Stupid Fast - By Geoff Herbach Page 0,4
was freaking huge—but Jerri said it had bad vibes. So it went away like all Dad’s pictures.
I do have some memories though. Not funny ones.
***
Let’s delve into Jerri a bit!
While I was home from school sweating and not eating after my Regionals screw-up, Jerri, between her crossing guard shifts, often stood at the landing of the stairs that lead into the basement, where my room is and where I watch TV. She would stand there and watch me sleeping. Except, I wasn’t asleep. I was watching Comedy Central. I would pretend to sleep when I’d hear her creep down the stairs so I wouldn’t have to talk to her (as she had taken to saying very weird things, very incomprehensible things that my brain did not understand). I’d squint my eyes so they looked closed, but they were open just enough to continue watching Comedy Central. Sometimes, she’d stand there looking at me for a whole episode of MADtv, and I’d get uncomfortable and want to move, but I didn’t because her freakiness was freaking me out. Sometimes, I could hear her swallowing, like she was crying or something, which was totally weird. I got disqualified from a stupid track meet, for God’s sake. I was pretty upset, but it wasn’t so tragic that my mom should’ve been crying about it.
You know what? Of course she wasn’t crying about the track meet. I was just a dumb kid back in May.
One day, she stood there for like an hour, swallowing and staring, and it just got to be too much. I had an itch on my leg and couldn’t hold on anymore, so I said, “Can I help you, Jerri?”
She flinched and said, “No…just checking on you.”
“Okay!” I said.
“I don’t think it’s bad to be in sports, Felton.”
Why the hell would it be? Incomprehensible!
Then she went upstairs.
Incomprehensible jokes aren’t funny, by the way.
***
And, finally, let’s address Bluffton.
Disclaimer: Jerri says I shouldn’t say “retard” all the time because it’s disrespectful to people who have really low IQs, but that’s not what I’m talking about, you know? I sincerely apologize to anyone I offend by saying “retard.” Okay: There have been times when I truly feel like I’m a retard and that everybody thinks I’m retarded, and because they think I’m retarded, I get nervous and I act like a retard, which simply fulfills their expectations. It’s a big circle. The retarded circle of my life.
Am I retarded? Well…
I am a Reinstein. I live on the outskirts of a small town in southwestern Wisconsin on ten acres from which I can see the town’s little country club and golf course—which I’ve called ugly. From my home, I can also see all the alcoholic, blithering golf dads who swear and scream.
I blamed my dad for this situation, for abandoning us here by hanging himself in the garage. And I also blamed Jerri because she’s from here and should’ve known better. I believe Bluffton, Wisconsin, is a terrible place.
On good days, this is what I’ve thought: I’m not retarded. Bluffton is retarded. It has a dumb little college, which is why my dad came here (to teach). Mostly all the students at the dumb little college are dumb, and they think they’re king shit or whatever because they’re drunk and walking around shouting and in college. Other than the college, Bluffton has a dumb main street, where kids my age stand around staring at each other, or, if they’re old enough and have access to a car, they drive up and down the street, staring at the dumb kids staring at each other. Sometimes, they drive to Walmart, which is really big. Bluffton also has a McDonald’s and a Subway and a Pizza Hut and a combo KFC–Taco Bell. (KenTacoFrickinBell—retarded.) And there are lots of hills and lots of farms outside the city limits and lots of farmers who drive their pickup trucks and smell like poop and lots of black and white cows standing on the hills staring at you like you’re a retard or like you’re a kid on main street.
And listen to this: I never even minded cows. I never minded poop-smelling farmers, even though they can be mean and gross (they blow snot out of their noses onto the snow). Farmers and their poop-smelling kids are not why Bluffton has seemed retarded and why me and my friends have called it Suckville.
Me, Peter, and Gus (my only friends forever) figured the facts out in eighth grade. The reason we wanted