Me and Earl and the Dying Girl

I found out about Rachel’s leukemia on a Tuesday. Wednesday, I tried calling her again after more nagging from Mom, and again she didn’t want to hang out. Thursday, she hung up as soon as I said my name.

So on Friday, I had no intention of calling whatsoever. When I got home from school, I went straight to the TV room to watch a movie. Specifically, Alphaville (Godard, 1965), which I was then going to re-watch later with Earl for research purposes. I realize you have no idea who Earl is still, even though we’re deep into this unbearably stupid book. Earl will be introduced soon, probably after I attempt to slam a door on my own head.

Anyway, I was barely into the credits when Mom walked in and pulled one of her trademark moves. She shut off the TV, opened her mouth, and emitted a nonstop stream of words. Nothing I did could make her stop talking. This is an unstoppable move.

MOM

You do not have a choice about this, Gregory, because you have been presented with the opportunity to make a very real difference in som

GREG

Mom what the hell

MOM

s rare and above all meaningful thing that you could be doing and let me tell you that it is not

GREG

Is this about Rachel? Because

MOM

nd I’ve seen you day after day just lying around like a dead slug and meanwhile a friend of yours

GREG

Can I just say something?

MOM

completely unacceptable, completely, you’ve got all the time in the world, and Rachel frankly doe

GREG

Mom stop talking can I just say something

MOM

f you think any of your excuses are more important than the happiness of a girl with

GREG

Holy shit. Please stop talking.

MOM

ou are going to pick up your phone, you are going to call Rachel, you are going to arrange to spend

GREG

Rachel won’t even let me say anything! She just hangs up! Mom! SHE JUST HANGS UP.

MOM

n this world, bottom line, you’re gonna have to learn to give, because you’ve been given everythi

GREG

UUUUUUUUURRRRRRRRRRGGGG

MOM

think you can “urrrg” your way out of this one, buster, you can think again, nuh-uh, no way, you

There was nothing to be done. I had to call Rachel. You can’t fight Mom’s unstoppable move. It’s probably how Mom got to be boss of a nonprofit: Nonprofits are all about persuading people to do stuff by talking at them. It’s like Will Carruthers talking you into giving him your Doritos “one time,” except that the nonprofit doesn’t have the additional persuasive advantage of you worrying that later the nonprofit is going to jump you in the locker room and whip your naked buttocks with a towel.

So yeah, I had to call Rachel again.

“What do you want.”

“Hi please don’t hang up.”

“I said, what do you want.”

“I want to hang out with you. Come on.”

“. . .”

“Rachel?”

“So you ignore me in school, and then you want to hang out after school.”

Well, this was true. Rachel and I had a few classes together, including calculus, where we sat right next to each other, and yeah, I made no effort to talk to her during any of that time. But I mean, that’s just what I did in school. I didn’t make an effort to talk to anyone. No friends, no enemies. That was the whole point.

If you think I had any idea of how to say this on the phone, though, you have not really been paying attention. I am about as good of a communicator as Cat Stevens, and only a little less likely to bite you.

“No, I wasn’t ignoring you.”

“Yeah, you were.”

“I thought you were ignoring me.”

“. . .”

“So, yeah.”

“You always used to ignore me, though.”

“Uh.”

“I always figured you just didn’t want to be friends with me.”

“Uhhh.”

“. . .”

“. . .”

“Greg?”

“The thing is, you broke my heart.”

I’m smart in some ways—pretty good vocabulary, solid at math—but I am definitely the stupidest smart person there is.

“I broke your heart.”

“Well, sort of.”

“How did I ‘sort of’ break your heart.”

“Uh . . . Remember Josh?”

“Josh Metzger?”

“In Hebrew school I thought you were in love with Josh.”

“Why did you think that?”

“I thought everyone in our class was in love with Josh.”

“Josh was depressed all the time.”

“No, he was all sullen and, uh . . . and dreamy.”

“Greg, it sounds like you’re in love with Josh.”

“Harf!”

This was unexpected. It had never happened before. Rachel had made me laugh. I mean, what she said wasn’t that funny, but I just really wasn’t expecting it, which is why instead of a normal laugh I made a sound like harf. Anyway, that’s when I knew I was in.

“You really thought I was in love with Josh.”

“Yeah.”

“And that broke your heart?”

“Of course it did.”

“Well, you should’ve said something.”

“Yeah, I was being really stupid about it.”

One of my few effective conversational tactics is to throw previous versions of myself under the bus. Twelve-year-old Greg was a jerk to you, you say? He was a jerk to everyone. And he had like thirty stuffed animals in his room! What a loser.

“Greg, I’m sorry.”

“No! No, no, no. It’s my fault.”

“Well, what are you doing right now?”

“Nothing,” I lied.

“You can come over if you want.”

Mission accomplished. I just had to call Earl.