My Big Mouth

by Peter Hannan

  “Are you sure?” asked Edwin. “There is a Newark in Delaware.”

  “I know,” I said. “But I’m from Newark, New York.”

  “You must mean New Jersey,” said Edwin.

  Most people think that Newark, New York — my hometown on the Erie Canal, halfway between Rochester and Syracuse — is a typo. But Edwin was clearly messing with me.

  “New York,” I said.

  “Wait, I’m confused,” he continued, scratching his head. “Why on Earth did you tell us you were from Delaware, then?”

  “Were you dropped on your head as a child?” I asked.

  That made Edwin smile.

  “Really, Edwin,” said Molly, raising an eyebrow at him and then turning to me. “Hi, I’m Molly.”

  Like I didn’t know that.

  “This is cool,” she went on, “because maybe for once something not totally boring might actually happen around here. This pathetic excuse for a school might finally have another band besides the Butchers, who don’t even write their own material or anything.” She leaned back in her chair. “And amazingly, this miracle has come to us from some new kid named Davis who, despite what he said at first, is not from Delaware. It’s also a relief that he can actually talk, and not just squawk like a bird.”

  So, she did hear that. Good god. But then she smiled in a way that made it funny. It’s the kind of teasing you don’t mind getting from a girl.

  “Yeah,” I said, “the Butchers are lame.” I’d never heard them play, but it was Gerald’s band, so I hated them automatically. I went a little further. “Plus, you’re right, any band that doesn’t write their own stuff sucks big-time.”

  “You write songs?” said Molly.

  “Me? No, never … not really, no,” I said. Of course, I had written lots of songs. Why couldn’t I just tell her that?

  “So, you want our band to suck?” asked Edwin.

  Molly made a fake sad face.

  I backpedaled. “No, no … I guess I could try to write one … a song, I mean.”

  “Great,” she said, pushing away from the table. “Then it’s settled. I challenge Davis Not From Delaware to write a song, and we’ll hear it Friday after school. We just need a place to practice.”

  “Barbershop,” said Edwin.

  “Barbershop?” I repeated.

  “Is there an echo in here?” Edwin asked.

  “I gotta go,” said Molly, standing up and looking at me. “Edwin’s dad’s barbershop is perfect.”

  She was the one who was perfect. I tilted my head back — way back — to avoid looking like I was ogling her. Which I was. I even covered my mouth, because I was afraid it was hanging wide open.

  “See ya,” she said, heading for the tray return.

  Why couldn’t I stop being shy? Just be a different person? It was probably in my DNA. I had the bashful gene. I was predestined for debilitating shyness. Even in this whole new place, where people didn’t know every single chapter of my miserable life story, I still couldn’t shake the shyness. After all, they had no idea that, back in elementary school, I’d gotten beaten up by a girl.

  Sure, Sally Bean was a large girl with a thicker mustache in first grade than Gerald had now — but still. Plus, these new people didn’t know I had wet my pants at the top of the slide. I’d just won an orange-soda drinking contest against Randy Ross, who was a sore loser and followed me up the ladder and kicked me in the back just as I pushed off, so there was a good reason. Except that there’s no good reason. Wetting your pants is still wetting your pants. No point in trying to explain it. The more you try, the worse it gets. Believe me. Anyway, I came down the slide and Sally Bean was standing, facing me at the bottom, ready to attack. I have no idea why.

  All I know is that the pee got there first. Sally screamed, and I slid right into her fist. She fell on top of me and rolled me over and over in the sand.

  Walking into class with a bloody nose and peed-in pants with sand stuck all over the crotch is something no one ever forgets. Even though Sally moved away the next year, to some kids I would always be “Urine Trouble,” “Pee Boy,” or the “Slip Slide Kid.”

  Those wonderful nicknames got carved into my desks and lockers and written on blackboards and walls for years. They were yelled out in gym class and whispered during exams. Somebody wrote “Urine Trouble, Pee Boy” on the back of my shirt once and I wore it all day. Nice.

  In this new school, in a new town, no one knew about any of that. Molly and Edwin only knew that I had been in a band. That was technically true, but it was the school band and my instrument was the bassoon. The bassoon is the complete opposite of the guitar — a chick anti-magnet. Girls are instantly repelled into space if they come within twenty feet of a bassoon-blowing buffoon.

  From that day forward, when it comes to the bassoonist, those girls permanently reside on Planet Bug Off, Dimwit.

  I did play the guitar a little. Just not in a band. And not outside my room. But it turned out that my new bandmates were even worse.

  “I had one lesson on the bass,” Edwin said, leaning back in his chair, with his feet up on the cafeteria table. “That’s all it took. The guy ran out of stuff to teach me.”

  Yeah, right.

  “Molly thinks she’s a good singer,” he continued. “But during assembly last year, the music teacher told her to stop singing and just mouth the words.”

  Great. So I was in a bad band. But it was the bad band that Molly was in.

  The next day at lunch, I sat with Edwin. Of course, I already knew he loved to talk, but I had never witnessed this kind of word tsunami. He told me that he was the smartest kid in school and Molly was the second smartest, and Gerald hated that. Gerald had tormented him for years. Once, Gerald stuffed grated carrots up Edwin’s nose.

  “I thought I’d die of root-vegetable inhalation,” he said. “I actually went to the nurse’s office and then to the emergency room. The doctor had to gas me and use a speculum to open my nostrils and retrieve the orange shavings with some kind of freaky pair of tweezers. Afterward, the guy gave a huge sigh of relief. He was shaking from nerves. You hate to see a physician break out in a cold sweat like that. He said that if the carrots had made their way down into my lungs, it would have been bad — so-long-it’s-been-good-to-know-you bad.”

  Did I mention that Edwin liked to talk?

  “I’ve known Molly since we were little. Our moms were friends,” he explained. Unprompted. “My dad is a barber and his shop is connected to our house, which is no reason to make fun of someone, but everyone does. When I get out of Harvard Business School, I’m gonna build my parents a mansion with a solid-gold barbershop and a fifty-foot barber pole and a full-time barber to cut my dad’s hair. He’ll trim it at the exact rate it’s growing so it’ll never look like a new haircut, always perfect.”

  “Good plan,” I said, thinking he was finally finished.

  Nothing doing.

  “Plus, a spa for my mom. She’ll get massaged with fancy soaps while watching soaps on TV all day. Gerald will be her personal slave and toilet licker. When he screws up, I’ll stick carrots or kitty litter or anything else that happens to be lying around up his nose, or an orifice of my choosing to be named later.”

  I didn’t think Edwin would ever stop, but then he did. Suddenly. I could see from his face that someone had walked up behind me.

  I had a feeling I knew who it was.

  “Get a load of the dweeb twins,” the Butcher announced. “Old Dweeb and New Dweeb.” The creeps who constantly huddled around him snickered and wheezed like a bunch of giant cartoon rodents.

  He obviously meant “dweeb” as a big insult, but after he said it, I blurted out: “Wow, how did you know that the Dweebs happens to be the name of our band?”

  The Butcher and Edwin looked at me like I had lost my mind. Maybe I had.

  “It’s the Amazing Dweebs, actually,” I continued. “But I guess you already knew that from reading that magazine article about us.” I sometime
s lie when I’m threatened.

  “Oh, right,” Gerald said. “Was that Dumb Dweeb Times or Moronic Dweeb Weekly?”

  “Oh, it was a magazine you have to be slightly cool to know about,” I said. I was obviously getting into dangerous territory. That remark could have landed me in traction. But it was the least of my problems.

  Because Edwin was apparently encouraged by my wisecrack.

  The last-word freak broke his silence with this helpful tidbit: “Davis here mentioned something interesting earlier. He said that the Butchers suck. Actually, I believe his exact words were that the Butchers ‘suck big-time.’”

  What a blabbermouth.

  The Butcher growled like a pit bull.

  But one of his goons made a different sound: “Ewwwwwwww!”

  I thought it was a weird reaction until I realized that he was ewwing about something else entirely. Assistant Goon had grabbed my notebook.

  “Hey,” he said, nudging Gerald, “check out New Dweeb’s gross cartoon of you.”

  Assistant Goon ripped out the page and threw the notebook on the floor. The Butcher snatched the cartoon, eyeballed it, and tore it to shreds. Thank goodness they didn’t notice the song on the next page: way more insulting. The drawing was bad enough.

  The Butcher’s face turned purple.

  “Now you did it, dweeb,” he hissed, looking around, checking for witnesses. The cafeteria ladies weren’t far away. I guess that’s why he decided against just plain murdering me. “Don’t move, and don’t make a sound,” he whispered, grabbing my earlobe. He squeezed hard. And twisted.

  “Ahh!” I gasped.

  “C’mon, Butcher,” said Edwin.

  “Not a sound, dweebs,” he repeated.

  I’m pretty sure he would have ripped my entire ear off, but just then Principal Rigo walked into the cafeteria. He was giving a tour to some happy parents and unhappy future students.

  “Oh, look,” said Gerald, loudly and insincerely, “there’s a little piece of food on your ear there. Let me get that for you.” He let go and pretended to flick something with his finger and thumb. My ear was throbbing.

  “As you can see,” said the principal, smiling at the tour group, “we encourage our students to help each other out whenever they can. It’s an important part of the Wilson philosophy. Makes you proud. Carry on, boys.”

  The kids on the tour rolled their eyes. They knew an alpha goon when they saw one. They could imagine coming to this school and having their ears abused. They probably pictured all kinds of horrors. But the parents nodded their heads, like Rigo was some sort of educational genius or something. “I’d love to hear more about that philosophy,” gushed one excited mom as she followed Rigo into the hallway.

  Once they’d left, Gerald leaned in close. I could smell his sweat and his UFO breath. “The good news is, you won’t be New Dweeb for long,” he hissed. “Soon you’ll be Dead Dweeb.”

  He walked away. By then, the throbbing had spread from my ear to my brain. I picked up my notebook and tried to act like what had happened didn’t bother me at all.

  “What a moron,” I grumbled to Edwin.

  I was glad Molly wasn’t there to witness that — until I realized she was standing in the doorway. I wasn’t sure if she’d just gotten there or if she’d watched the whole thing. Fantastic.

  Gerald and his entire pack of goons were moving in her direction. They all passed by Molly, except Gerald. He stopped and stared at her. Up close. What, was he going to harass her, too? He was saying something I couldn’t hear, and he put his huge hand on her shoulder.

  I had to do something. I mean, the guy was a psychopath. I started to get up — and that’s when it happened.

  Gerald slid his hand around the back of Molly’s neck, pulled her in … and kissed her.

  Serious lip-lock. She pushed him away, but not like she hated him. Not like, Get your filthy foul mouth away from me, you disgusting orangutan. More like, Not now, you mildly irritating boyfriend who has kissed me many times before.

  After seeing that, I kind of wished Gerald had just killed me. Or at least poked my eyes out.

  “Behold the first couple of Woodrow Wilson,” said Edwin flatly.

  What? I was too horrified to speak. How was this possible? Molly was so great, and Gerald was so not great, such a Neanderthal. What was there to like about that idiot?

  Good god, he was putting his arm around her. But as they turned to walk away, she brushed the arm away and snapped at him, loudly enough for me to hear.

  “Don’t you dare lay a finger on my bandmate ever again, Gerald.” She said “Gerald” like it was a dirty word.

  So that made it better, but only a little. I never really thought Molly would go for me, anyway. I mean, I let myself fantasize about it, but deep down I knew it would never happen. After witnessing this revolting display, even the fantasy part had to stop. Molly was a great girl and everything, but now I doubted her sanity.

  Plus, I wasn’t going to fight the Butcher over her in a gazillion years. I enjoyed breathing too much.

  For the rest of the day, I couldn’t stop thinking about how weird it was that Molly was with the Butcher. How does something like that even come about? Just contemplating it made me kind of depressed. I mean, if girls were only looking for muscles and money, I didn’t stand a chance.

  Molly’s song challenge worked on me, though. I wrote three or four songs in my note book that after-noon. I didn’t pay much attention to school. In fact, I really can’t remember much of anything that happened, or anything I learned. I was too busy thinking about the next day: our first practice as the Amazing Dweebs.

  Edwin, Molly, and I met at the barbershop that Friday night. It was sort of weird. For one thing, the whole place reeked of hair product. And those combs in blue liquid creeped me out, like some kind of freaky aliens floating in formaldehyde.

  But with the mirrors and barber chair, it felt like a set for a music video or something. We spun each other around in the chair with our feet up until we all felt sick. Sick in a good way.

  Edwin’s mom brought in a tray of milk and cookies and put it on the marble counter, right next to the alien specimens. The ceiling lamp shone through the blue liquid, giving the milk an unappetizing glow.

  “Rock stars need energy,” she said in the sweetest, nicest voice ever. It was hard to believe she was related to Edwin.

  “Mom,” said Edwin, “rock stars don’t eat milk and cookies. Whiskey and huge quantities of prescription medication is more like it.”

  “Yeah,” I added, “and afterward we’ll bust up the barbershop like a hotel room.” I thought Edwin’s mom would laugh, but she didn’t. Edwin gave me a totally fake shocked look, even though his joke had been way more shocking.

  “So you must be Davis,” Mrs. Martin said, shaking her head while shaking my hand.

  “Yes … that was a joke, by the way.”

  “I realize, dear.” Weird, but it didn’t bother me when she called me “dear.” She sort of reminded me of a grandmother, and grandmothers can call you whatever they want.

  “Not all jokes can be funny,” said Edwin.

  “You would know,” I replied.

  “So I hear you moved here from Delaware,” said Mrs. Martin.

  “That’s right,” said Edwin, “the whiskey capital of the world. Toddlers pour it on their cornflakes there.”

  “Okay, then,” his mom said, rolling her eyes and heading back into the house.

  “Thanks for the cookies, Mrs. Martin,” said Molly.

  “Even though we’re not eating them,” chirped Edwin with obviously fake cheerfulness. He waited until the door slammed and then quickly scarfed a fistful of cookies, almost without chewing.

  The kid was a mystery to me.

  “So,” said Molly, suddenly staring me down like a cop looking for answers, “where’s the big song?”

  “I’ve got it,” I said, “but don’t you feel like twirling in the chair some more?”

  “
C’mon, Delaware, while we’re still young,” said Edwin, inhaling another small mountain of cookies. He didn’t even stop talking to eat. “Unless you didn’t write one. No big deal if you didn’t. I mean, we won’t like you any less. Well, maybe a little less. But we won’t HATE you. Maybe just a tiny dose of hate. Certainly not a super-sized serving of hate.”

  “Edwin, do you get paid by the word?” I asked, looking to see if Molly would smile. She did.

  “Not yet,” said Edwin.

  I opened my guitar case, grabbed my notebook, and ripped the song out. Then I closed the notebook immediately, not wanting them to see anything else in there.

  I handed the page to Molly and she read the title: “The Amazing Dweebs Theme Song?”

  “Oh, right,” I said, checking her face for signs of disgust, wondering if I’d just blown the whole deal. “You weren’t around when we came up with the band’s name.”

  “What do you mean, we?” snapped Edwin.

  Molly shook her head. She wasn’t a dweeb in real life, like I probably was. And like Edwin definitely was. No, she was just the opposite. But that made the possibility of her singing the song even cooler. It takes nerve to tell the world you’re a dweeb, especially if you’re not. I was pretty sure Molly had the guts to pull it off.

  She read the lyrics to herself and then looked at me again. “Not exactly a Grammy winner.”

  “Good songs don’t win Grammys,” I said. “The Beatles never won a Grammy. Neither did Jimi Hendrix.” I plugged my guitar into Edwin’s amp, which popped and echoed a bit.

  “Yeah, whatever,” said Edwin. “I totally thought you were kidding about that Amazing Dweeb thing.”

  It was hard to defend, but I tried: “Well, it’s so un-cool, it’s cool … you know?”

  They furrowed their brows and looked at me like I had more than one screw loose. Like they weren’t so sure about what they’d gotten themselves into. I wasn’t so sure, either.