Slave Day

by Rob Thomas

  “So what’s with the shirt? Are you hoping for someone with a lot of Rebel pride to bid on you?” she said.

  “Mr. Denhart said to wear ’em. I thought everyone would.”

  “What everyone decided was that it was worth the demerits to not look like a …”

  She hesitated. So I helped her out.

  “What? Geek? Spaz?”

  “Confederate flag was what I was going to say. Are we a little sensitive this morning, Bren?”

  Annabella is my competition for salutatorian. Neither of us is going to catch Laurence Davenport. My specialties are the hard sciences; hers, the liberal arts.

  “I’m not sure how I got into this. I don’t think anyone is going to bid on me.”

  “That’s your only worry? Hey, I’m just praying some octopus with too much cash on his hands doesn’t decide he wants a love slave.”

  “I don’t think that’ll be a problem for me,” I say.

  KEENE

  9:05 A.M. First period, English

  “Keene Davenport?”

  “Present.” I keep my hood up over my head, which is resting on my desk.

  Mrs. Paulson peers over her reading glasses, bats her eyelashes condescendingly, and her upper lip curls open as if drawn by a fishing line. “That was quite a letter you wrote to the newspaper, Keene. I really wasn’t expecting to see you today.”

  The class laughs. I hate her. It’s her fault I’m at school today. She’s the teacher who gave me a C on my progress report, and it’s all because of a disagreement we had on an assignment. She wanted us to prepare a book report on any of the selections on our summer reading list. But, lo and behold, every writer on the list was a white European. I asked her if I could do some other book, but she said no.

  “These are the authors you’ll need to know when you’re in college, Keene. Don’t look at everything as a plot against your people.”

  I did my report on Richard Wright’s Black Boy, anyway, and she gave me an F on the assignment. There were no grammar problems, no footnoting errors; I didn’t use the Cliff Notes like half the class did. On the bottom of the paper, she wrote LEARN TO FOLLOW DIRECTIONS! And get this—she drew a frowning face next to it. Today I’m not going to let her think I chickened out.

  “I’ve just come up with another plan—since it looked like none of the student council members were going to boycott,” I say. It’s better than admitting that my mom had made me come to school.

  “Do you want to share it with the class?”

  “You’ll see soon enough.”

  And that’s when they come over the intercom and begin dismissing us class by class for the auction.

  MR. TWILLEY

  9:31 A.M. Assembly period, gymnasium

  Look at them. Straggling in here in their White Zombie T-shirts, goatees, nose rings, wearing bandannas to cover their dreadlocks, strutting around in combat boots or tennis shoes that cost as much as my car payment. Half of them carry beepers in case one of their junior-high customers needs a fix. They wear their jeans halfway down their rear ends, but don’t worry—they’ve got their custom boxers with glow-in-the-dark bananas emblazoned on them pulled up six inches higher than their waistbands. Birds of a feather, they are.

  And the girls are no better. The ones who aren’t pregnant dress like they hope to be soon. Holes in their jeans showing off their total body tans. Halter tops and see-through blouses.

  And they tell us we can’t enforce a dress code, that we’ve got other, bigger problems to tackle. I tell you, it all starts there. Once students think of school as a professional environment where they’re expected to toe the line, the other things—truancy, fighting, drugs—will take care of themselves.

  So now I’ve volunteered to let one of these reprobates boss me around all day. Twilley, which way did you fall off the apple cart?

  CLINT

  9:32 A.M. Assembly period, gymnasium

  “’Sup?”

  “Oh, you know, you know.”

  “Which class you missin’?”

  “Twilley.”

  “Suh-weet!” I say and offer my palm to Alex, who completes the high five and takes a seat in the bleachers next to me.

  “Check it out,” I say, pointing to the far wall of the gym. All the posters for tomorrow’s pep rally are already up but, as usual, Jen’s put a special, personalized banner up for her blue-chip boyfriend. It says PUT ’EM IN DEDEEP, DEFREISZ.

  “That’s one hype lady you got,” Alex says.

  “Trained her myself,” I say.

  “Shee-it,” he says, but he gives me a high five anyway.

  “Where’s Damien?”

  “I saw him on the way to the gym. He said all his photographers are too stoned to shoot Slave Day this morning, so he has to.” Alex laughs, and so do I. It’s sort of a joke. You can tell all the photos in the yearbook that Damien took ’cuz they’re way out of focus. He’s so blind, though; he thinks they’re the only shots that look right. “There he is. Down by the podium. See him? He’s taking pictures of Jenny.”

  “Cool,” I say. And it is cool … having your best friend be the yearbook editor. Last year Damien was the sports editor of the book and, natch, there was an action shot on the football spread of me running down this squirrelly assed Crockett High quarterback. I’ve got two or three shots of Jen taped up on my mirror above my dresser that Damien’s printed for me in the journalism darkroom. They’re blurry, of course, but it makes ’em look cool. You know, like art.

  Damien’s pretty lucky he was allowed back on the yearbook staff, let alone chosen editor. After the yearbook came out last year, Mr. Gant, the principal, tried to kick him out of the class. Gant didn’t take kindly to one of Damien’s headlines. Above a photo of Gant leading school board members on a tour of the new science wing, Damien wrote: PRINCIPAL SHOWS OFF ERECTION. The yearbook staff had only distributed fifty of the books before Gant came storming into the journalism room. He made ’em use razor blades and cut out the headline from every remaining yearbook. The version with the original headline became a collector’s item. So guess who’s got one? You know it.

  I’m groovin’ all over Jen in her pep squad uniform. She’s wearing this short pleated skirt that shows her legs from her white ankle boots all the way to midthigh. She’s got on this tight sleeveless top made out of that heavy fabric you only see in girls’ spirit clothing. Her blond hair is pulled into a ponytail and she’s wearing this mega-red lipstick that she calls “slut red” that all the pep-squadders are supposed to wear when they’re in uniform. I love it, but she refuses to wear it except when she has to, which is just like her. It’s that kind of ’tude—and this is only my opinion—that kept her from getting elected cheerleader last year. I’ll admit she’s no leaper and her voice only carries from here to there, but in the grand scheme of student elections, that’s secondary. Votes come from girls who fear you and guys who think they might have a shot at rounding third without marrying you first. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want her to come to school dressed like Tiffany Delvoe, but would lipstick really hurt? Sometimes she wears this sweatshirt with a kitten on it. I’m not shittin’ you.

  Normally the cheerleaders, dance team, and pep squad wouldn’t be dressed out until Friday—game day—but, since it’s homecoming week and tonight’s the bonfire, they are today. I don’t usually get to appreciate Jen in her uniform, because on Fridays I go into my zone. People know better than to fuck with me on Fridays. I don’t smile on Fridays. On Fridays I start visualizing each play of that night’s game. I know the names of the offensive linemen, the quarterback, the running backs I’m going to face. I imagine myself invisible in the other team’s locker room. I hear them dissin’ me. Sayin’ I’m a pussy. Talking about what they’re gonna do with Jen after the game. Saying how Deerfield’s full of fags.

  Last thing I need to do is get my dick hard thinkin’ ’bout Jen in her pep squad skirt and slut red lipstick.

  TIFFANY DELVOE

  9:34 A.M. Ass
embly period, downtown

  This town bites.

  I mean, who would put railroad tracks all the way through the middle of a town with no bridges? I’ve heard Daddy call it, with a straight face, part of our “small-town charm.” Boneheaded civic planning is more like it. I’m a half hour late for school, and I’ve now watched fifty-seven million empty boxcars rattle by at about a centimeter per decade. I should have made a run for it when I saw the guardrail start to come down. Probably would have been the biggest thrill I’ve ever had in this town. Maybe I wouldn’t have made it. Wouldn’t that have made for a banner headline in the Deerfield Herald? MAYOR’S DAUGHTER SLAIN BY RUNAWAY TRAIN. Who am I kidding? BIRTH CONTROL PILLS FOUND IN DEAD DAUGHTER’S PURSE is how they would have run it. Besides, if I’m gonna get myself killed by a train, I’d rather it kill me because I was speeding away from school—not toward it. I’ve got a rep to maintain.

  It’s not even like I give a shit about a timely arrival at school normally, but this is Slave Day and if I don’t use this hundred bucks buying a slave—performing my civic duty—Daddy’ll have my ass on a stick. I just couldn’t seem to haul my hungover bod out of bed this morning. You know, I never set out to drink on school nights; shit just happens.

  Last night, Suzi—she’s half Vietnamese, but really cool and really cute—called and said the Kappas (her sister’s sorority) were having a mixer with the Phi Delts (total face jocks). Naturally, there was a keg, and these two guys—Greg and Kip, I think their names were—kept filling our cups. Then this total bitch-hag-from-hell Kappa comes over, all jealous, and asks the guys if, like, they planned on taking us to the Lee High homecoming dance. She even scratched her nose with her middle finger when the guys weren’t looking but she knew we were. Anyway, Kip—the cuter one—still looked primed, but Greg dragged him away, so screw ’em. Their loss.

  Speaking of boys, all of the don’t-make-me-wanna-puke ones at the top of the alphabet are getting snatched up as I sit here watching Union Pacific haul air back and forth across Deerfield. If I’m lucky, I’ll still make it in time to get into the bidding for Dan O’Neil. That would be respectable. He’s a football player. He’s tasty. He doesn’t drool or smell his pits. He wouldn’t think it meant I liked him. God, you know what would be funny? If I miss Dan, I could bid on Teresa Villejo. That prissy, brown-nosing worm. Suzi and Rainy would laugh their asses off if I made Teresa chauffeur us around at lunch in that Camaro she thinks is, like, ultraflash. Then I’d have her carry all my shit to class. I wouldn’t even go by my locker; I’d make her carry all of my books. I’d be the master from hell. I wonder if my books are still in my locker. I haven’t gotten them out since school started.

  If I take advantage of this slave shit, today may not suck.

  Oh my god! The train is coming to a complete stop.

  JENNY

  9:35 A.M. Assembly period, gymnasium

  I wave at Clint from the stage as he sits in the bleachers, but he’s too busy high-fiving Alex to notice. I probably look pathetic. A flash goes off. I blink and look down and see Damien. He’s taking my picture.

  “Work with me. Emote. Make love to the camera,” he directs.

  I try for the distant—yet alluring—look that all the models on the cover of Vogue seem to have mastered. I have to hope for “the look,” because the cleavage prerequisite is impossible to meet. Damien clicks off a few frames.

  “Did that nose come with those glasses?” I ask Damien. It’s a running joke. Damien wears these 1950s-style thick black-framed glasses that make him look like Buddy Holly with a grunge hair-cut—shaved three-inch ring topped with an all-one-length bowl cut. He’s working on a goatee, too, which I’m afraid Clint will attempt after the season’s over. Damien wore contacts for about three days before deciding it “wasn’t him.”

  “Just for that, I may not bid on you,” he says, “and you’ll be stuck with that yeti you call a boyfriend.”

  “Oh, not that! I take it back. They’re lovely glasses. The latest in eyewear fashion, I’m sure.”

  “Too late to apologize now. ’Fraid I’ll have to get in the bidding for Madonna, instead. I brought my checkbook from my unnumbered Swiss bank account.”

  “Oh, you won’t need any money. I swear, that girl can’t quit talking about you,” I say. He knows I’m lying, but he plays along.

  “She’s red-blooded, ain’t she?”

  There’s something about Damien saying “ain’t” that doesn’t sound right. It’s like hearing your parents describe something as “fab.”

  Clint has always thought that I found out about the Truth or Dare night on Canyon Lake from the girls, but for the record, I heard about it from Damien. It’s not like he called me on the phone to rat on his best friend. I was at a party where Damien was pretty wasted and he just sort of let it slip out. Something like, “I haven’t been this drunk since we all went skinny-dipping on the lake.” (Long, ugly pause.) “Shit, you weren’t there.”

  Drunk as he was, it wasn’t any big trick to get him to spill the details. I’ve never told Clint, because I know he would major wig. Plus, I’d rather him think that “those bitches” were the ones who stripped and told.

  Cool. The crowd’s starting the Speller chant.

  TOMMY

  9:36 A.M. Assembly period, gymnasium

  The legacy of the Speller has been handed down from one graduating senior to a select junior at Lee High since the dawn of time. It was David Hamilton, class of ’95, who dubbed me his successor. His decision was based on a number of factors, none of them the ability to spell. After all, the Speller only has to be able to handle one word: Rebels. The trick is … the Speller has to form each of these letters using only his body.

  I sit with the Hats. Thirty feet wide by ten rows deep of feather-pierced Stetsons and oily gimmes from Roscoe’s Texaco, Uncle John’s Real Pit BBQ, or King Feed, like mine—the bills carefully curved into half-moons. If someone could harness the energy spent on school spirit in this crowd, they could run a Game Boy for … oh, say—two minutes. For most of us, whether it’s me at Whataburger, Rid DeLord at University Exxon, or Mark Simpson sitting on a tractor till dark, school is a break in the day—the seven hours we can kick it. Rebel pride? Guys like Rid and Mark can’t afford it. Kick ass or ass-kicked, it’s all the same to them. That’s where the Speller comes in.

  It starts with a low chant at any school assembly. It doesn’t always come from the Hats. Sometimes the low riders start it. Sometimes the stoners. The cheerleaders try to ignore it. The Speller and the cheerleaders have never gotten along. The chant gets louder and louder, until the Speller must, reluctantly, saunter down to stem the riot. As soon as the Speller faces the crowd, there is silence. Then the first letter is formed. While most of my predecessors used the flared left leg/teapot-handle left arm position for their R, I opt for the diving position that functions as the lower-case version.

  “r,” whispers the student body.

  I form the second letter.

  “E.” It grows to a stage whisper.

  Then “B.” A few eager beavers are already screaming it, but those with any sense of cool grunt the B.

  “E.” Now it’s okay to really let it out. Cheerleaders have that lemon-sucking look on their faces by now.

  The next part is my … what did Miss Amenny call it? … my pièce de résistance—the L. I’m famous for my L. It’s the easiest letter, and for years the Speller was content to sit, his butt sideways to the stands, stretch out his legs, and raise his arms. Not I, said the fly. Nope. I do it backward. I lay on my back with my arms above my head, and after hours of practicing in front of the mirror, I can now bring my legs up exactly plumb to the floor. The crowd goes apeshit. “L.”

  When I make my S, no one actually says “S.” They hiss. Like a symphony conductor, I use my hands to bring down the volume. Then with two quick punches and a drawn-out lassoing motion followed by another punch, the grand finale: “Rebels! Rebels! Wooooooaaaaaahhhh REBELS!”

&nb
sp; Let the cheerleaders follow that.

  SHAWN

  9:36 A.M. Assembly period, gymnasium

  I’m checking out the crowd, trying to figure out if anyone but Reverend Keene himself is going to take part in this so-called boycott. Unlikely. I don’t think he even has any friends. Thinks he’s too good for everybody. He used to come down to Rickel Park to hoop, but no one would pick ’m up. I’d let ’m run with me every once in a while, but he’d get stripped every time the ball wound up in his hands (which wasn’t very often). Pretty soon he’d bring a book, ’cuz he’d have to wait so long to get picked. Then he just quit comin’. Gave up. Now he wants to lead a boycott? Boy couldn’t lead a spade.

  Top o’ that, he knows nothin’ ’bout politics. Real-world politics.

  Priscilla likes to think she’s giving me lessons. Telling me who I should butter up, whose parties I should go to, what promises I can afford to make—and break. But man, I’ve been a politician ever since I can remember. Who else can hang with the brothas down at Rickel and then tell an O. J. joke so funny that half those Hats’ll be sayin’, “Go ahead. Date my sister”?

  ’Sides, who cares ’bout this student council president gig, anyway? Priscilla can run the show. To me, it’s just a ticket, an extra line in whatever college’s basketball media guide I decide to go to. So, one day, after my illustrious career’s over, they’ll be looking for the new Ahmad Rashad to host a sports magazine show and do courtside interviews for NBA games. They’ll see my degree in communications and minor in speech, but it’ll be that student body president thing that’ll sew it up.