I’m one of the few people who actually knows him, on account of he’s mostly a hermit. He used to be entirely a hermit, until he hired me to walk his dogs and to date his granddaughter, Lexie, who’s blind, but has managed to make her blindness seem like a mere technicality. Pretty soon dating her stopped being a job, and it became real, much to Old Man Crawley’s disgust. There was this one time Lexie and I kidnapped Crawley, and forced him to see the outside world. He liked it so much he now has us kidnap him on a regular basis.
The weird thing is that I kind of like him. Maybe it’s because I understand him—or maybe it’s because I’m the only person who can call him a nasty old fart to his face and get away with it. I can’t quite say that Crawley and I are friends, but he dislikes me less than he dislikes most other people. Still, with Crawley, the line between tolerance and disgust is very thin.
“If you give me the details of tonight’s incident, maybe I won’t have to ask your father about it,” Crawley said.
There was no sense in lying to Old Man Crawley. No sense sugarcoating it either, so I told it to him as plainly, and as simply, as I could. “I spilled some water, and plucked ice cubes off some woman’s plate, so my father had to give her a free meal. Then he sent me home.”
A long silence on the other end. I could hear dogs barking in the background, and then Crawley said, “I am amazed, Anthony, by your continuing ability to disappoint me.” And then he hung up without as much as a good-bye.
Mom came home at about ten that night, with Christina practically asleep in her arms. I knew Dad wouldn’t be home until past midnight. It was like that all the time, since he opened the restaurant. On this particular night, though, I didn’t mind.
My mom came into my room once she got Christina off to bed. “You gotta understand, Antsy, your father’s under a lot of pressure.”
“Yeah, well, he doesn’t have to take it out on me.”
“He doesn’t mean to.”
“Blah, blah, blah.”
She sat on the edge of my bed. “The restaurant’s not doing as well as he would like. Mr. Crawley keeps threatening to pull the plug.”
I sat up, and before she could launch into the Top Ten Reasons Why I Should Cut My Father Some Slack, I said, “I get it, okay? But just because I get it doesn’t mean I gotta like it.”
She patted my leg, then left, satisfied.
When Dad got home around midnight, he made a point to stop by my room. Even before he spoke, I could tell that Darth Menu had left the building.
“Things good?” he asked.
Since there was no short answer, I just said, “Things are things.”
“So,” he asked, with a crooked little smile. “Did you at least like the Garlique Yam Puree?”
This, I knew, was an apology.
“Yeah, it was good,” I said. “All your stuff is good.”
This, he knew, was me accepting his apology.
“Good night, Antsy.”
After he left, I turned off my TV and tried to get to sleep. As I lay there, at the place where your thoughts start to break apart and stop making sense, the day’s events began to swim into a soup of raccoon, ice water, and terminal illness. Like Gunnar had said, life is a fragile thing. One moment you could be marching happily in a parade, the next you’re hanging from the Empire State Building. Sometimes it’s because of the choices you make, or sometimes you’re just careless—but most of the time it’s just dumb luck—and in my experience few things are dumber than luck, except for maybe Wendell Tiggor, whose brain cells communicate by smoke signal.
Luck was about to take some pretty weird bounces, though. It never occurred to me how something as simple as a pitcher of ice water could change a person’s life . . . or how a single piece of paper could change the course of an incurable disease.
3 Why “NeuroToxin” Is Now My Favorite Word in the English Language
Pulmonary Monoxic Systemia. Very rare. Very fatal. Basically the body, which is supposed to turn oxygen into carbon dioxide, turns it into carbon monoxide instead—the stuff in car exhaust that kills you if you breathe it long enough. In other words, when you’ve got Pulmonary Monoxic Systemia, your own body fails the smog check, and you’re eventually poisoned by the very air you breathe. I think I’d rather fall from a giant inflatable raccoon.
There are several different ways to respond when you find out that someone you know has something weird and incurable. Your response all depends on the type of person you are. There are basically three types.
Type One: The “I-didn’t-hear-that” people. These are the ones who just go on with life, pretending that nothing is wrong. These are the people who would be sitting in Starbucks during an alien invasion, arguing the virtues of Splenda over Equal. You know this person. We all do.
Type Two: The “not-in-my-airspace” people. These are the ones who believe that everything is somehow contagious and would probably start taking antibiotics if their computer got a virus. These people would do everything within their power to avoid the terminally ill person, and then say, “I wish we had more time with him,” once the farm had been bought.
Type Three: The “I-can-fix-this” people. These people, against all logic, believe they can change the course of mighty rivers with their bare hands, even thought they can’t swim, and so usually end up drowning.
I come from a family of drowners.
I guess I follow in the family tradition—because even though I couldn’t even pronounce the illness that Gunnar had, I was convinced that I could somehow help him live longer. By the time I went back to school on Monday, I had already decided that I wanted to do something Meaningful for him. I wasn’t sure what it would be, only that it would be Meaningful. Now keep in mind this was before I met Kjersten, so my intentions weren’t selfish yet. I was being what they call “altruistic,” which means doing good deeds for no sensible reason—and having no sensible reason for doing things is kind of where I live.
I knew I’d be on my own in figuring this one out—or at least I wasn’t going to ask for help from my family. Talking to Dad about it was out of the question, because all of his mental wall space was covered with restaurant reservations. I couldn’t tell my mom, because the second I did, she’d get that pained expression on her face and be on my case about praying for Gunnar. Not that I wouldn’t pray for Gunnar, but I probably would be strategic about it. I wouldn’t do it until he was on his deathbed, because the way I see it, praying is like trying to win an Academy Award; you don’t want to come out praying too early, or you get forgotten when it’s time for the nominations.
I considered telling Frankie or Christina, but Frankie would just try to top it by telling me all the people he knew who died. As for Christina, traumatizing her with this was a bit different from telling her our basement was sealed off because of the zombies. Besides, who goes to their younger sister for advice? She does have a spiritual streak, though, I’ll admit that. In fact, lately I’ve found her sitting in her room, in lotus position, trying to levitate. She read somewhere that monks in the Himalayas have special spiritual mantras they repeat over and over that will make them float in midair. I’m open to all possibilities, but I told Christina that her mantra of “Ama Gonna Levitato” sounded more Harry Potter than Himalaya.
No, this whole thing needed to fly under my family’s radar for a while.
Few things got by our school radar, however. It could have been Howie or Ira who overheard Gunnar at the Empire State Building—or maybe Gunnar had been selectively confiding in other kids as well. Whatever the reason, Gunnar’s life-span issue was all the whisper around school on Monday.
That was the day we had to sign up for John Steinbeck lit circles in English class. Apparently Of Mice and Men was just a prelude to a whole lot of reading. I showed up a few minutes late, and all the short books like The Red Pony were gone, leaving monsters like The Grapes of Wrath and East of Eden.
Gunnar and I were in English together, and I noticed that he was in the G
rapes of Wrath group. The Cannery Row group consisted of Wendell Tiggor and the tiggorhoids—which is what we called all the human moths that fluttered around Tiggor’s dim bulb. I make it a habit never to join any group where I’m the smartest member, so I put my name under Gunnar’s and prayed that The Grapes of Wrath wasn’t as deep as it was long. If nothing else, it would give me a chance to get to know Gunnar better, and figure out what Meaningful thing I could do for him.
After class he came up to me. “So I see we’re both in the Group of Wrath,” he said. “Why don’t you come over after school—I’ve got the movie on DVD.”
It was pretty bad timing, because just then Mrs. Casey, our English teacher, was passing by. “That’s cheating, Mr. Ümlaut,” she said.
“No,” I offered, without missing a beat. “It’s research.”
She raised an eyebrow as she considered this. “In that case, I’m assigning you both to compare and contrast the book with the movie.” Then she struts off, very pleased with herself.
Gunnar sighed. “Sorry about that.”
I leaned closer to him and whispered, “It’s okay—I think my brother’s got the Cliff’s Notes.”
And from the far end of the hall Mrs. Casey yells back, “Don’t even think about it!”
Going over to someone’s house you barely know is always an adventure of strange smells, strange sights, and strange dogs that will either yap at you or sniff places you’d rather not be sniffed. But there’s interesting things at unexplored homes as well, like a giant tank of Chinese water dragons, or a home theater better than the multiplex, or a goddess answering the door.
In the Ümlauts’ case, it was choice number three: the goddess. Her name was Kjersten, pronounced “Kirsten” (the j is silent—don’t ask me how that’s possible) and she was the last person I expected to see at Gunnar’s house. Kjersten is a junior, and exists on a plane high above us mere mortals—and not just because of her height. She doesn’t fit the mold of your typical beautiful girl. She’s not a cheerleader, she’s not part of the popular crowd—in fact, the popular crowd hates her, because Kjersten’s very presence points out to them how pitiful they really are. She is a straight-A student, rules the debate team, is on the tennis team, is practically six feet tall, and as for other parts of her, well, let’s just say that the lettering on her T-shirt is like one of those movies in 3-D.
“Hi, Antsy.”
My response was a perfect imitation of Porky Pig. “Ibbidibibbiby-dibbity . . .” The fact that Kjersten even knew I existed was too much information for me to process.
She gave a little laugh. “NeuroToxin,” she said.
“Huh?”
“You were looking at my shirt.” She pointed to the logo on her chest. “It’s the band NeuroToxin—I got it at their concert last month.”
“Yeah, yeah, right.” To be honest, in spite of where my eyes were staring, my brain had turned everything between her neck and her navel into that digital blur they put up on TV when they don’t want you to see something. Her shirt could have had the answers to tomorrow’s math test on it and I wouldn’t have known.
“What are you doing here?” I said, like a perfect imbecile.
She gave me a funny look. “Where else would I be? I live here.”
“Why do you live with the Ümlauts?”
She laughed again. “Uh . . . maybe because I am an Ümlaut?”
With my brain somewhere between here and Jupiter, I was only now catching on. “So you’re Gunnar’s sister?”
“Last I checked.”
The concept that Kjersten could be the sister of someone I actually knew had never occurred to me. I suppressed the urge to do another Porky Pig, swallowed, and said, “Can I come in, please?”
“Sure thing.” Then she called to Gunnar, letting him know that I was here. I shivered when she said my name again, and hoped she hadn’t seen.
There was no response from Gunnar—the only thing I heard was a faint, high-pitched banging sound.
“He’s out back working on that thing,” Kjersten said. “Just go on through the kitchen and out the back door.”
I thanked her, tried not to stare at any part of her whatsoever, and went into the house. As I passed through the kitchen I saw their mother—a woman who looked like an older, plumper version of Kjersten.
“Hello!” she said when she saw me, looking up from some vegetables she was cleaning in the sink. “You must be a friend of Gunnar’s. Will you stay for dinner?” Her accent was much heavier than I expected it to be, considering Gunnar and Kjersten barely had any accent at all.
Dinner? I thought. That would mean I’d be at the same dinner table with Kjersten, and the moment I thought that, my own mother’s voice intruded into my head, telling me that I used utensils like an orangutang. Whenever Mom said that, I would respond by telling her that orangutan had no g at the end and then go on shoveling food into my mouth like a lower primate. My eating habits didn’t matter with my last girlfriend, Lexie, on account of she’s blind. She would just get mad when I scraped the fork against my teeth, so as long as I ate quietly, I could be as apelike as I pleased.
Now, thanks to my own stubbornness, I had no practice in fine dining skills. Kjersten would take one look at the way I held my knife and fork, would burst out laughing, and share the information with whatever higher life-forms she communed with.
I knew if I dwelt on this much longer, I would either talk myself out of it or my head would explode, so I said, “Sure, I’ll stay for dinner.” I’d deal with the consequences later.
“Antsy, is that you?” Gunnar called from the backyard, where the loud tapping sound was coming from.
“Maybe,” Mrs. Ümlaut said quietly, “you shall get him away from that thing he works on.”
Gunnar was, indeed, working on a thing. I wondered at first if it was something for our Grapes of Wrath project. It was a stone sculpture. Granite or marble, I guessed. He was tapping away at it with a hammer and chisel. He hadn’t gotten too far, because the block of stone was still pretty square. “Hi, Gunnar,” I said. “I didn’t know you were an artist.”
“Neither did I.”
He continued his tapping. There were uneven letters toward the edge of the block. G-U-N. He was already working on the second N. I laughed. “You gotta make the sculpture before you sign it, Gunnar.”
“It’s not that kind of sculpture.”
It took me a moment more until I got the big picture, and the moment I realized just what Gunnar was doing, I blurted out one of those words my mother smacks me for.
Gunnar was carving his own tombstone.
“Gunnar . . . that’s just . . . wrong.”
He stood back to admire his work. “Well, the letters aren’t exactly even, but that will add to the overall effect.”
“That’s not what I mean.”
He looked at me, read what must have been a pretty unpleasant expression on my face, and said, “You’re just like my parents. You have an unhealthy attitude. Did you know that in ancient Egypt the Pharaohs began planning their own tombs when they were still young?”
“Yeah, but you’re Swedish,” I reminded him. “There aren’t any pyramids in Sweden.”
He finished off the second N. “That’s only because Vikings weren’t good with stone.”
I found myself involuntarily looking around for an escape route, and wondered if maybe I was a “not-in-my-airspace” type after all.
Then Gunnar starts launching into all this talk about death throughout history, and how people in Borneo put their departed loved ones in big ceramic pots and keep them in the living room, which is worse than anything I’ve told my sister about our basement. So I’m getting all nauseous and stuff, and his mother calls out, “Dinner’s ready,” and I pray to God she’s not serving out of a Crock-Pot.
“Borrowed time, Antsy,” he said. “I’m living on borrowed time.”
It annoyed me, because he wasn’t living on borrowed time—he was living on his own time, a
t least for six months, and I could think of better things to do with that time than carving a tombstone.
“Will you just shut up!” I told him.
He looked at me, hurt. “I thought you of all people would understand.”
“Whaddaya mean ‘me of all people’? Do you know something I don’t?”
We both looked away. He said, “When that guy . . . the other day . . . you know . . . when he fell from Roadkyll Raccoon . . . everyone else was staring like it was some show, but you and I . . . we had respect enough to look away. So I thought you’d have respect for me, too.” He glanced at the unfinished gravestone before him. “And respect for this.”
I hadn’t meant to hurt his feelings, but it was hard to respect a homemade gravestone. “I don’t know, Gunnar,” I said. “It’s like you’re getting all Hamlet on me and stuff. I swear, if you start walking around with a skull, and saying ‘to-be-or-not-to-be, ’ I’m outta here.”
He looked at me coldly, and said, insulted, “Hamlet was from Denmark, not Sweden.”
I shrugged. “What’s the difference?”
And to that he said, “Get out of my house.”
But since we were in his backyard, and not in his house, I stayed put. He made no move to physically remove me from his presence, so I figured he was bluffing. I looked at that stupid rock that said GUNN in crooked letters. He had already returned to carving. I could hear that his breathing sounded a little bit strained, and wondered whether that was normal, or if the illness was already making it difficult for him to breathe. I had looked up the disease online—Pulmonary Monoxic Systemia had symptoms that could go mostly unnoticed, until the end, when your lips got cyanotic—which means they turn blue, like they do when you’re swimming in a pool someone’s too stinking cheap to heat. Gunnar’s lips weren’t blue, but he was pale, and he did get dizzy and light-headed from time to time. Those were symptoms, too. The more I thought I about it, the worse I felt about being so harsh over the tombstone.