Wise Young Fool Read online

Looper hands me one. “One.”

  “I know.”

  “And brush your teeth before your mom gets home.”

  “I know.”

  I hate beer but always ask. Mostly because I get a kick out of letting Loop play The Cool Adult Who Will Let You Drink A Beer. And she pretty much always takes the bait. In fact, for your mom’s girlfriend, the person you’re supposed to be colossally freaked out by and resent down to your marrow and get into these long, cinematic, tongue-tied arguments in the pouring rain with, Looper’s actually a purty cool chick.

  “So go ahead and explain.”

  “Explain what?”

  “How dumb my comment was.”

  “Okay, Loop, here goes.”

  “Don’t call me Loop.”

  “Right. So, Loop, I guess it’s like, there’re good skinheads and bad skinheads. They even fight at shows sometimes. The bad ones are, it’s true, all with the Nazi rhetoric and such. With the tats and the pamphlets and the random kicking of steel toe. But, you know, everyone, even them, is fully aware that this mentality is unsupportable in the twenty-first century. It’s a doom ride that’s more about the doom than the ride. But mostly, it’s the shtick of the profoundly stupid. Those guys always repent after getting canned off their last dishwash job, and then they find God and go around talking to schoolkids about how ignorant they once were. The good skinheads are really your modern-day Love Children; it’s just that ever since the Internet, people are embarrassed by overt expressions of humanity and kindness.”

  She whistles, lighting a smoke, feet wrinkled white like baby-ass after a bath. She wiggles her toes, skin loose. I want to tear it away in strips.

  “You, Ritchie, are way too smart for your own good.”

  “How can anyone be too smart?”

  “You’re right. I meant too smart-ass.”

  “Ah.”

  “Actually, if you had a brain, you’d be dangerous.”

  “Shit, homegirl, I’m dangerous either way.”

  She laughs. “So, anyway, I’m interested in these young skinhead girls.”

  “I’ll bet.”

  She doesn’t laugh.

  “I mean, you’re telling me they’re secretly hiding good intentions behind layers of mascara? And, like, pointy bracelets?”

  “Exactly. It’s all a front. The good skinheads are into PETA and vegetarianism and womyn’s rights.”

  “Would that be womyn with a Y?”

  “It would.”

  Looper unbuttons her PERFECTION POOLS—HI! I’M LOOPER shirt, allowing her blue-collar jugs to breathe.

  “Besides, Elliot is just trying to piss off his mom. We’re totally apolitical.”

  “You rock gods are without a position on global warming?”

  “We do not play rock.”

  “Do you roll?”

  “We do not roll.”

  “What do you play? Punk?”

  “Hardcore, Loop. Hardcore.”

  “And the difference is?”

  “Hardcore is to punk as a pickax is to lipstick.”

  She shakes her head, rolling the filter of a Marlboro between her fingers until it’s shaped like a cone.

  “And when exactly can I hear some of this hardcore?”

  I yawn. “After we crush skulls at Rock Scene 2013 and get signed to a megadeal, you can download the MP3s at what I’ll make sure is an adjusted familial rate.”

  Looper blushes at the word familial, liking it. I kind of like it, too. It’s weird. It’s different. It’s so much better than Dad Sudden.

  “You need to burn off some serious energy, Ritchie. Crank that imagination down a notch. Or three.”

  “Yeah? How am I supposed to do that?”

  “Handsome rocker like you? Ever heard of a girlfriend?”

  Two thoughts flash behind my lids like burning neon: Handsome Rocker + Ravenna Woods.

  “What I need,” I say, “is more dating advice from Billie Loop King.”

  Looper smooths foam from her chin. “Just finish your beer, huh?”

  I do. Or at least pretend to, but really pour it out behind my leg, toss the empty into the cooler, and head inside just as Mom pulls up the drive, since I need to see them kiss hello like I need ten grand worth of free therapy.

  Isolation is therapeutic. It says so in all the leading penal literature. Also the leading penile literature. Today I got called on the carpet for not keeping up with my journal. A counselor, this monstrous dude everyone calls “The Basilisk” but whose real name is Joey or something, comes by every other day and checks. Screw off with the journal and they put you in administrative hold as punishment. Me and some hard-looking black-Mexican kid, who looks more black than Mexican, are in an empty room cuffed to desks in opposite corners. The dude’s name is Carlos. But everyone calls him B’los. Which is short for Black Carlos. I don’t call him anything.

  We’re in there twelve hours together.

  At about hour six, I say, “You blow off your journal, too?”

  He looks at me a long, long time.

  Then goes, “Yup.”

  And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the entirety of our conversation.

  At the end of the shift, The Basilisk is all like, “Tomorrow you see Dr. Benway after breakfast. Bring your journal.”

  “Doctor who?”

  “No talking,” he says, and locks me back in my box.

  I get a letter the week before school starts. It says WELCOME BACK! It says CONGRATULATIONS ON BEING A SENIOR! It says SENIOR YEAR IS A YEAR THAT YOU WILL REMEMBER THE REST OF YOUR LIFE! It says YOUR HOMEROOM TEACHER IS DICK ISLEY, WHO YOU’LL ALSO HAVE FOR HISTORY OF THE AMERICAS AND BIO LAB!

  Kingdom: Dick Isley

  Phylum: Dick

  Class: Dice

  Order: Dangling Human Turdlet

  Family: Dicehole

  Genus: Intestinal Fluke

  Species: Flat-Out Liar

  Truth is, I don’t really dig Dick Isley.

  Why?

  For one thing, he wears his male-pattern baldness as if it were a matter of style or efficiency instead of being follicle-y challenged. Like he’s just too damn busy educating the kids to waste time shampooing what would otherwise be a forest full of wavy locks.

  Dick knows, like all the Dicks of the world know, exactly how many inches he can get away with.

  For another, it’s because Dick calls himself Dice, which he’s happy to explain is a “mash-up” of Dick and Mr. Isley. He spends half of every class encouraging the girls to call him that, too.

  “That sucks,” Elliot says, helping himself to two fingers of whatever looks good in our fridge. “I didn’t get him for a single class.”

  “Actually, I think it’s sort of perfect.”

  He swigs milk straight from the carton. “I thought you hated the guy.”

  “Hate? Me? Dice?”

  “Yeah. Hate, you, him.”

  I tear the letter into tiny pieces and then stuff it into a cookbook. “Okay, it’s true. But there’s a plus side.”

  “Which is?”

  Which is that Dick Isley has a component stack behind his desk that he’s absurdly proud of, always dusting the thing and tinkering with buttons and settings. It’s got high-end equipment locked in, like a DVD player and Wi-Fi and a preamp and speakers and monitors and oscillators. He calls it the Teaching Tower, and mostly uses it to show instructional videos when he’s too hungover to do the lesson plan. Or impress girls after class, playing his huge collection of Weezer bootlegs. Or for parent conferences so they rave about how down he is with the kids.

  He bought it out of his own pocket, honey! Did you hear that? I swear, that’s the kind of commitment teachers don’t show anymore!

  “Well, I’m thinking Sin Sistermouth sure could use some of that gear ol’ Dice is hoarding. And now I’m gonna be real close to it every morning.”

  “Use like how?” Elliot says, sticking his thumb in a yogurt, licking it, and putting it back in the fridge.

  “For
our PA. We could hook up that preamp, no doubt. Run the mic straight through. Also, we could—”

  “You mean jack the Teaching Tower?”

  “Nah, Jay-Z, not jack it. More like borrow without asking.”

  Elliot shakes his head. “You wanna give the guy a hard time? I’m down. Rage Against the Di-chine? Cool. I mean, the asshole wears a trimmed goatee. But his gear’s all welded in. There’s about a hundred padlocks on it. Trying to steal that shit is a sure way to get busted.”

  “Yeah,” I say. “It’s a risk. Still, if a man had a plan? Like, a really smart plan, he—”

  Elliot holds up one callused finger, muttonchops glistening. “The last thing we need is trouble, Ritchie. Um, Rock Scene? Um, priorities?”

  El Hella, voice of reason. It’s amazing.

  “You don’t want trouble, don’t eat Looper’s Chinese leftovers,” I say.

  Elliot scoops three fingers of kung pao and drops it into his mouth.

  “I’m serious, dawg. Don’t even think about it.”

  “Okay.”

  He eyeballs me like roadside ordnance. “I mean it.”

  “Okay,” I say, in a way higher voice than anyone not named Amber should ever use.

  Elliot nods, then heads down to the garage to practice.

  The final reason I don’t dig Dick Isley is that he was at the party.

  Which party?

  Beth’s party.

  My sister, Beth.

  Have we not talked about her yet?

  Beth was killed six days into freshman year.

  By a drunk driver.

  So for a semester I walked around school, That Drama Kid.

  Suddenly everyone knew who I was.

  Up and down the hallways, the whispers and looks.

  The sympathy.

  The weirdness.

  The shying away.

  Like maybe it was contagious.

  Guys and their grim faces.

  Girls and their teary hugs.

  Standing around trying to decide whose sweater was more devastated than whose.

  And then teachers.

  Before class, after class, in study hall.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you sure you’re okay?”

  “Well, now that you mention it, no. In fact, I think I’m going to need intensive one-on-one mentoring the whole rest of the year, and especially on weekends. Do you, by any chance, have a spare guest room?”

  Actually, some teachers really stepped up. So did a bunch of kids, if only because they weren’t afraid to show how genuinely crushed they were. But they did it from a distance, because mostly they were all about Beth.

  And she wasn’t all about me.

  She wasn’t about anything anymore.

  Her bed was empty; her clothes were donated.

  There was a time for feeling really, really bad.

  Until it was time to feel something else.

  And then we all went home.

  “How’s that for revealing my inner pain and source of criminal inclinations?” I ask.

  We’re in a small office. There’s a counselor right outside in case I get frisky. The psychiatrist is a tiny woman with hair pulled straight back into a bun. She’s wearing a wool suit, even though it’s hot as Christ. Her name is Dr. Kiki Benway. It says so on the plaque above her shoulder. Graduate of some medical school I’ve never heard of. Which either means it cost a fortune or it’s a night-school dump that she takes a lot of working-class pride in having put herself through.

  Dr. Benway only comes in a few hours a week.

  But still takes the time to hang her diploma.

  I think that could use a little analysis right there.

  “It’s a start,” she says, tossing the journal back onto my lap, the corner of which spears my balls and forces me to hunch like a perv, pretending not to rub them. “But I think you need to drop the posture.”

  “What posture?”

  “Your writing is full of attitude.”

  “The good kind or the bad kind?”

  “There is no good attitude. There is only how far you’ll go to hide your actual feelings.”

  I roll my eyes. I figured she’d be happy—ecstatic, even—with the stuff I’d written.

  “What do you want from me, lady? That’s the best I can do.”

  “Aside from not calling me lady? I want to know what it’s really like in here.”

  “So do I.”

  “And I want to know what it was like before you came.”

  “So do I.”

  She frowns. “Give me some genuine emotion. Challenge yourself to be honest instead of merely clever.”

  “Is that all?”

  “No. I also want to know more about Beth.”

  “It’s always more. It’s never less. You ever notice that?”

  “Less is easy. More is a ticket back onto the street.”

  I laugh. “The street? I’m from Sackville. People leave their locks unlocked. Ice-cream trucks drive around all summer. Every other dude in town is a volunteer fireman.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  She’s right. I do.

  But it’s not like I’m gonna admit it.

  “Can I go now?”

  “Yes.”

  Dr. Benway signals The Basilisk, who jumps up like he’s just been Tased.

  “Don’t forget to give the ape a banana.”

  She crosses her legs. “Karl Marx once said ‘Sarcasm is the opiate of the asses.’ ”

  I shake my head. “It’s ‘Religion is the opiate of the masses.’ And anyway, I heard he never really said that. It’s just, like, a bumper sticker.”

  For the first time, Dr. Benway looks at me like I might actually have a brain.

  “You could be right. But even so, I bet he never missed any journal entries.”

  “Damn straight,” says The Basilisk, and then yanks me through the door.

  I miss dinner trying to decide what to wear on the first day of school, like some flighty anorexic chick with a closet full of pink dresses. I need the perfect outfit for slouching in the hall, a shirt that says hip yet detached, pants that say interesting yet bored, footwear that says stoic yet complicated.

  I need to impress Ravenna.

  Who is not easy to impress.

  It’s a tough choice, but I finally go with dirty jeans, Fugazi T-shirt, black boots, no socks, and an enigmatic half grin.

  Not bad.

  But is it a grope-inspiring ensemble?

  Unclear.

  I stand sideways in front of the mirror. I’ve gotten taller. Not as skinny. Jaw a little more square, a little more stubble. Not the walking cock block I was six months ago. Ravenna could like me. It’s totally within the control group of statistically possible outcomes.

  I stick out my chest. Fugazi’s lead singer, Ian, sticks out his mic with me.

  “I am gonna run deep into those Woods!”

  “What?” Mom says from down the hall.

  “Nothing.”

  “Are you okay?”

  Am I okay? Seriously?

  “No, I’m about to fucking die in here.”

  “Sorry, what?”

  “I’ve got a gun. I’ve got pills. I’ve got a pillowcase full of sailor cock and razor blades.”

  “I can’t hear you through the door, Ritchie!”

  “I said I’m fine!”

  “Oh, okay. G’night, hon.”

  Hon? Seriously?

  Ian doesn’t bother to answer.

  So I don’t bother, either.

  Hey, if Dropping Posture (great band name) is the whole point of Project Notebook here at Progressive Progress, then I will drop and give you twenty, Dr. Benway. Why fight it? I want to be better. As a person. As a friend. As an inmate. As a vessel for your insights and expertise.

  So let’s start with a poem.

  In which Jotting for Sympathy (great band name) meets Full-Metal Honesty:

  You Don’t Go
t to Tell Ritchie Sudden Twice

  A Poem

  by Ritchie Sudden

  It is dark and boring and hot

  and sweaty.

  In here.

  Everything is the color of some asshole’s golf shirt. The walls and the floor and even

  the light.

  Fluorescing down an endless hall, through cinder

  blocks and

  wired glass, past a

  stack of jackals

  in acrid pens.

  They make noise, all night.

  Yells, screams,

  moans, laughs.

  Crying for mommy, busting

  on the mommy-crier

  Scratching at the bars, bleeding

  in the sink

  You can’t sleep and you can’t think.

  That’s the worst part;

  You. Can’t. Even. Think.

  Actually, it’s second worst. First

  is how

  everything smells like

  piss.

  Even the food.

  Even the soap.

  Everything smells

  like everything.

  Did I mention it

  is dark

  and hot

  and sweaty

  and

  boring

  in here?

  The End

  What do you think, Doc? Do I got the inside track for the next prison laureate? And, hey, does it come with a stipend? ’Cause I could really use some toothpaste.

  But never mind that. Let me ask you this, from one professional to another: Do you ever actually cure anyone?

  I mean, is it even possible to “improve,” or do we all just learn strategies to hide our ugliness better? Like, did your boy Freud finally come to understand himself, standing on the precipice at the bitter end, or did he jump like everyone else?

  Also, I know doctor-patient confidentiality comes into play here, but I’d be willing to bet my entire savings of three cigarettes and half a jar of peanut butter that you spend 97 percent of your time talking to the other guys about matters not entirely weighty and life-altering.

  Like, for instance, an obsession with onanism.

  Am I right?

  Is it one big verbal tug-fest?

  Do you stare at your diploma while listening to tales of the inexpressible loneliness represented by a stiff Kleenex balled up in the corner of any given cell?