“What’d you carry it in?” I go.
“What do you give a shit?” he goes. “What’re you, an environmentalist?”
“You’ll probably get sick now,” I go.
“That’s right. I’ll get sick now. Weenie,” he says. “You want to hear this or not?”
“I want to hear this,” I tell him.
“Roddy, get down here,” his dad yells from the garage.
“What do you want?” Flake calls back. There’s no answer.
“Roddy!” his dad finally yells.
“What do you want?” Flake yells back.
“I want you to get down here!” his dad yells.
Flake gets off the bed and stomps downstairs. I can’t hear what they’re arguing about once he gets to the garage.
I think about how there’s always somebody worse off than you are. A movie about a guy who’s a brain in a jar: that guy’s going, Man, those guys who can’t move their legs, they got it made.
Flake comes stomping back upstairs.
“What’d your father want?” his mother calls from somewhere in the house.
“He wanted to put his dick inside me,” he says, hauling himself up the banister.
“What?” his mom calls.
“He wanted to know where one of his tools was,” he calls in a louder voice.
“You tell him?” his mom asks.
“I told him you had it,” he says.
“What?” his mom says.
“I told him you had it,” he yells.
“I don’t have it,” she says.
“I’m kidding,” he says.
“What?” she says.
He shuts the door. “I’m here all alone,” he goes. “It’s like I’m living alone.”
“So what’s Grant building?” I ask him.
He ignores me.
“So what’s your idea?” I go.
His idea is that we take this Roten stuff and mix it with water and put it into the hot air vents so it spreads around in the morning during homeroom.
“You want to be like those kids at that school?” I go. “In Colorado?”
“No,” he says. “They were fuckups. I don’t wanna be like anybody.”
“How do we get it into the vents?” I go.
“I been doing some exploring in the basement down there,” he goes.
“And how do we keep from getting sick?” I go.
We do it the day before, it turns out. We mix the stuff up in like a big saucepan and park that in the right spot, and when the furnace kicks on early the next morning, bingo.
“We have to buy a saucepan, so it can’t be traced,” he goes.
“Think people would really get sick?” I ask him.
Turns out he’s more psyched about when they find the saucepan and everybody freaks. He’s like, “The FBI, everybody, shit, the Navy Seals, everybody’ll be crawling all over this place.”
“People’ll be like, ‘Is this homegrown, or international?’ ” I go.
“Finally something’ll happen in this fucking town,” he goes. It’s like he always says: natural disasters mean days off.
“Where is the stuff?” I go.
“I put it in the roof of Behan’s doghouse,” he goes.
“God. Suppose the dog like eats it or something?” I go, before I can stop myself.
“Gosh, I hope that doesn’t happen,” he goes. Behan’s the German shepherd next door. He’s on a chain and is always barking and jumping at Flake like he wants to tear his throat out. Flake gets in trouble for doing things like having picnics right outside the dog’s reach.
“Is that the way it works?” I go. “You put it in water and it fizzes?”
“Yeah. It’s Alka-Seltzer,” he says.
“We have to know if it’s gonna work,” I tell him. He rolls his eyes like there’s someone else in the room.
“I read the directions on the bag,” he goes.
He takes out a few pieces of paper from his desk and starts sketching, like I went home. From the chair I can see an upside-down pot with curvy fumes coming off it and a number below: 200 degrees. He’s not a very good artist.
“We have to get rid of stuff like that, too,” I go. “That’s just the kind of stuff somebody’ll find.”
He adds a long pipe going up to a big square of a room. He adds a few more pipes. He folds the paper up, holds it up to show me, and then sticks it in my knapsack.
“That’s gonna fall out when I take my books out, you know,” I tell him.
On the next piece of paper he draws a stick figure inside a box with bars on it. The stick figure has its hands on the bars. He gives it a big nose and glasses.
“It looks like me, except it has no dick, so it must be you,” I go.
Over its head he draws a big circle and then makes the circle a smiley face. He draws a word balloon next to it, and writes HI, FLAKE. WILL YOU ANSWER ALL MY QUESTIONS? inside. Then he takes the pencil in his fist and punches the point through the face over and over again.
“So when you wanna do it?” I go.
“The heat went on yesterday,” he reminds me. It’s true: in the morning it was cold, and you could smell the radiators in homeroom.
“I wish you could direct it at like specific rooms,” I tell him.
He thinks about how cool that would be.
“This is just step one,” he finally goes.
“Not even,” I go.
“Do you have homework?” his mother calls from downstairs.
“I’m working on it,” he calls back.
“With your friend in the room?” she wants to know.
“He’s helping me,” Flake explains.
“Is that kosher?” she asks.
Flake looks stumped. “I don’t know,” he finally calls. “What’s ‘kosher’?”
“Is that okay?” his mom calls.
“It’s a group project,” Flake calls.
“Why are we always shouting?” his mom calls. “Come to the top of the stairs.”
He hauls himself off the bed, gritting his teeth. “I’m gonna use the stuff here,” he says to himself. “Swear to God.”
“What?” he says when he gets out in the hall.
“Don’t yell at me like that,” his mom warns him.
He bends over backward, holding on to the walls, and then straightens up again. “Can I help you?” he says, completely nice.
She lowers her voice. “Are you jerking me around again about this homework?”
“I am totally not jerking you around about it,” he goes.
“Don’t use that word,” she tells him.
“You just used it,” he goes.
It’s quiet. I’m still in the chair, looking at the black wall over his bed. He doesn’t have a single thing stuck up besides the headless duck on the window. For a while there was a picture from the newspaper of kids who’d died from a famine, but he tore it down.
“What?” Flake finally goes. “Ask Edwin. Edwin.”
I get up and go out into the hall. They’re both staring at each other.
“Edwin, do the two of you have a group project to work on?” his mom finally asks me.
“We sure do,” I tell her.
We’re both standing there, hands in our pockets, looking down at her. I know I’m gonna smile or something and blow it.
“What is your group project?” she asks me.
“Photosynthesis,” I go.
Flake makes a snorty noise, too soft for her to hear.
She keeps looking at us, both of her hands on the banisters. “You guys are so smart.” She taps a finger on the wood and walks away.
We go back to Flake’s room and shut the door. He puts a finger against one nostril and blows boogers into his desk garbage can.