The first time you try to write a book is always the most awkward. Hey, I have an idea. Instead of reading this nine year old work by an inept kid, you should buy (or download) my new book. Seriously. You'll love it. I know that like I know I love pudding pops.
Chapter 7
Thursday, April 22, 1999
Ethan Lee awoke on what he would come considered the most blessedly normal morning of his life. The morning sun gleamed through the glass door, pierced his eyes and sent warm curls of activity through his nerves. He awoke, made coffee and removed some leftover chicken breast from the refrigerator. As he placed the chicken breast in Lulu’s dog dish outside his door, Ethan spotted his girlfriend sitting on one of his plastic white chairs. She watched the sun rise over the mini mall infested county. Ethan watched as the traffic on Chester Rd. boiled to maximum intensity.
He’d seen this sunrise before.
“Kinda ugly, isn’t it?” Ethan spoke softly.
“What a way to ruin a perfectly good sunrise,” she whispered as he sat down next to her.
“Sorry,” said Ethan.
“Not you,” she said. “All this, this progress.”
“There’s one place it doesn’t look so bad.”
“Where?” she asked.
He pointed down the line of trees, just above the little creek, to a little league baseball field.
“See how the sun lights up the grass. See how it glints off the wire fences and seems to burn into the asphalt. Look close enough and you may see a friend.”
As she turned her head, the streams of light guided her to an American flag being hoisted above the miniature glory of a little baseball field. The light flickered off the spherical top of the flagpole and refracted into a million colorful pieces. The very same morning light illuminated a small, black bag slumped over in left center field. The bag jumped up, turned in circles a few times and scurried off the field like a cockroach scampering away from recently illuminated kitchen lights.
“Lulu,” she whispered.
“Yeah, thanks for bringing her a dog dish.”
Deborah shrugged. Ethan kissed her.
“Well,” she said as Ethan rolled around the lawn with a happily fed black Labrador. “Looks like the morning show is over.”
The blessedly normal morning continued with coffee, eggs and toast.
On the drive to school, Ethan smoked no marijuana. He was sober. This would be a sober day. He kept telling himself over and over in his mind: just one sober day, one complete day of sobriety and I’m normal. I’m just like everyone else.
Ethan kissed Deborah on the cheek as they walked across the parking lot.
“See you in calculus,” she said, smiling pure delight all over his heart.
“See you then.”
Jim Phelps would miss school this morning. After practicing his tai chi, meditating and enjoying a breakfast of whole grain rice, Jim Phelps sat in his attic and studied his plans.
The sun couldn’t shine through the east window of the attic. Dirty, cramped, and filled with misplaced memories, the attic represented truth to Jim Phelps. This, he thought, is what reality looks like.
From the grasp of his jaw, a penlight illuminated the papers before him; the green ink marker in his right hand helped Jim worked out the details.
Step one: create reason to be at the bonfire party.
That had been easy. Phelps always figured he could show up at any huge party he wanted and meet someone he knew. Even loser nerds sometimes drank keg beer and stared at attractive women. But running into Ethan Lee had been a godsend. Jim had forgotten that unlike the rest of the sheep at Luther S. Dunby High, Ethan Lee had little need or value for his popularity. Jim always knew that it was the mystery surrounding Ethan that made him cool. Ethan, Jim had realized in the sauna, would gladly party with anyone whom he could enjoy. Jim knew also, that Ethan’s easygoing attitude regarding social status also made him cool. And it was because of his attitude, friendship and inadvertent aid to Jim’s cause that the pimply faced Star Trek fan had made one minor change in his plan: he would let Ethan Lee live.
Ethan Lee’s blessedly normal morning continued with a blessedly normal early afternoon. The hallways were more normal than usual. Few people said hello. Few women hit on him. In a way though, the lack of normality in his everyday hallway life made today’s reality seem normal, or at least, the way it must feel for normal people. Ethan wasn’t sure exactly what normal was, but he was quite sure his day so far had been exactly that.
Class had been normal. He took notes, doodled, answered a few questions, asked a few questions, lifted a few weights and put them back where he found them. After class he met his girlfriend at her car (she had procured a parking pass after all), kissed her on the cheek and asked her how her day was.
“Good,” she had said. “And yours?”
“Normal.”
“What does that mean?”
Ethan did not answer.
After lunch, Ethan and Deborah drank coffee on his patio.
“We’ll have to do a few pushups if we don’t hurry.”
“Yeah,” said Ethan. “But that’s normal.”
“What is with you today, Normal?”
Ethan laughed hysterically.
“I’m serious.”
“I don’t know,” he smiled as he spoke. “I just feel so normal.” He kissed her on the lips.”
“No,” she said after pulling herself from his embrace. “You don’t.”
After completing two pushups, Ethan and Deborah sat next to each other in class. Ten minutes into the class, an eighteen year old, overweight attendance worker wearing blue jean bellbottoms and a T-shirt three sizes too small for her immense bosom handed the white-haired teacher a note.
“Ethan Lee, Principal Adell would like a word with you.”
“Oooooh,” said the class in a predictable fashion.
Shit, thought Ethan, and it had been such a normal day.
It had been almost two months since Principal Adell had asked to see Ethan. Every time he received a note from her, he knew what to expect. Two years ago, she had searched his person rather thoroughly and discovered a small bag of cocaine. Ethan had been her slave ever since. The cocaine possession charge could have ruined his future. So, in exchange for his future, he did what she wanted when she wanted it done. He never knew when she’d call for him, but he always knew why she called.
As he walked through the vacant hallway, crumpled up homework rolling by him like tumbleweeds, Ethan found himself confronted with a moral dilemma: Deborah. How could he do this to Deborah?
After rolling the problem around in his brain, Ethan concluded that this was one of those catch twenty-two’s. Seeing Adell would ruin his life. Not seeing Adell would ruin his life.
After pacing around the school for ten minutes, Ethan eventually settled into the plush couch provided in Mrs. Adell’s waiting room. Across from Ethan, a well-endowed woman of Hispanic origin with tanning lamp skin and exposed cleavage stared at him thoughtfully.
“You have not been here in a while.”
Ethan wasn’t sure if this was a question.
“Been staying out of trouble,” he said.
“Good for you,” she seemed to purr the words.
A beeping noise escaped the secretary’s phone. She picked up the receiver and put it right back down.
“She is ready for you,” the secretary purred again.
A corridor about five feet long connected the waiting room to the office. Ethan stood in that corridor with his heart pumping hard.
“Remember,” he told himself as he prepared to enter. “You enjoy this.”
After cleaning up the mess he made in the living room, Jim Phelps ejected the video from his parents VCR and decided to shower. His plan was complete.
As he showered, years of torment going back to second grade replayed in his mind. He remembered being pelted with rocks at recess, being chased home from school and being spit on in gym class. He remembered homework stolen and projects destroyed. He remembered being shoved into lockers. After years of Judo, the beatings stopped, but the mockery did not.
But because he was properly trained, he did not start fights.
Fighting was dumb. People found out. People got upset. People got even. They would catch him. But now… Well, now with the setting established and the alibi in place, Jim Phelps knew he would pull this off.
After all, he thought, I’m an honors student.
He felt so damn happy he decided to masturbate again—this time in the shower.
Life would soon improve.
“Sit down, Ethan.” The words sounded so pleasant, as if there couldn’t possibly be anything more relaxing or enjoyable than sitting down.
“Sorry about the temperature in here,” she smiled as she spoke. “But, you know how these low budget air conditioners are.”
Ethan didn’t bother to point out that she had set her office at ninety degrees, that he could read the thermostat or that her blouse was unbuttoned to her waist. These were given.
“I have a girlfriend now,” he said dumbly.
Mrs. Adell arched her muscular back. Her perfect C cup breasts forced their way through the thin blouse. She rolled her deep brown eyes as she played with her short, almost cropped, brown hair. She stood up.
The long, gray skirt was tight enough to reveal every curve of her well-conditioned hips without revealing a piece of skin.
“Still working out?” he asked.
“Of course,” she responded. “And yourself?”
“Of course.”
“I don’t believe you. Take off your shirt.”
Ethan did as he was told.
For the next ninety minutes, Ethan fucked on automatic pilot. He thought about the world. He thought about Columbine. He thought about Deborah and the chances of a future with her. Sexually, he just did as he was told. When she said oral sex, she got oral sex. When she said fuck me, she got fucked. When she said on the desk, he moved up off her black, leather couch and bent her over the desk. He didn’t think about it—didn’t even try to think about. He thought about baseball. He thought about computer programs, video games and nice cars. He thought about college and palm trees (hoping his future would have both at the same time), but he couldn’t stop thinking about Deborah. He did his job, but he didn’t feel it. He felt trapped in a bad rerun.
“Thank you,” she panted as she pulled her naked body from her desk.
They dressed in silence.
She looked at her watch.
“I have a girlfriend,” he said again. “And I can’t stop thinking about her.”
“So? I have a husband, and he can’t stop thinking about his girlfriend.”
Ethan walked home from school. As he entered his room, he realized that school had just let out. He hoped Deborah wouldn’t worry.
“Perfectly normal,” he said to the statue of Jesus Christ. “I mean, every high school student gets called out of class at one time or another to make his principal cum. Just life.”
Christ stared back at him with empty ceramic eyes.
“Vanity,” Ethan said to himself as he got in the shower.
Deborah walked through the open sliding glass door and saw Ethan reading a book of E.E. Cummings poetry.
“Hey, Baby,” he said as he stood and kissed her on the cheek.
“How was your day?”
“Normal,” she laughed. “Did you get in trouble.”
“Worse,” said Ethan. “I got lectured.”
“What for?”
“Skipping.”
“I thought they couldn’t bust you for that anymore, you know, since you’re eighteen and all.”
“They can’t. But they can lecture you for ninety minutes on anything they want.”
“I missed you at my car.”
“Yeah, after the tirade, I only had about a half hour of school left so I just went home. Sorry.”
Deborah expected Ethan to pick her up and begin making her body tingle, but instead he said, “I’ve gotta’ call Joe. He, Atwood, Aaron and I are gonna’ play some cards.”
“You don’t feel like making love?”
“Let’s save that for tonight,” he said as he embraced her and began kissing up and down the soft skin of her neck.
“Did you shower?”
“Yup.”
“Why?”
“Felt dirty?”
“Felt dirty, why?”
“Didn’t shower after my workout.”
“Yes you did.”
“Well, I didn’t wash my hair.”
“You know,” she said. “You shouldn’t wash your hair so much. I think you should cut those dead ends, too.”
She played with the tail end of his locks.
“I will, Babe.”
She kissed him on the mouth.
“I guess I’ll go study,” she said as she walked away from him.
After she was gone, every inch of Ethan felt chewed and used.
“Perfect,” he said to Christ. “I’m a fucking monster. How come you never told me?”
Christ looked at him as if to say, “you knew that, didn’t you?”
At Midnight, Ethan laid on his back with Deborah’s head on his chest. He couldn’t sleep. A box of drugs kept calling him from his closet. Marijuana was in there. Marijuana could help him sleep. He fought the urge.
You can get stoned tomorrow, he thought.
A pounding on the door startled him.
He answered the door naked.
“Whoa, Ethan,” whispered Atwood Nash. “I don’t love you that much.”
Ethan grabbed a pair of boxer shorts from the floor next to his bed, put them on and walked back outside.
“Listen,” Ethan said after closing the door behind him. “If Deborah asks, we played cards for like five hours yesterday.”
“I hate cards,” said Joe Corolla, smoking a joint on the patio, watching the county in all its fluorescence.
Joe passed Ethan the joint.
“Camp out on that,” he said.
Ethan did as he was told and hit the joint repeatedly.
“What brings you guys by?” asked Ethan.
“We have,” said Atwood, pausing for effect. “A plan.”
Atwood Nash held up a vial of clear liquid.
“I have zero tolerance for those with zero tolerance,” said Atwood.
Joe Corolla laughed—a sputtered, choking sound with a high pitch.
“What are you thinking?” Ethan inquired.
“I’m thinking,” said Atwood. “That Monday morning, the faculty of LSD high will be on an LSD high.”
“Are you drunk?”
“Listen,” said Joe. “We’re gonna’ dose the counseling loft coffee pot at the school. The entire faculty will be tripping. It’s a beautiful plan.”
“Tell me the plan,” said Ethan, then very quickly added. “No, don’t. I’m going back to bed. None of this shit for me. I’m gonna’ go sleep with my lovely girlfriend, wake up and go to school like a normal person. Because that’s what I am, you know? A normal fucking person.”
“No,” said Joe. “You’re not.”
Ethan closed the door behind him. He sighed. Deborah slept soundly. Ethan felt that she looked more beautiful than beauty could fathom.
Ethan emerged from his closet with a little bag of marijuana. He rolled a joint on the coffee table.
The regular breathing of Deborah syncopated the uniformity of his ticking wall clock. Ethan stared at the joint for what seemed like an eternity. He would smoke this joint tomorrow morning. Not everyday requires normality, rationalized Ethan. That would be boring.
Tomorrow is tomorrow forever, thought Ethan, as he climbed into bed with the one being on this planet whom he loved.
He had already forgotten the visit from Atwood and Joe.