Sex & Violence Read online

  “My mom’s nuts,” Tom said, catching me looking at the nude lady picture.

  “Your dad probably doesn’t mind.”

  “She teaches theater arts,” he said, as if that explained it. “So there’ll be fairy costumes and shit at our Midsummer Party in June. I’m just warning you now.”

  “I hate the Midsummer Party.” It was Jim of the piano-key teeth, holding a bag of Chili Cheese Fritos and shoving them into his mouth by the handful. “It’s so gay.”

  We all went to sit down in the TV room, where Taber The Giant was stretched out watching SportsCenter.

  “When’s the Midsummer Party?” I asked.

  “June 20,” Tom said, sounding tired, as if it he was the one making the fairy costumes himself.

  June 20 was my birthday. I was turning eighteen. Though I would be a senior—if I bothered to set foot in a school again, that is—I was always the oldest kid in my class, as my mother had held me back from kindergarten. My mother hadn’t been one of those grasping, hovering moms—I mostly remember her as a very calm woman who was always reading—but apparently she thought me too much of an idiot to handle sitting still for storytime with everyone else. But for some reason, being held back like this made me feel stupid, so I never mentioned my birthday as a rule.

  “We should do the ’shrooms on Midsummer,” Jim said. “That would make it less gay.”

  “Looking at a bunch of glitter and rainbows isn’t gay enough?” Tom asked. “You want to hallucinate on top of that?”

  “I can’t figure out what Baker’s mom is doing with that gay guy,” Taber said suddenly. “I mean, he teaches yoga? To goats?”

  This was very funny to me, mostly because Taber talked very slowly, like he’d taken too many hits on the football field without a helmet.

  “It’s a sheep farm,” Jim said. “Keir just teaches yoga on the side. But they sleep together,” he added. “Baker says they share a bedroom.”

  “Maybe they just do each other’s hair?” Tom said.

  “No, it’s some fucked-up feminist thing,” Jim shook his head. “Some shit where you act as gay as Christmas and women think it’s hot. At least weird professor women like Brenda think it’s hot.”

  “What’s she a professor of?” I asked.

  “History or something.” Jim was all pissy, like it made him mad that people did history for a career. “I think the dumb non-monogramy thing was Brenda’s idea too.”

  I was kind of loving it that he mispronounced this again and might have laughed, but I had to let it ride, since he’d been smoking weed and I was lucky to string together three words in a row when I was high.

  “What does that even mean?” Tom asked.

  “It’s like an open relationship,” Jim explained. “We’re together, but we can see other people. She said it’s that or we just break up completely. At first, I was like, ‘Okay, is this a trick?’” Jim’s head lolled back on the sofa, like he was exhausted by such complexity. “She thinks it’ll make it easier when we leave for college, because she doesn’t believe in long-distance relationships.”

  “Where’s Baker going to college?” I asked.

  “Out in Oregon somewhere. But I don’t think she’ll hook up with anyone else. She’s so fucking picky about everything. Like she’ll be able to find anyone who’ll do everything how she wants.” He didn’t sound exactly smug about this but more like he recognized that his own stellar capacity struggled to keep up with her requirements.

  Aside from his super-white teeth—which were somewhat gay to me, in all their upkeep—Jim was a handsome guy. Easy to see why any girl would want him. He had normal hair—not all gelled and stupid—and the muscles I would like to have but never do because the strutting-douche quotient in school weight rooms is always too high. Still, Jim looked like the kind of guy whose favorite place to eat was a sports bar. Who’d probably grow up to be the vice president of something and make more money than was reasonable and who’d marry a superhot chick but still secretly go to titty bars. I naturally leaned toward hating such a guy—would’ve hated him before my elf ears and chemo hair patheticness too.

  “Hey, maybe all the girls will decide to go for that … thing,” Tom said, not mentioning non-monogamy, as if he wasn’t sure how it was truly pronounced.

  Then Kelly K. dribbled into the room, looking all girl-wasted, and saying, “Tommmmmm … ” in that dragging way that girls must think is appealing but I’ve always found to be a dick-shriveler. I stood up to head out.

  “Loadie party, dude,” Taber said, holding out his concrete block fist to me so I could bump it. Then, because I suddenly felt like I would die if I couldn’t get in my bed, far away from everyone, I followed Tom and Kelly out, where they staggered and veered off toward the compost patch presumably for some kind of groping that didn’t involve penetration. My father was now talking to the gay, yoga-sheep-farming, feminist boyfriend, looking like he was actually enjoying himself, and I shuffled home without saying good-bye to anyone. Not that I could remember their names, to start with.

  Back home in the bathroom, feeling panicked and a little drunk, I trimmed my hair with the scissors I kept in my shave kit, snipping a bit on my left ear, which bled like hell until I wrapped it in toilet paper. I stripped out of my shitty, bonfire-smelling clothes and got in bed, eager for descriptions of beaver dams and the sound of waves from the open balcony window to knock me into the usual oblivion.

  But just as E. Church was lulling me into my coma, I realized that the only person who didn’t declare her Last Chance Activity was Baker. She had asked everyone else to say theirs but hadn’t spoken hers. Was that because there was too much a bossy, virgin girl like her had left to experience? I thought about how weird she was. Her name, her mix of normal and deviant. Her potty mouth, her tour guide act. Her nice legs and cute face. It was a long time before I slept.

  Dear Collette,

  Say it’s your last summer before college. Or your last summer after high school. Whatever. Going to college for me sounds like going to Mars. Anyway. What would you do, your last summer? Your Last Chance to hang out with the same people you’ve gone to school with this whole time? What would you do?

  Except, that doesn’t really work for you and me. Because you’ve switched schools and so have I. Maybe you have old friends in Boston? I don’t know anyone. Anyway. What would you do? Your last summer as a teenager. Kinda. WHATEVER. I’m trying to come up with something myself.

  Nothing sexual, for one. That’s been done, and while I’d hope to have it happen again sometime before I hit the old coffin, it’s not exactly on the urgent must-do list.

  And I don’t need to try any drugs or whatever. I mean, I like getting drunk and smoking weed here and there, but I’m not crying out to learn what crystal meth feels like or anything.

  I guess I just don’t want to do anything risky with my body. Not anymore. My body is so fucked up, and I feel like an old man sometimes. So cliff jumping or skydiving or driving at high speeds (my car’s a fucking Subaru, which disqualifies it from coolness in all ways) all sound like terrible ideas. I don’t want to get in a fight with anyone. I think I got that experience covered.

  All I talk about is shit I don’t want to do. I don’t even know what I like.

  Later, Evan

  CHAPTER FOUR

  My father must have drank too much at the bonfire, because it was almost noon and he was still in bed. This was his first hangover I’d ever been aware of, and it was working in my favor so far. Across the way, I could see Baker and her mom and Gay-Yoga-Sheep Guy setting up food around a picnic table.

  I went to brush my teeth and have my daily staredown with the shower. Pushing back the curtain, I didn’t see any spiders, just one of those ladybug things that aren’t ladybugs but some kind of exotic beetle. I smelled like hell since I couldn’t go in the lake last night because of the bonfire. But even reaching out to turn the water on freaked me out. So I just wiped down my pits with a washcloth, put on deodorant, t
rimmed down my hair a little more, and got dressed.

  Then I drove as quietly as I could up the drive and then into Marchant Falls to this place called The Donut Co-op to eat breakfast and read Under the Waves. I rang the counter bell, and the guy who came out gave me a two-for-one on the donuts and free refills on coffee and didn’t care that I sat there all afternoon reading about the life cycle of the mayfly, as presented by my boy E. Church Westmore. I was about to mark my place in the book, when I came to this passage:

  Formally known as Two Storey Island, later shortened to Story Island, this formation has been a distinct feature of Pearl Lake since time immemorial. Purchased in 1859 by Anson F. Archardt, it was left inviolate for over fifty years until noted lumber baron Barrett A. Archardt decided to fortify the property with boulders to prevent erosion and build his family a lake house on it. Archardt intended it as a vacation home for his wife and three young children, but tragically Archardt’s wife drowned not long after completion. Archardt then leased the property to Kent County, on the strict condition it be preserved in perpetuity as a sanctuary for loons.

  I drove around Marchant Falls, killing time, wondering how long a barbecue could last. I went into Cub Foods and got a bag of chips and a soda and saw they were hiring. My father paid for the car and insurance but had said gas was my responsibility, so I needed a summer job. That was one thing he always insisted on, wherever we lived—that I got some kind of parttime job. I grabbed an application from customer service and headed back home.

  Once in the drive, I could see the empty picnic table at Baker’s cabin. Evidence of a barbecue but no people. I went into our cabin, flopped on the sofa and drank my soda and ate my chips. I thought about Story Island. The sanctuary for loons, the abandoned house, the motherless children. Barrett Archardt and his drowned wife. I thought of him holding her in their old-time clothing and her saying, “Oh, Barrett” all breathy, which was ridiculous, because what chick could get all worked up over anyone named “Barrett”?

  The house was quiet and the sun was starting to go down and I realized that I would have nothing to do except wait until it was time to get in bed. That and the motherless children and the poor bastard named Barrett abandoning his house because he lost his wife and everything else gave me this feeling I thought of as being Almost-Weepy. Which had been happening to me since I was eleven when my mom died. Almost-Weepy was where you felt bad enough but just a little too dry to actually weep. Though Almost-Weepy was probably better than being Actual-Weepy.

  There was a knock on the door. More of a banging, actually, and I jumped up. Was this another thing about life on the east side—people demanding shit of me at all hours?

  It was Baker Trieste. She looked frantic and apologetic and her hair was all over her shoulders and I could see through her thin white shirt that she wore a striped bikini top as her bra and I felt thankful for that, because I hadn’t noticed how nice her rack was the night before, which gave me something else to think about besides being Almost-Weepy. She was also holding a red gas can, which said she actually needed something real, not just to be social endlessly or something.

  “Evan,” she said. “I’m so glad you’re home. I need to ask you a huge favor.”

  My father chose this moment to wander out of his bedroom then, looking like he’d slept in his Dockers and T-shirt.

  “Oh, hello,” he said to Baker, running his hand over his bald head, as if to freshen up. “I’m afraid I missed your barbecue. Did Evan here go?”

  “No, actually, he didn’t,” she said, tipping her head and looking a little peeved at me.

  “Sorry,” I said.

  “I’m here to ask you a favor, Mr. Carter,” Baker said, in this responsible, student-council-vice-president voice. “My friends ran out of gas, and they’re out in the middle of the lake stranded on their pontoon. And Keir hasn’t got our boat off the lift yet. I was wondering if Evan could take me out there with my gas can.”

  “Of course Evan would love to help you out.” My father nicked the boat keys off the hook and tossed them to me, and I was so surprised I didn’t catch them. Smooth. Baker bent over and picked them up.

  “We’ll be right back, Mr. Carter,” she said. “And some of the kids are getting together a few cabins down to watch movies tonight too. Can Evan come?”

  My father grinned, like Baker had just offered him a million dollars and not a big fat lie making Jim’s party sound like the polar opposite of the keg-stand pukefest I’m sure it would be.

  “Of course!” he said. “Of course, Evan can go!”

  I wanted to kill him, but fifteen minutes later, Baker and I were in my boat, approaching Story Island, the sun setting orange all around us. The island was almost frightening now, as the sunlight intensified how dense and overgrown it was. There was no dock access and along with the cattails, there were now lily pad-like things and fresh green reeds shooting up around the boulders, complicating everything with their little clots of bugs snarling around in the fading light.

  I was thinking Story Island was more of a penal colony than a vacation home getaway, when Baker explained to me that though the party was out at Jim’s, Jim and Skinny Blonde Chick Conley and Titanic Taber had gone out on Taber’s pontoon for some reason. Conley called Baker from the pontoon, freaking that they were out of gas.

  “Conley always has to fucking pre-party,” Baker said.

  I hated it when people used the word “party” as a verb, but I didn’t mention this to Baker, because she sounded pretty mad. Also, I was wondering what exactly a “pontoon” was. It sounded like Minnesota slang for “vagina.”

  “They’re around here somewhere,” Baker said. “Conley said they were near Story Island.”

  We slowed and circled the island until we saw them, and I realized that “pontoon” didn’t refer to girl bits but one of those flat-bottomed boats, a floating platform on which the youth of Pearl Lake thought it wise to “pre-party.” As we neared the pontoon, I silently wished Baker would just chuck the gas can at them so I could peel off and get back to my life reading Under the Waves and avoiding all these fucking people, but then Taber and Conley waved at us.

  “Anchor us here,” Baker said. “I’ll moor us to that No Trespassing sign.”

  That seemed like a terrible idea, but I did what she said.

  My boat slid next to the pontoon, and Taber’s huge blond self stood up and reached over for the gas can. I thought that would be it, but then Conley screamed, “Jim’s on the island! He’s out of his mind!”

  We looked over, and sure enough, we could see someone sitting on the scum-covered rocks. Jim. Shirltless, wearing big Oakley sunglasses and track pants and those athletic sandals with the knobby soles that I cannot stand.

  “What the fuck is he doing?” Baker asked, looking at the rings of boulders that I knew Barrett Archardt had used to bolster the shoreline of his island and protect it from erosion. But I didn’t mention this trivia to her. She sounded very angry.

  “I’ll go get him, Baker,” Taber said. “Just let me finish the gas thing.”

  “No, I need to talk to him,” Baker said. And she jumped out and waded toward the rocks through a bunch of dead cattails.

  “Tell him if he gets busted, I’m going to kill him,” Conley yelled at Baker, who didn’t turn around. “This was all his idea.”

  Baker continued grimly up the rocks. I just sat there silently watching her like a dipshit. What else was I going to do? Talk sports with Taber?

  “Baker! Baby! You’re here! Your hair is sparkling!” Jim shouted.

  He kissed her then and babbled a bunch of other crap I couldn’t hear. I considered my options. Start up the motor and leave? Jump overboard and swim home? But then I couldn’t resist eavesdropping on her yelling at him. Stuff like, “You’re having people over tonight?” and “Your ears are totally infected? Why the hell did you pierce them, anyway?”

  Jim tried to paw her some more, but she wasn’t having it. We all watched as she bitched
at him to climb down and slosh through the water. Then, horrifyingly, she led him to my boat.

  “Who the fuck’s this dude?” Jim said. He sounded all breezy and entitled, like he wasn’t soaking wet and wearing track pants, and his girlfriend wasn’t holding his stupid little athletic sandals for him.

  “It’s Evan,” she said. “You met him last night!”

  “Good to meet you, dude.” Jim smiled. With his freaky bleached teeth, he looked like a drunk toothpaste commercial.

  Baker was buckling his life jacket for him like he was an infant, when suddenly he pitched his head over the side and barfed. A big gnarly awful barf with all these terrible choking noises. Finally, he took off his sunglasses and sat up, wiping his mouth.

  Baker said, “Jesus, Jim! What the hell? And what’s with your eyes? You’re pupils are fucking huge!”

  Jim put his cheesy sunglasses back on, and then I figured it out.

  Jim waved Baker away from him while Conley and Taber watched from the pontoon rail.

  “I told you, it’s normal, Con,” Jim yelled to Conley. “I’m surprised you haven’t yakked yours up yet.”

  “I don’t want to barf!” Conley screamed. “I hate barfing!”

  “Don’t barf on my pontoon.” Taber’s huge body dwarfed Conley’s skinny one in concern. Conley shushed him. Baker unmoored us from the sign while I pulled up the anchor, and then she yelled to Conley and Taber that we’d meet them at Jim’s.

  We docked, and Jim staggered toward his cabin, which was dark but humming with party noise. Baker watched him go but didn’t move. I sat there for a minute, wondering what her deal was, until she said, “Just head back to your house, Evan. I’m sorry. He’s just … I don’t know. He’s gone a little overboard; he’s been repressed for so long.”

  She didn’t have to tell me twice. I got us out of there, and a minute later, she was mooring the boat to my dock.