by Alan Sitomer
“Ouch,” I said. “I can’t make him stop.”
“All right, then I’ll do it,” Nathan answered.
Ya know, I never realized you could actually lift a person off of the ground by their nipples. Really, I would have thought they’d pluck off or something. But nope, turns out nipples are stuck on there pretty good.
Finkelstein’s eyes began watering from the pain of being lifted into the air by his chest. It was the gnarliest titty-twister I’d ever seen.
However, it worked.
“OW! You’re pulling off my breasts!” Finkelstein shouted as he woke from his daze. “Let go!!”
Finkelstein’s scream echoed down the white halls. Nathan, always looking for a new way to torment somebody, gave one more turn of the dial for good measure and then dropped Finkelstein to the ground. Finkelstein collapsed with a thud that echoed, too.
“That was unnecessary,” Allison said.
“It worked, didn’t it?” Nathan laughed. “Back to idiot normal.”
Then Nathan punched me in the garbanzo beans once more. This time, he knocked me so good my marbles clanked.
“Oy!” I yelped.
I bent over at the waist, turning blue as my coconuts rose up into my throat. A moment later, the door to the faculty lounge flew open again.
“What in the world is going on out here? Allison, what are you doing?” Mr. Summers, aka Sheriff Mustache, barked at his daughter.
She froze. I decided to be Prince Charming and come to her rescue.
“It wasn’t her, sir,” I answered, still bent over at the waist. “It was me. I, uh . . . I zipped my pants awkwardly.”
Sheriff Mustache stared at me. His collar was stiff and his necktie was brown. I’d never seen such a crisp tie knot before.
“You know,” I continued. “Like when you’re tucking in your shirt and you accidentally zip yourself up too fast and the skin gets caught in the metal because you . . .”
I stopped speaking. Really, what was the point? Sheriff Mustache looked at me like I was some kind of middle school moron. Then, just to make matters worse, he opened up a folder he was carrying and held out a sheet of paper.
I narrowed my eyes to read it.
Come celebrate
the First Annual Bobby Connor
BONE-A-THON
It was the flyer. He must have found it in the copy machine. Sheriff Mustache crumpled it up into an angry ball.
“You think I’ve never seen boys like you before, Bobby? Trust me, I’ve been around a long time.”
“Come on, Alfred,” I said, picking Finkelstein up off of the hallway floor. “Time to go.”
The two of us slunk away, him rubbing his nips, me holding my walnuts, both of us in deep and serious pain.
Allison looked at me with pity. I left, not even bothering to say good-bye to my dream girl.
9
Later that afternoon, since it was Thursday, after the usual seventy-three boners I get per day without a clue in the world as to how to handle them, I walked into correctional erectional therapy to meet with Dr. Cox, feeling lower than low. I mean, here I was on the verge of actually talking with the bestest, nicest, most attractive girl I had ever known and all I managed to do was get punched in my corn kernels and make her father think I was dumber than a lamppost.
“Today we will try a different perspective,” she said as I entered the room. Again she wore a sleeveless top. Her forearms looked like rulers. “No need to sit, Bobby, we’re going for a ride.”
“A ride?” I said. “Where?”
“Since the informational approach did not seem to make the inroads I had hoped, we are going to try the physiological approach to transformation through chakra alignment.”
“Huh?”
“Yoga,” she answered, tossing me some clothes. “We’re going to yoga. You can change into those once we get to the studio.”
Fifteen minutes later, I was standing in a wooden-floored exercise room with twenty babes-of-the-century.
And they were all wearing skintight leotards.
“I’m not too sure this is a good idea,” I said as I looked around. A supermodel bent over at the waist two feet in front of me.
“Channel the energy, Bobby. Channel the energy,” Dr. Cox instructed.
I paused.
“Um . . .”
A moment later, a second supermodel crossed the room and bent over, right next to her friend.
Uh-oh, I suddenly realized. They weren’t friends. They were twins!
“No, really, Dr. Cox,” I nervously said. “This is a bad idea.”
Dr. Cox tied her sandy brown hair back into a ponytail and prepared for the start of class.
“Like, a bad, bad, bad idea,” I continued pleading with her. “Plus, these tight-fitting pants you’re making me wear—”
“Channel the energy, Bobby,” she instructed again. Then Dr. Cox closed her eyes and took a long, slow, deep, spiritual breath. “Just channel the energy.”
10
“What kind of sick person gets kicked out of a yoga class!?” my father snapped. He was really mad that he had to leave work to come pick me up from the exercise studio. Seems he had planned to stay late to impress his boss. Kissin’ up, that type of stuff.
“But it wasn’t my fault,” I answered as we walked through the front door.
Mom, of course, was already in a tizzy.
“Oh my goodness,” she said as we entered. “I’ve mothered a pervert.” Mom closed the front door behind us, hoping the Holstons wouldn’t catch the drift of the latest news. “Talk to him, Phillip,” she said to my dad as she spun the red oval charm of her necklace around and around and around on its gold chain. “Talk to him.”
“I’m not talking to him,” Dad said, taking off his coat. He loosened his tie but let it hang from his neck.
“You’ve got to talk to him, Phillip,” Mom insisted. “Maybe he needs some kind of man-to-man chat?”
“He doesn’t need a man-to-man chat,” Gramps answered. “What he needs is a jar of Vaseline and a stack of dirty magazines.”
Gramps, sitting at the dining room table, popped a yellow jelly bean in his mouth and smiled. Mom glared at him, then turned back to Dad.
“Phillip, you’re his father, for goodness’ sake,” Mom said.
“So? He’s my father,” Dad said, pointing at Gramps.
“At least that’s what his mother says,” Gramps answered. “Me, I’ve never been too sure.”
“Again with the epileptic milkman theory, huh, Pop?”
“All I have to say is two words: sloped forehead. Hillary, look closely,” Gramps said to my sister. “Do I have a sloped forehead?”
“Oh my gawd, Grampa Ralph.” Hill turned away violently. “Your breath smells like a goat.”
“That’s ’cause of the new milk I’m drinking,” he answered. “Helps with flatulence.”
“What’s flatulence?” Hill asked as she buried her nose inside her shirt. She looked like she was about to vomit.
“You know, gas. Farts. The blow of the big brown butt trumpet,” Gramps replied. “They say goat’s milk makes your wind smell sweet like berries. Hold on . . .”
Gramps closed one eye, strained, then let one fly. It was a loud, rumbling, sounds-like-he-wet-his-underwear type of blast.
“Now tell me that doesn’t smell like a boysenberry bush,” Gramps said.
“Phillip, please talk to him,” Mom said.
“Pop, don’t fart in front of the kids.” My dad shook his head.
“Not him—him!” Mom shouted. “Talk to Bobby. About being a pervert.”
“I’m not a pervert,” I said.
“Oh yeah?” Dad said as he took a seat in the living room. “Well, there’s twenty-two angry yogis down at the gym who say otherwise, Mr. Stretchy Pants.”
“It was a leotard,” I answered. He looked at me funny. “You know, a leotard, like dancers wear.”
“Are you gay?” my father asked.
“
I’m not gay,” I answered. “The stupid therapist made me wear it.”
I would have thought that Dad might have remembered what it was like to be my age and suffer from stiffy-itis all the time, but apparently not.
“Why does there have to be something wrong with being gay?” Hill suddenly asked, offended. “Maybe I’m gay,” she said, crossing her arms.
“You’re not gay,” he answered.
“How do you know? Maybe I am. And why does there have to be something wrong with it?” Hill asked. “You’re a bigot, you know that?”
“Bigot schmigot,” Dad said. “You’re still not gay.”
“Gay, gay, gay,” Hill answered. “Gay, gay, gay!”
“Ssshhh, the Holstons,” Mom said.
“Maybe Bobby’s got that recessive gene that your mom’s brother Frank has,” Gramps offered. Just then I noticed that Gramps was wearing the same blue pajama pants he was wearing the day before. And the day before that and the day before that.
“We have an Uncle Frank?” I asked.
“Well, used to be Uncle Frank,” Gramps said, clearing up the matter. “You probably know him now as Aunt Fran.”
“Aunt Fran used to be Uncle Frank?” I said, looking at my mom in shock.
“Ssshhh,” Mom answered. “Not so loud.” She peeped outside at the Holstons’ house, then closed the window blinds. “And be nice,” she added after another turn of the charm on her chain. “You’re talking about my broth . . . I mean sister.”
“If I run away, none of you are gonna come look for me, are you?” Hill threw up her arms. “I mean, seriously, you will respect my wishes to be a homeless teen living on the streets, right?”
“Philll-iipp,” Mom said.
“Don’t worry, she’s not running away,” Dad answered.
“I’m not talking about that child,” Mom said. “I’m talking about that one,” she said, pointing at me.
“Nobody ever listens to me,” Hill said. “Nobody ever takes my feelings into consideration.”
Dad threw an angry look at Hill. I could tell he’d had about enough of this whole conversation already.
“Gay,” said Hill, recrossing her arms. “Gay, gay, gay.”
“You watch it, young lady,” Dad said, pointing his finger at my sister. “You just watch your bananas.” Dad then turned to Mom. “Look, Ilene, I can either raise a boy or I can raise a man, but I can’t raise both a boy and a man. Make your play.”
A silence fell over the living room.
“What the hell does that even mean?” Gramps asked.
“Grandpa!” exclaimed my mother. “Don’t use the H-word.”
Gramps shrugged as if to say, “Why not?”
“My house, my rules,” Mom added. “And if you are going to stay here as our guest while your wife is visiting her sister in New Mexico, all I ask is that you please respect my wishes, okay?”
“I thought Gram was on a cruise,” I said.
“Oh, um . . . yeah,” Mom said. “On a cruise visiting her sister.”
“In New Mexico?” I said, trying to figure it out. All the adults shared one of those looks. Something was fishy.
“Phillip,” Mom said. “Would you talk to your son, please?”
“Look, Ilene, this is a man thing,” Dad said. “And though you’re not gonna like hearing it, the truth is, I think you need a penis to understand the situation.”
Mom looked as if she were about to faint.
“Bobby knows what I’m talking about,” Dad said. “Don’t you, son?”
It was a moment before I answered.
“Can I be excused?”
“I don’t know,” Mom replied. “Can you?”
I shook my head. “May I be excused?”
Suddenly, I just felt, well . . . bummed out. I mean, I thought families were supposed to support you. Mine just made things worse. Like, did other kids feel this way about the people who lived in their house?
“I guess you may,” my mom finally replied.
“Hey, Bobby,” Gramps called to me.
“Yeah?”
“Don’t forget the Vaseline.” Gramps grinned, then farted. “Ahhh . . . boysenberry.”
I headed to my room as Mom and Dad began a half hour fight with each other, my mom nagging my dad to “talk to me” and my dad responding with comments like, “Wives like you are why God invented alcohol and TV.”
Life sucked.
11
“Ya know what we need, Bobby? Ya know what we really, really need?”
“Finkelstein, freeze,” I said. “Hold it right there.” We stopped dead in the center of the school hallway. It was Nutrition Break, a fifteen-minute time slot our school built into the day’s schedule, since class started at seven thirty and no one got to eat lunch until eleven fifty. They thought we needed a short energy break in the mid-morning to eat apples and munch pears. Mostly, we just talked, chowed potato chips and punched one another.
I grabbed Finkelstein by his shoulders so I could get a good look at him.
“Smile.”
“What?”
“Smile,” I repeated.
He smiled.
“What kind of crazy color is that on your teeth this week?”
“It’s called sunrise and carrots,” he said proudly.
“Sunrise and carrots?” I said. “You look like you swallowed a safety vest.”
“Yeah, sexy, huh?”
“No, it’s not sexy, Finkelstein,” I replied. “It’s not sexy at all. It looks like they should use your face as a crosswalk warning.”
“He-hurrggh, he-hurrggh.”
“Do not laugh, Finkelstein. Please, do not laugh.” I continued walking down the hall, past kids with stuffed backpacks, untied shoelaces and enough candy in their pockets to open up a convenience store. Even on a mellow day, the hallway was loud and rowdy, filled with kids’ random screams. The only time it got orderly was when Vice Principal Hildge cruised past, yelling things like “No running in the halls!” into his bullhorn.
The guy probably slept with that bullhorn.
“I wanted something extra special for the ladies,” Finkelstein explained to me. It had been about two weeks since “the incident,” so the spitballs dunked in chocolate milk had mellowed a ton. “I mean, face it, Bobby, we need to score chicks for the Big Dance. Hey, watch this,” he said, and before I knew it Finkelstein had dashed across the hall and approached Susan Montgomery, a short girl who had blue eyes and brown hair tied in pigtails.
“Hey, Swooozie Q-zie,” Finkelstein said, trying to sound as if he was some kind of middle school Casanova. “My tongue is like dynamite and your lips are the gas, so whaddya say you and me go to the Big Dance and slurp face till our hair explodes?”
Susan paused, shifted her books from one arm to the other, then fixed her eyes on Finkelstein like a laser beam.
“I’d rather lick pig vomit.”
“He-hurrggh, you’re witty,” Finkelstein said, flashing a mouthful of glowing orange. “But seriously, whaddya say?”
“No, I am serious.” Susan didn’t have a hint of humor in her voice. “I would rather lick vomit from the belly of a dead pig than go to the Big Dance with you.” She adjusted her books again. “Never talk to me again, Alfred. Even if I am about to step in front of a speeding bus, never talk to me again.”
Susan walked away and disappeared into the flow of student traffic. Finkelstein stood there and watched her vanish.
“So you’ll get back to me, right?” he called out.
Susan didn’t even bother to turn around.
“She wants to taste my taste buds,” Finkelstein said as he walked back over to me.
“Yeah,” I answered. “I can see that.”
One thing I had to hand to Finkelstein, though, was that he was completely unfazed by rejection. For me, even the idea of being shot down by a girl sent rivers of panic flowing through my blood. But Finkelstein was different. It was like he wore some kind of coat of not caring what other people
thought about him. You could insult him, make fun of him, tease him and roast him and still, he’d just roll along continuing to do his own thing. We were totally opposite like that. Me, I was jelly on the inside when it came to people rejecting me. I liked to be liked.
I looked down the hall and suddenly freaked out. Quickly, I dashed around the corner.
“What’s wrong?” Finkelstein said, following me.
I peeked down the hall from my hiding spot.
“What?” Finkelstein said.
“It’s Allison,” I answered. “Allison Summers.” She was walking our way, speaking with two girls from the softball team.
“Why are you hiding?” Finkelstein said. “Go ask her.”
“Go ask her what?” I replied.
“Go ask her to the Big Dance,” Finkelstein said.
“I’m not gonna ask her that.”
“Why not?” Finkelstein said. “A tasty little frog leg like her isn’t gonna last in the pond forever.”
“You’re a moron.” I checked to see if she was still heading my way.
She was. Two seventh graders suddenly raced by, one kid chasing the other, trying to smash him. Kids always got really nutty during Nutrition Break. To a kid my age, fifteen minutes felt like a hundred hours, and there was a heck of a lot of trouble you could cause in a pretty short amount of time.
“But why?” Finkelstein asked. “Why not ask her?”
“’Cause I’m not.”
“But why?”
“Because,” I said, tracking her every move. “I’m not.”
“Because why?”
“Because what if she . . .” I paused mid-sentence. “What if she says no?”
Finkelstein looked at me in disbelief.
“That’s what you’re afraid of?” he said. “Her saying no? Um, hello, news flash. Girls say no to me all the time.”
“Can you blame them?” I said.
“You’re missing the point, Bobby,” he explained. “See, you gotta start thinking about all the spit-swapping you’ll be able to do if she says yes. That’s what keeps me so motivated.”
“That’s not why I wanna ask her,” I said. “I mean, of course I want to kiss her, but, well . . . I wanna ask her because, you know, I kinda like her.”