Burn

by Suzanne Phillips

  He hates that he doesn’t have more of it himself.

  “I might tell her that you never made it to Scouts,” Robbie says. “That was a nice story you made up last night.”

  “How do you know I wasn’t at Scouts?”

  “I was at Danny’s, working on our science project in his garage. I saw you ride by. Where did you go?”

  Cameron thinks about this. He was on his way to Keegan’s. He likes hanging out in front of the liquor store. Sometimes, if he’s there long enough, some guy will toss him a can of beer from his six-pack. Once, an old guy let him drink from his bottle of Jim Beam. Cameron drank so much that he couldn’t feel the ground under his feet the whole way home. But he had to hide in the garage until he could feel his feet again, and then swallow enough mouthwash so his mother wouldn’t know what he was up to. She never even guessed, just looked at him a long time across the dinner table, then said, “Did you get your homework done?”

  So much for parental control.

  “Where did you go?” Robbie repeats.

  “ ‘Where did you go?’ ” Cameron parrots.

  Cameron shakes his head, begins unwrapping a candy bar like it’s a banana. He takes a bite and rolls it around in his mouth.

  “You ever heard of fun, Robbie?” Cameron asks. “It’s something that has nothing to do with school. Nope, you can’t find it anywhere near a place full of books and peckerheads.”

  Robbie’s mouth, a lot like their mother’s, dips like a half-moon.

  “They still picking on you at school?”

  Cameron feels his skin burn and all over again he hates that his brother will never know anything about being the underdog. Robbie is too big to ever be messed with like Cameron is.

  Cameron pushes himself up until he’s sitting on the edge of his bed. He rolls his shoulders back, feels his chest lift, his arms grow, and looks at Robbie to see if he understands.

  No. Robbie’s face is soft, full of concern. Most of the time when Cameron looks at his brother he sees his father. Then Robbie ruins it; he puts a look on his face so different from anything his father ever shot their way that Cameron can’t mistake them. He feels his body loosen. Just like that. He can go from pure fight to nothing in ten seconds.

  “What do you know about it?” Cameron asks.

  “Just what Danny’s brother told me. He said you must have a hard time getting up in the morning when you know you’re going to get a beating.”

  “Arthur is an ass. He got his ass kicked just last week.”

  “He says that’s why he knows life must suck for you. It only happened to him once. He says it’s every day for you.”

  Cameron sits up, holds out his arms, turns his face so Robbie can see both sides.

  “You see any bruises?”

  Robbie looks him over, his brown eyes slow and full of doubt.

  “No.”

  “I guess Arthur doesn’t know everything then.”

  Robbie shrugs and lets the conversation go. “You gonna turn my show back on?”

  “Well, since you asked so nice . . .”

  Cameron aims the remote at the TV and turns back to Animal Planet and the great white shark that’s devouring a seal.

  In his mind, Cameron plucks the seal from the mouth of Jaws and shoves a squirming Rich Patterson down the great white’s throat. It’s more Patterson than anyone else beating on him. And not every day. Sometimes it’s a hit and run, or Patterson puts him in a headlock and drags him down the hall talking crap. Sometimes Patterson is already pissed and his fists are heavier and he tells Cameron, “I want you to feel this tomorrow, girly-boy.”

  Anyway, he doesn’t know what to do about it.

  Robbie turns back to the TV and Cameron rolls over, rummaging deep between the mattress and box spring for his Ziploc bag of matches. Most of them he got from restaurants — IHOP, Friendly’s, The Green Café. He has one from 7-Eleven, another from a gas station, and an entire box of souvenir matches he bought on a class trip to a museum in Philadelphia. He takes the book from 7-Eleven and rips off a stick, then strikes it against the flint. It flares to life.

  Cameron loves watching the flame jump as it sucks up pure, clean air and spreads down the cardboard. When the flame touches his fingertips, Cameron closes his mouth and breathes evenly through his nose. He watches his thumbnail turn black and smells the acid burn of human flesh as the flame ignites the tip of his nail. When he feels the first lick of fire against the pad of his thumb, he raises it to his mouth and squashes it against his tongue. He loves that. The burn. The smell and the burn.

  The pain screams out of him like a tornado; he feels alive and happy to be. Lately, the only thing that makes him feel like one of the living is fire, and what it does to his body.

  “You’re not supposed to play with matches,” Robbie says without turning to look at Cameron. He has a spiral notebook perched on his knees and is writing down facts from his show.

  Cameron pulls another match from the book and strikes it into life. “You gonna add that to your rat list?”

  “I don’t have a list.”

  “Well you better start writing some of this down,” Cameron suggests, lofting the match through the air, aiming for Robbie’s back. “You’ll forget something.”

  The match falls onto the mattress, snuffing out. Cameron lights another one.

  “Did you hear me?” Cameron says.

  He puts more wind behind this match, but it falls short of the mark. When Robbie shifts on the bed, the match slips under his leg.

  “I’m not interested in the things you do.”

  Strike.

  “Yes you are. You worship me.”

  Robbie looks at him over his shoulder. “You’re crazy.”

  “That’s the way it works,” Cameron tells him, holding up the lit match, letting Robbie watch the flame glide down the paper and melt his thumbnail. “All little brothers worship their older brothers.”

  “Someone forgot to tell me.” The flame grows larger and Robbie leans close and blows it out. “You’re dangerous,” he says.

  “Ah. The respect I was looking for.”

  Cameron smiles, watches the way his brother’s face puckers into a frown, and likes it. He worries Robbie — scares him just a little. Exactly what a big brother’s supposed to do.

  Cameron lights another match and lobs it. It catches on Robbie’s flannel shirt. He waits until a swirl of gray smoke rises up from Robbie’s back and then says, “Little brother, you’re on fire.”

  MONDAY

  8:45AM

  Cameron’s mother stops the van two blocks from the high school. The windshield wipers are on full blast and still all he can see are the brake lights from the cars ahead of them. Spring. In Erie, that means sudden thunderstorms and whitecaps on the lake. Before his parents broke up, they lived in Syracuse.

  Cameron likes snow better than rain; he liked his other school more than this one. It’s been three years and he still doesn’t fit in here. His only friends were through Scouts, and most of them left the troop when they started high school. He sees them in the halls with new buddies. Some of them have gone completely to the other side and have become sport punks who line the halls during free period and pass the small kids between them like they’re volleyballs. Some of them call him Cameron Diaz or fag — even though he cut his hair months ago.

  He does his math homework; it’s the one thing he’s really good at. Most of the problems he can do in his head, and if the teacher didn’t demand that he show his work, he’d have an A, easy. He pats his pocket, where his homework is folded and stashed along with a packet of beef jerky, a book of matches, and money for a drink later, if he can find a Coke machine where there are no predators lurking in the shadows. That’s how he plans his day — mapping out in his mind the fastest route to each class that places him in the least amount of danger.

  He zips up his parka and pulls his wool hat over his ears.

  “You don’t have an umbrella,” his mom says.<
br />
  “I don’t need one.”

  “It’s pouring.” She frowns. “You want mine?”

  “No.”

  “Then let me drive you all the way.”

  “I’m fine.” Cameron pushes the door open and the wind whips a bucketful of rain through the opening. “I’ll see you later.”

  The school is a two-story squat building with a row of stone steps leading to a wall of glass doors at the main entrance. Every window sits in a cement casing with some gothic-looking scrolls around it. On days like today, with the sky heavy and gray and the rain cutting sideways through the air, it looks pretty cool, from the outside — like some place a scientist might be cooking up the next Frankenstein monster.

  There aren’t many kids grouped around the door. Just the Trench Coats. Goths or emos. Cameron can’t tell them apart. He thinks of them as the walking wounded, because the black makeup and nail polish, black clothes, and multiple piercings scream pain. They look kind of like he feels, and for a while he thought they might be it: the place he could belong.

  But Cameron doesn’t want people knowing he’s hurting. He doesn’t think wearing it on the outside will help him any. He hasn’t noticed any of the Trench Coats feeling better and suddenly showing up at school in a pair of blue jeans, or even smiling, just once. And maybe it’s the way they’re stuck in their situations that makes him almost the same as them.

  And like they know it, like they’re just waiting for Cameron to make up his mind for himself, they call out to him as he passes.

  “Hey, Cameron.”

  “Hey.” Cameron doesn’t know any of their names. What’s the point? He’ll never be one of them. Different philosophies, he thinks. Cameron was raised by a man who screamed at him if he cried. But there’s more than that of his father in him. Every time he sees one of them, wrapped in all their black, he thinks, Crybabies. He wonders, If life is so bad for them, then why don’t they end it? He wants to know if they ever thought about it. Fading to black.

  Cameron jogs past them, takes the steps two at a time, and pushes through the doors. It’s standing room only. All the kids who are usually outside, chatting or cramming last minute homework into notebooks, are knotted in the halls. Their laughter sounds like breaking glass.

  He weaves through them, his head up, his eyes scanning faces. He doesn’t run. If he sees Patterson or his chump friends, he keeps his pace and looks for a hall or a door he can turn into. That’s not running; it’s dodging bullets.

  He catches pieces of conversation. The girls talk about clothes, phone calls, and what they want to do over the weekend. The boys talk about the game the night before, whose pants they want to get into, and jokes they heard from their fathers.

  He could talk about those things, too. He likes baseball and never misses a Pirates game. But he doesn’t look like a player. Unless you look the part, no one listens to you.

  No one respects you.

  There isn’t a girl he’s interested in. Not yet. But he could make that part up; most of the guys do anyway. Cameron is sure of this because some of the stories he’s heard are too fantastic to be true. Like Jumbo Harris making it with two girls at the same time. He doesn’t believe that. Girls giving head in the boys’ bathroom, he heard that a few weeks ago, and believes it. He’s been in there and heard giggling. It wouldn’t take much to create a story someone would believe. The jokes, maybe he could get a few from Randy.

  But none of this really matters, because he has no one to tell a story to.

  Cameron turns the corner and just his luck, Rich Patterson is there, leaning against a locker, hovering over a girl. Probably a cheerleader. Cameron can’t see her; Patterson’s body blocks hers, but he’s playing with her hair, a long ponytail the color of a caramel apple.

  The girl laughs, her voice bubbling up from her throat, and Cameron thinks she sounds like one of those garden fountains. It’s beautiful and he gets lost in it for a minute, forgetting where he is and who he’s looking at. Who made her laugh like that.

  Patterson is good at just about everything. And that really sucks.

  A group of kids passes between them, breaking Cameron’s paralysis. He pivots on his heel and heads back the way he came. Fast enough. Patterson couldn’t have seen him. He walks the long way through the crowded halls, sliding between warm bodies made musty with rain and absorbing the sounds of life as though through a filter.

  Sometimes words are so close he feels them on his skin; sometimes he reaches for them and they slip between his fingers. It’s like living painfully aware of everything around you, and the next minute knowing you’re drawing your last breath. There is no middle ground, no comfort, no escape.

  He skirts a group of kids talking, laughing, and turns down freshman hall and runs right into two Red Coats — jock jackets. Patterson and his sidekick, Murphy.

  “It’s Cameron Diaz,” Rich says, like he’s happy to see him.

  “You’re all wet,” Murphy says. “You on your way to a wet T-shirt contest?”

  Cameron leads with his shoulder, planning to walk around them. He never ducks his head — he won’t give them that. But he doesn’t look them in the eye, either.

  They shift, blocking him.

  “Now, don’t be stuck-up, Cameron,” Patterson says. “Talk to us. You trying out for next year’s cheerleading squad? That’s after school today.”

  “You don’t want to miss that,” Murphy says.

  “You want to show us what you have?”

  “Yeah. We’ll give you some tips,” Murphy offers. “We’ve seen them up close and personal.”

  “Yeah. We know their moves real good.”

  “Piss off,” Cameron says, which he knows is a mistake. They never like what he has to say and mostly Cameron just keeps his mouth shut and concentrates on pushing the anger back. Biting down on it so it doesn’t become all he is.

  He can feel it taking over. Feel it burning up from his fingertips, from his toes, so his hands and feet are on fire. He wants to let it take over — is afraid of what will happen when he does. Not if anymore, but when. Soon. He’s going to let go and become a windmill of swinging arms and fists that’ll put them into next Tuesday. He likes that thought so much he smiles a little. Another mistake.

  “What’s so funny about being a boy-girl?” Patterson asks.

  “Nothing. Nothing at all,” Murphy says.

  Cameron feels their hands under his armpits, then his feet leave the floor. They walk with him to an open classroom and drop him inside the door, then shut it behind them. Cameron looks around him. Empty.

  “No rescue,” Patterson says. “But we’re willing to let you outta here. Of course, you have to do something for us first.”

  Murphy snickers. “Give us a cheer, Cameron Diaz.”

  “You know you’re not leaving until you do.”

  “You know if you don’t we’re going to have to make you.”

  Cameron gets that feeling again, where his stomach is pushing up his throat, choking off his air. He knows what they’ll do to him if he doesn’t play cheerleader. They’re not creative; they never change their routine. Murphy will hold him and Patterson will use him as a punching bag. He’ll hit Cameron in the stomach until he pukes. It doesn’t leave bruises. Not that anyone can see. No evidence.

  Cameron prepares himself, because there’s no way he’s going to act the fag and give them what they want. He pulls his stomach in, makes it tense. Sometimes that helps. He starts that whole believing thing; my stomach is as hard as rock. If he buys into it he doesn’t feel the pain until later. Much later, when no one is around to see him folded over himself and an even sorrier sight than he is usually.

  “Oh, come on, Cameron.” Murphy circles him. “What if we ask you nice?” He puts his arm around his neck until Cameron’s chin is above the guy’s elbow. “Cameron, will you please do a cheer for us?” He reaches for Cameron’s wrist, twists it up behind him and makes his voice thin and high. “How about ‘two-four-six-eight, wh
o do we appreciate?’ We like that one.”

  “Go to hell,” Cameron says. At least he doesn’t give in. He has that. He never does any of the things they tell him to. Not the time they wanted him to drink toilet water, on his own or with their help, or the time they stole his clothes when he was in the shower and they offered him a choice: run naked through the girls’ gym or go naked the rest of the day. Cameron waited them out, past the tardy bell, then pulled a set of loaner PE clothes from the bin and got through the day.

  “Last chance, Diaz.” Patterson rolls up his fists.

  Cameron feels every one of Patterson’s knuckles in the soft part of his stomach, below the arch of his ribs. The breath shoots out of his lungs; his heart stops, then kicks against his chest. His body tries to curl over itself.

  “Hold him up,” Patterson orders.

  Murphy yanks him up, pulling back on his shoulders so that his stomach is easily accessible. He says, “You’re a real girl, Diaz. You never put out. A guy’s gotta take it.”

  “I don’t mind working for it.” Patterson has his hands up again, fists like a boxer. “You gonna dance, Cameron?”

  Cameron keeps his mouth shut this time. It’ll end sooner if he says nothing. If he stands as still as a post and sucks up what they have for him.

  This time, the punch lands on his rib bones. He hears Patterson’s knuckles crack and knows he’ll have a bruise.

  “Damn! You want to hold him still? I gotta pitch with this hand tomorrow.”

  But before Patterson can swing again, Cameron hears the metallic click of keys in the door knob. They hear it, too, and fall back, Patterson taking a casual stance with his hands stuffed into his front pockets. Slowly, Cameron’s body loosens up. He wants to rub his stomach, ease the burn there, but won’t do it. Not here. Not in front of them.

  The door opens and Mrs. Cowan, Cameron’s English teacher, strides into the room. And stops. Her eyebrows lift, but she’s fast to recover.