I'm with Stupid (14 page)

On the Set of the Great Karpinski Masterpiece

It was foggy as hell. Clouds hung on the ground around my house. Wisconsin February should not be wet and 50 degrees. There should be ice balls and snow elves and crap. February is supposed to make you hate yourself.

Fog and mud. Moist.

Abby drove us to Gus's in the shit-bag Buick. When we got there, Pig Boy was sitting in the fog in the front yard on a lawn chair next to Maddie and Bony Emily (Andrew's old orchestra friend).

Pig Boy said, “You're late.”

Maddie said, “Where's the scooter? We need a scooter.” She glared at me.

Abby said, “Shit. I forgot.” Abby turned and walked three steps. She called Jess, the owner of the scooter.

Pig Boy said, “What are we doing?”

Bony Emily slapped herself on the forehead. She said, “I've told you already three times, Tommy.”

Pig Boy said, “I want to hear the king say it.” He looked at me and nodded, his mouth open.

“I'm not the king,” I said.

“He's not the king,” Maddie said.

“Remember? We're making a funny video,” I said. “Hopefully.”

Gus poked his head out the front door. “Where the hell's the scooter?” he shouted.

Abby held up her phone. “Jess is bringing it over. She'll be here soon.”

“Can't believe you'd forget the scooter,” Maddie said.

“I brought my bikini. I'm not an idiot,” Abby said.

“You are an idiot. Now Jess Withrow is coming over,” Maddie said, shaking her head.

“What is your problem?” Abby spat.

“Jess is a bitch!” Maddie spat back.

“Jess is my best friend.”

“Ooooh,” Maddie said, waving her hands in the air, her eyes big. “Best friends!”

It didn't seem possible we could make a funny movie with so much pissy-ness floating around in the air.

“Everybody relax, okay?” I said.

“I'm going to wear a long blond wig,” Pig Boy said.

“Yeah, I know,” I said. “I invited you to this.”

“Sorry,” Pig Boy said. His face fell.

“No. I'm glad you're here,” I said.

“Let's go inside and costume up,” Gus said. “My parents are out at brunch. They'll go for a walk after. We've got like four hours. Go.”

***

While Abby held her aching smelly beer head in the corner and Pig Boy stared at my ear (I'm serious, poor kid), Maddie pulled a black wig over my hair. It was a vampire wig from a 1970s costume and it smelled really bad. “Where did you get this?”

“Cal's basement. Cat probably pissed on it,” Maddie said.

“Awesome.”

“I got you a brand-new mustache though.”

She glued on my mustache. It was slicked down, like a Latin lover kind of deal.

Then she gave me giant sunglasses her grandpa wore in the 1970s.

“Oh hell yeah. That's good.” She laughed.

Abby looked up at me and giggled, nodding.

Outside, the sun began to burn off the fog. “We're getting good light,” Gus said.

Then I went into the bathroom and pulled on a pair of gut-buster elastic band coaching shorts I bought when I thought that's what jocks wore (
just
trying
to
fit
in, homies!
…duh). Gus gave me a pillow from his room, and I stuck it in my too-tight white polo and pulled the shorts up and tucked in the shirt.

I walked back into the living room. Maddie, Abby, and Bony Emily blew a freaking gasket when they saw me. Abby seriously fell off her chair, laughing.

“Holy cow!” Bony Emily said.

I tried to do my best Mr. Karpinski imitation, “What are you ladies laughing at, heh? You get into the laughing gas over at the doctor's office? What makes a lady laugh? Gas. Am I right?”

“Holy shit! You have it down!” Abby said.

“Felton used to be hilarious all the time. Then he found sports,” Gus said.

Just then, a scooter buzzed into the driveway. A couple seconds later, Jess Withrow knocked on the door. “Come in,” Gus shouted.

Jess entered. She looked at me. She said, “Are you dressed up like Mr. Karpinski?”

I nodded. I tried not to laugh.

Jess smiled too, but she didn't laugh. “Wow. Cruel,” she said.

“You would know,” Maddie spat.

Jess blinked and looked at her. “Uh, okay?”

“Come on,” Gus said. “Let's do this.”

***

“Yes. Yes. Good light,” Gus said. His hands were on his hips. He stared at the sky. (Back in the day of the wad, he'd have had to lift his hair to see up—I understood the advantage of the new 'do.). The sky held puffy clouds. The brown ground reflected an orange glow on everything.

Gus stood with his camera. (He has a Canon Rebel that takes awesome video.) I stood next to him fully dressed in Karpinski style.

Bony Emily wore really tight black clothes and sort of heavy black eye makeup. She stood next to me.

Pig Boy, in his Bully Me/Pig Boy T-shirt, wore a long blond Miss Piggy wig. He stood next to Emily.

Abby came out of the house in a robe because she had a bikini on and it was definitely not bikini warm.

Jess stayed and watched. “Karpinski's going to love it that you're making shit out of his dad,” she told me.

“I'm not Mr. Karpinski, okay?” I said. “Call me Mr…Mr. Dickinski. I'm the Polish Fist.”

“I don't know, Felton,” Jess said. “Everybody's going to recognize you.”

“I guess that's the point,” I said.

A few minutes later, Gus started to film.

***

Gus, having learned what works from our pipe-fight video, shot a lot of me at low angles, karate chopping and kicking the air. He had me drive the scooter back and forth in front of his house, swooping across the street, doing little putt-putt loop de loops and crap. (At one point, some dude in a Ford SUV nearly smashed into me. He shouted at everyone and Abby gave him the finger, which made Gus tell her to chill.) Then Gus had Maddie hold a mic out while I first swooped around Bony Emily, she pouting, looking like an angry punk girl.

“Hey, baby doll. What you so angry about?” I asked (like Mr. Karpinski).

“Life is hell,” Bony said. “My dad's a dick.”

“Do you want to feel the thrill of victory?”

“Yes! Yes, I do!” she said.

In the next shot, “Mr. Karpinski” showed her how to punch-chop a man's neck so he'd die instantly.

Maddie filmed for a moment while Bony E punch-chopped Gus dressed like a dad and he died.

“Oh yes! Yes! Yes!” Bony cried. She kissed my cheek.

Then a close-up of me barking: “That's the Polish Fist!”

Bony said, “Sexy Victory!”

Gus stared through the lens. “That's seriously good. Seriously funny,” he said.

It didn't really feel that funny. I just felt sort of dumb.

Then I hit on Pig Boy in the Piggy wig. I said a bunch of Karpinski crap. Using Karpinski ancient Polish-Chinese magic, I turned Pig Boy into Maddie. She pulled on his shirt and the wig and blinked sexy style at the camera. Poor Pig Boy sat there shirtless for ten minutes, covering his chest and nipples with his hands.

Then I swooped around and around Abby in her robe, whooping. Gus put the camera on a clip tripod on the front of the scooter and had me drive real slow and mumble super fast and over and over, “Legs up to here. What a filly. I'd ride that pony.” (He also had me say that crap over and over into his iPhone so he had extra audio.)

Then I did some weird kung fu poses aimed at Abby and we used kite string tied on the back of her robe (and yanked) to make it look like a magic Karpinski wind blew it off. (Pig Boy actually screamed “Oh man! Oh!” when Abby's robe slid off).

Close-up. “You're a friend of my boy's up at the old high school, am I right?”

Abby, “Yessss…”

“Pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty,” I mumbled. “Um-hmm. Sexy.”

“Yes!” Abby cried.

“Would you like to be the new Mrs. Dickinski, baby doll? Would you like to hot-rod bikini style on the back of my motorbike?”

“Yes! Yes! Yes!” Abby cried.

Then me punching. Then a close-up. “That's the Polish Fist!”

Then Gus filmed Abby and me from ten different angles riding away, Abby on the back of the scooter, hugging me and laughing and oohing and crap.

“That should do it,” Gus said. “I can make something pretty good out of what we've got.”

“Freezing! Freaking ice cold!” Abby shouted, pulling the robe back over her.

“Jesus. I don't know,” Jess said. “That's mean, Abby.”

“So?”

“Don't you think rubbing Karpinski's face in…in the way his dad acts is pretty bad?” Jess asked.

“No,” Abby said. “Not at all.”

“Fine. Give me the keys, Felton.”

I tossed Jess the keys to the scooter.

“I'm not going to tell Karpinski about this and I hope to God he never sees it. You're acting like a puke, Abby,” Jess said.

“Up yours,” Maddie said.

“Up yours, whoever you are,” Jess spat. Then she took off.

Abby's face had gone totally pale.

“We don't have to make anything out of this,” Gus said. “It was fun just filming. We should totally drop it.”

“No,” Abby said. “We shouldn't be afraid of what they think.”

“They?” Maddie asked.

“Just make the stupid movie, Gus, okay?” Abby said.

“Okay,” Gus said. “I don't care. They're not my friends.”

I pulled off the wig and began to pull off the mustache, but it was glued pretty well. “Ouch. Mother mustache is stuck,” I said.

Pig Boy came up to me and said, “That was the funnest day I ever had in my whole life. You are funny.”

“Thanks, man.”

“I'm going to make some cartoons of you being Dickinski solving crimes and helping kids.”

“Okay,” I said. “Sounds good.”

I wasn't really paying attention to him though. I was worried about Jess and about Abby too.

Pig Boy grabbed my arm. “Really. It was really fun.”

I squinted at Tommy. He nodded. He swallowed.

“I don't have much fun,” he said.

“Okay, man. We'll do it again,” I said. “We'll make some more fun stuff. That was awesome.” I smiled big.

“Cool,” Tommy said. “I'm going home.”

He waddled to his dipshit bike and was gone.

“Pig Boy is one weird kid,” Gus said.

“Felton, I need to get this swimsuit off,” Abby said. “Can we go to my house?”

“Yeah,” I said. Off we went to Abby's. I didn't want to go. I wanted to go home to sleep, but I meant it when I said I wouldn't leave her alone.

No Cody

But Abby was a wreck at her house. She bitched about Jess. She bitched about Cody. She started crying but wouldn't say why. We ate spaghetti again (I thought I'd puke), and she didn't say a word for like a half hour.

Then she went to the bathroom for twenty minutes.

When she came back, she acted drunk again. She might've had some schnapps hidden in there. She tripped on crap on the floor. She swore really loud, “Bleep, bleep, bleep, Mom can't take care of bleep. What the bleep?” Etc.

My Mr. Karpinski shorts started feeling like they were strangling my business so I closed myself in her closet and changed back into jeans. I came out in time to see Abby pull off the bottom of her swimsuit. She stood straight up. “So. There. I'm naked. Are we going to do this?”

“What?”

“It,” she said.

“We've barely even kissed.”

“So?” she barked. “This is what you want, right? Come here.”

Abby looks like a Russian tennis-playing
Sports
Illustrated
swimsuit model, so I had to breathe really deeply a few times and blink. Then I shook my head. “No.”

“No?” she asked.

“No,” I said.

“Oh really?”

“Yeah. I don't know what's going on with…”

“Whatever. I have to go to sleep,” she said. “I need to be alone.”

“Okay?” I said.

Abby climbed in her bed and at least pretended to be asleep.

My stupid heart hurt. I waited for a while, then left her room.

I made it through the house without running into anybody. That was good. But not everything was good.

Big problem: I didn't have a bike or a car. I stood on the Sauter front lawn staring at the street leading toward my house, miles away.

In the past, when I found myself in this circumstance—without a car and far from home—I'd call Cody and he'd swing by in his truck and usually we'd get something to eat or whatever, then he'd drop me off.

I'd been rude to Cody. Stupid. I couldn't call him for help.

So I started hoofing it. The wind had shifted and it was cold.

I walked up Camp Street into growing darkness. An old car came rushing past. Someone yelled, “Homo Rein Stone,” from the window. They took off up the street fast. It was a burner car, not a jock or whatever. It didn't make me mad. It just struck me as messed up. Why did these people who seemingly had no interest in sports otherwise care about Wisconsin Badger football? Lots of people care about the Badgers apparently.

Or maybe people just like to pile on when shit's bad? Could that be true?

I sort of hugged myself, mostly against that damn wind, and kept hoofing.

Twenty minutes later, about the time I hit Smith Park, my phone buzzed in my pants pocket. I worried about looking at it because I didn't want to turn around and walk all the way back to Abby's. But I wanted to be there if she needed me, so I did look.

The text was from Andrew.
Call me when you can, Felton. Serious.

Andrew was really into checking on me. Good brother.

I thought,
You're not alone. Not like Abby.

It began to snow.

By the time I got home, it was snowing pretty hard. I sort of liked it. When I got to the front door, I looked back from the house (the driveway light was on) and could see where I'd come from, my footprints in light snow going all the way down the drive, almost out to the main road before they disappeared in darkness.

You'll miss this in California.

I stood and watched the falling snow get thicker. Sweet. My stomach still hurt and I felt heavy. But the snow was pretty and I had Andrew and I took care of Pig Boy and I wouldn't leave Abby.

You're doing okay…You'll be okay.

I think I believed it.