“No, I don’t,” Benedict said, loudly, then he said it quietly under his breath. Then he said it a third time and that third time made the dean let me go. Jacoby looked at both at us. He hated his job so much right that second.
The dean said, “Both of you get out of here. I don’t want to hear anything from either of you about anything, you got it? I don’t care what the hell is wrong with you.” He shoved a pointed finger in Benedict’s face, then said one more time because he was the meanest dickhead on the planet, “Not a word.”
I grabbed Benedict, who was either too afraid or too unaware to move himself, and pulled him out of the office with me. Once we were in the hall, it felt like we had just escaped an underground jail cell. The light and air were so plentiful they made me dizzy. Like gonna-puke dizzy.
Then Benedict stopped me. Looked like he might cry again. Shit, I didn’t want him to cry. His gaze got even more intense. Not like he was about to cry, but like … shit. He’s going to kiss me. For real. Like people get that look in their eyes where they just have to kiss you. Paul never has it. But you know, like I’ve seen in movies. That crazy lust in their eyes and then they just lunge at each other. I mean, I wasn’t feeling that. I mean, not really. But I can’t say I didn’t like seeing Benedict look at me like that. Like really liked it. God, I’m so screwed up. The kid was … never mind.
He didn’t kiss me. As soon as he started talking, I realized how stupid I was for thinking he wanted to kiss me. Maybe I’m the one who is bad at interpersonal stuff. I gotta stop using that word. He said, like he knew what I was thinking, “I don’t have problems. I’m very smart.” Then he let me go and walked away. Yeah.
* * *
Paul was super mad at me for pushing him off Benedict. Even after I explained how Benedict and I lied to the dean and never mentioned his name, Paul was still super angry. Paul grunted at me, like he couldn’t bother wasting words on me, and went out with the boys at lunch, leaving me with Stacy and Iris.
Once we were in Iris’s car, Stacy said, “You’re such a bitch,” and ignored me the entire ride through the Taco Bell drive-through and back. Iris still talked to me, but not like usual. You could tell she was more worried about not pissing off Stacy. So I just sat in back and wished I was a different person. This all sucked. So much.
After school, Paul grabbed me under the arm and dragged me out to his car. He kept twisting the skin of my arm. It felt like flesh would tear off, and I never told him to stop. Just take the pain, Pen. It’s okay. Paul would never really hurt me. Right? Once we were inside his car, he put the volume all the way up on an Eminem song and then he yelled at me. “If we hadn’t had sex, I would totally break up with you, Pen! But I love you and we’re going to get married. But we’re going to hate each other like your parents hate each other unless you stop acting like such a cunt.”
My boyfriend had just called me a cunt. Paul had never called me a bitch or even a jerk before. Ever. And now he had called me the c-word. Jesus. He also said my parents hated each other, and even though it’s true, it sucks to know your boyfriend knows. I wanted to yell back at him. I felt so small and pathetic and I just needed to yell to make sure I still existed. I would tell him how he never listens to me or asks me what I think. Tell him that he’s brainwashed by his parents and religion. Tell him I’ve never heard one original thought come out of his brain in three years. But I didn’t say any of this. I just nodded. I didn’t cry. Shit, I never cry. I mean, I did all the time as a kid when my parents would scream at each other. The only thing that made them stop was my crying. So I never wasted it on anything less. So no, I didn’t cry. I just nodded. Just agreed with everything he said.
“How you going to make it up to me?” he said as he put his car in drive and exited the school parking lot. I knew what he meant. Every time he got mad at me he would get turned on. He’s a freak too, I guess. We all are maybe.
So I put my hand on his crotch and started rubbing. Then he turned down a side street, found our usual dead end next to the golf course. We had come here at lunch a few times before. He undid his jeans and pulled them down to his knees. Before I even undid my seat belt, he put his hand behind my head and started guiding me down toward his crotch. It’s not like he shoved me down there. But, I don’t know, I guess I made it up to him.
* * *
Which is such bullshit. I mean, I like giving Paul blow jobs sometimes. But I hated doing it now. I hated me. I hated him. I could totally hurt him—
“Watch the teeth, baby,” he said.
Yeah, I can’t hurt him like that. So I hurt him by thinking of someone else while I did it. He would never know. But I would know. I wish I could control who I thought of but I just couldn’t. The only face that would enter my head was Benedict’s. Still better than Paul. But this Benedict fantasy thing felt too wild, too weird, even for me, and I just had to stop it before …
Before what? It’s not like anything could actually happen. Ever. It’s just my imagination. My freaked-up imagination, but still, it’s not real.
Nothing about me is real.
13
BENEDICT MAXIMUS PEND …
Other students looked and pointed at me the rest of the school day. I did not enjoy this. I considered screaming at every guilty person but then determined this would only make my situation worse. It was especially difficult at lunch since I could not sit with Robert in the SAC. The Student Activity Center is technically meant to be for the use of all students, but the only people who actually use it are members of student government. Robert had run, unsuccessfully, for junior class president. I’m rather positive the only votes Robert received were his and mine. But Kristen Redding, who had won, appointed him as a special representative, which gave him and me, by my association with him, the unofficial permission to eat in the SAC. Which he would do without me now. He would make new friends quickly because Robert is a very good person. Except when he dumped me as his friend yesterday. Besides that, he was the best friend I can ever imagine having.
Thus I took the lunch my mom put in my backpack and ate on the bench outside the library. I was alone. I will get used to this, I am confident. But it was not pleasant today. Not at all. People were looking, pointing, whispering to each other about me. My body still felt the pain of getting kicked, and without Robert to speak to, Evil Benny just said the worst possible things.
* * *
His main topic, not surprisingly, was telling me that Penelope was right, that I had social problems. And, Evil Benny said, “social problems” really just meant I was a loser. A dork. The biggest dork in the school. Just like Robert had said.
I had heard this before. I knew I was different. My dad told me that “all great people are different,” so most days I didn’t mind being different. I often took pride in being different. But it was very hard to take pride in being thought of as having problems by someone like Penelope. Because Penelope was not smart. That’s not nice for me to say. I always think not-nice thoughts about people who make me think not-nice thoughts about myself.
I very much didn’t want to be different today. I was very tired. My brain could not focus. I almost left school after lunch but decided this would not be smart. Instead, I waited until after last period and then ran to my car. I must have looked strange running to my car, but I just needed to leave school as fast as possible.
I drove home, going over the speed limit the entire distance. I needed my mom. Yes, it was okay that I needed my mom. It had been an especially bad day, so needing your mom on an especially bad day was acceptable. Except her car wasn’t in the garage. I had forgotten she took Elizabeth to her club volleyball on Wednesday.
My dad wasn’t in the living room. I couldn’t decide if talking to him now, in my current state, would be beneficial. My father is brilliant, but he has little patience for weakness. And I was feeling very, very weak. But I just couldn’t go up to my room and be by myself. I was so alone up there. So alone at school. So alone everywhere.
&nb
sp; I knocked on my father’s basement door. “Dad?” I asked. There was no answer. “DAD?” I yelled.
I shouldn’t have … but I tried the door. It wasn’t locked. It was usually locked. Maybe he hadn’t locked it because he wanted to talk to me.
I opened the door and descended the stairs. I grew nervous. It was confusing to be nervous. But I hadn’t been in his basement since I was ten. Perhaps longer than even that. Yet I still stepped downward. Anything was better than being alone for even a moment longer.
Once at the bottom of the stairs, I realized the entire office basement was dark. I said, “Dad?” There was no answer. I worried he was hurt. I turned on the light.
* * *
My dad has given speeches all over the world. My dad has received thousands of letters from people who thank him for changing their lives. He’s really important. He’s the opposite of me. Well, that’s what Evil Benny says. But it was true I was just a high school student with no friends and no girlfriend and my dad was a famous, rich author. Maybe Evil Benny was correct in this case.
* * *
The basement looked different from when I was ten. Smaller. Which I suppose would make sense since I am bigger. There used to be pictures of us on the walls. A painting of a bird my mom had done. But now those pictures and the painting were gone. Now the walls just had typed manuscript pages in rows, fastened by blue painter’s tape. The black leather couch I remembered was still there, but now it had a pillow and blanket folded on it. A large metal desk faced the light well on the far wall, across from the stairs. It was as big as a Ping-Pong table. There were books stacked in organized piles as high as my waist against the walls. My dad sat in his chair, which has such a high back I couldn’t see his head. But I could see his left elbow on the arm of the chair. So I knew he was there.
“Dad?” I said, but my voice sounded very whiny. Like when I was ten. Maybe I was ten again. That’s stupid to think.
“Benedict,” he said, but didn’t swivel the chair toward me. He didn’t sound whiny at all. He sounded very adult. Very important. Like he was a king. When he didn’t say anything else, I almost went back upstairs. He didn’t want me here, I could tell, but I needed him. I did. I hate admitting that.
Because I didn’t want to say something pathetic, I said, “Why were you working in the dark?”
That caused my dad to swivel in his chair toward me. This made me excited at first, but then I saw his face, saw how his forehead was scrunched up and his eyes were dark, and his nose had flared open like it did when he was mad but trying not to show he was mad. “This is my office, Benedict. This is where I work, Benedict,” he said. He also said my name a lot when he was mad but trying not to show it.
“I know,” I said. I should leave. I should. But maybe he’ll stop being mad and then talk to me.
Instead he said, “If you were my employee, Benedict, and not my son, I would fire you.”
I nodded. He was right. I almost cried again. But I didn’t. My dad would think even less of me. So I nodded again and went back up the stairs.
* * *
Exiting onto the main floor of our house, I found my mom and sister waiting there. My mom still had her oversized sunglasses on and her gigantic purse over her shoulder. These made her look like a movie star. But she was just my mom.
“You were down in Dad’s office?” asked Elizabeth, wearing her volleyball practice clothes.
My mom said, while looking at me, “Elizabeth, go get showered. I’ll take us out for an early dinner.”
“But I want to go into the basement if Benedict gets to go! I want to see Dad too!”
“Elizabeth, go shower. Now.” My mom could speak very effectively sometimes. Once Elizabeth had walked upstairs, my mom stepped past me and closed the door to my dad’s office. She then took my head into her two hands and looked at me. Her eyes watered. She tried to smile. But she was not very successful. She asked, “Why’d you go down there?”
“I … wanted to talk to him.”
“That’s where he works. You know you can’t disturb him,” she said. These were not consoling words. My mom used to be good at saying consoling things, but maybe she was out of practice. But then she pulled me in and hugged me. “I’m so sorry, Benny.” She called me Benny when I was a child. My dad told her to stop, so she did.
“I screwed up. I’m a bad son.”
“No, no you’re not. Not even a little bit. And … you should be able to go say hello to your dad. Every son should be able to say hello to his father whenever he wants. But do you understand that your dad is different?”
“He’s important,” I said.
“He’s different,” my mom said, but she had said it in a way that made it sound like “different” and “important” weren’t the same thing.
* * *
The three of us went to dinner at the Cheesecake Factory. My sister wanted to go get pizza at Penelope’s Pizzeria, but I said no way. I didn’t tell her why.
During dinner, after we had eaten the brown bread but before our entrées came, I asked my mom, “Do I have social problems?”
Elizabeth laughed before my mom could speak. My mom said, “Elizabeth, don’t you dare.” Then my sister stopped snickering.
“I’m smarter than you,” I said to my sister because I wanted her to feel bad like I felt bad.
“Smart is as smart does,” she said.
“It’s stupid is as stupid does, stupid,” I said.
“I changed it. Artistic license.”
“Elizabeth,” my mom said. She could always make my sister shut up just by saying her name. Then my mom turned to me, reaching across the table and taking my hand. “Benedict, you don’t have problems, you’re just different.”
“I don’t want to be different anymore.”
“What happened?” she asked. Part of me wanted to tell her about how I had no friends now, and no girlfriend ever, and how I got beaten up. But I didn’t want to talk about being so pathetic anymore.
“Nothing.”
“Benedict,” my sister started, “you wear sports jackets and nice pants like you’re going to church.”
“We’ve never gone to church,” I said.
“Ugh, I mean, like as if you were someone who went to church. And not just that, but it’s like styles from 1985. You just look like someone who doesn’t know what planet he’s on.”
“I know what planet I am on!” I don’t even know why I yelled this.
“STOP TAKING EVERYTHING SO LITERALLY! GOSH!” my sister yelled much better than me. The tables around us got quiet for a moment. But then went back to normal. Nobody wanted trouble at a Cheesecake Factory.
“Both of you cannot yell like that,” my mom said in a hush.
“I’m sorry,” Elizabeth said.
“I’m … sorry … too.”
* * *
Evil Benny said I was a hopeless loser who took everything literally and was so stupid I couldn’t even see how stupid I was.
* * *
“Elizabeth,” I said, because it was better to talk than listen to Evil Benny.
“Yes?” She didn’t want to speak to me, like everyone else, but she was my sister, so she had to, I suppose.
“I…” Part of my brain wanted to say something. But another part of my brain, or another part of me, wouldn’t let me. It was like my whole existence was malfunctioning.
“What, Benedict?”
“I…” My neck felt warm. Like a rash was growing and going to spread out over my body and then eat every inch of my flesh. Just like that.
“Are you all right?” my mom asked, squeezing the hand she had never let go.
“I … want…” Each word felt very big and impossible, unable to fit outside my mouth.
“Can you just speak already?”
“I want … your … help.”
* * *
Both my sister and mom were silent. Evil Benny laughed at me. He thought it was so funny that I asked my younger sister for help. I wish I
could take it back. I wish I could go back in time and be a different person.
* * *
“Of course she’ll help you,” my mom said.
“Yeah, totally. You mean like … I don’t know, what kind of help?”
“Dressing like I’m not going to church. And talking to girls.”
“And helping you know what planet you’re on?” Elizabeth was being clever. My dad said clever people are masking their lack of intelligence. But maybe intelligent people are masking their lack of cleverness.
So I said, with as big a smile as I could manage, “Yes, helping me know what planet I am on.”
14
pen
Sex.
Xes.
Exs.
Sxe.
Xse.
Esx.
S.E.X.
I think about it. Yeah. A lot. I know this. I know I’m a freak because of it. I KNOW OKAY. But when I think about thinking about it, I’m actually shocked everybody doesn’t think about it as much as I do.
I mean, our bodies are programmed to want to do it. By God or nature or the universe or some other power that made all of us. It’s how humankind keeps from going extinct! That basically makes it the most important thing in the world, doesn’t it?
Yeah, it does.
But ALSO, we all feel ashamed about thinking about it and doing it and talking about it. So this thing “sex” that makes it possible for humans to actually be alive is something we are taught not to feel good about. How screwed up is that? (Well, not everyone has been brainwashed into feeling like crap about sex. There are people on HBO and stuff that seem perfectly comfortable talking about it on camera. But most everyone else is. Like my family and my friends and teachers and politicians and priests and TV newspeople and anyone else kids might look to for advice.)
And then maybe because our bodies want to do it because of nature and our minds don’t want to do it because of religion or morals or whatever, sex becomes confusing, which can make it more exciting, and that excitement makes it even more confusing and back and forth until no one really wants to talk about it in a real way and so everyone just guesses or judges or represses.
The Nerdy and the Dirty Page 5