Lawrence Looks for Treasure

Part 2 - Chapter 3

3

'Matty!' I said, grinning.

The third and final member of our troupe, Matty, was lying on the bed, reading Mad Magazine. I was surprised to see him since he had rarely hung out this summer. Matty blamed work; Chris and I knew he was lying, but until today, we didn't know why.

Matty wasn't the lying type. He was the nice type. For instance, he'd be the first guy I'd call if I was ever in an embarrassing sort of jam. Not that Chris wouldn't help. Just that Matty'd be nicer about it. He'd play dumb, like nothing ever happened, or he'd play casual, like that kind of thing happened to everyone.

Matty was also nervous. For instance, he had this great hair. The kind of hair that looked better the messier it got. Girls would tell him that he looked like this or that celebrity, and it would always be one of those great-hair celebrities. Yet Matty was constantly worrying about his hair. Checking it in the mirror and re-adjusting it. Asking us over and over whether it looked weird. If Chris and I joked that it did, Matty'd often go home. Once, Matty told me privately that his parents were taking him to a psychologist in Montreal. Another time, he told me that he was taking pills. Neither helped. He was still as touchy as an electric fence.

Just like me, Matty wasn't applying to university. But where I had no plans, Matty had big ones. His marks were so good that he landed a job at a tech company in Toronto. He interned there last summer, and they offered him full-time work after graduation. It's funny—if I ever met Matty on the street, with his celebrity hair and tech-company job, I'd probably hate the guy. I'd think, man is he a douche. But I'd be wrong—because, if I got to know him, I'd learn that he was just this really nice, really nervous guy. A guy who often went home because his hair looked too weird. Things like that make me more optimistic. I bet a lot of people who seem like douches are actually really nice, really nervous guys.

Everyone had their own reason for going to Chris's. Mine, as I said, was divorce. Matty's was getting high. Matty would sit in Chris's room, sucking bong until smoke shot out his ears. But this summer, Matty had stopped coming by.

'Long time no see, man.' I said.

'Yeah, I know. I'm sorry,' Matty replied, awfully unapologetically. 'Work's been so busy. Wish I could come more often.'

'Oh, how I wish you were hee-ee-yer,' I sang in a scruffy Pink Floyd baritone.

Matty didn't reply. Instead he flipped the page of his Mad Magazine (to 'The Mad Guide to Man Boobs'), and continued reading.

'Work's never stopped you before.' I persisted. 'Something stinks. I don't know what, but Chris thinks so too—we've talked about it.'

'Nothing stinks,' Matty said, laughing. 'Where the hell is Chris, anyway?'

'You haven't seen him?'

'Nope,' Matty said. 'And I've been here for two hours. The one time I come over. . . That's cool, a guy can take a hint . . .'

'Did you see the police out front? Maybe it's related.'

'Yeah, I dunno.' Matty said. 'I saw cars, but I didn't see police. They probably just needed somewhere to park. Besides, I'm starving. Wanna get pizza or something?'

I wondered whether Matty knew more than he let on. Staring at him with cut eyes, I said: 'I'll go if you tell me where the hell you've been all summer!' And I jumped on him and caught him in a rear-naked choke. That's a jiu-jitsu move, in case you don't know, where you get on the guy's back, and try to pop his head clean off.

'Get off me, Lawrence, Jesus!' Matty said. 'I'm trying to read.'

I didn't get off, though. 'We can do this the easy way or the hard way!' He was bigger, but I was wilder.

'God damn it.' Dropping his magazine, Matty grabbed my arms and ripped them right apart; then he sort of jerked around and chucked me off the bed; then he picked-up his magazine, and went right on reading.

I hopped up from the floor, unscathed but a bit breathless. Pacing around the room, I looked for something else to do. Chris's room was big enough to fit everything, and he did—a widescreen connected to a PlayStation, an old futon piled with blankets and pillows, a mini-basketball hoop screwed to the wall and reinforced with duct tape (every game began with a little contact, but ended in a damn brawl), a heavy wooden poker table covered in hamburger wrappers and French-fry boxes, and a lot of photos of athletes tacked all over the place. Chris also kept a bong that stunk like rotten carrots, only worse. Normally it stayed in a lockbox under Chris's bed, just in case his Mom came round to play the How Can You Live in Such a Mess routine. But this morning, the bong sat on the poker table.

'You high, Matty?' I asked.

'Why?' He said nervously. 'Can you tell?'

'No man, you left the bong out.'

'Oh,' Matty said, turning to his magazine. Abruptly, he turned back to me. 'Hey, you still not applying to university?'

'Yupp,' I said, picking up the mini basketball. 'Still not applying.'

'Mm, no big deal. You can apply next year.'

'No way, dude.' I said more strongly than intended. Turning to the basket, I aimed my shot.

'What do you uh plan to do instead?'

'Something. Something big.' I said, still aiming. 'I'm gonna be a basketball star. I'm the poorest kid on the block, it's my only way out.'

Matty laughed. We're really two of a kind, me and Matty.

'Everyone tells me I'm too short, but basketball's in my freakin blood.' I clown with Matty more than anyone. I really do. 'Then, one day, the Raptors' point guard gets hurt. The team holds open try-outs. Who's gonna sub in? Who's gonna bring home the championship? Me, that's who. The poorest goddam kid on the block.' I ran at Chris's mini-hoop and dunked the ball so hard I fell all over myself.

Matty and I laughed some more, but behind his smile, he said: 'Seriously though, I'm worried, what are you gonna do if you never go to university? Stick around Kinnard?'

I sat upright on the floor.

'I don't know yet . . . I don't know . . . But don't you find that everyone's doing the same thing? Like, like we're all going down this one big highway—that we didn't even choose to get on? Elementary school. Camp. High school. University. Job. Suburbs. That's fine for some people, maybe for me too, but there must be other roads. I just wanna see what those roads are. And I'm scared that if I don't get off the highway now, I never will.'

I heard myself speaking, and I knew it sounded trivial. Sometimes, though, something can be so important on the inside that it just can't help but sound trivial on the outside. I was embarrassed, really. But the thing is, I know what I said wasn't trivial—because if it was, why did I feel like crying when I said it?

'I see what you're saying, man.' Matty said. 'You wanna do your own thing, I get that. But everyone needs some school and everyone needs a job. That's just how it is.'

'I know.'

Matty was trying to be a friend. And maybe he was right. But me and him are just different people, so there's really no mutual understanding, if you know what I mean.

'You have to . . .' Matty began, but all of a sudden, Chris burst into the room.

'Guys!' he said, breathlessly. 'Professor Tessio, she fucking found it!' 

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