âÈ'1âÈ'
NOWHERE FAST
Ethan died of a burst appendix.
ThatâÈçs what we were toldâÈ'and we had no reason to doubt it. Everyone on the street had heard the way he screamed. The pain must have been unbearable. Even after his parents had rushed him off to the hospital, his screams haunted me for days.
We found out about it the next morning.
It was during science class. We were studying the astronomers, and somewhere between Copernicus and Galileo, the announcement came hissing over the loudspeaker. It was a shockâÈ'biggest one I could remember. I mean, in this day and age, to keel over from something as stupid as appendicitis. I couldnâÈçt look over at his empty seat that morning. Although I tried to feel sad, all I could feel was angry.
Roxanne, the last in a long line of girlfriends that filled EthanâÈçs eighth- and ninth-grade years, was blubbering away. That made me angry too. I noticed the way she rubbed those eyes as she wailed, purposely smudging the mascara that she always wore. It made her tears thick and black, so everyone could see from a mile away how very
sad she wasâÈ'as if everyone should feel sorry for her, and not Ethan.
On the other hand, Paula Quinn cried silent tears that she quickly wiped away. It was classy. It was
real. I watched Paula rather than look at EthanâÈçs seat or watch RoxanneâÈçs Cavalcade of Misery.
In front of the room, Mr. Smith, our science teacher, spoke in solemn tones, using an all-knowing, all-comforting voice that he must have borrowed from Pastor Bob, our minister.
âÈêWeâÈçll all miss Ethan,âÈë he said, âÈêbut we have to remember that heâÈçs gone to a better place.âÈë
Next to me, my friend Wesley flicked his hair back in utter contemptâÈ'a gesture he had learned from meâÈ'then he whispered under his breath, âÈêBetter place? IâÈçll bet.âÈë
Up front, Mr. Smith lifted his eyes upward, as if searching for heaven in the flickering fluorescents. âÈêLet us all observe a moment of silence in EthanâÈçs memory.âÈë
I flicked my own hair back contemptuously, showing Wesley how it was done.
âÈêMoment of silence, my butt,âÈë I whispered to Wes. âÈêEthan would have wanted a moment of heavy metal.âÈë
That made Wes snicker. It sounded so rudely loud in the silence that it made me snicker too, and my snicker set someone off on the other side of the room.
It wasnâÈçt like this was funny or anythingâÈ'but sometimes, when something hits you so hard, your head kind of starts ricocheting off every wall. Suddenly laughter and tears feel like the same thing.
More chuckles broke out around the room. Mr. Smith threw me a cold warning look, as if it were all my fault. âÈêJason . . . ,âÈë he said, âÈêdonâÈçt you dare.âÈë
Then Roxanne turned to us with her raccoon eyes and wailed, âÈêWhatâÈçs wrong with you people!âÈë
That did it. The raccoon eyes, SmithâÈçs fluorescent gaze, and a dead friend. It was all so unreal, some confused part of our brains concluded that it must have been funny. Half the room burst out in snickers punctuated by sobs. Then my own brain took a bad ricochet, and I suddenly felt like heaving, so I burst out of the room, fighting to keep my breakfast from making a surprise appearance.
âÈêMr. Miller!âÈë Smith shouted after me, but I was already out the door, with Wesley close behind.
I stopped when I reached the water fountain in the hallway, and bent down to take a drink, hoping to drown my gut into submission. Wesley punched a locker hard enough to make it rattle, but not hard enough to hurt himself. ItâÈçs a show, I thought, just like Smith. Just like Roxanne. I didnâÈçt want to put on a show, so I drank from the fountain and I didnâÈçt say a thing.
âÈêThis sucks,âÈë said Wes, meaning everyone and everything. âÈêWhat a lousy way to end the ninth grade, you know?âÈë
As I stood up from the water fountain, Paula Quinn came up behind Wes. She was red in the face. No longer from cryingâÈ'it was because she was angry. Angry like me.
âÈêI just want you to know that what you did in there stunk, Jason,âÈë she said, staring me down with furious eyes. âÈêYouâÈçre real creeps, you know that?âÈë
I could have just shrugged it off, or yelled back at her, or said something cold and clever. The thing is I just couldnâÈçt do that to Paula. We werenâÈçt like friends or anything. Although I did ask her out once. She turned me down. Ever since then, itâÈçs been kind of weird between her and me. Like I respect her or something.
âÈêI didnâÈçt mean to laugh,âÈë I told her. âÈêI donâÈçt know why I did, and I feel lousy about it, okay?âÈë
She looked at me, and I guess she read some honesty in my face, because she didnâÈçt seem as mad anymore. âÈêWere you and Ethan friends from the time you were little?âÈë
I nodded. Kids didnâÈçt come and go from Billington very often. Not that we didnâÈçt want to, but our parents had roots like oak treesâÈ'they wouldnâÈçt dream of moving away. So most of us knew each other all our lives. Ethan, Wesley, and I were a famous threesome. The Trilogy of Terror, our teachers used to call us.
Paula, on the other hand, was a newcomer, having just landed in Billington four months ago. She was a pleasant glimpse of the world most of us only got to see on TV.
âÈêYou know what really gets me?âÈë I said. âÈêItâÈçs that EthanâÈçs whole life began and ended in this poor excuse for a town. ItâÈçs pathetic. I donâÈçt want to remember Ethan as being pathetic.âÈë
âÈêHe wasnâÈçt pathetic,âÈë said Paula. âÈêAnd this townâÈçs not so bad anyway.âÈë
âÈêYeah,âÈë I said, âÈêwait until
youâÈçve been here for fourteen yearsâÈ'then weâÈçll see how you feel about it.âÈë
Then came a voice from behind usâÈ'a deep voice, that boomed even when speaking in hushed tones.
âÈêEthanâÈçs not dead,
âÈë said the voice. We turned to see Mr. Grant, who was the security guard and janitor at Billington Junior High. Grant was kind of an odd guyâÈ'a loner who never said much to any of us but always seemed to know everyoneâÈçs business. His words made us all hang on the moment, not knowing whether he was kidding or knew something we didnâÈçt.
âÈêHeâÈçs not dead, as long as we remember him,âÈë he said, and then laughedâÈ'not just a chuckle but a deep belly laugh, like something was uproariously funny. It was far more inappropriate than my laughter had been. Well, I figured, what should we expect from a guy whose motto was âÈêIâÈçll clean this school up one way or another.âÈë
His laughter faded, and he scratched his reddish blond beard, which was always so neatly trimmed. âÈêYou belong in class,âÈë he reminded us. âÈêI suggest you get going.âÈë Then he turned and walked off, his large key ring jingling from his belt like a psychotic wind chime.
As we made our way back toward class, Paula whispered into my ear, âÈêThat was too weird.âÈë Turns out she was right.
If God threw a dart at the world and it happened to strike Billington, completely obliterating it, no one would notice and no one would care. In fact, I often thought it would be the best thing that could happen to this place. Smack in the middle of the state, Billington is on a highway that couldnâÈçt be straighter if you drew it with a ruler, and whenever I heard people talk about going nowhere fast, I figured they were headed here, although I couldnâÈçt see what the hurry would be. WeâÈçve got your typical fast-food places, an uninspired mall, and way too many satellite dishesâÈ'because in a place like this, what else is there to do but watch five hundred channels of TV? If boredom was a living, breathing thing, then its less interesting cousin would live in Billington.
My parents didnâÈçt mind a nowhere sort of life. It seemed to me that their universe began and ended in Billington. All you had to do was spend a few microseconds looking through our house to get a good clue about my parents. For instance, they had this book of Norman Rockwell art that sat out on the coffee table like a slab of granite. Norman Rockwell painted goofy-looking people doing dull, everyday things. My parents had whole collections of boring art books and printsâÈ'like the woman who sat out in a wheat field, and the farmer with his pitchfork and his disgusted-looking wife. Mom and Dad called it their Americana Collection. I called it their Anesthesia Collection, because if I looked at it long enough, it would render me unconscious.
Then there was dinner conversation. Sitting at the table with my parents was like purgatory, because conversation in the Miller household was always the same, even when they used different words.
âÈêMary, this chicken is wonderful.âÈë
âÈêI got the recipe from Jenny down the street.âÈë
âÈêWeâÈçll have to invite them over for dinner. WeâÈçll have a barbecue.âÈë
âÈêThat would be nice.âÈë
One time, in the middle of their drivel, I slammed the ketchup bottle on the table, sending a stream of ketchup rocketing against the ceiling.
âÈêWhatâÈçs wrong with you?âÈë I screamed at them. âÈêWhy canâÈçt you argue and fight, and do things like
normal people?âÈë
Mom was miffed by the ketchup on the ceilingâÈ'which was part of the problem. All she ever got was âÈêmiffed.âÈë She never got furious; she never picked up something breakable and threw it across the room; she never said something to me that sheâÈçd feel sorry for later, no matter how much I deserved it. Her keel was about as even as a ship in a bottle.
âÈêIâÈçm sorry we canâÈçt be a little more dysfunctional for you,âÈë she told me in her classic miffed tone as she handed me a mop to clean the ketchup from the ceiling. âÈêWould you be happier if we beat you and locked you in the closet?âÈë
âÈêWonâÈçt know until you try,âÈë I said snidely. Dad promptly issued a punishment for the eveningâÈçs disrespect. No computer games for three days. Although I complained bitterly, I had to admit, the punishment was fair. It always was.
As far as being dysfunctional, well, I tried. I read enough books and saw enough TV shows about dys-functional families to get down the basics, but I could never seem to make it stick. It pissed me off, because I never had a real decent reason to be angry at Mom and Dad. They didnâÈçt mistreat me; they didnâÈçt go on drinking binges; Dad didnâÈçt have a girlfriend on the side. Nothing. I did give them plenty of reasons to be angry at
me, though. I would spend endless hours trying to invent some sort of drama in our livesâÈ'suspensions from school, fights with other kids, a bag of oregano that I told everyone was pot. I even sprayed some rude graffiti on the side of our house once, figuring it might get us in the local paper and make for an interesting couple of days. But Dad painted it over before anyone saw, and didnâÈçt bother to report it. Once the school counselor suggested that we all go in for some family therapyâÈ'and I thought I had won some minor victory. But after the third session, the therapist concluded that we were hopelessly well-adjusted.
After so much torturous normalcy, almost anything would have been a welcome relief. But itâÈçs kind of sick when the death of a friend is the only exciting thing you can point to in recent history.
There was a big turnout for EthanâÈçs funeral. I guess everyone in town knew EthanâÈçs family, because his parents were real estate agents and their faces were on notepads in everyoneâÈçs kitchens. In Billington, that was the closest you could get to being famous. The day left me feeling weird for a whole lot of reasons I was still trying to figure out. Although everything went the way it was supposed to go, something inside me kept saying that it wasnâÈçt a normal funeral. And believe me, I know normal.
That night, I sat with my dad in the garage, for once not minding the boredom of home.
âÈêHand me the hammer, son.âÈë
My dad talked like an old Andy Griffith rerun. I refused to ever call him Pa.
âÈêDad,âÈë I said as I handed him the tool, âÈêwhy do you think EthanâÈçs parents didnâÈçt cry?âÈë I was as interested in how he would react to the question as I was in the answer. The fact was, not only didnâÈçt EthanâÈçs parents cry, but they kept shifting their feet and checking their watches, as if this was little more than a real estate deal they wanted to close.
Even stranger to me, however, was how Dad seemed to be acting now. My father had about three emotions. Worry never seemed to be one of them, but now he wrinkled his brow with a look of concern that didnâÈçt sit right with me. I thought that it might be just a reaction from his monthly shots, but I knew he hadnâÈçt had them yetâÈ'we both were scheduled to get our shots at the same time, next Monday.
He thought about his answer, and then just tried to shrug it off.
âÈêShock,âÈë he said. âÈêSimple shock.âÈë
But there was something more. It had to do with the worry on his face. He said no more, just returned to the bureau he was building for the Carters. He always put his full attention on his woodworking. That was probably why his work was so good. But today his attention was elsewhere, because he caught the edge of his finger with the hammer.
He shouted a word that I rarely heard him use, although, I must admit that I use it on a regular basis. Hearing him say it made me smile. âÈêDad,âÈë I said, âÈêweâÈçre gonna have to wash that trash-mouth out with soap.âÈë
Dad chuckled through his gritted teeth and held his thumb until the pain subsided. Then he turned to me and took a good lookâÈ'the way only a father does. He took in every feature, memorizing my face, as if he might never see me again. I thought I knew what he was thinking.
âÈêDad,âÈë I said, feeling a bit embarrassed, âÈêcome onâÈ'IâÈçm not gonna get appendicitis or anything.âÈë
âÈêNo,âÈë he said. âÈêNo, you wonâÈçt. We wonâÈçt let that happen.âÈë
I chuckled at how weird he sounded, and began to feel coldâÈ'not on the outside, but on the inside, as if I was stuck neck-deep in the tip of an iceberg . . . and I had the feeling that this iceberg went clear down to China.
