Monstrato

  Chapter 2

  When I went back to school on Thursday, one of the first people I saw in the hall was Calvin Grote. It would have been hard not to notice him; he was taller than most kids by at least a foot. He was wearing this oversized, white hoody that came down to his thighs, and perched on top of his dark hair was a white ball cap with black and gold lettering. When I saw him, I felt that little panic you get in your stomach when you're anxious about someone, but it was a good panic, and I realized Calvin was the only person I missed seeing over Christmas break.

  He was standing in front of his locker, holding the door open and staring into it, like trying to decide whether he needed anything from in there. When he saw me, he said, "Hey, little girl, ain't seen you in a while."

  I said, "Yeah? What about you? Where were you Tuesday?"

  "I forgot we had school—I really did. Didn't get here 'till noon," he said with a sly smile.

  I said, "Uh huh. I bet you forgot. So, where your boys…K.P. and Cecil? I ain't seen them around."

  He said, "They're probably sleeping. The man worked us hard last night at practice, gettin' us ready for Eastman. K.P. never called me this morning saying he needed a ride, so I came here. How 'bout you? Why you here so early?"

  I said, "My mom. She's gotta bring my brother."

  For a while, seemed like it was just me and Calvin standing in the hall. We were talking about ourselves and each other in this easy, open way that I could only do with him. He didn't ask me about getting suspended, the trouble with my mom, or getting picked up by the cops, though I knew he'd heard it all. He was cool like that—no questions, no tension.

  Calvin was a year ahead of me in school. We went together the year before for about seven months and broke up over the summer. He was cool about that, too. He could've been a real dick if he wanted since it was all my fault, but he wasn't—he didn't hold grudges. A couple weeks before Christmas, we were kinda flirting again and going out of our way to be near each other. Then on that Thursday when I came back after being suspended, something happened. We were standing there in the hall, me holding my books to my chest and Calvin leaning his gangly body against a locker, and it was like we knew—the way people do when they really like each other—that it was on again between us. I wasn't a hundred percent sure. It was this feeling I had, and it seemed like Calvin had it too. I could tell by the way he acted when K.P. and Cecil showed up. He was super relaxed and extra laid back—like he always was but more so—jiving it up with his friends, fist tapping, and doing the long, drawn out handshakes. Seemed like he was putting on a show, which he does sometimes, except this time it was for me.

  I was in a great mood when I got to homeroom, and I talked to everyone in there: my friends, people I wasn't friends with, everyone but Sierra Brand. She wouldn't look at me, was acting like I wasn't there. I was sitting up on the teacher's desk, saying hi to people when they came through the door, asking them what they got for Christmas, and gettin'em to tell me about shit that happened over break. All of a sudden, I was glad to be back at school. Wasn't just this place I had to go but more like something I wanted to be part of.

  When I walked into Mrs. Garrison's room for English, she started doing what she always did after you got in trouble in her class—put on her fake smile, acted like she was glad to see me, and made a big point of saying hi. I smiled back and said hi and tried to slip past her desk towards a seat at the back of the room. When I went by, she reached out and touched me on the arm, then looked at me real concerned and asked, "So how are you doing, Macy?" What happened next surprised me as much as it did her.

  I said, "I'm fine…and Mrs. Garrison, I just wanna say that I'm sorry for yelling at you. I know you were just trying to do your job, and I overreacted." Well, that sent her over the top, more than I expected. She got a big smile on her face, and her eyes lit up. I thought she was gonna jump up and give me a hug or something.

  She said, "Oh, thank you, Macy. It's so nice of you to say that. I don't think anyone has ever apologized to me after I made them leave my classroom." It must've done something for her because she stayed cheery for the rest of the period. She even got out from behind her desk and spent some time walking around the room. But that's how I was feeling. I wanted to make amends with people and do something generous.

  At lunchtime, Calvin asked me if I wanted to go to his house to hang out. I said, "Sure, just let me grab my purse." I was so excited, I wanted to run to my locker, and I had to make myself walk. Then, as I was getting my purse out, Latisha comes up saying she has something she needs to tell me, something I would wanna know. I said she was gonna have to tell me later and told her I was going to Calvin's house, so then she wanted to know about that. I said, "It's nothing. I'm just going to his house for lunch."

  I watched her eyes get big and her mouth open up. She said, "Hold on, girl. What do you mean nothing? Tell me!"

  I said, "I gotta go," and left her standing in the hall with a big smile on her face.

  When I went outside, Calvin had already pulled up to the front of the school, and I saw a bunch of people sitting in his car. K.P., Cecil, and Terrell were in the back seat, and Cassidy Catrell was in front. She scooched over to let me in, and off we went.

  I didn't have to ask what was going on. I knew, but no one was talking about it. Cassidy kept her eyes forward and sat there running her hands through her long, brown curls, looking distracted. The guys were all talking about basketball, about Derron and how he's so lazy. Then K.P. and Cecil started talking about something else. They didn't want me or Cassidy to understand, so they started talking ghetto—real low and slurred and with a lot of drawl—but I knew what they were saying, and so did Calvin. Calvin had spent his whole life around black people. Sometimes he acted black, depending on who he was with. It made him seem more interesting to me.

  When we got to Calvin's house, K.P., Cecil, Terrell, and Cassidy all went downstairs. Calvin and I went to his bedroom. When we got there, I put my hands on my hips and said, "You didn't tell me it was gonna be a sex party."

  He smiled and gave me this look like he was all innocent and said, "Man, I didn't know, either…I promise. I told K.P. and Cecil they could come over. Next thing you know, Cassidy and Terrell hop in the car."

  I asked, "Is that what you guys are doing every lunch period when I see her climbing in your car?"

  He said, "Not me, girl. You know I'm not dirty like that."

  I kinda believed him. Calvin was scared of girls who might be carrying some kind of disease. Anyway, whatever he was doing after we broke up didn't bother me.

  Calvin packed some weed into his pipe, took a big hit, and handed it to me. Then he said he was hungry and went into the kitchen. I sat on his bed and took a couple hits, holding them in for as long as I could. I don't know why I did that—holding them in. I hadn't smoked pot for a couple weeks, and I knew I was gonna be really high. I guess it was just a habit I got from hanging around Lori. I laid back on the bed and relaxed and heard Calvin turn on the radio in the kitchen. I could hear the refrigerator opening and closing, voices coming up from downstairs, and cars going by outside. It made the room seem quiet and peaceful.

  It'd been months since I'd been to Calvin's house, but I felt comfortable being in his room, laying on his bed. I thought about how it was the year before, in the spring, right after Calvin got his license. We'd race to his house everyday at lunchtime, start taking off our clothes soon as we walked in the door. It was like a drug—sex—and it seemed so wild and new. We had sex in every room of his house, and more than once we forgot to fix the covers on his parent's bed. We were always late getting back to school. Then there was the time when we were in the kitchen and we didn't know his brother was home. But that was part of it—the wildness. We didn't care, and nothing else seemed to matter so long as we had our lunchtime together.

  Seemed outrageous at the time, but the truth is, my life was pretty tame when I was going out with Calvin—nothing like after we broke up. As I la
id on his bed, I thought about what it'd be like to get back together with him. Things wouldn't be so out of control…Life would be safer, more predictable. I knew my mom wouldn't mind after all the shit that'd been happening.

  I heard K.P.'s voice coming up the stairwell. He was yelling, "I wanna hear the bed shakin' in there."

  Terrell must be getting some, I thought. Seemed like everyone wanted to get with Cassidy around that time. I knew Calvin had, but that was before we ever got together, and of course, K.P. and Cecil…those guys. That's the one thing I never understood about Calvin, why he always had to be around his boys. I know everyone needs friends, but when Calvin and I were going out, it seemed like those guys were always around.

  K.P. was all right. He was funny and liked to talk. He was nice to look at too. He had this chiseled, lean body and super-dark skin…the most bad-ass, athletic body you've ever seen. He was straight up exotic, and I know I wasn't the only girl to think that. But Cecil…this fool thought he was some kind of pimp, and he was always talking tough. Hell, I could've whipped his little punk-ass myself, if I wanted to. And his clothes, my god! Somebody needed to tell him that wearing a pink sweat suit does not make you look tough, especially when you're only five foot four or whatever he was. And he was always telling those lies and making up stories…

  Looking around Calvin's room, it seemed like nothing had changed. It was the same walls, the same boom-box sitting on his dresser, the same Tupac poster and basketball trophy we used to joke about, the bed cover, even the same smell—a mixture of cologne and teenage boy. It felt like I'd slid back in time, like when you go to your grandparents' house and see the furniture they've always had and get that same smell. But that's how Calvin was—steady, not in a hurry to go anywhere, not trying to be something he wasn't. I felt like we could just pick up where we left off as if nothing had changed. As I laid there thinking about this, I could feel the pot starting to kick in. I started thinking real seriously about Calvin and me getting back together, wanting it to happen and hoping it would. Then I thought about everything that'd gone down since we'd broken up. What bothered me was that even if Calvin hadn't changed, I knew I had. I wasn't the same person I was five months earlier.

  I thought about when we broke up—when he found out I slept with Keenan's brother. I didn't even remember having sex with him. That's how dumb the whole thing was. It was one of those nights where everyone was so drunk and stoned, you knew something bad was gonna happen. I remember how the guys were acting. It seemed like this vibe was going around that someone was gonna score with me. When I felt it, I should have left right then, but I didn't. I was too messed up. Last thing I remember was sitting on the couch watching Keenan and Trent wrestle and Dwayne rubbing my neck. For some reason, when I woke up the next morning, I thought they'd all had sex with me. It was terrible…I was getting pissed, feeling creeped out. Then Dwayne said it was just him and that it was my idea. Well, I didn't know because I couldn't remember anything. It only took Calvin a couple of days to find out, and then it was over. He wouldn't even talk to me about it.

  After Calvin and I broke up is when the real trouble began with all the fighting and the cops and my mom freaking out. I'd started hanging out with these girls, Lori, Chelsea Girlin, and Alley, who were older than me and in Calvin's class and real wild.

  I first got to know Lori from riding in the back of her car after cheerleading practice. She'd be turned halfway around in her seat, talking to me while she drove and not even looking at the road, chattering away non-stop and making everything into a joke. She was a burst of energy with a bright face saying all kinds of funny things…a cute, round chin, brown hair falling around her pudgy cheeks, and deep blue eyes that would look right into yours when she spoke. We'd laugh about everything, and sometimes it felt like we were sisters because of the way we got along. But soon after I met her, she began drinking real heavy—every day, either with the rest of us when we were out partying or at home all by herself. She started keeping a bottle of Vodka in the trunk of her car and would pull into SpeedMart, get juice, and mix herself drinks right there in the console. And I watched her change. I watched her round features get rounder. She got these bags under her eyes and started looking tired all over. And she got real moody. We'd be out driving around and having a good time, and all of a sudden, Lori would start snapping at people, screaming that we gotta find some alcohol, right now. So we would, and then she'd drink and drink until she passed out. That was about the time we discovered the Arab liquor store in Minnith where they'd sell us booze without even carding us.

  Then these guys moved to town and started selling cocaine, and it wasn't long before Lori was deep into that. It was all she thought about—getting coke—and she always wanted me to go with her to the house where the dealers lived because she was scared to go alone. So we'd go there after school and buy whatever we could afford, and then we'd hang around to see if they were gonna bust out some lines. They had a boss SUV they let us ride in, and once, they took us over to a music studio in Bethel to listen to some guys while they recorded. But then Lori started having sex with these guys just to get coke…and then she wanted me to. That's when it stopped being fun…when they start coming around looking for you…or when they show up at your house looking for Lori because she owes them money…

  So I figured my mom would be glad if I started dating Calvin again. Things would be calmer, and at least I'd have a place to go next time she kicked me out of the house—someplace sane. But I was also worried because other things had happened, and if Calvin found out about them, he'd be mad at me all over again.

  I'd forgotten about the pipe in my hand, and when I moved my arm, I spilled the bowl on the bed. I picked up the chunks that weren't burned yet and put them back in the bowl, then wiped the ashes off the bedspread. I could hear the boys coming up the stairs. Terrell was cracking jokes, saying, "K.P. was messing up my concentration. Felt like I was at the line in a tied up game." Then I heard him snickering.

  I left Calvin's room and went into the kitchen where everyone was standing around. Calvin had a serious look on his face and was concentrating real hard on wiping his mouth with a paper towel. I wondered to myself how he would've been acting if I hadn't been there. Then K.P. asked Calvin, "Where's the hooch, nigger?" and Calvin points at me. I told them it was on the dresser, and they both went down the hall.

  Terrell and Cecil stood there in the kitchen giggling and acting goofy. I walked over to the refrigerator and took a look inside. Then Cassidy came up the stairs kind of smiling and looking dazed with her hands shoved deep into her hoody. I said, "You look higher than I am, girl, and you haven't smoked none." She just stood there smiling back at me and glancing over at Terrell and Cecil who didn't seem to know what to do with themselves. Then she turned and went down the hall to smoke with Calvin and K.P. A few minutes later we piled into Calvin's car to go back to school.

  The boys didn't talk to Cassidy the whole way back. Seemed like they didn't even wanna look at her. I felt sorry for her because she seemed so…lost, and I couldn't understand why she was doing what she was doing. I mean, I could see why she might wanna have sex with K.P., but not Terrell. I didn't think Terrell was having sex with anyone. I thought he was a virgin. All the way back to school I was trying to think of something to say to Cassidy to start a conversation, but we didn't have much in common.