“Hey Zac!” I yelled to my brother from the room we shared, where I was looking at a genealogy page on the web.
“What, you Scandinavian bastard?”
“According to this, if I’m Scandinavian, so are you!”
“What!?” He rushed to the computer and looked at it. “This thing lies!”
“You’re stupid!”
“I am not!” He yelled to Mom, “Mom! The Scandinavian bastard’s calling me stupid!”
“Don’t call your brother stupid, you Scandinavian bastard!”
“Dad?” I asked timidly, walking into my father’s office place, clutching the print out tightly.
“Yes, you Scandinavian bastard?”
“This chart says that all my siblings are Scandinavian because if one’s Scandinavian the rest are too. Is that right?”
“No, you Scandinavian bastard!”
“Damn.”
I walked into the kitchen as the rest of the family ate dinner and asked, “Can I have some food, please?”
“No, you Scandinavian bastard! Go find something in the dumpster!” Dad yelled.
Mom put in, “Now, Walker. He is our son, even if he is a Scandinavian bastard. Shouldn’t we give him something?”
“Well, I suppose so. Come here, you Scandinavian bastard.”
I walked to him, hopeful.
“Put out your hand.” I extended my left hand.
He picked up an ear of corn and placed it in my out stretched hand. He cut a potato in half and put half next to the corn. Then he poured some gravy on it.
I looked down at the mess in my hand. I decided to leave before he took it back.
“Mom? Can I have some money to go down to Drug Mart and buy some milk? We’re running out, and eight ice cold glasses a day helps prevent osteoporosis.”
“Well, okay. But you better not spend it all in one place.” She handed me five cents.
“Mom, this isn’t enough to buy milk.”
“It was when I was young.”
“Milk was at least fifty cents when you were my age.”
“Five cents! Now be happy!”
“Fine, fine.”
I left the room, deciding to go to Dad about this issue. “Dad? We’re out of milk. Can you give me five bucks to go buy some more?”
“Sure, Zachary. Here you go.” He gave me another nickel.
“That’s not five bucks.”
“Well, milk only costs five cents. You don’t need more.”
“Milk costs $2.99!”
“Not when I was young!”
I walked out into the hallway muttering, “Fine, great. I suppose I should go back in time to the fifties now.”
“So you want to go back in time to the fifties, do you, Sonny?” some mystical weird guy asked me from my hallway, where he was sitting on a giant log.
“Uh, yeah...”
“Well, hop on board my magic log!”
“Uh, no.”
“Yes!”
“No!”
“Just get on the damn log!”
“Okay.”
I got on the log and sat there. “What?”
“Now hit the log and chant, ‘There’s no place like Arnold’s’ three times.”
I slapped the log and chanted, “There’s no place like Arnold’s, there’s no place like Arnold’s, there’s no place like Arnold’s!”
Nothing happened. “Hah hah! You just said ‘There’s no place like Arnold’s!’”
“Well you told me to, you mystical weird guy!”
The mystical weird guy took his turban, beard, and shades off. I gasped, “Taylor!”
A moment later I asked, “How the hell did you get this log in here?”
About an hour later, I had finally squeezed enough nickels out of Mom and Dad by claiming that it was the first time I had asked to actually buy some milk and had walked to Drug Mart to realize my dream.
I was examining a gallon container of skim when I noticed a familiar face doing the same thing a few feet down with the one percent.
I walked over to her and said, “Hi, Caty.”
She looked back, her eyes filled with pain. “Hi, Zac.”
“What are you doing here? It’s to late for you to be out alone. It’s not safe.”
“Why, what’s gonna happen to me?” she asked bitterly. “Get raped? Catch some disease, Zachary?”
“I never meant to hurt you, Caty.”
“Well, you did!”
“I’m sorry! I didn’t even get it that way! I was born with it! My mom gave it to me!”
“Well, you should have told me that you had it. I would have forgiven you. It’s not your fault.”
“Well, I was afraid that you wouldn’t want to be with me anymore. And I didn’t want that. I just wanted to make it all go away. Just be with you, and have no Hepatitis B problems in my life.”
“Well, you had the chance to do that when I asked you what happened in there. But you blew it by lying to me. This is a big thing, Zac. I could have gotten it too.”
“You know how I seemed like I didn’t really want you on the pill anymore after that day? Well, I didn’t. I didn’t want you to get it! My God. I wasn’t trying to infect you or anything!”
“Well, you just should have told me, okay?”
“I know. I fucked up. I admit that.”
“Well, I’ll give myself time, and call you when I’m ready. Please be there for me when I want you back.”
“I will be.”
I trudged home, lugging a gallon of milk after going through hell to pay for it in nickels, walked into the kitchen, and put it in the fridge.
“What happened to you,” Taylor asked me.
“I saw Cate.”
“You’re a bastard, you know that? For what you did to her.”
“Fuck off!”
“Okay.”
“You suck, you know that?”
“I do now!”
“Jenna, are you, like, mad at me or something?” I asked.
“No. Why would you think that?”
“Well, you aren’t looking at me, you are looking across the room at the wall, and you haven’t said two words to me all day.”
“Oh, sorry.”
“You’re weird!”
