How to Win at High School

by Owen Matthews

  “What brings you to the west side, little homies?” Jamal says. “Didn’t anyone tell you this is my territory?”

  “We’re just running an errand,” Adam tells him. “Nothing to do with you.”

  Jamal chuckles. “Something tells me all of your errands have something to do with me.” He picks up Adam’s backpack where it dropped to the pavement. “So let’s see what kind of errands you and homeboy are running.”

  Jamal has to let go of Adam to pick up the backpack. Adam thinks about running. Before he’s even aware of the thought, though, Jamal’s big linebacker friend is up on him. There’s no escape, Adam realizes. There’s just playing this thing out.

  Jamal unzips the backpack and peers inside, and Adam can literally see the moment when Jamal finds the pills. His posture shifts. His breath catches. His shark grin gets bigger, and Adam knows he’s screwed.

  “This is a lot of weight, man,” Jamal says. “Fuck you up a long time, you get caught riding with this.”

  George is openly crying now.

  “I’mma do you a favor,” Jamal says.

  Adam waits for it.

  “Don’t want you little homies doing anything crazy,” Jamal says. “Get yourself caught with this stuff and fuck up your whole lives and shit, know what I’m saying?”

  Adam shakes his head. “Come on, man.”

  “Hate to see you kids do something stupid,” Jamal says. “So I’mma take this weight off your hands, okay?”

  “You can’t do that,” Adam tells him. “That stuff is mine. I paid—”

  “Homey.” Jamal leans in real close. “I don’t give a fuck.”

  345.

  Jamal shoulders the backpack. “Let’s take a walk, little homies.”

  It’s not a request. There’s no room for negotiation. Jamal takes Adam and the linebacker takes George, and they walk into a back alley behind some shithole bar and Adam knows what’s coming.

  “Go easy on my buddy,” he tells Jamal. “He isn’t part of this.”

  “Rolls with you, though,” Jamal says. “That makes him an accessory. Better teach him a lesson, just in case.”

  “Come on,” Adam says. “You don’t have to—”

  He never finishes the sentence. The linebacker cold-cocks him—

  (POW)

  —and down Adam goes.

  346.

  It’s not much of a fight. Five minutes, maybe. Adam gets his shots in, for all the good it does. Jamal’s big. His buddy’s bigger. Adam isn’t exactly a tower of power.

  George gets the same treatment. Except George doesn’t get any shots in. Not that it does him any good. Five minutes and they’re both curled up into little balls on the pavement, begging Jamal and his buddy to stop.

  Jamal and his buddy do stop. “Remember, little homies,” Jamal says. “Stay out of the deep end.”

  He spits on the ground, a few inches from Adam’s face. Adam lies on the ground and stares at the loogie on the gritty pavement. The ruined remains of his TAG Heuer a few feet away.

  Jamal and his buddy walk away with Adam’s backpack. They climb into the cream-colored Lexus and drive off. Adam just lies there. Listens to George crying and feels a perverse satisfaction that—

  (at least)

  —he isn’t crying himself.

  347.

  Disaster, obv.

  The backpack is gone. The pills are gone. Adam’s savings are, effectively, gone.

  (Hell, even the TAG Heuer is destroyed.)

  And George is fucked up, too.

  Disaster.

  348.

  Adam leans against a dumpster and looks himself over. His Rag & Bone jeans are torn and he’s missing a shirtsleeve. His knuckles are scraped and his eye feels swollen. His mouth tastes like blood.

  He’s alive, though, right?

  (Shut up.)

  And he can rebuild, right?

  (Can he?)

  Adam pulls himself to his feet. Fuck yes, he can. What’s he lost, really?

  (a shitload of money)

  (a sack full of drugs)

  (self-respect)

  Nothing. He can find a new pill connection. He can make back the drug money selling pills through the summer. He can rebuild.

  Nobody even saw them get their asses kicked.

  It’s not so bad, right?

  (Right?)

  349.

  By the time Adam pulls George to his feet, he’s feeling better about the whole situation.

  (What’s a drug dealer’s life without an ass-kicking now and then? Hell, even Tony Montana had to take a few punches. Right now, Adam figures he should be happy he’s not watching George get sawed in half by a chainsaw in some shitty motel somewhere. It’s all good.)

  (It’s. All. Good.)

  George sniffs. Wipes snot from his face and his sleeve comes back bloody. “I want to go home,” he says.

  “You want to get cleaned up first?” Adam asks him. “There’s a McDonald’s right there. We should probably—”

  “I just want to go home,” George says. “Okay?”

  Adam looks at him. Shrugs. “Okay.”

  They walk to the Buick. It’s tough going. They’re both kind of unsteady. George’s lower lip is trembling and his eyes are bleary. He looks like a kid who just got beat up in an alley.

  “Whatever you need to make this thing right,” Adam tells him. “Money, pills, girls—you name it, I’ll make it happen, okay?”

  George shakes his head. “I don’t want anything.”

  He climbs into the car. Adam climbs in beside him. Sits in the passenger seat, watches George as he drives, and tries to convince himself everything will be fine. Tries to convince himself this is all just a minor setback.

  You’re still the Pizza Man, he tells himself. It’s. All. Good.

  The minute George pulls into the Nixon parking lot, though, Adam realizes he’s fucked.

  George slows down on the gas and kind of lets out a moan. The Buick just drifts into the faculty lot. Adam follows George’s gaze. Sees what George sees.

  Bonnie Dubois and Mr. Acton are standing in the middle of the faculty lot, watching the Buick pull in. Neither of them look happy.

  And it all comes crashing down again.

  It’s all bad.

  350.

  It plays out pretty much how you’d expect.

  Adam and George sit in the Buick for a little while. George stares out the window at his mom and Mr. Acton. George is pale. Adam looks at George and knows:

  1.George is going to get out of the car.

  2.Bonnie is going to see how messed up he is.

  3.Bonnie’s going to lose her shit.

  4.George is going to cave.

  He’s going to tell Bonnie everything he knows. And given that George knows a shitload, Adam knows:

  5.He’s screwed.

  “Listen to me,” Adam says. “I know you’re going to cave on me. I don’t blame you. Just, you know, do me a favor, okay?”

  George stares out the front window, his hands glued on the steering wheel. “What?” he says.

  “Just leave the rest of them out of it,” Adam says. “Wayne and Devon and Lisa. Don’t fuck up their lives too, okay?”

  George blinks. Finally looks at Adam. “I won’t tell them anything,” he says. “Swear to god.”

  Adam says. “Just put it on me, okay?”

  “Yeah,” George says. “Of course.”

  Then George climbs out of the car.

  351.

  And from there, it’s on.

  Bonnie Dubois takes one look at George and starts bawling. Mr. Acton looks at Adam, and Adam just shrugs.

  “We got beat up,” he says. “We cut class and went to McDonald’s and some punks beat us up.”

  “Some ‘punks,’” Acton says. “Did you know them?”

  “Never saw them before in my life,” Adam says.

  Acton looks at George. “Is this true?”

  George kind of hesitates. George can’t answer. Ge
orge looks at Adam and then quickly away. Mr. Acton nods like he knows what’s coming.

  “Okay,” Acton says.

  They walk inside the school. Into the administrative office. Acton takes George and Bonnie into his office and leaves Adam outside. Adam sits there by the secretaries’ desks and waits as George spills his guts to the VP. Adam feels . . .

  Adam feels calm.

  Relieved.

  Adam feels like every ball he’s been trying to juggle is hitting the ground and there’s nothing he can do now but watch the destruction.

  Like he can finally just sleep and not care anymore.

  Like Pizza Man is dead.

  Adam feels . . .

  peaceful.

  352.

  And eventually, the VP’s door opens, and Acton comes out with George and Bonnie behind him. Acton walks to the secretaries’ desks and nobody is looking at Adam.

  “Miranda, would you give the police a call?” Acton says. “Tell them we need a couple officers down here.”

  The secretary reaches for the phone. Acton finally looks at Adam. “Well,” he says. “I guess we need to have a talk.”

  Adam looks at him. Looks at George, who can’t meet his eye. Looks at Bonnie, who glares at him like he’s the scum of the earth.

  Adam stands. “Yeah,” he says. “I guess we do.”

  353.

  Adam never finds out what George Dubois told Mr. Acton. It’s not much, though.

  (Shout-out to George.)

  Acton pulls Adam into his office and grills him about the drugs, and Adam channels every cop show he ever watched and keeps his mouth shut and asks for his lawyer.

  They don’t get him a lawyer. He doesn’t know any lawyers, anyway—

  (except Sara Bryant’s dad, and that might be a tiny conflict of interest)

  —but he does keep his mouth shut until the police search his locker.

  (Which sounds like a big deal, but it really isn’t: since Jamal stole all of the pills, the police have nothing to connect Adam to any drug dealing.)

  (Bonus.)

  (They do find a shoe box full of money. And even if the police don’t think it’s enough to prove the drug stuff, the VP isn’t ready to give up just yet.)

  (Especially after he finds a couple of assignments in Adam’s locker.)

  “So what’s all this, then?” Acton says. One assignment is an English paper for some goofy sophomore kid. The other’s Rob Thigpen’s latest econ lab.

  (Fucking Rob Thigpen.)

  “Tutoring,” Adam tells the VP. “I was helping some kids out with their homework and stuff.”

  Understatement of the year.

  The VP isn’t buying it. He calls Rob Thigpen and the goofy sophomore down to his office. Leaves Adam to sit out by the secretaries again and hope his clients keep their mouths shut.

  Rob Thigpen comes out ten minutes later. His eye is still swollen, and his face is all bruised. He doesn’t say anything at first. Then he looks at Adam. “I didn’t say a damn thing,” he says.

  Adam glances at the secretaries. “Me either.”

  Rob nods. “So let’s hope that twerp in there keeps his mouth shut,” he says. “Maybe you’ll walk away from this, Pizza Man.”

  “It’s not Pizza Man anymore,” Adam tells him.

  “Oh, it better be,” Rob Thigpen says. “Now, more than ever.”

  354.

  The sophomore stays in the VP’s office a long time. Adam and Rob sit on the bench and don’t talk to each other and wait.

  Then Acton’s door opens and the VP’s standing there with his hands on his hips, looking at Rob and Adam, and he drags them both back into his office.

  “This is a crock of shit,” he tells them when they’re all standing in front of his desk. “Your stories don’t match up in the slightest. I want to know what’s going on here, and I want to know now.”

  “I was tutoring these guys,” Adam says. “What’s the big deal?”

  “Bull,” Acton tells him. “You’re a liar and a drug dealer.”

  “So call the cops back,” Adam says. “Maybe they’ll arrest me this time.”

  Acton’s face goes red. “You little shit,” he says. “I know something’s going on here. I’m going to find out what it is.”

  “In the meantime, can you send Rob and this guy back to class?” Adam says. “They had nothing to do with whatever you’re talking about.”

  The VP stares at Adam, the muscles in his neck as tense as frozen ropes. Finally, he shakes his head. “Get out of here,” he tells Rob and the sophomore.

  “You stay put until your parents get here,” he tells Adam.

  355.

  Big deal.

  “Adam, honey?” his mom says, when she arrives with Adam’s dad. “What’s the matter?”

  “Your son is a liar and a criminal,” Acton tells her. “I want him off school property immediately.”

  Adam’s dad bristles. “Is this true, Adam?”

  Adam shrugs. “Maybe,” he says. “Or maybe I’m an honors student who happens to be tutoring a couple other students for some money. Maybe I cut class today to get breakfast and got jumped by a drug dealer and his friend.”

  Adam looks at the vice principal across his big desk. “Maybe my friend thought he saw something he didn’t when the dealer stole my backpack. Maybe he came up with a crazy story to explain why he borrowed his mom’s car, and you’re jumping to some equally crazy conclusions.”

  Mr. Acton stares back at Adam. “You were a burnout and a loser at Riverside,” he says. “You think that doesn’t count for anything?”

  “I pull straight A’s at Nixon,” Adam says. “Doesn’t that count for anything?”

  Acton doesn’t say anything. Adam’s mom and dad just watch.

  “If you have something you can prove, then prove it,” Adam tells Acton. “If not, give me a detention for cutting class and let me get back to work.”

  “It makes sense to me,” Adam’s dad says. “Do you have anything you can prove, Mr. Acton?”

  Acton doesn’t even look at him. “Adam, if you think for one minute I believe this crock of shit, you’re a fool,” he says, standing. “But you’re right, I can’t prove anything, so go on. Get out of here.”

  Adam stands. “Finally.”

  “Just know that I’ll be watching you,” Acton says. “I’ll be checking up on you, and I will catch you, someday soon.”

  “Uh-huh,” Adam says. “Good luck with that.”

  Adam walks out of the office. Leaves Acton fuming by the door. Adam’s parents follow him out. “It’s not true, is it?” his mom says as they walk into the hall. “None of what that man says is true, right?”

  She’s stopped in the hallway now, looking at Adam, and Adam knows he’s home free. He knows Mr. Acton will never catch him, knows he can walk down the hallway and into economics class and, yeah, he still flunked the midterm, and yeah, the homework scheme is shot, but he kept his mouth shut, at least, and the gods will respect that. In a couple of weeks, Rob Thigpen’s face will heal, and everyone will forget about the party at the casino, and Pizza Man will be a legend again.

  He’s home free.

  He made it.

  He won.

  356.

  Except:

  (In the movies, this is the part where Victoria comes out of a classroom and comes walking down the hall, and Adam locks eyes with her and instantly sees the error of his ways, and this big, redeeming moment happens with the music swelling and Adam copping to everything, but—)

  (This isn’t the movies.)

  (Victoria doesn’t magically, melodramatically appear.)

  Adam looks past his mom. Down the hall. It’s the same hall he walked down a thousand times, holding hands with Victoria.

  (And for everything else that Adam’s accomplished here, Nixon is Victoria.)

  It’s the same hall he and Wayne ran down when they stole the Applied Science exam. It’s the same hall that consigned Ryan Grant—

&nbs
p; (the stoner)

  (the burnout)

  (the loser)

  —to Maryvale Tech.

  And Adam looks at that hallway and thinks about Ryan Grant at Maryvale, probably getting his ass kicked, no friends, pretty much just biding his time before prison, and Adam figures:

  Shit.

  Adam figures, even if he can live with the cheating and the lying and the drug dealing and everything else—

  (even if he can rationalize all of that stuff)

  —there’s no rationalizing what he did to Ryan Grant. Adam can’t explain Ryan Grant to Victoria. Or himself. He can’t justify it. Can’t forget about it.

  He can’t live with it.

  Adam’s mom is still looking at him. She’s still waiting for an answer. And Adam looks off down that hallway and he—

  —shakes his head and gives in. “I’m sorry, Mom,” he says. “I’m really sorry.”

  357.

  Adam still doesn’t cop to the homework stuff.

  (Which drives the VP nuts.)

  He keeps his mouth shut. Because even though there’s something appealing about tearing the whole school down to the core, leaving nothing but scorched earth and fallen gods when he finally packs up for Maryvale—

  When it comes down to it, Adam doesn’t really want to get Wayne and Devon—

  (and hell, even Lisa)

  —involved in his mess. He’s seen how Goodfellas ends. He’s not that guy.

  (#StopSnitching)

  358.

  Adam doesn’t cop to the drug stuff, either.

  (Which drives the VP even nuttier.)

  He doesn’t cop to the fake ID stuff, or the booze.

  (He takes Pizza Man Enterprises off Facebook, and the VP is too clueless to find it anyway.)

  Ultimately, all Acton has against Adam is that one Applied Science exam. It should be a suspension, for an honor-roll kid. But Acton throws the proverbial book.

  And that proverbial book knocks Adam