Huge

by James Fuerst

  “First,” I said, “I’m going to paint the sign tomorrow, so it’ll be fixed.”

  Mom folded her arms and nodded her head in a way that meant what I’d just said was not even close to being good enough. “Okay … what else?”

  “I, um, I probably shouldn’t get any allowance for like a month, maybe two, and I’ll have to do extra chores.”

  Mom nodded again.

  Now for my medicine. “We’ll have to call Pauline to watch me when you and Neecey are out.” Yuck. I felt sick before the words had even left my mouth. But these were desperate times, sacrifices had to be made, and if I didn’t know any better, I would’ve sworn that mom was fighting off a smile, a real one. She seemed to soften up. The moment felt right. It was time to go for broke. “Well, it’s not really a punishment, but I’m going to tell both of you about some of the things in my journal, because it’s probably time you knew.”

  All of a sudden I had four dark brown eyes staring at me in total disbelief, the wet and quivering eyes of my mother and sister, then their arms all around me, their lips on my forehead and cheeks, their tears mixing with mine, and I knew the worst was over. Everything wasn’t fixed and nothing was perfect, but it seemed as if a new horizon was opening before us out of the shitstorm I’d created. No, I’d never really listened to them before, but tonight I’d paid attention. And I guess I understood a bit more about what they wanted from me, how far they were willing to go to get it, and how little it’d take to meet them halfway.

  Sure, I’d gotten out of the worst thing I’d ever done by making up my own punishment, comprised of things I’d already decided to do, or that were coming to me anyway. So you could say I got off easy. Fine. But I’d also been up against the wall and found a way to snatch this one back from the edge of dread and despair, and I was still offering something back to mom and Neecey for everything they’d done for me. Yeah, all right, I’d gotten myself off the hook. But I was home, too.

  TWENTY-THREE

  It was strange. I slept soundly that night but awoke the next morning certain that the ax would fall. I mean, I couldn’t just get away with it. I couldn’t break promises to my mother and grandmother, lie, disobey, think all the scummy things I’d thought about my sister, sneak out of the house after dark, trespass, make out with the girl I was crazy about, then insult and threaten her, wallop some kid in the scrotum, have my face flattened, get caught red-handed on the back end, and then sweep it all under the rug with a “punishment” that was about as hard to take as using the “Get Out of Jail Free” card in Monopoly. No, I couldn’t possibly get away with all that. Nothing in life was ever that easy. There were consequences; there were always consequences.

  Yeah, I looked like shit because my eye was all greenish-purple and puffy, but even that wasn’t as bad as it could’ve been, thanks, I guess, to the healing properties of cows. And I knew it’d get better in a week or so, because I’d had plenty of black eyes before. Some kids collected baseball cards, some hoarded mint-condition coins, others stamps; I collected shiners. It was a hobby of mine; I was good at it. Damn good.

  I jumped out of bed, carefully rolled the stiffness out of my neck, skipped my exercises, went to the bathroom, brushed my teeth, and then headed downstairs to have some breakfast. The phone rang as I arrived in the kitchen, and when I picked it up, the ax finally fell. Well, it didn’t actually fall; it was more like I just got it. On the line was Mr. Dunbar, assistant coach of the junior-high football team, and he told me that he and Coach Rose had talked it over, and while I’d been the fastest kid at tryouts and had good hands, the other guys were a lot bigger than I was and much stronger, too, and after seeing what’d happened to me during the punt return, they figured I’d only wind up getting hurt. So they thought it best if I sat this season out, and if I got taller and put on a few pounds by next August, I was more than welcome to try out again then.

  That was it. I was cut. I’d gotten cut from the junior-high football team quicker than one of Jerry’s Kids, and I’d been cut even though everyone with cleats, shoulder pads, and a cup knew for a fact that I could play, because Coach Rose had had it in for me way before I’d ever stepped on the field. That was the only reason for it, and it was total bullshit. Mr. Dunbar said I shouldn’t feel too bad about it, because there was always next year, and because both he and Coach Rose were very sorry about the decision. Yeah, they were sorry all right. But not as sorry as they’d be when I rammed that goddamn whistle all the way up Coach Rose’s ass.

  I hung up the phone feeling angry and disappointed. Not just because I’d been shafted and didn’t make the team, but because I realized nothing had really changed. I was still the same scorned and unwanted kid with a black mark against his name, I still had the same violent history pinned to my sleeve, and no matter what I did or did not do, people around here would never let me forget it. I’d learned more in the past few days than I’d learned in my whole stupid life, but none of that seemed to matter to anyone else. They already knew more about me than they’d ever need to know, and there was no way in hell they’d ever let me be some kind of local legend like Darren and the others said, because you couldn’t be a legend if you were still just a loser.

  Sure, I now realized I couldn’t claim to know much, but I knew just enough to be sure that the world I lived in hadn’t changed a bit: it was still a small, crappy town populated by people who were smaller and crappier. And at the top of that petty shit heap was Orlando, or whoever the hell he was now; he’d changed a lot, and everything was all his fault. He’d hit me at tryouts on purpose, sucker punched the shit out of me, knocked me out cold, then led me to blame it on somebody else, but he’d done it all on his own. Nobody had put him up to it or forced him to do it, and it didn’t have anything to do with Razor or the sign or anything else; it just happened on the same damn day, and taking Orlando at his word, believing in him, and dreaming up excuses for what he’d done was where I’d gone wrong. I guess I’d figured it out when I’d stumbled into his backyard last night, but the damned honest truth was that I didn’t want to think about it at the time, or to ask the question later, because I didn’t want to know. I didn’t want to know, didn’t want it to be true, and I must’ve supposed the best course of action was to just keep avoiding it. But I couldn’t keep avoiding it. Orlando had done that to me; it was a fact, it was true, and I knew it.

  And knowing that hurt. It hurt in every possible way. Not just physically, or because for a long time Orlando had been the only friend I’d ever had, or because he’d fucked me all up on the case, or because the little show he’d put on had given Coach Rose the excuse he’d been looking for to cut me from the team. No, it hurt even more because he’d betrayed me; he’d really betrayed me, like nothing about our friendship had ever been real, like it’d never meant anything to him, as if we’d never known each other at all. And that meant there was no going back to being friends.

  Fuck it. I didn’t give a shit. I didn’t give a shit about Orlando or his depressive, deceitful, backstabbing, friendless, sorry-assed, book-wormy self, or if I’d ever see or talk to him again. For all I cared, he could go fucking rot. I didn’t need him anymore. Darren and the crew had all said they liked me last night, and more than that, I now had the phone number of someone else who did.

  I got Staci’s number from upstairs in my room, came back down, took a deep breath, and punched in the digits. She picked up on the first ring, which surprised me, but she said that her mother worked nights and she was sleeping now and she didn’t want the phone to wake her. I told Staci to get dressed because I was coming to pick her up in about half an hour. She said okay, and, yeah, I was already starting to like that word again.

  I treated myself to a long, overdue scrubbing in the shower. Then I dried off, got dressed, gelled and spiked my hair, and left. When I pulled up in front of Staci’s apartment on the Cruiser, she was already waiting outside. She was wearing white denim cutoffs (although nowhere near as short as the ones she’d worn Monday
), a red tank top, three thousand bracelets and anklets, white-and-red tube socks pushed all the way down, and black Converse low-tops. She kind of looked like a candy cane, but everyone who ever met me knew I had a sweet tooth, so that was right up my alley. She stood up from the front steps as I approached, waved, tilted her head, and smiled that gap-toothed smile, while the morning sun shone crisp and warm in the cloudless sky above. It looked, felt, and even smelled as if a beautiful day was dawning.

  Staci hopped on behind me, and it hit me that, for once, I’d made a good decision without knowing it at the time. I’d always thought the Cruiser just had to have a banana seat for the way it would look—it seemed right, matched the style I’d had in mind—and there had never been any question of settling for something else. But now I could see my banana seat had another advantage; it was the perfect size for the three of us to sit on—me, Staci, and her precious rear cargo—and I felt thankful and proud as all hell for having trusted my vision.

  I popped the kickstand and we rolled out. I asked Staci if she’d eaten breakfast. She said no and I smiled to myself. Our first stop was McDonald’s. I ordered a sausage-and-cheese biscuit, hash browns, and orange juice, and Staci ordered the same, only with an Egg McMuffin instead, but told me she didn’t have any money before she did. I smiled again, whipped a ten out of my pocket, and told her it was on me. When we got to the window, I slapped the bill down on the counter like it was burning my hand, grabbed the bag, handed it to Staci, asked her to check the order, counted my change, and pedaled off like a pro. Just like that, I’d taken Staci out to eat, like a real date. And of course I used the drive-through.

  We pulled up to the retirement home, I chained the Cruiser to the NO PARKING sign out front, and then Staci and I sat down on the curb. I was about to dig in when I felt her looking at me.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  “Nothing.” She paused. “It’s just, what are we doing here?”

  “My grandma lives here. She’s old and going senile, but she’s still my grandma. There’s something I have to tell her real fast, and then we can book it and do something else.”

  Staci’s face drew back a little, and her eyes widened as if she’d just been told to go sit in the corner. Maybe she didn’t like old people or being around them, but just as quickly her face relaxed and she nodded her head. Then she scooted closer to me so that our knees were touching, bit into her McMuffin, and somehow made it clear that she understood. No, it didn’t last all that long, but it was easily the best McDonald’s breakfast I’d ever had, and everybody on solid food knew that Mickey D’s breakfasts were the best you could get.

  After we’d finished, I grabbed all our trash, wadded it into a ball, stood up, said come on to Staci, gave her my hand to help her up, and kept hold of her as we walked in. Kathy was at the desk, looking as ridiculously hot as ever in her sandals and short skirt and tight top and jaw-dropping cleavage and big hair, but her pretty face flashed hard and fast with mixed emotions when she saw us come in. She got up quickly, rushed over from behind the desk, started rubbing my cheeks, neck, and head, looked totally worried, and asked me what happened. Before I could get a word in, Staci said, “He beat up this high-school guy that was mean and bothering me.”

  That was only sort of true, but it didn’t seem like the right time to make an issue out of it, because Kathy’s green eyes got all round and big and she pulled her head back some and just kind of looked at me, and then at Staci, and then at me again and smiled. Yeah, I smiled, too. After a few seconds of us all grinning at one another like morons, Kathy said, “If you beat him up, then what happened to your eye?”

  “Well, she never said I beat up his friend, too.”

  We laughed.

  “I guess not,” Kathy said. “So are you going to introduce me to your girlfriend, or what?”

  Girlfriend? Whoa.

  “Hi, I’m Staci,” Staci cut in, as if I had no say in the matter whatsoever.

  “Hi, Staci, I’m Kathy. Nice to meet you.”

  The introductions were over, and I’d just been informed that Staci was my girlfriend. I said it before, and I’ll say it again: whoa.

  “So what are you guys up to? Going to see Toots?”

  “Yeah, for a minute. Where’s Pencil Neck?”

  “He’s out of the office today, why?”

  I was considering trying to have a man-to-man with him about what was really going on in, or out of, Livia’s room. But he wasn’t around, so it would have to wait. Then again, it wouldn’t be so easy having a man-to-man with Bryan when I knew one of us didn’t qualify.

  “No reason,” I answered, thinking that everything seemed to be going my way.

  “Hey, K-kathy?” Staci stammered quietly at her feet.

  “Yeah, hon?”

  “The sign out front? Why isn’t it fixed yet?”

  “Oh, tell me about it, Staci,” Kathy dished.

  “Can we do it?” Staci asked her, and then looked at me. “Can we?”

  For some reason the idea hadn’t even crossed my mind. I’d planned to repaint the sign by myself sometime later in the day, after we were done hanging out, just like I’d told mom I would last night. I’d never thought about asking Staci to help me, maybe because painting the front sign at an old folks’ home wasn’t exactly the coolest thing to ask a chick to do on a first date and all. But since she suggested it, and I had to do it anyway, I was more than inclined to agree.

  “You really want to?” Kathy asked.

  Staci nodded; I followed suit.

  “Okay. I don’t see why not.”

  Kathy circled behind the desk, made a call, and in a few minutes two of the home’s janitors came out with a large can of white paint, one of black, four brushes, stencil letters, a level, a T square, a yardstick, four or five sharpened pencils, and two six-foot fold-up ladders. I felt like screaming, If you already had the goddamn stuff, then why haven’t you fixed the fucking sign yet?, but Staci was there and Kathy was still smiling in this really pleased and knowing way, so I just swallowed it and got ready to get to work. Grandma would just have to wait.

  It turned into a major event; then again, almost anything that ever happened at the retirement home was an event of some magnitude to the inmates. Staci and I set up the ladders on the island, next to the sign, and covered the tag with two coats of white paint. While we waited for them to dry, the parade of onlookers began. The old-timers shuffled across the parking lot in groups of two, three, or four, Cuthbert Stansted and Livia and all the rest, in their loud outfits and sweaters and heavy shoes, with their walkers and wheelchairs, to see what we were doing and to ask the question—over and over—what are you doing, what are you doing, what are you doing? We told them their sign needed repainting and we’d volunteered to do it, and they seemed to buy it because they told us what good kids we were. Yeah, right.

  In the meantime, it started getting warm out, so it only took a little while for both base coats to dry, and when they did, Staci and I got started on the hard part—the lettering. We had to use the yardstick and the level to draw pencil guidelines first, so the letters wouldn’t slant up or down or a mixture of both, because that would look like shit. But since there were two of us—one to hold the yardstick with the level on top and the other to run a pencil along the bottom—it was no problem at all. No, I couldn’t have done it all by myself, and I would’ve made a total mess of it if I’d tried. But Staci seemed to have a knack for that kind of work, which she said probably came from making all those patterns for clothes, because she was always tracing the outlines of things. I didn’t know where she’d gotten it from, but she was about six or seven grades better than I was, at the stenciling, too, so I tried to hold my own and not make a klutz of myself in front of all the old men and women circling our knees and ankles.

  They were all still coming out and watching in turn, especially the ones who knew every damn thing about every kind of job ever performed in the history of human endeavors and whose sole pur
pose in life was to share that information with everyone all the time, whether they were asked for it or not. Luckily, old farts like that were outnumbered by sweet grandma and grandpa types who told them to pipe down and quit bothering us because we were doing a wonderful job. Shit, for them we could’ve done the sign in crayon and left-handed and they would’ve said it was the most beautiful craftsmanship they’d ever beheld.

  It took a while, but we got through it okay, and we’d finished the measuring, lining, and stenciling by lunchtime. Most of the crowd dispersed to the cafeteria for grub. I asked Staci if she was hungry and she said not yet, so we switched paint and brushes and started on the letters. Grandma still hadn’t come out. I could see her room from where we were, and I saw that the curtains were opened and that she was sitting in her chair watching us from a distance, but she hadn’t come outside to say hello or to see what we were doing. I took that for what it was, a bad omen. Maybe mom had called her this morning and told her everything that’d happened, and grandma was either sulking about it because she’d gotten blamed or was pissed off at me because I’d fucked it all up. Either way, she wouldn’t be in too great a mood when we went to see her later on, and I was glad as hell I hadn’t gone to see her first. As soon as she got me alone, she was going to lower the whole goddamn boom on me and more, and suddenly I was dreading it.

  If I wanted my ass all in one piece, which I did, then I’d have to come up with a plan. I couldn’t think about it too much, though, because staying within the lines of stenciled letters with a paintbrush took more concentration than I’d expected, and I was focusing my attention on that. I must’ve had my tongue sticking out of the corner of my mouth, like I sometimes did when I was concentrating intently, because Staci asked me if I was okay.

  “I’m cool,” I said, “how you doing?”

  “I’m okay.”