Stupid Fast

Two years younger than Felton, Andrew is a skilled pianist who enjoys opera and Bach: Andrew gladly took his late dad’s classical CDs, while Felton appropriated the rock music. Andrew’s musical pursuits generally annoy Felton, who dismissively calls Andrew a “punk kid,” even though Felton admits Andrew’s skill and appreciates his music. With his “little skinny body” and “plastic nerd glasses” (151, 42) Andrew looks almost nothing like Felton. Andrew tilts his head when he speaks, and has a more careful, formal manner of speech than Felton. Andrew loves Jerri and feels protective of her when Felton gives her a hard time. Jerri, in turn, feels proud of Andrew—something Felton envies.

Andrew is an open advocate for The Need for Communication in Family and Peer Relationships. He openly admits to needing Jerri’s caregiving, and he keenly feels the loss of his mother as she withdraws. Unlike Felton, Andrew has no outside outlet. Andrew, instead of denying that Jerri is unwell, looks for causes. He expresses his feelings, including his anger at Felton and Jerri, rather than suppressing them. While Felton becomes a “barbarian,” Andrew becomes a “pirate.” In his secondhand black trousers and skull shirt, Andrew shows strength and determination. Andrew shows his loving, forgiving nature when he reaches out to Felton to reestablish their brotherly bond, and when he welcomes Jerri back into his life.

Born in small-town Bluffton, Wisconsin, Jerri grew up half “townie” from her beer-drinking, bar-owning dad’s side, and half “almost college kid” from her smart, professional mom’s side (123). Jerri was top of her high school class and enjoyed reading poetry and philosophy. Cody Frederick’s policeman dad says that Jerri is a “good girl” who had a difficult life, though he does not tell Felton all the details.

Felton knows Jerri loves them, but he has little patience for her “hippy” interests. Jerri is into organic foods, wears sandals, attends drumming circles, and calms herself by taking deep meditative breaths and saying, “om shanti shanti shanti shanti” (33). Felton is also impatient with Jerri’s attempts to talk to him, critical of her efforts to get him more involved in life and frustrated by her concern for him. Felton attributes Jerri’s increasingly odd behavior to her regular eccentricity, dismissing her as “freaky.”

Jerri’s situation exemplifies the theme of Coping with Mental Illness in the Family. At first, Felton does not acknowledge the seriousness of Jerri’s mental health crisis. When he takes an interest in sports and grows larger, Jerri is unable to cope with the similarities between him and her emotionally abusive late husband. As she watches Felton find joy in athleticism, she can only see Steven, who was a “force of nature” (257). Jerri, who has lied to Felton and Andrew about their father their whole lives, is no longer able to suppress her unpleasant memories. She becomes a completely different person, swearing at her children and withdrawing physically and emotionally. It takes an intervention from her own mother to set her on the path to recovery; after Grandma Berba’s arrival, Jerri is prescribed medication and eventually goes for inpatient treatment at a mental health facility. In detailing Jerri’s traumatic mental health crisis and the beginning steps of her recovery, Herbach illuminates the far-reaching effects of mental health conditions on family relationships.

Before Jerri goes to the facility, she leaves behind a single photograph for Andrew and Felton, reassuring them that Steven was not all bad. This is the result of the family’s efforts at rebuilding their team and establishing a new line of open, honest communication. Jerri’s willingness to face Steven’s memory shows her growth: She no longer need to run from the past.

Aleah, a 16-year-old Black piano virtuoso, is “intense all the time” (119). Felton is immediately drawn by both Aleah’s beauty and her exquisite skill on the piano. The music she makes the first time Felton sees her moves him to tears. Aleah loves the piano, Felton, and small-town Bluffton, which is radically different from her cosmopolitan Chicago lifestyle. Aleah and her father, Ronald, rent Gus’s home for the summer while Ronald teaches at the local college. Aleah’s mom left them, but Aleah and Roland have a loving relationship with good communication that Felton envies. The Jennings family provides a safe haven for Andrew and Felton when, unable to cope with Jerri’s neglect any longer, they run away to wait for Grandma Berba’s arrival.

Aleah immediately falls for Felton because she believes he is gentle, strong, and naïve—in a good way. Aleah thinks she is weird but appreciates that Felton is possibly even weirder than her. Aleah and Felton realize that when they are each focused on their passions, piano and movement respectively, they experience a sense of clarity and calm. Although Aleah and Felton part at the end of the summer, they say they are “serious” about each other and remain committed. Aleah is instrumental in helping Felton handle his familial problems. Not only does he find respite in her presence, but Aleah also helps Felton gain self-confidence. She feels hurt when she learns Felton has kept his struggles at home secret from her, emphasizing the need for trust and communication. She helps him transition into the adult world of relationships.

Cody, like Aleah, is one of the catalysts for the major changes in Felton’s life. Cody reaches out to Felton and encourages him to join weightlifting and the football team despite Felton’s misgivings. Cody proves to be a true friend to Felton, even though Felton initially considers him a dreaded “honky” and thinks he smells like pee.

Cody is a unifying force on the team and thinks Felton’s speed will make the team invincible. Cody admits that Ken Johnson used to harass him, also, and he gives Felton valuable advice to stick up for himself and act like “a real athlete” to earn others’ respect (80). Cody shows his friendship for Felton in several ways: hanging out with Felton, offering support when he sees Felton is struggling at home, planning Felton’s birthday party, and apologizing for being insensitive for years about Steven’s suicide. He proves to be an invaluable member of Felton’s support system: When Felton withdraws, convinced that Cody and his other friends have turned on him, Cody reaches out and brings Felton’s birthday party to him. This helps Felton realize he was wrong to doubt his friends, easing some of his internalized self-loathing and enabling him to gain true confidence.

Grandma Berba was always a mysterious and frightening figure to Andrew and Felton, who assumed that she “hated” them because her calls were terse, and she never visited them or invited them to visit her. Felton and Andrew discover that Grandma loves them deeply and stayed away to honor Jerri’s wishes. Grandma is young-looking, brown-haired, and pretty, and does not look like a typical grandmother. Grandma Berba precipitously fills Felton and Andrew in about their dad and the probable causes behind Jerri’s mental health crisis. She is business-like but warm, and quickly gets the Reinstein home physically back to normal. Grandma does not tolerate Felton’s snarky attitude, and he respects her.

Grandma’s intervention relates to the theme of Coping with Mental Illness in the Family. Though she, like Felton, uses insensitive language, she is the one who sets Jerri on the path of recovery. Her presence illustrates the importance of a support network for people in crisis. She also reminds Felton that he is not Jerri’s caretaker: He is still a child and should not blame himself for Jerri’s mental health—nor his father’s suicide.

Felton initially has only two friends in Bluffton, Gus Alfonso and Peter Yang. Felton grew up with both and thinks of the three of them as “college kids” because they are the sons of college professors. They feel “oppressed” by the rest of the kids in town and feel like outcasts.

Gus is Felton’s first best friend. He has black hair that hangs over his eyes and has a talent for making fun of people and making Felton laugh. Felton takes over Gus’s paper route when his family goes to Venezuela for the summer. Gus and Felton’s friendship suffers when Gus gets jealous, and Felton feels like Gus does not care about what is happening in his life. Although Felton thinks often of Gus, he does not show much interest in Gus’s life when they talk; he mostly emails Gus to talk about his own family or Aleah, and thinks, “I don’t need bad friends, Gus. You got that?” after Peter Yang invites Felton to the pool and fails to appear (52). Gus later apologizes for snapping at Felton out of jealousy, and the two repair their friendship.

Peter is Felton’s second-best friend, but Felton has been unhappy with their relationship for some time. Peter rarely laughs, and Felton thinks he is boring, but he does have a driver’s license, which is a positive. Felton rejects Peter as a friend when Peter lies about going to the pool, and their relationship does not feature prominently in the story. However, Peter does attend Felton’s first football game.

Felton “always hated” Karpinski who was one of “the worst honkies on record” (91), but when Felton gets to know him and work together with him on the football team, Karpinski becomes a friend. Karpinski is big and loud, crude, and laser-focused on girls and football. He talks nonstop and even cultured Aleah thinks he is hilarious. Felton thinks teammate Jason Reese is a “bona fide chucklehead dumbass” (48), but when Felton gains self-confidence and comes into his strength, he realizes Reese is also a good friend. Abby Sauter styled herself as Felton’s girlfriend in fifth grade; over the years, she both came on to him and made fun of him. Now, Abby and her friend Jess Withrow are Felton’s friends. They text and hang out with him and the other football players. They apologize for bullying him over the years, and help Felton understand they like Felton for who he is.