The Freak Observer (16 page)

. . .

It is The Bony Guy, and he is not even in disguise. He is standing on his crooked leg bones in a wooden coffin. A white bedsheet is flapping around him. It is whiter than his bones and whiter than the clouds in the dark sky behind him. He is looking straight out at me. Black eye sockets, a ruined hole that used to be a nose, bright little white beads for teeth. Then I see he is holding a bow with an arrow pointed right at me. So much for subtlety. I flipped the postcard over just so I wouldn't have to look at it.

 

Duuuude! Love, Corey

And the note:
De Dood als boogschutter,
Detail uit:
Laatste oordeel,
Hermann tom Ring, ca. 1550–1555.

I have a manila envelope in my closet. I keep the rest of Corey's postcards in there and all the other loose pieces of paper I don't want to leave behind. I add De Dood to the contents, and then I leave the apartment.

I was happy in my new home. I hoped, maybe, that The Bony Guy couldn't find me in my new hiding place. It doesn't matter, really, what I hoped or what anyone hopes.

. . .

I like having two sharp new number 2 pencils. I like their pointy-pointy, ugly, school-bus-yellow nature. I do not like their erasers, which don't work properly. This doesn't matter, because I do not intend to make any mistakes.

I also like the cavernous lecture hall. I like sitting third row from the front. I like sitting in an aisle desk, although the desk seat is not accommodating to my ass. There is no reason to move to another desk—they all have identical plastic, butt-proof chairs.

I love my test booklet with its sealed pages.

I love filling in the little bubbles. My marks are dark and complete ovals.

This is my place. This is my comfort. The rules are clear, and it's all under control.

I'm supposed to be thinking only about
this
.

My brain is made for this.

I wish I could be taking this fucking test for the rest of my life. I like it that much.

. . .

“Hey, Loa!”

I'm standing on the stairs outside after the test is over. I waited until everyone else was gone before I left the building. I didn't have any place I needed to be. And now the test is over, I don't have anything to look forward to, either.

“Loa!”

It is the Nice Guy who crashed into my bike last summer. How ya' doin', Nice Guy?

“So what's worse, road rash or the SAT? I almost blew it. A couple of pages in the test stuck together and I filled out like ten questions before I noticed that I was screwing up. Then my eraser worked like shit and smeared all over the place. The computer will probably gag on that. Maybe we'll all have to take the test over.”

He takes a breath. He smiles.

I smile too. “That would be great. I'd like to take that test over.”

“Hey, you need a ride home? Or are you riding your bike? If you are riding your bike, you are one serious bike-riding animal. It's like, uphill, for miles . . .”

“No. I live in town here, just off campus, now.”

“Well, I can still give you a ride. If you want.”

“I'm just going over to the university library,” I decide at that moment.

“I can walk over there with you. I got a little nervous energy to burn.”

Watch it, Nice Guy, that smile is going to crack your cheeks.

“Sure.”

“Hey, you wanna walk through the art building on the way? There's always some weird shit in there.”

“OK. If it's open.”

“If it isn't open, you just have to go through the kiln yard into the pottery studio.”

“That seems like weird knowledge.”

“Everything I know is weird knowledge.” That might sound really profound if he weren't so damn happy. Maybe he has some kind of chemical imbalance. “And coffee,” he continues, “We can get some coffee.”

So the next thing I know, I'm walking across campus with the human equivalent of a cartoon squirrel. I just want to satisfy my intellectual curiosity: Will he be visible to the human eye in his caffeinated state? Or will I need a quark detector?

. . .

While we are walking down the hall in the art building and I'm considering the possibility that most student artists are deeply deluded, the crazy one stops and kisses the doorknob on an office door.

“Mom-m-my,” he sighs and points to the nameplate beside the door. “Dr. King is my mom. She lets me not take Ritalin. She pays for lab and clay fees so I can make my raku ducks. And she makes the best ramen noodles in the world,” He glances up and down the empty hall and whispers, “The secret ingredient is love.”

OK, so
this
is not my comfort zone. I change the subject, “Ritalin?”

“It's not that I'm not pay-attentchy. I'm just not-pay-attentchy about the things that I'm not interested in. I'm just not neurotypical,” says Jack

“I don't even know what that means.”

“It means my brain is different.” He let's that soak in for a femtosecond, “You're not so neurotypical yourself.”

Score a point for squirrel-boy. He nailed that one. Judging by the cheek-cracking grin, I'm supposed to take it as a compliment. I think I will.

. . .

Eventually we actually did make it to the Student Union to buy coffee.

“Do you have a dad?” It is an innocent question, but I regret asking it. I could be picking the scab off a big tragedy. Maybe I just rattled a skeleton awake. Even if there isn't a sorrow hiding inside the happy squirrel-boy, a question like that could trigger another public display of affection for hardware. Not for the first time, I wish I could rewind time.

“Well, if my mom were a parthenogenic whiptail lizard, I'd be a girl. . . . You know, those self-impregnating lizards that bite themselves in the side and then reproduce clonally? Well, anyway, my mom is not one, and I have a dad. He does stream reclamation after the loggers and the miners and the other evildoers mess things up. What does your dad do?”

“He's a logger.”

“Perfect, as long as your dad keeps destroying the world, my dad will keep fixing it back up,” says Jack, and then he starts singing. . . .

Oh, give me a home

Where the logging trucks roam

And the ducks and amphibians play

Where seldom is heard

A discouraging turd

And the water's not toxic-ic-ic and grey.

Maybe it would be better if he stuck to kissing doorknobs. It's quieter.

“Can I give you a call sometime, Loa?”

“I don't have a phone,” I say. “I mean, we have a phone, but it's not mine. I'm not usually around a phone, that's what I mean. I don't have a phone. Phones bug me.” Why do I feel like I need to apologize for not having a phone? People lived for centuries without phones. And maybe my life is easier without one.

“That's OK. You can call me. Here's my card. I made it in graphics class. I've been wanting to give it to somebody.” He pulls a little white card out of his wallet.

It looks like a business card all right. It is the right shape and the right size. It has a name on it.

 

J
ACK
K
ING
-F
ISHER

How could I forget a name like Jack? How could I forget a name like King-Fisher? It must be true: lack of sleep impairs memory.

There is a bright blue squiggle in the corner of the card that looks a lot like a kingfisher, actually. It's a bird scribble. And then it says some other things too:

W
EB
D
ESIGN

R
AKU
D
UCKS

U
NDISCOVERED
T
ALENTS

“Thank you. That's a nice card. Good logo.”

“Got an A.”

“I'm impressed.” And I was. I really was.

It's a gray Friday afternoon, and I have nothing to do. Mom and Little Harold have gone to visit Dad. I didn't feel like going, and nobody made a big deal about it.

I don't feel like being alone, either.

I dump out my manila envelope full of miscellaneous.

There are the postcards from Corey. A girl who drove a nail through a guy's skull. Four pink piglet-girls with bloody throats. After-dinner science and a suffocated bird. Piles and piles of bones made into architectural gingerbread. I don't even want to look at the other one.

I don't know why I don't throw the things away.

I guess it's because I keep thinking I'm going to figure out why Corey put pictures of the two of us out there for the whole world to see. I just want to understand why he wanted to hurt me. What the fuck did I ever do to him to set him off? Why does he keep picking the scabs off my sores? The postcards are the only evidence I have to work with, but they don't tell me much.

I'm not looking for the postcards. I just drop them back in the envelope until I can figure them out.

There is the brochure for University of California– Santa Cruz.

I don't know why I keep that either.

For just a little bit more than my dad ever made in a good year, I could pay a year's tuition. Meanwhile, my family could live in a culvert and eat stray cats. Still, it's amazing, UC–Santa Cruz. Apparently the Pacific Ocean really is turquoise blue, redwood trees really are enormous, and people get degrees in astrophysics. Then I guess, they take those degrees in astrophysics and live in a culvert and eat stray cats. Nobody I know has a degree in astrophysics. I have no clue. I put the brochure back in the envelope.

I find what I'm looking for: Jack King-Fisher's business card. I dial the number.

“Tell me about raku ducks,” I say.

“Raku ducks are made of fire and can swim in volcanoes. I know all about raku ducks. What I don't know is who I'm talking to—you don't sound like Mom. Mom, do you have a cold?”

“No, Jack. This is Loa. Not your mom.”

“Good. I hate it when Mom gets a cold. She drinks garlic tea. The whole house smells awful when she does that.”

“I don't have a cold. I wanted to know about the ducks. Are they just imaginary?”

“No. They're real. I make them. Want to see them?”

“Yes.”

“Meet me by the kiln yard on campus in half an hour. I can show you.”

So I put on my coat and leave the house. I walk a little too fast, just to keep warm, so I end up getting there early and end up shivering and waiting by the gate to the kiln yard.

A guy with long red dreads is knocking bricks together. He notices me and waves me over.

“Want to give me a hand? I got to get these bricks cleaned off so I can build the door up tomorrow.”

“OK.”

It isn't that hard, really, to get the bricks cleaned up, but it isn't pleasant either. The bricks are really rough, and I can feel tiny cuts starting to sting. They would probably hurt worse, but my hands are so cold that they are a little bit numb.

“Nice to see you, Arno.” It's Jack King-Fisher, arrived at last. “Did you already meet Loa, then?”

“Well, she didn't introduce herself, but I put her to work,” Arno the red-dread-haired brick cleaner sticks a hand out for shaking. His hands are a lot rougher and warmer than mine.

“She's here to learn about raku ducks. Maybe you could show her how you throw,” says Jack, “It's cool watching him throw,” now Jack is talking to me, “I can't throw worth shit, but Arno is the man with the skills.”

Arno seems pretty laid back, especially in contrast to Jack the cartoon squirrel. Arno scratches the reddish fuzz of whiskers on his chin and thinks it over.

“I could throw something,” says Arno, “I was gonna do some stuff anyway.”

Arno leads the way through the gray metal door into a huge, very warm room. It feels good, all that warm. Then we pass through into an even bigger room that smells like dust and mud. For good reason. It is a room full of clay: clay in buckets, damp clay sculptures under plastic film, muddy footprints on the floor, and everywhere dust.

It is oddly comfortable to be in a place that dirty. It is honest dirt, working dirt, not accidental. When Arno hands me a gob of gray clay the size of my head, I like the way it feels. The clay is cold and heavy and firm, but when I push my thumb into it, it relents; it gives way and leaves a hole the exact opposite of me—right down to the thumbprint of my anti-self.

. . .

Working with clay is hard, physical labor. Like chopping wood but with no chicken ghosts. Being strong is just part of it, though. There is a whole lot to know about mud as it turns out.

I watch Arno make bowls. He draws a wire through a big lump of clay–half, half, half—now there are eight smaller chunks of clay, and he slaps each into a sphere. Then he sits at the wheel. I see how the wheel works. Kicking the heavy bottom disk stores and returns the energy. This is simple physics. Arno slaps a ball down. Under his hand, it is a dome, a disk, a torus, a honey pot for Pooh, a beehive, a bowl. He pulls the wire along the bottom and then lifts the bowl away, carefully, like it is the nest that holds the last hummingbird eggs in the world. Arno makes seven small bowls, one after the other, each one almost perfectly like the others.