Not As Crazy As I Seem (11 page)

"Because of your lip ring?"

"That's funny. You know what I mean." She touches her face.

"They won't care that you're black."

"African American."

"Sorry, African American. They're pretty liberal."

"Maybe they're liberal about other people, but not when it comes to their own kid. That happens a lot."

"No, they'll like you. They'll be happy I'm bringing anybody home. I could bring home Ben and he could be calling everybody Nazi and they'd say, 'It's nice you're making friends, Devon.'"

"So I'm just
anybody!
"

"No, you're not anybody—I mean, you're somebody, and they'll like you."

Nobody's home.

I can tell because neither of their cars is in the driveway or the garage. Still, when we get inside, I call out for them, pretending they could be there.

Tanya drops her book bag against the hall wall. "Nice place. What do your folks do?"

"Mom's a divorce lawyer. Dad owns a funeral home."

"A funeral home?"

"Yeah, he embalms people for a living. Wait here, okay? I'll only be a minute."

She walks behind me to the stairs. "I want to see your room."

"No ... I mean, it's nothing special—just a room."

"I still want to see it."

"It's kind of messy."

She looks at me with a little tilt of her head."
Your
room, messy? I don't believe it."

"I'll be down in a minute, really."

"Is this another thing of yours?"

A thing? I guess it is. Mom says I have "tendencies," now Tanya says I have "things." "It's just that I haven't had anybody in my room."

"Nobody? Ever?"

"Yeah, but it's only been two months since we moved here. The cleaner doesn't even go in."

"How about your parents?"

"Mom does sometimes. Dad usually stays out."

"It's like your personal space, right?"

"Right."

"That's cool—I can relate."

I start up the stairs, but hearing her behind me, I stop and turn around.

"I'll just look from the doorway. I won't even put a toe inside. How's that?"

We go upstairs and I open up my bedroom door. I hang my book bag on the wall hook and then sit at my desk. Usually I turn on my computer and then take a shower while it's booting up. Today I just sit there.

Tanya's standing at the doorway. Only her head is sticking in. "This is like being in a museum where they rope off a room and you can only look in."

"I don't think anybody would want to see my bedroom, Tanya."

"Sure they would. It's the kind of room all parents want their kid to have."

"My dad thinks I keep it too neat. One time back in Amherst he took TV away for a weekend because I had my shirts lined up by their colors in my closet."

"He took away TV for that?"

"Not just for that."

"What else?"

I don't usually talk about this stuff to other kids. Actually I never talk about this. It's nobody else's business. So why am I now? I'll have to think about that tonight. Right now Tanya's waiting for an answer.

"He didn't like me buttoning my shirts all the way down when I hang them up, that's all. It's no big deal."

"You afraid they're going to fall off if you don't?"

She asks me this seriously, as if there's a logical reason why a fifteen-year-old buttons his shirts on their hangers all the way down. Even I know there's no reason. "I just got in the habit one time, and I kept doing it."

"How'd you get in the habit?"

God, she's worse than Mom with her questions. I just shrug.

"Let me see."

I lean out of the chair and nudge open the closet door with my foot. There are my shirts, two white, four blue, three green, then the plaids, and finally the flannels, all buttoned on their hangers from top to bottom.

Tanya shivers a little and hugs herself. "It's kind of spooky, like in the
Twilight Zone,
you know?...
You have now entered a world where every button is buttoned, where every shirt is hung according to its color, where every object has its place.
"

I slip into my own Rod Serling voice: "
In this world, you must line up your shoes under your bed, sharpen every pencil, and make sure all your CDs are in alphabetical order.
" When I think of it as the
Twilight Zone,
it does seem spooky, but funny, too.

Tanya isn't laughing. "You do that—line your shoes up under your bed."

"Well, sometimes. Not like every day or anything."

"Oh."

I knew she'd think I'm crazy.

We're sitting on stools in the kitchen on either side of the marble island. I'm drinking cranberry and orange juice, mixed half and half. Tanya's sipping water and telling me about Alonzo.

"He calls me every night at nine o'clock. He doesn't say a thing, just waits till I say hello a couple of times, then hangs up."

"How come he calls if he's just going to hang up?"

"He's checking I'm not out with someone."

"Why did you break up with him, anyway?"

"He was getting all over me, you know? Nothing hard-core, but I'm like, 'Hands off!' He didn't get the message, so I dumped him."

A car pulls in our driveway. I know the sound of the engine.

"It's her ... my mother."

Tanya pulls lipstick from her pocket and looks into the side of the toaster to put it on. I open the back door and take a bag of groceries from Mom's hands. Then she sees Tanya.

"Oh, Devon, I didn't know you were having company."

"Mom, this is a friend from school. We were just talking."

"Does your friend have a name?"

"Oh yeah, sorry. This is Tanya."

She hops off her stool and puts out her hand. "Hi, Mrs. Brown."

"Hello, Tanya. It's nice to meet one of Devon's friends."

"It's nice to meet his mother, too."

"Thank you." Mom starts unpacking the bag and putting away the soup cans and cereal boxes. "Have you gone to The Academy long, Tanya?"

"Two years. I went to public school first, then I won this scholarship to The Baker."

"That's wonderful. I'm sure your parents are very proud of you."

Parents—should Mom have mentioned them? What if Tanya doesn't have any? Some kids don't. They live with aunts or grandmothers or foster families.

"Oh yeah, they're proud. My dad was like, nobody in this family ever won anything. He couldn't believe it."

"Do you and Devon have classes together?"

"Just English."

Mom keeps asking her questions about school and doesn't stop until she's put away all the food. Then Tanya takes over and asks her what it's like being a lawyer and having people's fates in your hands. Mom pours herself a glass of water and leans over the island as if she's talking to an old friend. I can't believe it. I might as well not even be there.

A half-hour goes by like that. Then Tanya looks at her watch and jumps off her stool. "Sorry, but it's time to head back to the crib. Nice meeting you, Mrs. Brown."

She puts out her hand, and Mom shakes it again. "The crib?"

"Home. The late bus leaves from school in ten minutes. Gotta run."

Tanya puts her fist up between us, and I tap mine to hers. "Later."

"Yeah, later."

When she leaves, Mom gives me a look like she's got a million questions. I just shrug and smile, because I couldn't begin to explain how I made a friend like Tanya.

The next Tuesday Ben comes up to my locker after school and asks me over to his house again. I've been making up excuses for weeks why I couldn't do something with him, and it's getting kind of embarrassing. We both know I'm lying.

I actually do have a real excuse today—my first meeting with the Latin Club. But I found out that their secret project is building a Trojan horse to take to this meeting of other Latin Clubs, and I'm getting kind of nervous about it. What if they're planning to put all the kids inside the thing? I couldn't handle that. So I've got two things I don't want to do right now, and going to Ben's seems less bad.

"Yeah, I'll come over."

He looks at me like I'm playing a joke. "You mean it?"

I lock my locker and tug on the lock. "Sure. Lead on, MacDuff."

"What?"

"Never mind. Let's go."

His house is even closer than mine to the school, but almost in the opposite direction. When we get there, he tells me to wait outside while he goes in for sodas and food. That's worse than me—at least I let Tanya come in my front door. It's kind of cold sitting on the stone wall next to his driveway, and it takes him a long time to come back out. I start thinking that he's playing some stupid joke, letting me freeze out here. He's probably inside laughing at me. I hop off the wall to go when he comes out and hands me a Sprite and a bag of chips.

"Sorry, I had to help my mom. She's kind of sick."

"She have the flu or something?"

"No, she drinks too much and forgets to eat. I had to make her a sandwich."

"Oh." Most kids would lie and say, "Yeah, she has the wicked bad flu." I wonder if Ben tells the truth all the time.

We drink our Sprites and eat chips for a while. I don't know what to say, but that doesn't matter because he does enough talking for both of us, like Tanya. He says he's Fing a couple of subjects and will probably get kicked out of school, which will make his father in Texas go crazy since he's paying for Baker. The way Ben says this makes me think he's flunking on purpose, but I'm not sure.

Then he pulls a tube from his jacket—Manic Panic New Easy-to-Apply Atomic Turquoise Gel.

"I'm getting kind of tired of purple hair, so I was thinking of trying this. It comes out looking like pond slime. We could
both do it—that would really send Mrs. Cohen into orbit."

He's serious. Me with slime green hair. I'd look like Swamp Thing. "No thanks."

"It's not tested on animals, see?" He points to the words on the tube. "Cruelty Free."

"That's great, but my parents would flip out."

"So?"

So.
What can you say to a kid who doesn't care if his parents flip out? "Red hair looks odd enough already."

"Yeah, I guess you're right."

He takes a chip and then offers me the last one.

"You want to watch
A Clockwork Orange
? I bought it last week."

"What's that?"

"You don't know
Clockwork Orange
? It's like the best movie ever made."

That doesn't seem right to me. I've seen a lot of movies, and I figure I would have at least heard of the best one ever made. "I guess I could watch a little. It's okay to go in?"

Ben nods. "Mom has her TV on. She won't even hear us if we're quiet."

We go inside and he takes me upstairs to his room, which is the messiest place I've ever seen. There are piles of clothes in one corner and all kinds of sneakers in another. Under the window there are rows of Sprite cans three deep and ten wide. All over the floor are potato chip bags and gum wrappers. His bed is stripped to the mattress and the covers are bunched up at the foot.

"Come on in."

"Maybe I'd better go. It's getting late."

He looks at me like I just told him his dog had died. "It's not even four yet."

"Yeah, but—"

"Just watch a little, okay?"

He turns on the TV and hits the play button, then sits on the bed. "There's room here."

"That's all right. I'll stand. I get tired of sitting all day."

The movie is really weird. There are these English kids who like to bash and stomp people, and I don't know why. At one point the police get hold of the ringleader and strap him to a chair and put dilating drops in his eyes so he has to watch the video they show him, which is more people bashing and stomping. I guess it's some sort of therapy, like if Dr. W. tied me to his vinyl chair all day.

Ben's sitting on his bed with his knees pulled up to his chin, his wet sneakers on the mattress. He stares at the movie like he's had dilating drops put in
his
eyes. Every once in a while he bites his lip or sort of spits. A few times he says, "Watch this" or "This is the best part."

What am I doing here? I don't have a clue.

After about an hour, Ben's mother calls for him and h^ quickly turns off the TV Then he leads me down the stairs and out of the house without a word. I think that's rotten that he doesn't answer her, especially since she's sick.

In the driveway he makes a snowball in his bare hands and tosses it at the porch of his house, just missing the front window. I can't tell whether he was trying to hit it or not. Then he blows on his hands. "I hate this place."

His house is pretty depressing. The paint is peeling off
like it's molting, and the post holding up the front porch has big gouges in it, like it's been gnawed by some large animal. I try to find something positive to say. "You've got a big yard."

He gives me a strange look. "I don't mean my place. I hate this whole town."

I've seen a lot of towns, and Belford seems better than most of them. Maybe there's something I don't know about yet. "What don't you like so much?"

He grabs another mound of snow and crushes it between his hands. The water drips through his fingers. "Everybody acts like they're better than you. Everybody tells you what to do. Everybody."

"I hate that, too."

"They're all like Nazis. They think they run the world and can scare you into doing what they want."

I should go home. The sun is going down, and it's getting colder. "Yeah, well, thanks for having me over."

Ben grabs my arm. "Wait, I forgot something at school. Walk back with me, okay?"

"The school? It's closed."

"No, they don't get done with basketball practice until five-thirty, so the gym door's still open. I know a shortcut across the train tracks. It only takes a couple of minutes."

I shouldn't go with him. But something occurs to me—maybe the advanced biology classroom is open. If it is, I could fix the crooked poster. I've been wanting to do that since the first day. Now could be my chance. I wouldn't ever have to think about that stupid poster again.

***