The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2002 (The Best American Series) - Softcover

foreword

The word reading: by itself, it describes one of the most pleasurable,
stimulating, rewarding, exciting, even joyful acts we human beings are
capable of. Yet put one single adjective — required — in front of it and you
suck all the joy out of the process, turning it into drudgery.
That"s the reason that reading has always been too closely linked
with schoolwork and the other stuff that life requires. In fact, in a recent
national survey of people under twenty-five, conducted by SmartGirl.com and
the American Library Association, more than 80 percent of respondents said
the books they read are "assigned for class."
That"s the bad news. The good news is that 65 percent also said
that "outside of class" they read books "for pleasure." Even more read
magazines, newspapers, comics, graphic novels, and Web zines and a host
of other on-line publications. Not only are they reading more than ever, the
under-twenty-five population is now, according to the Wall Street Journal,
actually buying books for leisure reading "at three times the rate of the overall
market."
Oh, sure, this book-buying is partly because of the fact that young
people have more disposable income than ever before — teenagers spent an
average of $104 a week in 2001, according to Teenage Research Unlimited —
but it"s also because of the fact that more good stuff is available now than
ever before. I mean, there is more reading material, regardless of format, that
addresses — with authentic wit, lively style, unsparing realism, and urgent
relevance — the real interests and real lives of real readers.
Sometimes this material is pulled from the headlines, but more
often it is ripped from the heart of matters that have to do with the emotional,
developmental, intellectual, and yes, even survival, skills of fifteen- to twenty-
five-year-olds.
This was not always the case.
Not long ago, publishers were publishing "young adult literature,"
an unfortunate phrase that always made the work sound like adult literature
in training wheels. Even worse, in the 1930s and early 1940s there was a
category patronizingly called "the junior novel." For too many years
this "literature" for young adults bore about as much resemblance to reality
as the Cleaver family. Part of this may have been the result of a collective
exercise in wishful thinking, and of an adult desire to "protect" young readers
from the grittier realities of life.
No wonder that Chris Lynch, one of the most important younger
writers for these readers (Gold Dust, Dog Eat Dog, Slot Machine), observed
as recently as 1994 that "when writers hear the term Young Adult, they get
the feeling the "the gloves are on.""
The gloves finally came off sometime in the middle of the 1990s,
and writers were at last permitted to match the sophistication of their readers
with the sophistication of their material and their creative ambition. Or, to put
it another way, writers were at last allowed to respect their readers, their
readers" abilities and inherent savvy. Gone was the traditional insistence on a
simplistically happy ending. Instead, writers for young people began to bring
ambiguity and uncertainty to their work, to acknowledge the presence of
darkness in human affairs as well as the persistence of light. Previously
taboo subjects such as abuse and incest could now be addressed. Of equal
importance, writers were permitted to flex their literary muscles, bringing to
their work newly complex characterization, themes, and settings along with
stylistic and structural innovation.
Other reasons for this newfound freedom include the sheer growth
in the numbers of younger Americans — there are now 34 million people
under twenty in the United States — their media-driven sophistication and
curiosity; their increasing access to books, thanks to the rise of
superbookstores and virtual booksellers; the willingness of a generation of
young editors to take creative risks; and more. Much more. Just as the
demands of the increasingly vocal 1960s generation for more realistic fiction
gave birth to the first authentic young adult novels, so similar demands today
are giving rise to a "gloves-off" literature that challenges readers to reexamine
their lives and the world in which they live.
As for "young adults" — if they were once defined as twelve- to
eighteen-year-olds, that too is no longer the case. Such labeling, though
convenient for publishers and librarians, can"t do justice to the complexity of
a new literature that has intrinsic appeal to a cross-generational readership
as young as fifteen and as (relatively) old as twenty-five.
The gloves are off, so read on.
But first a few words about how this inaugural edition of The Best
American Nonrequired Reading was put together. As the series editor, I
examined, surveyed, combed, and read nearly 140 magazines, newspapers,
and zines that publish material either for or of interest to readers ages fifteen
to twenty-five. I found approximately 125 stories and articles that, in my
opinion, could be described as "the best." These I sent to the guest editor,
Dave Eggers, who added even more pieces to the "best" pile, based on a
process he describes in his introduction, and who chose the twenty-three
selections that are published in this book. Our collaboration was, I think, a
creative one that has resulted in an outstanding inaugural collection, which
will set a very high standard for the volumes to follow in succeeding years.
We are now asking editors to submit what they consider to be the
best "nonrequired reading" for The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2003.
These submissions may be fiction or nonfiction but must be published in the
United States during the year 2002. Reprints and excerpts from published
books are not accepted. Each submission must include the author"s name,
the date of publication, and the publication"s name and must be submitted as
tearsheets, a copy of the whole publication, or a clean, clear photocopy of
the piece as it originally appeared.
All submissions must be received by February 3, 2003.
Publications wishing to be sure that their contributions will be considered
should include this anthology on their subscription list. Submissions or
subscriptions should be sent to Dave Eggers, c/o Editor, The Best American
Nonrequired Reading 2003, Houghton Mifflin Company, 222 Berkeley Street,
Boston, MA 02116.
I want to thank Deanne Urmy and Melissa Grella of Houghton
Mifflin for their insights, enthusiasm, and support, which made this anthology
possible. They were a joy to work with. And thanks too to the writers whose
work is represented here, who have so artfully demonstrated the joy of
nonrequired reading.

Michael Cart
introduction

Instead of an introduction I give you this:

The pool lights were never on but always there was other light,
from streetlamps or from the moon, round and toilet-tank white and licking
itself felinely, and the light, whatever its source, would allow us to see the
pool"s edges and each other. This was high school and it was humid. In the
pools someone would always float as if he were dead. Someone would lurk
like a squid in the deep end and yank your legs from below. Then you would
yelp or someone would scream or giggle or trip over a sprinkler and someone
else would whisper-yell Quiet! and we"d have to get out and get any clothes
we"d taken off and then jump the fence or the hedge or the wall and get back
to the car before the pool owners awoke or the cops came. The convertible
we"d borrowed was wet and cool, and we sank down into the seats, six of us
squirming together for warmth, Drew starting the car and going, keeping the
headlights off for a block, the wind cooler now. Lying on top of each other
while horizontal in the back seat, watching the tops of trees as we passed
underneath, the car so quiet, so quiet — I don"t know why it should have
been so quiet, such a big car and so full of people, but I remember no noise
in that car, from pool to pool to pool.
By the end of the night we would be swimming naked. Jumping
the fence and then pushing our clothes down our bodies and onto the ground,
and then a brief look around to catch what we could of our friends" naked
bodies, and then into the pool. Water so cool down there. No matter the
temperature of the water, always that river down there was cooler, was
maybe not a river but a cool hand grabbing around there, forward and back as
I swam, the grip of the hand shifting slightly, as anemones shift in the winds
under water. Some water was warm, the pools heated during the day, but
those were rare and strange anyway, the water hotter than the warm humid
July air — it hardly felt like swimming at all, felt like the move from sauna to
hot tub, which was lung-squeezing and seemed like too much work or like
dying. Some pools were too cold, so cold, not heated but cooled,
seemingly — we could never figure out why some pools were so cold but we
would jump in; we were not allowed, did not allow ourselves, to feel the water
first — and as I would run toward the edge ready to jump someone ahead
would already be in with his head popped out and gasping and exhaling
Jesus in disbelief and it would be too late to stop; I"d be in the air, doing my
nice dive, seeing their big wide eyes as I would break through the water and
freeze up everywhere immediately, the cold not on my skin but in my heart,
always a seizing first of my heart.
But most of the water was the same, was pool water in July, a
coolness to it that was . . . when you were in this water you knew you were
in water but were not suffering or tired. It made your arms move and you
would push your hair from your face and smooth it in back, then let your chin
drop into it so the water would come into your mouth and you could spit it out
slowly down your neck and you might picture the microbes in that stream of
water, sliding down your chin, that they were either having fun doing this, as
one would on a waterslide, or that this was for them a tidal wave, terror, the
end of the world.
My friend Hand had this convertible only that summer — it was
our first summer driving, and at the end of August he would try to cross a
swollen creek with it, down near school, and it would flood and soon enough
be abandoned. The car could fit eight of us, all small people at that point, and
we would go three in the front and four in the back, Hand driving, insisting we
call him Captain.

Then the car would go again, smooth and wide. It was so hot that summer,
the humidity like breathing through mittens. We would meet at Annie"s
house, in her older brother"s room, Hand and me and Dean dunking on and
almost always breaking the cheap Nerf hoop attached to his door, the ball
moist from the mouth of Tiger, their dog, now exiled, scratching from the
door"s other side.
Ritual dictated the stopping first at Hand"s aunt"s pool, for good
luck, even though there was no risk factor — she knew we would come and
didn"t mind — and so we would jump the fence and run quickly through her
yard, jump the hose, dive in, swim across and sling ourselves out in one
motion, and continue, around the side of the house, the grass cool and itchy,
over the wood log fence into the neighbor"s and then through their side garden
and to the street and into the boatcar again. If it all went off hitchless, no cuts
or loud sounds, we would know the night"s luck would be good.
We were all horny little people and looking to make mistakes.
Hand and Jennifer were together so the variables were Dean and the rest,
really, because I wasn"t someone they were interested in. Sometimes
Frankie came out too, and that"s why the girls even bothered, to get a shot at
either of them, Dean or Frankie, or to get a look at Hand"s dick, which was
supposed to be huge but wasn"t really, or maybe it was — I"m the wrong one
to ask, I guess. I still have no idea how it all worked, who decided on whom
and how. I was always ready for anything, for any of the girls, who were all
out of my league, and I was supposed to know this but kept forgetting.

Diving boards were as much curse as blessing — they made us loud and
lazy and loose, and that"s how we got caught. We stopped at a nice pool
that night, by the unincorporated land, the water clean and arctic blue, only
our second one that night. The house looked empty; no cars in the driveway,
no lights on except one in front but no one in that room so we figured we had
time. Hand was doing his serious diving, and Dean was doing his Dean
Martin thing where he pretended to fall off with a drink in his hand, and
everyone was shrieking, which is a stupid thing to do.
Soon the yard lights came on; a silhouette in the porch door. We
were quick. Dean was over the fence and Hand right behind him but Ellen and
I were smack in the middle of the man"s pool still and he was right there, now
by the edge, in a polo shirt and khakis and holding a tumbler full of
something tinkly. He crouched down slowly and looked in his water.
"Are one of you Shannon?"
I know now that he was tipsy and nearsighted and thought that his
niece, who went to our school, had come to use the pool, but I didn"t know
these things at the time and Ellen didn"t say anything, so I said, "We all are."
I didn"t know yet that there were only two of us left. But I figured
we were caught anyway and so we might as well have fun. I went on: "Who
are you? That"s the real question."
There was a long pause. The trees everywhere were black.
"Who am I? I am the owner of this pool!"
Honking was coming from the street. Everyone was in the car and
waiting. We should have just run for it.
"Property is theft," offered Ellen.
The man said nothing. He stood up again and now was looking
into the woods. It was strange.
No one was talking. I thought maybe he would shoot us. I dropped
under the surface and sank, cross-legged, until I was sitting on the bottom,
hoping by the time I came up everything would be settled — either we"d be
free to go or he was calling the cops. I sank to the bottom. My leg was
rubbed by a white tube attached to a kind of sentient floor-cleaner, moving
slowly along the pool"s sandpapery bottom, of its own accord. I tried to ride it
but it stopped when I stood on it. I ran out of air. I came up under a raft.
Ellen, now in a towel, was sitting with the man at the patio table. I couldn"t
hear what they were saying.
They saw me under the raft.
"Get out — it"s okay," Ellen said. I did, and put on my shorts.
Ellen watched me. The man pointed to a towel on a chair.
He wasn"t mad. Ellen had told him we were classmates of
Shannon"s. I sat down, warm in the thick soft towel, and told him I had
Shannon in Trig and she was cool. The man liked that.
"You kids want some pop or something?"
"Sure," Ellen said.
"No thanks," I said, staring at her. I wanted to be gone.
"I want some," she said, louder.
We followed the man through his kitchen and into his living room.
He didn"t say anything about us being wet so we forged ahead, dripping on
his tile, on his clean rugs. He went to a bar area, fancy with crystal
decanters...