How to Lose Everything Read online

  Lena giggled. It sounded tinny through the receiver, but it made me feel good; it was sweet.

  “What's so funny?”

  “Nothing, you're just cute.”

  “Cute?”

  “Yeah, kind of adorable.”

  “Ah.”

  I felt flattered—even though I was pretty sure she wasn't just saying it to be nice. She had some ulterior motive, but I didn't know what it could be. Maybe she even knew that I knew something was up. It didn't matter though. It didn't change anything.

  “Yeah, so, what's up?”

  “You want to go back there. Into the house again.”

  “No. No way. I mean, that's not exactly true. Anyway, who told you that?” Of course, Schulz must have told her, and it was completely ridiculous for me to try to lie about it. I stopped talking.

  “He just told me about it. We had a fight.”

  She didn't speak again for a long time, and I didn't say anything either. No matter what I said, it wasn't going to change anything.

  “Look. I'm sorry to wake you up. It's just . . . sometimes I just need someone to talk to. I don't know what else to do.”

  I didn't say anything.

  “I don't know why, but with you, I always feel like you understand me. I . . . I didn't want to bother you, I just don't know what else to do sometimes. I . . .”

  She sniffled. Once, then twice, then everything swelled to a sob, and that was more than I could take.

  “Lena.” I was startled by my voice because it came out in a whisper. “Please don't cry. What happened? You can tell me everything, really. I'm wide awake now, I'll listen. Please stop crying. Everything'll be okay.” And then I said it: “He's not worth it.”

  Her sobbing stopped, as if she had been waiting for those words. I heard her sniffling.

  “He's an idiot,” she said and sniffed her nose.

  “An idiot,” I repeated.

  “He doesn't deserve me,” she said.

  “He doesn't,” I repeated.

  “And he's really not that good looking.”

  “You wanted to tell me what happened.”

  She laughed again, which made me happy, but at the same time it seemed a little messed up. I mean, how could she be crying one second and laughing the next? Anyway, she told me what happened.

  When Schulz went home after leaving the half-pipe, Lena came over to his place. She started getting on his case about his black eye. She told him, “Everything that happens to a person is a result of his own actions, and if you got a black eye, then you did something to deserve it.” She'd just been reading about that in some philosophy book. At some point Schulz flipped out. He threw his PlayStation controller against the wall and screamed at her. He said he didn't need anyone who “wasn't 100 percent” supportive. Lena started to cry and said, “It's all because of the money. It's brought bad luck.” Schulz yelled, “Money, my ass! You liked when I bought you that shitty perfume. And this is the thanks I get?”

  Lena told him that wasn't true, that he didn't understand anything. Then Schulz said, “Just wait and see. You'll be hot for me again tomorrow. We're getting more money tomorrow.”

  Lena told him that lately he's seemed more and more like a loser who needs money to boost his self-confidence.

  Then Schulz called her a “whore.”

  Lena said that then she stood up in front of Schulz and slapped him before she could control herself. She meant to hit his cheek, but instead her hand met Schulz's eye.

  Schulz winced, and she immediately said she was sorry. She said, “Sorry, Schulzie,” and went to comfort him. But Schulz didn't act like he'd heard her at all. He just hit her back.

  Lena was crying again. I didn't know what to say to comfort her. I wanted to say that it was definitely not okay to hit a girl. Not under any circumstances, friendship or not. You just didn't do that. Maybe I even wanted to tell her that I couldn't still be friends with Schulz anymore. But I didn't say any of that.

  Instead I just said, “Shit.”

  A dog is walking down a street. On either side of him are manicured lawns and long driveways that end with unforgiving brown garage doors. His feet go “tep-tep-tep” over the hardened tar of the street. Yards are taboo; the dog knows that. And so he trudges on down the street, hungry, thirsty, tired. His tongue hangs out of his mouth. His paws are blistered from the hot, raw asphalt, and every now and then a small pebble will bore into them. There's not a dog, person, or cat in sight, nothing but asphalt and houses, nothing to engage his senses, no smell, no sound. Only the eternal monotony of the never-ending row of identical houses with their forbidden yards and the soft whisper of his own four paws on the asphalt. Tep-tep-tep-tep, tep-tep-tep-tep, tep-tep-tep-tep . . . Suddenly something appears on the horizon. The street is a dead end, and the dog has a destination. He breaks into a trot and a scent creeps into his nose. He goes faster, the rhythm of his paws' patter accelerating, tep-tep-tep-tep-tep-tep. He smells meat. His muscles vibrate; everything in him starts to pull in one and the same direction. The monotony of the street, the forbidden houses and yards, they become like guardrails guiding him along the way. The scent of the dead flesh streams through his brain and his eyes seek out the destination, a tantalizingly red gleaming pile. There is no doubt anymore, not a hint of reluctance, no distraction, everything is clear. With all the strength that his jaws can muster, he lunges into the moist flesh. Panting and grunting, he tears out a big chunk, twisting his head around to gather enough force. There's only him and the meat. He eats.

  Several minutes later, he's dead. But his poisoned body continues to twitch in the afternoon sun.

  The red digits on my clock read 5:46 a.m. when I woke up. I felt sick and I remembered the pepperoni and sausage pizza at Frank's. I went to the bathroom and briefly glanced in the mirror. I should explain that I don't like mirrors: In malls, in train stations, or even in fitting rooms, I always try to avoid them. I have a picture of myself in my head, and in it I look okay. I don't need to constantly inspect whether everything is perfect. But now, there was no helping it: My hair was sticking out all over the place and my eyes were marbled with red. I thought it would be terrible to have a job where you had to get up this early every day.

  Sam looked like a ninja. He had a blue bandanna wrapped over his mouth and nose. Only his eyes were visible between the square of fabric and his Yankees hat. He was wearing wool gloves “in case of fingerprints or whatever.”

  When Schulz took off his new Ray-Bans, I could see that the swelling around his eye had gone down, but now a purplish-reddish-bluish bruise extended from the bridge of his nose all the way to his temple. “These aren't knock-offs,” he said, pointing to the sunglasses.

  It was a bright day. The sun blazed through the hazy blue afternoon sky, making Eric blink when he looked at it. In a way, it seemed like he was almost communicating with the heavens above. I'm sure he was thinking about something from Chariots of the Gods. The pants that he had stolen from the skater store were already ripped at the ends because they fell past his shoes, and he was always stepping on them. He took a final drag from his cigarette and threw it on the sidewalk. Then he sucked in the summer air, his nostrils flaring a little as he did. He looked wild, almost like an animal. Once again Eric was the first one to jump over the fence gate, which was now almost completely overgrown by the hedge. We followed after him.

  A bee buzzed lazily above the dandelions and knee-high grass. We opened the patio door and breathed in the mildewed air as we stepped inside. We felt like pros. We knew the ropes now. We went up the steps instinctively, without saying a word to one another. The plywood door on the second floor was open, just like the last time. We were in.

  We spread out right away. Sam headed to the back, toward the living room, where the balcony was. Schulz went into the kitchen. (I could hear plates rattling as he threw open the cabinet doors.) Eric and I went into the bedroom.

  Eric pulled out the drawer in the nightstand and dumped the contents onto the fl
oor. Rings and bracelets rapidly disappeared into his huge pants pockets. I pushed the mattress up a little, stooped down, and laid it on my right shoulder. No one said a word; we were like a SWAT team carrying out a search warrant. We had a solid routine. In the middle of the bed frame I saw a bundle of envelopes. I extended my arm as far as I could, but my fingers still couldn't reach and the mattress was heavy on my shoulder. Suddenly the mattress bent. Eric pushed it up.

  “Fuck that,” he said.

  We pulled the mattress out of the frame, balancing it against the wall, and leafed through the pile. The unsealed envelopes, smelly with age, contained letters that had never gone out. But they didn't have any money.

  “Schulz, get us a knife!” Eric called. A moment later, a figure with sunglasses and a slightly rusted chef's knife stood in the doorway. Schulz grinned.

  “You look like someone from Dead Alive,” said Eric. “Give me that thing.”

  Schulz didn't give it up. He held it tight in his hand, not relaxing his grip—or his grin. He came toward us slowly, deliberately, and then mounted the mattress and stabbed it. The knife tore into the padding, so deep you couldn't even see the blade anymore. Then Schulz dragged it down, stopping after about four inches. He pushed his hand in and felt around in all directions until eventually his entire lower arm had disappeared inside.

  I was sure that he was about to produce gold or at least a bundle of hundred-mark bills. But after a minute, as Schulz kept rummaging around in the moldy thing, I couldn't help but think of Andy Stattler. Someone at school had told us about how Stattler, after losing some bet, had to go stick his arm up a cow's butt. So one night Stattler and his friends snuck into a barn. His arm was in the cow up to his elbow when suddenly the lights came on and the farmer was standing there armed with a pitchfork. Stattler had left school at least five years ago, but the rumor stuck around.

  “Schulz, I don't think there's anything in there,” said Eric.

  “Yeah, there is,” he wheezed. “I mean, there's got-ta be something.” His entire body struggled against the weight of the mattress.

  “I think we would have spotted a seam somewhere.”

  In the meantime, I took a couple of letters from the pile and shoved them into my pocket. Sam appeared in the doorway and stared at the crazy dude with half an arm waving around inside a shredded mattress.

  “There's nothing out there,” he said, like a soldier reporting back from his latest patrol.

  Finally, Schulz gave up and pulled his arm out of the mattress. A thick wire spring followed him. His face was bright red. “Shit,” he said. “What if there's nothing else here?”

  “Chill out,” Eric said. “There has to be something.”

  With that, we collectively scanned the room in silence—four pairs of eyes hunting for treasure. Four brains pondering where the best hiding place would be. We all stopped at the same place.

  The wardrobe.

  Eric took two quick steps and stopped only inches away from its hulking darkness. It was over six feet high and six feet wide, with smooth, rounded edges. Its doors were locked.

  “Where's the key?” asked Eric, boring his fingertips into the narrow opening between the door and the bolt. He pushed, tore, and yanked at it as hard as he could. The old wood creaked but the wardrobe didn't open. “There has to be a key here somewhere. Damn it. Those assholes must have hidden a key somewhere.”

  Schulz pulled the rug back from front of the wardrobe, spraying dust everywhere; he coughed asthmatically as the giant cloud enveloped his face. Eric got a chair from the kitchen, stepped up on it, and felt with his hand over the top of the wardrobe. Eric yanked at the door again. His fingers slid along the length of the upper edge of the wardrobe door until they found a hold at the corner. Sam kneeled on the floor in order to yank at the lower edge at the same time. The wood groaned, and the door bowed outward at the corners. Schulz and I came to help; both of us grabbed hold of tiny openings in the middle. The four of us pulled and bent the stubborn old door. We swore and grunted. Then Eric stopped, got down from the chair, pushed it aside, and moved a good three feet back from the wardrobe. We shifted aside, and Eric rammed into it once, twice, three times. But the wood didn't break.

  I ran downstairs to the first floor. I remembered the ax leaning against the wall in the big room with the clothing line. I savored the weight of the steel, which strove toward the ground even as I heaved it up. I ran my fingers over the cold metal, felt the small grooves in the blade, slid my hand back over the warm wood to the handle. Armed now, I went back upstairs into the bedroom.

  When the others saw me, they paused. I didn't let go of the weapon. I had found it and I wanted to be the one to use it. I smiled, and everyone stepped aside.

  The ax arced upward and sped down into the hardy old wood. It cracked. Splinters shot into the air like sparks.

  “Awesome!” cried Sam.

  But the ax was stuck. I pulled it down, pulled it up, and yanked on it with both hands until the steel finally dislodged from the wood. Then the hatchet fell a second time. A third time. The dark wood began to split.

  “Finish him!” Eric bellowed, echoing the famous line from one of the video games we played at Daniel's.

  This hatchet method was taking too long. The hole at shoulder-height was only wide enough for a fist. Better to smash the lock. I struck sideways so that the blade hit at a right angle to the wood. Once, twice, the steel of the hatchet collided with the metal. It became twisted. Wood splintered everywhere. One more hard swing should do it. I was sweating; dust coated the roof of my mouth. Just one more time, I thought. I hit it hard and the lock broke away. But I didn't stop. I wasn't finished yet. I dashed the hatchet against the wood again and again, as if punishing the door for its re-sistance. By the time I quit, the wardrobe was littered with holes, and the lighter wood from inside spilled out from the piece of furniture like entrails.

  Eric grabbed hold of my arm and said, “That's enough. You can stop now; the door's open.”

  Panting, I let the ax fall.

  I felt a little light headed. I wasn't a legal expert, but I knew by breaking open the wardrobe we had crossed another line. We'd begun with trespassing and now we were moving on to property damage. And for what? All we could see was fabric. Neatly folded bedsheets sorted onto different shelves: pillowcases, fitted sheets, blankets with old-fashioned patterns—tiny flowers, gingham, more tiny flowers. It smelled like mildew and lavender and mold.

  Schulz tore the linens off the shelves and shook them out in the hope that bills would be hidden somewhere inside them. Sam—and here we probably should've noticed that something wasn't quite right—started picking up the discarded sheets, folding them, and laying them neatly in a pile. For the first time, I realized the chaos that we were creating. Leaning against the wall was the cutup mattress with the chef's knife sticking out of it. The slats of the bed frame had been broken, and next to it lay the scattered contents of the nightstand drawer: knick-knacks, slips of paper, costume jewelry. In front of the bedroom door a mountain of fabric was steadily piling up, and Schulz was still trying to add to it. Everything was littered with wood splinters. The ax lay in the corner. Dust swirled through the air. We were all panting. Meanwhile, outside the house, the sun shone, sparrows twittered, and in a house nearby, some lady was probably ironing clothes for her husband, who would be mowing the grass on the weekend.

  “Cut it out!” said Eric. “Stop. Leave it. Leave it alone. We're not finding anything.”

  We all looked at him. Sam let go of a blanket with a purple blossom pattern.

  Eric didn't say anything. Instead, he went back to the doorway, where the chair was lying after Schulz had pushed it away. He brought it back and placed it in front of the wardrobe. The seat, sheathed in a piece of plastic wrap, was smeared with grease and covered with leftover food. Eric wiped his sticky fingers on his pants, then got on the chair. He reached into the highest shelf of the wardrobe, which was smaller than all the others. He peered in
side and turned toward us, grinning. He seemed about to say something, but the only sound that came out was a chortle. He produced a plastic bag with something in it. There had to be something in it, right?

  Eric got down from the chair. The bag was about the size of a lady's pocketbook and it sagged. We waited for him to open it. But Eric wrapped the bag in his arms, looked at us briefly—and just walked out of the room.

  Sam pulled his bandanna down from his mouth. “Eric! W-wait!”

  Eric went into the kitchen, and we followed. Then he did something really bizarre. He took one of the mildewed cookies deteriorating in a package on the table, placed it on his outstretched hand, and said, “Whoever eats this can have what's in the bag.”

  “What the fuck?” I demanded. “Just open it!”

  Eric pretended not to hear me. “Whoever wants what's inside has to eat the cookie.” He held it up for us to see. The cookie was half covered in green, furry mold.

  “So . . . Who's it gonna be?”

  No one said anything.

  “G-give us the b-bag! It's not funny.”

  “You want me to give you the bag? I'll give it to you. No problem. I'm happy to. But first, you eat the cookie.”

  “G-g-give us the bag,” Sam said again. I murmured my agreement. Schulz said nothing.

  “No problem, Sam. You can have the bag. But first, you have to eat the cookie.”

  “N-no.”

  What had gotten into Eric? This was unbelievable. Sam's eyes got bigger and bigger, looking from the bag to the cookie and back again.

  “Okay, Sam. Let's make a deal: You can have half of what's in the bag, and you don't have to eat the whole cookie. You just have to take one bite. How about that? That's a damn good bargain: one bite of a moldy cookie for half of what's in this bag. Of course, I can't tell you what's inside. Maybe it's not money. Maybe it's just,” he took a peek into the bag, “maybe there's just a bunch of granny panties. Or maybe not . . . What do you think?”