Read Online Boy21 by Matthew Quick - Free Book Online

couch or rug with the “magic” wand cleaner.
    “Wish I could watch the Lakers’ greatest point guard of all time humiliate himself on a cable infomercial station, but somebody has to pay the bills around here, so heigh-ho! Off to work I go!”
    Boy21 laughs at Dad’s joke, which makes him smile and raise his hand. They exchange a dorky dad-type high five, and then Dad is gone.
    “Be gone, old cleaning products!” Magic Johnson says as he shoots old bottles like basketballs into a faraway trash can. “Magic is here. Magic! Watch out, stains! You don’t stand a chance! Magic! Magic! Magic!”
    Magic Johnson looks old.
    “Let’s go,” I say.
    Boy21 follows me up to my bedroom.
    I pop open the window and we climb out onto the roof. It’s cool, but not too cold up here. Maybe like opening-a-refrigerator-door cool.
    Once we’re seated he opens the box and, surprisingly, a small package of birthday candles. The two cupcakes are store-bought. Because the light is still on in my room, I can see that someone has drawn space shuttles on the cupcakes with frosting. I start to worry because of Boy21’s freak-out at the IMAX Theatre.
    He sticks a candle deep into each cupcake so that the wicks stick out where the flames would exit each space shuttle.
    He uses a lighter to ignite the wicks and then says, “STS-120. T minus ten seconds. Eight seconds. T minus five. Four. Three. Two. One. And liftoff of
Discovery—
opening harmony to the heavens and opening new gateways for international science.”
    Boy21 starts singing “Happy Birthday.” His eyes look wild, crazy, manic.
    “Happy birthday, dear Boy21. Happy birthday to you,” he sings, and then blows out the candles.
    He hands me one of the cupcakes and says, “I got you a vanilla and me chocolate,” and then takes a big bite out of his cupcake.
    I wonder if the vanilla and chocolate comment was a joke. He’s not laughing, so I say, “Happy birthday. If I had known—”
    “One day short of completing my fifteenth trip around the sun, my father doesn’t drive me to my high school,” Boy21 says in this really serious voice. “In fact, we drive in the opposite direction. When I ask where we’re going, he just smiles and laughs. We end up at the airport and when we check in, I realize we’re headed to Florida. So I say, ‘Dad, are you delivering on yourpromise?’ When he winks at me, my heart starts pounding, because I know exactly where we’re going. We land in Florida and hit a hotel. He doesn’t even have to confirm it for me, because I know we are about to fulfill his lifelong dream and mine.”
    The wind blows and the few dry, brittle leaves still hanging on to the trees rattle. I shiver a little.
    “The next day we drive to the viewing spot and I can see it—space shuttle
Discovery.
It stands huge on the tower, and only a small body of water separates us. We wait for what seems like forever for it to take off, wondering if there will be complications. But it takes off twenty minutes before noon and there is this awesome noise when the rockets are ignited—and then these massive clouds explode from the bottom of the ship and billow out forever and ever along the horizon and then it rises real slow… pushed upward by what looks like a bright cone of orange lava, and a long tower of clouds forms in its wake. It may have been the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. And I remember my father putting his arm around me as we stood and watched. When it was over neither of us said anything for a long time. We just stood there smiling. It was the best birthday I’ve ever had. The best day of my life.”
    When Boy21 finishes his story, I don’t know what to say. So this is why he freaked out on the physics field trip.
    “Eat your cupcake,” he says.
    I eat the whole thing in just a few bites. Vanilla. Rich. Moist. So sweet it makes my teeth ache.
    We sit in silence for a long time.
    “You want to see that launch?” Boy21