The Downside of Being Up (15 page)

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Authors: Alan Sitomer

BOOK: The Downside of Being Up
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Sheriff Mustache walked up and down the aisles handing each student a test. I looked at Allison. I'm sure she felt my eyes on her, but she didn't turn around. When Sheriff Mustache finally got to me, he put a piece of paper facedown on my desk, but instead of walking on, he stopped.
“You have some nerve, Bobby,” he said in a low, deep voice. “You know that? Some incredible nerve.”
20
I sat at the kitchen table making train tracks in my mashed potatoes with my fork. I hadn't eaten a thing. Hadn't even sipped my milk.
Behind me, dancing around in the brand-new yellow dress my mother had just bought her, was Hill.
“Can I just say how excited I am to meet my Secret Someone? Like, wow!” She twirled around.
“Yeah,” I said. “Bet he's gonna be just gorgeous.”
“Shut up, Bobby,” Hill snapped. “What do you know?”
“Dots and stripes,” I said under my breath.
“What?”
“Nothin',” I said. “Nothin'.”
Boy, was she in for a letdown. I pulled an envelope from my backpack.
“Just give this to Allison for me, okay?” I said, holding out the envelope for Hill to take.
“Who's Allison?”
“She's that new math teacher's daughter.” I'd heard Jamie Parker tell Bonnie Johnson that Allison's father was making her go to the Big Dance even though she didn't want to. Sheriff Mustache had to be there to chaperone, so Allison was going whether she wanted to or not.
“Just do it, okay?”
She took the envelope and thoughtlessly shoved it into her purse.
“Whatever,” she said.
I brought my plate into the kitchen, scraped the uneaten chow into the garbage, then headed for my room. On my way back through the living room, my dad shook his head in a “tsk-tsk” type of way.
“What?” my mom said to him.
“Second-class folks chasing first-class goods,” he replied, looking at me. “It'll break your heart every time.”
“Excuse me?” Mom was lost.
“Nothing, honey,” Dad answered. “Just remembering the reason I married you, dear, that's all.”
Dad smiled.
“And why's that?” Mom asked, putting her hands on her hips.
“Because we're right for each other, honey. You and I are right for each other.”
Mom grinned and gave him a little peck on the cheek. Dad then winked at me.
What a jerk. My whole stupid life was filled with jerks.
Suddenly, a car horn beeped outside. One of Hill's eighth grade friends, Zoe Elkins, had come to pick her up for the giant event. Hill practically glowed from the idea of getting her old life, and her old friends, back. At least for a night.
“Bye, Mom,” Hill shouted as she grabbed her purse. The door slammed. Hill was on her way to the Big Dance.
And I wasn't.
I looked at my dad one more time. He shook his head and gave me an “I told you so” look.
And who doesn't love getting those? I went to my room, shoulders slumped.
When I opened my bedroom door, my grandfather was standing stark naked in front of the window. His wrinkled, flabby butt stared at me.
“What are you doing?” I exclaimed.
“Ventilating,” Gramps replied, turning around.
I quickly covered my eyes before I saw his willy. The last thing I needed right then was a full frontal view of my three-hundred-year-old grandfather's overripe banana.
“It's good to get some fresh air on your weenie every once in a while,” he said to me. “Besides, Mr. Friendly enjoys the great outdoors.”
“For goodness' sake, put on some clothes, will ya, Gramps?”
“All right, all right.” He reached for his underwear, a pair of tighty-whities that were torn at the waist. When I get to be a crazy old man, I hope someone just shoots me.
“Why do you always have to do this freaky stuff in my room?”
“Well, you're in some mood, huh?” he asked. “This got something to do with that hot little tamale your dad said just dumped you?”
“She wasn't a tamale. She was a person!” I snapped. “A nice person that I really, really liked and now she hates me, okay? Jeez, people aren't food, ya know, Gramps!”
I crossed the room and slammed my window closed. I was sick and tired of my grandfather always being such a . . . I don't know.
Such a putz!
“But how would you know about that anyway?” I continued. “I mean, you're pathetic. To you, people are tamales or tomatoes or whatever other stupid food things you call them. But I cared about Allison and now I blew it. I totally blew it and I lost her.”
I threw my curtains closed.
“And that sucks. To me, that really, really sucks!”
I waited for a smart-aleck response. I was sure he'd have some stupid, offensive or insulting thing to say. But instead of responding with a wisecrack, Gramps got quiet, and it was a long moment before he spoke.
“She kicked me out.”
“What?” I said. “What are you talking about? Who?”
“Your grandmother,” he said, slumping into a chair. “She kicked me out.”
When Grandpa Ralph looked up at me, his eyes were bloodshot.
“I'm not here for a few more days, Bobby,” Gramps admitted. “I got nowhere to go.” He sniffled. “You think you blew it? I'm the one who blew it. I screwed things up with the most important person in my life, the person I just spent the past fifty-four years with.”
He ran his fingers through his uncombed hair.
“I guess she finally got sick and tired of me acting like a jackass, flirting with all the young girls, making stupid comments every chance I got, stuff like that,” he said. “So she gave me the boot. And can you blame her? Can you really blame her?”
A tear fell from his eye.
“She was my dream girl,” he said. “She was the honest-to-goodness best thing that ever happened to me. And I took her for granted. Acted like an idiot. And I lost her. I lost her, Bobby.”
He started to cry. Really cry. I stared at him, not knowing what to say.
“You know, you're right, I am pathetic,” he said. “I'm nothing but a pathetic, sad old man. A fool.”
Gramps sat there weeping in the chair. I'd never seen him like this before. I had never once seen him act like, well . . . like a real person with feelings.
He sniffled some more. As he hunched over, I noticed, for the first time, how much he and my father looked alike.
I mean they really looked alike. The way their eyes were set. The way their foreheads sloped. The size of their noses.
I looked in the mirror and saw how I kind of looked like them, too. People had always said so my whole life. All three of us had the same dimpled chin.
“Get up, Gramps,” I said, grabbing him under the arm.
“Why?”
“Because you gotta go get her,” I said.
He pulled his arm away. “Forget it, Bobby. She's gone.”
“She's not gone, Gramps,” I said. “And neither is Allison. Together, we're gonna go win back our girls. Come on, stand up.”
“Go without me, Bobby. My chance is gone,” Gramps said. “I'm just gonna sit here and blow farts till they throw me in an old persons' home and feed me Jell-O.”
“Stop talking like that,” I said, trying to lift him up again. “We're going. Now!”
“What the hell has gotten into you?” he asked.
“My father,” I said.
Gramps wrinkled his forehead, not understanding.
“I never want to be like him,” I answered. “And really, Gramps, neither do you.”
He thought about it. Suddenly, I saw a light in his eyes.
“You know what? You're right. Pass me some underwear, Bobby,” he ordered as he rose to his feet. “Let's do it!”
“Um, Gramps,” I said. “You're already wearing underwear.”
“I know.” He crossed the room and opened my drawer. “But I like to double up and yours provides good support for Mr. Dongster.”
He put a pair of my undies on over the ones he was already wearing.
“You've been wearing my underwear?”
“Not on the outside,” Gramps answered. “Usually I wear them on the inside, but I figure we're in a rush, so I'm trying to dress quickly.”
Uggh
. He readjusted my tighty-whities.
“Best thing about 'em,” he said, “is that when I'm done, I just throw 'em right back in the drawer. Cuts down on the laundry for your mother that way.”
“Okay,” I said. “Freaking out over here.”
“So tell me,” Gramps said, hoisting up his pants. “What's the plan?”
“Can you drive?” I asked.
“I lost my license seventeen years ago for running a red light.”
“They take away your license for running red lights?” I asked.
“They do when you're going a hundred and seventeen miles per hour down the sidewalk,” he answered. “I'm not so good in traffic,” he confessed.
Hmm.
I thought about it for a sec. “But you can drive without killing us, right?”
“You mean, if I had a car, could I drive without killing us? Yeah, I think so,” he answered.
Two minutes later Gramps and I were standing in front of my father. “Dad,” I said. “We need the car.”
“No chance,” he answered. “Move. I can't see the TV.” Some stupid bowling championship had him riveted. “This guy's only two strikes away from a three hundred.”
“A perfect game?” said Mom as she folded a load of towels on the couch. Though she'd been sitting in the room, she hadn't really been paying attention to the TV.
“But Dad . . . ,” I said.
“No way, Bobby,” he replied. “And don't try to negotiate with me, either. I'm not in the mood.”
“Phillip,” Gramps said in a firm, fatherly tone. “You can either give me the car keys or you can have your son watch me kick your little ass.”
“Gramps, please don't use the A-word,” Mom said.
“Eat a lemon, Ilene!” Gramps snapped. “It's crazy the way you two are raisin' these kids. Now gimme the keys, Phillip, before I lay some thunder on ya.”
“Calm down, Pop.”
Gramps started rolling up his sleeves. “Ya know, it's been a few years since I dropped a man, but I betcha I can still whup your wussy little butt. You always were one of those mousy, whiny twit kids, anyway.”
Gramps raised his fists.
“Defend yourself, son.”
Grandpa Ralph positioned himself in a boxing stance, his left foot slightly ahead of his right, his shoulders at an angle. To him, this was about winning back the woman he loved and he was going to turn his son's face into pumpkin pie if he dared to stand in the way.
Fear spread across my father's face. Twenty seconds later, Gramps was holding the car keys.
“I hope you have insurance on this vehicle,” Gramps said as we left. “Hate to see you sued for giving an unlicensed driver the keys to your ride, Phillip.”
Gramps reached into his pocket, popped an orange jelly bean into his mouth and flashed his yellow teeth. Mom looked horrified.
“Ha!” he shouted as he closed the front door behind us. “That'll learn 'em.”
We approached our white, four-door Toyota Camry. It wasn't a luxury vehicle by any stretch of the imagination, but my dad kept it clean and crisp.
“Here,” Gramps said, suddenly tossing me the keys. “You drive.”
“Me?” I said. “I don't know how to drive a car.”
“You gotta learn sometime, Bobby,” Gramps answered. “I mean, if we're gonna go out, we should go out with a bang, right?”
He flashed another yellow-toothed smile. There was warmth and caring in his eyes.
I looked at the keys.
“Screw it!” I threw open the driver's door, climbed inside and turned over the ignition. The engine roared.
And roared.
And ROARED!
“Um, Bobby, you don't want to keep your foot all the way down on the gas pedal before you even put the car in gear,” Gramps suggested.
“Gotcha,” I said.
The roaring stopped.
My parents peeked through the front window, nervously looking through the blinds. I put the car in gear and turned to look over my shoulder so I could back out of the driveway.
The car zipped forward and slammed into our garage door.
BAM!
“Oops.”
Gramps pointed at the dashboard. “See that little
R
? It stands for reverse. The
D
is for drive.”
“Gotcha.”
The sound of the car crashing into the garage door was loud enough to frighten Mrs. Holston. She rushed out of her house wearing a red apron and holding a long cooking spoon. Her thoughts were written all over her face.
What in the world is Bobby Connor doing driving an automobile?
Gramps waved.
“Hey there, neighbor. Looking kinda hot! Maybe I'll come over and show you my cooking utensil sometime.”
He winked. Mrs. Holston's jaw dropped in shock.
“All right, kid,” Gramps said to me. “Let's go.”
I looked at the garage door. It was dented badly.
“Oh my goodness,” Gramps said in a high-pitched tone. “What will the neighbors think?” He laughed.
As I put the car in reverse and slowly backed out of the driveway, I thought about how I was gonna be grounded till I was thirty-seven years old.
The drive to school and the Big Dance was really slow. And really fast. And really slow . . . and really fast. Sometimes I was doing three miles per hour, sometimes I was doing eighty-seven.

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