Stupid Fast

Chapter 37: BARBARIAN NOT ALWAYS GOOD




On the Tuesday of the third week of July, Andrew locked himself in the downstairs bathroom for like three hours, seriously, doing nothing at all (no bathroom-type noise). My running shorts were in there on the floor. To hit the Mound, I needed my shorts. I waited for a while, then knocked and asked him to throw my shorts out. In response, he sang (I wouldn’t call it singing) some kind of terrible song (literally, I do not kid, he sang, over and over, soup is good food, makes a great meal). I waited for him to stop. But he didn’t stop.

Then I went vaguely ape shit and pounded on the door. I shouted loud, “Let me the hell in there!”

Even though I knew she could hear me, Jerri was upstairs in bed with the TV on, so she could do nothing.

Andrew fell totally quiet and didn’t let me in. So I went to my bedroom and got on my computer and sent emails to Abby, Jess, Cody, Reese, Karpinski, even Gus (who I had sort of stopped communicating with because he really let me down or so I thought. He thought I let him down. A week before, he’d emailed a long letter about how I’d abandoned him, which seemed like bull since I’d tried to tell him about Jerri earlier in the summer and he hadn’t even given a crap at all). I tried to relax while emailing, tried to be funny (ha ha) about my brother (ha ha) who was locked in the bathroom.

Another hour passed, and he didn’t come out, an hour when I could’ve been biking out to the Mound or running up it. Released from this hellhole. So I pounded again. This time, Andrew said, “Go away, Felton. I’m busy.”

“You’re going to tear your butt sitting on the toilet, Andrew.”

“I’m not sitting on the toilet, jerkwad!”

“Then let me in.”

“Never. Go away.”

“Let me in!”

“No.”

“Then throw my shorts out.”

“Your shorts are not my responsibility.”

“Goddamn it, Andrew. Let me in!”

“I. Am. Busy.”

Blood pounded in my veins. Barbarian blood. This acid started burning up my throat.

“Let. Me. In. Now!”

“No.”

“Now, you ass. Now! Or I’m going to kill you,” I screamed.

Andrew shouted, “Shut the hell up, Felton. I’m working.”

I bent down, breathing hard, trying to get hold of myself. Not now, Barbarian. But I couldn’t hold it in. I stood up, leaned back, and kicked the door frame as hard as I could. The kick shook the house. The kick broke the door frame in two (luckily not the door because I might have gone in there and actually killed Andrew). The reverberations knocked a picture off the wall upstairs, and glass shattered on the wood floor. Andrew screamed, “You broke the light! You broke the light!”

I scared myself. I stood back and breathed, then leaned in toward the door.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered fast. “I’m sorry, Andrew.”

“It’s completely dark in here, you a*shole,” he shouted.

“Please just let me in.”

“No,” he sobbed. “Go the f*ck away.”

I didn’t know what to do. What was I supposed to do? Why wasn’t Jerri stopping this? I turned and ran up the stairs. In the kitchen, the goofy caricature of me, Andrew, and Jerri that was done at the Strawberry Festival last summer, right after we got back from camping at Wyalusing, was broken on the floor. There was glass everywhere. I stepped over it and walked down the hall to Jerri’s bedroom. Unlike Andrew, I didn’t want answers about Jerri’s zombie life. I just wanted a mother to help me not kill my brother.

But I didn’t go in. Why? I could hear Jerri in there crying. I couldn’t go in. She was totally sobbing.

This was another moment when maybe I should’ve called Grandma Berba, whether she hated us or not.

Instead, I turned and ran back through the kitchen and down the stairs and out the garage and to my Schwinn Varsity, and I biked to the Mound wearing the pajama bottoms I pulled on after the route. Once at the Mound, I stripped down to my boxers, and I ran and ran and ran, crying “Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit,” and, thank God, no visitors showed up. Because I might have killed them or something because who knows about barbarians and what they’re capable of?

When I got back home, late in the day, Andrew was nowhere to be found. The light didn’t work in the bathroom. The trim or whatever from the door frame was lying on the floor. Upstairs, most of the glass had been kicked into the corner of the kitchen (but little pieces were scattered around, catching light from the window). The Strawberry Festival picture was stuffed in the trash. I could hear the TV mumbling in Jerri’s room.

What am I going to do, I wondered? Run away. Run away. I seriously considered running away, but I didn’t want to lose Aleah. I didn’t want to lose Cody. So I kept on fighting to keep my life.

I needed the Barbarian.