I Love You, Beth Cooper

by Larry Doyle

  Right now Denis could not fathom how he could have forgotten such important information.

  3.

  HERE SHE COMES

  “HOLY SHIT! IT’S THE MOTHER LODE!”

  TOMMY TURNER

  “HERE SHE COMES,” as it so happens, was playing on the iCube as she came.

  This was not the “Here She Comes” by the Beach Boys or the “Here She Comes”es by Boney James, Bonnie Tyler, Dusty Springfield, Android, Shantel, Mardo, Joe, the Eurythmics, the Konks, the Mr. T Experience or any of 238 other bands. Nor was it the Velvet Underground’s “Here She Comes (Now)” or U2’s “Hallelujah (Here She Comes)” or Hall and Oates’s “(Uh-Oh) Here She Comes,” which is actually called “Man Eater.”

  Had any of these “Here She Comeses”es been playing when Beth Cooper came it would have been a spooky coincidence (especially “Man Eater”); the fact that this “Here She Comes” was also Denis and Beth’s unofficial song (pending Beth’s notification and approval) made it, well, also a spooky coincidence, but spookier and more coincidental.

  Beth Cooper’s coming was accompanied by the latest and therefore greatest song to be called “Here She Comes,” by Very Sad Boy,* off his new album, Third Time’s a Charm, a reference to his upcoming suicide attempt.

  Here she comes

  But no, not for me

  Denis tried to retract his entire head into his body cavity but it wouldn’t go.

  Graduation cap set at a provocative angle, Beth Cooper came. She seemed to be moving—nay, sashaying—in slow motion, as all around her blurred and the song became a sound track.

  Here she comes

  No never for me

  In the music video Denis spontaneously hallucinated, a sudden breeze kicked up. Beth’s long brown hair flew about her face promiscuously.

  Here she comes

  Oh, she comes for me

  Her gown clung to her skin like a damp nightie. It was apparently quite cold in the cafeteria.

  Here she comes

  And there, there I go

  BETH STOPPED. She was twenty inches from Denis, and, for perhaps the first time, facing him. She was about his height, and this for some reason both startled and delighted Denis. They could walk down the hallway with their hands comfortably tucked in each other’s back pockets. They could wear each other’s T-shirts. They could kiss ergonomically.

  “You embarrassed me,” Beth said in the flat, midwestern voice of an angel.

  Denis’s mouth went dry.

  It hung open a bit.

  Death was imminent.

  Then she smiled.

  “But it was so sweet, I’ll have to let you live.”

  Only a fool would have read this gesture as anything other than kindness. Denis was such a fool.

  “Great,” Denis said, clarifying: “That’s great.”

  Then, a pause. A terrible, multisecond pause.

  Denis panicked.

  Beth didn’t notice.

  “So,” she said, “Henneman must’ve given you major shit.”

  At that moment, Denis realized he hadn’t planned for his plan to lead to conversation. Violence, sex, either way he had a plan (both defensive). But chitchat.

  So, Henneman must’ve given you major shit.

  RESPOND.

  “Some shit,” Denis responded, with simulated indifference. “Little shit. A modicum of excreta.” That didn’t come out as cool as his brain told him it would. Before he could damage himself further with a fecal smidgen, Beth changed the subject.

  “Was it like eight hundred degrees in there?” She scrunched her brow, as she did all things, intoxicatingly. “Like boiling?”

  Denis chuckled dryly. Or that was the general idea. He kind of snorted.

  “Actually, the boiling point—of water—is two hundred and twelve degrees. Fahrenheit,” he said, adding casually, “One hundred Celsius.”

  Denis instantly knew that was hugely geeky, what he said, and further he knew his brain knew how geeky it was even before he said it; he suspected his brain was out to sabotage him, perhaps fearing that an exterior life would cut down on his Sudoku time.

  Fortunately, Beth wasn’t listening.

  “I am so hot,” she said.

  Right there, inches from Denis, Beth did this: She bent over and lifted her gown over her head. She was not naked underneath, as Denis imagined, but somehow even better, she wore tight cutoff jeans and a sweat-soaked belly shirt. The shirt pulled up with the gown, revealing the underside of a lacy, clean, perfect and pink brassiere.

  It was the first time Denis had ever seen a brassiere, live, on a girl.

  “Yes. I, too, am hot,” said Denis, also bothered.

  “I’M NOT GAY, DUDE.”

  Rich interloped, oblivious, it seemed, to the historic presence of Beth Cooper.

  Rich was more than a foot taller than Denis, which always gave their conversations a cartoonish cant. Now, with Rich’s flamboyant indignation and Denis’s twitchy anxiety, they constituted a bona fide classic comedy duo, like the ones on those black-and-white DVDs Denis’s father insisted he watch.

  “I am so not gay,” Rich snipped, hands perched on his hips.

  Denis kept flicking his head in Beth’s direction, in long and short flicks. Rich didn’t know Morse code but eventually got the gist.

  “I didn’t realize there was a line.”

  Beth, on the other hand, was a master of the segue.

  “That’s okay,” she said. “I have to get back—”

  “Wait,” Denis blurted.

  Beth waited.

  Two hundred and fifty million nanoseconds passed.

  Denis formulated a plan. Quite a good one, considering the quarter second that had gone into it.

  “I’m having a little soiree at my house tonight,” Denis said with tight suavity. “Of course, that’s redundant. Soirée means ‘evening.’ In French.”

  Rich was mad at Denis, but he wasn’t going to leave his friend hoisting on his own petardness like that.

  “A party,” Rich translated. “More of a party than a soiree. Music. Drinks. Prizes. Drinks.”

  “That sounds fun,” Beth said with merely anthropological interest.

  “You’re invited,” Denis ejaculated. “It’s 706 Hackberry Drive. Zip code 60004 if you’re Mapquesting—”

  “Wow, thanks,” Beth responded, her voice dripping courtesy. “We do have this other thing we have to do, but maybe we can stop by…”

  Denis nodded the Cool Nod, the mere feint of a nod, but too quickly and too often, making him look like a bobble-head doll.

  “That’s coo–”

  A mammoth paw engulfed Denis’s face and slammed his head against the cinderblock.

  THE PAW WAS HUMAN, Denis surmised, from the way its thumb was opposed deeply into his throat.

  Greg Saloga, Denis thought. This has to be Greg Saloga, killing me.

  And yet these did not smell like Greg Saloga’s fingers, of Miracle Whip and Oscar Meyer all-meat bologna, a reliably pungent bouquet that sophomore year had temporarily rendered Denis a vegetarian. Denis hypothesized that Greg Saloga must have washed his hands for graduation, a minimum of one thousand times.

  Unbeknownst to Denis, Greg Saloga’s bologna fingers were miles away. After the ceremony, Becky Reese’s family invited him out for ice cream. Greg Saloga liked ice cream. It was cold and creamy.

  Denis could not see whose hand was buckling the plates of his skull. One eye had a clear and intimate view of the cafeteria wall, which was not beige at all but white with a fine misting of yellow grease. The outward-facing eye had a forefinger in it, doubling whatever image was unobstructed, and so all Denis was able to make out was a slab of angry red meat with at least one orifice.

  “You wooed my girl,” the angry red meat said.

  Denis did not recognize the voice, or the accent, a brassy southern drawl with swampy undertones. But he deduced the gull to which the voice referred had to be Beth Cooper, since she was the only one he ha
d ever wooed. That would make this extremely humungous furious person…

  Impossible.

  Beth Cooper did not have a boyfriend. She had broken up with Seth Johansson in November, after he hit a deer with his car and refused to take it to the hospital. Since then, she had not been seen with any other guy on more than three successive occasions. Jeffery Pule, her prom date, had been a Make-a-Wish type situation; even though there were reports that Pule had felt Beth up under the guise of a fit, he was dead now and so completely out of the picture.

  Beth Cooper did not have a boyfriend.

  “YOU MUST BE BETH’S BOYFRIEND,” Rich said brightly, extending his hand in hopes of tricking the meat into releasing his best friend’s face.

  The meat swiveled in Rich’s direction. Its jaw was massive and appeared to have extra bones in it.

  “I have to go to the bathroom,” Rich excused himself.

  The meat returned its attention to Denis. A slight shifting of its grip allowed Denis a better, albeit more terrifying, look.

  The meat was a handsome young man whose army green jacket and army green trousers and army green beret and assorted patches, pins and epaulets suggested he was somehow affiliated with the United States Army.

  The Army Man leaned in, putting his full weight on the hand clamped to Denis’s face.

  “Are you prepared to die?” he asked.

  “Not really,” Denis smush-mouthed.

  “Kevin!”

  Denis would not have guessed Kevin. Animal, Hoss, Bull or Steve. Not Kevin.

  “Kevin, stop!”

  Kevin turned to Beth, casually leaning on Denis’s face.

  “Return to your friends, Lisbee,” he said, courtly like. “I will rejoin you shortly.”

  Beth made a petulant, defiant sound. Then she did as Kevin requested.

  Denis called after her: “Eight o’clo—”

  Kevin squeezed Denis’s head, silencing it. He moved in very close. Steam vented from his nostrils, hot beer vapor and a lemony smoke Denis could not immediately place. His lips brushed Denis’s cheek.

  “You demean her,” Kevin drawled all over Denis, “and insult me.”

  Guys much braver than Denis would have simply apologized here.

  “Actually,” Denis countered, “she said it was ‘sweet.’”

  Kevin began choking Denis, just a little bit.

  “You move in on my girl,” he said, squeezing ever so slightly more, “even as I am fighting for your freedom and safety with my very life.”

  “Appreciate your sacrifice,” Denis squeaked.

  “Now over there,” Kevin twanged on, “a moral transgression of this order would dictate the severing of your head. Or some other relevant part.”

  Denis quickly ascertained the relevant part.

  “But we’re a civilized people,” Kevin said, abating his strangling as evidence. “So I am going to give you ten seconds to convince me I should let you live.”

  “You mean persuade, not convince,” Denis said.

  Denis was about to discover if the human head could pop.

  “IS THERE A PROBLEM HERE?”

  Dr. Henneman delivered her catchphrase with Rich standing to her left. Behind and to her left.

  Kevin released Denis.

  “No, ma’am,” Kevin said. “My hand slipped.”

  “We were just discussing my speech,” Denis explained, rubbing his throat. “Kevin here felt—”

  Dr. Henneman ignored Denis and addressed Kevin.

  “I can’t allow you to kill him on school grounds.”

  Kevin nodded and walked away.

  Dr. Henneman contemplated Denis. Half his face featured a port-wine stain shaped like a giant hand.

  He wasn’t her problem anymore, Dr. Henneman decided.

  “Good luck in all your future endeavors, Mr. Cooverman,” she said. “You too, Rich.”

  She left.

  Denis checked for his Adam’s apple.

  “On the bright side,” Rich chirped, “Beth Cooper talked to you.”

  DENIS DID NOT SEE ANY BRIGHT SIDE. Beth Cooper had a boyfriend, and he was going to kill Denis. Neither of these were promising developments. The very best Denis could hope for was that Kevin would only almost kill him, causing Beth to break up with Kevin in disgust and, overcome with guilt, visit Denis in the hospital every day, discovering what a tremendous person he was and, perhaps, sponge-bathing him.

  The fantasy quickly collapsed in a cascade of hospital regulations and other improbabilities.

  Denis watched horror-struck as, across the cafeteria, Kevin was introducing Cammy and Treece to two of his army buddies.

  Oh no.

  Beth and Kevin were being officially inducted into a social circle. Soon they would become Beth & Kevin, then Beth’n’Kev, and eventually Bevin.

  It did not look good for Deneth.

  Denis’s woebegoneness somehow penetrated the penumbra of Beth’s happiness. She turned in his direction. She crinkled her upper lip, tilted her head approximately fifteen degrees, and then, quite clearly, mouthed:

  Sorry.

  It was the most beautiful word that Denis had ever seen.

  The gesture also attracted Kevin’s attention, unfortunately. He pivoted, evil-eyed Denis, and then, using the hand not cupping Beth Cooper’s silky belly, made a slicing motion across his pelvis.

  Denis’s testicles ducked into his abdomen. They huddled there, trembling.

  Rich was puzzled. He imitated the crotch-chopping gesture.

  “What is that,” he asked, “an army thing?”

  4.

  WHAT THE FUN

  MAYBE I’M SPENDING TOO MUCH OF MY TIME STARTING UP CLUBS AND PUTTING ON PLAYS. I SHOULD PROBABLY BE TRYING HARDER TO SCORE CHICKS.

  MAX FISCHER

  A MOTLEY COLLECTION of serving dishes were arranged in some intelligent design on the kitchen table:

  a large cornflower blue plastic bowl,

  a stainless steel mixing bowl,

  an old ceramic ashtray, and

  a chip bucket from the Ho-Chunk Casino in Baraboo, Wis.

  They contained, respectively:

  Natural Reduced-Fat Sea-Salted Ruffles,

  Jays Fat-Free Sourdough Gorgonzola Pretzel Dipstix,

  Triple Minty M&Ms, and

  Quattro Formaggy Cheetos.

  Denis sat at the table, very still, and Rich sat opposite him, rolling his chair back and forth.

  This was the party thus far. It was 8:30 p.m.

  “She’s not going to come,” Rich said.

  “She might. She said she might.”

  “I’m still mad at you.”

  “I know.”

  Rich reached for a chip. Denis was upon him.

  “Let’s save the snacks.”

  DENIS HAD BEEN OBSESSIVELY PLANNING this party ever since he’d told Beth about it that afternoon. He made his parents stop at the grocery store on the way home from graduation. They were only too happy, since Denis had never hosted a party before, and only had that one friend.

  Denis’s mother even allowed crap into the house she otherwise forbade. For someone who shunned anything processed, preserved or tasty, she seemed to know a lot about the relative merits of the various brands of crap.

  “Sea salt!” she exclaimed. “Yum.”

  His mother did nudge him toward the more sophisticated crappy snacks, contending they would train his palate. She had been training Denis’s palate since he was a baby, spiking her breast milk with pureed asparagus and later serving him croque-tofu, like grilled cheese only terrible, and homemade chicken nuggets made from actual chickens. Denis was the only toddler on his block who referred to basgetti as bermicelli.

  Years later, Denis’s mother felt guilty when she read in her alternative health magazine, Denial, that junk food was linked to an early onset of puberty. At fourteen, Denis’s puberty had yet to onset, and his mother feared his trans-fatty-acid-and-bovine-growth-hormone-deficient diet was to blame for his pubic postponement. D
enis’s doctor assured her that boys mature much later than fat girls, and that the stool sample she had cajoled out of her son was unnecessary, and extravagant.

  Speaking of which, Denis spent forty-five minutes in the bathroom when he returned home, evacuating seven days of excess stress and its biochemical byproducts. A MacBook perched on his knees, Denis diagnosed himself with post-traumatic stress disorder and irritable bowel syndrome. He was half right.

  Denis spent another half hour in the shower, deep-cleaning the entire assembly, going back to hit the trouble spots again and again. He rinsed, lathered and repeated, and for the first time in his life, put conditioner in his hair and waited the requisite two minutes.

  During his final rinse cycle, Denis set the showerhead to PULSE and let the rhythmic jets massage the same three inches of his scalp while he replayed the best minutes of his life so far.

  “You are so sweet,” she says, smiling. “I guess I’ll have to let you live.”

  “I guess you will.”

  “Henneman must’ve given you major shit.”

  “Little shit,” he coos in a suave French voice.

  She giggles.

  “Was it like 800 degrees in there? I was so hot.”

  “You’re still hot.”

  The blood rushes to her cheeks, and elsewhere.

  The human brain is an amazing organ, versatile and loyal. Denis’s five-pounder, which could recall Klingon soliloquies with queasy accuracy, could also creatively misremember recent events if it felt its owner needed a break. Rest assured, the brain had an unedited master of the scene in question and could evoke it at will, as it would later that night and seventeen years from now, with Denis walking down the street feeling pretty good about himself until his brain sucker-punched him with evidence to the contrary.

  Denis’s brain also had Big Green Kevin tucked away in the dark recesses of its Reptilian Complex, with the other monsters. It was keeping sight and smell samples on file in case it needed to activate the system’s Fight-or-Flight Response, or as it was known around Denis’s brain, the Flight Response.