I went over it for an hour before I figured everything out. Some of the notes made no sense at all, until I realized that I needed to hook up a virtual reality helmet to my computer. Since they only cost about twelve billion dollars, I was completely screwed. There was no way I could afford one of those, and I couldn’t very well lug my computer down to the mall every time I wanted to use one. Just playing my adventure games was pretty much breaking my budget.
I was stopped for three days. I did nothing but think about it, day after day, hour after hour.
I was walking through school one day, brooding about Grampa. I stopped at my locker out of habit, and got the books I’d need for my next class. I couldn’t have cared less about the whole thing.
“Hi, Greg,” a female voice said. It just about scared me to death. I’d been oblivious to everyone and everything in school, so it was a surprise to find out that someone had noticed me.
I looked around, and saw Mary Adams smiling at me. Mary was in a couple of my classes. She wasn’t one of the most popular girls, although she had several friends, which was more than I could say. She was kind of nice looking, but her hairstyle and refusal to wear short leather skirts had pretty much kept her out of my fantasies.
“Hi,” I grunted. I wasn’t used to talking much in school, especially to girls.
“How are you?” she asked.
“Fine,” I grunted again. I felt my ears turning bright red.
“Listen,” she said, “I was real sorry to hear about your Grampa.”
Boy, was I impressed. Nobody in the whole school had said anything to me about Grampa. And I didn’t know what to say back to her, so I just nodded curtly. “Thanks,” I said shortly. Then I grabbed my books and hurried away.
I thought about the encounter all the way home. I wish I’d said something nicer to her, told her that I appreciated her taking the effort. She’d obviously reached out to me, and I should have asked her out on a date, or at least talked to her. But not me. I couldn’t do those things.
When I got home, I saw Gramma’s car parked outside. Since she only lived two blocks away, I wondered why she’d driven.
I soon found out. She had a big box of stuff on the kitchen table, where she and my mom were drinking tea.
“Hi, Greg, how was school today?” my mom asked.
“Fine,” I muttered. “Hi, Gramma.”
“Hi, Greg. I’ve got something for you,” she answered.
“What is it?”
“It’s a box full of sniff. I honestly don’t know what most of it is, but it was all your grandfather’s computer stuff.” She sniffed, just once, but her eyes were moist. “He loved working on computers with you, Greg. It was one of his favorite things. I know he’d want you to have all of these gadgets.”
I stood there, rooted to the floor. I wanted to say that it had been one of my favorite things too, that Grampa was the finest man I’d ever known. I wanted to say that this meant more to me than anything I could imagine. But I was just an eighth-grade nerd, and I couldn’t say what I felt—I didn’t know how. So I just stood there, looking at the box of gadgets, and then at my Gramma, and tears trickled down both of my cheeks and that was humiliating, but I was glad they were there, because I sure didn’t want Gramma to think I didn’t care about Grampa.
I walked up to the box and picked it up. “Thanks,” I managed to choke out. Then I turned and ran upstairs with it.
It wasn’t until a half hour later, after I wiped my eyes and blew my nose, that I looked inside and found the virtual reality helmet.
Another thing I remember about Grampa is fishing. I hate fishing. It’s too hot, it’s boring, and I hate the taste of fish. But I went fishing a lot.
See, Grampa loved to take me fishing. And because Grampa liked it, it was good enough for me. I even went so far as to eat the stuff.
I remember once when I was five, he took me fishing at a little stream. He must have been trout fishing, but at the time all I knew was that it was too hot and too bright. Well, Grampa saw me squinting a lot, so he gave me his baseball cap. It was way too big for me, and he adjusted it until it fit my little head. It felt like the brim stuck out a foot or more, but it did cut down on the glare.
Since I was bored when fishing, I liked to wade in the stream. No doubt, this had a negative effect on Grampa’s fishing, but he never seemed to mind. Whenever I looked over at him, he was watching me, smiling that warm smile of his. I’d smile back, and keep on wading.
The first time I went wading, my mom had words with both Grampa and me, because I had used my shoes. After that, Grampa gave me his galoshes. They were huge things; came up about to my waist, but I figured out how to keep them on when I waded, and had a great time.
Since Grampa loved to fish, I pretended to fish every once in awhile. I stood there with my little fishing rod that he’d bought at the hardware store for me. One day he stood behind me and called my name. I turned my head to look at him questioningly, and he snapped a picture. Then he gave me that big smile, and I smiled back, and went back to “fishing.”
A week or so later, he had the photo developed, and even I could tell that it turned out well. The adults all made a big fuss over it because I looked so cute, with my huge baseball cap, the enormous galoshes, and the fishing line going clear over the stream and disappearing in the bushes on the other side. And my expression was a really cute one too, so the photo was a big hit. Grampa showed it to us all, and then he put it in his wallet. He said it was his favorite picture. I knew it would be.
The next day at school, I was deep in thought about the teleconferencing monitoring. Would I be able to tell who killed Grampa? What kind of proof would I need before I killed someone? That would teach the bastard to choose someone at random and attack him.
I got my lunch and sat down at a table that was used by most of the guys in my class. A guy I knew was sitting across from me.
“Hi, Johnson,” I grunted.
“Hi, Walters,” he answered.
“How’s the chess club going?” I asked, just to be polite while I opened my carton of milk.
Heber’s voice broke in scornfully, “Walters, you faggot.” Everyone else snickered uncomfortably.
I looked to my left. Heber was sitting a couple of guys away from me, and he had overheard my inane remark. Everyone else was studiously looking at neither one of us, and Heber was looking away in disgust and superiority.
I didn’t answer. I opened the other end of the top of my milk carton, reached over in front of the guy between us, and dumped my milk against Heber’s lap and chest.
Heber lurched to his feet in surprise and rage, but I was expecting it, and was already on my feet. He turned his face to look at me, and I caught him right in the mouth with my left fist.
It hurt. It hurt a lot. Heber’s head snapped back with the impact, blood erupting from his mouth. I scrabbled out of my chair and swung my right fist at his head with all my might. I closed my eyes at the very end, but felt a bone-jarring impact with his face. When I opened my eyes, he was falling face forward toward the table. He grabbed the table to break his fall, and tried to push off from it when I jumped on him from behind, driving him down onto the tabletop.
I held him down, and only then did I realize what I had done. I never would have dreamed of having the nerve to do something like this. But I was still so filled with rage that I couldn’t stop. I grabbed him by the hair, and began pounding his face into the table. “Aren’t you glad you bothered me, Heber?” I shouted at him. “Don’t you wish you’d left me alone?! Aren’t you glad, Heber? Aren’t you glad?”
I must have pounded his face into the table eight or nine times before a teacher pulled me off.