by L. T. Vargus
Eventually, I turned around and looked up to see Troy. He walked right up to me, scowling. I mean, right up in my face. But I didn’t look away. I didn’t break eye contact or take a step back. I didn’t even wait for him to speak. I just stood up a little straighter and looked down at him. And I said:
“You better back the fuck up.”
The hallway was empty aside from us. I could feel my lip curl up over my teeth like a growling dog’s.
“Yeah?” he said. “Or what?”
“Or I’ll be pissin’ in your mouth after I knock you out.”
(Kinda stole it from Nick. So yeah.)
His head twitched, and his eyes looked off to the side. He looked confused. And like he was totally going to back down. I probably could’ve left it at that.
But instead I grabbed him by the shoulders and tossed him to the ground like a rag doll. It was like nothing. He landed on his back, slapping against the terrazzo floor and half-rolling like an upside down turtle. And without thinking I stomped on the ankle that I thought was the bad one. My heel bashed at him with all of my weight behind it. He moaned like a girl and pulled his legs up against his chest to protect his limbs, curled up in a little ball.
I felt crazy. Like my brain was on fire. But I kind of liked it.
Just then, the Physics teacher Mr. Row poked his head out of his classroom, saw Troy crumpled on the ground and said:
“What’s going on out here?”
I laughed.
“We were just messing around,” I said and smiled at Troy.
He didn’t say a goddamn word and didn’t make eye contact with me. He picked himself up and limped away.
So you might be reading this and thinking that it was a mistake. That I just opened a big can o’ wormies, and this guy is going to get me back. That he won’t just let this go.
And the truth is that I don’t give a fuck. Fuck him. And looking at him on the ground, I know that he knows that I don’t give a fuck. And he’s not going to do a goddamn thing unless he wants his teeth knocked down his goddamn throat.
* * *
Sheesh. Pretty aggressive last time. Sorry about that, dude.
Even now when I think about it, though, I get mad. It’s the weirdest thing. I mean, is that normal? Is this what other people have been feeling all of this time, and I’ve just been disconnected from it or something? (Until now, I mean.)
In any case, I am not scared now. That is the truth. I don’t want to say that I feel powerful, ’cause that sounds weird, but I feel in control of myself. Like before I didn’t know how to protect myself and now I somehow do. I thought I would need to learn like fighting techniques or something, but it’s not like that. It’s like some animal thing just clicked into place, and everything makes sense now or something.
I wonder if it’s a right brain thing. Like somewhere in our right brain there is this primal instinct to survive and protect yourself, and we’re all coded to know how to do that. But before it was locked away from me somehow, and now it’s not.
I don’t know. Don’t worry too much about it, though. This episode aside, I plan to only use my powers for good.
Chapter 13
WE HUNG OUT AT BETH’S for a little while after school today. Her parents weren’t home, so it was just us.
Her mom has a huge aquarium full of tropical fish. I mean, ginormous. The only other places I’ve ever seen aquariums that big are restaurants and dentist offices. Or does not everyone’s dentist office have a big ass fish tank? I don’t know.
Anyway, I was looking at the fish, and Beth came over and handed me a can of Diet Coke. I guess she doesn’t know that guys don’t drink Diet Coke. Maybe, like, older fat men do, but that’s about it, I think.
“Ridiculous, huh?” she said.
“What is?”
“The fish. They’re like the least interesting, least practical pet ever. You can have absolutely no interaction with them. They’re just there to look at and be pretty. It’s like buying a pair of shoes that swims around in a tank. It takes more effort to grow flowers than it does to have this stupid fish tank.”
She slurped from the can.
“I guess I never thought about it before,” I said.
“Maybe some people with fish actually kind of care about them, though I don’t really see how. My mom doesn’t, though. They die all the time, and she just replaces them with new ones.”
I watched a bright blue fish wriggle through a patch of fake seaweed.
“That one,” Beth pointed to a big ugly purplish brown fish with huge lips. “He eats the other fish. And not like he just swallows it whole. He takes little bites out of them slowly over time, until they die.”
“Jesus,” I said.
“Yeah.”
* * *
Another epiphany in Mrs. Francis’ class today. Unreal. She was talking about the biosphere and hydrosphere and related crap about various ’spheres. Not that I really heard much of it.
I should set the scene with this little nugget, though: the radiator in that classroom is insane. On even a remotely crisp fall today, such as today, the thing kicks into overdrive. Kicks out heat non-stop until it feels like it’s about 80 degrees in there. A dry heat that almost seems to hug you. Somehow not uncomfortable.
In any case, I think that extra warmth in the air casts this sleepy pall over the room. Flushes the cheeks. Makes the eyelids grow heavy.
But let’s not be hasty and give the radiator all the credit here. The soothing tones of Marsha Francis have knocked unconscious many an otherwise strong, vibrant youth. Flipped their power switch. Put their lights out. Myself included. I don’t think I was truly asleep today, but damn near.
Dude, I don’t know what it is about that nasal voice of hers, but within about ninety seconds of ‘sphere talk, my mind had fled the confines of the biology lab and crept out into the astral plane or something. For real, my thoughts were so clear, and so strong, it was like a dream. I sort of forgot where I was and all that.
Whilst out there in the dream world, I managed to download some sweet wisdom into my noggin, too. Bonus lesson — no Nick required.
Here’s what I realized:
When you're a kid, life mostly happens to you. You have no control. No say.
But then you get older, and at some point, you start making things happen. Start choosing things. What you do. Where you go. And smaller things like what you wear and your haircut and all that.
Whatever you want. Whatever you need. You choose it all.
Your life belongs to you. Finally.
If you do things right, it's like you can finally begin making the world happen around you instead of the world making you happen. You can participate instead of observe.
You can venture into new worlds, like I did by going along with Nick. You can change. Upgrade yourself. Transform into someone of your own making.
Or you can coast. Stay inside the lines society and your parents drew around you. Let the world keep on deciding who you are, where you go, what you want. Stay on that beaten path everyone is always talking about.
So that’s kind of your choice in life as you reach adulthood, I think. Do you change, or do you coast? Do you choose the path of your life, or do you let it happen to you?
It’s not as simple as it seems at first. Changing creates a risk, right? Heading outside those lines, braving your way into a new world? It’s a leap of faith. Leaves you vulnerable and in some ways alone.
’Cause maybe it won’t work. Maybe you’ll fail. Get hurt. Embarrass yourself.
Or maybe it’s an effort. Hard work. Uncomfortable. Maybe you have to take your lumps before you get this new world figured out. Maybe the price you pay to change will be too big.
Plus, you have to actually do something, which no one wants, believe me.
Coasting, though? Coasting is easy. It feels pretty good, I imagine, to just give in. Go with the flow. Let the whims of the world pull you along through the days. No real worries. No real care
s at all.
But you know what? I’ve done my share of coasting in my fifteen years. Not good. Coasting makes you sick at heart, that’s what I think. It traps you inside those lines, inside whatever box the world has put you in. It constricts around you like some big ass snake. Holds you still. Never lets you grow. Never lets you fuckin’ breathe.
It’s stasis, and stasis is death, I say.
So that changes the choice, doesn’t it?
Changing or coasting is not the choice you’re making here. It’s do or die.
Me? I reached a point of despair, I guess. Coasted too long. Got picked on. And before all this stuff with Nick — the lessons and everything, I mean — I felt so small. Felt sick, like I said. Sick somewhere in my soul.
Weak and worthless. A nothing. A nobody.
I couldn’t let it stay that way. I couldn’t sit on my hands any longer. I had to do. Something. Anything. Had to.
And I did. Crazy as it seems to me even still, I did.
Like when I stop and think about everything that has happened, it kind of blows my mind. With Nick. With Beth. With Troy. I made all of that happen. I chose my path, and I got after it, and I made this little piece of the world mine.
No one handed me these things. They happened because I willed them, enacted them, grabbed hold of them.
And it’s an incredible feeling. I write the story of my life now. No one else. I dare to live it the way I want.
Do or die.
Everything comes down to that. In life. In love. In the universe.
Do or die.
* * *
Possibly a 3rd section in chapter 12.
I took Beth to Nick’s today. Not intentionally. I mean, I’m not an idiot.
It started as a walk and talk. A stroll. I thought I was walking Beth home, as a matter of fact. Eventually I realized that we were kind of meandering some other direction, no destination from what I could tell.
I stopped in my tracks, toes just shy of a huge crack in the sidewalk. Looking back, I see that I should have stayed in-G mode, should have played it cool. Maybe I could have steered things a different way. Why not just go with the flow or whatever? Enjoy the walk.
“Wait. Where are we going?” I said.
“Nowhere,” she said. “Why, you have to be somewhere or something?”
“No. I just…”
I considered telling her that I thought I was walking her home, but I could no longer see a point in it.
“I have to go to the bathroom, actually,” she said.
I thought about the nearest available shitter.
“Broad Street is only a couple blocks that way.”
I pointed in the direction of everyone’s favorite liquor store.
Beth’s face scrunched up, the wrinkles on her nose reading as either disgusted or vicious.
“What?” I said.
“Isn’t that…. I mean, wouldn’t the bathroom there be… you know…”
“Disgusting beyond words?” I said, offering an end to her sentence.
“Yeah.”
“I mean, pretty much.”
A montage of the atrocities I’d witnessed in the unisex bathroom at the liquor store flashed through my head. All manner of bodily fluids spattered over the toilet seat and tank, piled (or pooled) on the floor, smeared on the subway tiled walls hung up around the throne. Let’s just say fifty shades of brown, varying levels of solidity.
“Well, my cousin lives right up here. Almost as close as the store.”
Regret stabbed me repeatedly in the belly and face as soon as the words were out. Brutal. Violent thrusts of bitterness. What was I thinking?
Relief showed on Beth’s face right away, though. I can see how anything would have sounded better than the alternative.
We walked on. Beth talked, but I had a hard time focusing on her words. I could only picture Nick and Donnie with psychotic smiles on their faces upon our arrival.
My heart kicked up into a gallop as we climbed the steps and crossed the porch. I realized that my hand was shaking a little as I reached out to turn the doorknob, but I don’t think Beth saw.
Inside, however, we found neither Nick nor Donnie. Instead Tammie sat half-sprawled on the couch, a mass market paperback in her hands. I think it was a Dean Koontz book.
She did smile upon seeing the two of us, but it wasn’t psychotic. More like sisterly, I’d say. Tammie is nice.
I introduced the two of them, and then Beth scurried off to the bathroom. Honestly, if I had to guess, it was a number two. Just a hunch.
“Nick’s not here?” I said, taking a seat on the couch.
Tammie shook her head.
“He and Donnie got a tip on a bunch of scrap metal left on the side of the road. Some building demo or something, I guess. They’re borrowing Roy Nygaard’s truck to try to haul it and sell it.”
That did sound exactly like something they’d do. So I’d lucked out. Missed them. I didn’t really know why I wanted to shield Beth from them. I only knew that I really, really did.
When Beth reentered the room, Tammie stood, and that little smile crept back over her mouth.
“Either of you want some yerba mate?”
“What’s that?” I said.
“Well, it’s tea. But it’s not normal tea. It has… medicinal properties, I guess you could say.”
“Like what?” Beth said.
“Well, it gives you energy, but it’s not like caffeine, though it has a little of that in it as well. I’d say there’s something simultaneously invigorating and calming about it. Mildly euphoric. It’s really popular in South America, I think. I bet you guys would like it. I mean, I think it’s awesome.”
“I’ll try some,” I said.
“Me too,” Beth said.
Tammie disappeared into the kitchen and returned a few minutes later with steaming mugs of yerba mate.
“I added a splash of milk. I hope that’s OK. That’s how I like it.”
Beth and I murmured agreeable sounds and took our mugs from her.
I stared down into the pale fluid. Felt the heat coil off of it to brush its wet at my chin.
I took a drink. It tingled all the way down. Something a little magical about it. It could have just been the sheer heat, I suppose, but I don’t think so. Something more. The taste was good, too. Like a spicy chai, I think.
I exchanged a glance with Beth, and we both kind of nodded. She liked it, too.
About halfway through the mug, the little rush hit me. Nothing too intense. But it was just like Tammie said. I felt incredibly energetic yet calm. Very, very pleasant. Much more enjoyable than the coffee jitters, I’d say.
“This is awesome,” Beth said.
I nodded with gusto.
“Yeah? I thought you’d like it,” Tammie said. “Nick doesn’t like it. I don’t know how that can be, but he doesn’t. Says it makes him feel like not himself or something like that.”
“Well, he’s wrong,” I said. “It’s fucking great.”
That got a little laugh out of them, and I noticed that both of these girls — the two women I am closest to in the world, I realize — were just glowing. I don’t mean so much in the sense of physical beauty as I do that they beamed happiness like it was a light shining out of their faces. Real, pure, unapologetic joy.
We fell quiet after that, though it was a comfortable silence. All sipping our tea. Feeling good. Smiling at each other.
And I felt so together with these two girls. Close to them. In sync with them in this simple moment of human closeness.
And I think maybe these are the most important times in life and also the most fleeting. Those moments of pure companionship. Nothing complicated. Nothing heated. The little slices of time when you want for nothing, when you simply enjoy the company of people you care about, people you connect with, with or without words.
You stop thinking for a little bit and simply be.
Connection. Closeness.
They are vexing in the way th
ey elude us, slip away from us, but when you find them, it is wonderful, even if it’s only for a little while.
“How’d you find out about this?” I said, breaking the little spell. “The yerba mate, I mean.”
Tammie took a sip before she answered.
“Heard about it on the Joe Rogan Experience.”
“You’re into Joe Rogan?” Beth said, a little laugh coming out with her words.
Tammie shrugged, smiled again.
“Nick likes it, so I end up hearing quite a bit.”
Somehow we all ended up chuckling a little at this, that glow once more touching both of their faces.
And then I looked up and realized Nick stood in the doorway to the living room.
It startled me pretty good. I don’t know why, but it did. That joy seeped right out of me, deflated like it was a tire that’d run over a nail.
I stood up right away, almost spilled my last swallow of tea.
“Oh, hey, Nick,” I said.
He didn’t say anything. Didn’t even really look at me so much as gaze around the room, eyes all dark and shifting and impossible to read.
After a long beat, he turned and walked away. Not a word.
“What’s his problem?” I said to Tammie, keeping my voice quiet.
“See, I was hoping you might know. I think you’re the only one who could maybe figure him out one of these days.”
Beth and I didn’t stay long after that, though we didn’t discuss leaving. We just kind of spontaneously gathered our things and got out.
Thinking back on it now, it was the only time I’ve ever felt unwelcome at Nick’s.
Chapter 14
NICK HELD UP ONE SIDE of the garage door about a foot off the ground, and I snaked under it on my belly. For some reason the latch on this side was just loose enough that you could pry the door a hair open like that. I had no idea why Nick thought to try it, but he did, and now I was in.
I waited in the dark to let things go all quiet. I figured, this being the garage, I didn’t need to be quite as cautious, so it was only about a minute before I shined my flashlight for a second and swept it around the room. Empty. Not just void of human life. Void of just about everything except for a vinyl tarp crumpled in the back corner. Cracks gashed the length of the concrete floor, so I made sure not to trip as I moved through the blackness to unlock the deadbolt on the entry door and let Nick in.