Chapter 13

“There is no end to what a living world will demand of you.”
—Octavia E. Butler, Parable of the Sower

EM FOUND ME in the library when the last bell rang and said it was time to go. Francie was tagging along behind her and grinned at me. Since lunch, I’d been sitting at the carrel mostly reading. My computer was online through the school WiFi but it had a whole bunch of restrictions regarding what kind of websites you could look at. I wasn’t going to be reading any porn here. Not that I intended to, but I had to check. I had been looking up certain supplies I wanted, though.

“Hey, Em. Could we stop by the mall on the way home? There’s a couple things I need for school.”

“Really?” She turned to look at Francie and they high-fived. “Shopping!” I guess it’s still a national pastime. At least for women. I was afraid they’d be pretty disappointed that I wanted to go to the bookstore.

“Thanks for this,” Francie whispered in my ear. “I was trying to figure out how to tell you I couldn’t have sex today.”

“We don’t have to have sex every day, Francie.”

“I know, but it was so good I wanted to get right back at it. But we were kind of vigorous Saturday and I’m still a little sore down there. Tomorrow, though...”

“Whenever you say, Francie. You know I want to.” She gave me a little peck and we went into the mall.

“If you want to do some shopping and meet me, I’m just going to Barnes and Noble.”

“There’s a book you can’t get on Amazon?”

“I want it right now,” I laughed at my sister. She’d shit when she saw what I bought.

The truth was that I loved bookstores and libraries. Getting to spend every afternoon in the school library was not going to be a problem for me. By the time I checked into the nursing home with Renie, nearly everything was on my Kindle. I liked it for the convenience and the fact that I could change the type-size or light conditions if I wanted. But I missed the feel and texture of paper books in my hands. There were precious few bookstores left anymore. I could stand to spend some time in them.

I found what I wanted pretty quickly. There were different sizes and colors and I chose one that felt comfortable. I knew I had plenty of time, so I went back to the section New Age Reference and finally went to the section marked Indian Eastern Philosophy. I picked up an unabridged copy of The Complete Kama Sutra. I had a moment of doubt as I saw that it was an inch-and-a-half thick and had no illustrations. I wondered if Francie was capable of reading something like this. She wasn’t really the sharpest knife in the drawer. She just had the most willing pussy.

I took my purchases and left to meet the girls.

“I bet you bought a Playboy or Penthouse, didn’t you?” Francie laughed when I held the bag with my purchases away from her.

“They don’t carry those at B&N.” I’d looked. “I think you have to go to some sleezy newsstand to get that.”

“So, what did you need to get that you couldn’t get on your Kindle?” Em asked. I pulled out the Kama Sutra and handed it to Francie.

“I thought you and Em could share this. Or I can keep it in my room and just study up.”

“That is one fucking thick book!” Francie said. “I’ve heard of this. It’s supposed to show all kinds of sex positions. Oh boy! Only, I don’t see any illustrations. Jacob, do I have to read all this?”

“Don’t be an idiot, Francine!” Em declared. “I’ll read it and tell you everything I learn. Don’t worry.”

“You might have to practice together a little, you know,” I smirked.

“Um ... Oh. Emily?”

“Imagine how much fun it would be to learn that stuff and then teach little brother,” Em laughed. “We might have to practice to make sure you got it right.”

“Yeah. Um ... What else did you get?”

“A Moleskine journal and a pen.”

“A journal? In paper? Don’t you like have Tumblr or Facebook?”

“Yeah, but I want this on paper.”

“Are you going to sharpen your own quills?”

“I want to be a writer. Ms. Levy said today that the one thing a writer does every day is write. She suggested a journal.”

“It’s pretty. So soft,” Francie said as she stroked the cover.

“Are you going to let us read it?”

“It’s personal, Em. That’s why it’s not online.”

I was going to have to do something about that. I thought that if I kept it in my secure backpack it should be okay but what about when I filled a book and needed to store it. And who else was going to ask to see my journal? Would Ms. Levy want to read it? I still felt it was more secure than a social media site where a hundred million people were poking around looking for stuff. And the government. I never did trust that cloud thing.

Even though I’d had no actual classes, my first day at school was exhausting. I had to recap everything from my tour. I was enthusiastic about both my English class and gym, two things that surprised my parents. I was hopeful that I’d be out of algebra in a week. The other two classes were wait-and-see. I didn’t mention Rebeca. I might talk to Em about her later.

Except later I was asleep. There was a point sometime during the night that I felt the bed shift and I thought Em had arrived. I was too far gone to do anything about it, though. I didn’t dream. Maybe school would put an end to the nightmares if I continued to get home this tired.

My first class on Tuesday was Algebra. I was going to stop to talk to Ms. Freeman before class but hadn’t counted on how much the crowded halls would impede my progress on crutches. I listened to an insufferable explanation of probabilities of independent and dependent events that she read from a book and then she had some kid work one on the white board while he explained what he was doing. He was more interesting than the teacher and I suspected he knew the subject better than she did.

At the end of class I stopped at her desk and held out my workbook.

“I’ve completed the exercises...”

“Just tear the pages out and leave them in the basket by the door.” She didn’t even look up at me.

“I mean I’ve completed the whole thing. For the year. I thought you might prefer to keep the pages all together.”

“For the year?” she asked looking up at me. “What are you going to do in class?”

“I was hoping I could take the final and move into a geometry class. Mr. Gieseke said it would be possible.”

She just stared at me and sighed. “Put the book in the basket by the door. I’ll try to get it graded by the end of the week. Be sure your name is properly printed on each page.” She flipped her fingers at me to send me away and I dropped the book in the basket by the door. A week to grade it? I guessed she must be really busy. I slapped myself mentally. Of course she’s busy. There are seven periods a day and even with one off for prep, she had to be teaching six classes of twenty or thirty kids. She’s not going to set all of them aside just to grade my paper. I hurried on to Health and Wellness and told myself not to be impatient.

As if that was going to happen. Ms. Garity pretty much phoned it in. There were big posters up in the classroom with sayings on them. “Never without a condom.” “Just say no.” “The only safe sex is no sex.” “D.A.R.E.” Off in one corner there was a hand lettered notebook page tacked to the wall that said “Grab ‘em by the pussy.” We were at the end of the Alcohol, Tobacco, and Other Drugs unit and she played a video on drug identification. The lights were dimmed and several kids were totally zoned out.

I was thankful when the bell rang and I could shuffle off to Human Geography. I couldn’t remember taking a course like this in V1’s life. It was an interesting look at migration and settlement patterns throughout the history of the world and how people shaped the landscape. Mr. Richards wasn’t an especially interesting teacher. He was soft-spoken and didn’t have much discipline in his class. But the material struck a chord with me as I’d always been fascinated with maps. I’d just read the book and watch for new info in his class.

Then I was on to Ms. Levy. I mean Freshman English. I’d done the required reading. This week was Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea. I’d become a fan of Hemingway’s in the late sixties—long after his death—when I was debating whether or not to enlist. I was over thirty and unhappy in my job at a manufacturing facility in Gary. It was a glorified maintenance position and I spent more time fixing stuck conveyor belts than anything else. Then I read The Sun Also Rises and decided life in a factory wasn’t so bad after all. I’d consumed all his work but as I got older, The Old Man and the Sea had become my favorite. It was a metaphor of life and the struggle we have to succeed, even at the cost of what we are striving for.