Anything You Want (13 page)

Here's the deal. I have sometimes thought Danielle Corrigan was a mean witch and not a great mom (although I can see her point of view with regard to me). At the same time, I have always thought Reggie Corrigan was a righteous fellow.

Thus, when Maggie told me that her parents wanted to pay me off, I figured it was all Danielle Corrigan's doing. I imagined Danielle going through her purse, digging out a twenty, and saying in her very mean voice, “That scrungy little dirt ball can't even afford protein. Let's give him a twenty in return for his disappearance from our lives!” I figured Maggie overheard that conversation and got really mad and told me about it as part of her ploy to stop her mother's evil ways.

I also figured that Reggie's clear and kind head would prevail. “We cannot purchase the fool's rights, darling. Rights are unassailable. They're intrinsic to being human.”

But if their lawyer was telling my Nussbaum that the Corrigans wanted to buy my rights, Reggie had to be onboard too. That was another kick in the salad, another blow to my
best day ever
philosophy of life.

But no. Hell no. The Corrigans couldn't buy anything from me. No way! I wouldn't sell them the shirt off my back, not for a million dollars, not even if they were naked in the snow. I wanted nothing more to do with the Corrigans.

I needed money though, and that meant—per my conversation with Nussbaum—I had to do something about the musical. It weighed on me. It ruined my good times.

That night Brad Schwartz (who remembered my birthday at the end of the day) picked me up from Nussbaum's. Sharma met us over at Brad's house, and his mom gave us each a cupcake. (Mine had a candle in it.) They sang “Happy Birthday,” and then Brad and Sharma played chess for a couple hours while I watched and ate 116 Geno's pizza rolls (maybe not quite that many, but close).

“Come on. You don't want in on this game, birthday boy?” Sharma asked at one point.

“Oh. No, my brother,” I said.

He just shrugged.

Even if I wanted to play chess, I couldn't. I had all that munchkin weight on my mind. Mr. Lecroy. Witches, scarecrows, Dorothy, and flying monkeys.

Before midnight, Brad drove me home. On the way he said, “You have anyplace to go for Christmas?”

“No,” I said. “Maybe my dad will come down, but I don't want to hang with him, so no, I've got no plans.”

“Now you do,” Brad said. “Mom asked me to ask you to come over Christmas Eve and to stay overnight. We'll eat cookies. Watch
Elf
and
A Christmas Story
. Sound good?”

“Very, very, very good,” I said.

“You hang tough, man,” Brad said when I got out of the car.

The Schwartz family? They're good people, dingus. But no, I couldn't enjoy them.

All evening, I'd been thinking about Nussbaum saying, “Cut the deluded shit.” Musical munchkins and the life of the typical American teenager were no longer within reach for this guy.

When I got inside the house, Darius was either asleep or dead. (His shoes were at the top of the stairs, so I knew he couldn't be out.) That he wasn't drunk and disorderly certainly was good. I looked in the fridge because I was still hungry even after I had downed all those pizza rolls. The refrigerator was totally and completely empty, pal.

Then I sat down at the table, cranked up the old computer, and sent Mr. Lecroy the following message:

Dear Sir,

It has come to my attention that I no longer have enough money to stay alive. Thus, I am sad to say that I will be backing out of my role as Mayor of Munchkinland. I am resigning from all responsibilities associated with this year's production of
The
Wizard of Oz
, which is certain to be magnificent. I do so with a heavy heart but also with an iron will to stand my ground and be the best Taco I can be. Thank you for your support. I look forward to cheering wildly at the curtain call of the final performance.

Sincerely,

William (Taco) Keller

Mr. Lecroy was apparently awake at one in the morning. He responded immediately from his iPhone.

Taco! Noooo! There must be other means of assistance? We need you.

I sat back, took in a deep breath, and said out loud, “My problems are real. This is real.” Then I typed back to Mr. Lecroy:

Dear Sir,

It is time for me to take my responsibilities seriously. At times like these, the musical, although the greatest joy of my life (outside of making out with Maggie Corrigan), must take a backseat to providing for myself and my family.

Thank you,

William Keller

I shut down the computer so I wouldn't get into a long email conversation with Mr. Lecroy. Facts are facts. I didn't want to explain the facts. Then I worried about writing that thing about making out with Maggie Corrigan.
Why do you say such shit all the time?

“You're so dumb!” I shouted at myself.

“Shut up!” Darius shouted from the basement.

I guess I was happy he wasn't dead.

The next morning, the first morning of winter break, I entered the same hospital door I'd gone through when Darius had passed out and hit the Taco Bell. There, sitting behind her reception desk, was Emily Cook.

“Hi!” she said. “You've got a meeting with my manager in twenty minutes, okay? Dr. Anderson already mentioned you to her, so that's good. Fill out this application.” She handed me a one-page app.

“Got a pen?” I asked her.

Five minutes later, I'd filled out the form. It was pretty cool because I already had some job experience. I listed Brad's dad as a reference for the pool. And better yet, the application asked me to explain any experience I might have had at filing and running a reception desk. Well, I had several weeks of hard-core filing and receiving under my belt from working for Nussbaum!

Seemed to me the job was in the hole, dingus.

But Emily's boss, Ms. Poller, wasn't so sure.

Her office was totally hot—like sweaty, not sexy. So I felt a little dizzy and wasn't at the top of my game. The first thing she said was this: “I live two doors down from Danielle and Reggie Corrigan. You're the kid who keeps climbing their house, aren't you?”

Well, how was I supposed to answer that? Should I have said no? Not me? I'm not the guy when clearly I'm the Taco who climbs houses in her neighborhood? I said, “Yeah, I'm Maggie's…” I almost said boyfriend, but we were pretending not to be in love, so I caught myself. “We're pals. She's their daughter.”

“I know,” Ms. Poller said. “I've known Maggie since she was a little girl.”

I sweated really badly right then. I might've spritzed Ms. Poller because the perspiration just shot out of me, but I got myself under control. “I'm not climbing their house anymore. Last time I did, the Corrigans weren't home, and I set off an alarm. I was almost charged with criminal trespassing! It's lucky the cops know I'm a good kid.”

“You were injured the time before, if I remember correctly,” Ms. Poller said.

“Growing up is hard to do,” I said. “But I've learned my lesson well.”

Ms. Poller smiled at that, and I was very relieved, dingus.

She reviewed my application while I worried if she'd think my handwriting was neat enough and I had the experience necessary. Then she said, “This job is twenty hours a week, sometimes more. Do you have time? You'll be working two overnight shifts and a half-shift on the weekend.”

I thought about the twenty hours I was putting in at Nussbaum's and calc, but I also thought about Darius and Dad and my baby and Maggie's large appetite and need for hair dryers, shower additions, and clean towels when she moves in, so I said, “I am prepared to take as many hours as you'll give me.”

Ms. Poller nodded. “Dr. Anderson told me about your people skills—how you helped with that young patient when you were here to visit your brother.”

“Yes,” I said as nobly as I could, although all I'd done was be myself with that girl.

“I'm a little reticent due to your history of climbing houses. But that's done, right? No more odd behavior?” she asked.

“Absolutely. Done and done.”

“I really enjoyed the few times I met your mother,” she said.

“She was a good person,” I said.

Ms. Poller nodded. A smile flashed on her lips, and her eyes seemed to water a little. She picked up my application again. “Oh, Bill Nussbaum is our lawyer,” she said. “He'll give you a good reference? Barry Schwartz too?”

“Those guys think I'm the cat's meow,” I said. What the hell does that even mean? Cat's meow? It just came out.

Ms. Poller smiled wide. “I bet we'll agree with them. We don't usually move so quickly, but we are short-staffed…you're hired, Mr. Keller. Emily will start training you tomorrow.”

I didn't tell her not to call me Mr. Keller. I didn't jump out of my chair and give her a fist bump. I didn't plant a wet kiss on her mouth. I simply reached over the desk and shook her hand because at that moment, I was proud to be Mr. Keller, a man with a job and the demeanor to match.


The work at the hospital was not hard.

Emily trained me in, like, ten minutes. Pretty much all I did was sit at that reception desk and stare at the door, where almost nobody ever entered. My schedule was 11:00 p.m. on Monday night to 7:30 a.m. on Tuesday morning, same thing on Thursday nights (to Friday mornings), and eight to midnight on Sundays. Emily said that pretty much the only consistently crazy times in the ER were Friday and Saturday nights during the college semester when kids were drunk, although occasionally whacky things would go down on Thursday.

The fact that it wasn't hard didn't make it exactly easy though.

Still, for a full twenty-four hours, I believed that balancing Nussbaum law, hospital work, and school would be a piece of cake.

It started with my first shift, the Sunday shift, which was fine because nothing happened. It wasn't that late at night, and I got to chat up the nurses, who told a lot of dirty jokes. Because it was break, I didn't have school on Monday. That was good because I didn't wake up until eleven. I spent the afternoon at Nussbaum's. He had a client arrive at four fifteen, so I made coffee, greeted her, and shot the shit. (“Hiya, how you doing today, Mrs. Walters? Oh yeah, you'll get your money back with Nussbaum on your side!”) I filled out a couple forms, and I hit filing from four thirty to about five. Then Nussbaum asked me to run to Pancho's for some sammies. Got back about 5:20. Nussbaum and I ate, and he asked me a bunch of questions like, “If you stop short because a dog runs in front of your car and the car behind you hits you, are you at fault for the accident? You were the one to apply sudden brakeage, correct?”

The answer to that puzzle, in case you were wondering, is no. The car behind you was following too closely if they didn't have time to stop when you stopped. It is
their
fault, not your fault. Seems to me old Nussbaum could've been teaching me some more complex shiz, but whatever.

I also cleaned the bathroom and vacuumed the reception area. By that time it was 7:15 p.m. Nussbaum headed to the VFW for cards, and I hoofed it on home. I tried to go straight to sleep because I knew I wouldn't have another chance to catch sweet slumber before morning, but I couldn't go to sleep because this Taco couldn't ever find slumber earlier than about 11:00 p.m.

And at 11:00 p.m., I began to see how difficult my new responsible life would be.

I was sitting behind the desk at the hospital when I started to get tired, but I couldn't go to sleep because I was getting paid to watch the door. So I tried to study calc to stay awake, but my eyes were all bleary. My head swam, and my muscles started to give out. I drank some hot chocolate with a bunch of bad coffee in it, which helped. At about 2:15 a.m., right as I thought couldn't take it anymore, the phone rang. The ambulance guy said they were coming in with two dudes who had gotten into a knife fight behind a bar on Second Street. Neither of the guys had stab wounds, but they had both slipped on ice and gotten their hands all cut up on broken glass.

It was intense! I was filled with adrenaline as I prepped the nurses and orderlies with the news. When the ambulance arrived, the two guys were covered in blood, and one guy had actually stabbed himself when he fell down. There was a lot of excitement and shouting, and then one dude's elderly mom showed up and tried to hit the guy her son had been fighting. She swung her purse at him! An orderly had to restrain her, and I was able to talk her down. Turns out she knew my dead grandma. It was total mayhem for like two hours!

I was all razzed up for the rest of my shift until my replacement showed up at seven. I told the replacement all about what had happened, but I had forgotten to scan and file the two guys' paperwork. She said, “Thank God! I have something to do.” I was glad that made her feel useful.

I hoofed it home through a snowstorm and crashed on the couch.
In two weeks you'll be in school after your shift
, I thought. At least I had Christmas break to relax and get acclimated, right?

Except it wasn't relaxing at all. The next day the Corrigans, even though they'd left town for the holidays, deposited a Christmas-sized load of pain in my mailbox in the form of an official petition to release me from my parental rights, which, according to the memo from their dick lawyer, I was supposed to sign…or else.

Or else? I sure as hell wasn't going to sign it!

I carried it over to Nussbaum's office. He already had a copy.

The problem was, as Nussbaum told me, being seventeen and not eighteen meant that my dad could, in fact, sign the paperwork for me without my consent and that his signature would be legally binding. My dad, who didn't want me around anymore, surely wouldn't want a grandkid to go with the two sons he already didn't like.

How was I going to hide this from Dad for months and months?

I needed to know if Dad got a copy of the petition. Nussbaum said we couldn't just ask the Corrigans' lawyer because that would tip him off that he should send a petition directly to Dad if he hadn't already. “Bettendorf isn't the brightest bulb, amigo, but he did get through law school,” Nussbaum told me. I called Dad like ten times until he finally picked up.

“What?” he asked instead of saying hi.

“So how are things going?” I asked. “You and Miz having some nice nights out on the town? Get any strange voice mails from lawyers or whatnot?”

“What are you getting at, Taco?” Dad asked.

I used Darius as an excuse. “Well, you know, Darius has to go to jail on January 2, but I haven't gotten any official correspondence, so I was just wondering.”

“Me and Darius have talked. I'm driving him to Lancaster on the second. Already took off work.”

“Will you be here for Christmas?”

“Can't do that. See you on New Year's,” Dad said.

“So you haven't gotten any official mail at all?” I asked.

“No. Why would I? Darius is an adult.”

So that was good. The Corrigans hadn't contacted Dad.

Nussbaum had his own copy of the petition, and I decided to cut mine into a bunch of little pieces and toss it in the trash.

It was a symbolic gesture. Nussbaum said that the petition was a first step, not the last, and the Corrigans would be coming after my parental rights through the courts soon enough. “You should take the money from them now,” he said. “Even with me advocating for you, I can't guarantee they won't get what they're after. Take the money they're offering, amigo,” Nussbaum told me.

“That's not how I roll.”

Nussbaum shook his head. “Why don't you at least ask how much money they'll give you?”

“Haven't you asked?”

“They haven't given me a number yet, but yes, I'm going to find out,” Nussbaum said.

“Don't tell me,” I said.

Nussbaum sighed like a drama queen. “Listen, amigo. I've been thinking a lot about this. You have quite a few strikes against you. You're broke. You've been in trouble with the police. Your brother has also been drunk and disorderly. One way or another, the Corrigans are going to get your butt in a sling. Please. Listen. You might as well be compensated for your pain.”

Nussbaum wasn't listening to me. “That is not how I roll!” I shouted.

Nussbaum gestured for me to leave his office.

If no one was going to fight for me, I was going to fight for myself. On Friday morning, instead of going home after my shift at the hospital, I slogged through ice and snow to Nussbaum's. His Internet was superfast, and he let me use his laptop. I did research while he spent most of the day, which was Christmas Eve, at the VFW.

According to the Internet, I had to prove my fitness as a parent if a judge was going to let me keep my rights. Through research I found out that other fathers in my position had protected their rights by sending their pregnant mamas weekly checks, by writing weekly correspondence to check up on the health of their fetus, and by taking birthing and parenting classes. If you had documentation for all that, you could put up a good fight.

I called Nussbaum's cell to ask him a couple questions. He answered, “Mallory? What the hell?”

“No. Taco,” I said.

“Oh yeah. I got the office phone plugged in as Mallory,” Nussbaum said. He was slurring his words like Darius.

“If I send Maggie Corrigan money to show I'm covering baby expenses, do I need to open a checking account? I could, like, photocopy the cash, but that doesn't seem like very good proof that I'm actually sending the money,” I said.

“Oh, Taco,” Nussbaum said. “What money you gonna send? Who's money, kid?”

“Mine.”

“You gonna not eat so you can send her money?”

“If that's what it takes.”

He sighed. “Checking account,” he said. “You bet.”

“Okay. One other thing. Does my health class at school count as a parenting class if I'm trying to prove I've gotten parenting training?”

“What do you do in your class?” he asked.

“One time we had to carry an egg around for a week and take care of it so we could see how hard it is to take care of a baby. I smashed mine because I tripped on my pants.”

Nussbaum laughed really loud.

“It's not funny. Does that count?”

“No. You need a real class up at the clinic. You learn about birth and the proper way to bathe a baby. Swaddle its little butt. That kind of thing.”

“Really? At the hospital? Like, where I work?”

“What the hell other hospital would I be talking about for Christ's sake?”

“I gotta go,” I said and hung up.

I'll tell you what, dingus, that Nussbaum knows his business.

I spent Christmas with the Schwartz family, which was warm and fun. Mrs. Schwartz baked a million cookies and wore a hilarious reindeer sweater and a Santa hat. But it also made me feel like shit because Darius was home alone.

During my next hospital shift over break, I wandered back into the nursery and found a pamphlet about these birth classes that they hold every other week on Wednesday nights. The next course started in January. By March, Maggie and I—if I could get her to attend with me because these suckers were clearly geared to couples expecting first babies, not just the dads—could get totally stamped and certified as adult-sized baby makers with mad delivery skills. That would look good to a judge.

Maggie hadn't been responding to my emails, but when I got home from work, I sent her the particulars of the class anyway. I said it was an absolute must that we attend to learn how to get the baby out of her in a healthy way. I said that it was of utmost importance that she respond to my email so I could reserve our position in the class. Then I went to sleep.

By ten the next morning, she hadn't replied.

I took a nap and checked my email, but there was still no reply. Had her parents taken away her smartphone? Maybe she didn't have access to her iPad or a computer, so she couldn't respond.

I went to Nussbaum's and did more filing.

During a break, I checked my email on Nussbaum's computer, but Maggie hadn't replied.

Then I started to feel heavy in my heart and tired and sad about the whole Maggie thing, like maybe she just wanted to be done with me, wanted me to let go of my parental rights and disappear. So I wrote to her again and didn't mention the baby, just said,

I love you. Hope you had a beautiful Christmas with your family.

I sat at Nussbaum's desk with my head in my hands for maybe five minutes. When I looked up, Maggie had responded!

I love you. Sorry about everything. It's hell on wheels here. Everything is hell on wheels, man. Merry Christmas. I'm with you in my dreams.

Yes!
The thing was still
on
!

The thing being our love, I guess, and our plan too.

That night at the hospital, Emily Cook hung out with me, even though I was the only one getting paid. I guess she didn't have anything better to do. It wasn't busy because the college kids were all home for winter break, so she told me a bunch of stuff about her that I didn't know. In fact, I didn't know anything about her except that she played the cello really well.

She's a total loner. Her best friend, Andrew Reinstein, moved away after eighth grade. I kind of remember him. He was a nerd, but he was pretty funny. What's weird is that his brother was this super-stud jock who won state in track and played football with Cody Frederick. The dude went to Stanford for football.

But Andrew moved to Florida, and Emily was super lonely. She became friends with this very weird dude, Curtis Bode's brother. (Curtis shot himself in eighth grade. Man, that was the worst, and it was right when my mom got diagnosed too.) As weird as Curtis Bode's brother was, he was a great artist. Emily wrote stories and he drew them, so they made these rad comic books. But then he moved to Stitzer, which was too bad. That kid was so poor, he didn't even have email or anything. He was totally gone after he left town, so Emily had spent the last couple years basically friendless, other than her cello.

“Right now you're the only person in school I talk to…ever,” Emily said.

“Nobody?”

“Seriously. I can go whole weeks without even uttering a noise at school. I don't even talk to teachers.”

“That is crazy! You're awesome,” I told her. “You should talk.”

“No.”

“I talk to everyone.”

“I know,” she said. “I don't understand how you can like people so much.”

“People are the best,” I said. “They're funny and great. Curtis Bode's brother isn't the only one who can draw, you know? Andrew Reinstein isn't the only nerd on the block. There are basketfuls of nerds drawing great pictures right now as we speak. You gotta meet them! You gotta talk so you can meet all those weirdos!”

Emily's eyes got watery. She smiled that giant smile of hers. “Maybe I'll try a little harder,” she said. “Or maybe I'll wait until college.”