Dead End.

I stand outside of the door inventorying the details, the chipping edges, the long strip of unveneered bark exposed by time, the hole my brother left with a pick axe. Nothing has changed in the time since I left, except for the tiny latch that keeps the double doors closed, there is no sign that any time has passed. I open the door. The house is cleaner than it has ever been in the years we lived with my grandparents. The couches, which were always more accustomed to things sitting on them instead of people, are clear and welcoming. The floor is clear. Everything organized onto shelves. In the middle of the living room sits a folding table and chair. And my grandmother. I sit down in front of her. She does not look at me.

“He’s really gone, Matthew,” she said. Her eyes clear and uncluttered by tears.

“I heard,” I said.

“He was so proud of you,” she said, gesturing at the trophies from debate victories stacked on the shelf.

“I know,” I said.

“I wish he could have seen your graduation,” she said.

“I know tutu, I know.”

My grandmother sits across from me at a cheap plastic table and explains to me the way my mother called the ambulance and tried to force air into my grandfathers broken lungs. How she tried to squeeze more life from him. The paramedics tore open the double doors to fit the stretcher into their home. The floor was cluttered then and they pushed everything off to the sides, parting the red sea of our lives. Then they carried him up to the ambulance. It was too late they said.

My grandmother and I sat at that folding table for maybe twenty minutes. Neither one of us cried.

            “It’s funny,” she said, looking at the silent television. “Yesterday, he was sitting right there watching Nascar.”

            “Yeah,” I nod my head in agreement.

            “I think he knew his time was coming without knowing, you know,” she was still watching the black screen, as if it were a crystal ball. “Last week, he made up with his brother and they settled his mother’s estate.”

            “Wow,” I do not know what to do in this situation. I think all of this is a coincidence. It means nothing. But my grandmother has cleaned up the entire house for this moment. She keeps on cleaning.

            “And he never gets travel insurance, but he was supposed to go to Vegas today and this time he got travel insurance, Matthew he had to know,” she looks directly at me, as she says this.

            “Of course, it’s funny, how we can know these things,” I say. It’s all funny—if you laugh long enough. Forget the punch line. Forget the joke. Forget the timing. Just keep laughing until you cry. That is the moment it is funniest, when it hurts to laugh more. 

We do not cry at the card table. Instead, my grandma smiles, as she spots a large mottled moth in the corner of the room. “Look Matthew,” she said, pointing it out. “It’s grandpa, watching over us.” Both of my grandparents believed that moths were the souls of the dead reincarnate. After, my grandpa’s mother died, there was a large moth waiting for us in the living room and he had said, “look it’s great-grandma.” I’ve always thought it was a Japanese cultural belief, as one of my mother’s boyfriends, Mr. Okamoto, also pointed out a moth after his grandpa died. But the Internet reveals that it is a cross-cultural belief that transcends any single culture just like dragons and everything in ancient aliens. A mass delusion does not a truth make.

The Matthew Who Stole Christmas

Who liked whom, was such an important facet of fifth grade. In fact, it might be the most defining characteristic of fifth grade, as I don’t recall learning anything other than the process of it all. The way we sat at lunch, huddled in groups, whispering, “who do you like?” whining, “please, come on, tell me. Please.” We sat on the steps of the play structure, trying to pry the hair color, height, class room number, grade. We bartered with the only thing we had worth trading, offering a, “come on, I’ll tell you who I like.” Hoping they would agree and then we would all know. Kendra liked Matthew F. and Matt L. liked Kaitlyn (who I know through the magic of Facebook, actually went to prom together). I liked many girls throughout fifth grade: Sabina, Haley, Leilah, Marissa. 

It is Monday and we all file into class dragging our feet, shoulders heavy from the burden of the weekend. The door opens and in the corner of the room, a regular Christmas miracle, completely adorned in baubles and lights, gleaming with the one magical thing fifth graders can cling to: a Christmas tree.

Matthew F. turns to me and whispers, “so what are you going to get Kasey for Christmas?”

“I dunno,” I reply, furiously drawing swords all over my notebook.

Matthew F. points across the room, “Kendra’s her best friend.”

I focus on finishing up a katana, “really?”

“Yeah,” he stares at Kendra, separated by a sea of desks. 

That day at lunch, I went up to Kendra, “hey,” I said.

“Hey,” she replied, moving the cafeteria food on her plate around in circles, avoiding eating the slope they feed us.

“So you and Kasey are friends?”

“Yup,” she opens her chocolate milk, while I eat the bread, the only edible thing on my plate.

“Do you know what she wants for Christmas?” I ask.

Kendra immediately puts her milk down. “Do you like her?”

I pause, look her in the eyes, “no.”

She takes a long slip of chocolate milk, as if she were shooting whiskey to steel her nerves, “Who do you like then?”

I stare at her milk carton, “I don’t like anyone.”

She places her elbow on the table and rests her chin on it, as if jacking The Thinkers’ swag, “I think you like Kasey.”

I lean across the table and hiss, “No, I don’t”

“Yes, you do,” she interjects.

“No, I don’t.”

“Yes, you do.”

“Fine. I like her.”

“I knew it.”

“Do you know what she wants for Christmas?”

“I dunno. I can ask her,” she sips her milk slowly.

“Okie dokie,” I reply.

A few days later, Kendra came up to me after class and told me that Kasey wanted a laptop for Christmas. What kid didn’t want a laptop? The nineties were part of our lives and technology was growing more and more common. We played with laptops in computer class. We knew the magical practicality of portability and we all wanted it. We wanted to stuff those devices into our bags and bring them with us. Now, at home in a closet gathering dust, buried beneath an empty fish tank, old silver ware, and a box of 45s was my mother’s old laptop from college. She didn’t use it. Nobody did. It was a relic of a time long past.

“Kasey,” I said, one day after recess, I had been planning this moment for awhile, which in fifth grade is five days, I wore a polo shirt, instead of my normal Yu-Gi-Oh threads.

“Yup,” she had the cutest gap between her teeth.

“You wanted a laptop for Christmas?” I stayed cool.

“Yeah,” her bangs were cut straight across, and she was super cute, and Asian. (I had a thing for Asians in fifth grade.)

“There’s this laptop lying around in a closet and nobody uses it, so I wanted to give it to you,” I said, looking at the look, then glancing back at her tiny smile.

“Really?” She jumped up, smile broadening.

“Yup.”

She looked down at the ground, smile quickly fading, “My mom probably won’t want me to take it.”

“She wouldn’t have to know,” I advised Kasey.

“Yeah,” she brightened. “I guess I could just use it in the closet.”

Of course, just because it wasn’t being used, didn’t mean my mother would part with it. It just meant she wouldn’t notice. I immediately began planning the who, what, where, when, why, and how. I knew that my mother left for work early and my grandmother and I would be the only ones at home. This meant that I just had to wait until; my mother went to work to start my plan. The second issue was a logistical one. Back then, laptops were gigantic, this meant I could not fit the computer and it’s case into my normal backpack. However, the rolley bag that was uber cool in second grade was far larger and had the added benefit of keeping my load light.

On the last day of class, I rolled my back right up to Kasey, who was surrounded by her friends. I unzipped it, and yanked the heavy fabric wrapped device from the bag.

“For you madame, merry Christmas,” I said, with a bow, arm extended out like some Lifetime movie butler.

Her friends giggled.

“Thank you,” she said. Then, a Christmas miracle happened, she hugged me. Her warm soft arms squeezed me and I could smell her strawberry hair. She was soft and warm.

Her friends guffawed.

“What’s going on over here,” Mrs. Chang our fifth grade teacher asked, as she winked at me.

“Nothing,” I exclaimed quickly.

“Okay,” she said, and walked away. I had pulled off the perfect crime.

When I got home that afternoon, my grandmother was waiting for me. “Matthew,” she said. “There’s a message for you from one of your friend’s moms something about a laptop.”

“Okay,” I said. “I’ll listen to it.” I ran to the phone and immediately unplugged it, under the pretext of messages. I waited then plugged it back in, jolting it back to life, without any of the messages on its system.

I waited by the phone. And every time it rang, I hung that motherfucker up.

Of course, I forgot that the house had four different phones and my vigilant offensive only covered one handset. Kasey’s mom eventually got through and my grandmother gave her our address and she drove up to drop the computer off. My mother thanked her, as she drove off, “no problem,” Kasey’s mom said. “I knew exactly what it was when I saw the case. She really wanted one.”

The first question my mother asked me was, “do you like her?”

Then, “why did you do it?”

I looked my mother in the face and said, “mother, Haley and I needed to finish up a project and Haley wasn’t doing work in class, so I lent it to her so she could do her fair share. Then, she must have given it to Kasey.”

“I thought you said you guys finished your project last week,” my mother asked.

“No, mother, I finished my work,” I said. I thought about the brilliance of my plan and the single flaw. I forgot to tell Kasey to bring a big bag. But even then, if only her mother hadn’t told my mother, I would have gotten away with it, if it weren’t for those meddling adults.

My First Extemp Tournament

Extemporaneous speaking, more commonly referred to as extemp, is not the type of thing that gets people bloods boiling. Yet, it has always been the love of my life. I was in ninth grade when I found it.

“Matthew,” Mrs. Fujimoto, the head librarian said, as I sat at her desk. “There’s someone I’d like you to meet.”

She led me to the computer lab area of the library and there was a rotund gentleman, who introduced himself as, Mr. Alisna.

“Matthew likes to read,” she told him.

“You read a lot huh?” Alisna said, eyes fixed on my enormous knapsack.

“Yup,” I said, jumping up with excitement.

“Do you like to read the news?” His eyes were wider now and he was grinning.

“I do,” I had never thought that anyone would want me to read newspapers for fun.

“You can do extemp,” he declared, and I thought I won a prize.

Of course, extemp isn’t really the coolest and/or sexiest thing. Even in the world of high school forensics (the really pretentious name for speech and debate as a competitive activity) extemp is not considered cool. Oh wait, forensics is not really considered cool either, which basically means that I was doing the uncool thing amongst the uncool kids, it’s kind of like being Ann Coulter, only without the blatant hatred of humanity.

Extemp has a bad reputation largely because of the events perceived elitism. At the beginning of each round, competitors pull three questions about current affairs out of an envelope. Then, they pick one and have thirty minutes to prepare a seven-minute speech that must be delivered from memory, with source citations.

The very first question I ever answered was: will there ever be peace in the Middle East? I was given more than the normal 30 minutes, in fact, Mr. Alisna told me I could have an entire night. I immediately started researching looking into what prevented peace and why there was no peace and what could be done for peace. I was going to give the best extemp speech ever. The next day, I came in ready.

I don’t remember what I said. All I remember is what followed.

“What is the first rule of extemp?” Mr. Alisna asked me.

“Answer the question?” I asked.

“Yesssssss,” his voice rose cartoonishly through the elongated strand of Ss. “Did you answer it?”

“I think so,” I responded, as I was fairly confident I had answered the question.

“Well you didn’t. Also, you need to slow down you talk too quickly. I can barely understand you. This also makes you trip on your words. You stumble and garble and you had about 75 vocal pauses. Did you even work on this speech? If you have that much time, I expect you to give a good speech. Would you say that was a good speech?” He tapped his fingers on the test.

I stared at the floor, thinking back on the speech, what went wrong? “I’ll try harder.”

Mr. Alisna glowered at me, “I don’t want to see trying Matthew, I want to see results.”

I could feel that familiar tightness in my eyes, “Sorry.”

He sighed, and shot me a withering expression, “Don’t apologize, just do it.”

It was here that I think I started to cry. Or at least, that’s how Gabe Alisna tells the story. He also claims that whenever I got frustrated I would put my hands on my hips and elbows thrusting backwards like a pair of wings and shut my eyes. I’m not sure

“Ready for another question?” he asked.

A few weeks later, it was time for my first tournament. I had been working on extemp everyday after school and I was ready to kick everyone’s ass. Of course, it was a novice tournament meaning that everyone had no experience in the events they were doing. My mother dropped me off at the school at six AM, and I eagerly ran up to the team room to pick out a tie. The one I chose was red and black with diagonal stripes. Mr. Alisna insisted on tying it for me.

After, I was suited up. I had to carry the extemp boxes to the bus. Because of the nature of the event, back in those days, extemp required four large Rubbermaid Tubs full of newspaper articles, printed off online news sources and filed alphabetically by country or topic area. I had four of these. At the time, I weighed about 70 pounds. Each box had about 30ish pounds of paper inside. I struggled under the weight of the tubs as I galumphed it to the bus, struggling down the uneven concrete path, weaving to and fro. My arms shook, as my twig like arms tried to embrace the lumbering beast of plastic and paper.

We arrived at Saint Andrews Priory at 8 am, and after warm-ups, such as “I am a mother pheasant plucker, I pluck mother pheasants I am the most pleasant mother pheasent plucker to have ever plucked mother pheasants.” It was time. I walked into the prep room, set-up my boxes. Pulled out the yellow legal pad I’d grown accustomed to. I was sixth speaker, in the first round, which meant more time to read current events. I pulled a copy of US News and World Report, I had brought along just in case. The question I pulled after, fifty minutes of waiting, was something about China. Easy.

I whipped through files, pulled out articles, wrote down quotations, outlined. Scratched out things that didn’t work and put together facts in a way that allowed me to answer the question. I stood up after 20 minutes and stood in a corner and talked to the wall running through my points and sources. Suddenly, I heard the prep room proctor, “Speaker six please head to your round.”

On my way to the classroom, I ran through my speech in my head. It was going to be fine. I opened the door stepped inside. Walked to the center looked at the judges and began to speak.

“I had a nightmare the other night and there were monsters everywhere closing in, in the grocery store, and everyone of the monsters was made in China,” then, I dived straight into my content. I said the question verbatim, gave my answer, took two steps to the left to indicate I was transitioning to my first point. Then, two to the right to indicate I was moving to my second; two more to the right for my third, before walking back to the middle for my conclusion. It was so exciting, sharing all of this information with them. I carefully watched the time signals from the timekeeper and before long my time was up, and my speech was finished.

Speech and debate uses a ranking system, in each room, there are six competitors and the judges rank the competitors first to sixth with no ties. Every round is a fight for a one. At the novice tournament, the judges give the ballots directly after the round is finished. The five other competitors and I sat there waiting nervously after my speech, as we waited for the judges to finish writing. It wasn’t long before they started to hand out ballots. The first one hit my desk and I got the one. Then the other ballot came another one. There were two more rounds that day, four more judges, and though I didn’t know it yet, I would pick-up four more ones. I wouldn’t have cared.

I clutched those sheets of paper in my hand and skipped back to the tables where my team sat. I couldn’t wait to show Mr. Alisna.