Why Aren't You Smiling? Read online

  Left! Right! Cut through the yard. Dead ahead! Over the traffic barrier! Right! Everyone knew which way to turn without anyone saying. We ran and ran, panting and laughing, laughing, laughing because we were teenagers and we were out of control and our parents didn’t know where the Hell we were! We ran past a construction site in the road surrounded by bright orange sandwich boards.

  “Whoo! Whoo!” screamed Dewey as he knocked one over producing a bam! that I was sure could be heard all the way to the police department downtown.

  “Whoo!” screamed Kai as he did the same.

  “Whee!” screamed Tracey as she hit the last one. All this was hilarious and dangerous, and we ran and ran and ran until we arrived at a bus stop bench and collapsed on it in a fit of giggles and gasping.

  As I regained my composure, I felt a wave of exhilaration (I had friends!) and shame (they were juvenile delinquents!). I loved being with them, but didn’t know why. What was so fun about running and petty vandalism? As I sat catching my breath and thinking these thoughts, a girl came out of a corner store halfway down the block and started walking toward us.

  “Hey,” said the girl, pulling a pack of cigarettes out of her pocket.

  “They let you buy those in there?” Dewey raised an eyebrow.

  “No, but I don’t let that stop me,” said the girl with a sinister smile. I recognized her as Sarah, a girl I’d had in my homeroom a few years ago. Back then she’d been just another kid, now she wore make-up (cherry lip-gloss, blue eye shadow, thick black mascara), and had a way of slouching that made her look womanly.

  “Hey, Sarah,” I said, like I see her all the time.

  “Leonard?”

  “Cool, you two know each other,” Sami said approvingly.

  “Had Mrs. Oslander for homeroom together,” explained Sarah. She turned to everyone on the bench. “Hey all.”

  Everyone said “Hey”’ back. Then we all stood up and walked slowly down a side street. Sarah did, too. I couldn’t get over the teenage telepathy that allowed us to act in unison without words. So cool! We reached a low cement wall surrounding an office building and lit upon it like a flock of birds. Then, we commenced to loiter.

  Dewey turned to Sarah. “Can I bum a cig?”

  Sarah wordlessly held out the pack. Soon, everyone was smoking except Tracey and me, though Sami gave it up after one puff, pronouncing the practice “most foul.”

  The streetlight nearest us went out for no reason and suddenly the night was dark and sexy. Everyone calmed down and spoke in whispers about how much they hated school. “The teachers are all losers,” said Dewey. “Mr. Felker, he belongs in San Fag-sisco.”

  “I got detention for nothing,” whined Vicki. “For talking”

  “Everything they’re teaching us is lies anyway,” added Kai. “My dad says America is the most bourgeois country in the world” We all looked at him, not sure if it was cool that he brought his father into our sacred teenage space.

  “We should all drop out, all at once,” said Tracey. Dewey put his arm around her.

  Then, with a world-weariness I found exquisitely sophisticated, Sarah sighed, “They’re not trying to teach us at school, they’re indoctrinating us to join the workforce and have families.”

  I took this as my cue. “Yeah, they’ve been blinded by materialism and conformity. I know that’s not the Answer, but what is? What’s the meaning of life?” I felt pleased with myself for slipping this into the conversation so seamlessly.

  Sarah leaned against Sami in a manner that seemed quite flirtatious. “Not to change diapers or work in some office.”

  Sami leaned into Sarah. “You gotta have a good time while it lasts, I know that much.”

  Dewey began French-kissing Tracey and Kai started in with Vicki. I felt myself blush and turned back to Sarah, but she was canoodling Sami. I stood up, gradually so as not to call attention to my superfluous self, and slunk off. “Hey, see ya!” called out Sarah. I turned around to say bye and wave, but she was already back to necking.

  As I walked off, it suddenly struck me as creepy that we’d left the safety boards collapsed around the construction sight. Someone could get hurt, which would be some pretty bad karma. Did Rick believe in karma? I wasn’t sure. I imagined he’d say people should do good things out of Love, not because they were afraid bad stuff would come back to them. That was almost a selfish reason. I pondered this weighty question as I walked back to find the boards and set them right, then to find and return the Big Wheel.

  By the time I’d finished, I was sleepy and set off for home. As I walked, I found it impossible to evade the ever-more closely looming issue of The Opposite Sex. If I could have kissed any of the girls that night, which would I have chosen? Tracey? No, she was all braces and braids. Vicki? No, there was something unduly curvaceous about her bosoms. Sarah? She was the nicest, but perhaps overly… girly. I tried to think of girls at school who might be kissable, but ran into yet more barriers. Wrong eyebrows. Smells like grape candy. Too tall. Snaps her gum.

  I’d heard it said that everyone had one Soulmate, a single person amongst the world’s billions for whom they were Destined. My peers were clearly just looking for bodies, seeking pleasure and self-gratification. That wasn’t for me. I would wait until I found the sole girl with whom I shared a deep spiritual connection. Surely when I saw Her, she would be attractive, not all icky like all those other girls, and I’d want to kiss and cuddle plenty.

  Later, as I lay in bed, I tried to envision what She might look like, a pale, blonde lass with delicate features wearing a long, flowing blue robe riding a white stallion. No, too corny. A raven-haired vixen in tight leotards and shiny boots? Too vampish. A laughing redhead, barefoot and in overalls, tending a hand-sown pea patch? Nuh-uh. A sultry brunette in a bikini? I couldn’t see it. What I did see, as I lost control of my thoughts while drifting off to sleep, was the wild, whooping face of Kai, ecstatic with joy as he pedaled his stolen Big Wheel down the middle of the street.

  Ick. Brownish fuzz. It was barely noticeable, and yet, somehow repellent far beyond its limited visibility. There was no getting around it: I needed to start shaving. I went into my father’s study where he sat penciling notes in the margin of a book.

  “Dad?”

  He looked up. “Uh-huh?”

  “I think I might need to shave or something.”

  My father peered at my face. “You know, I think you’re right.” He smiled as if this were an achievement or a delightfully naughty secret. “Well…” He looked down at his work, then back up at me. “OK, let’s go get you a razor.”

  We threw on jackets and set off for the drugstore three blocks from our house. The morning was balmy, the trees leafy, and our street fairly reeked of quiet contentment.

  “You’re growing up,” my father began. Clearly he’d decided this was a father/son bonding opportunity.

  “Guess so.”

  “Do you have any questions?”

  Was he trying to have The Conversation? “No, we have Family Living Class at school. They tell you everything.”

  “I didn’t mean just sex.”

  “Well, OK. What do you think is the meaning of life?”

  My father chortled, paused to think, then spoke. “You know what they used to call atheists? Free thinkers. I like that, the idea that you’re free to decide what you want to accomplish with your existence. You chose your own meaning.”

  “What do you want to your life to mean?”

  “I want to raise a happy family and help people understand and appreciate the many splendid joys of English literature.” He waived to a neighbor walking his dog across the street then turned back to me with a little frown. “I hardly think you need to worry about what you want to do with your life at fourteen.”

  “Almost fifteen,” I corrected. “And I don’t just mean what should people do with their lives. I mean, more like, what is it all for?”

  “Life?”

  “Yeah.”

  “The
human mind is too limited to comprehend its place in the universe. We don’t know why humans evolved consciousness or what happens after we die or before we’re born. There’s no evidence one way or another, so there’s no way to know about ultimate purposes. Life is a mysterious miracle.”

  “You’re an atheist but you believe in miracles?”

  “Sure, why not? The important thing is not pretending that the universe isn’t mysterious. That’s what I find most offensive about religion. The religious claim they know answers to unanswerable questions. Well, nobody knows where the law of gravity comes from or what code of conduct will lead to the most harmonious society. And when people start saying they do, watch out. They’re usually after your money or out to start a war.”

  “But what about Love?”

  “What about it?”

  We arrived at the pharmacy. There was no way to bring this conversation inside, so we stood in front of its glass-paned windows and examined the display of jars and tubes full of colored liquid set up to evoke some Ye Olde Apothecary tableau.

  “Couldn’t Love be the Answer?”

  My dad scrunched his eyebrows. “Depends on the question.”

  “To all questions. Couldn’t the point of Life be to Love?”

  “If you want it to be, sure.” Pause. “Leonard, do you worry about this stuff a lot?”

  “I’m just trying to figure out what I believe,” I explained. “I don’t want to go through life sleepwalking.”

  “I suppose that’s admirable,” said my father, looking unconvinced. He pointed to the doorway. “Shall we?”

  We went inside and bought a metal razor, a pack of blades, and a can of shaving foam. On the walk home, we resumed our conversation.

  “Leonard, all those unanswerable questions about Life and Love and Purpose can be fun to play with, but you’ve got to focus on the real world in front of your face. Sometimes you seem lost in the ethereal.”

  “What’s the ethereal?”

  “I just mean you seem preoccupied by abstract questions, but ignore the concrete challenges of everyday life. I think it’s great you got a job and get good grades, but you need to get some friends.”

  A wave of mortification washed over me. “I do have friends! Kai.”

  “Have I met him?”

  “No, but we hang out.”

  “You should have more than one friend. Why don’t you try joining a club?”

  “I’m not that kind of kid,” I explained.

  “What about taking up a sport? It might help you with your weight.”

  “I’m not fat.”

  My father looked pained. “I didn’t say you were. But you need some exercise, everybody does.”

  “That’s not what you said,” I nitpicked. “You said it’d help me with my weight. And you never play sports.”

  “When I was your age, we used to play stick ball in vacant lots.” He smiled at the memory.

  “I know the whole story,” I sighed. “You and your buddies all shared what few toys and games you had because it was the Depression and nobody expected much and if a bully came onto your block you stuck together and gave him the what-for and the kids from the block were the best friends a guy could ever want and modern children are all spoiled and neurotic.” We arrived home and I stomped off before my father could respond. I did have a practical reality to deal with: getting the brown fuzz off my face.

  Shaving turned out to be an ordeal. The nicks and cuts were bad enough, but having to stare at my own face was excruciating. I knew I was funny looking (I’d certainly been told often enough at school), but the grim reality of my features’ incongruity had never fully hit me. Until now. I had chipmunk cheeks. My lips were so thin as to barely exist. My ears resembled those gigantic radar receivers used to scan the universe for signs of alien life. Worst of all, my cheeks and forehead were all covered with angry red blemishes. No gargoyle on Notre Dame, no mutant villain from any comic book, no teenager anywhere, any time could ever have looked so hideous.

  I ran to my room, threw myself onto the bed, and hid my face under the pillow. In the blackness, I saw Kai’s face. Olive skin, bushy eyebrows, ruby lips, and that hair, that glorious hair, which on the rare occasions when he appeared without his headband, would fall over his eyes. Kai had just the right mix of cool and tough, just the exact right face in every way. And then my thoughts strayed below the neckline. His hard little body, always tanned and ready to go. Perfect, perfect, perfect! That every inch of his flesh, bone, skin, and cartilage was in the exact right position for maximum beauty struck me as a miracle as pure as any in the Bible. Who needed loaves and fishes when there was Kai?

  My own body felt consumed by a hungry tingling. Every cell screamed with a desire to merge its protoplasm into Kai’s, joining him in his perfection. I rolled around in my blankets until they wrapped me in a tight embrace. Thus mummified, I felt the tingling intensify and mutate into electric bolts of painful pleasure that surged through me. My body began writhing of its own accord, as if possessed by the Devil. It didn’t stop until my consciousness evaporated in an explosion of white light. Once I was back in my right mind, I knew exactly what they were talking about in chapter fourteen of our Family Living text.

  After the night of the Big Wheel, Kai occasionally invited me over to his apartment to hang out. He always wanted to do something sporty with a ball, an irritation I endured in exchange for the thrill of having such an awesome friend. In sports, Kai’s body displayed an animal grace that I loved drinking in with my eyes, though I was careful never to look for longer than I judged to be normal. After whatever game, we’d loaf around his room whining about our lives as Kai’s portable radio showered us with pop tunes so catchy they replayed in my head for hours. Though Kai wasn’t targeted by school bullies as I was, he did have problems. He was hot for Vicki, but she refused to go steady. Almost as bad, his dad maintained all sorts of archaically strict rules about bedtime, chores, and homework. My fantasies of their carefree dual bachelorhood were way off the mark.

  One afternoon at Kai’s, Dewey and Sami came over and invited us along to see Young Frankenstein with them. We all tromped downtown in high spirits, having heard that the film was sexy-dirty and hilarious. When we arrived at the theater I headed for the line in front of the ticket booth, but Dewey motioned with his head to follow him around the corner and down the concrete alley that twisted up around the theater’s side exit. We were about to sneak in! I felt horrifically conflicted. I’d dreamed of adventurous hi-jinks with my peers, but this was no better than lying or stealing. Actually, it was lying and stealing. Plus I might get caught and locked up in some juvenile detention facility with bars on the windows! As Kai tried the door, Sami stood so that people on the street, just a few yards away, couldn’t see our criminal activity. I wanted to run off and join the passersby. Oh, how I envied their purity and innocence. If I did, though, my friends might decide I was a cowardly dork and never speak to me again. Caught between fears, I stood frozen, my mind racing and heart pounding.

  “Won’t budge,” admitted Kai.

  Dewey pretended to clear his throat. “Leave it to the master.” Kai stood back and let Dewey at the lock. He removed something small from his pocket (a knife?) and fiddled for a few seconds. In a flash, he’d cracked it open. “Hurry,” he commanded. I followed everyone into the darkness, fully expecting a uniformed policeman with a sour look on his face to grab me by the shoulder the moment I’d gotten inside.

  To my immense relief, nobody noticed us and we were able to sneak into four fine balcony seats unmolested. The movie, which we watched twice, turned out to be so funny we all nearly asphyxiated from laughing so hard. Afterwards, we spent hours reliving the funny scenes and reciting the best lines while loafing around on the benches outside the downtown library. In the back of my mind I felt pleased that anyone walking by would think we looked like four ordinary guys hanging out. I could imagine no greater bliss. After we split up, I – ever mindful of my karma – returned
to the theater and insisted to a mystified woman in the ticket booth that she accept my money without giving me a ticket, though I was too fearful to tell her why.

  Not long after, I attended my first-ever teenage party. I was pretending to know how to play basketball in Kai’s driveway one Saturday when Dewey phoned with the announcement that his parents were out and he was having people over. We tidied up in Kai’s bathroom, rinsing our faces, eating dabs of toothpaste, and splashing ourselves with his dad’s Old Spice Musk for Men. Then we rode the bus over to Dewey’s place, a big wood-shingled house surrounded by majestic trees and flowering bushes like something out of Sunset magazine.

  We rang the bell and the door opened to reveal Dewey, looking exceedingly pleased with himself. “Welcooooome!” he said in a goofy parody of hospitality. We walked into a living room with the shades drawn and the lights on, making it feel like evening, though it was still a sunny afternoon outside. Music blasted on the stereo while a dozen Burnout boys and half a dozen Burnout girls sprawled on the matching modern furniture. Half the party drank beers while the others imbibed Cokes, and a joint was making its way around the room. “Make yourselves at home,” grunted Dewey, as he disappeared into the kitchen.

  Vicki sat in an armchair downing the last of a Bud. Kai zipped over and sat on her armrest. Not wanting to interfere with his seduction, I went over to the only unoccupied seat, a sliver of space at the end of the sofa. Despite feeling like an interloper, I sat there, determined to socialize like a regular teen. A Burnout girl to my right was just finishing a story. “And then this super-fat guy streaked and everyone turned away ’cause it was soooo gross!”

  “Fat people should not streak,” declared a Burnout boy with a solemn shaking of his head. Everyone agreed, each putting in their two cents on the repulsiveness of human blubber. Worried that someone might look my way and notice how disgustingly obese I was, I stood up and drifted around the room, hoping to join one of the other little groups. Nobody acknowledged my existence or turned to face me, so I found myself uncomfortably eavesdropping on a lot of conversations without any way to join.