Palo Alto Stories

Usually I liked Wilson, but he seemed different now, like a clown. After class, I stuffed all my drawings into a trash can. Beth came out of the bathroom with clothes on and saw me trashing the drawings of her. She was wearing blue sweatpants and a black hooded sweatshirt like she was a regular person. She didn’t say anything.

Instead of going home, I started walking toward Barry’s house. I didn’t care if April was there, I was ready to get high and not think about anything. The night was cold and I hunched with my hands in my pockets and my sketchbook under my arm, and there was a low orange moon, almost full, and huge because it was so low. And I didn’t care.

I got to Barry’s a little after ten thirty; I walked through the ivy-lined pathway on the side of the house, and the heart-shaped leaves against my face were cold. At the back of the house the curtain was closed behind the sliding glass door that led to Barry’s room. I heard voices and I tapped lightly. Barry’s sea lion face appeared, scruffy and round. When he saw it was me he smiled and slid open the door.

“Welcome, motherfucker,” he said. It was warm and dark inside. He had his lights off and his blacklight on, so the Zeppelin poster and the Crumb KEEP ON TRUCKIN’… poster were glowing in bright greens and pinks. On the floor there were about eight people sitting in a circle.

“Teddy,” someone said, “siddown and get ready for the magic carpet ride.” I sat down and I saw that it was Bill. He put his arm around me for a second and squeezed my shoulder. He must have been excited because that was a lot of talking and touching for him. Fred was also there, and Ed, and Ivan, and Ute, and Jack Canter, and Tim Astor. No girls; no April. Barry continued packing his green three-foot bong.

“The skull bong!” said Fred. And everyone else said, “The skull bong!” Because the bowl of the bong was shaped like a gri

“And the official first crop of the Chambers homegrown!” said Barry, and everyone cheered. Then he put the bong to his mouth and lit the bowl, and in the light from the flame his round face turned orange as he sucked and the water bubbled, and the glass of the base was thick with smoke. Barry pulled on the stem and the smoke went up into his throat. He held it in and made little guppy sounds and then let it out and coughed and everyone cheered.

The bong went around, and when it got to me I sucked as hard as I could, and when I saw the green tube was packed tight with smoke I sucked it up like a soul. It went right to the center of me and I knew that that one hit was going to take me over. I let it out and choked hard and by the time I got my breath back I was already high. I didn’t mind Bill or Fred or anything. The bong kept going around and I started smiling.

Bill patted me on the back again. “See, Teddy, all is gooood.It’s like we’re at the fucking beach.”

“The beach?” I said. Bill was smiling so big, so many teeth.

“Yeah,” he said, and giggled. “Can’t you feel the sun, buddy? We’re at the fucking beach.” He really liked that idea because he was looking up at the ceiling with his arms spread as if there was a sun up there and he was soaking up the rays.

“You’re a Mongoloid,” I told him. He laughed.

“A mongo-what?” he said, but he didn’t want an answer because he started laughing and couldn’t stop.

Then across the circle Fred said, “Hey, Barry, where the fuck is April? Did you fuck her yet?”

Everyone got interested and Barry was quiet for a second. Then in a low voice he said, “Yeah, I did.”

“No shit? Did the deed?” said Jack. “Your fucking first, right?”

“Yeah,” said Barry, but he was being a little shy.

“That’s fucking great,” said Bill. “I told you to fuck that shit!” and he started laughing at himself again. Everyone congratulated Barry: “Nice one,” “Good work, pimp,” “She’s fucking hot,” “That ass…” He let them say their stuff for a minute, and then he said, “No, it’s bullshit.”

“You didn’tfuck her?” I said.

“No, I did, but the whole situation is bullshit. She’s fucking crazy. I mean reallycrazy. Like I think she got molested or something.”

“Why the fuck would you say that?” I said. “Did she tell you?”

“No, but I can just tell,” he said.

“Wadda you mean?” I said. “You mean you’re just making that up because you thinkyou can tell.”

“You cantell those things,” said Fred.

“Oh, shut the fuck up, Fred, no you can’t,” I said. “And how the fuck would you know, you little troll, you haven’t been with a girl in your life.”

“Fuck you, Teddy,” said Fred. “You’ve only been with Horse Face, Dog Bite Shauna Woo.” Everyone laughed and oohed.

“Shut up, Fred,” I said. “You don’t know shit.” And that was the end of it. I couldn’t bring up April again. Barry had done it with her, the girl I loved, and it had meant nothing to him; Tanya would die and no one would care; and there were billions of bodies alive on earth and they would all be buried and ground into dirt; and Picasso was a master at age sixteen and I was a perfect shit.

Everyone smoked more and we listened to music. Bob Marley was on and there was a line in a song he kept repeating: “The stone that the builder refuse / Will always be the head cornerstone.” After the third time he sang it Barry asked everybody what they thought it meant.

“It’s from the Bible,” I said. “The meek will inherit the earth, or something like that.”

“Why will the meek inherit the earth?” said Ute. “I never understood that.”

“Jesus said it,” said Jack.

“I know, but why?” said Ute. “Why will they? And how?”

Ed said, “They won’t.”

Everyone thought about that and shut up.

I had a bad weekend. I didn’t do anything. I just watched Point Breakagain and read some of Crime and Punishment.On Tuesday I went back to the Towers after school. I was almost done with all my hours, and then I knew I would never go back there. When I got to twelve Brian was there, carrying the television. The screen was cracked and there were dark spots behind the cracks. The TV wasn’t big but Brian was struggling a little.

“Hey, help me with this thing,” he said. I took one end and we carried it together into the elevator. “One of the zombies fell on it and knocked it over.”

“Is everyone okay?”

“Yeah, I think so. The guy was fine. They won’t even miss it; they can’t understand what they’re watching anyway.”

“Yes they can.”

“Are you kidding me? Those people are gone.They don’t know what’s happening. Two of them thought I was their son, and I’m Chinese.”

“They’re still people.”

“Whatever that means. The more time I spend here, I think more and more about how they’re just these bags of guts being wheeled around, and it’s like the gears are turning inside, but just out of habit, nothing is alive.”

At the ground floor we went outside and around to the back where the Dumpsters were. We did three windup heaves and then let the TV go into the back of one of the Dumpsters. The screen shattered and the body settled among the papers and cardboard.

Back upstairs, one of the orderlies came up to me. His name was Manuel, he was about twenty-five, and had a kind face.

“Hey, Tanya’s daughter came by and saw the pictures you made of Tanya. She liked them.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, you should go see her. Room twelve twenty-six.”

I walked over to Tanya’s room. Inside, it was dark. The overhead light was on, but it was weak and had a green cast. There were two beds in the room; Tanya was sitting on the edge of one, staring at the floor. The other bed had a naked mattress on it. I said hello and she looked up, and when she saw it was me she gave me her smile. I walked over and sat on the empty mattress across from her. Our knees were almost touching because the room was so small.