Creeps

by Darren Hynes

  “Grannies,” Bobby says, pointing at Marjorie and laughing.

  “How would you know, dickwad?” Pete says. “Spying on your mommy again?”

  “No,” Bobby says.

  Quiet for a moment.

  Pete looks at Marjorie. “The grannies too, Maple Leaf.”

  But Marjorie won’t, so The Meat tells her for the last time, then Marjorie says, “Why don’t you take them off, Pete?”

  Pete stops waving the wiener. “Don’t think I won’t, Maple Leaf, yours wouldn’t be the first I’ve taken off.”

  Everyone goes still.

  Then Pete squats down and reaches out, but Marjorie grabs his hand and says, “Ever take off a pair that actually wanted to come off, Pete? From someone you actually liked and who happened to like you, too?”

  Pete holds Marjorie’s stare, then yanks his hand away and stands up and says, “That’s why Pumphrey’s going to take them off. You’re not my type, Maple Leaf, probably catch E. coli if I stuck it in you.”

  “I’ll take them off, Pete—”

  “No, Bobby,” The Meat says. “Let Pumphrey.”

  That noise, Wayne thinks. What’s that noise? Then suddenly he knows. It’s his own heart pounding in his ears, in the soles of his feet, in his groin, in the tips of his fingers, inside his skull. The floor’s pulsating because of it, as are the blinds, the pencils, the chalk. A tightness at the back of his neck then as he’s forced on his knees beside her. The whites of her eyes match the white of her panties and it occurs to him that the world’s unsafe somehow. Then she touches his hand as if to say, It’s okay, Wayne Pumphrey, it will soon be done, but he knows it’s not okay and it will never be done and where can you go to be safe if you can’t be safe at school?

  Now she guides his fingers to the band of her underwear and he lets her and then Harvey makes a grunting sound and Pete says to keep going because Marjorie’s dying for it and Bobby repeats, “Dying for it.”

  Voices from the parking lot, opened and closed doors, turned ignitions and pumped gas pedals, engines fading into the night, and the quiet. Always that. And he feels the heat in his fingers, the beginnings of her pubic hair and it’s coarse and he thinks he wasn’t expecting that.

  “Thatta boy, Pumphrey,” goes The Meat.

  Someone clears his throat. Licks his lips. Swallows. He himself, Wayne realizes. Then he takes his hand away and Pete asks him what he’s doing but Wayne won’t answer, reaching instead for Marjorie’s pants and covering her.

  Bobby groans and Pete gets to his knees and grips Wayne by the back of the neck and squeezes, but Wayne doesn’t make a sound.

  “I was doing you a favour, Pumphrey,” Pete says, “but if you won’t do it, I know someone who will.” Pete lifts his head and looks at Bobby.

  “Me?” Bobby says.

  “That’s right.”

  But Bobby doesn’t move.

  “Don’t just stand there, dickwad.”

  Still Bobby won’t go over.

  Pete shakes his head and says, “All your talk earlier, and now here you are more chickenshit than Pumphrey.”

  “I’m not chicken,” Bobby says.

  “No?”

  Bobby shakes his head.

  “Well get your ass over here then. It’s not every day you see the real thing.”

  “Quit it.”

  “Who said that?” Pete wants to know.

  Kenny steps forward. “‘Have some fun with them,’ you said.”

  “This is fun,” Pete says. Then to Bobby, “Isn’t it?”

  Bobby nods.

  “Harvey?” The Meat goes.

  Harvey nods too. “She’s shown it to hundreds, Kenny.”

  “That’s right, Harvey,” Pete says. “Like eating breakfast for Maple Leaf, this is.”

  “What if someone comes?” Kenny says.

  “No one’s coming, Kenny,” says Pete.

  “Yeah, Kenny,” Bobby says.

  Harvey goes, “Relax.”

  Kenny seems to be considering it. Then he says, “We could get in trouble.”

  “What trouble?” says Pete.

  “Yeah, what trouble?” repeats Bobby.

  “There’s no trouble,” Harvey says.

  Kenny steps back and grips the doorknob but doesn’t leave.

  “Way to be, Kenny,” Bobby says.

  “This’ll all be over before you know it,” Pete says. Then, “Come on Bobby, we don’t have all fuckin’ night.”

  Bobby moves in Marjorie’s direction.

  “NOT … ANOTHER … STEP,” Wayne says. Bobby stops.

  Pete squeezes Wayne’s neck hard and says, “Who do you think you are, Pumphrey! Huh? You’re nothing, remember, so you got no say in what Bobby does.”

  Wayne tries to get out of Pete’s grip but how can he when Pete’s fingers are like steel?

  Then a voice from the floor, and it’s Marjorie’s, and she says, “Leave him alone!”

  Pete lets him go and reaches out and covers Marjorie’s mouth. “Shut your gob, Maple Leaf.” Then to Bobby, “Get over here and hold Pumphrey.”

  Before Wayne can get to his feet, Bobby’s got him around the neck and Wayne can barely breathe and Pete’s on top of Marjorie bearing all his weight down with his hand still over her mouth, but Marjorie’s fighting back now—kicking and bucking her hips.

  And then Harvey’s there, giving Pete a hand. Then Kenny. But Kenny’s not helping. Trying to haul Harvey off and there’s a struggle and a tussle of bodies and the wiener that Pete’s been managing to keep hold of goes flying and lands somewhere. And Wayne’s suffocating; does Bobby have any idea how hard he’s squeezing? Suddenly Harvey’s on top of Kenny and he’s punching him in the face and it sounds nothing like the movies, Wayne thinks— quieter, more hollow-sounding, like a foot pounding earth. And Marjorie’s still struggling beneath Pete, but she manages to bite The Meat’s face and Pete hauls back and punches her so hard in the nose that the sound implants itself into everyone’s skin and bones and into each organ and there’s no way, Wayne thinks, any of them will ever forget it.

  There’s blood running down The Meat’s chin, dripping onto his Adam’s apple. He gets off Marjorie. She’s holding her face.

  Harvey stops punching Kenny. Kenny’s lip is cut.

  Bobby lets Wayne go and Wayne crawls over to Marjorie and blood’s pouring from her nose and he turns to Pete and screams, “LOOKWHATYOU DID!”

  Pete doesn’t say a word, just kneels there.

  Wayne takes off his outer shirt and bunches it up and places it over Marjorie’s nose, then he hears a voice he doesn’t recognize and when he looks it’s Pete and the reason he couldn’t place it is because The Meat’s crying as he talks and it’s strange because he’s got that almost-a-moustache and those muscles and yet he sounds like a youngster and Wayne’s never seen him cry before and Pete’s saying he didn’t mean it and why did she bite him in the first place and why did Wayne come to his house and sometimes he doesn’t know why he does the things he does.

  Then a door opens and lights are flicked on and everyone, save for Pete, looks and sees Mr. Ricketts standing there.

  Mr. Ricketts’s jaw goes slack. He might faint. Why can’t he move past the door?

  Wayne’s helping Marjorie back into her pants and Bobby’s saying “Sorry” over and over and Kenny holds his own lip and Harvey’s breathing heavy because all that punching has exhausted him, and Pete … Pete’s still crying.

  Finally Mr. Ricketts is able to move, going over to where Marjorie and Wayne are and kneeling.

  Wayne buckles Marjorie’s pants and “Who’s responsible?” Mr. Ricketts wants to know.

  Then Marjorie’s getting to her feet and Mr. Ricketts says she should stay lying, but she ignores him and heads to the door and Wayne follows her.

  “What happened here?” Mr. Ricketts says.

  But Wayne doesn’t answer, leaving the janitor there on his knees surrounded by a placating Bobby and a breathing Harvey and a fat-lipped Kenny and
a screeching Pete. Screeches so loud that Wayne can still hear them in the corridor and through the main doors and out into the night.

  SIX

  They’re standing just beyond school property: Marjorie with her head tilted back and Wayne—still using his shirt—pinching the bridge of her nose. Blood’s on her teeth, lips, chin.

  He watches her, then looks away. Pete’s punch comes to his mind and he almost loses his breath.

  She pushes his hand away and lowers her head and blood pools near the opening of one nostril, which she wipes away with her fingertips.

  He offers his shirt but she won’t take it.

  Ages pass.

  “He hit you so hard,” Wayne says.

  She stays quiet.

  “Bobby was choking me, otherwise I’d have done more.”

  Still quiet.

  She looks past his shoulder and, from far off, a train’s whistle seeps into the night, then dies away.

  It takes forever, but finally she turns to face him again. Breathes deep and says, “I’d have taken that tonight, Wayne Pumphrey, if not for you.”

  Holding her hand’s on his mind, but he resists the urge and says nothing.

  “You know what you are?” Marjorie says. “Hmm?”

  Wayne doesn’t know.

  “A black hole. Sucking everyone into your misery.”

  Marjorie walks away and Wayne follows and she doesn’t get very far before she stops and sits on the sidewalk and puts her face in her hands. Wayne sits beside her and thinks of something to say, but there’s nothing. So he waits and waits and finally she takes her hands away and her eyes are sparkling under the glow of the streetlight and there’s snot and blood above her top lip, which she wipes on the sleeve of her jacket. “You’re just a creep with no friends, Wayne Pumphrey. You’re too small and your dad can’t drive on the right side of the street. And me—I’m a spaz who sticks wieners in herself and has a dead father and a mother who may as well be, and that’s how people are always going to see us, and if you don’t know that by now you’re stupider than I thought.” She stands up and goes to leave but stops herself and when she tries to speak her voice catches, which brings Wayne forward, but she sticks her hand out as if to say Stay where you’re to, so Wayne does. She tries again and this time words come. “Pete’ll never be gone and we’ll always be who we are and that’s just the way it is.”

  Then a car drives by and slows down and stops and a window is lowered and a voice says: “Weren’t you two in that play?” Wayne nods and the person says, “Some job ya did,” and then, “Everything okay here?” And Wayne nods, so the person drives away.

  A long silence.

  At last Marjorie speaks. “I’d prefer to walk the rest of the way on my own.”

  “I don’t mind.”

  “I DO, okay!”

  Wayne’s about to say something, but Marjorie cuts him off. “Before you, I was mostly left alone. Yes, they talked about me behind my back and spread rumours and shit, but no one ever did what they did tonight.”

  Wayne stays quiet.

  “From now on walk your own self to school, and if it’s cold I won’t be needing your jacket ’cause I’ll wear an extra layer, and if I happen to slip because of my sneakers I won’t be needing you to help me up. Just leave me alone, all right! We’ll both be better off anyway.” She holds his gaze for a moment and then turns to walk away and then his hand’s gripping her shoulder and he’s wondering how it got there.

  “What?” she says.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Let go.”

  “No.”

  “Let GO!”

  He does.

  She turns around and walks away.

  Wayne doesn’t follow.

  Then he drops his shirt into the snow.

  SEVEN

  They’re all waiting in the foyer when Wayne arrives home. His mother comes over and gives him a hug and won’t let go and his dad comes over too and messes his hair and Wanda says, “Sure I didn’t know you could act.” Then they’re dragging him into the kitchen and sitting him at the table and Wanda grabs him a Diet Coke, which fizzes when she opens it, and they’re asking him why he didn’t come to the nice reception because they were all waiting.

  He goes to stand up.

  “Don’t want to sit with us?” his mother says.

  He sits back down.

  Wanda takes her earphones out. “Lap it up while you can, little brother.”

  His dad says, “I was sitting there and then the lights came up and it was you and I leaned over and said to your mother, ‘That’s Wayne,’ and she goes, ‘Yes,’ and I says, ‘I thought he was behind the scenes,’ and your mother says, ‘Shush, I can’t hear.’”

  “Then you dropped your script,” Wanda says, “and I’m like, Uh oh, but then you went on like you’ve been at it all your life. And you know Vanessa Prescott … big lesbo chick with the pierced nipple?”

  “Wanda!”

  “What?” Then, “Anyway, she’s sitting right beside me and she taps my shoulder and says, ‘Little twat’s not bad—’”

  “Wanda!”

  “Well that’s what she said, Mom. So I say back, ‘No, he isn’t, is he?’”

  “And that girl from up the road,” Wayne’s mother says. “The one you brought to Woolworths.”

  “Marjorie,” Wanda says.

  “Yes—her … she was something else. Twice her age it seemed like.”

  “How did she make herself cry?” Wanda wants to know.

  Wayne doesn’t answer, so Wanda says, “The thought of kissing you, probably.”

  Then it’s quiet and Wanda goes, “Sure look at the long face on him.”

  Now everyone’s watching and Wayne pushes out his chair and stands up and his mother says, “You don’t seem very excited,” and his dad says, “What’s wrong?,” and Wanda, because his jacket’s open, says, “What happened to your shirt?”

  Wayne just stands there, his palms flat on the table.

  “The nice button-up one? Weren’t you wearing it earlier?”

  Wayne goes to leave but ends up staying where he is. Then Wanda grabs his Diet Coke since he’s not drinking it and takes a sip and doesn’t give it back.

  “It’s stupid,” Wayne says.

  “What’s stupid?” says his mother.

  “Wanting to be in front of people.”

  No one has anything to say about that.

  “Better off keeping to myself and who needs friends anyway.”

  His parents exchange glances and Wanda takes another sip of Diet Coke and the grandfather clock strikes ten and then there’s a racket on the roof and against the windows, which Wayne thinks must be hail because nice weather never lasts long in Canning.

  Someone’s at the door and his father goes and answers it and Wayne hears him say, “What happened to you?” and “Who do you want—Wayne?” Then his dad comes back in and steps aside and Kenny’s there.

  Wayne’s mother takes in Kenny’s swollen lip with the dried blood and the glassy eyes.

  Wanda looks at Wayne, then back at Kenny, and says, “What’s all this about, little brother?”

  Wayne can’t speak.

  His father pulls out a chair and points to it for Kenny to sit on, but Kenny shakes his head and says he can’t stay and would prefer to stand.

  “Well, come in at least,” Wayne’s mother says. “You’re half-frozen.”

  Kenny steps into the kitchen. He’s shaking.

  “Put the kettle on, Wanda,” Wayne’s mother says. Wanda goes over and fills the kettle and puts it on the burner, then leans against the counter and keeps her eyes on Kenny.

  “What happened to your face?” Wayne’s dad wants to know.

  Kenny goes to speak, but Wayne does first. “Can I talk with him alone?”

  “Alone?” his father says.

  “Why do you need to be alone?” says his mother.

  Wanda says, “Were you picking on my brother?”

  Kenny does
n’t answer and Wayne asks again if he can talk with Kenny alone and his father says, “You’d better tell us what happened tonight,” and Wayne says, “I will, but right now I need to speak with Kenny please.”

  His dad pauses. “Pete The Meat have anything to do with this?”

  “Who?” Wayne’s mother wants to know. “Pete The Meat, did you say?”

  “I’ll explain later,” Wayne says.

  Wanda goes, “If you were picking on my brother, then you deserved what you got.” She looks at Wayne. “Did you do that, little brother? ’Cause right on, if you did.”

  “Okay,” says Wayne’s father, “we’ll give you a few minutes, but you’d better tell me because I thought we’d dealt with this.” He waves to Wanda and his wife. “Come on, you two.”

  “Was someone picking on you, Wayne?” his mother says.

  “He’ll tell us later,” Wayne’s father says, guiding them into the living room.

  “But the kettle’s about to boil.”

  “Boy can make his own tea.”

  His parents and sister round the corner and are heard talking for a moment before going quiet.

  Wayne looks at Kenny and Kenny goes back into the foyer, so Wayne joins him.

  They’re standing just in front of the door.

  Kenny’s nose is running. He wipes it on his sleeve. “How is she?” he whispers.

  “How do you think?”

  Kenny puts his hands in his pockets. Avoids Wayne’s eyes. “Pete took off. That old janitor guy tried to stop him, but Pete’s fast. I split, too. Not Bobby and Harvey though, I don’t think.”

  “Why are you here?”

  “If I’d known, I never would have helped.” Kenny swallows. “It was supposed to be a laugh.”

  “Some laugh.”

  “You don’t understand.”

  “Guess not.”

  “He has this way about him. It’s like you can’t say no.”

  Wayne doesn’t speak.

  “He was humiliated that day you mentioned his real dad and him having a tough start and everything.”

  “He was!”

  “Pete freaks.”

  “I freak too … when I’m locked in a trunk.”

  Silence.

  Kenny says, “Pete’s mom told me stuff.”

  “What stuff?”

  “About before his real dad left—”