“Are you Ryan Dean?”
Gardening. Risotto. Baseball. Sam Abernathy. Please go away, Copilot Two!
I desperately wished there were some effective means by which I could deny being me, so I could remain seated for, like, ten more minutes.
“Uh. Uh. Yes. Yes, I am.”
I am really stupid sometimes.
Most of the time.
“Nice to meet you. I’m Mrs. Dvorak.”
She put her hand out to shake, which meant I had to stand up. I wasn’t raised by wolves, after all.
I pretended to “drop” (picture me using air quotes) my book bag so I could momentarily avoid the handshake, bend down, and try to get Copilot Two parked at the gate.
Did it.
The seat belt sign came off. I stood up and shook Mrs. Dvorak’s cool, soft hand.
Okay, so, I had never seen Mrs. Dvorak before, but just hearing the name caused me to conjure a mental image of an old hunchbacked woman in a lab coat, when, in fact, Mrs. Dvorak was a piping hot five out of five bowls of Ethiopian Doro Wat on the Ryan Dean West Totally-Hot-Things-Whose-Names-Make-No-Sense-to-Me Scale.
What was wrong with me?
Mrs. Dvorak said, “You don’t need to feel nervous, Ryan Dean. We’re just going to talk about whatever you’re comfortable talking about. Relax.”
Tell that to Copilot Two, I thought.
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
MRS. DVORAK: So. You’re in twelfth grade, and fifteen years old?
RYAN DEAN WEST: Yes, ma’am.
MRS. DVORAK: You must be very smart.
RYAN DEAN WEST: (Blushes. Yes, I do that too sometimes.) Oh. Thank you.
MRS. DVORAK: Can you tell me a little bit about yourself?
RYAN DEAN WEST: Like what?
MRS. DVORAK: Oh, just like where you’re from, what your family is like, your friends, the things you do here at school, and maybe the kinds of things you enjoy doing when you’re on your own.
Side note: I am a fifteen-year-old boy. If she thinks I’m going to tell her everything I do during—air quotes—alone time, she’s out of her mind.
RYAN DEAN WEST: Let’s see. I live in Boston when I’m not here at school. I don’t have any brothers or sisters. My dad’s an attorney and my mom does volunteer work for charities and museums and stuff. And I don’t hate my parents, which is probably the bread and butter of psychology. I love them both very much. I hope that sounds not-insane. Does that sound normal to you?
MRS. DVORAK: (Laughs) I always like it when students bring along a sense of humor. How about friends?
Side note: I did not want to talk about friends.
RYAN DEAN WEST: Did you want me to bring along my friends, too?
MRS. DVORAK: (Laughs) No. I mean, tell me about your friends.
RYAN DEAN WEST: Oh. Well, I have friends on the rugby team. And I have a girlfriend. We’ve been together (Momentarily forgets what he is about to say, because he’s thinking about what having “been together” means) since last year, but we’ve been best friends since ninth grade.
Side note: I really need to stop turning red in front of Mrs. Dvorak, but thinking about Annie, and what we did yesterday, and what we were talking about doing again, all in front of Mrs. Dvorak, who I was thinking about in a highly inappropriate way, was making me dizzy.
MRS. DVORAK: Oh, that’s so terrific! What’s your girlfriend like?
RYAN DEAN WEST: (Swallows) She’s the most beautiful person I know. She’s artistic, funny, smart, and I love her.
MRS. DVORAK: Sounds like you’ve got a situation that most boys only wish they could have.
RYAN DEAN WEST: It could sound that way, I guess.
MRS. DVORAK: How about your roommates?
RYAN DEAN WEST: I only have one roommate, but I don’t like him.
MRS. DVORAK: I suppose that can be rough, living with someone who isn’t a good match.
RYAN DEAN WEST: No big deal. I can handle it.
MRS. DVORAK: You must be easy to get along with.
RYAN DEAN WEST: I have my bad moments.
MRS. DVORAK: What are those like?
RYAN DEAN WEST: Just bad luck, mostly. Weird things just always seem to happen to me.
MRS. DVORAK: Do you mean weird like funny, or weird like bad?
RYAN DEAN WEST: (Shrugs, and shakes his head without answering)
MRS. DVORAK: What kinds of things do you like to do, Ryan Dean?
RYAN DEAN WEST: I like to play rugby. I’m captain of the team. I like to go running with my girlfriend. (Starts to choke) Um, I enjoy writing stuff. I like to read. And I really like to draw and write comics.
MRS. DVORAK: Comics? You sound like a very creative boy.
RYAN DEAN WEST: I think I am.
MRS. DVORAK: Maybe next time we talk, you could show me some of your comics.
Side note: Next time? No. No next time. This is unbearable.
RYAN DEAN WEST: Sure.
MRS. DVORAK: I have this theory about creative people. They tend to be very sensitive to things—like changes in vibrations around them. That’s one reason why creative people oftentimes get anxious or sad.
RYAN DEAN WEST: You probably know more about that stuff than I do.
MRS. DVORAK: Do you ever feel anxious or sad?
RYAN DEAN WEST: I have a pulse.
MRS. DVORAK: Can I ask you something?
RYAN DEAN WEST: You mean besides all the other somethings you’ve already asked me, Mrs. Dvorak?
MRS. DVORAK: (Laughs) I like your sense of humor, Ryan Dean. I’ll bet all your friends love that about you. But what I wanted to know is this: We—you and I—are going to try to do something together. So we need to think about a goal, just like you think about how to score in rugby, or how to finish the comic you’re working on. What I want to know is, what do you want me to help you do?
RYAN DEAN WEST: (Looks at the comfortable couch against the wall) Could me and Annie use this office for about an hour—no, two. Two hours—tonight? That would help me do something I really, really want to do!
Side note: Okay, I’ll be honest. I didn’t really say that.
RYAN DEAN WEST: I’m not sure I know what I want.
MRS. DVORAK: Well, when you called in this morning, you said you were having a hard time with things, right?
RYAN DEAN WEST: There are some people who are kind of worried about me. I’m doing this for them.
MRS. DVORAK: Who are the people that have told you they’re worried?
RYAN DEAN WEST: Well. My girlfriend. And my roommate.
MRS. DVORAK: But you don’t like him.
RYAN DEAN WEST: I know.
MRS. DVORAK: What would they say they’re worried about, Ryan Dean?
RYAN DEAN WEST: I get scared at night. I feel like something terrible is going to happen, and I want all that to stop.
MRS. DVORAK: (Nods her head) That’s a good goal for us to have, and I think we can do that together. Those kinds of things—anxiety, and feeling helpless—they happen to young people when they go away from home and have to get along on their own. We can do this, Ryan Dean.
RYAN DEAN WEST: If you say so. It would be nice.
MRS. DVORAK: You know, I’m going to need to speak with your parents to let them know you’ve come to see me.
Side note: NOOOOOO!!!!
RYAN DEAN WEST: Oh. That would be fine, I guess.
MRS. DVORAK: Great. And we’ll set something up for next week, then.
Side note: How did I EVER get myself into this?
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
OKAY. SO, YOU KNOW HOW sometimes you arrive late to a party, or, let’s say, to rugby practice, and you see two of the guests—or in this case, two of your teammates—involved in a heated confrontation that you can’t really hear but you know is heated because of the way they’re standing and how the veins on their necks are sticking out and they’ve got their hands on their hips and one foot angled back like they were maybe already thinking about boxing, even though there is a calm
mediator, a boy whisperer—in this case Coach M—trying to get between them, and just as you get through the door to the party—or, in this case, out onto the pitch—all three sets of eyes turn and look at you and you instantly know that the fourth—in this case invisible—participant in the heated confrontation happens to be YOU, and you’re all, like, what the fuck did I do now? because if there was actually going to be a fight between Spotted John Nygaard and JP Tureau, it would be a real bisexual-ninja-versus-testosterone-drunk-hammerhead-shark death match because those two guys happened to be without a doubt the toughest guys on the team?
Exactly. You know where I’m coming from.
But I had no clue what it was all about. Not that I was particularly eager to find out. So I went over to where the backs were working on drills and got into line for some up-and-under kicking practice. I kept the corner of my eye on Spotted John and JP, until Coach M sent them off on a “buddy run,” which was something Coach would make guys do if they got into arguments during practice. He gave them a ball and told them to go, and JP and Spotted John had to run laps around the practice field, passing the rugby ball between them until Coach M was satisfied they were over it.
That afternoon, JP’s and Spotted John’s buddy run lasted until practice was nearly finished.
We ended with a game of touch. That was more than fine with me because my ribs weren’t 100 percent yet, and Coach informed us that this would be a noncontact week leading up to Thursday’s friendly, because he wanted us to be hungry and healthy.
And speaking of healthy, I felt pretty good about things. Maybe it was the sandwiches, and the “next time” note from Annie, but I also knew that the uncomfortably awkward hour I’d spent in Mrs. Dvorak’s office did something for me too. It opened me up in some ways, and it felt good.
Could I actually be looking forward to seeing Mrs. Dvorak again next Monday?
Still, there was this heavy, muted vibe going on during practice, like everyone knew what was up between Spotted John and JP, but nobody said a word about it to me.
Until we got inside the locker room.
I had just come out of the shower and was drying off in front of my locker, when JP Tureau walked up to me and said, “You’re a bitch-faced pussy, Ryan Dean.”
At once, the following struck me:
1. Bitch-faced pussy. I have been called lots of things. This is high school, after all, and more pointedly, this was a high school boys’ locker room, where name-calling is as atmospheric as B.O. But I’ve never been called a “bitch-faced pussy” before. Also, I didn’t really know what “bitch-faced pussy” meant, but I had to give credit to JP Tureau for coming up with a name-calling name that sounded really, really bad.
2. Scanning my recently opened files. What the fuck did I do now? I couldn’t for the life of me remember having done something that would piss off JP since, like, last spring or so, unless he was still totally after Annie, and by some weird chance he’d followed us on our run into the woods the day before and saw what we had done—which was an extremely creepy thing that I never wanted to think about again.
3. Are you kidding me? I had been in a couple fights with JP Tureau last year. They were short, and I got lucky because JP should have killed me on several occasions, but—come on!—JP was still dressed in his sweaty rugby gear. There were actual chunks of grass and mud stuck to his knees. He had cleats on. And I really, really did not want to get into a fight with JP Tureau while I was naked. Nobody ever wants to get into a fight while he’s naked.
4. Witnesses. There weren’t any. My locker’s row was empty. All the other guys were either in the showers or had dressed and gone back to the dorms. This was JP Tureau’s golden opportunity to pay me back for everything he hated about me.
“What did I do to you, JP?”
“Spotted John got all up in my face. He said you were whining that I hit you too hard last week. He told me he’d fuck me up if I didn’t go easier on our stand-off, because the team needs you. Bullshit. You’re a fucking pussy. Nobody needs a fucking pussy.”
Okay. I knew JP didn’t like me, but that kind of hurt my feelings.
“Look, I never said anything at all to Spotted John about you, JP. I thought my ribs were broken is all, and I asked John for some painkillers so I could sleep. That’s all that happened. I never said nothing about you being an over-the-top, think-with-your-dick asshole, so fuck off.”
Yes, I really said that. It was pretty good, considering my inexperience with swearing out loud.
I also knotted my towel tightly around my waist because I was 99 percent certain I was about to get into an I’m-naked-and-you’re-in-rugby-gear fistfight with JP Tureau.
“Hey. Do you want a towel, JP?”
The Abernathy, our manager and towel boy, appeared at the end of the bench behind JP. He held out a nice, folded Pine Mountain towel and displayed an innocent little Shar-Pei puppy look on his face.
JP Tureau turned around. He looked at the Abernathy. Then he looked at me.
I didn’t say anything. I had my hands at my sides. I looked at the Abernathy, then at JP.
The Abernathy looked—at JP, then at me.
That was a hell of a lot of looking, considering we were inside a boys’ locker room, where excessive looking is a social felony.
It was like living through the pregnant few seconds just before a three-way gunfight in an old black-and-white Western.
Sam Abernathy’s presence was like a punch in the gut to JP Tureau.
JP mouthed “fuck you” to me. Then he said, “Thanks, Snack-Pack.”
JP took the towel from the Abernathy and sat down in front of his locker. Guys started coming back from the showers. JP had missed his moment.
And JP touched his eye and added, “You should be careful about wrestling around in bed with loser stand-offs, Snackers.”
JP unlaced his cleats. The Abernathy just stood at the end of our bench, watching us.
He said, “I know! Nobody should ever get into a fight with Ryan Dean!”
Did the Abernathy know what was going on?
No. There’s no way. The kid couldn’t have known I was about to be murdered. That would mean he’d just stuck his neck out for me, and that would never happen. After all, he was only twelve, and it would have been inconceivable for him to effectively decode the kind of shit that goes on between older boys, because the Abernathy just wasn’t that smart. And, besides, he had no reason to care about me.
Right?
CHAPTER FIFTY
THAT NIGHT A COLD STORM blew in while we lay in our beds and watched a Cooking Channel program about searing meat with a blowtorch after cooking it sous vide.
Don’t ask.
But the weather was like a freaking hurricane gusting in through our open window. And there was some dude on TV with an actual blowtorch, spitting ninja flame-gun fire at a piece of meat. I didn’t know if it was supposed to make me hungry or scare the shit out of me.
Who keeps a fucking blowtorch in their kitchen? Murderers, probably.
The Abernathy, without being asked, got up from Super Mario Land in his soccer jammies and socks, and shut our window. Then he padded across the floor and swung the door ajar.
Whatever. At least I wasn’t getting hit by occasional windblown hailstones.
This was going to be my life until June.
“You’ve been really quiet tonight, Ryan Dean.”
“I don’t want to talk.”
“What did you think of Mrs. Dvorak?” the Abernathy asked.
I thought about it.
“She was really nice. And I think she’s kinda hot.”
“You do?”
I nodded. “Yeah. Totally hot, dude.”
“Well, do you mind if I make some popcorn?”
The kid never ran out of microwave popcorn.
“Knock yourself out.”
“It’s cheese flavored. Do you want some?”
“Sure.”
After the popcorn finished popping
, Sam poured some out for me.
“Thanks.”
“You’re welcome, Ryan Dean!” The Abernathy climbed back on top of his bed. “Oh! I forgot to tell you. Spotted John showed me. You know. He showed me why all the guys call him Spotted John. It was . . . well . . . really gross.”
“Spotted John is totally gross, Sam. I should have warned you. Sorry, I forgot.”
“It’s okay. He’s a nice guy, but that’s a really weird thing to show off to someone.”
I said, “I know. What can I say? He’s from Denmark.”
“Oh. Do lots of guys have birthmarks on their wieners in Denmark?”
“Sam? I don’t ever want to talk about wieners with you while we’re in bed, okay? Well, anytime, to be honest. But especially not now.”
The Abernathy laughed. “You are so funny, Ryan Dean!”
Whatever.
I ate some popcorn.
And the Abernathy went on, “I will never talk to you about wieners again.”
“You’re doing it now. Stop talking to me.”
“Okay. Well. I wanted to ask you one thing, Ryan Dean, and I hope it doesn’t make you mad at me.”
“Is it about wieners? Because if it’s about wieners, I’ll be pretty mad, Sam.”
“Ha ha! No! It’s not about wieners.”
And Sam Abernathy laugh-choked for a good fifteen seconds.
Hilarious.
It had almost gotten to the point where, in my mind, I began running through the steps for applying the Heimlich maneuver to a seventy-two-pound twelve-year-old who was choking from laughing so hard about wieners while eating popcorn. But then Sam Abernathy regained his composure and said, “That JP Tureau really hates you, doesn’t he?”
“Yeah. He does.”
“That’s not good. Why would anyone hate you, Ryan Dean?”
“It’s a long story. Sometimes, that kind of stuff happens between boys, you know.”
“I hope it never happens to me. I was scared for you in the locker room.”
“God knows, JP probably would have punched me in the wiener. That would not have been good.”
Sam choked again for at least half a minute.