Stupid Fast

The house is silent except for Jerri’s TV. Felton misses Andrew’s piano playing and would even have asked him to play to help distract him from his back pain. He realizes Andrew has been strong throughout the situation with Jerri. Andrew stood up to her and faced things instead of running away like Felton. Felton wants to be with Andrew, or to run away, but his back hurts too much. In pain and starving, Felton creeps upstairs to avoid Jerri, and goes to get his bread and cheese out of the refrigerator—but his food is gone. Felton’s nice feelings towards Andrew evaporate. Felton angrily asks Andrew about his food. Andrew, near tears, denies taking it. Enraged, Felton moves to hit Andrew, but his back spasms. He screams in pain and collapses. Andrew, worried for Felton, cries and apologizes, saying he tried to tell Jerri not to eat Felton’s food.

In her room, Jerri sobs and repeats “I can’t help you” and throws things at her wall (214). Felton worries he was about to kill Andrew. Felton decides that the Jerri situation is bad—which Andrew knew—and thinks Jerri is “bat-nut crazy” and is not going to improve (214). Andrew thinks it is his fault. Felton disagrees, but declares they need help. As he thinks of a plan, Andrew cries and hugs him, which hurts Felton’s back but feels good emotionally.

Andrew helps Felton to the garage where they decide what to do. Andrew tells Felton that he wants to be his brother again, and Felton feels the same. Felton admits that he has been “confused” and did not want to deal with Jerri’s problems, which Andrew believes are related to their dad’s suicide. Andrew understands, but confides he was angry at Felton for his avoidance.

Andrew was searching for Jerri’s diary. He did not find it but did learn that Jerri reacts badly when asked about Steven. Andrew thinks Jerri lied about their dad, so he snuck into Jerri’s room and found her wedding album. The pictures reveal that Steven looked exactly like Felton, and he was scowling and unsmiling. Andrew suggests that Jerri hates seeing Felton because she hated their dad. Andrew explains that Jerri later went “completely psycho” and pushed Andrew against the wall, screamed at him to “stop torturing her,” and burned the wedding album in her bathroom (219).

Felton and Andrew cry, and Felton apologizes. Felton realizes Grandma Berba was there when Steven died, and he knows it is time to call her. Andrew worries it will make Jerri worse, but Felton says it is Grandma or the cops. They agree that they cannot stay in the house and decide to go to the Jenningses’ because they are kind, outsiders in town, and will not discuss the Reinsteins’s problems.

Andrew goes back inside and gathers Felton’s clothes. He sneaks into Jerri’s room for her address book with Grandma Berba’s number. Felton realizes he needs his phone charger, so Andrew goes back for it. He returns shaking, followed by Jerri in her bathrobe. Jerri is pale, thin, and confused. Felton explains they are just going for a bike ride. She tells him to call her. The boys are unsure if she knows they are running away.

Felton’s back loosens as he bikes. Andrew explains he burned his clothes to force Jerri to talk to him, which backfired because she insisted that erasing the past was the only way forward. Andrew bitterly thinks this describes Jerri’s life approach. Andrew wants Felton to call Grandma Berba before they get to the Jenningses’ so they have an idea of what might happen. Felton does not want to make the call: Grandma Berba moved to Arizona before Felton was born, and has been distant their whole life, sending cards on holidays but never visiting or inviting them to visit. Grandma Berba, however, immediately asks if Felton is safe, which makes him cry. Grandma Berba has waited for this call for a decade. She assures him she will be there quickly.

It is 5:41am and Felton knows that Grandma is usually awake by this time, but not today. He gets some of her coffee from the fridge so he can stay awake longer. He is sore from the night before.

Felton wants readers to know that Grandma is not mean after all. Grandma Berba did not take an active role in their lives because Jerri did not want Andrew and Felton influenced by her materialism. Grandma Berba became wealthy selling insurance and wanted Jerri to press Steven’s parents for more child support. Jerri disagreed. She did not want the boys to inordinately value money. Jerri kept Grandma at arm’s length. Grandma waited until she was needed, knowing that Andrew and Felton thought she hated them. She thinks Felton and Andrew are “sweet kids.”

Felton and Andrew explain things to Aleah, asking to stay there until Grandma Berba arrives. Ronald agrees. Aleah is upset that Felton hid his problems and did not communicate with her, but Felton did not want her to hate him. Felton gets texts from football players and “honky” girls asking about his back. Cody says that his dad is angry and will arrest Ken for assault if Felton wants. Felton demurs, saying he is fine, and that it was an accident. Coach Johnson calls, asks after Felon, and says Ken is very upset and receiving angry messages. He was ready to take Ken to the police for his protection and for hurting Felton. Coach asks Felton to ask his friends to lay off Ken. Felton does not want Ken to go to the police.

Grandma Berba tells Felton she will be there tomorrow morning. She has spoken to Jerri whom she says is not okay, but “needs her mother,” finally, after 35 years (231). Aleah realizes that if Jerri is 35, and Felton is going to be 16, which means Jerri was 19 and just out of high school when she had Felton. Felton’s dad was 30. Aleah thinks the age difference created a power discrepancy. Felton is uncomfortable with the conversation, admitting that he is afraid of the truth. He realizes Jerri was almost his age when she was pregnant with him.

Andrew and Aleah enjoy watching DVDs of Metropolitan Opera performances, but Felton is preoccupied thinking about Jerri being pregnant with him. He knows that Jerri was valedictorian of her class, wanted to be a civil rights lawyer, and only stayed in Bluffton for college because her father offered to pay her tuition. Felton realizes he is the reason she is not a lawyer. He figures that Jerri got pregnant during her first year of college with a professor—Steven. Felton thinks because Jerri kept her last name, Berba, it means she and Steven never married. He wakes Andrew and tells him they are “bastards.” Andrew rejects this idea. He saw the photos and the newspaper announcement and knows Jerri and Steven were married. The paper listed Jerri as 19 and Steven Reinstein 29 when they wed. Felton imagines a scenario in which he was a “super-baby” growing incredibly fast in Jerri’s womb, terrifying Jerri and their short, gentle, poetry-loving Jewish dad. He realizes this sounds ridiculous, remembering Andrew’s words that their dad looked like him.

Felton wakes up late for his paper route but is glad to hear Andrew playing piano upstairs. Felton and Aleah separate to do different parts of the route together. Felton’s back feels much better. Felton bikes extra hard and runs fast to make up time. One of last year’s seniors, John Spencer, sees Felton running and alleges Felton was faking his injury. He grabs Felton’s bike and tells him to apologize to Ken. Felton takes off. He receives calls and texts which he ignores. He meets Aleah at the nursing home and the younger lady who screams at Felton calls him a “ghost.” Aleah finishes delivering the papers there and learns the lady thinks Felton is her dead lover.

Felton gets anonymous texts calling him a “squirrel nut faker” (242). He thinks his new friends are all turning on him and his life is unraveling. Aleah holds his hand while he cries. Felton explains about his childhood, including the nickname, and how his “honky” friends are not truly friends. Aleah, who has not heard him use the term “honky” before, is surprised he is “[u]sing inflammatory racial language to describe a bunch of [his] classmates” (243). Felton doesn’t understand what she means. Aleah calls him a “simple boy” and Felton, in despair, thinks he should tell Aleah to leave him but is interrupted when they notice a strange car in the drive: Grandma Berba has arrived.

Felton’s phone is still lighting up in his pocket, but he is anxious about seeing Grandma Berba. He asks Aleah to go inside first, then follows her. Grandma Berba is brown-haired, professional-looking, and pretty—and looks a lot like Jerri. Grandma Berba hugs Andrew on the couch. She stands to hug Felton, then collapses back on the couch laughing. Andrew stares in wide-eyed confusion as Grandma Berba laughs and exclaims, “No wonder.” Felton, nonplussed, wonders what to do. Grandma Berba gathers herself and calls Felton to her. She hugs him, laughing and crying, and tells him he looks exactly like his father.

It is 6am. Felton was awake all night. He urges the reader to also stay awake because now he will answer all the questions about his family.

Felton’s dad, Steven W. Reinstein, was an athlete: a tall, all-American champion tennis player. Felton looks just like him. Steven got Jerri, his student, pregnant during her first year of college and Jerri forced him to marry her—something Grandma Berba advised against. Steven’s wealthy parents hated Jerri. Steven married Jerri but felt trapped and angry. Jerri got pregnant with Andrew to try and help the relationship. Steven had affairs, even impregnating another one of his students. The college fired him. Jerri ultimately despised Steven and filed for divorce when Andrew was three. Steven then died by suicide. Jerri burned Steven’s things and pretended that he was a great father for Andrew and Felton. Grandma Berba knew this was “unhealthy,” and urged Jerri to get help, to move the family to Arizona, and to get more child support.

As Felton listens to Grandma Berba explain everything, he grows angry at his dad and at Jerri for her lies. He flees the Jenningses’ home and aggressively bikes home. He crashes in gravel and rips up his leg but continues. In his yard, he screams at his dad’s old bike and, crying, smashes it to pieces. Jerri yells at him to stop, then runs outside, grabs Felton, and hugs him. They fall to the ground, sobbing. Felton says he is angry at Jerri, but promises not to play tennis, while Jerri laments everything was her fault and apologizes for lying.