The Schwa Was Here

The Schwa was about six inches away, too, in science class, but I had never noticed him. It was weird, because in school I notice almost anything as long as it doesn't actually have to do with the lesson. And then there was the way Ira got all freaked out about him. It made me want to do some investigating. It took a couple of days, but I did come up with something.

I called Ira and Howie over for a war council, which I guess is the guy version of gossiping. Of course we couldn't talk in the living room, because Frankie was sleeping on the sofa, hog­ging the most comfortable place in the house, like always. Lately it's like Frankie slept all the time.

"It comes with being sixteen," Mom said. "You teenagers, you go into a cocoon when you turn fifteen and don't come out for years."

"So they become butterflies when they finally come out?" my little sister Christina asked.

"No," Mom said. "They're still caterpillars, only now they're big fat caterpillars that smell."

Christina laughed and Frankie rolled over on the sofa, stick­ing his butt out toward us.

"So when do we get to be butterflies?" I asked.

"You don't," Mom answered. "You go off to college, or wher­ever, and then I get to be a butterfly."

She was looking at me when she said "wherever," so I said, "Maybe I'll just stay here all my life. With a butterfly net."

"Yeah," said Mom. "Then you can use it to drag me off to the nuthouse."

When it comes to Frankie, Mom always talks about college like it's a given, but not me. I looked at Frankie snoring away. Sometimes I think God made an inventory error and gave Frankie some brain cells that were supposed to go to me. He could sleep away the afternoon and still pull straight A's, but me? There were only two A's I ever saw on my papers: the A in Anthony, and the A in Bonano. What made it worse was that Christina already seemed to be following in Frankie's footsteps, gradewise, so it cleared the path for me to be the family disap­pointment.

"C'mon," I told Howie and Ira, "we'll talk in the basement," which is the place we always talk about important things. Ours is what you call a finished basement, although it really should be called a someday-will-be-finished basement, because no matter how much work we put into it, there always seems to be a bare wall with insulation that's never been covered up. It probably has something to do with my dad, who keeps putting in the wrong wiring, or my uncle, who got cheap insulation that just happens to cause cancer. Whatever the reason, walls keep having to come out. Still, the basement had become like our own military bunker where we discuss national security and play video games that my mother is convinced will rot out my brain even faster than professional wrestling. And it really pisses her off when we play the wrestling video game.

But today we're not playing games. Today is a war council about the weird kid everyone calls the Schwa.

We sat on the floor, and I told them what I found out in the course of my investigation. "I'm not a hundred percent sure how the Schwa got his last name, but my aunt's hairdresser's brother is his next-door neighbor, so the story must be pretty reliable." I paused for effect. "The story goes like this: The Schwa's great-grandparents came over from the old country."

"Which old country?" asked Howie.

"I don't know, one of those old countries over there."

"China's an old country," says Howie. "He doesn't look Chinese."

Now I know why Howie always buzzes his hair, because if he didn't, he'd have millions of people trying to pull it out.

"He means somewhere in Eastern Europe," Ira said.

"Anyway," I said, "his great-grandfather's last name is Schwartz, and for his whole life, all Great-Grandpa Schwartz wants to do is to get out of the old country and come to America, because the Statue of Liberty's got this invitation: 'Give me your tired, your poor, your reeking homeless—"

'"Huddled masses,'" said Ira. "'Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.'"

"Yeah," says Howie. "If you're gonna misquote something, at least misquote it right."

"Okay, fine. So, like everybody in the old countries says, 'Hey, I'm a huddled mass,' and they all wanna come over. That's how come my great-grandparents came from Italy, and why Ira's came from Russia, and why yours, Howie, came from the moon." Howie punched me in the arm for that one.