Twerp Read online

  “Maybe I helped to write it—”

  She looked up at me hopefully.

  “Here’s the thing, Jillian. If I were going to write a letter like that for myself, you’re the one I’d write it to for sure. I think you’re real pretty, and I also think you’re real smart. So maybe, when I was helping to write it, I got carried away. But the letter isn’t mine. It’s not from me. It wasn’t my idea.”

  “But it was your words?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “And your feelings too?”

  “Look,” I said, “if I tell you the truth, do you swear to keep it between us?”

  “Of course I do!”

  “Do you swear?”

  She looked me dead in the eyes. “I would never tell your secrets, Julian.”

  I inhaled. “You know my friend Lonnie?”

  “Sure, the one who came to my barbecue.”

  “Yeah. He’s a great guy.”

  She half shrugged and brushed away a tear. “He’s all right, I guess.”

  “He’s not just all right. He’s a great guy. He’s smarter than anyone I know. Maybe it doesn’t always show in school, but once you get to know him, you realize how smart he is. I mean, he’s just an all-around great guy.”

  She got a sudden look on her face, like she’d just figured things out. “Did Lonnie tell you not to like me anymore?”

  “What?”

  “I got mad at him when he was talking about his mother. Did I hurt his feelings? I didn’t mean to do it. I don’t mind apologizing if I hurt his feelings. It’s just that … how could you talk about your mother that way?”

  “First of all, Lonnie loves his mother—”

  “I’ll tell him I’m sorry. I don’t mind.”

  “That’s just his way of joking around.”

  “I want to be friends with your friends.”

  “Second of all, Lonnie’s not just my friend. He’s my best friend. He’s the greatest guy I know. It’s not just me who thinks that. You could ask any guy on Thirty-Fourth Avenue who the greatest guy he knows is, and the answer will come up the same every time. It’s Lonnie.”

  “I know you’re loyal to your friends, Julian. I’ll apologize to Lonnie the next time I see him.”

  I felt defeat wash over me. “Jillian, it was Lonnie’s letter.”

  She lurched back and put her hand over her mouth.

  “I wrote it for him. But only because he asked me to do it.”

  “How could you, Julian?” Tears flooded back to her eyes.

  “I thought it was a bad idea. That’s the honest truth. But I did it because Lonnie is a great guy, and I knew he would do it for me.”

  “Why would you need Lonnie to write a letter for you?”

  “I wouldn’t,” I said. “But let’s say I needed to drag a couch down the street—”

  “What?”

  “I know it’s a bad example. But let’s say I did—”

  She let out a loud sob. The entire class turned toward us. It was like that scene in the movie Children of the Damned where the kids’ heads spin around all at once. Jillian lowered her face into her hands and cried, and I stood next to her, with my hands in my pockets, waiting for her to get up out of my seat.

  After several seconds, I whispered, “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s all right, Julian,” she managed to answer.

  “I like you a lot.”

  “You don’t have to say that.”

  “No, it’s the truth,” I said. “If Lonnie hadn’t thought of it first, I would’ve written the letter myself.”

  She looked up at me. “Really?”

  “I mean, I can’t say for sure—”

  “But you do like me a lot.”

  “Yes, but so does Lonnie. He’s crazy about you. If you just got to know him—”

  She stood up and wiped the tears from her eyes. “All right, I understand, Julian.”

  The way she said that sent a chill through me. But there was no way to continue the conversation. She walked back to her desk, and I slid in behind mine. I kept my head down until I could feel the rest of the kids lose interest. They went back to their conversations. Five minutes later, the morning bell rang, and class started.

  May 9, 1969

  When They Get Started …

  You know that short story we read the other day, “My Old Man” by Ernest Hemingway? I didn’t think too much of it at the time. It seemed like one of those stories that goes on and on and then stops, and afterward you wonder why you had to read it in the first place. It’s sad, I guess, how the kid’s dad gets knocked off the racehorse and killed, and then the horse has to be killed too. Actually, now that I’m writing about it, it’s real sad—even if the kid’s dad was a crook. I mean, no kid should have to see his dad get killed. It kind of choked me up just now, thinking back on it. (Don’t worry, I’m not going to bawl.) But what stuck in my head was the last line: “Seems like when they get started they don’t leave a guy nothing.”

  That’s just how I feel after last week.

  First came a note from Lonnie, which Quentin handed to me at the bus stop on Tuesday morning.

  Dear Julian,

  I know I don’t write so good as you and I might make mistakes with where commas and punctuations go and such. But I’m writing to say I saw you kissing with Jillian last week in the cafeteria but I tried to act like it was nothing but yesterday she said you told her to tell me she liked you and not me. I think that stinks Julian. I trusted you because you were my friend but you stabbed me right in the back like it was nothing. I ought to punch you but I won’t on account of how long we were friends but I don’t want to talk to you no more from now on.

  Sincerely, your x-friend Lonnie

  Lonnie’s note, like I said, came on Tuesday morning, and it just tore me up. Looking back, though, things went downhill from there. I could have handled the note by itself. I’m sure if nothing else had happened, Lonnie and I would’ve talked things out. The thing about Lonnie is that he’s fair, and the truth was that he had no reason to be mad at me.

  That’s what I was going to tell him after school on Tuesday. It had to be after school because I couldn’t walk up to him in the cafeteria, when the rest of the guys were around. No one besides me knew how he felt about Jillian, and I wanted to respect his privacy. So I waited until after school—I figured Lonnie would be as torn up as I was about what had happened, and I knew that when he felt like that, he liked to walk home by himself.

  I let him have a five-minute head start, and then I ran a couple of blocks until he came into sight. He was walking up 149th Street, about to turn the corner at Bayside Avenue. I jogged up behind him. His shoulders were hunched forward. He looked wrecked and miserable even from behind, which was just what I expected. He turned when he heard my footsteps.

  “Wait up!” I called to him.

  He stopped and shook his head. The look on his face was more sad than mad.

  “I don’t want to talk to you, Julian,” he said.

  “C’mon, Lonnie,” I said. “Just hear me out.”

  That was the last sentence I got out before Howie Wartnose tackled me. I had no idea he was there. It turned out Quentin and Howie were walking about ten steps ahead of Lonnie. They’d just turned the corner, so I hadn’t noticed them when I ran up behind him. I felt myself tumbling backward onto the front lawn of a house, with Howie riding me down, and then I felt his full weight on my chest.

  Now would be a good time to mention that I’ve never been in an actual fight. I know that sounds strange, but it’s the truth. I don’t think I have the personality for it. I get mad sometimes, for sure, like when I chased after Eduardo in the playground. But I was just going to tag him hard, not fight with him. What I mean is, when I do get mad, it’s always an annoyed kind of mad, not a bug-eyed kind of mad. Lonnie even teases me about it … like, one time we were watching a couple of junior high school guys going at it on Union Street, and he nudged me with his elbow and said, “Why don�
��t you jump in there, Jules?”

  That’s not to say I’ve never wrestled around with guys in a jokey kind of way, and for a second that’s what I thought was going on when I felt Howie straddling me. It was only when I looked up and saw his eyes bugging out that I realized he was serious.

  “Why’d you do it?” he yelled. But at the same time he yelled the words, he also started to drool. I noticed a droplet of drool form at the corner of his mouth, and I knew it was going to fall into my face. I twisted my head to the left just as it came loose. It must have missed me by an inch. “Don’t you move!” Howie yelled. “Don’t you move a muscle!”

  The drool was gone when I looked back up. I eased back my shoulders and waited to hear him out.

  As soon as he felt me relax, his eyes changed. It was slight but noticeable. The anger was still there, but there was hurt mixed in with it. “Why did you do it, Julian?”

  “Do what?”

  “You know what!”

  “I don’t, Howie.”

  “Why did you kiss Beverly?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You kissed her at the museum!”

  “I didn’t kiss her at the museum!”

  “Then where did you kiss her?”

  “Nowhere,” I said. “I didn’t kiss her.”

  “Then how come it’s all over school?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Tell the truth!”

  “I’m telling you the truth, Howie. I buddied up with her at the museum because she didn’t want to be stuck with Hank Feltscher. That’s it. I don’t know what you heard, but that’s the truth. If you would’ve just asked me instead of getting weird about it, I would’ve told you.”

  “Let him up,” Lonnie said.

  Howie glanced back over his shoulder at Lonnie. “He’s lying.”

  “He’s not lying. Let him up.”

  Howie looked back down at me. “If I let you up, are you going to run away?”

  I smiled up at him. “If I think you’re going to hit me, I’m going to run away.”

  “You see!”

  “Let him up!” Lonnie grabbed Howie by the shoulder and pulled him off me.

  As soon as I felt his weight come off, I sat up but didn’t stand. I looked him in the eye and said, “Howie, there’s nothing between me and Beverly.”

  “Why should I trust you?”

  “Because it’s the truth,” I said. “There’s nothing between me and Beverly … and there’s nothing between you and Beverly. I’m telling you the truth for your own good. This thing with her has been going on for too long. You’ve got to let it go. She doesn’t want to be your girlfriend. That’s not going to change.”

  “How do you know?”

  I took a deep breath. “Everyone knows.”

  When I said that, I watched the light in his eyes go out. The anger went away. Even the hurt went away. There was nothing left except the glaze on the surface. He looked killed.

  “I’m real sorry, Howie.”

  He ignored me and turned to Lonnie, which made sense. That’s who I’d want to hear it from if I were in his position.

  “Is it true?” he said.

  Lonnie exhaled. “What do you want me to say?”

  “Just tell me if it’s true.”

  “Yeah, Howie, it’s true.”

  He said it quick and direct, like pulling off a Band-Aid.

  Howie swallowed hard and turned to Quentin, his last hope. Quentin had his head down at first and wouldn’t meet his eyes, but then he glanced up and nodded.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  He was still looking at Quentin, but he meant the question for all of us. I wanted to answer him, but I couldn’t find the right words. There were no right words. There was no excuse. We should’ve told him. For his own sake and for Beverly’s sake. We knew the thing was hopeless, but none of us said a word. Except behind his back. He was our friend, he was one of us, but we laughed about him and Beverly behind his back.

  He spun around again and faced Lonnie. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  Lonnie said, “Because guys don’t take away other guys’ dreams.”

  As he said that, he was staring straight at me.

  Howie lowered his head and muttered, “You’re not true friends.”

  “Yes, we are,” Lonnie said. I thought he was going to say more, but that was all he had. There was a real painful silence afterward.

  “Then how come you didn’t tell me?”

  “No one thought it would go on so long.”

  Howie turned and started up the sidewalk by himself. It was pathetic to watch. He wasn’t quite running, but he was rushing to get away from us, with his shoulders slumped forward and his head hanging low. It was so pathetic that I wished I’d never opened my mouth. Quentin took a step after him, but Lonnie caught him by the arm. “Let him walk it off.”

  “He’ll be all right,” I said, standing up. “He just needs a little time.”

  “A little time?” Lonnie said. “Is that what you think?”

  “He needs time to get over it. I don’t know how much.”

  “But in your opinion a little time will do the trick?”

  “I don’t know how much time it’ll take,” I said.

  “But you’re in the gifted class. So maybe you can tell Quentin and me how much time it’ll take Howie to get over it. I’m sure you can figure it out if you use your gifted brain.”

  That cut into me real deep. I wanted to tell him what I meant. I wanted to tell him what had happened with Jillian. But right at that moment, the best I could do was, “C’mon, Lonnie.”

  Then he said the worst thing he’d ever said to me, the worst thing anyone has ever said to me: “I don’t want to have nothing to do with you ever again.”

  He kept staring me down, but after that I couldn’t bear to look at him. I could feel my breath catching in my throat. There was a sick feeling in my stomach. I caught sight of Quentin out of the corner of my eye. He had an expression on his face that was pure confusion.

  Then, at last, Lonnie turned to Quentin and said, “C’mon, let’s get out of here. It stinks in this neighborhood.”

  They walked away, and I was left standing alone.

  May 18, 1969

  The Rabbi’s Advice

  Maybe for the first time, I’m glad I’m doing this assignment. Not because it’s going to get me out of Julius Caesar, or not just because it’s going to get me out of Julius Caesar, which is worth it no matter what. But because it’s proof. I’ve spent the last three days reading over what I’ve written, page by page, sorting out what I did wrong that got me into this mess. Here’s what I’ve come up with: I killed a bird. I caused a guy to crash the car he’d stolen (so that could count for or against me, if you think about it). Also, I did that thing to Danley Dimmel. But once you get past those three things, I did nothing wrong. I tried to be a good friend, to do unto others, etc. But what did I get in return? Grief and more grief.

  It’s getting to me too. I’m not sleeping well. I wake up in the middle of the night rolling back and forth, driving my elbows into the mattress. Not even bawling, just mad. Mad at myself. Mad at Lonnie. Mad at Jillian. But you know who else I’m mad at when I wake up pounding the mattress?

  God.

  I know you’re not supposed to say you’re mad at God. You’re not even supposed to think it. I feel low thinking it, but I can’t get rid of the thought. Yeah, I know God’s got bigger things to worry about than what’s going on in my rinky-dink life. Like what’s going on in Guatemala. What right do I have to be mad at God, given what happened to Eduardo? Now there’s a guy who has a real beef with God. But he rolled with it. How rinky-dink do I look in comparison? That much I realize logically. But realizing something logically doesn’t mean realizing it in your guts. Logically, I know it doesn’t matter that Eduardo is going to beat me in front of the entire school on Track and Field Day. But deep down in my guts, it matters. It matters a lot. Why did
God make Eduardo so calm about things? Why did God make him so fast? And why oh why oh why did God send him to P.S. 23?

  Things came to a boiling point this morning in Hebrew school. If there was ever a worse time for a pop quiz, I don’t know when it would be. To say that I wasn’t in the mood is an understatement. Rabbi Salzberg broke the news a half hour before the end of class. He had this wicked grin on his face as he handed out the quiz, and I had to fight back the urge to crumple up the paper and walk out the door. Then he sat down behind his desk at the front of the room and peered down at us. He’s got these wire-frame glasses with half lenses, rounded at the bottom and straight-edged across the top, so that even when he’s looking straight at us, it always feels like he’s looking down. Plus, he smells like old cigarettes and fish. I don’t know if it’s him or his suit, but it’s a smell that stays with you, that hangs in the air. I couldn’t breathe for a couple of seconds as I looked down at the quiz.

  The first question was “Name the three patriarchs of the Israelites.”

  I thought about it and wrote down: “Lonnie, Eduardo, and Jillian.”

  Then I folded the quiz paper in half and rested my head on the desk.

  It was maybe a minute later that I got a whiff of old cigarettes and fish. I looked up, and Salzberg was standing next to me. His glasses were halfway down his nose. He had a real annoyed expression on his face.

  “Mr. Twerski?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you done with the quiz?”

  “No, I’m just resting,” I said.

  “How far have you gotten?”

  “Not very far.”

  “Let me see.”

  “I’d rather not, Rabbi.”

  “You’d rather not?”

  “Let me finish first.”

  I unfolded the paper and started back to work. As I was about to read the second question, Salzberg snatched the paper away from me. I sighed to myself but said nothing.

  He carried the paper to the front of the room. That wicked grin came back to his face as he told the class to put their pencils down. Then he said, “Who can tell me the patriarchs of the Israelites?”