Me And Earl And The Dying Girl Part 21

GREG.

I think, uh . . . I mean, some scientists think that everyone's actually a little bit of both. h.o.m.o and hetero.

EARL.

Naw. That don't make any d.a.m.n sense at all. You tellin me right now, you can look at some t.i.tties, get a hard-on, look at some dude's funky d.i.c.k, get another hard-on. You gonna tell me that for real.

GREG.

I guess I can't say that, no.

EARL.

determinedly Dog taking a dump: hard-on. Wendy's double cheeseburger: hard-on. Computer virus that destroy all your s.h.i.+t: hard-on.

GREG.

Business section of the Wall Street Journal.

EARL.

Big-a.s.s hard-on for that s.h.i.+t.

Contemplative silence.

EARL.

Yo, I got a line for you. You wanna get with that girl, with the big-a.s.s t.i.tties?

GREG.

Yeah, give me a line.

EARL.

You walk up to her, say, Girl, you might not a known this about me, but I'm a tris.e.xual.

GREG.

uncertainly OK.

EARL.

Girl's like, What the f.u.c.k?

GREG.

Yeah.

EARL.

You like, Yeah, tris.e.xual.

GREG.

OK.

EARL.

She like, Whaaaaaat. You with me?

GREG.

I'm with you.

EARL.

Awright, she all confused. Then you drop the bomb, you're like: tris.e.xual, girl. Cuz I'ma try to have s.e.x with you.

GREG.

Ohhhhhh!

EARL.

Try-s.e.xual.

GREG.

I'll definitely use that.

EARL.

Mack.

All right. Now we're reaching the part where my life really started accelerating toward the edge of a cliff. And actually, this part wasn't even Mom's fault! It was Madison's. It's definitely messed up that they played similar roles in my life. I'm trying not to think about this too hard, lest I never get a b.o.n.e.r ever again.

It was the beginning of November, and I was in the part of the hall where they had tacked up a bunch of vaguely terrifying pilgrim-and-turkey paintings by the ninth graders, when Madison appeared out of nowhere and grabbed my arm. Our skin was actually touching, specifically in the hand-to-arm format.

Suddenly, I became terrified that I was going to belch.

"Greg," she said. "I have a favor to ask you."

It wasn't like I felt a belch forming in my stomach. It was just that, in my mind's eye, I could foresee myself belching at Madison. I saw this extremely vividly. Maybe there would be a small amount of barf in there.

"So I promise I haven't seen any of your movies," she said, sort of a little impatiently, "but Rachel has, obviously, and she really likes them. And I just had this idea-you should make a movie for her."

I wasn't really sure what this meant. Also, to distract myself from the Belch of Doom that was lurking in my esophagus, I was looking away at a picture of a turkey. It was not all that well drawn. For some reason it seemed to have blood shooting out of all parts of its body. It was probably supposed to be feathers, or rays of the sun, or something.

"Huh," I said.

Meanwhile, Madison sounded confused by my unenthusiastic reaction to her idea.

"I mean," she said, and stopped. "Don't you think she would love that?"

"Hummmm."

"Greg, what are you looking at?"

"Uh, sorry, I got distracted."

"By what?"

I really couldn't think of anything. It was like I was on drugs. In fact, that reminded me of the inexplicable badger picture that showed up in my head after Earl and I ate Mr. McCarthy's pho. So I said, "Uh, there was just this badger picture in my head for some reason."

It goes without saying that the moment those words left my lips, I wanted to do serious injury to myself.

"Badger," Madison repeated. "Like the animal?"

"Yeah, you know," I said feebly. Then I added: "Just one of those badger head pictures you sometimes get."

I wanted to eat a power tool. Incredibly, however, Madison was able to ignore this and move on.

"So I think you should make a movie for Rachel. She just really loves your movies so much. She watches them all the time. They make her so happy."

As if the badger thing weren't enough, it had suddenly become time for me to say a second stupid thing. Actually, it was time for another episode of everyone's least favorite show, Excessive Modesty Hour with Greg Gaines.

"They can't make her that happy."

"Greg, shut up. I know you have issues with being complimented. Just take a compliment for once, because it's true."

Madison had actually observed and remembered one of my personality traits. This was so astonis.h.i.+ng that I said, "Word," completing a personal trifecta of Consecutive Inane Utterances That Will Prevent s.e.x from Ever Happening.

"Did you just say 'Word'?"

"Yeah, word."

"Huh."

"Word, like, I agree."

Madison, crafty girl that she is, managed to turn this last one on its head.

"So you agree! To make a movie! For Rachel!"

What the h.e.l.l could I possibly say to that? Except yes?

"Uh, yeah. Yeah! I think it's a good idea."

"Greg," she said, with a huge lovely smile, "this is going to be amazing."

"Maybe it'll be good!"

"I know you are going to make something wonderful."

So I felt deeply conflicted here. On the one hand, basically the hottest nice girl in the entire school was telling me how great I was and how great of a film I was going to make. So that felt really good and was making me stand funny to hide a partial b.o.n.e.r. On the other hand, though, I was agreeing to a project that I had grave doubts about. Actually, I didn't even know what I was agreeing to.

So I said, "Uh."

Madison waited for me to continue. The problem was I wasn't even sure what to say.

"One thing, though," I said.

"Mmmmm?"

"What, uh. Uhhhmmmmm."

"What?"

"It's just, uh."

There seemed to be no way of asking this question without sounding like a moron.

"What do you think," I said carefully, "the film should be."

Madison now had kind of a blank look.

"You should just make a movie," she said, "that's specifically for her."

"Yeah, but, uh."

"Just make the movie that you would want to get if you were Rachel."

"But what should it be, uh, about? D'you think."

"I dunno!" said Madison cheerfully.

"OK."

"Greg, you're the director. It's your movie!"