I open the little locker my book bag was in. I’m not surprised to see that it’s gone, but I am surprised to see, hanging in its place, a Shuckburgh cheerleading uniform—a miniskirt with an attached low-cut, sleeveless top. There’s a note taped to the chest:
WE HOPE THIS IS YOUR SIZE.
YOU PERVERT.
LUV, THE CHEERLEADING SQUAD
XOXOXO
A couple of guys can’t resist looking over my shoulder into the locker. Jungle hoots and hyena laughs echo around the locker room as metal lockers clang shut. Liam Spagnaletti walks up behind me and crosses his arms over his chest, regarding me coolly. “You’re a real prevert, you know that?”
I cringe in the cold and cover my rapidly shrinking manhood. “Look, man, c’mon, help me out here—”
He shakes his head. “Myka and Mary told us during free swim what you did, ya prevert. You’re lucky they’re just pulling this prank on you instead of calling the cops.”
Steve Decusatis slinks past, carrying a towel. He looks very uncomfortable and keeps an eye on me out of the corner of his eye as he passes. I barely know him, but I lunge at him now like a long-lost brother.
“Steve!” I hold my hands out, literally in naked supplication. “Steve, give me your towel!”
Steve recoils from my touch like I’m a leper as he picks up his pace and hurries out of the locker room.
Spags keeps shaking his head at me. “Nobody is going to give you their towel, dude. Myka said if any of us helps you, Tommy will beat the shit out of us. Although, dude, she didn’t have to threaten us. Plenty of dudes happy to stick up for what’s right. Ya fucking prevert.” He spits the last word.
“I wasn’t sneaking!” I say. “It was an accident! And also, it’s pervert, not prevert.” Prevert sounds like what you’d call someone before they did something perverted.
“Whatever, dude,” he sneers.
Everyone is dressed and leaving the locker room, and as Spags promised, they’re all taking their towels with them. Lockers bang shut and wet sneakers squeak on the tiles. Each time the door to the hall opens and closes, a gust of cold air blows in, and goose bumps break out on my bare legs.
“Guys, wait!” I beg. “C’mon, please, someone leave me a towel!”
Some guys think it’s funny, others look angry at me, but most are just confused and uncomfortable, happy to get away from the pleading naked boy as quickly as possible. One or two of the guys seem to consider leaving me their towels, but Spags hustles them out the door. “Uh-uh,” he says. “Remember what Myka said. Keep moving. C’mon. Let’s go.”
“Stop! Please! How am I supposed to get out of here?”
Spags looks at me like I’m something nasty he just stepped in. “Not our problem, ya prevert.”
Someone snaps my ass with a wet towel as they hurry past. “Serves ya right, ya prevert!”
“It’s pervert, not prevert,” I say. “And it was an accident!”
The last guy out of the locker room besides Spags is Soupbowl. He looks me up and down with his stopped-clock eyes as he walks past, and Spags pats him on the back.
“Okay,” Spags says, slapping his hands together in a that’s that gesture. “Have fun!” Spags walks out, the door swings shut behind him, and I’m alone.
I shiver and rub my hands up and down my arms.
I wonder which I’ll die of first, cold or embarrassment.
There’s no clock in the locker room, and my phone was in my book bag (wherever the hell that is now, probably at the bottom of the pool), so I have no clue what time it is. How long do I have before PJ leaves? And more important, how am I going to get to the gym, where PJ’s waiting? It’s a long, long walk from here to there, part of it through the middle of the wide-open Thunderdome.
After a few minutes, I crack the door to the pool room open and peek inside. The overhead lights are off, but the sun slanting down from the windows up near the ceiling bounces off the surface of the pool and casts rippling reflections on the dark walls.
“Hello?” My voice echoes in the empty room. I don’t see Ms. Everett anywhere.
“Helloooooo?”
There’s nobody here. I tiptoe back into the locker room. I’m getting pretty damn cold. I shiver and take a hard look at the cheerleading uniform in my locker. It looks warm. Wait, what am I saying?
I am naked and I am alone and I feel like I’m on the worst reality-show spin-off ever.
Clad in a red tuxedo, the show announcer flashes a blinding smile, studio lights shining off his veneers. “Hello. I’m Bing Supernova, and welcome to Naked and Alone!”
The audience cheers.
“Tonight’s contestant is Kirby Burns, who we join now at Uppityfuck High School, where he is—”
The audience roars in unison, “NAKED! AND! ALONE!”
“Kirby is walking in circles . . . ,” Bing narrates. “Now he’s checking all the lockers. . . .”
The audience hoots and tears their seats out of the floor and hits one another with them.
“And—wait just a second, folks. Now he’s trying to fashion a diaper out of toilet paper!”
The audience runs screaming out of the studio and storms the streets, tipping over cars and setting them on fire.
The announcer is alone in the demolished studio, blood sheeting down his face from a gash on his forehead, but he’s still smiling gamely. “Kirby is standing in front of the locker with the cheerleading uniform. He’s eyeing up that uniform, folks. . . . OH MY GOD, HE’S PUTTING IT ON!”
Amazingly, the cheerleading skirt fits, although it’s pretty snug. The skirt barely goes lower than mid-thigh, but luckily there are little hot pants beneath the skirt. The sleeveless top plunges low enough that you get a nice view of my scrawny chest. For once I’m thankful for my slim, girlish figure. The body of an artist indeed.
Stay calm, Kirby. Keep it together. All I have to do is make it to the gym and PJ will have some clothes for me. It’ll probably be a cowboy outfit or a kimono, but it’ll still be better than this. Heck, if the buses have left already, I might even make it to the gym without anyone seeing me!
I nudge the hallway door open. There’s no one out there. I pause a moment, listening for the sound of footsteps, but I don’t hear anything.
The coast is clear.
I creep away from the door, and as soon as I’m far enough away that I can’t run back, Myka pops out from around a corner and takes a photo of me, then runs away giggling.
Well, that’s going online.
Can I even come back to school after this? God, I don’t know.
A few feet down the hall I see one of my socks. I pick it up and spot, farther down the hallway, another sock. I sigh and begin the scavenger hunt of humiliation.
If Melanie could see me right now, I bet she’d laugh. But not in a mean way. I bet she’d laugh and then I’d start laughing too and then I’d feel a lot better. This whole thing would seem silly. I’ll have to find a new notebook when I get home. It won’t be the same as using the real thing, but it’ll be better than nothing.
The only blessing among all this misfortune is that it’s the end of the day, and as I had hoped, the halls are empty. All the buses have already left. The only students I see are a pair of marching band kids in tall feathered hats, carrying their oboes as I stoop to pick up my belt in the hall to the Thunderdome. Rather than laughing or pointing, they hold their breath and give me a wide berth, as though my bad luck might be contagious.
Fortunately the trail of clothes leads through the lobby and into the gym, where I was headed to meet PJ anyway. I hurry through the Thunderdome without seeing anyone else and pick up my shirt from the floor in front of the bank of double doors that lead to the gym. I gratefully slip the shirt on over the cheerleading outfit, although it doesn’t do anything to cover the tiny dress or my thin legs poking out beneath it.
I enter the gym to find PJ teetering on top of a stepladder, hanging a strand of Christmas lights from hooks on the wall. Two kids
at the base of the ladder are feeding him the lights, and when the door slams shut behind me, all three turn to look at me and stop in mid-task, frozen like I’m Medusa.
PJ is the first to speak up. “Dude, where are your pants?”
“Somewhere around here, hopefully.”
Still up on the ladder, PJ points to the door at the far end of the gym that leads outside. It’s propped halfway open with a brick, and one leg of my pants is sticking out, into the gym.
“That them?”
“Finally! Oh, sweet denim, how I’ve missed you.”
The two guys holding the ladder clearly have way more questions than PJ, who resumes messing with the lights. “Mary came in here and tossed them out the door a couple of minutes ago,” he says. “What’s going on?”
I don’t want to explain it all now. I just want to get some pants on before anyone snaps another picture or calls me a prevert again. “It’s a long story,” I say as I speed-walk across the basketball court. “I’ll tell you in the car. Hey, have you seen my book bag? Did she have my book bag?”
“I don’t think so,” PJ says.
I grab the leg of my pants, then push the door all the way open and step out into the school’s rarely used back parking lot. It’s run-down and gross. Grass pokes up between cracks in the black pavement. The vo-tech building crouches at the far end of the lot. Amid the squalor I hope to see my book bag, and I do. I see it immediately.
Mark Kruger, cold blue eyes shining with merriment, holds my bag up like a record-breaking trout. He’s standing on top of a low wall that’s lost a couple of bricks, his legs spread wide, dirty blue jeans tucked into his tan work boots. He’s trying to look tough, but I guess I must look pretty funny, because he’s smiling all the same. It’s the way a fox might smile at a chicken with a funny hat on. His bruised eye has turned from black to purple, rimmed with an ugly yellow.
A rusted pickup truck idles behind him, the only car in the cracked lot. Some scruffy guy I don’t recognize is sitting behind the wheel drinking a beer, a dirty Phillies hat pulled low over his stubbly face. He’s an honest-to-God adult, and seeing him there, apparently cool with all this, scares me more than anything else. I’ve always thought that anytime I saw an adult, that meant I was safe. I was unrichtig.
Truck guy finishes his beer and cracks open a new can.
The door to the gym is still propped open a crack with the brick. I could run back into the gym and slam the door behind me, locking Mark outside—but I need my bag back. My phone is in there.
And besides, more significantly, I can’t keep doing this forever. I can tell Mom I’m sick on Monday, but I’d have to come to school on Tuesday. I can’t run forever. I can’t throw my egg sandwich away every single day.
I take a step back toward the door and yell into the gym, “Hey, PJ!”
“What?” PJ can barely hear me. I can’t see him, but it sounds like he’s still up on the ladder.
“Hey, my mom is already here. She’s just going to give me a ride home.”
“What?!”
“I don’t need a ride anymore!” I yell.
There’s a pause, then, “All right! If you’re sure.”
I kick the brick aside and the door swings shut with a metallic clang that sounds awfully final.
CHAPTER 24
* * *
THE AFTERNOON IS QUIET ENOUGH that, floating up from the football field in the distance, I can hear the marching band warming up for tonight’s game. The dry machine-gun stutter of snare drums and the moan of trombones sliding up and down the scale.
The grass under my shoeless feet is warm from the sun. The rear parking lot is far from the noise of Main Street, the only sounds back here a few birds and the ragged purr of Mark’s idling pickup.
Mark drops my book bag behind him and steps off the low wall. “Don’t worry,” he says sarcastically. “We’ll give you a ride home.” He looks over his shoulder at the guy in the truck. “That cool, Will?”
Will leans out the window. “Sure. We can drop him off at the hospital. He can share a room with Tommy.”
Mark winces at that, and he’s not smiling anymore when he looks back at me. “I never would’ve thought a little pissant like you could be this much trouble. What the fuck is wrong with you? You vandalize our farm, your boy Jake puts my best friend in the hospital, you attack Vern in the shower—what the fuck is your problem?” His voice climbs higher as he lists my offenses until he’s speaking in an incredulous falsetto. “I mean, I was gonna beat you up for punching me, but shit, now I’m doing it as a public fucking service.”
Mark steps toward me. I reflexively put my fists up, and Mark’s scowl disappears as he bursts into laughter. He looks back at Will again, who starts laughing too. I glance down at my skirt and skinny legs sticking out beneath it. Oh right, I forgot I was dressed like this.
“You see this?” Mark says to Will, who shakes his head, laughing.
Mark laughs so hard that he starts coughing, and the coughing fit gets so serious, he has to spit out the wad of chewing tobacco that was tucked in his lip.
“Oh God!” he cries, wiping tobacco juice off his chin. “Almost swallowed my dip!”
Every time it seems like he’s about to stop laughing, he gets going again. “You look so pretty in that dress,” he says.
I muster a strained smile, showing off my pearly browns.
Mark carefully wipes a tear from the side of his bruised eye. “Okay, buttercup. Time to get serious,” he says, waving his hands back and forth as he composes himself. “I got just one more thing to say, and I want to say it right. My daddy works real hard on our farm. Did you know that?”
“Uh, no, I didn’t.”
“Yeah, no, you didn’t. You don’t know shit, do you?” He’s mad now, and the rapid shift of his emotions is unnerving. “Daddy doesn’t have any help. Just my brother and me.” He jerks a thumb back at Will, who hoists his beer can in a wobbly salute. “Got laid off from Bethlehem Steel and had to learn how to farm. Did you know that?”
“No, I did not. And I’m awfully sorry.”
“You’re sorry?!” Strangely, my apology makes him angrier. “You’re sorry.” He shakes his head in disbelief. “Same thing your jackass friend said. Well, take your sorry and shove it up your dickhole. I know what everyone thinks about our daddy, and yeah,” he says defiantly, “some of it’s true. But shit, he had to learn how to farm at forty-fucking-five!” He punches his fist into his hand at the end of each sentence. “Yes, he ain’t no farmer. Yes, it’s fucking hard.” He glares at me, wide-eyed, daring me to disagree.
I speak very carefully. “Look, I don’t know anything about your dad or your farm. We just went to your place because it was near my house. We didn’t know it was your farm. The fact that we picked your place, it was totally random.”
Mark frowns and breathes loudly through his nose as he tries to tell if I’m lying. He spits on the ground and turns back to the truck. “You believe him?” he hollers.
“I don’t know,” Will hollers back. “Can’t hear too well.” He spins his finger in a hurry up gesture. “C’mon, bro, wrap it up.”
“I’m really sorry,” I repeat. It’s all I can think to say, and I mean it too.
“All right, all right,” Mark says, annoyed that I won’t escalate the argument. He points back at the truck. “Tell my brother, too.”
“I’m very sorry!” I yell.
“Fuck you!” Will yells back, hoisting his beer can out the truck window.
Mark laughs as he shrugs off his Carhartt jacket and rolls up the sleeves of his Under Armour shirt. “Fuckin’ Billiam.” He starts toward me. “All right. You love saying sorry so much, why don’t you see how long you can keep saying it while I beat the shit out of you? I owe you at least one black eye.”
Three long strides close the distance between us. Then Mark pivots with frightening speed and drives a brutal right hook into my stomach, stepping into the punch with his legs. All the breath inside me
is driven out. My legs fold, and I fall to my knees, a hot ball of lead burrowing into my guts. I’m at the bottom of the pool again. I can’t breathe.
Mark barks a harsh laugh. “One punch? No, no, no. We’re not done dancing, diddledick. Get up.”
I try to get up, but I can’t. I still can’t even breathe. I see a brick on the ground behind Mark, but it’s too far away to reach.
“I said get UP!” Mark dances around me and waves his hands in my face. “C’mon, boy, get up!”
“Don’t hurt him too bad, Mark,” Will chides from a million miles away, followed by the hollow ting! of a beer can hitting the pavement.
Mark leans down into my face so close I can smell the mint Skoal on his breath. “C’mon, sweetheart, get up. Lemme see if you got your sister’s underwear on under that dress.”
I look him in the eye and pull a single burning breath, enough to ask, “What?”
— — —
The last month Melanie was sick, my grandmother came to stay with us, to help take care of me and the house since Mom and Dad were at the hospital pretty much all the time.
It was Thursday evening, the day after Mom took me out of school to talk to Melanie for the last time. Mom and Dad were both at the hospital, and I was at home with Grandma. I was watching TV in the living room when she got a call from Mom. After she hung up, she asked me, “I was thinking about ordering pizza for dinner. What do you think?”
I got excited because, like all sentient beings on this wet blue ball, I love pizza, even though it kills me. I don’t mind as long as I’m near a toilet, but Mom didn’t let me eat it very often because she knew it hurt my stomach. I asked Grandma where we were going to order it from, and she said wherever I wanted, so I called Pizza Hut, which is nothing fancy, but it’s the best pie you could get delivered in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Grandma even let me order the Meat Lovers Pizza, which Mom would never let me do. She’d at least make me order something with vegetables on it.
A couple of hours later I was lying on the couch watching TV, totally stuffed with pizza. As Grandma was folding the pizza box into the recycling, I heard the garage door open and the car pull in. The garage door slowly ground shut, and then the downstairs door to the garage swung open and closed. I heard my parents walking upstairs and felt that something was wrong, although it took me a moment to realize that what was wrong was that I heard two sets of footsteps, not one.
This Might Hurt a Bit Page 23