Things Change Read online

  "Johanna, you just can't please everyone." Mr. Taylor interrupted my mind wanderings. "It is all about balance. You did a good job with the assignments."

  I could feel myself blushing. "Thanks," I blurted out. Although I wanted his approval, I felt so shy about getting it.

  "Mr. Taylor, can I talk to you for a minute, in private?" I asked, avoiding eye contact.

  "Is something wrong?" Mr. Taylor asked as we both stepped out into the hallway.

  "I just wanted to ask you something." I was stalling. I couldn't come right out and ask him what I should do about Paul, but I needed some guidance. "I'm a little worried."

  "Worried?" Mr. Taylor said in a tone that suggested he could take it all away. The way he looked at me filled me with confidence. It reminded me of my father's face when I do something that makes him proud. A little smile with the head cocked back slightly. The difference, of course, is it takes so little to please Mr. Taylor and so much to please my parents. I didn't know if his standards were too low or their standards were too high.

  "What if there is a mistake in the paper?" I asked, hiding the real question.

  Mr. Taylor smiled. "The best description of journalism was from Phil Graham who used to publish the Washington Post. He called journalism a first rough draft of history.'"

  "A first rough draft of history." I repeated it. I liked that line.

  "It's a draft. We do our best, we check our sources, we do everything we can to make sure it is perfect, but nothing is perfect. There will be mistakes." Mr. Taylor was in full teaching mode, the kind he did best: giving one-on-one lessons to those who cared rather than speaking to airheads like Jackie and Lynne trying to squeeze in an elective credit.

  "But you can't correct those mistakes?" I asked. I think he knew that we were talking about something other than high school journalism.

  "Johanna, there are very few mistakes that you can't overcome. If you have a strong character, you can overcome just about any obstacle. Mistakes, you might say, are a test of character." Mr. Taylor's smile was as big as his heart.

  "Let's say you want something really bad, and then you try to get it, but you make a mistake. What should you do?" I was asking it as clearly as I could without naming names.

  Mr. Taylor shot a glance inside the classroom in response to the escalating noise. "From the way you asked the question, I think you know the answer. You might get knocked down, but stay focused and keep working toward your goals."

  "I think you missed your calling, Mr. Taylor," I said with a smile on my face. "You should've been a football coach."

  He looked into the classroom. "Now, if I could only discipline this team!"

  He opened the door. The sound shot out of the room like a tidal wave, but my brain was noisily thinking about what Mr. Taylor had said. A test of character? So, was this whole thing with Paul, a test of character? I have never failed a test in my life and don't intend to start now.

  SIX

  Dear Dead Dad:

  It's Paul, again. It's the middle of the day, and

  I'm in the middle of some deep trouble.

  I started this day looking to find Vickie and to avoid Johanna. Knowing that Johanna wanted me somehow made me more convinced that I wanted Vickie. I decided this morning that I would take matters into my own hands regarding Vickie. (Well, as you and I know, I'd taken something else into my own hands thinking about Vickie many times.)

  I waited for her outside her first-period class. Other kids shuffled by, but I just looked through them, staring at the clock in the hall. It seemed like everything—everything in my life—hinged on the next few minutes. If Johanna wanted to kiss me, then maybe I wasn't such an ogre and loser after all. I knew, too, that I was finally over Carla. Hell, she never really mattered that much, anyway. Carla was just a distraction; Vickie remained my destiny. It was time to make my stand with her once and for all.

  "Vickie, hey, wait a minute." I pushed the words out but stared down at my Chucks. I wasn't ready for eye contact yet.

  She barely broke stride as she looked up at the clock, saying, "Paul, I'm late for class."

  "This is important, Vick. Gimme just a minute, please."

  "Paul, I just don't have time right now."

  I wanted to just shake her. Get in her face and shout: YOU NEVER HAVE TIME FOR ME, DAMN IT! But I held back that urge and instead gave my shoulders a slight shrug, trying to look sheepish and a little hurt, playing for sympathy. I finally looked up from my shoes and flashed my eyes right at her. "Vick, c'mon, just a minute."

  Behind us I heard the door to her classroom slam shut.

  "See, it doesn't matter now," I told her. "You're already late, so what is a few more minutes going to hurt? What are they gonna do, sic the tardy police on us? Maybe throw us a tardy party? If you are late again, does that mean you are a re-tardy? Besides, I'll write you a note. Your dad is a doctor, so I can fake his handwriting. Just gotta break a couple of fingers to make it that illegible."

  "Paul, you're too much," she said with a laugh.

  "Let's take a walk," I told her. Actually, if we got caught, I was sure I could talk my way out of it. I usually could.

  "Where are we going?" she asked nervously. I was losing her.

  "I would suggest we stop by the cafeteria to have something to eat; but as you know, food is not served in our cafeteria. That is, unless grease is recognized as one of the five basic food groups. If our cooks worked in a prison, a guy going to the chair would turn down his last meal."

  We kept walking as I was letting go with the jokes. Finally, we reached a nice deserted hallway by the theater wing. It was about the only quiet place in the entire school. The school library was supposed to be quiet, but I usually had something to do with changing that.

  "Really, Paul, I have to get to class," Vickie said with a sigh.

  "All work and no play makes Vickie a tired little girl," I said, pulling one of the books out of the stack pressed up against that beautiful body. It was a guide to colleges. "Is Stanford in here?"

  "I suppose. I just got that book," she said as I quickly flipped through the pages.

  "There it is!" I said, opening the page to show her the description of Stanford.

  "Is that where you're going?"

  "Me and my bro Brad; the dynamic duo are California bound."

  She glanced over and looked at the book. "Wow, that's ex­pensive."

  "I know, I know, I know," I said, shaking my head. "That's what I wanted to ask you. Could your dad loan me half a mil for the next four years?"

  "What?" she asked quickly, and then she laughed. "Joking, right?"

  "Listen, Vickie, this is a town full of losers, and I am pulling out of here to win." After I quoted the Boss, I got real agitated. I couldn't stop thinking how unfair everything was: She had so much, and I wanted just a little.

  "Paul, you can be so melodramatic!"

  "Look, I'm sorry." I touched her hands. "Let me make it up by having you come with me to Jackie's party tonight. Maybe we could go to Sand's for pizza before."

  "What?" I think she actually looked stunned.

  I kicked my ankles together, hard. "I gotta work, but I can be at your house—"

  "Paul." Her tone said more than her words. "I can't go with you, you know that."

  I stood there hearing my heart break for a moment. "Can't or won't?" I asked.

  "Don't put it like that. I'm sorry, but why can't you be happy with us being friends? I really like you, but, you know, just not in that way," she said. "All I was saying—"

  "Was the same damn thing you have been saying for three years!" Like a string that had been pulled too tight for too long, I felt something inside of me snap. It was as if all of my fears and frustrations were pulling in one direction, while what little self-control and discipline I possess were pulling in the other. It was no contest. "The same damn thing for three years."

  I gave the wall a hard kick as Vickie backed away from me. She stood pressed against the yellow
concrete. "Paul, don't go all postal on me. I like you, I like you a lot; but I just—"

  "You just want to be friends." I kicked the wall again, missing Vickie's leg by inches.

  "I don't want to go with you, okay?" When she said it, she sounded sorry; but it wasn't her pity that I wanted.

  I leaned into her. I put my hands flat against the wall: my arms were like bars on a cage; she couldn't escape this time. "I don't want an apology. I just want you to like me, that's all."

  "I DO like you, Paul. I can't explain why I don't like you that way."

  "Sure you can; you're smart. Just look at all the books you carry," I said, then I grabbed the books pressing up against that body I would never get to touch and knocked them to the floor. They sounded like a bomb as they smacked hard against the floor.

  "Paul, please, don't be this way." She looked down at her books. "I'm sorry, okay?"

  The echo of the books swallowed up her words, and the big silence returned. I grabbed her chin and pushed it up, making her look at me, then slapped my hands hard against the wall. "So am I, so am I."

  "Paul, come on, please don't do that." She started to bend over to pick up her books. "Look, I know you're upset. Don't hurt yourself."

  "But I am hurting. You are hurting me, Vickie." I starting kicking her books down the hall: world history, math, science, Latin, and the rest went sailing one by one across the cold floor, stopping with a thud against the concrete wall.

  "Paul, this is too much." She started to walk away, turning her back to me.

  "Too bad for you," I mumbled. I grabbed her hands and pulled her back toward me. "Look, Vickie, we're holding hands, just like you were my girlfriend. Don't you think that's funny?"

  "Let go, let go!" I let go of her hands but pushed her hard against the wall.

  "I guess it isn't that funny, but how about this?" I said as I raised my right hand above my head, forming a fist. Then with all the force in my body I brought it down hard against the wall, missing Vickie's face by inches. The red started running down my hand as Vickie ran down the hall.

  I stood there for just a minute, the sound of her footsteps pushing the air out of my lungs into the emptiness of the hallway. I broke the silence and probably a couple of fingers as I began to swing at the wall until I couldn't stand the pain anymore. I kicked open the door at the end of the hall and ran toward the Firebird.

  I jumped in the car, rolled down the windows, pushed the gas, squealed the tires, and threw in my Born To Run CD. I got it programmed to the title song (. . . tramps like usy baby we were born to run), and by the time I hit the interstate, I was ready to run away forever.

  But then Dad, I looked in front of me and saw nothing but road. I looked in the rearview mirror and thought about the vacant stores and closed factories of my hometown, and then I drove a little faster. When I passed the city limits sign, it was like the wind got knocked out of me. I had everything to run from, but nothing and no one to run to, except maybe that Johanna girl. But first, I drove here for some quality father and son time. I drove here because I knew you would understand. I had nothing and no one to run to, except to you, Dad, a man who knew everything about running away.

  SEVEN

  "Paul?"

  I had just stepped out of school to wait for Pam to drive me home from school when I saw Paul's black Firebird zip into the school lot. You could hear it coming: The only thing louder than the semidetached muffler was the music blaring through the open windows. He stopped right in front of me. When he got out of the car, he slammed the door loudly behind him.

  "Shouldn't you be in class, little miss?" Paul yelled at me. He walked toward me and then pulled his glasses halfway down his nose and shook his finger back and forth in a dead-on impersonation of Mrs. Henderson, one of the school's vice-principals. "All students at Pontiac West High School have class! You must go to South High; now that is a school with no class."

  I laughed, stopping when I noticed that Paul's right hand was wrapped up in a black do-rag that he sometimes wore on his head. I could see there was dried blood as far down as the wrist. He must have caught me looking because he quickly tucked his right hand into the pocket of his fatigues.

  "This could earn you a total of five detentions, four demerits, three stay-afters, two written reprimands, and a partridge in a pear tree," he sang as used his left hand to readjust his glasses. "But if you commit your next offense by homeroom, you'll win a brand-new car!"

  This was strange. Was he pretending the other night didn't happen? Was I? Would I pass this test? What did he want me to say? "I don't need a car. I hate to drive."

  "So why don't I give you a ride home again?"

  "No, I have to wait for Pam and—"

  He didn't say anything. He just bit his bottom lip, then shrugged his shoulders and walked back toward his car. He opened the passenger door, then waved me over. "Come on, climb in."

  I took no time to answer, only the time it took to utter the words "first rough draft" to myself. I could apologize to Pam later. "Sure."

  As soon as he sat down in his car, he pushed in a CD, then started the car. Before he turned the volume up, however, he leaned over toward me. I couldn't imagine what he was thinking.

  Looking him almost right in the eyes, I couldn't catch a clue to what he was feeling.

  "This Bird is ready to fly!" Paul shouted. He was truly in his element, peeling out of the parking lot in his Firebird while blasting music from the open windows.

  "So tell me, who is this we're listening to?" Probably unique among the population at my school, I didn't really care about music. It just wasn't important in my life, or in my house. I don't think I'd ever heard either of my parents with the car radio tuned to music. They liked talk radio, the more conservative the better; I prefer silence when I drive so I can fully concentrate.

  "You're kidding, right? This is the Boss, Bruce Springsteen! This song is called 'Badlands.' It was released in 1978. It is the first song on Darkness on the Edge of Town."

  With that, Paul turned the volume up again and seemed almost in a trance, listening to the music while pushing the Firebird up to seventy when we merged onto the interstate. I was in awe of the passion in his voice as he sang along. I liked to read. I liked lots of things, but they were hobbies; I could tell from his tone that this was an obsession. "So, what's your wheels?"

  "Excuse me?" I answered, unsure of the question.

  "When you do drive, what kind of car?"

  "When I have to drive, my mom lets me use her Jeep."

  "That's a weak ride. Does it get you where you want to go, and does it get you there fast?"

  "I don't drive fast."

  "And you don't listen to the Boss?"

  "Only when I've been in this car with you."

  "What do you do then?" He kind of laughed when he said it, that smirk reappearing. He was almost daring me to come back on him.

  Humility wasn't getting me anywhere. "I do just about whatever I want."

  "You don't take any crap, do you? I like that," he said.

  "Thanks, I think." My nerves were a wreck. It was exhausting trying to keep up with him and act like a more confident person than I really was. I don't know why I lied to him because I rarely did whatever I wanted, mostly because I never really knew what I wanted. Until now.

  "You gotta be that way, not take people's crap. If you're a little bit odd, that is what people give you plenty of. Don't take it; you got to throw it back in their stinking faces."

  "Technically speaking, their faces would probably not be stinky until it was actually thrown in their faces," I said. And he laughed. I made him laugh, which made me feel great.

  "If you act just a little bit strange, everybody wants to grind you down," he said as he bounced his fist off of the steering wheel. "Why am I talking about this with you? You are the honor roll, straight-A, straight-arrow type. What would you know about it?"

  "When I first came to school here and didn't have any friends, I used to h
ide out in the school library before classes and during lunch." My stomach hurt as I had a muscle memory of those early, hard days at school, but I pressed on. "I just really like to read and didn't care about sitting at a table and being ignored, so I know people in school thought I was a weirdo."

  "Tell me about it." Paul said, and then laughed. "Like last year in English, we were talking about Hamlet. I told Mr. Brown that the real title of the play was Omelet and that the first version of the speech was Wo eggs or not two eggs, that is the frying pan.'"

  "That's corny," I said with a laugh.

  "The whole play is about breakfast: He's Danish; he tells Ophelia, 'Get thee to a bakery.'"

  "Too funny."

  "You think so? Brown Cow didn't think so," Paul remarked.

  "Teachers aren't known for their sense of humor."

  "For sure, did you see the way that mofo Mr. Edwards was looking at me at the student council meeting yesterday?" Paul asked.

  "What do you mean?" I replied, knowing I couldn't tell Paul that I had watched him just about every minute of the meeting. That rather than listening to the meeting, I was working out last-minute details of my plan to be alone with him. That rather than taking notes for the story I was supposed to write for the newspaper, I was writing out what I would say to him in the car.

  "Edwards has it in for me. He doesn't want me on student council."

  "Why is that?" I asked.

  "He didn't like my campaign slogan last year: Apathy Rules! My thinking was that no one cares about student apathy. People are, you might say, apathetic about apathy."