Blank Confession (7 page)

“Actually, yeah.”

“I read all the Gossip Girls. I read
Pride and Prejudice
. I read that vampire book …”

“Dracula?”
Dad asked.

“No. The one where the vampire is a good guy, and this other guy turns into a wolf.”

“Did you read the actual books, or the comic book versions?” I asked.

Marie gave me a scathing return look. “Mikey, you're a moron.” She batted her eyes at Shayne. “Is
moron
okay? Or is it too close to
insane
?”

“Now Marie …” Mom began, then trailed off as she saw Shayne open his mouth.

“
Moron
's okay, but Mikey's not a moron,” Shayne said.

“Right—he just says moronic things,” Marie said.

“Nobody here is a moron,” Mom said. She offered Shayne the bread basket for the third time. I think she wanted to adopt him.

I said, “Better to say stupid stuff than to do it.”

“Saying is doing,” Marie said. “When you
say
some-thing you are
doing
something. You are
saying.
”

“You mean if I say, ‘I'm brilliant,' it's the same as
being
brilliant?”

“No. What you're
doing
is
saying.
”

“Yeah, well I say you're a crunk monkey.”

Dad had clamped his jaw shut and was looking off into the distance. I wondered what would have come out of his mouth if he hadn't been working so hard to keep it in.

Shayne must have noticed it too. He said, “Mr. Martin, how does it feel to live in a house filled with philosophers?”

“Philosophers?” He gave Shayne an uncomprehending look.

Shayne said, “Yeah, like the nature of reality: If you say something, does that make it real? Like when Mikey says, ‘crunk monkey,' does that mean crunk monkeys actually exist?”

Dad looked at Shayne with an odd, brow-crinkling expression—maybe trying to figure out if he was being teased.

Shayne said, “It's exactly like philosophy, only without all the—you know—logic and stuff. And with crunk monkeys.”

Dad said, “What
is
a ‘crunk monkey?'”

“Apparently,
I
am a crunk monkey,” said Marie, giving me her squinchy face.

Dad laughed; it was like a balloon popping. All the tension went out of the room, tension I hadn't even known was there.

Dad loosened up and asked Shayne who he favored in the next presidential election.

“Dad, he doesn't care about politics,” I said. “He can't even vote!”

“Just because you're too young to vote doesn't mean you shouldn't know who you would vote for if you could vote,” Dad said. Like crunk monkey logic, that made sense only if you didn't think about it too hard.

Shayne said, “Who will
you
be voting for, sir?”

Dad told him, then spent an eternity explaining why. Shayne listened attentively, nodding in all the right places. By the time he finished, Dad had convinced himself that everyone at the table agreed with everything he had said. Of course, nobody disagreed because nobody wanted to keep talking about it.

I don't want to give the impression that my dad is as boring as a crunk monkey. But he can be tedious when it comes to certain subjects. Politics, for example. Or submersible pumps. Do
not
get him started on submersible pumps. He engineers pumps for his job, and engineers are the most boring people on the planet when they talk about their work. He can go on about pumps for hours.

Once we were done discussing politics, Marie tried to move the conversation on to recent movies. Bad idea. The
last movie my parents went to was
Schindler's List
, before I was born. But that didn't stop Dad from talking about it all the way through dessert. Shayne's attentive nodding became robotic, and Marie was rolling her eyes so hard I could almost hear them squeak. Finally, I interrupted him and said Shayne and I were hoping to shoot some baskets before it got dark.

Once Shayne and I got outside I said, “Sorry about my dad.”

“Why?” Shayne asked.

“He can go on a bit.”

“I like your dad,” he said. “He's intense.”

“I like him too, but he's my
dad.
” I grabbed the basketball and made a jump shot from the side. Swish.

“HORSE,” I said, and passed the ball to Shayne.

My dad, who is six feet two inches tall, put up the basketball net when I was in kindergarten. It took me until the second grade to make my first basket. From that moment on, I dreamed of becoming the next Shaquille O'Neal. I got pretty good for a guy my size—but I'm still waiting for that growth spurt.

Shayne duplicated my shot. I dribbled the ball halfway down the driveway and sank an underhanded lob.

“You're lucky,” Shayne said.

“Pure skill,” I said.

“I mean, you're lucky to have such a great dad.”

“Oh.” I didn't know what to say to that. Shayne's dad was in Afghanistan or wherever, and here I was complaining about my father's social skills.

He missed the shot.

“That's an
H
for you,” I said. “And you're right. My dad's okay.”

“I like your sister, too.” Shayne laughed at the expression on my face. “Don't worry, I'm not going to ask her out or anything.”

Immediately, I did a mental flip-flop—I didn't like that Marie was hot for him, but at the same time, it bugged me that he wouldn't want to go out with her.

“Why not?” I said.

“I just don't want to get tangled up.”

“You got tangled up with Jon Brande,” I pointed out, going in for an easy lay-up.

Shayne said, “I went over to his house yesterday.”

I missed the shot. “Please tell me you're kidding.”

“I talked to his dad. Well, sort of talked to him.” Shayne retrieved the ball and made a two-handed overhead shot from six feet behind the free throw line. “He told me to get lost.”

“I hope Jon doesn't find out,” I said.

Shayne shrugged.

We were tied at
H-O-R
when my dad came outside and started fiddling with the birdbath fountain in the side yard. The fountain had stopped working a few days before. He looked up, caught Shayne's eye, and waved him over.

“Oh no,” I said.

Naturally, the fountain was powered by a submersible pump. Five minutes later, Shayne and my dad were in the garage disassembling the pump, and I was shooting free throws all by myself.

Later that night I was in my room working on my Trig homework when I looked up to see Marie standing in my doorway, pajamas on, arms crossed, leaning against the jamb.

“What's the deal with Shayne?” she asked.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“You know. Does he have a girlfriend?”

“Not as far as I know. I've only known him a few days.”

“Jon doesn't like him much,” she said.

“Jon doesn't like anybody.”

“He likes me. Sort of.”

I didn't say anything to that. She looked around my room as if seeing it for the first time. “You're very neat,” she said.

“I like to know where things are.”

She half-smiled. “You were always that way. Putting your own clothes away when you weren't even in kindergarten. This four-year-old neat freak.”

I didn't take offense at that. It was true.

She said, “He should watch out. Shayne, I mean. He shouldn't make Jon mad.”

“It wasn't his fault. Shayne just tried to talk to Jon about the five hundred I supposedly owe him, which I don't. Anyways, I don't have it.”

“Doesn't Mrs. Garcia pay you every week?”

“Not
that
much.”

Marie thought for a moment, then sighed. “I guess I could try to talk to him again.”

“Again?”

“I tried to talk to him once. I didn't want to see you get tased again. I thought maybe if you paid him a little bit every week, it would work out.”

“That was
your
idea?”

“It was the best I could do.”

“Oh. Well, thanks, I guess.”

“Maybe if I tell him you really don't have the money, he'll forget about it.”

“How come you're being nice to me all of a sudden?”

“I shouldn't be nice to my baby brother?”

“I'm not used to it, that's for sure.”

“Shayne's nice,” she said. “He listens when I talk.”

“So you've decided to be nice too?” Even as I said it, it hit me: That was exactly right. Marie had a fetish for the top dog in the pound, as her list of current and former boyfriends proved, but she also had this personality defect—okay,
quirk
—that made her act like whatever guy she was fixated on. With Jon, it was all about being totally self-centered and not caring about anybody else. But now, for the first time, my sister had found herself panting after a dog who was actually a nice guy.

I had homework for this class called Cultural Studies where I had to analyze some aspect of American culture as compared to some other culture. I chose fashion for my cultural aspect and Haitian for my other culture. Then I made a list of every article of clothing I owned, and then I went over to Pépé and Mémé's apartment to complete my research.

Pépé and Mémé are my grandparents. Those aren't really their names but that's what they like me to call them. I think it means “grandpa” and “grandma” in Haitian.

Pépé answered the door and gave me a bony hug.

Mémé came running out from the kitchen and gave me a squishy hug, then she rushed back into the kitchen, her long red hair flying, and immediately started cooking. It was only a matter of seconds before I heard a handful of onions hit the hot lard. She thinks if I eat more rice and beans and pork fat, I'll get taller. It hasn't worked yet, but I'm willing to keep trying.

I told Pépé about my school project and asked him what clothes he had when he was my age. He crinkled his eyes at me and got out the checkerboard.

Pépé loves his checkers. I figured I'd have to let him kick my butt at least three games in a row to get the
information I needed. We set up the board and six moves later I was down two men. I don't know how he does it.

“I was a very sharp dresser, your age,” Pépé said. “Like you.” Pépé has a strong accent. He didn't speak much English until he was an adult so it came more like,
I beddy shop dressou, you aich. Lie gyoo.
But don't worry—I will translate.

“Only we did not have suits and ties like you wear sometimes. Too hot and no money.”

I should mention that I was not wearing a suit at that time. On weekends I prefer more casual outfits. That day I wore khakis, loafers, and a maroon crew neck sweater—what Marie calls my 1980s preppie look. Not that she was even alive back then. I don't know where she gets that stuff.

“Your age, I had only four shirts, but I always kept them very clean. One for church, white. One for school. One paisley. Do you know paisley?”

I knew paisley, a strange, colorful, swirly pattern—very ugly, but I didn't say that.

“That was for special occasions.” He moved one of his checkers forward, offering me a jump. I went for it, but of course it was a trap. He came back at me with a triple jump.

“King me,” he said with a yellow grin.

I king'd him.

“And one T-shirt the color of the Haitian flag—red, white, blue, and a little green. I wore that one a lot.”

“What about pants?”

“Polyester. Everything was polyester. Bell bottom.”

I was disappointed. I'd been hoping he'd worn grass shirts or some sort of voodoo robes, which would have made my report more interesting. I tried to imagine Pépé at sixteen, with his purple-black skin, wearing a paisley shirt and polyester bellbottoms. He would be smiling—Pépé always smiled—and thinking about …what? Getting out of Haiti? No, he was probably thinking about girls. Pépé had an eye for pretty young girls, though he always said he'd never met one as pretty as Mémé.

“What about other kids?”

“Mostly the same, only I always looked very sharp. Your grandmama could not resist me.”

“I could have resisted easy,” Mémé shouted from the kitchen. “Only I saw how I maybe could fix you!”

Pépé laughed. “You fix me good!” he said. As he jumped his way to an easy checkers victory, he told me more about his teenage years: fishing on the piers, how many girlfriends he'd had, and how a lot of his classmates got involved with the teenage gangs in Port-au-Prince.

“But not me, no. I have no truck with gangs. I go to work instead.” He flexed his large long-fingered hands. “I make things for to sell. That is how I meet your grandmama.”

“He was selling voodoo dolls for the tourists,” Mémé yelled from the kitchen. “I had to kick him off the sidewalk.”