Destroy All Cars (9 page)

What's your point?

I see Sadie after school, and since we're petition partners and saving the wetlands together, she comes right over and asks me if I've heard about Jedediah. I say I have. She wants to know if I've actually seen him collecting the stuff off people's trays. I haven't. “That's pretty daring, don't you think?” she asks. She's all flushed and excited about this guy. I don't answer. I ask her how the petitions went, out at the airport. She says good, they got a lot of signatures. She says she heard I did well, too, that I got sixty-five signatures. She says she couldn't believe I got so many. I say, “I'm actually quite charming when I want to be.”

She says, “Yeah, when you
want
to be.”

Where the hell did this Jedediah guy come from? During fourth period he sits in the middle of the main lawn, playing his guitar and
singing.
And doing
Buddhist chants. What is up with that? He wears trashed Converse low-tops that are held together with duct tape, his T-shirts are so old you can see through them, and his Hindu sheepherding jacket is shedding. He doesn't have enough facial hair to have a beard, but he has one anyway. The mystical hippie dude thing: Don't you have to be outta high school to pull that off? I heard some jocks are planning to beat him up. I feel jealous.

The jocks used to beat
me
up.

I see Sadie talking to Jedediah. God, I hate that guy. Supposedly his parents are missionaries and he lived in India for five years. Go back to frickin' India, bro. Sadie is so kissing his ass. Asking him questions. Maybe they can go into the helping-people business together. He can sing songs of love and understanding, and she can get a new bike path approved.

I hate bike paths.

I finally see him doing it. He's been forbidden to do it by every authority known to man, but there he is, during Wednesday lunch, collecting the garbage off people's trays. He does it for like thirty seconds and then Mr. Greco, the gym teacher, swoops down on him. Mr. Greco grabs Jedediah's very skinny arm and yanks him away from the garbage cans. All the apples and unopened milk cartons and stuff go spilling across the floor. Mr. Greco is an ex-Marine. He grabs the Garbage Eater by the back of his shirt and marches him toward the
principal's office. But here's the killer. As he's being led away, people begin to clap. Everyone in the cafeteria starts clapping and standing up. Soon the whole cafeteria is on their feet giving him a standing ovation, as Mr. Greco practically rips his shirt off. I have to stand up or look like a total jerk.

I don't clap, though.

In the meantime, while the Garbage Eater is getting all the attention at school, I'm stuck downtown trying to get crazy people to sign my stupid petition. That's my own demented sense of honor. I said I'd do the petitions, so I do them. One good thing: I finally meet Alice Weitzman. She's the head of Save the Wetlands. She actually comes down to my corner to see the kid who got sixty-five signatures on his first day. I thought she was another street person when she first walked up to me. But she introduced herself and she had this funny way about her. You sort of instantly want to help her. But a lot of good that does me. I'm still standing in the street getting signatures, while Sadie is somewhere else, getting all sparkle-eyed over Jedediah. Everyone thinks he's so rad. They love that he keeps doing the garbage thing no matter how many times they bust him. Of course his parents have been called. That's the latest news everyone is buzzing about.

What will the missionary parents do?

I don't think Sadie is really in love with Jedediah. But who knows? He keeps getting in trouble and now his parents are involved. Apparently, his mother screamed at Mr. Brown about how racist our school is. Sadie is all worked up about it. People are saying Jedediah has a First Amendment right to express himself. Collecting garbage is freedom of speech. Other people (me) think he's a show-off. Someone interviewed him for the school paper and it turned out he has been thrown out of a couple different schools for similar escapades. The teachers all know he isn't hurting anything, but at the same time they can't let him do stuff he's been told not to do.

I can just imagine Mr. Brown sitting in his office rolling his eyes.

I see the Garbage Eater and Sadie sitting out on the main lawn during lunch. His guitar is lying gently on the grass, he's sitting cross-legged, his ancient Converse duct-taped to his feet. Sadie's doing her “attentive” pose, her “help me be a better person” posture. So I decide to go see for myself. Maybe I've been too harsh on this guy. We are on the same side, after all. Probably Sadie will tell him about our petition. I'm the guy who got sixty-five signatures on my first day. So I walk over and say hi and sit down, and Jedediah pretends I'm not there. He's too busy going on and on about India, the conditions there, the poor, the way his parents taught him to never give in
to structure or authority or meaningless directives. He is a very earnest dude. I try to roll with it. I nod and agree that starvation is bad. But he barely acknowledges me. He is totally focused on Sadie. They are bonding in a deep do-gooder trance of self-righteousness and high self-esteem energies. The bell's about to ring and I have to go, so I say good-bye and stand up. They barely notice. Sadie could have helped. She could have said: “Jedediah, this is James. He's helping me save the wetlands.” But she doesn't.

Sixty-five signatures in one day. Keep that in mind, Mr. Strock.

Jessica is awesome. And quite beautiful. Sometimes when the light hits her hair, it is the nicest, softest shade of brown. I bet she wouldn't mind doing something of a semi-romantic nature. We might have to skip the sitting in the grass part, though. She doesn't like to get her clothes dirty.

I don't talk about Heather much but her locker is two down from mine and she likes good music and dresses cool. She'd probably want to hang out sometime if I asked her.

Cassandra is a friend of Renee's, who once started talking to me while Gabe was talking to Renee. We had a nice conversation. That was like a month ago, though.

What is my problem with girls? I go to a huge public high school. How can I not find someone to at least hang out with? I'm seventeen years old!

Other schools is what some people resort to when they can't get anywhere with our girls. They start talking about the mythical Lincoln girls. Or the hot babes at Wilson. “The hot babes at Wilson are not uptight like our girls,” they say. “They're always ready to party and they'll make out with anyone.” Sure they will.

There's a girl who is sometimes at my bus stop going home from school. She is older, probably nineteen or twenty. I think she works at the mall. She smiles at me sometimes. I bet she'd want to hang out. I'd need her to turn off her iPod, though, so I could ask her.

I'm upstairs staring at my math homework and my dad appears at my door.

DAD:
So your mother said she talked to you about college?

ME:
——

DAD:
What are your plans in that department?

ME:
——

DAD:
Do you have any preferences? Any areas in particular you're interested in?

ME:
——

DAD:
You know I've always thought law school might be a good option for you. Down the road.

ME:
???

DAD:
You know, this is your future we're talking about. This is not the time to play out some resentment you have against your mother and me.

ME:
!!!

DAD:
Contrary to what you think, we're very open about this and we want you to go somewhere you would feel comfortable.

ME:
——

DAD:
Will you think about this?

ME:
——

DAD:
All right, then…

ME:
——

Sadie is getting more involved in the Garbage Eater's situation at our school. She and several members of the Activist Club had a meeting with the principal and made a big fuss about our rights as students to make political statements. Why can't Jedediah take food off other people's trays if it doesn't affect anyone else? The principal claims it's a health risk, that Jedediah might get sick from eating other people's food. Sadie's crew did not consider this an adequate response. Everyone is very worked up about it. People are discussing possible protests. Jedediah Strock remains the talk of the school.

Sadie and the Activist Club people have developed a plan to support the Garbage Eater. We're all going to share food off each other's plates one day in the cafeteria. As a protest. This was not Sadie's idea, it was another girl's. This Share Our Food Day is supposedly going to happen on Thursday.

Meanwhile, an editorial appeared by Sadie's friend Jill Kantor.

A terrible new threat has appeared in our cafeteria. He is the so-called “Garbage Eater.” This sick individual has dared disrupt our normal lunchroom business with his outrageous claims that we are wasting food. Not only that, he actually takes the food we are wasting and doesn't let us waste it! How dare he! It is our food. We can waste it if we want!

One freshman we spoke to was already deeply confused by his dangerous political message. “I thought we were supposed to throw our food away, but there was this guy and he was like, ‘Do you want that?' And I was like, ‘No.' And he took it off my tray. I think he's going to eat it later. Can you do that?” The answer, frosh-person, is no, you cannot!

The Garbage Eater is poisoning the minds of our underclassmen. He is also getting extra milk and tater tots and corn bread! Why should he get a free lunch, just because the rest of us are throwing ours away?

I enjoyed this so much I tried to find Jill Kantor and tell her, but I couldn't figure out where her locker was.

Gabe and I went to the cafeteria early today to make sure we didn't miss the Share Our Food protest. We sat there while everyone waited for the word to share food. The teachers all knew about it anyway. They'd already said they weren't going to do anything. Finally, the moment came and everyone “shared” food. Mostly they just touched each other's food. Gabe and I switched our cookies back and forth. Overall it was not what I would call an effective protest. But it seemed to make people feel better.

Finally, the stupid Save the Wetlands thing pays off. There's a meeting at Alice Weitzman's house for all the people participating. Sadie comes by and picks me up.

I shouldn't say it's stupid. Everyone loves the pond and the woods around Carl Haney's house. One old guy wrote a thing on the STW website about how there used to be a half-dozen ponds in the area when he was a kid. He and his buddies would ride their bikes around with their fishing poles tied to the handlebars. They'd catch bass in the ponds. Now this is the only one left, and it's getting so polluted there probably aren't any bass in it anyway.

Sadie and I pull into the driveway at Alice's house. It's a big house and there's fancy appetizers and wine and all that. I hear someone say Alice's husband is a high-powered lawyer. She's great, though, Alice, padding around in her slippers and her flowing clothes and a goofy hat. It's mostly older people in attendance, but there are some younger people here and there. A couple of cats wander around.

We get down to business. The group of us sit in folding chairs in her living room. Alice stands in front and tells us what's going on with the petitions. She tells us how many signatures we got and thanks the petitioners individually. She reads our names and asks us to identify ourselves. Most people wave a hand, but when she calls
my name, I stand up and bow deeply. Everyone thinks that's funny. Everyone except Sadie.

After the meeting, Sadie drives me home. I'm hoping we can hang out or talk a little. That doesn't seem to be happening, but at the last minute she asks if I mind driving by the pond to check it out.

“No,” I say. “I don't mind.”

We pull onto the little dirt road and run right into a new metal gate. These developer guys don't waste any time. We get out for a closer look. The gate is a long metal bar with a padlock hanging off one end. It's only to stop cars. We can still walk in. Sadie isn't sure she wants to. We have school the next day and it's already ten. It's also really deserted, and there are big new
NO TRESPASSING
signs all over the place. I convince Sadie we'll be okay. We both want to see what else they've done.

We crawl under the metal bar and walk down the road. The moon is out, so we can see pretty well. We follow the couple curves of the road and get to the pond. It's about fifty yards across. It looks like it always did. Mushy. Swampy. Smelly. Sadie looks around at everything. I pick up a stick and throw it into the water.

“Doesn't seem like they've done anything to it yet,” Sadie says.

“How do you even drain a pond?” I ask.

“You pump all the water out and fill it up with dirt. Weren't you listening to Alice?”

I shrug.

I start walking slowly through the grass around the edge. Sadie follows. We go a little ways and something jumps into the water. A frog, probably. Sadie stops. Then something else scurries into the bushes behind us. Sadie looks at me.

“Probably just a raccoon,” I say. “Or a possum.”

Sadie hates possums. We keep going, but she stays close behind me. At one point I hold her hand and help her jump over some muck.