Me And Earl And The Dying Girl Part 6

Earl, would you agree that suffering in life is a, a relative notion-that for every life there is a different baseline, an equilibrium, below which one can be said to suffer?

EARL.

I guess.

DAD.

The primary insight being that one man's suffering is another man's joy.

EARL.

Sounds good, Mr. Gaines.

DAD.

Very well then.

EARL.

I'ma go smoke one of these.

DAD.

G.o.dspeed, young man.

Maybe 80 percent of the interaction between Dad and Earl is along those lines. The rest is when Dad takes Earl to a specialty food place or Whole Foods and they buy something unspeakably disgusting and then eat it together. It's a weird scene and I've learned to stay away.

The Mom-Earl conversations are slightly less insane. She likes to tell him that he's "a hoot," and she's learned that it doesn't really do any good to try to get him to quit smoking, and as long as I'm not smoking, she'll allow it. For his part, even on days when he's mega-p.i.s.sed, he tones it down when he's around her and doesn't do any of his trademark rage-expressing mannerisms, such as stomping his feet really fast and growling the consonant "ngh." He doesn't even threaten to kick anyone in the head.

So that's Earl. I've probably missed a bunch of stuff and will have to describe Earl in greater detail later, but there's no reason to believe that you'll still be reading the book at that time, so I guess I would say don't worry about it.

On the way to Rachel's house, I realized that I had just been a colossal idiot.

"You idiot, Greg," I thought, and may also have said out loud. "Now she thinks you've been in love with her for five years."

Moron. I could picture the scene in my head: I was going to show up, ring the doorbell, and Rachel would fling open the door and embrace me, her frizzy hair bouncing, her biggish teeth grazing my cheek. Then we would have to make out, or talk about how much we loved each other. Just thinking about this was making me sweaty.

And, of course, she had cancer. What if she wanted to talk about death? That would be a disaster, right? Because I had somewhat extreme beliefs about death: There's no afterlife, and nothing happens after you die, and it's just the end of your consciousness forever. Was I going to have to lie about that? That would definitely be way too depressing, right? Was I going to have to make up some afterlife for rea.s.surance purposes? Did it need to have those creepy naked baby angels that you see sometimes?

What if she wanted to get married? So she could have a wedding before dying? I wouldn't be allowed to say no, right? My G.o.d, what if she wanted to have s.e.x? Would I even be able to get a b.o.n.e.r? I was pretty sure it would be impossible for me to get a b.o.n.e.r in those circ.u.mstances.

These were the questions running through my mind as I trudged, with growing despair, to her doorstep. But it was Denise who answered the door.

"Gre-e-e-eg," she purred, in her cat-voice. "It is so good to see you-u-u-u-u."

"Right back at you, Denise," I said.

"Greg, you're a riot."

"I'm illegal in twelve states."

"HA." This was a huge cackle. Then there was another one. "HA."

"I have a Surgeon General's warning tattooed on my b.u.t.t."

"STOP IT. STOP. IT. HA-A-A-A." Why do I never have this effect on the girls I want to impress? Why is it only moms and homely girls? When it's just them, I can really turn it on. I don't know what it is.

"Rachel's upstairs. Can I get you a Diet c.o.ke?"

"No thanks." I wanted to end with a bang, so I added, "Caffeine just makes me more obnoxious."

"Hang on."

This was in a completely different tone of voice. We were back to the old snappish, aggressive Mrs. Kushner. "Greg, who says you're obnoxious?"

"Oh. Uh, people, you know-"

"Listen. You tell them: They can just shove it."

"No, yeah. I was just saying that as a-"

"Hey. Nuh-uh. You listening to me? You tell them: They can shove it."

"They can shove it, yeah."

"The world needs more guys like you. Not less."

Now I was getting alarmed. Was there a campaign to get rid of guys like me? Because that campaign would probably start with me.

"Yes ma'am."

"Rachel's upstairs."

I went upstairs.

Rachel's room had no IV stands or heart-rate monitors like I was expecting. Actually, I had been picturing her room as a hospital room, with like a full-time nurse hanging out in there. Instead, I can sum up Rachel's bedroom in two words: pillows; posters. Her bed had at least fifteen pillows on it, and the walls were 100 percent posters and magazine cutouts. There was a lot of Hugh Jackman and Daniel Craig, especially without their shirts. If you were to show me this room and make me guess who lived in it, my answer would be: a fifteen-headed alien who stalks male human celebrities.

But instead of an alien, it was Rachel, standing sort of uncomfortably near the door.

"Rachel-l-l-l," I said.

"h.e.l.lo," she said.

We stood there, motionless. How the h.e.l.l were we supposed to greet each other? I took a step forward with my arms out, for hugging purposes, but that just made me feel like a zombie. She took a step backward, frightened. At that point I had to go with it.

"I am the Zombie Hug Monster," I said, lurching forward.

"Greg, I'm afraid of zombies."

"You should not fear the Zombie Hug Monster. The Zombie Hug Monster does not want to eat your brains."

"Greg, stop it."

"OK."

"What are you doing."

"Uh, I was going for a fist pound."

I was going for a fist pound.

"No thanks."

Just to summarize: I lurched into Rachel's room like a zombie, freaking her out, then went for a fist pound. It is impossible to be less smooth than Greg S. Gaines.

"I like your room."

"Thanks."

"How many pillows is that?"

"I don't know."

"I wish I had that many pillows."

"Why don't you ask your parents for some?"

"They wouldn't like that."

I have no idea why I said that.

"Why not?"

"Uh."

"They're pillows."

"Yeah, they'd be suspicious or something."

"That you'd sleep all the time?"

"No, uh . . . They'd probably think I was just going to m.a.s.t.u.r.b.a.t.e all over them."

I would like to point out that I conducted the above conversation 100 percent on autopilot.

Rachel was silent; her mouth was hanging open and her eyes were kind of bugging out.

Eventually, she said: "That is disgusting." But she was also making snorting noises. I remembered the snort from Hebrew school; it indicated that there were some huge laughs on the way.

"That's my parents," I said. "They're gross."

"They won't get you pillows [snort] because they think you're going to [snort snort], they think you're going to masturb[SNORTsnortsnortsnort]."

"Yeah, they have really gross ideas about me."

Now Rachel couldn't even talk. She had completely lost control. She was laughing and snorting so hard that I was a little worried about her rupturing her spleen or something. Nonetheless, a fun thing to do when Rachel is in the throes of a mega-laugh is to see how long you can keep it going.

* "I mean, it's also their fault for getting s.e.xy pillows."

* "We had this one pillow in the house, they had to burn it, because that thing just got me so aroused."

* "That was the s.e.xiest pillow, I just, I just wanted to make love to it all night, until the break of dawn."

* "I used to call that pillow the dirtiest names. I used to say, 'You s.l.u.tty pillow, you're such a dirty s.l.u.t, stop toying with my emotions.'"

* "The pillow's name was Francesca."

* "Then one day I came home from school and caught that pillow having oral s.e.x with this table from across the street, and-OK, OK. I'll stop."

Rachel was begging me to stop. I shut up and let her calm down. I had forgotten how hard she could laugh. It took her a while to catch her breath.

"Oh-ohhh-ow-oohh."

The Greg S. Gaines Three-Step Method of Seduction 1. Lurch into girl's bedroom pretending to be a zombie.

2. Go for a fist pound.

3. Suggest that you habitually m.a.s.t.u.r.b.a.t.e all over pillows.

"Do I have to keep you away from my pillows?" she asked, still having involuntary laugh-snort-spasms.

"No. Are you serious? Those pillows are all dudes."