Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes

  “Well,” I say. “There was this one guy back in junior high. His name’s Dale Thornton. He was kind of a friend and kind of an enemy. He dropped out after eighth grade, though. Think he could help?”

  “Depends on how much a friend and how much an enemy he was.”

  “More friend than enemy,” I say. “At least at the end.”

  Old Dale was not having his best day. Though few of us would dare taunt him alone, there was safety in numbers and he’d already heard his name far more times than he would have expected. “Hey, Dale, I see you made the front page,” greeted him as he stepped onto school property that morning, followed by several variations even before the first period bell rang. At first, Dale just smiled and waved in the direction of the voice. By the third time he heard it, however, he had seen Crispy Pork Rinds, and though he didn’t read all that well, understood clearly his role as the target of Sarah Byrnes’s and my incisive journalistic focus.

  In the hallway at the end of third period Dale caught up with Norm Nickerson, a blond, blue-eyed, bookwormish kid who spent our elementary years as the kid most likely to be beat up by someone from a lower grade. Dale clamped Norm’s cheek hard between his thumb and forefinger. “Norman, my boy,” he said with a sneer. “Let’s you and me go to the can for a smoke—maybe have a little talk.”

  Norman mounted a weak protest, but Dale squeezed so hard Norm’s lip began to numb.

  I was hiding out in a stall with my paranoia, my feet pulled up onto the toilet seat, waiting for the fourth period bell, in the event Dale figured me for senior editor of our underground gazette and came for his pound of flesh. I peeked out the crack in the door, breathing soft as a man passing a township of killer bees in the night.

  Dale offered Norman the pack.

  “No thanks,” Norman said, “I just had one.” In fact, Norman Nickerson had never even puffed a cigarette, but at eighty-three pounds and well under five feet, he wasn’t about to chance angering the man to whom most of us paid three-quarters of our weekly allowance—for protection from Dale Thornton.

  “That’s okay,” Dale said, “I only got one left anyway.” Norman reached into his pocket, but Dale raised a hand. “Got a deal for you,” he said, and Norm was all ears. “I’ll let you go today.”

  Norm waited.

  Dale glared.

  Still Norm waited.

  Still Dale glared.

  “That’s not a deal,” Norman offered finally. “What do you get?”

  “Oh, yeah,” Dale said, waving his cigarette in the air. “I almost forgot.” He handed Norm a crumpled copy of Crispy Pork Rinds. “Read this.”

  Norm took the paper reluctantly. He glanced nervously at Dale, then down to the paper. He had thought it was pretty funny earlier in the morning. It was less funny now with Dale Thornton looming over him. Norman shot Dale another uneasy glance, and began to read silently.

  Dale slapped the side of his head so hard Norman must have thought the phone rang. “Out loud, you dip!” he yelled. “Read it out loud!” and Norman realized Dale couldn’t read well enough to get through the article. Holding his hot, reddened ear tenderly with his left hand, he opened his mouth to read.

  “I’d read it myself,” Dale said, “but a man of my statue hires his gruntwork done. Read.”

  I think Norman started to tell Dale that’s stature, but thought better and adjusted his glasses. He began with the headline.

  “I read that part,” Dale warned. “Just gimme the small print.” Norm skipped to the text, reading in his high shaky voice.

  “A man described by authorities as one evolutionary step above a banana slug has recently admitted to having been locked in the Sacajawea Junior High biology lab over a long weekend nearly sixteen years ago when he fell asleep and was mistaken as a cadaver. Though the man is incapable of human speech, he was able, over a period of weeks, to chisel out his story in hieroglyphics on the bathroom wall of the insane asylum where he now resides. He claims that toward the end of the second day of his accidental captivity, he got downright lonely and sought companionship at his own intellectual level. He found that companionship in a petri dish.”

  Norman glanced up at Dale. He had to be terrified because Dale was famous for confusing the message with the messenger. If that happened, Norman knew his nose would soon be pressing hard against the bottom of the toilet, where it is extremely hard to breathe.

  “Keep readin’,” Dale said. “That ain’t all of it. I seen it. It’s longer than that.”

  Norman drew a deep breath.

  “According to the man, who identified himself as Morton Thornton, the night got real long and by midnight, he was darn well wed to one of the lovelier inhabitants of the dish, a comely middle-aged amoeba of unknown parentage named Rita. When he was rescued on the morning of the following day, Morton plumb forgot about his single-celled nuptials and went back to his daytime job tasting the contents of open pop bottles for backwash and cigarette butts. Only sixteen years later, when a brilliant Sacajawea Junior High roving reporter—who shall remain nameless—discovered the product of this union lurking among us right here at Sac Junior High, was Morton’s long-held secret discovered.

  “This intrepid reporter was present three weeks into Dale Thornton’s third try at seventh grade, when the young Einstein bet this reporter and several other members of the class that he could keep a wad of chewing tobacco in his mouth from the beginning of fifth period Social Studies until the bell. The dumb jerk only lasted twenty minutes, after which he sprinted from the room, not to be seen for the rest of the day. When he returned on the following morning, he told Mr. Getz he had suddenly become ill and had to go home, but without a written excuse (he probably didn’t have a rock big enough for his dad to chisel it on) he was sent to the office. The principal, whose intellectual capacities lie only fractions of an IQ point above Dale’s, believed his lame story, and Dale was readmitted to class. Our dauntless reporter, however, smelled a larger story, recognizing that for a person to attempt this in the first place, even his genes would have to be dumber than dirt. With a zeal rivaled only by Alex Haley’s relentless search for Kunta Kinte, he dived into Dale’s seamy background, where he discovered the above story to be absolutely true and correct. Further developments will appear in this newspaper as they unfold.”

  Norman folded the paper slowly. I breathed through my pores in order not to be discovered.

  “That it?” Dale asked quietly.

  Norman raised his eyebrows. “That’s it,” he squeaked.

  “All that there story says is I’m pretty dumb, don’t it? Me an’ my dad,” Dale said.

  Norman winced and nodded. “Uh-huh. It’s not necessarily true though. I mean it’s not a real newspaper. I was there the day you did the tobacco. Really, it was pretty neat. Nobody else would have had the guts….”

  “How’d they know my old man’s name is Morton?” Dale said. “Everybody calls my old man Butch. He finds out about this, he’ll skin my hide, ’cause he’ll think I told.”

  Norm was quiet. He lived with his family on a farm. He knew better than to mess with a wounded animal.

  “How’d they know?” Dale was insistent.

  “I don’t know,” Norman squeaked. “Really, I was there. The day with the tobacco. I mean…”

  “Better shut up,” Dale warned, then paused a minute. “Better give me your money, too.”

  “I thought you said…”

  “Yeah, well, you was wrong. You gonna give me the money or you wanna go swimmin’?” Dale nodded toward the toilet stall, where I sat. Give him the money, Norman.

  Norman Nickerson dug deep.

  By fifth period, word was out that Dale Thornton was looking for Eric Calhoune, and a high-stakes gambling pool had been set up in an inconspicuous corner of the student lounge. Bets were running three to one that I wouldn’t make it home with all my body parts. Dale had been seen in the hard chair in the outer office before the lunch bell, and rumor said he spent the entire lunch per
iod in the office with Mautz discussing the relative merits of smokeless tobacco in the classroom. His only words upon release were: “Where’s that fat ass Calhoune? He’s a dead man.”

  “He’ll have to go through me first,” Sarah Byrnes said in an effort to get me out of my study hall desk.

  “Oh, that’ll take him all of about fifteen seconds,” I said. “The only hurt you put on him in that fight was on his knuckles. God, I’m dead. I’m a dead man.” I sat staring at the desk, considering. “Get Ms. Simmons in here right now. She’ll win a Nobel prize if she gets me on video. I’m a biological miracle: a living dead man.” A short, high-pitched laugh escaped me. “I could make the next issue of Crispy Pork Rinds. Oh, God, Crispy Pork Rinds. What a great idea.”

  “Come on,” Sarah Byrnes said. “It isn’t that bad. Let’s go to science class. He’s not going to beat you up in the hall.”

  “Oh yeah? What makes you think that?”

  “Because he’d get in trouble.”

  “Right. By who? Mautz? Why should he care? He’s already in trouble with Mautz. I’ll bet Mautz told him who wrote the paper. That’s it!” I screamed, realizing the truth. “See, this is like a big city gang war. The cops don’t really care when one bunch of bad guys knocks off another bunch of bad guys. They’re getting their job done for them. Mautz hates Dale Thornton, but he hates me, too. He wastes no bullets. I can see it now. He’ll get to the scene right after I choke to death on my own blood, call my mom and tell her how sorry he is. “If I just could’ve gotten there quicker. I’m awful darn sorry, Mrs. Calhoune. Maybe you could have another kid. A better one.’ I don’t see why…”

  “Eric!” Sarah Byrnes said, “just calm down, will you? Dale Thornton isn’t going to get you in the hall because he’s never in the hall. He’s out smoking somewhere. Now let’s go to science. We can plan your getaway.”

  I slid out of my desk to follow Sarah Byrnes. What the heck did it matter where a dead man went?

  “It’s important that you get away,” Sarah Byrnes said in the hall. “I’ve got a lot of money riding on you.”

  CHAPTER 4

  “Did you see Sarah Byrnes?” Mom asks as I walk in looking rode hard and put up wet, thanks to our three-hour workout earlier. She wears a green-and-blue Gore-Tex running suit over her sweats, and her hair is pulled back into a ponytail, bangs plastered wet against her forehead. Mom’s been running.

  I nod. I almost fell asleep sitting on the couch beside Sarah Byrnes thinking of new things to say to her brick wall self. “Yeah.”

  “And?”

  “Would have been a good time to do my homework.”

  “Still no response, huh? What did the counselor say?”

  “Same old thing. Told me to talk about things that might jar her back. Remember Crispy Pork Rinds?”

  Mom laughs. She spent more time up at school than I did during that corrupt chapter in my life. She provided the paper and the printer, though Mautz still doesn’t know that. “Yes, dear, I remember Crispy Pork Rinds. Is that what you’ve been talking to Sarah Byrnes about? No wonder she won’t talk to you.”

  “No way, man. She loved that rag right up till the final word of the final sordid exposé. If it hadn’t been for trouble within the ranks she’d have brought it right on into high school with us. Hell, we brought Mautz.” I pull a half-full quart of Gatorade from the refrigerator and drain it like a college kid sucking down a Bud, placing the empty bottle back on the rack.

  “Prepare to die,” Mom says, and I come to my senses, grabbing the bottle before the door can close and flipping it across the kitchen into the garbage can on survival reflex. Of all my dysfunctional behaviors, she hates me putting empty containers back where they don’t belong. “I don’t care if you weigh seven hundred pounds the rest of your life and don’t stop picking your nose till you’re forty,” she told me once, “but if you put one more empty container anywhere but in the garbage, I’ll have you put to sleep.”

  “You remember Dale Thornton?” I ask.

  “The kid that used to come over here and bully you out of your junk food?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Sure, I remember him. Pretty rough customer. Why?”

  “One of the counselors up at Sacred Heart—his name’s Sam—asked if Sarah Byrnes had any other friends. Dale was the only one I could think of. Man, that’s shitty. Her only other friend than me she hasn’t seen for more than three years.”

  “That is shitty,” Mom says. “Did the counselor think Dale Thornton could do some good?”

  “Didn’t know. I think he was just fishin’.”

  “Is Dale still around?”

  I laugh. “I don’t know. If I were going to hunt him down, I’d probably start at the state pen. But you know, when I was driving home I remembered something he said once.”

  “What was that?”

  “He got really pissed off at Sarah Byrnes one day when she was ragging on his family and told her he didn’t believe her story about the pot of spaghetti.”

  “About how she was burned?”

  “Yeah. At the time I thought he was just trying to get her goat. Man, he got the whole herd. Anyway, I’ve wondered about it sometimes. It was a pretty strong reaction if it wasn’t true; she like to ripped him a new one.”

  The conversation dies because Mom has to get ready to go out. Her latest boyfriend, a guy named Carver Middleton, on whom the jury is still out, is taking her to the recreational vehicle show at the trade center. Now there’s my idea of an exciting night on the town.

  I think it’s safe to say Dale Thornton took exception to his personal profile in Crispy Pork Rinds. He wasn’t the publicity hound we might have expected. And let me say it was one thing to have him rough you up when you didn’t have enough lunch money to keep him happy, but it was something else altogether to get him really mad. I feel truly fortunate not to have been the first in a succession of Dale Thornton serial murders.

  By the end of that day of our first edition, I really did consider locking myself in the school furnace room until Dale was about a month into his first three-to-five for first degree assault on some other kid. But Sarah Byrnes thought she could get me out under cover. I actually thought there was a chance because Sarah Byrnes was—and is—one tightfisted kid with a buck, and she had three of them bet that I would get home that day with all my blood in its original container.

  I hung around school talking with Mr. Webb, who was one of the few teachers I liked—and who liked me, I think. Mr. Webb was one of those small oases for those of us who spent most of our time scorched on the deserts of humiliation. Someday I’ve gotta stop over at the junior high and tell him thanks. Anyway, he knew Dale was after me and he offered Sarah Byrnes and me a ride home, but the bet was off if I rode in a car or if an adult helped get me to the bus.

  I said, “Hey, what’s more important, your bank account or my life?”

  Sarah Byrnes looked at me like I’d turned yupster before her very eyes. “Man, you’re lucky to have me around,” she said. “If you start using adults to save you, Dale will just wait till the one day there isn’t one around. And waiting pisses him off. Then you not only get your butt kicked, but you worry every day till it happens. This way, the more times you outsmart him, the smarter you get—you know, like a forest animal. Pretty soon you’ll be so good nobody will ever get you. You have to always think about survival, Eric. Trust me.”

  One of the reasons I hung out with Sarah Byrnes, besides that I was as fat as she was ugly, was her brains. I’ve always been considered pretty smart (a genius, if you ask me) but I consistently play Watson to Sarah Byrnes’s Sherlock Holmes, and from where I stood at the time—petrified by fear—her thinking seemed sound. Looking back, however, I think she said it more to win the money than to turn me into some kind of environmentally wise escape artist. I have to say in her defense, though, that just before I lost consciousness I heard her screaming at Dale that she wrote the newspaper with me.

  No help. Dale’s
last words were, “Mautz only said it was him.”

  To back up a bit, I was with Mr. Webb, refusing a ride home like a moron while Sarah Byrnes was down in the janitor’s room getting an empty cardboard generator box and Mr. Otto’s dolly truck. She told Mr. Otto she had to move this huge science project from the science room to the storage room so no one would mess with it until after the science fair. Sarah Byrnes was a stickler for detail when it came to telling a good lie. She even got Mr. Otto to write DANGER—FLAMMABLE on the side of the box in adult handwriting so it would look all official.

  I was to get into the box so Sarah Byrnes could wheel me eight or ten blocks to the edge of the arboretum, where I would jump out and run through the trees like a bowling ball dodging pins. Dale Thornton would be lurking in the halls and out in the parking lot waiting for me to show, and I’d be scooting the back way toward my house and great riches for Sarah Byrnes, which she promised to share with me, though not fifty-fifty because I furnished only the body while she provided the brains.

  So much for the difference between how smart Sarah Byrnes was and how dumb Dale Thornton was. He got one look at Sarah Byrnes wheeling a hundred-seventy-five-plus pounds of FLAMMABLE Eric Calhoune down the sidewalk, followed her out of yelling range from school, and made his move like the true thumb crusher I believed he would grow up to be.

  I was bouncing along inside the absolute darkness of this box, feeling like a bat in an earthquake down in Carlsbad Caverns or someplace and thinking how Sarah Byrnes and I ought to go to Southeast Asia and see if Chuck Norris had missed any MIAs that we could spring, when I heard, “Uh-oh.”

  “What?” I whispered.

  “Shhhh.”

  I shhhhed.

  “Don’t breathe,” she said, as if I were.

  Now give me a little fear and a small enclosure back then and I’d heat it up like a steam room, pronto. Give me a lot of fear and a small enclosure and I’d combust spontaneously.