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He rounds the corner maybe--What? Four? Five?--minutes after me, and I swear, I really think he's about to punch me, just lay me out one, mean left-hook-upper-cut combo with his stupid rich-boy hand with those stupid pretty rich-boy fingers all curled into a fist, and you know what? I do not appreciate that. I really don't. Here I am, trying to defend my friend, my only friend, my woman-friend, ladyfriend, friend-who-is-also-a-girl girlfriend, and here he has to come after me, like I'm the one who started this? Like I'm the one who's got his head so far up his ass that he can't even realize what a fantastic fabulous person Andie is and that he should be happy for Blane Not-a-Major-Appliance?
So I back up against the lockers because, really, I'm all fought out for the moment, but if I've gotta get punched--and believe me, the Duckman's been punched before, despite my obvious charm and appeal--I don't really want to do that bit where you get punched and fall backwards like you've slipped on a banana peel, like in the movies. Like Cary Grant shoving Kat Hepburn in the face in that one flick about the rich people. Philadelphia Story, that's the one. It used to show on our little black-and-white television when I was a kid and I couldn't wait to get a color television so I could see it properly. Imagine my disappointment.
He looks kind of confused when I back up, though, but it's hard to tell on his big, dumb, blond face. But then he recovers, smirks, leans against the lockers, oh-so-casual in his chinos, white blazer like he's off to a yacht any second--a yacht named Princess Luanne or something--and that shirt with one button too many--more than one, twenty too many, maybe--undone.
God, how I hate--I mean, really hate--Steff Carruthers. Of the Shermer Carruthers. Carrutherses?
"So," he says, cocking an eyebrow like a pistol, lazily, as if about to propose a casual game of Russian roulette. One where I go first and get six tries.
"What?" I snap. "Why did you follow me? Your day get so boring that you decided you needed to keep tormenting me? Ruining your best friend's life wasn't enough? Letting him ruin Andie's life? You just figure, hey, while I'm out and about destroying people, might as well throw Duckie into the mix? Round it out a bit, restore the odds? Or do you just enjoy this, the way some people enjoy pulling the wings off dragonflies? Or the way Jean-Claude Van Damme enjoys being in theatrically released movies?"
"Chill, man," he says, in that oily sportscar voice he has. "I didn't ruin your little friend's life. I just preemptively told Blane what a shitload of trouble his life was going to become if he continued, ah, pursuing her." He sees me open my mouth to tell him that he'd be in a "shitload of trouble" if he even so much as mentioned Andie again, and raises a languid hand to silence me before continuing, in that unctuous, condescending way, "Look, Philip--If I can call you Philip? Or is it strictly Duckie now? Either way. Look, it isn't just me, it's everyone. His parents, for starters. They want him to find a real girl to settle down with. And I'm sure that Andie's a good time and whatever--although I wouldn't know myself--but can you really picture Blane, heir to a fucking corporation, marrying an outsider low-caliber chick like that? I'm being totally realistic here, man. It doesn't happen."
"You're full of shit, Steff, you know that? I realize that you probably don't. Maybe nobody's ever told you before. But you are. You have this narrow little elitist idea that someone as wonderful as Andie can't be with someone like Blane, just because she doesn't have as much money. As if that were the important part. But she has every right--If that's who she chooses to love, who the hell are you to naysay that? Not everything's gonna fit into your special richies-win board-game version of life, all right? Not me, not your Blane, and certainly not, never, definitely not Andie." I realize that I'm suddenly maybe only three feet away from Mr. Smarmy Chinos himself, pointing emphatically at his unbuttoned chest, as he struggles to look unimpressed. I snatch my hand back, clasp it with the other behind my back, rock on my heels, and wait for a rejoinder. And really hope he gives one, because that was the end of my speech. I didn't have anything more to say yet, and it was such a good note to end on. Good concluding statement, as they'd tell me in English class, or would, if I'd ever actually written one.
He takes a cigarette out from somewhere in that snowy-white blazer and lights it casually. Or pretend-casually, because I see him fumble with the lighter as he puts it back in his pocket, as if he's about to drop it. And if there's one thing that Steff isn't, it's clumsy. And if there's another, it's human. Or humane. But that's just opening a new can of worms that I don't think we're ready to touch yet.
"But I did hear right when I heard that you have a thing for Andie what's-her-name?" He arches an eyebrow knowingly. "Story is you'll tell anyone in earshot that you're going to marry her, buy her a house, all that domestic June Cleaver shit. Which leads me to a big question, Philip." He smirks around his cigarette and blows me a cloud of smoke. I choke back a cough and cock my head to the side, hopefully giving off a cool, uninterested air. I probably fail, kind of the way he failed at the casual cigarette thing, but you know what? I don't have to play these games anyway. "If you're so hung up on Andie, why are you telling me to let her be with another guy? Shouldn't you be congratulating me? Thanking me? Laying your pathetic little alms at my feet?"
"You're clearly forgetting the part where I hate you."
"Yeah. Me and Blane. So why--?"
"No, I don't think I hate Blane after all. Because Andie doesn't, and much as I hate to admit it in this case, I trust her judgment. If Blane doesn't set off her very finely-tuned bullshit asshole detector, then I should leave her to it. I guess that makes me the bigger man than you, huh?"
He does not like that.
Steff Carruthers does not like that one bit.
And once you've gotten to that point, I'd say you had a pretty good exit line. And what is there to do with a good exit line but exit? So I do, down the hall, around the corner, to chemistry class.
It quickly becomes very clear to me that I don't have chemistry this period after all, or else they've switched out everyone in my class. Either way, this is more or less divine intervention, telling me I deserve to go bicycle off somewhere else.
Somehow, accidentally, I end up at home before dark, though. Not a general goal of mine, but Andie isn't amenable to my presence at her place and I can't even bother Iona down at the store, and, really, what other friends do I have to torment and bless with my altogether awesome and mystifying countenance? I could have another one of those man-to-mans with Andie's dad--Mr. Walsh--Jack. But I really can't be bothered right now, because the only new development seems to be that Andie and Blane may or may not still have mad passionate romantic feelings for each other and I'm not gonna step on that. It's my duty as a best friend to let her make up her own mind. Something to that effect, anyway. I tried to tell her what I thought that first time that Blane showed up at Trax in his variant on the pastel richie uniform, but we all see how well that went over. It went over like a lead balloon, that's what it did.
I should toss that pizza box out. It's getting old. Pretty soon it'll be host to a family of cockroaches, building condos and mini-golf courses out of the leftover bits of crust. Maybe they'll have a roach multiplex and name it after me. The Philip Dale Duckiplex. All musicals, all the time, with Tuesdays reserved for Steve McQueen marathons and Thursdays for movies of special bug-specific interest. The Love Bug, for instance. Ha. Ha.
The bulb is looking tentative again, like it might blow out in the middle of studying, and I really don't think my algebra teacher is going to take another it-was-too-dark-to-learn excuse, at least not without forcing me to go into the whole sticky backstory, and this is where semi-legal pseudo-emancipation has its drawbacks. Because, honestly, and I do think I can be honest, right? Going to court for real did not seem like a picnic at the time, considering they'd just deny me anyway because I'm not getting married--not yet, anyway, and with the way the Andie Situation is looking, maybe not ever--and I'm not joining the military, and as far as I can tell, I'm not and never have been pregnant. So as far as the pamphlets could tell me, I'm not "special" enough to have qualified for real, but now that I'm finally truly eighteen, it's probably all a moot point, water under the bridge, et cetera.
I throw my schoolbag on the mattress--I will not call it a bed, because it's a mattress, and I wanted an actual bed, but it was either that or food at the time--and then collapse beside the bag, feeling the springs pressing through the thinning quilted layers into my back. One of the springs must have broken; I'm noticing a distinct sagging near my right shoulderblade. This would not, under ordinary circumstances, do.
But now, no, now I definitely wanted to sulk. Because I couldn't call Andie and I didn't know what I'd done wrong, but I really had the feeling that I was part of the problem, even though it was Steff the Asshole who told Blane to break it off with Andie, not me. I was totally, one-hundred-percent behind her on this.
Well, no, okay. Not one-hundred-percent. But close enough. Closer than Steff, and because this seems to have become a competition for Less Abysmal Best Friend, I figure I'm dead set on winning the trophy. I'm a shoe-in. Because I'm not evil.
And Steff? Steff probably is. A little bit, anyway, like a watered-down version of corporate evil. And I almost want to say he wasn't always like that, because I remember remembering a time when he wasn't the Anti-Christ yuppie-in-the-making. But if there was such a time, it was definitely before eighth grade. Definitely. And you know the killer thing about that, the absolute knock-out punchline? He probably doesn't even remember that. The guy ruins my life for God-knows-how-long, and probably forgets about it less than two weeks later. That's rich, that's really rich.
I sit up, edge back to lean on the wall, and wonder what I'm supposed to do. Prom. Somehow prom seems central, vital. Prom is the first order of business here.
So I stand up. You can't think properly sitting down. Sitting down is for moping or daydreaming or thinking about unimportant, non-life-changing things, like cheese and pop music and gerbils and why the hell everyone used to think the world was flat. I mean, nothing else is flat. Except matzah, but unless everyone in ancient times was Jewish and thought they lived on an unleavened foodstuff, that really doesn't justify anything.
But prom. Right. Prom. The matter at hand. The one-night pinnacle of adolescence, complete with terrible clothes, dubious music, and everyone you hate having a better time than you. At least, that's what I've gotten from stories. I don't have anything to wear, first off, but second off, maybe I'm not even going. But I can't not go, in case Andie decides to go and it turns out that Blane is there with Benny or Angie or Velva or one of his other bottle-blond debutante associates, because then her heart will probably break, which will be just awful, of course, but if it does, I've got to be there. Eight years I've been offering to be her crying shoulder, so one more night really can't hurt matters, and at this point . . .
"At this point," I announce to the room, pacing the perimeter of my mattress in wider and wider three-sided rectangles, "I'm done trying to win the heart of Andie Walsh. Eight years. And, okay, yes, that was my life goal. Marry Andie, start family, support wife like a good husband, support children like a good father--and I swear this isn't out of bitterness, I really do--and then be happy. I like happy. Two kids, a dog, a yard, actual furniture. I could do that. I'd be good at that. Eight years I've been telling her--"
"Nobody's good at that."
I whirl around, almost lose my footing, drop my sunglasses.
Steff Carruthers.
Steff Carruthers who should not know where I live.
Steff Carruthers who should not be here.
"What. What." I run a jittery hand over my eyes, close them briefly, and take a deep breath. "What are you doing here?"
I try so hard to keep my voice normal and calm, like, oh, yes, I expect Steff's imminent arrival all the time. I pretend that this happens on a regular basis, as if I have some tea and crumpets stashed away for just such occasions such as this. One lump or two, guy-who-ruins-lives?
I fail at the sounding calm. Horribly. Abysmally. I sound, in fact, like I'm re-suffering the worst parts of puberty. I sound like Mickey Mouse. Mickey Mouse who being jabbed with a hot poker. I sound uncool.
"I was in the neighborhood." He says it flatly, telling me not to ask questions.
So, naturally, I ask. "Were you? Really? What for?"
He doesn't really need to answer that one. I can tell coked-out--or, in his case, very soon to be coked-out--from a mile away. Comes with the territory. Comes with having a dealer neighbor, actually. This guy called Bender has the apartment next door. Two rooms, with contraband oriental rugs and actual lamps with lampshades. Around here, that's classy.
Steff ignores the questions, anyway. "Nobody's good at that," he repeats, shrugging and stepping inside, some of the trademark predatory superiority slowing waning from his expression as he looks from the mattress to the "art" I'd spray-painted myself on the walls to the pizza box to the light bulb that had chosen this moment to start flickering feebly like an orphan trying to solicit pity. I hate light bulbs sometimes. His gaze trails back to the mattress and then up to me.
"This is disgusting," he states.
"Thank you. That means so much, really warms the cockles of my heart. Coming from you, I'd say that was pretty much--"
"No. Really. It's shit."
I take a deep breath, fake a smile. "Then, pray tell, what brings you to my humble abode, if not the inspiring decor?"
"I told you. I was in the--"
"But why knock on my door?"
"Because I hate you." He looks unsure of that answer.
"See, now that? That I do not buy. If you hate someone--unless, of course, it's a hatred of Machiavellian, no, Mansonian proportions--you don't seek out their home and voluntarily trek all across town to the literal wrong side of the tracks to visit them. Granted, you probably trekked in a BMW, and granted, this is a pretty truly fabulous apartment if I do say so myself, but still."
"I have a Testarossa. And, listen, loser, I said I didn't come for you. I was next door, and he mentioned a 'Duckman,' and so I figured I'd stop by and see how the other half lives. You really shouldn't leave the door unlocked, you know; someone could just walk in and steal everything." He glances around again. "Unless they already did."
"Ha, ha. You're a laugh riot, you know that? You should really take that act to the clubs. But, listen, Steff, seriously. Get out. Two conversations with you in one day is more than any decent human being should be forced to endure. One conversation is seriously pushing it. In fact, I think the last time I had direct communication with you was--"
"Eighth grade." He almost-smiles--very cryptic.
"Yeah. You ruined my life, remember?"
"I know. I haven't forgotten." Not an apology. But, hey, it's not as if I really expect one. Let bygones be bygones and all that jazz.
"Well, that's good to know. Keep that filed away in your mental records of all the poor so-called 'little people' you've stepped on over the years, and then you can--Oh, and Steff? Not that it's really any of my business, because, hey, you can do whatever you want to yourself, but there are about fifty million better, more trustworthy people than Bender to buy from in Shermer, and I really would have expected you to have found some nice clean-cut rich-boy source by now. Your friend Dylan What's-His-Name looks like the type, with the sunglasses and the shady car, and then you wouldn't have to venture out into the unknown where I imagine you imagine you'll get mugged or raped or have that absolutely lovely white jacket that seems to be so in style in your crowd stolen right off your back, which would probably upset you, despite the fact that I'm fairly certain that you have half a dozen more back at home." I realize that I'm pacing again, and probably look completely insane and jittery, but at this point, with his cold eyes trying so hard to bore into me, I figure he's losing it. He's losing it, I'm losing it, the whole world has just gone crazy, just hopped on a cross-town bus to madness, and there's nothing I can do to stop it. "Anyway, I've heard this thing about how drugs are bad for you, so maybe you should keep that in mind next time, huh, Steff?"
He blinks and lights a cigarette gracefully. No fumbling this time. "You're not my mother, man. And you're not my father, and you're certainly not my friend. You're nobody, remember? And what I do is none of your business."
"Nobody like Andie's nobody, is that it?"
"Yeah."
I could punch him, I could punch him, I really could, my head was full of fists swinging, but once again, as always, even when I do attack him, he'd still have the upper hand. No matter what I do, even if I train as a ninja and attack him from a tree, he'll still have it, looking like he's utterly unsurprised by my ninja powers.
So I don't.
"Anyway, I was saying that nobody's good at being a husband or a father." He steps closer to me, closer, until we're too close, too close for comfort, but I'm not going to back down again. "Quit kidding yourself, Philip. Everybody fucks it up, their wives end up screwing around with their friends and business partners behind their backs, and their kids won't love them. And the kids?" He fixes that Steff stare on me, the kind that orders you to stare back, as he flicks his cigarette to the floorboards and crushes it out under the toe of his shoe.
"The kids?" I repeat.
He doesn't answer.
No, that's a lie.
He answers.
He just doesn't say anything.
He grabs my lapels, yanks me closer--my heart pounding, don't touch me, Steff Carruthers, don't touch me--and it hurts, the way his mouth crashes into mine, all lips and teeth, and you know? That aphorism isn't. It isn't like licking an ashtray. And his hand is somewhere on the back of my neack, fingers working up into my hair, and they're cold, but his mouth isn't, and oh God, this can't happen.
I jerk away. I have to.
He blinks at me and wipes his mouth semi-primly on the back of his hand. It looks like he's trying not to breathe. "The kids," he says slowly, "all come out fucked up."
There are a lot of things you want to say to that, because he's right, he's so right, and this is so awfully, totally, completely wrong. I could say, "No shit," for one. "I hate you," for another. Or, as I finally manage, pubescent Mickey Mouse voice firing on all cylinders, "What. Jesus. What . . . ?"
He toes at the stomped-out cigarette.
"This isn't eighth grade anymore," I hear myself tell him, colder than I ever remember sounding.
"I know."
"Really? Are you sure this isn't the part where you call me a faggot for letting you attack me? Because unless I've forgotten the rules of the game--and I might have, my memory's kind of funny like that--that's how it's supposed to go."
"Yes, I'm sure." He looks almost sullen, like a kid who's been told he can't go to the movies after all, and I want to laugh at him, I really do, but I also want to kick him out, and I can't tell which urge is going to win out.
"I always thought there was something fundamentally wrong with those rules, anyway."
"Probably." He picks up the cigarettes from my floorboards, looks for somewhere to throw it away, and realizes there isn't one. Never got that far with the interior decorating. So he lets it fall back to the ground and stares at it for what feels like an unnecessarily long second, before looking back up to me. "See you around, Duckman. See you at prom."
"Why do you think I'm going? It's going to be full of people trying to look attractive, trying to dance to bad music, and it's going to be very boring, very messy. Don't really need to be there to watch that."
He half-smiles. "You'll be there."
He turns, puts his hands in his pockets, and the door clicks shut behind him.