Monstrato

  ~~~

  The next day was Saturday, and Corena called at about ten in the morning and told me she was having people over to her house that afternoon. She said that since it was so nice outside, her parents had decided to barbeque, and she wanted me to come over and wanted me to tell Calvin and K.P. to come, too. I told her I was watching my little brother and I'd be there later, then I called Calvin.

  It was one of those warm days in middle of February where the temperature shoots up to fifty or sixty degrees and you feel like putting on shorts and can't help going outside even if it's just to sit on the front porch. Days like that, you find yourself wanting to do things you'd normally never do, like taking a bike ride or going on a picnic. People'll start doing strange things, and everyone seems nicer. I would've taken my brother on a picnic that day or taken him to a park if we had one near our house. Instead, we threw his football around the front yard and played with the neighbor kids.

  When Calvin picked me up at about three o'clock, K.P. was already with him. Just by looking at them, I could tell they'd been smoking down, and when I got in the car, it reeked of weed. They asked me if I wanted some. I said, "Heck no. Somebody's gotta be straight when we show up…And why don't you guys roll down a window and air this thing out?" But Calvin didn't want to. He thought rolling down the windows messed up the sound of the subwoofers he'd spent so much money on. Even after K.P. lit a cigarette, Calvin still kept the windows up, so we rolled through town in a cloud of smoke with J-Kwan booming out of the trunk.

  When we pulled up to Corena's, we could see people hanging out in back. Calvin parked in the vacant lot next to the Fletcher's RV, and we got out and hopped the fence into the backyard. Everyone was sitting up on the porch being real low key. It was mostly all the cheerleaders, Sidney Bouchard and her boyfriend, and some guys like Trent and Andy. Latisha wasn't there, and neither was Makayla which didn't surprise me. Makayla started the season as a cheerleader but dropped out early on because of Corena. We said hi to everyone—at least I did. All Calvin and K.P. could manage to do was nod at people and say, "Whadup?" Tammy came out, offered us sodas, and yelled at Corena's dad to bring more chairs. Then Corena came to the door holding a big bowl of potato salad and mixing it up like she was trying to show us she was the one making the food. She greeted us and disappeared back into the kitchen.

  We stood there for a while feeling things out. Then Corena's dad brought folding chairs for us and handed them through the door. We each took one, opened them up, and squeezed our way into the circle of kids sitting on the porch. Nobody was saying much; it looked like most people had just woken up. Sidney Bouchard was slouched down in her chair, pouting. Lori, Chelsea, and Tamiah were so hung over they could hardly open their eyes, and Hope was leaned forward holding her face in her hands like she was waiting for it to be over. I said, "Lori, you don't look so good, girl." She said she was cold, so I told her she needed to go sit in the sun. Then I asked Hope where Garrett was. She just shrugged her shoulders and gave me a blank stare. It wasn't normal to be around all these people and for everyone to be so quiet. I guess I was expecting a party. But with Corena's mom and dad there and her little brother running in and out the door, it felt more like we were waiting for some kind of meeting to get going.

  So I started telling them about the ICP concert that was coming to town and how Calvin's brother was gonna get us free tickets. Then I told them the story about the last time we saw ICP and how a bunch people were messed up on something real bad. When we were leaving the show, we saw this guy in the parking lot who'd taken off all his clothes and was running around buck naked. The police and security guys were trying to catch him, but he kept running away from them, and everyone coming out of the club was hooting and hollering and cheering him on. The funniest part was that my stepdad, Robert, was one of the people chasing him. You see, when he wasn't working as a cop, sometimes he'd work in the parking lot at Visions when they had a big show.

  My ICP story got people loosened up and laughing, and soon, other people began telling stories. We talked about how Keenan had wrecked another truck—ran it straight into a tree—but wasn't hurt at all. Then Calvin told about the time Keenan almost killed the whole basketball team when they were riding in the back of Keenan's truck and it slid off the road. We talked about Terrell, our team's star center, and how he'd been kicking it with this crazy girl, Beverly Radford, who went to the Catholic school. Terrell had quit calling her, but now she was stalking him and showing up at games.

  Corena, who was still helping her mom, was listening to us through the kitchen window. When she heard Beverly's name, she came outside and said, "Beverly Radford! That girl's crazy…and Terrell's been going with her?" Corena looked at Lori and Sidney and said, "Remember that time we were at SpeedMart, and she came up and started talking to us, and we were like, 'Who the hell are you?' We didn't even know who she was, but she thought she knew us. She was talking about all these people we'd never heard of, and we were like, 'We don't know you, girl. Now go away.'"

  Lori said, "Yeahhh…I remember her."

  Corena said, "She thought I stole her boyfriend! That's what she was saying. So I got up in her face and said, 'I don't know you. I don't know your boyfriend. Now get the fuck out of here before we beat your ass.'"

  Lori said, "Yeah, that girl was nuts."

  Corena said, "Terrell needs to stay away from her. And get this—this won't surprise you. Guess who she's related to. She's Makayla's cousin!" We weren't surprised because Makayla's whole family is pretty out there. Corena said, "Anybody related to Makayla has gotta be some kind of weirdo—even her boyfriend is a freak." And now Corena was off, bitching about Makayla and Makayla's boyfriend. "He's a faggot, I'm telling you. I know he is. And he's trippin' if he thinks he can get away with saying shit to me like he said over at Alley's house."

  I said, "Ahhh, he's just an idiot, Corena."

  She said, "Maybe he is. But he's also a fag. You know what I'm talking about…" She lowered her voice and said, "…and you know he and Makayla aren't having sex. I mean, come on…"

  Then K.P. stood up with a real serious look on his face and said, "Now hold on Corena. Bobby might be little, what do you call, light in the loafers, but Calvin's cousin, now that's a fag!" And then he and Calvin both started cracking up. He was right. Calvin's cousin was pretty flamboyant for a fourteen-year-old. He was the kind of kid you look at and say, "Oh, he's gonna be gay."

  K.P. started imitating how Calvin's cousin was dancing one time when we were all over at Calvin's house and they were having a family reunion. Then Tammy yelled out the window, "K.P., what the hell you doing out there dancing like that?" But K.P. kept shaking his hips and slapping his butt because everyone was laughing.

  We kept talking about Bobby, and everyone agreed he'd been acting kind of weird lately. A lot of people had known him for a long time—he used to go to our school—and nobody wanted to come out and say he was gay. Calvin tried to sum it up by saying, "He's just a strange cat, that's all," but now Corena was going on about Makayla. No one could ever understand what Corena's problem was with Makayla. Thing is, Makayla had actually lived with Corena's family for a while when she had nowhere else to go. Then six months later, Corena and her mom took out a restraining order on her. Corena wouldn't talk about it, so no one knew what happened.

  Corena kept bitching about things she thought Makayla had said behind her back, and about the way Makayla acts at school, and her quitting cheerleading. Everyone just sort of ignored her and tried to change the subject.

  I watched Corena's dad barbecuing brats and hot dogs in the back yard. He wasn't what I would call a friendly person. He never tried to make conversation with any of Corena's friends and would only talk when he had to. It wasn't like he was anti-social. Seemed more like he was afraid someone would get mad if he opened his mouth and tried to say something. He was a short, round, balding man with a little boy's face. It looked like he spent most of his time sitting inside at a desk. Standing o
ut there by the barbeque pit, he looked irritated, like he didn't even want us over there. I watched him fiddling with the grill, opening and closing it, waving the smoke away. He made barbecuing hot dogs seem like a complicated process. I'd see him glance up at us when he thought no one was looking, like he was trying to figure something out. He seemed to be watching Calvin and K.P. real close, especially when K.P. started dancing.

  The sun was going down, and people were getting cold, so when it was time to eat, we all went inside. Sidney Bouchard's mom had come over, and she and Tammy talked to us while we sat around the living room chowing off of paper plates. Tammy was asking us about school and how we liked the teachers and if we were having a fun year. We all grunted, yes, because nobody knew what else to say—what was there to say, it was school. Adults seem to forget how it was when they were in school—that the only time you talk about it is when there's nothing else to talk about. Then Tammy wanted to know what we thought of Ms. Strauss. We said she was all right, but some people said her class was boring and that she was kind of a bitch.

  Tammy said, "Kind of bitch, my god! Doesn't she ever smile? I guess we just have bad luck with math teachers. First there was Mr. Van Hook, who was doped up on pain medication all the time, then Mrs. Mukhopadhyay, who nobody could understand, and she quits on us, and now we have the one-eyed ogre lady with the crazy clothes."

  Mrs. Bouchard said, "She must do her shopping at the Salvation Army because I don't know where else they're selling stuff that looks like that." They both laughed. Then she and Tammy start whispering to each other, sharing some inside joke they thought was pretty funny. Next thing you know, Tammy's telling us how Ms. Strauss stinks up the teacher's bathroom, same time each day, right at noon when all the other teachers wanted to use it. They got a real kick out of telling us about that, probably because everyone was cracking up.

  Tammy said, "I'd like to find out what she's eating because this ain't no normal stink up the bathroom, if you know what I mean. There's something foul coming out of that woman." By now, I was beginning to feel embarrassed for them, but Tammy went on, "And you know she's Jewish, oh yeah. Maybe that's what it is. Maybe they have some special food they eat that makes their poop stink so bad…" Then I watched Tammy kinda catch herself, realizing what she'd just said. Without even waiting for a reaction, she changed the subject and asked, "But what I want to know is, what was up the other day with her and Lori?" Lori, who was sitting on the couch next to Corena, didn't say anything. She just scowled at the floor.

  What Tammy was talking about had happened a couple of days earlier in Algebra 2. Lori was in one of her rotten moods, and she'd just gotten a test back which she'd failed, and while Ms. Strauss was lecturing, Lori was sitting in the back of the room talking away at Corena. Ms. Strauss told her to be quiet a couple of times, but Lori just ignored her, so Ms. Strauss told her she was getting a referral. Without even taking her eyes off of Corena, Lori snapped, "Who cares," and then more quietly, "you fat bitch."

  Everybody heard it. Calvin and KP were sitting across the room from us, and I could tell they heard it, and so did Ms. Strauss. Ms. Strauss told Lori to leave the room, but Lori refused and said she didn't do anything wrong. Ms. Strauss told her again to leave the room, but Lori just shook her head and said, "No." So Ms. Strauss went and got Tammy.

  When Tammy showed up, she was kind of smiling to herself like she thought the whole thing was funny. She asked what happened, and a bunch of kids told her that Ms. Strauss was trying to kick Lori out just for talking.

  Tammy said, "Lori, were you talking?"

  Lori said, "A little bit, but so was everyone else."

  Ms. Strauss said, "She called me a name, and everyone heard it!"

  So Tammy asked the whole class, "What did she call her?" And everybody, Corena, Sidney, Chelsea, Calvin, and K.P. all started saying that Lori didn't call her anything.

  Tammy turned to Ms. Strauss and said, "Well, maybe you're just hearing things."

  Ms. Strauss growled back, "I'm not hearing things. They're lying. They all heard it, too."

  All of a sudden, Tammy got pissed. She started chewing out Ms. Strauss and tearing into her, just like she was yelling at a student, telling her she should quit picking on kids and trying to get them in trouble and just teach the class and then kids won't be sitting around talking. Then Tammy marched out of the room and left Ms. Strauss standing there, turning red, looking like she was about to cry.

  I couldn't believe Tammy would want to bring this up now, and the kids sitting around the living room were playing it off like things had gotten overblown, saying it was really nothing and there were no hard feelings. I could guess what they were all thinking—that Tammy had to have known they were lying when they defended Lori. I mean, Tammy didn't really believe Ms. Strauss would make things up, that she would pick on Lori for no reason. So it was kind of icky is what it was, that she'd wanna talk about this, and I think the other kids felt it, too.

  Everyone had pretty much finished eating and were all sitting around the living room, half listening to Tammy talk. We probably would've gone back outside if it wasn't for Tammy, who looked like she still had something to say to us. She was standing up in front of this mantle thing that had pictures of her family on it, looking around the room at us, and kind of squeezing her lips together like she was trying to hold something in. She said, "Oh god, you're all growing up so fast." She'd gotten herself into a mood where it seemed like she was gonna cry, but you didn't know if it was real or if she was just pretending. She beamed down at Corena, who was sitting on the couch, and said, "My dear Corena and a lot of you kids are going to be graduating next year, and our school's just not going to be the same without you guys." She put her fist over her mouth while she considered this.

  I was standing in the doorway of the kitchen, watching Corena and the others, and thinking how glad I was that Tammy wasn't my mom—because I wouldn't have been able to deal with the kind of crap Corena went through where her mom was all lovey dovey with her friends. And if it was my mom who was talking the way Tammy was right then, I would've been so embarrassed, but Corena was eating it up. She was looking at her mom with this sentimental smile and glancing around the room to see if everyone else was eating it up, too. Then K.P. got up with a big sheepish grin on his face and went over to Tammy and gave her a big hug. He said, "Tammy, you know I probably wouldn't even be in high school, right now, if I couldn't go to Lifegate." And then Tammy did start crying.

  It was just like K.P. to do something like that—egging Tammy on. After that, Tammy started going around the room giving everyone a hug, telling them how much she appreciated them. I turned towards the buffet table in the kitchen, but Tammy must have seen me because she yelled, "Come back here, Macy. You can't get away from me that easy." So I got a hug from her, too, and then I had to give one to Mrs. Bouchard. Tammy finished up with another big hug for K.P. and announced that, "Our school is so lucky to have K.P." It was that second hug between K.P. and Tammy, a long rockin' back and forth because everyone was watching them hug, that made me sick. Because I knew things about K.P., and I knew things about Tammy that would make your skin crawl, and here they were hugging. That's when I did go check out the buffet table in the kitchen, but not because I was planning on eating anything.

  It was a weird day, for sure. I think it had something to do with the warm weather—it made everything seem trippy. It was strange listening to Tammy talk about how she was gonna miss all those kids when they graduate. She'd known most of them since they were in sixth grade when the school was started, and she treated them so differently than the rest of us. Seemed like she'd do anything for them, like they were her babies.

  After I left, I was still wondering why Corena had invited us over there. I felt like there was a definite purpose…a reason. But whatever it was, it was as if Corena herself wasn't fully aware of it. Then again, maybe it was all her mom's idea.