Chapter Three
Halloween Night, six hours earlier
Sk8rgrrl342: bring yr sk8board
Emoghostboi90: ya. cant promise ne thing. 2 sketchy rt now
Sk8rgrrl342: cluck cluck LOL!
Emoghostboi90: STFU ill b there
Sk8rgrrl342: cluck cluck LMFAO!
Emoghostboi90: POS
Sk8rgrrl342: k
And chicks call us dicks. When I said in that private AIM chat room that it was too sketchy to duck out of my house to go to a Halloween party, I wasn’t shitting, dude. I was grounded at the time over that board. I cut Calculus a couple of weeks ago so I could go boarding with my friends at the skateboard park on John LeRoy Drive.
It was wicked easy for Clarissa to accuse me of being chickenshit . It wasn’t her cute little ass she was putting on the line by risking getting grounded until the next Ice Age.
“What’s POS mean?” my Mom asked from behind me. Luckily, I already scrolled up the part in the dialog box where Clarissa asked me to bring my skateboard.
“What are you, reading my chat room messages? C’mon, you ever heard of the fourth amendment?”
“Adam, as long as you’re…”
“Yeah, yeah.” The rest of her sentence would’ve no doubt ended with, “…living under our roof, you have no rights to privacy. You want privacy, move out.” Which wasn’t an option for me. I was still in high school and only 17. “And POS stands for ‘piece of shit.’”
“Why are you talking dirty on the Internet?”
Luckily, I have a typical middle-aged Mom who couldn’t tell the difference between an Apache server and an Apache Indian. God help me if she ever takes a computer class. That’ll cark my whole social life and I’ll have to learn how to type with two hands again. I’m kidding about that, by the way.
But for now she didn’t and couldn’t know that “POS” really stands for “Parent Over Shoulder.” It’s the growing glossary of shorthand that we use to inconspicuously alert those we’re chatting or texting with to STFU.
“There,” my Mom said as she closed my sock drawer. “Now you have some clean socks for a change. You know, Hun, you’re more than old enough to throw a load in the washer once a week.”
“Thanks, Mom,” I droned with barely concealed impatience, waiting for the sound of my door to close so I could continue the chat. When I did, I looked behind me to see if she was really gone. Sometimes, parents sucker you like that and only pretend to leave to see what shit you’ll pull next.
OK, so maybe your parents aren’t that sneaky but mine are. My Mom and Dad rewrote the book on neurotic Jewish parenting. No wonder my older sister Laura already had one foot out the door when she got her high school diploma.
I went back to typing on my Dell laptop, whispering the words as I wrote them. “back. ill go when i can. meet me at the park.” Clarissa instantly responded with “k” and logged off before I did.
I got up and took off my pants and pulled a pair of board shorts off the floor of my closet, sniffed them and put them on. We Emo boys are about fashion and if you’re a skateboarder, you have to be especially trendy. Still, I privately admitted that half my reason for wearing baggy board shorts is to hide my boner when I get within 100 yards of Clarissa Feingold.
I knew even ducking out for a couple of hours was almost a suicide mission but what was I supposed to do while all my friends were at the coolest Halloween party in Braintree? Jerk off to my Danica Patrick poster hanging over my bed? My mother already caught me doing that last summer.
I changed into another tee shirt, the green Tony Hawk one then finger-arranged my hair. Long bangs in the front, sides pushed forwards, short and spiky in the back. I was just about the only blond Emo boy in America and I always felt self-conscious about that. That’s why I dyed some purple streaks into it to break up the boring yellow. But I was having a great hair day and luckily it was carrying over into early evening. Dude, with my great hair and big green eyes, I can’t believe I’m still a virgin. Well, maybe after Clarissa got a couple of beers in her, who knows how sorry she’d feel for me?
And, yeah, I’m kidding about that, too. I’d never take advantage of a drunk chick. My Dad succeeded in drumming that much into my head. “How do you think your big sister Laura came into the world?”
Unfortunately, Dad wasn’t joking about that.
I spritzed a little more styling gel over the back of my hair and fingered it some more. Then I reached for my iPod, put the buds in my ears, set it to “shuffle” and started listening to my play list. I grabbed my skateboard leaning against my closet door and carefully opened my bedroom window. Hello, Mr. Tree Limb. Going down.
Clarissa Feingold’s folks were at some Halloween party in Boston and stupidly told her that they may stay the night at the hotel. At the very least, they wouldn’t be back until long after we all left her house. We all agreed to meet at the skateboard park near Route 37 on John LeRoy Drive before going over there. It was colder than a witch’s tit but who cared? I hadn’t set one toe on my board in days and was starting to get antsy. Chicks as a rule aren’t into skateboarding but Clarissa’s an exception. I love watching her on her skateboard. I especially love it when she does Ollies and her big boobs bounce up and down for like twenty seconds after she lands. Hey, just because I’m on the honor roll doesn’t mean I have to stop being a dude, right?
I rolled toward the park and could already see some of my friends. I looked for Clarissa and finally found her. I entered the park, slapping hands on the way and kicked the front of the board up into my hand. Knowing how to enter a skateboard park is almost as important as knowing how to dress for it and Clarissa, even though she was still a newbie getting the hang of Ollies, appreciated a kewl entrance. Perfect hair, perfect clothes, perfect entrance. So far so good. I could almost hear my cherry popping in the distance.
“Hey!” she exclaimed. I jerked my head up, acting cooler than I really was. I was already halfway to a full-blown woodie.
She wore her best American Eagle clothes and her red bandanna that covered her hair pirate-style was kind of a disappointment since she has wicked gorgeous brown hair. Still, you don’t tell a chick what you don’t like about her looks. They tend to kind of tweak out about that. She walked toward me and put her arms around my neck. I’m 5’ 10” but Clarissa’s just an inch shorter than me. I put my arms around her waist and held her for a little longer than I suspect I should’ve but I didn’t care. So, this is why we dudes wear underwear, huh? She gave me a peck on the lips, maybe out of modesty or maybe just to tease me.
“Looks like we’re all here. Let’s get some moves in before we start the party, ‘kay?”
Some of the other kids were in costume, some weren’t. We all attacked the course and I did some pretty good grind rails and other tricks while riding fakie just to impress her. I deliberately had my cell phone turned off. Tonight was too fucking promising to have it ruined by irate parents.
“And don’t go having sex on my parents’ bed!” I heard Clarissa say over the speakers as she walked downstairs. She was getting all freaked out and shit as the party got more rowdy. I take back everything that I said about her not putting her ass on the line. If anything, she was risking even more than I was.
A few of our friends had taken some of the party and their skateboards outside and were trying to do tre flips and Ollies off the huge boulder to the right of their mansion. One of the kids got their older brother to buy us four cases of beer. Even considering that there were about two dozen of us, we were all 16 or 17, which meant that 96 beers could get us all hammered.
I’d heard older dudes tell horror stories about getting wasted then not being able to perform when Show Time came. I sure as Hell wasn’t going to let that happen to me. I stuck to Jolt Cola and could almost feel the two year-old Trojan in my wallet. I’d been saving it for when I get my cherry popped and the fucking thing had been there for so long my wallet has a terminal case of ring worm. I wasn’t even sure if it would be any good anymore.
Clarissa answered the doorbell to give out some candy to trick or treaters. This was all she was supposed to be doing while her parents were out. Her Dad was our Congressman and appearances had to be kept up. After getting their loot, the kids turned and laughed at something. Clarissa went out to investigate and saw that Ramon, another Emo boy, had landed on his face in a pile of leaves. I guess he tried to do a trick off the rock. Two other kids were standing at the top pointing and laughing at him. One was even taking a picture on his cell phone.
“What’re you guys, fucking idiots? Get in here before someone else sees you!”
The trick or treaters, who weren’t much younger or smaller than us, laughed at Ramon again. “Nice Ollie, asshole.”
“Nice costume,” Ramon shot back, “did your Mommy cut the eyeholes out of that sheet for you?”
The kid was dressed as a ghost and managed to free up his arm to give him the finger. Such dissing of their elders. Blame the parents, I say.
After our friends went back in, Clarissa and I loitered on the front porch. She slowly pivoted her hips this way and that way then smiled like she had a secret. She then took me by the hand and said, “Let’s go over here and talk for a bit.” I suddenly got whacked with a sick feeling that my little Trojan uniform for my little Trojan soldier would remain in its leather footlocker for at least another night.
Clarissa let go of my sweaty left hand long enough to climb the six foot high boulder then extended her arm to help me up. It was getting chilly and we were both wearing our hoods over our heads.
“OK, I get the ‘Emo’ part,” she began as she moved my bangs out of my eyes. “And I’m pretty sure the ‘91’ part is the year you were born, right?” I nodded. “What I don’t get is the middle part of your handle. Where’d ‘Ghost Boi’ come from?”
I was afraid someone would ask me about that. I wasn’t exactly subtle about it. Not only did I have like three dozen friends on my AIM contact list, I even customized my own avatar- Casper the Friendly Ghost with an Emo boy ‘do just like mine.
“No secret. You know how when the park is crowded and I can duck in and out from between people like I’m going through them? That’s all.”
“Umm,” Clarissa hummed while shaking her head and giving me a cynical look. “I don’t think so. Tell me the truth this time.”
I never wanted to tell anyone else I cared about, especially Clarissa.
“OK, promise you won’t laugh?” She solemnly nodded.
“Adam, I’d never laugh at anyone no matter what they confided in me.”
“Cross your heart and hope to…? OK, just cross your heart.” She did.
“You know that I have a sister, right? Well, we may be the only two kids in the family now but there was a third. Back when I was about ten, my Mom got pregnant. She went to full term then they had to induce her. Something was wrong. The baby was stillborn. Fucking cord got wrapped around its neck and nobody knew.”
“Oh my God, sweetie. I didn’t know.” Clarissa put her hand on my leg but I didn’t respond like I usually would.
“That’s not the whole story. About a year or so after my brother’s funeral, we visited his grave. My Dad and I stood around like a couple of idiots and didn’t know what to say while my mother and sister cried and pulled leaves off the marker. They left and I stayed behind for a few extra minutes. I would’ve felt guilty if I didn’t say something, ya know? I figured after everyone was gone something would come to me.
“So I turned around and there’s this baby or fetus standing right on the grave looking right at me. He was blue and his eyes and tongue were bugging out. It was like looking at some fucking ugly lawn statue or something. He didn’t move except for his eyes that kept following me. I was scared shitless. I didn’t know what to do or say. So I ran. I never went back there and never will.”
“Are you sure it couldn’t have been one of the headstones? Sometimes, people have statues made…”
“No, Clarissa, no,” I said, not realizing I was raising my voice. “It was standing on my brother’s grave. I couldn’t read the lettering on his headstone, anymore. I couldn’t see through him. He was fucking solid. Besides, how do you explain the umbilical cord?”
“Oh my God. He still had it around his neck?”
“Fuck yeah. So, that’s where I got the name ‘Ghost Boi.’ Ever since that day, that’s been my biggest fear.”
“Ghosts?”
“No, being one. Being dead and a ghost, being chained to earth, being forced to look at your loved ones and no one being able to see or hear you. That’s why sometimes I act up, act out, why I look the way I do. I figure even negative attention is better than no attention at all.”
“Adam, you shouldn’t get in trouble just to get noticed.”
“Oh, that’s good, coming from someone who called me a chicken for not ignoring my being grounded!”
“Adam? Remember our attempts?”
“Yeah!” I said like other people say “Duh!” “How could I forget that?” It was just over two years ago when Clarissa and I attempted suicide by cutting ourselves within two days of eachother. We met at the psych wing of the hospital and hit it off immediately. I was the one who got her into skateboarding after we got out. She agreed to do my hair after suggesting I go Emo. We’ve never been anything but friends since then but lately I was beginning to think that maybe we could be, like, girlfriend and boyfriend.
I wanted to get off the subject of our attempted suicides and my full body apparition experience. Looking down at what we were sitting on, I patted it with both hands and said,
“Ya know, a lot of stuff that we think of as big is just like a crumb or a pebble in the big-ass scheme of things. Take this boulder:
“When the Laurentide ice sheet started dragging its way down from northeastern Canada 100,000 years ago, it changed the landscape of the whole top half of North America. Fucking thing was like, two miles thick and when it scraped its way down to New England it created all our hills and mountains. And all hills and mountains are, Clarissa, are just wrinkles on the earth.
“This friggin’ boulder we’re sittin’ on may be twice the size of a Volkswagon and huge to us but it’s really just, I dunno, a forgotten pebble or even just a grain of sand kicked aside during this gi-normous geological event.
“Same could apply to any human life. Just when some of us start getting’ too full of ourselves, we should look at everything and put shit in perspective.”
Clarissa looked at me with admiration. “How do you know all this shit?”
“You know, sometimes when I pretend like I’m falling asleep in class, I’m really not. I’m listening even when I don’t want to.” Then I looked back up at her. “I can’t help but listen.”
Unfortunately, this was getting dangerously close to putting us back on the same subject I wanted to avoid: Seeing and hearing things that no living dude should ever have to see or hear and having no say in the matter. Lucky for me, a couple of trick or treaters walked up Clarissa’s walkway.
“You’re on,” I smiled.
“Yeah, I’d better get down there,” she said half sliding, half jumping off the boulder. “Otherwise, knowing those fucking idiots, those kids will get condoms and beer nuts thrown in their pumpkins.”
I stayed on top of the rock and turned my head to the right to see her cut across their path before they had the chance to ring the doorbell. Partly because of the downer of the subject matter and partly because of my own philosophical pep talk, I wasn’t even thinking of the relic of a condom in my wallet, much less whether I’d use it. It was the only time I can remember when I’d actually talked myself out of a hardon.
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