I leave the house at 7:23 every morning. Well, not exactly 7:23—I wish I were that anal—more like 7:25 or :26. I take fifteen minutes (even if I run) to reach the subway. I spend two or three more minutes waiting on the platform. When the train comes, I run to the front car and try to beat out an adult for a seat. I usually fail. Then, I’m faced with the day’s first problem: what to do on the way to school. I have fifteen minutes to kill.
Let’s start with the obvious: I could read. At 7:45 A.M., a New York subway car is a remarkably literate place. The Daily News, the Bible, Waiting to Exhale,* R. L. Stine, a chemistry textbook—half the straphangers are reading. But I can’t read on the train. Invariably, I get caught up in a chapter and lose my balance, falling into the businesswoman next to me, who’s also reading. She closes her thick, important-looking book and glares at me. I cringe, shuffle away, and look at the floor. Bumping into men isn’t so bad; they just harrumph and turn back to the sports section. Still, reading’s out.
I could always fantasize, but come on. Cramped by some overweight banker, smelling b.o. that’s just starting to stale, wearing a fifteen-pound backpack, and clutching my math notebook in my teeth, I’m going to think about the woman next to me?
I could scan the passengers, like Dad does. He’s always analyzing strangers on the train, building stories around their imagined lives. “See those two? He’s an architect, and he loves her, but he can’t stand her cats.” Never a dull moment for Dad. But I’m no good at crafting urban tales.
I could hum, but this causes problems, too. My humming inevitably leads to openmouthed mumbling, which becomes these horrible “Dun, dun, dada, dun, da” noises, which lead to full-blown, off-key singing in my corner of the subway car. Sometimes I belt out the entire “Spider-Man” theme song (“Is he tough? Listen, bud / He’s got radioactive blood”) before shutting myself up.
I experimented with a Walkman. I’d put on the headphones, hunch over, and wear a jaded, sullen-teen face as I brooded in the back of the car. But I’m not sullen, and I can’t fake it; the Walkman was eventually crushed by an unruly businessman.
Often, the idea of talking with my fellow straphangers has crossed my mind. There are two I recognize—the annoying woman with the sunglasses who never gets a seat, and the cute green-haired girl who actually seems intimidated by me. Many times, I’ve been ready to address them, but I always reconsider and pull out my global notes to study.
I could sleep, but how? A typical subway rider sleeps standing up, chin dropped to the chest, or sitting, head tilted back. These positions never work for me. The only way I can rest is by sitting with my backpack on my lap, and my head on my backpack. Bent forward, covered in my coat and sweatshirt, I look like a twisted midget escaped from rehab. My back gets bent up, and then hurts all day. I never actually fall asleep.
Sometimes, though, I fall half asleep. Being half asleep is terrific; my sense of time slows down, and I picture weird things. Sometimes I press my palms against my eyes on the subway to see whirling tunnels or flashing squares. Once, firmly planted in this zone, I saw a gray machine extruding strawberries through a little nozzle.*
But I can’t be half asleep all the time, and I’m running out of options. I could stare and think about mysteries of the cosmos. Let’s see … Is there a God? Please. How can the universe be older than some of its stars? Somebody screwed up. Will we ever conquer disease? No. Will the universe expand forever, or will it stop at a point and implode? Right then, when I’m on implosions, the train hits Park Place. One more stop before school.
My brain shifts modes. I do the mental homework checklist: math, global, English. Either I’ve done them, or I’ll do them at lunch. The train pulls into Chambers Street.
It’s 7:58, most likely—I’ll know by sneaking a glance at someone’s watch.* My back is aching; lint has already sneaked into my interstices. I’m tired and I’m headed off to Sequential Math, where I understand roughly 50 percent of the curriculum. But at least there I’ve got something to do. These subway trips are going to kill me fifteen minutes at a time.
*A book about women waiting to get into a committed relationship so they can exhale. Very similar to my desires at the time.
*The strawberry image was crystal clear to me. If only I could draw, I’d draw it for you.
*I never wear a watch. They always chafe my wrists. Also, I chew on them and lose them.
PARENTAL APPROVAL
“Ned, have you been smoking pot?” Mom asked. I exploded with laughter. I was in the kitchen, clipping my nails, eating cereal, and watching TV.
“What?! What makes you think that?” I turned to Mom. I had never smoked anything in my life, not even cigarettes, and I was tired of her paranoia.
“When you do homework, you turn off the overhead light and use your desk lamp. When you watch TV, you always keep the lights off. People who smoke marijuana become sensitive to light, you know.”
I laughed. “Mom, when I do homework, I use my desk light because it’s more focused. And I watch TV in the dark because there’s no glare that way … seriously.”
“Oookay, I’m just checking.”
I’m not sure why my mother is so fixated on me and drugs. I guess it’s just baseline suspicion—I’m fourteen, I’m in high school, and America is a morally repugnant cesspool of sex and substances anyway, right?
Mom and I had that little conference on a Thursday night in February. The following Saturday, I told her I had to go to the West End at 8:00 P.M. to see a band called Shrivel. Shrivel’s lead guitarist, Josh, went to my school. He reportedly had a really good group, and a lot of my friends were going to see him. Mom refused to let me go. I asked her why.
“Well, because I don’t know any of your friends, and I don’t know what kind of people they are,” she said.
Of course Mom didn’t know my friends—I never brought them to the apartment. It was a three-ring circus, with her obsessing over crosswords, Dad ranting about how dirty everything was, and Daniel and Nora fighting. The people I brought over tended not to return. I told my mother about my friends, but those conversations always went badly:
“Mom, I met this cool kid named Sam* in school.”
“Oh, yeah? What’s he like?”
“He’s a video game addict. He plays this game Warcraft all the time. He’s up till three every night playing it.”
“Sounds nice.”
“He’s the number five ranked Warcraft player in the world, Mom.”
“Uh-huh. Where did he go to school?”
Mom always asked that—where had my friends gone to school before they came to Stuyvesant? I never had a clue; I didn’t see why it was important.
So because I never brought my friends home and didn’t know what junior highs they’d attended, my mother decided they were bad influences. We had a loud, drawn-out argument about the Shrivel show. In the end, we reached a compromise: Mom would let me go if Dad drove me there and back.
Dad was happy to do it—he liked any excuse to get out of the apartment. He planned to drop me off at the show at 8:00, hang out in some bookstores for a while, and pick me up at 9:30. Now, Dad isn’t an embarrassing guy, but the Shrivel show was an important social gathering, and I didn’t want him escorting me to and from it. I explained this to him. He understood. He dropped me off a block away from the West End and let me walk there myself.
When I arrived, I didn’t know what to do. I’d never been out to see a band before, but I had this vague idea that bands played in “clubs” or “bars,” and this didn’t look like either: it looked like a restaurant. Unprepared as usual, I hung around for ten minutes until my socially savvy friends, who had seen a lot of bands, showed up. They led me into the West End, through the restaurant, and down a flight of concrete stairs. Josh stood at the bottom by the basement door, asking everyone for five bucks.
Next to him was his mother.
“Hi!” she gushed. “Thanks so much for coming to the show! And you are …”
“Uh, Ned.”
“Oh, Josh has told me about you. You’re from Stuyvesant, right?”
“Yeah.”
She kept talking, but I was no longer listening. I was pondering the inherent wrongness of the situation. A rock concert should be counterculture and youth-driven—not something you invite your mother to.* Rock is the opposite of mothers. Nevertheless, I paid my five dollars and walked through the door, into the West End’s dim basement.
The opening band was Army of Clones. The band members were about thirteen years old, and they were terrible. The drummer seemed to be witnessing a drum set for the first time; he eyed it strangely and hit it occasionally. I don’t think the bassist was even playing anything. Army of Clones had no good original songs because, at thirteen, they had no life experience.** In four years, they might be decent.
I looked around at the audience. The basement was half full, with a bunch of the bands’ friends milling around, chatting. But in one corner, there were … adults. Dressed in blazers and ties, sitting with perfect posture and sipping distinguished-looking drinks, they contrasted sharply with the younger members of the crowd. I saw Josh’s mother among them, and then it hit me—these were the bands’ parents! And grandparents! With video cameras to tape the gig!
On the faces of these well-off Upper West Siders, I saw the same proud “Look at my kid” grins that parents wear when they see school plays. I could just picture these people lounging at home, beaming at their videotape of Jimmy’s First Gig. “Look at him sing about his teenage angst. Isn’t that wonderful!”
Army of Clones finished, and two or three kids clapped. The parents stayed, recording everything, as Shrivel took the stage. The band had technical problems. The vocalist’s mike went dead; no one could hear what he was screaming about. The bass amp was busted, too; at one point, the bassist stopped plucking to tie his shoes and nobody noticed. That was all right. The music was standard, whiny fare, but at least it was loud. The first song they played was the theme from Batman. That was good enough for me.
By now, the kids had formed a mosh pit.* Not a hardcore one, with people actually getting bloodied—just a “mini pit” where misunderstood students could vent themselves.
I never dance—I hate dancing—but I figured I could mosh a little. Anyone can mosh: just jump in and flail your arms around, right? Well, it isn’t that simple. You have to know when to start moshing. If you start too early, you have no one to slam into and you look like an idiot. If you start too late, people give you dirty looks and call you a poser. It’s a delicate balance. At the Shrivel show, I started when three or four people were going at it, and I still felt dumb. The adults didn’t venture into the pit, but I’m sure it made interesting fodder for their VCRs.
As I was moshing, I noticed a girl I couldn’t quite place. Then I remembered—summer camp. I’d completely forgotten her name. What was I supposed to say to her? I already have a problem with seeing people from camp in the city; it feels odd. I have an even bigger problem with, um, girls. Midway through Shrivel’s set, she came up to me.
“Don’t I know you from somewhere?” she asked.
“Camp.”
“Oh, yeah.” She walked away. Phew. I escaped that confrontation with monosyllabic simplicity.
The second-to-last song was hard and fast. I jumped in the pit, and some kid punched me in the chin, so I swung on ceiling pipes and kicked people in the head.
By 9:45 it was over. Shrivel left the stage; their parents packed up the cameras. Ears ringing, I climbed out of the West End and into the winter night. There, on the corner, looking at a thick history book he’d picked up from a used bookstore, was my dad. I walked up to him.
“So, Ned, how was it?” He smiled. “Oh, wait, should I talk to you? I’m not embarrassing you too much, am I? Maybe I should move away so your friends don’t see me.”
He has a comforting bass voice, my dad. I started laughing as we walked to the van.
*Actually, Sam went kind of crazy as time went by. He got to the point where he played video games instead of going to school, and I’m not sure if he graduated. Hope he’s doing well.
*Except, of course, for those mothers in “Highway to Hell” (this page–this page). They were cool.
**Whereas Ike and I had a lot of life experience when we formed Wormwhole (this page–this page). I’m telling you, we were a killer band.
*A circular area where you were supposed to jump in and smash into other people in time to the music.
HORRIBLE MENTION
Late spring, when I was fifteen, I was given a Scholastic Writing Award for a short story I wrote. Actually, it wasn’t a real award—it was an honorable mention. I’m always getting honorable mentions; I used to think it was me, but now I realize that the teen world itself is full of second prizes. Nobody wants to hurt our self-esteem.
Anyway, I’d written this story earlier freshman year. Called “The Bagel Man,” it was about a kid who goes to school, eats a bagel, meets an old man, and realizes the old man is freer than he is. My English teacher liked it, so I sent it off to the competition. Two months later I got the letter: “We are pleased to announce …”* At first I was excited, until I saw that about six hundred kids had entered the contest and three hundred won something.
The letter invited me to a ceremony on May 19. From 1:00 to 2:00 P.M. a reception would be held. From 2:00 to 3:00 P.M. the awards would be handed out. My invitation said that I could bring a guest; I considered taking Dad but, as a fledgling teenager who wanted nothing to do with his parents, I decided against it. Dad was kind enough, however, to drive me into Manhattan.
We got stuck in traffic,* in disgusting New York City heat. Even worse, when we left our apartment in Park Slope, a group of kids on skateboards was behind us. As we came to a complete stop around Flatbush and Atlantic, they passed us by and coasted into the distance. I hate it when kids on skateboards pass me; they’re already cooler than me—they have to be faster, too?
Dad dropped me off at the Fashion Institute of Technology, a college in Manhattan, at 1:50. Not bad, considering I had planned to get there at 1:00, and my family is usually two hours late. I got out of the van, wished Dad a safe trip home, and followed the signs for “Scholastic Writing Winners.” I found myself at the entrance to the Marvin Feldman Auditorium, where a giggly blond woman asked me what my name was.
“Ned Vizzini,” I told her. Not Viccini, or Zizzini, or Zazooni.** I hate my name sometimes.
“Okay, Ned,” she giggled. She gave me this computer-personalized name tag and a yellow index card that read:
I wondered what the card was for.
“Ned? Just go right up those stairs to the reception,” said the woman.
I went.
Now, I didn’t know that this awards ceremony was a dress-code occasion. After all, I was only getting honorable mention, and my story wasn’t very good. Besides, I figured the place would be full of artistic types, and you never know what they’re going to wear. So I dressed, you know … casually. I had on a plain white T-shirt and blue plaid shorts. Everybody else was in a dress or blazer, or at least a button-down shirt and tie.
I sighed, slunk over to the refreshments table, and got some punch. I was sipping it casually, elbow cocked up, when it spilled spectacularly all over my shirt and shorts. And it wasn’t even that pale yellow adult-looking punch—it was bright red, like Kool-Aid.
Wiping myself off, I went from the reception room to the auditorium, where I was shown to my seat among the other winners in the short short story category.* I was placed right in the middle of the row, so everyone could look at my huge red stain as I walked to my seat. On my left sat a glasses-clad, curly-haired boy dressed in a blazer and tie. He looked about two years younger than me. His name tag said, “Brian.” To my right was an even younger blond-haired girl—I never did get her name—wearing a pristine dress. She kept leaning across me and whispering, “Kimberly, Kimberly! What’d you win?”
I turned to Brian, “So
what happens now? We just get our certificates, right?”
“Nah, they have to make speeches first.” He had a really deep voice, deeper than mine. “Maybe,” I thought, “he’s older than me and just short.”
“What are these things for?” I asked, showing him my yellow index card.
“When you go up to get your award, you give your card to the guy, who reads off what’s on it. Then everybody claps, and you get your award, and you sit down.” I looked at Brian’s index card. He’d won honorable mention, too.
The speeches began. The first lady was young and unprepared. She kept saying “um” and “well” and “in fact.” Most of her speech was about how lots of famous writers—the only one I remember was Bernard Malamud—had won Scholastic Writing Awards* when they were kids. And she said something about how we were the light of the future. The second speaker, an older woman, was articulate and confident. She also said we were the light of the future. The third speaker kept it brief and remarked on how imposing it was to have all these future writers in the room. And we were the light of the future.
Then the handing out of the awards began. The kids were called by category (dramatic script, science fiction, etc.); they got out of their seats and formed a line leading to the foot of the stage. From there they walked up one by one and handed their index cards to “the guy,” who read off their names. Then people applauded. Just like Brian said.
Naturally, the short short story category was the last to receive awards. That gave me a chance to sit in my punch for the longest possible time. When the announcer finally called us, the girl next to me giggled and whispered, “Kimberly, I’m sooo nervous.” We lined up single file. I was between Brian and the Kimberly girl. We walked onstage to receive our awards. I handed my index card to the guy; of course, he needed help with pronunciation.
“Vi-ZENE-ee,” I told him. He read it off, and everybody clapped halfheartedly.
As they applauded, I peered down at my peers, in their suits and prim dresses. Suddenly I felt superior. It was a wonderful, virile, teenage sort of superiority. There I was, receiving an award for something I’d done completely on a whim; these kids’ parents had probably forced them into the Scholastic Writing contest to earn points for Harvard.* The stain on my shirt was all part of it. It was a statement.