Creeps

by Darren Hynes

  “Pop the trunk!” Kenny screams.

  “Let him out!” someone else shouts.

  A shrill, high-pitched voice goes, “Is there any air in there?”

  The sound of a key in the lock and Bobby opens the trunk and Wayne’s suddenly kicking the air, punching the wind. He expects hands to reach in and grab him, but none do, so he stops and sits up. Fifty or more pale faces staring at him—big eyes and hanging-open mouths and running noses and Treena Cobb with the belly button ring and Paulette King (five months pregnant) with her boyfriend Perry who doesn’t care that he’s not the father and some members of the volleyball team and some of the alternative crowd and his used-to-be-friend Corey Parrot standing beside Monica and Monica’s right: Corey’s not too bad looking now that his braces are off.

  “It’s Wayne Pumphrey,” someone at the back says.

  A girl cups her mouth.

  A fat boy laughs.

  Wayne says nothing.

  Someone says, “He’s going to cry.”

  “What did I tell you?” Bobby says.

  From somewhere to Wayne’s left, a voice says, “What a sin.”

  But Wayne doesn’t cry; instead he climbs out of the trunk and adjusts his knapsack and sees that he’s right back where he started: the school parking lot.

  Pete The Meat steps forward and faces the crowd and says, “Wayne Pumphrey’s a rat.”

  Wayne breathes so deeply he warms his feet.

  “And a pussy,” Harvey says.

  “That’s right,” Pete agrees. “And he needs his drunk daddy to fight his battles.”

  “And he pisses his pants, too,” Bobby says, laughing.

  “And eats yellow snow,” Harvey adds.

  A few laugh and then it goes quiet and Wayne thinks he understands loneliness. He lifts his chin and starts to walk away, but Pete’s there. When isn’t he?

  “We’re not done yet, Pumphrey,” The Meat says. “The trunk was only half of it.”

  “Only half of it,” Bobby repeats.

  Wayne stays where he is, Marjorie’s words in his ears: Same reason he hates me: because we don’t fit. Because you’re odd and small and your eyes are too far apart and you like to write.

  Pete walks right up to Wayne and says, “Now you have to admit it to everyone, Pumphrey. Stand right there and say you’re a pussy and a rat and you piss your pants and eat yellow snow and need your drunk daddy to fight your battles.”

  Wayne doesn’t say anything.

  “Go on, Pumphrey—say it.”

  “Say it, Pumphrey,” Bobby says.

  Harvey flicks his cigarette into the air.

  “Then I’ll let you go,” Pete says.

  Still Wayne doesn’t speak.

  “Jesus, Pumphrey, do you want it to get worse?” Kenny says. “Just say it why dontcha.”

  Pete grabs Wayne by the collar and shakes him. “Say it, Pumphrey!”

  “Leave him alone!” someone shouts.

  Harvey faces the crowd. “Who opened their gob?”

  No one answers.

  “Was it you, Parrot?” Harvey says to Corey. Corey looks from Harvey to Wayne then to Pete. The Meat says, “Harvey asked you a question, Parrot—”

  “I’m a pussy,” Wayne says.

  Silence.

  The Meat lets go of Wayne’s jacket. “Don’t tell me, Pumphrey, tell them.”

  Wayne turns and faces everybody and tries looking past them but can’t, so he goes to that place in his head where yellow snow tastes like creamsicle and whipped snowballs feel like beads of rain, where drawings taped to his locker are works of art and insults are compliments and the faces looking back at him are all Marjorie’s face and Wanda’s and Mr. Rollie’s and whoever else might have his back.

  “Nice and loud now, Pumphrey,” Pete says. “So everyone can hear.”

  Wayne takes a half step forward and says, “I’m a pussy.”

  “Thatta boy,” Pete says. “You hear that, everybody? Pumphrey said he’s a pussy. Okay, go on.”

  Wayne tries to swallow but his mouth’s gone dry.

  “What else, Pumphrey?” says The Meat.

  “And I’m a rat.”

  “Exactly,” says Pete. “Little fucker came to my house—I told you. Keep going, Pumphrey … almost there.”

  Wayne catches Corey’s eye and Corey looks away.

  A long silence.

  “Pumphrey …”

  “And I piss … look, I didn’t want my dad to go to your place and I wish I could take it back but I can’t and I’m sorry.”

  Someone shuts off their car engine.

  The Meat moves so close to Wayne they could touch noses. “This is your last chance, Pumphrey. Say the rest or else.”

  “You do bad things, but you’re not a bad person,” Wayne says.

  A hush falls over the crowd.

  “What the fuck did you say, Pumphrey?” says The Meat.

  “That’s what your mom told me. When I was sitting in your kitchen. That and your dad left but you don’t miss him.”

  Someone laughs, then shuts up.

  A gust of wind.

  Bobby says, “I’d zip it Pumphrey if I were you.”

  Pete can’t seem to move and there’s something in his eyes and Wayne figures it’s being stuck—stuck and torn and perhaps the difference between him and The Meat is not so great after all.

  Then Wayne’s falling and Pete’s falling with him and he imagines an end to things—going into something and then coming out different somehow for better or worse. All of Pete’s weight is on top of him and an elbow grazes Wayne’s chin and a punch glides across his temple. Then suddenly Pete’s hauled off by Bobby and Harvey and Kenny’s shouting that someone’s coming and it looks like the principal, so Pete and his posse take off and everyone else scatters too, save for Treena Cobb—who’s helping Wayne to his feet and wondering if he was scared in the trunk because she would have been and Pete should be stuffed in his own trunk so he knows how it feels—and Corey Parrot who’s wiping the snow from Wayne’s knapsack and saying how he wanted to help but what could he do against the likes of Pete The Meat?

  Wayne says nothing.

  Then the principal, Mr. Inkwell, is standing there in a suit and tie and his shoes are soaked and he wants to know what happened and Wayne says that nothing had, except a bit of fun.

  Mr. Inkwell stares for ages, then asks Wayne to join him in his office.

  Dear Mr. Inkwell,

  I couldn’t tell you the truth because then you’d want to have a word with Pete and his posse and you’d probably suspend them and it would only make things worse. It’s like I tried to explain to Dad but he wouldn’t listen and that’s why Pete put me in the trunk and tried to get me to say all those things. So I told you that I’d asked The Meat to show me something I saw in the UFC and when he did we both fell because it’s slippery in the parking lot with all the ice melting. You sat back and said my story was shaky and I looked you in the eye and told you I was sticking to it and you let me go and said you’d be monitoring the situation and I nodded and opened the door and found myself getting sick, so I ran to the bathroom and threw up and I think it was from all the stress.

  I walked home along back roads and skidoo trails and ignored Mom when she asked why my pants were wet and I’m so humiliated and it’s just occurred to me that it’d be better if I wasn’t here, and no, that’s not a tear that just fell and is making the ink run. Well, okay, it is, but it’s not because I feel sad. I don’t feel much of anything.

  Three years! That’s a lifetime when Pete The Meat’s walking in my direction or waiting behind the corner or holding me down so I can’t breathe. Three years is how long before the sun burns out and the earth dies and everything goes back to the way it was before it all started.

  Three years is forever.

  Your member of the student body who thinks three years is forever,

  Wayne Pumphrey

  TWO

  It’s the next day and Mr. Rollie is
standing centre stage, hands on hips and chewing his bottom lip with his eyes on his loafers. Everyone else sits in a circle around him. Everyone but Marjorie. He looks up. Uses his pinky to remove something from the corner of his eye. Goes to speak but stops himself, then tries again. “No easy way to say this …”

  Everyone waits.

  Wayne can’t breathe.

  “… so I’ll just come right out with it.” But Mr. Rollie doesn’t, preferring instead to walk the circumference of the circle while scratching his neck and moaning softly.

  Julie gets to her knees and cups her mouth as if waiting for someone to confirm her winning Lotto numbers.

  Les smooths his hair.

  Jason and Shane give up comparing boob drawings.

  Mr. Rollie stops. Raises his hands in surrender before letting them fall lifelessly at his sides. Then he says, “She quit.”

  Sixteen—save for Wayne—intakes of air.

  Mr. Rollie’s bottom lip quivers.

  Then Kendrick drops the electrical tape he’s been holding and it rolls off the stage and onto the gymnasium floor, then along the aisle, finally coming to a stop against a chair leg where it wobbles for a second before falling over on its side. For a moment everyone keeps looking, as if it might somehow regain its former momentum and roll straight out the door and along the corridor and out into the parking lot. Perhaps it might roll forever. All eyes go back to Kendrick.

  Kendrick stares at the ceiling.

  Julie raises her hand.

  Mr. Rollie doesn’t even say her name, just points.

  “I just want to say that it’s awful what she did, especially since the opening is tomorrow night, but on the bright side, I’ve learned all her lines and am ready to take over should you need me.” Julie shoots Les a grin.

  If Les’s smile were any wider it would be wrapped around his earlobes and dangling like earrings.

  Mr. Rollie exhales like someone accustomed to things not working out, then takes off his glasses and puts them back on, and says, “I suppose we’ve no choice.”

  Julie screams (she can’t help herself) and Les starts clapping like he’s at a rock concert.

  Sharon, despondent, pulls out a Snickers.

  A sliver of a voice then: Wayne’s.

  “What was that, Mr. Pumphrey?” Mr. Rollie says.

  Wayne repeats what he said, but Mr. Rollie still can’t hear over Les’s clapping, so he tells Mr. Faulkner to stop and Les does.

  Wayne stands up. “I said … someone should go and get her.”

  Julie says, “It’s too late now.” She looks at Mr. Rollie. “I’ll need her costume pants hemmed.”

  Wayne slams his notebook closed; the sound reverberates off the walls.

  All eyes on him.

  Unaccustomed to having everyone’s attention, Wayne drops his notebook. He bends over and picks it up and sees that his hands are shaking. He walks into the centre of the circle and says, “Who wants to go to St. John’s?”

  Everyone raises their hands.

  Then Wayne says, “Well, she’s our only hope.”

  Les spits out a puff of air.

  “Excuse me?” Julie says.

  Sharon’s got peanut on her face.

  “I’m as disappointed as you are, Mr. Pumphrey,” Mr. Rollie says.

  “Nothing to be done about it now,” Les says.

  “No—nothing,” says Julie.

  “But she’s better than the Hollywood crowd and it’s impossible to take your eyes off her when she’s onstage and you all know it.”

  “It was her choice,” Mr. Rollie says.

  “No.”

  “Yes, Wayne Pumphrey,” Julie says.

  “Don’t call me that.”

  “That’s your name isn’t it?”

  “It’s her calling,” Wayne says.

  Les laughs.

  Julie rolls her eyes.

  Wayne turns to Mr. Rollie. “Those were your words.”

  Mr. Rollie doesn’t seem to know what to say, so Wayne goes, “If you could spend time in Marjorie’s place you’d understand why she’d never quit, why she prefers here to there: because Tuesdays can’t come fast enough and her father will never grow old, so she lives in the basement and sings along with Thom Yorke, and we’re just alike because I’d rather be here, too!”

  It’s silent for a long time.

  Then Mr. Rollie says, “Do you think you could get her back, Mr. Pumphrey?”

  Wayne’s about to say yes, but Les shouts, “We don’t need her!” and then Julie says, “We can do it on our own!” and then someone at the back stands up and it’s Kendrick and he says, “St. John’s is close to the ocean and I’ve never been close to the ocean and I’m only a stagehand and know nothing about acting, but Marjorie seemed like our best chance, so I’d love for Wayne to go and get her because it’s likely I’ll never leave this place.”

  Shane claps.

  Jason puts his middle finger and thumb in his mouth and whistles.

  Paul Stool actually sits up.

  A few of the younger cast members start chanting Marjorie’s name.

  Sharon says to Wayne, “Give you a Snickers if you can bring her back.”

  Mr. Rollie puts his hand on Wayne’s shoulder. “Didn’t I tell you, Mr. Pumphrey?”

  “What?”

  “That you’re a leader?”

  Wayne doesn’t say anything.

  “Go, Mr. Pumphrey. Get her if you can!”

  A sea of cheering erupts as Wayne jumps off the stage and runs towards the double doors.

  THREE

  Mrs. Pope opens the door and stares at Wayne and tightens the knot in her bathrobe. “What can I do for you, mister?”

  Music somewhere. Radiohead.

  “Marjorie home?”

  Mrs. Pope grips the doorknob. “What’s this about?”

  “Can I speak with her? It’s urgent.”

  “Urgent? What’s urgent at your age?”

  “I hear Thom Yorke coming from the basement, so can I just go down and say hello?”

  “Not until you tell me what this is about.”

  Sweat’s trickling down his back. “Our show is tomorrow night and she quit, so how can we do it without her?”

  “Show? What show?”

  “Our play, and if it’s good enough to win the local drama festival—which it will be so long as Marjorie’s in it—we’ll get to go to St. John’s.”

  “Whoa there, mister, I didn’t hear anything about no play.”

  “She never told you?”

  “Told me? What does she tell me? Nothing.”

  “Marjorie’s the lead and she’s better than the Hollywood crowd and she’s so real it’s like she’s not even acting.”

  “St. John’s did you say?”

  “She makes Mr. Rollie cry and she’s like lightning: you can’t take your eyes off her—”

  “What am I supposed to do while she’s in St. John’s?”

  “And she smiles. How often have you seen her smile lately?”

  “You’d better go now.”

  “And it’s her ‘calling.’”

  “What?”

  “To be onstage.”

  “Off you go.”

  “And it gives her something else to think about besides her father.”

  Silence then, a blast and the dust’s settling.

  Then the door closes in Wayne’s face and the light goes off in the foyer and he imagines Julie putting too much emphasis on words that should be Marjorie’s; Les delivering half of his lines to the pretty girls in the front row; Sharon sucking on a Snickers; Paul Stool’s erection banging into everything; Mr. Rollie with his head in his hands, saying, “So much for St. John’s, Mr. Pumphrey.”

  He turns and walks down the porch steps and along the driveway and he looks and sees the finger parting the drapes and the eye and the bit of chin and mouth and suddenly he’s going back and he’s taking the stairs three at a time and he’s pushing open the door and not bothering with his bo
ots and running through the kitchen and towards the door leading to the downstairs.

  “Just what do you think you’re doing, mister!” Marjorie’s mother says, but Wayne ignores her and runs down the steps and along the hall towards Thom Yorke’s voice and stops at Marjorie’s door and tries to open it, but it’s locked, so he hammers on it, then kicks it, then Mrs. Pope is on the stairs and she’s holding the hem of her robe so she doesn’t trip and shouting something, although Wayne can’t make out the words.

  Now Mrs. Pope is in the hallway and Wayne gives the door a final kick and it suddenly opens and a hand grips his own and pulls him inside and Marjorie quickly turns the deadbolt and the music’s blasting and her mother’s banging on the other side of the door and threatening to call Wayne’s parents or, better yet, the police.

  She takes him over to the unmade bed and they sit down and Marjorie’s father’s picture is there and some letters and some five-dollar bills and two twenties and a container of coins and a knapsack that’s half packed.

  Thom Yorke sings the chorus of “Creep.”

  Marjorie stands up and goes over and lowers the volume and her mother’s about to come through the door she’s banging so hard.

  “Go away!” Marjorie says.

  “Let me in!”

  “In a minute!”

  “Now!”

  “I need to talk to Wayne!”

  “Tell him he’s in trouble!”

  “Go away!”

  “I’m calling his mother! Maybe the cops, too!”

  “Leave us alone!”

  More smacks against the door.

  Then silence.

  Marjorie goes back over to Wayne. She doesn’t sit. “You shouldn’t be here.”

  “Where you going?”

  “Didn’t you learn anything from last time?”

  “Why you packing?”

  “Shush.”

  “Sorry.” Then, in a whisper, “Why you packing?”

  “I don’t know, Wayne Pumphrey, why do people usually pack?”

  “But where can you go, you’re just a kid.”

  “I’m fifteen and older than people twice my age.”

  Wayne pauses. “You quit.”

  “What?”

  “We’re about to do a dress rehearsal and there’s no you, and of course Julie and Les couldn’t be happier, but you should have heard the rest of them: chanting your name and clapping and telling me to come and get you and bring you back because we don’t have a prayer without you, but now you’re going, so what odds.”