I said.

“Jesus. Cody.” She shook her head. “How could he?”

“No,” I said. “He can.”

“He's such an arrogant jerk,” Abby hissed.

“No,” I said.

“He said my shit would put you in danger, Felton. He threatened me outside the school on Monday. I told him we'd stopped. I told him we were taking care of each other. And now you're kicked off track? Is this to get you back for Karpinski?”

“It doesn't matter. It's right. It's what I did. I broke the rules. I'm glad someone is making me pay for doing the wrong thing.”

“No,” Abby whispered.

“Yes,” I said.

“No, dude. You've totally spent this whole year protecting Tommy Bode. You're the only one of our friends who…you wouldn't have sex with me, man. I would've done it and it might've sent me over the edge. You saw the truth and took care of me. You're such a good guy. Why should you pay? What do you need to pay for?”

“Can we please have a drink? I brought forty dollars. I'll leave it for Cal. Please?”

Abby paused. She shook her head. “No.”

“Come on,” I pleaded. “I'm off track. I have nothing to lose.”

“Call Andrew.”

“What?”

“Call Andrew. If he can't talk you out of it, I'm in, okay? We'll drink up.”

“Abby,” I whispered, “I cracked Ryan Bennett's head against a bleacher yesterday.”

“Jesus, dude.”

“Okay?”

Abby shook her head. “No. This is probably what happened to your dad. He probably couldn't deal with the whole thing. Call your brother or I'm leaving.”

Can I tell you how much I hated Abby at that moment? My damn skin was screaming and there it was, all this beer and crap right there behind Cal's bar.

Please. Please. Please…

She reached out and grabbed my hand.

“Please, Abby?”

“Call Andrew,” she said.

“Shit,” I said. “You're killing me.”

“No, I'm not,” Abby said.

I shook loose of her hand, glared at her, then pulled my phone out and called Andrew. It took him four rings to pick up.

“Felton, I have a gig,” he said. “Can I call you back in a couple hours?”

“He's busy,” I said to Abby.

“Come on,” she whispered.

“No,” I said. “I guess I need you right now.”

Andrew paused for a second. “What is it?” he asked. “Is this bad news? Do you want me to sit down on my butt so I'm safe from fainting?”

“No. Maybe.” My voice wavered.

“Felton, what?”

“Okay…Please? Give me a good reason why I shouldn't have a beer because I'm telling you, Andrew, I'm all wound weird and I'm not feeling good and I know from experience that beer helps.”

“Uh-huh? No. Don't have a beer,” he said.

“That's not good enough,” I said.

“Are you at a senior party of some kind? Is there peer pressure involved?”

“No. You think I'd worry about pressure from a bunch of numbnuts sitting in a damn cornfield with a keg of beer?”

“Anger, Felton,” Andrew said.

“I know,” I said.

“So you really want to drink a beer because you're mentally imbalanced and you think alcohol will make it better. You're self-medicating.”

My head hurt. I squinted. “Self-medicating?” I asked.

Andrew paused again. “Have you asked Jerri about this?”

“Jerri told me that I'm not like Dad at all. So she's not worried, okay?”

“Oh really?” Andrew said. “She's stupid.”

“Oh really?” I spat.

“Yes,” Andrew said. “Grandpa's with me at the Shells. You have to talk to him now.”

“No!” I shouted, but Andrew had already taken the phone away from his ear.

I glared at Abby. My heart dropped. Embarrassed. I swallowed. “Now my grandpa,” I said.

She nodded.

And my stomach turned hard. The hole in my middle opened. I heard him breathe. I heard him.

“What's this?” Grandpa Stan said on the other end.

“It's nothing,” I whispered.

“No, Felton,” he said. Beach Boys music began playing in the background. “This is the beginning of the end for you.”

“I don't know,” I said.

“This is how your father gave up control, Felton. This is how he gave up. He didn't drink in high school and he was sad sometimes because he was wired sad. He always bounced back though,” Grandpa said, speaking fast. “He never crashed through the floor. But in college, he found his drug. After he was done with tennis, he spent all his time with whisky in his hand. All the pictures of him in graduate school, he had whisky in his hand. And he went down, down, down. Nothing we could do to stop him. He knew it was terrible for him, but he couldn't stop…”

I knew it.
There's no path…no other way out.

“Felton,” Grandpa said, “you are like your father in every way I can tell.”

“No,” I said. “I don't want to die.”

“He didn't want to, Felton. Not when he was your age. He was funny and sweet.”

“Why hasn't anyone told me that?” I wheezed. Jerri called me sweet.

“He would hold hands with his mother, even in high school, Felton. They'd walk holding hands…”

The image of my young dad holding hands with my grandma opened in my chest.

“He was a good boy, Felton. And I yelled at him for no reason. Yelled about tennis.”

I could tell my grandfather was sort of crying. “Okay,” I said. “I'm sorry. But…”

Grandpa's voice got higher. Words caught in his throat. “Then the switch flipped. His brutality. He would destroy his opponents. There was no grace in this. He would make them lie down in front of him, like you did to those poor kids when I came up for your football game. It stopped being a game to him and it became destruction. A display of power. That's all.

“And that's why I told you to love what it feels like to play. Do you see? It's just a game. But after I saw you destroy on the field like your father, I told you to quit now, get away, before it becomes who you are. Go climb a mountain! Go be a swami! I saw him in you, Felton. I can see him! Please. Do you understand?”

“I know,” I whispered.

“Because when he stopped playing, he started brutalizing everyone off the court. He brutalized himself with this alcohol. He brutalized me. He brutalized your mother. He brutalized everyone…”

“I got kicked off track.”

“No. Felton. Please. No. You stop. Booze makes it easy for people like you to forget everyone and everything.”

“That's what I want.”

“It isn't. You don't want them to go away. You don't want to go away. You're kind. You're funny. You're sweet. That's who you are. You want people with you.”

“I want them to go…I want him to go away.” I started to lose it. I started to shake. I started to sob. “My dad did this to me, Grandpa. My dad did this. I have a hard time being alive, Grandpa, because my dad…”

“I'd kill your father again if he ever hurt you…” Grandpa howled.

“I don't know what to do.”

“You leave him. Only him. You tell him good-bye! You get the hell away from wherever you are! I'll be there tomorrow, Felton. I'm coming.
Now, Felton. Go!
” he shouted.