I am a Genius of Unspeakable Evil and I Want to be Your Class (25 page)

 

I shrug. “They beat it into us when we’re young. And we never forget it.

 

“Now, my comrades, my droogies, my pals, you are probably thinking that I’m advocating some sort of reform. I’m leading you up to some place where I’ll say, ‘
We must make these elections matter!
’ and, ‘
We should be casting our votes based on issues, not personality
!’”

 

I give the fools my warmest smile. “I am saying nothing of the sort. Because the truth is I
want
you to waste your time picking between popinjays.

 

Now I frown at them, like a family doctor giving an unpleasant diagnosis. “The truth is all these posing politicians and empty issues—they’re just distractions. A few baubles to keep you busy while you live and breathe and squirm. Because the real truth is a magic trick. Somehow, magically, all of you, even the poorest, are born clutching a dollar bill in your grubby little paws. Even the starving children on the Amazon basin, even the forgotten babies of Appalachia—they’re born holding that dollar. And it’s the life’s work of people like me to steal or trick or sweet talk those bucks from your grasp.

 

“And if you’re too busy worrying about which candidate is cuter to notice what we’re doing, well, so much the better.”

 

I give them the smile of a saint. I feel suddenly clean. So much poison leached from my soul in one geyser of vomit. The buzzing in my ears dies. My eyes stop vibrating. They focus.

 

And I see a crowd of stunned and angry animals. I see confusion. I see curiosity.

 

And on Tatiana’s face, I see delight. She’s a giggling, clapping, joyous nymph.

 

But “Daddy” isn’t clapping. I mean,
of course
, he isn’t clapping. But he doesn’t look sad, either. Just . . .
worried
.

 

And “Mom” looks like I’ve punched her in the stomach.

 

This is wrong.

 

In one self-indulgent rant, I’ve ruined myself. With five minutes of truth, I’ve destroyed a dozen years of lies. I am exposed. Naked. Weak.

 

My brain races. There must be some way to save the situation. Some way to reassert my idiocy. Some way to reclaim my cover.

 

And because I am a genius, I come up with the only solution possible.

 

I step slowly to the front of the stage.

 

And I pee my pants.

I am walking home. I am walking home and no one can stop me.

 

I am in a pair of green shorts I stole from the gym. They are too small, and I can feel the elastic cutting an ugly red welt around my waist.

 

“Burn it,” I say. “Burn it to the ground.”

 

In retrospect, peeing my pants in front of the entire school doesn’t seem like such a good idea. Yes, it was the only thing I could have done, but is anything, even an empire, worth that kind of humiliation?

 

Mom’s dumb confusion.

 

The shame on my father’s face.

 

Tatiana laughing. Laughing harder than I’d ever seen anyone laugh, till tears ran down her lovely face. Tears of joy. My campaign manager, my pink and golden empress laughing, laughing, laughing at me.

 

Somewhere in this whole mess, I’d forgotten that she’s the Meanest Girl in School.

 

“Strafe it,” I say. “Raze it. Reduce it to a pile of ashes.” I’m giving orders to my squadron of jets. I’m sending them to my school. I will erase my shame. I will burn it from the Earth. “Destroy it. I want rubble piled upon rubble.”

 

My airbase is in Grand Island, but that’s only a five-minute flight at their speed.

 

“Don’t leave a single stone standing.”

 

No one tried to stop me when I ran out of the auditorium. No one wanted to touch me. I left my favorite jeans on the floor of the locker room and slipped into these sweaty green shorts. I ran out the back and passed Mr. Moorhead in the parking lot. He didn’t even notice me. He was sitting in his car, tearing open a carton of cigarettes, examining every single one for a message that wasn’t there. That would never be there.

 

“Destroy the walls, then salt the earth. So nothing will ever grow there again.”

 

I hear the distant hum of a squadron of jets roaring in from behind me.

 

“Rake it. Raze it. Burn it.”

 

“Hey, champ.” There’s a hand on my shoulder. I look up and see it’s attached to my father, who’s red-faced and out of breath. “Thought I might find you walking this way.” He looks at me and says, “Oh, hey. You’re . . . Here, let me clean you up a little bit.” He pulls a Kleenex from his pocket and wipes at my eyes and cheeks.

 

“Break it. Bomb it. Crush it.”

 

Daddy ignores this. “That was . . . that was some speech you gave, Oliver.”

 

I don’t say anything. I keep walking.

 

“That something you saw on TV? Was that in a movie you saw?”

 

Again, I don’t say anything. The hum of the jets is louder. They’re close. I can almost feel the wind of their engines on my back.

 

“You . . . you didn’t win the election, Ollie.” My father is a master of understatement. They haven’t even voted yet, and I didn’t win the election. I’ve removed even the possibility of plausibly
fixing
the election. “You need to get used to that idea.”

 

I’m used to it. “Pound it. Demolish it. Obliterate it.”

 

“But you should also know something else. Stop walking, Oliver, and look at me.”

 

I stop. He’s not pretending to smile or anything stupid like that. “The way you’ve handled yourself, this whole election. Getting as far as you did . . . a lot of boys wouldn’t have the guts to do what you did.”

 

The jets hum like a swarm of approaching locusts.

 

“I . . . Maybe I was too involved with work to pay enough attention but . . . you did good, son. You did good.” And he forcibly grabs me and makes me hug him. He gets down on his knees and presses my head against his bony shoulder.

 

It would be expensive.

 

I’d have to arrange for a series of electrical accidents to erase all videotapes of the assembly. I’d have to bribe those FBI agents to leave Mr. Pinckney alone. They must be suspicious by now. I’d have to forge an entire TV show, make it look like it’s ten years old, and put a speech in it that’s enough like mine that people will believe I just stole it from there. I’d have to fix the television listings so it looks like the fake show was playing the night before the election.

 

The jets are screaming. Just a few miles away now.

 

Daddy slaps me on my back. “Heck,” he says. “I bet someday we’ll look back on this and laugh.”

 

“
Forsan et haec olim meminisse juvabit
,”
¹¹⁸
I mumble.

 

“What was that?” says Daddy with a furrowed brow. I keep forgetting he took Latin in high school.

 

“Nothing,” I say.

 

“Come on. Your mom is at home making snickerdoodles.” He gives me another hug. “I don’t see why we shouldn’t celebrate. It takes a lot of courage to run for office, to get up in front of everyone like that. And you . . . Well, I tell you what . . . I’m proud of you.” He squeezes me hard. “I’m just so damn proud of you, son.”

 

I pull away and look in his eyes. He means it.

 

“Cancel that order,” I murmur. “Hold your fire. Repeat: Hold your fire. Maybe some other time.”

 

“I didn’t hear what you said,” says Daddy.

 

“Nothing important.”

 

He puts his arm around my shoulders and walks me home. Lollipop comes bounding down the street to greet us. Overhead, a flock of black fighter jets screams past us and races for the horizon until they’re lost in the blue.