“I asked you a question,” she says through quivering lips. “Are you proud of yourself or what?” Her eyes are intense but not angry intense.
A response pureeing in my blender bubbles out. “Yes, I am.” Shit, who said that? That’s not what I wanted to say. Comments like that won’t woo her. They’ll just chafe her ass into an itchier rash.
She uncrosses her arms and plants her hands on her hips. “Oh, really? You’re proud of yourself for being a complete brute?” Her body jiggles as she speaks, which spikes my already dangerously high distraction fever. The tears she’s fighting back make her eyes look greener than usual, like acid-melting emeralds. She looks scared and uncertain. More real than I’ve ever seen her, which makes me realize I’ve been seeing her through a make-believe veil all the time I’ve been stalking her.
Wynona stomps her foot to get my attention. “Are you going to answer me or not?”
Man, she’s adorable. She’s sulking like a cranky Little One demanding a sugary treat before dinner. Which, truth be told, is tearing me in half. She may be adorable, but she’s also being an asshole. I won’t kiss her ass just because she has a perfect one. “Sure, if you ask me a question that’s not retarded.” Whoopsy.
Her face explodes. Holy Moses, smell the roses, she’s plenty riled now. “Oh, so you don’t think you’re a . . . total . . . brute? You think what you did is okay? You think viciously attacking a . . . helpless . . . person . . . is okay?” There’s that tone again. Her voice is stuttery, like she’s auditioning for a role in the remake of Network. “I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not gonna take this anymore.”
My forehead’s sizzling a bacony mischief, and that ain’t the only pork oinking a stand-at-attention tumult. “I’m sorry—what was the question?” I consider ending my question with “Professor Pantywad,” but my cooler head prevails.
Apparently, she hasn’t been paying attention either, because my question flusters her. “What? I mean . . . which one?”
I gawk into her pretty eyes.
Her cheeks twitch as she glowers. She scrunches her mouth. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
How much time you got, sweet cheeks? Sometimes I wish I could open my mouth and free the untamed swarm of thoughts buzzing around in my head. Oh, shit, I just thought of something. Perhaps she’s not interpreting my reticence as confidence and charm. Maybe she thinks I’m retarded. “I simply asked if you could repeat your question.”
“Well, the first thing I said . . . about an hour ago was, I hope you’re proud of yourself.”
“Proud of myself for what, Wynona?”
She blinks as if she’s shocked I know her name. “Proud of yourself . . . for . . . almost killing Buster.” Her volume decreases with each syllable, so by the time she gets to -ster, she’s practically whispering.
Wynona, my love. I sincerely apologize for pummeling your genteel and kindhearted beau. But you must admit, he started it. He was physically abusing a defenseless young boy. And he stole his favorite comic book. That is fairly brutish behavior, wouldn’t you say? Certainly worthy of a stern physical reprimand. That’s what I want to say, but it’s not what comes out. “What, are you fucking kiddin’ me? It would take a hell of a lot more than a few pops to the noggin to kill that Neanderthal.” Shit, I did it again. Jesus H. Christ on a stripper pole! Why can’t I shut, shut, shut my stupid cock-blocking mouth?
Wynona’s jaw drops. “Well, you didn’t just punch him. You kicked him too. Like a little girl.”
I chuckle as I realize Wynona has no problem with the fact that I called her boyfriend a Neanderthal. Perhaps she concurs with my assessment. I should club her on the head and drag her back to my cave.
“What’s so funny?” she barks. “Only girls kick when they fight.”
“Are you suggesting the only reason I defeated your asshole boyfriend is because I utilized the fighting techniques of a girl? Because if you are, I’m not sure who you’re offending more, me or the entire female population.”
Her face drains. “Well . . . you don’t . . . kick someone when they’re down.”
Her words are a punch to the gut. “Wynona, I’m not sure what time you arrived at the melee, but did you happen to notice the scrawny fifth-grader on the ground in tears?”
“Well, I didn’t say he didn’t start it. I just said you don’t, you know, kick a man when he’s down.”
“But it’s okay to kick a little boy when he’s down?”
“No, I didn’t say that. I just said you . . .” Her mind melts midsentence. Jesus, maybe she’s the mentally unstable one. Holy mad cow, I’ve fallen for a dunderhead. I’m trapped inside a comic book. It’s Malice in Dunderland! A chuckle slips out.
She stomps her foot. “Stop laughing at me!”
“I’m not laughing at you, Wynona. I’m laughing at me. And to finish your sentence, you said I fight like a girl.”
“I didn’t mean it like that, and you know it. All I meant was, he was lying down defenseless, and you kicked him like an animal.”
“That is true. I did kick him like an animal. Because he is an animal.”
Wynona scrunches her face and I can see her mind sparking. Her thick black hair looks like a silk frame around a Fourth of July fireworks display. “You’re the one . . . who’s the . . . animal.”
I lean back, stretch out my lanky legs, and cross them at the ankles. “Well, I won’t argue with you there, Wynona.”
She drops her arms and clenches her fists.
I’m struggling to keep my eyes off her chest. It’s like there’s an enormous gorilla manhandling my skull in inappropriate directions. Whoopsadaisy, too low. Not okay to stare at the ol’ hooty-hooty-ha-ha this early in the relationship. My crotch tingles. I force my gaze back to her eyes.
“Stop staring at me like that, you weirdo.”
Oh, shit, apparently I’m staring. I should tell her why. Drop the hammer. Reveal my love. Take her in my arms like I’m Humphrey Bogart. Of all the principal’s offices in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine. “Yeah, you’re dating Bartholomew Pitswaller, and I’m the weirdo.” Uh-oh.
Her mouth drops open like I just kicked her square between the candy canes. Then it closes. Then it opens again. Then it closes. What’s this crazy bitch doing, catching flies? Her mouth starts to twist, and, for a nanosecond, I think I glimpse a smirk, but then it boards the Angrytown Express.
“My life is none of your business. Besides, who the hell are you to judge me, you freak? Maybe you should spend your time straightening out your own life instead of judging other people. Maybe if you weren’t such a psycho loser, you wouldn’t get in fights with, like, every boy in school. Nobody gets in as many fights as you. Nobody. You’re like a fight magnet or something. Have you ever stopped to think why that is? It’s not a coincidence, you know. It’s just not. Why do you hate everybody so much? What’s so bad about everybody that you have to go around beating them up? What has everybody done to you to make you hate them so much?”
Pheeewwwy-klabeeewwy, that was a mouthful. Beaucoup des questions difficile, mon cheery.
“The thing is, you don’t know Buster. You don’t know the real him.” Her voice is softer. Maybe she realizes she’s poked a tiny hole in my armor. She sounds more understanding. More genteel. More annoying. “He bullies people because he’s insecure. His father’s a bully, so it’s all he knows. I’m just saying you could have handled it differently. You could have talked to him. You could have stood up for that little kid without getting in a fight.”
Oh, Wynona. Dear, sweet, naïve Wynona. My ripe kumquat. My delicate dandelion. My innocent ignoramus. I did consider other options before stepping into the ring with Sugar Ray Pitswaller. But just as I was about to suggest to tender Bartholomew that we adjourn to a quiet spot under a cherry tree for a nice spot of chamomile tea and a friendly chat, he charged me with fists the size of Volkswagens. So with all due respect, sweet sweety sweetykins, fuck you. “Jesus, you two belong together. You’re
as thick-headed as he is.” Uh-oh. See you on the flipside, Cupid.
Wynona takes a step toward me and stops like she’s afraid of what she might do if she gets too close. Her mouth opens wide, her forehead wrinkles, and she screams. “Fuck you, asshole!”
I smile.
Principal LaChance’s office door swings open. “What the devil’s going on out here?”
Andrew Pendleton squeezes through the crack between LaChance and the door frame. His face is wet. He sees me and charges. He grabs me around the chest and buries his face in my sweatshirt.
Wynona glares at Andrew, and her scowl drips from rage to confusion. She’s squinting like she can’t believe he didn’t burst into flames the moment he touched me.
I rub Andrew’s head. His body’s quivering, the poor little dude.
Wynona redirects her gaze to me, and her scowl returns. But it’s a phony scowl. Pasted on. Like a mask.
LaChance points at Wynona. “Either go into the nurse’s office or go home, Wynona.”
I wave goodbye with a discreet finger jiggle.
Wynona mouths asshole and grabs Pitbull’s coat off the chair. She disappears through the nurse’s door.
Wynona, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
CHAPTER 9
Nancy LaChancey paces when he preaches. “Andrew told me what happened. That you were defending him from Buster. That this whole thing was over a comic book.”
A comic book? Jesus, how brain-dead do you have to be to become a high school principal?
He leans against the desk, crosses his arms on his chest, and puckers his lips. It’s what authority figures like principals and nuns do right before they word-wrangle your ass into a corral of punishment. Pace and pucker. “I’ve spoken to the teachers and coaches who arrived toward the end. They confirmed Andrew’s version from talking to witnesses. That Buster started it. That he threw the first punch.”
He scratches his orange whiskers intently in one spot like he’s located a plump scab. “Still, that doesn’t excuse you for taking it as far as you did. The general consensus is that you took Buster out with one blow but proceeded to kick and punch him after he was down.”
Layaway LaChance grabs his belt and yanks up his Wal-Mart corduroys, but there’s nowhere for them to go because they slam into his fat barricade. “You’re going to be in serious trouble if the police get involved or his parents press charges.”
Yeah, right. Pitbull’s parents pressing charges. That’s a laugh. The only thing Pitbull’s dad’s gonna press is his drunk-ass fists against his dumb-ass son’s face. The pounding his pops will lay on him for losing a fight will make the beating I laid on him look like a bitch slap from a quadriplegic monk.
Chunky LaChance is staring out the window into the parking lot. His breath is fogging the glass, which makes it look like steam is puffing out of his jackass ears. He’s probably wishing he was out there. I wonder if he’s remembered that he has to drive me home after he’s done yelling and expelling. That’s another funny thing about living in East Fumbuck, Maine. Teachers have to think twice about doling out a detention because the late bus doesn’t run most days, so they gotta taxi your ass home after they dish out the discipline. That cracks me up. Makes getting in trouble totally worthwhile. Watching a teacher wince when they realize they just lashed their own ass. Principal LaChance bawling me out after a fisticuffin’ brouhaha and then saying, “All right, come on, I’ll drive you home.” The ride home always sucks the sting out of the cuss session because for some reason adults don’t get as angry in cars. Or maybe they just don’t like yelling at a kid right before saying good night and booting them out of their El Camino. Or maybe it has something to do with being off school grounds that transmogrifies a kid into a human being from whatever the hell teachers think he is inside these icy walls of enlightenment.
“Or if Nurse Aubrey determines he has to go to the hospital, which is a distinct possibility.”
Wrong again, Captain Oblivion. The only way Pitbull’s gonna approve a field trip to the hospital is if he’s nighty-night unconscious, and I don’t think that’s the case on account of his face was wincing up painful sensibilities when they dragged him into Aubrey’s office.
“I am curious to hear your side of the story, Cricket, but if he’s taken to the hospital or the police get involved, it will be out of my hands.”
I feel like Andy Dufresne in The Shawshank Redemption. An innocent man wrongly accused. A ward of the state. A dangerous troublemaker LaChance would sure as shit love to toss into solitary confinement for the rest of the year. “I believe in two things. Discipline and the Bible. Here you’ll receive both. Put your trust in the Lord. Your ass belongs to me.”
“After Buster went down, you should have walked away, Cricket. You’d made your point.” Warden Jellybelly orbits and leans his hefty frame against the windowpane.
I imagine the glass shattering and Lumpy LaChance tumbling out ass-over-teakettle. The last thing I see before he’s gone forever is an F painted on the bottom of one shoe and a U painted on the other.
He shakes his head. “Keep it up, Cricket. You’ll be smirking all the way to a jail cell.”
This is effed. I didn’t do nothing wrong. Why am I the friggin’ villain instead of Pitbull? I hate this world. And every hypocritical lump of shit running it.
LaChance drops his Frankensteinian frame into his chair. He folds his pig-knuckle paws in front of his pink slug lips and scans the plastic award certificates on the wall like it’s his first time being here. His face sags. Something about the blend of remorse and shame in his expression tells me he doesn’t want to be here. And not just on account of me. His glassy blue eyes reveal this wasn’t his choice. This wasn’t the plan. This just happened. Like all things that just happen to losers. I mean, principal of a high school? What could be worse than that? A nun, I guess.
He drums his fingers on the desk. “After one pop to the nose, Pitbull very well may have learned his lesson and dropped the whole thing.”
This is LaChance’s biggest lie so far. My ass is starting to itch like I’m sitting in seawater. I glare into his eyes so he knows I know he’s lying.
“You never know,” he says.
I lean back and pull my hood on.
LaChance’s lips tighten, and he slams his fist on the desk. “The bottom line is you incapacitated Buster with one punch, and for the rest of the fight he was on the ground completely helpless.” LaChance quotation-marks the air when he says fight, which I find thoroughly offensive. Especially from a seven-foot monster who wouldn’t step into the ring with Pitbull for all the Astroglide in Provincetown. “What’s wrong with you? Do you take pleasure in hurting people? Do you enjoy inflicting pain on completely defenseless victims?”
LaChance’s cheeks are glowing like targets under his orange eyebrows. The urge to jump on his desk and hurl a bull’s-eye is making my hands quiver.
“Answer me, Cricket!”
I grip the arms of my chair. Rage bubbles float from my gut to my throat. Each one carries a message. But unlike LaChance’s hot air, my bubbles are inflated with truth.
Buster Pitswaller is the biggest bully and meanest asshole in the school.
Pop.
He abuses everyone, including teachers.
Pop. Pop.
There isn’t a person in this school who wouldn’t love to kick the ever-lovin shit out of him, including teachers.
Pop. Pop. Pop.
But no one does because they’re either too scared, too weak, or too shackled-up by rules.
Pop. Pop. Pop. Pop.
But not me ’cause I ain’t scared (well, a little), I fight back, and fuck rules.
Pop. Pop. Pop. Pop. Pop.
He started it and I’m the one getting booted square in the blame sack.
Pop. Pop. Pop. Pop. Pop. Pop.
LaChance knows goddamn well what woulda happened tomorrow if I had stopped at one punch.
Pop. Pop. Pop. Pop. Pop. Pop. P
op.
How the hell can he leave the whole shithole world flipped upside down with all them truth bubbles trapped inside?
Pop. Pop. Pop. Pop. Pop. Pop. Pop. Pop.
While Pitbull strolls off into the sunset with his tasty squeeze.
Pop. Pop. Pop. Pop. Pop. Pop. Pop. Pop. Pop.
Fuck that! I ain’t living in that world. Screw Pitbull. Screw LaChance. And screw this whole friggin’ school. Go ahead, kick me out. See if I care.
Pop. Pop. Pop. Pop. Pop. Pop. Pop. Pop. Pop. Pop.
“I’m telling you right now, Cricket. You’re not leaving this office until I get an explanation. We can sit here all night for all I care. I want to know what this fight was about, why you didn’t walk away, and why you attacked Buster so viciously after he was down. I want some answers right NOW, mister!”
POP. POP. POP. POP. POP. POP. POP. POP. POP. POP. SNAP.
I jump out of my seat and push my hood off. I step forward until my thighs are against LaChance’s faux-wood desk. I stare into his fat, hairy face. It’s a hard stare. The kind of stare that tells him what I’m thinking without words. His bulging blue eyes tell me he gets my meaning. I turn and head out the door.
In the hallway, an old framed photograph on the wall catches my attention. I lean in. It’s LaChance standing beside two rows of smiling kids. Well, they’re not all smiling. A dirty runt at the far end of the front row is scrunching a tough-guy scowl under the hood of his oversize Salvation Army sweatshirt.
My chest tightens and my forehead warms. Memories of drop-off day eight years ago flood my brain. The wrought-iron gate under the giant Naskeag Home for Boys sign. The granite gargoyles guarding the foyer. The rows of metal prison beds. The stainless-steel bathtub that looked like a giant mixing bowl. The click-click-click of the body snatcher’s heels marching past my bed in the middle of the night.