A Semester in the Life of a Garbage Bag Read online

  Some families had a treasured heirloom — a piece of furniture or jewelry handed down through the generations. At the Delancey house, the most prized possession was an argon-neon laser, which sat on a pedestal in the living room, projecting a tiny red dot on the bookcase. It was the current flagship of the household.

  “Take the SACGEN unit in your school, for example,” said Mrs. Delancey. “Where would we be without projects like SACGEN?” She was a dyed-in-the-wool SACGEN supporter, reading voraciously on the subject, and collecting pamphlets, posters, and Department of Energy bulletins. It was a source of great pride to her that her children attended DeWitt.

  Sean thought otherwise. If it got around that his mother was a windmill fan, all the jump shots in the world couldn’t save him. “I know where we wouldn’t be,” he said. “In the dark. Mom, I’ve told you to million times, SACGEN doesn’t work. Ask Nik.”

  “I certainly don’t think the Department of Energy would say how successful it is if it weren’t so,” said Mrs. Delancey sternly.

  Gramp was up at the refrigerator. “The kids are at that school every day, Tina. Why would they lie?” Suddenly, he clutched at his heart. “We’re out of prune juice!” He staggered back against the dishwasher.

  “Pop, that’s not funny,” Mrs. Delancey admonished. “A man of your age shouldn’t joke about things like that.”

  “Who’s joking?” he returned bad-naturedly. He walked over to his daughter-in-law’s shopping list, pulled a thick marker out of the pen holder, and wrote PRUNE JUICE in three-inch letters, filling up the rest of the sheet.

  Grandfather Delancey said the words “prune juice” with a reverence and respect matched only by his pronunciation of the name “Brooklyn.” For him it was the elixir of life, and a glass a day gave him the right to eat all the foods his doctor, “that medical robot,” said were bad for him. He wasn’t one of those grandparents who lived in the past, or couldn’t seem to adjust to the modern world. But he refused to wear anything polyester, and insisted on smoking cheap cigars, called Scrulnick’s. These were made only in Brooklyn, and gave off an odor halfway between smoldering hemp and sewer gas. He tolerated modern hairstyles, but firmly believed that people who wore them were robots. And he held firm to his conviction that a robot was the worst thing anybody could be. The nearest definition Sean could think of for Gramp’s use of robot was “normal.” Gramp got along with Sean best of any of the family members, but that didn’t mean much. Gramp called Sean “the all-American robot.”

  “Look at you!” Sean could remember Gramp once saying. “Varsity basketball, good grades, but not too good — oh, no. Then you’d be an egghead. And Mr. Popularity. You’re perfect. How do you stand it?”

  Sean had smiled painfully. “I get by.”

  It was a typical evening at the Delancey house. Mrs. Delancey finished marking ninth-grade papers and sat down with her husband to leaf through Techno-Living magazine. Nikki took possession of the phone. Gramp lit up a Scrulnick’s, settled into the TV room, and turned on his favorite station, the Weather Channel. Sean joined him because, with his sister tying up the line, there would be no late messages of congratulations for his game-winning jump shot coming through.

  Sean looked at the screen with distaste. “How can you stand to watch this stuff?”

  Gramp’s eyes never left the set. “I like it.”

  Sean snorted. “Des Moines — partly cloudy. Why would anybody care whether or not it’s partly cloudy in Des Moines unless they were in Des Moines, in which case they could see it?” Resignedly, he stretched out on the sofa and shifted his mind into neutral. His relaxation lasted five seconds.

  From outside there was the sound of a very feeble outboard motor revving and shutting itself off. Outboard? But they were five miles from the water. The only other thing that could sound like that would be an old — motor scooter? Before Sean could react, he heard the doorbell ring, and soon his mother’s voice calling, “Sean, your friend Raymond is here.”

  Sean froze as he had a sudden vision of the note taped to his locker: Catch you later. Jardine. Apparently, this was later, and he was caught. For an instant, he actually considered hiding under the sofa until his new partner went away. But then the door of the TV room opened, and Raymond was upon him.

  Gramp jumped up in sudden recognition. “Hey! You’re the kid with the motor scooter who always runs out of gas in front of the deli!”

  Raymond snapped his fingers. “You’re the old guy who’s always getting thrown out of the deli because of those smelly cigars! What are you doing here?”

  “He lives here,” said Sean coldly. “He’s my grandfather.”

  “Yeah? No kidding! I’ve always wanted to meet you. I love the way you throw your bagel right through the ring salami into the Little League team portrait just before you stomp out.” He grabbed Gramp’s outstretched hand and shook it vigorously. “Jardine. It’s an honor.”

  Gramp beamed. “You always kick the gas tank, and then you look up and talk to the sky. I kept wondering what you were saying.”

  Raymond shrugged modestly. “Oh, I just talk to them — you know, up there, telling them thanks for the leaky gas tank. I appreciate it. I needed the exercise anyway. That kind of thing.” He took in his surroundings. “Hey, wow. The Weather Channel. And my favorite program, the Evening Forecast.”

  Then, before Sean’s shocked gaze, Raymond and Gramp sat down in front of the TV and launched into a long, involved, knowledgeable conversation all about weather. Finally, Sean could bear it no longer.

  “Could I just interrupt for a second?” He looked Raymond straight in the eye. “Why are you here?”

  Raymond leaned back. “Well, we have to discuss what we’re going to do for our poetry assignment.”

  Sean stared at him. “Tonight?”

  “Yeah, tonight. This project is going to be the key grade to get us to Theamelpos this summer. We’ve got to pull off something big.”

  “We? Us?” said Sean sarcastically. “I thought all you cared about was getting yourself to Theamelpos.”

  “Well, yeah,” said Raymond. “But with you doing better than me in every subject across the board, it looks like if I go, you go. Now, I figure if we get an A on this project, I can pull a B for the course, and if my other grades don’t go toilet on me, and everyone else has a weak semester, Jardine just might squeak by in the number six spot. And like I said, you’ll be up there ahead of me. So you see, we’re in this together.”

  Gramp shook his head. “I can’t believe that my grandson is in the same class with the guy who always runs out of gas in front of the deli!” He stood up. “Well, I’ve got to go fill out my monthly mail order to Scrulnick’s. Nice meeting you, Jardine.”

  “Good-night, Gramp,” said Sean.

  “Yeah, nice meeting you, Gramp,” Raymond added.

  Sean looked daggers at Raymond. What was so big about running out of gas in front of a deli? How did that make Raymond an honorary grandson? He breathed deeply. “Now, listen. I’m not sure I go for this ‘you and me in this together’ thing. You gave me a pretty hard time in class today.”

  Raymond was mystified. “How?”

  “You were talking like I’d jammed a knife in your back by signing up for the Greece trip — like I did something terrible.”

  “It was terrible; terrible for Jardine. Don’t take it personally. You get this way when you have no luck.”

  Sean was unforgiving. “I still think you came on pretty strong.”

  Raymond looked at the ceiling. “That’s right. Give Jardine a personality conflict with his partner. Thank you.”

  Sean relented. “We don’t have a personality conflict,” he mumbled. “We’ll work on the project. I want to go to Theamelpos just as much as you do.”

  “Until you’ve spent a couple of days in a fish gutting plant, you can’t know how much Jardine wants to go to Theamelpos. Now, here’s my plan. Since neither of us knows beans about English, we have to do something unusual. If we
pick some big-time poet, Kerr will be able to compare our paper with other ones on the same guy and, let’s face it, ours is going to be lousier. So we have to dig up some Joe Blow poet nobody’s ever heard of. We do a halfway decent job, and Kerr gives us an A for effort and originality. Simple.”

  Sean sat forward on the couch. “Why don’t we pick a nice, safe, respected poet, do our best, and take whatever Kerr gives us instead of figuring the angles?”

  Raymond shook his head. “If we’re going to get to Theamelpos, we’re going to have to scratch and claw. Trust me. You don’t get any breaks when you’re partners with Jardine.”

  “Don’t you think you’re overdoing it a little with this luck thing?” Sean asked in annoyance. “Did you ever consider that your luck is no better or worse than anyone else’s and the real problem is your attitude?”

  Raymond was patient. “Have you ever seen the commercial for garbage bags where they test the strength of the bag by seeing how many pounds of pressure they can put on it before it breaks?”

  “Yeah? So?”

  “So that’s Jardine — a garbage bag hooked up to a hydraulic press, doing his best not to fall apart in spite of the guy who keeps turning the knob up.”

  While Sean was attempting to digest this, the door of the TV room opened, and Nikki peered in. “Sean, I’m having some ice cream —” She stopped short when she caught sight of Raymond. “Oh, hi. Want some ice cream?”

  “No,” said Sean.

  “Sure,” said Raymond.

  They adjourned to the kitchen. Sean was still trying to figure out Raymond’s garbage bag philosophy while Nikki played social director. Nothing more was said on the subject of school or Theamelpos until Raymond announced that he’d better get going.

  “We’ll pick our topic in class tomorrow,” he said, slipping into his leather jacket, which read JARDINE in nail studs across the back. “Remember, think Mr. Nobody. And think of that picture of the beach on Theamelpos, with the entire female population of Sweden frolicking in the sun.”

  Sean asked the question that had been on his mind ever since their first meeting in English class. “What’s so big about Theamelpos, huh? I mean, sure, it’s a beautiful beach with great weather and tons of girls. But you don’t have to go all the way to Greece for that. What’s wrong with Cape Cod or the Carolinas or something?”

  Raymond’s eyes assumed a far-off, dreamy look, and for a moment Sean was afraid he would start chanting again. “Ah, Theamelpos,” he breathed. “The warm breeze, sand beneath my feet — why, certainly, Jolanda, I’d be delighted to have this dance —”

  “Raymond, what are you doing?”

  “Shhh. Jardine is in a blissful state.” Suddenly, he was back to normal. “There’s luck on Theamelpos, Delancey. Magical luck. And I can’t think of anyone who could use a little magical luck more than Jardine.”

  “Oh, come on, Raymond!” Sean exploded. “Give me a break …”

  Raymond was already out the door, heading down the front walk. “Seriously, Delancey,” he called over his shoulder. “I’ve done a lot of research on this.” He disappeared around the corner.

  No sooner had the door shut than Nikki opened up with both barrels. “I could just kill you!”

  “Why?”

  “In the hall today you told me you didn’t know him!”

  “It was wishful thinking,” Sean said defensively. “So what?”

  “So what? He’s just the coolest guy in the whole school, that’s all! I’ll never forget the first time I saw him way back at the beginning of September. He kicked his locker so hard that the whole hall echoed, and then he looked up at the ceiling and said, ‘That’s right. Give Jardine a locker that won’t open.’ I almost died!”

  Sean grew solemn. “Nik, stay away from that guy. He’s crazy.”

  “He has so much — you know — charisma. When I tell Marilyn and Carita that I met him, they’ll die!”

  “Nik, this is serious stuff here! We’re talking about a guy who thinks he’s a garbage bag!”

  “He’s wonderful!” said Nikki without reservation.

  “Watch your mouth.” The day had been ruined by Raymond; why not the evening, too? As for the night — the mere prospect of an entire semester of Jardine would take care of the night. Magical luck! Hmmph!

  Idly, he picked up a copy of Techno-Living magazine, which was open to the Techno-People section.

  Larry Steinberg was an unemployed dockworker from Brooklyn until he traveled to Greece. There he met future Swedish supermodel Inge Dergmyr while both were vacationing on the island of Theamelpos. The two were married there and returned to Stockholm to find Dergmyr’s father had sold his modest farm for a small fortune to a real estate developer. Steinberg and his new father-in-law invested the nest egg in a bankrupt brassiere factory from which they built up the biggest microchip business in Scandinavia. It was around this time that wife Inge’s modeling career began to take off. Comments Steinberg, “Life is totally fantastic …”

  Sean threw the magazine onto the floor as though he’d just discovered it was cursed. Was there no safe haven from Raymond Jardine?

  Two

  Howard Newman deftly shuffled the cards and looked out at his three opponents around the table in the corner of the school corridor. “Okay. Seven-card stud, the card after the last jack is wild — unless it’s red, in which case deuces are wild. If no jacks pop up, then a one-eyed jack facedown is wild, but a two-eyed jack is nothing. Got it?”

  “Deal,” said Sean as the two other players murmured their assent. Sean was no big poker enthusiast, but after a sleepless night of trying to figure out Raymond’s garbage bag theory while haunted by the magical luck of Theamelpos, he was ready for anything that would divert his mind.

  Sean and Howard had once been best friends, back when Howard had been forced to repeat kindergarten as a classic underachiever. The friendship had ended a year after that when Howard had taught Sean to play poker and had proceeded to win all of his toys. Things were cool between them still, except that Sean now knew that Howard’s uncanny skill with cards came from the fact that he cheated like crazy.

  Expertly, Howard dealt each player two cards facedown, and opened for ten toothpicks. He was in an especially good mood that day, because Popular Science was sending a team of photographers over to do a feature layout on SACGEN. With this in mind, Howard had snuck out during the night and festooned the solar and wind collectors on the roof of the school with pink and white floral toilet paper. At this very moment, he knew that eleven Department of Energy engineers and an almost hysterical Q. David Hyatt were scrambling around the roof trying to unwind his little present. He dealt another round of cards.

  “I hid out in the parking lot to get a good look at Q-Dave’s face when he saw it. Man, it was pretty. I’ve never seen anybody so trashed out. Raise twenty.”

  Sean threw a stack of toothpicks into the pot. “Won’t they just take it all down before the photographers come?”

  Howard dealt again. “It’s not coming down so fast. I’ve got twelve rolls up there. Stuck on with library paste.”

  “I can’t understand why Q-Dave loves that stupid windmill so much,” mused Randy, counting out his toothpicks.

  “Oh, I can,” said Howard. “I mean, I hate it so much. So just picture someone who’s the opposite of me.” He glanced to the window where a small sheet of pink paper floated gently to the ground. “You’re doing fine, boys. Keep ripping.”

  Out of twenty-two hundred students who didn’t think too much of SACGEN, Howard Newman was easily the best hater in the place. He had virtually dedicated his life to insulting SACGEN. It had been Howard who had given SACGEN its popular nickname during the first blackout of the year, which occurred at the opening assembly. As soon as the lights went out, Howard’s voice boomed, “Way to go, Q-Dave! You bought us a bum windmill!”

  In fact, Howard had been holding his running poker game in the third-floor washroom, which had fallen to the wreckers when the enti
re center of the school had been gutted to make room for the SACGEN core. As far as he was concerned, he had been unlawfully evicted, and had lost his folding cot and upwards of ninety thousand toothpicks. He had taken his game out into the hall, and was cheating his way back from bankruptcy because, as he put it, “When I get enough toothpicks, I’m going to trade them in for a nuclear warhead, and drop it on the windmill.”

  “Four queens,” announced Howard, raking in the pot with both arms. “It’s mine.”

  Just then, Mr. Hyatt’s voice sounded over the PA system. “Your attention, please. Would the person or persons responsible for defacing the SACGEN superstructure please report to the office immediately.”

  “That’s yours, too,” said Sean.

  Howard shook his head. “This is exactly why Q-Dave is never going to move up in the world. He’s not too bright. Does he expect me to go down to the office and say, ‘Hey, Q-Dave, here I am. I’m the guy who t.p.’d your windmill’? Now, if he was smart, he’d say something like, ‘Someone has found twelve rolls of toilet paper on the roof. Would the owner please come to the office and claim them.’ Then he’d have me.”

  Sean pocketed his toothpicks and stood up. “I’ve got a class.”

  “So do we,” said Howard, dealing another hand. “Sit down.”

  Sean thought it over. It was only one English class — not even a lecture. They were supposed to consult with their partners on a project topic. He shuddered. That meant Raymond, fifty minutes, uninterrupted. He tossed his toothpicks back onto the table and sat down again. “Deal the cards.” There was plenty of time to pick a topic tomorrow. This way he would have twenty-four more hours to resign himself to the idea of working with Raymond Jardine, and all it would cost him was a couple of hundred toothpicks.