I'm with Stupid (21 page)

I Am There for You

Abby followed me out of the barn. I stumbled into the dark and turned back to look at that Schwinn Varsity, that bike like Dad's. “No.”

I turned away and saw the path past Cal's, back to the car. I saw it and I followed it.

“Where are we going?” Abby called behind me.

“Out of here, okay? Now,” I said, shaking.

I climbed into the passenger seat. Abby climbed behind the wheel. “Back to town?”

“Home.”

“What's going on?”

“I have to leave my dad behind. I have to. That's what Grandpa said. He'll be here tomorrow.”

She nodded and spun the Escalade around. She tore onto the gravel road and we headed for town.

My muscles twitched. I sucked air.

My brain began to shut down. I swear. I only vaguely remember Abby getting calls. I vaguely remember her saying, “Uh-oh.” I don't remember anything else until we hit the driveway to my house back in Bluffton.

When we got there, Abby said, “I…I don't think I can hang out for too long, okay? Dad wants his car back.”

“Okay,” I said.

Odd. My house was like a damn star. Every light burned bright. We pulled up the drive into the halo cast around the whole yard.

Abby parked the Escalade out front. Jerri stood in the picture window just like she did when I used to run and she'd watch me. She stared down at us.

“That's weird,” I said. “Why is Jerri home?” I mumbled.

Abby breathed in.

As we came up the front walk, Jerri left the window. I opened the screen door. Abby followed. She was breathing in sighs.

“You okay?” I asked.

“I don't know. It's okay,” Abby whispered.

I opened the inside door and entered the living room. Jerri stood next to the couch, her arms folded across her chest.

“I was just about to call you,” Jerri said.

“Why are you here?” I mumbled. “Your study group?”

She stared at my forehead. Her face was red. Her ears were red. “What's your plan? Where you going?”

“Nowhere.”

“Really, Felton?” Then Jerri focused on Abby. “Hi, Abby! How are you? Everything just great?” Jerri snapped.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

Just then, the toilet flushed back in the house.

“Uh-oh,” Abby said.

Terry Sauter walked slowly down the hall and into the living room. His face was burning red. He smiled his big, fake, asswipe smile. “Look who's here!” he said.

“Shit,” Abby said under her breath. She turned almost purple. She stared at the wall to her right.

“Have a good time, pumpkin? You enjoy Daddy's car?”

“Yes,” Abby said. “I enjoyed our car.”

“Our car?” he said.

“I enjoyed driving our car,” Abby said.

“That's not your car.”

Abby turned to him. “No? Really?”

“I told you no,” he hissed. “I told you…”

“So?” Abby said.

“So?” Terry shouted. “So?”

“So what?” Abby said. “That's the family car. That's not your car.”

“Ask my lawyer. Ask him whose car that is,” Terry spat.

“What's going on?” I asked.

“Your girlfriend stole Terry's car,” Jerri said.

“You can't steal what's yours!” Abby shouted.

“You little shit,” Terry said.

“Little shit?” I said. Adrenaline shot up inside me.

“No,” Abby cried. “You're the bad guy. You're the thief.”

“You little bitch,” Terry said. He took a step toward her.

I took a step toward both of them.

“You're the one taking everything. You're the one stealing,” Abby cried.

“That is not your car. I pay your mother so you don't drive that car. Do you understand? Give me the keys.” He took another step and inflated, stood tall, pushed out his chest.

I felt a rush of color and light around me. This is how it feels.

Abby fumbled around. She pulled the keys out of her bag. She threw them on the floor and they slid ten feet.

Terry looked at them for a second. He shook his head. He hissed, “Just like your mother. Rude and nasty.”

“Mom?” Abby shouted. “Rude? Are you kidding? She cowers around you!”

Terry started whining, mocking. “Why can't I drive the nice car? Why do you have to go to work so early? Why don't you take Nolan with you?”

“I hate you,” Abby said.

“You people drive me crazy,” Terry said.

“Asshole,” Abby whimpered.

“You think you're owed just because you were born.”

Abby started sobbing. I moved a step closer to Terry Sauter.

Terry didn't even look at me. “Ignorant bitch just like your…”

I slid toward Terry because I couldn't take it anymore.

“Thieving little bitch,” he said.

“That's it,” I mumbled.

“Get out of my house,” Jerri said.

I stopped. We all looked over at her.

“Get the hell out of my house.”

Terry looked stunned. “Me?”

“How can you speak to your own daughter like that? Get out right now or I'm going to let my son here tear you limb from limb. Do you understand?”

For the first time, Terry looked at me. I was close. He immediately deflated. He got tiny. “It's cool, buddy,” he said, putting his hands up like I had a gun on him. “It's cool.”

“Pick up your keys,” I whispered. I was trembling.

Terry slid over to his keys. He kept his eyes on me. He bent and picked them up and jammed them in his pocket. He stood straight, exhaled, and looked at Jerri. “I'm sorry,” he said. “I'm angry.”

“Go,” Jerri said.

Terry stood in front of us, shaking his head. “I'm sorry,” he said. “Please.”

I reached out and grabbed his wrist. I guided Terry to the door. “You can't be mean to people like that, okay?” I said.

He nodded. “I'll let myself out,” he said.

I let go. He left. We stood in this pressure, in this silence.

Then Jerri wheezed, “Oh my God, I'm sorry.” She turned to Abby. “I'm so sorry.”

And then Abby Sauter fell apart. She cried almost all night.

If she hadn't, I would've. I kept it together to keep Abby safe. I held her on the couch in the basement.

Around 4 a.m., Abby finally fell asleep.

I'd heard Jerri pacing upstairs for hours. When it was quiet, she came down.

She whispered, “I got a message from your grandfather. He'll be here in the afternoon.”

“Good,” I whispered.

Jerri shook her head. “I didn't know this was happening to you.”

“I know,” I whispered. “I'm going to sleep now, Jerri.”

She nodded and left the basement.

Spring

I Could Tell You

I could tell you that Coach Knautz didn't tell me the whole truth. I could tell you that by rule because my infraction was out of season, I only received an eight-week suspension. Knautz was a wreck when he found out I'd been hospitalized for an anxiety disorder. He'd tried to scare me straight! Not the best approach for this student-athlete, Coach! I could tell you about the Internet rumors of my drug use (I didn't show up at early invitationals) or how I worked as the team manager until April.

I could tell you about how good it felt to run with the team when I could finally run. The act of running (not running away) is reason enough to live. I could tell you about winning the 200 meters and the long jump at State. That was cool. Or how the team won State because that was great. Or how I raced Roy Ngelale just once at the meet, in the 100 meters final, and how I beat him but was beaten myself by a skinny blond dude in purple shorts, Jonathan Schindler, a sophomore from Waunakee. The kid was stunned. He was like, “I'm sorry, man. I'm so sorry.” He totally made me laugh. Where do all these dorky kids come from?

I could tell you about how I apologized to Karpinski and he said he had it coming and that his stupid dad actually loved the video because people talked about him in bars. I could tell you about Ryan Bennett's email, where he said he'd protect all the weak kids. I could tell you that Cody apologized to me and I hugged him and told him not to be an idiot because he's the best.

I could tell you about Cody's dad crying when he said he'd been the one to turn to turn me in. He's a cop. Of course he had to turn me in. He said, “You've been on the wrong side of a stacked deck so much.” I told him thanks, and I meant it because this shit was coming for me. This shit was going to happen sometime. I'm glad it happened while Abby was around, while Bluffton, Wisconsin, was there to pick me up.

Or I could tell you about Mercy Hospital in Dubuque and Grandpa and how we sat in the cafeteria one afternoon and he asked me to call him twice a week, minimum, to give him updates so he could monitor me and give perspective on my dad. He said I should never be ashamed. Once, he cried because his wife, my grandma, died before she could help me.

Or about how I have both a “potentiating” background and have exhibited multiple warning signs in “action” and “ideation” that made doctors call me a suicide risk. Isn't that weird? But I did have thoughts. But I don't want to die. Did Dad really want to? I won't ever know. That's okay.

Or about my psychiatrist, Dr. Green, who thought I should take meds to combat my problems. Andrew was with me on this one. We both said, “No way.” If it ever happens again—a break like that—I'll consider medication, okay? But I feel like I learned something. That talk therapy can work. It has worked. I still go twice a week (as well as calling Grandpa).

I could tell you about the time I complained to Dr. Green that I'd made my Stanford decision when I was a dickweed who couldn't think straight and she asked me to bring in my reasons for choosing Stanford, so the next time I brought in the list I wrote for Gus in the fall, thinking she'd see how messed up I was.

1.
Dude in dress served me iced tea.

2.
Cute guide didn't try to grab my wang.

3.
Library had leather couches.

4.
Kicker discussed Louis C.K.

5.
Frisbee players were very good.

6.
Fog on mountains.

She laughed while reading. She smiled. “You knew yourself pretty well, didn't you?” she said.

“Really?” I asked.

“You were looking for something specific from a school: accepting, ethical, intellectual, physically active, and beautiful.”

I thought for a moment. I said, “Yeah. That's right, I guess.”

“You wrote all that in this list, you know?”

“I guess I did.”

“Maybe those are your values?”

“Maybe?” I said.

“You're doing great,” she said. “Trust yourself. I love this list.”

I could tell you about the fire I had in May, when I asked Jerri to come out to the pit in our yard with me, where I intended to burn Dad's “I'm with Stupid” T-shirt. But she stopped me before I could do it. She said, “Haven't we made this mistake before?”

I looked at her, glowing orange in the same fire she'd made when I was little, in the fire Andrew used to burn his clothes a couple years back, and I nodded. “Holy balls, Jerri. We do this crap all the time, right?”

“We can't erase your dad. We can't fight him,” Jerri said.

“We should let him go.”

“Let him be a memory,” Jerri said.

“I bet he'd want me to remember not to be like him.”

“Right,” Jerri said, “He had problems, but…” Jerri swallowed. “He loved you.”

“I don't know, Jerri. That's okay.”

I folded up the shirt, walked with Jerri into the house. I put it back in my drawer. A month later, I put it in a box that was shipped to Palo Alto.

I could tell you that my barber, Frank, refused to cut my hair because I'd apparently cut him off on my bike in February. I'd apparently flipped him the bird when he honked. My Jewfro is wicked right now. I've gone six months!

I could tell you that Gus decided to break up with Maddie. The next day, they got together again, then he left for college in Massachusetts.

I could tell you that Andrew quit his Beach Boys cover band because he wants to concentrate on Buddhist meditation and thinks performance serves his ego (weird kid).

I could tell you that Aleah will be in San Francisco. She'll study music composition at the conservatory there. That's why she wanted me to call her. She wanted to ask my permission to go to school near me. Crazy. Of course I want her to go to school near me. Now we've talked. We've held hands. Fifteen days ago, we walked a trail to the top of Buena Vista Park.

I could tell you that Abby kept her Regents Scholarship and she'll do great at Wisconsin next year, but I don't know if she'll do great. That hasn't happened yet. We text a lot. She left for Madison yesterday afternoon. She texted,
here I go…

And here I am, sitting in my dorm room at Stanford. I'm eighteen years old. My roommate, T.J., a freshman linebacker from Idaho, is playing
Halo
on his Xbox. We've been in training camp for two weeks and it hurts. T.J. groans whenever he moves. It seems pretty clear that I'm going to play a lot this year, maybe be first team right from the start, play this hugely violent game because I love it (I do, Grandpa) and I'm good and I run plays half the time with the first team offense and that's great, fine, but what I really want to tell you is this:

We have problems, okay? We're also great. There aren't many rules and there are one million freaking hurdles for most of us. Do you know what I mean? Hamlet's mortal coil is real. It's tough. We can't run away. You are always with you. I'm always with me. We can't run away. But we're not written into a play, so we can choose how we act.

My grandma Berba came up for graduation. She bent me down and kissed my forehead. Grandpa Stan had early surgery on his hernia because it got bad, so he couldn't be there. I walked into the gym holding hands with my mom, Jerri. Andrew, my little brother, followed us in, shaking hands with everybody he saw (like a long-lost hero). Gus gave the valedictorian's speech. He played “O-o-h Child” through the P.A. system. Everybody cheered for him, and he said, “I am gone.”

After the ceremony, instead of going to the big M with our friends (we'd gone a bunch of times in late May, sat up there on the hill with them all, watching the twinkling lights of Bluffton come on), Abby sent a text to Cal, then we drove her crap Buick out to Cal's place one last time. She promised it wasn't for drinking. I believed her, of course. But I still felt nervous. (I still feel nervous a lot—but I'm better.) “It's okay, man. I have a graduation present for you. That's all,” she said.

When we got there, we found Cal standing out in front of his little schoolhouse holding the bike, an exact replica of the Schwinn my dad had ridden in college, the bike I rode while I grew from squirrel nut to mammoth jock. He'd fixed it completely. Refurbished it. He'd even repainted the cursive “Varsity” on its side.

I walked up to it, my heart pumping.

“Fully operational, kick-ass bicycle,” Cal said. “Your prom queen over there is a hell of a sweet girl.”

I turned to Abby, my mouth hanging open. “Oh shit,” I said.

“You like it?” she laughed.

“I love this bike so much,” I whispered.

“Ride it home, Felton. I'll follow you,” she said.

“Eighty fat ones, lady friend,” Cal said.

“I've got fifty bucks,” Abby said.

“Good enough.”

And I was already on my dad's bike, the good bike. What do I know about my dad? Speed. The best thing my dad and I share? Speed.

There was no thought on that bike, and in the dying light of the Bluffton June, I rushed into the wind and the weeds in the ditches blurred as I rode my dad's Schwinn Varsity faster and faster, the pool of Abby's headlights encompassing me, down the side of those southwestern Wisconsin bluffs, faster, the rush, so fast, I was stunned to find I'd gotten back into town so soon.

Abby pulled up next to me. “Good?” she shouted.

“You're my sister. I love you!” I shouted back.

But that's not the end.

We have problems, but we're so lucky too. That's the mortal coil. It's the whole thing, all of it, and it's easy to hate that mess in yourself, fight it, hate those who seem to cause it. But whoever we sit next to in school is the same and whatever jerk you read about on ESPN is the same and whoever honks their horn at you at the intersection is the same. They struggle. Do you know what I mean? They suffer too. We aren't alone.

Dr. Green says this is my guiding principle, something I've known without knowing and now I need to trust it, and I agree with her. I said it to her. We can act. Maybe not fix anything. But we can make it better for those others and that makes it better for us. I see it. I've seen it. Good comes back around.

The morning after graduation, I walked into the garage. Below the beam where my dad ended himself, Andrew sat balanced on my racing bike. We'd put down the seat so it fit him okay.

“Ready?” he asked.

I climbed on the Schwinn Varsity. “You?” I asked.

“I'm not the greatest cyclist,” he said. “Don't take off like a gorilla.”

“Try not to.” I smiled.

We pedaled down the hill and onto the main road that leads to our house. Golfers whacked balls at the country club above us. Bees hovered in the ditch on our right. Then we turned and headed into town.

We rode slowly because Andrew likes to talk. He played the remember game. “Remember when you buried yourself in leaves that one Halloween and Ken Johnson ran you over on his dirt bike?” Andrew asked.

“Yeah,” I said. “Barely.”

“You got a cut on your nose,” Andrew said.

“Really?” I didn't remember.

“Jerri said it helped your costume look more authentic.”

“What was I that year?” I asked.

“A turtle,” Andrew said. “A turtle with a bloody nose.”

It took us twenty minutes (Andrew screwing around) to get to Tommy Bode's house near downtown. There were no cars parked out front, so I was afraid we'd missed him.

But when I knocked, he came to the door. He wore the Bakugan T-shirt he had on the first day I met him. It wasn't so giant. He'd grown.

He looked right past me. “Hey!” he shouted. “Andrew Reinstein!” People love Andrew for some reason.

“Tommy,” I said, “We want you to try out a bike.”

“Why?” he asked.

“To see if you like it.”

“Okay,” he shrugged.

Andrew leaned and got off the bike. Tommy climbed on the thing.

It's a pretty sweet ride, a Cannondale. But I didn't really want two bikes at Stanford, and I wasn't going to give up the Schwinn ever again.

Tommy teetered a little, rolled.

“
Pedal
the
sucker,
” I shouted.

He pedaled and began to pick up speed on Fourth Street. I nodded at Andrew and took off after him.

We hit a stretch of five blocks with no stop signs. Tommy pedaled hard. “I've never gone so fast,” Tommy shouted as I pedaled up next to him.

“You're moving, man,” I said.

“I can go faster,” he said and really went. I had to change gears to keep up.

“You like it?” I shouted, after I pulled next to him.

“Hell yeah,” he cried.

“It's yours.”

Tommy hit the brakes and stopped. I stopped just in front of him, turned back to look at him.

“Why are you giving me your bike?” Tommy asked, breathing hard.

“Because I want to. Plus you have to move from sidekick to superhero, so you need some kick-ass equipment.”

“Dude,” Tommy said, “I am fast on this bike.”

I smiled so hard my ears hurt. “Dude, you are stupid fast on that bike.”

“Makes sense,” Tommy said. He cocked his head toward me. He nodded and, using his deep and gravelly superhero voice, growled, “I'm with Stupid.”

He took off up Fourth Street. He totally whooped as he rode.