Punk Like Me

by JD Glass

  dried her hair. Yeah, maybe sometimes, if after a Saturday morning practice someone had to be somewhere, you might see her actually bother to bring in a hair dryer, but not very often. Weird, I know, but there you have it.

  We looked at each other, Samantha and I arm and arm under the towel, Kitt fully dressed.

  “You guys okay for the ride home?” Kitt asked. “I’m closer to you, Nina. Sammy, would that be easier for you?”

  “Um, actually, I’ve got a ride,” I told her, and I felt Samantha’s Þ ngers tighten on my shoulder, “so I’m good. But thanks, Fran, really.” Hey, the meet was over, we had another two days before our next practice; we were just ourselves now, not competitive swimmers.

  “Yeah, all clear here, Fran, it’s good,” Samantha added.

  “Cool, cool,” she nodded. An awkward silence grew.

  “Hey, great racing today,” I told Fran. “I love watching your form in the ’ß y, wish I could do it.”

  “Wish I could do what you guys do, so it’s all even.” She laughed good-naturedly and clapped us each on a shoulder, the awkwardness past. “Great job today. All right then, I’m off. Have a great night,” and she turned to go and we Þ nally entered the locker room. Samantha dropped her hand from my shoulder, and I handed her back her towel.

  “Double-check the locker before you leave, ’kay?” Fran the Champ turned and asked, then made her way through the rows of empty lockers and was gone.

  I went over to my temporary storage space and pulled my bag out. Yep, there was my towel, right on top. Well, at least it would be a comfortable shower since I had a dry as opposed to damp towel, and pulling out shampoo and soap, I made my way over to “shower lane,” just wanting to get it over with. Soon I’d have to face Kerry and Nicky, and I wasn’t happy about it, at all.

  Hanging my towel off the showerhead and just behind it so it wouldn’t get soaked, I turned the faucets and adjusted the temperature of the spray. There. Not too warm, deÞ nitely not cold.

  Fun and games was one thing, I reß ected further, but I wasn’t really thrilled at the thought of an unlicensed driver in a car that wasn’t theirs taking me or Nicky anywhere, even if it was Kerry. Rebellion could be cool, but not when it involved possible danger to my brother

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  PUNK LIKE ME

  or anyone else.

  Drenched again, I peeled off my suit and hung it on a hook under the shower. Maybe I could drive. I had a permit, and if I got stopped I could just claim extreme circumstances, I mulled as I shampooed my hair.

  Not that I could actually drive. I wasn’t allowed to, and I only had my permit because I’d saved some money and gone down to the Department of Motor Vehicles one day after school instead of the comic book store. I’d had Samantha’s old book and studied that, took the test, and passed. That line took forever, even though the test didn’t.

  So I had my piece of paper and a good general knowledge of the rules of the road. Gas on the right, brake on the left. How hard could it be? This could work. I was a little nervous. I would have to follow Samantha to the bridge at least, but it wouldn’t be too hard. I hoped.

  Lost in thought, my head covered in soapy lather, I yelped in surprise when I received a sharp poke to the ribs. “Hey, quit hogging all the hot water,” Samantha joked as she stepped into shower lane, under the head next to mine. She hung her towel up and behind the showerhead.

  As her body twisted slightly with the lift of her arm, the muscles rippled across her arm and back. Her deltoids were large and really prominent, like all swimmers’, but the rest of the muscle deÞ nition was smaller, lined and reÞ ned, every rib was clearly marked, and a band of muscle lifted across them. I could make out every bit of the structure, like a dancer’s, like a work of art. Her body was beautiful, and I wished then and now that I could look like that.

  She brought her arm down and I turned away. I’m not looking, I’m not looking, I thought. Of course, that’s when I got soap in my eye.

  Ouch. Nasty stinging soap. God was punishing me, and I wasn’t even having bad thoughts.

  “Argh!” I bellowed, desperately wiping and rinsing my eyes, and in a ß ash Samantha was next to me.

  “Hey, you okay? What happened? You get burned or something?” Samantha patted my shoulders and back to see if I’d hurt anything.

  “No,” I spluttered through the spray, “just some soap”—I swallowed some and spit—ick!—“in my eye.” Finally, the irritation gone, and clear-sighted, I looked up.

  • 187 •

  JD GLASS

  Bad idea, bad, bad, very big bad idea.

  Soaking wet, her hair streaming down her back, Samantha stood before me as naked as the day she was born. If I said she was beautiful before, I lied. She was breathtaking. Her eyes, now a calm and deep blue, held mine, and I felt my pulse pounding in my neck, realizing, as if I’d never thought of it before, that I had always felt that way—how every single one of her smiles was like the sun breaking through the clouds for me, and her tears broke my heart; how we always found a reason to sit next to one another; how much I wanted her shoulder against mine every time we joked, or her hand on my waist as she leaned over my back to grab something that was out of my reach when we were doing detention or whatever silly thing.

  I also realized that it wasn’t too much purple Hi-C and clear liquors that had made me feel the way I had at the beach—it was Samantha—it was me.

  I watched the color of Samantha’s eyes deepen, and now they were like a night ocean under the moon, and they were closer to me than they’d been before.

  I had a funny revelation: I actually liked detention because Samantha and I spent time together; that we would have, should have spent more time together this summer, except her life had blown up in a horrible and tragic way and she needed the time, so I became close with Kerry and now…Kerry. I was fucking stupid.

  Suddenly I realized that I was staring, that I was just as naked, and I blindly reached for the taps to shut the water off, my face steaming hot.

  “I’m done.” I grabbed my towel and threw it over my head to hide the blush I could feel burning a path up my cheeks. “I’ll see you in a few,” and wrapping myself in the towel, I rushed off to my locker and my clothes.

  Stupid, Nina, fucking stupid, I told myself over and over as I shoved myself into my underwear and bra. Just motherfuckin’ stupid.

  Maybe my father was right after all; I was too stupid to fucking live, I thought bitterly as I jammed my feet into my boots.

  I packed my gear and sat on the bench. Great. Fuckin’ great. I had a situation here and one waiting for me the second I opened the door to the main hallway.

  • 188 •

  PUNK LIKE ME

  Samantha came up out of the showers, and I faced the long end of the bench, away from her so she could dress privately. “Sam?” I asked as I heard her start to jam things into her bag, “would you mind if I followed you to the bridge from the parking lot? I’m not really sure of how to get back to the Island from here.” Samantha closed the locker and dropped her bag on the bench, good indications that she was dressed. I stood and turned around, and she was shaking her head. “You’re not driving,” she said incredulously.

  “I’m driving you.”

  She hefted her bag over her shoulder and I slung mine. We did a quick check of the locker room as we made our way to the exit, making sure no one and nothing had been left behind.

  “Nah, Sam, Kerry’s here. She’s got my brother with her, and she doesn’t have a permit—I do. I can’t let her drive my brother like that.” We kept walking and, Þ nally, there was the door. Samantha put her hand out and leaned on it, holding it closed so I couldn’t open it. I turned to face her.

  “I’ll take Nicky, too,” she offered decisively. “She can drive herself. Those are her own consequences for doing something so fuckin’

  stupid.” Samantha’s face was severe.

  “I can’t do that, Sam. She’s my, well, she’s”�
��I didn’t want to say it, not now; I wasn’t sure anyway and it was too weird—“she’s my friend, and I can’t leave her like that.” Samantha huffed and looked at the ground, then back at me. She was deÞ nitely mad. “I don’t like your,” and her lip curled in anger,

  “girlfriend.”

  Ooh, that came out nasty and cold, and I got angry in return. I could feel my eyes glint back at hers. “Then we,” and I paused for emphasis, “have a problem,” and I swung open the door and stepped out. I was so damn angry I almost couldn’t think, and I didn’t know how to explain it to Samantha, anyway.

  Of course it was a better idea, safer all around, to go with Samantha.

  But let’s just see here a minute. I had just made, no, Kerr and I had just, um, shared this big, momentous, incredible, Þ rst-time, life-altering thing the night before.

  Telling her to go fuck off after all of that, after she’d taken the risk of borrowing her parents’ car and driving to see me at my meet,

  • 189 •

  JD GLASS

  didn’t seem like the right thing to do, did it? It didn’t to me. Even if it was dumb. And wrong. And just stupid. And even if we hadn’t “done the deed,” so to speak, what kind of a friend would I be to let someone else just go blindly into trouble like that? Especially if, wrongheaded or not, she had done it for me. At the very least, I could take some responsibility for the situation and try to make it a little better. Besides, Nicky and Kerry were both younger than me, even if it was only by a little bit. I was older—it was my responsibility.

  I took a few steps into the corridor, fuming, letting myself breathe it all out. Samantha came out behind me. “Nina, that’s not what I meant to say, I just think—”

  Sister Attila on one side, Nicky and Kerry on the other, were bearing down on us. Nicky, holding Kerry’s hand, came running over.

  “That was great! You guys are incredible! I didn’t know you could swim like that!” he enthused as he arrived and gave me a one-armed hug, which I returned enthusiastically. Kerry joined in on the other side, and I gave them each a kiss on the cheek.

  “Thanks, guys,” I told them, untangling myself from the tangle of arms, “it’s a very good team. Oh, by the way,” and I turned to include Samantha, “this is Samantha Cray,” I said to my brother, “otherwise known as Blade.”

  “Dude!” Nicky exclaimed, and put his hand out, “you put the ice in dice, man! You were awesome out there!”

  “Thanks, just part of being on a good team—we carry each other.” Samantha smiled at Nicky and shook his hand.

  Nicky smiled back, then remembered something. “Oh, this is…” he started to introduce Kerry.

  “They’ve met,” I told him ß atly and just then, Sister arrived.

  “Boyd, Cray, ending the day the way we started it, I see?” Sister asked with a smile, then turned to get a good look at Nicky and Kerry.

  “You must be her younger brother Nicholas. I can see it in your face.” Nicky blushed and dropped Kerry’s hand.

  Don’t ask how Sister knew that, other than the obvious fact that Nicky and I look very much alike. Nuns know everything. Nuns have Þ les and archives. Nuns read everything. Nuns ask everything and extrapolate arcane knowledge of the universe and what you really did during lunch and summer break. Accept that, and life is easier, much, much easier. Scarier, yes, but still easier. Besides, even if they don’t

  • 190 •

  PUNK LIKE ME

  know everything, they’re hooked up at the source—they have a direct connection to God, remember?

  “Yes, Sister, I am,” he stammered. “Pleased to meet you.”

  “Pleased to meet you as well, Nicholas. I do hope that you’re as proud of your sister as we all are,” and she glanced at me, still smiling,

  “and that you follow her example both in school and in sport?” The smile she had for Nicky could only be described as kindly.

  Samantha and I looked at each other in surprise, and my jaw almost hit the ground. Proud? Of me? The last words Sister had had for me personally were about being stupid and drowning, and that was not too long ago. Where was Attila and what had they done to her? A spaceship was hovering over the campus somewhere, I just knew it.

  Nicky’s face turned almost purple. “I try, Sister,” and he glanced at his sneakers, “but she’s so very good at everything!” He gazed back at her earnestly.

  My face ß amed and my ears burned. That most certainly wasn’t true, and I wished he hadn’t said it. I knew better than anyone else how stupid I really was, and if I forgot it, I had my father and Sister Attila to remind me. Every single day.

  Sister chuckled. “Well, dear boy, it’s all in the trying, isn’t it, girls?” and she angled her chin at me and Samantha to conÞ rm.

  “Yes, Sister,” we both nodded in agreement, still mildly numb from this new facet of Sister Attila we had never seen before—ever. I mean that.

  “And you’re not her little sister Nanny, are you,” stated Sister, visually measuring Kerry. “A friend of Mr. Boyd’s or a fan of our Razor?”

  Kerry blushed and ducked her head. “Um, a little bit of both, actually,” she answered from under her hair.

  “I see,” Sister said, as she slowly surveyed Kerry head to toe. To tell you the truth, she probably did see. All things aside, she was one very, very sharp person—which is probably how she became a math teacher in the Þ rst place. The other possibility that remained was that she read minds—and that was never to be discounted as an option.

  Forget that at your own risk.

  She looked at us all for a moment, then turned to Samantha.

  “As a team captain, you’ll be taking Razor here home, yes?” she asked in a tone that implied this was an order and not merely a request

  • 191 •

  JD GLASS

  for information. Sister turned back to Kerry and Nicky. “Since neither one of you is of legal age or Ms. Boyd’s legal guardian, and this is a school event,” she paused to let her words sink in, “I can’t allow her to go home with anyone but a parent or a school representative, someone who can be legally responsible. I’m sure you understand that, don’t you?” Sister kept smiling. I had to wonder if Sister had been listening at the door to Samantha and me earlier, then dismissed the thought; she’d been down the hallway at the time.

  Actually, I found out later from Nicky that Sister had been sitting near them during the race, and some logical deduction of my own says she probably heard them talking about Kerry’s “borrowing” the car.

  Nicky’s eyes widened in surprise, but Kerry wore a bland expression. “Oh, no problem, Sister,” she said, very politely. “We were going to let Nina drive because she has her permit, but Nicky has his license.” Kerry shot me a quick look. “So we’ll just catch up with her and Captain Shark at home,” she Þ nished with a smile of her own that showed all of her teeth, and reached for Nicky’s hand again.

  Now you’re probably wondering why that didn’t bother me, Nicky and Kerry holding hands, I mean, and to be honest, I didn’t think anything of it. Hugging and holding hands and stuff wasn’t unusual among my group of friends. Why would I think anything about a friend holding another’s hand, anyway?

  “I thought it was Blade?” Nicky questioned Kerry in an undertone, but she elbowed him into silence.

  I glanced over at Nicky. License? I mouthed silently from the corner of my mouth.

  He blushed and stared at the ß oor. “Dad took me a few weeks ago,” he whispered to his sneakers. “I’ve got my card.”

  “Oh. Okay.”

  Well, that was news. Nobody had told me about that—why hadn’t Nicky told me? Waitaminute, why hadn’t my father asked me or taken me? What the fuck was that all about?

  Sister had been watching us in her usual observant silence, and when she spoke again, it jolted me out of that train of thought, and I forgot it until later, much later.

  “Is everyone out of the locker room, Ms. Cray, Ms. Boyd?”

 
“Oh, yes, Sister, it’s all clear.”

  • 192 •

  PUNK LIKE ME

  “Yes, Sister,” I conÞ rmed.

  “Fine, then. Ladies, gentleman,” she nodded to us all, “have a good night. Ms. Cray, Ms. Boyd,” she addressed Samantha and me directly, “I’ll see the two of you tomorrow,” and she turned and started down the hallway.

  “Have a good night, Sister,” and “Very nice to meet you,” we all variously called out.

  The four of us just stood there awkwardly, then I turned to Nicky.

  “You have your fuckin’ driver’s license?” Nicky blushed again. “Uh, yeah, Dad’s been teaching me Saturday mornings, when you’re at practice. It was supposed to be a surprise thing, so I could go out and, you know, do stuff with you and other, um, things.” The red of his cheeks reached his ears as he stared down at his sneakers.

  I was furious. Nicky was my younger brother, not my older brother.

  I couldn’t drive but he could? What the fuck was that? I was speechless with indignation.

  “Hey, Nina, that’s how we got here,” Kerry volunteered, and I favored her with a dark look. She could have, should have just told me that before.

  Samantha, silent this whole time, readjusted her bag on her shoulder. “Well, let’s get going, shall we?” she asked nonchalantly, and she began to walk down the corridor, in the same direction that the good Sister had.

  I stared wordlessly at Kerry and Nicky as they stood holding hands. I was still silent, still angry. I felt trapped, confused, and even bewildered. “Do Mom and Dad know where you are?” I was Þ nally able to focus enough for a logical question to Nicky.

  “Yeah, they know I was coming to your meet, and that I’m out with Kerry.”

  I searched his face closely. He was sincere. “They didn’t give you a hard time?” It was weird that they wouldn’t, since my dad wasn’t her biggest fan.

  “No, why would they?”

  No, why would they? I asked myself. It was just me. The problem, the burden, the freak of nature too stupid to fucking live. “Fine,” I shortly returned, “let’s go,” and I started walking in the direction Samantha had