ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The following professionals read drafts of this novel and provided valuable insights: Alicia Bessette (novelist); Liz Jensen (novelist); Doug Stewart (agent); Alvina Ling (editor); Bethany Strout (editor’s assistant); Barbara Bakowski (senior production editor); Dr. Len Altamura (doctor of social work, licensed clinical social worker); Jill A. Boccia (licensed clinical social worker); Valerie Pe?a (licensed clinical social worker); Dr. Narsimha R. Pinninti (chief medical officer, Twin Oaks, and professor of psychiatry, UMDNJ-SOM); Meryl E. Udell, PsyD (clinical psychologist); Debra Nolan-Stevenson (licensed professional counselor); and Geetha Kumar, MD (associate professor of psychiatry, vice chair, Department of Psychiatry, UMDNJ-SOM; child/adolescent psychiatrist).
The core idea for this book was greatly nurtured by the many coffee talks I had with Evan Roskos. To my inner circle—and you know who you are—thanks for saving me a million times.
1 Herr Silverman is my Holocaust Class teacher, but he is primarily the German teacher at my high school, which is why we call him Herr and not Mr.
2 On Livestrong.com I read that “every 100 minutes another teenager will commit suicide.” And I don’t believe it’s true at all, because why don’t you ever hear about all of these suicides on the news or whatever? Do they all happen in secret or in other countries? Suicide can’t be that common, can it? And if it is… here I am thinking I’m being daring and original with my own plans. Ha! Here’s more damning evidence, regarding my uniqueness. According to Wikipedia—admittedly not the most reliable and in this case it’s totally outdated—“In the United States, firearms remain the most common method of suicide, accounting for 53.7 percent of all suicides committed during 2003.” Wikipedia also says, “Over one million people die by suicide every year.” So according to Wikipedia, suicide takes care of one million fucked-up people every time our planet circles the sun. I wonder what Charles Darwin would have to say about that fun little fact. Natural selection? Nature’s way of protecting the stronger and more necessary? Is my mind simply an agent of nature? Am I about to make Uncle Charlie Darwin proud?
3 Breakfast of a Teenage Killer is a sick double entendre, as I am a killer who is a teenager, and—since my target is a teenager whom I must kill—I am also a killer of teenagers!
4 I Googled “How long does it take to die when you slit your wrists?” There are all sorts of people asking this question on the Internet and most of them say they are researching the topic for their high school health class. Most of the posted answers accuse the asker of lying and urge him (her?) to seek professional help. There are straight-up answers from people who claim to be doctors and others who have actually slit their wrists with razor blades and survived. They all say this is a very painful way to die (or not die)—that it’s not peaceful, not at all the death-in-a-warm-bath-go-to-sleep type of deal in which movies make you believe. The blood can clot, which keeps you alive and in excruciating pain. But then I found posts about how to slit your wrists the “right way,” so you will actually die, and that depressed me, because people actually post stuff like that, and, even though I wanted to know the answer, so I could weigh my options, that info maybe shouldn’t be on the Internet. I’m not going to list the right way to slit your wrists or explain it to you, because I don’t want any additional blood on my hands. But really—why do some people post the correct ways to commit suicide on the Internet? Do they want weird, sad people like me to go away permanently? Do they think it’s a good idea for some people to off themselves? How can you tell when you are one of those people who should slash his wrists the right way with a razor blade? Is there an answer for that too? I Googled but nothing concrete came up. Just ways to complete the mission. Not justification.
5 Sometimes when I stay after class to talk with Herr Silverman about life—while he’s trying to put a positive spin on whatever depressing subject I’ve brought up—I’ll pretend I have X-ray vision and stare at his clothed forearms, trying to end the mystery, but it never works because I, unfortunately, don’t really have X-ray vision.
6 Linda is my mother. I call her Linda because it annoys her. She says it “de-moms” her. But she de-mommed herself when she rented an apartment in Manhattan and left me all alone in South Jersey to fend for myself most weeks and increasingly more weekends. She says she needs to be in New York because of her fashion-designing career, but I’m pretty sure it’s so she can screw her French boyfriend, Jean-Luc, and keep the hell away from her fucked-up son. She checked out of my life right after the bad shit with Asher went down, maybe because it was too intense for her to handle. I don’t know.
7 You won’t believe this, but my father was actually a minor rock star back in the early 1990s. His stage name was Jack Walker, which were his two favorite drinks: Jack Daniel’s, Johnnie Walker. How clever! Do you know him? No? How shocking! You might remember his band, Tether Me Slowly, or the “East Coast’s answer to grunge,” according to Rolling Stone, once upon a time. You’ve definitely heard his one big hit, “Underwater Vatican,” because they play it all the goddamn time on classic-rock radio. He toured with the Jesus Lizard, Pearl Jam, Nirvana, and others as an opening act. Signed a HUGE record deal, had a creative block, became an alcoholic, married my mom, made a crap sophomore album, developed a drug habit (or should I say developed another drug habit because—as we learned in health class—alcohol is a drug), was too much of a wuss to OD or off himself like a proper rock star, had me, quit making music, lived off what he made from basically one lucky song and selling his rock ’n’ roll paraphernalia on eBay (including the smashed and signed Kurt Cobain guitar that used to hang over my bed), became a has-been one-hit-wonder joke who never even touched a guitar anymore, grew bloated and perpetually red-skinned and unrecognizable, accused Linda of having affairs, began to disappear for days at a time, clandestinely started overnight gambling in Atlantic City, stopped paying taxes, woke his fifteen-year-old son in the middle of the goddamn night to give me his father’s WWII souvenirs and knock me out with his roses-and-mustard-gas Kurt Vonnegut breath, told me to be a good man, told me to take care of Linda, was rumored to have fled by banana fucking cargo boat to some Venezuelan jungle just before the Feds could nab him, and hasn’t been heard from since. Every time I hear “Underwater Vatican” now, I want to tear down the walls, and not just because every penny from every royalty check goes to the U.S. government and not me. Linda was pissed about the money she owed the government, all the lawyer shenanigans, losing the big house, the cars, but other than that, she was pretty much like “good fucking riddance” and then her parents died and she inherited enough money to start her NYC designing business and keep me here in South Jersey. My father—whose real name was Ralph Peacock—had Linda sign a prenuptial agreement, I’m certain of that, because no one would have put up with his faded-rock-star shit for so long. But the joke was this: In the end, she got absolutely nothing out of the deal. He was pretty much a bastard. And shitty mom though she may be, Linda still turns heads. She’s beautiful—just what you’d think an ex-model would look like in her late thirties.
8 Aka my dad, circa 1991.
9 Like father, unlike son.
10 Linda needs mirrors more than she needs oxygen, so there are mirrors in every goddamn room of our house.
11 I met Walt during a blizzard, just after we moved into the new house. I remember Linda asking me to shovel the driveway, even though it was still snowing, because she had to go out to meet another fake designer or some bulimic model or whomever. I think she was trying to “cure” me by assigning manly tasks because of what happened with Asher and me, even though she refused to believe me when I tried to tell her what happened because she’s a selfish, oblivious bitch. And on that snow day, shoveling was an impossible task, because just as soon as I got one shovel width done, new snow had already covered the cleared driveway once more. It took me hours, and I was exhausted by the time Linda said, “Good enough.” I was just about to go inside when she asked me to make sure our neighbor was okay. “He’s an old man. Ask him if he needs his driveway shoveled or anything else,” Linda said, which was strange because she’s not usually considerate—or even aware—of anyone but herself. Again, I think she was trying to “cure” me without addressing what happened. When I didn’t move, Linda said, “Go, Leo. Be a good neighbor. We want to make the right sort of impression. Especially after all that’s happened.” So I walked through a few feet of snow as Linda pulled out of the driveway. I had planned on just going inside our new home once she had driven away, but she idled in the street, watching me through the falling snow. Just as soon as I rang the doorbell, she drove away. When no one answered I thought I was in luck, but then I heard yelling inside and what sounded like gunshots. It shook me right out of the quiet winter scene I was in and got my heart going even more than it already was. I waited for a second, thinking I might be hearing things, but then I heard more gunshots, so I pulled out my cell phone and called the police. Three cop cars arrived a few minutes later with their sirens blaring and their lights flashing. They had this bullhorn and they used it to tell me to step away from the house. So I did. One of the cops went up to the door with his gun drawn and knocked really hard. No one answered. So he trudged through the snow toward the back of the house. He looked in all the windows. A minute or so later, the front door opened and an old man stood there leaning on a walker. “What the hell is going on?” he said. “Sir, there was a report of gunshots. Are you okay?” the police officer said. “I’m just watching a Bogart movie, for Christ’s sake.” The cops looked at me like they were pissed and then we all went inside to sort out the facts. Once the cops were satisfied that it was all just a misunderstanding, they left. “What were you even doing at my front door?” the old man said to me. “My mom wanted to know if you needed your driveway shoveled. That’s how this all started. I’m sorry I called the police. But the gunshots sounded real.” The old man smiled proudly and said, “That’s my new surround-sound system. They’re redoing the sound on most of the old films, and I can’t hear so good, so I turn it up. You ever watch good old Humphrey Bogart in action?” “No,” I said. He opened his eyes so wide and said, “Jesus Christ, you have no idea what you’re missing! Get your uneducated ass in my living room and we’ll start with The Treasure of the Sierra Madre.” And that’s how Linda passed me off to the next-door neighbor when I needed a father figure—when I first started getting fucked in the head. Watching old movies with Walt seemed like a strange thing to do on a snow day, but it beat shoveling, so I followed him into his living room, declined the cigarette he offered me, heard Bogart say, “Will you stake a fellow American to a meal?” and just sort of settled in for what would turn out to be hours and days and weeks of black-and-white movies.
12 Maybe you think I’m an asshole, making smoking more affordable for an old man with shot lungs? I’m not a big fan of smoking, for the record, even though I’m about to commit suicide. Irony? But Walt pretty much has old-time movies, cigarettes, scotch, and me. Cigarettes are 25 percent of his life. So I don’t judge him for smoking. Why should he want to extend his life longer? He started before they even knew it was bad for you, so maybe his addiction isn’t really his fault anyway. Maybe if I were born eighty-some years ago, I’d be addicted to cigarettes too.
13 Seventy-inch flat-screen TV; Oriental rugs; garage-kept brand-new Mercedes-Benz, which he never even drives; professionally landscaped yard; in-ground sprinkler system; original Norman Rockwell painting in the hallway—you get the picture.
14 If you took away all his wrinkles and rogue white hair, he’d look like a seasoned George Clooney.
15 He’s talking about my Bogart hat, which is too big and even covers my eyebrows. It’s kind of ridiculous.
16 Maybe you’re wondering why a teenager in 2011 likes watching Bogart films with an old man? Good question. At first, it was just something to do, somewhere to be where I felt wanted, because Walt’s pretty lonely. But I really grew to get, understand, and love Bogart Hollywood land. Walt says the movies were for men who came home from World War II disoriented, trying to make sense of the new postwar world, trying to relearn how to be men in a new domesticated life with women. There were no women around during the fighting overseas, just men supporting men, which is the reason for the Lauren Bacall–type femme fatales. During the war, men forgot how to interact with and trust women. And I like the fact that Walt takes me to a place none of my classmates even know exists. I admire Bogart because he does what’s right regardless of consequences—even when the consequences are stacked high against him—unlike just about everyone else in my life.
17 Turtleneck sweater. Missing-tooth smile. Bowl cut. Cute kid.
18 Who is, ironically, dying.
19 Like Linda, who claims to LOVE LOVE LOVE designing clothing but never misses a chance to complain about and stress over her work. How can she love something that makes her so unhappy—that keeps her away from her only son? Maybe being stressed about work and complaining all the time are a welcome respite from being Leonard Peacock’s mom? I don’t know. But thinking about that makes me sad. Especially since she became a fashion designer right after I tried to tell her about the bad stuff that happened with Asher. It was like my failed confession drove her away from me—made me repugnant.
20 Who probably screws hundreds of other women behind your back, because he’s a powerful player in the fashion business, so he definitely can. And people who value fashion first and foremost are not usually humanitarians or Nobel Peace Prize candidates, after all.
21 Herr Silverman said that the Jewish women in the Nazi death camps were often forced to have sex with Nazi officers (maybe like the one who owned my P-38?) just to stay alive and get privileges for themselves and family members. And hearing that made me wonder if Linda has to perform sex acts for Jean-Luc to keep her fashion career alive. (Herr Silverman also said that some sex slaves were teenage kids just like us.)
22 Interesting that businesses in the city have security guards but my high school doesn’t. Maybe it will after today. But why protect adults and not children?
23 All adults.
24 Answering machine in 2011? What? Sad but true. Linda doesn’t like to give out her cell number to “non-industry people,” like the office workers at my high school, because she thinks she’s Donatella Versace.
25 How does a teenage boy know the word camisoles ? Three words: Fashion designer mother.
26 Herr Silverman says Ahmadinejad is a Holocaust denier. Walt Disney was accused of being a Nazi sympathizer too, according to Herr Silverman. Walt Disney actually went to Nazi meetings, put anti-Semitic images in his cartoons, and joined a group that discriminated against Jews in the entertainment industry. Walt Disney! It’s amazing how many people are secretly racist. I mean, millions of good little kids from all over the world go to Disney World and have this really nice family time—all orchestrated by an alleged Nazi sympathizer. Why don’t more people talk about this? Herr Silverman says Disney wanted to create a utopia that was so alluring, so convincing that no one would dare oppose it. “Who does that remind you of?” Herr Silverman asked, and we all understood the answer was Hitler. That made a bunch of people in my class angry. Lori Sleeper said, “Why are you trying to ruin our childhood?” And Herr Silverman said, “You’d rather not know that Walt Disney is often accused of being a Nazi sympathizer?” And Lori Sleeper said, “YES!” That bit depressed me because I could tell she really meant it. Head-in-the-sand logic is so popular here at my high school. It’s like even if Disney World were run on power generated by secret underground slaves from Africa, people who were chained and forced to ride stationary bikes hooked up to generators, people who were whipped and lived in cages at night and weren’t properly fed—people all over America would still take their children to Disney World. Just as long as no one saw the slaves being whipped. Hide the horrors and most Americans will be happy as hell. Depressing.
27 There were a few kids who looked just as sickened as I was by the übermorons’ behavior but they didn’t let Asher see their disgust. No one wanted to be the next target, and that’s just how übermorons like it—the secret to their power.
28 Untethered from my awful future.
29 I try to imagine being married to Mrs. Shanahan, eating root beer lollipops for every meal. Having a guidance counselor for a wife—she’d probably take good emotional care of me, or maybe she’d be so tired of taking care of people all day that when she came home from work she’d just be a selfish bitch. I can’t decide which I believe. Probably the latter, I think.
30 Herr Silverman is forever experimenting with facial hair. Last week he had an ill-advised Abraham Lincoln beard going. Students make comments about his various facial-hair stylings, but he never gets mad. He returns their digs with this smile that is more like a wink. It’s like he’s immune to the comments of other people, which I think is admirable.
31 That’s basically the mantra of Herr Silverman’s teaching—think for yourself and do what’s right for you, but let others do the same.
32 This is probably the standard answer that would score you the top mark on the essay portion of the SAT.
33 You may think that lynching is a means to an end if I wish to die, and I do, but being ripped apart limb by limb by übermoronic classmates is hardly a picturesque way to go. Death by übermorons is überunappealing.
34 You should read about all of those killers. They all have a lot in common. I bet they felt lonely in many ways, helpless, FORGOTTEN, ignored, alienated, irrelevant, cynical, and sad. Read about them. You really should. You can learn a lot. More than I can explain here.
35 Most teachers refuse to close the door when they are alone with a student, saying it’s against the law or something, which is pretty stupid. It’s like everyone thinks teenagers are about to get raped every second of the day and that an open door can protect you. (It can’t. How could it?) But Herr Silverman closes the door, which makes me trust him. He doesn’t play by their rules; he plays by the right rules.
36 Of course I’ve already written these letters, but just haven’t shown Herr Silverman because the words are too intense and personal and insane—and maybe not what he wanted me to write. And yet, I feel like the letters are really important. I’m just not sure why and so I don’t want to risk ruining the words. If Herr Silverman said the letters were wrong, I don’t think I could handle it. Especially because he keeps saying the letters can save me, which means he believes I definitely need saving.
37 Asher and I had that in common—oblivious mothers.
38 I was already weird back then, and people were starting to notice more and more. Asher had lots of friends, but I really only had Asher.
39 Why is it that we love surprising people? Is it because we like to know something they don’t? Does it give us a sense of power over others? Was I happy because I was controlling Asher? Or was I simply just trying to do something nice?
40 My dad was always in a good mood when he was about to gamble.
41 Kids are like blind passengers—they just don’t see what’s coming down the road.
42 Did you ever think about all of the nights you lived through and can’t remember at all? The ones that were so mundane your brain just didn’t bother to record them. Hundreds, maybe thousands of nights come and go without being preserved by our memory. Does that ever freak you out? Like maybe your mind recorded all the wrong nights?
43 What I noticed first was that she didn’t look anything like the other girls in my high school. She was cat-faced and throwback-looking, like the old classic type of girls you see in Bogart films. More sophisticated. Mysterious. Dangerous. Femme fatales. The type that makes you risk being murdered by her enemies just so that you will eventually be able to kiss her as the string music cranks up and she’s about to faint. The kind of girl for whom you happily lose your mind. She wasn’t like the 1970s sunglasses femme fatale I had followed in Philadelphia to an unfortunate ending, I could tell. She seemed less manic, happier, brighter, kissable.
44 The scenario is complete bullshit, because the girl he’s “parking” with keeps feeling his inner thigh, and he keeps pushing her hand away. No way a teenage boy pushes some girl’s hand away from his crotch when he thinks she’s attractive. Also, everyone knows Jesus drank wine with his buddies, so why would he be disappointed in a beer drinker?
45 If you can believe it, this was the first time I had ever been to a church service other than funerals.
46 Beautiful women make any situation bearable.
47 Weird what we remember and what we don’t.
48 It was strange how I wanted her to be both a sexy Bacall-type figure and I also wanted her to be a kid at the same time, because those states are pretty much opposites, so she couldn’t be both simultaneously.