Playing With Matches

Be subtle? This from a guy who showed me his butt the first time we met. In truth, maybe I was kind of…abrupt. It wasn’t easy for me to talk to girls. How could I start a conversation?

  It probably had a lot to do with junior high. I guess after three straight years of being insulted and picked on every day, I took it for granted that no one liked me. That any girl I asked out would turn me down. It had been years since anyone had gone out of their way to torment me, but inside I would always be twelve years old, with the other kids laughing at me the second the teacher’s back was turned. Maybe that was why I was seventeen and had dated only four girls, three of them from other schools.

  Chemistry couldn’t have lasted longer than fifty minutes, though time tended to slow down in there. Eventually, the bell buzzed. Students walked, ran, or in the case of the Thomsons, brawled out the door. I stayed. Amy was still there, talking to one of her friends. I guess Mr. Jackson was there too, frantically trying to think of something to teach the next class, but he could be ignored.

  Be subtle. Could Johnny and Jimmy have been right for the first time in five years? If I just played it cool, maybe Amy would notice me again. Why wouldn’t she?

  Because you’re Leon Sanders, vice president of the Key Club, Computer Club secretary, and Monty Python enthusiast.

  It was true. Even without all that middle school popularity crap, the only reason a guy like me should approach Amy was to leave a burnt offering at her temple.

  I started to gather my stuff. Why couldn’t I be really cool? Why could I never just talk to girls? Why not right now? Maybe my worries were all mental. Amy was probably as friendly as she had been in the fourth grade, and would happily talk to me if I just made the effort.

  Slowly, slowly, I approached her.

  It’s now or never. Go talk to her.

  Amy and her disciple were deep in conversation about a new cheerleading routine. I waited until there was a pause in the discussion.

  “Hi,” I said, my voice sounding several octaves higher than normal.

  “Er, hi,” Amy replied, probably wondering why I hadn’t made an appointment with her social secretary.

  “How’s it going?” Even as I spoke the words, I was aware of how forced they sounded. As opening lines went, it ranked right down there with What’s your sign? and Wanna see a dead body?

  “Fine, I guess.”

  “Yeah, I’m fine too….” Long, awkward pause. Amy shifted uncomfortably in her seat. I felt about as welcome as a persistent panhandler.

  I babbled a goodbye and scurried off. Maybe if I snuck in with the bell for the rest of the year, Amy wouldn’t notice me. A mere human like me couldn’t just strike up a conversation with an angel like her.

  So much for listening to the Thomsons. If I was going to take romantic advice from two guys who got nostalgic over their greatest farts, then I deserved to be embarrassed.

  3

  THANKS, I’M HERE ALL WEEK!

  I jogged to my locker with the acidic feeling in my stomach that told me that, once again, I’d done something unbelievably moronic. When would it stop? Back when I was a junior high nerd, my father had told me that by the time I reached high school, it would all be behind me. What a load of steaming fatherly crap! I was just another scrawny, average-looking face in the crowd. No popular kids had gone out of their way to talk to me since the year before, when Jimmy had convinced a bunch of us to grab our crotches during the group sophomore class photo. And even that was a mixed reception.

  Why couldn’t I casually talk to a girl like Amy? Other guys could. Of course, they were generally better looking, richer, funnier, and more athletic.

  As if on cue, Dylan Shelton muscled his way down the hall. Dylan was one of those guys who had no choice but to be popular. A guy that handsome and athletic could have saved comic books in plastic bags and discussed the plot holes in Star Wars and still had flocks of admirers. While I’d been getting kicked and tripped in seventh-grade PE, Dylan had already become captain of the flag football team. Now he was starting quarterback for the MZH football team. The sort of guy Amy would allow to talk to her.

  That wasn’t why I resented Dylan. I could never forget that time when I was twelve. Walking home from school. The punches. The insults. The spit in my face…

  “Excuse me….” There came a mumbled voice from behind me.

  “What!” I bellowed, directly into Melody Hennon’s scarred face.

  Most girls would have either stepped back or kicked me in the nuts for treatment like that. Melody simply blinked for a long moment. I was surprised to notice that her eyelids bore no scars. Maybe they were artificial.

  “Sorry,” I grunted, moving away from her new locker.

  She didn’t answer; she simply opened her locker and grabbed a binder. I tried not to stare.

  Now, we were trained at an early age not to gape at people who were “different.” How did you look at a human monstrosity? How did she face that in the mirror every morning? It wasn’t like she could just pretend nothing was wrong, like she could have if she had been missing an ear or just had one bad scar. Her entire face, her entire head, looked like something you’d see in a low-budget wax museum. Her normal eyes and perfect teeth only accented her ugliness.

  The world is a cruel place, anyone can tell you that. But I think only people like Melody could truly cite examples. I still cringed when I thought of the names she’d been called in elementary school. Every time a new horror movie came out, the other kids would make it a point to call her by the name of the monster. Freddy Krueger. Leatherface. Gollum. The Thing. They’d wait until she was just in earshot on the playground, then scream in mock horror, pretending Frankenstein had escaped from the movie screen and come to get them.

  I guess I shouldn’t say “they.” By fifth grade I was already on the fast track to loserville, and more than once I insulted Melody before anyone could start making fun of me.

  Now that we were all a little older and, theoretically, more mature, we replaced our insults with a stony silence. When Melody passed us in the hall, we averted our eyes. When we were obliged to talk to her, we were brief and to the point. Not that we didn’t like her personally; it was just that she was something we’d rather not think about. There was nothing we could do to help her (aside from making an effort to be her friend, which no one was willing to do).

  Melody shut her locker and sighed. There was pain in that sigh, of someone who’d had all she could take that day. And it was only 8:57 a.m. I had to say something.

  I remembered a joke Ryan Kelly had told me in sixth grade.

  “So this pirate walks into a bar with a steering wheel sticking out of his pants. The bartender says, ‘Hey, you got a steering wheel in your pants,’ and the pirate says, ‘Aargh! It’s drivin’ me nuts!’”

  Melody blinked once, and I was afraid I was adding to my socially inept reputation. Suddenly, she giggled. Melody had a pleasant laugh, like something you’d hear from the host of a children’s program.

  “You don’t know how much I needed a laugh this morning.” She then turned and walked off. As I gathered up my books, I smiled a little. I couldn’t remember the last time anyone had laughed at one of my jokes.

  The Buick had been my father’s. He had given it to me as a sixteenth-birthday present, though I think he’d really just wanted an excuse to buy the pickup truck he’d always desired. At any rate, the car was the same age as me, had no air-conditioning and bad shocks. But she was all mine.

  I walked out to the parking lot with my pal Rob Franklin, who I sometimes drove home. Rob was one of about ten black students at Monty Zummer High. He was tall, had a permanently sour expression, and could make a series of cracking noises with his joints. This had made him popular on the elementary school playground but had proven ineffective in the pursuit of women.

  I’d known Rob since kindergarten. The fact that he didn’t bring up the time I cried during The Wizard of Oz proved the depth of our friendship.

  My car starte
d on the second try and we were off into the sterile wilderness that was St. Christopher, Missouri.

  “You drive like old people screw,” commented Rob.

  “Hey, Rob, can I ask you a serious question?”

  He shrugged. Looking at Rob’s wrathful expression, you’d think I had just insulted his mother. He wasn’t mad, however; his mouth just naturally formed a frown, and his eyes always scowled. It made strangers nervous, but once you got to know him, you realized he disliked everyone equally.

  “Rob, how come I can’t ever get a date?”

  Rob fiddled with the radio.

  “You want the truth?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Tough. You’re a dork, dude.”

  I turned off the radio. “I told you I didn’t want the truth.”

  Rob leaned back in the decaying seat. “Too bad. You follow pretty girls around like a sick dog, but you don’t even bother to shave. You wear nothing but shirts with dumb sayings on ’em; you tell stupid, stupid jokes; and you read for fun, for Christ’s sake. I can’t believe you even had to ask.”

  I took in the harsh reality. “You really think my jokes are stupid?”

  “That’s not the point, Leon.” He extended his arms toward the windshield. A series of crunching noises started at his shoulders and ended with his knuckles. “You spent New Year’s playing Dungeons and Dragons.”

  “You were there!”

  He twisted his neck until there was an audible snap. “Yeah, but I’m not bitching about my love life.”

  “Thanks for nothing.”

  “You’re very welcome.” We pulled up in front of Rob’s house, an old brown split-level surrounded by dozens of concrete saints. He stooped to pick up his backpack as his spine made noises like a xylophone. “Look, don’t take it too hard. It’s not like you’re the biggest loser in school.”

  “Right. I guess there’s always Rick Rose or Dan Dzyan.” Rick was the only guy in Zummer history who’d been suspended because of the school’s no-pornography policy. Dan was a genuine head case.

  Rob laughed. “Or Melody Hennon…”

  “Melody’s not a loser,” I shot back without thinking. Anyone who’d laugh at my jokes was cool in my book.

  Rob didn’t look any angrier than usual. “Whatever. See ya tomorrow.” He headed to the door.

  “Hey, Rob? This guy walks into a bar carrying a big piece of highway. He says, ‘Give me a drink and one for the road.’”

  Rob’s wrathful expression momentarily changed to one of deep pity. Then he was gone.

  I gunned the gas. Was I really such a loser? I guessed certain questions were better left unanswered. Is that thing loaded? for instance, or Will my head fit in there?

  It took me only five minutes to drive home from Rob’s house. St. Christopher was a suburb of St. Louis. That meant you could drive thirty miles in any direction, get out of your car, and not see any sort of change. Just another Wal-Mart, another McDonald’s, and another Jiffy Lube. My dad remembered when St. Christopher had been its own little town, but long before I was born, St. Louis had engulfed it, along with St. Charles, O’Fallon, Wentzville, Lake St. Louis, and a dozen or so other small cities.

  I pulled up to my home, a one-story house that was identical to every other one in Oakridge subdivision. I used to joke that I had to count the houses to find mine, but until the trees Dad planted took off, that had almost been the truth.

  Maybe my luck would have been different if I’d lived in a big city, where there were more girls, or in the country, where there were fewer guys. Then again, girls probably had high standards in those places too.

  Neither of my parents was home from work, so I grabbed a snack and headed for my room. Because I was an only child, this was the time I could be alone for a while. My folks would soon be home, pestering me about my day. Of course, I would have loved to spend this time alone with a girl. Like Amy, for instance.

  I flopped down onto my bed and slurped my soda, thinking about what it would be like to have Amy—hell, to have any girl—here, alone. The really embarrassing thing was I wasn’t thinking about sex. Well, not just about sex. I had a much darker fantasy.

  In the secret dreams that I never discussed with anyone, I pictured a generic girl looking at me, smiling, and being impressed. I fantasized about someone I could talk to unashamed. A girl who would listen to me talk about the books I read, the weird movies I liked, my abortive attempts at fan fiction. Someone who could look at Leon Sanders—the actual Leon Sanders—and like what she saw. Even Rob and the Thomsons merely tolerated me, and I sure didn’t open up to them.

  I could almost see the fantasy girl sitting across from me at my desk. She didn’t have a face, but somehow I knew it wasn’t Amy. I could hear her voice.

  You’re fantastic, Leon. I really like you. You’re special to me.

  I shook my head, disgusted by my effeminate thoughts. I tried to picture Amy doing a striptease for me, but for once my heart wasn’t in it. What I wanted was a girl who’d like the real, unedited Leon Sanders. The striptease could come later.

  I sat up and threw my empty soda can at my wastebasket. I’d never noticed before, but I really hadn’t gotten rid of anything since about fourth grade. My old gumball machine, now half-filled with rubber eyeballs, still sat on my dresser. The D.A.R.E. poster I got in sixth grade was still attached to the wall (mostly by dust) but was now flanked by two posters of Ferraris, which were flanked by two bikini babes. My bookcase was crammed with an odd assortment of Magic Tree House chapter books, Matrix DVDs, a cow skull, and Simpsons figurines. And last time I’d groped under my bed for a Playboy, I’d found Baxter, my old teddy bear. Jesus, and I had to ask why I couldn’t meet a girl?

  I got up and looked at a photo hung on my bulletin board next to a plastic Key Club key chain and a smutty postcard from Rob. The picture had been taken on Halloween of my eighth-grade year. Me, Johnny, Jimmy, Rob, and Samantha. Johnny and Jimmy were wearing football uniforms. Samantha was a witch (and she didn’t need a fake pointy nose). Rob was a cowboy. And I was wearing a Starfleet uniform.

  What girl would ever think a geek like that was special?

  An hour or so later, I heard my father come home from work. Though it took me only about a minute to go down the stairs, he was already drinking milk straight from the carton, dressed only in his boxers.

  “Hey, Son. How was school?”

  “It sucked.”

  Dad put away the milk and scratched himself. I prayed that I would not inherit his gorilla-like body hair. Unlike me, Dad had been a bit of an athlete in high school. I knew that even with his middle-aged gut, he’d probably be in his seventies before I could finally beat him at arm wrestling.

  We’d always been close, but it had been a while since I’d asked for his advice. Sometimes it seemed like he’d been born a hundred years ago, and nothing he could tell me would have anything to do with my problems. Still, I’d asked Rob, Samantha, Jimmy, and Johnny for help that day. Might as well ask everyone.

  “Hey, Dad? When you were my age, how did you, you know, meet girls?”

  Dad grinned. He loved telling stories about his youth. “Well, your uncle and I had this ’72 Chrysler. We used to go driving down State Street when it was just this two-lane road. There was this burger joint where your dentist’s office is now…”

  Dad paused, apparently aware he was going off on a tangent. “Okay. Meeting girls. You know. I never really went out of my way to meet anyone. I mean, I’d see them in class, at work, driving around…”

  This was going nowhere. “Well, how did you get dates? How did you meet Mom?”

  Dad had opend a can of pineapple and was shoveling forkfuls into his mouth. “You know the story. She had car trouble and I helped her. We went out to eat after.”

  None of this would help me land Amy. “Thanks.”

  Dad, realizing I needed some help, put away the pineapple. “Leon, if you go out looking to meet girls, you never will. They travel in packs
, and can tell when a guy’s after them. What you have to do is be their friend. Just talk. Give them a hand when they need it. Be nice to any girl, even the ugly ones. Once they think you’re a nice guy, that’s when to make your move.”

  I nodded but hadn’t been listening. Standard dad advice.

  “And Leon? Just be yourself. Women hate phonies.”

  Be myself. That was one bit of fatherly advice I was not going to take.

  4

  FROM THE HALLS OF MONTY ZUMMER

  The next day, after second hour, I noticed Melody neatly stacking books in her locker. When she saw me, she flashed me a shy smile. I grinned back. Once you got over the initial shock, she wasn’t that hard to look at. She was still a freak, of course, but it wasn’t like she was Frankenstein hideous. When she smiled, you noticed her eyes more, the scars less.

  I remembered my dad’s advice about making friends with any girl I could. It wouldn’t hurt.

  “Hi, Melody.”

  “Hi, Leon. Hey…” She hesitated for a moment. “Why couldn’t Beethoven find his teacher?”

  “Why not?”

  “Because he was Haydn!”

  I snorted. “That was about as bad as my pirate joke.”

  Melody looked at me for a second, as if she was deciding something.

  “Leon,” she said abruptly. “That’s a nice shirt.”

  I grinned. Instead of wearing my caffeine molecule shirt, I’d fished a nice polo out of my closet.

  “Thanks.”

  Suddenly, Melody lurched toward me, her hand out. I was backed up against the lockers and couldn’t dodge. Jesus Christ, was she trying to hug me?

  There was a tugging at my collar, and Melody pressed something into my hand. It was the price tag from my shirt.

  I crumpled it. “I’ve been walking around like that all morning.”

  Melody toyed with the book in her hand. “Maybe no one noticed.”

  “You noticed. Um, thanks.”

  Melody laughed and walked away. Once again I was struck by her giggling. It made me forget that Amy had probably seen me with a price tag on my shirt that morning. I didn’t think I’d ever noticed the way a girl laughed before.