6. Skittles
Jared sat upstairs at his big brother’s desk, playing just one more game of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. Since Kyle had been deployed, Jared had free reign of all his stuff: TV, hunting rifle, PS2. If his mom caught him at the computer, he just said he was checking for an email from Iraq. Little did she know that Kyle had bookmarked all the good porno sites; the ones that gave you an eyeful without having to sign up or pay out.
He leaned his cheek against the window, hoping for a glimpse of the girls next door. They were college students, five of them, and Jared thought they were very hot—even in hoodies and flannel pajama bottoms. He spent many hours parked at Kyle’s window, digging his toes into the light-brown carpeting, eating Cheez-Its. On that night, he also kept an eye on the street. His parents were hosting an Arbor Heights Homeowners Association meeting, and people streamed up their front walk.
Though it was late September, the hot summer had lingered into the school year. The evening was very warm and his mother had the air conditioner cranked. Jared didn’t mind the heat. He was 13 and an eighth-grader at Woodhill Middle School. He had other things on his mind. Like avoiding killing himself.
“Hey!”
Jared looked down and saw one of his neighbors staring up at him. It was the one with long black hair who worked some nights at a restaurant. The one who often wore a Hooters Las Vegas t-shirt with her shiny red track pants, who drove the old white Sentra with the OBAMA ‘08 bumpersticker, who seemed to use the garage as her bedroom. He slid the window open.
“What’s your name kid?”
He cleared his throat and hoped his voice wouldn’t crack. “Jared.”
“Hi Jared. I’m Claudia. Do you plan on spying on us all year?”
Jared gaped at her. He felt the tips of his ears burning and wondered if she could see them flaming through the screen. “Uh, no?” he muttered.
“Good answer, Jared.” Claudia laughed and Jared flopped down flat on the floor. “Shit,” he whispered, whacking his forehead with the heel of his hand a few times. Then he heard another voice from below and struggled against the rolls of fat around his middle to sit up and peek through the window. It was his best friend Chuy, clad in a black doo-rag, baggy skater shorts hanging low on his hips and a Raiders t-shirt ripped off above the waist to show his flat stomach. He had drawn a barbed wire tattoo around his upper arm with blue ballpoint pen. Jared wished more than anything that he could be Chuy, standing there looking like a senior (okay, a really short senior), his tanned arms smooth and almost cut, talking to a college girl like it’s nothing—instead of the fatty geek he was. It’s not like he wasn’t used to being around girls—there had been plenty when Kyle still lived there—it was just that Jared didn’t know what to say to them.
He heard the rumble of his father’s voice from downstairs, then sprang up and shot out of his room, flying down the stairs to get to Chuy before his dad did. He dashed through the front hallway into the kitchen and nearly took out his mother, Dottie, who carried a tray covered with glasses of iced tea. She gasped, her plump arms quivering with the weight of the tray.
“Oops, sorry,” Jared said, reaching up to steady her load.
“My goodness, dear.” His mother’s forehead was shining with sweat in spite of the frigid air conditioning. She was wearing one of her church dresses, the one with the colorful stripes that made her look like a picnic table. Her bland hair was sprayed into crisp curls close to her head. “Did you take your Ritalin today?”
“Yes,” he groaned. He had taken his Ritalin all right—taken it to school two weeks before to trade for Oxycontin and weed, which did him a lot more good. He had quit taking the ADHD medication back in fifth grade; it was much more useful to him as barter material. His mother always helped herself to the Ritalin before she handed the prescription bottle over to him. He ducked past her, cringing at the flowery smell of her perfume and perspiration, and made it to the back door without running into any of the grownups milling around the house. Chuy was still talking to Claudia; they both looked up as he emerged through the back door.
“Hey Jarhead,” Chuy called.
“Hey Jesus,” Jared replied, pronouncing it ‘Geez us’ instead of the properly Spanish, ‘Hay Zeus.’ When they met, the first day of sixth grade, their new social studies teacher Mrs. Quinn had pronounced Chuy’s real name the New Testament way. The entire class had laughed and she couldn’t figure out why, which made them laugh more. They had become friends in that class, though Jared knew the only reason Chuy hung out with a dork like himself was because Chuy was Mexican, but not like the other real Mexicans in their school. He was too white for them and too brown for the white kids. Jared didn’t care either way; Chuy cracked him up.
“Ha,” Claudia said, “Jesus and Jarhead. You guys could be an MTV show.” Jared remembered Kyle watching a show that sounded something like that. “Heh, heh, heh.” he chuckled.
She raised her eyebrows in appreciation. “That’s pretty good,” she said. He ducked his head as his eartips tingled.
“Claudia’s in one of my mom’s classes,” Chuy reported.
“She’s a great prof,” Claudia said. “What’s she like as a mom?”
“She’s a tough grader,” Chuy said, and he and Claudia cracked up together. Then she turned to Jared, suddenly serious.
“What’s going on at your house?” She motioned at all the cars lining the curb.
“Homeowners meeting,” Jared replied.
“Homos’ meeting.” Chuy smirked until Claudia shut him down with a scowl. “My bad,” he mumbled.
“What do they talk about?” Claudia asked Jared.
Jared shrugged. “Mostly they talk about, uh, like how, you know, how some people are ruining the neighborhood.”
”You mean people like me?” Claudia asked. “Students?” Jared didn’t answer.
“They’re plotting! Like in Julius Caesar,” Chuy said gleefully, rubbing his palms together and hopping from one foot to the other. Because of his mother, he knew all Shakespeare’s plays and referred to them often, even though the other eighth-graders didn’t know what he was talking about.
Claudia looked around at the inane landscape of cookie-cutter snout houses, cul-de-sacs and poorly planned shrubbery “Whatever,” she said, swinging her long ponytail. She grabbed her gym bag out of her car and flounced into the house.
Jared and Chuy stood staring at the door she had just slammed until Jared’s dad Bill yelled out the back door. “Come in here and help your mother.”
“IM me later,” Jared said to Chuy before jogging back to his house.
His father waited in the kitchen and thumped him on the head as he tried to duck past him. “What’re you hanging out with that gangbanger for?” he asked.
“He’s not in a gang,” Jared mumbled.
“What?” Bill grabbed the back of his shirt to stop him.
“Nothing.” Jared wrestled free.
“How did you do on your math test?”
“79.”
His dad shrugged. “I had trouble with algebra myself. As long as you don’t get left behind.”
Jared stumbled off to find his mom. His dad was getting all up in his kool-aid now that Kyle was gone—those two had fought like crazy. Kyle had called him Daddy Dementor and did anything he could to make him mad. Like join the Army. Even at 13, Jared knew it was a slammin’ move. Dad was crazed with anger over Kyle giving up his football scholarship for the military, but he couldn’t say a word about it because he “supported the troops” and the president. And the best part was Kyle got away from Dad for good. Jared thought Kyle was wicked genius.
In the front hallway, the tall blonde lady from Hemlock Street entered through the front door. “Hi there,” she said. Jared stopped dead and stared at her chest until she crossed her arms. He looked up and saw her glaring.
“Uh, hi,” Jared said.
“Mrs. Ruiz, right?” She was the one who helped his mom with her scrapbooking. His mom had about six huge scrapbooks documenting his entire family’s history. She was now working on one for Kyle’s service; she always tied it up fancy with a yellow ribbon, as if it would keep him safe and bring him home, as if Kyle was living between those dry scrapbook leaves instead of in Fallujah or Tikrit or wherever the hell he was.
“Right,” she said. “Where’s the party?”
He gestured into the living room and watched her walk away, her flowered skirt swishing back and forth. She cried, “Herman!” and rushed over to sit with the guy who owned the diner.
“Oh great, it’s ‘Tits for Brains,’” Bill murmured behind him. His mother shushed him. “And what’s that tired old faggot doing here?” he whispered as they both walked past Jared into the large living room, which was filled with about 25 people.
Jared followed them a few steps closer to the arched entry, then slipped up the staircase to the landing where he had a perfect view into the sterile room (white walls and carpeting, puffy brown leather furniture) that his family never used unless there was company or it was a holiday.
He was suddenly struck by how his parents looked alike, shapeless and beige. His dad reminded him of a thumb, his mom a moist piece of vanilla bundt cake wrapped in a tablecloth. They both had downturned mouths; his mom’s showed just her bottom row of teeth when she smiled but his dad just frowned a lot. They both had drab, crinkly hair threaded with gray. They looked like characters in a video game; he imagined their heads blowing up.
There were plenty of other people Jared recognized from the neighborhood like the Neals from down the street, who also went to his church. Mr. Neal was famous among the high school girls for driving babysitters home, then talking a little too earnestly to them about joining bible study before they fled, creeped-out, into their houses. Next to them sat Mrs. Braun who stole $3000 from the Woodhill High PTA about five years before and had to pay it back. Everyone pretended like it never happened, but Jared watched Mrs. Neal move her big red purse to the other side of her feet, out of Mrs. Braun’s reach. And on the loveseat by the fireplace, Mrs. Ruiz was deep into conversation with Herman. Jared stared at Herman and wondered what it would be like to be gay. He didn’t look like the other old guys in town: he dyed his hair dark and wore those freaky old school glasses like he was in a “Twilight Zone” episode. Jared had known him practically his whole life; Herman always added a free cinnamon roll to his plate whenever the Pratts ate breakfast at the diner.
Herman’s boyfriend worked at the library. Jared and the other kids made fun of him sometimes, even though he was a pretty nice guy. He had helped Jared find that book about the Atkins Diet and didn’t even laugh at him. Jared imagined doing it with a guy, and although it was supposed to be a sin, the thought didn’t really gross him out. But then he imagined doing it with Chuy and instantly banned that idea from his mind: don’t think about that, don’t think about that, don’t think about that. It’s a sin. It lit the tips of his ears on fire.
Then he stared at Candy Ruiz and wondered what it would be like to be married to her. To kiss her. To sleep with her every night. To have constant access to her huge boobs. Her husband Mark looked like a movie star or something. They both resembled movie stars. She looked as bootylicious as some of the women on the internet porn sites, but with clothes on, of course. His pants suddenly felt tight and he changed positions on the stair landing.
Jared’s dad began speaking while his mother stepped back against the wall. “Thanks for coming to this informal meeting of the Arbor Heights Homeowners Association, or AHHA!, as we like to call it. I know most of you, but for you newcomers, my name is Bill Pratt. I’m the local Farmer’s insurance agent here in Woodhill and I’m also a member of the Woodhill City Council. I’ve lived here all my life. My wife Dottie and I were one of the first families to buy a house here five years ago when the development first started Phase One. We have two boys, Jared—who’s here somewhere—and our oldest is Kyle, serving the country over in Iraq.” He paused a moment so people could murmur their sympathy, say a silent prayer like the pastor asked them to at church every week. Bill continued: “We like living here because it’s clean, quiet and safe—and we want to keep it that way.”
“Excuse me?” Candy Ruiz waved her fingers.
“Hi Candy.” Bill sighed.
“Where is Trip?” Trip Jurgenson was the president of Arbor Heights Homeowners Association.
Jared watched his dad clear his throat; a sure sign he was annoyed. “Well, Trip and Janine are on a cruise, celebrating their 25th anniversary. But I feel like we have an emergency situation here that can’t wait until he returns. Calling a meeting is completely within my authority as vice president. Where’s your husband?”
Candy rolled her eyes. “He’s with the kids. Continue.”
“I’m sure you’ve all noticed how noisy the neighborhood has gotten since the first of September. It’s because there are so many college students moving in.”
An elderly woman sitting on the puffy ottoman spoke up. “I haven’t noticed it getting noisy.”
“Well,” Bill reported smugly, “on our street, there have been wild parties until all hours, kids parking their junky cars at the curb. Just last Friday there were a couple of students running each other down Spruce Street in a shopping cart in the middle of the night.”
Jared hid his grin. Those weren’t college students, they were the Hoskin twins who were in the tenth grade. They were the noisiest kids anywhere, and they lived right behind the Pratts.
The girls next door had had a party when they moved in, but there were only about 15 people there, barbecuing and playing hackysack in the backyard. Everyone left about 9:30, probably to go to a better party.
“Have you spoken to any of these students?” Herman asked.
“Yeah, to tell them to pipe down.”
Herman shook his head. “Maybe if you got to know them, invited them over for some of these lovely miniature quiches from Costco.” He indicated the snacks Jared’s mom had set out on the glass-topped coffee table. “Respect them and they’ll respect you.” Somebody snickered.
Bill began to pace back and forth in front of the white-brick fireplace that remained spotless except when he threw a Presto Log in on Christmas Eve. “Herman, can I ask what you’re doing here?”
“Why, I’m a homeowner, Bill, just like you. My partner and I now have a couple investment properties in this neighborhood, including the house next door, which we rent to college students. Lovely young women, I might add.”
“So you know there are five of them living there?”
“Yes.”
“But there are only four bedrooms.”
“Maybe two of them are sharing, like in the dorms.”
“No. One’s living in the garage.”
“So?”
“I propose we get the city council to pass an ordinance limiting the number of unrelated people who can live together.”
“Are you nuts?” Candy stared at Bill, incredulous, her hands spread wide. “That’s like something out of Nazi Germany.”
“He’s got a point,” said a grizzled old man in the puffy recliner. “We want to preserve our property values, and we don’t want a bunch of communes turning Arbor Heights into hippie central.”
“Yes!” Bill practically jumped for joy, his big gut shaking a little. “That’s what I’m talking about.” Jared imagined his dad turning into a quivering heap of Jello, then melting into the floor.
Candy threw her head back and groaned. “What about foster kids?”
“Well, we’ve thought this through, Candy. If a family wants to take in up to three foster kids, that’s fine. More than that, well, these houses aren’t big enough for a boatload of kids.”
Candy shook her head, clearly exasperated. “How do you plan to enforce this?”
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“There are still some details to work out.”
“Why is this such an emergency?” she asked.
Jared watched his dad glare at Mrs. Ruiz like he often glared at Jared when he did something stupid, like not put the garbage can lid back on tight so the raccoons got into it. Then he looked down and picked at white carpet threads as his dad continued in his droning voice.
“Timing is crucial because I’ve talked to all the other city council members and most of them will support us. But three of them are up for re-election so we have to push this through in case they’re replaced.”
“If they support this asinine idea, they deserve to be replaced.”
“Let’s leave politics out of this, Candy.”
“This is all about politics, Bill.” She stood up—a presence with her gleaming blonde hair and lean, muscled limbs. “Raise your hand if you think this is a good idea,” she dared the others and watched as about half the neighbors raised their hands. She whirled around and sat down. “Okay. If you can convince the city council to pass this ordinance, I will guarantee you it will get challenged in court.”
Jared’s dad smiled grimly, his mouth a straight line with drooping corners. “Isn’t that how we do things in Oregon? We make new laws, then the judges ignore them. I think in this case, the will of the people will prevail. Those of you who want to can stay and talk about our proposal. Meeting adjourned.”
Jared watched Candy and Herman with their heads together on the couch. Then they laughed. Weird. How could people be mad as anything one second, then act like they don’t care the next? It was obvious they didn’t like his dad. Jared and Kyle spent hours bugging about their old man—but it always shook Jared up a bit when he realized other people thought his father was a bastard too.
He looked for his mother, but she had vanished. No, there she was, right next to the lamp. She had been invisible for a moment. Mommy House Elf and Daddy Dementor. People began to file into the entryway and he fled upstairs.
Later, after he and Chuy had IM-ed each other their plans for the weekend, Jared lined 24 shiny red Coricidin tablets up on the windowsill and gazed at them, wondering what it would feel like when he and Chuy took them the next night. It was usually easy to get real pills at school, but they took over-the-counter cold pills when they couldn’t get anything else. Would it make them laugh their guts out? Or mess them up so they couldn’t think straight? Or take them someplace far away? All of the above, he hoped. They took Robitussin quite a bit, but they hadn’t tried the Coricidan before. Jared was careful to get the kind that doesn’t make people die when they take a bunch. He wondered what it would be like if had gotten the wrong kind and had died.
The door swung open and his mother walked in. He didn’t have time to pick up the pills. She stared at him like she’d never seen him before. “Oh,” she said.
“What?”
“That was really strange,” she said, crossing the room to stand next to him. “For a second I thought you were Kyle. I thought it was about five years ago.” She shook her head as if to clear it. “I just wanted to check the email.”
Jared stood up and moved behind the chair. He wished he could stand between her and the window to block the pills, but her bulk was too great, and so was his. She sat down and began tapping on the keyboard. “I applied for a job at the bank,” she said.
Ever since Kyle was deployed, his mother had been looking for a job like crazy. It was weird; he didn’t think she had ever worked before. “Hey Mom?”
“Hmmm?”
“Have you ever had a job before?”
She stopped typing and looked at him. “Your dad and I got married when I was 18. I never had to work.” She went back to the computer. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t know how to do anything. I keep this house running. I’ve been secretary at the church for seven years. I volunteered for the PTA and the Cub Scouts and was a Pink Lady at the hospital until it closed. And then there’s my scrapbooking of course.“ She jabbed at the keys, her fuschia-painted nails clicking. He could see drops of sweat roll down the back of her neck.
“I didn’t mean you couldn’t do anything,” he mumbled.
“Well, I have to do something or I’m going to lose my mind.” Then she became engrossed in her email. He read over her shoulder: “We received a number of applications from highly qualified individuals. We’re sorry yours was not selected for interview.” The words vanished as his mother deleted the message. She sighed and bowed her head. Jared backed away quietly, hoping to slip out.
“What’s this?” she asked, pointing to the windowsill.
His ears burned. “Um.” He looked at the Coricidan. “Skittles.”
Her hand reach toward them, like she was going to pick one up and eat it. His breath caught. Her fingertips hovered over them, then she snapped her hand back and stood up. “You’re not sleeping in here, are you?”
“No.”
“Because I don’t think you should.”
“I’m not sleeping in here, Mom.”
“It’s still Kyle’s room after all.”
“Okay, okay. I’m not sleeping in here.”
She paused at the doorway and looked back at him. “Don’t stay up too late. And don’t forget to say your prayers.” She smiled her droopy smile/frown before closing the door behind her. Jared realized he was tremendously relieved his mother didn’t discover the pills. He was extremely tired. He wondered if he could even get to his own room. He stepped over to Kyle’s bed and sat on the edge. The springs creaked slightly, but the mattress was much firmer than Jared’s. He laid his head on the pillow and it smelled like Kyle, like his shaving cream and shampoo. Like his sweat. Jared buried his face and thought of his mother in her room, watching the news. When Kyle first went over there, his mother would cry every time they reported a soldier getting killed. Now she just sat there, like nothing, like they were telling her it was going to rain tomorrow. He thought of his father, still downstairs with his hatoraids. Plotting.
He lay motionless, as if he were in a coffin, and imagined himself dead. His mother weeping, his father wringing his hands guiltily. Chuy gazing at him with his mouth hanging open in disbelief; the neighbor girls swooning. What would Kyle do?
He shifted and pulled the navy blue ribbed bedspread over himself, and the sheets smelled like himself, since he did sleep in there often, among other things. He grasped for some happy thoughts: One more day of school and then the weekend. He would spend Friday night at Chuy’s, eating Coricidan, maybe running around Chuy’s neighborhood downtown where nobody seemed to care how noisy you got. Or they could ask Chuy’s mom to drive them out to Lost Mountain so they could camp one last time before it got cold. Maybe he would borrow Kyle’s hunting rifle and they could shoot some cans out in the woods. Maybe he would grow up and move away and marry someone who looks like Mrs. Ruiz. He wouldn’t care if the neighbors were noisy.
Then, like he did every night, he closed his eyes and cried. And he prayed, like he had every night he could remember. He prayed for President Bush, like the pastor had told him. He prayed for Kyle, like the pastor had told him, like it would keep him safe and bring him home.
The next night, Chuy’s mother dropped them off at the Lost Mountain campground and they ate “skittles” and cruised about the meadow, pretending they were soldiers doing recon while actually checking out who else was in the campground. They passed a closed-up Vanagon on one site and a sagging green canvas tent with no vehicle on another. They set up the Pratt’s Coleman four-man at the site farthest from the others.
The cold medicine kicked in, making them feel energetic, almost jittery, fueled by Chuy’s crazy dancing to a Fallout Boy song he couldn’t stop singing. At dusk, Chuy built a campfire in the middle of fake Stonehenge. Jared sat on a cinderblock wall and took several boxes of rifle ammunition out of a long dufflebag.
r /> “Holy shit!“ Chuy exclaimed. “Where’d you get all that?”
“I ordered it off the internet with my rents’ VISA card. My mom pays all the bills; she’ll just think my dad ordered it.”
Chuy doused some cedar kindling with lighter fluid. “But didn’t it come to your house?”
“I had them ship it to me at school. I told the secretary I was expecting some materials for industrial arts.”
“Props!“ Chuy threw a match on the wood and they both savored the hot whoosh. “I wish I could get away with that sort of stuff.”
“You should try it.”
“Are you kidding? My mom would go postal!” He poked at the fire with a long stick, sending a shower of sparks into the air. “Double, double, toil and trouble,” he chanted, “fire burn and cauldron bubble.”
Jared, not knowing what Chuy was talking about, walked to the edge of fake Stonehenge to pee. As he stood there, he thought about Kyle in Iraq. Did Jesus really watch over him and protect him? What about all those dead guys? Didn’t Jesus care? He imagined God as a scary dad with a long white beard, glaring down from a gold throne. Jesus was more like a cool big brother, but with magical powers. Jared was afraid if he didn’t pray hard enough, Kyle would get killed and it would be all his fault. He zipped up his pants and screwed his eyes shut. Jesus!, he cried silently, please don’t let Kyle get killed. Please Jesus! Please! Don’t let Kyle get killed. Please Jesus. He prayed so intensely, when he opened his eyes, he almost expected to see Jesus nodding and smiling. Instead, he could have sworn he saw Herman Hoffmeister trudging into the woods carrying two brown paper grocery bags with handles. He squinted and stared, but the vision had vanished. Wow, he thought, was that a message from God? Or just a hallucination? He went back to Chuy and the campfire, sure of one thing: skittles rock.