Part 8 (1/2)

That almost set me off. I almost started yelling at him right then and there: about Beth, about the punks he hung out with, about everything. But somehow I managed to swallow it all and keep my mouth shut. I mean, Alex had gotten into the car. He wanted to talk to me. That had to be a good sign, right? It wouldn't do any good if I just got on his case.

”Yeah, fine,” was all I said finally.

Alex jammed a hand into his tracksuit pocket. He brought out a pack of cigarettes.

”Hey, look . . .” I said.

”Oh, what?” he snapped back. ”Are you my mother now or something?”

”It's my mom's car, all right? No smoking. You want a cigarette, we'll park somewhere, you can shove the whole pack in your mouth and set your face on fire for all I care.”

There was more silence as Alex reluctantly stuffed the cigarettes back in his tracksuit. Then, a second later, I heard him give kind of a snort. The sound surprised me. I glanced over at him. Unbelievably, he was cracking up: laughing, laughing hard, his smile broad and happy just like it used to be back in the days when we hung out together.

He shook his head, wiping his eyes, laughing. ”*Set your face on fire,'” he said. ”You are such an idiot.”

I had to laugh at that too. ”It does make a pretty funny picture . . .”

”Whoos.h.!.+” he said, imitating the noise his face might make if it went up in flames.

That made me laugh some more.

After a while, our laughter died away. I turned the car off the big road and headed down Oak Street. It's a nice long quiet lane of houses set back behind rows of trees. The trees' branches form a canopy over the road. It made it pretty dark with the sun so low and the yellowing September leaves shading the pavement. I turned the headlights on. We drove another few seconds without talking.

”Listen,” I said, ”if you don't want me to ask Beth out . . .”

I left that hanging there, hoping he'd tell me to forget the whole thing. But he didn't. He said, ”Yeah? What then? What if I don't want you to ask Beth out?”

”Well,” I said, ”I'll probably ask her out anyway. But I'll feel bad about it for a few minutes, if that'll help you any.”

I heard Alex let out a long breath next to me. ”Nah,” he said. ”Why shouldn't you go out with her? She's not going out with me. In fact, you guys'd probably have a good time together. I mean, she's the coolest girl I ever met.” I felt him glance at me as I drove. ”That stuff I said about her back at the mall: that was just me mouthing off. I didn't mean it.”

That pa.s.sed for an apology as far as I was concerned, and it was good to heara”really good. It made the anger go out of my heart completely. And let me tell you, it was nice to get rid of it.

”Things are just tough right now,” Alex said in a soft voice.

”Sure, I get it,” I said. I was glad I was driving. Glad it was getting dark. Glad Alex and I didn't have to look at each other and could just talk. ”You mean with your folks and everything.”

”Yeah,” said Alex. ”It's the *everything' that gets you.”

”What do you mean?”

He was quiet a long time. The shadows of the trees pa.s.sed steadily over the winds.h.i.+eld. Behind the trees, the lights of houses began to come on, yellow and warm in the deepening evening. The lights made you think of good things: people having dinner together or watching some show on TV and laughing together. That's what they made me think of, anyway.

”Aw, nothing,” Alex said then. ”You wouldn't get it.”

”Get what?”

”The whole thing. It's like . . . forget it.” There was anger in his voicea”anger and a kind of weariness.

”Well, try me,” I told him. ”I mean, whatever it is, I can't get it if you don't explain it to me.”

”It's not that, it's . . . It's you, Charlie. It's the way you are. You think everything's so simple. You know? You walk around all sure of yourself. You think good is good and bad is bad. You think, Work hard, pray to G.o.d, respect your parents, love America, and everything'll be great.”

”I never said everything'd be great. I just feel better about myself when I try to do what's right, that's all.”

”See, that's what I mean. Everything's so straight and narrow for you. It's like you were brainwashed by your parents or something, and now you believe all that goody-good-guy garbage. Things would look a lot different to you if everything weren't so easy. I mean, nothing's ever gone bad for you. Not really bad.”

It made me feel kind of insulted, him saying that. I could feel myself getting angry all over again. My first impulse was to argue with him. To tell him things weren't easy for me all the time. I wanted to tell him about how my mom sometimes nagged me to death and my sister drove me crazy and my dad worked too much and how sometimes I worried about . . . oh, all kinds of stuff, a lot of stuff. Sometimes things weren't easy at all. Luckily, though, I managed to pull off my now-famous keep-the-old-mouth-shut routine yet again. I had to eat my pride to do it this time, but I figured if I started arguing about me, then we'd never get around to talking about him. And I figured, the way things were going in his life, it was probably more important for us to talk about him. So I just said, ”Okay,” and waited, driving under the trees and past the warm lights of the houses.

It worked. Alex went on, talking faster now, as if the words were just pouring out of him almost before he could think of them. ”I mean, it's easy to believe in things when everything's going right, when you go home and your folks are there, and you don't have to worry about where you're gonna live or what you're gonna eat or anything. Then it's easy to say, Oh, work hard and pray to G.o.d and everything'll be great. In this wonderful free country of ours, blah, blah, blah. But, I mean, what if all that stuff's a lie, Charlie? You ever consider that? I mean, what if you come home one day and your dad's gonea”I mean, just gone, like he never even existeda”or like being your dad didn't mean anything to him? And you gotta listen to your mother crying in her bedroom all the time because she's alone and she doesn't have enough money and you don't even know whether you're gonna be able to stay in your crummy house. What good is working hard then, Charlie? What good is *America the Beautiful'? And where's G.o.da”what's he doing about it?”

”He's still there, Alex,” I said quietly. ”He's right with you the whole way.”

”Oh, thanks a lot!” he snapped angrily. ”What good does that do me? Huh? I mean, don't you ever ask yourself: what if it's all a lie? I have. Not just me either. A lot of people.”

”What do you mean? What's all a lie?”

”Everything!” Alex was really worked up now. I could see him out of the corner of my eye, waving his hands around as he talked. ”I mean, they tell you G.o.d is good and they tell you America is good and they tell you this is the way to live, free like this where you can do whatever you want . . . but what if that's not true? What if none of it's true? I mean, my dad did whatever he wanted. What's so good about that? I mean, what if we need to tear it all downa”all the religious stuff and the patriotism stuff and everythinga”and just start again in a new way, a stronger way?”

We were coming to the end of Oak Street. There was a park here. Just a small neighborhood place with a ball field and a picnic ground and a couple of tennis courts on the far side. It was empty now, the dark folding down over it. I could see little globes of white light s.h.i.+ning where the park's security lamps had come on.

I turned the corner and pulled the Explorer over to the curb. I stopped next to the park and turned the engine off. I could hear the quiet of the night falling outside. Crickets chirping out in the gra.s.s and the faint whisper of traffic over on 109.

I turned in my seat and faced Alex. ”All right. What are you talking about? I don't understand what you're saying.”

Alex's hands moved around as he tried to explain. Even in the growing dark, I could see the pain in his face.

”I'm talking about being lied to! I'm talking about . . . everything you thought was true turning out to be a lie and . . . and about changing everything so it's better!”

”Look, I know things are hard with your folks breaking up, but . . .”

”It's not that! It's not just that. It's not just me, Charlie. There's a lot of peoplea”good people, smart peoplea” who say the same thing.”

I shook my head a little, confused. ”What people? Who? Who are you talking to?”

”Well . . .” His mouth moved as if he wanted to say more, but no words came out. ”Just people, that's all. I mean, you listen to people, right? You're always telling me what your dad says, or what your minister says, or . . . Sensei Mikea”man, you never stop talking about him.”

”Okay, sure,” I said. ”I mean, you gotta find people in the world you trust, right? People who know more than you and will tell it to you straight and help you out. What's wrong with that?”

”Nothing! Nothing! That's just what I'm talking about. That's just what I'm saying: maybe I have people in my life who see through all this stuff, you know?”

”All this . . . ?”

”All this rah-rah for G.o.d and school and home and America. Maybe I have people I trust who know better than all that.”