Last December (9 page)

And Byron was talking slower, like he was drugged or something, and he was still sort of smirking when he said, “You know what is fascinating about sex, kid?” and I said, “What?” because just hearing the word “sex” was pretty fascinating to me, and he
started playing Junior, which sort of made him talk a bit louder and faster, “It’s something I came up with the other day. It’s that grown-ups always want to, like, control it,” and I said, “Oh,” and he said, “Yeah, if they don’t want to hear about it, they tell you to be quiet and not be so naughty, and you pretty much have to obey them, because they’re grown-ups, right? But if
they
suddenly want to talk about sex, then you just have to listen. Yeah, you just have to sit there and take it from them. ‘Remember to use a condom, so that you don’t get herpes.’ Stupid stuff like that. And just think, your parents had to have sex to bring you into this stupid world. It’s really just too messed up and gross to even think about,” and then he put his hand on his forehead and started fake-screaming while he was still playing.

“Aghhhhh, Byron,” he pretended to say to himself (but he was really saying it to me), “Don’t think about your parents having sex. Stop, stop, stop. Think of something else, think of your birthday party in first grade when you barfed on the woman in the movie theater, or about horses or butterflies or sugar-corn puffs. Or better yet, think of nuclear war … or even better, dying. That’s better.” He looked up at me like he was dead serious. “Think about hanging yourself or slitting your wrists. That’s much better at least then all this stupid, worthless craziness will stop.”

And he wasn’t smiling anymore, he was just playing, and when we finished that game (I played like crap, Sam), he said he had to make a call. So he went toward the bathroom sign and disappeared through a doorway, and I just sat there waiting and I started thinking about the worthless craziness of everything and how killing yourself would make it stop, and I’d really never
thought of it that way before. And this might sound strange, Sam, but it made me feel terrified, but it was also sort of comforting at the same time, like someone had shown me a secret escape hatch that I never knew was there.

And I waited like ten minutes for Byron to come back, and I was going to go check the bathroom to make sure he was okay, but then I thought that he would think I was weird or perverted or something, and then I started thinking that he was puking his guts out or that maybe he wanted me to go away or something, and his quarters were just sitting on the table and I didn’t want to just leave them there, but after a few more minutes, Sam, this silent pressure was pushing down on my brain, and the only way to relieve it was to leave, so I did. Even though I felt sort of crappy about it.

And when I was walking back to the apartment, I started to worry that Ma would be home and that she would have talked to Mrs. Crapenter, and Mrs. Crapenter would have asked Ma if I’d visited her at the hospital and then Ma would have known that I didn’t, and I couldn’t even imagine explaining why I didn’t go. But when I got home, I discovered I was just
imagining
causes and effects because Ma wasn’t even there. So I just flopped on the couch and turned on the TV and flipped channels nonstop because I couldn’t concentrate on anything, and then I finally heard Ma’s footsteps on the stairs and her keys in the keyhole, and I didn’t want to turn toward the door so she’d see my lying face.

So I just kept watching the TV, and Ma finally said, “Hi, hon,” with this tired voice, and I didn’t even turn, I just said, “Hi, Ma,” and she said, “Guess where I’ve just gotten back from?”
and I said, “Um … where?” still looking at the TV, and she said, “The hospital,” and I said, “Oh, um, are you okay?” and kind of turned toward her, and she said, “For now, yes, everything’s fine,” and I said, “Oh,” and she took off her coat and then let herself down carefully beside me and said, “You know … I got to thinking when I was in there … things will change a lot for you when the baby arrives—”

“Ma?” I interrupted, because I guess I didn’t want to talk about that, and she said, “Yes, Steven?” and I said, “There’s a party tomorrow night. Can I go?”

And there was this serious silence, because she was thinking (but maybe not about my question) and she didn’t say a word for a long long time, so I just turned to the TV without watching, pretending I didn’t care what her answer was going to be, and she finally said, “Maybe we can talk about the baby and the future and things later,” and I said, “Okay,” relieved, and then she kicked off her shoes, leaned back, and said, “So … what kind of party is this and who is having it?” and I said, “Um … this guy … Alistair is having the party. I met him at lunch with this guy Trevor, who also didn’t make the hockey team, so we’re all kind of friends now,” and she sighed and said, “And where is it?” and I didn’t know, so I said, “Um … I’ll find out tomorrow,” and I saw Ma cross her arms on her belly, like she was going to say no, but she just closed her eyes.

“All right, honey,” she said finally. “And hey … why don’t we order a pizza? I can’t even think of cooking a meal,” and I just looked down and mumbled, “Okay,” and she looked over and said, “You okay, hon?” and I said, “Uh-huh. I’ll go call the pizza
place,” and I didn’t even look at Ma because I just sort of didn’t want to, and I didn’t even know if I was okay, Sam, when it came right down to it.

Setting

Sometimes, Sam, memory is a really weird thing. There are things that happened a long time ago that I remember like they were two seconds ago, and then there are other things that happened a week ago that I can’t remember at all. I can’t remember what happened all the next day, Friday. I can’t remember walking to school and going to homeroom. I don’t remember dorky Alan and Brendan talking about hockey without me in class or seeing the skinhead and the mod near my locker in the hallway. I don’t remember Mr. Davis’s science class or even if Jenny was there. I know I must have seen Trevor and Alistair but I don’t know when, and we must have planned when we were going to meet at the Doors, and I must have gotten the address and phone number of the party for Ma, but I don’t even remember it happening, and I don’t remember any of my classes all day long or any of the stuff we learned or if I had a math test or who I talked to or whether it was sunny or cloudy or cold. I don’t remember coming home or watching TV or even having dinner with Ma.

All I remember is standing in the bathroom in front of the mirror on Friday night, trying to make my hair part the right way for an effin’ hour and popping a zit on my chin, which made it look worse, and then washing my face ten times so that my face was so dry and effin’ tight that I could barely speak. And
then I also couldn’t decide what to wear, and I changed my clothes three times and ended up wearing what I started with, which was these black pants that my old best friend, Josh, gave me because they were too small on him, and they were tapered and tight, which is the cool way to wear your pants, and then I just wore this sweatshirt and my coat and my white Chuck Taylor high-tops, which I knew would make my feet cold, but sometimes you have to sacrifice to look cool. Josh told me that.

And then I remember the big snowflakes when I got outside and that it was a bit warmer out. I used to think that the big, soft snowflakes made the outside warmer, because that’s kind of the way it feels, but Mr. Davis told us one day that warm air holds more moisture, which, Sam, is a dorky scientific word that means “water,” so when warm air replaces cold air, but it’s still pretty cold out, it snows big snowflakes (I think that’s how it works). Anyways, I didn’t bring my hat this time, not because I forgot it but because I didn’t want it to ruin the part in my hair. It didn’t matter because when I turned onto St. Clair, the wind swirled my hair all over the place, and I kept on trying to tilt my head so that it would stay parted, but it was no use, and I was just walking and tilting my head, walking and tilting my head, and when I looked around I realized I’d passed the Donut Hole without even noticing, and I guess it’s because I almost felt like running I was so excited to get to the Doors.

But then I started thinking about what Byron said about sex, Sam, and you probably already know by now that men and women have sex or get laid or whatever, and that if a man’s sperm, or zoons, like Byron calls them, are able to swim to the woman’s
egg in one of her fallopian tubes, the first zoon to get there fertilizes the egg and that makes a zygote, which then becomes a fetus and then a fetus grows into a baby in the mother’s womb or whatever, and usually after nine months the baby comes out of the woman’s vagina. I know all this because I learned it in sex ed in sixth grade and then in seventh and then again in eighth, and as you know I was sort of a science dork back then, so the sex-ed class was very, very fascinating to me, even though it was sort of embarrassing to learn about it in front of all my old ex-friends.

Anyways, I remember thinking Byron was right about how grown-ups tell you to be quiet and not talk about sex, because one time when I was eight or something, I told Ma a joke that I had heard at recess about a pussy (because
pussy
means “cat” but it also means “vagina,” which makes it a pretty good word to have in a joke), and I don’t even really remember what the joke was and I don’t think I even got it at the time, but the punch line was “What a nice pussy,” and Ma went all red in the face when I said it, because we were home and she had a girlfriend over for dinner, and she sent me to my room (but then she came to my room and hugged me and apologized for snapping because she realized I had no idea what the hell I was talking about).

But the other thing Byron said about grown-ups wanting to talk about sex I don’t think I agree with because Ma has never told me to use a condom or to not get herpes. (Thank god with a small
g
.) But the most confusing thing about sex and stuff isn’t what people say about it, Sam, it’s how it feels, which Byron never ever talked about. And I think I have my own theory about that, so here it goes.

When I was around Jenny, I
really
felt like I was an alien from
Invasion of the Body Snatchers
. It felt like my brain was suddenlyinjected with special synapses,
sex
synapses, and that those sex synapses killed all the other synapses (especially the
smart
ones) like a commando unit in
Rambo
, so that all I could think about was girls and emgees and my crazy crazy crazy horniness.

But the thing I always think about now is that if god with a small
g
knew that young guys like me felt like their brains were being injected with sex synapses when they looked at girls, then maybe he would have reconsidered being the first cause of all things in the universe. I don’t think god with a small
g
would want to be responsible for those sex synapse commando units crawling around inside guys’ brains on covert missions, even if they are only a part of my Sex-Commando-Unit Synapse Theory.

So I found the trail down to the Doors, because I guess Trevor or Alistair told me which way to go, and my legs knocked snow off the branches that hung over the path and made tiny little lines of snow on the ground. It was a bit icy in patches but not really slippery ice, I guess because it was warmer, and when I got down to the bottom of the trail it was darker but I could sort of see the Doors, which looked like steel ones in the side of the hill like some sort of secret passageway, and a small group of people were huddled around there, but I couldn’t see any faces. All I could see were the heaters on the end of some lit cigs, and it kind of looked like they were fireflies, orange ones, which I thought looked pretty cool.

And then I heard some conversation and some giggling, and then all of a sudden someone went “Shhhhhhhh,” and it got totally quiet, and as I walked a bit closer, my feet crunching on snowy leaves and sticks, I got kind of nervous, so I said, “Trevor?” and then there was more silence and then this deep voice said, “No Trevor here. … What the eff do you want?” and I stopped and went, “Oh, um, sorry,” and I didn’t know what to do, because sometimes turning and running is kind of the worst thing you can do, and then all of a sudden one of them started cracking up, and then all of them were, and then I heard Trevor’s voice. “Mike! It’s me, man,” and he laughed some more and said, “You shoulda heard yourself, ‘Oh, um.’ You were totally freaked out!” and then everyone kept laughing, and I walked up with my hands in my pockets. “You scared the eff outta me, man,” I said with butterflies in my stomach and my eyes all over the place, and a girl kind of snorted like I was a total dork, and I finally settled my eyes. There was Alistair, Trevor, and a couple of girls I didn’t know.

“Mikey,” Alistair said, “this is Charlene and Leslie,” and I said, “My name is Steven,” and Alistair waved a hand at me. “Don’t listen to him. He’s lying. His name is Mike,” and I said, “No it isn’t,” and then he pointed an open beer bottle at me from his other hand and said, “Look at him. Does he look like a Steven?” and then he took a big swig, and one of the girls, who had a shirt with the collar turned up underneath a heavy sweater and jean jacket, said, “No, he doesn’t. Hi, Mike. I’m Leslie,” and I said, “Hi,” which was totally embarrassing for some reason, and the other girl, Charlene, just took a drag of her long, thin, brown
cigarette and didn’t say anything because I guess she was snobby or something, and then Alistair said, “This is Mikey’s first time at the Doors, so it’s time … for the Jar! You got it, Trev?” and the girls giggled and I had no idea what was going on, and Trevor bent down to his bag and pulled out this jam jar and handed it to me, and I said, “What is it?” and Alistair said, “Jungle juice, man. Righteous Rastifari.”

And I shrugged and held up the Jar, and I remember the snowflakes still falling and the kind of dark orange look of the liquid in the jar, the way it sort of stayed on the side of the glass in a filmy kind of way, and I could hear Mr. Davis saying, “Observe the liquid. What is its color? Its texture? Does it smell?” and so I opened it up and took a whiff and went, “Uhhhhh!” and then everyone laughed again, even snobby Charlene, and then I scrunched my face and said, “How much do I have to drink?” and Alistair said, “The whole jar,” and so I just put it to my mouth, counted to three in my head, and took the largest swallow ever.