The Tragic Age (10 page)

“You
suck,
Ephraim.” I underline “suck.” I am truly pissed. Ephraim looks away, guilty. He should be.

“
Beowulf
can be seen as a
naked
battle for not just the
flesh
but the
soul
of the world.” In the large, color illustration on the whiteboard, Grendel appears to have a huge penis and a port-wine hemangioma on his face.

“I thoud we wer bruthers, Billy,” Twom writes in the notebook.

“We are,” I write back.

“R we?” writes Twom. “R we reely? Cuse when yu keep me in the dark, yu miht as well b lying to me. An bros do not ly.”

It suddenly seems obvious that text messaging was invented by people with learning disabilities.

“In
Beowulf,
good is not just the opposite of evil,” says Mrs. Soriano. “Good is the
avenger
of evil done to us in the past.”

“I em in,” writes Twom.

“No way,” I write.

“If he goes, I do too,” writes Ephraim. The brain-dead idiot has opened his own notebook. Unlike Twom's handwriting, which is heavy and clear, Ephraim's scrawl is just about illegible.

“No,” I write. “This is
my
gig.” I underline “my.”

“
ARS
,” writes Twom. He capitalizes and underlines “ars.”

“
EAT ME
.” I capitalize, underline, and italicize “eat me.”

Twom and Ephraim share a look. Twom nods to Ephraim as if to say, Go ahead.

“… you need my help to do this,” writes Ephraim. He hesitates and then writes the rest of it out fast, as if afraid not to. “Unless we can come … I won't.” He looks to Twom for approval. Twom nods again. I am truly disgusted. This is so obviously a setup.

“Then
don't
!”

I immediately realize I've sort of blurted this out loud by mistake. It's an appalling loss of control.

“Excuse me! Is there a problem back there?” says Mrs. Soriano. The aggrieved look on her face says that Grendel and Beowulf have pulled out and fled the bed. She's obviously not happy about it.

“No,” I say. “We're just comparing notes.”

“Unferth!”
hisses Mrs. Soriano. “Unferth is the Danish warrior who is
unwilling
to
engage evil,
thus proving himself
inferior
to Beowulf!”

When I look back down at my desk. Twom's—or is it Beowulf's?—notebook is back in front of me.

“We R yr whole in th wall gang.”

I don't know whether to laugh, scream, or cry. Probably Unferth didn't either. Twom just beams at me, happy as a clam in six feet of water.

I pick up my pen. “
Assholes
in the wall gang,” I write. I close the notebook.

Really, if there was good in the world, it would avenge the evil of people never shutting up, in person or in print.

 

26

“Count me in,” says Deliza.

It's several days later between classes, and through some mysterious but undoubtedly fevered alchemy, Twom and Deliza are an unembarrassed couple now, cruising the halls together, joined at the hip. Grief-stricken, the fat girl, Ophelia, has taken to a nunnery.

“Forget it!” I say. “The whole thing's off.”

I can't stand it. Right at the moment, I can't stand them. I turn and start walking. Of course, they follow me.

“Come on, dude,” says Twom, “what's one more?”

I shouldn't respond but I do. I should keep on going right to class but I don't. I turn and face them.

“How about five more?” I say. “How about a hundred more? We'll have a party! Invite a cast of thousands! Invite the whole world.” Even though I'm practically spitting in his face, Twom doesn't seem remotely perturbed or impressed. I suppose this is to be expected from someone who's used to being arrested.

“Tell me she can keep her mouth shut,” I say, gesturing at Deliza. “Tell me. No. Don't bother.” I turn to Deliza. “Because you can't!”

Deliza is wearing a sleeveless white top with thin, little lacy straps over her shoulders. She's wearing frayed, cutoff shorts that barely cover the bottom of her butt. Twom has told me Deliza never wears underwear. Along with the shorts, it's an unfair advantage.

“I don't go,” she says, “I tell everybody what you're doing. And if you don't go, I tell everybody you
planned to
.” She smiles pleasantly as if what she's just said remotely makes sense.

“She will, dude,” Twom says, loving every minute of it. He begins to chant like a dimwit at a basketball game.

“Bill-lee, Bill-lee, Bill-lee, Bill-lee—”

Deliza joins in. Her voice is low and seductive. “Oh, take me, Billy. Ooh, Billy, take me, big boy.” She reaches under my chin and gently rubs her fingers up and down my throat, as if she's jerking off my trachea. People are looking. People will look at anything. State of the Union addresses. Nervous breakdowns. Guys ejaculating through the top of their heads.

Fact.

Peer pressure is when friends attempt to influence how you think or act. When dealing with peer pressure it is important to analyze the situation, consider the consequences, make a rational decision, and then voice that decision.

“NO WAY!”

Sidebar.

The problem is you have to follow through.

 

27

It's eleven-thirty at night when we come over the wall into the Aavetzes' backyard.

All is going according to plan.

It has taken Ephraim about two seconds to confirm that newspapers keep their subscribers on an automated database. Unlike the Taylors, most people who go out of town put a hold on their paper over the phone or the Net. The hold is kept on record. Stop date. Start date.

The Aavetz family's last name begins with
A.
Their house is on the flats of High School Highville, not far from the ocean. It is an older neighborhood of medium to large houses. I've walked by and around the Aavetz house three times in the last five days. The front of the house is hidden by a hedge. The metal gate to their front walk is set into two stone pillars. There is a flowered trellis over the gate. The Aavetz family keeps the gate locked. The plaque by the mailbox says they call their house Casa Mañana, which, I hope, translates as “we will be home tomorrow.” There is a small sign stuck in the ground.
NATIONAL HOME SECURITY
.

Ephraim cross-references the Aavetzes' name and address with their security company. National Home Security's data has no record of them being out of town for the weekend but it does have the code to turn off the system. The Aavetz family pays National Home Security forty dollars a month for their due diligence.

The rear of the house is easily accessible from the alley that abuts the Aavetz garage. It's a quick step up onto a rubbish bin and then we climb over the wall. We are not dressed in black. Ephraim wanted to but was told that only morons who have played too many video games wander around in black ninja pants and hoodies late at night. If anyone sees us, we are high school students walking home from the 7-Eleven where the honest shopkeepers have refused to sell us beer. As we hurry up to the back door of the house, I can't help but feel, with some satisfaction, that I've thought of everything.

“The door's locked,” Twom says.

I'm totally stunned to realize I haven't thought of everything.

“What do you mean, locked?” says Ephraim.

“Locked is locked, you know what ‘locked' means?” says Twom, sounding annoyed.

“What, did you all think it
wouldn't
be?” says Deliza, as if she's talking to a trio of idiot monkeys. “Or did you not think about it at all?” Her aggrieved sigh tells you that the older guys she dates don't make amateur mistakes like this.

I turn the doorknob right, left, right, as if it might have a secret combination that I'm going to stumble on.

“Smart, Billy,” says Deliza. “Really smart.” Meaning dumb. And I am. All my planning, undone by a doorknob.

“Let's just get out of here before somebody sees us,” says Ephraim. His voice is shrill. He's starting to panic. Ephraim's the kind of guy who would panic if a mosquito attacked.

“No,” I say. “Just let me think.”

“You do that, Billy,” says Twom. “You think.” Twom steps into the flower bed, picks up a medium-sized rock and tosses it underhand through one of the back door's windowpanes.

“Are you crazy?” says Ephraim, a microsecond before I'm about to say the same thing “You can't break things!”

“Will you shut up?” says Twom. He reaches through and unlocks the door from the inside. The alarm goes off as he opens the door and enters. We all scramble through after him, circus clowns clambering out of a miniature car. The alarm is wailing. I turn to Ephraim. Our tech man. Our expert. Unflappable.

“What's the security code, Ephraim?”

“We've got to get out of here!” says Ephraim.

“Shut up, you asshole,” says Deliza.

“Ephraim, the code!” I say.

“
You
shut up!” says Ephraim, glaring at Deliza.

“Don't tell her to shut up!” says Twom, pushing Ephraim.

“The code, Ephraim!”

“I'm leaving,” says Ephraim. He looks like he might cry.

“Ephraim,” I say, raising my voice, “what's the code!”

“I don't know what I
did
with it!”

“Aw, shit,” mutters Twom. He looks resigned, as if yet again a punishable crime he's involved himself in isn't going quite according to plan.

I grab Ephraim by the shirt collar. His face is pasty white with fear. His pimples stand out like polka dots. His breath would kill an elephant.

“Ephraim,” I say. “The code.” I'm very quiet. “Please. “

Trembling, Ephraim reaches into his pants pocket. He comes out with a small, wadded slip of paper. It looks like a spitball, something you'd blow out a straw.

“Good,” I say, letting him go. “Take your time. No mistakes.”

Ephraim nods. He unwraps the spitball. Glancing at the paper, Ephraim punches in the security code, carefully hitting the keys one at a time. The alarm stops. We breathe a collective sigh of relief. We collectively jump out of our skins as the telephone rings. I let it ring twice more. I answer.

“Hello,” I say.

“This is National Home Security,” says the voice on the phone. “We have a signal here that your alarm has gone off?”

For their forty dollars a month, I'm sure the Aavetz family will be happy to know that National Home Security is on the job.

“Yeah, sorry,” I say. “We were coming home, my Dad accidentally broke a window.”

“May I have your password, please,” says National Home Security.

“Just a second,” I say. I cover the phone's mouthpiece with a hand. “Password?” I say to Ephraim.

Ephraim looks at the little slip of paper. He squints.

“Tickety-boo,” says Ephraim.

“What the fuck kind of a password,” says Twom, “is—”

Deliza shushes him, cutting him off. “You're sure?” I say to Ephraim. “It's not Tickety-Bill or Tickety-Bob, it's Tickety-boo?”

Ephraim nods. “Tickety-boo,” he says.

“Tickety-boo,” I say to the phone.

“Thank you and have a nice night,” says the voice of the National Security Company. They hang up. Ephraim, Twom, and Deliza are staring at me with nervous, expectant faces. I let them sweat for a moment.

“We're in,” I say.

 

28

We're like forest children who have never been inside a house before. Once we know we're safe, we make ourselves at home.

Ephraim hits the kitchen. In the cupboard he finds Fritos and cookies. In the refrigerator, he finds ice cream and cans of soda. He takes his stash into the family room where he finds an old Sony PlayStation and some first- and second-generation video games. He is like a collector who has stumbled upon a horde of valuable antiques, and he settles in, thrilled and happy, noshing and nuking.

Twom and Deliza are already pulling off their clothes as they go running down the hall. Their plan is simple. The house is one big honeymoon suite and they are going to christen every room.

I explore. The Aavetz house is low-key in a way that reminds me of Gretchen's. The furniture is old, used-looking stuff but polished and well maintained. There are sterling silver bowls and trays on sideboards which, if I was a thief, would be out the door already. Mr. Aavetz is an audiophile who listens to jazz and classical music on vinyl records using a Clearaudio Concept turntable. Mrs. Aavetz seems to like crossword puzzles. Judging by the photographs they have a son and a daughter, both married. They have two grandchildren. Mr. Aavetz drives a Toyota hybrid, Mrs. Aavetz an old Audi station wagon.

The Aavetzes sleep in separate bedrooms. Mr. Aavetz's bed is covered by a plaid cotton quilt. There are books and reading glasses next to the bed. Mr. Aavetz likes biographies. Mrs. Aavetz's bed is the bed they used to share. It's a king. It's covered by a white cotton duvet. Mrs. Aavetz likes to read crime thrillers and mysteries.

I sit on Mrs. Aavetz's bed. It has a pleasant smell to it, like something freshly washed. The cotton of the duvet has a high thread count and is very smooth. I settle back. The ceiling is plastered. The way it's been applied, in broad swirls, makes you think of clouds. I can sleep here. There are no dreams or ghosts in the Aavetzes' house, or if there are, they're not mine.

I close my eyes.

When I look up, the digital clock on the bedside table reads 1:13
A.M.
I've only been asleep for about an hour and a half but I feel rested. The house is quiet. There is the smell of bacon in the air.