Darius the Great Is Not Okay Page 4

  Now that he was at Chapel Hill High School, with an enforced Zero Tolerance Policy toward bullying, he couldn’t add the -Bag.

  I ran faster, and Chip kept pace with me, but at least he wasn’t smiling anymore. “I was just gonna tell you your zipper was open. I didn’t mean to split your backpack.”

  “Whatever. At least you can’t hide truck nuts in it.”

  “And I’m sorry about your bike. Really.”

  I almost believed him.

  Almost.

  * * *

  Unlike the rest of the Net Sports Unit, which was haphazardly arranged, we had assigned teams for volleyball. Coach Fortes set us up to play tournament-style. There were no eliminations, but the team with the best record would get extra credit.

  I did not understand the point and purpose of assigning extra credit to the winners when they were—statistically speaking—the most likely to be athletic types and therefore the least likely to need the extra credit.

  Me being me, I was stuck on a team with Fatty Bolger, which gave him even more opportunities to joke about balls flying at my face.

  Like I said. At least he was predictable.

  Trent served first—he always served first—and we bump-set-spiked back and forth, while I tried to stay out of Trent’s way, because he was a very intense volleyball player. He was especially intense since we were playing against Chip’s team. Despite being best friends, Chip and Trent battled like Emotionally Compromised Vulcans when they were on opposing teams.

  I didn’t get that at all. If I’d had a best friend—Javaneh was my closest friend, but we weren’t anything approaching best friends—we would have always been on the same team. Not in the sense of a Net Sports team, but in the sense that I’d be happy for them if they won, and they’d be happy for me if I won.

  Fatty elbowed me out of the way to set the ball for Craig, who was in front of us, to spike.

  “Get with the program, Kellner!” Coach Fortes shouted.

  I was with the program. It’s just that Fatty Bolger seemed to be operating a different version of it.

  So the next time the ball came at me, I planted myself right under it, locked my elbows and bumped it.

  But instead of going upward, the ball shot straight forward, right into the back of Craig’s head.

  I was terrible at Net Sports.

  Craig looked back at me as he scooped up the ball.

  “Sorry.”

  Craig shrugged and tossed the ball under the net to Chip, who was serving next.

  “Watch where you’re aiming,” Trent said. “Terrorist.”

  This was not the first time I had been called a terrorist. It didn’t happen often—no teacher let it slide if they heard it—but school was school, and I was a kid with Middle Eastern heritage, even though I was born and raised in Portland.

  It didn’t bother me that much.

  Not really.

  I mean, D-Bag was a lot worse.

  Terrorist was so ridiculous that I could shrug it off.

  Mom always said those kinds of jokes didn’t bother her, because Persians couldn’t be terrorists. No Persian can get up early enough in the morning to bomb anything.

  I knew she said it because it really did bother her. But it was easier if we could make fun of ourselves about it. That way, when boring Hobbits like Fatty Bolger said things, it didn’t matter. We had already made the joke ourselves.

  I guess it actually did bother me.

  Just a little bit.

  INTERMIX RATIO

  “Hey, son. What happened to your backpack?”

  I stuck my homework in the Audi’s backseat and got in front. “Structural integrity field collapse.”

  Dad laughed at my Star Trek reference, and also because he was finally getting his wish: He had been after me to get a new backpack all semester. “Better at school than in the airport.”

  “Chip Cusumano wouldn’t have been at the airport to rip it open.” I explained how it all happened, and Dad started shaking his head about halfway through the story.

  “All you have to do is stand up to him.”

  “I did. He didn’t listen.”

  “He’s only doing it because he can tell he’s getting to you.”

  I wondered if that’s why Dad treated me the way he did. Because he could tell he was getting to me.

  Ever since my bicycle had been removed from active service, I had been taking the bus to school in the morning, and Dad had picked me up in the afternoon to drop me off at Tea Haven. His work schedule was a lot more flexible than Mom’s.

  I think Dad and I got along as well as we did—which wasn’t that well, but still—because I didn’t see him that often, with school and then work in the evenings. And when I did see him, it was usually for dinner, when Mom or Laleh were around to provide a buffer, or for Star Trek, which was sacrosanct.

  The extra time in the car was throwing off our carefully calibrated intermix ratio.

  I really did like riding in Dad’s Audi, though.

  I just couldn’t tell him that.

  Dad shrugged and waited for an opening to pull away from the curb. “It’ll be fine,” he said. “We’ll get you a new one when we get back. And I’m sure it was just a misunderstanding with Chip.”

  Stephen Kellner clearly didn’t understand my social standing at Chapel Hill High School. He’d never had to deal with the Fatty Bolgers and Cyprian Cusumanos of the world.

  Stephen Kellner was a Paragon of Teutonic Masculinity.

  “I made us appointments to get haircuts.” He turned right out of the parking lot, toward the Shoppes at Fairview Court.

  I didn’t have to work that night—Mr. Apatan had given me the last week off, to get ready for our trip—but that’s where Dad usually got his hair cut.

  “Um,” I said. “I’m fine.”

  “You need a haircut.” Dad waved his hand up and down in my direction. “This is out of control.”

  “I like it like this. It’s not even that long.”

  “It’s nearly as long as your sister’s. What kind of example are you setting for her?”

  “No it’s not.” I mean, maybe it was technically, because my head was larger than Laleh’s, but proportionally my hair was still shorter.

  “You could at least get it trimmed.”

  “It’s my hair, Dad,” I said. “Why is it such a big deal to you, anyway?”

  “Because it’s ridiculous. Did you ever think that you wouldn’t get picked on so much if you weren’t so . . .”

  Dad worked his jaw back and forth.

  “So what, Dad?”

  But he didn’t answer.

  What could he possibly say?

  * * *

  I waited in the car while Dad stomped out and got his hair cut.

  I couldn’t stand to be in the same place as him. I don’t think he could stand to be in the same place as me either.

  When we got home, he stormed upstairs to his office without another word. I dropped my decommissioned backpack on the kitchen table and filled the kettle from the pitcher of filtered water I kept on the counter. I always used filtered water—it tasted way better than tap water—though Stephen Kellner liked to complain about the redundancy of keeping a pitcher of filtered water when the refrigerator already had a water filter built in.

  Stephen Kellner complained about everything I liked.

  In Russia, people use a samovar—a smaller version of Smaug the Voluminous—to heat a bunch of water, and then mix it with über-strong tea from a smaller pot. Persians have adopted that method too, except most Persians use a large kettle and a smaller pot you can stack on top, like a double boiler.

  So, when the water boiled, I filled our teapot—a stainless steel one that came in a gift set with the kettle—with three scoops of our Persian tea blend and one sachet of
Rose City Earl Grey tea. Mom called it her secret ingredient: It had enough bergamot in it to scent a teapot twice as large as ours, so whenever she had Persian guests they always complimented her on how fragrant her tea was.

  I pulled down the cardamom jar, pulled out five pods, and stuck them beneath the jar.

  Whack, whack, whack!

  Maybe I was a little more enthusiastic about smashing hel than usual, after my fight with Dad.

  Maybe I was.

  I dropped the crushed pods into the pot, filled it with water, and waited for it to finish damming.

  * * *

  Mom picked up Laleh on her way home from work. She went upstairs to pack, while I had tea with Laleh, which was our tradition when I didn’t have to work after school.

  Laleh always took her tea with three cubes of sugar and one cube of ice, and she always clanged the teaspoon against the sides of her glass teacup as she stirred. Somehow, no matter how hard or how vigorously Laleh stirred, she never slopped tea over the sides of her glass or spilled on herself. I didn’t know how she did it.

  I still spilled tea on myself at least once a week.

  Laleh took a tentative sip, holding her tea with both hands.

  “Too hot?”

  She smacked her lips. “Nope.”

  I didn’t understand how Laleh could drink lukewarm tea.

  “Taste good?”

  “Yeah.” She took another slurp.

  It was nice, sharing tea with Laleh. I didn’t get to see her that much on work nights, but like I said, Mr. Apatan had given me the week off. Despite his frustrating literal-mindedness, Mr. Apatan was a pretty cool boss.

  “It’s your first time going home?” he had asked.

  “Uh.” I thought it was interesting, how he had called it home.

  I wondered why he called it that. What made him call Iran home, when he knew I was born and raised in Portland.

  “It’s my first time to Iran.”

  “It’s so important, you know? To see where you came from.” Mr. Apatan was born in Manila, and he still went to visit once a year. “You have a lot of family there?”

  “Yeah. My mom has two brothers. And her parents.”

  “Good.” Mr. Apatan had peered at me over the top of his glasses. “Have a good trip, Darius.”

  “Thanks.”

  * * *

  Mom ordered pizza for dinner, to avoid having a big mess to clean up before we left. It was a thin crust, half pepperoni, half pineapple.

  Laleh loved pineapple on her pizza.

  Normally, I was thrilled to get pizza—it was pretty much the best dietary indiscretion ever—but I could feel Dad watching me at every bite, flaring his nostrils.

  First I had refused to cut my hair, and now I was eating pizza.

  And there weren’t even any vegetables on it.

  Laleh told us how her teacher had googled pictures of Iran to show the class where Laleh was going, which I thought was pretty cool.

  “How about your day, Darius?” Mom asked.

  “It was okay.”

  “How were your classes?”

  “Um. Econ was okay. Gym was okay.” I didn’t want to get into being called a terrorist. “You heard about my backpack.”

  “What happened to your backpack?” Laleh asked.

  “Uh. It broke.”

  “How?”

  “Chip Cusumano broke it when he pulled on it too hard.”

  “That was rude!”

  Dad huffed. Mom glared at him.

  “Yeah,” I agreed.

  “Maybe if you . . .” Dad began, but Mom cut him off.

  “We’ll get you a new one when we get home. But your dad has a bag you can borrow. Right?”

  Dad looked at Mom. It was like they were exchanging telepathic messages.

  “Right. Sure.”

  I wasn’t sure I wanted to borrow anything of Stephen Kellner’s.

  But I didn’t have much choice.

  * * *

  We didn’t watch The Next Generation that night. There wasn’t time, with all the packing.

  Besides, Star Trek was when we acted like we were a real father and son.

  Neither of us felt like acting that night.

  I was folding up my boxers when Mom hollered that Mamou and Babou were on Skype.

  “Mamou, Babou,” Mom said. “Darioush is here.”

  Mom did that sometimes: call me Darioush instead of Darius.

  Darioush is the original Persian version of the name Darius.

  I had made it my Priority One Goal in life never to let Trent Bolger, or any of his Soulless Minions of Orthodoxy, learn the Persian pronunciation of my name, which is Darr-yoosh.

  It was an even more imperative goal, now that I was D-Bag.

  The opportunities for rhyming were too gruesome to consider.

  I squeezed myself into frame, looming over Mom’s shoulder. Mamou and Babou were squeezed next to each other in two seats. Babou sat back a bit, looking at the monitor over the rim of his glasses.

  “Hi, maman!” Mamou said. Her smile looked ready to burst through the screen. “I’m so happy to see you soon.”

  “Me too. Um. Do you need anything from Portland?”

  “No, thank you. Just you come.”

  “Okay. Hi, Babou.”

  “Hello, baba,” my grandfather said. His voice was gravelly, and his accent was heavier than Mamou’s. “Soon you will be here.”

  “Yeah. Um. Yeah.”

  Babou blinked at me. He didn’t smile, not really, but he didn’t frown either.

  This is how most of my conversations with Babou went.

  We didn’t know how to talk to each other.

  I studied my grandfather in the monitor. He didn’t look any different. He had the same severe eyebrows, the mustache that quivered when he spoke, the distinguished Picard Crescent (though his was a bit fluffier, since his hair was curly like mine).

  But according to Mom and Dad, he was dying.

  I didn’t know how to talk about that. About how sad I was. About how bad I felt.

  And I didn’t know how to tell him I was excited to finally meet him either.

  I mean, you can’t just tell your own grandfather “Nice to meet you.”

  I had his blood in me. His and Mamou’s. They weren’t strangers.

  But I was about to meet them for the first time.

  My chest started to clench up.

  “Um.” I swallowed. “I better go finish packing.”

  Babou cleared his throat. And then he said, “See you soon, Darioush.”

  OLYMPUS MONS

  Here’s the thing:

  No one should have to wake up at three o’clock in the morning.

  My phone was set to play the Enterprise’s RED ALERT sound as an alarm, but even with the klaxon going off, I wanted to pull the pillow over my head and go back to sleep.

  But waking up at three in the morning wasn’t even the worst part. That was waiting for me when I looked in the mirror.

  My forehead had become host to an alien parasite: the biggest pimple I’d ever had in my entire life.

  It was glowing red and ominous between my eyebrows like the Eye of Sauron, lidless and wreathed in flame. It was so massive, it emitted its own gravitational field.

  I was certain that, if I popped it, the implosion would suck me, my family, and our whole house into a singularity we’d never escape.

  But I did pop it. I couldn’t travel with an alien organism inhabiting my face.

  I swear it smelled like natural gas and pu-erh tea when it ruptured, which was weird and gross.

  I never drank pu-erh. It was the one category of tea I could never learn to love. It smelled like compost and tasted like week-old sushi, no matter how many kinds I tried or how many ste
epings I did.

  The pimple bled for a long time. I scrubbed at its remains in the shower with my oil-control acne-fighting face wash, and my forehead was still stinging as I got dressed.

  Without my backpack, I had to use one of Dad’s messenger bags from work as my carry-on, or “personal item.”

  Like I said, I didn’t understand the point and purpose of messenger bags. The one Dad lent me had his company logo on it: a stylized K and a stylized N, made out of scale rules and T-squares and drafting pencils, even though Kellner & Newton had been entirely digital since before I was born.

  I’d packed my suitcase the night before, but I had left the Kellner & Newton Messenger Bag for the morning. That was a mistake.

  Stephen Kellner of Kellner & Newton was not very pleasant at 3:30 in the morning. Especially since he was clearly still mad at me.

  “Darius.” He poked his head in my room. “We’ve got to go in thirty minutes. Why are you still packing?”

  “It’s just my carry-on. I’ll be ready.”

  “Don’t forget your passport. Or your meds.”

  I had already checked five different times that my passport was in the front pocket of the Kellner & Newton Messenger Bag. And I’d checked my meds three times.

  I said, “I got it, Dad.”

  It was hard to fit books into the messenger bag. My backpack, of blessed memory, could fit four schoolbooks in it, but the Kellner & Newton Messenger Bag was clearly designed for product placement and not storage capacity. I was only able to squeeze one book in, sandwiched between the packets of homework I planned to do on the plane.

  I chose The Lord of the Rings, since I hadn’t read it in over a year, and it was long enough to last me a good portion of the trip.

  I also had to fit in a pyramid tin from Rose City Teas: some loose leaf FTGFOP1 First Flush Darjeeling I bought as a gift for Mamou. It had this sort of fruity, floral scent, but the taste was smooth.

  FTGFOP means Finest Tippy Golden Flowering Orange Pekoe, which is the highest grade of tea leaf, and the “1” means the very best of the FTGFOP leaves.