Happy birthday

Happy birthday - 17 candles

Of all the scumbags in my school, Edward Mueller is surely the one I'd be more glad to see run over by a truck. Let me be really clear, I don't mean the others wouldn't deserve that as well, but that guy... I simply can't stand him. Maybe it's because Theresa, my sister, big sister but only on paper and just one year older, talks about him all the time: Eddie here, Eddie there, Eddie can do this, Eddie said that, Eddie got an A, Eddie plays guitar, Eddie can surf, Eddie's got blue eyes and curls, Eddie is so beautiful and blah blah. Umph, it doesn't take a genius to keep afloat on a board, strum a couple of chords or not to suck at school. I have all A grades and play the bass, but never got any compliment by Theresa, unless you don't consider as compliments her stupid pranks and jokes with her friends in the schoolyard, the insults at dinner or the doors shut at my face. Strangely enough, she doesn't worship me the same way, who knows why? Probably because I don't have a penis and I'm not as hypocritical as that jerk. Yeah, that's the thing that pisses me the most: his being fake. 'Cause he's not just the typical popular kid at school, the attorney's son, the handsome guy, no! That wouldn't be enough! He's the nice guy, the good Samaritan who gets along with everyone and always has a smile and a word for everybody, even nerds and losers. That's it, he, from the heights of his benevolence, descends from his cross like some Jesus Christ, walks on water to us, poor mortals, and extends a hand, offering us stale bread and a few fish bones to keep us happy. He can just fuck off!
I've always managed to ignore him without any effort, walking head down and at a brisk pace every time we came across in the school hallways, avoiding his looks and his smiles, without giving him the time to even think about saying hi or anything else to me. Oh no, my dear, I won't give you the umpteenth opportunity to show how nice and friendly you are. I know who you really are: you're the one who used to make fun of Julian Novak and paid the consequences. Julian, the 10th grade's loser, now at 11th grade like me. The boy with braces and acne, yeah, that's him, the one who's born with the label of predestined victim of funny people like you. You and your idiot friends had been picking on him for ages, but last year you went wild with it. After all, he only seemed a harmless little prick, right? WRONG. 'Cause the little prick had a lion's rage hidden inside him, the anger of a kid ignored by his father and tolerated by his mother, like a small stain on the living room's curtains that hopefully is not so evident, who didn't want to surrender to his destiny of loser and who'd had a really bad morning that day. "Not today", that's what he told you after hitting you with a left like a pro boxer, tired of your shit. I know because I was there, during lunch break, under my favorite tree, enjoying the scene. I can say that it was, without a doubt, one of the highest moments in my school experience. And this says a lot about my relationship with school. That event must have been a sort of epiphany for Edward, since he was illuminated on the way to Damascus and turned into the nice guy everybody loves, even Julian Novak, since Eddie apologized to him. Now they even hang out sometimes after school. I think Mueller simply understood that blood didn't look good on that pretty face of his, girls didn't like it, and that being hit hurts more than hit.
  It was so easy and nice to ignore him, until my asshole sister decided she wanted to learn how to play guitar. The biggest bullshit I had ever heard! Listening to her records, a form of torture I'd never undergo voluntarily, but unfortunately am forced to bear because of the thin wall separating our bedrooms, I think you can't find the sound of a guitar (real or fake one) even if you do your best. And if Edward knew my sister a little, he probably understood himself that it was just a stupid pretext to spend some time together and drool over him. I didn't care if Theresa wanted to take an instrument and inflict pain to it, even though any time those little polished fingertips touched a string I could distinctively hear the sound of some legendary dead guitarist uncomfortably turning over in his graves. The worst thing was having Edward The Saint at home regularly. I often bumped into him on the stairs or at the doorway, anyway ignoring his "Hi" was easy, I only had to rush to my room and put headphones on, to replace the torment coming from my sister's room with real music. At some point I became braver and I stopped using headphones anymore, after all Theresa could use some little help for her learning. I never missed the chance to give the two lovebirds my precious rock lessons. Pink Floyd or Sonics, Stones or Buzzcocks, Dead Kennedys or AC/DC, it could be anything, sometimes I also gave them the cherry on top: me practicing with my bass. Theresa systematically got mad at me and gave punches on the wall, I'm sure it was her 'cause Eddie's ones are not so hard, or furiously burst into my room, showering me with words not suited to a respectable girl. Meanwhile the wannabe Pete Townshend laughed, staying at the door."We could jam together" he once suggested, causing me to laugh and my beloved sister to almost have a stroke. Then she stormed out of my room, pulling him on his shirt and dragging him behind, like a puppy on the leash.
In another occasion, I was the one who risked a heart attack, always because of him. It happened in my room, my favorite place of the house, when I was intent on practicing a Ramones' song, trying to convince myself that by playing Dee Dee parts to perfection I would have implicitly become badass. That motherfucker had the bright idea of entering, while I was totally lost in music, and stay there, making fun of me, behind my back literally, for who knows how long, before placing a hand on my shoulder to finally catch my attention. I probably jumped 5 feet high, as high as myself. And almost as him. Midget!
"Do you like Ramones?" he asked me with his usual smile and face, which basically beg you for slaps.
"No, I hate them, I listen to them because I like to suffer. See? I'm so masochist I also play their songs" I answered showing him my instrument.
"I see. And I listen as well. Not bad. What about guitar? Can you play it?" he went on asking me, as if we were big friends.
"Yeah, I'm good at that, I don't need your help. You must resign to have one single student, Theresa" I snapped.
"I didn't mean that. I don't understand why your sister didn't ask you to teach her" he said with a fake candor. Little Eddie wanted some first-hand gossip about Theresa to know what to do with her, but he chose the wrong person.
"If you don't understand it, you're retarded. And that doesn't surprise me at all" I remarked before placing my bass on the bed, grabbing my bag and run out of the room and out of my house, before he could retort. I didn't like the idea of leaving him alone in my room, but I had no intention to be his sentimental counselor.
Other intrusions like this occurred, but then, thanks to my mother, I was more or less able to know on advance when Mr Mueller would have come over and therefore managed to avoid him wisely. Months went by and my sister kept on sucking at guitar exactly like she did when she started learning to play, so I could only imagine what their lessons were really about. I wish I would have caught them red-handed, causing a lot of trouble to the blood of my blood, but the desire of being alone and doing my things, out of their way, was stronger than the desire of revenge. At school I tried to stay away from him, as usual, but that guy started to say hi in the hallways. Once he also ambushed me at my locker. He was waiting there for me to make me an insane proposal: inviting me to a bonfire party on the beach. A bonfire party? Me? With his dumb friends?
"If you're looking for a new toy to have fun with you've chosen the wrong person" I spat out, not literally, unfortunately.
"What?" he asked with a fake frown.
"Being the laughing-stock of the night to entertain you during your stupid useless parties is not my main goal in life" I explained putting away the history book and taking the math one, and the notebook.
"Our parties aren't useless... well, not always. Anyway, you wouldn't be the laughing stock, you'd just be... one of us" he answered standing still in front of me, blocking my way to the classroom.
"Hahaha no, thanks" I stated and with a light push on his arm I got free. The jerk grimaced as if he felt pain, even saying a little "Ouch". As if I hurt him, to make fun of me. I hate him.
He made other proposals after that: playing with his band of losers, going to a new cool vinyl shop with him, even surf together. I mean, every time I thought it couldn't get any worse than that, he came up with something new. I had almost used all the swear words in my repertoire.
  Everything was going great between Mueller and me: a nasty remark here, a middle finger there. Until the principal called me in his office one day. Honestly, I didn't know what to expect, I had never been in trouble and when I wanted to smoke pot or shit I certainly didn't do it at school: I usually stole some from my sister's secret stash and found myself a quiet and not fashionable place on the beach in San Diego. Sometimes I just stayed in my room, if I had the time to air it before mom came home from her switch at the hospital. I couldn't think of a reason for being called by the boss, "What the fuck have I done?" I repeated to myself. Later I found out I hadn't done anything, my school curriculum was flawless, like my grades and my conduct, definitely irreproachable. My problem was with extra-curricular activities. Those simply didn't exist for me. I hate sports, I hate debates, I hate the school band and the songs they force you to play at the end-of-term concert. To sum up, I hate school and I can't see why I should spend extra-time there. The principal stressed the importance of this kind of activity and how much this shit matters for universities when they select new students. This meant that even if I wanted to do Archeology or Library Science, to go bury myself in some old library and dust big volumes or in a large hole in Egypt to shovel sand and rat's dropping searching for little plates' fragments, I had to prove I was social and had various interests. Examining the different activities with him, since he gave me no choice, I went for the less disgusting one: the theater lab. Acting wasn't surely one of my greatest ambitions, he thought I could have been a perfect assistant set designer, because of my abilities in Art class. I was contented after all. I mean, would rather have washed out the toilets of the whole institute, but the level of socialization my role requested wasn't much higher than the one of those who clean the restrooms anyway. I had to interact mostly with Miss Connors and she was one of the few teachers I didn't wish to see hanging from the ceiling with a rope tied around their neck. Unfortunately, a sadly well-known guy was in the theater class too.
"Hey! Are you in too this year? That's great!" this is how Edward, yelling, welcomed me the first time I entered the classroom. They were all sitting in circle on the floor, trying to bring who knows what out of their souls to optimize their performance on stage. I think an A.A. meeting would have been more useful, at least the actors would have been much better. As time went by, the fool took any opportunity to tease and annoy me. He also offered to help me with backdrops, talking to the teacher and bragging about his painting skills. Nothing special, honestly. The guitar lessons were over, officially because Theresa had to focus on school, since it was graduation year for her. Unofficially because she hadn't made any improvement and my mother, yet generous and patient, realized that throwing (even little) money out of the window to pay Eddie, so that my sister could flutter her eyelashes at him or let him get in her pants, wasn't a good deal. Despite all that, because of theater I couldn't get rid of the shithead. He was even clingier and had got into the habit of telling me about how his day went and joke with me, as we were friends. Of course, silence or nasty remarks were all he got in response, but he seemed not to care, he went straight on. In the end, it had almost become funny. I said almost.
 And I felt almost sorry when he started to skip theater class. At first, it just happened once in a while, then more and more often. Our encounters at school, in the meantime, were also trailing off.
"He's probably getting bored of his toy" I thought when I closed my locker and found myself looking around for him in the hallway, before going to class, to the yard, home or wherever I had to go.
My sister mentioned Eddie's name less and less frequently at home and also the things she said about him were suddenly different. Now Eddie was always absent, and wasn't really there even when he was present, he fell asleep in class, he was strange, silent, told the French teacher to fuck off and emptied the content of his backpack over his desk during class. Theresa couldn't tell what was in there, but Mueller called it real life. Finally, she ended up dismissing him as a possible junkie and forgetting his simple existence. Now she was into Doug, a guy from the Swim Team. I can already guess which lessons my sister will take next.
  Christmas holidays have finally come to save me, giving me a little rest from high school. Ok, I'm gonna forcefully spend more time with my dear sister, but the pleasure of escaping the school prison is too sweet to be ruined by this stupid little details. The alarm clock has been banned lately, I naturally woke up around ten o'clock and now, after a big breakfast, I'm gonna take my usual walk with The Clash in my earphones and in my heart. This is my plan, until I see him, Mueller, sitting on the swing in my porch.
"What the fuck are you doing here?" I ask, taking off my earphones. Unwillingly, because I know I'm likely about to hear a lot of bullshit.
"Hi" the jerk turns around, not completely, showing me his profile and only one of his dimples.
"I asked: what are you doing here?"
"I wanted to see a friend" he answers and turns back again, looking straight in front of him.
"Theresa's not here, she went out shopping with mom" I tell him making my way to the stairs.
"I wasn't talking about her" the poor man's Jimi Hendrix explains.
"Ha-ha, really funny" I say and I'm about to leave.
"Today it's my birthday" Eddie adds, out of the blue.
"Wow, happy birthday! So what? Do you wanna invite me to your party?" I say, turning back and walking up the stairs again.
"There'll be no party this year" he reveals without looking at me, staring at some point behind my back.
"Why? Where have all your friends gone? Seems like you've been losing popularity points lately, am I wrong?"
"Yeah" he replies and a smirk slowly appears on his lips.
"I still don't see what all this has got to do with you being in my house"
"You're the only one who wished me a happy birthday today, you know?"
"I can't understand what kind of kicks you get from doing this" I say, resigned, shaking my head and eventually taking a seat beside him.
"Doing what?"
"Talking to me. We're not friends"
"We are friends. At the moment, I think you're the only one"
"I'm not a psychologist, Mueller, but if you wanna confide me your sorrows, I wanna get paid, at least" I retort rolling my eyes.
"Don't call me like that" he says harshly, closing his eyes and clenching his fists.
"Like what? By using your surname? Sorry, we're not that close to-"
"Don't use that surname. Call me idiot, jerk, asshole, call me whatever you want, but don't call me like that man" he goes on and now the swing is visibly trembling because of his leg, which is nervously shaking.
"O-ok. Troubles with your father, huh?" I ask, moved to pity. Or maybe because I hope that once he will have spit it all out, he'll finally leave.
"He ain't my father" he snaps angrily.
"What?" I ask in puzzlement.
"He's my stepfather" wannabe Marlon Brando explains. Eddie isn't a bad actor, that's why I never trust what he says.
"Oh, sorry, I didn't know that" I answer skeptically. Theresa would have never left out such an important detail. Apart from his favorite brand of underwear, my mother and I know everything about Eddie.
"Neither did I" he adds turning towards me and finally looking at me in the eye. He'll never be a great actor, his eyes don't lie.
"What do you mean?" I ask shocked.
"I learned about that a few days ago, my mother came to visit me and told me" he explains as if it was the most natural thing in the world.
"What? And what do you mean with she came to visit? Where is she?"
"She lives in Chicago now, she left Mueller and moved back there where her family is. She took my little brothers with her"
"Since when?"
"A couple of months, more or less"
"And you stayed here with your dad? Ehm, I mean, with your stepdad?" I ask, correcting myself immediately as he gives me a nasty look.
"Yeah, for a while" he replies looking away again, playing with the buttons of his shirt.
"For a while?"
"Yes, then I couldn't bear that... accommodation any longer"
"You couldn't stand him?"
"I hate him, I hated him also before knowing he's not my father"
"Why?"
"He's not exactly... gentle with me"
"Oh" it's the only comment I can come up with, as I remember the episode of the shove at the locker. I don't know if I should ask him more, pretending not to understand what he meant, or drop the subject. Maybe for the first time in my life I don't know what to say. I try.
"What about your real father?"
"He died, almost four years ago"
"Oh my god"
"Another fact I've just learned about"
"But... have you ever met him?"
"I saw him a couple of times, I was told he was a family friend..."
"Fuck"
A long silence follows. Eddie calms down a bit and now he's making the porch swing sway back and forth just for a few inches.
"I guess I shocked you" he says all of a sudden, making me flinch.
"No... well, a little... yes"
"After all, people like me don't have problems, right?"
"I don't-"
"My useless friends and I, with our useless bonfires, our useless basketball games... we can't have problems! Our main problem is figure out how to get laid, right?" he adds in a louder and louder voice and making me feel smaller.
"I'm sorry"
"Don't be, you still think that, also now"
"No, I was wrong, I-"
"You're so full of prejudice, you're not better than the ones you criticize and hate so much" Eddie says it all. He's right, totally. And I don't hide it.
"Fuck, you're right" I sigh and throw my head back, closing my eyes and letting myself be lulled by the movements of the swing.
When his lips touch mine I feel no electricity, no shiver down my spine, nothing transcendental. I only feel I'm where I'm supposed to be, with whom I'm supposed to be, that I'm fine and doing something so good.
"I'm leaving tomorrow" he surprises me. I was so concentrated on enjoying the feel of my first kiss that I didn't notice he had pulled away. The kiss was long, but it must have ended while ago, 'cause when I open my eyes I see him looking at me and holding back a little laugh.
"Are you going to Chicago for Christmas?" I ask raising my head again and trying to regain my now lost dignity.
"I'm moving, forever" the stab comes quick, but it isn't less painful. Now I felt the electrical shock.
"Forever?"
"Well, maybe not forever. But at least until I can take some kind of high school certificate and save some money"
"Wait. If not with Mueller, where have you been living now?" I finally remember about the missing piece of the puzzle.
"By myself, I rented a room not far from school. But it's hard, you know, go to school every day, then go to work, and after that go back home and make homework and study, when all you want to do is eat and sleep"
"That was the real life" I think loudly.
"Hehe Theresa told you, I suppose. I fell asleep and the teacher rebuked me in front of the class, telling me I had to come back to reality. And I showed him, my reality: bills to pay in my backpack, instead of notepads" he talks about the episode with a huge grin, which clashes with what he was actually saying.
"Great move" I state after a while, then I  lay my head back and close my eyes again, hoping that who's sitting next to me will get the message and do what he did before. Nothing happens though and when I open my eyes Eddie's standing, on the stairs.
"I'd better go now" he says with a less intense and more forced smile, slightly tilting his head on one side.
"You... you just leave like that? I won't see you anymore?" I ask him, unbelieving, standing up brusquely and almost running the risk to fall and remain trapped between the bars of this infernal swing.
"No, I guess"
"I'm sorry"
"Don't be sorry, we had fun together after all" he says and a sudden lump grows in my throat.
"Yeah, but now... who will I make fun of?" I say trying to curl my lips to make them look like a smile.
"Oh, sure you have plenty of material to laugh about in our school, don't worry!" he answers turning his back to me and walking down the stairs.
"Wait" I call him and he turns around again, his eyes are sad, but somehow peaceful.
"Yes?"
"I'm sorry"
"Oh god, I told you! Don't be, it's not your fault"
"I... that's not what I meant"
"What do you mean then?"
"I'm sorry for all the time I wasted... not being with you" I confess, staring at my feet.
"A sad story suddenly makes me look more interesting?" he asks furrowing his brows.
"No... you've always been" this time I focus on my nails.
"Ha! You liked me then, I knew that! I should have insisted a little more" he says giggling.
"Don't big yourself up now, Mue... Eddie! Don't brag about it with your friends in Chicago, Eddie, ok?"
"Ok. Bye Lena"
"Bye Eddie. And happy birthday"