“It might be my best yet,” I say.
She looks it over; I see the red in her eyes, fading. There aren’t any tear streaks—I still haven’t seen actual tear streaks on anyone. Her tears went right into my shirt; they cool and chafe now on my shoulder.
“You were the one who suggested I do stuff from childhood,” I continue. “I used to do these when I was a kid, and I forgot how fun they were.”
“I bet you never did them like this.”
“No, well, this is easier, because I don’t have to finish the maps.”
“It’s beautiful.”
“Thanks for getting me started. I owe you big.”
“Thank you. Do I get to keep it?” She looks up.
“Not yet. I have to fix it up.” I stand, stretch my back, and shrug down at her.
Do it, soldier.
Yes, sir!
“But, um, I kind of wondered if I could have your phone number, so I can call you when we’re out of here.”
She smiles and her cuts outline her face like a cat’s whiskers. “Crafty.”
“I am a guy,” I say.
“And I hate boys,” she says.
“But a guy’s different,” I say.
“Maybe a little,” she says.
forty-two
Humble is back at dinner. He has entirely new clothes, a sparkly clean-shaven face, and eyes that won’t quite open all the way; he stations himself at his usual table under the TV in the dining room, which everyone left empty while he was gone. Noelle’s there too, at the next table, her back to him; I walk in, say hi to both of them, grab the tables, put them together, and sit between them, smiling.
“Noelle, I don’t know if you’ve had the chance to meet Humble.”
“Not really,” she says. She’s still grinning. From our date, I hope.
“Humble, Noelle. Noelle, Humble.”
“Uhhhhhh . . .” he says, squinting his eyes. “Those cuts on your face are trippy.”
“Thanks?” They shake hands.
“You have a good handshake for a girl,” says Humble.
“You have a good one for a guy.”
My dinner is beans and hot dogs and salad, with cookies and a pear at the end. I tackle it.
“So where’d they take you?” I ask between bites.
“Across the hall to geriatric,” says Humble.
“With the old people?” Noelle asks.
“Yeah. That’s where they take you when they have to get you whacked outta your mind.”
“Where’d you hear the term ‘wack’?” Noelle asks.
“‘Whacked?’” Humble picks a piece of salad out of his teeth with his thumb.
“No, she thinks you’re saying ‘wack,’ like ‘that’s wack,’” I explain.
“Wack, wacky, whacked, it’s all the same word. This is an old word. I used to have an uncle named Wacky—what are you laughing at? Man, don’t start with me. This kid is a lot of trouble.”
“Yeah, I know,” says Noelle. And she bangs her knee against my thigh. Awesome. A girl hasn’t done that to me since like fourth grade. “He’s a mess.”
“I know,” says Humble. “It’s because he’s too smart for his own good. He comes in here; he’s burned out. I’ve seen it before. I see it all the time, but in people in their twenties, thirties. This guy is so smart that he got burnt out in half the time. He’s having like a midlife crisis as a teenager.”
“Forget the midlife crisis,” I say. “It’s all about the sixth-life crisis.”
“What the hell is that?”
“Well. . .” I look at Noelle. She’s not going to hit me with her leg again? I’m not sure if I want to talk. I don’t want to bore her. But I know I won’t bore Humble, and if I don’t bore her either, that would make it like a major victory.
“Well, first there’s the quarter-life crisis,” I say. “That’s like the characters on Friends—people freaking out that they won’t get married. Twenty-year-olds. That’s probably true that people get quarter-life crises; I wouldn’t know. But I know that now things work faster. Before you had to wait until you were twenty to have enough choices of things to do with your life to start getting freaked out. But now there’s so much stuff for you to buy, and so many ways you can spend your time, and so many specialties that you need to get started on very early in life—like ballet, right, Noelle, when did you start ballet?”
“Four.”
“Okay. I started Tae Bo at six. So there are like—so many people angling for success and so many colleges you’re supposed to get into, and so many women you’re supposed to have sex with—”
“You gotta freak them,” says Johnny from across the room.
“Were we talking to you?” Humble asks.
“Huh, eat your salt.”
“What, tough guy? How about I knock your head off, how would you like that—”
“Boys.” Noelle stands up and pulls her hair away from her cheeks, which are red in addition to being cut up. Everybody shuts up.
“So now,” I continue, “instead of a quarter-life crisis they’ve got a fifth-life crisis—that’s when you’re eighteen—and a sixth-life crisis—that’s when you’re fourteen. I think that’s what a lot of people have.”
“What you have.”
“Not just me. It’s the . . . um . . . should I keep going?”
“Yes,” Noelle says.
“Well, there are lot of people who make a lot of money off the fifth- and sixth-life crises. All of a sudden they have a ton of consumers scared out of their minds and willing to buy facial cream, designer jeans, SAT test prep courses, condoms, cars, scooters, self-help books, watches, wallets, stocks, whatever . . . all the crap that the twenty-somethings used to buy, they now have the ten-somethings buying. They doubled their market!”
Bobby has pulled up a chair next to me. “This kid is a freakin’ lunatic,” he says.
“I hope they keep him in here,” says Humble.
“So pretty soon.” I keep thinking. “There’ll be seventh- and eighth-life crises. Then eventually a baby will be born and the doctors will look at it and wonder right away if it’s unequipped to deal with the world; if they decide it doesn’t look happy, they’ll put it on antidepressants, get it started on that particular consumer track.”
“Hmmmmmmmmmmmm,” Humble says. I think he’s going to follow it up with something, but instead he says: “Hmmmmmmmmmmmm.”
Then:
“Your problem is you have a worldview totally in formed by depression.” He leans in. “What about rage?”
“I was never big on rage.”
“Why?”
“It’s so much more angry in my head than it could ever be outside.”
“Extra cookies!”
It’s one of the nurses. We all get in line; it’s oat meal and peanut butter. As I shuffle forward, Noelle nudges me from behind; when I turn to her, she turns her face away as if I were trying to kiss her but she wouldn’t let me.