Two Parties, One Tux, and a Very Short Film about The Grapes of Wrath (11 page)

“I'm just afraid I'll say the wrong thing.” My voice comes out quiet, almost believable. I don't look up for David's reaction.

We stand there. Months, maybe years go by and we don't say a word. Then we go into class.

Thud

We go watch David play baseball. Actually, we go watch David watch baseball, since he hasn't seen a minute of action all season. Making varsity doesn't mean that you play varsity.

We constitute a small crowd all by ourselves. Carrie and M.C. are here. So is Amanda. And my mother. Mom is here because Mom is a baseball fan. Mention baseball and she becomes another person. She cares deeply about who is on top in the American League. She always has an opinion on trades and salaries and which records require asterisks. She and David can sit happily in the kitchen arguing about who should have gotten the Cy Young and whether the Mets will suck again this year. Her own children, who have never showed any interest in the all-American pastime, are a disappointment to her.

So Mom is at the game, perched in the stands wearing
her Red Sox hat with a small ponytail sticking out the back. She gives a little wave to David, who smiles but does not wave back. His parents won't be here. He has told them not to come and they will be more than happy to oblige. He does not look up at me.

Although there were four of us in the minivan, I am the only one sitting with Mom. I wonder if I should be more self-conscious about sitting in the stands with my mother, but I don't really have much choice. Carrie would probably prefer a tonsillectomy to sitting near Mom at a baseball game. Between Mom's baseball cap and her regular, often vulgar taunting of the umpire, I can understand Carrie's embarrassment. But my mother would be offended if I left her by herself. I also don't have anyone else to sit with. As long as she doesn't hold my hand when she gets excited, which she has been known to do, I will sit with her. But I am not willing to hold hands with my mother in public.

Carrie is not a baseball fan. She's here mostly to scope out the players. I suspect that Amanda and M.C.'s presence is part of Carrie's prom strategy. Of the three of them, only M.C. looks like she is focused on baseball. She is sort of squinting at the field as if something is written on it explaining what is going on. Every once in a while she will clap, sometimes even at the right time. Mom whoops when we score on a well-hit double in the third inning. Following her lead, M.C. gives a little “Go Blue!”
cry, but it isn't convincing. I'm pretty sure she has no idea what she's watching.

I steal a glance at Amanda, who is sitting quietly beside Carrie, and I catch her eye by mistake. She smiles at me. I turn my attention back to the game in panic. We score another run and David stands up in the dugout to give a whistle and clap. High fives all around, as Glenn takes off his helmet and sits down. David may not be playing, but he looks right in his uniform. His blond hair sticks out from under his cap, framing his face. The shirt hangs well from his shoulders—he must be lifting weights. If he could ditch his glasses, he could be in a beer commercial. I try to imagine him through the eyes of the trio of females watching him from the stands. He's good-looking. I bet M.C. would think he has a nice butt.

At the top of the sixth, with one out, runners on second and third, the cleanup batter for the other team hits a hard line drive to our shortstop, who stops it short. Unable to decide whether to throw to first for the out or to the catcher to hold the runner on third, he instead hurls the ball straight into the home team dugout. I'm thinking error. I'm not sure whether David was attempting to catch it or just trying to get out of the way, but he half stands up, which puts him directly into the ball's flight path. There is a very loud thud, and now everyone is standing to watch David topple over the bench backward, taking the rest of the second string with him.

“I think he got it in the head,” Mom says, and she runs down the steps of the bleachers toward the dugout. Maybe she feels responsible for David as a surrogate parent. Maybe she just wants to see what happened. Three rounds of deciding I should go too and then deciding that I shouldn't, I decide I should and I follow my mother. She has a good lead on me, and by the time I get to the dugout she is talking to the trainer, who holds an icepack on David's head.

“He's fine, sweetie,” Mom tells me.

“It was just his head,” the trainer says, deadpan. “He wasn't using it much anyway. Although this may be a first for me.”

“What is?” asks David, who is now holding the icepack himself and looks a little firmer.

“I'm not sure we've had anyone who's managed to get injured while sitting on the bench. Usually you have to be in the game.”

No, no, no, yes, yes

Mom won't let David drive home in case he has a concussion or something. As a responsible parent, she decides to drive him home in his car so she can let his parents know what happened. I am instructed to take Amanda, Carrie, and M.C. home. Amanda didn't come with us, so I am a little suspicious about why I now need to give her a ride. Still, how much of a setup can this be? She didn't
bean David with a ball, and Carrie and M.C. are in the car with us. Carrie and M.C. race to the car to take the backseat and ensure Amanda rides shotgun. They aren't very subtle.

Amanda's idea of conversation is to ask lots of questions. It feels a little like an interrogation.

“Do you go to all the home games?”

“No.”

“Do you play baseball?”

“No.”

“Are you a Braves fan?”

“No.”

Without looking in the rearview mirror, I can tell that Carrie is groaning and rolling her eyes. She is so embarrassed by me.

Amanda goes to a lot of games, plays softball, and loves the Braves.

“Do you think David has a concussion?”

“No.”

“That must have really hurt, don't you think?”

“Yes.”

“Is David your best friend?”

“Yes.”

Amanda thinks it was probably just a bruise, but it does hurt and she knows because she once got walloped by a field hockey ball. Did I know she played field hockey too?

She grills me about what teachers I have for what subjects. My taste in music. Whether I've ever played a musical instrument. She's played cello since she was six. It is a long ride home.

Oh, yeah. Oops
.

Dad meets us at the door, looking for dinner. Dad can cook, but you have to tell him that he's supposed to or it just doesn't happen. If he hadn't married Mom while he was still in residency, he might have starved. Carrie shows him where the kitchen is and reminds him how to boil pasta. We are searching for something to put on it when the phone rings.

“Oh, yeah. Oops,” Carrie says. “I'll tell him. Hey, Mitchell, forget something?”

I can't think of anything.

“Do you want to go back and pick up our mother? We stranded her at David's house.”

Oh, yeah. Oops.

On the way home my mother tells me how worried she is about David. I listen carefully, because when she is worried about me she often expresses it in terms of her anxiety about David.

“I think he's too shy.”

David's not shy. No one would call him gregarious, but he's not shy.

“About girls.”

Oh.

“Has he asked M.C. to the prom yet?”

No. But I don't know if anyone has told him he's supposed to. I certainly haven't. Mom has been focused on the prom lately, partly because Carrie is obsessed with it and partly because she thinks it is a good opportunity for David and me to go out with girls.

“We haven't talked about the prom,” I tell her.

“What do you guys talk about?”

“Explosives, red meat, professional wrestling. You know, guy stuff.”

Normal

David has decided that we need to be more normal. That's what he says when he calls me. His head is just fine, we need to be normal, and he will be by to pick me up at 8:13. It's a Monday, but I don't argue. When he pulls up at 8:11, I ask where we are going and get a “just get in the car,” and so I do. He drives about a quarter of a mile from my house into what might be a future cul-de-sac. This end of the development is still being built; there are no houses on this little road, just a few large piles of dirt and some scrap wood that someone dumped here. It isn't scenic, but it's deserted. It occurs to me that this is the kind of place where you'd expect to find some couple parked making out.

“We are seventeen years old. We should be drinking
more.” David reaches behind the front seat and produces a brown paper bag. We get out of the car and sit on the curb. David pulls two beers from the bag and hands me one.

“Where did you get it?”

“My parents had a big party, and I lifted a six-pack. They weren't counting, so they'll never notice.”

I try to imagine David sneaking around his house with a six-pack and hiding it in his room. Where would he hide it? Under his bed? In his sock drawer?

I try to twist off the top, but David is prepared. He pulls out a Swiss Army knife and pries off the caps.

“I don't think I want to drink more,” I tell him. “The last time I got drunk was at my cousin's bar mitzvah. For some reason, the college student tending the bar was serving anyone over the age of thirteen. I guess he figured that we were adults by Jewish law so it was okay. I had five bourbon and gingers and threw up on the centerpiece.”

“Your problem,” David tells me as he readjusts his glasses, “is that you fear vomiting.” He takes a big swig of his beer, and then continues in a very authoritative way for someone who, up until tonight, only drank soda. “Men vomit. Men are not afraid to toss the cookies, worship at the porcelain palace, chew the cud …” He waves his hand around, searching for more metaphors.

“Spit the multicolored rainbow?”

“Exactly.” David opens his mouth as if he is about to
say something and lets loose a large belch. He smiles. “But if you don't wish to puke, it is important to burp,” he tells me sincerely. “Keeps the gas from building up in your stomach.”

I take a sip. “It's warm.”

“It's not like I could keep it in the refrigerator. So when did you become a beer connoisseur? It's good. They drink it warm in England.”

I don't think the English drink Bud Light warm, but I down some more to show I'm with him on this. David takes a few more glugs and makes a face. I don't think he's enjoying it much either.

“And we need to use more obscenities,” David continues. He has obviously been thinking this through. “We don't cuss enough. How's the fucking beer?”

It's warm and tastes like thin mucus. “Fucking great,” I say.

“Louder,” commands David. “We should be loud. HOW'S THE FUCKING BEER?”

“FUCKING GREAT,” I shout. It isn't much of a shout.

David drains about a third of his bottle. “And we should complain about our parents more.”

“Yeah, parents suck.”

We sit quietly. Since discussing Danielle's ass is off-limits, we are out of normal conversation.

David sighs and takes another pull from his bottle. I can tell he's trying to find words, but we don't
know how to talk about much beyond school, parties, baseball.

“Feels like we've been a little off lately,” he offers after a long silence.

“Sorry,” I say. I'm not sure what I'm apologizing for.

I look at David. How is he still so David? How can this gay, non-cell-phone-carrying, pineapple-pizza-eating brown-bagger be so goddamned normal?

He nods and rubs his nose. “Me too,” he says, but I'm not sure it's even an apology. Maybe this is the way real guys talk. It would be nice if we could manage longer sentences. Or more sentences.

I'm no better. I just shrug. We sit without talking. After a few minutes I'm desperate enough to bring up the prom.

“Carrie wants me to take Amanda to the prom.”

“You told me. What's wrong with that?” David seems rejuvenated by the change in topic.

“Do I like Amanda?”

“You think she has nice tits.”

Did I say that? I can't think of a good reason for me to have commented to David about Amanda's breast size, but I obviously had. “Does that make her a good prom date?”

“Does she want to go with you?”

“According to Carrie. She wants you to take M.C.”

“Do you think she'd go with me?”

I'm not sure how to answer that question. I know that I'm only required to give a monosyllabic response indicating affirmation or denial, so it should be pretty easy, but it feels so complicated. I think the answer is yes, but the answer is only probably yes if M.C. thinks that David wants to date her, which he doesn't, so maybe I should say no, but that isn't quite right because I'm sure that if he asked her she would. I hear David sigh. A sigh is a verbal shrug.

“Look, it's no big deal,” he says, as if he has been listening to my internal soliloquy. “I'd like to go to my prom and I get along really well with M.C. Why not?” All of which seems harmless enough.

“Are you going to tell her?” I ask.

I can't tell whether he's thinking or reacting. After a moment he gives a quiet “No.”

Male mail

We drink two beers apiece, and then David drives me home. Two beers doesn't seem like too much, and we were sitting and talking for a while. I decide not to make a big deal of it now, but I was much happier riding with him when he only drank Diet Cokes.

“I sent you a letter,” he tells me as we pull up in front of my house. “You'll probably get it soon.”

“The kind with a stamp?”

David shrugs, then nods, then shrugs again. This is a
confusing mix of signals. He seems to have forgotten his nonverbal vocabulary.