In which I post some writin'
Among a few of the reasons I've completely vanished from LiveJournal is that I am doing a bit of writing every single day. It's been going really well; I've been pacing myself, but not forcing anything. Allowing long-term and short-term ideas to come together and mesh in my head. As far as Just For Fun writing goes featuring my favorite characters, I really like this so far. I hope you have a chance to look it over and enjoy it. Even if you don't...I'm still going to work on it.
The Chosen: Volume One
Chapter one
In a more perfect world--or a cooler one, anyway--in this first, and hopefully only, time in my life that I actually looking down the barrel of a gun, I’d be able to point out the make and style of the gun, then launch into a thought of what the gun could do to me and exactly what kind of round it would be firing into my skull. But as I look at it, just inches away from my face, all I know is that it is, in fact a gun. It’s a handgun. Or a pistol or whatever. And if it shoots me in the head, I stand an excellent chance of dying. Probably beyond excellent. Like…a billion percent. Bullet in my head; game over. No more Vinny.
If I had known I was ever going to be involved in a bank heist, I’d have imagined it to be a huge metropolitan bank in, like, New York or something. With sophisticated British criminals threatening to lock me and the rest of the innocent bank customers in a big vault (do banks have customers? I’m not really here to buy anything. What am I then? A patron? I have a gun pointed at me; I really should focus). There would probably be a handful of notorious criminal masterminds in clever disguises and some fancy stuff like a machine making smoke to fool the SWAT team outside and a bomb rigged to the bank door.
But as it stands, I’m just in a suburban Pennsylvania bank. Just a few miles from where I go to high school. There’s just one sweaty, bald guy with two of those guns I can’t identify, masked in a confederate flag bandana. There’s me, him, two tellers, a bank manager guy, and three other customers. One is really hot, actually. I was staring at her butt in those jeans while I was waiting in line, but she looks like she’d be in college, so…looking is all I got. My heart belongs to another, anyway. I’m still not focusing. But that’s okay, because I know something Guns McGee here doesn’t.
“You aren’t going to shoot me.”
“If you don’t shut up,” he turns away from me and barks at the terrified teller, an older lady with a red beehive; the kind of lady I imagined would have some kind of television character-style sass to give a bank robber. Another youthful myth destroyed. “And you don’t hurry up with the money from your drawer, then I damn sure will be shooting somebody.”
“Yeah, but…”
He cuts me off. Rude. “If you think you’re going to give me some crap about how ‘oh, this is just a hostage situation right now. You don’t want to add murder to the charges’, then you can shut the hell up right now. I’ve already got a murder charge against me.” He turns back to the teller, whose teeth are actually chattering. “You hear that? I need this money, and I need to get out of the country. Hurry the hell up!”
On top of, I guess, being a killer and a bank robber, this guy is kind of a douche. The teller is too frightened to move, and he already threatened the manager against helping her. I guess he assumes that Mr. Thirty Year Old Bank Manager has some kind of special crime-thwarting, cop-summoning ability that his teller does not. Right as I think of that, he opens his mouth to say he’ll get this guy the money, and again, he is shouted down.
Like I said, this guy is a douche. I take a look around the room. Cute Jeans is up against the wall, and really…just looking annoyed. Wow, I guess she really has to get on with her day or something. Sorry that this gun being pointed at my face is inconvenient to you, sweetie. I think she’s actually shaking her head! Wow, and to think, I thought you had such a nice ass a few minutes ago. The other teller is another older lady who seems to be handling this only slightly better than Beehive is--you’d think they would train bank tellers better on this topic. It’s, like, the cliché of the universe--having to adjust her little square glasses every few seconds to keep them from shaking off her face.
“Hey, kid!”
Again with the rude. I wasn’t done looking around.
“You wanna make google eyes at the blonde in the jeans over there…”
“I don’t think ‘google’ means what you think it--”
“…you better do it on your own time. I’m about six seconds away from blowing your head off to show this bitch that I’m not screwing around.”
Bitch, now? And was I really being that obvious? Wow. I just nod my head in reply to his demand; I actually wanted to say something back to him, but it all just kind of hit me. He actually is pointing a gun at me. I had thought it wasn’t such a terrible thing, but I’d like to re-decide that matter. It really, really is.
He turns his head back to the teller, who has finally started loading up the briefcase this guy pushed at her earlier, and suddenly, it hits me. He’s not looking at me anymore. I steal a glance at the gun, then back up to the back of his head. I can totally disarm him; it happens in the movies all the time! I just wrap my arms around his wrist, point his arm away, and, like, flick it out of his hand. Seems easy enough.
I lunge at him, and, at first, everything works out flawlessly. I get my arms wrapped around his hand and push the gun away from me; it actually worked! I’m just about to try to flick it out of his hand, when he brings the other gun around.
I totally forgot about that one. I could get out of the way; I could save myself.
But the other two bank customers are behind me. I…aw, damn it. This is going to really suck.
And it really does. After he shoots me in my stomach, I linger on my feet. I don’t actually have the strength to stand, but my body doesn’t seem to understand it should be falling. I finally topple over onto my back, with my hands on my mid-section for no real reason. Am I trying to hold in the blood? Will the bullet out into my hands? I have no idea. Guns is yelling at everyone again, and the teller seems frozen in place just like before. Yet these are all suddenly much less relevant to me now.
I can’t believe I tried to do that. Did I really think I was some kind of big-time superhero? What the hell is wrong with me? As I lie here, the past week comes back to me in startling clarity. I hope it’s not my life flashing before my eyes…that would be so stereotypical.
---
Nine days earlier…
She’s not going to mind. She won’t. She’s working on those Geometry problems, and she’ll think you’re just leaning in to check on how she’s doing. It won’t even be, like….no. Nothing. Just put your arm around her. It’s just like…hey, are my muscles not listening to my brain? Come on, arm. Lift up, move over, go back down. It’s about the easiest thing in the world.
Hm, okay. Not working.
I’m helping Becky Stern study for Geometry; alone with her in her study. Becky Stern, the girl I’ve been in love with since 6th grade. Maybe 7th grade. Did I like girls yet in 6th grade? I can’t recall. Regardless, I liked her. Tiny little sixty-four inch frame and that straight blonde hair lying on her shoulders. Soft cheeks…come on, arm. We can reach out and stroke those cheeks; they look like they’re made out of cotton. Damn, can’t bring that to happen, either. Stupid arm, I hate you so much…
“Vinny? Hello?”
“Hello? What? Yes! I mean, yes? Hi?”
She cracks a tiny smile at my stammering. She taps her pencil against a page in her Geometry book, “This problem?”
“Oh! Right. Let’s see…” I guess I missed my chance. I’m surprised I’m even here, though. I mean, Becky and I have never not been…cordial, I guess, but we’ve never been great friends. We’ve had a couple of classes together over the years, and she’s just always been so…something. She laughs at my jokes; she smiles when I wave to her. We both have single parents, so we have even discussed what that is like. One time we joked about hooking them up, her dad and my mom, though obviously, I’d never want that to happen. She came up to me a few days ago asking me to start tutoring her, though, and really…who am I to turn down a chance to help out someone in need? I’m helping her sort out the problem, but I’m not even sure what words are coming out of my mouth; she’s just so cute. I think I’m talking something about multiplying radii…does that even make sense. I really want to smell her hair, and that makes me feel like Captain Skeevy of the universe.
“Oh! My phone! I’ll be right back, Vinny.”
I didn’t even hear her phone ringing, but after she shocks me out of my not-quite-laser-like math focus, I hear Kelly Clarkson emanating from her cell. She fumbles through her purse, and I push my hand through my hair before it flops right back down, parting off onto each direction. It really is getting long. I should have gotten a haircut before I came over here. I should have gotten a cut and style. I can’t believe I came here with this overgrown mess on my hair, almost covering up my ears and my forehead. How could I possibly get her to notice me like this?
“Oh hey, baby!” I hear her coo as she answers her Motorola. Great, it’s Aaron.
Aaron Burke and I are…incompatible, to put it one way, I guess. Even if we are to somehow forget that he just started dating Becky a few weeks ago, right before our senior year started, he and I just don’t amount to much civility. He’s probably calling because he knows I’m here, and he wants me to know he’s talking to her. Is that terribly self-centered of me to think that?
Aaron and Becky are, like, the most stereotypical high school couple ever. Aaron is the football team’s standout player with colleges lining up around the block to scout him at our games, and Becky is a senior cheerleader. So of course they are together. Of course. They are, like, both in the top ten of Buchanan High School. They go to all the parties; they have nice cars; they dress better than the rest of us. I mean, their jeans and polos and tops have names. They come from stores people recognize. My khakis and T-shirts come from, well, my family. At Christmas. They drive to school. I take the bus. They are featured in every issue of the school newspaper for sports or feature stories. I’d need a cover story just so people’d know who I am. So of course she’s with him. I’m just the jackass she invites over to help her study. And I do it because…she’s perfect to me.
“All right, babe. I have to get back to studying. Yes, you can pick me up tomorrow. I’ll see you in the morning. Bye-ee!”
“How is Aaron doing?” I have a hard time manipulating my voice to make it seem like I care. If she notices this, she doesn’t let on.
“He’s good. He got home late from practice, so he was, you know, letting me know he was safe.”
“That’s nice of him.” Again, I hope she thinks I sound like I mean it more than I think I do. It’s not a very fulfilling conversation, but I don’t want to talk about him; I want to talk about us. But I can’t really just say ‘So how does he treat you opposed to how I would treat you? Worse, right? I totally knew it’. Yeah, that won’t fly. So I go back to explaining the problems in her book. My arm not draped around her shoulder, my mouth not saying anything interesting.
And that was how it ended. Just she and I talking Geometry the rest of the night, trying to power through her homework. I don’t know what it is about Aaron that did that to me, just with a phone call. I would hope that he gets hit by a subway car falling from the sky tomorrow, but then it’d probably happen. Well, okay, I guess that wouldn’t happen, but something. Something… And then the school would probably have a whole thing! Aaron Burke Memorial Everything All The Time Day Because He Was The Greatest Football Player Ever Even Though He Got C’s. Probably rename the school for him. ‘Sure, we were named after the only President to come from our home state of Pennsylvania, but by god, this kid played a mean football’. Stupid. I could play football. I do sometimes, for fun. They’d make us all wear Aaron masks or something. All right, calm down, Vinny; Aaron’s not going to have a subway car dropped on him. Just…forget it. Ugh! But god, all he did was call, and I completely--ugh! What a tool. Me or him; pick one. We both are.
By the time I get home, I must have slammed my fist off the steering wheel of my mom’s Blazer, like, a hundred times. At this point, I’m not sure which I’m more annoyed about: what happened at Becky’s, or the prospect of being home.
I get inside, and I can already smell the booze. Jeez, that’s just…well, it is what it is. I turn into the living room after getting through the doors, and mom’s already passed out on the couch. So…you take the good with the bad. At least she’s already out.
I head upstairs for my room, and I see all the pictures on the wall as you walk up; me, her, my dad. But it’s just the two of us now, and…well…
Damn, I just need to sack out. I can’t even bring myself to care about that. It’s just been a whole crappy day. Crappy first week of classes. Crappy having to deal with Aaron calling Becky while I was there. Crappy homelife. I know what Nate would say: some kind of zen-shit like ‘it’s all in your perspective’. Change your mind and the world changes with it. Something like that.
Fine then. I’m going to go to sleep tonight, but that’s it. Tomorrow, everything’s going to change.
---
Chapter 2
I love that Nate rides the bus with me, even though he has a car. I’d be bored as crap on here everyday if I didn’t have anyone to ride with. Dude, all the freshman seem cooler than I do; they all talk and joke around. When Nate is absent, I got nothing.
Nate gets on the bus and adjust his black-rimmed glasses on his face. “Suzanne asked about you last night. How senior year is treating us. She said ‘us’, but she meant ‘you’. ‘How is it treating Vinny? Is he still adorable? Oh-Em-Gee, I love him so much!’ You know how it is”.
Nate’s little sister Suzanne is just in 8th grade this year--she’d never even be in high school at the same time as us, wow--and he jokes that she has a huge crush on me. I like to tease him back.
“Well isn’t that how it is when you ask others about me?”
“Dude, you’re not my type. I don’t get why this is so hard for you to take.”
“That’s what she said. Or, in some people’s cases,” I stop and stare at him, “he said.”
“How’s that going to feel?”
“What feel?”
“You hitting the moving pavement when I throw you out of this bus, I wonder.”
“You and what gay-straight alliance?”
“Oh, we’re all with the funny this morning, I see.”
Actually, not having a crush on me--and, I guess, being…well…sexual preference--are hardly the only things Nate and Suzanne don’t have in common. It’s hard to believe they are even related sometimes. Nate’s hair is so blonde, it’s almost white; Suzanne’s hair is black like…like…I’m not very good at simile’s. It’s black like a…cow? What else is black? Oh! Crows! That’s what I was thinking of. Suzanne’s got the whole Mediterranean skin tone thing going on, poor Nate looks like whitebread. Oh, that reminds me of my other favorite thing to rib him about…
“I guess you would have different tastes in men, anyway. You have different daddies.”
“Oh, that again. Mr. Witty has entered the school bus.”
“Well I don’t think Jack Frost and Cleopatra had the same parents, either.”
“I can’t wait to go home and tell her that you’d love to take her out this weekend.”
“Uh, wait…”
“Take her out to some romantic restaurant. Kiss her when it’s all over.”
“That’s not…”
“Nope. It’s on. I’m telling her when I get home. Or I’ll just text her once I get away from you.”
“Maybe when she’s older. When she’ll…uh, never mind.”
He narrows his eyes at me. “No. You’re gonna finish that thought.”
“I’d rather not.”
“Finish it.”
“Well, I just meant…when she,” I move my hands up to my chest, “gets older, you know?”
He bites his lower lip and pauses. “Yes, please do let’s talk about,” his voice raises, “my middle school-aged sister’s chest.”
“Nope. I’d like to…do the…not that.”
“You think?”
“Pretty sure, yes.”
The bus ride is one of the better parts of the day; I mean…it is school, after all. While I might mind the classes themselves less than most people, I find that I mind the camaraderie somewhat more. And third period is the absolute worst.
Third period is gym.
Gym class to the unathletic and clumsy is like bull-fighting, but the bullfighter doesn’t get spears or swords or whatever: we all look pretty gay out there, and eventually, one of the big, strong idiots is going to stab us in the chest. I think it’s terribly unjust; I have to take gym with the apes and the athletes and everybody, but no one forces them into, like, AP Chemistry to compete with me. If they let me pri….princi….[what the heck? Principal…one who…princips?]…whatever. If I was in charge of school in this country, the fatties would have their own gym class where they can all wear their shirts in the pool, the partier kids can all have their own shiftless lay-about gym class, the string bean nerds would have our own gym class of, like, ping-pong, and everyone else can have theirs. Either that, or everyone has to take AP classes. Department of Education, here I come.
And of course--of course!, because God doesn’t hate me enough as it is--Aaron ended up in my third-period gym class this year. And, of course, Mr. Smilinski teaches…”teaches”…gym class. The same Mr. Smilinski who is the something-or-another coordinator of the football team. So it’s all a big football player stroke fest with whatever they want, like pick-up basketball games.
Or dodge ball. Like today.
Seriously, I thought they outlawed this joke of an activity. Isn’t this like the desensitization of society or something? ‘Here, commit violence against arbitrary other people in a means to eliminate them. Don’t carry this over to the real world, though!’. Ridiculous. What real life function does dodge ball hone? Aiming a spherical object at skulls? Where does one apply this?
I’m not actually picked last. Fourth-to-last, as it is. Fortunately, there are some girls in my gym class who neither have any athletic aptitude, nor are cute enough that the guys care if picking them makes them like them for it. I could have gone fifth-to-last, but I saw Aaron say something to Chuck--today’s Team A captain--and then he picked Gina Turret. Gina is one of those aforementioned girls. She is nice enough, I mean. I’m not trying to…I dunno. She’s just…whatever.
The game is just ludicrous. Dodge ball is just quasi-organized mayhem. I spend most of the class just running around like the spaz that I am, trying not to get hit. At the end of class, my running has earned me a dubious reward. I’m the only one left on my side, and Aaron and two of his buddies from the team, James and Warren, are left on the other side. All three of them have a ball. This is going to be a YouTube quality massacre. If I get concussed, I wonder if they’ll ever make me take gym class again.
“Hey, Mansfield!” Aaron yells over to me, juggling the rubber ball in his hands, “How was Becky’s last night?”
“Not as good as when I went to your mom’s place afterwards.” I’m a genius. Not only was that line not worth it, but I’m riling him up.
“Oh!” He grins a doofy grin. “You made fun of my mom! You’re so clever, idiot.”
I want to tell him to shut up, but I catch Warren winding up southpaw; Aaron is just trying to get under my skin. Like always, damn it. Warren pitches the ball from my left, and it’s the craziest thing…the ball looks like it’s fighting its way through a breeze to get to me; I see it the whole way in. I throw out my arms, and snatch it right out of the air.
“Wow!” Mr. Smilinski exclaims from across the gym. “Losing your touch, Mr. White? Mansfield nabbed the bullet right out of the air. You’re out!”
Bullet? It looked like a throw pillow! Unless he’s just making fun of me. Whatever. At least that is one less ball to get creamed with.
From my other side, I see James throw his ball, too, and damned if it’s not the same thing; it’s a dying bird in the air. I flick out my open hand and pull it right into my body. What the hell is going on? Those were both cotton candy, man.
“Hol-ee! You’re out, too, James. Damn, Mansfield! Where’d you get those reflexes? He’s going to take your job on the field, Burke!”
Aaron’s nose scrunches up against his brow at the words. I expect him to finally bring some heat after the previous two softballs--to really try and knock Becky’s name out of my brain--but he just drops his ball on the ground and stares at me. “Big catches. Big deal. Whatchya got, Vinny? You still can’t touch me.”
I have no idea what’s going on. Everyone seems way more impressed with those catches than I am, but whatever. Something’s going on, and I’m damn sure about to knock this prick’s block off. I let the ball fall harmlessly out of my left hand, then double-palm the other ball, spinning it around for dramatic effect. I really don’t think the ball will fly any better if I twirl it around a bit before pitching, but damn I bet I look cool. I pull back with everything I have and blast the damn thing at him; I hope it knocks him out of the gym.
And then he just palms my weak-ass little throw right out of the air. I don’t even think he ever took his eyes off of me to do it. I…damn. I really thought something was…damn.
“Get the hell off my gym floor, boy. Don’t bring that girl throw to my house.” He beats his chest like a god damn retarded gorilla. But I don’t even care, I’m just looking down at my hands, then over to the ball on the ground. What the hell just happened for a few seconds there?
The Chosen: Volume One
Chapter one
In a more perfect world--or a cooler one, anyway--in this first, and hopefully only, time in my life that I actually looking down the barrel of a gun, I’d be able to point out the make and style of the gun, then launch into a thought of what the gun could do to me and exactly what kind of round it would be firing into my skull. But as I look at it, just inches away from my face, all I know is that it is, in fact a gun. It’s a handgun. Or a pistol or whatever. And if it shoots me in the head, I stand an excellent chance of dying. Probably beyond excellent. Like…a billion percent. Bullet in my head; game over. No more Vinny.
If I had known I was ever going to be involved in a bank heist, I’d have imagined it to be a huge metropolitan bank in, like, New York or something. With sophisticated British criminals threatening to lock me and the rest of the innocent bank customers in a big vault (do banks have customers? I’m not really here to buy anything. What am I then? A patron? I have a gun pointed at me; I really should focus). There would probably be a handful of notorious criminal masterminds in clever disguises and some fancy stuff like a machine making smoke to fool the SWAT team outside and a bomb rigged to the bank door.
But as it stands, I’m just in a suburban Pennsylvania bank. Just a few miles from where I go to high school. There’s just one sweaty, bald guy with two of those guns I can’t identify, masked in a confederate flag bandana. There’s me, him, two tellers, a bank manager guy, and three other customers. One is really hot, actually. I was staring at her butt in those jeans while I was waiting in line, but she looks like she’d be in college, so…looking is all I got. My heart belongs to another, anyway. I’m still not focusing. But that’s okay, because I know something Guns McGee here doesn’t.
“You aren’t going to shoot me.”
“If you don’t shut up,” he turns away from me and barks at the terrified teller, an older lady with a red beehive; the kind of lady I imagined would have some kind of television character-style sass to give a bank robber. Another youthful myth destroyed. “And you don’t hurry up with the money from your drawer, then I damn sure will be shooting somebody.”
“Yeah, but…”
He cuts me off. Rude. “If you think you’re going to give me some crap about how ‘oh, this is just a hostage situation right now. You don’t want to add murder to the charges’, then you can shut the hell up right now. I’ve already got a murder charge against me.” He turns back to the teller, whose teeth are actually chattering. “You hear that? I need this money, and I need to get out of the country. Hurry the hell up!”
On top of, I guess, being a killer and a bank robber, this guy is kind of a douche. The teller is too frightened to move, and he already threatened the manager against helping her. I guess he assumes that Mr. Thirty Year Old Bank Manager has some kind of special crime-thwarting, cop-summoning ability that his teller does not. Right as I think of that, he opens his mouth to say he’ll get this guy the money, and again, he is shouted down.
Like I said, this guy is a douche. I take a look around the room. Cute Jeans is up against the wall, and really…just looking annoyed. Wow, I guess she really has to get on with her day or something. Sorry that this gun being pointed at my face is inconvenient to you, sweetie. I think she’s actually shaking her head! Wow, and to think, I thought you had such a nice ass a few minutes ago. The other teller is another older lady who seems to be handling this only slightly better than Beehive is--you’d think they would train bank tellers better on this topic. It’s, like, the cliché of the universe--having to adjust her little square glasses every few seconds to keep them from shaking off her face.
“Hey, kid!”
Again with the rude. I wasn’t done looking around.
“You wanna make google eyes at the blonde in the jeans over there…”
“I don’t think ‘google’ means what you think it--”
“…you better do it on your own time. I’m about six seconds away from blowing your head off to show this bitch that I’m not screwing around.”
Bitch, now? And was I really being that obvious? Wow. I just nod my head in reply to his demand; I actually wanted to say something back to him, but it all just kind of hit me. He actually is pointing a gun at me. I had thought it wasn’t such a terrible thing, but I’d like to re-decide that matter. It really, really is.
He turns his head back to the teller, who has finally started loading up the briefcase this guy pushed at her earlier, and suddenly, it hits me. He’s not looking at me anymore. I steal a glance at the gun, then back up to the back of his head. I can totally disarm him; it happens in the movies all the time! I just wrap my arms around his wrist, point his arm away, and, like, flick it out of his hand. Seems easy enough.
I lunge at him, and, at first, everything works out flawlessly. I get my arms wrapped around his hand and push the gun away from me; it actually worked! I’m just about to try to flick it out of his hand, when he brings the other gun around.
I totally forgot about that one. I could get out of the way; I could save myself.
But the other two bank customers are behind me. I…aw, damn it. This is going to really suck.
And it really does. After he shoots me in my stomach, I linger on my feet. I don’t actually have the strength to stand, but my body doesn’t seem to understand it should be falling. I finally topple over onto my back, with my hands on my mid-section for no real reason. Am I trying to hold in the blood? Will the bullet out into my hands? I have no idea. Guns is yelling at everyone again, and the teller seems frozen in place just like before. Yet these are all suddenly much less relevant to me now.
I can’t believe I tried to do that. Did I really think I was some kind of big-time superhero? What the hell is wrong with me? As I lie here, the past week comes back to me in startling clarity. I hope it’s not my life flashing before my eyes…that would be so stereotypical.
---
Nine days earlier…
She’s not going to mind. She won’t. She’s working on those Geometry problems, and she’ll think you’re just leaning in to check on how she’s doing. It won’t even be, like….no. Nothing. Just put your arm around her. It’s just like…hey, are my muscles not listening to my brain? Come on, arm. Lift up, move over, go back down. It’s about the easiest thing in the world.
Hm, okay. Not working.
I’m helping Becky Stern study for Geometry; alone with her in her study. Becky Stern, the girl I’ve been in love with since 6th grade. Maybe 7th grade. Did I like girls yet in 6th grade? I can’t recall. Regardless, I liked her. Tiny little sixty-four inch frame and that straight blonde hair lying on her shoulders. Soft cheeks…come on, arm. We can reach out and stroke those cheeks; they look like they’re made out of cotton. Damn, can’t bring that to happen, either. Stupid arm, I hate you so much…
“Vinny? Hello?”
“Hello? What? Yes! I mean, yes? Hi?”
She cracks a tiny smile at my stammering. She taps her pencil against a page in her Geometry book, “This problem?”
“Oh! Right. Let’s see…” I guess I missed my chance. I’m surprised I’m even here, though. I mean, Becky and I have never not been…cordial, I guess, but we’ve never been great friends. We’ve had a couple of classes together over the years, and she’s just always been so…something. She laughs at my jokes; she smiles when I wave to her. We both have single parents, so we have even discussed what that is like. One time we joked about hooking them up, her dad and my mom, though obviously, I’d never want that to happen. She came up to me a few days ago asking me to start tutoring her, though, and really…who am I to turn down a chance to help out someone in need? I’m helping her sort out the problem, but I’m not even sure what words are coming out of my mouth; she’s just so cute. I think I’m talking something about multiplying radii…does that even make sense. I really want to smell her hair, and that makes me feel like Captain Skeevy of the universe.
“Oh! My phone! I’ll be right back, Vinny.”
I didn’t even hear her phone ringing, but after she shocks me out of my not-quite-laser-like math focus, I hear Kelly Clarkson emanating from her cell. She fumbles through her purse, and I push my hand through my hair before it flops right back down, parting off onto each direction. It really is getting long. I should have gotten a haircut before I came over here. I should have gotten a cut and style. I can’t believe I came here with this overgrown mess on my hair, almost covering up my ears and my forehead. How could I possibly get her to notice me like this?
“Oh hey, baby!” I hear her coo as she answers her Motorola. Great, it’s Aaron.
Aaron Burke and I are…incompatible, to put it one way, I guess. Even if we are to somehow forget that he just started dating Becky a few weeks ago, right before our senior year started, he and I just don’t amount to much civility. He’s probably calling because he knows I’m here, and he wants me to know he’s talking to her. Is that terribly self-centered of me to think that?
Aaron and Becky are, like, the most stereotypical high school couple ever. Aaron is the football team’s standout player with colleges lining up around the block to scout him at our games, and Becky is a senior cheerleader. So of course they are together. Of course. They are, like, both in the top ten of Buchanan High School. They go to all the parties; they have nice cars; they dress better than the rest of us. I mean, their jeans and polos and tops have names. They come from stores people recognize. My khakis and T-shirts come from, well, my family. At Christmas. They drive to school. I take the bus. They are featured in every issue of the school newspaper for sports or feature stories. I’d need a cover story just so people’d know who I am. So of course she’s with him. I’m just the jackass she invites over to help her study. And I do it because…she’s perfect to me.
“All right, babe. I have to get back to studying. Yes, you can pick me up tomorrow. I’ll see you in the morning. Bye-ee!”
“How is Aaron doing?” I have a hard time manipulating my voice to make it seem like I care. If she notices this, she doesn’t let on.
“He’s good. He got home late from practice, so he was, you know, letting me know he was safe.”
“That’s nice of him.” Again, I hope she thinks I sound like I mean it more than I think I do. It’s not a very fulfilling conversation, but I don’t want to talk about him; I want to talk about us. But I can’t really just say ‘So how does he treat you opposed to how I would treat you? Worse, right? I totally knew it’. Yeah, that won’t fly. So I go back to explaining the problems in her book. My arm not draped around her shoulder, my mouth not saying anything interesting.
And that was how it ended. Just she and I talking Geometry the rest of the night, trying to power through her homework. I don’t know what it is about Aaron that did that to me, just with a phone call. I would hope that he gets hit by a subway car falling from the sky tomorrow, but then it’d probably happen. Well, okay, I guess that wouldn’t happen, but something. Something… And then the school would probably have a whole thing! Aaron Burke Memorial Everything All The Time Day Because He Was The Greatest Football Player Ever Even Though He Got C’s. Probably rename the school for him. ‘Sure, we were named after the only President to come from our home state of Pennsylvania, but by god, this kid played a mean football’. Stupid. I could play football. I do sometimes, for fun. They’d make us all wear Aaron masks or something. All right, calm down, Vinny; Aaron’s not going to have a subway car dropped on him. Just…forget it. Ugh! But god, all he did was call, and I completely--ugh! What a tool. Me or him; pick one. We both are.
By the time I get home, I must have slammed my fist off the steering wheel of my mom’s Blazer, like, a hundred times. At this point, I’m not sure which I’m more annoyed about: what happened at Becky’s, or the prospect of being home.
I get inside, and I can already smell the booze. Jeez, that’s just…well, it is what it is. I turn into the living room after getting through the doors, and mom’s already passed out on the couch. So…you take the good with the bad. At least she’s already out.
I head upstairs for my room, and I see all the pictures on the wall as you walk up; me, her, my dad. But it’s just the two of us now, and…well…
Damn, I just need to sack out. I can’t even bring myself to care about that. It’s just been a whole crappy day. Crappy first week of classes. Crappy having to deal with Aaron calling Becky while I was there. Crappy homelife. I know what Nate would say: some kind of zen-shit like ‘it’s all in your perspective’. Change your mind and the world changes with it. Something like that.
Fine then. I’m going to go to sleep tonight, but that’s it. Tomorrow, everything’s going to change.
---
Chapter 2
I love that Nate rides the bus with me, even though he has a car. I’d be bored as crap on here everyday if I didn’t have anyone to ride with. Dude, all the freshman seem cooler than I do; they all talk and joke around. When Nate is absent, I got nothing.
Nate gets on the bus and adjust his black-rimmed glasses on his face. “Suzanne asked about you last night. How senior year is treating us. She said ‘us’, but she meant ‘you’. ‘How is it treating Vinny? Is he still adorable? Oh-Em-Gee, I love him so much!’ You know how it is”.
Nate’s little sister Suzanne is just in 8th grade this year--she’d never even be in high school at the same time as us, wow--and he jokes that she has a huge crush on me. I like to tease him back.
“Well isn’t that how it is when you ask others about me?”
“Dude, you’re not my type. I don’t get why this is so hard for you to take.”
“That’s what she said. Or, in some people’s cases,” I stop and stare at him, “he said.”
“How’s that going to feel?”
“What feel?”
“You hitting the moving pavement when I throw you out of this bus, I wonder.”
“You and what gay-straight alliance?”
“Oh, we’re all with the funny this morning, I see.”
Actually, not having a crush on me--and, I guess, being…well…sexual preference--are hardly the only things Nate and Suzanne don’t have in common. It’s hard to believe they are even related sometimes. Nate’s hair is so blonde, it’s almost white; Suzanne’s hair is black like…like…I’m not very good at simile’s. It’s black like a…cow? What else is black? Oh! Crows! That’s what I was thinking of. Suzanne’s got the whole Mediterranean skin tone thing going on, poor Nate looks like whitebread. Oh, that reminds me of my other favorite thing to rib him about…
“I guess you would have different tastes in men, anyway. You have different daddies.”
“Oh, that again. Mr. Witty has entered the school bus.”
“Well I don’t think Jack Frost and Cleopatra had the same parents, either.”
“I can’t wait to go home and tell her that you’d love to take her out this weekend.”
“Uh, wait…”
“Take her out to some romantic restaurant. Kiss her when it’s all over.”
“That’s not…”
“Nope. It’s on. I’m telling her when I get home. Or I’ll just text her once I get away from you.”
“Maybe when she’s older. When she’ll…uh, never mind.”
He narrows his eyes at me. “No. You’re gonna finish that thought.”
“I’d rather not.”
“Finish it.”
“Well, I just meant…when she,” I move my hands up to my chest, “gets older, you know?”
He bites his lower lip and pauses. “Yes, please do let’s talk about,” his voice raises, “my middle school-aged sister’s chest.”
“Nope. I’d like to…do the…not that.”
“You think?”
“Pretty sure, yes.”
The bus ride is one of the better parts of the day; I mean…it is school, after all. While I might mind the classes themselves less than most people, I find that I mind the camaraderie somewhat more. And third period is the absolute worst.
Third period is gym.
Gym class to the unathletic and clumsy is like bull-fighting, but the bullfighter doesn’t get spears or swords or whatever: we all look pretty gay out there, and eventually, one of the big, strong idiots is going to stab us in the chest. I think it’s terribly unjust; I have to take gym with the apes and the athletes and everybody, but no one forces them into, like, AP Chemistry to compete with me. If they let me pri….princi….[what the heck? Principal…one who…princips?]…whatever. If I was in charge of school in this country, the fatties would have their own gym class where they can all wear their shirts in the pool, the partier kids can all have their own shiftless lay-about gym class, the string bean nerds would have our own gym class of, like, ping-pong, and everyone else can have theirs. Either that, or everyone has to take AP classes. Department of Education, here I come.
And of course--of course!, because God doesn’t hate me enough as it is--Aaron ended up in my third-period gym class this year. And, of course, Mr. Smilinski teaches…”teaches”…gym class. The same Mr. Smilinski who is the something-or-another coordinator of the football team. So it’s all a big football player stroke fest with whatever they want, like pick-up basketball games.
Or dodge ball. Like today.
Seriously, I thought they outlawed this joke of an activity. Isn’t this like the desensitization of society or something? ‘Here, commit violence against arbitrary other people in a means to eliminate them. Don’t carry this over to the real world, though!’. Ridiculous. What real life function does dodge ball hone? Aiming a spherical object at skulls? Where does one apply this?
I’m not actually picked last. Fourth-to-last, as it is. Fortunately, there are some girls in my gym class who neither have any athletic aptitude, nor are cute enough that the guys care if picking them makes them like them for it. I could have gone fifth-to-last, but I saw Aaron say something to Chuck--today’s Team A captain--and then he picked Gina Turret. Gina is one of those aforementioned girls. She is nice enough, I mean. I’m not trying to…I dunno. She’s just…whatever.
The game is just ludicrous. Dodge ball is just quasi-organized mayhem. I spend most of the class just running around like the spaz that I am, trying not to get hit. At the end of class, my running has earned me a dubious reward. I’m the only one left on my side, and Aaron and two of his buddies from the team, James and Warren, are left on the other side. All three of them have a ball. This is going to be a YouTube quality massacre. If I get concussed, I wonder if they’ll ever make me take gym class again.
“Hey, Mansfield!” Aaron yells over to me, juggling the rubber ball in his hands, “How was Becky’s last night?”
“Not as good as when I went to your mom’s place afterwards.” I’m a genius. Not only was that line not worth it, but I’m riling him up.
“Oh!” He grins a doofy grin. “You made fun of my mom! You’re so clever, idiot.”
I want to tell him to shut up, but I catch Warren winding up southpaw; Aaron is just trying to get under my skin. Like always, damn it. Warren pitches the ball from my left, and it’s the craziest thing…the ball looks like it’s fighting its way through a breeze to get to me; I see it the whole way in. I throw out my arms, and snatch it right out of the air.
“Wow!” Mr. Smilinski exclaims from across the gym. “Losing your touch, Mr. White? Mansfield nabbed the bullet right out of the air. You’re out!”
Bullet? It looked like a throw pillow! Unless he’s just making fun of me. Whatever. At least that is one less ball to get creamed with.
From my other side, I see James throw his ball, too, and damned if it’s not the same thing; it’s a dying bird in the air. I flick out my open hand and pull it right into my body. What the hell is going on? Those were both cotton candy, man.
“Hol-ee! You’re out, too, James. Damn, Mansfield! Where’d you get those reflexes? He’s going to take your job on the field, Burke!”
Aaron’s nose scrunches up against his brow at the words. I expect him to finally bring some heat after the previous two softballs--to really try and knock Becky’s name out of my brain--but he just drops his ball on the ground and stares at me. “Big catches. Big deal. Whatchya got, Vinny? You still can’t touch me.”
I have no idea what’s going on. Everyone seems way more impressed with those catches than I am, but whatever. Something’s going on, and I’m damn sure about to knock this prick’s block off. I let the ball fall harmlessly out of my left hand, then double-palm the other ball, spinning it around for dramatic effect. I really don’t think the ball will fly any better if I twirl it around a bit before pitching, but damn I bet I look cool. I pull back with everything I have and blast the damn thing at him; I hope it knocks him out of the gym.
And then he just palms my weak-ass little throw right out of the air. I don’t even think he ever took his eyes off of me to do it. I…damn. I really thought something was…damn.
“Get the hell off my gym floor, boy. Don’t bring that girl throw to my house.” He beats his chest like a god damn retarded gorilla. But I don’t even care, I’m just looking down at my hands, then over to the ball on the ground. What the hell just happened for a few seconds there?