100 Sideways Miles Page 8

  But that morning, everything was still.

  Cade couldn’t have noticed. He only floated there in his briefs with his eyes shut, grinning peacefully. He might as well have been a billion miles away with his hangover.

  I tossed the tin of tobacco out to Cade. He packed some into his lower lip and flipped the can over to the deck at the edge of the deep end.

  I went back inside the house and slipped into some trunks.

  • • •

  When we pulled into the student lot at Burnt Mill Creek High School on Monday morning, the campus had been made over, decorated with California flags and colorful banners. Along the chain-link fence that separated the parking lot from the school stretched an enormous painted sign:

  WELCOME TO BURNT MILL CREEK HIGH SCHOOL, GOVERNOR ALTVATTER!

  The first bell rang. We hurried through the gate so we wouldn’t be late to Mr. Nossik’s class and fan the flames of hatred for all things Cade Hernandez so early in our week of freedom.

  “What do you think that’s all about?” Cade said.

  “I don’t know. A friendly reminder, I guess.”

  I pointed at the welcome banner. Beneath Governor Altvatter’s name, someone—a foot soldier in Cade’s Stop Trying to Make Us Stop revolution—had scrawled in black permanent marker:

  AND DON’T FORGET TO NOT SAY “FUCK”! THANK YOU!

  Cade nodded in agreement. “It’s the polite thing to do, after all.”

  • • •

  For some reason, Burnt Mill Creek had an inordinately large population of Germans—families with last names such as Schwarzkopf, Grunwald, or Shoemaker. The first German residents of this town with no creek and no mill actually settled here during World War I, when Hate the Hun campaigns were heating up in other, more populated regions of America.

  And our school always seemed to attract German exchange students, and teachers who enjoyed dressing up as Nazis.

  Mr. Nossik was from Canada.

  Burnt Mill Creek High School even had a traditional all-boys German Dance Club. They were the most unpopular kids on campus. Although the students of Burnt Mill Creek had largely abandoned what at one time had been considered boys-being-boys typical teenage bullying, the German Dance Club was still fair game.

  Look: Who doesn’t feel compelled to rough up a knee-slapping kid who’s wearing lederhosen and a Tyrolean hat?

  Anyway, Blake Grunwald was in the German Dance Club.

  And Governor Altvatter was German too.

  So we didn’t really know what was going on with all the flags and the special visit and so on, but as soon as we got to first period history, Mr. Nossik escorted us to the gym, where the entire eleventh-grade class had gathered in order to hear a special message just for us from Governor Altvatter.

  The assembly began with our cherubic lederhosen-and-Tyrolean-hat-wearing German Dance Club boys stomping their feet and slapping their naked pink knees.

  It was ridiculous.

  Such assemblies were just about the only place the German Dance Club could safely perform and not get beaten up, so the junior class sat through a spectacle that was most likely intended to be endured only by an audience at least fifteen beers into the night. And it was a good thing that the Hofbräuhaus music accompanying the boys was so loud, because more than a few of the kids in the bleachers fired off barrages of F-bombs.

  In fact, at the conclusion of the dance, while nobody at all was clapping, our principal—Mr. Baumgartner—who was dressed in a fuck shirt, introduced Governor Altvatter, who was also wearing a fuck shirt, although it was put on over the stiff-collar-and-tie uniform mandated by the state’s highest political office.

  There were press photographers in the gym too, and even a camera crew from our local Eye on Burnt Mill Creek news program, which broadcast on a cable channel absolutely no one ever subscribed to. And although the gym was eerily quiet (there were only about two hundred of us kids, after all), when he approached the speaker’s podium, Governor Altvatter raised his arms in the standardized politician’s gesture aimed at focusing a wildly enthusiastic crowd on the magnificence of his monstrous ego.

  “What a douche bag,” Cade Hernandez whispered.

  Then Governor Altvatter said, “Hello, Burnt Mill Creek High School Pioneers!”

  Naturally, we were expected to cheer or answer back or do something.

  But nobody really knew what to say, since we were all sixteen-or seventeen-year-old kids who didn’t give a shit about our governor and had not been prepped on delivering a coordinated choral response.

  So there was only chaotic noise.

  I heard Cade Hernandez say, “Hello, Governor Oldfucker!”

  Which, I believe, is more or less what Altvatter means, translated from the German.

  Enough kids around Cade heard it too. This was the group that started clapping and chanting “Oldfucker! Oldfucker! Oldfucker! Oldfucker!”

  Given the bad acoustics of the gym, it was impossible to be certain the Burnt Mill Creek High School Pioneers weren’t actually chanting Altvatter! Altvatter! Altvatter! Altvatter! So the governor, beaming, raised his hands again and stared down at his notes on the podium with a look of practiced, aw-shucks humility on his face.

  “Thank you. Thank you,” the governor began. Then he cleared his throat and looked seriously at our innocent little faces and said, “Principal Baumgartner knows the reason for my visit to you—the eleventh-grade class here at Burnt Mill Creek High School. I have come here today to say job well done and congratulations, for being the history-making class in which every last one of you scored a rating of Advanced on last year’s California BEST Test. It is truly a testament to the leadership you fine young men and women have here at Burnt Mill Creek!”

  “Holy fuck!” someone sitting behind Cade Hernandez whispered.

  “We’re fucking geniuses,” another kid said.

  And later that day, delivery trucks arrived at Burnt Mill Creek High School. The governor of the state of California bought every single eleventh-grade Pioneer ice cream sandwiches. Workers from the trucks gave each one of us colorful bags that said VISIT SACRAMENTO! and we walked through rows of tables, filling our Sacramento Tourism bags with toothpaste and soap and toothbrushes and packages of brand-new underwear.

  The underwear and stuff came from a disaster-relief warehouse that had to be shut down because of the state budget cuts.

  Cade Hernandez was a god.

  PART 2

  THE PERSEIDS

  UNLUCKY LINDY

  Think about how fast twenty miles per second is: It is so fast that every last thing on the planet of humans and dogs is, in essence, traveling at just about the same absolute speed—whether you’re talking about a jet aircraft in flight, a dead horse falling from the sky, or the entire state of Oklahoma at rest.

  It’s all pretty much the same.

  • • •

  About one week, twelve million miles, after my family returned home from New York City, our history teacher, Mr. Nossik, dressed up as the famed aviator Charles Lindbergh.

  Dead history came to life once again at Burnt Mill Creek High School.

  Cade Hernandez was in one of those perfectly energized Cade Hernandez moods, too, which meant there would be war. I knew it immediately, and Cade was well armed.

  As soon as we walked into Mr. Nossik’s classroom together, I sensed how Cade paused and stiffened up just a little at seeing how our history teacher was dressed.

  Things could have been so much easier for Mr. Nossik if Cade Hernandez and I had history class later in the day. Cade was always so much more sedate and less agitated after his rendezvous with Monica Fassbinder in the night-custodian’s shed, which usually happened just before lunch.

  Unfortunately, we had American history with Mr. Nossik first thing in the morning, when Cade Hernandez could always be counted on to be all fired up and freshly buzzed on nicotine.

  That day, Mr. Nossik wore a leather aviator’s helmet. It made him look like a bloated
turtle. Around his neck dangled a pair of goggles, and he also had on a tightly buttoned brown leather jacket, knickers that fanned out at his thighs, and black kneesocks.

  Nobody would have known who Mr. Nossik was supposed to be. For all we kids knew or cared, he could have been a serial killer, because the way he was dressed looked exceedingly creepy. But he had prepared us by writing block letters on the board that said the following:

  CHARLES LINDBERGH’S FLIGHT—MAY 21, 1927

  It also happened to be May twenty-first that day.

  When we sat down, I whispered to Cade, “Go easy on him. He doesn’t look right. I think that helmet thing might be stopping the blood in his head.”

  It was like asking a cat not to kill a bird.

  Well, to be accurate, cats enjoy playing with birds before killing them.

  Cade just stared and stared at Mr. Nossik.

  Cade Hernandez shook his head.

  He whispered back to me, “That thing on his head makes him look like a five-foot-long condom.”

  Mr. Nossik was not very tall.

  Cade smiled and kept his unblinking eyes focused on our teacher. It was a look that was particular to Cade Hernandez—a seducer’s look. It was magical and unavoidable and caused women to willingly enslave themselves to him. And I’ll admit it—sometimes when Cade Hernandez looked at me with that particular expression, I’d get flustered and embarrassed and have to turn away in frustration and sexual doubt.

  But before anything at all could happen, Mr. Nossik scrunched his brows together and pointed directly at Cade Hernandez’s chest.

  “You!” he said over the top of his stiffened index finger. “I want you to go to the back of the room and turn around so I don’t have to look at you. I just can’t stand looking at your face right now.”

  And Cade wasn’t doing a thing.

  Well, except staring at Mr. Nossik with his seducer’s eyes.

  “I’m not doing anything, Mr. Nossik.”

  Cade’s voice was as sweet as jasmine flowers on an early summer evening.

  “I can tell you’re about to say something to me.”

  Mr. Nossik was already sweating.

  “I’m not going to say anything, Mr. Nossik. I promise.”

  I was certain the music of Cade’s plea and the look in his eyes at that moment caused several girls in the classroom to spontaneously ovulate.

  “Go to the back or I will throw you out of my room, Mr. Hernandez!”

  This was a regular occurrence in Mr. Nossik’s classroom. The old tight-buttoned fool never realized he was only making Cade out to be a bigger, more martyred hero in the hearts of his classmates.

  So Cade Hernandez, with sorrow-widened blue eyes, quietly stood and went back to the “Cade Desk,” which had been permanently turned away from the front of the room.

  One time I asked Cade if it hurt his feelings when Mr. Nossik singled him out and sent him away for no apparent reason. Cade was dead serious when he told me yes. I felt bad for him. For all his button-pushing prowess, Cade Hernandez was honestly sad about the way Mr. Nossik treated him at times, and I couldn’t blame him for it.

  So Mr. Nossik started in with his lecture about the accomplishments and difficult life of Charles Lindbergh. To be honest, nobody paid much attention. I think most of the kids in the class were waiting to see what Cade Hernandez was going to do to get Lucky Lindy to crash and burn.

  We all thought Cade would go right to work, too, because almost as soon as Mr. Nossik began telling about Lindbergh’s life before the historic transatlantic crossing, Cade shot his hand up in the air, rigid, straight, and sincere, with that earnest Cade Hernandez look on his face as he stared and stared over his shoulder into Mr. Nossik’s softening eyes.

  What could he possibly do?

  Nobody else in the entire class had a hand raised.

  Mr. Nossik ultimately broke down and called on Cade.

  He sighed, exasperated. “What is it, Mr. Hernandez?”

  And Cade, in the loveliest voice imaginable, said this: “Mr. Nossik, I read that Charles Lindbergh was more than a little racist, that he was obsessed with white supremacy—as though he believed the most urgent priority for us during the Second World War was not to defeat totalitarianism but to preserve the white race. Was that really true?”

  Mr. Nossik looked very confused. Here was Cade Hernandez, in exile at the back of the classroom, asking a perfectly reasonable question about a figure from history. Cade, as I have said before, was actually a very smart kid.

  He was also a cat that had just so gently set his claws into Lucky Lindy’s plumage.

  Mr. Nossik said, “Um . . .”

  And Cade sank his claws deeper.

  “How long did it take Charles Lindbergh to fly to Paris?”

  Mr. Nossik’s left eye twitched just a little. I noticed it. He had to have been thinking a bomb was about to drop, that Cade Hernandez was about to deploy a heat-seeking missile. If he was thinking that, he would have been correct.

  Mr. Nossik answered, “About thirty-four hours.”

  Cade said, “Thirty-four hours is a really long time. Do you suppose Charles Lindbergh masturbated at least once or twice during that flight, Mr. Nossik?”

  The bird was a goner.

  The kids in the class laughed.

  Mr. Nossik’s face began to swell within the confines of his leather turtle cap.

  “Cade, go stand outside!” he said.

  And Cade said, “I know I would have masturbated at least once or twice if I was all alone in an airplane for thirty-four hours. And, Mr. Nossik, did you know NASA told the astronauts on the Skylab mission in the 1970s that they were required to masturbate up there in space, every day, just to stay healthy? Imagine that—a government agency actually ordering a guy to masturbate. What’s wrong with this picture? What guy honestly needs to be ordered to masturbate? Astronauts, and maybe Charles Lindbergh, need to be told, I guess.”

  “Get! Out!” Mr. Nossik demanded.

  “Well, it is true about Skylab,” Cade said. He went on, and I could almost hear the little bird bones crunching in the toothy jaws of the cat. “And I saw how Charles Lindbergh had made himself a special little tube to pee in from his pilot’s seat. Did you know that? It was really small, too. I don’t think there’s any way a normal guy’s penis would ever fit into that thing.”

  Cade Hernandez raised his right hand in front of his chin, nodding confidently and gapping his thumb and index finger about three-fourths of an inch.

  You have to admit: That’s small enough to believe your family line is cursed.

  Our teacher fumbled urgently with the neck fasteners on his aviator helmet. He moved like he was on fire and his head was about to pop. Mr. Nossik went over to his chair and sat heavily.

  Then Mr. Nossik turned red and slumped across his desk.

  Mr. Nossik died the next day from a brain aneurysm.

  That’s the absolute truth.

  Mr. Nossik reentered the great knackery of the universe. His atoms decided they could not bear holding on to one another as long as Cade Hernandez’s atoms were determined to do likewise.

  The kids in our history class at Burnt Mill Creek High School all believed Cade was some sort of superhero who could inflict brain aneurysms at will. Of course this was not the case. Still, nobody ever messed with Cade Hernandez after that, not even Blake Grunwald, our German-dancer backup catcher who had a definite score to settle with my friend.

  Who wants an aneurysm?

  Cade Hernandez never felt guilty or strange about the death of Mr. Nossik. Although it was easy enough to consider Mr. Nossik’s aneurysm a fateful coincidence, it was also a certainty that Cade Hernandez would have eventually pushed that old man so far that our history teacher would have ended up bringing a gun to school and shooting one of the state’s best left-handed pitchers. Nobody would have wanted to see that.

  Cade Hernandez was the kind of kid you’d dedicate hundred-foot-high monuments to, just so he wou
ldn’t kill you with his lethal powers of annoyance.

  Good thing he was my best friend.

  One time later that summer, I sincerely asked Cade to do me a favor and please not give my father an aneurysm.

  I AM NOT A CANNIBAL

  By July sixteenth, which was my birthday, I had fallen wildly in love with Julia Bishop.

  After traveling nearly eleven billion miles in my lifetime, my atoms and I had arrived at a place where we could confidently make such determinations about love.

  Love makes atoms sticky.

  Sticky atoms want to hold on to one another.

  To be truly accurate, I fell in love with Julia Bishop the night of Blake Grunwald’s shitty party, but I was afraid to admit such a thing to myself. I was scared I would ruin it, that things would unravel in the most horrible ways, and that I would have to go on simply pretending—as always—to be fine.

  I knew this about Julia Bishop: She was a miracle—artistic, imaginative, and gifted—and she also liked to mess with me.

  • • •

  The last day of June, some time after school had been out for summer break, Julia Bishop drove her Mustang up into San Francisquito Canyon. We both wanted to hike around the tumbled ruins of William Mulholland’s St. Francis Dam. Like most people who lived in the canyon, I had driven past plenty of times but never actually visited the site of the disaster.

  And I had never gone anywhere alone with anyone who was a teenager and was also not Cade Hernandez.

  My atoms were all riled up, and especially sticky that day.

  At a bend in the snaking canyon road, just past the spot where San Francisquito Creek makes a ten-foot waterfall during rainy seasons, the city of Los Angeles built an impressive Art Deco–style power-generating plant.

  It was creatively named Power Plant No. 1.

  As a practice, I prefer to avoid abbreviations and to write out numbers, as opposed to using numerals. It’s one of my quirks, like calculating distances rather than time. But the plant was actually named as I have written—with the abbreviation and the numeral as well—like Sputnik 2.