Julie Halpern - The F- It List

“Thank you for not saying that.”

“Alex!” Doug yelled from the kitchen. “Get your ass back in here! I have to take a piss!”

“Fine dining, it is not,” I noted to Leo.

We stood up and took our baskets to the garbage. “I guess it’s just half empty today.” I frowned.

“I’ll do my half full really quickly. I got to have dinner with you. And I got a free drink, too.”

“You can pay me when I give you your ass tattoo,” I told him dryly. I dumped the contents of my basket into the garbage and gave a little wave to Leo. “Have a good night,” I said, feeling awkward that I didn’t know quite how to say good-bye. I didn’t have to know. Leo held my face in his oversize hands and pressed his lips to mine. He was such a good, powerful kisser, I involuntarily hummed with pleasure as I kissed him back, standing on tiptoes as he leaned down to meet me. I gripped the front of his t-shirt with a tight fist to steady myself. The kiss wasn’t long, but it was enough to make me wobble back to my spot in the kitchen after Leo uttered, “Good-bye, pickle breath.”

I think I found my half full.

I ARRIVED HOME from work around nine thirty. Cellar Subs closed at nine, and it was my job to mop the floor with a seventy-five-year-old mop that weighed 600 pounds. I don’t know if the floor ever actually got clean because the lighting was so bad at the restaurant, and the mop was so decrepit. Strings of meat and vegetables slid between the dreadlocks of the mop, long past the expiration of the five-second rule. It was also my job to clean the bathrooms, but nobody actually did that. Cellar had infamously nasty bathrooms, which somehow made the place cooler. Unless you had to use them.

When I walked into my house, AJ and CJ were watching Wipeout and laughing uncontrollably at the big balls. I wished I had the ability to be as ridiculously airheady as they did. Not that they were stupid, but as seventh-grade boys they didn’t yet feel the weight of the world on their shoulders. Or in my case, my pocket. The only thing I had to show for Becca’s list was self-pleasuring before breakfast, and I didn’t even know if she knew about that yet. We hadn’t talked about due dates or expectations of numbers. The list was as vague and overwhelming as the cancer itself.

“You smell like a sandwich,” AJ told me without looking away from the watery carnage on the TV screen.

“OOOH!” AJ and CJ practiced synchronized cringing at the TV.

“Here.” I threw a bag containing two subs to CJ, who dexterously caught it without turning his head.

“Thanks, sis.”

“No prob, bros.”

I walked into the kitchen for a glass of water. I did smell very sandwichy. It wasn’t so bad compared to my first job as an ice-cream scooper. Ice cream may be delicious when you eat it, but it rots when stuck to your shirt. Washing it never got the rank smell out either. The sandwich smell did come out of my clothes, but sometimes it took forever to excrete from my nose.

I pulled the blue Brita pitcher out of the fridge and poured myself a tall glass of water. I placed the pitcher back, and my eyes focused on a jar that I never paid much attention to: jalapeño peppers, which my brothers ate for sport. They never appealed to me. Food and pain together seemed like a weird combo.

“AJ. CJ. Come here,” I called into the other room. I pulled out the Fuck-It List from my pocket, and as I remembered, number 7, an early one, read: Eat a hot pepper. Great. Couldn’t I just have sex with a member of the chess team or something?

“We’re watching Wipeout!” they chimed in unison.

“Pause your big balls and get in here!” I demanded.

The clumsy shuffling of my twin brothers arrived in the kitchen. “What?” CJ held his sandwich in the brown paper bag like some drunk on the street. He took a sandwich swig and chewed lazily.

“What’s it like to eat a hot pepper?”

“What do you mean? You just stick it in your mouth and bite it,” AJ explained helpfully.

“That’s what she said,” CJ chuckled.

“Are you guys really this corroded?” I glared.

“No, sorry. You did bring us sandwiches,” AJ conceded.

“I wanted to try an experiment.” There was no way I’d tell my brothers about the Fuck-It List. “But I’m a little scared.”

“You can watch The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, but you can’t eat a pepper?” CJ asked. He couldn’t stand horror films, especially after Dad died. It was kind of sad and sweet at the same time. One of the traits that made him slightly human. Plus, it was fun watching him run away from the TV when I had a movie on in the family room.

“Those movies aren’t real. Well, actually, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre was based on a true story,” I explained.

“Don’t tell me that!” CJ covered his ears, one with a hand and the other with the sandwich in a bag.

“Dudes, help me here. I have to eat one, and I just want to prepare myself.”

AJ walked over to the jar I pulled from the fridge. “This one’s for pussies. You have to try ghost chiles instead. They’ll burn your butthole for days.”

“I don’t eat with my butthole.” I eyed them.

“Yeah, but they have to come out after you digest them. They’re the gift that keeps on giving. Burn you in, burn you out.” AJ nodded in a sick way.

“You guys are freaks,” I told them.

“We’ll eat one if you do,” CJ volunteered. “For twenty bucks,” he added.

“You’ll do it because I’m your sister and you love me, and if you don’t I’ll put my Chuckie doll in your bed in the middle of the night.” Chuckie was an evilly-stitched doll from the movie Child’s Play. Not the best movie, but I found the doll at a horror con in great condition and couldn’t pass it up. “Plus: sandwiches.”

“Fine. But you get to apologize to my butthole in the morning.”

“I’ll notarize a letter and everything. Let’s do this.”

CJ unscrewed the jar lid and a tangy smell tickled my nose. “You don’t have any cuts on your fingers, do you?” I examined my hands and shook my head no. “Good.” He carefully pinched his thumb and forefinger around a bright green pepper and pulled it out of the jar. He slid the jar over to me, and I did the same. Juice dripped off the pepper onto the kitchen table, and I half expected a hole to sizzle into the wood.

“On the count of three?” I asked. CJ nodded. “One. Two. Three.” I closed my eyes and bit the pepper from its stem. It didn’t immediately hurt, but a slow sting emanated throughout my mouth. My eyes watered, and so did my nose. My lips felt about six sizes bigger than usual. When I finally managed to swallow, I coughed and sneezed simultaneously.

“Water!” I choked and chugged my entire glass. That didn’t help. AJ and CJ were in hysterics, leaning on each other for support. “You didn’t eat it, did you?” I guessed.

“No. But thanks for the kind offer,” CJ said.

I rubbed tears from my eyes. “No problem. And Chuckie can’t wait to see you.”

“No! I’ll eat it! Watch!” He stuffed it into his gaping mouth.

“Too late.” I poured myself a second glass of water, not waiting to see CJ’s reaction before I walked up the stairs to my room.

“I ate it! Al, I ate it!” He sputtered after me.

“Chuckie can’t hear you anymore,” I cackled, and shut my bedroom door.

While my computer revved up, I crossed off number 7. “Only for you, Becca,” I said to the paper. A hot pepper, as painful as it was, was still an easy item. If I were to accomplish any of the big-ticket numbers, like Take a bath in someone else’s house, that would take some planning. Same with number 10: Hop a train like a hobo. I laughed out loud at that one, not only because the word “hobo” was hilarious, but that Becca would consider such an act worthy of a life-defining list. And what about the last item on the list, number 23: Have sex with someone I’m in love with and who’s in love with me. It’s not something I’d ever accomplished before, so how easy could it be now that it was with a time limit? I’d only actually had sex with one person, but I didn’t even believe I was in love with him at the time. His name was Aleks, pronounced the same as my name and short for Aleksander, an exchange student from Norway who stayed with our next-door neighbors. It was last fall, after Thanksgiving but before winter break. There were fifteen Norwegians in total imported to our school, and Aleks didn’t look much different from the rest of them: tall, sandy blond hair, solid, round head. They traveled in packs, laughed loudly, and spoke a language that sounded both fluid and funny. Before I had a car, I took the bus to school. So did Aleks, along with Katie Cartwright, the neighbor he stayed with who was a grade younger and a zombie cheerleader. Katie and Aleks never sat near each other on the bus, nor did I ever see them exchange words. Aleks sat by himself near the front, until the other Norwegians boarded a few stops later. Then he lit up and became animated. I liked to watch them, imagining someday that I might become an exchange student or live in another country. It was a dream that I tried not to hang on to anymore for fear that an unrealized dream would make me realize just how stranded I was now that my dad was dead.

One afternoon, when Aleks and I got off the bus alone, Katie at a game or something, he asked in a lightly clipped accent, “Want to come over?”

I had no reason to say no, and I was curious. “Sure.” I shrugged. We ended up hanging out in his adopted room, not talking much but watching The Big Bang Theory reruns from his bed. Nothing happened the first day, but I sensed he wanted it to.

A week later, sans Katie, he invited me over again. I went more as a spy for Becca, who seemed to think that Norwegians were the sexiest human beings alive and vowed to catch at least a glimpse of one of their uncircumcised penises. Besides, Aleks smelled nice. I had never been one for perfume or cologne and felt downright revulsion for Axe body spray, but Aleks smelled like he cared about his appearance. It was a little salty and minty, as I imagined the water around Norway smelled.

As we lay on his bed, again watching The Big Bang Theory, I asked him to teach me some swears in Norwegian.

“Dritsak,” he explained, meant “sack of shit.” “Hestekuk” meant “horsecock.” I laughed that he would think to teach me “horsecock” as a swear, and I swooned a little at the cultural difference. Yes, I swooned at “horsecock.”

I wore a button-down shirt that day, and after we laughed about horsecock, Aleks began to unbutton it. We hadn’t yet kissed, but he was already taking off my shirt. I let him, curious what this Norwegian would do next. He watched my expression, maybe waiting to see if what he was doing was okay. I assisted him with the many buttons, letting him know it was. When my shirt was completely undone, he kissed me, a little too wet and tonguey. I guided his face down to my chest, and he lightly kissed above, then under my bra. He worked off my shirt, and I sat up enough for him to unhook the back of my bra, which he did adeptly. I guess bra hooks are international. I tugged his gray sweater over his head and ran my fingers up his torso and chest. He was lean and not very muscular. His chest was bare of hair. I remember kissing on the lips very little. He kept his mouth on my breasts most of the time, and I didn’t mind. His strong jaw tickled me as he nibbled.

That was as far as it went that day. Katie’s pom-poms charged up the stairs about a half hour after we started, and I got dressed and left. Becca was disappointed I hadn’t seen his penis yet and handed me a condom the next time I saw her.

Two days later, armed with the Trojan, I followed Aleks back to his house once again. This time the TV stayed off and we immediately began removing each other’s clothes when we entered his room. He was qualified at clothing removal but not as much with finger placement. I had to fish his pokey fingers out of my undies twice before he got the hint to give that up.

Me in my underwear, him in his blue boxers, we moved over to the bed. “Wait—” I told him, the first word spoken that afternoon. I found Becca’s condom in my backpack and brought it up to the bed. He yanked off his underwear in an overly excited manner, then got on his knees to help me work off mine. I looked at his penis, studying it to get the details for Becca before he slapped on the condom. I lay down on the bed, and he lay on top of me. The initial pain wasn’t excruciating, although I never got much pleasure out of it. It was over quickly, and Aleks rolled off me and promptly fell asleep. Hestekuk.