Last December (7 page)

“Don’t worry about it,” he said. “I got laid only a month before my fifteenth birthday. It was with Debbie Bronson in her parents’ bed. I’ve got a way with the ladies, so really, don’t worry— you don’t want to have to keep up with Bionic Byron,” and out of the corner of my eye, I saw him doing the slow Bionic Man arms, and then he said, “A little squirt like you has lots of time,”
and I wanted to argue that I wasn’t a little squirt and I guess this distracted me because I got eaten by stupid Sue the Stoner.

“Damn!” I whispered, smacking the table like Byron, and then this made him howl. “Maybe, you should go after Sue the Stoner. She’s pretty cute, and you seem to really like her,” and I didn’t say anything, because this basically pissed me right off, so I just stared straight at him and I was dead effin’ silent.

“Okay, okay, tough guy,” he said, putting up one hand, pretending to be scared, as he started his next man. “I’m just messing with you. It was a pretty good board for a little guy.” His eyes were on the screen. “But keep this in mind: the key to the game is to clear the board and eat the pellets. It’s the key to life, too. Yeah, like my life, well … until a month ago,” and I said, “What do you mean like your life?” and he said, “I used to need these pills, lithium ones, to make me SAAAAANE,” and he leaned down toward the glass tabletop so that he was an inch away from the glass, his breath making the glass go foggy. “But not any more. The doctor was wrong about those pills, and I’m feeling grrrrreat,” and I thought for a bit and said, “Isn’t lithium on the science periodic table?” and he sat back up with his eyes still on the screen. “Hey, you know, I just thought of something that’s pretty wild,” and then he was quiet for a bit while he played, but I could tell he was thinking about something.

“Okay, so listen,” he said finally. “This game is like a metaphor or whatever for, like, procreation, you know, making babies,” and I didn’t say anything because I didn’t know what the hell he was talking about, “and the pellets … are like spermatozoons, right, and Ms. Pac-Man is trying to get pregnant because she
has a baby before the Junior screen, right? This is totally it! And so she’s like searching out for the right spermatozoon,” and I said, “What’s a
spermatozoon
?” and he said, “It’s the full name for a sperm. Cool, huh? I call ’em zoons,” and he didn’t wait for a reply. “So instead of all the zoons doing the swimming and searching, Ms. Pac-Man’s searching and searching for the right one because she is the Queen Bee or whatever, and so it’s like kind of the reverse because only one zoon makes it to the egg, right? Please tell me you know your birds and bees, kid, otherwise I’m just talking to a wall,” and before I could say anything, he said, “So! The primo pellet, the one that gets her pregnant is the last one she eats. Crazy,” and I had given up trying to say anything and was just looking at him like an idiot.

“And so,” Byron continued, catching his breath, “it’s like life, right, because it’s just random and chaotic and out-of-control, you don’t know which pellet you will finish with in Ms. Pac-Man and you don’t know which sperm is going to swim to the egg to make a baby, but it happens and, bingo, you have a baby and life and death and chaos and all of that crap. … I should write this down,” and I didn’t understand but it sounded pretty smart, so I just kept nodding, and then Byron continued to play silently for a bit.

“Isn’t lithium on the periodic table?” I asked again finally, and he said, “Woo woo woo … Okay, Mr. Brainiac, get your note-book out so I can give you a gold star,” and this really embarrassed me, so I didn’t say anything, and Byron was nearing another big pellet and he said, “That’s not why Bobby beat you up, is it? You weren’t rhyming off the periodic table to him, were you?” and I said, “No,” and he said, “
Really
?” and I said,
“Really … It’s because I used to stare at them by my locker, and then I kind of knocked Bobby McIntyre with my hockey bag because he was hogging the sidewalk, but … it was really god with a small
g
’s fault.”

And then Byron’s eyes lit up and he went, “Baaaaaaah,” laughing with his mouth wide open, but his eyes were still down on the screen. “Yer hilarious, kid. An undercover brainiac who stares at skinheads and picks fights with them, and then blames it on god with a small effin’
g
,” and then he ate a big pill and started eating the ghosts and he said, “You kind of remind me of me, actually. Balls-to-the-wall, big brains, the whole business,” and I said, “I do?” and he nodded. “Yeah. Keep up the good work, and you’ll get Big Shiny Byron Stars or maybe I’ll just smoke you up someday,” and then I don’t know why but I said, “Why do you take lithium pills?” and then he looked up angrily. “I said I DON’T take lithium pills, Sherlock, and I don’t take lithium pills because I’m fine,” and then his man went right into Blinky, like he almost meant to, but then he smacked his fore-head five times so hard that he had a red mark on it for the whole rest of the time that I was there. And the crazy thing is, Sam, even though he kind of scared me when he did that, I think I knew exactly how he felt.

Chaos Theory

By the time school ended that day, Sam, I was seriously seriously seriously hungry, so I just ran home as fast as I could. Ma works as a secretary at a vinyl company, Monday to Friday, nine to five,
so she wasn’t there when I got home. But Mrs. Crapenter was, and she stopped me right in front of our apartment because she heard me coming up the stairs, and I guess she’s got really good ears, because she was standing right in front of our door, ready and waiting for me.

“I thought I heard someone come in. So … your mother is starting to really show,” and I said, “Um … yeah—” I didn’t really want to talk about Ma’s pregnancy, especially with Mrs. Crapenter, but she doesn’t seem to notice those sorts of things, and so she said, “I guess you are going to have to be the man of the house now, with—what’s the fellow’s name?—Michael … gone,” and I didn’t know what to say, and she sort of just pissed me off with her tone and everything, so I said, “No, I’m NOT going to be the man of the house,” and she lifted her head like she was inspecting me or something and said, “Yes … I guess those are rather high expectations,” and I just shrugged because I didn’t care what she said, and then she sighed. “Well, at least you won’t be the baby of the family anymore,” and I said, “I’m not a baby, if you hadn’t noticed,” and she smiled, but like she didn’t mean it, and then she said, “No, Steven. You are right. You are not a baby. And now you’re going to have to be more of an adult, and it’s a good thing, too—kids don’t grow up quickly enough these days,” and I didn’t want to hear any more of her crap, and I was just so effin’ starved, so I said, “’Bye,” and I brushed past her, and she sort of huffed, “Good afternoon to you, too,” and then I went inside and made myself three grilled cheeses and watched
Three’s Company
and
WKRP
, and then I felt like puking my guts out because I ate way too fast.

Later when Ma came home, we were having spaghetti for dinner, and for some reason I was in a terrible mood, like I had an itch inside my head that was impossible to scratch, and maybe Ma could tell I was in a terrible mood, or maybe she felt bad about our baby-book conversation in the morning, because she said, “How’d school go today?” and I said, “Fine,” and she said, “Doesn’t sound like it,” and I didn’t say anything for a bit, and she said, “Steven?” and I put down my fork and said, “I didn’t make the hockey team,” and she sort of smiled and said, “Oh, that’s too bad, hon. Maybe next year. You’re still on the young side for a high school team—”

“I knew you wouldn’t understand,” I snapped, “so why did you ask in the first place?”

And she just stared at me and her face and neck went red in blotches and she started scratching her arm again, and she looked down at her plate and rubbed her temples like she was trying to make the plate levitate or something, but I could tell that she was just really upset, but so was I, and so I didn’t say anything else and I didn’t even finish my meal, I just watched it get cold and hard. And finally Ma threw her napkin on the table and went to the bathroom, and I went and dumped my food in the garbage, and then I noticed that the stupid baby book was still sitting on the table, and I sort of wished it would just go away.

Later on, after listening to the first period of the Leaf game against the New Jersey Devils with the radio right up to my ear, I crept out to the living room to watch the second period. The Leafs were down, 2–1, and Palmateer was being peppered
with shots, and the Leafs were heading for their twenty-fourth straight loss on the road, and it was totally depressing just sitting there, not being able to do anything about it.

And Ma came out from her room in her bathrobe, and she said, “Can I watch TV with my number one guy?” and I said, “Please don’t call me that,” and she just sat down anyways, and as soon as she did, Jim Benning, the Maple Leafs defenseman, scored a goal, making it 2–2, and Ma raised her hands and hollered, “Hurray! I knew I could help,” and I looked over and said, “They’re still going to lose,” and she dropped her hands, fell back on the couch, and then I said, “It’s scientifically impossible for you to affect what happens in a game on TV … and they’re not even playing in Toronto,” and she said, “What about the Chaos Theory, Steven? I asked Mr. Nelson about it at work and he said the Chaos Theory says that a butterfly’s wings can cause a tsunami, which is a really large wave,” and I didn’t know what she was talking about, so I said, “I know what a tsunami is, Ma, and that’s totally impossible,” and then she didn’t say anything and neither did I, because the Devils scored three effin’ unanswered goals in less than two minutes and we just sat there watching till the end of the second period, and when the horn blew I said, “Told you they’d lose,” and got up and went to the bathroom.

And I didn’t even need to go, so I just sat on the side of the tub, and after a while I got up and opened the mirror cabinet over the sink and started quietly looking through Ma’s pill bottles, which she had a lot of, and I wanted to see if there were any pills in there that would make me feel better, like lithium, but most of them were just aspirin and drugs I didn’t know, and
then Ma suddenly called out, “You all right in there, hon?” and I yelled, “Jesus … can’t a guy go to the bathroom?” and she didn’t say anything for a bit and then she said, “Sorry, hon,” and then I heard her go into her room, and I flushed the toilet and I grabbed an aspirin bottle and popped two of them just in case they did more than stop headaches.

Okay, so the next morning I slept in and I remember having to rush everything, like slurping my cereal too quickly, and brushing my teeth without toothpaste, and forgetting my lunch and running back up the apartment stairs to find Ma holding up my brown bag without looking up from her magazine, and running along the sidewalk again with more ice and salt holes and stuff. And I was flying along when all of a sudden it was like I hit a force field, because I saw Bobby McIntyre and the mod and another bigger scary black guy with an Afro Mohawk walking to school ahead of me, and I just stopped as quickly as I could without slipping, and my heart was pounding because I’d been running but also because I was suddenly way way way more scared of them than before.

It’s kind of hard to explain why, Sam, but maybe it was because I finally knew what being punched in the face felt like (it hurts a lot), and I wasn’t so crazy about feeling it again. Maybe it was sort of like when I went to the doctor for a needle for the first time and I didn’t even know that I had anything to be scared of, but then the next time I had to go, Ma had to drag me out of the car, but I held on to the seat belt, and she had a tug-of-war with the car and I was the rope, until I finally let go and Ma and
I went flying. And then I had more than a stupid needle to be scared about.

Anyways, all of a sudden, Bobby McIntyre, the mod, and the Mohawk guy stopped for a cigarette in front of the school fence, so they were sort of blocking my way. I just stood there for a couple of seconds, and I realized that if they saw me standing there I’d be worse than dead meat, so I turned around, walked back a bit, and went south down a side street.

I ran up and around to the other school entrance by the field, and I was still sort of nervous that they were going to suddenly appear. But then I noticed that Jenny was walking toward the entrance, too, but from the other direction, and she had a Walkman on and her hair was darker and wet, which looked pretty effin’ sexy, especially because it made me think that she must have just had a shower, and I was walking toward her, and I was trying not to stare at her, but I couldn’t help myself, and when she finally saw me, she smiled and said “Hi, Steven” really loudly because she had her Walkman on, and I said hi back, and my voice went high when I said it, but I’m pretty sure she didn’t hear that (thank god with a small
g
) and then I just walked behind her, and my heart was beating again for a whole ’nother reason, and I couldn’t believe how completely absolutely seriously seriously sexy she was and I couldn’t imagine a single word I would ever be able to say to Jenny if she talked to me in the near future.

Vocabulary

In first period, Mrs. Reese told us that she used swear words in one of her novels, Sam, and lots of important people weren’t very happy about it, and that’s one of the reasons why she had to quit writing and become a teacher. So when I started this letter or whatever, I thought about what she said and I decided that maybe I shouldn’t use swear words because even though my story won’t be published, my audience is you, Sam, and you are too young to hear swear words. (Well, I guess the truth is that I don’t really know how old you’ll be when you read this.) But anyways, the thing is that I think I sort of suddenly get what balls-to-the-wall realness means, because sometimes when someone says the F-word they actually mean it and they don’t mean
gosh
or
fudge
or
heck
. So when I was writing about Byron and what he said when we were playing Ms. Pac-Man, I thought it would almost be a crime to make him say
golly
or
sheesh
, because Byron would never say
golly
or
sheesh
. Never. And he would never forgive me if I made him say it in my story, either. And I don’t know why that matters a lot to me, but it does. Even though Byron probably won’t ever read this. I figure “eff” is a pretty good compromise for the F-word, don’t you, Sam?