Reality Boy

“Fine with me,” I say. That’s all fine with the Crapper, Hannah. I have a minute to think while she writes. I figure since we’re making deals and putting it all out there, I should say something. Anything. Because she’s treating me like a normal person and she must know by now that I am Gerald. Youngest of three. Reality Boy.

“Hannah?” I ask. She looks up. “So, if you come with the book and we’re still friends, I have to make sure of something.”

She gestures for me to continue.

“So you know that whole shit that happened when I was a kid, right? Like, the TV show and what people call me and why I’m a freak and all that? You’re okay with that? I mean, not with me being like that, because I’m not—like, not for a long time—but I mean, you know—you’re okay that that was me once? And stuff?”

She smiles at me but doesn’t say anything. So I allow my nerves to say, “I mean, I’m not supposed to trust girls or go out with them because my anger management coach says that girls are probably not a good idea and I’m thinking that that might even mean as friends. I mean, it’s cool and it’s not like I’m going to hurt anybody but—I—uh—oh, shit. None of this is coming out right.”

She leans forward. “I know who you are. And I don’t care. You’re a nice guy,” she says. “I have a shrink, too, and mine says I should dress more like I care, but I’m not sure what she means by ‘care.’ Dress like I care? About what? You know? Care about what?”

“You have a shrink?” I ask.

“Doesn’t everyone?” she says.

“I don’t think so,” I say. Roger isn’t exactly a shrink. But I guess it’s kinda the same thing.

“Well, I do and you do, so that makes two of us, and that’s all the friends I got, so as far as I’m concerned, yes. Everyone has a shrink,” she says.

Hannah looks at the big clock on the wall and goes back to writing in her book. Up until now I thought I was the only kid in Blue Marsh with enough problems to see a shrink—or Roger, who acts like a shrink. When I look around the caf, I can’t see anyone else who is remotely as messed up as I am. Not even Hannah. But maybe I’m wrong. Maybe most other people are messed up, too. It just wasn’t aired on TV or, you know, aired on Tom What’s-His-Name’s face.

My phone vibrates in my pocket and it’s a text from Joe Jr. A picture. It’s the clown dentist with the huge pliers in the ring, pretending to pull his own tooth. I enlarge it and show it to Hannah.

She says, “I’m telling you, dude. We made the wrong choice.”

“I don’t know,” I say.

“Now we have to think of another plan to get us the hell out of here,” she says, then goes back to writing in the book.

“Is that what you’re writing about?”

“Yes.”

“You’re writing a plan to get us out of here?”

“Yes,” she says. “We’re going to kidnap ourselves.”

I laugh a little because I think she’s joking.

“I’m not kidding,” she says. “I’m writing my list of demands as we speak.”

31

THANKFULLY, HANNAH’S NEXT class is upstairs, because I really don’t want her to see me going into the SPED room. And I think about that feeling through last block while we do more linear equations.

I am not retarded.

I learned to read late, yes, because nobody taught me, but I can read fast now. I read all the time.

I used to love math until third grade and that stupid ass**le teacher who yelled all the time and made me so nervous I started eating paper and other bizarre things like chalk and erasers. Because that’s what you get when you’re famous, right? Even if you’re eight?

I used to love school until everybody got old enough to point and laugh.

That’s when Mom started to push for special ed. “Face it, Doug. I’m pretty sure he’s developmentally delayed in some way.” Not I’m calling the principal about that teacher. Not Let’s pull him out of public school or Let’s move away to a place where no teachers will pick on him. No talk about Tasha, who was trying her best to flunk out of her first year of high school. Just this shit about how I had to be retarded.

As Kelly boy fights linear equations one by one, I think about the doctors we went to and the school psychologists. I think about how my mother ordered medications, as if little pills could make our past go away. As if little pills could make me go away.

As I zone out in Fletcher’s class I try to think of my own list of demands. I picture a note made of cutout magazine letters:

DeaR FAuSTs, We HAVE YoUR SON.

HeRE are 0UR DeMANdS:

But I can’t fill in the demands.

I doodle in my math notebook. I write: Freedom.

Duh.

I write: A second chance.

Shit. That’s not a demand, it’s a pipe dream. I can’t get it, so I can’t demand it.

I write: Shit. Then I scribble over the doodles so no one can read them.

I don’t have any demands. I don’t know how to demand. Demanding isn’t something I do. What I do is: I want. And so far, all I want is stuff I can’t have. Like someone murdering Tasha, or having a mother who might buy Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups for my lunch instead of protein shakes. Or Hannah. I want Hannah.

“You, you, you, Gerald. That’s all you ever think about,” Roger used to say. “You see yourself through a Gerald lens. What about other people? Can you care about other people without it relating to you?”

I look around the SPED room and I know I care about other people. I’ve known Deirdre for two years and I care about her. I’ve known Karen and Jenny for that long, too, and I care about both of them. Last time Jenny had a fit the size of Utah, I was the one who made sure her head didn’t splatter on the floor when she slipped out of her chair.

And I care about Hannah now. But I don’t think I should. She probably thinks I’m a loser for not running away. She will probably just turn into another Tasha in my life. I will always be drowning in my own pathetic inability to breathe underwater.

“Yes, Gerald?”

Only when Fletcher calls on me do I realize my hand is up. I don’t know why my hand is up.

“Can I have a lav pass, please?”

He points to his desk and I get a lav pass and walk to the nearest bathroom. I look at myself in the mirror and ask, “What are your demands, Reality Boy?”