“Cockroaches don’t eat meat, Poncey,” I shook my head. “That’s absurd. How did Ms. Nolte find out it was Mikey?”
“That know-it-all Brittany Taylor said it was you, me, and Mikey.”
I cocked an eyebrow, hinting at my non-surprise. “Oh really? So Mikey took the fall for us, huh?”
“Well, it’s not like you did it, right?” Drew asked. “We know goody-two shoes Poncey here wouldn’t be caught dead in detention. You wouldn’t do anything like that either, would you?”
“Maybe, maybe not.” The rest of them just rolled their eyes and for some reason it made me more than a little ticked. But I graciously laughed it off (for once.)
“Well, anyway,” Poncey spoke up, “Mikey’s serving detention today with the drama students. They were there till five today, doing set work.”
“Poor Mike. Detention with the drama students…” I feigned some sympathy for him, though I suspected some of it was real. Between the awkward director, the poor selection of plays, and the limited special effects division, drama was the worst to deal with. Our school drama department, Apollo Central High Entertainment, was abbreviated as ACHE for good reason.
The front door barked open, and I turned to see another one of my friends, Simon Gangel.
“Hey, you’re late, man,” Drew scolded.
“He was probably in detention for checking out the math teacher again,” I laughed.
Simon put on his lop-sided grin. “Guilty as charged, Dinger. But I’m way behind in Ms. Darlington’s class, and my parents will kill me if I fail her class again. Plus I’ll never get into med school.”
“They’ll also probably kill you if you get arrested for sexual harassment,” Poncey pointed out.
I nodded uninterestedly in agreement as we all got back to setting up the room. Simon wasn’t the brightest crayon in the box (He’s actually probably the blackish-gray one.) He might’ve been a senior, but he was finishing up his high school career with a lot of sophomore level classes. Simon getting into med school would only happen as a miracle – and I didn’t believe in miracles.
A half hour later, the Harbor house was packed. The music was booming and loud, and it was a wonder the neighbors hadn’t called in to complain (So far as I’d heard.) The sound of teenagers laughing and yelling to each other and even the particularly gruesome and exaggerated violence of Death Raiders III was lost to the ocean of hardcore rock n’ roll, our freedom song of choice.
There were close to forty teenagers at the house (though it sounded more like four hundred.) There had to be a couple of party crashers – that happened a lot when I was at parties – but Mr. and Mrs. Harbor didn’t have the time to worry about it; they were too busy washing the dirty dishes stacking up in the sink, like all good parents would be.
But we were safe from their interruption – earlier, I peeked in the kitchen to see Mrs. Harbor with a sour, determined look on her face; she wasn’t happy, but she was going to attempt to be as pleasant as possible until everyone went goes home – then she would unleash the monster within. Mr. Harbor was there, too, upset he had to help with the dishes. He kept it to himself, probably aware that if he bothered his wife he’d get the majority of her wrath.
I was in the middle of beating Jason at a video game involving a savage, bloodthirsty battle for all mankind and the pursuit of personal glory (So it was kind of like high school.) A rush of adrenaline bolted through me as Jason’s character finally fell over, wriggling and shaking the last of the animated blood out from his severed head.
I let out an excessively loud and obnoxious celebratory “Ha! Beat you!” before succumbing to the overwhelming desire to laugh hysterically. I loved having witnesses to my personal successes.
“Way to go, Dinger!” Simon cheered. “I’m next!”
“Sorry guys, I already called it,” Poncey declared, tearing the game controller out of the hands of a disgruntled Jason.
“Poncey!” I smirked to see such a willing victim.
Shouts of “Poncey!” “Ponn-cey!” and “Pon-eceya!” echoed through the room. I smiled; my friends would often imitate me. It was highly amusing, if not sad for the lack of originality.
“You got it coming, Dinger. I’ve figured out the perfect fighting strategy,” Evan bragged.
“Oh, really now? Well, I doubt it’ll work, but what the heck? When you’re declared the loser I promise I won’t rub it in your face for more than a week or two.” Or three or four. It really depended on my mood.
The match started, and the guys gave encouraging support with an orchestra of armpit noises; Jason, still upset at losing to me, led the cheering for Evan with a ‘Poncey’ whoop.
My smirk grew wider as I landed a costly blow on Evan’s fighter. “Ha! Got you!” I boasted. “Looks like your theory of how to beat me isn’t working quite yet, unless it’s to let me win without doing any hard work!”
Poncey just grinned. “I haven’t applied it yet,” he replied, before his head suddenly turned toward the door. “Oh, hi, Gwen!”
My head whipped around, only to see an empty doorway. It took me less than a second to realize I’d been duped, and it was even quicker that anger and frustration set in. “Oh, man!”
In the few seconds of effective distraction, Evan had managed to land numerous blows on my guy. I cursed loudly a moment later when Evan won the match.
“Oh! Oh! Oh!” Drew guffawed. “You got served, Dinger! Sweet move there, Poncey. Genius!”
Poncey wallowed in the glow of his triumphant victory as my face was no doubt hot-coals red. “Yeah, I won!” he bellowed uninhibitedly, like some screeching balloon that popped.
I inhaled deeply, and then shrugged my shoulders, like it was nothing – which it was. “You got lucky,” I remarked scathingly. “Cheater.”
“Hey, don’t be a sour-butt, Dinger,” Poncey teased me. “Just because you’re jealous of me and clearly vulnerable to the opposite gender, that’s no reason to be all cranky. In fact, it’s perfectly natural.”
“Oh, shut up, Poncey. You and your delusions are enough to make me sick.”
Drew grabbed the controller out of my hands and bumped me away. “I’ll give you a real challenge, Poncey.” Ha. I doubted it. I’d just beat him before taking down Jason.
“You guys suck,” I announced. “I’m going to find more appreciative company.” On my way out, to make things even worse, I bumped into Via Delorosa, the head cheerleader at Central.
Via instantly frowned and snapped, “Watch where you’re going, Dinger!”
“Sorry,” I sighed as I ducked (quickly) out of her way. Apologizing was the best thing to do in this case – and since I actually was truly regretting running into her, it was not even a fake apology.
I’m ashamed to admit it, but I’d dated Via last year. We were a power couple in the ninth grade before I broke it off. Via had hated me ever since (Even though she would still occasionally hint at me to get back together with her.) She was still especially mad because others really played it up as being her fault.
In reality, I was more than willing to agree – there was no way I’d ever consider loving someone so shallow and superficial. I’d dated her for four months before telling her I “didn’t know what I wanted” (meaning, of course, I knew she wasn’t what I wanted.)
I was even kind enough to do it during summer vacation so she would only have to face the prospect of initially being embarrassed at cheer camp instead of school. You’d think after all my kindness to her she’d go easier on me. But no, she didn’t.
I involuntarily shuddered at the memory of kissing her; it’d been like tasting raspberry-flavored dirt.
I made my rounds throughout the party; I talked and laughed with my fellow football players, mostly about how our chief rivals, the Rosemont Raiders, were so lame. Everything was going well at the party.
I should’ve known up to that point something was going to go terribly, terribly wrong. Later I would think that if I could pinpoint a moment in time where all was well with the world and then all of a sudden went awry, it would be around the time I first met him.
I wasn’t five steps away from reentering the game room when I heard Jason call out, “All right! Go, Tim, beat him!”
“Who’s Tim?” I muttered as I walked into the room. There was no Tim on the football team. It crossed my mind that it’s probably some loser from school who was hoping to name-drop my name later in a conversation where he’d be trying to impress a girl; again, that was one of the few problems with being popular.
“Hey, Hammy!”
I lost all trace of eminent disgust and suspicion as Gwen’s honey-colored eyes jumped up to meet mine. “Hey, Gwen,” I waved, trying to contain the wave of happiness spouting up inside me.
Gwen was sure pretty today, I noticed. She always wore make-up and styled her hair, but she seemed to be extra-pretty today; she must’ve known I’d been angling to ask her to be my girlfriend.
Before I forgot, I nodded courteously to the girl standing next to her. “Hey, Laura.”
“Hi,” Laura replied tentatively.
Laura Nelson was Gwen’s best friend, and before tenth grade, had been one of mine as well. But she was still one of Via’s lackies, unlike Gwen, and she knew the rules. The cheerleaders had a ban on talking to me (Not that they all followed through on it, but social code was sacred.) This was another reason I didn’t have a lot of girls in my inner circle of late.
“How’s cheerleading going?” I asked Laura. It was fun to watch her squirm.
“Oh, it’s… going okay.” Laura awkwardly glanced away. “Hey, I’ll see you guys later, all right?”
I watched with satisfaction as she left. Mission accomplished. Now I was alone (more or less) with Gwen.
Gwen sniggered as Laura edged her way out of the room, excessively careful to not even bump into me. “I guess Via is still angry.”
“I’m not surprised,” I said. “Frankly, I’m surprised I’m still popular. It’s a rare person who dumps the head cheerleader and walks away unscathed, even four months later.”
“You have a point there. Please don’t hold it against Laura, though. She’s trying so hard to make Vice Captain before the Spring State Tournament.”
“I’ll consider it, just because she’s your friend.”
Gwen giggled again, so easily charmed. “So, how’re you tonight?”
“Oh, you know,” I shrugged. “Had a fight with the parentals. They didn’t want me coming here tonight, no surprise. Cheryl and Mark are so ridiculous sometimes, I just can’t believe it…”
I went on to explain how I’d arrived at my house after school to find, surprisingly, both parents home. Cheryl was running around trying to get ready for a business dinner, one of the (very) few ones where she was allowed (and wanted) to bring her family with her. Mark, fresh from a sixteen-hour shift at the hospital, was brewing coffee. And Adam, my three-year-old brother, was mostly ignored, playing ‘doctor’ on couch pillows, various stuffed animals, and curtains.
Between my mother trying to guilt-trip me between threats, my father calling for me to be ‘rational’ between cups of coffee, and Adam humping my leg crying, “Hammonton!” and blah, blah, blah-blah blah, it was a wonder I’d gotten out alive. I vastly enjoyed telling this to Gwen; she would appreciate me making it through my mess of a family just to see her.
Can you see why I didn’t like my family? They were all so concerned with their own lives that they just didn’t seem to care enough about mine.
As I recounted this story to Gwen, I watched, mesmerized, as her expression glazed over. I was thinking it’s so cute she’s trying so hard to imagine it so vividly I hardly noticed when she interrupted me half-way through.
“That’s fascinating,” Gwen smiled, the focus coming back into her eyes. She yawned. “I don’t know where you get your energy for all that, Hammy.”
“Coffee.”
“Is that it? Gross. I’m a tea drinker.”
I (slightly) cringed. “Switch.”
Gwen laughed, an enchanting sound I found as energizing as my beloved sugar and cream coffee. I decided my first job as Gwen’s boyfriend would be to convert her into a coffee drinker like myself.
“Ah, man, this sucks!”
I, along with everyone else, suddenly snapped attention back to the game, where some guy – Tim – successfully vanquished Drew’s character in a horrific display of graphic violence.
“Wow, that’s gotta be a record!” Evan squealed. “Drew, you’re having a bad luck night or something today. First Dinger and now Tim? You’re losing big time.”
“Oh, shut up, Poncey,” Drew glared at him, more than a hint of indignant humiliation in his voice. “Shut your big fat mouth.”
Before I could step in and assure everyone Drew felt rightfully sorry enough to let Tim win, Tim stood up.
“I’m sure I just got lucky,” he assured Drew with a coddling smile. He gave Drew a friendly punch on the shoulder. “Or maybe you just felt sorry for me and let me win?”
Drew caught on, pathetically grateful, and I was instantly super annoyed.
“Well, I was going easy on you,” Drew gallantly admitted. “I’m getting some more soda, anybody want some?”
Not bad, I thought. I didn’t know much about Tim, but I knew two things for sure: he was almost obsessively, single-mindedly willing to kiss up to my friends, and he was certainly not a football player.
It was written all over him, frankly. Tim was tall, with spikes in his hair, and a wide, crooked smile on his baby-face; he wore a flannel shirt under a leather jacket. The ugliest, dirtiest cowboy boots imaginable stuck out like clown shoes. The ‘tough-boy’ look was lost on Tim’s heart-shaped face; it was more bunny than human. Puberty had certainly not been kind to him, either, I thought privately, a smug satisfaction rising.
I was just thinking about graciously asking what on earth Tim thought he was doing here when Gwen interrupted me.
“Tim, over here!” Oh, crap. Gwen had invited him.
I thought briefly how vomiting in my mouth would be the most appropriate response to this, but I held it in (if only Martha could see my manners.)
“Hey, Juliet,” Tim said, smiling kindly at Gwen. He turned to me (How appalling – he wasn’t even addressed by me first!) “Hey, Dinger,” he said. “English was tough today, huh? I saw you beat out your old Tetris record halfway through class today.”
“Oh, you have Mrs. Night, too?” I asked, surprised. I should pay more attention to insignificant details like that, I mused.
“Yeah. Her English class is….Well, it’s okay. Don’t you think so?”
I shrugged, uninterested. “Her name’s ‘Night’ for a reason, since everyone sleeps. I play Tetris the whole time usually.”
Tim laughed (He was a real suck-up, I could tell.) “I heard you had the highest rank for Tetris scores,” he nodded. “Gwen told me you almost got in trouble with Mrs. Smithe today over that.”
“Martha’s cool. She knows I’ll ace that history test coming up, no matter how much I play,” I shrugged again, bored. “So, how do you know Gwen?”
“Gwen and I are both in the school play,” he told me.
“Play?” Huh? What?
Gwen hit me playfully on the shoulder. “I’ve told you the school’s performing Romeo and Juliet a million times already. I’m Juliet.”
Ah, that play. Whatever (Please, it’s not like it’s football.)
I winked at her. “So you’re Juliet, huh? They need a Romeo still?”
“No. Tim’s Romeo.”
Ouch, that burned. “I know that,” I sighed. “I just like to annoy you sometimes, Gwennie,” I admitted.
And then I caught her eyes with mine, allowing her to almost see past my outside antics to my deep, sensitive thoughts. She looked down a second later, a faint blush on her cheeks. Ah, yes….Girls love that kind of mush.
“I think the play’s going to be a hit this year,” Tim spoke up, interrupting my calculated moment with Gwen. “We’ve got some students coming from Rosemont to help put the set together, and it’s going to look amazing when it’s finished….”
I soon decided that if I acted like Tim was of no importance, maybe Tim would realize he was of no importance and go away (You laugh, but it’s worked before.) I turned my full attention to more appealing matters.
“So, Gwen, you going to the football game tomorrow night?” And I focused back on Gwen and only her (It is hard work to ignore a freak show.) “We’re playing Rosemont.”
Gwen giggled. “Is that all you ever think of, Hammy?”
“Yes,” Evan quipped, coming in from nowhere. He had a tendency to do that. “Football, girls, and Tetris. That’s all Dinger ever thinks about.” There were several chuckles and a couple of unsure looks.
“Do you think you’ll come to the play?” Tim asked.
“We’ll definitely win,” I cantered on confidently. “The Raiders are due for losing, since they are a loser school.”
“Hey, you didn’t answer Tim’s question,” Gwen said.
“Huh?” I widened my eyes in mock surprise as I reluctantly allowed myself to look at Tim. Gwen apparently wasn’t picking up the cue; I was beginning to doubt her acting skills (This did not bode well for an already-doomed play.) “Oh, hey Tim,” I said. “Didn’t see you there. You really should loosen up. Standing like that, I thought you were a lamp or something.”
A wave of laughter came up from the guys around the room. “I’m serious!” I insisted, noticing Gwen was not smiling. “Look at him, he’s not even moving.”
Tim rubbed his neck nervously. “Well, I did get the part of Romeo for something,” he agreed after a long moment.
“Oh, right,” I continued. “You’re Romeo. You must be one of the best actors in school, huh?”