How to Lose Everything Page 5

  “W-w-women,” said Sam, grinning moronically. He took a gulp of his beer. “They can be so obnoxious some-times. Th-that's just how they are.”

  Schulz nodded, bored, and I watched Eric, who was still engrossed in the passing cornfields. I tried to guess what he was thinking, but I hadn't gotten very far when the first signs of city life appeared through the windows.

  “C-cool graffiti,” said Sam. His stuttering commentary was getting on my nerves.

  “Graffiti! Yes, Sam, that is g-g-graffiti,” I mocked him.

  Suddenly Eric ripped his headphones off his ears. “We gotta get out.”

  I didn't understand. We weren't supposed to get out for two more stations, where we would transfer to the subway toward downtown.

  “Why?” asked Schulz.

  “Don't ask. Out. Now! We have to get out!” He jumped up. The train had already been stopped for a few seconds. I saw three older men coming down the aisle. One wore an outdated leather jacket that was too warm for the weather. Another one had a small leather bag dangling from his belt. Sam spilled his beer as he jumped up. At the last second we escaped through the door, just as it whooshed closed. The train continued on without us.

  “Ticket inspectors,” said Eric and, despite the no-smoking sign next to him, lit a cigarette. When an old man glared at him, he blew the smoke emphatically in his direction.

  “F-f-fucking f-f-fuck,” stuttered Sam.

  Eric put his headphones back on and once again transformed into the daydreamer he had been for the whole ride.

  We got on the next train. When we got off at the downtown station, it was busy, but we knew where we were going, and we didn't need to talk.

  When we came up the steps from the subway sta-tion, we were surrounded by a comforting chaos. Across from Footlocker, an Indian man was selling food. The sun was shining. A little farther down it smelled like tacos. The trees were in bloom. There were girls everywhere. And there it was up ahead at the corner: McDonald's. We bought Big Macs, McRibs, Chicken McNuggets, vanilla milkshakes, Cokes, fries, and Eric got an apple pie. We ate. We literally bought everything on the menu. We even bought four McRibs, even though the McRib is the shit- tiest sandwich at McDonald's, and no one besides Eric liked it, and he only liked it because he ate everything. Anyway, at that moment I understood for the first time what it meant to have lots of money. I mean, how many people can say they've gone to McDonald's and ordered everything on the menu?

  Our destination was a store off a side street from McDonald's. It sold baggy pants, hoodies, shoes, T-shirts with marijuana plant designs, and skateboards. Before, whenever I'd managed to save enough from my paper route, I'd come with Sam or Schulz to buy a T-shirt for forty marks or a pair of pants on sale. A blonde girl with a soft oval face was always standing behind the counter. Her hair was gelled, and her bangs hung down over her forehead. She wore big silver earrings and skater clothes. At home, there really were no girls who dressed this cool. The girls in the suburbs didn't even listen to any good music; they just went to school, studied, had boyfriends with cars, and weren't interested in anything else.

  When we came into the store, she was sorting re-ceipts. We weren't confident enough to say hi, so we just walked to the back of the store, where the pants and T- shirts were. Eric and I took some T-shirts off the rack, grabbed some hats, and found some other stuff, like belts and socks, that you normally wouldn't buy at a store like that.

  Just as we were about to take it all to the register, Schulz asked, “Don't you want to try them on first?”

  Eric shrugged and took his pile into the fitting room; I followed. Sunlight streamed in through a window facing onto the street. It was wide open, and there was no screen. Eric pointed to the street. I opened the door a crack and called for Sam to come over. He then went back to Schulz and whispered something to him. Schulz bought a T-shirt and then left the store. He waited on the street in front of the window, and soon pants, T-shirts, and a hoodie came flying out. Then Eric and I left the fitting room and paid for two pairs of pants and a belt, handing the girl the old bills. Sure, it was pretty stupid for us to steal clothes that we could afford to buy. But then again, they were the ones who put a window in a fitting room.

  The blonde girl smiled as we left the store—we'd just given her more than I'd spent there the entire last year. We smiled back and then headed down the street. Our backpacks were crammed with almost a thousand marks' worth of clothes.

  Life was simple and we were the ones calling the shots. Anyone who told us anything else was either a liar or a loser.

  I saw Carina again on a Saturday evening in early June. She was behind the counter at the gas station. We hadn't run into each other since the night of Daniel's party—a night that I couldn't really remember.

  All I knew was that when I'd woken up the next morning, I was lying in a bathtub, in my underwear, but with my shoes still on. Apparently I'd used the shower curtain as a blanket, and it reeked of beer. Absolutely everything reeked of beer, and my mouth tasted like it had been used as an ashtray. I sat up. Lying next to me on the floor was Christopher, a kid from my class. He was naked except for a washcloth over his crotch. He smelled like puke. I looked for my pants and found them next to the toilet. I reached into the pocket. The bills and the crumpled letter were still there. I didn't bother trying to find my T-shirt. I went downstairs and almost tripped over Daniel's giant bong, which someone had left on the steps. I found my jacket in the coat closet at the bottom of a massive pile. I put it on, pulled the zipper up to my chin, and went home. I refused to think about the letter and whether anyone might have read it. I wanted to forget it.

  Daniel's parents were still out of town, and Eric had really settled in. As a thank-you gift, he gave Daniel a pair of pants from the skater store. Of course, they were way too long for his dwarfish legs, but he wore them anyway. Actually, all his clothes were way too long for him, but it was a look he pulled off pretty well.

  That Saturday night when I saw Carina again, we were hanging out at Daniel's. We'd run out of booze, and Sam and I had gone to the gas station to get some more.

  As we walked in I heard a friendly yet annoyed voice say, “That'll be sixteen forty-nine.” I'd hoped she wouldn't be behind the counter. Everything that had happened was so fuzzy; I couldn't remember even a single clear moment. I mean, trying to say something funny or charming when you're stoned is hard enough, but feeling all this pressure on top of that, it was too much to handle.

  “Jack Daniels,” Sam suddenly called to me from the next aisle over. “I'm getting two bottles of Jack Daniels.” He paused. “And tequila. Tequila, too.”

  “Maybe beer, too,” I said quietly, attempting to go unnoticed by Carina.

  I went to the fridge for some Coronas. They were all sold individually, so I tucked three bottles under my left arm but then realized I couldn't carry any more that way. I didn't want to walk back and forth to the register carrying a few at a time, so I put one bottle in each of my pants pockets and filled my left arm with three more from the fridge. This might work, I thought. I picked up one last bottle in my right hand, but then my pants, which were so baggy they barely stayed up in the first place, started to head south. It wasn't going to work. Now she was watching me. I felt her stare. I was fucked. What was Sam doing? Why wasn't he coming to help me? Had I spoken too softly for him to hear me? Damn it. My pants slid lower, and in a few seconds they'd lose all traction and . . .

  “Sam!” I called angrily.

  “W-w-what?”

  I had to grab my pants. As I did, one of the bottles I was pressing into my chest fell and shattered on the lino-leum, surrounding me in a puddle of beer and glass.

  “Shit! Forget it,” I called.

  Sam laughed. Then she came over. She was holding a garbage bag and knelt down in front of me to pick up the pieces of glass. I carefully transferred the beer bottles, one by one, back into the fridge. The important thing was not to let go of my pants as she was kneeling there picking gla
ss out of the puddle. I finally grabbed the bottles out of my pockets, put them back, and pulled my pants up high, over my belly button.

  When she was finished and saw my hands were free, she handed me the garbage bag.

  “Here, hold this,” she said.

  Sam was standing in front of the magazine rack, paging through the latest issue of Time.

  Sometimes Sam scared me a little, but then I'd go back to thinking of him as a big teddy bear. He could be so pleasantly stupid. Sometimes that made him obnoxious, and at those times I wanted to smack him on his buzz-cut head.

  A trail of beer traced my footsteps as we made our way to the register. I dropped the bag in front of the counter. Carina scanned the three bottles of liquor Sam gave her. Without looking at us, she asked, “Are you going to Danny's? I was gonna stop by later.”

  Why would she want to come to Daniel's again? That would just complicate things even more.

  But Sam said, “Yeah, we'll be there.”

  “Forty-nine eighty-seven,” she said.

  I wanted to get out, so I didn't think about it, just handed her a hundred. “Keep the change.”

  She looked at me questioningly.

  “Yeah, yeah, keep the change. Keep the change. It's all good. For the beer and whatever. Sam, come on, let's go. Thanks again.”

  I took the bag with the liquor in one hand and clutched Sam's arm with the other. “Thanks!” she called after us.

  Daniel's front door was unlocked. He and Eric were sitting on the couch with their controllers, playing Tekken and blowing the occasional puff of smoke toward the ceiling. Orhan, three junior guys, and a girl I didn't know were also there. Orhan was trying to show the guys his butterfly knife. When he realized the weapon was eliciting more scorn than amazement, he pulled his white hat farther down over his black curls and played with the knife by himself. It snapped open, it snapped shut, it circled his wrist and snapped shut, it turned in his fist and snapped open.

  Sam and I sat down. He arranged the liquor bottles on the table, and I went to get glasses from the kitchen, which by now looked like it had been left in the care of a pack of raging alcoholics. Finally, in the farthest corner, I found the only things that were still clean: two eggcups. We chased two eggcups of Jack Daniels with two eggcups of tequila.

  Two hours and many eggcups later, Carina arrived. She sat down next to Daniel, but I was convinced that she was watching me out of the corner of her eye.

  She went into the kitchen. For some reason Lena popped into my mind, but only for a second. Thinking about her made me think about Schulz. And that made me think of his stories about where, when, and how often he slept with Lena. None of us wanted to hear it, but as annoying as it was, we were also all jealous.

  With those images and stories in my mind, I followed Carina into the kitchen. She had her back to me and was talking to some random girl I didn't know. It was a risk, but sometimes you just have to get in there and go for it, not hesitate, and do what you want to do. You had to be a man. I grabbed her ass.

  The girl she was talking to looked at me in absolute disgust as Carina whipped around. I grinned.

  “What the fuck?” Carina demanded.

  My grin evaporated. Somehow I hadn't expected that reaction.

  “Well, I gave you fifty marks today,” I said.

  Her little fist hit me right in the nose.

  Dear Mr. Mueller,

  They threw rocks into our yard again yesterday. One almost hit Gertrude in the head. It was the children, those Schneider brats. And the Summers' short little boy was there, too. They hate us. The Schneider woman hisses at me when she sees me. In fact, they all hiss constantly. There is a constant hissing. They do it because they want to make our lives unbearable! They have hated us since the day we moved into this house. Gertrude is getting worse every day. She keeps saying that she cannot take it anymore. Please, you have to help us. Surely there is enough evidence now. Please, you are our last hope.

  Sincerely,

  Hilda Stetlow

  After Eric had read the letter, he was quiet for a while, and then simply said, “Crazy.” That was it. Then he went back to staring into space.

  “They wrote this letter to their lawyer, but they never sent it. It's dated August 8, 1991. Why would someone do that?”

  Eric shrugged. “It's crazy,” he said. “Totally crazy. I have no idea why anyone would do that. No idea at all.”

  “Maybe someone stopped them from sending it.”

  “Hmm. Or they were just insane.”

  “What if they're still alive?”

  “No way. They must be dead. Otherwise they would have taken their money with them.” Eric stroked his chin in silence. After a while, I spoke up again: “Maybe they were taken away.”

  “Hmm.” Eric stroked and stared.

  “Don't you think it's kind of disturbing?”

  Eric grunted, then abandoned his blank stare and turned to face me.

  “Let's go to Frank's and get a pizza. I can't think straight when I'm hungry.”

  We were at the half-pipe, just Eric and I. We walked fast, Eric always a step ahead, so it took some effort for me to keep up.

  “Don't you think it's disturbing?” I asked again.

  “How?” He walked faster.

  “Well, it's all just really strange. Disturbing, I mean. At least a little bit, anyway . . .”

  “Maybe at first it's a little weird. But when you think about it, it's not. I mean, look, that's what business is. One group gets the thing they want, and the other group gets the thing they want.”

  “This isn't about business! It's got nothing to do with that.”

  “No, dude, it's business. Each person gets something out of it, so what's the difference? It's no different from us buying a pizza at Frank's.”

  I hated it when he walked ahead of me. Whenever he did it I always wound up looking pathetic. Either I ran after him like a pet dog, or else I had to ask him to go slower. Either way I looked like an idiot.

  I tried to follow his logic. “Okay, so it's business. Obviously the lawyer gets something out of it. He gets money. Which they have plenty of.”

  “Exactly. Someone wants something, someone else gives it to them. I don't see the problem.”

  “Uh, that wasn't the problem I was talking about.” I was panting. “I'm just wondering why they didn't send the letter.”

  Eric stopped in his tracks.

  “What letter? And what kind of lawyer are you talking about? I don't need a lawyer. I'm not gonna get caught!”

  “The letter from the house! The letter you just read! It was addressed to a lawyer.”

  “Oh, right, that letter.” Eric turned around and continued marching at almost a jogging pace.

  “So what do you think?”

  “No idea. Honestly, I really don't care who was upset with who. That was forever ago. I was talking to Zafko again yesterday. Just talking—not about selling his stuff and getting commission. Though that's definitely getting started soon. I can get going with it whenever. But I just asked him, all casual, ‘So, what if I bought a whole pound?' He laughed at me and said, ‘Forget it. You could never afford it.' I stared back at him and said, ‘Or maybe I could.' I said it just like that. He gave me this look—you should have seen it. And so I asked him again, ‘How much would a pound cost if I bought it direct?' He didn't know what to say! He just stared at me for a minute. Then he told me: ‘Three thousand marks.' So maybe I'll do it, bring him the cash. Work for him? Fuck that shit. That's stupid. If I'm going to do this, it's way better for me just to go big.”

  A breeze swept past us, making the hairs on my arm bristle. It felt good on such a humid evening. The red sun was just sinking below the supermarket in the distance. I didn't like June. Too much growing and blooming. I was tired and sweaty, but Eric—Eric, the Energizer bunny—just kept going.

  “Eric, maybe this is a dumb question, but . . .” Something was blocking my train of thought. Something to do with Sam.r />
  Eric didn't turn around or slow down. He just muttered, “Huh?”

  “Are . . . aren't you worried?”

  “Worried?”

  “Yeah, worried. About getting caught. About not being in school. I mean, aren't you worried about the future or whatever?”

  He stopped in his tracks. The last rays of sunlight were reflected in his eyes. He looked straight at me, as if he were going to fight me right there in some struggle for the truth. I couldn't hold his gaze. I felt ashamed the second I looked away. It's always the losers who look away first.

  Then Eric spoke. “My dad said something like that to me the other day. He's always talking like that. He said, ‘Son, what do you want to do with your life? Remember when you were ten, when you wanted to go to college and become an archaeologist? Now you've gotten yourself kicked out of school, you're on drugs, and you're going nowhere fast.' I know exactly why he talks to me like that. He's checking to see if he can still pressure me into doing what he wants. He knows he can't really stop me. I don't live with him. I take care of myself. So he's trying to play mind games. But he can go fuck himself. That shit doesn't work on me. They can all go fuck themselves. All of them. I don't need them, and they don't need me either.”

  Then he took off again, slower than before, but with the same intensity. His head was bent forward, like he was fighting gale-force winds instead of a pleasant summer breeze. He spoke again.

  “That money is ours. We're untouchable now. And I'm not gonna just blow it on nothing. I'm gonna invest it. That money from the house is just seed money. Give it three years, okay, maybe five, and we'll probably be millionaires.” I'd never heard him speak so fast. “What do I need school for? Why do I need to graduate? Sure, college might be fun. But I can read books on my own. I don't need school for that. Look, right now I'm reading this book called Chariots of the Gods. I read a little every day. It's really interesting. Did you know that the pyramids in South America and the ones in Egypt are insanely similar? There's no way humans could have built something like that. This guy says—and this is so awesome, just think about it—he says it was aliens. How are you gonna learn stuff like that in school?”