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After we pig out on garbageburgers and onion rings, with two sodas each, Steve invites me back to his place to watch The Unforgiven with him.
“I guess not,” I say. “I’ve got homework due tomorrow. Besides, I’ve seen it about ten times.”
“You can’t get too much of Clint Eastwood,” Steve says. He loves Clint Eastwood movies. My mom is a Tracy/Hepburn fan. Me, I watch whatever comes along.
Steve and I walk to the parking lot together, then go our separate ways.
My Uncle Steve is the kind of guy who for sure should have had kids. He and his wife, Janie, wanted kids but she never got pregnant. They were all set to adopt a little boy when Janie found a lump in her breast. Then it was surgery and chemotherapy. It was awful. She’d always been full of life, laughing and joking around, like Steve. But then we watched her waste away.
She died about four years ago. Poor Janie. And poor Uncle Steve. At first he stayed home all the time, looking at pictures and touching her clothes. He told me once he liked to smell her shoes, like it proved she’d really been there. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, or get out of there. I think I just stood and looked at him like he was some kind of freak. Anyway, he’s better now, but I think he still misses Janie a lot.
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I swing past Christy’s house. Kim’s car is parked out front and she and Christy are sitting in it. Kim is an aide in the Hearing Impaired program, too. It really annoys me when they sit around and use sign language and I have no idea what they’re saying, except that I’m sure it’s about me. But the worst thing is how Christy tells Kim our personal business. I wouldn’t be surprised if Christy told Kim she was pregnant before she even told me.
I park behind them, walk to Christy’s side of the car, and lean down to talk to her. She won’t look at me.
“Christy,” I say. “I’ve been trying to call you all day.”
She says nothing.
“Can we talk?”
Nothing. Kim doesn’t look at me either.
“Come on, Christy. I just want to talk to you.”
She rolls the window up.
I walk to my car, get in, slam the door, and peel out. Damn she ticks me off!
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Monday morning, when I go out to my car to leave for school, there is a letter tucked under the windshield wiper. I get in and read it. It is from Christy.
Dear Jeff: I don’t know how you can be so cruel, to want to kill our baby. You said you would always love me and now you want to kill a life we’ve made together, and leave an unhappy soul to haunt us forever. I never thought you would be like that. Love, Christy
I sit for a long time, thinking. It’s true, I did say I’d always love her. I’d said it lots of times. And I meant it, too, when I said it. But I hadn’t said it since I got back from Florida. Since then, I’d said I loved her, but not that I would always love her. And even back when I thought I would always love her, I never said let’s hurry up and have a baby!
I stuff the letter in my glove compartment, then drive to Jeremy’s house. He’s sitting on the curb reading, with about ten books stacked beside him. Jeremy’s in these honors classes where he’s already getting college credit. He’s a brain, but I like him anyway.
“Hey, J.B., whassup?”
“Not much,” I say, reaching across and opening the door for him. I’m J.B., Jeremy’s J.J. for Jeremy Jackson, and Benny’s B.D. for Benny Dominguez. Those nicknames got started in preschool, when everybody had their initials pasted on their cubbies. The three of us probably wouldn’t be friends if we’d just met in high school because we’re so different. But, because we were tight from sandbox days, through G.I. Joes, to finding out exactly what it was that adults did to get babies, we still hang together some. Jeremy and I are really tight because we do all that debate stuff together. Benny—sometimes Benny gets kind of crazy, but he’s still my friend anyway.
We drive on to Benny’s, where we sit in the driveway and wait, as always. Finally, Benny comes running out of his house, hair wet, pulling his tee shirt on, and jumps into the back seat.
“Hey, Dudes,” he says.
“Hey, B.D.,” Jeremy says.
Benny pokes me on the back of the head.
“Hey, I said hey.”
“Hey, Benny,” I say, without enthusiasm.
“Hey, did you guys see that dude on TV last night?”
That’s how Benny is—fifty channels on his TV and he thinks we know exactly what dude he’s talking about.
“Who?” Jeremy asks.
“This dude, man. He was hanging from his teeth, under this airplane while they flew in circles over some city.”
“Missed it,” Jeremy says.
“You should have seen it, Jer. How about you, Jeff, did you catch it?”
“No.”
“What’s wrong with you guys? Watchin’ ‘Sixty Minutes’ with your moms or something?”
We pull into the parking lot, get our stuff out, and walk toward class. Well, Jeremy and I get our stuff. Benny’s always empty handed. When textbooks are handed out in September, B.D. puts them all in his locker. Then, in June, he takes them out and hands them back to his teachers. He says he’s saving the taxpayers money because he keeps all of his books in pristine condition.
I’m somewhere between Jeremy and Benny as far as school is concerned. I work pretty hard, because I want to go to college. English and history are okay, but sometimes I really have to sweat over math and science.
Debate is my thing, though, especially Dramatic Interpretation—D.I. is what we call it. I was surprised when I found out I was good at it, in the ninth grade.
Benny was good, too. Really, he was great at Humorous Interpretation, but he couldn’t be bothered with going to tournaments, so Rogers dropped him from the program last year.
As for Jeremy, he can look at the cover of a book and practically know everything that’s inside. He’ll for sure go to some big-name university, Berkeley or Yale or Harvard. These aren’t for me. But neither are failed classes with summer school make-ups.
Benny’s been going to summer school since the sixth grade to make up failed classes. Sometimes when he aims for “D”s, he shoots too low.
My mom says that after high school our three lives will go in different directions, and we’ll drift apart. I don’t think so. I think we’ll always be really good friends. But then, I thought I would always love Christy, too, and right now I wish I’d never met her. I know that sounds cold, but I’m trying to tell an honest story here.
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Fifth period I walk into the debate class and take my regular seat. There are no assigned seats here, but everybody usually sits in the same place anyway. I don’t know why. Sometimes Mr. Rogers complains, tells us to get out of our ruts, mix it up a bit. Really — “Mr. Rogers?” But he’s practically the opposite of the TV guy. He’s a lot more cynical, and he’s sloppy. He never wears anything but beat-up jeans and a faded tee shirt, even to open house. “It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood . . .’’ we sing sometimes, to annoy him. If we keep it up long enough he ends up throwing erasers at us and banging his head against the chalkboard.
We joke around a lot in this class, but I think I’ve learned more in here than in any other class. Rogers is always trying to get us to think for ourselves, not just believe something because he says so. He never pulls that big teacher/authority crap on us. This is my fourth year in debate, so I know Mr. Rogers pretty well.
Another thing I like about debate class is it’s a miniature United Nations. There are Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, Filipino, Latino (Christy insists on Latina), black, white, even a girl who is part Cherokee. I guess this mix is true for a lot of my other classes, too. The difference in debate though is that we all talk to each other, we don’t just stay in our own little look-alike groups.
Jeremy and I are both nationally recognized debaters. Several other Hamilton students are, too. Christy probably will have enough points for that next year, at the rate she’s been going. She’s usually shy in a group, or at a party. But when she stands in front of the class, or in front of a bunch of people at a debate tournament, she’s awesome. She can be anything—brazen or meek, beautiful or ugly—whatever her character demands.
In the beginning no one paid much attention to Christy in this class, because she was so quiet I guess. But the first time she read from The Color Purple for Dramatic Interpretation, things changed. We’d been hanging around together for almost a month, and, although her reading impressed the whole class, it impressed me more.
She’d stood in front of the class, reading about how this woman loved a man, bodily. Her green, shining eyes met mine each time she glanced up from the book. I knew she’d chosen those pages for me. I still remember some of what it said: “I love his walk, his size, his shape, his smell. . .” She read on and on about the love of this woman for a man. And when she said the words, she looked like she was totally in love. No one talked, or even moved while she did her reading, and they stayed quiet for a while after. Then the whole class broke into applause.
“Wonderful!” Mr. Rogers said. “Excellent communication of feeling! Any suggestions for improvement? Is it a smooth cut?”
Everyone told her how good it was, no complaints. From that day on I had to get there early if I wanted to sit next to her. But that was okay. I knew who she’d been reading to, and it wasn’t them. It was me.
And I also knew something else from that reading. I knew it was time to buy condoms, because I was sure it wouldn’t be long before we did what I’d been wanting to do with her ever since our first kiss. That day, when she read from The Color Purple, my hopes weren’t all that was high. I walked out of class carrying my notebook in front of me, hiding my anticipation.
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But back to today. I’m already sitting in debate, in my usual place, when Christina and Kim walk right past me like I’m invisible and take seats on the opposite side of the room. I know I said I wished I’d never met Christy, but I did expect her to sit next to me like always. I mean, I don’t understand why she won’t even talk to me. So I get up and go sit beside her and ask, “How’s it going?” but before the words are even out of my mouth, she picks up her books and walks back to the other side of the room. Kim follows her. Practically the whole class notices.
“Oooohhh,” they say in unison, almost like they’d practiced.
I feel my face burning and I know I’m turning red. I open my notebook and look down, like I’m studying something, but really I’m thinking, what’s with her anyway? And Kim? What did I ever do to Kim? And the whole thing is seriously embarrassing.
Jeremy gets up from where he’s sitting, next to where I usually sit when I’m not making a fool of myself trying to talk to Christina, and he comes over and sits by me.
Jeremy leans toward me and whispers, “Lover’s spat, my man?”
Jeremy’s word choices usually make me laugh. He likes to talk like he’s somebody’s grandfather. Today I am not amused.
I just shake my head no, keeping my eyes on the notebook in front of me. There’s a lot of activity, people paired up, practicing speeches, checking reference materials, practicing Dramatic Interpretations. But I couldn’t care less.
On the wall, over the jammed-full trophy case, there is a poster that says, “It is better to debate a question and leave it unresolved, than to resolve a question without debating it.” That’s one of the things I’ve learned in this class, to look at a question from all sides, to talk stuff through before reaching decisions. It worked for me on the curfew thing.
For a long time my mom insisted that I be home no later than one, even on weekends. I hated it. Most of my friends didn’t have any curfews and nobody had to be in as early as I did. It was a joke. When I’d leave a party that was still going strong, Jeremy and Benny would yell out, “There goes J.B., working on his curfew merit badge.”
Finally, after a lot of debating the question and leaving it unresolved, like the poster says, we agreed on two as a curfew. Mom thought that was too late, and I didn’t want any curfew at all, but we reached a good compromise. She told me I should be a union negotiator instead of a teacher, but I don’t think so. Anyway, no matter how much I wish Christy and the whole pregnancy issue would magically disappear, I know I’ve got to try to figure some things out with her.
After class, I catch up with her in the hall.
“We’ve got to talk,” I say.
She keeps walking. I grab her arm.
“I mean it, Christy. I want to know what’s going on.”
“I already told you!” she says.
“Yeah, but I want to know more.”
“There’s no more to tell.”
“Yes, there is. Meet me at my car after school.”
She shakes her head no.
“Please, Christy. Please. We really do have to talk.”
Finally she nods yes, and I go on to class. I don’t know if she’ll show up after school or not, but she does. We drive to the place by Safeway, where we’d parked after school in the days before I could actually take her home.
Christy’s mom and dad are very strict, and her dad didn’t want her dating, ever, under any circumstances. He’s from Mexico and I guess they do things differently down there. For a long time Mr. Calderon wouldn’t “allow” Christy to see me. But he couldn’t keep us apart. In fact, maybe it made being together more exciting. One day though, I was so tired of sneaking around, I went to their house and I asked him to give me a chance. I told him we were going to see each other anyway.
It was scary. He’s not a big guy, but he’s muscular and he could probably throw a mean punch if he decided to. He got all red in the face and told me to leave. I did, but then the next night they invited me to their house for dinner, and her parents have liked me ever since. That would change fast if they knew the subject of our conversation right now.
“Are you sure you’re pregnant?” I ask.
Christy looks at me like I’m an idiot.
“I haven’t had a period since October first, I did a home pregnancy test that turned out positive, and the clinic test turned out positive. Half the time I throw up my breakfast, and look . . .”
She pulls her shirt way up. “Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed that I’m not flat chested anymore.”
I’d never thought of her as flat chested. She was the one who used to always make jokes about it. To tell the truth I had noticed that she was getting bigger on top, but I thought maybe she was still developing. She’s sixteen. That’s possible, isn’t it?
I pull her shirt back down. “Okay, okay,” I say.
“Okay, what?”
“Okay, I guess you’re pregnant.”
“Don’t guess, Jeff. It’s true! I’m in my seventeenth week.”
“I think it’s not too late for an abortion,” I say.
“I will not have an abortion! It’s my body and it’s my choice, and I choose NO ABORTION!”
“What are my choices?” I ask.
“That’s your problem,” she says.
“Christy . . .” I start, but don’t know what to say. Finally I say, “I don’t know how this happened.”
“It happened with you having a good time.”
“No, but you’ve been on the pill! You showed me your pills, in that little round container. I don’t get it.”
She looks away.
I see that she’s crying, but don’t rush to comfort her, like I used to. We sit for what seems like a long time.
“I need to go to work,” I say.
“I know you don’t love me anymore,” she says, turning her face toward me, showing her tears. I say nothing.
“Even if you don’t love me, we have a responsibility to our baby,” she says.
“We have a responsibility to ourselves,” I say, “to give us a chance in life first, before we mess up some poor kid.”
“I thought I could always depend on you, that you’d always be there for me,” she says, sobbing and catching her breath.
“I thought I could depend on you, too. When you said you couldn’t get pregnant, I believed you. Now look at the mess we’re in.”
She just sits there, crying. I fish around in the glove compartment for a tissue and hand it to her, then start the car and drive her home.
After work I sit at the desk in my room, with the door closed. I list the pros and cons of Christy getting an abortion. Maybe if I show it to her she will reconsider. I write:
Reasons not to have an abortion:
It will hurt.
Maybe it’s a sin.
Reasons to have an abortion:
Having a baby will hurt a lot more.
It’s not murder! It doesn’t have a brain yet—it’s a mass of cells, that’s all.
It’s too soon to have a baby because you and I both have to finish school.
We couldn’t be free. We’re too young to be tied down.
It would really upset our parents if they knew you were pregnant.
Why should we pay for the rest of our lives for some stupid mix-up with birth control pills?
Christy—worst of all, the world is probably going to be an awful place to live in by the time the baby would even get to high school. The whole ocean is polluted and there won’t be enough food to go around. The air will be unbreathable. Think about the poor, innocent life without a chance of happiness.
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When I read the list over, I don’t see how Christy can even consider going through with this pregnancy. It was a stupid mistake that needs to be corrected as soon as possible.
Tuesday morning I put the list in an envelope and seal it. On the front, in big black letters, I write CHRISTY— PLEASE THINK ABOUT THIS. Even though it means I’ll be late to my first class, I walk across campus to where I know Christy’s English class is, and I give her the envelope.
“See me at the car after school?” I ask.
“Okay,” she says, and she smiles her old smile at me. I think everything’s going to work out.
After school I wait and wait, but Christy doesn’t show up. I drive past her house and also past Kim’s house. She’s not at either place. I go to work, determined to put the whole thing out of my mind until tomorrow. Instead I end up doing a mental review of our history together, trying to figure out how things managed to go from being so great to being so messed up.