It's Kind of a Funny Story

“Well, let’s consider. I never really liked math. I was good at it, but only because I liked having basic information in front of me to get through, to reach that feeling of accomplishment. I never really liked English. This”—I point at the brain maps—“this is something different. This is something I love. So I’d better do it.”

“You’d better love it,” Dad says. “Because it’s a hard life. It’s mostly the artists who end up in places like this.”

“Well, then he has to be an artist; that’s where he is!” Sarah says.

“Heh. It’s pretty simple.” I stand up. “Take a look around. I tried to go to the best high school in the city. And this is where I ended up.”

“True.” Mom looks behind her. Solomon rushes across our field of view.

“If I don’t make some kind of big change, I’m going to come out of here wondering how anything is different from before, and I’m going to end up right back here.”

“Right,” says Mom. “I’m with you, Craig.”

“What art school are you going to go to?” Dad asks.

“Manhattan Arts Academy? It’s easy to transfer to with my grades—”

“Oh, but Craig, that’s the school for kids who are all screwed up,” Dad says.

I look at him. “Yeah? Dad?” I raise my wrist, show him the bracelets. I have pride in them now. They’re true, and people can’t screw with them. And when you say the truth you get stronger.

Dad stands still for a minute, looks down at his feet, and then looks up.

“Okay,” he says. “We’ll do whatever we have to do. You have to stay in school until you transfer, though. That’s going to be . . . until the end of the year at least, I think.”

“I’ll handle it,” I say.

“I know you will. We’ll help.”

“Dinner, get ready for dinner!” President Armelio walks toward us. “Craig and his family, dinner is almost here!”

“How’ve you been eating?” Mom asks as I stretch my legs.

“I have been. That’s good.”

“It’s wonderful, Craig.”

“Okay, so I’m leaving the DVD here with you.” Dad hands it to me. “And I’m going to be back to watch it when you’re done with dinner. When will that be?”

“Seven is good. But visiting hours end at eight. You won’t get to watch the whole thing.”

“We’ll see how long I can stay. You might be surprised.”

I swallow. I actually don’t want him sticking around that long. I’ll make sure Smitty gets him out.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” Mom says. “The staff tells us we’re picking you up early in the morning, before I go to work.”

“I’ll be ready.”

“We’ve got lots of good food at home.”

“I’ll see you when I come home from school.” Sarah hugs my waist. “I’m so happy you’re back.”

I pat her head. “Are you embarrassed by this place?”

“Yeah, but whatever.”

“I am too,” I say. “It’s just a good type of embarrassment.”

forty-eight

Blade II . . . well, you have to like action movies to like it. I myself am a big fan of action movies. They’re like the blues; there’s a certain formula. You have the hero and the villain and the girl. The hero is going to almost die but not quite, and if there’s a dog it’ll be the same story with him. There’s going to be one sub-villain with a distinguishing facial characteristic, and he’s going to get killed in a printing press or a pool.

The plot of Blade II is that Blade is a guy who runs around killing vampires. He wears a leather coat with a sword stuck in the back of it; he regularly just walks around with this thing. I guess it’s possible that you could walk around a city with a sword and not have people notice, but the chances of your not cutting your butt open seem close to nil, especially if you’re running or doing jump flips.

Now, the real kicker is the way the vampires die. They digitally dissolve into multicolored ash—in slow motion. I could watch these vampires die all day. It’s so clean the way they go; they don’t leave a body or anything.

I explain all this to Humble as we help Monica roll out the TV from the activity center and plug it in. Monica has no idea how to use a DVD—the whole metal shiny disc concept scares her. We pop it in and have to hit the TV a few times to get it going, but then it’s blasting into our eyes: Blade killing his first swath of vampires in Prague by skidding down fire escapes, jumping over motorcycles, and stabbing dudes with his sword.

The audience is a good cross-section of Six North—Humble, Bobby, and Johnny; the Professor; Ebony; the new guy Human Being; Becca; and Dad. He came in right at seven and sat down in the corner, staying very quiet, blending in. Jimmy came by as soon as he heard the noise of the film and took a seat beside him.

“Hello,” Dad said.

“Your son?” Jimmy asked, pointing at me.

“Yes.”

“How sweet it is!”

Dad nodded and said, “Yes, yes it is.”

On the screen, Blade slices a vampire right through from his groin up to his skull.

“Whoa, this is wild,” says Humble. “Did you see that? That’s worse than gonorrhea, man.”

“Did you ever have gonorrhea?”

“Please. I’ve had everything. You know what they say: the Jews cut ’em off, the Irish wear ’em off.”