More Happy Than Not Read online

  “What were you painting?”

  “A Japanese swallow angelfish walking out of the ocean.”

  “Huh. I was expecting something cooler. More magical with hippogriffs.”

  “I don’t like being predictable, dumb-idiot.” She’s been calling me that since our first kiss a couple days after we started dating. I’m pretty sure it’s because I might’ve accidentally bumped heads with her twice like the biggest amateur in the history of inexperienced kissers. “You in the mood to go see a movie?”

  “How about a Trade Date instead?”

  A Trade Date is not a date where you trade your date for someone else. A Trade Date—Genevieve made it up—is when I choose a spot to go to that will interest her, and she does the same for me. And it’s called a Trade Date, obviously, because we’re trading favorite pastimes with each other, and not each other.

  “I could settle on that, I suppose.”

  We play Rock, Paper, Scissors. Loser has to choose first and my scissors cut the hell out of her paper. I could’ve just volunteered to go first because I already know where I want to take her, but I’m not 100 percent sure yet of the words I want to say, and I could use the extra time to make sure I get them right. She brings me to my favorite comic bookstore on 144th St.

  “I guess you’re done being unpredictable,” I say.

  comic book asylum

  We’ve Got Issues

  The front door is painted to resemble an old phone booth, like the kind Clark Kent dashes into when he needs to change into Superman. While his monogamous relationship with that particular phone booth outside the Daily Planet never made much sense to me, I’m as close to super as I’ve felt in a while. I haven’t been here in months.

  Comic Book Asylum is geek heaven. The cashier in the Captain America shirt is restocking seven-dollar pens shaped like Thor’s hammer. Pricey busts of Wolverine and the Hulk and Iron Man gloriously line a shelf modeled after the fireplace in Wayne Manor. I’m surprised some forty-year-old virgin isn’t having a seizure over the Marvel and DC clashing going on here. There’s even a closet full of classic capes you can either buy or rent for an in-store photo shoot. But my favorite spot is the clearance cart with the dollar comics, since, well, they’re carrying dollar comics and that’s a hard price to beat.

  They even have action figures Eric and I would’ve played with when we were younger, like a combo pack of Spider-Man and Doctor Octopus. Or a set of the Fantastic Four, though we would’ve probably lost the Invisible Woman—Get it?—since my favorite was the Human Torch and his was Mister Fantastic. I even had a soft spot for the bad guys, like Green Goblin and Magneto, because Eric always preferred the heroes and that made it more fun.

  Genevieve continues to choose this place on Trade Dates because she knows it makes me happiest, although the community pool where I took swimming lessons used to be a close second before I almost drowned. (Long story.) She wanders off and looks through their posters, and I cut straight for the clearance cart. I rifle through the comics for something badass that might inspire me to work on my own comic some more. I left off on a suspenseful panel of Sun Warden—my hero, whose origin story involves him swallowing an alien sun as a child to guard it. Right now he only has enough time to save one person from falling off a celestial tower into a dragon’s mouth, and he’s torn between his girlfriend and best friend. There’s no doubt Superman would save Lois Lane, but I wonder if Batman would save Robin over his girlfriend of the week. (The Dark Knight gets around, man.)

  Some guys are talking about the latest Avengers movie, so I quickly choose two comics and rush over to the counter so I won’t have to Hulk out if they spoil anything. I never got to see the movie when it came out in December because nobody wanted to go. We were all in a funk over Kenneth.

  “Hey, Stanley.”

  “Aaron! Long time no see.”

  “Yeah, I had a bit of an episode going on.”

  “Sounds mysterious. Leaping over tall buildings with a mask on, maybe?”

  I take a second to answer. “Family stuff.”

  I hand him my gift card and he swipes it for the two-dollar charge. He swipes one more time before telling me, “Zero balance, dude.”

  “No, I have a few dollars left.”

  “I’m afraid you’re poorer than Bruce Wayne with a frozen bank account,” he says. He should be ashamed of himself—not because that’s a rude thing to say to a customer, but because he’s been recycling that same weak joke for months now. No shit I would be poorer than Bruce Wayne on his poorest day.

  “Do you want me to put them on hold for you?”

  “Uh, you know, it’s cool. Yeah, I’ll be fine.”

  Genevieve comes over. “Everything okay, babe?”

  “Yeah, yeah. You ready to bounce?” My face warms up and I’m getting teary, not because I won’t go home with these comics—I’m not eight years old—but because I’m just really fucking embarrassed in front of my girlfriend.

  She doesn’t even look at me when she reaches into her tote bag and pulls out a few bucks, which somehow makes me feel even worse. “How much is it?”

  “Gen, it’s fine, I don’t need these.”

  She buys them anyway, hands me the bag, and starts talking to me about an idea for a painting, one where starving vultures chase shadows of the dead down this road, unaware the corpses are above their heads. I think it’s a cool enough idea. And as much as I want to thank her for the comics, her changing the subject so I didn’t have to feel shitty about myself was probably a better move.

  “Remember that time Kyle got the Leteo procedure?”

  Remember That Time is a dumb game we play where we “remember” things that have happened very recently or are going down now. I’m getting the game running to distract her while we walk through Fort Wille Park on 147th Street, close to the post office where my dad worked, near a gas station where Brendan and I used to buy candy cigarettes whenever we felt stressed. (We occasionally joke about how dumb and childish that was.)

  “How can anyone know for sure if no one’s seen him?” Genevieve is holding my hand as she hops onto a bench, walking along the back with the worst balance ever. I’m positive she’s going to crack her head open one of these days and I’ll be begging Leteo to make me forget witnessing it. “A lie could’ve snuck its way into Freddy’s mom’s rumor mill. Also: saying he forgot Kenneth is a little extreme since Leteo suppresses memories. They don’t erase them.” She’s never believed in the procedure either, and she once believed in the power of horoscopes and tarot cards.

  “I think it counts as forgetting if you never remember it again.”

  “Good counter.”

  Genevieve finally loses her balance and I catch her, but not in that heroic way where I could carry her away into the sunset, or even in a funny way where she lands perfectly horizontal on top of me and we kiss. It’s more like her body twists and I catch her under her arms but her legs drop and skid back, and now her face is facing my dick, and it’s awkward because she’s never seen it. I help her up and we’re both apologizing; me for no reason, and her for almost falling nose-first into my crotch.

  Well, there’s always next time.

  “So . . .” She pulls her dark hair away from her face.

  “What would your battle plan be if zombies came at us right now?”

  This time I change the subject so she doesn’t have to feel embarrassed. I hold her hand and lead her through the park. She shares her half-assed strategies about climbing apple trees and waiting them out. Spoken like a true dumb-idiot.

  Genevieve’s mother used to bring her here as a child, when it was more kid friendly with seesaws and monkey bars. She stopped coming here as much after her mother died in a plane crash a couple years ago on her way to visit family in the Dominican Republic. Whenever we have Trade Dates, I usually take her to other places, like the flea market o
r the skating rink on half-off Wednesdays, but today we’re going to remember that time she asked me out.

  We get to the sprayground—one of those fountains where water sprays up from the ground in timed bursts. All ten hoses are now clogged with filthy leaves, cigarettes, and other trash.

  “It’s been a while,” Genevieve says.

  “I thought it’d be cool if I asked you out here,” I say.

  “I don’t remember us ever breaking up.”

  “Is that really necessary?” I ask.

  “You can’t ask me out if we’re already dating. That’s like killing a dead person.”

  “Good point. Break up with me.”

  “I need a reason.”

  “Fine. Um, you’re a bitch and your paintings suck.”

  “Broken up.”

  “Awesome,” I say with the biggest smile. “I’m sorry for calling you a bitch and telling you your paintings suck just now and for trying to you-know-what myself. I’m sorry you had to live through that and I’m sorry I was such a dumb-idiot to think I didn’t have any reason to be happy because it’s pretty damn clear you’re my happiness.”

  Genevieve crosses her arms. There are still spots of paint on her elbow she missed when washing up. “I was your happiness until I broke up with you. Ask me out again.”

  “Is that really necessary?”

  She punches me.

  “Okay. Genevieve, will you be my girlfriend?”

  Genevieve shrugs. “Why not? I need something to do this summer.”

  We find shade under a tree, kicking off our shoes as we lie down with our feet in the grass. She tells me for the millionth time I never had anything to apologize for, that she didn’t hate me for grieving and suffering. And I get that, but I needed this fresh start for us, even if we were just joking around. Not everyone can afford to go to Leteo to have life undone and I wouldn’t if I could. If I did, I wouldn’t be able to re-create big life moments like today without the memories to remember.

  “So . . .” Genevieve is tracing my palm lines like she’s about to tell me my future, and she kind of is. “My father is going upstate with his girlfriend on Wednesday for an art show.”

  “Good for him, I guess.”

  “He’s going to be gone until Friday.”

  “Good for you.”

  Only then do I see where this is going. A sexy lightbulb moment flashes, and when it does, I get up and jump so high I think I might’ve left an Aaron-shaped hole in the clouds. But when I come back down, I remember something very crucial: Fuck, I have no idea how to have sex.

  3

  MANNING UP

  I am so screwed later on.

  Okay, poor choice of words, but yeah, I’m going to give it my best, and once Genevieve sees how seriously I’m trying she’ll probably laugh so hard she’ll cry and I’ll cry too but not because I’m laughing with her. I was hoping I could watch an unhealthy amount of porn to memorize techniques, but it’s almost impossible in a one-bedroom apartment. I can’t even wait for Eric to fall asleep because he stays up all night gaming. I’ve considered maybe watching porn in the morning while he’s knocked out, but even naked bodies can’t wake me up.

  I know I’m lucky just to have a cell phone, even though it has the shittiest Internet connection ever, but with a laptop I could sneak into the bathroom for “research.” Instead, we have a big-ass computer in the living room, and Eric is busy online right now building a free website for his video game clan, The Alpha God Kings. Fuck.

  I’m doodling on the back of the report card I got yesterday. Students had to return to school to clean out our lockers and sign up for summer school if needed. My grades dropped in the last couple of months because of, well, you-know-what, but I passed everything (even chemistry, which can go in a corner and melt in hydrochloric acid forever). My guidance counselor tried getting me to talk to her about how I should use this summer to get back in a better headspace for senior year. I totally agree, but right now I’m more concerned about tonight than I am about high school.

  The apartment feels extra small, my head even smaller, so I go outside to breathe for a second or minute or hour, but no longer than that because I am having sex tonight whether I know how to or not. I spot Brendan heading into a staircase, call his name, and he holds the door open. He got his first blow job at thirteen from this girl Charlene, and he would go on and on about it whenever we played video games. I hated him for achieving something I hadn’t, but he’s actually the kind of person whose ways I should tap into.

  “Yo. You got a second?”

  “Uh.” We both look down at his hand and he’s carrying weed in a Ziploc bag. Long gone are the days when he was a solitaire whiz. “I actually gotta go handle this.”

  I make my way past him before he can close the door. The staircase smells like fresh piss and I see the puddle on the floor; it was probably Skinny-Dave who is very territorial. “You blazing or dealing?”

  Brendan checks his watch. “Dealing. Customer is coming in a minute.”

  “I’ll be fast. I need to know how to have sex.”

  “Let’s hope it’s not fast for your sake.”

  “Thanks, asshole. Help me not fuck this up.”

  He shakes his pungent weed in my face. “I gotta make some bank, A.”

  “And I gotta make my girlfriend happy, B.” I pull out the two condoms I bought from work yesterday and shake them in his face. “Look, just give me some tips or tell me girls don’t really care about their first times or something. I’m freaking out right now that I’m not—I swear to God I will pay Me-Crazy to destroy you if you repeat this—that I’m not going to be good enough.”

  Brendan rubs his eyes. “Fuck all that. I boned a bunch of girls just so I could get off and get better.”

  “But I would never treat Genevieve like that.” I wouldn’t use any girl like that. Maybe Brendan isn’t the right person to ask after all.

  “That’s why you’re a virgin. Go ask Nolan for advice.”

  “Nolan, who’s fathered two kids at seventeen? No thanks.”

  “Aaron, don’t be some little boy who everyone will think is a punk or fag if you bitch out.”

  “I’m not trying to bitch out!”

  Brendan’s phone rings. “It’s my customer. You gotta bounce.”

  I don’t move. I expect my sort of best friend to step his game up during this big day for me. “I need you to do better than that.”

  “What, did your father not give you a sex talk before he kicked it?”

  Really crude way of labeling my dad’s suicide, I know. “No, he would always joke that we had HBO. I overheard him telling Eric some stuff one time, though.”

  “There you go. Ask your brother.” I’m about to protest when he stops me. “Look, unless you’re about to buy this weed off me, you need to go.” Brendan fake-smiles with a hand out for money. I turn away. “That’s what I thought,” he says. “Man up tonight.”

  There’s a list of things I would rather do than have the sex talk with my brother, but dying a virgin isn’t on it.

  Eric is playing the latest Halo game—I’ve lost count to which one this is—and his match is finally coming to a close. I have no idea what to say. We sometimes play racing games together, less so these days. We definitely never talk to each other about monumental life things, not even Dad’s death. His match ends and I stop acting like I’m reading Scorpius Hawthorne and the Crypt of Lies and sit up from my bed.

  “Do you remember Dad’s sex talk?”

  Eric doesn’t turn, but I’m sure the words are sinking in. He speaks into his headset, telling his “soldiers” he needs two minutes, and then mutes the microphone. “Yeah. Those talks are always really scarring.”

  We aren’t looking at each other. He’s staring at the postgame stats, probably analyzing how his team could’ve done better, and
I’m shifting from the worn yellowed stains in the corners of the room to outside the window where life isn’t awkward. “What did he say to you?”

  “Why do you care?”

  “I want to know what he would’ve told me.”

  Eric taps buttons that have zero effect on the menu screen. “He said he didn’t think about feelings when he was our age. Grandpa encouraged him to just have fun when he was ready, and to always make sure to wear a condom so he didn’t have to grow up too soon like some of his friends did. And he would’ve said you’re making him proud if you actually feel ready.”

  Eric echoing Dad’s words is not the same.

  I miss my dad.

  Eric switches his microphone back on and turns away like he regrets ever talking to me. I shouldn’t have forced him to remember Dad when he was distracted; the grieving need their peace whenever they can get it. He resumes playing, instructing his team like the alpha he is. Like Dad was whenever he played basketball and baseball and football, and anything else he did.

  I pull a shirt out of my dresser that smells like concentrated dish soap. That’s what happens when you share your clothes with a brother who rubs everything against cologne samples. Before I leave, I tell him, “I’m spending the night at Genevieve’s. Tell Mom I’m at Brendan’s playing some new game or something.”

  These words knock him out of his zone. He looks at me for a second before remembering he’s totally disinterested in my life, and goes back to playing.

  I’m torn walking to Genevieve’s.

  I’m overthinking everything. Why am I not running? If I really want this, I should be running, or at least jogging, in the interest of saving some energy. But if I don’t want to do this, I should be dragging my feet and flipping around to go home before I reach her door. Maybe I’m playing it cool by just walking there, not too eager, not thinking too highly of this completely monumental rite of passage to manhood. Here I am, a lanky kid with a chipped tooth and first chest hairs, and somebody wants to do this with me. And not just anyone. It’s Genevieve: my artist girlfriend who laughs at all my unfunny jokes and doesn’t abandon me during anything-but-fun times.