Second Helpings (15 page)

Dad: How can you quit? Other runners come back from injuries worse than yours . Me: Im not other runners, Dad .

Exchange #2: Youre Passing Up a Golden Opportunit

Dad: How can you quit? You could have gotten an athletic scholarship . Me: I can still get an academic scholarship, Dad .

Exchange #3: Youre Going to Regret This When Youre Old and Gray

Dad: How can you quit? Doesnt leadership and teamwork mean anything to you ? Me: Uh, not really, Dad .

Exchange #4: You Cant Let the Terrorists Win

Dad: How can you quit? If you leave the team, the terrorists have won . Me: Uh, it has nothing to do with terrorism .

One of these days, in the middle of one of these exchanges, his chrome dome is going to crack open like the San Andreas fault. But it wont be my fault when it does.

As proof that my departure was meant to be, the Monday after I quit the team, Taryn Baker (aka stepsister of peaceful anarchist and gay man of my dreams) approached me about tutoring her after school.

I felt a gentle touch on my shoulder. I turned to see Taryn, who, like always, wasnt looking at me, but at an invisible person behind me.

Hey, Taryn. Whats up?

Geometry.

Taryn is a true minimalist when it comes to conversation. With that barely audible whisper, I knew exactly what she needed from me.

So you need me to tutor you after school?

She nodded. As usual her T-shirt and cargo pants were at least three times too large, as though she doesnt want any body part to be dis-tinguishable beneath the fabric. Dressed in all brown, Taryn never strays from a palette of earth tonesall the better for blending in. And she was wearing a striped wool cap, even though it was unseasonably warm. For Taryn, its 365 days of winter. I couldnt believe that she and Paul Parlipiano were quasisiblings.

Well, it just so happens that I just quit the cross-country team and

I babbled for a few minutes about my defection. Thats the thing with Taryn. Shes such a nonentity that you end up talking way more than you normally would because you feel compelled to hold up her end of the conversation, too.

Once it was agreed that we would meet at 2:15 P.M. in the library, Taryn noiselessly drifted away, like a phantasm. That girl is strange. Whatever. Her academic loss is my monetary gain. Ten bucks an hour, for a minimum of five hours a week. Sweet! And if she starts failing Chemistry, I just might be able to buy myself a VW Beetle.

So I have no regrets about quitting the team. The sleeplessness thing isnt even a big deal anymore because Im so accustomed to it by now. Im used to memorizing every vein and capillary crack in my ceiling. Im used to looking at my walls so long and so intensely that shapesa tugboat, a ladybug, Carrot Top in profilesuddenly pop out of the imperfections in the paint. Im used to the whirr of my fan, the hum of my laptop, and the drip in my bathroom sink converging together in a nocturnal symphony that only I can hear. Im used to getting shocked out of a dream by the alarm clock, even though I was wide awake minutes, maybe even seconds, before.

It cant be very healthy, though.

Hope suggested that I replace running with yoga as my way of releasing some insomniatic tension. She even sent me a book and a video to help me get started. Its from a series called Yoga for You. Im not sure its for me. But if yoga mellowed Madonna into an earth mama, it should at least help me get more than my current average of three minutes of sleep every night. The negligible brain activity PHS asks from its seniors is about all I can muster right now. This is the one advantage to not attending a real high school, you know, one with academic standards.

Still, Im pretty skeptical of the om-ing and all those other New Agey trappings of yoga, but I should at least try them so Hopes money doesnt go to waste. I appreciate any effort that she makes these days, only because I dont know how much longer it will last. Its really only a matter of time before her real life in Tennesseeor wherever she winds uptakes precedence over the one she left behind.

the fourteenth

The first, belated edition of The Seagulls Voice came out today. And my editorial, Sycophants, Suck-Ups, and Scrubs: How High-School Hero Worship Hurts Us All, was nowhere to be found. Not that anyone would have noticed besides me, of course. I stalked Haviland as soon as I discovered the omission.

Wheres my editorial?

Haviland wrung her bony hands. It seems the administration thought your editorial was too controversial.

What? I asked, truly shocked. It wasnt any more or less controversial than anything else Ive written!

Well, it seems that the administration couldnt condone any writing that castigates your fellow students.

If you cant annoy somebody, theres little point in writing, I replied, channeling Mac. Kingsley Amis.

Well, it seems that the administration thinks that in these troubled times, we need to be more sensitive and promote positive relationships among all social groups. Dont you see how your editorial might have a devastating effect on your peers self-worth?

I was trying to help! I said, literally hopping up and down in frustration. Youre the one who wanted me to broaden my point of view. I

was trying to show how true heroism is overlooked in favor of treating jocks and cheerleaders and other members of the high-school hoi polloi like gods.

I see, said Haviland.

High-school hero worship screws everyones self-worth. So-called losers hate themselves for not being like the upper crust. And the upper crust gets caught up in their own hype and are devastated when their post-graduation lives dont live up to their high-school glories. I was gasping for breath, I was so worked up.

I know, I know, she said, placing her hand on my shoulder and giving me a grandmotherly sympathetic head-shake. But were dealing with a lot of close-minded Puritans who dont see things the same way you and I do. I agree that we need to have agitating points of viewthey are a necessary part of the conversation of humankind.

I think I started eye-rolling at this point, as Haviland was starting to get all hippie-dippy on me.

And, she continued, as students of the world, they should be privy to these divergent thoughts, to question them, analyze them, and critique them.

Okay, then as my adviser, shouldnt you have fought to keep it in?

She twitched her nose in annoyance, like I was a gnat that wouldnt go away.

If I didnt cut your editorial, I was told Id lose funding for The Seagulls Voice .

So its better to have a paper thats full of nicey-nicey, sanitized crap than not have one that actually stands for something?

This question didnt make much sense, so I dont blame Haviland for not answering. Im much better making my arguments on paper. But not this paper.

When you first persuaded me to write for the newspaper, you told me that The Seagulls Voice needed my voice. I guess you were wrong. I quit.

And for the second time in less than two weeks, I turned my back on the face of gaping-mouthed shock. My words and actions are finally getting in sync. Paul Parlipiano would be so proud!

Ive totally reversed my attitude about quitting, by the way. For me, quitting isnt a sign of weakness. The weak thing to do wouldve been to keep on running, keep on writing. It takes a bigger set of balls to do the exact opposite of what everyone expects me to.

Only one problem: What to do with all this free time?

the seventeenth

I think my mom is secretly psyched that I quit the team and the paper because now Im not at practice or meetings all the time. It provides more opportunities for her to torture me with trivialities.

We got a letter from your sister today! my mom sang before I had a chance to take my backpack off my shoulder.

Hows the cult?

My mothers jaw and neck tightened. I told you to stop saying that, she said. Then her smile widened and her eyes brightened, a facial presto-chango as quick and authentic as Mr. Potato Head. She wants us to come out to California for Thanksgiving.

California? Are you insane? I cried. Even if I was willing to get on an airplane, which Im not, theres no way Im going back to the dot commune with those freaks.

Dont make me reprimand you again. You know it upsets me when you call it that.

It upsets you because its the truth, I said.

I went out to California during spring break last year to visit Stanford and Berkeley. However, one visit to the dot commune convinced me that I could never spend another four days, let along four years, in that state.

Bethany and G-Money lost a bundle in the tech crash but still had more liquid in their account than my parents have earned in their entire lives. Instead of seeing themselves as members of the under-thirty leisure class that they are, B&G fancy themselves as forerunners of a spiritual/financial movement in which former Internet impresarios shun conspicuous materialism in favor of the simple life. Only their idea of simplicity is expensive. Bethanys letter was probably written with ink hand-squeezed out of imported Indian Ocean squid on thick linen paper cushiony enough to wipe even the most hyperallergenic ass.

The stationery is just the tip of the iceberg, one made, no doubt, by purified well water pumped in via an elaborate irrigation system that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to install. B&Gs definition of a simpler life also means selling their condo and moving into a brand-new 10,000-square-foot ranch in the Marin County countryside with two other dot-bomb couples. Thats 3333.33 square feet per couple. I dont need my real-estate maven mother to tell me thats still a grotesque amount of footage. They have this notion that it is somehow more noble and less wasteful to buy necessities of life like salmon roe and Veuve Clicquot in bulk for six, instead of for two. Their whole oxy-moronic existence makes me want to hurl. If you want to be rich, just be lousy, filthy, stinking rich!

Even worse than their ostentatious minimalism was all the B.S. I was forced to listen to every night at dinner. Theyve been brainwashed by Francis T. Upbin, Ph.D., cult leader and a self-described Economical Downturn Doctor they met at a seminar called Invest in Yourself. Dr. Frank is helping them cope with Loss of Sudden Wealth syndrome.

As Dr. Frank says, your portfolio isnt the only thing that takes a beating when you tank ten million dollars in an afternoon, said G-Money, taking a bite of organic guinea fowl. Im grieving the loss of my lifestyle, my identity, my self-worth.

Bethany and the other dot-bombers looked on, hypnotically.

But that money was all on paper, I pointed out. You guys are still pretty loaded.

Dr. Frank says I need to diversify my psychological portfolio, G-Money continued, without so much as a nod in my direction. When I first met him, I thought he didnt talk to anyone because he was painfully shy. But Ive since learned that self-absorption is his defining characteristic, and he simply cant be bothered by anyone elses existence.

You also need to recontextualize your belief system, Bethany chimed in.

It was an unusually multisyllabic comment for my sister, so I couldnt help but quiz her.

What the hell does that mean?

G-Money answered for her.

It means, he said, that Im going to invest in the life assets to which Dr. Frank and I have assigned the highest Nasdaq-proof valuations.

Which means?

G-Money sighed. It means, he said, looking around at his fellow cultists for sympathy, Im going on more ski trips this year.

Well, there you have it. How can you argue with spiritual transcendence through self-indulgence? Bethany and G-Money represent everything foreigners hate about our country. While no amount of vitriol justifies mass murder, I cant blame them for feeling it because sometimes I feel it, too.

Normally, I could use cross-country practice or the newspaper as the excuse to get me out of the trip, but now that Ive quit both, I cant use them as a catch-all excuses for avoiding activities that I want no part of. Tutoring sucks up Monday through Friday after school. But the weekends are still still problematic. I still need to work on that.

Incidentally, dabbling in ancient Eastern disciplines has taught me one important lesson already: I suck at yoga . Good thing it isnt a competitive sport, which I now realize is why Hope recommended it in the first place. When I lie down on my stomach and attempt to arch my torso into the cobra asanawhich is practically the easiest pose that has come out of six thousand years of practiceeach and every muscle fiber holding my anatomy together screams in protest: WHAT IN GODS NAME DO YOU THINK YOU ARE DOING?????

I know its not supposed to hurt like that, but I kind of like the pain, in that masochistic hurts-so-good kind of way. I can definitely forget about achieving the enraptured state of mind-body-spirit for a very long time. Ive got about a bizillion poses to get through before I can reach my toes, let alone enlightenment. I tell myself to breathe, Jessica, breathe, and curse all those years of running for winding my leg muscles tighter than my hymen.

The book says there is definitely a correlation between my inflexible physicality and unbendable personality. I think the book is right.

the twentieth