Bruiser

by Neal Shusterman

  “Hey, can we join you guys,” Katrina asks, “and make it a foursome?”

  The Bruiser shrugs like he doesn’t care; and Brontë throws up her hands, giving up all hope of getting rid of me. “Sure,” she says miserably, “why not.”

  “You haven’t introduced me to your friend,” I say, all daisies and sunshine.

  Brontë looks like she might become physically ill. “Brewster, this is my brother, Tennyson. Tennyson, this is Brewster.”

  “Hey,” says the Bruiser, shaking my hand. His eyes are an ugly pea green, and his huge hand is greasy, the way your hand gets after you’ve eaten a bag of chips. After shaking, I wipe my hand on my pants. He notices. I’m glad.

  Katrina narrows her eyes at him, studying him. “I’ve got a class with you, haven’t I?” She knows the Bruiser but just doesn’t recognize him out of his natural environment.

  “English,” he says in a dead, flat voice. This guy is the king of one-word answers—probably all his brain can hold at one time. He sets for his shot. It’s almost comical; his golf club is much too small for him, as is his shirt—either he outgrew it, or it shrunk a few sizes after he got it. The overall effect is very Winnie-the-Pooh, without the pot belly or cuteness. He hits the ball too hard, it bounces off the course, and it gets swallowed by a topiary hedge shaped like a walrus.

  “Tough break,” I say. “That’ll cost ya.”

  “It’s only a game,” he grumbles, then lumbers off in search of his ball. Katrina smacks her next ball and follows it to the far end of the hole, leaving me alone with Brontë, who gets in my face the second Katrina is out of earshot.

  “You are going to pay for this in the worst way!” Brontë snarls. “I haven’t figured out how; but when I do, you will suffer.”

  I look toward the walrus bush. “I think your date was distracted by something shiny. I’d better go help him find his ball.” I saunter off, leaving her fuming.

  He’s around the other side of the huge walrus bush, fighting pine branch flippers to get at his ball, poking the club into the shrub. I get in there right beside him, force my way deep into the branches, and snatch up his ball. I hold it out to him, and he reaches for it; but instead of giving it to him, I grab him by his shirt, pulling him close to me, and I hiss in his face.

  “I don’t care what you think is going on between you and my sister, but it’s not happening, comprende? My sister doesn’t know what you’re all about, but I do.”

  He looks at me with dumb hate in his swampy eyes but says nothing.

  “Am I getting through that rock skull of yours, or do I have to pound it in through your ears?”

  “Get your hands off me.”

  I grip his shirt a little harder. I think maybe I’ve got some chest hairs in there, but he doesn’t show the pain. “Sorry, I didn’t hear you.”

  “I said, Get your stinking hands off me or I’m gonna find a new use for this golf club.”

  That’s just the kind of thing I’m expecting to hear from a guy like this. I don’t let him go. “Let’s see what use you’ve got in mind,” I say.

  He doesn’t do anything. I didn’t think he would. Finally I let him go. “Stay away from my sister,” I tell him.

  He grabs the ball from my hand and strides back to Brontë. “I don’t feel like playing anymore,” he says, and stalks off with Brontë hurrying behind him. She throws me a gaze of pure, unadulterated hatred, and I wave. My mission of coercion is accomplished.

  Katrina, who did not care for the way she played this hole, claims herself a do over. She comes up beside me and watches the retreat of my sister and the Swamp Thang. “Where are they going?”

  “Their separate ways,” I say. Katrina swings, and her ball bounces up, wedging in the miniature girders of the Eiffel Tower.

  “I hate the Eiffel Tower,” she says, and I smile at her, secretly relishing my victory.

  Sometimes you have to take control of a situation. Sometimes you have to be the dominant force; otherwise chaos becomes law. I mean, look at lacrosse. This is a game that started as Native American warfare, with warriors breaking their enemies’ bones with their sticks as they carried the ball for miles. Even soccer was played with human heads once upon a time. It took the brute force of civilization to tame all that into lawful competition. But one look at the Bruiser and you know that there’s nothing lawful about him. The fact that Brontë can’t see that scares me, because there will come a time when I can’t protect her…and what if someday she finds out the hard way about guys who still see life as head-kicking warfare. You hear stories all the time.

  So hate me all you want, Brontë, for what I did here; but that will pass—and someday, if we’re lucky, we’ll both look back at this day and you’ll say “Thank you, Tenny, for caring enough to protect me from the big and the bad.”

  4) REVELATION

  Brontë comes into my room that night, grabs me by the shoulders, and pushes me back onto my bed so hard, my head hits the wall.

  “Ow!”

  “You’re pond scum!” she says to me.

  I don’t deny the charge, but sometimes pond scum prevails.

  “What did you say to him behind the walrus?” she asks.

  “I read him his Miranda rights,” I told her. “He has the right to remain silent; he has the right to find some other girl to drool over—y’ know, the normal things you’d say to a criminal.”

  “He’s never been arrested!” she said. “Those are just stories made up by idiots like you. He’s just misunderstood; but I, for one, am making the effort to understand him. He will not give in to your threats; and I will not stop seeing him, no matter how much bullying you do!”

  That makes me laugh. “Bullying? Give me a break.”

  “It’s true, Tennyson! You’re a bully. You’ve always been a bully.”

  “Says who?” I immediately imagine punching out anyone who might call me a bully, and then realize that my own thoughts are proving Brontë’s point, which just makes me want to punch someone even more. This is what we call a vicious cycle, and I don’t feel all that good about it. I never thought of myself as a bully; and although this isn’t the first such accusation, it’s the first one that breaks through my defenses and hits home. Suddenly I realize that maybe, in some people’s eyes, I am. This is what we call a revelation. Revelations are never convenient, and always annoying.

  “Stay away from Brewster!” she warns me, then she turns to leave; but I don’t let her go.

  “I get it, okay?” I tell her. She lingers by the door. “He’s the first boy you like who likes you back, so it feels kind of special. I get it.”

  She turns to me, some of her steam cooling in the kettle. “He’s not the first,” she says. “Just the first in my adult life.”

  I find it funny that we’re the same age, give or take a quarter of an hour, and yet she considers herself an adult.

  “Be careful, Brontë…because you have to admit, this guy is kind of…beneath you.”

  She looks at me before she leaves, sadly shaking her head. “You be careful, Tenny. Being a snob can make a person very, very ugly.”

  5) FACTOIDS

  I never considered myself a bully. I never considered myself a snob. But then, who does? There’s a way to objectively analyze it. All you have to do is look at the facts.

  Fact #1) I’m reasonably smart. I’m no genius, but I get good grades without ever having to try. It really ticks off the kids who have to study their brains out to make the grade. It’s not like I brag about it, but my mere existence is enough to breed resentment in certain circles.

  Fact # 2) I’m coordinated. Not my fault either, I just came that way. It made it easier for me to excel at sports when I was a kid and to build the skills to be a contender in quite a few of them.

  Fact #3) I’m reasonably decent looking. I’m no pretty boy, and I don’t have six-pack abs or anything; but when it comes to looks, confidence counts for a lot, and I’m nothing if not confident. Between you and me, I thi
nk I project a lot better looking than I actually am.

  Fact #4) We’re not exactly hurting for money. We’re by no means rich, but we don’t go hungry either. Both Mom and Dad have tenure at the university and pull in decent salaries. They drive modest but respectable cars, and I suspect that when Brontë and I start driving, we’ll both get our own modest but respectable cars.

  So, does all this make me a snob? Is it wrong for me to think that the Bruiser, with his creepy family and slimy ways, is somehow lower than me? Yes, it does make you a snob, I hear Brontë’s voice telling me in my head. It does, Tennyson, because there’s a fine line between confidence and arrogance. There’s a fine line between being assertive and being a bully. And you’re on the wrong side of both lines.

  We’re not telepathic twins or anything, but sometimes I wonder because once in a while I have fictional conversations with her. It irks me that, even in my imagination, she can always, always have the last word.

  6) DECIMATED

  I don’t know where my head is at on Monday. Maybe it’s because I feel a little bit guilty for being so mean to the Bruiser. Anyway, I do my best to suspend judgment on him; and, for Brontë’s sake, I try to keep an open mind.

  It’s not until the end of the day that I run into him in the most awkward and uncomfortable of situations.

  I’m early into the locker room for lacrosse practice, and he’s just getting done with PE. He’s the last kid there—apparently he doesn’t dress with the other kids; he waits until the rest of them are gone.

  The instant I see him, I know why.

  The first thing I see is his back. It’s enough to scare anyone. There’s damage there, strange damage. It’s impossible to tell what has caused it. Scars and pockmarks; discolorations; a big bruise on his shoulder, yellowed around the edges. His back is decimated, like the cratered surface of the moon.

  I just stand there staring. He slips on his shirt, not even knowing that I’m there. Then he turns around and catches me watching him. He knows I’ve seen his back. I stare for a moment too long.

  “What do you want?” he asks without looking me in the eye.

  I want to match his nasty tone, but I know I have to curb my bully/snob factor. Letting something like that run unchecked will turn you into a creep. My one saving grace is that true creeps don’t ever know they are; and if I’m worried about becoming one, maybe it means I won’t. The only thing I can think of to say is “So what kind of name is Brewster? Were you named after someone?”

  He looks at me like it’s a trick question. “What do you care?”

  “I don’t. I’m just wondering.”

  He doesn’t answer me; he just puts on his jacket: a beat-up leather bomber that looks like it has actually seen several generations of war. Still, the scars on the jacket are nothing compared to what I saw on his back. “Cool jacket,” I say. “Where’d you get it?”

  “Thrift store,” he answers.

  I hold back the urge to say “It figures,” and instead I just say, “Cool.”

  He stands facing me now, shoulders squared. Gunslinger position. It’s a stance that says “C’mon, I dare you.” He doesn’t trust me, but that’s just fine. I don’t trust him either. I can’t even say I dislike him any less; but now I’m curious and worried, and not just for Brontë but maybe a little bit for him, too. Who could do things like that to his body and get away with it, especially to a guy as big as him?

  “So, what is it you want?” he asks, “because I got things to do.”

  “Who says I want anything?” That’s when I realize that I’m in gunslinger position, too, blocking his way out. I step aside to let him pass. I think he expects me to trip him, or kick him or something. I wonder if he’s disappointed when I don’t.

  “My great-grandfather,” he says as he passes. “That’s who I was named after.”

  And he’s gone, just as a bunch of kids from my lacrosse team enter.

  7) RECEPTACLE

  Our parents never spanked us. They come from the brave new world of time-out and positive reinforcement.

  I’ve always been a very physical kid, though, always using my fists or my body as a battering ram. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been hauled into the principal’s office for fighting. I’ve given my share of black eyes and bloody noses and gotten my share of them as well—and playing lacrosse, well, there’s never a time when I don’t have some bruise on my body, somewhere.

  But the kind of things I saw on the Bruiser made his nickname hit home for me. None of those marks could be explained away innocently. He didn’t get that way from fighting, or from sports. He got that way from being the human receptacle of someone else’s brutality.

  8) OBTUSE

  Mom teaches a class on nineteenth-century realism on Monday nights, so that’s Dad’s night to not cook. He orders fast food just as skillfully as Mom does. The three of us sit at the dinner table eating KFC on flimsy paper plates with plastic sporks. Whoever invented the spork should be killed. Dad peels the breading from his chicken and gives it to Brontë, allowing her to savor all eleven herbs and spices that make it so finger-lickin’ good.

  “I saw the Bruiser today,” I tell Brontë as we eat. “Brewster, I mean.”

  “And how did you torment him?” she snaps.

  I don’t take the bait. Instead I say, “It was in the locker room. He had his shirt off.” I take a bite of my chicken, chew, and swallow. “Have you ever seen him with his shirt off?”

  Dad looks up from his skinless chicken and talks with his mouth full. “Exactly why would she have seen him with his shirt off?”

  “Oh, puh-lease!” she says to him. “Let’s not get out the heart paddles, Dad; he’s never been bare chested in my presence.” Now Brontë turns her attention to me, studying me, trying to figure out what sinister maneuver I’m working here. The truth is, I’m just curious as to what she knows, or at least what she suspects.

  “Why would you ask that question?” she says; but since I don’t know any more than what I saw, I don’t want to tell her.

  “Never mind,” I say, “it’s not important.” I try unsuccessfully to scrape the last of the mashed potatoes from the bottom of the Styrofoam cup with my spork.

  “You are so obtuse!” Brontë says, exasperated.

  I am calm in my response. “Do you mean stupid, or angular? You need to be more specific with your insults.”

  “Jerk!”

  “No thanks,” I tell her. “I much prefer the Colonel’s seasonings to Jamaican spice.”

  It probably would be in my best interests to leave Brontë alone for the rest of the night and not push things, but I can’t do that. After dinner I go up to Brontë’s room. Her door is open, but still I knock timidly. I’m never timid, but tonight I am.

  Brontë must notice because she looks up at me from her homework, and her standard expression of annoyance changes. Now she looks curious, maybe even a little concerned, because she asks, “What’s wrong?”

  I shrug. “Nothing. I just wanted to talk to you about Brewster.”

  “I don’t want to talk to you,” Brontë says.

  “I know,” I say to her, “but I think you should listen.”

  She crosses her arms, clearly ready to dismiss anything I say.

  “You know where he lives, right?” I ask.

  “He lives in a house,” Brontë says, “just like we do.”

  “And have you met his family? His uncle, I mean, the one he lives with?”

  “Where are you going with this?” Brontë asks.

  “Does he talk about his uncle?”

  “No,” says Brontë.

  “Maybe you should ask him.” Then I leave it in her hands and turn to go; but when I glance back, I can see her staring at her homework, pencil in hand but doing no work. Good. She’s thinking about it. I don’t know what she’ll do, but she’s thinking about it. I don’t even know what I want her to do.

  9) DETERIORATING

  Our neighborhood has the d
istinction of being one of the fastest-growing planned communities in the state. Look at an empty field, now blink; and when you open your eyes, there’s a whole housing development there. Blink again; this time there’s a new mall right next to it. I can imagine farmers staring, bewildered, at a jungle of pink stucco and red-tile roofs, wondering how their cornfield became a subdivision while they weren’t looking. In reality those farmers sold their plots of land for ridiculous prices and made out like bandits, so I can’t feel sorry for them. But then there are whole plots of land where the owners held out for more money and missed the boat.

  The Bruiser lives in such a place. It had once been a small farm, but it hadn’t been cultivated for a long time. Crops had long ago given way to a wild field of weedy brush, a deteriorating eyesore amid the perfectly manicured lawns of our little neighborhood.

  There’s a bull on the property, old and a little too tired to be cranky. It seems to serve no purpose, not even to itself. Occasionally kids will torment it on the way to school. It’ll snort, make like it’s going to charge the fence, and then give up, realizing that it’s not worth the effort. I imagine the Bruiser is somewhat like that bull.

  The day I follow the Bruiser home is the day the bull dies.

  10) INTERCESSION

  I’m not exactly what you would call stealthy, but the Bruiser isn’t all that observant either, so I’m able to follow him all the way home. I don’t know what I expect to find, but curiosity is rarely rational. Besides, it’s easy to tell myself that it’s more than just curiosity. It’s what lawyers call “due diligence”—necessary research—and I’m not even doing it for myself; it’s for Brontë’s sake, although if she knew I was tailing her boyfriend, she’d rip me a new digestive tract.