Wait Until Twilight (12 page)

“If your dad’s home tell him thanks for fixing it pro bono and sorry it’s taken me so long to pick it up. I’ve been distracted.”

“Distracted, huh?” she says, and goes in. Her dad is using the home garage as a repair shop because the store where he worked laid him off. From what Melody tells me, he’s doing okay on his own. She comes out with my old black-and-white television. She places it in my lap and walks around to the driver’s side.

“Why don’t you get a color TV? I’m sure my dad would just give you one if I asked. He’s got like a dozen old ones he’s fixed sitting around in the basement.”

“I’ll stick with the black-and-white.”

We drive around on some country roads for a while just talking about school and life. It’s easy to talk to her, especially driving around in her car like that.

“Something’s different about you,” she says to me.

“Like what?”

“I don’t know. You don’t seem the same. I mean, you look the same and even act the same, but there’s something not right.”

“Do you ever feel like there are terrible things in the world?”

“What terrible things?”

“That’s what I mean. They’re there but we don’t see them. All we can do is go to school and horse around and pretend they’re not there, out there, even inside us. It’s all pretend…like everything is normal when it’s not. It’s all so fake and full of crap.”

“What’s wrong, Samuel?” She looks me right in the eyes, like she wants me to confess to her. That’s what I feel, that she wants me to tell her everything. And I want to. I want to tell her about those babies and everything that’s happened since, but shame wells up in my heart like an ugly face. I want to hide in the deepest hole I can find.
I can barely look at her let alone tell her anything. “Is this about your mom?” she asks pleadingly.

“My mom?” I start laughing. “Oh, no no. Nothing like that. It’s…I’ve just been thinking too much. I’m okay now…adolescence you know,” I said with a smile.

Melody laughs. “I wish you’d tell me what was going on up there,” she says.

“It’s empty,” I say.

By the time she drops me off at home Dad’s already there.

I
GO INTO THE KITCHEN
and find a dinner of steak and peas sitting on the table. Dad is out back working. I still can’t really tell what exactly he’s making as I watch through the window. He’s taken the pipes and laid them on the ground along with a bunch of other stuff he’s brought back from his hardware store. I eat dinner and have an ice-cream bar before hooking up the black-and-white television in my room. My mom had given it to me for a birthday present when I was ten. Jim had his own little TV and he wouldn’t let me watch it sometimes, so Mom got that old black-and-white secondhand job just for me. We don’t have cable so I have to attach the rabbit ears, and even with that I can only get about three and a half channels. I get a wire from the garage and attach one end to a rabbit ear and the other I toss out my window. I go out to get the other end.

“Did you eat?” Dad asks when he sees me out there.

“Yeah.”

I get the ladder from the garage and go around to the other side of the house where my bedroom window is.

“Hey, you think you can help out this weekend at the store?” Dad hollers. “Tommy can’t come in.”

“Is it that busy?” I ask.

“If you’ve got plans, that’s okay. I can make some calls.”

“No, no, I’ll come in.”

I climb the roof, taking the wire with me, and attach it to the television antenna. The sky is a dark blue hue with an edge of crimson. A few stars are just beginning to flicker. It gets me to thinking about my mom for some reason. She’s a ghost now, floating around up there somewhere. I stay on the roof awhile watching my dad tinkering with his pet project.

T
HE NEXT MORNING I GET DAD TO DROP ME OFF
at school on his way to work since my bike is still there. It gives me a chance to review my history textbook the whole way there.

“You gotta test?” Dad asks.

“Yeah, and I plan on acing the bastard.”

Mom would have never let me say “bastard,” but that’s beside the point. I get back to flipping those pages. I’d always been a good student, but it wasn’t until recently that I’ve felt compelled to ace everything. I didn’t even know what college I wanted to go to. I didn’t care. But if I had a test or exam to take, I did everything I could to get a good score. It wasn’t even getting the good score that made me feel good. It was focusing on one thing and wiping everything else out of my head. That’s when I felt best. That’s when I felt nothing.

Dad drops me off, and I go through algebra and then Spanish
class with history on my mind. It isn’t until Mr. Peck’s art class that I forget about that test. I really enjoy art class. Mr. Peck allows us students to do whatever we want as long as we produce. Robert, an upperclassman with premature white hair, had originally approached me about doing a documentary about the basketball team before I made my own video. Later on he dumped me as a partner to do something on his own. Actually his hair is more gray than white, and he keeps it pointing straight up somehow. Everybody thinks he’s cool and talented, but I think it’s more his hair than anything else.

At the beginning of class that day Robert gets everyone to stop what they’re doing and come into the small auditorium to watch a short video sketch he made. Once everyone in the class comes in and sits down, Robert announces that he was inspired by Andy Warhol and is going to make a full-length film based on this sketch. He turns on the television in front of the small stage and squats down to turn on the video player. The video shows him and another fellow with white hair going into some abandoned theater. Where did he find another guy with prematurely graying hair? The two white-haired guys walk through that abandoned theater up onto the stage, where they start talking about waterfalls. Then it cuts to them at an actual waterfall somewhere in the woods. Robert’s standing by it then the other guy appears riding a blue canoe. He takes the canoe over the waterfall and disappears into the foam at the base of the falling water, then pops back up and continues canoeing down the river. I don’t catch the rest of the film because I keep looking out a window into the gym, which is connected to the auditorium. On the main court I can see a big fat kid dominating the area around the basket. He’s pushing people around down there, and no one is calling a foul. The other team keeps coming at him though, double-teaming him on defense and attacking him on offense. When I turn back to the video I see Melody, watching me from down the row. I
bend down and pretend to tie my shoelace. When I sit back up the short video sketch ends, and Mr. Peck comes in.

“This isn’t Robert’s appreciation time. Get back to work. That includes you three,” he says to three Asian girls sitting on the small stage at the back of the auditorium. Everyone starts slowly moving back into the art room.

Robert and Tim, this other artsy hipster, start talking to Melody. Robert sees me and walks over with a nod of his head.

“So what did you think?” he asks me.

“You should run with it. I’ll work on something on my own. This is something you have to go with,” but I’m thinking,
You jackass
.

“Thanks. I was worried you would be lost without me. What do you think about Melody?”

“She’s okay,” I say.

“You know, maybe you could be next in line for a try at her.”

I have the urge to hit him on the head with a chair. “I’ll have to remember that,” I say, and walk away. I ditch the rest of art class and play basketball. Mr. Peck is back in his office and won’t even notice. He probably wouldn’t have said anything anyway. I jog to the locker room and change into shorts and a T-shirt and then go back into the gym, where I find a game. By the time I finish playing, third period has already ended. It’s time to go to homeroom, which means lunch. My real P.E. class is right after lunch. There’s no point in showering and changing when I’m going to get sweaty again, so I stay in my shorts and T-shirt. I walk to my homeroom, which is Mrs. Bickerson’s class on the south end of the building. Mrs. Bickerson is okay, other than the fact that she’s got these wispy white hairs on her chin that look kind of like a beard. She doesn’t even notice me coming in late. Or maybe she just doesn’t care any longer. Everyone else is there already at their desks, wiling away the time. I get a seat against the wall beside Will and take my shoes and socks off before stretching out
my legs. My hair is still wet with sweat, and the endorphins are still pumping through my brain.

“Where you been?” Will asks me, taking a drink from a bottle of Gatorade. I’ve noticed these days he smells like marijuana most of the time. Ever since he started playing bass in a local country punk band with some guys from the Sugweepo High swim team, he smells like ganja. I’ve gone to a couple of their practices in their basement, and smoking weed preceded the playing both times. I figured it was the source of his musical inspiration. We don’t hang out as much since he’s turned into a semi-pro rock star, but it’s probably for the better. His pranks annoy the hell out of me.

“Art class,” I say.

“Must be some heavy art,” he says.

“I ditched and shot some hoop. Did Bickerson call roll?” I ask.

“Yeah.”

I raise my hand. “Mrs. Bickerson! I’m here!” I yell.

“I saw you,” she says, without looking up.

I lean my head back against the white wall, and for a moment it feels like I’m not in school. I’m on a tropical beach and have just toweled myself off after having a swim in the cool waters of the sea. Then a shark lunges out of the water, and the lunch bell rings. I jump up front along with Will and Brad in my bare feet. They both seem as hungry as me as we three jog up the hallway ahead of everyone else. Today is the day Mrs. Bickerson’s homeroom gets to be first to lunch. As we make it onto the floor, Will thinks it would be funny to toss some of the water in his bottle onto the floor.

“What’re you doing that for?” I ask. He just smiles and walks into the serving room. My bare feet feel nasty on the cold wet floor. “Bastard,” I say. I know I’ll be giving up my place in line, but I jog past my homeroom whose just getting to the cafeteria.

“Where you goin’?” someone asks.

“My shoes,” I say.

I jog back to our classroom, but the door is locked. Other classes are already starting toward the cafeteria, so I hurry back, taking the shortcut through the darkly lit game room, which connects the main hallway with the cafeteria. Some kid is actually in there playing one of those four ancient video-game machines. My homeroom is already seated and eating. The rest of the tenth-grade class is lined up. These other guys won’t let me cut, not when I’m not in their homeroom. I’ll have to go to the end of the line, which is all the way down the hall.

I walk over to the serving room and see that they’re serving sweet-and-sour chicken. I think,
To hell with it, I’ll just get in the other line, which is much shorter.
There’re two serving rooms in the cafeteria. The lesser of the two meals is served in the second line. If it’s meat loaf in the first line, it’s usually Spam in the other, or if it’s hamburgers in the first line, it’s ham sandwiches in the second. I usually avoid the second line, as do most other students, but there’s no way in hell I’m waiting in that first line.

So I get in the second, much shorter line, and what do you know? It’s the same food. I get up to the counter, and the server, a young black guy who doesn’t look too much older than me, gives me a plate of brown fried rice. I forgo the usual chocolate milk and get a cola. A short curly-haired girl I’ve seen around, who’s standing behind me, smiles and puts a straw in my Coke for me. I smile back at her and her big boobs. Then she puts in a few more straws and giggles before walking away with her girlfriend. My glass has about ten straws in it. The server is staring at my drink, too.

“Hey, what about the chicken?” I ask.

“They ain’t no meat left here. Go over there,” he says.

He points toward the end of the cafeteria, where the old soda machines sit dormant on an unused table. I walk toward the ice machine and see a buffet with two trays of chicken and what looks to be
pepperoni or some sort of thinly sliced red meat. Brad is getting some meat, too.

“Man, there’s not much left, and this is my first time around,” I say.

“I’m just getting a little extra meat for my sandwich,” he says before sitting down. That’s right. Brad always brings his lunch from home. Everybody knows that.

I get some chicken and sit down in front of Brad. I can’t help noticing Katy and her girlfriends sitting at the next table. The rumor around our grade is that I like her. But it’s not true. She’s cute, but I’m just not that interested. I act as nonchalant as I can around her, hoping to kill the rumor, but you can’t kill a rumor. It has to die out on its own or be replaced. Brad suddenly pulls this nacho out of his brown bag and starts talking about it. “Look how brittle and dry it is,” he says. “Look at it.” He holds it up to the sunlight coming in through the large cafeteria windows. The light reflects off of its yellow body, making it look almost diaphanous. “It’s gotten dry and stale. It’s dangerous. This thing is so brittle, so old that, if I stabbed myself in the ankle it would break my skin and bleed…”

He keeps going on and on. It’s impressive how much he can talk about that nacho. I’m too busy stuffing my mouth with rice and sweet-and-sour chicken to respond to his nacho soliloquy.

“…something needs to be done about this nacho…” he continues.

Then with a mouthful of food, I say offhandedly, “You exaggerate.” After a slight pause I start laughing with all this rice and chicken in my mouth. I can’t control myself. Brad’s face turns red, and he has his eyes closed he’s laughing so hard. This Christian girl from my class is sitting alone a couple of seats down from Brad. She’s one of these serious hard-core Christian girls who I have never seen talking to anyone except her twin sister. She must have overheard us because
her face is redder than Brad’s. This goes on for quite some time, and we three can’t seem to control ourselves. Other kids are staring and asking what’s so damn funny, but I really don’t know either. Tears are coming down my cheeks I’m laughing so hard.

“I’m sorry,” I say, trying to catch my breath. “It’s my fault.” Slowly the laughing subsides and we get back to eating. Across from us Katy and her friends are watching a video iPod. They’re trying to guess the name of some classic sitcom that’s on. I lean over to take a look.

“Oh, it’s
The Jeffersons!
” Brad says immediately before I can even answer.

Debbie says, “Brad’s got it right. He’s one ahead of you, Samuel.”

I look at Brad and say, “I should be up a ton on you just because of what I said just a second ago.”

“Don’t say anything, Samuel,” he says, holding his stomach. And for a minute, having that laugh at lunchtime on a sunny afternoon, I remember what it feels like to be a normal high school kid. And I wish it could always be like that.