Noncompliant, Part Two

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It’s essential for kids to rebel against their parents.  If they don’t at least find fault with their breeders, they might stay at home forever.  You don’t move on when you’re comfortable and someone does your laundry.

Nothing wrong with a little criticism aimed your direction, then, if you’re the parent of a teenager.  Remember it’s the natural order of things and count the days until your progeny ventures into the wild world without you.

The skateboarder never aimed anything at us, ever.  He has two older brothers and a younger sister who did plenty of that.  He kept quiet and stayed on the fence.  We raised our voices to him once, over three years ago, for something so small we don’t remember anymore.  He’s that easy.

He was that easy.  With the arrival of Jenn, this grace period has officially ended.  “No” comes out of the skateboarder’s mouth, no matter what the question.  “No, I won’t do your dumb errands,” he says.  “No, I won’t drive my sister anywhere, any time.  No I will not go to the store no matter how much gas money you give me.” 

Jenn walked into his room one day and said, “Do something!  Get off your ass and do something, even if it’s wrong.  You sit at the computer all day.  Get in trouble!”

He, being a fence-sitting kind of guy, didn’t tell her “no.” 

“Say ‘no’ if you don’t want to do something,” she said.  “Don’t be so compliant.”

The skateboarder woke up one day and said, “There’s no food in the house”.

“You said you’d go to the store,” I said.

“I don’t want to anymore.”

“I’m not going to give you gas money for going to the store if you don’t go.” 

 “There’s no food in the house.”

“Whose fault is that?”

“Mine?”

“Pretty much, yeah.”

“There’s no food in the house.”

“Go to the store.”

“Get a job, you stoner,” Charlie says. 

Jenn didn’t say anything but she knew not to ask the skateboarder for a ride.  She asked Charlie instead. 

“I’m taking your car,” he told the skateboarder.  “Jenn wants to get cake mix.  It’s my birthday tomorrow, you know.”

“If you take my car, you have to fill it with gas.”

“Nevermind,” Charlie said.  “I’ll take the Jeep.  I’m not going to give you gas money when you won’t even drive her.”

“You’re going to have to fill it tonight when we all go out.”

“Fill it?” Charlie says.  “No way.  I’ll put $5 in it.  That should get us there and back.”

“I have to admit you’re right,” Jenn told Charlie on the way to the store.  “I wouldn’t fill his tank either.” 

When they returned, the skateboarder was still there, chatting on the computer in his room.  His room is Jenn’s this week, as he’s at his Dad’s and there’s nowhere else in this dump of a house for Jenn to sleep. 

The skateboarder and his friend sat surrounded by a mountain of skateboarding videos, CDs, superglue and skateboarding tools.  The remains of Jenn’s bought-with-food-stamps Ritz crackers coated the floor and bed where Jenn had her stuff all neatly laid out.  Jenn went up to “her” room, surveyed the damage and said nothing.

Then Charlie walked by.

“It’s his room,” Jenn said.  She was more confrontational a month ago.  She even cleaned up the snowstorm of her Ritz crackers without saying anything.

The skateboarder stopped by the next afternoon, wearing his new white shoes.  He got out of his car and posed like Ben Stiller in “Zoolander.”  His shirt and pants were white, too.  He looked pretty proud that he woke up this morning, or afternoon, more likely and dressed himself like a tennis pro. 

Charlie looked at him and said, “You look like an orderly in a mental hospital.”

The skateboarder ignored him.  He looked instead at his sister, the General, hard at work doing what we’ve been nagging him to do all summer.

“She’s doing your work and getting paid,” Charlie said.  “And you’re not.”

The General smiled.  “Could you get me the dish soap?” she asked Mr. White, the skateboarder.  “While I’m waiting for the paint to dry, I’m going to wash my future car.”  Somehow she thinks she’s getting the Jeep when she turns 16.  I might owe it to her after all the work she’s doing.

The skateboarder acts like his old, compliant self and gets his sister the soap.  She has the hose on high, spraying the Jeep.  She turns to face him and accidentally on purpose, sprays Mr. White.

“You f*cking b*tch!”

The General drops her mouth open in shock.  Then she looks over at Charlie and giggles. 

Charlie looks over, thinking, “Who’s that?”  He’s never heard the skateboarder swear.  Nobody has.

“The neighbors already hear enough of us arguing,” Charlie says.  “Don’t talk like that.”

“She’s a f*cking b*tch!” he said again. 

He stomped off back into the house.  Not having experience being angry, he didn’t stomp with much authority.  He looked too much like a stoner skateboarder still to look upset.

“Not us this time,” Charlie yelled out in the direction of the neighbors.  “We’re not the ones yelling this time.”

I peeked through the window and watched him polish his white shoes with more energy than he ever had working for me.

The General and Charlie both pretended to get back to work.  Both of their shoulders were shaking up and down from laughing so hard.

The skateboarder came out later and stood at the door, his shoes gleaming white again.  He stood there, his hands in his pockets, posing for a minute or two.  When he was sure we noticed, he hid for the rest of the day in chat rooms.

“I’m really sorry I did this to him,” Jenn said.  “I woke up a sleeping all-white giant.  I’m so sorry.”

A little help? [] 7:01:30 PM    

The skateboarder kid wasn’t our first choice of slave labor. We’d already called plenty of other teenagers asking for summer employment. One by one they made excuses and otherwise flaked out. None of them made the leap from the phone to our front door, so we didn’t take it personally.

We knew the kid would at least make it to the front door. With a friend, maybe he’d get something done.

“It’s hard,” he whined within minutes of picking up a shovel. “I’m taking a break.”

Bobb would come over at the agreed-upon time. He’d go up to the stoner skateboarder kid’s room to let him know it’s time to work. An hour later, we’d ask if they were ready to work.

Another hour passes. “How long do you have to prepare for sweat on your brow?” Charlie would yell. “You dread it like it’s the first day of school. It’s landscaping, not the firing squad.”

They’d emerge another hour later from the ant farm that is the skateboarder’s room. Bobb starts in and soon he’s digging and sweating. The stoner kid watches him for a few minutes then goes inside to change his shoes. When he returns, he watches Bobb work some more.

“Go find the edging,” Bobb says.

The skateboarder kid does what he’s told. “You do that while I do the drainage,” Bobb says. They work quietly for a half an hour.

“What time is it?” the skateboarder asks.

“You’ve worked for a half an hour, tops,” Charlie says. “You do the math.”

The skateboarder stands there with a blank look on his face.

“Okay,” Bobb says. “We’ll work for another half hour then we’ll take a break.”

They work exactly 30 minutes more, get in the stoner kid’s car and disappear for about an hour and a half.

They return and the exact same cycle happens all over again. This is how we spent our summer work days. It’s work to get them to work.

There’s one more day before school. Bobb and the skateboarder agreed to work today, their last day of freedom. “It’s our last chance to earn money,” they said. I thought I detected a small tone of landscaping excitement in their voices.

I know the routine. I call Bobb.

“Tell the kid to get me in 45 minutes,” he says. “I have to watch my new skateboarding video first.”

I call the skateboarder who’s at his Dad’s this week. “You’re picking up Bobb and coming over to work.”

“I am?”

“You are.”

I didn’t notice when they arrived. I only noticed they ate all the caramel apples the neighbor gave us for keeping her son busy, working with Charlie all day a few days ago.

After the usual hour or two of chat room wind-up, they come outside. “What do you want us to do?” I try not to get excited. I love telling people what to do.

“Let’s finish something,” I said. “Get rid of the bark dust. I’ll show you where it goes.”

“Cool,” they say. “Bark dust.”

At the beginning of the summer, we had five yards of bark dust and five yards of river rock delivered. The first few days I looked at these huge piles of nature with nothing but possibilities. Now they’re just a roadblock between me and the garage.

There’s only a little bit of bark dust left. The river rock is a much bigger, heavier pile. It looks overwhelming. I think I’ll have my fifteen year-old daughter, the General, tackle that. She’ll do more work in a day than the skateboarders do in a month if there’s shopping at the end.

You’ll never guess who’s sitting in an ant farm watching skateboarding videos. The skateboarders needed a break. At least they didn’t drive off anywhere, although it’s already 4:30 p.m. and they’ve clocked in one whole hour total. The bark dust is still keeping me from driving in the garage.

At least they made it to the front door. An hour is better than nothing, right?

A little help? [] 4:50:34 PM