The Reluctant Journal of Henry K. Larsen Read online

  Farley peered at me and blinked. “Why do you know that?”

  I didn’t know what to say. How to explain that in our family, our idea of fun was to play Balderdash or Cranium. Or that our favorite TV show after the GWF’s “Saturday Night Smash-Up” was “Jeopardy!” and that we’d try to answer the questions before the contestants did. Or that our favorite books were Uncle John’s Bathroom Readers, which were full of weird facts.

  So I didn’t explain. I just shrugged. “I like trivia.”

  Farley’s eyes got even wider behind his glasses. “You’re coming with me,” he said. Then he grabbed my arm and started pulling me down the hall.

  “Where are we going?”

  “We need one more member. You’re exactly what we’re missing.”

  “Member for what?”

  But he didn’t answer. He just took me up the stairs to a classroom on the third floor and pulled me inside.

  Six other kids were already in there, eating lunch. They’d pushed eight desks together in the middle of the room so they faced each other – two rows of four. On the desks sat a black box with red buttons on top. It looked like something out of a low-budget sci-fi movie.

  “Hey, everyone,” Farley said, out of breath by now, “this is Henry. He’s joining our team.”

  “What team?” I said.

  “Reach For The Top. It’s kind of like ‘Jeopardy!’ for kids, except you compete against teams instead of individuals.”

  Meaning, it’s the kind of team that attracts nerds the way dog poop attracts flies.

  Before June 1st, this would have been a dream come true. I love this kind of stuff. But I saw what happened to Jesse in high school. High school can be a game-changer.

  When you’re little, you can let your freak flag fly. You can tell people all the weird things you know. You can sing in public. You can go to the park wearing tighty-whities over your pants and pretend you’re the Great Dane or another one of your favorite wrestlers from the Global Wrestling Federation. I know this because Jesse and I used to do it all the time.

  But when you get older, all that changes. You learn that it’s best to fly under the radar. I know I can’t change my stupid red hair or my stupid freckles. But I can lower my freak flag.

  So I tried to say thanks but no thanks, but before I could get the words out, Farley was introducing me to the other kids. “Henry, meet Parvana, Shen, Ambrose, Jerome, Koula, and Alberta.” They all smiled and said hi.

  Except for Alberta.

  Her head stayed buried in a copy of Us Weekly. I recognized her; we’re in Home Ec together. I even spoke to her once. We were sitting across from each other at our sewing stations last week, and I said, “Why are you called Alberta? Why not Saskatchewan, or Manitoba?”

  And she said, “Wow, new guy. Original. Never heard that one before.”

  Rude.

  You know that song they used to sing on “Sesame Street” – “One of These Things is Not Like the Others”? Alberta is that thing. Aside from her, everyone in that room looked like they belonged on a Reach For The Top team.

  Consider these facts:

  The boy named Ambrose wore a ratty-looking multicolored toque, with a pom-pom on top. Indoors. He also wore neon-green socks.

  The one named Shen clutched a RUBIK’S CUBE. Need I say more.

  Parvana wore a T-shirt that read The Geek Shall Inherit the Earth.

  Koula snorted. I don’t mean once or twice; I mean, all the time. Quiet little snorts, every few seconds. Like a nervous tic.

  Jerome wore sweatpants and a shirt that rode up his stomach to reveal layers of flabby white flesh, and he didn’t even seem to care. Yeah, yeah, I’m one to talk, but if I’m twenty pounds overweight, Jerome is at least a hundred. And I would never, ever let my wobblies show!!

  Now consider Alberta.

  Her hair is short, brown, and spiky – a lot like the Great Dane’s, just a different color. She has a gold stud in her nose and one above her eyebrow. Some people might call her chubby, but as someone who has been called that once or twice myself, I prefer the term “well proportioned.” She was wearing a plaid skirt with a big gold safety pin that stopped just above her knees, black tights, and purple Doc Martens. On top she wore a white T-shirt with the slogan John Deere Tractors.

  She is the opposite of nerd.

  Then my Socials teacher, Mr. Jankovich, came into the room. He’s a grown-up nerd. All you have to do is look at his feet: He wears Birkenstocks with white tube socks. Even in winter!

  “Coach, this is Henry,” Farley told him. “He’s going to join the team.”

  No, I’m not, I wanted to say, but Mr. Jankovich didn’t give me a chance. “Hey, Henry. That’s great news. Everyone, take a seat.”

  I was officially trapped. I wanted to kill Farley, and I think he knew it because, even though he sat right across from me, he wouldn’t meet my gaze.

  Mr. Jankovich gave us each a cord, which we inserted into the black box. Each cord had a red button on the end. If you pressed it, it buzzed, and one of eight red lights on top of the box lit up.

  Jerome, Koula, Shen, and I sat facing Ambrose, Parvana, Farley, and Alberta.

  Mr. Jankovich started firing questions at us. They were broken into different categories, like Open Questions, Team Questions, Snap-starts, and Who Am I’s. Here are the questions I remember:

  1) In the Internet world, what does URL stand for? (I had no idea. But Shen and Farley knew: Uniform Resource Locator.)

  2) What river did Julius Caesar cross? (The Rubicon. I knew that.)

  3) In 55 BCE, what island did Caesar and his legions invade? (No clue. But Parvana knew it was Britain.)

  4) On the periodic table of elements, what does Cd stand for? (Cadmium. I would have guessed that if Shen hadn’t buzzed in first.)

  5) Spelling round. How do you spell beguiled, utopian, incessant, dichotomy? (I got utopian right, and Ambrose buzzed in first on the other three.)

  6) How many baby teeth do humans have? How many adult teeth? (Twenty and thirty-two. Answered by yours truly.)

  7) Which Hollywood actor is related to José Ferrer, Rosemary Clooney, and Debby Boone? (George Clooney. Alberta got that one right. She only buzzed in for questions about movie stars and pop music.)

  I confess: The lunch hour flew by. As Farley and I walked back to our lockers, he said, “Next practice is on Tuesday. Be there or be trapezoid.”

  “Huh?”

  “Square.”

  “I’m not joining the team,” I said.

  “Oh, you’ll join,” he said as we arrived at our lockers.

  “What makes you so sure?”

  As if on cue, Alberta appeared from around a corner, clutching a binder that was covered in doodles.

  “Hi,” I said.

  She just scowled and kept walking.

  Rude.

  Farley smirked. “That’s what makes me so sure.”

  I could feel my face turn red, which, when you already have red hair and freckles, is not a good look. “Her? Please. She’s a total stuck-up.”

  But Farley grinned smugly as he closed his locker door. “See you in gym class,” he said. Then he walked off down the hall, listing sideways, humming to himself.

  SATURDAY, JANUARY 26

  INTRIGUING FACT: Post-traumatic stress disorder (or PTSD) is a severe anxiety disorder that can happen after exposure to a horrifying event.

  Or so says Cecil. He talked a lot about PTSD at our session after school yesterday. Which made me talk to him in Robot-Voice. Which made him change tactics.

  “You writing in your journal at all?” he asked.

  “No,” I lied.

  “Oh. Sorry to hear that.”

  “I’m not.”

  He stared at me for what felt like a whole minute. I stared right back. “Tell me about your T-shirt,” he finally said. “Who’s the guy?”

  “It’s the Great Dane.”

  Cecil looked at me blankly.

  “From the GWF.”
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  Another blank look.

  “The Global Wrestling Federation? ‘Saturday Night Smash-Up,’ ‘Monday Night Meltdown’?” Inside I was thinking, Holy Moly, do you live under a rock?

  “Oh. I’ve heard of them. I don’t own a TV,” he said. A little smugly, if you ask me.

  “ ‘Saturday Night Smash-Up’ is my favorite show,” I told him. In fact, it was my entire family’s favorite show. Mom would make a huge bowl of popcorn, and we’d all gather round the TV every Saturday night, even in the months leading up to IT. We all had a favorite wrestler: Mom’s was El Toro; Dad’s was the Twister. Jesse’s was the same as mine.

  “Tell me about the Great Dane,” Cecil said.

  “He weighs 198 pounds. That sounds like a lot, but in the GWF, he’s a pip-squeak. He wears tight red trunks with white trim and white lace-up boots, and he has short spiked blond hair. His upper body is straight out of Popeye. His signature move is the Body Splash.”

  “The Body Splash?”

  I did my best to describe it to Cecil. “Say his opponent is sprawled on the mat. The Great Dane climbs the ropes that surround the ring. He crouches down low.… ” For this part, I stood up on my chair to demonstrate. “Then he leaps into the air. For a moment, it looks like he’s flying. Then he lands, stomach-first, across his opponent’s chest. THWACK!”

  I got down on my stomach on his tiny office floor for effect. It was disgusting down there – armies of dust bunnies and a carpet encrusted with bits of old food. “Imagine the letter t,” I said, standing up quickly and brushing myself off. “That’s what it would look like from above.”

  “Holy Moly,” said Cecil. “Sounds violent.”

  I rolled my eyes. “It’s more than that. There are story lines and everything. It’s super-exciting. High stakes. Good versus evil.”

  “Why is the Great Dane your favorite?”

  “Because,” I said, a little impatient. “He’s one of the good guys. He’s a babyface. And he always has to fight the heels – these huge, butt-ugly bad guys.”

  “Does he win?”

  “Once in a while. Mostly he loses.”

  “So he’s an underdog.”

  “Yeah.”

  For some reason, Cecil started nodding a lot, like we were having a meaningful conversation.

  “You never know what’s going to happen next,” I continued. “Wrestlers who’ve been heels for years become babyfaces, and vice versa. Just when you think you’ve got someone pegged, he switches sides.”

  “So, nobody is one hundred percent good or evil,” he said. “Just like real life.”

  “Exactly! I bet Stalin opened a door for an old lady once, or hugged his mom. And maybe Mother Teresa spanked a kid, or stole a chocolate bar.”

  “I bet the Great Dane was Jesse’s favorite, too. Am I right?”

  Suddenly I had goose bumps. How had he figured that out? It gave me the creeps. “I plead the Fifth,” I said.

  “Do you even know what that means?”

  “I saw it on a TV show. It means I’m not answering the question and you can’t make me.”

  Cecil smiled. “Okay. Session’s almost over, anyway.” He stood up and pumped my hand. “I think we made good progress today, Henry.”

  I was like, What? All we talked about was wrestling!!

  I don’t mind Cecil. He seems like an okay guy. But there’s a joke my dad told me once that describes Cecil perfectly: “What do you call a guy who gets fifty-one percent in medical school? Doctor.”

  11:00 p.m.

  We had take-out pizza again for dinner. I forced myself to eat only four slices.

  Dad drank only one beer with his Rapiflux pill. He started taking Rapiflux about four months ago. I thought it was to help with indigestion or something, till I looked it up on Dad’s laptop. Rapiflux is another brand name for Fluoxetine. Which is another word for Prozac. Which, according to the website, “increases one’s sense of well-being, counteracting tendencies to depression.”

  We were eating our pizza in front of the TV when the phone rang. We don’t have call display ’cause it’s extra, but I knew who it was.

  “Hello?”

  “Hi, Henry.”

  Yup. Mom.

  “How’s my Smaller Fry?” She’s called me that my whole life. Jesse was Small Fry. I guess if she’d had a third kid, he would have been Smallest Fry.

  “Good.”

  “How’s the new school?” She asks me this every time.

  “Fine.”

  “Let me guess – your favorite class is English?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’ve always had a way with words.”

  There was a long silence after this, which my English teacher, Mr. Schell, would say was a fine example of irony.

  “How’s Dad?”

  I looked over at Dad, who was gazing at a spot somewhere east of the TV. “Good,” I said. “ ‘Saturday Night Smash-Up’ is about to start.”

  This was followed by another long pause, then she said, “I’m sorry, Henry.” And just like all the other phone calls, she started to cry. And just like all the other phone calls, I passed the phone to my dad because I am tired of her tears.

  Dad took the phone into his bedroom and closed the door. I listened to the rise and fall of their voices. Sometimes Dad shouts on these calls, but tonight he talked quietly, and after twenty minutes or so, he joined me back on the couch. He gave me a big smile. It was the phoniest smile ever, but I appreciated the effort. “So what’d I miss?”

  I told him that the Great Dane had lost his match against Vlad the Impaler, who’d brought him down with a Bionic Elbow (which means he smashed his elbow on top of the Great Dane’s head). Vlad also gave the Dane the old Testicular Claw, which is pretty much what it sounds like. It’s illegal, but Vlad waited till the ref turned away, so he didn’t get caught.

  Now Dad’s in his room, and I’m in mine. In the ad on Craigslist, the apartment was advertised as one bdrm + den. I am in the den. I think den was a misprint and the owner really meant to write closet.

  Our building is a four-storey gray stucco box from the 1960s that sits right on Broadway, the busiest street in Kitsilano. It’s called the Cedar Manor, a fancy name that is so not deserved. In fact, if I were to describe the Manor in one word, that word would be “ugly.” The orange, green, and brown carpeting in the corridors looks like it hasn’t been cleaned since the place was built. The walls are grimy. The lights are fluorescent and they hum.

  But I’m not complaining. Vancouver is a way more expensive city to live in than Port Salish, and with Dad not having his own business anymore and Mom not working and the Marlin family launching a lawsuit, I figure I’m lucky we’re not living in a pup tent in Stanley Park.

  Besides, here in Vancouver we are completely anonymous. In Port Salish, everyone knew everyone. I liked that, growing up. But after IT happened, it was a curse.

  Still, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t miss our house. It was a real honest-to-goodness home, with a yard and everything. It wasn’t fancy, but Jesse and I had our own bedrooms, which was good because Jesse was a pig. I, on the other hand, am neat and tidy. “Bordering on anal retentive,” I once heard my mom tell my dad, when she didn’t know I was listening.

  So what if I like everything in its proper place? My room here is half the size of my room in Port Salish, but my poster of the Great Dane is still perfectly centered over my bed, which I make every morning with hospital corners. I have a portable shelving unit in my closet, where I fold my socks and underwear. Everything else – jeans, sweatshirts, T-shirts, mostly in shades of blue or gray – is on hangers. I can’t stand a wrinkly T-shirt. You could say I’m obsessed with a neat if nondescript appearance and personal hygiene in general. Some people think that if you’re fat, you’re also dirty, but that is false. Just because I have wobblies doesn’t mean I don’t shower and use a high-powered deodorant.

  Near the end, it was obvious that Jesse wasn’t using deodorant. Or showering. Or changing
his clothes as often as he should. He tried to mask his b.o. with AXE bodyspray, which only made it worse.

  We barely talked to each other in the six months leading up to IT, and when we did, it wasn’t very nice.

  “Quit stinking up the can, Meatloaf,” he’d say to me most mornings because a) my system is like clockwork, and I always have a dump first thing in the morning, and b) I was already a little bit on the chubby side.

  “Bite me, Pizza Face,” I’d retort. Then I’d catch a whiff of his b.o. “Ew, you think my poo reeks?? You reek!”

  “Small Fry, why don’t you have a quick shower?” my mom would say when we joined her in the kitchen. “It’ll take you five minutes. I’ll make you some cinnamon toast for when you get out.”

  “I don’t want any f—ing cinnamon toast. Leave me the f— alone.” Jesse swore a lot during those last six months.

  Then he’d storm out of the room, and my mom would try not to cry.

  He never used to talk to her like that. To me, sure, but that’s what brothers do. He and Mom, though, they were tight. Bonded. Like Super Glue.

  I couldn’t help but envy them in a fairly big way. I wanted what they had, but I also knew I never could, because Jesse was her firstborn. They’d had two whole years to fall in love with each other before I came along.

  I saw this movie once, when I was home with a fever. It was on some cable channel, and I have no idea why I watched it because it was seriously old, but I guess I was so feverish I couldn’t even lift the remote. Anyway, it was called Ordinary People, and it was about a family with two sons. The boys had been in a boating accident, and the older one drowned and the younger one survived. The mom was so mean to her younger son! And she finally admitted that she wished he’d died, instead.

  I’m not saying that my mom has had the same thought. But it’s just another thing that knocks around in my head sometimes, when I picture her in a loony bin on the other side of the country, far away from us.

  It’s something I think about when sleep won’t come.

  1:00 a.m.

  Speaking of sleep. It is highly overrated. Sleep + IT = Nightmares. Blood. Gore. Plastic yellow tube slides.