by Chris Lynch
It is very hard to unsettle my mother.
She took another sip. “Of course I did. You wore them for two days, and today was the dance—”
“Ahhhh,” I said. “Ahhh. You shrunk my pants. You shrunk my pants.” I made a move to the door. Turned back to her. “You shrunk my pants.”
“Your needle is skipping, son.”
“Huh?” I turned to the door again. “My needle?”
“It’s an old album joke. Never mind.”
“You shrunk my pants. Then you let me believe...”
“The fact remains, you ate atrociously.”
“The bus. I’m gonna be late.” I threw the door open and ran out. I’d sweat myself into those pants yet. I would not be denied, whether my own mother was subconsciously trying to sabotage me or not.
I ran back in, kissed Ma on the cheek, ran out again.
The bus, and my friends, were long gone by the time I got to the stop.
Oh well, as long as I was at it...
It was a three-mile run. Well, it was a three-quarter-mile run, followed by a one-mile walk, followed by a half-mile run, followed by a half-mile walk with a side cramp for company, followed by a very, very sweaty quarter-mile run. If you had asked me whether any of that was possible before now, I’d have bet against me.
But I made it. I made it on my own. I made it with my pants buttoned (sweat-to-fit stretch-to-fit denims). Didn’t even matter that I made it twenty-five minutes late.
Didn’t matter to me, anyway. The late lady slid open her glass partition and was already making out a slip for me when I laid myself out on her desktop.
“Latelady, you’re not really going to give me detention, are you?”
“Sure I am,” she said with a smile. She’s not mean, really, just enjoys her job. Everybody who’s not late likes her.
“But I ran. Look at me. You can see that I ran.”
“Maybe not. Maybe you swam.”
“No, listen. You don’t understand. I’ve got a story.”
“Oh a story. You’ve got a story. Well, that’s a horse of a different color then, isn’t it? Most of the tardies don’t have stories. Come in, come in.”
Latelady likes sarcasm. And she winked at me. Like she knew everything.
It was all over with that wink.
“But it’s Friday,” I pleaded. “I’m a freshman. I’m going to the dance.” In my dripping sweaty delirium, I really expected her to understand. Latelady was, after all, a lady. Somewhere in my world I have always understood that ladies understood. That they were... I don’t know, more willing to appreciate the sap running through a guy like me. That’s why I wanted to get to know more of them, starting with this very afternoon. That’s why I was sweating, after all, because this was very important, this dance, and Latelady had to know that, had to know it.
“Here’s your dance card,” she said, handing me my detention slip.
Fight Or Flight? DUH.
THERE WERE TWO OF us in detention that day. Me, and Metzger. Metzger was an acquaintance from my brief career as a wrestler at camp. That fell right after my football/head slap/nosebleed period, and before my stint in the priesthood reserves. Have I mentioned how much the school’s introductory camp helped prepare me for the real world?
Anyway Metzger. He kind of held a grudge from one time when I gouged him and bit him and stuff before I knew the wrestling rules. I had retired, but ol’ Metz kept trying to coax me out of retirement every time I saw him.
Fortunately detention at our school was a fairly loose business, and as long as you showed up, the monitor left you alone. The monitor was a rotating deal of different teachers, and nobody knows how the assignments get made. Judging by how thrilled the teacher always is to be there, it’s safe to assume that detention monitor acts as a sort of teacher detention system, probably for offenses like eating the last donut in the faculty lounge or showing up in stylish clothes.
Mr. Ferlinghetti was monitor this day. He taught history. He read history. He was history. After he checked your name off the list, he didn’t want to know about you unless your name came up in the book he was reading on the Napoleonic Wars.
I went to the window and watched my classmates board the silly yellow bus. Destination Sister School. I sighed, take-me-with-you style. One of those mugs was going to be dancing with my girl. Whoever she was.
Metzger came up and leaned on the sill right up against me, also looking out the window.
Maybe he wanted to be friends.
I took the opportunity to try and smooth things over with him.
“This bites, doesn’t it? Detention. When we could be heading off right now to meet all those girls and partying all night.”
Do people say that? I can’t stand words like party as a verb, but I figured the Metzgers of the world did, and if I was going to get along...
“Suck my ass, fat boy.”
Apparently not.
“You talking to me?” I said. It was either me or Ferlinghetti, right, so he wasn’t necessarily referring to—
“How the hell’d ya fit yourself into those queer brown jeans that are ten sizes too small? Jam yourself in with a broom handle?”
I told myself he was just making small talk. That Metzger didn’t have any friends, so the art of conversation was still a little new to him. I, Elvin Bishop, would remove the thorn from his paw.
“No, I skipped lunch actually, and jogged some too.” I smiled. There were about ten guys left to get on the bus, and I told them too, in my head, “I skipped lunch. I sweated. I did that, you didn’t. I should be the one—”
“I’m gonna kick your fat ass,” he said.
Well I tried. You saw. I tried, didn’t I?
“Mr. Ferlinghetti,” I said. He looked up from his book. He wasn’t happy about it. “This guy says he’s going to beat me up. Right here.”
“You load,” Metzger hissed. “You fink. You chicken-shit wimpy sonofa—”
He was right, of course. I had to recover. Just because Frankie wasn’t here didn’t mean I had to revert to my Mr. Nobody mode. He was putting a lot of work into me, and I could at least show some style. It was safe enough to do anyhow. Controlled, officially supervised circumstances.
“And if he doesn’t shut his mouth,” I barked, “I’m gonna shove my fat fist right in there.” Not exactly how I wanted it to come out, but close enough.
Ferlinghetti looked sleepy, but he had things tightly under control. He looked back down at his book. “Can’t do that,” he said firmly. Good, good. Just what I was counting on.
I smiled at Metzger. Made him crazy.
“Take it outside,” Ferlinghetti said.
There was a loud gulping sound that came out of one of us and filled the room.
Now here’s a move I was sure Metzger had never seen before. My knees buckled, I bent at the waist, and with both hands...
I grabbed my flaming rump.
Remember what Frankie said about my affliction? About what stress does to compound it? Remember his poor grandmother eating standing over the sink?
“What in the hell is your problem?” Metzger asked, taking a few steps back.
“None of your business,” I growled. Then I pointed at the door with my thumb. “Let’s go outside.”
“Am I supposed to bend way down there to beat your ass?” he asked as he followed me down the stairs. Like he was all put out by the situation.
“’Cause I’ll do it. Long’s I get to kick your ass somehow.”
Every time he mentioned doing stuff to my ass, I winced, and walked a little more sideways.
Finally, as the last party guy climbed on the bus, Metzger and I stood squared off in the school lot. I couldn’t believe that Ferlinghetti wasn’t even curious enough to come to the window like most teachers would. He even counted on the honor system for Metzger and me to drag ourselves back to incarceration after we were done with each other’s asses.
Cripes, the honor system. If I had half a chance, I’d scr
atch and bite my way out of this, and at the end of it all, I’d be expected to return honorably to detention?
The bus started up. Metzger started punching air for practice. The dope.
The honor system.
The driver was taking an awfully long time to close that door.
“Come on, Elvin,” a call rang out. It was Mikie.
Now there was an idea. How torn should I be over this? How compelled to return to detention? How committed to battling my nemesis with dignity?
How much did I want to meet our sisters?
Metzger bent over to touch his toes. If he was going to make it a game of I-can-do-this, I didn’t stand a chance, since I stopped being able to touch my toes at about the age when I stopped wanting to put them in my mouth.
I looked up at the detention window. Ferlinghetti was still tromping across Russia in winter.
“Come on, come on”—this was Frankie. “You gonna waste a killer outfit like that on Ferlinghetti?”
I was weakening.
He started chanting. That is so unfair, the chanting part.
“Sis-ters, sis-ters, sis-ters...”
Then, of course, all the bus windows opened at me and everyone in the freshman class—ninety-five percent of whom wouldn’t know me if they found me inside their lockers—started egging me on. Like I had to go to this thing. Like it would just be no fun without me.
It’s the chanting thing, you know. Guys will chant anything, as long as somebody starts the ball rolling. And once chanted, a thing is important and vital and so true you wind up with tears in your eyes you want it so bad. We men are slaves to the chant.
“Sis-ters, sis-ters, sis-ters...”
I did have this new running skill I’d developed. Shame to waste it...
It was so obvious that I was going to cave in to this that the bus driver didn’t bother putting it into gear. He’d hauled the door shut with that big robotic arm lever, and now he was going to all the effort of shoving it open again to wait on me.
It was obvious to everyone, that is, except Metzger, who was advancing in a crouched stance, with wide demonic eyes, and the spread-finger lunge of a madman from, like, the silent movies of a thousand years ago.
I was disgusted. “You’ve never beat up anybody in your life, have you?”
That put him back on his heels. He stopped momentarily, then remembered what he was there to do.
He lurched.
He took a swing.
I took the low road.
“Go, Elvin!” There were chants and hollers from every seat on that yellow bus. The driver started rolling slowly while I motored mightily.
As I stood on the bottom step of the bus, looking back to blow kisses to Metzger, Ferlinghetti appeared in the window, pointing down at me silently with a mile-long finger.
It is a very good thing that clothes actually do make the man. Because if who we were really depended on what we did, I would have just nullified myself. I’d done the most stouthearted and ballsy thing I’d ever done, running away from detention in full view of the entire screaming freshman class. And simultaneously, I’d done the most snivelly and chickenshit thing I’d ever done, running away from Metzger in full view of the entire screaming freshman class.
And happily, both situations would wait all weekend for resolution on Monday.
So who was I? What was I?
I had great clothes.
“This had better be worth the trouble I’m going to get into, you guys,” I said as I sat next to Frank, in front of Mike. The rest of the bus had forgotten who I was already, and moved on to “A Hundred Bottles of Beer on the Wall.” “I better be king of the prom here.”
Frank squinched up his whole face. “Not smelling like that, you won’t be. Whatju do, Elvin, take a bath in ammonia?”
“It’s a little sweat, do you mind?”
Mikie put a hand on my shoulder. “Don’t worry about him. You’re doing fine. That took a lot of guts, blowing off detention. Bring that kind of confidence into the dance with you and you can’t miss.”
Guts? Confidence? I wasn’t aware of having those things before. But now that Mikie mentioned it...
Frank would have no part of it. I was like an art project of his, and somebody had spray-painted over his good work. “And your little problem is back, isn’t it?” he demanded, taking my very personal problem very personally.
“It shows?”
“No, you could have a squirrel down your pants making you walk that way.”
“Hey,” Mikie snapped. “He’s been under a lot of stress. ...”
Frank put a finger to his lips to shut us up. Then, very quietly, he laid it out for me. “Nobody cares about your stress, so if you want to score, we can’t talk about your stress. Got it?”
I got it. I nodded. He really did want something good to happen to me at the end of this, so if I had to take some knocks along the way, well, Frankie was good for me. I was not a baby anymore. I wasn’t.
Besides, if I needed to be babied, Mikie would do it.
“He might be right,” Mikie said.
Uh-oh.
“So while we’re at it, don’t talk about your mother. And don’t walk sideways. Don’t dance sideways, for sure. And if anyone does notice your, y’know, difficulty, don’t tell them about that, no matter what you do. Instead... you hurt yourself lifting weights.”
I was trying to be cool. But really now...
“With my butt? I was doing butt curls?”
“Lat pull downs,” Frank said. “Nobody’s going to know the difference... unless you keep talking like a jerk.”
“So I should stop that then.”
“Ya,” Mikie said. “I’d say so.”
Gotcha.
“I don’t see how you can miss, Studley.” Franko laughed.
The laugh, obviously, was the troubling part.
By The Hand
THE DANCE TURNED OUT like tobogganing, where you exhaust yourself dragging the thing halfway up the side of a mountain for an hour, just to spend thirty seconds sliding back down again.
But like tobogganing, you want to do it over as soon as possible.
The first thing that happened when we got into the St. Theresa’s auditorium was we split up. The joint was big and cold, a cross between a barn and an airplane hangar with retractable basketball hoops on every wall. I don’t know why we split up, I certainly didn’t want us to split up, but apparently that’s what you’re supposed to do. I figured it was some preprogrammed hunting instinct, like when you see the lions on TV spreading out to surround the wildebeest, but as I had always identified more with prey than predator, I was going to have to just play it by ear here. The wildebeest...um, prey... um, girls... were kicking around the shadows of the gym, as far from the entrance as it was possible to get, so we would have to do some serious chasing if it came to that.
The second thing was, the fat kid found me. Nice guy from my homeroom, but friendly enough to make my skin crawl, and I could not commit his name to memory. Apparently because I carried a spare inch or two of midriff, he thought that made us soul mates of some kind.
“Hey, I was wondering if I’d see you here.”
All right? Like he’s trying to meet me instead of snuffle up truffles like the rest of us swine.
“Well, you can stop wondering. Here I am. Bye.”
He grabbed my shoulder jokeylike when I tried to slip away. That’s another way you can tell how a guy has no friends and no idea. Nobody really grabs anybody jokeylike unless he learned it from TV friendships rather than the flesh-and-bone kind.
“Hey, bud...”
And as for calling another guy “bud”...
“... there’s a gaggle of chubby girls. What ya say we go talk to them?”
It’d been a long day already. The Glue Pots or whoever were really wailing over the super-duper St. Theresa’s ancient stereo system, and the laser light show was slicing me to bits so I had to lean close to the guy to see how much seriousness was
in there.
Tons. Tons and tons of seriousness.
I glowered at him. “Why would I want to do that?”
Jokey shoulder grab with big bear shake. “Ah you clown.”
“No, I’m not a clown. I want to know why I’d want to talk to those chubby girls.”
Confidence, like Mikie says. Style, like Frankie says. I’m not stupid, I’m not delusional.
But I am not fat. There are people, who happen to have some fat on them, and then there are fat people. This kid was a fat person. I would not be a fat person. Didn’t have to be if I didn’t want to be. Just don’t accept delivery.
“Okay,” he said, offended now for god knows what reason. These sensitive fat guys... “Because we’re chubby guys, that’s why. We match up with them, okay?”
No. Not okay.
“Oh, like we’ll exchange recipes?”
“And because that really pretty one keeps staring at you.”
Hello?
“Where?” I gasped. I forgot the entire contents of the previous conversation with... the kid. “Where? Which pretty one? How is she staring? Are you sure? Is it something like, this?” I did the Dracula, I vant to suck your blood, penetrating stare. “Or like this one?” I turned a little sideways and fluttered my eyelids coyly like there was a fan blowing hard into my face.
Not that it mattered. The point was that that phrase had never ever wafted my way before, “... really pretty one... staring at you.”
“See for yourself,” he said, grabbing the back of my neck—which was fine by me now—and pointing me right at her.
And you know what? He was right.
There was a whole gaggle of chubby ones.
“Look closer, man,” he said, shoving me two inches farther in the right direction.
And he was right again. Her perfectly, impossibly round woman-in-the-moon face was ringed with black curly shiny hair that twisted and snuggled along her jawline, under her chin, along her shoulders, only then to turn back up and reach for her face. It fell over her forehead with the same curlicue determination, like a million tiny silky fingers on a million tiny black hands that wanted nothing more out of life than to just touch the soft pretty surface of her skin.