Lydia offered DeShawn a cloth the same color as mine, but he just stared at the thing, so she gave it to me. “Ben, can you show him how to put it on?”
DeShawn shook his head. “Nope, not wearing that.”
“It’s how we tell our tribes apart, DeShawn,” Lydia said. “If you don’t want to put it on your head, some kids tie it around their waists.”
“Not wearing it like a dress, either.”
“I’m sorry, DeShawn,” Lydia said, looking almost scared, “but that’s the rule.”
And then DeShawn did what he always did when faced with something he didn’t like, he walked away. “Wandering,” my parents called it—like in school this past year, when he’d “wander” around the halls instead of going to class, until one of the teachers spotted him. Or that time at the grocery store a few weeks ago, when he “wandered” away from Mom and me and we spent ten minutes looking for him. Today, I was tempted just to let him go. Let him “wander” down the road to wherever the hell he wanted, see if I cared. But I knew my parents would kill me. So I started after him, back toward the parking lot. “DeShawn, get back here now!” I shouted. Then I froze. Pastor Eric’s car was pulling into the parking lot, and a second later, she was getting out of the passenger seat, dressed in hot-pink shorts and a white T-shirt, her hair pulled back in a ponytail. Seeing her unexpectedly was like getting a brain freeze from eating ice cream too fast—so sweet it almost hurt. She glided across the parking lot, over to DeShawn, and laid a hand on his shoulder. The next second, Bethany Moyer was walking DeShawn back toward me and the tent. My palms were sweating.
“What’s the problem?” Bethany asked, when she and DeShawn reached the tent.
“I’m not wearing that gay-ass thing on my head,” DeShawn said, pointing at my turban. “I don’t care what she says.”
I could have strangled him for using me as the example, but Bethany hardly even glanced at me. She took the piece of cloth from Lydia and examined it. “I don’t blame you.” She thought for a few seconds. “Although …” She turned to the table and grabbed a pair of scissors from a jar next to Lydia. “I may have an idea.” She cut the piece of cloth in half, then in half again, so that it was basically a long orange ribbon; then she motioned for DeShawn to hold out his hand. She knelt and tied the cloth around his wrist. “There,” she said. “That’s not so bad, is it?”
“That’s not how it’s supposed to be worn,” Lydia said, frowning.
“It’s fine, Lydia,” Bethany murmured without looking at her.
DeShawn studied his wrist skeptically.
“I think it looks cool,” Bethany declared as she stood up. “Actually, I kind of want one.” She took the other half of the cloth she’d cut and tied it around her wrist. “Now we match, DeShawn. Because, guess what? I’m going to be one of Levi’s team leaders this summer. We’re in the same tribe, man!” She raised her hand for a high five, and when he gave her one, he did something I’d never seen him do before—he grinned.
Five minutes later, I was sitting on the ground in the middle of the field in front of the stage, waiting for the usual welcome spiel. There were maybe a hundred others like me, all of us in our colored turbans, listening to my friend Jason’s mom, Ms. Swanson, go over the rules and daily schedule. I wondered if it ever got boring for her, repeating the same speech summer after summer. At least, one day I would be too old for this camp, but Ms. Swanson—when did she get to quit?
My hot, itchy turban was already giving me a headache. I tried to ignore DeShawn, sitting next to me and admiring his new bracelet. To the left of the stage, I could see the team leaders, about fifteen or so teenagers I recognized from church. Bethany sat next to her best friend, Laura Swanson, and even from there I could make out Bethany’s expression—the far-off one, the one that was somewhere else. I always wondered where. I still couldn’t believe she was going to be one of Levi’s team leaders. It meant I would see her every day, and she would see me, pay attention to me. It would be her job. I couldn’t decide if this was an amazing stroke of luck, or a looming disaster.
I wanted to be alone with Bethany Moyer, but under the right circumstances. Like in a zombie apocalypse, for example, holed up in my room, after all our friends and family had been devoured. At first, she’d be sad. I would take care of her, braving the zombies outside and making trips to the abandoned grocery store, bringing back canned soup and her favorite candy (Swedish Fish, I heard her say once). We’d watch funny movies on my TV, and she would lean against my shoulder and giggle sadly. And at night, when we heard the screams and snarls outside our window, I’d hold her close, but I wouldn’t try anything. We’d kiss for the first time after a few zombies finally broke into the house and I’d taken them out with a baseball bat. Bethany would step over their lifeless carcasses sprawled out on the floor, careful not to get brains on her shoes, and throw her arms around me. “I’m so lucky to have you, Ben,” she’d whisper. “I don’t know why I never noticed you before.” And suddenly, it wouldn’t matter that she was a popular teenager and I was just a snot-nosed kid. It wouldn’t matter that she was tall and tan and gorgeous and I was big and pale and pasty, that her skin was smooth and clear and mine was dotted with volcano-size zits. She’d lean in, and I would taste her cherry lip balm.
And that’s when the zombies would attack, growling and slobbering as they broke through the doors and into our hiding spot. Except that they weren’t growling and slobbering—they were laughing and shouting and saying things like, “Wait, which tribe am I in again?” and, “Has anyone seen my water bottle?” I looked around the church green. Announcements were over, and kids were rushing in every direction to find their tribe’s tent.
On the way to Levi’s tent, I was quickly sandwiched by Jason and Dylan. Jason slapped a hand on my shoulder. “So, do you think you’ll be able to handle it, Ben?” he asked.
“Handle what?”
“Bethany as our team leader, of course.”
“We don’t want you to have a heart attack, or anything,” Dylan added.
My love for Bethany Moyer might have been sacred to me, but for my two best friends, it was just material for endless teasing.
“I think Ben will be able to deal,” Jason continued. “I’m not sure about his dick, though.”
“Fuck off, will you?” I snapped. My friends and I had only recently started swearing, but we were naturals. Now the curses sat like jungle cats on our tongues, just waiting for a chance to spring. We swore whenever we could, even in a crowded field of kids on the first day of vacation Bible school.
“Where’s DeShawn?” Dylan asked now that they had grown bored of teasing me.
I looked around. He’d been sitting beside me during the announcements, but I must have lost him in the rush after. “Not my problem.” Though it was my problem.
“This has gotta be so lame for him,” Jason said.
Because DeShawn was black and from the city, my friends were in awe of him. It didn’t matter that when they asked his opinions on hip-hop, he just shrugged. It didn’t matter that when they told a joke, he barely cracked a smile. It was like he didn’t have to earn being cool. I didn’t understand it, but then, according to my friends, that was because I was a racist. They’d been ribbing on me for that even before the Weight showed up, ever since I’d made the stupid mistake of admitting I wasn’t attracted to Beyoncé.
We’d been watching YouTube videos at Jason’s house on his mom’s computer, playing a sort of impromptu who-would-you-do with visual aids. “I’m not saying she’s not hot!” I cried after Jason clicked on another of her music videos, trying to get his point across. “I’m just personally not that into her.”
Jason looked at Beyoncé dancing in a leotard on the screen, then back at me. “Dude, you’re a fucking racist,” he had declared before closing out the window and erasing the browsing history.
They made fun of me because my fa
vorite rapper was Eminem. They even made fun of me when Obama got elected last November, acting like I had such a hard time with it even though I didn’t give a rat’s ass about politics. When DeShawn moved in later in January, the minute I expressed any dislike for the kid, they were ready to attack. “Just because I don’t like one black person does not make me a racist!” I shouted at one point. “It might if he’s the only black person you know,” Dylan had snapped back, and for a moment it didn’t sound like he was joking, and we all got quiet. After that, they cooled off about it.
But my dislike for DeShawn had nothing to do with Obama or Beyoncé. It had to do with the fact that he was a rotten little kid, and if I was the only one who could see that, oh, well.
“Look, there he is,” I heard Dylan say beside me, and when I saw where he was pointing, I felt a little sick. There was my foster brother, walking with Bethany Moyer, the only girl I had ever wanted to impress and to make laugh, and he was saying something, and she was laughing like it was the funniest thing she’d ever heard.
By Friday, I was beginning to wonder if maybe my friends were right: having Bethany as our team leader might give me a heart attack. Each day was a new opportunity, all right—a new opportunity for me to thoroughly embarrass myself. If I missed an easy catch in a game of Frisbee, I prayed she hadn’t seen. If I felt myself starting to sweat when she was nearby, I was terrified she’d smell my BO. The saddest part was, she didn’t even notice. It turned out Bethany could be my team leader and still ignore my existence. Each tribe had at least two team leaders. Bethany mostly looked after the girls while Jon Newman watched the boys. To her, I was just another dumb, pimple-faced kid. Any way I could think of to set myself apart—disobeying the rules, starting a fight, having an asthma attack—felt counterproductive to my cause.
The only boy Bethany paid any attention to was my foster brother. Every morning, when we walked across the green to Levi’s tent, she said hi to him in this sweet voice, giving him a smile she didn’t use on anyone else, all without even looking at me. If DeShawn was in one of his moods, she’d put a hand on his shoulder and ask if he was okay. If he didn’t want to participate in an activity, she’d tell him he didn’t have to. On Wednesday, while I was forced into the bobbing-for-apples competition, I pulled my head out of the freezing tub of water, an apple the size of a melon lodged in my mouth, and there were Bethany and DeShawn, sitting on a blanket under one of the maple trees, laughing.
It wasn’t right. I could be quiet and moody all the time, I could spend the day glaring at everyone for no good reason, but no one would give me special treatment. Tell me who’s really racist.
On Friday morning, I heard DeShawn say the N-word. We were in the kitchen, eating breakfast before going to VBS. DeShawn was filling his bowl to overflowing with Honey Nut Cheerios, and I was worried there wouldn’t be any left for me.
“You wanna save me some, maybe?” I said.
He ignored me and kept pouring.
“DeShawn.”
No answer.
“DeShawn.”
He slammed the box down on the table. “Nigga, will you get off my back?”
My mom was right there in the room. I saw her stop buttering her toast at the counter, her back to us. Then she started again and said in an almost normal voice, “Ben, there’s more cereal in the cabinet.”
“That’s the last of the Honey Nut, though.”
“Then eat the regular!” she snapped.
By the time we got to VBS, I was in a bad mood. And when I saw my cousin Becca coming across the green, calling out my name, it got even worse. I wanted to pretend I hadn’t seen her, but we’d already locked eyes.
“Guess what?” Becca said when she reached me. “Zombies do have souls!”
“What?” I acted confused, though I knew exactly what she was talking about.
My aunt Janine and her family had moved to Grover Falls a few weeks ago, after my dad got her husband, Owen, a custodial job at the glass-and-ceramic plant where my dad was an engineer. They were from Pennsylvania but had been out of the country for a while, doing missionary work somewhere. When my mom told me they were moving up, I hadn’t been thrilled. They were a weird family. My uncle always had this sour look on his face, like he had permanent constipation or something, and my aunt was this quiet woman who winced anytime she laughed. The girls, Rachel and Rebecca, wore long skirts down to their ankles, and dorky, out-of-date sweaters. Also, they were homeschooled. You’d think they would have it made, getting to sleep in every day and do homework in their pajamas, but you could tell it wasn’t like that. They knew all the state capitals and could recite the periodic table. I would have felt stupid around them, only they were clueless when it came to real things: they didn’t know who Lil Wayne or Lady Gaga were. They probably didn’t even know how to use the internet.
A week ago, my parents invited them over for a welcome dinner. I guess DeShawn had sensed something, because he pretended to have a headache, and my mom let him stay up in his room when they arrived. I had to sit there at the dinner table, eating my meatloaf in silence, listening to my dad and uncle talk about the new job and avoiding looking up at my cousin Becca, sitting across from me.
It was my aunt who finally asked me a question when there was a short break in the men’s conversation: “So, Benjamin, what would you like to do when you’re older?”
When I answered that I wanted to go to school to design video games, Aunt Janine nodded with this blank expression on her face, then quickly looked down at her food. My uncle then decided to bring up an article he’d read, on the violent effects of video games on today’s youth. My parents listened politely, but I wanted to stand up and leave the room. My uncle had never played a video game, so what did he know? He didn’t know how it feels when you’re angry or upset or embarrassed and the only thing that helps, the only thing that can calm you down, is the weight of your Xbox controller in your hands. In the old days, guys might go out and hunt a bear or chop down a tree, but all we had now were our game consoles. I couldn’t make anyone understand this, though, so I just waited for dinner to be over.
After dinner, my mom asked me to show the girls around, and I did my best to let her know I wasn’t happy about this, without being so obvious I’d get in trouble later. I led the girls into the den. “So there’s a TV here,” I said lamely, like a Realtor showing people around a shitty house, “and some board games.”
Rachel, who was older, just nodded. She looked almost as bored as I was. But Becca went over to the bookshelf where the board games sat. “Do you want to play something? Which is your favorite, Ben?”
I hadn’t played a board game in years. I shrugged. “I actually forgot to do something important—I’ll be back.”
Soon I was in my room with the door closed, sitting in my beanbag chair in front of my TV, a controller in my hands, blowing zombies’ heads off. Eminem playing on my iHome. Nobody could touch me here. I was safe. Until there was a knock on my door. I knew it was my mom.
“Yeah?” I snapped without pausing the game.
Becca stood in the doorway. “This is the important thing you had to do?”
For a second I felt guilty, but I tried not to show it. I wished I could tell her to piss off. I wished I could be meaner. I kept my eyes on the screen and shot another zombie in the face, pressing harder than I needed to on the trigger of my controller. “I just have to beat this level real quick,” I mumbled.
I waited for my cousin to go, but she just stood in the doorway. Eminem rapped quietly about killing his mom.
“What do you have to do?” she asked after a while.
“Um, just kill zombies, basically.”
At the moment, I was defending an abandoned McDonald’s from a ravening horde of the undead. I was behind the counter with an AK-47, mowing them down as they climbed through the broken windows, their heads exploding and bits of blood and bra
ins splattering onto the TV screen. I glanced at Becca’s disgusted face. “You can sit down if you want.”
“There’s so much violence,” she said.
“Yeah.”
“Do you like playing games with so much violence?”
It was a weird question, different from what her dad had been saying downstairs. Not did I think it was good for me, not did I think it was right, but did I like it. I hesitated a second. “Well, I’m fighting to save the world. I’m killing the bad guys.”
Becca shook her head. “Jesus said love your enemies, pray for those who persecute you.”
“What about, like, David and Goliath, then?” I asked. I couldn’t quote verses, but I was pretty sure there was a lot of killing in the Bible.
“That was in the Old Testament. We’re under a new covenant now.”
I decided this conversation was hopeless and turned back to my game. “I don’t even know what you’re talking about,” I muttered.
Becca thought I was asking for an explanation. “Jesus fulfilled the Old Law when he died on the cross and rose again. Now we follow his commandments. And one of his commandments is to turn the other cheek, repay evil with good.”
“They’re just zombies!” I almost shouted. “Is there anything in the Bible against killing zombies? Because I’m pretty sure there isn’t. I’m pretty sure Jesus doesn’t care. It’s not like they have souls, or anything.”
“Zombies don’t have souls?” Becca asked, sounding curious, like she really wanted to know.
I shrugged. “I don’t think so.” It wasn’t something I’d ever thought about before.
“Oh,” Becca said. “I guess it’s not so bad, then.”
We didn’t say anything for a bit, and soon I was overpowered by a giant zombie boss. The screen filled up with blood. You could hear my tortured screams.
I turned to Becca. “Wanna play?”
Ten minutes later, Becca was sitting next to me on the beanbag chair, and I was teaching her how to aim her gun. “No, no!” I shouted, laughing. “Remember, this one controls your body and this one controls your gun.” I took her hands in mine and showed her.
Another Life Page 6