2 + 2 = 4.

The first Goosebumps book was called Welcome to Dead House.

The first guy killed in the revolutionary war was Crispus Attucks.

The Little Tykes-brand bookshelves in my room were red with white edges that were rounded so you wouldn’t put your eye out.

The “Months of the Year” song in Spanish from Kindergarten.

Keith laughing at me because I pulled my pants all the way down to use the urinal at school.

Jacob from down the block teaching me how to eat sunflower seeds.

Walking a few steps behind Luke and Jordy when we snuck in the back of Art Warren’s house while he was on vacation so that if we got caught they’d be the ones doing it first.

Jeff’s brother took Wade, Jeff and I to see Wild Things in 7^th grade. When we got in his car, he immediately told us that he and his girlfriend had “fucked like dogs” the night before right where we were sitting.

My neighbor, Cody, telling me and my brother that he went to New York City and met the Ninja Turtles and that April O’Neil sucked his “beebee.”  

Feeling embarrassed and avoiding everybody because I didn’t want to find out what I’d done while I was blacked out (pretty much every Sunday while I was still drinking).

Betting my dad a whole week of doing the other person’s chores that Miami would beat the Huskers in the Orange Bowl. When Schlesinger scored the second time, I felt ashamed for betting against my own team, but my dad didn’t gloat. After I mowed the lawn the first time, he said, “Now you know how to do that. If anyone wants to hire a lawn mower, you can do it. So you won.”

Driving to McDonald’s after a football game Freshman year, this car pulled up next to us and this girl just lifted up her top and flashed us. 

When people ask if I’ve read Lord of the Rings, I always just say yes, even though I haven’t. I don’t need to hear again how I should.

My best bowling score ever:  178.

Devon and his friend Mitch pretty much ignoring me when my mom had us stop by his house one night and told me to just go play in his room. I figured out later we were there because Devon’s mom wasn’t home but his dad was.

Luke’s sister Ruth teaching us how to say “read between the lines” and hold up your middle three fingers.

Kaitlyn and I stayed up all night listening to music and working on that Social Studies project where we had to build a replica of a pyramid. We probably could have finished it in about two hours if we’d wanted to.

Waiting for an hour and a half in the cold to buy Kid A at midnight when it came out. When I got home, I was so tired that I fell asleep without listening to it and woke up late for school. 

They served this stuff called Turkey Tetrazzini in the lunchroom one day and I got it – this weird noodle thing. Kenney Foster asked me if it was any good, and after I said yes he leaned over to Jeff and whispered “it probably sucks.”

The first time we did acid was at Pioneers Park outside of town. I had to take a piss and I guess I kept thinking the trees behind me were watching, and then I got lost and decided to take a nap. Everyone drove back without me and I had to walk like 10 miles home.

The woman who patrolled recess, Mrs. Valla, used to yell at us all the time, and if she saw you spit on the ground she’d make you lick it up. And if you got in trouble, she made you stand up against the wall of the school and just watch everyone else having fun. That was her punishment: being on the wall.

Those little bottles full of bubbles that you could buy and blow a bubble through that tiny plastic ring.

Mom yelling and sobbing to her friend Helen over the phone when she called the hotel and found out the conference my dad went to was really only one day.

Crying the first time I heard Elderly Woman Behind The Counter In A Small Town.

In 10th grade when that girl, Elizabeth Danhour, got pregnant and dropped out of school when she had her baby. I’ve never seen her since.

I was sitting on the left side of the table in the far position by the window at dinner the night Mom explained that Dad wasn’t going to be living with us for a while.

In Mario 3, the thing that let you turn into a statue was called the Tanuki suit.

The way the little hexagons on my black and pink soccer ball started to tear off the day I brought it to school for recess and some of the kids threw it at a tree over and over trying to break it. I cried and everyone said I was a crybaby.

I colored a picture of a ninja turtle on the wall downstairs when I was three. I was proud, so I showed my mom, but she just got mad.

Our middle school had a rule that they wouldn’t collect your homework and send it to you unless you’d been absent more than three days, so whenever I got sick I’d just fake it the next two days.

Staring at a tree in Centennial Park while my dad yelled at me because I wasn’t patient enough, and told me I’d get better at hitting if I listened to him more. I just wanted to go home.

On the first day of spring, you can stand an egg on end and it’ll stay like that.

In third grade I got in a huge fight with my friends on the playground over a game of hide and seek and I hit one of them. We hurled insults at each other and I won because I was quoting from TV shows. The next day I thought they wouldn’t want me to play anymore, but everyone just acted like it never happened.

That time Tyler humped the photo booth at the bowling alley. I’ve still got the pictures.

I showed up hungover the first time I took the SAT. The second time I’d had a huge fight with my dad and I’d been up all night crying.

I didn’t say I was sorry to Cody when he came over after we’d gotten in a fight earlier. I had almost made him cry. He apologized, though.

My mom used to read us Devotions every single night, and each one taught a new Bible verse.

In my yearbook last year, Steve drew a picture of a mountain lion getting hit by an anvil (our favorite Simpsons joke).

I got the best scores in the class on the CAT test in 3^rd grade. My mom talked to some woman on the phone and asked me if I’d want to have the woman come to school three days a week to teach me new things. I told her I didn’t think I wanted to and asked her what Dad thought. She said that if I didn’t want to, we’d probably better not tell him.

Getting scared and running away when I touched the foot of one of the band members at Showbiz Pizza after my cousin told me they were robots.

There was a dart game at the county fair where if you broke enough balloons, you could win knives and stuff. I did it twice and got all six, so I got a pair of brass knuckles, but then Aunt Julie took them.

I never heard my mom cuss before the time she was yelling at us for ruining her life, how dad had a lot of nice new things and we had to use “shitty plastic plates” that came from the church sale. She yelled a lot back then.

The girls in my English group Freshman year wrote on our answer sheet that the reason the kids in Lord Of The Flies were on the plane was to flee the nuclear explosion from when the U.S. nuked England during World War II. I did not correct them.

One day in 8^th grade I wore an old shirt to school that said “Cerebral Palsy Fun Run” on it. Josh Wolf and Kenney Foster started making fun of me and everyone called me “Fun Run” for two weeks and kept asking if I was retarded. Even Wade and Jeff.

There was a really steep hill right next to the Dairy Queen by the mall, so if you were riding your bike there it was like the final challenge to get up to the top for your reward of a dilly bar.

Playing with the vents in the backseat while I went with my mom when she was showing Mr. Warren houses. His face looked sad every place we saw.

One day we played Cops and Robbers on the playground and I was the robber and everyone kicked me in the balls.

I was going to ask Kaitlyn to dance at the last dance of 8^th grade, but she was with Todd Nelson the entire time. I just stood in the corner with my friends and watched her for two hours to see if he’d leave her alone for at least one slow song. He never did.

In first grade, I accidentally called the teacher “Mom.” Everyone laughed at me and I cried.

At bible camp when I was 14, they told us to throw the “Faith contracts” we’d signed into the bonfire if we were willing to lay down our lives and die for the Lord. Every single person did it.

I asked Wade and Jeff if they were going to see The Waterboy with everyone the night it came out. They told me no, but then I heard them talking about it on Monday.

Striking out every at-bat for the first six games of my last season of little league. Then we played that game against the kid who was like the top pitcher in the state, and I was the only one who got a hit.

Karen Walters asked me to Homecoming last fall. She was waiting outside when I picked her up, and in all the time we went out I never met her parents.

One time Luke called the teacher “Mom” too. I could tell he did it on purpose so I wouldn’t feel so bad.

How bad it hurt when my dad dug his nails into my arm and told me to behave myself the first time we went out with his “friend” Sandy.

Cody was on the wall one day and I asked him what he did. He got really mad and told me to shut up and get out of his face.

I quit Freshman football after two weeks because Wade and Jeff were on the team and I didn’t want to have to be around them. I ended up quitting baseball, too.

When Travis and I met our 6^th grade teacher, we came up with the theory that she was a monster who hid in the bathroom behind the urinals and chanted “Come to me, come to me” in a guttural voice until a boy came close, then she sucked them into her vagina and ate them like the Sarlaac.

The last time I went to confirmation class, I asked pastor Mitch if, since believing Jesus was the savior was how you got to heaven, that meant Hitler was in heaven and Gandhi was in hell. He said that God would know that Hitler didn’t really mean it, and that he didn’t know very much about Gandhi.

Getting suspended for a week Sophomore year because I showed up to the Movie-Star Dance drunk and Quentin Eisler told the assistant principal.

Staring at the dial of my gym locker as Marc Stoliver, the 12^th grader, told everyone at the top of his lungs about how Kaitlyn had blown him in the backseat of his car. That was the same day my mom said she couldn’t drive carpool anymore and we had to wake up a half hour earlier to walk to school for three months until I got my license.

Jeff was the first kid to have a South Park shirt.

Luke turning around and looking back at me when the police officer came to our class and told everyone that we could write the cops a letter without telling them who it was from if we knew anything about the fire but didn’t want people to know we told.

For my birthday, Karen took me to see Weezer in Omaha. She was always good about knowing stuff I’d want to do, but she’d keep wanting me to hold her hand the whole time and get mad when I said I had to go home.

Looking back and forth at my parents’ smiling faces when they told me they were getting back together after five years. I didn’t even know they still talked to each other.

The first time I smoked weed, I was nervous everyone was going to laugh at me for not knowing how to use the bong. I’d told them I’d done it before, but I think they knew I hadn’t. All I knew was these guys were a lot nicer than my old friends.

Joining in with everyone as they made fun of Cody when he didn’t show up for school. Everyone laughed and said that he was probably just sleeping.

I gave Mike my essay on 1984 so he could copy it. I thought he would just rewrite it in his own words, but he literally made a copy, whited out my name, and wrote his own in pen. We got in trouble.

I was trying to drive home from Seth’s party when I was hammered, and I could barely make out the green ‘A Street’ sign at the intersection. It’s a good thing I saw it, because I was going completely the wrong way. I made it all the way home just fine, then smacked my dad’s car pulling into the driveway.

Karen crying because I’d forgotten our three-month anniversary. She was still mad even after I explained to her that it’s not really an anniversary if it hasn’t been a year.

The name of the dentist on Bob Newhart: Jerry.

You could tell who my aunt’s students were at her wedding because they were the only ones who weren’t dressed up that nice. 

Going with my parents to deliver our old clothes to that Vietnamese family. The dad was so thin he could fit into my old Hornets jersey.

My favorite school lunch food was the Cheese Quesadillas. They had so much grease on them that we called them Cheesy Greasers.

My dad throwing my mom’s stuff around and shouting about how he wished he’d never encouraged her to take that job at the bigger firm. My mom said at least her boss was successful, and my dad said “You‘d better hope he takes care of you” and that she’d have nothing left when he was through with her. He did it right in front of us. He didn’t even care this time. 

Ms. Douglas yelling at me in front of everyone for showing up late and not doing my homework. She told me that with my attitude I’d be the “world’s smartest ditch digger.”

Brooke Horne took my hand and put it on her boobs that night at Adam’s when everyone got MIP’s. I was wasted, but I turned her down because I was still with Karen.

Wade, Jeff and I going on that ripcord ride at Worlds of Fun in Kansas City.

My first Trapper Keeper was blue and had a drawing of ball bearings on it.

Listening to Pyromania the entire trip that Saturday when I took off work without telling my dad and drove Kaitlyn to Denver so she could go to that clinic without her parents’ knowing. She pretended to sleep the entire way there and back, except at the end when she thanked me and made me promise not to tell anyone.

I got suspended for two days after the security guard found weed in my locker. My dad didn’t even bother to act disappointed.

Trying to play trivial Pursuit with Mike and Steve. It took like six hours because the game was from the ‘80s and none of us knew any of the answers.

Asking my mom what Third Degree Assault meant after she told me Cody’s dad had been arrested again and that she didn’t want me to go over to his house to play anymore. We moved about a month later.

That part in All Dogs Go To Heaven where he teaches the little puppies to share the pizza.

Karen pushing my hand away when I tried to apologize and tell her we’d just met at the wrong time. She didn’t cry, but I sure thought she was going to. That was the same day Brooke Horne and Jesse Phelps got in that accident on the highway. When he heard about their medical bills, my dad offered his dad a job.

The way girls used to fold notes into those complicated rectangles with all the shapes and stuff. I never understood how they did it because no one ever passed me a note in 12 years of school.

My mom always bought Skippy peanut butter.

Every word of This is How We Do It by Montell Jordan.

I used to stare at Stephanie every day in Home Ec in 7^th grade, and I would time my walks across the room with hers so we would get caught between the tables and have to squeeze through up against each other.

I really didn’t want to go to the Narcotics Anonymous meetings that were part of my Diversion, but my dad said I had no choice. I thought it would be all strangers but there were a bunch of people I knew there. I don’t want to say who.

I called Karen when I read in the paper about her mom. She didn’t pick up.

My dad handing me a giant book of colleges that was like ten pounds and telling me I should start thinking about where I wanted to go. 

In first grade they taught us that George Washington had slaves, but that he was nice to his slaves.

Doing this exact same assignment for a class in middle school and hating it.

When I told Tom I was thinking about joining the after-school choir, he aske if I was serious and laughed and told me it was too late because you had to have been doing it for more than a year already.

At recess and during class, we used to try and figure out who Bethany liked by giving her two names and asking her who she liked better. She finally told us she liked Jordy best and we made fun of him because we were all jealous. He threatened to tell on us for when we’d said we wondered what she looked like naked, so we stopped.

Adam Schmidt had roller blades before anyone else.

Yesterday I got rejected from KU, but it was my third month in a row without missing a day of work since my dad got me the job, and Mr. Peterson said he’d recommend me for the UNL business program.

In first grade, I threw a St. Patrick’s Day party, and everyone kept asking whose birthday it was.

My mom showing up at school and taking me and my brother out to lunch, even though it meant I was late for sixth period. I had a burger with Swiss cheese and Jake had chicken fingers and a cherry coke. My mom wore a red business suit and leaned over with her elbows on the table and smiled at us as she asked a bunch of questions. She hadn’t been back to our house in four months.

————————————————————————

Gregg Maxwell Parker is the author of the middle grade book Troublemakers as well as the grown-up novels The Real Truth and Murder, She Vaped: The Ironic T-Shirt Caper. His writing has been featured in Blue Mesa Review, Five:2:One, Phoebe, The Broadkill Review, Pif, New Pop Lit, and The Woven Tale Press. You can find more of his work at greggmaxwellparker.com and asseeninjapan.com.

Art on title page:
Roger Camp
Flag Broken Window, Venice, CA
Photograph
Taken on Kodachrome 25