The Cake is a Lie (33 page)

I can still confidently pre-laugh with
the best of them, halt the entire crowd as if what I’m about to say
is hilarious. My mannerisms are all still there, my hands are in
the right places, my voice raised to an attentive screech, always
so sure I’ve still got it. And then the stumbles come out, the
trips. “One of my favorite comedians does a great bit, oh what’s
his name? From the Comedians of Comedy…He played Ratatouille. Do
you know who I’m talking about? Oh well, he said the best Hollywood
stories don’t happen when everything goes great. They happen
when…oh crap, who’s the actor from White Man Can’t Jump? He had tax
problems..? Wesley Snipes. He said the best story is when Wesley
Snipes won’t come out of his trailer and only communicates to the
director through post it notes signed Blade.”

You can always tell the kids that have
partied too much. Lindsey Lohan isn’t getting those brain cells
back.

My last roommates were a group of
graduate students at UW. Every night they had a ritual of watching
jeopardy together. Most of the time, before I even finished reading
the question, one of the girls would yell,
“Lepidoptera.”

Once, two of the categories were
“History of the World from 1700-Present,” and “History of the World
from 1300-Present.” Within milliseconds one of my roommates was
picturing a scenario in which a “1700-Present” history professor
was debating a “1300-Present” history professor as to the
historical importance of 1300-1700 AD. She began imitating the
“1300-Present” professor by shouting, “How can you expect to give a
comprehensive analysis of World War I without fully understanding
the 100 Years War?” I didn’t even laugh it was so funny, I just sat
frozen in awe and envy. Friday nights I could compete with them,
their Jeopardy game really fell apart the drunker they got. Their
jokes stopped being funny too, but they laughed just as
loudly.

In your twenties there’s no more time
to dream about being able to dance like a professional, speak three
different languages, dress like a professional stylist, win a
Macarthur genius award, rap, make beats, act, be a blackbelt in
jiu-jitsu, and program computers. And when that day comes I hope
you never have to feel the pain of not being able to say for sure
if drug use during your developmental years stunted your growth,
lowered your IQ or exasperated your panic disorder. Haunted by
perfect memories of being faded at 13 when you breathe in the
evening summer air. You can’t put middle school legend on a
resume.

In America today you gotta Drake it.
Just keep killing it over and over, your entire life. You can’t
just kill it for a while and then fall off like a oncler. Just ask
Jonsen. And you can’t fuck up for a while and then finally make it.
You’ll still be tormented by the past, by that date you blew with
Rick Steve’s daughter. Or the time you were in a steam room with
two beautiful naked girls and the best you could do was say, “Wow,
you guys are shaved. Good Job.” Acne scars never go
away.

No, you have to kill it nonstop. Who
knows, play your cards right and maybe someone will write a book
about you.

I’ve been trying to come up with the
perfect “wait-to-do-drugs” speech to give to my preteens someday. I
practice on my best friend’s cousins. They’re 15-year-old suburban
pot heads. One of them, Luke, is a skater. He’s shy, comes out of
his shell much more carefully. He doesn’t stray far from his
clique. He wears skater everything. Somewhere along the line he got
it in his head that he’s not very book smart, or it’s not cool to
do well in school, either way he’s a poor student. He’s also a
nice, funny, and a unique special person.

The other cousin, Michael, he reminds
me of me. Kid’s something like a go-getta. Multiple cliques,
straight-A’s, all honors classes. Well, he was a straight-A student
his freshman and sophomore year, B average his junior year. And by
all accounts he’s the worst of the bunch. Getting high with one
group before school, then blazing up with another group during
lunch.

When I give Brandon’s cousins my
“wait-to-do-drugs” speech I look right at them and give them my
best jaded, sad eyes look. “Look at me,” I say, “I used to be just
like you. I am you, I’m future you in five years.” I pause
theatrically and let that settle in. “You know what the future is
like? Imagine all your friends, the ones you’ll be friends for life
with. Well in the future they’re not popular anymore. They aren’t
popular anymore because after high school college kids are popular.
Kids in the greek system are popular, kids with full ride
scholarships are popular. And past college there’s no such thing as
popular anymore, only rich. In a few years all the best girls are
gonna be all over those goobers who you’re cooler than, oh that’s
gonna eat you up inside. Best believe those bores are learning man,
their social IQ’s are growing and they’re coming for you. You know
that 16 year old you’re in love with right now, that party girl, ya
go ahead think about her right now, what’s her name? Sophia? Well
in the future she’s so fat and busted you won’t even say hi to her
when you see her.”

“
Growing up’s like when you
gave up playing with Legos and stopped watching cartoons. Remember
how much you loved Legos? Your brain just changes. Right now you
love partying more than anything, but in a few years you’ll want to
be successful more than anything. And you’re gonna need every
single brain cell when that day comes. Not to be a rocket
scientist, but to finish the punchlines to your jokes quickly. If
everyone got memory problems the first time they smoked weed no one
would smoke weed. It’s gradual, and by the time you realize it’s
happened, you think, well I already have memory problems now, might
as well keep getting high.”

And they look me back straight in the
eye and say, “We know Marco, we totally understand what you’re
saying. No one has put it like that before. We get it.”

That tricky little punk Michael is the
worst. He says all the right things, makes you a
believer.

“
I’m done man, I really am.
I’m already having memory problems man. I know it’s bad for your
brain and there’s healthier ways to deal with stress. I know all
the cool kids turn out to be losers. Plus, everyone does it now, I
want to be cool in my own way.”

The next thing you hear is that Michael
got suspended from school because a friend he was with got caught
at a dance with a bong in his backpack. I haven’t been able to
pinpoint where exactly in the speech I lose them, but I suspect
it’s very early on.

Summer 2010

I go with Brandon over to his Uncle’s
house to play basketball with his cousins. They’re so creative and
energetic that while we play they invent a new game where you get
hosed with water for every basket you miss, as the game goes on the
rules get more and more elaborate.

The big gossip is that Luke has to
attack some kid at school because the guy ripped Luke and his
friends off and sold them cut-up crayon pieces instead of ecstasy.
Luke’s got to defend his honor. I listen to his plan, he’s just
going to walk up to him at gym class and start swinging.

“
Why do you have to do it in
gym class? Why don’t you fight him outside of school so you don’t
get in trouble?” I ask him.

“
He doesn’t hang out at
school besides class, and he hardly even goes to class.”

“
Why don’t you let it go and
realize this guy is gonna end up sadder than you can ever imagine
in a few years. You should buy him a cake, he saved you some
serious braincells.”

Brandon humors me and chuckles. They
don’t respond.

“
Want to hear about our
greatest high school fight?” That gets their attention.

“
Our senior year of high
school, our friend Duncan threw a big party at his house,” I begin
the story.

“
You remember Jesse
Hoffman?” I ask Brandon rhetorically. Jesse Hoffman was the
greatest high school football player of our era in Shoreline. He
broke all the Shorecrest record books for a running
back.

“
That night was the only
time I’ve ever partied with him.” I brag for effect. “Well, I mean
I stood in his circle for a bit.”

“
Was he nice?” Brandon
asks.

“
I don’t know. Dude didn’t
say a word the whole time. He didn’t have to. He was Jessie
Hoffman. Why waste the energy? Why bare the stress? Even after
everyone left his circle, he just stood there by
himself.”

“
You didn’t even say
anything to him?”

“
I just kept looking at his
legs and arms wondering how he single handedly won a championship.
So Duncan’s throwing this big party, Jessie Hoffman’s there. Then a
new kid at Shorecrest, RJ, showed up acting real hard with his crew
from his old school. And a big fight broke out, and Duncan’s house
got trashed. And the new kid actually pulled out a gun creating a
mass exodus. Except for one older girl who knew something about
being hard and decided to call this guy’s bluff. Fearlessly she
went after him, and she guessed right, he wasn’t going to shoot
her. But she was wrong on another important point, dude was willing
to hit a girl, and he beat the shit out of her.”

“
That was the greatest
fight? A girl getting beat up?” Michael snidely
comments.

“
Oh, just you wait buddy,” I
say, half enticingly, half sarcastically. “So it turns out that the
ghetto older girl that got her ass kicked was Marcus’ sister. And
the next weekend, when RJ showed up to the party that weekend, some
switch went off in Marcus’ mind. Marcus saw RJ from across the
house and started sprinting at him, and then he jumped, and I can’t
emphasis the next part enough, Marcus actually pulled one foot
straight into the air and kicked RJ in the face. K.O.’d him so hard
that RJ’s bloody grill flew across the floor. Movie
stuff.

“
That’s it? I’ve seen a kid
get jumped with skateboards.” Luke brags.

“
My homie Tone is the
baddest dude ever, he’s got those 36 crazy fists. He could woop
marcus’ ass.” Michael says.

They’re not impressed.

“
Oh whatever, I’d like to
see any of you guys come close to executing a running jump-kick.” I
grumble bitterly under my breathe. They laugh.

“
Ok, ok, well here’s the
best part,” I promise. “Want to know what happened to
Marcus?”

They seem much less interested this
time around. F-it, I’ve never been able to find any reason as to
why certain things stick in your head for life. Eventually
something I say has got to stick.

“
Marcus now works as a pizza
delivery driver.” I laugh to take the edge off the judgmental
bluntness.

I don’t know Marcus well enough to know
if he’s happy. I know he’s self-conscious about his career. He does
a great job of selling it positively when he tells you his job, he
says it with confidence and his head held high, looks you right in
the eyes.

“
I’m delivering
pizzas.”

When he’d told me I’d said something
supportive, “Hey, I heard you guys get really good tips. I wouldn’t
mind driving around all day.”

“
I know man,” he’d replied,
“I get the fattest tips some nights, plus I just smoke hella and
just cruise.” It’s one thing to be prideful in your work, but it
takes a special ego to get hella cocky with it when you deliver
pizzas. Worst of all he still thinks I think he’s cool.

I would bet that when Marcus is at his
lowest he wishes he could start over and party less, do something
more productive for his future. It’s possible he’s much more at
peace with his allotment in life than me. Maybe he’s convinced
himself that he never had a chance in school anyways on behalf of
his A.D.D. That would be a comforting thought.

“
Stop giving them such a
hard time Marco” Brandon finally chimes in. “We did everything
wrong and look, we turned out alright.”

I glare at Brandon, he couldn’t be more
wrong. Brandon didn’t turn out OK. Well he is and he isn’t. He’s
got some special qualities, he’s a body builder, smart, funny,
genuinely loves his family more than anything in the world. But he
has some serious issues too. He can be lazy, like escaping life by
watching movies and playing video games for whole months lazy. He’s
so self-conscious about his career outlooks and the gap in his
teeth that he hasn’t had a girlfriend in years.

Not all of it’s his fault. His dad is
one of the worst dads you could ever have. A drunk that likes to
verbally abuse the crap out of people. Brandon’s Dad really gets
off telling his son what a fuck up he is and constantly criticizing
him. A few times Brandon’s said “no more” and stopped talking to
him. He’s made it years before. But his dad always comes
apologizing and begging for Brandon back.

Not that Brandon didn’t have a lot of
opportunities many people don’t get. And he messed a lot of them
up. He just has this ability to zone out from life, getting
completely lost in a movie, a game or just sleeping. I can totally
relate. Something like, before any of the drugs, we were already
masters at tuning stuff out, checking out from the
world.

And me? I’m definitely not OK. It’s not
as obvious as you might think, but if Brandon could only see me on
the inside. I don’t talk about my little journey with mental
illness the last 7 years. I wish I could, I try with my family, but
unless you’ve had it you can’t understand.