A New Project

            It’s been two weeks since my last “reading” session with Mr. H.  I hadn’t gone back because I didn’t know what to say. I know it was low, I mean the guy had just bared his soul to me, but I didn’t know how to handle it.  Christa said he was doing fine, though.  At least that’s what she told me.

            I thought about what Mr. H. had said a few weeks ago, about writing what you love.  So I decided to try it.  I started writing a story about a kid who finds a portal to another dimension where he gets superpowers.

            It’s a lot cooler than it sounds.

            Yesterday I got my grade for my “involunteer” project: an A+.

            Riding home on my bike I made a decision and took a detour to Shady Pines. 

            Christa was excited to see me there again, and it was about time I came back.  “Now get in there already!” she said, shoving me into the room.

            Mr. H. looked exactly the same, staring out the window like usual.  I cleared my throat and said, “Hi, Mr. H.”  He didn’t look at me.  I hoped he wasn’t angry at me.  “I’m sorry I haven’t been here to read you books you don’t like or read before.”

            I saw him smirk slightly.

            I unzipped my backpack and pulled out my notebook.   “I wanted to let you know that I started writing a story, an actual one.  One that I’d want to read,” I said.  “Thanks for telling me to do it.  And thanks for getting me an A.”  I pulled my backpack on and turned to leave.

            BEEP!

            I turned back around and met his gaze.  “It’s called ‘The Portal of Panzeon,’” I said.  He smirked.  I knew he could tell I was excited just from the title.  He looked from me to my chair, still where I left it last.  I immediately sat down and opened my notebook.

            “Chapter One: The Broken Code.”

            I read the few chapters I had without stopping.  It was nice having no time constraint.  When I finished, I said, “It’s going to get better, I mean, once Evan actually meets the empress, but that’s what I’ve got so far.”

            BEEP!

            I grinned.  I put my notebook away when my phone beeped again.

The End.

Session Nine

Post from March 31^st:

            I took Mr. H’s advice, but in a different way.  I actually did what I wanted to do this Spring Break.  This really caught Adam off-guard.  He’s used to me just going along with his stupid ideas and I actually told him no.  It was kind of fun to see the look on his face and he just said, “Okay.”  Sweet.

            I think I let this newfound power go a little to my head though.  I got into an argument with my mom yesterday.

            She was having Jay and Christa over for Easter dinner.  That wasn’t going to be until about 5pm, so I was still planning on going to visit Mr. H.  My mom refused to let me go because schoolwork was not for holidays and I was needed at the house to peel eggs.  When I told her I wanted to go, she laughed.

            She actually had the fucking nerve to laugh at me.

            “No you don’t, Ethan, don’t be silly.  You’re not going and this discussion is over.”

            I realize now I should not have exploded like that.  I just got so angry that I couldn’t take it anymore.  I thought of all the crap I’ve had to put up with from her and snapped.

            “You ALWAYS think everything I do is stupid, that I can’t think for myself!  My opinions don’t matter and you only care how your kids make YOU look!  I don’t need you to treat me like a baby all the time!  I’m going to see Mr. H. because it’s MY decision.  I’ll be back before dinner.” And I left.

            I rode my bike so fast smoke was almost coming off of the gears.  With all that built-up energy I got to Shady Pines quicker than I ever did in the car.  I walked down the hallway and saw Christa standing there, biting her nails.  Did Mom call her? 

            Christa saw me and said that she tried calling my phone.  “Mr. H. isn’t feeling well,” she said.  “You should go home and I’ll meet you there.”

            She looked really sketchy.  I asked her what was wrong.  She sighed.

            “It’s Easter,” she said.  “All the residents’ families are here for brunch, except for Mr. H.”  I asked where they were and she shook her head.  “I don’t know.  He’s been here three years and they’ve never visited, ever.  Most times he’s okay. He just stares out of the window at the parking lot, like he’s waiting for them to come, but they never do.  It’s terrible.”

            Wow.  I couldn’t imagine.  I asked Christa why I couldn’t go see him and she looked hesitant.

            “He doesn’t want to have anything to do with anyone.  He won’t even touch his iPad.  You can go in, but don’t expect much.”

            I nodded and Christa opened the door.  Mr. H’s hands were at his side, face turned completely towards the sunny window.  Christa gave me a pat on the shoulder and closed the door.  I cleared my throat.

            “Happy Easter, Mr. H,” I said.  He didn’t look up.  I stood there awkwardly for a moment before sitting down.  “I know we haven’t read in a while, but we can pick up where we left off.”  I opened my old Harry Potter book and my phone beeped.

            I looked up and Mr. H. was staring at me again.  I didn’t realize that my hair was stuck to my forehead and my shirt was drenched.  I really peddled hard.

            “I rode my bike here,” I answered.  His eyebrows raised in surprise.  “My mom and I kind of had a fight.”  He waited for me to go on, so I did.  At the end of my rant I said, “I’m just sick of her always acting like I don’t matter.  I finally took a stand, and I’m proud of that.  I mean, that’s a good thing, right?”

            Mr. H. hesitated before nodding slowly.  He typed on his iPad.

            I felt a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach.

            BEEP!

            I sat there staring at the text, thinking.  I knew he was right.  Mr. H. was staring out the window again.  I debated with myself for a minute and decided to do it anyway.  “Mr. H?” I asked hesitantly.  “What happened to your family?”  He stared at his lap for a long while. I added, “Please.”  He finally began to text like he’s never done before.  Words poured out of his fingertips at lightning speed and I struggled to keep up with reading them.

            BEEP!

            BEEP!

            BEEP!

            BEEP!

            BEEP!

            BEEP!

            BEEP!

            It was a long time before I could look at Mr. H.  My chest felt heavy.  When I finally looked up, he was staring out the window again, but this time his eyes were wet.  I sat there for a while until the hour was up.  I didn’t know what to say.  There wasn’t anything I could say.  So I just patted his arm and left.

            Christa drove me home.  I didn’t tell her about what Mr. H. said, and she didn’t ask.  When we got back to the house, my mom mumbled an apology and I let it go.  I sat down and peeled the eggs.

            This morning I went to Mrs. Felton’s class.  She said that since no one but me had more than two volunteer hours that we aren’t required to do any more.  The project is over.

Session Eight

             So the website was broken and deleted my posts. This one was written on March 24th:

            Spring break is this week and I’m looking forward to no homework.  I would say I’m looking forward to doing nothing, but Adam and my mom have other ideas.  Adam always plans these ridiculous schemes for us like hitchhiking to Disney World, while my mom wants me to research colleges.  I just want to relax and not think about anything.

            When I went to Shady Pines today, Christa was grinning.  “Read your latest post!” she said.  Maybe I should change the URL so she can’t find it anymore.  “I like it.  He’s really good at storytelling, isn’t he, Mr. Henricksen?”  My face got hot and I stared at my sneakers.

            Christa left and I barely sat down before BEEP!

            “Christa?” I asked.  He nodded. “Yeah, right. It’s just for school.  No one’s even supposed to read it.”

            BEEP!

            That’s a good question.

            I didn’t have an answer.  And even thinking about it now I have no clue why I’m still writing this.  I guess I kind of like it.

            So I told Mr. H. that.  He nodded and looked out of the window.

            I don’t know what made me do it, but for whatever reason I asked him this: “Are you a writer, Mr. H?”

            It was the first question I ever asked about him.  I didn’t realize until that moment that he knew all this stuff about me and I knew nothing about him.  He looked at me and smirked.

            BEEP!

            He used my actual name.  Weird.

            I asked him what kind of stuff he liked to write about.

            BEEP!

            That was only slightly vague.  He saw the blank stare I had and grinned.  I smiled too.  “Got any tips for me?” I asked.

            He thought for a second before typing.

            I nodded.  Seemed logical, though I wasn’t totally convinced.  Just because I love something and want to read about it doesn’t mean anyone else would think it’s good.

            Mr. H. read my thoughts and sent another text.

            I think that’s the best advice I think I’ve ever gotten.

Session Seven

This past Sunday was St. Patrick’s Day.  The entire building was decorated in green shamrocks and the old people drank green lemonade and listened to Irish music.  I walked inside Mr. H’s room and stopped dead in my tracks.  Mr. H was lying in his bed as usual, but there was one major difference.

He had a giant plush leprechaun hat on his head.

Mr. H looked horrified.  My phone buzzed and I saw that he had a text already written for when I came in:

I snorted.

Christa wasn’t paying attention.  She was singing “Oh Danny Boy” while she decorated the room. She wanted Mr. H to have a fun holiday and said she would put green food coloring in his IV if she wouldn’t get fired!  Then out of nowhere she told me, “By the way, I read your blog.”

            Oh God, what did I write?  No one was supposed to read this thing, not even Mrs. Felton!  She laughed at the look on my face and said, “Mom told me.  Relax, she hasn’t read it.  But I thought it was wonderful.  Well, besides you calling me ‘know-it-all.’”  I was relieved.  She rung her arm around my neck and ruffled my hair.  “You’re doing a good thing, bud.  I’m proud of you.” Then she left.

            I walked over to Mr. H and took off the hat.  “Better?” I asked.  He sighed and nodded.  “Sorry about Christa.  She loves theme parties.  But I guess you’re not really into them, are you, sir?”

            BUZZ!

            Anymore.  Oh.  I could see we were getting to a rough topic, so I went and sat in my chair and took out the book.

            BUZZ!

            Well, I should have known this would happen.  Christa wasn’t exactly being subtle about it.  I said yes.  He stared at me.  I closed the book and told him that it was a school project, just giving him the general overview.  He typed again.

            Oh no.  I couldn’t let him read it!  I tried explaining that it isn’t very good, that I’m no writer, and it’s just like recording our conversations and stuff, but he was stubborn.  He looked from me to his iPad and back to me.

            I didn’t know someone so quiet could be so loud.

            I sighed and walked over to him.  The iPad was hooked onto the stand so I had to lean close to him.  I could hear how he breathed: slightly wheezy and slow. I knew he was watching me and not the screen.  I brought up the page and stood up quickly.  “There you go,” I said.  His forehead wrinkled and he pointed to the title “Involuntary Volunteer.”  I rubbed my neck awkwardly and said, “That was before I started coming here,” or something stupid like that.

            Mr. H read the page.  I waited for him to tell me that I am an ungrateful punk or deserve a bad grade for what I’ve written.  I stood there for a minute.  When he didn’t look up, I moved back to my seat.

            I sat there the entire time as he read my posts, waiting for some indication of anger or annoyance, but nothing came.  That freaked me out.  Finally Christa came in with a leprechaun cupcake for me.  I said, “I’m leaving, Mr. H,” but he didn’t look up.  I took my cupcake and left.

            A couple hours later I was on my computer re-reading my posts. God, I sounded whiny.  No wonder Mr. H. didn’t say goodbye.  But why should I care what some old guy thinks?  I didn’t know.  I mean, I did kind of like hanging out with him though, I guess.

            My phone beeped.  It was Mr. H!  He had never texted me outside of Shady Pines before.  I took a deep breath, clicked the button and read the text.

Session Six

            This week was the halfway point for us in Mrs. Felton’s class for our “involunteer” hours.  We only need 12 to get an A, I don’t know why people were complaining.  A lot of them have only have one hour logged!  What the crap have they been doing this whole time?  I guess they don’t have a mother to make them go every week.

            Not that I mind.  Like I said, I just wish I wasn’t being forced to do this, ya know?

            I asked her if I could ride my bike to Shady Pines instead of her driving me (it felt so nice outside!) and she looked at me like I had two heads.

            At least she let me roll the windows down.

            On the way she started talking about Jay getting accepted into the grad program at UF and that makes two out of three children with Master’s degrees, and speaking of which, Ethan, even though you’re only fourteen and can’t walk into a building alone, you should really start thinking about potential majors for when you go to college, as it’s never too early to get your life on track!

            By the time I got to Mr. H’s room I was not in a great mood.

            Christa noticed right away and asked what was wrong.  I shrugged, but being know-it-all Christa she said, “Mom’s being crazy again, isn’t she?”  How the frick does she know these things?  “Don’t worry.  Once you move out she’ll lighten up. A little.”

            “Oh good, only four more years.

            She left and I began reading again.  After about five minutes my phone went off.

            I guess one session without talking was enough.

            I looked at the text and froze.

            Wait . . . he said it was a good choice.  You can’t NOT like Harry Potter, it’s like physically impossible!  I glanced at his and he watched me expressionless.  I didn’t know what to say.  So I cleared my throat and said.  “You don’t like Harry Potter, sir?”  He shook his head slowly.  I ground my teeth a little.  “Okay, well, that’s fine, sir, would you like me to get you another—”

            DING!

            I didn’t understand.  Convince him why he hates it?  I guess he saw my confusion cuz a second later came this:

            The American Way.  Ha.  This was new.

            Sooo I just started listing reasons why I liked the series, like he said.  I didn’t really understand the point of the exercise, but man it felt good to talk about.  I got myself really hyped up (“nerd alert,” as Adam says) but I’m okay with it.  In a weird way it was kind of fun, I guess.

            And that’s how we spent the entire session.  Mr. H sat there and nodded along with me.  It was kind of cool to have an adult actually listen to me talk for once.

            I ran out of breath and we ran out of time.  Once I stopped talking I realized that it was probably rude to dominate the conversation like that and I apologized.  Mr. H smiled slightly and tapped away on the ipad.

            I grinned.

           Christa walked me out to the parking lot, asking what we were reading in there, because my voice was “very adamant.”  That is one word I’ve never been described as.  Huh.

Session Five

            Even though Mr. H. told me not to try so hard, this entire week I’ve been stressing about that book.  I felt like this was some Jedi mind trick or something, like he says I can choose, but I should actually choose what he wants me to choose.

            Can you tell this has been driving me crazy?

            I asked my friend Adam what his favorite book is, but he hates reading.  He’s more of a Jersey Shore kinda guy.  “Why don’t you just bring a movie or something for the old dude to watch and then you can chill and take a nap?  It’s not like he can tell on you or something.”

            “Yeah, really,” I said.

            I know I shouldn’t have cared so much about a stupid book.  I mean when my brother Jay took this class, he helped at a canned food drive once a week and you never saw him worrying about which brand of peas to bring.  I’m just weird, I guess.

            I’ve never been good at making decisions.  Usually I wait for someone to point me where to go.  But this time, after much deliberation, I finally said screw it and brought the book I wanted to read.

            “Good morning, sir,” I said after Christa left.  He looked at me expectantly as I sat down.  “Sir,” I asked kind of embarrassed, “have you ever read the Harry Potter books?”

            He shook his head.  I felt my inner nerd start to get really excited.

            “Okay, they are like the most awesome books ever.  They’ve got adventure and mystery and magic and everything!  My mom doesn’t like them—she thinks they’re stupid—and the later ones are better, but I’m gonna start with the first one so you can know what’s going on.” I realized I was rambling.  “Is that okay, sir?”

            He smiled and nodded.

            This was the first time since we started that I was able to read the entire session without him interrupting once.  I got really into it (don’t worry, I didn’t attempt a British accent), but I’m not sure if he was too.  We actually got about four chapters in when Christa walked in and said Mom was there to pick me up.  I couldn’t believe how fast the hour went.  Christa asked what we were reading, and when I told her she did a kind of laugh that made me feel self-conscious.  I know she didn’t mean anything by it, but still.  I said bye to Mr. H. and left.

            I was walking down the hall when I felt my phone vibrate.  I smiled.

Session Four

           Sorry I haven’t posted in a while.  I got the flu last week and couldn’t go read to Mr. H.  I literally stayed in bed all day playing Call of Duty (no complaints here!)

            So I went back this morning, carrying a backpack of a dozen different books.  I had no idea anything he might want to read, and I wondered what he did last week when I wasn’t there.  I felt kind of bad about it, but Mom said old people are fragile and I could’ve killed him with my germs.

            Christa ruffled my hair before leaving me and Mr. H. alone.  I grabbed my chair as usual and was just about to sit when my pocket dinged.

            He’s getting quicker.

           

            I was about to ask how he knew when he glanced at the door.  Duh, Christa told him.

            “Yes, sir, much better now.  I’m sorry I had the flu.”

            He narrowed his eyes and typed really fast.

            Did he . . . Holy crap, did he actually just say that?  I stared at the text.  How do you even respond to something like that?  I finally looked up at Mr. H.  He was . . . grinning.

            . . .Seriously?

            I gave a slight nervous laugh and said something like “Yes, sir, good one.” Awkward.

            I opened my backpack and read the titles to see which one Mr. H would want to read.  They were all things I had to read for class like “Of Mice and Men” and “Where the Red Fern Grows.”  I didn’t really like any of them, but I figured old people like these kind of books.  I held up each one, but Mr. H. didn’t respond to anything.  He just stared.

Way to make this more awkward, dude.

            Finally I just picked a random one: “A Separate Peace.”  Bleh.

            I started reading again, hoping for no more interruptions.  I described every flippin’ blade of grass and every flippin’ leaf on the tree to the point where I stopped listening to myself.  Time was just about up when my phone dinged again.

            “Yes, sir?” I asked, kind of annoyed.  “Have you already read this one too?”

            Crap.   “Is it that obvious?”  He nodded.  “I’m sorry, sir.  Is there a certain book you want me to bring next time?”

            I have to pick?  Great, more pressure.  “Okay, sir, sounds good.” I packed up my bag.  “See ya next week.”  I got up to leave and my phone dinged one more time.

            I really need to work on my poker face.