The Downside of Being Up (7 page)

“Not him—
him
!” Mom shouted. “Talk to Bobby. About being a pervert.”

“I'm not a pervert,” I said.

“Oh yeah?” Dad said as he took a seat in the living room. “Well, there's twenty-two angry yogis down at the gym who say otherwise, Mr. Stretchy Pants.”

“It was a leotard,” I answered. He looked at me funny. “You know, a leotard, like dancers wear.”

“Are you gay?” my father asked.

“I'm not gay,” I answered. “The stupid therapist made me wear it.”

I would have thought that Dad might have remembered what it was like to be my age and suffer from stiffy-itis all the time, but apparently not.

“Why does there have to be something wrong with being gay?” Hill suddenly asked, offended. “Maybe I'm gay,” she said, crossing her arms.

“You're not gay,” he answered.

“How do you know? Maybe I am. And why does there have to be something wrong with it?” Hill asked. “You're a bigot, you know that?”

“Bigot schmigot,” Dad said. “You're still not gay.”

“Gay, gay, gay,” Hill answered. “Gay, gay, gay!”

“Ssshhh, the Holstons,” Mom said.

“Maybe Bobby's got that recessive gene that your mom's brother Frank has,” Gramps offered. Just then I noticed that Gramps was wearing the same blue pajama pants he was wearing the day before. And the day before that and the day before that.

“We have an Uncle Frank?” I asked.

“Well, used to be Uncle Frank,” Gramps said, clearing up the matter. “You probably know him now as Aunt Fran.”

“Aunt Fran used to be Uncle Frank?” I said, looking at my mom in shock.

“Ssshhh,” Mom answered. “Not so loud.” She peeped outside at the Holstons' house, then closed the window blinds. “And be nice,” she added after another turn of the charm on her chain. “You're talking about my broth . . . I mean sister.”

“If I run away, none of you are gonna come look for me, are you?” Hill threw up her arms. “I mean, seriously, you will respect my wishes to be a homeless teen living on the streets, right?”

“Philll-iipp,” Mom said.

“Don't worry, she's not running away,” Dad answered.

“I'm not talking about that child,” Mom said. “I'm talking about that one,” she said, pointing at me.

“Nobody ever listens to me,” Hill said. “Nobody ever takes my feelings into consideration.”

Dad threw an angry look at Hill. I could tell he'd had about enough of this whole conversation already.

“Gay,” said Hill, recrossing her arms. “Gay, gay, gay.”

“You watch it, young lady,” Dad said, pointing his finger at my sister. “You just watch your bananas.” Dad then turned to Mom. “Look, Ilene, I can either raise a boy or I can raise a man, but I can't raise both a boy and a man. Make your play.”

A silence fell over the living room.

“What the hell does that even mean?” Gramps asked.

“Grandpa!” exclaimed my mother. “Don't use the H-word.”

Gramps shrugged as if to say, “Why not?”

“My house, my rules,” Mom added. “And if you are going to stay here as our guest while your wife is visiting her sister in New Mexico, all I ask is that you please respect my wishes, okay?”

“I thought Gram was on a cruise,” I said.

“Oh, um . . . yeah,” Mom said. “On a cruise visiting her sister.”

“In New Mexico?” I said, trying to figure it out. All the adults shared one of those looks. Something was fishy.

“Phillip,” Mom said. “Would you talk to your son, please?”

“Look, Ilene, this is a man thing,” Dad said. “And though you're not gonna like hearing it, the truth is, I think you need a penis to understand the situation.”

Mom looked as if she were about to faint.

“Bobby knows what I'm talking about,” Dad said. “Don't you, son?”

It was a moment before I answered.

“Can I be excused?”

“I don't know,” Mom replied. “Can you?”

I shook my head. “May I be excused?”

Suddenly, I just felt, well . . . bummed out. I mean, I thought families were supposed to support you. Mine just made things worse. Like, did other kids feel this way about the people who lived in their house?

“I guess you may,” my mom finally replied.

“Hey, Bobby,” Gramps called to me.

“Yeah?”

“Don't forget the Vaseline.” Gramps grinned, then farted. “Ahhh . . . boysenberry.”

I headed to my room as Mom and Dad began a half hour fight with each other, my mom nagging my dad to “talk to me” and my dad responding with comments like, “Wives like you are why God invented alcohol and TV.”

Life sucked.

“Ya know what we need, Bobby? Ya know what we really, really need?”

“Finkelstein, freeze,” I said. “Hold it right there.” We stopped dead in the center of the school hallway. It was Nutrition Break, a fifteen-minute time slot our school built into the day's schedule, since class started at seven thirty and no one got to eat lunch until eleven fifty. They thought we needed a short energy break in the mid-morning to eat apples and munch pears. Mostly, we just talked, chowed potato chips and punched one another.

I grabbed Finkelstein by his shoulders so I could get a good look at him.

“Smile.”

“What?”

“Smile,” I repeated.

He smiled.

“What kind of crazy color is that on your teeth this week?”

“It's called sunrise and carrots,” he said proudly.

“Sunrise and carrots?” I said. “You look like you swallowed a safety vest.”

“Yeah, sexy, huh?”

“No, it's not sexy, Finkelstein,” I replied. “It's not sexy at all. It looks like they should use your face as a crosswalk warning.”

“Do not laugh, Finkelstein. Please, do not laugh.” I continued walking down the hall, past kids with stuffed backpacks, untied shoelaces and enough candy in their pockets to open up a convenience store. Even on a mellow day, the hallway was loud and rowdy, filled with kids' random screams. The only time it got orderly was when Vice Principal Hildge cruised past, yelling things like “No running in the halls!” into his bullhorn.

The guy probably slept with that bullhorn.

“I wanted something extra special for the ladies,” Finkelstein explained to me. It had been about two weeks since “the incident,” so the spitballs dunked in chocolate milk had mellowed a ton. “I mean, face it, Bobby, we need to score chicks for the Big Dance. Hey, watch this,” he said, and before I knew it Finkelstein had dashed across the hall and approached Susan Montgomery, a short girl who had blue eyes and brown hair tied in pigtails.

“Hey, Swooozie Q-zie,” Finkelstein said, trying to sound as if he was some kind of middle school Casanova. “My tongue is like dynamite and your lips are the gas, so whaddya say you and me go to the Big Dance and slurp face till our hair explodes?”

Susan paused, shifted her books from one arm to the other, then fixed her eyes on Finkelstein like a laser beam.

“I'd rather lick pig vomit.”

“
He-hurrggh,
you're witty,” Finkelstein said, flashing a mouthful of glowing orange. “But seriously, whaddya say?”

“No, I am serious.” Susan didn't have a hint of humor in her voice. “I would rather lick vomit from the belly of a dead pig than go to the Big Dance with you.” She adjusted her books again. “Never talk to me again, Alfred. Even if I am about to step in front of a speeding bus, never talk to me again.”

Susan walked away and disappeared into the flow of student traffic. Finkelstein stood there and watched her vanish.

“So you'll get back to me, right?” he called out.

Susan didn't even bother to turn around.

“She wants to taste my taste buds,” Finkelstein said as he walked back over to me.

“Yeah,” I answered. “I can see that.”

One thing I had to hand to Finkelstein, though, was that he was completely unfazed by rejection. For me, even the idea of being shot down by a girl sent rivers of panic flowing through my blood. But Finkelstein was different. It was like he wore some kind of coat of not caring what other people thought about him. You could insult him, make fun of him, tease him and roast him and still, he'd just roll along continuing to do his own thing. We were totally opposite like that. Me, I was jelly on the inside when it came to people rejecting me. I liked to be liked.

I looked down the hall and suddenly freaked out. Quickly, I dashed around the corner.

“What's wrong?” Finkelstein said, following me.

I peeked down the hall from my hiding spot.

“What?” Finkelstein said.

“It's Allison,” I answered. “Allison Summers.” She was walking our way, speaking with two girls from the softball team.

“Why are you hiding?” Finkelstein said. “Go ask her.”

“Go ask her what?” I replied.

“Go ask her to the Big Dance,” Finkelstein said.

“I'm not gonna ask her that.”

“Why not?” Finkelstein said. “A tasty little frog leg like her isn't gonna last in the pond forever.”

“You're a moron.” I checked to see if she was still heading my way.

She was. Two seventh graders suddenly raced by, one kid chasing the other, trying to smash him. Kids always got really nutty during Nutrition Break. To a kid my age, fifteen minutes felt like a hundred hours, and there was a heck of a lot of trouble you could cause in a pretty short amount of time.

“But why?” Finkelstein asked. “Why not ask her?”

“'Cause I'm not.”

“But why?”

“Because,” I said, tracking her every move. “I'm not.”

“Because why?”

“Because what if she . . .” I paused mid-sentence. “What if she says no?”

Finkelstein looked at me in disbelief.

“That's what you're afraid of?” he said. “Her saying no? Um, hello, news flash. Girls say no to me all the time.”

“Can you blame them?” I said.

“You're missing the point, Bobby,” he explained. “See, you gotta start thinking about all the spit-swapping you'll be able to do if she says yes. That's what keeps me so motivated.”

“That's not why I wanna ask her,” I said. “I mean, of course I want to kiss her, but, well . . . I wanna ask her because, you know, I kinda like her.”

“You kinda like her?” Finkelstein said. “Like, you mean, as a person?”

“Yeah, is that so abnormal, you dipstick?”

Finkelstein looked at me like he was just figuring out something he'd never quite realized.

“What?” I said.

“You got it bad for this little blueberry pancake, don't you?”

“Shut up, Finkelstein.”

“
He-hurrggh, he-hurrggh
. You gotta ask her, Bobby.”

I leaned up close to the wall like one of those undercover cops in a detective show and peeked back around the corner.

“No way.”

“Yes way.”

“No way.”

“
Yes
way.”

Allison brushed a strand of hair behind her ears.

Jeez, just looking at this girl gave me the tingles. Weak stomach. Unsteady legs. Fuzzy brain. And I'd really never had the tingles before. Not like this. Just the sight of her made my cranium spin.

I gazed at Allison for a moment more.

“Ya think?” I said to Finkelstein. “Ya really think I should?”

“I know you should,” he answered. “Trust me, chicks love it when you take firm control.”

“And how do you know that?”

“Sunrise and carrots, bay-bee. Subconsciously, it's a color scheme that communicates power.”

Finkelstein licked his thumb and then brushed back his eyebrows with spit.

“They're gonna lock you up one day. You know that, right, Finkelstein?” I said.

“
He-hurrggh, he-hurrggh
. Just go ask her.”

“Really?”

“Go!” he said, pushing me into the hall.

“All right,” I answered. “Don't push, don't push.”

I stumbled up to Allison. Godzilla-size butterfly wings fluttered in my stomach. “Um . . . hi,” I said.

Jennie and Pam, the two softball players she was talking with, left us alone to chat after a small giggle.

“See ya later,” Allison said to them.

“Bye,” they said in singsong reply.

Allison and I stood there for a moment in awkward silence, the buzz of kids goofing off and chatting in the halls all around us.

“Um, hi,” I said.

“Hi,” she answered.

There was a pause.

“Yeah . . . um, hi,” I said again.

“You already said that,” she replied. But she said it with a smile. Allison Summers had the kind of teeth dentists would use in Super Bowl commercials.

“I did?” Somebody lightly bumped me with their backpack and then walked on.

“Yes, you did.”

“Oh, well, I just wanted to make sure you felt hello-ed enough,” I told her.

“Hello-ed enough?”

“Um, yeah,” I said. “Hello-ed enough.”

“Explain.”

“Explain?”

“Uh-huh.” Allison shifted her books from one arm to the other. “Explain.”

“Okay.” I took a deep breath, not having any idea what I was about to say. “See, sometimes people don't really say hi all that well. They just kinda jump into conversation and start rambling and you can't hardly follow them at all. But a good
hi
at the start of the conversation prevents people from getting too far off track. That's why I wanted to make sure you felt hello-ed enough, to stay on track and not ramble and be a good hello-er.”