Stupid Fast - By Geoff Herbach Page 0,71

brutal man,” Grandma Berba said. Steven W. Reinstein’s rich parents treated Jerri like dirt. Steven W. Reinstein didn’t want to be married and continued to have girlfriends. Jerri tried to make a home. She bought our house with Steven W. Reinstein’s money. Steven W. Reinstein would scream that Jerri trapped him. Jerri had Andrew to try to stabilize the situation (stupid, said Grandma). Steven W. Reinstein told Jerri flat out that he didn’t have enough love, that he couldn’t love. Steven W. Reinstein got another student pregnant. He got fired. Jerri hated him. She hated him. She hated him. She hated him. Jerri served him divorce papers when Andrew was three. He killed himself in our garage.

I only knew the last part—that he killed himself and where. I was fucking there to see it. I thought he was a small, kind Jewish fellow who only loved poetry. Jerri not only hid the truth, Jerri lied. Andrew was right. Andrew was right. Andrew was right.

My head spun.

As Grandma Berba spilled it all, inappropriately, right there in front of everybody, everybody in the room opened their mouth wider and wider. I was the only one who didn’t. Instead, I stared at my long arms, clenched and unclenched my fists, pictured a tennis racquet in those hands. Of course. I sat tall and got red in the face and thought how I’d like to take a goddamn tennis racket and beat my stupid dad’s face in (he apparently had the same idea). I also thought this: Jerri’s a criminal. She’s a terrible, despicable person. And then instead of listening any longer to Grandma Berba talk about Jerri’s “unhealthy” reaction to these events—how Jerri decided to erase Steven W. Reinstein from her life by burning his stuff and by making up a story about who he was so Andrew and me would think we had a loving father—and listening to her talk about Jerri’s silence in the face of Grandma Berba’s repeated attempts to get her help; her repeated attempts to move us to Arizona; her repeated attempts to get more support money from the Reinstein grandparents; her repeated attempts to get Jerri to get ahold of her fucking life, I exploded out of my chair and out of that house.

I got on my dad’s Schwinn Varsity and pumped it as hard as I could. I exploded around corners and up hills until I got to the main road that leads to my house, the house Jerri bought with Steven W. Reinstein’s money. I exploded down the road past the golf course, flying by signs and light posts and cars and the blurry tall grass that grew in the ditch. I flew over the hill, pumping, and down toward our drive, boiling over and completely exploding. At the bottom of the hill, I turned the bike too hard and slid out trying to make the turn to my house. I fell and slid on my side on gravel, tearing up the skin on my legs and ass. I slid for probably thirty feet, but I didn’t cry out. I picked up the bike, got back on, and exploded up the hill toward the house. In front of the garage, I got off my bike. I held it steady. Tilted it to the side. Stared at its blue paint and scratched up logo. Schwinn Varsity. Schwinn Varsity. Schwinn Varsity. Then I grabbed the bike with both hands, lifted it over my head, and threw it into the ground as hard as I could. The bike bounced up from its tires and hit me in the chest, hurting.

“Fuck you,” I cried. I grabbed it again, and this time, I flung it—spinning out into the yard.

“Felton,” Jerri yelled from the window.

“Don’t ever talk to me, Jerri,” I shouted.

I went into the garage and pulled out a shovel.

“Felton, stop,” Jerri shouted.

Then I went nuts on it, on my Schwinn Varsity. I jumped up and down, bending its frame. I beat the mirror to pieces with the shovel. I stabbed the shovel’s pointy end down on the spokes with all my might, breaking them. I hammered off the back gear shifter and bent the front. I stomped on the chain wheel. I stomped on the front fork until it bent and then broke. I was tearing off the brake levers, crying like crazy, when Jerri grabbed me.

“Felton, stop!”

“No,” I said. “No, Jerri,” I cried.

She pulled the bike’s handlebars out of my hands and let what was left of it