Popcorn Ceilings

Tate might have a weed problem. He might have a chemical imbalance. He might be completely normal, just like everyone else. He’s not sure. One thing he knows is that the days he can harness his ‘I don’t care’ attitude are easier. On those days he thinks screw it, it doesn’t matter. Instead of would that be stupid to say? Why did I say that? Are they looking at me? 

Tate listens to Dax Shepard’s podcast. Dax is rich and famous. Tate is a B average student and his mom pays his rent and his other expenses, even his weed. Dax is in touch with his emotions and often reflects on his own insecurities around feeling ‘Less than.’ Tate always feels ‘Less than.’ He likes to think he understands more about himself while listening to Dax. Then the podcast ends. He takes his AirPods out, and he’s back to wondering things like did Chelsea in English class notice I was bouncing my leg every time it was my turn to read Beowulf? Tate makes himself miserable all the time.

He is white. He is male. He is six foot three inches tall. He waits too long in between haircuts and buys all his clothes from Nordstrom Rack, except his underwear and socks, which he gets from Kohl’s. He did acid once and on the comedown discovered a hypnotic spiral in his left eye that he got lost in for two hours. Afterward, he used a single blade Bic razor and dry shaved his entire face. The razor was yellow. He woke up the next day in a fog with a half dozen shave cuts scattered around his face; crimson splatter on flesh. He never wore yellow again.

When he is forced to, he says that his father died in a car accident. His father killed himself by driving his car off a Northern California cliff. The newspaper articles that picked up the incident said that the police suspected that the crash was deliberate. Tate’s mom, a career saleswoman for Cisco Systems, told him it didn’t matter if it was an accident or if it was deliberate. All that mattered, she said, was that he was gone and that they needed to push on. Tate wishes he could be as focused on outcomes as his mother.

He enjoys eating weed chocolate in 10mg doses. He occasionally smokes it too, but sometimes when he does, regardless of the temperature outside, his whole body shakes. Is this a panic attack? Can a heart explode? One time it happened when he was on a date with a girl named Fern. He likes the name Fern. But I can’t ask her about her name, it’s too obvious. What can I ask her that’s not so obvious? Then the weed hit and he started trembling. Fern noticed and told him he needn’t be nervous. Why did she say needn’t? Who says needn’t? He wanted to tell her it was the weed, but he didn’t want her to think that he had a schedule one drug problem. He thought that even if she used cannabis herself, he couldn’t tell her it was the weed. She’ll think I’m a lightweight. She’ll think I’m a bitch. He told her he was cold, which made little sense because it was the summer in Arizona. He didn’t see Fern again in actual life but knew about her through Facebook. Later on, he’d find a picture of her at a house party. She smokes weed!

Tate wakes up and presses that elongated orange oval-shaped button on his iPhone to turn off his alarm. It’s Thursday. He only has one class on Thursday; American Sign Language (ASL) 101. I can be happy today. I can be happy today. I can be happy today. He swings his legs and rolls to a seated position on the edge of his bed. His bare feet touch the carpeted floor. Ow. The ball of his left foot is sore. He doesn’t know why. He thinks he can walk it off. He stands up and tries. Ow. Dammit. He takes another step. Dammit. Ow. It goes on like this until he makes it to the toilet and sits down. His bare feet are on checkered linoleum now. It’s cold and soothes the ache. Maybe I should skip class. He can’t play hooky from ASL 101, he’s missed the class too many times already. 

With his shoes on the ball of his foot doesn’t hurt as much, but he still limps his way to class all the way from his apartment, .7 miles. Some thoughts he has along the way; My shirt is too short. My back’s going to be all sweaty. That girl’s super hot, she’ll never talk to me. I should get an electric skateboard. I hope I don’t get called on in class today. Where are my sunglasses? I could make the football team. I could never make the football team. What am I good at? My foot really hurts. Is there weed in my backpack? 

Donna is the teacher of ASL 101. She is deaf and doesn’t speak, yet her facial expressions alone articulate complete sentences. Tate’s assigned seat for the day is at the front of the classroom. Goddammit. It’s a table of four. He only recognizes one of the people at his table. Her name is Gabby. She’s sitting directly across from him and she’s the best student in the class where only signing is permitted. Donna always has a smile on her face and today is no different. She stands in front of the classroom beaming with enthusiasm to teach. His foot is throbbing. He tries to ignore it. I can be happy today. I can be like Donna. Tate watches as Donna signs. There is no comprehension that takes place. No idea. I have no idea what she’s signing. Then Donna drops her hands to her side and smiles even wider than before. She surveys the class; utter attentiveness. She raises her right arm, curls her pointer finger, and moves it side to side. Questions. No one responds. She waves her hands. What are we doing? Dammit.

Gabby waves at Tate and signs. I don’t know what you’re signing. When she’s done, Tate shakes his head. His hands are out in front of him, palms facing up. He mouths what he’s thinking. I don’t know what we’re doing. Gabby signs again. It looks like she’s just repeating what she signed a moment ago. I don’t know what’s going on. Tate repeats his gesture to her. I don’t know what we’re doing. I don’t know what you’re signing. Gabby’s forehead becomes a maze of wrinkles. She looks for Donna, who is helping at another table. 

“We’re supposed to talk about our families.” She whispers with an eye roll.

Tate nods his head. She hates me.

Gabby repeats the same signs for the third time. With context, Tate makes out the word ‘mom’, ‘dad’ and ‘live.’ Where do my parents live? Tate knows the alphabet and signs S-A-N-F-R-A-N-C-I-S-C-O. Gabby nods. I’m doing it! She signs again. This time Tate understands the word ‘job.’ What do my parents do? Tate signs, ‘mom job S-A-L-E-S at C-I-S-C-O.’ He knows it’s not the right grammar, but Gabby’s understanding nod eases his concern. In the next series of signs, she asks what his dad does. He’s dead. Tate shakes his head. Gabby repeats the sign. Tate takes his index finger together with his middle finger and taps them together with his thumb, signing no. Gabby’s confused. Please don’t make me do this. Gabby looks around for Donna once more. Donna sees that Gabby’s looking for her and cheerfully comes up to the table. Gabby and Donna sign to each other. Shit. Donna looks at Tate and signs the same question that Gabby had. Yea, you want to know what my dad does too. Tate signs to Donna My dad. Then he sticks out his tongue, rolls his eyes back, and hocks. My dad’s dead. For the first time, Tate saw Donna’s face absent of a smile. 

“Sorry.” Gabby says, “I didn’t know.” 

Donna scolds her with her eyes and a wagging finger for talking, then transfers her attention to Tate. Her eyes show empathy, there’s an ocean of understanding in them. She signs to Tate. No idea. Didn’t get any of that. 

After class, Tate shuffles towards his apartment, doing his best to keep his full weight off his left foot. He hobbles enough that Gabby catches up to him. 

“Tate! Hey.” She says from behind. 

He turns his head, and she’s right there. The afternoon sun back lights her face. His eyes slivered almonds as he looks at her. It’s too bright. 

“Are you ok?” 

“Yea, it’s just my foot.” Why’s she talking to me?

“Huh?” She’s confused. 

“I don’t know what I did, but I’ll be alright.” I’m talking about my foot. She’s going to picture my eczema.

“Oh.” She scratches the back of her neck, causing her brown hair to fall to one side of her body. Tate’s titillated by the sight of her collarbone. “Sorry to hear that. Actually, I was talking about what happened in class. Sorry about that.”

Gabby is white. She is five foot four and slim. She wears black-framed glasses. The lenses are crystal clear, like they’ve just been cleaned. She has bangs. Her hair is cut straight. She stands there holding two textbooks, her notebook, and a can of passionfruit La Croix. 

“That’s ok. No worries. It happened a long time ago.” 

“Ok. Well, it was embarrassing for me. I hate making things uncomfortable.” 

Me too. Tate’s still squinting. His skin feels the UV rays of the Arizona sun. He shades his eyes with his right hand. She’s less of a shadow than she was a moment ago. Please keep talking to me. Ask me to hang out. Let’s exchange numbers. 

“No worries.” Tate says.

Seconds pass by as they stand mere feet apart in silence. Say something, you fool. Anything. Ask her anything. 

“Do you like the class?” The words blow out of him in a sudden gust. 

“Yea. I want to be a DI.” 

I don’t know what that it is.

“That’s cool.” Tate says. “You’re like the best in the class.” 

I shouldn’t have said that. Who says that? I’m complimenting her? She’s going to think I want to hook up. 

“No, I don’t think so, but thanks.” 

Tate still has his hand to his eyes.  He feels sweat fall from his underarm down the side of his body. 

“Do you like it?” She asks.

“I like it, but I’m not good at it.” 

“You just need to practice more.” 

Can you practice with me? Do you want to practice with me? How do you practice? Do you have a boyfriend?

“Yea. Totally. I know.” He says. Stop staring at her. He looks away to the direction that he was walking. 

“I should go. Got to get to my next class. Thanks for being so cool about everything.” 

“Ok.” Don’t leave. Walk with me.

“See you soon.” Gabby says. She smiles at him. Her teeth are white like drywall. 

Wait. Do you think we can hang out sometime? Practice ACL? Talk about my dead dad? About your prescription glasses? That mole on your left cheek? Anything?

“See ya.” Tate says. 

At home Tate rummages through his backpack for weed. God dammit. He finds a bar of melted chocolate. It’s destroyed, no longer neatly segmented out into doses. The bar is now a thick puddle. What a waste. Tate has nothing to do for the rest of the day. Screw it. He puts the melted chocolate to his mouth and licks it clean off the foil wrapping. All of it.

He eats a bowl of Coco Pebbles. He watches YouTube videos of Lil Wayne interviews. He jerks off to porn filtered by ‘brunette’ and ‘teen.’ He goes on Facebook and searches for Gabby. He doesn’t know her last name or if Gabby is an abbreviation for Gabrielle or Gabriella. He scrolls through and clicks page after page but doesn’t find her. What am I doing? I’m such a creep. The weeds taken over his mind now. The afternoon fades into the evening. He doesn’t care about what’s for dinner. He just sits there scrolling through Facebook and watching interviews of famous rappers on YouTube. 

His mother calls him. He doesn’t want to pick up, but he also doesn’t want to have to call her back. Goddammit. They talk. His mother asks him how he’s doing. Terrible. He says he’s doing fine, but he has some foot pain. She asks how he hurt it and he tells her he doesn’t know. He asks her how she’s doing and she talks about her day. She’s in San Diego for business. Tomorrow she’ll be in Ann Arbor. She complains about the travel, but she likes being busy, she says. She asks him what he’s doing. Tate looks at his laptop screen. It’s a paused video of Young Thug. Watching rappers talk about how they came out the gutter. He says he’s doing nothing. She tells him he should get out and do something. Leave me alone. He knows, he says. She asks him if he’s met any new people. She always asks him this. He tells her about a new girl he met named Gabby from his ASL 101 class. He speaks about himself and Gabby as if they’re friends and they’ve already hung out. His mother is encouraged by this news. That’s great, she says. She asks how they met. I’ll tell you exactly how we met. Tate tells her, “She asked me what dad did for work, so I told her what happened to dad.” 

“Oh.” His mom says. 

I’m sorry. I don’t know I said that. “Yea.” He says.

The conversation doesn’t last much longer. 

That night Trent watches Momento and thinks about getting words tattooed all over his body. Here are some words he thinks of: Miserable, depressed, anxiety, pussy, bitch, sad, sorry, stupid, nobody, dumb, small, alone, loser. He resolves that it’s not a good idea to get tattoos yet. Just before he drifts off to sleep, he thinks about tomorrow. It will be Friday. Maybe my foot won’t hurt. I can go to Mill Avenue and try to meet people. If Young Thug can change his life and be a rapper, I can make friends and be happy. He tells himself that tomorrow is a new day for him to try again. Don’t be so hard on yourself Tate, everyone feels like this sometimes. Don’t be so hard on yourself, Tate. 

“Come on, Tate. Don’t be so hard on yourself!” He shouts. 

The room’s pitch dark, the only light that’s let in comes from the slits in his blinds. He stares at the popcorn ceiling and plays ‘what shape do you see?’ He sees something in the ceiling’s bumpy appearance. It might be his father’s face. It might be his face. It might be a stranger’s face. He might just be high. He’s not sure.  

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