Stupid Fast (16 page)

The next hour of my life had to be the weirdest on record. After the phone call, Andrew and I went directly to the Jenningses’. I had to ring the doorbell fifteen times before Aleah came to the door. Andrew kept saying “She’s not here.” I kept telling him she was. Finally, she opened up and was all groggy-eyed. At first, she was kind of pissed we were there. Then she locked in to how serious I was.

“Aleah,” I said. “You know that I wouldn’t mess with your sleep except in case of emergency. Andrew and I have been experiencing an emergency.”

“What?” she asked.

“Our mother has gone crazy.”

“Alcohol?” she asked.

“No. No. This has been coming for a long time, I think.”

“You never said anything.”

“I know…But, Aleah, this is serious.”

“Okay. It’s not like I didn’t know you were losing it.”

“Yes, I was. Is there any way we can stay with you for a day or two?”

“What?” Aleah shook her head, totally confused.

“Our grandmother is on her way,” said Andrew, “But, honestly, we don’t know what to expect from her. We don’t know our grandma.”

“Uh oh,” Aleah said, squinting at me.

“Uh oh?”

“Yes,” she nodded. “Uh. Oh. Would you like some iced tea?”

“Do you have any food?” Andrew replied.

“Come on in,” she said.

“Thanks, Aleah. Thanks.”

“You’re a very weird family,” Aleah said as I straight-leg zombie-walked past her (my back hurt).

Then, while Andrew and I sat on the couch and gulped down chips (“Beats tomatoes,” he said) and that berry-tasting iced tea, I began to tell the whole long story of Jerri’s complete collapse as a mother and a human being.

“You told me nothing. That’s not good,” Aleah said.

“I wanted you to like me and not be freaked.”

“Hmm.”

While I was telling her the sordid story, I began to get text message after text message about my back. Apparently, word was spreading around. Most of the texts were from honky football players or friends of football players asking me how I was. A couple were from honky girls who’d heard about my injury.

“From who?” Aleah asked. “That Abby?”

“Uh, just friends,” I said.

A conversation with Cody went like this:

Cody: talked to dad. he’ll arrest ken if you want. says it was definitely assault.

Me: no. not hurt.

Cody: dad might anyway he’s pissed.

Me: tell him thanks but it was more accident than assault. ok?

Cody: ok. but might be out of my hands.

On top of the messages, I received two phone calls. One was from Coach Johnson.

“How many people do you know?” Aleah asked as my phone buzzed.

“Yeah?” Andrew asked.

I held up my finger to let them know I was answering.

“How are you doing, Felton? Your back feeling better?” Coach asked.

“I’m feeling fine,” I said, even though my back really hurt.

“Thank God. I nearly took Kennedy to the police station. For his own protection, not just because he’s an idiot. Kid’s getting dozens of hate texts. Could you ask the crew to call off the dogs, Felton? Kennedy’s pretty broken up.”

“Okay,” I told him, but I didn’t do anything. Not that I didn’t feel for that jerk Ken Johnson (sorry). I just had other things on my mind. I did have presence of mind to tell Coach not to take his son to the police station because of Cody’s dad.

I still had my normal life.

“I guess I know a lot of people,” I told Aleah and Andrew after I hung up. “It’s really weird to be talking to these…these friends about my back, which isn’t even that big a deal if you compare it to this whole Jerri…” My phone buzzed again.

“Mr. Popular.” Aleah raised her eyebrows at me.

“No. No. This is Grandma Berba, I think.”

It was.

“I’ll be in to Bluffton tonight very late. I had to book to Madison and then I’ll drive a rental. Are you staying at the house tonight, Felton?”

“No.”

“Good boy. Where will you be?”

I gave her Aleah’s address.

“I’ll be over in the morning,” she said.

“Should I let Jerri know you’re coming?”

“I’ve already spoken to her. She’s well aware.”

“Is she okay, Grandma?”

“No. She needs her mother. Took her to age thirty-five to figure it out.”

When I got off the phone and relayed Grandma Berba’s comments, Aleah’s mouth dropped open.

“Your mom is thirty-five?” she said.

“I guess,” I told her.

“Yes. Jerri turns thirty-six in October,” Andrew said.

“But you turn sixteen next week, Felton.”

“Yeah?”

“That means your mom was a teenager when she had you. She was just like a year out of high school.”

“Whoa,” I said. I’d never thought of it. I guess it hadn’t meant anything to me before. But since I was turning sixteen, nineteen suddenly didn’t seem that old.

“It’s not like she was in eighth grade,” Andrew said. “Nineteen is adult. Jerri has a good head on her shoulders too.” Andrew trailed off as he realized what a dumb statement he was making relative to the current situation.

“She was a kid when she had me,” I nodded. “Like I’m a kid right now.”

“How old was your dad?” Aleah asked.

“He was thirty-four when he died,” I said.

“You were five, right?”

“Yes.”

“Hm,” Aleah said. “He was way too old for your mom. That’s a very bad power dynamic if you ask me. A thirty-year-old man with a teenager?”

“How is it a bad power dynamic?” Andrew asked, mouth full of chips.

“I’d like us to drop this conversation,” I said. “I don’t like it.”

“Felton isn’t interested in the truth,” Andrew said to Aleah.

“That’s not true,” I said. “I’m afraid of the truth.”

“Oh, that’s much better,” Aleah said.

The two of them moved on to another subject.

But I couldn’t stop thinking of it. Jerri was a teenager when I was born. I imagined Abby Sauter pregnant with some thirty-year-old’s baby. Messed up. Really, sincerely messed up.

Just then Ronald walked in from the garage.

“Looks like we got ourselves a house full of Reinstein!” he smiled.

“Andrew and Felton are going to stay with us,” Aleah said.

The smile dropped right off his face. But after he found out Jerri was a teenager when she had me and she was crazy and Grandma Berba was on her way, he helped Andrew dig Gus’s sleeping bags out of the crawl space above the hall (I couldn’t help, as I’d cooled from the bike ride and was near paralyzed from Ken’s assault).

It was a completely crazy hour with everything coming at me from every angle. Jerri, you understand, was a pregnant teenager with me in her belly. Meanwhile, the entire honky universe was buzzing, chattering, texting, calling. Jerri was almost the same age as these honkies when I was in her belly.

Because it was Friday, Aleah didn’t practice piano. She might as well have.

After dinner, Aleah, Andrew, and I sat in Gus’s basement watching movies. Or not really movies. We watched Aleah’s DVD recordings of the Metropolitan Opera, which I didn’t get. But Aleah and Andrew completely get opera. They whooped and laughed and talked about orchestration and about Mozart and about singing in Italian and singing in German, and I sat there thinking about Jerri and her baby, who was me. Then Aleah kissed my cheek, told me to get some rest, turned off the light, and disappeared upstairs. After, Andrew said, “Aleah’s really a wonderful person. You’re very lucky.” In like a minute, he began snoring. And I laid there, my eyeballs staring into the black night of the basement, thinking about Jerri and her baby, who was me.

Jerri wanted to be a civil rights lawyer when she was my age. That’s what she told me. Clearly, I was the reason she wasn’t a civil rights lawyer. Jerri was valedictorian of her high school class. I knew that from before. That’s part of history she kept. Jerri stayed in Bluffton for college because her dad would only pay for it if she did. I knew this because once, freshman year, after taking it on the chin from the honkies all day, I asked her why in the name of squirrel nut hell did she decide to stay in Bluffton for college when she was so dang smart in high school?

“My father trapped me,” she said. Now I knew this too: Jerri got pregnant with a professor’s kid (me!) by like November of her first year of college. How the holy hell did that happen? How the holy hell did she meet, fall in love with, and marry a professor in just a couple of months? Then it dawned on me: Jerri wasn’t married to Professor Reinstein at all. That’s why she still had the last name Berba!

Even though my back hurt like freaking terror, I rolled over and shook Andrew awake.

“What?” he asked, sleepy.

“Jerri and Dad were never married,” I whispered. “We’re bastards. Do you understand?”

“No,” Andrew said. “That’s not true. I saw the wedding album, remember?”

“The wedding album had to be from something else. Jerri’s last name is Berba.”

“Yes. She kept her last name. But they were married.”

“No, they weren’t, Andrew. Stop kidding yourself.”

“I saw the wedding announcement from the
Bluffton Journal
too. They had a spring wedding.”

“Where did you get that?”

“Same place as the album. Way up in”—Andrew yawned—“Jerri’s closet.”

“Oh,” I said and started doing math. “Wait. Spring? That means Grandma Berba let Jerri marry a thirty-year-old when Jerri was still in high school. Grandma Berba must be totally crazy.”

“No. I think you’re wrong. The paper said Jerri was nineteen and Steven Reinstein was twenty-nine. She’d have been out of high school.”

“But that’s impossible, Andrew. That doesn’t make sense. Unless…Oh my God.”

“I’m so tired,” Andrew said.

“Go to sleep,” I told him. He was snoring again in seconds.

I laid there so awake. I’d figured it all out. It all made complete sense. The reason why I’m such a freak of nature—growing all this hair all over, running so fast, gaining all this weight—was so obvious. I was a super baby (yeah, right). It must have only taken me a few months to grow inside of Jerri (uh huh). I must have been full-sized in just a few months (oh my God).

It probably killed Jerri, me growing so fast inside of her. I was probably born with white shorts on, which is why she referred to me as a tennis player when she called me asshole. Maybe that’s what killed Dad, having a freak of nature for a son. They got married, and right away, Jerri was pregnant, and I was huge in her belly. I bet I was terrifying, especially for a little, kind Jewish fellow who only liked poetry. A tennis-playing baby? Come on! If only he’d stuck around while I didn’t grow all those years and became squirrel nuts. He would’ve breathed easy then. Professor Reinstein would’ve recognized squirrel nuts. Maybe he’d just be killing himself now because now I’m a super baby again. It probably took everything out of Jerri, having a super baby. She must’ve lost all will to be a lawyer. I’m a curse. Stupid super baby grows too fast. Poor Jerri.

Are you kidding? Are you even listening to yourself? Didn’t you hear Andrew say he looked like you?

That’s the last thing I remember thinking before I fell asleep.

My brain was completely mashed.

Aleah shook me awake. Light was coming in from the high basement windows. It was morning.

“Felton. Felton. Wake up.”

“Whuh?” I asked.

“You didn’t set an alarm. We’ve got to do your paper route. It’s past seven.”

“Oh, shit!” I sat straight up. My back hurt but not that much. My back didn’t really hurt. “Wow. I’m not paralyzed,” I said to Aleah.

“That’s good.”

“It only makes sense,” I said. “I’m a super baby. I must heal fast.”

“What?”

From upstairs, I could hear piano playing. Andrew wasn’t at my side.

“Is Andrew playing piano?”

“Yes. He’s very good.”

“Oh, that’s good. That’s really good.”

“Paper route!” Aleah shouted.

“Oh, shit!”

I pushed my way out of the sleeping bag and ran upstairs, with Aleah right behind me. I’d slept in shorts and a shirt. I was decent. I could go out that way. We ran into the living room. Ronald sat there reading a magazine (“Don’t have my paper yet. Ha ha”). Andrew played piano. I bent over to pull on my shoes. “Owww.” My back did hurt a bit.

Andrew swiveled around and looked at me.

“They were married, so we’re not bastards,” Andrew said.

“Duh. I know that,” I said.

Then Aleah and I were out the door.

“Well, maybe you are,” Andrew called after us.

Ha. Andrew.
He’s funny.

Aleah and I biked to the pickup station. My paper stack was the last one left. Then I realized I hadn’t brought my paper bag from home.

“Oh, shit!” I shouted.

“What?”

“We’ve got nothing to carry the papers in.”

“Oh, brother,” Aleah said.

I handed a bunch of papers to Aleah and said, “Do all the papers from your house on. You know, the one’s you know. I’ll meet you at the nursing home in fifteen minutes.”

“I have to bike with one hand?”

“Can you stick them in your pants?”

“I’ll figure it out, Felton.”

“Sounds great!”

I had like thirty papers to deliver while Aleah delivered her small batch. I biked as fast as I could. The dull ache in my back didn’t hinder me from really moving. So good to pump it. With one hand, I held the papers. With the other, I steered. My legs pumped like mighty elephant legs. At each house, I just let the Varsity drop, and I ran up to the front door. At some, old men or old ladies waited to give me the business for being so late. I didn’t wait for them to say what they wanted to say; I just handed them the paper, turned, and took off.

One called after me, “I sure miss that little Mexican boy.” He was talking about Gus.

“He’s not Mexican,” I shouted back. “He’s Venezuelan. Get your facts straight!”

I’m going to email Gus about being a super baby when I get back, I thought.
He’ll be freaked!
Then I remembered I was going to Aleah’s and not my place and my laptop was at home. Crap! Maybe I can swing by the house?

In about ten minutes, I’d delivered almost all the papers. I was on fire. My back was complaining a little, but I felt good otherwise. I felt free. The truth sets you free, is what I thought (super baby).

Then as I ran up the stoop to one of the last houses, a familiar face plastered itself against the picture window, eyeballs wide, mouth open. It was one of last year’s seniors from the track team, John Spencer, a bony long distance runner. I dropped the paper in the door and turned and ran. Spencer was out the door behind me in a nanosecond.

“Hey, faker,” he shouted. “I heard you might be out for the whole football season. I heard your neck might be broken. How can you run?”

I moved to get onto my bike, but Spencer grabbed the handlebars.

“You’re a faker!” Spencer shouted.

“What are you talking about?” I shouted back.

“Where’s your broken neck?” he spat.

“I never said my neck was broken, asshole.”

“Tell that to Ken. Police were on his ass yesterday.”

“Get your hands off my bike.”

“Apologize to Ken.”

“I said, get your hands off my bike, dick. Do you understand?”

I must’ve spoken in an extremely threatening way because Spencer gulped air, let go, and backed away ten feet. I pulled my bike around and rode away.

“Faker!” Spencer shouted behind me.

I biked more slowly toward the nursing home, very nervous, feeling sick to my stomach. It did look bad, didn’t it? Me running around the day after I was supposedly injured.

Within a couple of minutes, I could feel the buzzing of my phone in my pocket. I didn’t want to look. Stupid cell phones.

As I pulled up to the nursing home, Aleah was just getting there.

“You did all those papers that fast? You’re so fast, Felton.”

“Well, I didn’t ask to be.”

“Whoa. Cranky.”

My phone buzzed in my pocket.

“Goddamn it.” It buzzed again. “Goddamn cell phone!” I shouted.

“Are you okay?”

“Let’s deliver these stupid papers.”

I handed a couple to Aleah, held on to the rest, and entered the building. Immediately, there was screaming and pandemonium. The younger crazy lady was standing in front of the door in the lobby. She saw me and went total ape shit. She screamed “Ghost! Ghost! Ghost! Leave me alone! Ahhhh! Ghost!” She pointed at me. Orderlies and nurses came running to her aid. I turned to Aleah, handed her the papers, and said, “Um, could you take care of these?”

“Yes. I’ll see you out front, Felton.”

I turned, punched in the dumb 1, 2, 3 security code, and left the building.

While I waited for Aleah, I looked at my jackass phone. There were five texts from five different honkies. All of them forwarded this message:

squirrel nuts a faker saw him running this morning.

what about? Jason Reese asked.

faker? Jamie Dern asked.

spencer a dick, said Cody.

this going around, Abby Sauter let me know.

squirrel nut faker! an anonymous texter wrote.

It was only eight in the morning too. Most of the jerks wouldn’t even be awake yet. I felt so heavy. Really heavy.
You called yourself a super baby. Idiot.
I had a feeling about the truth. These people weren’t my friends; they were about to turn.

As I closed my phone, Aleah exited the nursing home.

“That was weird,” she said.

“What was?” I replied, so tired.

“That crazy woman thinks you’re her lover and you’re dead.”

“It’s probably true,” I wheezed.

“Did you do something to her, Felton? Did you touch her?”

“Are you freaking kidding me, Aleah?”

“Okay, okay. It’s just weird.”

“I didn’t do anything to her. I wouldn’t hurt anyone. I’d never…” And the words left me because I was so heavy. So heavy. A crazy lady’s lover…No freak baby…A crazy mother who doesn’t leave her house for weeks and a dead dad who murdered himself and now the honkies are calling me names, and everything is so bad.

“Aleah,” I said. “I’m really messed up.” Then because I’m a dork, I cried.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Felton,” Aleah grabbed my hand.

***

As we biked home, I told Aleah all about my childhood as Squirrel Nuts and how, because I’m fast, it all seemed to have ended.

“Being fast doesn’t seem like a reason someone would be your friend,” she said.

“No. You’re right. They don’t really like me.”

“That’s not what I mean.”

Then I told her how Ken Johnson had assaulted me and how his assault hurt my back and how Cody’s dad, the cop, must’ve stopped by the Johnsons to scare Ken or to arrest him and how John Spencer had seen me running around with papers this morning and how (even as I was telling the story) the entire honky world was texting me.

“Did you say honky?” Aleah asked.

“That’s what Gus and I call them,” I responded. “They’re town kids.”

“Pretty gross,” Aleah said.

“What?”

“Using inflammatory racial language to describe a bunch of your classmates,” Aleah said.

“What do you mean?”

“My gosh.” She stopped her bike. We were in front of her house. “You’re an innocent child, aren’t you?”

“I used to think I was retarded,” I said. “I think…I think it’s possible I am.”

She stared at me and touched my cheek.

“Simple boy,” she said.

I felt my heart tear (as if the other stuff weren’t bad enough). My head dropped. I looked at the ground. Something drained away. Something big. I swallowed hard.
Aleah called me simple. I’m simple. I’m stupid. I’m me.
I looked back up to tell Aleah that she should break up with me, but she was looking away, toward her house, not paying attention to me.

“Who’s giant SUV?” she asked.

It was blocking her entire driveway.

“Oh, crap,” I whispered. “Grandma Berba.”