The Cake is a Lie (9 page)

“
Eating an otter pop,” I’d
respond, “What are you doing now?”

“
Well now I’m walking to
Abbie’s kitchen, what are you doing?” The conversations would go on
and on like this. I was never that into talking with Oakley and
Abbie, they were just a bad reminder of Nora.

Tysen, Brandon, Devin, Brian
and I were standing in our circle in the rec hall, sheltered from
the hundreds of bustling preteens around us. Safe from the
judgments and critiques. I watched an Arab kid maneuver around a
circle of 7
^th
grade guys adjacent to us, fighting to squeeze in.
They blocked him out. He frantically stood in no man’s land for a
few painful moments before fleeing the area. I felt bad for him,
but if he came to my circle I would ignore him too, position my
body to keep him out, scowl.

“
I can’t believe you’re
officially a man.”

Tyson’s booming voice brought me back
to the moment. He had his hands on Brandon’s shoulders giving him a
neck massage. That was one of the things I loved about Tysen, he
was always touching you. He had a very masculine persona so he
could pull it off–no one thought he was gay, just goofy. I touched
and hugged my friends occasionally, draped my arm over their necks,
but one of Tysen’s things was touching guys affectionately, he
owned that. Sometimes I would reflexively squirm out of it at
first, but most of the time I loved it when he put his arm over my
shoulder.

“
Tell me all about it.”
Tysen continued.

He was now bouncing up and down, riled
up over the big news that Brandon fingered his girlfriend for the
first time over the weekend. That’s another thing I loved about
Tysen, his boyish giddiness for anything related to sex. He
masturbated like three times a day.

“
There’s nothing to
tell.”

Brandon’s patented no-big-deal act
didn’t give away anything more than a slight grin, but I felt the
ultra-smugness he must have been feeling. I was livid. Kane staring
at Able. And he was standing there with that superior look, like he
did it all on his own. If it wasn’t for me, Brandon would have
never in a million years even met his girlfriend.

We’d met her at an Einstein girls’
volleyball game. We’d gone to ogle the players.

That’s when we saw her–a blond
angel–playing for the visitors, the Meadowdale Vikings. She was a 1
in 10,000 beauty. The type of beauty that makes you want to kill
yourself. After listening to everyone comment about how perfect she
was for the first set, in a moment of hormone driven genius and
total discontentment towards god, I’d started heckling her for
laughs.

“
Hey number 4. What’s
up?”

She’d totally ignored me at first. My
friends were in stitches though. Well, except for Devin, he’d hit
me in the leg, his bulging eyes urging me to be quiet.

When she did something good I’d yell,
“Great form, number 4.” And when she’d mess up I’d yell, “It’s
alright 4, that one wasn’t your fault, you got it next time
girl.”

Eventually she’d started cracking,
letting out reactions, smiles and bursts of laughter. She’d become
distracted, sneaking more and more glances at us—she was not doing
good. But it was clear that she really liked the attention and our
whole group started getting in on the fun. We’d cheer loudly when
she came in the game, and yell at the coach when he took her
out.

“
What are you doing coach,
why in god’s name would you bench your best player?”

There were like ten other people
scattered over the empty bleachers. We owned the room. She’d kept
looking and laughing and, by the end of the game, our group felt
comfortable enough to go talk to her. But Tysen, Brandon, and Devin
had some charisma themselves and once they had the green light they
were on it.

I’d stood back. I didn’t try to fight
them for her attention. I couldn’t. I was hideous. There was just
no way. Somehow in the frenzy Brandon got her number. Her name was
Sarah Faith Hall.

“
Her parents have a no
closed doors policy,” Brandon’smile now had a hint of disgust,
“They even have MTV blocked.” I knew the story he’s telling. I was
there. I was there on all their dates. I was the comic relief, the
awkward silence patrol–well me and Avi Miller.

I was slowly integrating Avi
into the group and it was going well, even though it was an
incredibly delicate feat. I wasn’t like Jonsen. I didn’t just leave
my best friends behind. I loved Avi. He could remember an inside
joke after everyone had forgotten, then bring down the house months
later with a well-placed, “Forgetting about my cat-like reflexes
was your
first
mistake.”

So while Brandon and Sarah were
adoringly staring into each other’s eyes and making out in the
theater, Avi and I were next to them snorting pixie sticks, making
endless drug jokes and laughing our loudest at ourselves. “I gotta
get my stick fix.”

Sarah was the real deal, personality
wise she had “it.” She talked to you as if you were best friends.
Her light freckles, perfect teeth, and maddening us of MTV slang
words like “tight” and “crib” were just the icing on the cake. I
felt like it was fate that I had met her. If there was a god,
someday we would be together.

There was another reason Avi and I were
always around–Sarah’s mom didn’t like Brandon. Brandon didn’t care
if parents liked him, he was quiet, cold, acted entitled around
them. Parents had to pry to get him to say a word. But Avi and I
might have been the best mom-sucker-uppers in the world. We
couldn’t help ourselves. That’s just what we did.

“
Thank you so much for the
cookies Mrs. Hall. How was your day Mrs. Hall? You’re so cool Mrs.
Hall.”

“
How did you know where it
was?” Tysen asked.

“
Just keep reaching down and
you’ll feel something wet eventually.”

In my head I listened to Sarah fight to
hold in her reluctant, soft moans. Avi and I had been pretending to
play chess on the floor, grinning at each other, keeping an eye out
for her parents. Deep down we were both devastated, we both love
her too.

“
It’s so wet and slippery.”
Brandon recollected.

With this detail Tysen started hopping
for joy again. Then, in a moment of deep philosophical thought,
Tysen put on a serious face, “Brandon has done something none of us
have ever done, guys.”

“
I guess you’re right,”
Brandon agreed after a humble pause.

That was that. I absolutely couldn’t
take anymore. I had to crash this little party.

“
I’ve smoked pot,” I
interjected.

Everyone’s eyes turned.

“
When?” Brandon was caught
in rare a moment of public rashness.

“
With Duncan. I’m just
saying that’s something I’ve done that you guys haven’t done.” It
came off innocent enough.

The group fell into awkward silence. I
hadn’t told anyone before. I wasn’t sure if I’d gotten high, it
didn’t make a very good story. Brandon and I stared tensely at each
other. I wasn’t backing down.

The lunch bell rang.

That was that, a week later I was
holding a phone jarringly to my ear in Brandon’s living room while
Brandon and Brian jumped silently around me, cheering me on. Tysen
had said “no,” we didn’t even ask Devin. This time I decided to go
through Jonsen to get some. I decided to just call his house like
old times and ask for him.

“
Hey Marco, what’s up dawg?”
It was nerve-racking to hear his voice. The unfinished business
between us made every moment awkward.

“
Hey, can you get me some
weed, Jonsen?”

Pause.

“
I don’t sell weed
man.”

“
Jonsen motherfucking
Palmer, get me some motherfucking weed” I bellowed in my most
playfully demanding voice, trying to disarm the tension. To remind
him how funny I was.

“
Alright, how much do you
want?”

“
40” I said, I knew some
shit this time around, I sounded believable. “And a
pipe.”

Not long after that Jonsen just
strolled everything over to Brandon’s house.

“
What’s up you crazy kids?”
He said playfully when we let him in the front door. It sounded
like something someone once said to him. It was the first time I’d
spoken to him in person in six months. It seemed like an
eternity.

“
Nothing,” Me and Brandon
echoed. Jonsen was the same age as us but he was years older. He
changed the way he acted with us, he toned down his slang and
overall masculinity.

“
3.7 grams on the dot,” He
said proudly. “I watched him weigh it.” He wanted to make it clear
he got a great deal for an old friend. We had no way to verify the
weight, but we absolutely believed him. I was in awe of his
classiness, god I loved him.

After Jonsen left it took us a few
times to figure out you had to light the weed and suck through the
pipe at the same time. But in the interim we acted high, might as
well, no one could say for sure if we were or not. We hyperly ran
around and goofily jumped on each other. We piled in Brandon’s
wheelbarrow and rode it down the street.
Once we finally figure it out it was a different experience for
everybody. Brandon couldn’t stop eating, Brian was zonked out. We
all laughed at each other. It made a great story. They quickly
became our favorite stories.

In those early weeks, something I’d
heard stuck in my head. Brandon had told me, that Kace had told
him—in their Math class—that he always felt soo relaxed the next
day after smoking pot. Because of the residual effect.

Kace’s words were never far from my
mind when I woke up the next morning after smoking pot. If Kace
said it, it was probably true. Then I would look deep down inside
myself and objectively determine that yes I did feel more relaxed.
Once I came to this conclusion, my crooked teeth didn’t bother me
so much when I smiled. I cared less about the stupid comments the
over achievers, chatty kathies, and stupid kids made in class about
the war or history or whatever. I felt chill. I’d finally
discovered the key to happiness, I always knew I’d eventually find
it. It felt phenomenal.

On a warm summer evening I left the
safety of the main road street lights and took off sprinting down
the black gloomy road to Jonsen’s house. A serial killer crouching
in the surrounding hedges watched me the entire way until I reached
the safety of Jonsen’s house lights.

Jonsen’s house didn’t have parents
anymore. Shrouded by big hedges at the end of a secluded
cul-de-sac, the run-down cars and overgrown brown grass in Jonsen’s
front yard weren’t an intolerable eye sore for the neighbors. They
cared more about the noise late at night and the questionable
characters that hung outside all day smoking cigarettes. Someone
once dubbed it “The Crack Shack,” and it stuck. I thought it was a
stupid and crude nickname–no one was smoking crack–but the Palmer
litter weren’t ones to question the unwritten nicknaming street
code. So they adopted the nickname and used it.

There was a group of tall unfriendly
figures standing around Jonsen’s porch in the darkness. Jonsen’s
older sibling’s friends. I didn’t know who they were and I didn’t
care. If they tried to talk to me I would just say, “I’m here to
see Jonsen” and keep moving. As an easy target these weren’t the
types to spend any time talking with. Chances were if they spoke to
you it was because they wanted to mess with you.

I walked up the porch and pushed
through Jonsen’s clunky wooden door. It was never locked. Inside,
Jonsen’s living room looked like someone just stopped halfway
through a move, obscure desks and things like bikes and boxes full
of papers were stacked and scattered around. His living room
computer was gone but the big computer desk was still there. In the
corner, a futon and a sofa had been paired at an angle around a
T.V. More strange older people were slouched on the
futon.

I headed through the house, up the
creaky, narrow wooden staircase to Jonsen’s room. Garbage, like
chip bags and toilet paper, were just flattened into the floor.
Disturbed and on alert I watched my step, careful about what I
touched. I’d think about the kids in Africa and remind myself this
wasn’t so bad really. I wouldn’t want to live there
though.

Jonsen’s room was at the end of the
upstairs hall, the door was open and the lights were on. His room
was big and surprisingly bare except for two big piles of clothes,
a futon, and a cool poster sketch of some kind of futuristic
solider on the wall. Jonsen was lying on his futon reading one of
the biggest books I’d ever seen.

“
Damnnn Jonsen, could you
have picked a bigger book?” I said in an encouraging tone, with a
breathless hint of contempt. People were always saying how smart
Jonsen was. I wasn’t willing to give him that too. Ya, he was
always reading, but he never had cable or the internet. What else
was he gonna do?

“
It’s ‘The Count of Monty
Cristo,’ you read it?”

“
Ya,” I lied from underneath
the doorway. Well, I’d seen the movie. But there was no way I was
letting Jonsen out smart me on top of everything else.