Friday, September 28, 2007

Chapter Four, in which I meet Weirdo's Uncle Jake

I started spending a lot of time at Weirdo’s house. It was only a few blocks from my house so my mom would let me get off at Weirdo’s stop everyday if I came home in time for dinner.

One of the first times I played there was rainy day so we stayed inside to watch after-school cartoons. Weirdo showed me the basement were they had a big TV and nice cozy sofa you could sink into.

We ran down the stairs eager to turn the TV on, but it was already on. There was a guy sleeping on the sofa with jeans on but no shirt or socks. He had long hair, and it looked like he hadn’t taken a bath in days.

I whispered to Weirdo, “Who’s that?”

“That’s my Uncle Jake. He’s really cool. He plays in a rock and roll band called Something Like a Dragon. They’re really good.”

Uncle Jake stirred a bit on the sofa and pulled his bag of pretzel sticks closer to him. There was an old karate movie on the TV. Weirdo and I watched for about two minutes, then he walked to the TV and turned the channel.

“Eh, I was watching that.” Uncle Jake stuck his hand in the pretzel bag and yawned. “Turn it back now, Weirdo.”

“We thought you were asleep. Sorry, Uncle Jake.” Weirdo changed the channel back to where it was. We watched it for a minute more until we heard Uncle Jake snoring. He was laying face down on the sofa with one arm sagging onto the floor.

Weirdo said, “Watch this,” and he turned the channel on the TV.

“Turn it back!. Do I have to kill your goldfish?”

“Sorry, Uncle Jake.”

Weirdo turned the channel back and Uncle Jake rolled onto his back, where he quickly fell asleep again.

“Watch this.” Weirdo quietly took some pretzel sticks from the bag and placed them carefully up Uncle Jake’s nose. He stuck a few between his lips, one coming out of each ear and balanced a few on his forehead.

I didn’t want to be around if Uncle Jake woke up. He didn’t seem very friendly. I stood back in the corner as Weirdo went to the TV and changed the channel.

Uncle Jake groaned, “For the love of all things that rock, turn the cha…what the?” He put his hand to his face and felt at the pretzel sticks in his mouth. He looked down and saw the ones coming out his nose, and when he did that the pretzels on his forehead rolled off onto his chest.

“How in the… where did…” Uncle Jake put a few of the sticks in his mouth and chewed them. Then he said to Weirdo, “Hey, do your favorite Uncle a favor and make sure there’s another bag of pretzels in my room, because I plan on finishing this bag around 4:20 and I’m gonna need replacements. And keep your nasty little fingers off that TV.”

Weirdo changed the channel back and Uncle Jake rolled away from the TV to his side and started snoring again. He never found the pretzels in his ears. Weirdo and I were laughing so hard it hurt.

“Now watch this,” Weirdo said with a big smile. He stood up on the sofa with a leg on each side of Uncle Jake. Weirdo started jumping up and down on the sofa. Uncle Jake didn’t move a muscle. Weirdo kept jumping and yelled, “Uncle Jake has a brain that’s fake! Uncle Jake has a brain that’s fake!” Uncle Jake was hopelessly asleep.

From all that jumping Uncle Jake rolled onto his back. Weirdo picked up Uncle Jake’s halfway empty can of grape soda and poured it out onto the front of his pants. Uncle Jake never flinched. He just laid there looking like he just peed a big purple river in his pants.

“Come on,” Weirdo said, “let’s just go upstairs and watch TV.”

“You mean you had a TV upstairs this whole time? Why didn’t we just go watch that one?”

“Because,” Weirdo rolled his eyes, “that one doesn’t have a remote.”

“Well neither does this one.”

“Yes it does. Uncle Jake is laying on it.”

Wednesday, September 12, 2007

Chapter Three, in which I sleep over at Weirdo's house

One Thursday Weirdo asked me if I would sleep over at his house on Friday. I asked my mom and she said it was okay. I packed my bag and got off at Weirdo’s stop with him the next afternoon.

Weirdo had a sister a few years older than us. She was always writing names and drawing hearts on the covers of her notebooks. Right before bedtime, she pulled me aside when Weirdo was in the bathroom.

“I have to tell you something.” She put her face real close to mine. She had perfume on. I liked her. “I’m not saying this to freak you out, but Weirdo sleeps with his eyes open.”

She turned away quickly, unlocked her room and went in. Weirdo came out of the bathroom with brown stuff all over his face.

“What’s that junk on your face?”

“It’s my night time skin mask. My mom makes me wear it so I won’t get pimples on my face.”

It looked like somebody smeared chocolate frosting all over face and let it dry. It smelled kind of like chocolate too. For a second I imagined licking it to see what it tasted like, but I embarrassed myself and changed the subject in my mind.

* * * * *

We were ready for bed and laying out our sleeping bags on Weirdo’s floor. His mom came in to say goodnight and turn the light out. I laid on the floor looking up at the glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling while Weirdo talked about different kinds of light bulbs.

He eventually stopped talking and everything was very quiet. Weirdo was already beginning to snore quietly. I rolled over and looked at him. There, a few feet away, was Weirdo’s brown face and his bright, wide open eyes.

This was creepy. His dark, crusty face and white eyes staring right at me, but he was asleep and snoring! He looked like some kind of monster, like a mummy waking from a thousand years of sleep. His eyes did not move or blink. Was he really asleep?

I whispered, “Weirdo, are you awake?”

“Of course I am! I’m staring right at you!”

He startled me.

“Oh, I thought maybe you were asleep because you were snoring.”

“I wasn’t snoring.”

“Never mind.”

I rolled over and tried to fall asleep. All I could think of was his creepy, dark face and wide, white eyes. I heard Weirdo snoring softly again. I waited a long time and slowly rolled over to look at him.

Dark face, eyes wide open! I stared for a long time. He didn’t move, but continued snoring.

He couldn’t really be asleep, could he? I leaned closer to see if he would say anything. I crawled quietly to where he lay. My face closed in on his, closer and closer, until our noses were almost touching.

Weirdo barked at me and said, “What are you doing?”

“You’re not asleep?”

“Of course not, I was staring right at you!”

“Oh, I thought you were sleeping, sorry.”

Weirdo rolled away from me and said, “Don’t be weird, just go to sleep. You’re keeping me awake.”

Me keeping him awake? He was creeping me out so badly I wasn’t even tired anymore. I waited a long time until I heard him snoring again. His back was turned to me so I couldn’t see his eyes.

I crept very quietly to him. He was snoring very loudly now. I poked him. Nothing.

I leaned over him so I could see his face. Eyes wide open! Snoring like wild! Finally asleep, no question about it. Not even my oldest brother could snore like Weirdo was.

Then I smelled it. The mask, it smelled so good. It must be made of chocolate. The thought entered my mind, but no, I didn’t dare.

Weirdo snored even louder. I poked him some more. He was out like a light, except for those big, white eyes.

I leaned in closely and smelled the mask again. Oh, it smelled so good, and my mouth began to water. I couldn’t help myself. Ever so gently, I licked the mask on Weirdo’s face.

I gagged.

“What are you doing?”

I fell onto Weirdo and said, “That tastes awful!”

He pushed me off and cried, “What does?”

“Your mask.”

“What? You tasted my mask?” He touched the dried junk on his face and felt where it was wet. “You licked my face? Are you sick or what?”

I had nothing to say. There was a nasty, rubbery taste in my mouth. Nothing at all like chocolate.

Weirdo sat up and scooted away like he was scared I might taste him again. “If you were trying to kiss me I’m going to puke, and I swear I’ll puke all over your sleeping bag, not mine.”

"No, I just wanted to see what that stuff on your face tasted like."

"Like rubber. You could've just asked me instead of licking me."

Weirdo shook his head shamefully at me and layed back down. Within minutes he was snoring.

I didn’t look over at Weirdo any more, and it took me a long, long time to fall asleep. In the morning I still felt like I had a rubber band in my mouth.

Monday, September 10, 2007

Chapter Two, in which Weirdo draws in a magic notebook

One day after school I walked out to my bus, but our normal bus wasn’t there. Instead we had a short bus. The bus driver said our normal bus was in the shop getting a thingy done on the thingy. I was the last to get on.

We normally had just enough room for everybody on our normal sized bus. We really had to cram in with this one. Every seat had about seven kids in it. I tried piling myself onto a few of the seats that didn’t already have kids hanging out the window, but everybody pushed me off.

“Why don’t you just sit there?” The bus driver pointed to a seat with only one kid in it.

“Can I stand?”

“Nope, that’s against student transportation ordinance 43.a.2.”

Weirdo smiled at me from his spacious seat. I froze.

“C’mon kid," the bus driver pulled his sunglasses down and looked over the top of them at me, "Gotta get the bus moving. Sit down or get off.”

I sat down slowly next to Weirdo. I sat as far away from him as I could. One cheek was hanging into the aisle. Weirdo was drawing in a notebook. I pretended not to watch him, so I just looked out the corner of my eye. He was drawing a picture of a man with a bunch of money around him. At the bottom of the page he wrote ‘Wednesday’. Today was Tuesday.

“Do you know what this is?”

“No.”

“Of course you don’t. It’s a magic notebook. Whatever I draw in it will come true on the day of the week that I write at the bottom.”

“You want it to rain money?”

“Kind of. Actually it's a picture of my dad winning the lottery. Here's my stop. See you tomorrow.”

Weirdo stepped over me into the aisle. I heard him sing, “We’re in the money” as he got off the bus.

* * * * *

The next day we had the same short bus and I had to sit with Weirdo again. It’s kind of like going to the dentist - it’s not so bad if you’ve done it once before. In fact, this time I sat with both cheeks on the seat. Barely.

“My dad won the lottery this morning. We all got new shoes and panties. I’ll show you mine when we get to my stop. I told you it was a magic notebook.”

“You call them panties? Only girls wear panties.”

“That’s what we call them in my house. It’s easier to say than underwear.”

“I don’t want to see them.”

“I’m not wearing them now. My mom will probably be hanging them on the clothesline when we get to my house. Are you kidding? I’d never wear new panties right out of the bag, that's sick."

"Why is that sick?"

"My Uncle Jake says that the factory workers have to try on all the panties they make before putting them in bags just to make sure they fit right. But I do have my new shoes on. The factory workers are required to wear socks when they try the shoes on, so it’s okay to wear them right out of the box.”

I noticed my mouth was hanging open.

Weirdo pulled out his notebook, licked the tip of his pencil and began drawing. I told him he could get lead poisoning from licking the end of the pencil like that. He laughed and told me I was cute.

“What is that?”

“This is a picture of you sitting next to me on the bus.”

At the bottom of the page he wrote ‘Thursday’. He also wrote my name and drew an arrow to the kid with short hair and thin glasses. Then he wrote ‘Weirdo’ and drew an arrow to the kid with big curly hair and thick glasses.

As we pulled up to a house with underwear hanging out front, Weirdo stood up in his seat and yelled out the little window opening, “Hey Mom! Are my panties dry?”

A lady in his front yard waved and said something back.

“Okay, see the ones on the line closest to the house? Mine are the little ones.”

Weirdo ran off the bus and gave the lady a hug. Then he grabbed a pair of underwear off the line and ran into the house.

* * * * *

The next day we had our normal bus. I didn’t have to sit with Weirdo again. But when I got on the bus Weirdo was waving to me and saying, “Sit here! Sit here!”

I looked around at my friends. Nobody saw me get on, so I sat with Weirdo.

“I told you it was magic.”

“What is?”

“The notebook. See, you’re sitting with me.”

I forgot all about his drawing from yesterday. I said, “But you asked me to sit here.”

“You didn’t have to, but the power of the notebook drew you to me.”

Weirdo pulled the notebook from his bag, then pulled the pencil out of the spiral. He looked me right in the eye and slowly licked the tip of it.

Weirdo drew a picture that looked a lot like yesterday’s picture, except that this time I was sitting with him and giving an apple to him. He wrote out our names and drew the arrows, then wrote ‘Friday’ at the bottom of the page.

“So, I’m supposed to give you an apple tomorrow?”

“No, you’re not supposed to. You are mentally bound by the magic to do it.”

We came to Weirdo's house.

“What are those hanging on the clothesline?”

“Paper towels.”

“You wash and dry your paper towels?”

“No, my Uncle Jake hangs them up there when there aren’t any clothes to dry so that low flying aircraft will see the lines and won’t fly through them. See you tomorrow.”

Weirdo ran off the bus and put his arms out like he was an airplane. He flew beneath the clotheslines and into the house.

* * * * *

I walked out to the bus the next afternoon and saw that we had the short bus again. I asked the bus driver if the thingy wasn't fixed right. He lowered his sunglasses and said, "I don't ask you about the holes in your pants, do I?”

I looked at him quietly.

“Go on. Bus is full. You have to sit with the weird kid again.”

I looked at Weirdo, all by himself. I sat down and a brown paper bag on the seat next to him fell over when I plopped down on the seat. An apple tumbled into my lap. I picked it up and handed it to him… and remembered the drawing. Weirdo smirked at me.

“Oh come on. You set that up.”

“Three for three. When will you believe me?”

“When you draw something crazy that couldn’t happen. If you draw a picture of a dragon eating me, and a dragon comes and eats me, then I’ll believe in you.”

“Okay. So I’ll draw a picture of a dragon eating you. But you can’t call the police on me or anything when it happens, because I’ll just tell them that you made me do it. Actually, I need you to write that on the back of the page to release me from liability.”

Weirdo licked his pencil twice and began drawing. There was a big spotted dragon with me in his mouth. At the bottom of the page he wrote ‘Saturday’.

“Now I warn you, this will ruin your weekend.” He handed the notebook and pencil to me. “Here, now write on the back that you asked me to do this.”

I took the notebook and turned the page over. I wrote ‘I asked Weirdo to draw this,’ and signed my name below it. I tried to give them back to Weirdo, but his face was pushed against the window.

“Ooh, ooh.” He started pointing and bouncing a little in his seat. “Ooh, ooh.” He turned to me and said, “Look, there’s my mom bringing the groceries in. She went grocery shopping!"

The bus pulled over and Weirdo ran off. He was trying to look inside the grocery bag his mom was carrying, but she shooed him away. They went inside and closed the door. The bus drove off.

Weirdo forgot his notebook. I held it in my hands. There was the dragon. Eating me. Of course it wasn’t really magic.

Of course.

I felt silly. I had to do it anyway. I licked the tip of the pencil and began drawing. Where Weirdo had drawn me with short hair and thin glasses, I penciled in big curly hair and made the glasses thicker. He hadn’t written my name with an arrow, so just to be safe I wrote ‘Weirdo’ and drew an arrow.

* * * * *

I didn’t have a good weekend. I could not stop thinking about what I may have done to Weirdo. I was afraid I killed him with his own magic notebook.

I got on the bus Monday afternoon. He wasn’t there. We drove by Weirdo’s house, and there were only big underwear hanging from the lines.

I threw up a little bit when I got home. Then I got out the magic notebook and drew a picture of Weirdo sitting on the bus with me. At the bottom I wrote ‘Tuesday’.

Tuesday afternoon came. Weirdo was in his seat. I sat with him. I sat with him the next day, the day after that and everyday for the rest of the year. Neither of us ever mentioned the magic notebook again.

Sunday, September 9, 2007

Chapter One, in which I get to know Weirdo

Most kids rode the bus in the morning and in the afternoon. Not Weirdo. He rode the bus only in the afternoon, on the way home. Nobody knew his real name. We just called him Weirdo, and he let us.

Kids on the bus asked him, “Are you a dork?”

Weirdo always replied, “I guess I am if you say I am.”

“Are you a nerd?”

“I guess I am if you say I am.”

“Do you eat diapers for breakfast?”

“I guess I do if you say I do.”

I even tried it a couple times. It was fun.

I remember him always wearing sweaters. Really fuzzy sweaters. Even on those hot days when everybody is practically stripped down to their underwear on the bus ride home.

No matter how many people rode the bus, Weirdo was somehow the only kid sitting alone. It was a mystery. Nine kids would sometimes pile into one seat just so someone wouldn’t have to sit with the him.

It may have been a sin to sit with him, but it was golden to be close enough to watch him be weird.

* * * * *

One day I watched him rubbing chalk on his sweater.

“85, 86, 87, 88,” rub, rub, rub, rub, rub, "93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98...”

"What are you counting?"

“My mom won't let us have tootsie roll pops in the house because my sister has braces. So I'm seeing how many rubs it takes to get to the center of a piece of chalk.”

Rub, rub, rub, rub, rub.

"How many so far?”

Rub, rub, rub, rub, "Dang it. I was at 103 until you distracted me."

Weirdo threw the piece of chalk onto the floor of the bus and said, "The world may never know."

Soon the bus stopped in front of a house with underwear on the clothesline in the front yard. Weirdo got off the bus and ran inside.

* * * * *

One day I was reading a comic book on the bus ride home. Suddenly Weirdo’s face was in mine.

“Did you feel that?”

“Feel what?”

“Never mind.”

Weirdo hopped back into his seat across the aisle. I turned back to my comic.

“Did you feel that?”

He was in my face again.

“Feel what?”

“Hmmm, I guess I have to practice on my dog some when I get home.”

“Practice what?”

“Telekinesis. I was trying to tap you on the shoulder with my mind. Uncle Jake can press the snooze button on his alarm clock with telekinesis. He can turn the TV on with it too. He even says he can plunge the toilet with his mind, but I've never seen him do that. I once lifted a dish off the counter with telekinesis but I dropped it on the floor when I remembered I had to call my Aunt Betsy. It broke when it hit the counter and my mom said I couldn't do telekinesis any more. So don't tell her I'm taking it back up. OK? Do you have a dog? I know how a light bulb works.”

I thought I might cry.

“It’s really quite simple. At the base there are two metal contacts that make contact with the ends of an electrical circuit. Those are attached to a little wire called a filament. That’s held up by a little glass column or something.”

Kids in other seats felt bad for me.

“Then they fill the light bulb with Argon. When it’s plugged in, electrons move up into the filament and bump into all the...”

"Give it a break, Weirdo," the bus driver shouted.

“We're almost to your stop.” I saw a bunch of underwear down the street.

“Oh yeah. Here we are! Mexican Lasagna for dinner tonight. See ya later.”

When I got home I tried to turn the TV on just by using my brain. I had to stop because it was giving me a headache.


© 2007, Jeffrey A. Pierce

Prolouge

Everybody knows one.

I learned something telling these stories.

I am one.

Maybe you are too.

Welcome to the world of Weirdo.


© 2007, Jeffrey A. Pierce