Stupid Fast - By Geoff Herbach Page 0,10

said really quietly, “Felton, I’m working really hard.”

I shouted, “On what? What the hell?”

She tilted her head and scrunched her eyebrows and rubbed her eyes and took a big breath.

“I honestly appreciate you doing this paper route. I sincerely do. And I appreciate that you went out for track this spring. But now you’ve got to take these gains, this engagement, and continue to grow. You can’t…recoil from life, you know?”

“Why do you treat me like a retard?” I shouted.

“I told you not to use retard like that, Felton.”

“Aw, man, Jerri. Come on. I’m trying to sleep here,” I groaned.

“Felton, please,” Jerri said.

“Let me sleep!” I shouted.

Jerri exhaled hard, shook her head at me, and then stood.

“I don’t know what to do with you,” she said.

Then she left, and I shouted thank you. But I couldn’t sleep. Why? Because I was totally awake and really hungry, and Jerri was crazy, and I could feel that my pants had grown too short because—I could feel it—I was growing again and probably ready to sprout another mound of man-hair from someplace. It was humid, and the doorbell was ringing, which meant Andrew had invited his dipshit friends over to play music, most likely. Chamber music. What thirteen-year-old crew of friends plays chamber music? Not me. I surely didn’t do that at thirteen.

Of course, I didn’t really have any skills back in June, so I couldn’t have done anything. I really couldn’t do crap.

That thought hit me hard. You can’t do crap.

And then I thought, I’m almost sixteen. I’m very nearly a track superstar. This is no way to live. I’ve got to do something.

So I got up and emailed Gus, Jerri is crazy.

He was online, so we messaged.

what you mean crazy?

she calls me jerk then meditates then calls me jerk

grandma doesn’t like my hair

don’t lose hair wad, man

sucker crack ass taco poop hate this

And with that, he signed off. Gus didn’t have time for my problems. He had his own. I sat back on the couch and wished me, him, and Peter Yang were driving to the pool for some relaxation instead of being off in separate worlds of pain. Peter Yang?

I listened while Andrew and his dork music friends set up their instruments upstairs. Jerri was right. I had to do something

So I thought about being almost sixteen.

***

Peter Yang has a driver’s license.

Almost sixteen! Do you know what that means?

Of course. A driver’s license. A car. If I had a car, everything would be okay. If I didn’t use it to escape to Mexico or Venezuela (can you drive to Venezuela?), I could use it to gain acceptance. Oh, yes, I could be a Suckville Standard Jackwad driving around the town, tearing it up, racing the poop-stinkers over at the quarter-mile. Oh, I’ll engage, Jerri! I got up and climbed the steps to find her.

Jerri wasn’t upstairs where Andrew’s geek friends were gathering to play their weenie music. I looked out the window in the kitchen while I stuffed a piece of bread in my mouth (growing boy). Jerri was walking out to the garden. I opened the window and shouted, “Jerri, I have to get my driver’s license.”

“What?”

“I need a driver’s license so I can engage with the world, Jerri,” I cried.

“Well, that’s a good sign, I guess.”

“What do you mean, sign?”

“Sign up for your permit, Felton. Okay?”

“How’s that?”

“Figure it out,” she called back.

“What?” I shouted.

Then she started walking back toward the house, shaking her head, looking a little mad.

“Listen,” she said when she got under the window, “I’ll teach you to drive if you sign up for your permit.”

“Okay,” I said, then closed the window. Jerri stayed right down there below the window. She wasn’t looking up at me. She was seriously staring at the wall, which was like a foot in front of her face (Jeez, what’s the problem?), so I went back to the refrigerator to look for some food. Oh, man. I wasn’t sure how to get a permit. I supposed I could ask Peter Yang because he did that—got a permit and learned to drive.

I opened the refrigerator door, and my thoughts began to drift.

Drive. Drive. Drive!

Here’s an early summer fantasy:

I am the Standard Suckville Jackwad: Look at me: I’m sixteen, and I’ve got a license, and I’m driving up and down Main Street, picking up dirty girls in the Pizza Hut parking lot (You wanna make out? Okay!), driving out to the cornfields or the quarry to smoke weed (yeek) and get smashed (yeek),