Damaged

by McCombs, Troy

  And boy did it make him happy to get even with them, even in fantasy worlds.

  The teacher secretly watched Adam as he watched Erica, the unattainable dame. She even considered changing Erica's recent test from a B to a D.

  "What's your favorite slasher film?" Chris asked him.

  "All of them. Probably Halloween. Best time of the year, by the way. My favorite holiday by far. Anything's better than fucking Valentine’s Day."

  "Definitely. That's just a way for candy and flower businesses to make a profit."

  "Yeah, and make single people feel like shit." Adam watched her all this time. "Worst day of the year."

  Adam spent the rest of his time in class drawing a gruesome picture of a bullheaded man holding the severed head of a young woman. Chris took a little nap. Adam, who needed to finish some homework, instead scribbled on his book cover, envious of Chris for dozing off. Adam could not sleep in unfamiliar territory; he especially could not sleep in a place that, to him, rivaled the concentration camp. Only at home could he completely relax.

  ***

  At a quarter after one, the bell screeched. Adam sighed, bid his farewells to Chris, and ventured through those dreadful hallways again with only two more classes to endure. Bigger kids poked and shoved him, which was not uncommon, and girls threw crumpled pieces of paper at him. He ignored it the best he could.

  In no time he entered his fifth-period art class, a room filled with beautiful works of art pasted messily on the walls. The splendid smell of warm clay hung in the air like melted candy. Pictures of simple orbs, rectangles and cones, some drawn in charcoal, some airbrushed, some exquisite, and some ugly, were tacked everywhere. Hands down, Adam's favorite room in the building.

  Adam sat.

  Two older boys, Charles and Ben, entered the room secondly and took their seats, one in front of Adam and one beside him. Neither boy had ever done a thing wrong to him, and neither boy had ever so much as greeted him. They were sitting too close to him, violating his space. He did not like touching his mother or best friend, let alone total strangers.

  “’Sup, man?" Charles asked Ben. "Didn't see you in class yesterday."

  "Oh, I had a bad hangover. I basically put Sunday night in place of Saturday. Weekend was way off schedule.”

  "I get that way sometimes." He chuckled.

  Adam got the impression that both of these kids ignored him on purpose.

  "I can't wait till spring break. I'm doing it like the frats are doing it. I wish I could go to Cancun or something."

  "Same here."

  Adam listened closely. He loved overhearing conversations, other people's businesses. He was so interested in other peoples' lives because he felt he didn't have one of his own. At least not a normal, healthy one. Yet. Till then he thought he'd observe, see how they did it, and discover their unyielding flaws. Adam's own twenty four/seven a day soap opera. He'd heard many things behind these school walls, on the street, and back in junior high. From talks of smoking pot and drinking, which he heard an awful lot about, to upcoming fist fights waiting to be announced. He’d heard one wild rumor about a fifteen-year-old boy who took PCP and killed his girlfriend, to another rumor of one twenty-year-old boy purposely giving AIDS to a well-known slut in Blake. Of course, the good news was always less interesting to Adam than the bad. Wasn't it for everybody?

  While Adam listened to their conversation, the teacher had entered and started the class. She'd been talking for almost five minutes before he realized that she, along with the rest of the students, were now present. He had zoned out from the outside world like he sometimes did.

  "And then I'll grade them," Mrs. Galliger, the most stunning redhead in the county, said. Every boy in Blake fantasized about her, and all the girls wanted to mature as gracefully as she did.

  She handed out today's assignment to the rest of the class. Adam watched her as she moved, watched the folds of her tight black stretch pants pull against her slender thighs, the blood vessels in his brain drooling. Whereas he longed to hold Erica; he longed to fuck Mrs. Galliger.

  Quickly, he turned his mind elsewhere, uncomfortable with the thought of her keeping him after class and doing him. Sexual repression was Adam's motto; he thought it was a bad thing, a big no-no, an indecent mistake. Why, he could not fathom. He had not been raised that way. The poor boy had never even seen a naked woman in a dirty magazine. Before, when approached by either Chris or Josh to watch a porno, he, in every case, had reluctantly declined.

  "Go ahead and start," she said, "I will be back in a few." She left the room.

  Ben passed back the classwork papers to Adam, who took one and passed the rest to the girl behind him.

  "God, maybe I shouldn't take this now. Might get a disease," she said. Arrogantly.

  Adam closed his eyes, let the insult cut. Then he reopened them and looked at today's assignment. It was a very detailed photocopy of the exterior of a million-dollar mansion. I can't do this.

  The other kids started. They began tracing, sketching, roughing in the details. Adam did love that melody of lead against paper, the act of creation being developed into some sort of reality. Just one catch: he wasn't as good as any of them.

  Heeding, Adam started to draw the frame, his shaking hand laying in the foundation of the picture in many long, uneven lines. He wished he could have drawn something else on his page—a severed head lying in a pool of blood, maybe an oversized rat devouring human brains. Anything but a stupid mansion which was probably owned by some rich asshole who sold illegal narcotics.

  His numb mind led his sloppy hand, but some likeness of the photocopy took shape. Some confidence came. He erased very little, not because he made mistakes but because he didn't care much about the subject matter. Getting it finished as quickly as possible was his priority.

  He roughed in the nuts and bolts in under ten minutes—the windows, the rooftop, the three-door garage. Then he went on to the shading—the hardest part, in his mind. He'd tried shading on many occasions but could never get it down to a real science like most of his peers could. He didn't know where to darken or how much to. Instead, he usually shaded a couple small areas and left it at that.

  To get a better idea of how to accomplish the task, and to see how his drawing compared to the others', Adam looked over at Charles' picture. His was not quite as finished as Adam's, but it looked much cleaner. Each pencil stroke seemed perfect. Very little shading had been done, and it was almost an exact blueprint of the photocopy itself.

  Adam stared at it, at Ben, wondering why he was so talented. I should be. I want it more than he—more than any of these kids do!

  He did not want to finish it now that he knew somebody was doing a better job than he was. I've been doing it longer, I bet.

  "Hey, jackass," Charles said to Adam, "mind if you keep your eyes off my paper?"

  "Huh?"

  Some girl in class giggled.

  "Mind your own business. It's not my fault you can't draw worth a shit. Dumbass."

  Another laceration. He couldn't help but question why God had given this bastard a gift and not him.

  But I'm nicer.

  Dumbass.

  I love art and writing with all my heart.

  Not my fault you can't draw worth a shit.

  If I drew that well, I'd help people, not criticize them.

  Adam looked back down at his own picture and went back to work. He suddenly hated art for the rest of the period.

  That monstrous shriek called yet again at five after two. Art was history and math was next. Adam's drawing was still not finished.

  ***

  The East-End of the halls were always less cluttered than any other, partly because some rooms were being redone and partly because it was closer to the Principal Remmy's Office (Andrew Remmy was the biggest A-hole in Blake County, according to some students). Adam walked toward Mr. Saunter's Math Class, carrying his books in his hands like a food tray with a bomb on it. After rounding a corner, he stop
ped mid-step, almost running into Diana, a short, overweight girl with actual splotches of facial stubble. She giggled loudly enough to make him feel uncomfortable, a thing she always did when she saw him—since sixth grade.

  She was not higher class or a prep. She lived in a trailer, in fact.

  I must be lower-class than even her.

  Adam sped up, came to a curve in the hall, and turned right, where he bumped into the chest of a kid twice his size.

  "What the fuck!"

  He'd collided with a senior.

  Adam looked so silly as he stopped. Face puckered like he'd eaten bad cheese, he waited for the severe blow to crush his nose.

  “Yeah, you bump me 'gain, the back'a ya' head goin' run into the pipeline." The kid was white, even though he talked black.

  Relief. He'd practically escaped death. Any other time, he would be hamburger by now. But they both passed each other like nothing had happened.

  Adam entered his sixth period class with two minutes to spare. Last class of the day, no more surprises—

  Bullshit.

  There were always overlooked surprises in any public place. On the bus, walking to the school exit… the only thing close to a guarantee was being home behind locked doors.

  The teacher, Mr. Saunters, an overly energetic, shiny-headed bald man with a severe limp, entered the room right before the ring of the bell ended.

  “Hey, class, I graded your percentage papers, so you will be getting them back today." He reached into a folder on his desk and took out a stack of stapled papers.

  "How'd we do?" John Spokes, the ultimate class clown, asked.

  "Not too bad. All pretty good grades, really."

  Adam was dumbfounded. Good grade? Me? How? In what universe? A fluke.

  "Except one," the teacher said.

  Adam knew it. Just please don't mention the name, please don't say the name!

  "The F paper goes to—" he said, handing them back. "Mr. Adam McNicols."

  His face went flush.

  Heads turned, eyes focused. John clapped. "Good," he said, looking at the failure, "we got an underachiever on our hands!"

  Kids laughed, shook their heads, or did nothing. In Mr. Saunter's eyes, Adam was nothing but a mistake.

  The class went on... and on... and on. The color never evened out in Adam's face. His eyes, however, never separated from his Timex. The minutes crawled ahead, and Adam was far more focused on the upcoming rattle of the bell than the teacher explaining something about ridiculous fractions. Numbers met nothing to Adam; being released from prison within minutes meant as much to him as Christians’ salvation through Jesus Christ. This was his favorite part of school, the reward for being insulted and assaulted.

  Bell=freedom.

  It was coming, despite that nagging mathematician writing on the board, who occasionally looked at him like he did not belong here.

  Seven minutes to go!

  "Now, this number, you divide by X, times Y—"

  Use real numbers! This isn't fucking English class!

  "It's really very simple," the teacher said. "All you got to do is understand what the prime number is. Then you solve the problem."

  "Ain't nothing to it," Spokes said, "a monkey could do it." Then he looked at Adam. "Well, monkeys with half a brain."

  Adam did not even hear him.

  Six minutes more until the cage opened.

  "You see, class, math isn't just numbers, it's about understanding and analyzing what life throws at you. It's the universal language. Some people believe that we could communicate solely by numerical values, alone. Let me show you something. If you add—"

  Hurry!

  Five minutes.

  Adam bounced his feet off the floor, excited. He hoped the bell would ring earlier than expected, as it sometimes did. It could be his worst enemy or his best friend.

  His eyes watched the escalating digits. Soon, he would get to go back to his safe haven.

  Four minutes.

  Adam lifted his head and looked at the other kids, all of whom actually seemed interested in this math shit. John puckered his lips at the weirdo in the black clothes.

  Three minutes and the chains are off.

  "And what is the answer?" the teacher asked Peg, the sometimes pretty, sometimes ugly—depending on if she was wearing make-up or not—girl in the front row.

  "Thirty-eight point nine-ninety-two?"

  "Yes!"

  The bell screamed.

  Adam threw his books in his left hand and was the first one to leave the room.

  The halls flooded with kids coming, going, stopping, talking. Adam just went, headed straight toward the front of the building, needing to get to fresh air. He imagined how good it would be to get home, sit down, and take a load off. Watch some television, write a little, listen to some Rammstein.

  He finagled his way through the jungle as quickly as he could and, rather speedily, reached the entrance. Here, the kids looked like ants tunneling their way through the ant farm to escape the bully with the magnifying glass. People shoved Adam every which way; he was barely tall enough to see over most of the juniors and seniors. They would have probably trampled him to death had the fire alarm rang, leaving behind a bloody pulp.

  "Got a smoke?" a young man questioned him.

  Adam was so lost in the ocean of sharks to hear the kid with the full beard.

  "Hey you! Got a smoke?"

  Adam looked aside. He heard it this time, and wanted to tell him yes just to avoid any kind of unnecessary confrontation.

  "No," Adam said, "I don't smoke. Sorry." It just shot out like a bullet. He was just finally glad to get out the door.

  ***

  The buses were lined up, rumbling, waiting, their doors spread open like accordions, their exhausts filling the air with toxic fumes. Kids stuffed into different ones. In the near distance was Number 11, Adam's ride back home.

  I'm not coming back here tomorrow. I'll rage before I give in. Fuck school.

  Adam hurried to it the whole time, staring at his savior, trying to see how full it was already. A few kids in front, but the back was vacant.

  For the second time of the day, he fell as he ran to catch the Number 11. Harder this time, and not by accident. Someone from behind had shoved him. His knees hit the concrete with a pretty loud pop. Pain shot up his thighs. Embarrassment swam through his whole body.

  The laughter was so loud, it could have drowned out a fireworks display. He sat there for a full moment and did not desire to see who'd pushed him or why; why not was probably the better question.

  Adam stood a second later and jogged slowly into the bus. This time, the bus driver refused to make eye contact with him.

  "He's a—"

  "What a real—"

  "What do you think he—"

  "I don't give a shit—"

  He went to the very back, sat, and bowed his head.

  The bus was on its way not more than five minutes later. They were the second ones to leave the lot and the first ones to travel west. Adam hid back in his own little world.

  Chapter 3

  Slow disintegration

  He began to rouse by the time they were one block away from Barb's Tanning Salon. By now, some more harsh reality set in:

  Everyone hates me. No one likes me or cares. So many people think I'm a nobody, and if that many people do, how could all of them be wrong? They have to be right. I'm the ultimate victim.

  What a freak—

  Maybe I'm worse than Osama...

  It's winter, not fall!

  Or Hitler...

  Don't look at me, moron—

  Maybe I should just...

  The squeak of a bus door opening...

  He spotted the roof of his house over some pine trees through the window. He stood and left the bus, free at last. The overbearing shadow of stress was gone as quickly as it had appeared over seven hours ago, like a one hundred pound boulder neutralizing into dust. For him, it was a better climax tha
n masturbation.

  Adam finally headed home. Nobody bothered him now, nobody gave him a dirty look.

  When he made it to the big tree at the beginning of the alley, he met with his security blanket. Where school was his prison, his home was his sanctuary.

  Without a negative thought in the world, he ran across the street, two-stepped up onto the porch, and entered.

  Ah... the smell... that familiar welcoming smell.

  "Hi, Adam," his mother said from the living room.

  Home, but not alone, dammit. "Hi," Adam said thoughtlessly.

  "You want pizza for supper?"

  "I suppose," he grunted, breezing up the stairs.

  Angela sighed, heart aching. Her only son often ignored her and never wanted to spend time with her anymore. She knew he was growing up, becoming more independent, but she felt like she was losing him somehow.

  ***

  Adam entered his room, locked the door, and went straight for the remote. As his ass kissed the bed, his thumb pressed power, and a breaking news story from Channel 11 appeared.

  "We're just bringing you a story from Blake County. Two cars have been stolen earlier today from downtown, in the parking lot of Telecommunications Company. Now, whether they were—"

  Adam sighed. "Oh, who cares."

  He turned it to ABC Family Channel. Full House, his favorite television show, had just started. The current episode was almost over, but another was lined up for three-thirty. He was a little disinterested in most of the humor-based episodes, but he could watch the serious, dramatic, heart-to-heart ones over and over again. His friends made fun of him for even liking the sitcom. He did because a satisfying home life was something he'd always wanted but never felt he had.

  "Adam! Adam!" his mom cried out.

  Adam rolled his eyes and watched Danny Tanner.

  "What?!" he screamed.

  The door opened. His mother entered. "You don't have to bite my head off, y'know. God, all I wanted to know was what kind of pizza you wanted. Now, do you want pizza, or not? Tell me now."