by mcdavis3
Oakley had the best phrases when we chatted online, like “Hey you.” “Shit’s straight now.” “Let’s play,” and “Yessir.” I’d steal them all. And then there was her bootie. Her bubble butt. Two voluptuously curves traced out cruelly by black leggings. How did I miss it? It def wasn’t this big before. It was the kind of bootie you get from doing 50,000 squats. A butt so nice she probably shit candy. Other kids had noticed it, geniuses. Skinny girls meant nothing to me now. Boobs, cute faces, bleh. They were nothing compared to a butt. If only I’d known. Bubblebuttxxo…Oakley just knew what was cool before everyone one else, she could see the future. I’d catch on pretty quickly, after it’d been a minute, that was my gift. Being in her presence got me through all the mundane moments in life.
“I heard you went on a humanitarian trip or something over summer.” Oakley finally asked.
“Yep…Some of us just care more, Oakley.” I pulled out my half naïve, half judgmental face while batting my eyelashes. Oakley laughed. I beamed, god I’m good, I don’t just function high, I excel high. I’m just soo much better.
“Hey, I volunteer every Saturday at Children’s Hospital,” she retorted.
“Really? No way.”
“How come no one ever believes me when I tell them that?”
I paused. “I don’t know, because you’re super popular? Because you look like a bitch?”
“Play nice.”
“You know what I mean, you’re not at all, you just look like it.” We flew through the silly safety test. While we waited for the teacher to check off our station Oakley started the assigned readings for our homework. While she read, I curiously watched Oakley outline her thin lips with glossy lip balm for the fourth time. It was hypnotically feminine the way she did it. She could see me out of the corner of her eye.
“I just started Accutane a month ago,” She said. “It makes my lips so dry.”
“Isn’t that the dangerous drug for acne that you have to get a doctor to prescribe?”
“It’s only dangerous if you’re pregnant.”
“You sure..?” My parents would never let me take Accutane. “Whatever, your skin is perfect. What the f, seriously look at it, there isn’t a spot anywhere. It’s flawless.” Oakley laughed.
“I get some on my lower back.”
“Say it isn’t so. Perfect Oakley Carter has a few pimples on her back? What is wrong with this cursed world? God help us.” More giggles.
“So who are you feeling lately?” She asked casually while writing a note in her book.
I let out a chuckle.
“What’s so funny?” She turned towards me.
I hesitated for a moment, looking away, I turned back to her and pushed my head in close to hers, I kept going until our nose were centimeters away and I was looking straight into her eyes.
“It’s you Oakley, I love you.” Big smiles spread across both our faces. Fifteen minutes before class ended I ducked out early like I had somewhere important to be.
26. The Top (Fall, 2005)
We drove without a word, but you could feel the tension, Eric, Jay, and me. Eric and Jay entered my life when they showed up to one of Katie’s parties inexplicably with Mia and Janae. Eric, or “E-Rock” was a prince of sorts, the younger brother of Jake Freeman. Jake was at the pinnacle of popularity at Shorewood. A senior that was licensed to talk endlessly about made-up stories because he threw parties at their dad’s ritzy house every other weekend.
Jay had been E-Rock’s best-friend-for-life since 6th grade. In middle school, the last time Jay went to school on any sort of regular basis, I knew him as a quiet, taller, curly haired kid with a horrific nubbin on his ear. Little did I know that he was never quiet, just extremely cool. I don’t know how I’d missed that look in his eye, that slight tilt in his head like he was the fucking shit. Girls picked up on it like radar. Jay played it by-the-book in conversation, most of his jokes were about making fun of other people, or his friends, “Hi everyone my name is Marco, I was born with two vaginas.” He let his tallness and good looks do most of the talking. In a million years Jay would never make a Facebook. Or text a girl back right away. And for that people liked him more than me.
At first glance I’d thought Eric was autistic. Droopy face, boney nose, and big lips. Skeleton skinny, tall but with a slightly hunched spine. He even had a lisp. You had to be able to talk yourself out of that, and E-Rock talked socks off. When he got going, when those eyebrows reached for the sky, he brought it like a silent movie. Eric I respected.
Jay and E-Rock were giving me the silent treatment because I’d tyrannically plugged my iPod into my car when we got in, ignoring their demands and pleads to plug in their iPods. I was addicted to sharing my music more than any drug. Well, it wasn’t as enjoyable when I had to force them to listen, but E-Rock and Jay had powerful personalities and were also addicted to sharing music.
“So nasty that it's probably somewhat of a travesty, having me, then he told the people you can call me your majesty.” MF Doom’s voice filled the Mercury Sable. It didn’t help that I had eclectic taste, aiming for different and better. Sometimes it worked out, just as many times I embarrassed myself. The silence from the amateur record execs in my car was louder than if anyone was speaking. Eric had been clamoring for Kanye, Jay had demanded Tech N9ne. Anything’s shitty if you want it to be shitty, I thought.
The cul-de-sac ahead of us was littered with cars. I pulled over behind a chain of three. My passengers immediately jumped out, continuing their musical protest. I opened my door, but lingered in my seat for another minute, letting the song finish while Jay and E-Rock stood in the fall night.
“Come on, Marco. I’m freezing, pop your trunk so I can get my jacket.” I got out. It wasn’t that cold but under my jacket I was shivering. This was always the worst part of a weekend. The moment right before entering the party. Avoiding this moment was almost worth not going.
Is this the night I’m not funny at all? That Kace finally tries to fight me? I worried.
Look, you’ve made it farther than you ever imagined in life, Marco. This feeling will go away and you’d feel even worse if you didn’t go, you live off the energy of people.
As we approached the front yard of Greg Cooks’s house, everything started moving too fast to even worry. From the group of shadowy figures huddled around the front lawn I made out a familiar short, shapely form.
“O.Carter.” I yelled across the lawn.
“Marcooo.” We ran to meet each other across the grass.
I’d just learned how to hug a girl a few months ago. I mean really hug a girl. Pacey Baker taught me. I was sitting in my car in the Jr. Parking lot, when “Big Pacey-Style” strutted in front of my windshield. I took the moment to study him. Online his username was ScrillaGorilla. I was a collector of the most popular kids usernames, even though I wouldn’t dare message them. I’d study their “info” boxes–usually some song lyric or inside joke–and try and puzzle them out. Pacey’s info was one, short punctuation-less sentence. “Thugged out since cub scouts.” I’d mouth over the ingeniously rhythmic words whenever I saw him at school. As Pacey slowly dipped one foot across the parking lot, two of the skinnies, Kim and Kelsey, came on a direct trajectory with him. As they intersected, Pacey halted them with wide open arms. Kim jumped to embrace him first. But when they hugged Pacey didn’t just put his arms around Kim, he mummified her, pulling her into him while tilting her into the air with his waist. There he kept her, not letting go. He said something funny in her ear and she started laughing, holding him back tightly. When he finally let Kim go, Kelsey couldn’t wait to take a turn. It was awe inspiring. They not only let him do it, they really liked it. I had no idea you were allowed to hug girls like that.
I held Oakley up on her tip-toes. The pressure felt good against my pelvic. In the fray my hand had spectacularly ended up halfway under the back of her jacket. I could feel the light fuzzy hairs on the small of her back. The tight pokey fringe of her thong hanging out
barely above the edge of her jeans.
“Are you leaving?” As I talked in her ear my lip brushed against her earlobe.
“Ya, my curfew is midnight.”
“So sad.” I was actually relieved I didn’t have to spend the party worrying about trying to casually, and wittily talk to her. Jay and E-Rock were heading for the front door. I had to catch them, I had to be seen entering the party with them.
“Next week I’ll try to get to the party earlier,” I reassured Oakley.
“Sure you will.” I let her down and took off without looking back.
Jay pushed open the front door to reveal a living room packed with people.
We were greeted with cheers, “Jay’s here. E-Rock.” There was a pile of shoes just inside the door below a piece of paper that said “Take Your Shoes Off,” in sparkly marker. Jay and E-Rock ignored it, but I obeyed. Then the procession of hugs and daps began. Everyone I’d every admired was there, it felt amazing.
As we went, the natural progression lead us towards one shaved blond head that stood a few inches above the rest. Greg Cooks was posted up in a long hanging jersey against the back wall. Greg Cooks: Former captain of the basketball team and quarterback of the football team. He’d been scouted by a few college teams but nothing ever came of it. He graduated last year. Jon had seen him do a line of coke the width of a coffee table. It was all enough to make me avoid Greg, except for the most basic of pleasantries, and you had to greet the host of a party. Plus, whenever I approached Greg, the Harrison incident was never far from my mind.
One of Loren’s pet projects was taking younger guys with potential under his wing and attempting to bring them into the upper stratosphere of popularity. You needed something else to do when you’d been on top as long as Loren had. Last year his protégé was Harrison Bung, a Highly Capable, all-Honors kid I grew up with. Harrison had pazazz, he wore trucker hats and headed a clique of straight-edge guys that hung out in the computer lab making ski videos. Harrison had about every ingredient it took to be popular besides having a lenient parental unit. But when Loren wanted you to come kick it, you went. So Harrison went with Loren to one of Greg’s parties. But when Harrison went to greet Greg, Greg said, “I don’t know you, I’ve never liked you and I will never like you. Why would you come to my house? I’m not playing, leave and never come back.” After that night, Loren dropped Harrison cold.
I waited my turn as Jay, and then Eric greeted Greg, “What up fam? Oh shit, what up E-Rock?” Greg talked with a hint of that gangster twang. He could turn it off though or go super gangster. The great ones could switch it up.
“Chillen bruh, your spot’s poppin off.” Eric using heavy slang was priceless.
“This is sweet Greg.” I added immediately after Eric. Greg looked over to me. He was so pale he was almost albino.
“Yo, what up Marco?” He said with a big yellow toothed smile, showing clear pride at having remembered my name. I went to embrace him. Greg might have been cocky as shit, rightfully so, but he was still nice as far as I could tell, a fair ruler.
When the “What ups?” and “Chillens” were over the hard part began. Now I needed to actually think up something to say to people. Eric and Jay went off in separate directions. We couldn’t just chill together, the invisible eyes were watching. I slowly pushed through the jammed kitchen like an amoeba, the counters were lined with people sitting on them. On the other side I saw Ian and John in line for spodie.
“Yo brohans.” I came up and grabbed both of them from behind.
“Sup dawgy, oh man guess what me and Jon heard today? You’ll love this Marco, you love gossip.”
I rolled my eyes in response to Ian’s allegation, but my ears couldn’t help but perk up.
“What?”
“You know Jessie Tongs?”
“No”
“How do you not know Jessie?” Jon interjected, “He’s a senior, gay. A druggie wannabe.”
“I got nothing,” I shrugged.
“He’s bi actually,” Ian corrected.
“So Jessie’s been riding around with Mike for like the last week, and Jessie gave Mike a blowjob for an 8th.”
I raised my eyebrows skeptically. “Man that sounds so made up. How do you know?”
“Jessie told people man, and when it got back to Mike he beat Jessie’s ass. Jessie’s eye is as big as a melon.” I quickly stood on my tippy toes and scanned the house for Mike. I couldn’t see him, he must have been laying low.
“I don’t believe it.”
“Man it’s so true, earlier Timy W was even talking about it. He called Mike, ‘Tickle me Mike.’ Shit’s so funny. Tim even said Mike has this weird thing with feet they’d always known about.”
I couldn’t believe Tim would say that about Mike, they were hella close. This was the gossip of the century. The excitement got me drunk before I even sipped a drink. “You know there was this one weird night at your house Ian…”
I stepped out onto the patio where 30 people were in circles smoking.
“Yo Caldirolis.” I saw Justyn and ran over and gave him a hug.
“Did you hear, Justyn?” I asked him.
“Did I hear? Of course I heard.” He said cockily while laughing. I didn’t say anything back and let the silence encourage him to back it up.
“You mean about DMF, right?” Justyn was referring to the big gossip from two weeks ago about DMF, one of our class’ legends since grade school. DMF, who spent freshmen year driving his mom’s car around without a license. He’d joined drama club this quarter, stopped doing drugs and started spending all his time hanging out with the drama kids. It was the talk of the town for a week.
“Man everyone knows about DMF. You’re slippin, Justyn.”
We laughed and I start telling Justyn about Mike while I looked over his shoulder. Jonsen was standing on the other side of the patio by himself smoking. He looked cold, distant. Like a caged animal that’d been poked too many times. I only caught glimpses of him at the parties anymore. He’d dropped out of school last year and got heavy into meth. He’d been wearing a big, saggy flannel coat recently that covered him up. The crack shack was too dangerous to visit anymore, grimy gangsters with guns hung around with his sisters. It was a completely different scene. I’d asked him about it at a party before, cut the bullshit and went up to his face. “So, what’s meth like Jonsen?”
He’d smiled at me, “It’s like super Adderall Marco… Adderall dumped in toxic waste until it gets super powers. Look at me Marco, I haven’t slept in 4 days.”
How the mighty had fallen. Jonsen had his time, he’d been seduced by millionaire’s daughters on their pool tables. All of it was just a distant memory to him now. All those unbelievable experiences were now as useless to him as a memory.
I smiled brightly from across the patio. It was my time now, and his time to suffer, life was just naturally balanced like that.
I stepped back inside and saw Loren standing along the wall in the dining room texting on his phone. He was wearing an all camo green jacket with a blue bandana around his head. The bandana was one of his latest attempts at starting a fashion trend, sometimes he wore it around his neck. The camo jacket was crazy tight, Loren was on the forefront of fashion. I could even see the bandana catching on, though it was a bit bold for me. But even fashion geniuses missed as much as they hit, and I couldn’t help but smile looking at Loren’s trademark tight-as-possible emo jeans. How did he go so wrong? Punk rockers wore skinny jeans, he looked like a scene kid on the verge of a tantrum.
I went over and stood next to him, “Yo Loren, what up?” Everyone called Loren “Tweez.” I didn’t, I’d known him since I was five.
“Oh shnap, what up blood? I’m getting so fades bruh. You?” Loren glanced up for a second from his phone. Loren had been trying to incorporate “blood” into the mainstream for the past month. It wasn’t catching on, a little too close to ripping off actual gang slang for upper middle class white kids.
“I just hear
d about Mike, crazy stuff”
“Aw ya.” Loren wasn’t interested. It was okay though, I’d thought up what I was going to say to Loren tonight five days ago.
“So who’s your away status about?” Loren looked up again. Online, Loren’s Aim was YOUKNOWMYSTEEZ. For the last week Loren’s username had been grey, indicating he was away, with this message left behind: “Is that what you call a getaway? Tell me what you got away with, I've seen more spine in jellyfish, I've seen more guts in eleven-year-old kids.”
Every day I read the lyrics and thought about who they could be about. Loren’s social circles extended to three or four schools. He was always dating some new private school girl. But there was still a good chance it was about someone at Shorewood.
“You know I don’t kiss and tell, blood,” Loren finally answered after thinking about it for a second. Mia Illy walked and flashed us a smile.
“Hey you want this D, girl?” Loren called out to her. Mia laughed and gave him the middle finger.
Loren turned to me, “She don’t want to mess with this shit. My shit’s gnarly bro. I’d mess her whole world up.” We both laughed. Loren hooked up with a sophomore on the low, he’d sneak into her room on weekend nights. She told her bff, who told me, that Loren had a skinny D. As we watched Mia, she came up behind another senior, Kate, and started grinding on her from behind. Kate leaned back into Mia and started bouncing her hips perfectly to the music, the tiniest bit of cellulite wrinkled up so perfectly on her stomach it made me want to hit something. They were so unfathomably out of my league it was a luxury just being a few feet from them.
Loren left me and I headed over to my next predetermined destination, most of the skinnies were all lined up together in the narrow kitchen.
“Marco!” They all cheered.
“Did you guys hear about Tickle-Me-Mike?” I asked. They laughed.
“Ya, we don’t believe it though,” Katie answered for the group, “Carol even gave him head.”