The Life and Times of Benny Alvarez (7 page)

Zombies

T
he next day I talk to Jocko and Beanie about my grandfather's stroke.

“I wouldn't want to deal with that,” Beanie says. “My pops”—that's what he calls his grandfather—“has cancer, and he says if things get bad to buy him a good box of cigars, then strand him in the middle of the ocean on a little rowboat.”

“That's pretty harsh,” Jocko says.

“Not really,” I say. “He's smoking his favorite cigar, watching a great sunset. It's better than rotting away in a hospital.”

“Only you could see it that way,” Jocko says.

“Well, how would
you
see it?” I ask, a bit annoyed.

“I'd want to be surrounded by my family. The other way seems kind of selfish.”

“Selfish?” Beanie says, obviously mad that Jocko is calling his pops selfish. Then he tells Jocko he's been acting a little weird lately, kind of touchy-feely, butting in when it's none of his business.

“Weird? Touchy-feely?”

“Yeah, you're talking like an adult.”

“That's a whack idea.”

“He's kind of right,” I say.

Jocko's shaking his head, and as I said, he's very big and very strong, so we don't want to get him mad.

“Maybe ‘adult' wasn't the right word,” I say, as if Beanie had called him a wood louse or a maggot.

“If Beanie says ‘adult,' then it's ‘adult.' Beanie
always
uses the right word.”

“What I'm saying,” Beanie adds, “is that lately, you've been overly kind to everyone.”

“Overly kind?”

“Yeah, like understanding.”

I guess it's a good thing to be called kind and understanding, but Jocko isn't very happy, so I come to Beanie's aid.

“He has a point, dude. Do you remember what you said when Big Joe tripped Joey Pappas at recess? You said, ‘You have to wonder what's going on at Big Joe's house for him to do that.'”

“What's wrong with that?”

“The old Jocko would've said, ‘That guy needs a good beat down.' The old Jocko wouldn't have been thinking about Big Joe's home life. Big Joe's an idiot. It's pretty simple.”

“You guys are whacked,” Jocko says.

I'm angry now, so I decide to give him both barrels. “If I ask you one more thing, you promise not to get mad?”

He's looking a little nervous.

“Are you going out with Becky?”

“Going out?”

“Twice last week you said you couldn't shoot hoops. One day you said you had too much homework. The second day you had extra soccer practice.”

“I did.”

Now I have him. “One of those days Beanie saw you at the toy store with Becky; the other, I saw you and Becky riding bikes.”

“I didn't want to deal with your garbage. We're just friends, so what am I supposed to do, ask you two to come along?”

“I'm not criticizing,” I say.

Jocko smirks. “Yeah, right. You know, Benny, I've been waiting to use a word for a while, and now it fits. I really find you
beleaguering
, and I'm not even going to make you guys guess, because I checked its origins. It's worse than being annoyed or irritated. It has to do with being in an actual exhausting battle with someone, and after spending ten minutes with your negative attitude, I feel like someone kicked me in the privates. I almost sympathize with Claudine.”

“Ouch!” Beanie says.

“It's true, man. You act like you don't know why that girl dislikes you.”

“But I do,” I say, and I go through the Samuel Morse story.

“Yeah, yeah, I've heard that one and normally let it slide, but it wasn't fifth grade, dude, it was last year. We were reading some novel about a girl in Tennessee whose father left her, so she ran away and lived in the woods with her dog. If you remember, Claudine stood up for her, and then you got diarrhea of the mouth and ripped into the girl in the book, saying she was a loser and that her father was something else I don't remember.”

“A coward,” Benny interjects.

“Yeah,” Jocko continues, “and we were all hoping you'd just shut up, because most people knew Claudine's dad had split the week after her parents had that big fight outside school.”

I do remember that.

“So she hates you, man. Think about it. You're depressed because your dad leaves. You're embarrassed because your parents are swearing at each other in front of your friends and teachers, and then some dude tells you your father's a loser.”

“I didn't say that.”

“He's right,” Beanie says. “He said the character was a loser, not her father.”

“Duh, you guys are dense.”

“Why didn't you tell me this back then?”

“I don't know, maybe because she can get on my nerves too. I'm not saying I don't have your back. I'm just saying you can be a real jerk.”

I don't know what to say, so I try making a joke. “My grandpa says I'm a card. Why don't we go with that?”

Jocko smiles. “Yeah, you're a card, all right. The Old Maid.”

“No,” Beanie says, “he's that card in Monopoly that says ‘Go to jail. Do not pass Go or collect two hundred dollars.'” Then Beanie grabs the Book from his back pocket and looks up the word “card.” “Here it is: a clown, an eccentric, a freak, a nut, an oddball, a weirdo, a zombie.”

“I rest my case,” Jocko says, then holds out his arms and stumbles toward me like a hungry zombie.

Hector the Mouse

I
've never understood Jocko's obsession with vampire-zombie-werewolf books. They aren't even scary anymore, though I'm surprised schools let kids read them. When I was in fourth grade, I found this great book in the school library about three kids who live in the city, and in one scene the bully gets drunk. When a mom heard about that, she complained, and the school removed the book. I guess they were afraid we'd read it and start drinking, even though the drunk kid was a loser. Meanwhile, at the same school, there were at least fifty vampire books, a few where people get their heads cut off or even get eaten. So I guess they're saying it's better to be a cannibal than a drunk? I ranted on this in class one day when we were talking about censorship, and Ms. D said, “That's one way of looking at it, Benny.” Whenever someone says that, what they're really saying is “That's really negative, Benny, and I'd rather not deal with your nonsense today.”

Right now, my mother's saying the same thing about my take on Crash's response to a mouse that has suddenly appeared in the basement. My father's standing in the kitchen, wearing his winter boots, and two plastic mousetraps are opened on the counter in front of him. He has a butter knife in one hand, dipping its tip into a jar of peanut butter, then spreading a little on the traps.

I guess when he was cleaning his workroom, he scared a mouse from its hiding place, so now it's wandering around the basement.

“Crazy little bugger,” my father says. “I thought he'd see me, then hide, but I made about thirty trips, and every time, he's bouncing off the baseboards like a drunk.”

My mother is trying not to laugh at my father's boots.

“It's not funny, Margaret. I didn't see you going down to help.”

“I would've called a professional,” my mother says.

“And spend a fortune?”

“What's a Dumpster doing outside the house?” I ask.

“What grade are you in, Benny? A Dumpster, thirty trips from the basement. Get it?”

“Your father finally decided to toss all the junk the previous owners left,” my mother says. “I told him to wait until the mouse left.”

“Or maybe I should've tried to reason with him, like Crash.”

“Like Crash?”

“Yeah,” my father says. “He saw me come in with the mousetraps, so he's downstairs and says he won't let anyone kill it.”

“He's watching too much of that Animal Planet channel,” I say.

“Bingo,” my father says, spreading on more peanut butter.

“Why peanut butter?” I ask.

“The smart ones can steal cheese,” my father says, “but they've got to stick their heads in the trap to get the peanut butter, and then,” and he lets one of the traps snap shut.

“Isn't there another way?” my mother says.

“Why don't you ask the mouse whisperer?” my father says, meaning Crash.

“It's nature,” I say. “Dad gave it enough chances.”

“I certainly tried to warn it.”

“Yes,” my mother says. “He put on those heavy boots, and every time he went downstairs, he stomped hard and growled like a bear.”

I wish I had been home to hear that.

“And the varmint still walked right past me like we were of the same species. And let me tell you about mice, Benny, they aren't cute.”

“How do you plan to get Crash up here?” I ask.

“An idea that's still percolating,” my father says, finishing his job.

My mother is shaking her head at the traps. “You're wasting your time with those. Crash won't allow it.”

“Crash is nine years old,” my father says.

“Then I won't allow it. He has a right to his beliefs. He's a sensitive soul.”

“Your ‘sensitive soul' is going to give his father a heart attack. I'm too old for this, Margaret.”

“Not appropriate, Colin,” she says. “His beliefs are important.”

“What if he believes he should add rat poison to our scrambled eggs?” I offer.

“Apt comparison, Benny,” my father says.

“Completely exaggerated,” my mother says.

“Then what if he decides homework should no longer be part of school?”

“Don't start, Benny.”

“I'm just saying, Mom, that he's a kid and has to learn he's not the boss.”

“That's one way of looking at it, but it's not the choice we're making.”

At this point, it's clear that the garbage will be the next location of the mousetraps. Here's the thing I've never understood about the Alvarez boys. We'll battle to the death if we believe in something, yet we always end up doing what my mother or Irene wants. It's like some Alvarez wimp five centuries ago passed on a defective gene.

“So what do we do?” my father asks. “I'm not putting on these boots every time I go downstairs.” I guess he's afraid the mouse is going to bite his big toe.

“Let me talk to Crash,” I say, and head toward the basement. When I open the door, I see him sitting on the bottom step.

“Don't you think you should move up a few?” I say.

“He won't hurt me.”

“How do you know it's a he?”

“Don't start, Benny Alvarez.”

“Okay, Mom.”

“You know what I mean,” he says.

I take a few steps at a time, and when I reach the bottom, I sit behind him, peering around the corner. Finally, I locate the mouse, sniffing around the leg of our large pool table. I thought mice ran fast, but this little hairy thing kind of waddles toward the wall. Then he creeps alongside it, turns, and retraces his steps.

“Does he have a name?”

“Hector.”

Might as well destroy those traps, Dad. The mouse has now become a human being.

“You want to talk?”

“No, I've been listening to you all babble upstairs. Call Aldo.”

“What?”

“Call Aldo.”

When I return to the kitchen, my mother's holding the phone. “We heard him.”

I call my sister, who's at a girl friend's house. She says Aldo is out of town with his father, looking at colleges, but she'll try to locate him. About ten minutes later Aldo is on the phone with Crash. Fifteen minutes later, Crash comes upstairs. “Aldo will take care of it tomorrow.”

“What's the plan?” my father asks.

“I'm sleeping on the pool table tonight,” Crash says, “and you have to promise you won't kill him when I'm at school.”

My father's fingering the mousetraps.

“He promises,” my mother says. “I'll get your sleeping bag.”

Crash seems pacified. “His name's Hector,” he tells my father.

“Like the Greek hero?”

“No, like Hector the Mouse.”

Things calm down a bit after that. We all have dinner; then Crash breaks off some chunks of cheese for Hector.

“Why don't we invite him to dinner?” I say. “A little turkey and gravy would be tasty. Maybe he can bring his family.”

“Benny,” my mother says.

“He's probably too full from all that cheese Crash fed him,” my father adds. “But there's always dessert. What's for dessert today, Margaret? Cheesecake?”

Irene is helping my mother clean up. “Don't listen to them, Crash. Aldo will be here tomorrow.”

“Yeah,” I say, “Aldo will probably leash it, then tie it to his drum set. Hector could be the Cro-Magnons' mascot.”

“Enough,” my mother says. “You guys have had your fun.”

And we have, though I pay for it much, much later. At about two a.m., I wake up, thinking about Crash in the basement all by himself, too on guard to sleep. “Darn it, Crash,” I say. I fall out of bed and search the closet for my sleeping bag. The next thing I know, I'm lying next to Crash on the pool table.

“You think it will collapse?” he asks.

“Not this monstrosity, but I'll sleep on the floor if you want.”

“You'd do that for me?”

“What could happen?”

“No, just stay here, but turn off the lights, okay?”

I slide off the pool table, flip the light switch by the stairs, then feel my way back, hoping not to step on anything squishy.

After we get settled, Crash says, “Good night, Benny,” and I say, “Good night, Crash,” and then he says, “Good night, Hector.”

I'm relieved when there's no reply.