Do You Think This Is Strange?

by Aaron Cully Drake

“You were in a car, and now you’re here.” He put down the remote and turned to look at me. “You had swelling around the brain. You’ve been in surgery all night, and now you’re in a hospital bed.”

  “Which side of my head?” I asked.

  He blinked. “What?”

  “Which side of my head had the swelling?”

  “Your right side.”

  “Did they shave off all my hair, or just the hair on my right side?”

  “Just the hair on the right side.”

  “Will I have a scar?”

  My father nodded. “Seven inches in length.”

  Exhausted from talking, I closed my eyes.

  I was grateful to my father. He had explained a complicated set of events in a way that spawned the fewest number of unclosed threads. I was not overwhelmed by them.

  I closed my eyes to rest. Sometime later, I opened them again. The news was on. My father was still in the chair, his head bobbing, as he fought to stay awake.

  “Where’s Mom?” I asked.

  “Go to sleep, Freddy,” he said, his voice slurred as he rubbed his eyes.

  —

  I peed the bed that night. But I’m remembering wrong.

  I remember that I drove home with Dad after the four boys beat me. But I remember staying in a hospital bed that night. But the sun was shining. It was morning.

  But they don’t send you home the day after brain surgery.

  I remember sitting in my bed afterwards, and not sleeping all night. I remember waking up, my father changing the channels, his eyelids dropping.

  But I don’t remember.

  Or, I do remember, and I’m afraid.

  None of this is right.

  FROM JIM WORLEY TO

  THE VICE PRINCIPAL

  I opened my eyes and Jim Worley came into his office. This is where I had gone, immediately after the cafeteria.

  “My status is green,” I said, before Jim Worley said anything or even stopped walking. I turned pages and didn’t look up.

  “You need to come with me, Frederick,” he said. I turned the pages of The Twentieth Century in Review and didn’t reply.

  “Put the book down,” he said to me.

  “But I’m getting to the best part,” I said, and he closed the book for me, taking it away. With one hand lightly holding my upper arm, he bid me to stand. I did, and he escorted me to a meeting room beside the school office, and sat me down at the table.

  “Just be quiet,” he advised. “Just answer the questions. No sarcasm.”

  “I don’t want to be sarcastic,” I said.

  Vice Principal Nelson came into the room and took a seat across from me. He opened the folder he carried, and leafed through it, his frown growing deeper.

  “How was your lunch?” he asked.

  “I didn’t eat my lunch,” I said. “It got knocked to the floor.”

  “Is that why you beat the snot out of those three kids?”

  “There was no snot.”

  “Freddy,” said Jim Worley quietly.

  I paused, then said, “They were going to hit me.”

  “But they didn’t.”

  “No.”

  “Do you understand what sort of position this puts us in?”

  “No.”

  He folded his hands together and leaned toward me. “It puts us in a bad position, Freddy,” he said. “A very bad position. Do you understand?”

  “No.”

  He paused. His eyes narrowed. “Are you being deliberately confrontational?”

  “No.”

  He clenched his teeth. “Do you know that we have your file from Templeton College?” He lay the folder on the table. “I know all about why you were expelled.” He looked up at me. “Is it true?”

  “No.”

  “You didn’t viciously assault a student?”

  “Not viciously.”

  “That’s a matter of interpretation, isn’t it?”

  I didn’t answer.

  He sighed. “Suppose you tell me what happened in the lunchroom today.”

  “One of them was sitting in my seat.”

  Vice Principal Nelson didn’t say anything. He stared at me for a few moments, then closed the folder.

  “One of them was sitting in your seat,” he said slowly.

  “Yes.”

  He rubbed his eyes and let out another sigh. “What am I supposed to do with that, Freddy? How do you expect me to respond to that? Do you expect me to say that it’s okay to beat people up because they’re sitting where you want to sit?”

  “No,” I said.

  “Is that why you beat them up? Because they were sitting at your table?”

  “No.”

  “Then why—” he began. He took a deep breath. “Then why did you start a fight with these boys?”

  “I didn’t start a fight. I told one of them that he was sitting in my seat. He said he didn’t see my name on it. I told him I didn’t believe him, because he wasn’t looking at the seat, so he couldn’t know with certainty that my name wasn’t on it. Then he knocked my lunch to the ground.”

  Vice Principal Nelson nodded. “Do you know these boys? Do you have any classes with them?”

  I shook my head.

  “Have you had run-ins with them before?”

  “Yes. With Danny Hardwick. Two weeks ago. In the shop wing.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What do you mean, you don’t know?”

  “I watched him talking to Saskia Stiles and then he—”

  “Who,” interrupted Vice Principal Nelson, “is Saskia Stiles?”

  “Saskia Stiles is my chemistry partner.”

  “Is she your friend?”

  I didn’t answer. I didn’t want to answer.

  A moment passed. He noticed my hand, swollen, the knuckles bleeding.

  “You do that on Danny Hardwick?” he asked, his voice softening.

  “No,” I answered. “One of his friends.”

  Nelson snorted, softly, abruptly. “Okay, Freddy, get someone to look at that hand.”

  THE MENDING BEFORE

  THE SCHOOL OFFICE

  I opened my eyes and the school nurse wrapped my hand in a bandage, taped it, and gave me an aspirin. Jim Worley stood behind her and took deep breaths to show his displeasure, then, when the nurse was done, bade me follow him.

  “You have to wait in the office now,” he told me. “Okay?”

  “Okay,” I agreed and went to the school office. I sat in a chair facing the receptionist, who wore a blue blazer and white shirt, and made no eye contact. I was of no interest to her.

  My phone vibrated.

  are you there

  Yes.

  you went away

  Yes.

  you didn’t come to class

  No.

  are you mad at me

  No.

  are you hurt

  No.

  Yes.

  I hurt my hand.

  are they hurt

  I think so.

  I hope so.

  they don’t like you

  I don’t like them.

  they came to my locker yesterday

  i could smell them

  What did they smell like?

  cigarettes

  They smoke.

  they talk to me

  if they walk by me in the hall they touch

  sometimes

  They won’t anymore.

  i typed h

  Yes.

  you came

  you said you would

  Yes.

  i was afraid

  they kept looking at me

  but then they stopped looking at me

  they were not looking at me

  say, what were they looking at

  What were they looking at?

  at you

  they were looking at you

  there you were

  i was waiting

  i said h

  you
came

  Yes.

  they stood up

  they went to you

  you didn’t run

  why didn’t you run

  I promised you.

  —

  I opened my eyes and I was back in my chair, waiting in the school office. I stared at the wall and silently repeated to myself, Do not say Jesus fuck.

  Do NOT say it.

  Just once.

  No.

  Just softly.

  “Jesus fuck,” I muttered.

  The receptionist slowed her typing. She looked at me over her reading glasses. “Did you say something?” she asked.

  I nodded but did not speak.

  —

  When I was younger, I sometimes sat in my room and said all the swearwords I knew. I said them slowly, trying to understand the quality that turns swearwords into words I’m not supposed to say.

  “FFFFFuuuuuuuck,” I would say, and do a search of my memory for times when I said it in public. In all three cases, my father told me to never use that word, not ever. When I asked why, he said, “Because I goddamn well said so, that’s why.”

  I hate circular reasoning. I can’t close a thread when that happens.

  I told my father that his reasoning was flawed. He sighed.

  “We’re not arguing on this one. You don’t say certain words in public. You have to trust me on this.”

  “But listen: you say those words in public.”

  “I try not to. Just like the time you tried not to piss your pants and failed. Everyone knows that you shouldn’t piss your pants. But you did it anyway. Does that make it right?”

  “No.”

  “It’s the same with swearwords. You don’t say them in public.”

  “Can you say them alone?”

  “I suppose you could.”

  “Can I say them in my room?”

  “Sure. Whatever. Why not?”

  After that, I sometimes sat in my room and said every swearword I knew. They were bad words, but I didn’t understand why. I suspected my confusion might have been because I failed to master the correct intonation and emphasis. So I practised them, like a wizard practising a spell.

  “Shhhhhhit,” I said, then paused. “Cocksucker,” I said.

  Sometimes my father passed by in the hall and opened the door to look in.

  “Did you say something?”

  “I was swearing.”

  “Is something wrong?”

  “No.”

  “Then why were you swearing?”

  “I was practising.”

  “Practising what?”

  “Swearing.”

  He shook his head. “Great,” he said. “That’s just great.”

  “No, it’s not,” I said.

  “Shut the fuck up, will you,” he said angrily and slammed the door. I listened to him go downstairs.

  For a few moments I sat quietly on my bed.

  “Shut the fuck up, will you,” I said slowly. “Shut the fuck up, will you?”

  —

  I stopped repeating swearwords long ago, because they were ubi­quitous. In the shows I watched, in the books I read, on the websites I visited. There were no swearwords I hadn’t heard.

  There were no combinations I hadn’t heard. Until today.

  “Jesus fuck,” moaned Danny Hardwick as he lay on the ground.

  “Jesus fuck,” I said under my breath, and the receptionist lowered her glasses and looked at me suspiciously.

  My phone vibrated.

  what are you doing

  Waiting.

  im waiting too

  What are you waiting for?

  i want to go home

  i miss home

  i miss you

  I looked at the words on my phone for a full minute before I replied.

  I wrote you a poem.

  you wrote me a poem?

  My chem partner is Saskia

  Every day we eat lunch

  inside the cafeteria

  Together she and me make we

  Say, i wrote this poem for you saskia

  I wrote it for you, Saskia.

  thank you

  You’re welcome.

  squeak

  Squeak.

  THE RIDE HOME WITH BILL

  Listen: They sent home two of the boys I beat up in the cafeteria. They sent Danny Hardwick to the hospital for stitches. They made me stay.

  I sat on a chair in a room in the principal’s office until 2:30, when my father came to the office. He entered the room and stood in front of me. For almost a full minute he looked down at me, without saying a word, breathing heavily through his nose. I stared at the second button on his shirt. Then he turned and walked back to the door.

  “Let’s go,” he said. I stood up and followed.

  “Can we stop for ice cream?” I asked as we walked out of the principal’s office.

  “Just shut up, Freddy,” my father said.

  —

  In the truck, in the parking lot, my father started the engine, but instead of driving me home, he slumped back in his seat, his hands on the steering wheel. I sat in the passenger seat and stared straight ahead.

  The heater was on, but it was blowing cool air. My father never turns the heater off. It has been running since the day he bought the car, three years, four months, and nine days ago.

  It makes him comfortable.

  “Goddamn it, Freddy!” my father shouted and slammed his fist on the dashboard. “What the bloody hell is wrong with you?”

  I had many answers for that question. It was, after all, the main question that has consumed me for most of my life. But I didn’t say anything because I was sure he didn’t want to hear it.

  He leaned forward and lay his head on his hands as they gripped the top of the steering wheel. “How many times is this going to happen?” He turned to me. “I suppose they were annoying you, these kids. Is that what happened this time?”

  “No,” I said.

  “Do you know you’ve been suspended for the week?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you know you might get expelled? Beating up three people in the cafeteria isn’t a small thing, Freddy. It’s a big thing.”

  I stared straight ahead. Rain began to fall. I closed my eyes.

  “Should never have let you go into boxing,” he growled as he drove. “Should have just let you get shitkicked some more times. Maybe you’d have learned something for a change.”

  SCHOLASTIC DÉJÀ VU

  As we drove home from Hampton Park, my father asked me the same question he asked after I was expelled from Templeton.

  “Why did you hit him?” he wanted to know.

  My reply, both times, was the same. “Because he was trying to hit me.”

  Both times, the rain began, and the windshield wipers beat at a rate of forty cycles per minute. I counted the beats and listened to the whirr of the wiper motor. It went whirrrr. Thump. Whirrrr. Thump. This was the noise it made in one cycle.

  “Why was he trying to hit you?” my father asked.

  “Because I kicked him in the back of his foot.”

  “What the hell? Why did you do that?”

  I didn’t answer.

  —

  In at least one way, Hampton Park and Templeton College were similar: my shoulders were bumped at both schools.

  Chad Kennedy liked to bump my shoulders at Templeton College, and Danny Hardwick liked to bump my shoulders at Hampton Park. But Chad was still the opposite of Danny Hardwick. Where Danny was bellicose and sullen, Chad was outgoing and loud. Where Danny was rebellion and subculture, Chad was mainstream and all-American. Danny was an outcast. Chad was the type of guy who created outcasts.

  The two, although similar in behaviour, would not have liked each other.

  Classically speaking, both Danny of Hampton and Chad of Templeton were bullies. Classically speaking, I was the person who got bullied. Having no friends to interfere or object, I have always been a target for peo
ple like Danny or Chad. Having never fought back, or resisted, I continued to be a target.

  As it happens, never fighting back and never resisting is usually a good strategy, because I tend to bore my aggressors. A pigeon can only peck a button so long before it decides that no more pellets are going to fall. Like pigeons in a cage, Danny and Chad pecked at me, expecting that I would react, preferably with fear.

  Anger would be fine, too, they assumed. They were wrong.

  —

  Listen: The similarities frighten me.

  In November of last year, I was expelled from Templeton College for fighting. The expulsion came at the end of a hearing, the same kind of hearing I would now face at Hampton Park.

  At Templeton, it was the conclusion of the quote-headmaster-unquote that I was a threat to the safety of the other students. It was his finding that I was not able to control my violent impulses.

  There were many other circumstances that influenced the conclusion reached by the quote-headmaster-unquote, but they were not significant enough to be included in his written decision to expel me. I know they were not significant factors because he said so in his written report.

  It was not considered that I had done irreparable harm to the student body as a whole. It was so not considered that McClintock mentioned the irreparable harm three times in his report.

  Chad Kennedy was the high school football team’s starting quarterback, and the team, if it won the last game of the season, would qualify for the state finals for the first time in seven years. It was expected, by alumni, that the team should reach the state finals. Chad’s starting position was guaranteed because the second-string quarterback, Ed Laughlin, the son of the leading donor to the school, was fifty pounds overweight.

  But, in the end, Chad didn’t start the playoff game. Instead, he watched from the side of the field, his nose taped, a set of stitches in the back of his head. Ed Laughlin started and led the team to an 18–0 drubbing at the hands of their archrival, the Upper College Titans.

  The Titans’ mascot is a giant stuffed missile.

  Templeton lost the game and was eliminated from the playoffs. This meant a significant loss in revenue from anticipated home games, and “constituted a blow to the morale of the school.”

  A blow to school morale.

  “This was not,” quote-Headmaster-unquote McClintock read aloud, “a factor that influenced my decision.”

  “Then why is it in your report?” I asked him.

  He glowered. “It illustrates the impact your actions had on the student body. They may not recover.”