Project X

by Jim Shepard

  “What did you say to me?” he goes.

  “I said I don’t fucking believe this,” I tell him.

  He gives me a two-handed shove and I go flying.

  “You’re just gonna steal my fucking ball?” I yell when I get up.

  He comes at me again and I take off. When I get a little ways away, I yell back at him, “It’s not even mine. It’s my little brother’s.”

  They keep walking. The kid looks like he’s asking his father something. His towel’s covering his back and trailing in the grass.

  “You hear me, you fuck?” I scream.

  They keep walking.

  I run after them, to follow them home and break every fucking window in their house. But they get into a station wagon outside the gate and drive away. I try to read the license plate and then fall on my butt after they take the corner. I wipe my eyes and kick my feet out, like I’m having a tantrum.

  What were you gonna do? I think to myself. Report them to Motor Vehicles?

  12

  “You’re eating again,” my dad says to me at dinner. “He’s eating again,” he tells my mother when I don’t say anything.

  “I see that,” my mom tells him back. She’s made pork chops and a salad and I’m even eating the salad.

  “I’m eating, too,” Gus volunteers.

  “So you are,” my dad tells him.

  “So you almost finished?” my mom asks my dad. Gus spills his milk. My dad lifts his plate and my mom goes to get a sponge.

  “Maybe I picked the wrong topic,” he says. “Who really cares about the World Bank?” He turns to me. “You care about the World Bank?”

  “Not right this second,” I tell him.

  “There you have it,” my dad says.

  “Well, Edwin’s going to be in school,” my mom tells him. She finishes mopping the table and squeezes the sponge out in the sink. “So he’s not going to be able to make it anyway.”

  My dad puts his plate back down. “What’s the matter with you?” he asks me.

  “What do you mean?” I go.

  “You’re making little noises,” he says.

  “I am?” I go.

  He imitates one.

  “I’m doing that?” I ask.

  My mom nods. Gus makes the sound, too.

  “Something on your mind?” my dad asks.

  “I don’t know,” I tell him.

  “The old glass head,” he goes.

  I put my elbows on the sides of my dish and hold my head steady with my hands. I don’t look at either of them, or at Gus.

  “After dinner, you have to have your medicine,” my mom reminds Gus.

  “No,” Gus goes.

  “Is that for his ear?” I ask, and she nods.

  Gus complains for a while and we all finish eating.

  “So you don’t want to talk about what’s bothering you?” my dad asks me.

  “Maybe in a little while,” I tell him.

  “Mom?” Gus asks.

  “Something at school?” my mom asks me. She’s got her back to me because she’s carried her dish to the sink.

  “I don’t know,” I tell her. “We’ll see.”

  “Mom?” Gus asks.

  She looks over her shoulder at me and makes an exaggerated disappointed face. My dad gets a pencil from the counter and writes some notes on his paper napkin.

  “I think your father’s working too hard,” my mom says to me when she comes back to the table.

  “Hard but not well,” my dad goes. He draws a line on his napkin from one note to another.

  “Mom?” Gus asks.

  “Your ear hurt?” I ask him.

  “Yeah,” he goes. He tilts his head and puts his hand on it. His hand’s still holding his fork.

  “You’re getting pork in your hair,” my mom goes. She clears my plate, and my dad’s.

  Gus has to finish before he gets dessert. I sit upstairs on my bed with my hands back on the sides of my face. I can hear my dad talking to himself in the downstairs bathroom. “Nobody flushes in this house,” he says. Gus is singing to himself instead of eating. His new favorite song is “I’ve Got the Whole World in My Pants.”

  He quiets down. My dad turns on the TV. Down the street a dog starts doing the same bark for ten minutes in a row.

  I find myself squatting over by the bookcase. I stopped flipping through the serial killers book when I got to the picture of Richard Speck. He doesn’t look like anybody I know.

  “Where’d you get that book?” my mom asks from over my shoulder. She smiles when I jump. I didn’t hear her come in. “I can’t believe they have books like that for kids,” she says.

  “It’s not for kids,” I tell her.

  “That’s for sure,” she says. She puts away some laundry she’s folded in my drawer and picks up my green pants. “These are about ready to go out, aren’t they?” she asks.

  “Leave them,” I tell her.

  “We can try to find you a new pair like these,” she says.

  “They’re okay,” I tell her.

  She drops them and holds up her hands like I’ve gotten all bent out of shape. “Why’re you crying?” she asks. She kneels down next to me. “What’s wrong?”

  “I bit my tongue,” I tell her.

  She wants to see, so I open my mouth. “I don’t see it,” she says.

  “It’s on the bottom,” I go. I can’t tell whether she believes me or not. She gets to her feet and watches me for a minute, then picks up the laundry basket and heads downstairs. I hear her saying something to my dad.

  I lie down and slide under the bed. I push my hands against the planks holding up the box spring. I hear Gus get halfway up the stairs and then stop. “Where’s my ball?” he asks somebody.

  “What?” my mom says. She’s in the TV room with my dad.

  “Where’s my Nerf ball?” Gus goes.

  “I think you left it outside,” she tells him.

  “I want it,” he goes.

  “Didn’t you leave it outside?” she asks.

  “I want it,” he goes.

  “Well, we can’t get it now,” she tells him. “We’ll get it tomorrow.”

  He’s quiet a minute and then keeps coming upstairs. I can see his feet inside my room. “Edwin?” he says.

  He goes back downstairs. “Where’s Edwin?” he asks. “He’s up in his room,” my mom tells him.

  He comes back upstairs. “Edwin?” he calls.

  I’m crying again. “Edwin?” he calls.

  “I’m under here,” I tell him.

  He gets down on his hands and knees and looks under the bed. He laughs and crawls under with me. He’s small enough to slide up next to me and roll over on his back. “Are we hiding?” he asks.

  “Yeah,” I tell him. We lie like that until my mom comes up to put him to bed.

  “Are we sleeping under the bed tonight?” she asks after she sings him his song and shuts his door. Now I can see her feet where his were. She’s wearing her poofy slippers. “Edwin?” she asks.

  “I’m just lying here a minute,” I go.

  Her feet turn and the bed creaks when she sits on it. The box spring sags closer. “Can I ask you a question?” she asks.

  “Uh-huh,” I go.

  “What’s wrong?” she asks.

  “Nothing,” I go.

  “I’m talking to a bed, here,” she goes. “So something’s wrong.”

  I’m crying again. I wipe my face so hard it hurts.

  “Edwin?” she goes. I try not to make any noise. She gets off the bed and gets on her hands and knees and lowers her head so she can see. “What’s the matter?” she asks. Honey?”

  I wish I were Gus. “I hurt my face,” I tell her.

  “What’d you do?” she asks. She reaches a hand under and touches it.

  “Rubbed it too hard,” I tell her.

  “Oh, Edwin,” she goes.

  I slide out and sit up next to her. Tell her about it, the baby part of me goes. I can just imagine Flake
’s face. “Oh, Ma,” I go.

  She hugs me. “It’s okay,” she goes.

  “What is?” I go.

  “Whatever it is,” she says. She rubs circles on my back. “Sometimes we can’t handle stuff,” she tells me. “Sometimes it’s just too much.”

  “I can handle anything,” I tell her.

  “Well, don’t get mad,” she says. “What’re you getting mad for?”

  “I’m gonna take a shower,” I go. I get up.

  “Wait. What’re you getting mad about?” she says.

  “Thanks,” I go.

  “Honey, you’re just a little guy,” she tells me. “Don’t take everything so hard.”

  “Wait,” she says.

  I shut the bathroom door behind me and turn the shower on.

  “Shit,” she says.

  She finally asks through the bathroom door if we can talk tomorrow, and when I say yes she goes downstairs. I turn off the shower and listen. After I’m sure she’s not coming back I dry off and climb into bed naked. I get a hard-on. “I don’t know what you think you’re doing,” I say to it.

  I’m still sniffing and crying. I can’t even stay in bed. It feels like there are bugs in it. Every time I pull the sheets down and turn on the lights, there’s nothing there. I take another shower. I sit in the tub and let the water pound my head until it starts to get cold and I have to turn it off.

  I have these weird, dozy, half-dreams sitting in my chair. In one I’m a cowboy. When I remember it it’s a little embarrassing I made myself a cowboy.

  I go to the window. Down the street, a few lights are still on.

  What will it be like on Saturday? Or a week from Saturday?

  I walk all over the room. Sometimes I get down in a squat and press my hands together until they shake. Then I get up again and keep walking.

  I grab the phone and dial the first three numbers of our number and then anything, any other four numbers. An answering machine picks up. “Welcome to Target World,” I go after the beep, and then I hang up.

  It’s no fun, though, so I don’t do it again.

  I go back to the chair. I go back under the bed. This is unreal, I think. This is unreal. But then I think that when people say something’s unreal, they just mean it’s too real.

  “Your brother’s upset,” my mom says at breakfast. Gus is crying in the bathroom.

  “About what?” I go.

  “He can’t find his ball,” she says. “You seen it?”

  I nod. “I’ll find it,” I go. I’ll buy him another one, I figure. They have them at the drugstore, and I can ride my bike there.

  “Nice way to start the day,” my dad says, sitting down next to me. Gus hears him and starts wailing.

  “Don’t make fun of him,” my mom tells him.

  “I’m not making fun of him,” my dad goes. “I’m just commenting on our happy home.” She pours him some coffee. “Did he look outside?” he asks.

  “He says he looked all over,” my mom tells him.

  “I looked all over,” Gus says from the bathroom.

  “And how are you today?” my dad asks me.

  “I’m good,” I tell him.

  “You look great,” he tells me back.

  “I think I know where his ball is,” I tell my mom.

  “Well, tell him that,” she says. She walks over to the bathroom door. “Honey? Edwin says he knows where your ball is.”

  “Where?” Gus wails.

  “You’ll have to ask him, honey,” she goes. She comes back into the kitchen.

  The bathroom door opens and Gus walks into the room. “You got it?” he asks.

  “I think maybe Flake borrowed it,” I go. “I’ll get it from him.”

  “Flake has it?” my dad asks.

  “I think Flake borrowed it,” I go. “I’ll get it back,” I tell Gus. “I promise.”

  “Now?” Gus asks.

  “Not now,” I go. I’m so tired it’s like I can’t see. “When I come home from school.”

  I finally get my books out of my locker before homeroom and somebody pokes me under the arm and tips them all over the floor.

  “Congratulations,” Michelle says when I turn around. “I told you it was a great idea.”

  “It wasn’t your idea,” Tawanda tells her. “It was how he did it.”

  I assume they mean the tree with the heads. I start collecting books off the floor, and Dickhead goes by and golfs a paperback with his foot all the way down the hall. A few seventh-grade girls twist to avoid it as it sails by.

  “What an asshole,” Michelle says, but when he turns on her she looks thrilled.

  “What’re you gonna do about it?” he says to me.

  “Oh, I got something in mind,” I go. I collect my other books and stand up.

  “You got something in mind?” he goes.

  “Mr. Lopez,” the vice principal says to him. “Come with me.”

  Michelle and Tawanda make gloating noises. “Where you going, Edwin?” Tawanda says to me. “Don’t you be a stranger,” she calls when I’m almost at the other end of the hall, and Michelle laughs. “I got plans for you.”

  Before third period I pass the gym. I pass the side door where we’re going to jam the wedge.

  Before fourth period outside of math there’s a group of kids standing around laughing and making a lot of noise about a piece of paper. “Make Edwin take it,” one kid goes when I walk up. I can’t even get into the room.

  This fat kid gets out of the way and Bethany’s behind him. “Here, Edwin,” she goes. She hands me a different piece of paper that’s folded into a thick triangle. On the outside somebody’s written Sex Test.

  “Fischetti has the lowest score so far,” some kid behind her says.

  “Let me see that,” Flake goes. He walks over from across the hall.

  “No, no,” the fat kid says. “Don’t let him see it.”

  Flake holds out his hand. Bethany smiles at him. “Roddy, tell Edwin we need him to fill this out,” she goes.

  He looks at me like this is my fault.

  “Hey, I don’t wanna do this,” I tell him.

  He walks away. “Hey,” I call after him. The bell rings.

  Bethany puts her hand on the sex test in my hand and leans closer. “This is for science,” she goes, and her friends laugh. Everybody heads to their classes. Some kids have to run.

  We both go into math. I leave the sex test on my desk throughout the period. I don’t open it. The teacher comes down the aisle while somebody’s putting a problem on the board and scoops it up and looks at the title, then throws it in his waste-basket when he gets back to the front of the room.

  Ms. Meier finds me in the lunchroom and hands me my copy of A Separate Peace. I left it in her classroom and apparently need it for the assignment tonight.

  “How’d you know it was mine?” I ask her. I don’t remember writing my name in it.

  “Who else would cross out the A and write No over it?” she goes.

  “Mr. Hanratty,” the vice principal says, when I come out of the lunch line with my tray. “A minute of your time.”

  “Now?” I go.

  “You can eat while we talk,” he says.

  We sit at a table full of sixth-graders, including Budzinski. He keeps his eye on us the whole time. I feel like making a gesture toward him, like we’re talking about him.

  “I didn’t do anything,” I go. “I was just picking up my books and he kicked one down the hall.”

  “Oh, this isn’t about Mr. Lopez,” the vice principal goes.

  I offer him a boiled carrot.

  He chuckles. “We’ll be sending a note home as well, but I just wanted to remind you that you’re going to be starting that socialization workshop next week,” he goes.

  “Oh, God,” I go. I put down my Salisbury steak.

  “It’s not going to be that bad,” he goes.

  “When?” I go.

  “It’s not going to be that bad,” he goes. “You need to give
it a chance.”

  “Oh, God,” I go.

  “Give it a chance,” he tells me.

  I push my tray away. I can’t be in school one more minute. “Who else is in it?” I ask him.

  He tells me. It’s even worse than I thought. Dickhead, Weensie, Hogan. Two girls I never heard of. Another kid I heard bit the head off a parrot.

  “It’s after school,” he goes. “So you won’t miss any class time.”

  “Oh, good,” I go.

  “The feeling is that you can’t go on like this,” he tells me. “That something radical needs to happen.”

  “I think you’re right,” I tell him back. I’m tearing up again. In front of him. In front of the lunchroom. “I think you’re right.”

  I go to the nurse’s office. Another headache. I start throwing up, too. During sixth period there’s a knock on the door of the little room where they put me, and when I pull the facecloth off my eyes, Ms. Arnold pokes her head in and comes over to my cot.

  “What’s the class doing?” I ask her.

  “I gave them an assignment,” she says. She puts her hand on my leg. “Are you okay, Edwin?”

  “I got sick,” I tell her.

  “I see that,” she says. She smiles the way she did before. I think about her touching my cheek. I start to get a hard-on and pull a knee up to hide it. This is unbelievable.

  “Is your stomach bothering you?” she asks.

  “Why’re you visiting me?” I ask her back. She’s the last person I want there. When she touches me again I jump.

  “Sorry,” she says. She looks embarrassed. “I was looking through your portfolio,” she finally adds.

  We keep them in the room, in long narrow cubbies.

  “I found the one you called Mental,” she says.

  “So?” I go.

  “Want to tell me about it?” she asks.

  “You saw it,” I go.

  “How long’d it take you to do it?” she asks.

  “I don’t know,” I go.

  “It’s quite a piece,” she says.

  It’s a big sheet and I filled it with half-inch marks. Sometimes the marks went through the paper. I did it to count minutes the way guys in prison count days. I kept it underneath other things I was working on. By the end it looked black, when you stepped back. There’s like eight million half-inch marks on it. I wrote Mental at the top of it as a joke, after Tawanda saw it.