Mercy on These Teenage Chimps (4 page)

I would have to continue my quest on my bike. I decided to travel a mile to downtown before I went to see Joey. I remembered a ballet school on Main Street that also offered gymnastics classes. First, though, I rode over to Rankle's Drugstore to spend my dollar coin. I pulled a soda from a tub of icy water and approached the front counter.

"What's this?" Mr. Rankle mumbled. Pigeon-chested, turkey-necked, and bird-eyed, he lowered his reading glasses, which had been propped on his forehead. He studied the coin and uttered a grouchy complaint: "I hate these coins."

But he didn't hate it enough to throw it over his shoulder or press it back into my palm. He was a merchant, and money was money. He pocketed the coin and gave me the change—a nickel and a dirty penny.

"I heard 'bout your friend going crazy."

I blinked. I was surprised that even he had heard about Joey's ascent into the rafters.

"You did?" I responded.

"I don't know why he would do that."

I nearly rolled out the story of Joey's first love, but Mr. Rankle was a stingy old man who wouldn't understand. I twisted open the soda and chugged with great reverence, breathing hard as I came up for air. I was about to leave when I spotted a bin of used books for sale—
So Now You're a Teenager
by Justin F. Lockerbie, Ph.D., caught my eye. The cover featured a black-and-white photo of a happy-looking teenage boy and girl walking side by side, hands almost touching. I sneaked a glance at Mr. Rankle and opened the book. It gave off a musty scent as I paused on a page that featured a photograph of a boy, aged thirteen, with splayed ears and Braille-like pimples on his forehead. I swallowed. He reminded me of me, except his eyes were set close, like a rat's. The book was so old, the boy had to be an elderly man by now, or possibly dead and in his grave. I had to wonder whether he ever found love.

"He's a chimp," I unhappily concluded.

I scanned the table of contents as I swigged my soda—the fizz burned my nostrils. Dealing with parents. Containing your anger. Growth spurts, hygiene, and home remedies for pimples. Bullies—Cory popped to my mind. The opposite sex. I chugged long and hard on my soda and was getting comfy to read this chapter when one of Mom's Glorietta Cosmetics customers came into the drugstore. She had a pug nose, tweaked to smell gossip. In fact, she sniffed me out even though I was half hidden behind a beam.

"Hi, Ronnie," Mrs. Fuller greeted smoothly. "I drove by your friend Joey's house. I didn't stop but people are saying that he's living in a tree." She chuckled. "He's acting like a monkey if you ask me. You know anything about it?"

"Uh, no, Mrs. Fuller," I claimed.

"Heard he climbed to the gymnasium roof last night at the awards banquet. Good thing no one was hurt." She licked her thin lips and her pug nose pulsated as she waited for me to offer my impression of last night.

"Yeah, he sort of did that."

Mrs. Fuller waited for more explanation.

"He just, kind of like, you know, got this balloon that went up into the rafters." I lubed my throat with a quick swallow of soda.

"You're sure growing," she remarked and looked me up and down. "What grade are you?"

"Seventh," I answered, and slowly edged away from the book bin. I could see her eyes lower, scan the bin, and lock onto
So Now You're a Teenager.

"You are a growing boy!" There was a twinkle in her eyes.

"Sorry, Mrs. Fuller, but I have to leave."

"Where are you going? What's the hurry?"

"I have an eye appointment," I lied.

I scooted out in a hurry, the bell on the door ringing that I had lost that round with Mrs. Fuller. I imagined her opening that book on teenagers and maybe pondering—briefly—her own teenage years in ancient times. Try as I might, I couldn't imagine her as a young person. She seemed to have been born an old gossip.

I was glad to escape. As I stepped into the daylight—the noontime sun was knife shiny—I was forced to pleat my brow, narrowing my eyes, in order to see. But I wasn't so blinded that I missed Jessica. She was standing in front of the ballet studio, her hair tied back into a ponytail and a black and pink canvas bag over her shoulder. Her face was as pink as it had been last night.

In a frenzy, I unlocked my bike, tossing the last of my soda away. Most of it sloshed in my stomach as I bent over to pull the chain through the spokes. I had to catch up; Jessica was already climbing into an idling station wagon.

I did a wheelie and headed up the street, gripping the handlebars, my mouth clamped closed with determination. The station wagon, I noticed, had a church sticker on the back bumper. The car was headed north. If I lost sight of it, at least I had a clue that Jessica lived in that direction.

I put my sugar rush from the soda to work. My legs were like pinwheels, and my mouth opened wide and scooped air into my lungs.

"I got to catch her," I told myself.

I was keeping pace when a police car pulled up next to me. I kept churning my legs and gave only a glance to the vehicle. I believe this was my undoing—that single glance and, thus, a sign of disrespect for the law—because a tinted window rolled down. The officer ordered me to stop.

"Who, me?" I yelled, inhaling road dust and car exhaust. I had never been in trouble with the law, though when I was nine I had sweated with worry when Joey and I wrote our names in wet cement.

The officer nodded. I slowed my bike to a halt, dripping from my fiery effort to keep up with the station wagon. My chest was heaving for air.

"Come around over here," the police officer commanded. It was my classmate Madison Keenan's dad.

I rolled my bike to the driver's side.

"What is it, sir?" I asked with exaggerated politeness. My knees were weak, and sweat was beginning to roll off my face.

"You ever see the back of a squad car?" he asked.

I shaded my eyes and stared into the back of the car.

"Don't be a wise guy," the officer grumbled.

"But you said." Then I caught on that he meant
me
in the back of a squad car.

I quickly learned my infraction—littering. Officer Keenan had been parked across the street from the drugstore when I ditched the soda bottle.

"I'll go pick it up," I said and pledged never to litter again as long as I lived. I even offered to pick up litter for a day. If only he would let me go so I could try to catch the station wagon!

But the officer changed the subject and asked about Joey.

"Heard he climbed into the gym rafters last night. Takes a lot of courage to do that. Wonder why he did it."

I searched Officer Keenan's eyes, which were the lightest blue. I wasn't sure what was behind those eyes and was reluctant to respond. Was he really interested in Joey's courage or was he just stalling before he arrested me for littering? I pictured myself in the backseat of the squad car and decided to answer honestly. "This girl lost her balloon and he had to climb way up there to get it." The squad car's engine noise covered up the sound of my nervous heartbeats.

"Do you know if he's going out for basketball when he gets to high school? We could sure use someone who can leap."

"I don't know. That's two years away." I swallowed and tasted dust, car exhaust, and fear. I ventured an answer that might make him happy. "He did mention that he likes basketball."

"We could sure use an athlete like him."

"Joey
really
likes basketball." I feared my nose would grow a couple of feet from this lie.

Officer Keenan put on his shades. "You better not litter anymore," he warned me, and put the squad car into drive. I caught sight of his grin in the mirror, a smile that was almost devilish, before he punched the gas pedal and the back tires screeched up a dust storm.

"He did that on purpose," I spat. I thought I heard laughter from his squad car, but maybe it was the squawk of his radio. The dust the car had stirred up was like a tornado—and inside this funnel stood a teenage chimp.

The station wagon
was long gone. I postponed my search for Jessica, turned my bike around, and sailed on the wave of what I must brag was an awesome wheelie. I set course for Joey's house. I found him still in the tree, and, around the tree, a dozen or so banana skins, apple cores, and the top of a pineapple. Ants were making a holiday of this debris.

"Joey!" I bellowed.

Joey peered down from among the leaves.

"Where you been?" he asked. He pulled a pair of earbuds from his ears.

I struggled up into the tree's lower branches and then made an easy ascent into the higher limbs. I refrained from reporting my detective work in search of Jessica. I didn't want to disappoint my best friend if I couldn't find her. I opted, instead, to tell him about Officer Keenan's interest in him going out for basketball.

"But I don't like basketball." The music from the earbuds whined. I recognized the song by a band called the Gnats.

"But Officer Keenan heard about your climbing way up into the rafters." I gave Joey time to ponder how the story had spread so quickly. I already knew—there were nearly a hundred people at the awards banquet and each was the owner of a tongue, some looser than others.

"People talk," Joey answered. He thumbed his iPod off and the gnatlike sounds ceased.

I had to agree.

"Plus Mom had some friends over for lunch. They came over and looked at me, like I was..."

Like you were a monkey, I nearly blurted.

"Everyone knows," Joey remarked.

We sat in silence. A breeze rustled the leaves. A faraway wind chime made music. After a brief moment of quiet reflection, Joey told me that his mother had baked him banana bread. He asked me if I wanted a slice.

"A delicious thought," I answered. I ate two slices while I mustered up a plan to get Joey out of his funk. "Let's go camping," I suggested. "We take an inner tube down French Creek and try to get really lost. Then we can see if we can get back."

"I'm never coming down. Coach Bear called me a monkey in front of everyone."

"He was just mad. Maybe he would've lost his job if you fell." A thought percolated in my mind. I should find out where Coach Bear lived and ask him to apologize. He would have to do it once he realized Joey was serious about staying in the tree.

"I don't care. He shouldn't have talked to me like that."

Joey had been blasted with insults in front of a girl he liked and with lots of other people around. Any teenage chimp would have buckled under that kind of barrage, but he couldn't stay in the tree forever. I was going to tell him to get over it when his mom's cell phone, near us on a branch, began to ring.

Joey answered. I could hear his mom asking if we wanted lemonade. I licked my lips. I was thirsty from all my running around, as well as hungry. My stomach juices had already pulverized those two lunchtime quesadillas and were working on the banana bread. I assumed that it was only two o'clock or so. Dinner wouldn't be for at least four more hours.

Mrs. Rios delivered the two water bottles filled with icy lemonade and asked me to remind my mom to visit her.

"I will, Mrs. Rios. And your banana bread was really good." I rubbed my tummy in satisfaction. After she departed, I drank my lemonade in one long stretch.

"Joey," I said softly.

Joey raised his face to me. I could see that two new pimples on his forehead had replaced the dried-up ones on his chin.

"There's this book I saw at Rankle's." I hesitated.

"What about it?" Joey inquired.

"It's called
So Now You're a Teenager.
" I explained what I believed was its thesis, that boy chimps like us in time grow up to be handsome and productive citizens.

"We're always going to be like this!" Joey snapped. "This is permanent. Just look in the mirror!"

"But we might change." I tapped my left knee to illustrate a point. "Our legs are short right now, but I think they're going to grow. Then our arms won't drag on the ground anymore."

"And our ears will magically fold back?" Joey asked snidely.

"Yeah—it could happen." I remembered Mom telling me that life is a continual change—we are babies with no teeth, then babies with teeth, then kids, then teenagers with acne, and then adults whose hair and teeth fall out.

Joey pondered my argument. He peeled a piece of bark and flicked it to the ground.

"Life is about change," I remarked.

"Maybe," he muttered.

My best friend had a great mom and a good dad. His grades were above average, higher than mine, and he could wrestle anyone. Wasn't life good? So what if a few pimples dotted his face? I sighed. Joey was in love, and his dream girl was somewhere in our little town doing cartwheels, backflips, and other daring exercises.

Then an image of Coach Bear played on the screen in the back of my mind. I had to hunt him down and get him to apologize.

"I got to go," I announced abruptly. I dropped like a cat to the ground, landing on my feet.

"Eat and run—is that it?" Joey asked. He feigned anger, but I could see that he was fitting his earbuds back into his ears. I wasn't concerned that he would wallow in loneliness; he had the Gnats to listen to.

"I got to do something," I called up to him. "I'll be back."

I jumped on my bike and returned to the barbershop to ask Uncle Vic if he knew where Coach Bear lived. However, I found my uncle asleep in his barber chair. His mouth was open and a rattling sound issued from its dark cavern. I tiptoed to a chair in the corner. I was determined not to disturb my uncle's departure to dreamland.

To kill time as I waited for him to wake up, I picked up the community newspaper and, to my surprise, discovered that a reporter had covered last night's awards banquet. There was a photo of two awardees—and me, next to them!

"I'll call him," I whispered. The writer was named Gerry Young and his telephone number was listed in the paper. I got up and, like a sneak, used the telephone hanging in the hallway that led to the restroom. It was the heavy black rotary dial kind that maybe some old president might have used in the 1950s.