“So,” she snaps, “want to explain yourself?”
“It’s a long story.”
“I have time,” she says, taking a deep drag from her smoke. “And so do you.”
“This is gonna be unpleasant, you realize.”
“I’d have never guessed.” She shoots a smoke ring in my face. “Talk.”
I spew, starting with Renée telling me about Casey’s love for Randall and ending with me chasing my girlfriend to a taxi, with all the drama and bloodshed in between. No emotion crosses her face the whole time; she just nods every so often to show me she’s listening. I leave out certain parts of the whole ordeal—the night spent at Renée’s place, the fight with Terry, things like that. By the time I wrap the story up, we’ve motored through three cigarettes each, with no finish line in sight.
“Okay,” she says, little ghosts of smoke escaping her mouth with every new syllable. “So you and your friend beat each other half to death because you revealed something about your friend. All this while your girlfriend was there. That nice girl I met earlier today.”
“Mmm-hmm.”
After a moment of contemplation, she looks at me with death-ray eyes. “Christ, Locke, I don’t even know what to think anymore.”
Thank God for my bout of apathetic emptiness, ’cause otherwise I’d be cursing out my mother right now. “Wow, no Mom sympathy? Can I at least get a bowl of Chicken and Stars out of this, maybe a glass of choco—”
“I mean, he’s your friend,” she says, shaking her head. “He’s someone you care about. I mean, Jesus, I don’t blame you for telling Randall about how Casey feels—he’s your friend too, I know, and he was upset—but even if your friend who…who has angries like yours is the first person to throw a punch, you hold back. You don’t beat up your friends. You turn the other cheek and forgive them for being stupid or selfish or wrong. Being in someone’s life means overlooking their faults sometimes and being the bigger man, not retaliating against them.”
“That’s very Christian of you.”
“It’s very HUMAN of me!” she bellows, and jabs the lit end of smoke at my face. She’s close to tears. “This isn’t about philosophy or faith, it’s about basic human treatment! You don’t DO this! To anyone. Have you seen yourself in the mirror?”
She’s got a point. “Okay, yeah. I look pretty…”
“Hideous? Gruesome?”
“Oh, thanks, Mom, you’re a peach.”
“LOOK at you! This is the face of what these spasms of anger are gonna lead to if they keep going on! You look in the mirror one day and you see this stranger with a busted-up lip and a dazed look in his eyes, and you want to know who he is and how he got there! Don’t, honey; Locke, you’re so much better than that. Come on.”
She pulls hard on her cigarette and then, with a flourish, jams it into the ashtray. Her mouth opens as if to say something, but then she just goes quiet and shakes her head again. Finally, with nothing else to say, she stands and starts getting dinner ready.
“So, that’s it?” I say. “What do I do, Mom? There’s no way to fix this. The venom’s ruined everything. I don’t know how to go back.”
“No, you know what, enough of this,” she says, waving me aside. “I officially divorce myself from this issue. Until you’re ready to get yourself together, I’m not listening to any of this venom bullshit. I love you to death, Locke, and I always will, no matter what, but enough is enough. You want to be a thug, go for it. You want to get better, work on it and then talk to me.”
“Mom, please,” I say. Now I’m the one close to tears. “I don’t know what to do.”
“That makes two of us,” she snaps, and turns to leave the room. “Start thinking.”
The next day is Sunday, thank God, so I hole up in my room and recuperate. It’s not as bad as it sounds. I get most of my homework done and manage to replace my Band-Aids every couple of hours without making my wounds reopen (lucky me). My mother doesn’t try to baby me either, just announces when food’s ready and reminds me that I have a meeting with Dr. Yeski the next day. The military vibe goes on all day, with my mother playing the general and Lon playing the spy who peers at me over chairs and couches to get a good look at someone who’s taken a decent beating. And all I can do is laugh and think, Man, I wonder how Casey looks.
Somewhere in the evening, out of both loneliness and worry, I call Randall. When he hears my voice in response to his greeting, he sighs.
“How are you? How’s Casey?” I ask.
“Casey is, thankfully, not in the hospital,” he says, his voice heavy with the fatigue of having to tell this story over and over again. “Things were shaky for a little bit, ’cause he kept coughing up blood, but we think it’s just blood he swallowed over the course of the fight. I imagine you did the same thing. You knocked one of his teeth loose, though. I talked to his mom and dad, and they’ve decided not to press charges. You’re lucky for that.”
“You two have talked?”
“Yeah.”
“Are you…I mean, did you…was, uh…”
“Spit it out.”
“Are you with him?” I spit out.
“No, of course not. Don’t be stupid. Just because he’s in love with me and I’m taking care of him doesn’t mean that I’m going to fall for him. That’s hideously offensive to both me and Casey.”
“My mom called me hideous last night.”
“What can I tell you? Small world.”
I wait for him to answer my other question, but there’s only silence. “So, how are you?”
“Do you actually care?”
“Of course.”
“I’m tired and I’m hurt,” he says. “I’m sick of everyone overlooking their own feelings in favor of appearances or other people’s feelings. This thing was so blatantly indicative of how fucked-up we all are that there’s no point in trying to move on right now. This boil has been coming to a head for a while, and now that it’s been opened up, we need to let the infection run dry. Until then, you’re all on friendship probation. Don’t come to me for advice or instructions, because I’m all out of ideas.
“How’s Renée doing?”
“I don’t know, she hasn’t been answering my calls.”
“Do you think she’s okay?”
“No.” The response makes me feel cold and stupid. “I’m not her fucking boyfriend, Locke,” he spits. “None of this is my doing, and it’s not my job. If I were you, though, I would prepare for the worst. Beats me why, but carnage is one of her turnoffs.”
“I’m really scared, Randall. I don’t know what to do.”
“Good.”
“You think she’s gonna dump me?”
“I would.” A pause. “I have to go. Take care of yourself, Locke, because at this point, I don’t think you have anyone coming to your aid.”
I decide to give Renée a call. I owe her that much. Randall’s wrong: I am her boyfriend, and I fucked up royally, but no matter what’s happened, I love her, and I know she loves me. I have faith in her. In us.
“Hello?”
“Renée?”
Click.
Okay. Let’s try that again.
I prepare myself for the shots of fire in my veins contrasting with the blood rising to my face, but the venom seems like a background presence now. It’s definitely still there, but the actual attacks seem to have ceased.
There’s crying in the background when the other end picks up. “Who is this?” says Andrew.
“Andrew, it’s Locke. Is Renée there?”
“Holy shit, Vinetti, I am going to fucking kill you tomorrow.”
“Andrew, please—”
“I asked for one thing, Vinetti. One thing. Keep her happy. Your ass is mine.”
“Andrew, there’s more going on here than you—”
“See you tomorrow, kid. Gonna bite off your fucking head.”
Click.
That was productive. Guess I’ll give her a night to think about things.
When I see Andrew outside school, I decide that my give-Renée-a-night-to-think idea was about as ineffective as my tell-Randall one. His friends hang back around him, waiting to see what his first move will be. They all look nervous. And stupid. It’s a sea of huge pants and stocking caps, huge jackets and attitude. Terry stands off to one side, shooting me a look that’s supposed to say that he’s not afraid of me, only his face looks like it was run through the dryer one too many times, and I know why.
I reach Andrew and stare up into his stony expression. We’re inches away. The air seems to vibrate around us.
“Should we go to a courtyard or park or something?”
Andrew raises an eyebrow. “Pardon?”
I shrug. “I’ve never been in, like, an official school-yard fight. I figured, y’know, they’d form a circle around us”—I motion to his fan club—“and we’d pace around for a while until you smacked the shit out of me.”
He examines my face and sneers. “Looks like the queer beat me to it, though, huh?”
“Yeah, the queer did a number on me. You wanna go talk?”
“Yeah,” he says, waving his friends away. “I’ll talk to you guys later. Me and Locke are gonna have a chat. Omar, tell Doc Raymond that I had a family thing to deal with and all that.” Terry snorts and makes a comment, which I’m pretty sure includes “motherfucker.” Andrew and I trudge toward Broadway. I light a cigarette and offer one to Andrew, but he turns it down.
“I thought you smoked.”
“I blaze mad trees, man, but don’t smoke the bogie.”
“Oh. Right.”
“I smoke weed,” he enunciates for my benefit, “but I do not smoke cigarettes. Jesus, watch some MTV, it’s like you were raised in a fridge.”
“Sorry. Guess I’m not as ‘stupid fresh’ as you are. Maybe I should hang out with ghetto idiots.” There’s silence, so it’s apparent that I’m doing the pursuing in this interaction. “How is she?”
“She’s not good,” he says, peering pensively into the distance like a Calvin Klein model. “It’s like something just broke in her, and everything in her head just sort of went disordered, right? Like it got all stirred up together.”
“Has she talked to you a lot about it?”
“Nah. Most of the time, it’s like she can’t even think of the words. She opens her mouth and says one or two things, and then starts crying.” He looks at his hands and rubs them together. “Not taking her meds no more either. It scares the shit out of me. I mean, she needs to take her medication or else she just…ahhhh. I worry, Vinetti. I worry.” He looks everywhere but at me. I don’t blame him.
“I’m really sorry, Andrew.”
“Ah, y’know…I’m not happy with you, kid. Blood has a lot of impact on my sister, and from what I heard…Fuck, look at you, it was obviously a bloody match. I think seeing two people she loved and trusted drawing so much blood from each other was just an overload. I think she’s scared that if she puts her faith into anyone, they’ll only end up hurting each other because of her. And it all results in big ol’ pools of blood, every time.”
Andrew was so much more comfortable in my mind as an idiot bully. His eloquence only makes him scarier. Still, I find myself walking steadily beside him, a cold numbness spreading through my arms, legs, face, and chest. It feels good, I suppose, in that I’m really beginning to consistently feel things again, but it also feels hideous in a way that the venom never did, all the guilt and pain without any of the fiery hatred that sent me zooming fist-first into the fray. I do realize, though, that it isn’t a truly-numb numbness like I’ve been feeling recently, just a chilling numbness. Which, I suppose, counts for something.
“Wow.”
“Yeah.”
“I’m so sorry, Andrew.”
“I told you, it happens.”
I light another cigarette with the butt of the one I was just smoking. If there was ever a time to chain-smoke straight through a pack, it’s now. Andrew looks at me disapprovingly and says, “Son, that shit’s gonna kill your ass so quickly.” Then he smiles like a goon and adds, “Though probably not before the faggot or myself do, apparently. I have to tell you, the urge to destroy you is so fucking intense, but seeing you only fills me with pity.”
I can’t help but chuckle. Again I make a mental note: just felt something. It’s strange, keeping my emotions logged, but after a period of pure nothing, it’s nice to be able to recognize an active feeling. “Yeah, well, you should see him.”
“Yeah?” He seems genuinely interested. “Did you kick Casey’s ass?”
I shrug. A surge of weird macho pride hits me. “Well, yeah. He knocked me unconscious, though.”
He chortles. “Man, if I’d done that to either of you, I woulda been put down for a hate crime, but just ’cause you’re both psycho little freak kids, you get off scot-free. I’m surprised. That kids looks jacked.”
“Hey, now. I still have your sister to deal with.”
His face darkens. “Okay, well, maybe not scot-free. But you know.”
“I didn’t know I was allowed to smoke in here,” I say, lighting my cigarette.
“Only patients are, and even then, only certain patients.” She puts an ashtray in front of me and stares with a look of slight concern. It’s a refreshing change from her usual blank face. “I suppose I should see the other guy?”
“What?”
“Must’ve been a nasty fight.”
I hiss as the lungful of smoke enters and exits my mouth. “My friend Casey,” I say softly. “You remember him?”
“The gay kid? With the…” She glances at her notepad. “The black, right? The other venomlike impulse?”
“Right.” I rehash the story in complete, blood-soaked detail.
Dr. Yeski nods slowly. “Wow,” she says.
“Yeah,” I say.
“It’s been a rough couple of days for you, I take it.”
“You have no fucking idea.”
“You talked to…Randall, right? Have you talked to him about this?”
“A little bit. He’s taking a step back from the situation, says he’s sick of being our friend if we’re going to behave like this.”
“Sounds reasonable. How are you feeling about how this all played out?”
I shrug. “It all makes sense.”
“How so?”
“Well, the venom acts both as a current for rage and as a poisonous entity,” I explain. “Everyone I come in contact with gets hurt, poisoned. But things were beginning to go well, and I was starting to realize how great life could be if I somehow quieted the venom, or learned to control it, but I just played into its plan. I thought I had gotten a grip, but instead I just learned to make the venom part of my personality. Once it was on equal footing with me, it could take every good thing I’ve gathered in my life away from me in one fell swoop.”
She stares at me for a bit, silent. “You don’t think that circumstance was a part of it? This can’t have all been the venom’s doing.”
“Why not? That’s the power of the venom. It’s my Mr. Hyde. It’s clinical and evil.”
“But it’s also a part of you. Maybe you let the venom come to the surface and get ‘equal footing’ with you because it needed to come out in the open.”
“Everyone thinks that,” I say. “Randall, my mom, Renée—they think I enjoy hurting other people. This isn’t within my power. It’s something darker than me. It’s manipulative.”
“You’d be surprised how many people assign personalities to parts of themselves that they can’t accept—”
“I can accept it,” I bark, “I just don’t like it. I want to be rid of it, once and for all.”
“Then you’ve got to work,” she says. “No one can come in and cure you, Locke. There’s no deus ex machina here. If you want help with your feelings, you need to show those around you that this help will lead to something. So far, it seems like you’ve gone behind their backs, lied about what you’re actually experiencing. It mu
st confuse your friends quite a bit.”
I snort. She has a serious point here, but it’s still shrink talk. “Well, at least someone’s giving me advice.”
“Not advice. Just my opinion. Right now, someone else telling you what to do is the last thing you need.”
Class crawls by at a snail’s pace on Tuesday, considering the insanity of my nonacademic life. The idea of paying attention to my history professor is absolutely meaningless. With the introspective nightmare I just went through, the views on Napoléon coming out of the graying little man in front of me just don’t hold that much true significance. Randall jots notes down halfheartedly, but I can tell he’s thinking the same thing. Part of me wants to get up and just scream that this has nothing to do with real life, that we didn’t care and really shouldn’t have to. For the first time that I can remember, I think about the universal teenager-versus-school question: Why should this matter to me? Will a serious knowledge of the cotton gin help with my unstable relationship with the woman of my dreams? Will learning that Napoléon and Hitler made the same stupid mistake change the fact that this weekend, I pulped the face of one of my best friends? This is all very interesting, but it has no bearing in my world. Who gives a fuck?
The minute class is over, I go to my usual smoking spot on the steps outside. Randall’s waiting for me. His eyes sag with exhaustion. Sleep has not been a part of his life lately. When I sit down, he mumbles, “And how’s the venom today?”
Hearing him mention it is odd. It’d always been my taboo subject, and now it’s a point of order. “It’s on and off. One minute I hear it commenting on my life, and the next I’m trying desperately to speak to it and getting no response.” There’s a silence, so I jump on it. “Randall, I’m so sorry. A million times, I’m sorry. I owe you so much more than this.”
He waves me aside and lights his cigarette. “Well, Saturday was certainly the worst I’ve ever seen you,” he says. “Maybe the venom just ran its course, like a disease.”
“That’s what I figured, that there was one last gasp and then it was dead, or at least retired. The other day, though, talking to my mom…I don’t know, maybe I’m doing this wrong. I’m the venom’s host, so it has to be within my control. But I’m not feeling angry or upset lately, just hopeless. I just want a sign that it wasn’t all a bunch of bullshit, that there’s actually something more to me than a…toxic concept. I want to feel something true.”
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