Be More Chill by Ned Vizzini
“—Jeremy—” is all I can make from down the hall; he must be saying hi to me. Jake parcels out whole tenths of a second when he sees me. Then he looks at Christine. He doesn’t need to say anything to her.
“Gotta go!” Christine says. “Talk tomorrow!” And she skips down the hall to meet Jake, like Puck would skip, as if he had worked some magic on her yesterday that went completely over my head. I swivel around quickly so I don’t have to see them hug or tongue or dry hump, greet each other in whatever way they’ve picked. Then I walk out the back door of Middle Borough.
Michael’s there, in the school parking lot. He managed to borrow the car from his parents and have it waiting for me the day I asked for it. I hug him.
“What’s up?” Michael’s got a handball—he was probably playing for money while I was in rehearsal. He tosses it lazily against the mural in the back of school.
“Same crap is up,” I say. “Christine, who I thought was at least available, is with Jake Dillinger.”
“That’s messed,” Michael shakes his head. “But you gotta give other men credit, y’know?”
“No. I don’t know.”
Michael tosses the handball at me. I try to catch but it bounces off my fingers and chin. “C’mon,” he says. “Throw the ball at the wall. See the wall?”
“Shut up.” I rear back and throw pretty hard; the ball rebounds and Michael lunges to hit it, seemingly with his wrist—there’s a pop. I look over, but he’s grinning, not hurt, as the ball comes hurtling back toward me. It hits my skull and careens off under some school administrator’s car. Michael and I laugh.
“C’mon,” he says, “We got like twenty minutes if you really want to go to Halloween Adventure.”
“Okay.” We head to Michael’s car.
I’ve never been entirely sure what Michael’s driving status is; he probably has a learner’s permit that doesn’t allow him to drive by himself, but since you can’t violate any laws in a huge brown Buick going 25 mph, we stay out of trouble. I slip inside—it smells like burned peanut butter and ham.
Michael puts some God-awful emo tape on. I look out the window as we roll away from school.
“Oh, I forgot, you hate this, right?” Michael asks, pointing at the music. “I can play Pinkerton.”
“It’s okay,” I say. Michael can put on whatever music he wants (except maybe Pinkerton) because I love driving. I’ve always loved it. I never understood how little kids can ask “Are we there yet?” or want to pee all the time—since I was two, when the family had the Volvo, I’ve been content to hang my head out the window and just watch the scenery. I used to like seeing houses and hills that I hadn’t seen before, but this is Jersey—that got old quick. So now I do this thing: I look at houses and speculate about the people inside. Are they old? Are they pretty? Are they girls that like me?
“So tell me,” Michael breaches. “How come you want Christine so bad?”
I turn to him. “Um, I dig her.”
“How come?”
“She’s hot.” I catch myself: “She’s smart too.”
“And you don’t want to just hook up with her? You want to date her and stuff?”
“Yeah!”
“Huh. Do you like your shirts?”
I look down at what I’m wearing: a Star Wars Episode I T-shirt. “They’re okay, I guess.”
“Well, if you like your shirts, you might not want to date any girls. Girls are like the arch nemeses of shirts,” Michael says.
“Really.”
“Oh yeah. Shirts are their trophies. The last girl my brother went out with, she ended up with like three of his shirts. He used to come home wearing a jacket and no shirt. Don’t go dating girls unless you’re willing to lose your shirts. You might just want to do whatever and the girls will show up eventually and not take your shirts.”
“Hey, Michael.” I almost forgot. “What’s up with that thing your brother had? The pill that made him smart? How did that work again?”
“I thought you didn’t believe in that.”
“Well it’s tough to imagine he got a 1530 on his SATs.”
“Heh. Yeah. Well, I told you.”
“He had electronic assistance or something? I mean, I heard about these guys at Columbia—”
“No, man,” Michael says, gripping the wheel. “This is a totally different thing. I think it’s called a ‘script.’”
I look at him carefully.
“Like it scripts in your mind, so it’s a ‘script,’ this computer that comes in a pill, y’know? Experimental shit the government is doing.”
“Okay. And he really had one?”
“Yeah.” Michael pulls up to Halloween Adventure. “Go quick, they’re almost closed.”
I go into the store thinking about the script, but forget it pretty quickly because I have to beg the attendant for a little extra time to track down and pay for a Scary Movie mask. It’s so dumb; it almost dares me to buy it. I figure with it on, no one’ll be able to recognize me and all I’ll have to do is wear black pants and a black shirt, and if I get Christine alone and we have that amazing high-school romantic movie moment, with drinking and young lust and strawberry-flavored lip gloss, I can rip the mask off and she can see me for who I really am and we’ll start having sex against a tree maybe and—
“Jesus,” Michael says as I walk out of the store with the mask on. “You’re the one that needs the pill, man; that is stupid.”
The next week, in play rehearsal, I fall into a pattern with Christine. (What does it take for a behavior to become a pattern? One repetition, right?) I come in, grab the seat next to her and bumblingly mention a quasi-fact about music or current events or evolution, often stolen from Michael. She humors me (or maybe not, sometimes she seems to smile humor-free) with comments of her own, and we build that, falteringly, into a conversation that ends five minutes after play rehearsal and then she runs off to meet Jake. Only I don’t know what to make of her and Jake. They never talk to each other during rehearsal; he sits across the circle from her and eyes her only occasionally. Is it possible they’re just friends?
That’s one thing I hate about, uh, the world. I hate touchy-feely friend relationships between guys and girls. I hate them when I’m in them, of course, but I’m not in them too often so mostly I just hate them from outside. They’re confusing and complicating: if you’re a girl and you’re touching a guy’s leg, I’m going to assume you’re going out. End of story. If you are actually platonic friends, don’t put your heads in each other’s laps and don’t kiss each other on the lips. Right now we are living in one of the first periods of human existence where young men and women can actually be friends without pending marriage or negotiations over which family has which tracts of land. So don’t mess with it.
Christine, despite the fact that she is a prime offender of this nature, has a system of stages that she uses to keep things straight. She explains them to me after play rehearsal Friday. (One week to the dance.)
“Everybody needs to be on my system,” she says, standing by her seat in the audience rows, rifling through her bag as I keep my eyes glued to her. “It’s like, the only way.” She swishes a grin at me. “There are four stages of a relationship, see?”
“Uh-huh.” My hands are clasped over my crotch like a soccer player’s.
“Okay, first, there’s Hooking Up.”
Boy. I hate that one. “Hooking Up” is what I’m supposed to be doing, one way or another. The magic phrase for two types of young Americans: unimpeded teenage sex for the Cool ones, kissing for me and Michael and the rest of the unearmarked sludge. Yay!
“—or anything,” Christine says.
“Wait, no! I missed that,” I apologize. “Could you say it again?”
“Well, I just went over Hooking Up,” she says. “Hooking Up is the first stage. That means you have someone who you’ve, y’know, hooked up with and maybe done other things with, but there are no commitment strings anywhere. You don’t call this person up.
“What does it mean, like, sex-wise?”
“Depending on whether or not you’re a slut,” Christine says, “Hooking Up means having sex. Which I totally understand, for some people. But we’re talking about my system. Skanky girls work on their own system. You want to sit?”
“Sure.”
She continues with her elbow on the armrest between us. The armrest is dirty and her elbow is not.
“Stage two is Dating. Dating occurs after Hooking Up when you and the guy actually show up at public places together and give people the impression that you’re more than friends by kissing and touching.” That sounds like where Christine is with Jake, but I don’t want to ask. Jake is across the room talking to one of his football underlings. “Dating has no commitment either. Like, you can see other people and you don’t have to tell the person you’re dating, see?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Stage three is Going Out. Going Out is like Dating with a little more commitment. At this point, you know, sex might be a consideration, so if you are having sex with the person you’re going out with, then you can’t have sex with anybody else.” I like hearing Christine talk about sex. It could be sex with those toads that have other toads spring out of their backs, whatever. “But if you accidentally do have sex with someone else, then you are legally obligated—or rather, obligated by my system, which is just as good as legally obligated—to tell the person you are going out with. Then collectively you can make a decision on whether you want to continue the relationship, given your transgression. You know ‘transgression,’ right?”
“Yeah.” Vocab pays off! “So how is Going Out different from Dating?”
“Um…let’s see.…in Dating, you hold hands, maybe. In Going Out, you put your arm around me or whatever.”
Huh. “What’s the last stage?”
“The best one!” Christine throws up her arms. “Boyfriend–Girlfriend. That’s like, you’re totally devoted to each other, no questions asked, you absolutely cannot have any kind of contact with anybody else by penalty of whatever I decide.”
“What if it’s you who cheats and the guy who has to decide the penalty?”
“I don’t cheat.”
“Oh. That’s good.”
“I think so.” Christine smiles.
“You forgot Stage Five, after Boyfriend–Girlfriend.” I tilt my head back, feeling a witticism coming on.
“What’s that?”
“Ex Boyfriend–Girlfriend!”
“Shut up!” Christine hits me in the arm with her small balled fist. Jake shows up, shadows us both.
“Hey, Jeremy,” he says, turning on his cyborg kindness. Then he looks at Christine intensely. “Christine.”
“Yeah?” She twists around. Her body is poised to punch me again, but all I can see of her face is a twisted neck.
“You want to get outta here?”
“Sure!” she chirps. “Bye, Jeremy!” she turns back and kisses me on the cheek. Our first kiss. She gets up and steps into Jake, who slips an arm around her jeans-encased butt as they walk off.
Going Out. At least now I know which stage I’m up against. I’m getting prepped. I think I might have a shot.
The Halloween Dance doesn’t happen at Middle Borough High School. It happens at a bar/dance hall near the poor section of Metuchen called the Elks Club Lodge, a place for old men to drink and play pool.
I can’t get to the Club by myself. It’s almost in Edison, the next town over from Metuchen, and Michael really isn’t going because he’s listening to the new Weezer album. There is the option of getting my parents to drive me to the dance, but I decide against that particular form of self-hatred. I dial up a car service and approach Mom as she works in the dining room, to tell her the deal.
“Hey, Mom?”
“Yes, Jeremy.” She doesn’t look up from her work.
“There’s actually a, ah, Halloween Dance tonight as part of school, so I’m going.”
“Really?” Mom asks, looking up. And just as her really is ending, Dad slips through the curtain into the dining room, shirtless. He’s eating a giant hot dog in a too-small bun. “Really?” he says.
“Yeah!” I look back and forth between Dad and Mom. I had expected, challenges.
“That’s wonderful!” Mom gets up and hugs me. “Who are you going with?”
“Yeah, what’s up?” Dad asks. “Does she have, you know…” Dad pantomimes breasts with his hands and hot dog.
“Stop it!” Mom snaps. “That is not appropriate.”
“You’d be surprised, son,” Dad says. “So many divorces that I handle stem from breasts. They’re incredibly important. Make sure that the girl—”
“There isn’t a girl,” I declare.
Silence from Mom.
“Hmm,” Dad chews. “Are you gay?”
“Stop it!” Mom shrieks, scrambling toward Dad. He skitters out. “Your father,” she says, returning to her seat at the stacks of paper. “Sometimes I really don’t know. So, in any case—”
“I’m not gay. Don’t worry.”
“I’m not,” Mom smiles. “It would be fine if you were, really. We’re good parents. But you’re going to a dance?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s great. Do you need money?”
“Sure.” I had no idea they’d give me money for this. I suppose I should be more social more often.
“Here,” Mom presses bills into my hands that I’ll count later. “Go to the dance—do you need a ride? Oh wait, I’m sure you wouldn’t want one from us. Take a car service!”
“Yeah, I already called one.”
“Well that’s great! Remember, don’t ever touch my car, Jeremy. But have fun at the dance! You’ll do fine.”
“Yeah, for sure!” Dad says from the living room, eating his hot dog on the Bowflex. “Dance with girls!”
“Thanks, Dad.” I walk out to the porch and wait for the car service. When it comes, I stroll down the lawn dressed entirely in black, mask over the top of my head, not on. I get in the car and try to negotiate the wannabe-strawberry air-freshener smell.
“Where you goin’?” the driver asks.
“Elks Club Lodge, Lefferts Road by the Friendly’s.”
“T’anks.” We slide down my street, take a turn past school and the field, which somehow has two fireflies in it, spinning in a lazy DNA spiral, this late in the year. I try my mask on.
“Oooh, tha’s cool,” the driver says.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. You look like a l’il hooligan.”
Hooligan? Hooligan doesn’t sound particularly dangerous or interesting. We ride in silence the rest of the way. I plan the night’s events: if Christine is there with Jake, I’ll pay a girl some of this money Mom gave me to distract Jake while I talk with Christine about how I feel about her (good plan). Then I’ll take off my mask and she’ll see who I am and she’ll be like—
“We here,” the driver says. I pay him and step out.
The Elks Club Lodge has a snaking line in front of it nine trees long, comprised of kids dressed as pro wrestlers, kids dressed as members of Slipknot, kids dressed as Fidel Castro and Bill Clinton with Phillies in their masked mouths, kids dressed as giant condoms and Viagra pills. The line surprises me. I step to the back with my mask down.
“What’s this for?” I ask the guy in front of me.
“Tickets, yo,” he says over his shoulder, making a lip-smacking noise. He’s dressed as some sort of small tree. “You need tickets for the dance.”
Oh crap, it’s Rich. His whole face is green, so I couldn’t tell at first. I’d better be quiet so he doesn’t figure out who I am and torment me. I keep the mask on and it gets atrocious and spitty inside, but I think the anonymity is worth it. The line shuffles toward the door and I finally get in after giving money to a guy who looks like a walrus.
The Elks Club Lodge is perfect for the Halloween D
“Ngukkk!” someone yells as they fly by me swinging a sword. Samurai costume. The samurai stashes his weapon by a pipe and starts dancing as I make for the punch.
“Welcome to the dance,” Ms. Rayburn says, ladling out a cup that has a piece of pineapple floating in it. “Nice mask, hope we get to see who you are later, huh?” Ms. Rayburn smiles, she’s dressed as a librarian/secretary and is exceedingly hot. Then I take a look at the dance floor and get a whole new definition of exceedingly hot.
Katrina, Stephanie, and Chloe are here! That accounts for the long line and characters like Rich—where the Hot Girls go, people follow. They’re in the center of the room, gyrating, a mesmerizing Amazon bundle. Katrina is dressed as a French maid with the little skirt and feather duster, only her outfit is blue instead of black; Stephanie is a bondage Goth, which isn’t too far away from her normal wear, just with a bigger collar; Chloe has on small orange cat ears and a tail like an impish tiger-girl. It’s Chloe I stare at most hungrily (sometime tonight I’ve got to find pics on the Internet of girls with tails) as I slide up to a row of guys by the wooden Elks Club walls. They’re standing, doing exactly what I’m doing—scoping the Hot Girls, bopping their heads in a range of millimeters to the R&B.
I stand at the end of the line, next to a kid named Eric who was probably too stoned to bother with a costume; he just sports his huge eyebrow, which I know is natural. Next to Eric is Rodney, dressed as a postal worker with a chainsaw, and toward the end of the line is Mark Jackson from math—he’s the only one who’d come as Game Boy SP.
I pick my foot up and press the sole of my shoe flat against the wall. I should be as comfortable with my wallflower status as these guys are—the way they position their shoulders and backs and hips is almost a dance of its own. I’m not there more than two minutes when Rich, in that strange tree costume, approaches.