I can feel my eyes welling up, so I look down at my feet and extend the pink rectangle toward Baback.
He takes the envelope and says, “Why are you telling me this today, Leonard?”
“I just needed to give this to you. It’s a present.”
“Why’s it wrapped in pink?”
“The color isn’t really significant.”
“Am I not getting something here?” he asks.
I sort of hope he’ll figure out it’s my birthday, but I’m not sure why. Still, I get excited thinking that he might guess it.
He peels off the wrapping paper, opens the envelope, reads the check I wrote out to True Democracy in Iran, and says, “Is this some sort of joke?”
“What? No. It’s a check to help aid the freedom fighters in your country.”
“You really expect me to believe this is real?”
“It’s my college fund. I’m not going to college. I didn’t even take the SAT.”
“Why are you messing around like this? Do you even know what it’s like for people living in Iran? This isn’t a joke, Leonard. Some things you can’t joke around about.”
“I know. That check is real. I swear to god. Send it to the cause. You’ll see. I hope the money helps the struggle. It’s my entire college fund. My grandparents left me a ton of cash.”
“What’s wrong with you?”
“I thought you’d be happy.”
He sighs and runs his hands through his hair, which is hanging freely to his shoulders today.
“Listen, I appreciate your sticking up for me when we were sophomores and I appreciate your . . . support. I get that you’re a little off. That you march to your own drummer or whatever. I’m okay with that. But I’ve never done anything to you—never been mean at all—and yet you walk in here and insult me with this fake six-figure check. My grandparents have endured innumerable . . . you have no idea how hard it was for my family and . . . you know what,” he says while putting his violin away, “I don’t think I’m going to play today. And I don’t think I want you listening to me anymore. Your being in the back of the auditorium—just sitting there every day—it’s really starting to creep me out.”
“The check’s real,” I say.
“Okay, Leonard.”
“I’m fucking serious. That check is real! You’re being an asshole. Go to the bank right now and you’ll see what an asshole you’re being.”
“Why are you wearing that hat?” he says. “Did you cut off your hair?”
I look at him and can tell he doesn’t really like me.
I was right; just as soon as you take the first step toward getting to know someone your own age, everything you thought was magical about that person turns to shit right in front of your face.
He’s looking at me like he loathes me—like my face disgusts him—and I just want him to stop.
“Maybe you should talk to someone,” he says. “Like Guidance.”
“I tried talking to you and look where that got us.”
“Listen, you obviously have problems, Leonard. I’m sorry for that. I really am. But there are people with worse problems than yours, I can assure you this. Leave this town once in a while and you’ll see that I’m right. First-world problems. That’s what you have.”
He strides through the doors and I realize I must have really pissed him off, because it’s the first time he hasn’t practiced when the auditorium was available during lunchtime. The first time in three school years.
I pick up the check he left behind, sit down in one of those old-ass creaky seats, and ponder what he said about there being people with worse problems than mine. It takes me all of three seconds to conclude that’s such a bullshit thing to say. Like the people in Iran are more important than me because their suffering is supposedly more acute.
Bullshit.
I like thinking all alone in the auditorium even when there is no violin music.
Maybe I never even needed Baback to begin with.
Maybe he’s just like all the rest.
It’s better here when I’m by myself.
Safer.
How do you measure suffering?
I mean, the fact that I live in a democratic country doesn’t guarantee my life will be problem-free.
Far from it.
I understand that I am relatively privileged from a socio-economical viewpoint, but so was Hamlet—so are a lot of miserable people.
I bet there are people in Iran who are happier than I am—who wish to keep living there regardless of who is in charge politically, while I’m miserable here in this supposedly free country and just want out of this life at any cost.
I wonder if Baback will regret demeaning my suffering when he turns on the news tonight.
I kinda hope he’ll feel responsible somehow—that it will make him so regretful he gets sick.
I see Asher Beal in the hallway. I make my hand into the shape of a gun and fire at him as he passes.
I miss twice, but then score a head shot.
“Dead!”
“What’s wrong with you?” he says, shaking his soon-to-be leaky skull.
“Everything!” I yell. “Nothing! You choose!”
People in the hallway are looking at me like I’m crazy—like they wish I would disappear.
Asher Beal just walks away.
“I know where you live!” I yell at him.
Knowing that this will all end tonight, that I will cease to be—that makes this day so much easier. It’s like I’m in a dream, floating through some ethereal world.[27]
Two presents left to deliver, and then I can open the P-38 and go out on the same day I came in.
Happy birthday to me!
God, I can’t wait.
“Leonard?” Mrs. Shanahan says.
My guidance counselor is wearing a lemon-yellow dress and has her red hair up in a bun today. She has these sky-blue glasses that dangle from her neck on a silver chain in a crazy ironic way, because she is way too young to wear her glasses on a chain. I wonder how she dresses when she’s not in school and I see her as an after-hours punk rocker maybe. She’s younger than most faculty members—Herr Silverman’s age, probably.
“I’m hearing reports that you’ve been acting strangely today. Is that true?” she says to me right in the hallway as tons of kids pass by.
“What? I’m always strange, right? But I’m fine otherwise,” I say, mostly because I don’t want to miss Herr Silverman’s Holocaust class, which is where I’m headed now.
I usually don’t mind going to Mrs. Shanahan’s office because she keeps a jar of lollipops on her desk and I always enjoy a root beer sucker midday, but I have to say good-bye to Herr Silverman before I exit the planet, and I don’t want to miss his class. It’s the one class I actually like. So I decide to put on a show for her.
“What’s going on under that hat?” she asks.
“Just a haircut.”
“Mrs. Giavotella said—”
“I’m not a very good barber, I’m afraid,” I say, smiling and looking into her eyes all Hollywood. I’m a convincing actor when I need to be. “I’d show you my new look right now, but I’m a little self-conscious about it, hence the hat. Can I swing by eighth period? Would be happy to show you then and talk about whatever you’d like.”
She looks into my eyes for a long time, like she’s trying to tell whether I’m bullshitting her.
Deep down she absolutely knows I’m bullshitting her, I’m sure of it. But she has a million problems to solve, hundreds of students who need her help, endless asshole parents to deal with, mountains of paperwork, meetings in that awful room with the round table and the window air-conditioning unit they run even in winter because the meeting room is directly over the tropically hot boiler room, and so she knows the easiest thing to do is believe me.
She’s fulfilled her obligation, assuaged her conscience by finding me in the hallway and giving me the chance to freak out, and I’ve played my role too, by remaining calm, pretending to be okay, and therefore giving her permission to cross me off her things-to-do list. Now she can move on, and I can too.
Once you understand how adults are controlled by the system, manipulating them is elementary.
“I’ve put aside a few root beer lollipops for you, because I was getting low,” she says, and then smiles back at me.
If only you could solve all of your problems with candy, I think, Mrs. Shanahan would be relevant.
“We’ll talk eighth period, right? Promise you’ll come see me. I always look forward to a visit from Leonard Peacock.”
She says that last bit almost like she’s flirting with me, like we’re going to have sex in her office if I show up. A lot of female teachers do this—flirt with male students. I wonder if that’s the only way they know how to interact with men. Like they use their sexuality to get what they want. And I have to admit it works, because I really want to go see Mrs. Shanahan now, and if I hadn’t already decided to kill myself, I would most certainly go to her office later—if only to collect my root beer lollipop and fantasize.
“Absolutely,” I lie. “I will definitely come see my favorite, most beauteous and astute guidance counselor later this afternoon.”
She sort of blushes and then smiles at me all pleased with herself.
When she turns, I say, “Mrs. Shanahan?” because I can’t help myself.
“Yes, Leonard,” she says, and spins around all Marilyn Monroe—her dress even flares out and rises a little.
“Thanks for checking up on me. You’re a good counselor. One of the best.”
“You’re welcome,” she says, and then lights up like the sun at noon, because she doesn’t understand what I’m really saying.
She’s just a high school guidance counselor after all. She can tell you what grade point average you need to get into Penn, but expecting more than that is pushing it. I was lucky to receive so many lollipops.
Just before she goes, almost as if she wants to acknowledge the fact that we’re playing a game here—one with rules—she adds, “You will come visit me eighth period, right?”
“You know it,” I lie.
I think about how she probably has my birthday written down in a file somewhere, but she deals with so many kids that I can’t really be mad at her for forgetting.
In elementary school the teachers always remembered your birthday, and that was nicer. There were cupcakes or brownies, or at least cookies, and everyone sang in a way that made you feel really special and a part of something, even if you really hated all of your classmates deep down. There’s a reason the elementary teachers did that. It wasn’t just for fun. It was important.
And I wonder at what age it’s appropriate to stop keeping track of everyone’s birthday. When do we stop needing the people around us to acknowledge the fact that we are aging and changing and getting closer to our deaths? No one tells you this. It’s like everyone remembers your birthday every single year and then suddenly you can’t remember the last time someone sang the birthday song to you, nor can you say when it stopped. You should be able to remember, right?
But I can’t pinpoint an exact year. The whole deal just sort of slipped away from me somehow without my noticing at all, which makes me sad.
I watch Mrs. Shanahan stride down the hall. She seems bouncy, like my compliments validated her self-worth and made her feel as though her career is actually germane.[28]
And then she’s gone.
SEVENTEEN
LETTER FROM THE FUTURE NUMBER 3
Hi, Daddy!
It’s S, your daughter. This is so weird! I don’t understand why I have to write you because you just left on the boat with Papa, and Horatio the dolphin was there, like always, to keep you company.
Momma says you’re sad, but she also says that we’re writing to you when you were a little boy, which I don’t really understand. She makes me do a lot of strange school assignments, so I guess this is just another of those. You tell me to listen to Momma, so I do. She’s helping me write the letter. She says I should tell you things you already know about me, which seems dumb, but here it goes.
My favorite color is dolphin gray.
My favorite constellation is Cassiopeia, because it’s so much fun to say!
My favorite food is corn chowder with bacon. (Ha-ha! Joke!)
My favorite game is Who lived here? I love listening to the stories you make up about what it was like to live in the city underwater—what you call Philadelphia.
Once we found an apartment in an old skyscraper you called Liberty Place and you told me how some people used to live like kings and queens in the sky, looking down on all the people who had to live near the ground, but now you have to be really rich to live on the ground these days, which you said is ironic.
We went through the home and found dresses that proved a queen had lived there. The dresses were shiny and colorful. There were so many! And you said your mother had designed one of them, which was nice because you never talk about your mom.
And we found a chest of gold jewelry in the bedroom too. You let me keep the gold we found. We’ve been collecting gold from chests like that all over Outpost 37. I keep it under my bed just for fun in old poly-frozen food containers, although I really don’t understand why people in the past loved gold so much, other than it’s shiny. You call me a princess and sometimes we put on as much gold as we can, and you call me “Jay-Z,” and then laugh so hard.
My favorite bedtime story is Philadelphia Phyllis, the little girl who used to solve crime mysteries back at the turn of the century. You tell me so many Philadelphia Phyllis stories, and my favorite is the one where she stops a bully from picking on kids at school when she finds a magical weapon that gives her power. I often wish there were other kids here, but your stories about bullies make me wonder if I’m lucky it’s only me.
My favorite song is the one your dad wrote called “Underwater Vatican,” which you sing for me sometimes, because you miss your dad. (Mom helped me spell Vatican and says it’s where some important guy used to live but she couldn’t really explain why he was important. She says we don’t have guys like him anymore.)
Daddy, I can’t think of anything else to write.
I love you.
I’m sorry that you were sad when you were a little boy, but you’re hardly ever sad now, which is good, right?
Momma says I should tell you to hold on.
Hold on to what? I wonder.
I don’t know.
But hold on.
There, I wrote that. Mom better give me full credit for this assignment.
Can’t wait to see you at dinner tonight. I think we are having corn chowder with bacon AGAIN, because that’s what we have the most of, so we have to save the other types of food for special occasions like birthdays, and mine’s coming up in a week or so. You said you have a really special surprise for me.
