Smiles to Go

  “Yeah”—he waggled his fingers in my face—“fifty big ones, chump.”

  “It means matter is mortal. Everything is going to go. Disappear. Vanish. Rock. Water. The planets. The stars. Everything.”

  He blinked. “Pepperonis, too?”

  Mi-Su howled.

  “Cretin,” I said.

  “So, when’s all this going to happen?”

  “Way in the future,” I said. “Billions of years.”

  He looked at me, the smirk gone. “Billions of years?”

  “Trillions, actually.”

  He cocked his head, stared at me, honestly puzzled. He turned to Mi-Su. She nodded. He swung back to me. The smirk returned. The waggling fingers were back in my face. “Fifty.”

  I crumpled up a fifty and threw it at him.

  “He doesn’t care about anything,” I said to Mi-Su.

  Mi-Su grinned. “He’s a mess.”

  We do this, talk about BT as if he’s not there.

  “That’s the word. He’s the most messy, disorganized person I know. He has no—”

  “—discipline.” Mi-Su rolled the dice. She landed on green. Pacific Avenue. “I’m building.”

  “Right. Discipline. Absolutely none. He just flops and slops through life.”

  Mi-Su laughed. “A floppy slopper!”

  BT laughed. “A sloppy flopper!”

  Sometimes he joins in, talking about himself as if he’s not there.

  Mi-Su built four houses on Pacific Avenue.

  “He has no sense of time,” I said. “He does everything zippo—like that”—I snapped my fingers—“spur of the moment. No thought. Spends money the instant he gets it.”

  “He doesn’t need pockets.”

  “He doesn’t think. He just does.” I rolled the dice.

  “A nonthinking doer.”

  I landed on Park Place. “He spends all his money buying cheap stuff that he can never win with.”

  “Railroads!”

  “Exactly.”

  “He’s disgraceful.”

  “Perverted,” said BT.

  “But he thinks he can do it.” I built a hotel on Park Place. “And look what he’s using. The thimble. He’s a boy.”

  “Don’t be sexist.”

  Unlike the rest of the world, BT doesn’t have a favorite Monopoly token. (I always use the top hat; Mi-Su always uses the dog.) He never chooses his token. He just blindly snatches one up.

  “I’m just trying to set him straight,” I said.

  “Be a good role model.”

  Mi-Su pointed at me. “He skateboarded down Dead Man’s Hill.”

  “So he says.”

  BT rolled the dice.

  Mi-Su looked at me, wide-eyed. “You don’t believe him?”

  No one has ever skateboarded down Dead Man’s Hill. It comes down off Heather Lane. It’s unpaved, stony, rutted, twisting and so steep that when you stand at the top, the faraway bottom almost meets the tip of your board.

  BT landed on Park Place.

  “He’d be dead,” I said. “Rent fifteen hundred.”

  “I believe him,” said Mi-Su.

  Deep down, I believed him, too, but I didn’t want to. I waggled my fingers in his face.

  “Fifteen hundred.”

  It was comical, BT picking through his couple of tens and twenties, as if fifteen hundred dollars was going to appear out of nowhere.

  Mi-Su sent a whisper: “Mortgage.”

  BT threw a finger in the air. “I’ll mortgage!” He mortgaged all his properties (except of course Short Line Railroad). “Wheelin’ and dealin’.”

  He dumped all his money in front of me. I counted it. “You’re six hundred and eighty short.”

  “I did something else, too,” he said.

  Wide-eyed, Mi-Su, who always bites:

  “What?”

  BT shook his head. “Not telling.”

  I waggled. “Six hundred and eighty, please.”

  “BT—what?” Mi-Su whined. “Tell me.”

  BT shook his head no.

  “Tell me and I’ll give you a loan.” She counted it out. “Six hundred and eighty.”

  “Oh, no,” I said. I waved the rule book at her. I read: “‘Money can be loaned to a player only by the Bank.’”

  Mi-Su snooted. “It’s my money. I can do whatever I want.” She waved the money under BT’s nose. “Tell.”

  BT snatched the money, leaned across the board and whispered in her ear. Her eyes bulged. She squealed, “Really?”

  He put on a fake shy face, closed his eyes, nodded. He plunked the money down in front of me. “Rent paid.”

  Not that it did him much good. Twice more around the board and he landed on Boardwalk, where I also had a hotel. Rent $2,000. He was dead. “I lose,” he said brightly. He tossed his thimble in the box and headed for the dartboard.

  There’s no satisfaction in beating BT, because he doesn’t even care if he loses. He cheats you that way.

  As usual, Mi-Su and I went on with the game, but something was different. The squares on the board seemed to float under my little silver top hat. BT had done Dead Man’s Hill, and Mi-Su knew something I didn’t, and the proton was dead.

  PD3

  Monday morning.

  The principal finished talking over the PA, and the student announcer for the day took over. She talked about how to nominate people for Wildcat and Wildkitten of the Month, then she said, “And on Friday night, Anthony Bontempo, Homeroom two thirteen, became the first person ever to skateboard down Dead Man’s Hill!”

  Cheers erupted from forty homerooms.

  Morning announcements ended with no mention of the proton.

  In the hallways the mobs heading for classes were buzzing:

  “BT!”

  “He’s crazy!”

  “Insane!”

  “I knew he’d be the one!”

  Funny thing, nobody questioned whether it was true or not. Nobody said maybe BT made the whole thing up. Everybody knows BT doesn’t lie. If you don’t care about consequences, about anything, you don’t have to lie. And it’s not like he did Dead Man’s Hill for the glory. If that were true, he would have had witnesses. He just did it for the same reason he does everything else—he felt like it.

  Third period. Physics. Mr. Sigfried.

  Finally, somebody to share the proton news with.

  The teacher leaned back against the desk, arms folded. “OK, people—there was big news over the weekend. Something happened that will cause textbooks to be rewritten. Who would like to tell us what I’m referring to?”

  My hand was already up when Jamie Westphal blurted, “Anthony Bontempo skateboarded down Dead Man’s Hill!”

  Hoots, whistles, cheers, standing ovation—and BT wasn’t even in the class. Even Mr. Sigfried gave him a little pitty clap. Then he called on me.

  I waited for total silence and said, “Proton decay. It’s confirmed.”

  He snapped a finger at me. “Give that man a prize. And what exactly does that mean, Mr. Tuppence? Proton decay.”

  “It means nothing in the universe will last.”

  He went into mock shock. “Nothing?”

  “Nothing.”

  “How so, Mr. Tuppence?”

  “Because everything is made of protons. And now we know that even protons don’t last forever. Therefore everything will disappear.”

  “The planets, too? They’re going to disappear?”

  “Yep.”

  “The stars?”

  “Yep.”

  “My aunt Tilly’s teapot?”

  “Yep.” I was enjoying this.

  He gazed out the window. “And when is this great disappearing going to happen, Mr. Tuppence?”

  “Long time from now.”

  “Long time? Like a year from now?”

  I snickered. “Way longer.”

  Jamie Westphal piped up, “So, how long?”

  Mr. Sigfried gave me a palms-up stop sign.

  “Let me a
nswer that one, Mr. Tuppence. It’s kinda fun.” He turned to the blackboard and chalked a 1 in the upper-left corner and began writing zeroes and commas across the whole board. And across the board again. And again. He must have gone on for a full five minutes before he plunked the chalk down, stepped aside and gestured at the board covered with the most colossal number any of us had ever seen. “That”—he grinned—“many years.”

  “Zowie!” somebody said.

  Somebody whistled.

  Somebody farted.

  The class cracked up. Mr. Sigfried wagged his head and began erasing the board. “OK, people,” he said, “back to earth. Today we consider”—He lettered the rest on the dusty blackboard:

  THE WONDERS OF WATER

  After school I drubbed Mi-Su in chess club and headed home on Black Viper, my skateboard. Bones Swiss bearings gave the wheels a buttery whir beneath my feet.

  I was still a block from my house when I heard Tabby screaming, “Will, look at me!”

  BT has been teaching Tabby to skateboard lately. She was wobbling down the driveway. She fell off before she reached the sidewalk. She jumped up, lugged the board back to the garage and wobbled down again. She threw out her arms—“Look!”—and toppled off again.

  “No showboating,” said BT.

  “Will,” said Tabby, “can I use Black Viper?”

  “No,” I told her.

  “Pleeeeze!” She carefully laid a sneaker toe on Black Viper.

  I kicked her foot away. I stepped off. I picked up the board. She was looking straight up at me. Her eyes seemed to take up half her face. I hated BT for getting her started on this. I said, “Don’t ever—ever—touch this skateboard. Ever. Or you will die.”

  The eyes blinked. She wanted to cry but she wouldn’t let herself. For once in her life she was going to obey me.

  I shot BT a glare and headed for the front door.

  Tabby piped behind me: “BT went down Dead Man’s Hill!”

  “Big deal,” I said, and went inside.

  PD7

  There I was but I didn’t know why.

  I had told my parents I had to go to school early to help a teacher. Sunrise was the only time of day I could be sure no other kids would be around. They’ve been going up there all week—pilgrims on skateboards—just to be near the place, to stand where he stood, to look over the edge of Dead Man’s Hill, to feel the tingle on the backs of their necks, to try to picture themselves doing it, to laugh and back off.

  So far no one else has done it. Sooner or later somebody will. It won’t be me.

  The town lay below me. Roofs. Trees. Streets. Sticking up like a periscope: the clock tower on the corner of the Brimley Building. I could see the round face of the clock, but not the time.

  The rising sun was straight ahead. I could look directly at it because it was bloody orange and just over the horizon and smoky with clouds. When I looked at the sun, my eyes were crossing 93 million miles of space. But my feet wouldn’t cross another inch.

  I had one foot on Black Viper, one foot on the earth. There was already too much space under the tip of the board. The angle of the drop was astounding. I felt as if I was looking down over the roof edge of a skyscraper. I didn’t see how his wheels could have stayed on the ground all the way down. At some point he must have been flying. And then there were the stones and shin-deep ruts.

  I thought: This is impossible. He lied.

  I knew I was wrong.

  Why was I doing this? I knew I wouldn’t go down. I was scared stiff just standing there. I already knew I was a coward. Did I need to prove it? Remind myself? Ninety-three million miles of space in front of me, and every inch of it seemed packed with the things I was afraid of: high places, cramped places, dark places, thousand-leggers, speed, flying, death, change, time, pain, failure, criticism, roller coasters, train tracks, being wrong, being smelly, being late, being stupid, being rejected, black mambos, leeches, hantavirus, losing, deep water, uncertainty, being buried alive, being caught being afraid, myself…

  I could see my epitaph:

  HERE LIES WILLIAM JAY TUPPENCE HE WAS AFRAID

  Of course, that wouldn’t really happen, because no one knows this about me, not even my parents. What everyone sees is a pretty normal-looking kid, 5 feet 9 ½ inches, brown hair, brown eyes, ears a little big, a little stuck out but not enough to mock. Likes science, especially astronomy. Best friends: Anthony Bontempo (aka BT) and Mi-Su Kelly. Runs cross-country. Chess Club. Good at it. Won a trophy. Calls his skateboard Black Viper. Rides it to school. A little shy, on the quiet side, but friendly enough. Not the life of the party, but not a hermit either. Somewhere in the middle. Sensible.

  If I’m famous for anything, I guess that’s it. I’m sensible. Other kids ask my advice about stuff. To me common sense is just that: common. But some kids seem to think it’s this rare gift. They seem to see me as a substitute adult. A homeroom kid wrote in my eighth-grade yearbook: “Thank you for your wisdom & wise ways.” Doug Lawson, a cross-country running mate, calls me “Old Man.”

  That’s the macro view. Down here on quantum level, where I live by myself, my fears quiver like leaping electrons. I send my questions up to the surface, but they fizzle long before they reach the top. Why can’t I be like other kids? Why can’t I believe I’m indestructible? Why can’t I believe I’ll live forever? Why do I stare at the sky at night?

  Suddenly the sun was blinding. I panicked. Had I gone too far? The clock tower wobbled. I kicked Black Viper back. I stepped away from the terrifying drop. I climbed on my board and pushed off, back to where I belonged, my wheels whirring over the asphalt.

  PD8

  Saturday morning. Downtown. Hicks’ Sporting Goods.

  Mr. Hicks handed me the trophy. This was my father’s idea. When I won the chess tournament last spring, my father looked at the inscription—

  HOPE COUNTY CHESS CHAMPION AGES 13–15

  —and said, “They should have put your name on it.”

  “How could they?” I said. “They didn’t know I was going to win.”

  “I knew,” he said.

  So typical. My father has so much confidence in me, it’s scary. They say that when I was a baby, one year old, he tossed me into the deep end of the Crescent Club pool (my mother screaming), and I swam.

  It’s been kind of like that ever since. He knows what I can do before I know. In fifth grade he told me I would be the school spelling champion, and I was. He said I would learn to ride a bicycle in one hour. I did. I wish I could be as fearless for myself as he is for me.

  “Here ya go,” said Mr. Hicks.

  I looked at the inscription, added at the bottom of the black mirror plate:

  WILL TUPPENCE

  “Congratulations,” he said. “I never got the hang of chess myself.” He chuckled. “Checkers for me.” He was still holding it.

  The trophy was beautiful. It was topped by a pewter King Arthur–looking figure standing on a board of little black-and-white squares. The five-inch base was blue marbled stone and held the inscription plate. I already had a space for it on the bookcase in my room.

  Finally he let go. “It’s figuring out all those moves ahead of time,” he said. “I don’t know how you do it. I hear the real experts—”

  “Grand masters.”

  “Yeah, the grand masters, they know what they’re gonna do—what, three moves ahead?”

  “Try ten,” I said.

  His eyes boggled. He whistled.

  “Well, thanks again,” I said.

  I headed home on foot. I wasn’t taking a chance on crashing Black Viper with priceless freight on board. I walked past the old Brimley Building clock tower. It said 11:45. My watch said 11:55. The clock tower is famous for being right. I reset my watch. Hopefully, in a couple of months, I won’t have this problem. I’ve told my parents I want a radio-controlled Exacta watch for Christmas. I showed them the ad in Discover. Every night it receives a signal from the National Institute of Standards and Techn
ology Atomic Clock in Fort Collins, Colorado. The Atomic Clock is accurate to within ten billionths of a second(0.000000001 sec).

  For some reason I looked back at the clock tower. It’s one of those old-fashioned clocks, with Roman numerals instead of Arabic numbers. Suddenly on the right shoulder of the ten(X), I saw a tiny flash, like a glint from the sun. But when I looked up at the sky, it was gray, nothing but clouds.

  Tonight Monopoly will be at my house. Mi-Su will bring the pizza, anchovies and extra sauce for me, extra pepperoni for her. And a small regular for Tabby. I’ll tell her not to do that, that Tabby is just a little kid, that she already thinks she’s a grown-up and treating her like one of us will just make her worse. She’ll ignore me and give my sister the pizza. BT will be late. Tabby will race upstairs, go crazy over him. He’ll breeze down to the basement den and call ahead: “Gimme four hotels on Park Place!” He’ll buy everything he lands on. He’ll chuckle when he gets a railroad.

  Tabby will cheer him on. Within an hour he’ll be wiped out. Tabby will attack him. They’ll wrestle. She’ll bring him a book, probably an adult murder mystery. He’ll spend the rest of the night reading it to her. He’ll leave out the bad words.

  PD16

  Sunday morning. Church. Boring, as usual. But as my father says, it’s money in the bank. It’s the ticket. The bridge. It’s how to get from Here to There. From Here to Forever.

  There’s always a pencil in the pew. Stubby, yellow, like the ones they give you at miniature golf to keep score with. As the service dragged on, I checked off the items in the program: Call to Worship, Hymn of Praise, Prayer of Adoration, Prayer of Confession, Assurance of Pardon, etc., etc. Then came the dreaded sermon—talk about Forever! This was the third Sunday since the proton died in Yellowknife, and Rev. Mauger hadn’t said a word about it. Neither has anyone else. The world doesn’t seem to care about the end of itself.

  The reverend’s lullaby droned on. I decided to amuse myself by writing down Mr. Sigfried’s number. Across the top of the church program, down the right-hand side, across the bottom and halfway up the left side:

  I stared at the number. It made no sense. It’s beyond gazillions. There’s not even a name for it. It’s the number of years from now when everything will be gone. If I could live that long, I would see Rev. Mauger’s pulpit evaporate, proton by proton.