Twerp (24 page)

“C’mon, Lonnie,” I said.

“That’s ancient history.”

“But it’s the right thing to do.”

“But what’s the point?”

“It’s the right thing to do.”

“Look,” he said, “I’m not saying I feel good about what happened. But here’s the thing. We got yelled at, and we got suspended, and it’s over and done with. Why dredge it up again? It’s water under the bridge. I’m sure Dimmel’s forgotten about it at this point.”

“But I haven’t forgotten about it,” I said. “Neither has Quentin.”

Lonnie glanced over at Quentin, and Quentin nodded.

“Then the two of you go ahead and apologize. You’ve got my blessing.” He made a gesture with his right hand as if he was sprinkling us with water. “But leave me out of it.”

That was when Shlomo said, “I think we should go as a group, Lonnie.”

“Oh, is
that
what you think?”

“It
is
what I think,” Shlomo said.

Then Eric said, “I think so too.”

Lonnie turned to Howie at that point. “What about you?”

Howie took a deep breath and thought it over. “Well, it
was
your idea—”

“I knew it!” Lonnie yelled. “I knew it! You want me to take the blame!”

“It doesn’t matter whose idea it was,” I said. “You’re missing the point.”

“Then tell me what the point is.”

“I already told you the point. It’s the right thing to do.
That’s
the point.”

“Well, since you explained it like that … 
no way, I’m not doing it!
”

When Lonnie gets that tone in his voice, he doesn’t change his mind.

But then, a second later, I heard myself shouting. I don’t remember deciding to shout. I don’t even remember thinking the words before I started to shout them. It was as if the voice coming out of me wasn’t me. What I heard myself shouting was this: “You said you’d drag a couch for me! That’s what you said! You said you’d drag a couch down the street if I asked you!”

Lonnie’s eyes narrowed down. “What are you talking about?”

The rest of them were staring at me like I was out of my mind.

“You said if I ever needed you to drag a couch down the street—”

Then, at once, Lonnie got it. He got it, and he started to laugh. He was shaking his head and laughing, and now
the rest of them were staring at both of us, thinking we were
both
out of our minds.

“That’s a pretty big couch you’ve got there,” he said, still cracking up.

I looked him in the eye. “I know.”

“You know it’s one couch per customer. Next time, you’re on your own.”

“This is the couch that matters,” I said. “I don’t think the two of us can keep going without this couch.”

He knew what I meant. “I wouldn’t want a couch to be the end of us.”

“Neither would I.”

“Then let’s do it,” he said.

The six of us walked over to Danley Dimmel’s house, and we found him sitting out on the stoop. I think he was scared for a second, but then he saw the looks on our faces, and that calmed him down. He still had braces on his teeth, but otherwise there was no trace of what we’d done to him.

Lonnie did the talking for us. He told Danley that the entire thing had been his idea, so he was the one to blame. But then I interrupted him and said I was as much to blame as Lonnie, and that got the rest of the guys stepping forward to take their share of the blame. I don’t think Danley even knew what to make of it at first, but then he started to smile, and then he started to crack up. That
made the rest of us crack up too. It was kind of comical, how we were falling over one another to take the blame.

Then Lonnie stepped forward and put out his hand, and Danley shook it. Then the rest of them did the same. Then it was my turn. I stepped forward, and I shook Danley’s hand, and it felt like the rightest thing I’d ever done, the rightest moment of my life. If he had asked me to sit down on the stoop and play Battle, I would’ve done it. But he didn’t ask. I stepped back, and he nodded at me, and I nodded at him. To be honest, I didn’t know if we were nodding at the same thing. But I felt good and right and whole.

That’s how it ended. Danley leaned back on his stoop, and the rest of us turned around and walked back up Thirty-Fourth Avenue. The sun was right in our faces, and I was squinting hard as we headed for Ponzini. What we did there, even though it was only yesterday, I don’t remember.

Twerp
would not exist without the interventions and ministrations of Charles Salzberg and Allison Estes of the New York Writers Workshop, Susan Altman of the Fashion Institute of Technology, and Scott Gould of RLR Associates. It wouldn’t exist in its current form without the consistently gentle but shockingly perceptive edits of Chelsea Eberly of Random House.

This book is a radical departure from the ones that came before. For that, I am indebted to Linda Helble, along with Spencer and Spicy, who reminded me that I had a heart, and might want to consult it when I write.

Mark Goldblatt
is a lot like Julian Twerski, only not as interesting. He’s a widely published columnist, a novelist, and a professor at the Fashion Institute of Technology.
Twerp
is his first book for younger readers. He lives in New York City.