Chapter Seven
Gerald
Mia
“I’m still mad at you,” I tell my father. “You need to stop treating me like I’m some precious antique that can’t get any fingerprints on it.”
“Has he been putting fingerprints on you?” dad asks.
I don’t have to think about it: my eyes just roll on instinct. “I’m not even sure I know what that means,” I tell him. “This is some apology.”
“I know,” he says. “I’m sorry.”
Dad’s been trying to “apologize” for the way he behaved with Ian. He’s been trying for about the last fifteen minutes, but every time we seem to be making a little headway, he jumps right back into Looming Father Figure Man—a superhero I doubt will ever have a movie of his own—mode and then we’re right back where we are now.
“I wanted to do something to show you how sorry I am,” he says.
“You’re cosigning a lease on an apartment for me?” I ask, though I’m smart enough not to expect such a thing.
“No,” he says, looking down at the ground, his hands in some strange fidget war with one another. “It’s a surprise,” he says.
It kind of weirds me out when my dad is all contrite and reasonable. Usually, he’s the guy he’s been apologizing for, not the guy doing the apologizing.
“I’m supposed to meet him again tonight,” I tell him. “Is that going to be a problem?”
“You’re not doing it here, are you?” he asks.
“Thanks, dad,” I answer and grab my jacket from the back of the couch. “I’m going to go out for a walk, maybe into a body of water and, you know, not stop until I’m floating.”
“Hold on,” he says. “Before you go all Virginia Woolf on me, would you at least get in the car so I can take you to pick out your surprise?”
“That was distasteful,” I answer, then look at the door and back at him. “What do you mean, ‘take me to pick out my surprise?’ You’re not trying to win me over by taking me out for ice cream, are you? I am twenty years old.”
“It’s not ice cream,” he says. “You’ll see when we get there. When are you meeting your tattooed friend?”
I scoff. “His name’s Ian, dad,” I tell him. “You know his name is Ian. You’re really bad at seeking forgiveness, you know that?”
“I know,” he says. “Just get in the car, and I promise it’ll be worth it, all right?”
I look at the clock.
As long as he’s not trying to take me out of the city, I should have time for whatever his surprise is before I meet up with Ian. That said, I’m not sure if I can really stomach too many more of my dad’s half-apologies.
“Is there any way you can leave your little comments about my class partner while you’re trying to buy me off?” I ask.
“I will do my best,” he says.
“I’ve seen your best,” I tell him. “It’s not very inspiring.”
“Fine,” he says. “We won’t even talk about it. Come on, I want to get there before they close.”
It’s pretty early in the day for a store to be closing. What kind of stores close early in the day?
With that, he’s got me. I cannot abide unsatisfied curiosity, even with something as trivial as wanting to know what kind of store closes at four o’clock on a Wednesday afternoon.
It’s a crack in the armor, but there hasn’t been much I’ve been able to do about it.
“Okay,” I tell him. “I’ll go. Just remember that you’re going to play nice and not end up having to apologize anymore because that really defeats the purpose of the whole thing.”
“Agreed,” he says. “Come on, let’s get down there.”
We head out to the car and, as I’m getting in the passenger’s seat, he has to rub it in.
“It was the comment about the place closing that did it, wasn’t it?” he asks.
“Why would a store close at four o’clock?” I ask. “Some places close at five, but those are usually banks and other corporate entities which seek the domination and eventual destruction of the human race, but you’re taking me somewhere out of contrition. I don’t think you’d take me shopping at a bank or a post office,” I tell him. “Why would they close at four?”
It’s not until we’re pulling away that he tells me he made up the thing about the place closing to get me to quit arguing and get in the car. I’m not sure whether to be madder at him for exploiting a known weakness of mine in order to achieve his goals or myself for actually being sucked in by something so stupid.
I decide not to fret about it so much and so I ride in the passenger’s seat with a more generalized hatred toward everything.
“Close your eyes,” he says.
“What?” I ask. “Why?”
“I told you,” he says, “It’s a surprise.”
I close my eyes.
We’re driving for a few more minutes and the car comes to a stop.
“Keep your eyes closed,” he says. “Open your door.”
I open the door and it immediately slams into the car parked next to us. My eyes spring open, but it’s too late. The dent is already made.
“That’s my fault,” dad says. “I should have thought that through a little better.”
“It’s all right,” I tell him and look to see where we are. “A kennel?” I ask.
“It’s a shelter,” he says. “They take in strays and other unwanted pets and find them new homes. I was thinking, if you’d like, you could pick out a dog. No cats, though,” he says. “You know I’m allergic.”
“You know,” I tell him, “for someone trying to cover verbal assault with bribery, you’re a pretty amiable guy, dad.”
“I appreciate that, sweetheart,” he says. “Now, let’s go pick you out a pet.”
“I’m going to need a little money for his care,” I tell him. “Or, you know, you could let me get a job.”
“No job,” he says. “I don’t have that much more time with you in the house and I want to be able to spend as much of it with you as possible.”
It’s a nice thought in an overbearing, Kathy Bates in Misery kind of way.
“So, you’ll be shelling out some money then?” I ask.
“Isn’t it shilling?” he asks.
“I’m pretty sure it’s shelling,” I tell him, but now that he’s asking, I’m not so sure myself. “It doesn’t matter,” I tell him and with that, we head inside.
We’re greeted at the front by a woman who looks like she’s late for about a dozen appointments, but still manages what I’m assuming is a smile.
“Welcome to Pet Haven Sanctuary for New Friends, Pets, and Companions,” the woman says. “How can I help you today?”
“That’s a pretty impressive name,” I tell her.
“You wouldn’t believe how much it costs in business cards,” she says. “The boss wants the name on one line and so we’ve got to use different paper.” She reaches in front of her and grabs what I had simply assumed to be a smallish bumper sticker and holds it out to me. “Not really wallet-friendly,” she says. “Anyhoo, what can I do for ya?”
“We would like to look at your dogs, please,” dad says.
My dad really likes to come across as the old-fashioned gentleman type, especially in public, but it’s a particular quirk of his I’ve never quite gotten used to. It’s not that he’s a bad guy or a mean guy, he’s just so over the top on so many things, hearing him asking a question like a boy scout doesn’t quite strike the ear right.
“Follow me,” the woman says. “We’ve got some beautiful dogs, all of which are spayed and neutered, shelter policy.”
She leads us into the back and from there, we just follow the barking.
I love animals, especially dogs. I have never liked shelters like this. I’m sure they do great work and help a lot of animals, but walking down rows of cages, knowing that any dog I don’t pick is that much closer to…
“How many can I get?” I ask my dad.
“I think just one for now,” he says with a chuckle.
“What happens to the dogs I don’t choose?” I ask.
“You’re concerned they’ll be euthanized?” the woman asks, pulling her glasses down her nose a little with the tip of her thoroughly chewed pen.
I look at my dad and back at her. “Yeah,” I answer.
“We’re a no-kill shelter,” she says. “Nobody here is going to point a gun at animals’ heads just because they haven’t found the right family after a couple of weeks.”
Suddenly, the cages don’t seem quite as confining.
“Do you have a particular breed in mind?” the woman asks.
“I’m sorry, I don’t think we caught your name,” my dad says.
I never know if he’s flirting or just being awkward the way dads everywhere are awkward with women in public.
“I’m Tonya,” she says. “It’s nice to meet you. We have some older dogs and some puppies and just about everything in between,” she goes on, returning to her preferred subject. “Do you know what you’re looking for?”
“What about this one?” my dad asks, but I don’t even look over.
Standing, facing the bars of his cage and looking up at me is a little furry guy with a grey beard and dark brown eyes and my heart is sold.
“How much is it for the miniature schnauzer?” I ask.
“We charge a forty dollar licensing fee,” Tonya says. “Also, we do offer full vet service here if you need to bring him in for anything, but he’s current on all his shots.”
“Forty bucks?” I ask.
“Forty bucks,” she answers.
I look at my dad. He smiles.
“What’s his name?” dad asks.
“That is Gerald,” Tonya says. “He’s a charmer. You’d better keep your eye on that one.”
“Is he, uh, trained?” my dad asks.
“He gets a little excited sometimes, but he’s usually very good about going outside,” Tonya says. “I’d say just work with him a little bit over the next couple of weeks and try not to get him over-excited when he hasn’t been out to do his business in a while and you shouldn’t have a problem.”
“What kind of things would cause him to be over-excited?” dad asks.
“Come on,” I tell him. “I’ve got to meet with Ian, and I want to make sure this little guy’s all comfy cozy in his new home before I go.”
“For a lot of puppies, visiting new places, meeting new people, these can be some triggers,” Tonya says.
“So basically the environment that is our home will unavoidably cause him to pee on the carpet?” dad asks.
“Not if he’s gone to the bathroom recently enough,” she answers.
“Pee on the carpet or no pee on the carpet, Gerald and I are about to become fast friends,” I coo. “Can I let him out of the cage?” I ask.
“Sure,” Tonya says. “Just remember, he’s a puppy and he’s going to be thrilled to be out, so try to keep him close or he’s liable to start us all off on a high speed chase through the building.”
I open the cage and Gerald jumps up on my leg, making high-pitched yipping noises. A moment later, I’m sitting on the floor and he’s jumping in my lap. He lies down on me and I scratch his back.
“It’s like the two of you are lost friends,” Tonya says.
“Yeah,” dad mutters. “And one of you is going to get pee everywhere.”
“I’ll try to make it to the toilet, dad,” I say dismissively and I scratch Gerald behind the ears.
“Do you sell leashes and collars?” dad asks.
“You can keep the collar he’s got on,” Tonya says. “Leashes are ten bucks.”
Dad is naturally offended that a leash would cost so much and the two start haggling. By haggling, of course, I mean dad complains and Tonya tells him there’s nothing she can do about it.
While blinking my eyes as Gerald licks my face, I spot something just outside this room. At first, it’s just a passing glance and then I see what looks like one of the veterinarians talking to someone.
Gerald jumps out of my lap, and I’m trying to see who the veterinarian is talking to, but I’m just at the wrong angle. I’m not quite sure who I thought I saw, but whoever the vet’s talking to, they got my attention.
“Mia, would you mind grabbing your dog?” dad asks. “He’s giving that look like he’s trying to find a nice place to—oh…”
I look over to see Gerald squatting down, peeing on the linoleum floor.
“He doesn’t lift his leg?” I ask. “I thought that was a universal male dog thing?”
“Some dogs come out doing it—well as soon as they have the leg strength and the coordination—other dogs, it takes a little while,” Tonya answers.
She’s saying something else, but the person talking to the vet just leaned forward again and I see why my brain was telling me to keep looking.
“Would you mind going up to my desk and grabbing the blue spray bottle and the paper towels?” Tonya asks my dad.
“How often does he pee?” dad asks.
“The dog got a little on his paws and I’m going to wash him off,” Tonya says. “If you could just go grab the blue spray bottle and those paper towels, I would appreciate it.”
I wait until dad leaves before I ask, “Is that Ian Zavala talking to that veterinarian?”
Tonya’s got more pressing matters on her mind as she tries to get Gerald into the basin for a bath.
“What?” she asks as he wriggles his body in strange and hilarious ways in an attempt to break free and escape the coming b-a-t-h.
I get up and help her get Gerald into the basin.
“He’s not a fan of baths,” Tonya says.
“Yeah, I’ve heard most dogs aren’t,” I respond.
“Well, there’s most dogs and then there’s Gerald, here,” she says. “I’m sorry, what were you asking me?”
“I think I just saw someone I know from school, Ian Zavala?” I start. “Does he work here or something, or do you not know who I’m talking about?”
“Ian?” she asks. “He comes in when we’re overloaded and understaffed. Nice kid.”
“So he works here then?” I ask.
“No, it’s more of a volunteer thing, I think,” Tonya says.
Ian Zavala, world-class skater, sexy and respectable guy—although I do have a few questions about what happened between him and Abby at that party—and apparently, animal lover’s on the list as well. Unless something pretty freaky went down between he and Abs, I think I might just be in love.
Well, okay, love here is just an expression, not an actual “I think I’m in love with this guy” thing. I am very attracted to Ian Zavala, especially given this new information. Let’s leave it at that.
It’s nice to know sometimes that, even when things aren’t going the way I want them to go, good things can still happen. I just met who I’m sure is going to be my best friend, Gerald, and I found out that my kind-of crush and project partner volunteers at an animal shelter.
I guess life isn’t so bad.
“Would you mind grabbing that soap?” Tonya asks. “You’re going to need to wash the area just above Gerald’s penis. I can’t reach from where I am and I don’t think he’s going to let us trade places.”
* * *
After the way my dad had acted toward Ian, we both agreed that it would be best to meet on neutral ground. That, and it’s about time Ian finally makes things right by buying me a meal in the café where he stood me up.
Call it karma.
After the row with my dad and seeing Ian at the shelter, I think I let my mind get a little ahead of itself. He’s attractive and he’s talented, but he still went behind my back with the professor in pushing his topic through, and I still have another question I’d like to ask him.
“What happened with you and Abs?” I ask.
“Me and who?” he asks.
“You and Abs,” I respond. “Abby. You know, the chick who was standing next to me at the competition and then a little bit later at a party where the two of you took off to have some kind of alone time. What happened with the two of you?”
“Are you sure that’s an appropriate question to ask your class partner?” he returns, laying out two thick lines of condiments on the thin paper on his tray: ketchup and mayonnaise.
What he’s planning to do with them is beyond me and who orders a burger and fries at a neighborhood café? The whole point of these places is to walk in and order something that sounds pretentious so people will think you’re the classy type.
Myself, I’m having the bruschetta and the prosciutto. I just hope it’s not too obvious that I got both of them because I can never remember which one of them I like.
“I think it is,” I tell him. “If we’re going to be working together, I don’t think we should have to be uncomfortable around one another. I’m not going to freak out or anything. It’s not like we’re married.”
“Yeah,” he says. “Well, I don’t know if you’ll believe me or not, but nothing really happened.”
“Is that a ‘nothing happened really happened’ as in stuff happened, but you didn’t go all the way or is that a ‘nothing really happened’ as in nothing really happened?” I ask.
“Would it bother you if something did happen between me and…your friend?” he asks.
“Her name is Abs,” I tell him, “but you can’t call her that. Her name is Abby. So, did something happen with the two of you or not?”
“I can’t believe it,” he says. “You, my dear, are jealous.”
I’m laughing, but trying to cover my mouth at the same time. I can never fake laughter. My inability to smile properly on demand isn’t particularly well-developed.
“You are,” he says. “Well, that changes things.”
“What do you mean?” I ask. “And I am not jealous.”
“Well, we can’t very well work together on this project if you’ve got these feelings for me. I’d be over here suggesting some brilliant idea or other and you’d be giving me the googly eyes and trying to picture me naked,” he says. “We’d never get any work done.”
“First off, I’m not jealous,” I tell him. “Second off, I don’t have feelings for you that would affect, prevent ,or even manifest in any conceivable way, as I’m not entirely sure what it is you think I feel for you.”
“Third off?” he asks.
I actually did have a third off, but he broke my rhythm and the little teleprompter in my head just had a power outage.
“I don’t even care,” I tell him. “The two of you are consenting adults and it’s none of my business what you did at that party.”
“Can I tell you something?” he asks.
The waiter comes over with my bruschetta and prosciutto, but he walks away before I can ask him which one is which.
“He forgot me,” Ian says. “That dude’s not getting dick for a tip.”
“If you’re going to talk like that, would you mind not doing it so loudly?” I ask, my face growing red as I look around the café for signs of the offended.
“What do you mean?” he asks. “What’s the problem? I always talk like this.”
“I get that,” I tell him in a whisper. “I’m just saying that I would appreciate it if you would curse quietly if you’ve got to curse at all. It’s embarrassing.”
“You know, you dress kind of funny and you hang out at some pretty weird places for someone who’s so uptight about swearing,” he says. “They’re just words like any others, only someone at some point decided this term was acceptable, but that term wasn’t.”
“Could you rephrase what you were saying to convey the same point, but use what you’d call an acceptable word instead?” I ask.
“Listen,” he says. “I’d love to sit here and go the rounds with you again and everything. Sparring’s one of my favorite hobbies. That said, we have a lot of stuff to do and I don’t think that we’re going to get any of it done by sitting here and arguing whether or not I could have gotten away with saying the guy wasn’t going to get—”
“Very sorry for the extra wait, sir,” the waiter says, interrupting Ian at what I can’t imagine could have been a better time. “Here’s your cheeseburger and French fries, sorry again about the wait.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Ian says calmly and the waiter walks away.
“You kind of switched gears there, didn’t you?” I ask.
“Nothing happened with me and your friend,” he says. “She was kind of looking for something, but I wasn’t interested.”
“Why not?” I ask.
“Because I’m interested in you,” he says.
I’d hoped for a response like that, but he’s so matter-of-fact about the whole thing that it takes a few seconds for his words to really process in my head.
“You’re interested in me?” I ask. “You have a funny way of showing it.”
“What do you mean?” he asks, taking a few French fries then dipping them, first in the ketchup, then in the mayo.
“That is disgusting,” I tell him.
“What?” he asks. “It’s called fry sauce. You just mix ketchup and mayo together. I’m telling you, it’s the best thing you’ll ever dip your fries in.”
Ketchup is fine, but mayo on fries? Ew.
“Listen,” he says, “we can sit here and argue over fry sauce, or we could see if we can get some work done. Where are we on everything?”
I grab the folder sitting next to me on the seat and set it on the table. “We’ve got our topic and everything, general approach, too,” I tell him. “What we need are questions to ask people to test our theory.”
“Which is?” he asks.
“Oh, shut up,” I tell him. “The professor already decided on your idea, you don’t have to—”
“I’m not rubbing it in,” he says. “To be perfectly honest, my mind’s kind of been focused on other things. I know we were going to talk to people who hold fringe or extremist viewpoints on either end of the American spectrum and see if there’s any common ground between them and everything, but what is our basic statement?” he asks.
“You mean our hypothesis?” I ask.
“Sure,” he says. “Whatever.”
“Our hypothesis is that, by interviewing people with radical social and/or political beliefs, we may begin to see a pattern, even in those whose beliefs appear to be incongruent or even opposite,” I tell him. “The problem I’m seeing is that we’ve only got like a month left and if we’re going to do things your way, we’re going to need a lot of time for these interviews. I think the first thing we should do should be to write out some questions we’d like to ask and then we can worry about how to find these people.”
“They’re not hard to find,” Ian says. “They’re usually the people with the loudest opinions and the least fundamental understanding of the world around them.”
“So you’re saying anyone who has a firm opinion on their beliefs is ignorant?” I ask.
“Not at all,” he says. “It’s when those beliefs have no basis in reality, and when someone questioning your beliefs becomes a cause for going off that you cross the line into freak mode.”
“Freak mode?” I ask.
He dips another few fries in his ketchup and mayo, lifts the top bun of his burger and places the fries between the bun and the cheese.
“The questions won’t be a problem,” he says, ignoring my question. He reaches down to the floor to the side of the booth and grabs his backpack.
While he’s looking for whatever it is that he’s looking for, I’m gazing down at my plates. One looks like a dessert and one is definitely not. The one I like is the dessert, but I forgot to stop the waiter and ask which one it is when he was giving Ian his food.
“Here,” Ian says. “I think this should help.”
He hands me his open notebook and I start reading. They’re questions to ask interviewees.
“When did you do this?” I ask.
“I am a college student,” he says. “I do realize there’s going to be homework from time to time.”
I flip the page. The back of the first page and at least the front of the next one are filled not only with linear questions, but with, “if so, go to this question,” and, “if not, go to that question.”
“These are good,” I tell him. “I think we can use these.”
I look up at him.
He’s taking a bite of his burger, and I take a moment to wonder why it doesn’t bother me that he has fries dipped in ketchup and mayo on his burger, but it bothers me when he eats them without.
“Great,” he says through a full mouth. “I’m going to need to up my practice time as the competition comes closer, but I’ll put as much time as I can into this. Despite what you may think, I’m not just some ingrate who expects other people to do my work for me.”
I’m laughing.
“What?” he asks, fidgeting a little in his seat.
“I don’t know if you know this,” she says, “but I saw you biff it when you were trying to drop in at the skate park.”
“Yeah,” he says, looking anywhere but at me. “I know you were there.”
“What was that, anyway?” I ask, still tittering. “I’ve seen you skate before, but you looked like you didn’t know what the hell you were doing.”
“There was some loose gravel at the bottom that I didn’t see in time to react,” he says, but I know he’s lying. Besides, I was at the park for a while, and I caught him running out or crashing every time he went down that half-halfpipe section.
“I don’t think so,” I tell him. “If that was the case, you would have cleared it out before you tried again.”
“I was just having an off day,” he says. “Don’t worry about it.”
“You know,” I tease, “for someone who’s been skating as long as you have, it’s pretty hilarious to see you crash out repeatedly on something so basic.”
“Who says it’s basic?” he asks. “If it weren’t for that vert section of the park, I wouldn’t have access to a vert ramp at all. Have you ever tried to roll in on a vert ramp? It’s harder than it looks.”
“Oh my god,” I say, covering my mouth. “You can’t drop in.”
“Shh!” he says, putting his finger to his lips and hunching forward like we’re talking nuclear secrets. “It’s not a big deal,” he says. “I’m working on it and I’m going to have it all down in time for the competition.”
“You really can’t?” I ask. “I was half-joking.”
He takes a few seconds to weigh his options.
“Are you going to eat any of that?” he asks finally, pointing to one of my plates. “What is that, anyway?”
I sigh.
* * *
“This is humiliating,” Ian says as we’re walking up to the park.
“Well, you’re the one that brought your board,” I tell him.
“Yeah,” he says, “I was going to come here and practice after we met up and everything. I just wasn’t expecting to have an audience when I did.”
“There’s nobody here,” I tell him.
It’s actually kind of strange to see the park deserted this early. The sun is setting and nobody ever bothered putting up lights around the park, but with the street lights in the distance, there’s still just enough light to see by.
“You meant me,” I chuckle, “didn’t you?”
“I’d rather nobody see me dropping in until I can actually learn to come out of it,” he says.
As much fun as I’m having with Ian on this, I can’t imagine how terrified he must be to be this close, but doomed to fail. Even if he gets perfect scores in the street competition, if he can’t drop in, that’s it. Game over.
“Why don’t you just try dropping in once and I’ll see if I can tell where the problem is,” I tell him.
He’s looking at me like I’m telling him to kill his cat.
“You know, just because we’ve got our questions for the interviews and everything doesn’t mean that we can just—” he starts, but I think he realizes about halfway through this is just something he needs to do. Either that, or he’s figured out that no matter what he says, I’m going to pester him until he goes through with it anyway. “All right,” he says. “I’ll do it, but I’ve had enough people laughing at me for not being able to do this, and I really don’t need any more negative reinforcement.”
“You know, negative reinforcement isn’t actually what you think it is,” I tell him. “When you add something to a scenario, even punishment, it’s still considered positive reinforcement because you’re adding. If you take something away from a person, that’s called negative reinforcement, and it occurs to me that none of that is really that important right now.” I look up at the spot where he’s supposed to drop in, and I’m just glad I don’t have to do it.
Still, he’s on the cusp of going pro. This is something he should really have in his toolbox if he expects to do well as a pro skater.
“Do you want me to climb up there and observe or do it down here?” I ask.
“It really doesn’t matter, does it?” he asks and walks past me. For an instant, I think he’s upset at me, but as he gets to the top and looks down, it’s clear what emotion he’s feeling right now. It’s fear.
“All right,” I tell him. “Let’s see what you’re doing and let’s see if we can’t figure out a way to do it better.”
“Helpful,” he says. “Ready?”
“I’m ready when you are,” I tell him.
He takes one more look at the slope and gets his board ready, the tail on the lip, and I’m hoping that my years of watching skate competitions live and on television have prepared me to be able to dissect what he’s doing and tell him how to fix it.
“All right,” he says and he puts his other foot on the board.
What happens next doesn’t really compute in my head. I see him leaning forward, I see him crouching like I’ve seen other skaters and then, about halfway down, something I can’t even see goes wrong and he comes off his board, managing to stay on his feet and running out of it.
His face is already red and I can feel his frustration from over here, but I honestly don’t even know what happened.
“Any thoughts?” he asks.
“Do it again,” I tell him. “I need to figure out what went wrong and it happened too fast the first time.”
“What makes you think it’s going to happen slower the second time?” he asks. “Camera phone and a slow motion replay?”
“Now I know what to look for,” I tell him. “We can start taking videos and breaking them down, but don’t you think we’d just end up spending all our time on the film and none of it on the actual work that’s going to change things. Don’t you want to get this right for the competition?”
“Of course I do,” he says. “I was just hoping to be able to do this on my own time and without anyone to see just how bad I am at it.”
“Give it another run,” I tell him. “I bet I’ll have a better idea after this next one.”
He’s shaking his head, but he climbs back up to the top anyway.
This is one of the things that really drew me to skating in the first place: The determination. I’m convinced that it’s impossible to be a successful skater without that particular personality trait.
“Ready?” he asks.
“Yeah,” I call back.
I’m watching more closely this time. Whatever happened, it happened when he was about halfway down the ramp.
His board’s in position and he’s leaning forward, only this time, he loses his nerve just as the wheels are coming down on the ramp and he freefalls the fourteen or fifteen feet to the ground.
Oddly enough, his second attempt does seem to take longer than his first, but I think that’s only because he’s on his way toward a tremendously hard fall and there’s nothing I can do about it.
It looks like he tries to tuck and roll as he comes down on the hard ground, and he surprisingly is on his feet less than a second later, but it looks like he’s gone straight from frustrated to pissed as he tracks down his board, slams his foot on the tail, catches it and starts stomping back toward the ramp.
“Hold on,” I tell him.
“What?” he asks.
“You’re hurt,” I answer.
He looks down. His pants are torn just above the knee and there’s a pretty decent cut from which he’s bleeding pretty steady.
“Fuck,” he says. “Well that sucks.”
“Are you all right?” I ask.
“I’m fine,” he says. “I don’t even know what happened that time.”
He starts walking again like he’s going to go for another run, but he’s leaving a trail of blood and I can only see the situation growing worse if we don’t take care of it.
“No,” I tell him. “We need to get that wound cleaned up and make sure you’re not going to need stitches. You don’t want it to get infected, do you?”
He groans.
“This was such a bad idea,” he says. “I don’t know how I let you talk me into this.”
“Hey, just be glad I’m here to talk you out of going back up there or who knows what kind of gash you’d end up with,” I tell him.
It takes a minute, but I finally convince him to postpone the drop-in practice or whatever we’re calling it and get where we can get a better look at the laceration. The only caveat is that he insists we go to his house, as he says it’s closer.
We start walking, and I don’t know if the wound really isn’t hurting him or if he’s trying to put on a brave face, because he’s not limping or favoring the leg in any way, though I can see the two sections of skin puckering and parting like lips when I catch a good angle through the new tear in his pants.
We’re walking a few blocks and the lower-middle class surroundings start turning into upper middle class surroundings as the houses grow larger, the cars grow nicer and the number of people outside doing their own yard work plummets.
“I didn’t know you were a rich kid,” I tell him.
“I’m not,” he says. “My dad’s a lawyer. Me, I don’t have shit for money, at least not yet.”
We take a right and walk a little longer before we come up to what must be Ian’s house. Even for a lawyer, it looks like his dad is doing particularly well for himself.
“Nice house,” I tell him.
“Yeah, it’s all right,” he says. “We’re going to have to go in through the back if we don’t want to track blood over all the carpet. There’s a bathroom just off the sliding back door and it’s all tile through there.”
“Okay,” I answer and follow him around the house. There are a couple of lights on, but there doesn’t seem to be any signs of noise or movement.
We go in through the back door and I follow Ian to the bathroom he was talking about.
“Come in,” he says, one hand on the door, the other motioning for me to enter.
I walk in and he closes the door behind us.
“What first aid stuff do you have around…” I start, but am unable to finish.
Rather than simply lifting the pant leg or opening it where it’s already torn, Ian went for the much less expected option of simply dropping his pants altogether.
“What’s wrong?” he asks and tries to angle his upper leg under the sink faucet, but doesn’t quite bend that way.
“Do you have rubbing alcohol or hydrogen peroxide?” I ask.
“Yeah,” he says. “It’s just up in that cabinet. There should be bandages and antibiotic cream in there, too. Would you mind grabbing it while I try to get myself cleaned off here?”
Most of his bleeding stopped a while ago, but he is a hell of a mess.
I nod and try not to gaze too long at the bulge of his anatomy pressing against the fabric of his boxers.
After rummaging through the cabinet for a minute, I manage to get everything I need: hydrogen peroxide, bandages, antibiotic cream, cotton balls, cotton swabs and a pair of latex gloves. When I turn back around, Ian’s managed, somehow, to get his upper leg under the sink faucet and is carefully rinsing off the area around the wound.
I set everything on what’s left of the open counter space.
“You know,” he says, “I think I can probably get this on my own.”
As unappealing as tending a wound generally is, I protest, “Oh, quit being such a baby.”
“I’m not,” he says. “I’m telling you that I can take care of it. That’s kind of the opposite thing…”
He trails off, because not only am I ignoring him, I’m also holding a cotton ball over the mouth of the hydrogen peroxide bottle and tipping it just enough to get the cotton wet.
I hand him the cotton ball and tell him, “If you think you got this by yourself, go for it.”
As soon as the cool wetness of the hydrogen peroxide touches his fingers, Ian shudders.
“All right,” he says. “Thanks. I’ll be out in a minute.”
I walk out of the bathroom and take a seat on the nearest piece of furniture, what looks like an antique chair or a reproduction of an antique chair. Either way, I’m really uncomfortable even touching the thing, much less sitting in it, so I quickly get back up and knock on the door.
“You about done in there?” I ask.
“Would you mind coming back in here for a minute?” he asks.
I open the door and find him sitting on the counter, the cotton ball about six inches above the wound and just far enough off to the side that, when it drips, it doesn’t drip onto his wound.
I sigh. “You’re such a baby,” I tell him, and before he even asks, I put on the gloves, take the cotton ball from his hand and start cleaning the area around the wound.
“I hate to be a bother,” he says, “but would you mind getting the cut itself? I hate that peroxide stuff.”
“You’d think, being a skater, you’d be used to it,” I tell him, drying my hands and grabbing the bottle.
“I think I had to have it so many times that it built into a phobia,” he says. “I can get through it and everything, but if I’m going to do it, myself, we’re probably going to be here for a while.”
I take a look at the cut. Now that the area around it is clean, the thing doesn’t look so bad.
Ian’s eyes are on the lid of the bottle as I’m unscrewing it and then on the space where the lid was once I’ve removed it.
“Don’t you need one of those cotton balls?” he asks.
I give him a sideward glance. “You know, for someone who’s sat through what I can only imagine must have been a few days’ worth of tattoos, I’d really think you’d have developed a pair of balls somewhere along the way,” and I dump a little hydrogen peroxide straight into the wound, and I laugh a little as Ian’s mouth gapes and his hands are just above his leg as he wants to try something to take the sting away, but doesn’t want to contaminate the wound and end up having me do that again.
“Totally different thing,” he says. “Tatts can hurt and everything, but they’re not dripping poison into open wounds.”
“It’s not poison,” I tell him. “I wouldn’t drink it, but…” I pour a little more over the wound and Ian has his eyes closed and he’s banging the back of his head against the wall.
I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t enjoying this maybe just a bit too much.
“You know,” I tell him, “with as much blood as you left on the ground, I was expecting something a lot deeper.”
“Yeah,” he says, “I bleed a lot when my heart is racing.”
I look up at him with a smirk. “You’re really hung up on dropping in, aren’t you?” I ask.
“It’s kind of the only thing standing between me and that fat sponsorship they’re offering the winner of the Midwest Comp.,” he says. “As much as I know my dad would love for me to just quit boarding and be a lawyer like I’m supposed to, I’d really hate to actually end up working a regular job.”
“Is that all it is?” I ask. “You don’t want to end up in a nine-to-five?”
“I wouldn’t say that’s all it is,” he answers, “but you’ve got to admit that’s some pretty strong motivation right there.”
“I guess,” I tell him. “I always thought it was more important to actively do something you love rather than just trying to avoid the stuff you think might bore you.”
“I love to skate,” he says. “That’s kind of the point. I’m always going to love to skate, but the question is how far can I take it? I’ve spent a lot of time getting good, trying things I haven’t seen other guys try and all that. I’d still skate if there was never any money on the line, but I would like to be able to move out of here and not end up on the street as a result.”
“I know you’re not going to like this, but there’s some dirt and what looks like a couple small bits of gravel in your cut and I’m going to have to get those out of there before we can bandage it,” I say.
“Maybe we should go to a hospital,” he says.
I look at his face and then back down at his leg. The cut really isn’t all that bad. He’s not going to need any stitches. There’s no real reason to go to a hospital, unless he thinks they’re going to shoot him up with something to take his mind off of the pain.
“If you think you need to go to the hospital, we can get you to the hospital,” I tell him. “Really, though, it’s just a matter of cleaning it out and dressing it. There’s not a whole lot more anyone’s going to be able to do about it. It’s a fairly long cut, but it’s not deep at all.”
“Okay,” he says, clenching his fists, teeth and I assume just about everything else on his body that can be clenched. “Just do it.”
I savor the sight of him preparing for some terrible affliction to land a few seconds and then I bend down to get a better look at what I’m dealing with.
“I’m going to try to get the gravel with a cotton swab,” I tell him. “This is going to take just a second. I’ll try to be quick.”
He doesn’t answer in the normal sense; he just grunts and nods his head.
I dip a clean cotton swab into the hydrogen peroxide and set about cleaning the wound. It takes a minute to get every little piece of gravel out, but before long, the wound is cleaned of foreign matter.
“Thank you,” he says when I remove the cotton swab and don’t put it back in his cut.
“Oh, we’re not quite done yet,” I tell him and, before he has another chance to clench, I irrigate the wound with a generous amount of hydrogen peroxide.
“Ah, fuck!” he grunts and his hands grip the side of the counter.
From there, I dry the wound with a cotton ball, apply the antibiotic ointment and place a large bandage over the cut.
He’s still waiting for the final shoe to drop out of the sky and land hard on his leg, but I’m all done.
I pat the wound lightly with my hand just to be a jerk and Ian grabs my wrist. He grabs my wrist, but he doesn’t remove my hand from his leg, he just moves it away from the bandage.
There’s a rush of something I hardly have time to process through my body and his dark eyes are intent on mine, his eyes dilated.
“You know,” he says, “I really appreciate you trying to help at the park and getting me cleaned up here.”
“It’s not a problem,” I stammer.
He’s leaning forward a little as sits there, his head cocked a little to one side, and we just stare at each other for a little while.
Finally, I pull away from him, shaking my head and chuckling. “Well, if you wanted to pick a way to get me to stop messing with your cut, you did a pretty good job,” I tell him.
“What cut?” he asks and pulls me back toward him.
“The cut on your leg,” I tell him, knowing full well he hasn’t actually forgotten about it.
“Yeah,” he says.
This came on rather unexpectedly and I haven’t even had time to really sift through everything and decide how I feel about Ian. I know exactly how I’m feeling now—the weakness in my knees is making it particularly difficult to forget—but do I really want to do this?
He brushes a strand of hair out of my face, his fingers lingering as he secures the strand behind my ear.
The things I was really worried about with Ian, they’ve turned out not to be actual problems. He’s cocky and a bit brash for my taste, but as his hand comes to rest on my shoulder, I feel myself naturally leaning in toward him.
We’re both watching one another for signs of retreat, but the space between us continues to narrow. My eyes begin to close, and I can almost feel Ian’s lips on mine when there’s a loud crash from somewhere outside the room and a man is yelling, “Ian! Get your skateboard and the rest of your peasant shit out of my living room!”
My eyes are open now. Ian’s leaning his head back against the wall.
“Sorry,” he says. “Mind if I…?”
I move out of his way and he hops down from the counter. He quickly puts his pants back on, though they’re wet with his blood, and he walks to the bathroom door.
“Wait in here for a minute,” he says. “I really don’t want to have a conversation explaining what we’re doing in here with my dad right now. If I play this right, I think I can get us both out of here in five minutes or less. You up for it?”
“Sure,” I answer, having no idea what he’s planning.
He walks out of the room and closes the door behind him. Just to be on the safe side, I lock the door.
While I’m waiting for a reasonable amount of time before I emerge from the bathroom, I take a minute to clean everything up, taking off my gloves and disposing of them very last. By the time I’m done, the bathroom doesn’t show any signs of what happened, other than a few drying blood drops on the floor that I’m not going to clean without gloves.
Blood freaks me right out.
When a minute or so has passed, I come out of the bathroom to find Ian and his father, a tall, tan man with intense features and what looks like a permanent scowl, coming into the living room just off the bathroom.
“You’re going to clean all this up, right?” Ian’s dad asks.
“Yeah,” Ian says. “I was just about to when you came in yelling.”
“Well, worry about that in a minute,” Ian’s dad says. “There’s some stuff in the car I’d like you to bring in for me.”
Until now, Ian and his father have been looking at each other, either unaware or unaffected by my presence, but as I go to sit down on the same antique chair I sat in earlier, as if by instinct, Ian and his father both turn toward me.
“Don’t sit in that,” Ian’s father says. “That chair is over two hundred years old.”
My legs straighten and lock, saving the chair from my apparently destructive touch.
“Dad, this is Mia,” Ian says. “She’s my partner for our final project in psychology.”
“Charmed,” Ian’s dad says, giving me the briefest of glances before looking back at his son. “If you could grab the stuff from the trunk and the backseat, I’d really appreciate it—and go around the back so you don’t get blood all over my carpet,” Mr. Zavala says to Ian, all but shooing him out of the house. As soon as Ian’s out the door, his dad turns to me and asks, “The two of you are working on some kind of project, huh?”
All I can get out is the “Y—” before Mr. Zavala is talking again.
“I’m not stupid,” he says. “I know the kind of people Ian likes to hang out with and you’d fit right in.”
I’m not sure why he seems to be mad at me.
“We were assigned as partners for—” I start again, but am, again, interrupted.
“Yeah, yeah,” Mr. Zavala says. “You and Ian were assigned as partners for your psychology class and yet there doesn’t seem to be any sign of books or notes. What kind of a project is it: human sexuality?”
“That’s not what—” I start.
“It doesn’t really matter whether the two of you are actually working on a project for school or not,” Mr. Zavala interrupts. “What matters is that people like you are sucking my son into that ridiculous life of skateboarding and you need to stay away from him. He’s a bright kid with a bright future as long as he gives up the stupider hobbies of his past, and I’m not going to have some barely-legal Jezebel coming in here and helping Ian to destroy his future.”
I wasn’t expecting that.
The guy came off as a jerk the moment I laid eyes on him, but I wasn’t actually expecting him to talk to me like that.
Mr. Zavala seems frustrated by my silence just as much as he did by my voice, and he shakes his head, saying, “I’ll never understand what it is about people like you and him that makes you think that you can just go through life like it’s some kind of a big game.”
“I don’t think it’s a game at all,” I tell him. “I don’t know what kind of person you think I am, but—”
“We can stand here going back and forth until the cows come home,” Mr. Zavala interrupts. “I think you’ll find that you’ll get the same result and save a lot of time if you just go.”
What is this guy’s problem? Yeah, I look like a punk/skater chick because, well, I am a punk/skater chick, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have goals or priorities. It certainly doesn’t mean that I’m out to stop his son from being successful.
I open my mouth to speak, but before I can give voice to breath, Mr. Zavala says, “One of these days, Ian’s going to grow up, and if he doesn’t get his act together, he’s going to be pretty disappointed at what he finds around him. I’m sure you’re a nice girl, but he’s not for you, so I think it’s best if you just go.”
I don’t know what to say. I’m shocked and hurt as much as I am angry and offended and there are no words I can conjure to adequately respond in any other way than by simply doing what he told me to do and walking out the front door.
Behind me, I can hear the sliding door open and Ian’s calling after me, asking where I’m going, but I don’t stop. I just shut the door behind me.