Burger Wuss (3 page)

That was a few months ago, just before school got out. For the next two months, we had a great time together. We went through automatic car washes relentlessly and were sarcastic for hours at Toys “R” Us. We hung out after school and I went over to her house and she came over to my house and we watched movies about alien intestinal viruses and commandoes on golf carts.

One day I took her canoeing — can you believe it? canoeing? — I took her canoeing like Mr. Wholesome and we went down the river and behind the orchard, and crept up the bank inside the fence and stole apples, lots of them, filling the fronts of our shirts with them, and when our shirts were filled, I could see her belly and her bellybutton underneath all the apples, and even the soft line of her lowest rib, and we carried our apples back to my parents’ canoe and dumped them in, and then I was going to kiss her, until the man in the plaid shirt started to throw rocks, and pushing off became a really really good idea.

For once I was doing things with people other than Rick, and my parents stopped hovering over me and asking me, “Do you have any friends? Do you have any friends?” because she was not just my girlfriend, she was my friend, and she came over and actually talked to my parents sometimes, and made them laugh too, and then, when she left, my parents would say, “She’s such a great girl!” which is like completely embarrassing but is better than them saying, “Why don’t you go out and try to meet some young women at the Bowl-O-Drome?”

Well, all I’m trying to say is that it was great being with her, and everything seemed perfect to me. Everything was like an adventure.

She said that the next summer we should hike part of the Appalachian Trail together. I suggested we bike it on Big Wheels. This was something we looked into. It excited both of us.

She was smart. She was sure of herself. She knew when it was getting boring to be cheerful. She had a sense of humor that was quick and harsh and which always surprised me, for example now I remember her saying that she was sick of the O’Dermott’s Happy Lunch, man, and wasn’t it about time to deal with reality and do the Desolate Lunch instead, with games on the box like “Can you help Kermit get to safety?” and the answer is “No,” and “Can you find these words in the puzzle?” and the answer is “No,” and “Can you connect the dots?” and the answer is “No,” and “Can you tell three things wrong with this picture?” and the answer is “No,” and inside for a prize there is broken things or dust.

I guess I could not tell what was wrong with the picture. Diana didn’t say anything, so I couldn’t know, and maybe she didn’t know either, and so I went to the party with the others, and was standing there, and we danced for a while, with me doing one of my extra-funny Laughing Contortionist dances, but that night no one really thought it was funny. People were serious that night about getting drunk and the music was serious. The beat was strong and the rugs were rolled back. She kept on talking to people I didn’t know. She didn’t introduce me. Finally, I couldn’t find her.

I was drunk, which, being that I don’t have much body weight, means I’d swigged two beers and was already more looney-tunes than Porky, and the point is I was not having fun and I wanted to see her. I went around from room to room. Rick and Jenn walked around with me. They said things to each other like, “Hey, Jenny Jujube,” and “Hey, Tricky Ricky,” and “Hey, Jenny Gin Mill,” and “Maybe Diana’s like gone milk carton. Remember? Milk carton? Missing?” We looked for Diana high and low.

I did not know Turner at that point, so I did not recognize him when I found him on top of her on a sofa. They had some of their clothes on. A few. She had his green sateen O’Dermott’s jacket around her shoulders. She was laughing at something. She was very drunk.

Rick said, “She’s in here. Horizontal.”

“Shouldn’t they be standing up to talk?” Jenn said.

Rick said, “He just bit her lip.”

Rick and Jenn turned away. They patted me on
the shoulder as they walked back past me and left me there.

I felt like I was standing on the last tip of something big that was sinking — didn’t know what to do. Stood by the door. She hadn’t seen me. Go up? Jab him? Yell and punch? Yell and wait for him to get up? Take it outside? Right here? Let her go? Say something short, something quick, something hard that would hurt, say it and turn and leave, sneer in the halls? There were no swearwords dark enough, nothing cutting enough — because I wanted words then to cut, and thinking this now, and remembering his green sateen jacket draped around her shaking shoulders, I want that again, want my thoughts to be a blade, my brains to detonate, to punch, to scream, to find some way to hurt.

So I ran away. I turned around and started to run out of the house. She saw, called after me, “Wait — omigod! — Anthony! Wait! I’m sorry!” I stopped and waited. I went back a few steps. I was in the shadows. Turner was sitting up now. He was very tall and wide. He had lifted up one hand, with two fingers raised limply to caution her. He was saying, “Shh! Shh!” He waited. He said, “I think he’s gone.”

She covered her eyes with her hand. She said, “Oh God. I’ll have to talk to him tomorrow. Oh man. What a mess.”

Turner said, “Don’t sweat it. He’s a little wuss.”

She said, “Yeah, but he’s really nice. You’re sitting on my leg.”

Turner said, “Bendy-boy’s a little wuss. He ran away.”

She said, “You’re sitting on my leg. He’s really nice.”

I was glad I was really nice. It was really nice to be really nice. I walked outside. Jenn and Rick were tagging after me. They were saying how sorry they were. They said that, man, they couldn’t believe her. They said she obviously didn’t understand about love.

I heard Rick whisper, “That wasn’t her green sateen jacket, was it?”

Jenn whispered back, “Would you call that green or loden?”

They both started to giggle but then Rick said, “Shh, he’s really messed up.” They said that wow, like what was I going to do? They said they didn’t know what they’d do if they were me. They said bye. I walked home. On the way I punched an oak. An oak. I didn’t punch him, I punched an oak. It really hurt my knuckles.

I couldn’t go to bed. I wouldn’t be able to go to sleep. I paced in my room. The next morning, I called Rick, who ever since he and Jenn realized one night that they were more than just friends had been the guru of love. I found out about Turner. He just graduated from high school in the next town over. He’s going away to college. He works with her at O’Dermott’s. He goes out with a lot of girls. They say his appeal is that he’s handsome and dangerous. He always seems to know what he’s doing. Guys respect him. He’s six-two. He goes by his last name.

She called me later that morning. My mother was glad to hear her on the phone. I could hear my mother say, “Oh hi, Diana! It’s great to hear from you! How are you
these days? I bought some more cheese popcorn for the next time you come over.” I was in the bathroom, looking at myself in the mirror and wondering why I was so damn ugly. I thought about avoiding her, but I went and took it. My parents were standing by, listening and smiling like: “Ah, young love!”

I said, “Hi.” Flatly.

She said, “Hi. Anthony, I feel really bad.” Sheepishly.

I said, “I feel pretty bad too.” I wanted that to be coldly, but it sounded just like I was sorry for something I’d done. I hadn’t done anything.

“Anthony, just, we were drinking, and like there was this chemistry. I couldn’t . . .”

“Chemistry,” I said. “Just this chemistry.”

“I couldn’t help it.”

I said, “I was working in the lab, late one night.”

She said, “Anthony.”

I said, “When my eyes beheld a fearful sight.”

“Anthony, please don’t do this. God, I can’t believe you’re doing this.”

My parents were laughing. They had big grins like: “Our son the riot!”

My father started singing. “Oh the monster from his slab began to rise, and suddenly, before my eyes . . .”

“Diana —” I said. I felt sick. I turned away from my parents into the corner of the room. Their shadows were cast across me. They were dancing. They did the monster mash.

She was saying, “Look, Anthony, it’s better this way. It wasn’t really working out anyway. I mean, I really like you and all, but I think it’s better —”

My parents sang, “The Monster Mash!” — “It was a graveyard smash!” — “The Monster Mash!” — “It caught on in a flash. . . .”

She was saying, “Is that your parents singing?”

“Diana — please, Diana —” I said. I thought of her bellybutton in the sunlight, of her lying with the green sateen jacket around her shoulders, of her lying with Turner on top of her; I was almost crying.

“I really think it’s better we just be friends.”

“Vutever happened to my Transylvania tvist?”

“Why not working out?” I said. “Diana, I really like you.”

“No, don’t think I didn’t have a good time. Because I had a really good time. All the time.”

My parents were watching me. They were quieting down. They weren’t dancing anymore. I tried to be cool on the phone. I controlled my voice. I said, “Why don’t we go out for lunch?”

My father said, “You can take the car. I don’t need it!”

She said, “I don’t think we should. Can we just put this whole thing behind us? Not hurt anyone’s feelings?”

I couldn’t answer with my parents watching. They were listening to every word. So instead I said cheerily, “I’ll just drop it off at your work. Is that okay?”

She said, “What? Anthony, what are you talking about?”

I said, “No, thanks, I’m done with it. Turned out I didn’t need it. I’ll just drop it off at your work.”

“What are you —?”

I laughed what was supposed to be a cheerful laugh, but it was a cackle. “Oh, ho ho ho! In Magic Marker, too? All over the shackles?”

“Would you be serious? I’m trying to be serious.”

I chuckled. “In the seventh level of hell, they’re all upside down in dung!”

“Fine,” she said. “Fine. This is exactly what I’m talking about.” And she slammed down the phone. I waited for a second. There was a dial tone.

“Good then,” I said. “I’ll drop it by sometime today or maybe tomorrow. Love ya!”

I grinned a big grin and hung up the phone. My parents were smiling like: “You two — so sweet!”

I went back upstairs to look at myself in the mirror and figure out what made me so ugly.

That same afternoon Turner made fun of Diana at work. I don’t know what he said, because I wasn’t there, but he at first just was polite but sort of ignoring her, and then later after she kept on saying, “Are we going to talk? Staff room. Now!” he got mean, and made some comment about them making out and nice extra-value meals, I don’t know exactly because Rick and Jenn weren’t listening carefully (they were cowering and holding hands behind the shake machine until things blew over), but Turner said terrible things, and Diana started crying, and she threw down her visor, and she quit.

I called Diana later. She had her own line. She was screening. I left messages. She never returned them.

Now it’s been a week since the party. A week since I found Turner lying on top of her, almost undressed. I am going to get revenge. I hate him and his green sateen. I
will go to any length. Whatever it takes to make him hurt. I want to see him cry.

I am starting to smolder now. No more Mr. Nice Guy. No more Mr. Wholesome. I will crawl through sewers, knife in teeth. Climb up walls with suction boots. Nurse my hatred like a baby with pincer hands and twelve legs. I will get revenge. I will make a plan. I will do what I need to.

I will have it my way.