Stand-Off

  “Sorry I called you guys a swear word for penises,” I confessed again. I was getting pretty good at coming clean. Except to anyone over, like, seventeen.

  “Ha ha ha.” They laughed like morons.

  “You are such a dork, Ryan Dean,” Spotted John said.

  I hugged my knees to my chest. “The thing is, I really don’t have any school pants now. I ripped my only other pair when I did this.” I pointed out the bandage on my knee.

  In the end, Spotted John and Cotton Balls turned out to be solid teammates, even if they did get unreasonably excited by the photos of me and Mabel they’d uploaded to the Internet. But, in the end, I was also a little late to Conditioning class because I had to play Goldilocks-tries-on-pants-that-are-too-fat-and-too-short-and-pants-that-are-too-fat-and-too-tall before deciding that it was probably best if I just borrowed a pair of Spotted John’s and rolled them up, which was marginally against the rules.

  And I still went to school that day dressed in a Pine Mountain uniform that was so ill-fitted, I looked like a Vienna sausage in a sleeping bag.

  I also had to borrow some of Cotton Balls’s shoes because my dorm room key was locked inside Unit 113, which was just below the spruce tree that had been decorated with my only clothes.

  At least neckties only come in one size.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  I FELT BETTER THAT DAY. At least, until I got to Dr. Wellins’s Creative Writing class.

  For one thing, it was a no-practice Friday, since most of the guys on the rugby team were leaving Pine Mountain and going home for the weekend after lunch. That gave my ribs, which were loosely swaddled in the tentlike outfit hybridized from Cotton Balls’s and Spotted John’s schoolboy uniforms, three days to tighten up.

  Also, I had finally slept without nightmares, and without waking up in the middle of the night terrified about something I couldn’t really grasp—that terrible dark figure that seemed to follow me everywhere, waiting to do something else to me. If I was afraid of anything that morning, it was about what would happen to me when I had to go back to my own room, and my own bed, and be alone all weekend with someone I never wanted to talk to—and alone with myself.

  Considering he was a psycho ninja, and despite the fact that he posted Internet photographs of me sleeping in my underwear in a compromising situation with the inflatable girl doll named Mabel, Spotted John was an okay guy. He not only loaned me clothes to wear, he also slipped a couple pain pills into the pocket of his too-tall-and-too-fat pants that I had to cinch up with a belt that didn’t have enough holes for a Ryan-Dean-West-size occupant. I pretty much had to hang on to Spotted John’s belt all day to keep my—his—school pants from ending up around my ankles.

  In Health class, Mrs. Blyleven gave the boys a lecture on testicular cancer. Then she made us watch an actual cartoon that showed us how to perform a testicular self-exam, which resulted in Seanie Flaherty being asked to stand out in the hallway for suggesting what our homework assignment was going to be.

  He’d said, “Are we going to have to fondle our balls for homework, Mrs. B?”

  It was so awkward and uncomfortable being with all those boys in that deathly quiet room, watching a cartoon about our balls. It was also uncomfortable because the pain pill I’d taken in Spotted John Nygaard’s drug den had worn off, and I just couldn’t sit comfortably in that goddamned plastic desk chair.

  Mrs. Blyleven noticed me wriggling and shifting around in my seat.

  “I apologize if the subject of the film makes you feel uncomfortable, Ryan Dean, but this really is an important topic for young men over the age of fifteen,” Mrs. Blyleven said. Then she patted my shoulder and added, “No need to be embarrassed about it, Ryan Dean.”

  The other guys in class laughed at me, and Mrs. Blyleven scolded them. “This is a Health class, boys! There is nothing to laugh about here!”

  Which made the other boys laugh more.

  Crap.

  Mrs. Blyleven seemed to take pleasure in watching us boys squirm in embarrassed discomfort when she told us things about ourselves we didn’t really want to hear from a middle-aged woman. So I pretended to take notes during the cartoon, but I was really writing a goddamned poem (on borrowed notebook paper, since all my stuff had been locked inside Unit 113) about my body for Dr. Wellins’s class.

  I decided to work in a bit about a self-exam of my balls.

  And although Seanie was exiled to the hallway during the ball-check cartoon, he was right about our homework. Mrs. Blyleven really did assign us to perform what she called a TSE over the weekend, and then she said that on Monday we’d have to hand in a paragraph about what we experienced.

  What guy could possibly write an entire paragraph about what he experiences while checking his balls?

  Gross.

  Maybe I could just hand my poem in to her, I thought.

  • • •

  I figured that if I ran, I might catch Annie on her way between classes, since I’d missed seeing her at breakfast. When I found her coming out of her British Lit class, I was sweating and out of breath, and my oversize shirt was coming untucked from my too-loose belt and too-big pants.

  “Oh, Ryan Dean! You look terrible! And you missed breakfast again.”

  I always thought it was hot when Annie scolded me. I was also hot from running through the halls.

  I held her hand and stood as close to her as I could without breaking any Pine Mountain required-distance-between-friends guidelines. “Sorry, Annie. I overslept and ended up being a little late to Conditioning class.”

  “You have to stop missing meals, Ryan Dean. Look at you. Are you losing weight? It looks like your clothes are draperies.”

  To be honest, my clothes actually were draperies. On a spruce tree. And I was losing weight, not that I had much I could afford to give up.

  “I had to borrow these clothes from Spotted John and Cotton Balls because I got . . . um, locked out of my room this morning when the Abernathy left.”

  Annie laughed. It always made me feel wonderful when my girlfriend laughed, like there was nothing at all that could possibly hurt me, anywhere. “Why do these things always happen to you, Ryan Dean?”

  “Admit it, Annie. It’s what you love about me. And my body. Which reminds me—you might find this interesting—Mrs. B taught us boys how to do a TSE, a testicle self-examination.”

  Annie blushed, the same color as when she gazed upon the fetal, hedgehog-like, Sam Abernathy. “And how did Mrs. Blyleven teach a bunch of guys how to do that?”

  “Well, it was a cartoon, to be honest. And the main character was a fox. Named Timmy, the TSE Fox. And Timmy the TSE Fox had hands. The hands, and opposable thumbs, are necessary things, in case you were wondering how to do one. Oh, and balls, too. Very necessary. I wrote a poem about it, kind of, for Dr. Wellins’s class. The old perv made us write poems reflecting on our bodies while we were naked. Here. I better get to class or I’ll be late and the Abernathy will probably send out a search team for me again.”

  I passed a folded sheet of paper to Annie.

  “What’s this?”

  “It’s a copy of my naked poem for Dr. Wellins. So you can think about me when you’re gone this weekend.”

  I winked at Annie.

  “You’re such a pervert!” she said.

  “That’s the other thing you love about me, Annie.” I squeezed her hand. “See you in Foods class.”

  • • •

  The Abernathy wriggled and squirmed in his seat when I walked into Dr. Wellins’s class.

  “Ryan Dean! You have gigantic clothes on!”

  I held on to my pants. “Don’t talk to me.”

  “I brought your backpack, just in case you had any important homework in there—like your poem about your body. And speaking of your body, how are your ribs?”

  When he said “your ribs,” the Abernathy whispered as though we were sharing some darkly conspiratorial secret.

  “Never talk to me about my body again
.”

  And why was this kid so nice to me, anyway? Couldn’t he see I neither wanted nor deserved his bubbliness? Maybe he was in an especially good mood because he’d been able to write his naked poem, or shower and poop without having to ask me to leave my own fucking dorm room.

  I should probably never think about Sam Abernathy composing naked poetry, or showering and pooping, again.

  It’s all too much.

  “I hope my young scholars are emotionally prepared to share their poetry,” Dr. Wellins announced when he walked onto the stage of his classroom, waving his tweed-sleeved arm in a dramatic flourish. “Shall we start with Crit Group One—Abernathy and West?”

  Shit.

  I took the poem I’d written in Health class out of the gallon-size back pocket on Spotted John’s school pants and told the Abernathy, “Alphabetical order, Snack-Pack. You’re going first.”

  Okay. It’s like this: I’m not going to try to completely recall the psychological torment of listening to what was actually in Sam Abernathy’s poem about his naked body, which is also something I never want to think about again, but it was called “Nude Reclining with Popcorn on a Princess Snugglewarm Blanket,” and parts of it included the phrases “What fleshy form lies here reposed, nude, at the mirror by the foot of his bed?” and “These narrow buttocks curve, peachlike in the absent morn”—because, two things: One, the only mirror in our room is at the foot of my bed—not his bed, my bed, and the Abernathy was clearly “reposed” on my bed, which also happened to have the only Princess Fucking Snugglewarm blanket, which the Abernathy was naked on, which is extremely gross; and, second, “peachlike buttocks”? Not only did I never want to think about the Abernathy’s fruity buttocks again, I also decided I would never eat another peach as long as I lived. And when the little peach-assed puppy was finished reciting his poem to the class (and he recited from memory, with no paper in front of him, which was even grosser than if he’d read it), Dr. Wellins closed his eyes and lowered his chin, as though he were receiving a message from God. Then he removed his handkerchief and dabbed at the corners of his eyes.

  “May I see your paper, Mr. Abernathy?” the pretentious old douche asked. (He always referred to us as “Mr.” or “Miss,” ever since he became “Dr.”)

  “Sure!” The Abernathy gave himself a quick little TSE, like he either needed to go pee really bad, or he, well, was giving himself a quick little TSE, which was another thing I never wanted to think about happening on Sam Abernathy’s little Ts again.

  Dr. Wellins held Sam Abernathy’s poem at the perfect bifocal angle so he could read it, and he either read it really slowly or he dozed off for a quick nap, because it was a full three minutes before he said anything to the class.

  “What we have here,” he began, “is a singular effort—an outstanding example—of what is called a pantoum. Fine work, young man!”

  Pantoum. I wanted to shoot myself.

  “Thank you, sir!” The Abernathy jiggled his narrow peachy ass in his seat and scratched at his little wiener again.

  “And, Mr. West?” Dr. Wellins said. “Please share your poem with us.”

  I cleared my throat and stood up, hoping some massive volcano in the Cascades would erupt before I could even read the title.

  “Well?” Dr. Wellins prodded. “What are you waiting for, Mr. West?”

  “I thought I heard a volcano.”

  Dr. Wellins cocked his head, the way a collie might do when someone blows a dog whistle.

  “No. That’s the title of my poem, sir. ‘I Thought I Heard a Volcano,’ by Ryan Dean West.”

  It went, unfortunately, like this:

  I THOUGHT I HEARD A VOLCANO: A POEM BY RYAN DEAN WEST

  A half-cooled furloughed devil wriggled up through a fissure

  from a volcano that erupted near to Boston’s Charles River.

  Quite obviously naked as Pope Innocent’s nose,

  since in the pits of hell not a-one of us wears clothes.

  He’s gotten very thin due to his metabolic rate,

  and sleeplessness caused by a haunting bugbear called Nate.

  If you want to see his body, look at Spotted John’s website,

  where he’s posted sex photos of him and a girl named Mabel last night.

  He has practically no body hair and his breath smells like burritos,

  President Grover Cleveland had a moustache and a lot of pocket vetoes.

  He doesn’t know just why his roommate is immune to his meanness.

  It took all goddamned2 day to craft a mention of his penis,

  which reminds him that he should try to contact the board of education,

  because in Health class his homework is to do a testicular self-examination.

  “A sonnet!” Dr. Wellins squealed. “And the rhymes are so organic, so unforced!”

  What an idiot.

  Burritos and pocket vetoes?

  “And I’d like to point out that I found a word that rhymes with ‘penis,’ I worked in a reference to Mark Twain3, my favorite author, plus I avoided the use of one-P-P-O-V,” I said.

  “Remarkable, young Mr. West! Simply remarkable.”

  “Thank you, Dr. Wellins.”

  I sat down.

  The peach-assed Abernathy squirmed and kicked and smiled and tugged at his balls. “That was awesome, Ryan Dean! But what’s a testicular self-examination?”

  “Don’t talk to me.”

  * * *

  2. Look, it’s not swearing if it’s in a poem. It’s art.

  3. “A half-cooled furloughed devil.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  JUST MY LUCK.

  Mrs. O’Hare had us make peach crisp in Culinary Arts class. I nearly vomited twice thinking about that which I never wanted to think about—Sam Abernathy’s narrow, peachy buttocks—which, as far as I knew, had never actually been seen by any living person. Not that I was on a mission to be the first.

  Gross.

  “How many pocket vetoes did President Cleveland have?” Annie asked.

  “Oh. I take it you read my poem.”

  “It was really good!” the Abernathy gushed.

  I stabbed a bad-dog finger at him and said, “No.”

  He just didn’t have a clue.

  And then I said, “About two hundred and thirty, I think.”

  “That is a lot.” Annie laughed. “And did you manage to do your health homework yet?”

  “What? Sitting at my desk in Dr. Wellins’s class? I don’t think so, Annie. Anyway, I’d ask you to be my study buddy for it, but I’m not going to see you till Monday.”

  Then Annie smiled, looked at the Abernathy, and blushed.

  What was she thinking?

  Totally gross.

  • • •

  “If you want to hang out at my house with me this weekend, my parents wouldn’t mind. I think they like you more than they like me, Ryan Dean,” Seanie said. At lunch, I walked out to his car with him and Annie.

  Seanie Flaherty was Annie Altman’s airport chauffeur this year, which didn’t really worry me, because Seanie was so weird, and I knew Annie didn’t think he was cute or anything. And really, Seanie did not like girls. If he didn’t want to admit it, I didn’t care. It wasn’t going to change our friendship.

  But hanging out at Seanie’s house was really boring because he never did anything except creep around on the Internet and play shooter video games. What was worse was that his parents always tried to start conversations with me about going to college or growing up, and after they’d run out of things to say they’d start talking about church, which is something I’d always have to go to with them if I ever spent the weekend at Seanie Flaherty’s house.

  So, no.

  “What are you planning on doing this weekend?” I asked.

  “Besides my TSE and reflective ball-grabbing paragraph? Nothing. Just hanging out. Me and my balls,” Seanie said. “But Spotted John told me to look at his website, though. He said there was stuff on it that’
s funnier than shit.”

  I knew I was never going to hear the end of the teasing about the night I spent with inflatable Mabel.

  After I watched Seanie drive off with my girlfriend, I bit off half of one of the pain pills Spotted John had left in my pocket. My ribs were feeling better, but then again I hadn’t been hit yet. Still, I was pretty sure I’d be okay by practice on Monday, so I wouldn’t have to fake it or lie to Coach M.

  Then I did what I almost always did on Friday afternoons after saying good-bye to my friends: I got depressed and mopey, and walked slowly back toward the boys’ dorm.

  Alone.

  And on my way there, as a cold wind blew across the lake and stung my nonfruity facial cheeks, some of my other Ryan Dean Wests invaded the wasteland of my head to have a go at me, as so often is the case when I am alone.

  RYAN DEAN WEST 2: Bet you’re scared about being alone this weekend, aren’t you?

  RYAN DEAN WEST 1: I’m not alone. I have the Abernathy.

  RYAN DEAN WEST 2: Oh yeah, your good buddy. And don’t forget, you have Spotted John, too—the guy who posted pictures on the Internet of you in your underwear cuddling with his inflatable girlfriend.

  RYAN DEAN WEST 3: I’ve seen them! They’re hilarious.

  RYAN DEAN WEST 1: Screw you, guys.

  NATE: I’ve seen them too. I’m always watching you, kid.

  RYAN DEAN WEST 1: You’re not allowed in my head.

  NATE: You can’t get rid of me, kid. It’s as simple as that.

  RYAN DEAN WEST 2: Why don’t you kick his ass? What are you afraid of, Ryan Dean? You can’t let that dude run your life.

  RYAN DEAN WEST 1: I wish you’d all just shut up and leave me alone.

  I ran back to Unit 113. I think the pain pill must have been kicking in, because I couldn’t feel my ribs at all. To be honest, I couldn’t feel much of anything beyond being upset and pissed off, which are things pain pills can’t do too much for. I needed to get out, away from everything, and the only thing I could think to do was to go for a long run.