Age 13
I never liked Ronny. Hated the guy, to be honest.
Within a few days of him showing up, it was like Teresa was awestruck. Then, within a few months, they were boyfriend and girlfriend. It was that sort of story where the best friend always loses to the badass.
But, I was gladly third-wheeled. I had no other friends, and, after all, it wasn't that bad.
That's a lie. It was kind of miserable.
In the least, I didn't mind going to Ronny's house and hanging around with his brothers -- get this -- Jonny and Lenny. Their parents were creative. Jonny, who, I learned, was where Ronny got all his hand-me-down leather jackets, was four years older than us and sported a set of ears stretched by broad rings. He called it 'gauging.' Lenny was never around, much like their father. And their mother -- well, I'd never met a woman before her whom I earnestly believed was the cause behind all the bigfoot stories across North America. Needless to say, she was a far cry from my own petite and well-groomed mother, though she drank just as much.
This time, after we'd taken up residence like usual in the Turnbulls' basement, Teresa and Ronny had simply mentioned that they needed to walk to the gas station down the street for sodas.
Right, like anyone believed that.
Regardless, Jonny and I had remained, sitting side by side on the sofa, our faces illuminated by the television. My knees pulled up to my chest, I sat with the controller between my knees, staring at the screen blindly. Jonny, to my right, was leaning forward, elbows on his scrawny knees, expression intent, hoodie half falling off his shoulder. As usual, I was losing the game we were playing. It was nothing new.
Maybe the first time they'd done this to us, it had been awkward. Every ounce of conversation he tried to make, I only gave a half-hearted response. Thus, it had become a universally understood rule that we just didn't talk to each other.
"You're stressed."
"Huh?"
Neither of us looked up.
What the hell did he mean, I was stressed? He didn't even talk to me.
"I can tell, man, you're actin' different."
Watching the top half of the screen as my car ran headfirst into a wall and 'LAST PLACE' showed up over the rest of it, I turned to look at him. His thin face fell, and he offered a shrug.
"We don't even talk. How am I acting different?"
"Vibes," he tried, looking away.
"Well, I'm fine, whatever your 'vibes' are telling you." Jaw steeling, I looked back to the screen, but Jonny had sat down his controller and leaned back. He propped his head up with two fingers, watching me, and he refused to press the 'start over' button.
"You wanna talk about it?"
"We don't talk on a regular basis, why would I talk about my stress levels now? Seriously, dude."
"Dude," he repeated, mockingly. "Look, I heard Teresa earlier. What's all this shit about your dad?"
"Drop it, Jesus, it's not work talking about." Putting the controller on the coffee table, I sunk into the sofa. The poor thing looked like it was a hundred years old, but it was still plush.
"Come on."
"Jonny, leave it alone."
"Way I see it, you can either talk about it or take something. Either'll calm your nerves."
Or take something. Rolling my eyes, I shook my head. What, was he suggesting I start drinking?
"What would I take? They don't give prescriptions for asshat parents."
Hesitant, he pouted, then dug something out of his pocket. Rolling it around in his hand, he offered it to me, and I could see the light reflecting through it. A little orange bottle only about as big as his thumb, transparent save for the white lid, and the white label, and the little white ovals inside.
"No," Jonny drawled, grinning as if he was some sort of evil genius, "but I do."
"What the hell is that?"
"Try one."
"Man, I'm not that stupid."
"Colin, it's just one." As if to prove himself, he opened it up, pulling one out and showing it to me. It was little more than a tiny white thing, with a split down the middle and a shiny surface. Then, he popped it in his mouth, giving me a shrug. "I take them all the time. It's just kind of something to wind down. You don't get addicted when you take one."
"What is it?" I asked again, this time curiously holding my hand out. I studied the little pill I was given.
"I promise it won't kill you, just take it. I'll tell you after you take it. It'll just help you relax."
For a long moment, I stared him down. He had a point. It was just one, one little pill, just a few millimeters long, and it wasn't frightening. It was white, not black, and marked with a V, not the biohazard symbol or a skull and crossbones. It wasn't poison.
So, rolling it over in my palm, I put it in my mouth, taking a sip of water from the half-empty glass on the coffee table. Not once did I break eye contact with him.
"See? You ain't dead yet."
"What was it?"
Jonny held up the bottle in front of my face, letting me read the label. The prescription was written out to their mother, followed by the pharmacy phone number and the word vicodin.
I think I'd heard of that before, I wondered, just on TV.
"Okay," was all I could think to answer with.
--
Two or three more wasn't a big deal.
Two or three more felt pretty good, and I felt weightless, and for a while I'd gotten to forget about how my father never seemed to stop preaching, how my mother never seemed to stop drinking, how Evan was never let out to do anything.
And, eventually, Mrs. Turnbull had simply given up and taken me home.
I was tired, and my stomach was roiling in a gross sort of way, but I still felt happy, like I was up in the air. It never occurred to me that they called it high for a reason.
Once I'd gotten in the door, though, my Dad started off immediately. I'd found my way into a chair at the bar of our kitchen, picking at a loose plate of potato chips, eyes following him slowly as he paced around the room. I think he was putting away dishes.
This late at night, his glasses had been pushed off his face to reveal the blue eyes Evan and I had inherited, settled on to the top of his head amidst his already-grey hair, and he had given up on everything but his pants and his shirt. Mom was already in bed.
"Furthermore, there is absolutely no reason for them to be complaining. It's a dog-eat-dog world, Colin, and I suspect you'll do no less than eat the other dogs so you don't get eaten."
"I prefer bacon," I breathed, "not dog."
"Damn it, boy, I'm giving you a life lesson. Get something out of it, will you? It's do-or-die, win-or-lose, out there. I already have you set up with a college fund, you're going to be a surgeon, and you're going to make a hell of a lot of money doing it. I don't want you settling down with one of these broads you meet in high school, either. You want a girl from college, a girl who's gonna make as much money as you and knows how to be a proper woman. You want a girl who's gonna make a good mother."
"What if I don't settle down with a broad?"
He let out a dry laugh, unsettling my stomach further. Maybe the chips weren't helping.
With a rueful smile, my father stared me down, letting out his question in a whisper. "What the hell else would you settle down with?"
"I don't know," I tried. I knew my reasons. I knew what I was asking. He didn't have to. "Maybe I just wanna run a horse ranch on my own or something."
"You do all that pansy shit with horses when you retire. You want a ranch, run it when you retire."
"I don't want a ranch."
"Colin, can't you take me seriously for once in your damn life?" He howled, throwing down the towel in his hand. It made very little sound, but still, I jumped. "You're thirteen, you don't have a lot of time left to screw around! Once you're out of this house, you think an employer's gonna take your bullshit? You think you'll keep a job when you're whispering under your breath making ass-backward comments?"
I wanted to go upstairs.
I wanted to go bother Evan, and ask him about his day.
This wasn't going anywhere good.
"Come on, answer me! Little bastard, what, now you don't have anything to say?"
"No, sir," I whispered, staring at the uneven orange-yellow glaze of dust over the chips. It had never seemed so fascinating.
"Look at me when you answer me."
Obedient, I did just that, repeating myself.
"Out," he spat. "Go to bed."
Grateful, I stood, emptying my bowl into the trash and settling it into the sink. I hurried up the stairs, taking them two at a time, and only after I had changed into my pajamas and shut the lights off in my room did I sneak into Evan's.
He was already asleep, but I was shaking now. Quiet, I crept into the room, sitting beside the bed with my back to it and staring through the window. The streetlight provided a false sense of moonlight, casting a pale blue shine through it, onto the hardwood floors. Evan was six. He wasn't allowed nightlights.
I heard a soft creaking, then Evan's hand dropped off the edge of his bed, smacking the side of my face, then the top of my head.
"Colin?" he mumbled.
My voice came out in a rasp. "I'm here."
I could hear his hand was still half-wedged into his mouth like it always was when he slept. He'd done that since he was born. "We went to the zoo today."
"Yea? What'd you see?"
"A lion." His hand made no effort to move off the top of my head, so I sat up a little, turning to face his bed. In the darkness, I could barely make out the thin shapes of his eyes behind the mass of blanket he'd pulled up to his face. His free hand groped for mine, holding on tight to it. "Did you know that...in the wild, if a baby loses its mama, all the other lions'll take care of it for her?"
Laying my head on the side of his bed, I offered a hesitant smile. Lions could take care of their kids. Humans couldn't. "That's pretty cool."
"I think so. And...giraffes, they spend their whole lives on their feet. They must be..." He yawned. "Pretty...durable."
"I want you to tell me all about it tomorrow," I tried. "You need to go back to sleep."
"Colin?"
"Yea, Evan?"
"Stay here 'til I fall back asleep."
--
"What's that supposed to mean?" Ronny laughed. He stood behind me, holding the hood of my jacket down over my eyes.
"I don't know!" I cried, the video game controller lost in my lap to grope for the hood, trying to pull it up. I was laughing too, but, this wasn't the second time I'd been here, the second time Jonny sat next to me with that wry smile, the second time my mind felt in a haze and oh, things were spinning and my stomach hurt. It wasn't the second time I could laugh and feel like I was with friends.
Nor the third, nor the forth. Maybe the tenth, the twelfth, somewhere around there. But only Jonny and I knew, just the two of us, what we waited to do when they were gone. One was nothing, three nowhere close to a big deal, six or seven or eight or more, a little palmful at once, and we were both good, complacent and easy until it started to wear off.
"Oh, you just said it to piss me off?"
"Teresa said it first!"
"Like hell I did, Colin, don't blame this on me!"
Teresa had no idea. In the darkness of the basement, my eyes swimming under my hood, Teresa had no clue I was high, nor that I was making a habit of it. It only sounded bad when you said high, like a clinical term, but it wasn't bad. She had no clue I had gotten curious and dug into my mom's bathroom cabinet, and found a prescription, a very similar little bottle that read lortab. No one but Jonny and I knew I'd almost emptied it, left a few on the sink, and brought the rest to him for appraisal.
"I was kidding, man, I was joking! Come on, lighten up!"
"You called me a rabbit-ass prick!"
A few searches on Google, and we'd discovered it was the exact same thing Jonny had been lifting from his mother's cabinet. It was clear for consumption. Honestly, I don't think then that Ronny even knew what we were doing.
"'Cause you are!"
Wrestling with him, where he stood behind the couch, I kept laughing, eventually stopping to fan my face. He disappeared behind the back of the sofa.
And Teresa was smiling at us. To her, we were getting along. This was a good thing, her best friend and her boyfriend, making amends.
Jonny was laughing just as hard as I was.
The clock was ticking.
I was craving another high.
--
"Colin, are you dizzy again?"
"Yea, Evan, just...just gimme a second."
One hand fumbling around behind me, it found a chair, and slowly I eased myself into it.
I'd only just gotten home. Our parents still weren't home, but as usual, I had Evan sat down at the bar with a peanut butter sandwich and a glass of orange juice. Orange juice, it seemed, was the bane of my little brother's existence. If our parents weren't home, I'd pour it out for him, and wait, but he never drank it, and each time I only ended up dumping it down the sink. When they were home, he wasn't allowed to leave the kitchen until he drank his entire glass.
They said it was good for his skin or something.
He complained frequently it was sour, and so, each time, I poured him a glass of milk on the side.
Dizzy, and my stomach was roiling, but it felt alright, I was getting used to the way this was, how one or two or six made me want to stargaze, to be simply a blank canvas to the world.
"I get nervous when you're dizzy," he announced through his mouthful of peanut butter and bread, blue eyes staring at me. With tan skin and dark hair and eyes, we were two imperfect blemishes against the pure white of our kitchen. White cabinets, white walls, white floors and appliances and tablecloths. Somehow, I was beginning to realize, everything in my house had always managed to stay white through the lives of two little boys. I’d never noticed before.
It was amazing, the things I was realizing when I had no choice but to slow down.
"Colin?"
"Yea, I'm here."
"I talked to Miss Brenner again today."
The elementary school counselor.
For some reason, she was the bane of my father's existence. A thin, young woman, fresh out of counselling school or whatever they called it, she had a jaw as wide as her hopes for people. There was scary like the hairy yeti-type woman that was Jonny's mom, then there was scary like the thin, vampire-like, scornful gaze of Miss Brenner.
My mom wasn't scary. My mom was pathetic.
"You know Dad said not to talk to her anymore."
"I got called down, I'm not allowed to not go when she calls me down." He paused to down half of his glass of milk. "She's gonna call Dad."
"Evan."
"I asked her not to!"
So she'd call him, and we'd hear about it for hours, about how some women should have just stayed home instead of attending school, about how Miss Brenner must have been a 'dyke,' and about how if they called one more time asking why Evan always missed the bus and our neighbors didn't even know he existed that they'd have a lawsuit on their hands. Everyone had a lawsuit on their hands when it came to Dad.
Rubbing one hand on the side of my face, I turned in my seat to stare at the refridgerator.
Funny, I remembered, I'd had magnetic letters on there when I was little. Then one day they were just gone.
"Maybe this time she'll just send him to jail," I groaned.
"Colin!"
"He deserves it!"
He pouted, dipping a pale napkin into his orange juice and watching the colour seep slowly upward. "I wanna do scriptures again. Will you pray with me tonight?"
"Like every night."
"Do you think it's true?" Dropping the napkin entirely into the cup, he took another bite out of his sandwich, crossing his eyes on the sight of the entrenched napkin. One little corner was still white, sticking up like a flag of surrender, and Evan was the ruthless warlord, watching it sink until it was not even worth saving. "What Dad says about God."
Maybe I was too high. I was seeing life analogies in Evan's orange juice.
"Dad says a lot of things about God," I mumbled past how my hand pressed to my cheek. Hell, now I was staring at the napkin's patterns, blending in to the vibrant orange shade.
"About how He hates faggots."
"Evan, you don't even know what a faggot is."
"What is it?"
I let out a sigh. "It's...like...I read it in a dictionary once, it's like...when you make a bundle of twigs, for a fire." Watching his face crinkle up in confusion, I smiled. "Dad uses it, though, like...to mean...a gay guy. Like a boy who likes boys."
His face was blank for a long moment. Culture shock, I'm sure. "So...does...God hate either of them?"
Forcing myself to stand again, I patted at his shoulder, taking the glass from him. My stomach was roiling again, harder now, and with trembling hands, I knew it wasn't from the Vicodin and Lortab.
I crossed to the sink, slowly pouring out the orange juice. Bleeding, bright, it was colour, a wash of colour on the white canvas of our parents' world they had built without us. We were the blemishes, we were the colour now, because they couldn't stay perfect with us around.
I liked that the pills made me feel like a canvas.
I'd never been taught to be anything else but a blank canvas, painting on temporary faces to make people happy.
Evan was the first blemish on their perfect lives.
"Colin?"
I glanced up.
My fingers were gripping the edge of the sink, and suddenly the glass was in it, a chip knocked out of its rim, the napkin still drenched in orange.
"No, Evan. No. God doesn't hate anyone. If He hated us, He wouldn't have made us. God loves everyone."
And his colour was seeping onto me.
--
"You're so not gonna beat me."
We'd moved the couch. Laying side by side on our stomachs, we'd made a pile of blankets and pillows to chase away the chill of a cement floor. The couch sat about ten feet behind its usual spot, and the coffee table off to the side.
"Dude, I never do. I crash at that turn every time."
Ronny and Teresa weren't even there this time. Jonny had my phone number and for the last year, he'd had it.
I wasn't invited to Teresa's birthday party tonight. When you're thirteen, that still hurts. Something in the back of my mind nagged at me that someone had told her not to invite me.
But that was what the pills were for: turning myself into a virtual ostrich, where I could stick my head in the sand and ignore the bombshells going off around me.
"Seriously? Just, hit the A button, you'll go around it a lot faster."
It was something I didn't really understand, a friendship based entirely around drugs and video games. I didn't know Jonny's favourite colour, or what sort of stuff he was into, or what he liked to eat aside from the occasional poptart he would munch on. A guy couldn't exist solely on poptarts and Vicodin.
Neither of us complained, though. Neither of us wanted to change.
"Oh. I guess I made it that time."
"Yea. You can't take it slow or you'll fishtail."
New editions and medicine cabinet highs.
Cheap thrills.
"You know what would be cool?"
From beside me, he sniffed, rubbing irritably at his new nose piercing. He told me he'd only just gotten it that afternoon.
It looked pretty good on him.
"Not--" My car crashed on screen, ramping the wall and flipping until it hit the ground and exploded into a ball of flames. I lifted the controller above my head, planting my face into the pillow below. "Not crashing?”
Jonny offered a dry laugh, eyes still locked on his half of the screen. "I was thinkin'...you know, you're pretty cute, Colin, I think it'd be cool if we kissed."
Wait.
What?
Brow furrowing, I pushed myself up. Had I heard that right? He wasn't even looking at me, but he gave a brief, furtive glance.
"Hey, don't make that face at me. I've seen the way you look at my brother."
"How do I look at him? With contempt? Because he's an asshole?"
My heart was hammering in my throat.
Good Lord, he could probably hear it.
"No. You watch him, I've seen it. Like you're jealous and it ain't of him." He glanced at me again, sitting the controller down once his screen showed 'SECOND PLACE.' His arms folded over his pillow, head resting over them. "You're jealous of Teresa."
Someone else had noticed it.
Inside my head, something was screaming 'abort mission,' like there was a control panel inside my head and I could just switch it off. The more I thought about that theory, the better it sounded, because someone else had noticed, and no one was supposed to notice, not until I was over this, not until I'd stopped thinking the way I had been.
Teresa had always been pretty, but I was beginning to realize, as soon as my voice had started to crack, there was a different reason Ronny made me uncomfortable.
"That's not your business. I-I mean, I'm not even sure, I don't even know--"
"Colin, you're not gonna get over it. It ain't gonna change just 'cause you think it will." Jonny shrugged. "Look, you don't gotta worry. I won't tell."
My ears were ringing. No, no, no, no, no one was supposed to know.
Not even Jonny.
If anyone were to know, my father would kill me.
"Come on. Have I wronged you yet?"
No.
No, I realized, he hadn't. He hadn't wronged me, he hadn't told anyone about the pills we took, he hadn't said one thing to offend me, he hadn't asked me to do anything or to hold the weight of any secrets but the Vicodin and the Lortab. That was as much my secret as his.
Slowly, I shook my head, sitting up. He followed suit, crossing his legs.
"Look...one kiss, okay? No one's home, no one's gonna know. Just, give me one kiss, and you can pretend I'm Ronny, and if you don't like it, I won't ever do it again."
There was an earnest sort of seriousness in his eyes. He was either a fantastic liar or being honest. Regardless, something in the back of my mind was still screaming. It was shrieking, wailing, hollering for more attention than I would give it. I suppose whatever form it was taking, however loud it throbbed with my heartbeat, that thing that was screaming at me was my conscience.
Screaming to go home, to leave here entirely, to curl up and disappear and be that ostrich, be that canvas, disappear and become invisible. Sometimes I think I needed my own rock to crawl under when things scared me.
But, slowly, rolling my lips, I was nodding, and then it got worse, then my heart was thudding again. Then it felt like it would very well burst, and my heated cheeks along with it.
My eyelids fluttered shut, as a safety precaution or pure instinct, and I could feel I was shaking again. I'd quickly learn I would be shaking for the rest of my life. In the darkness behind my eyelids, I could feel his hands touch the sides of my face, and without much bravado, the warmth of his lips touch mine.
It did me no good to pretend he wasn't himself, because, honestly, I didn't mind. He was warm, and his mouth was sweet, and no, no, no, no one was supposed to know -- but I was finding elation in hiding.
Then, just a drawn out second, and it was over.
When my eyes opened, he was giving me a lopsided smile. "So?"
I licked my lips.
No one could know.
"I'm..." I was licking my lips, again, repeatedly, suddenly confused that his weren't there anymore. "Don't tell anyone. Promise?"
"Promise."
"Okay." Then, quietly, "Can I do that again?"
Cheap thrills.
--
My mother's wine glass shattered. Early evening, and she was drunk already, swaying around the kitchen. One bump to the wrong counter, and her drink toppled from her hand, shattering in a pale yellow blotch on the tile floors.
I'd only been home maybe twenty minutes. I had been at the Turnbulls' house.
As if that surprised anyone.
Cursing in Swedish, curses my brother and I weren't allowed to repeat, she ducked down, mopping it up with a white towel. I was watching her. There was no colour in her wine to spread.
"Gary," she howled, stumbling around blindly.
I felt numb.
My father wandered in, sighing with irritation. He had yet to even take off his tie, still in his dress pants and shirt, a combination of charcoal grey and baby blue I'd never understand, with a red tie. I wondered how he was so uncoordinated.
The TV was blaring in the other room. I felt just as far away.
"Helgi, how in God's name do you manage to break shit at every hour of the night? It's only seven and you're already starting this."
"I just want the broom," she slurred, eyes narrowing on him. At some point, I think, my mother was a smoker. There were faint wrinkles around her mouth that her makeup caught in, like lips from puckering around a cigarette for too many years, and the ends of her pale hair were always frayed. "Get me the broom, I can't find it."
"You couldn’t tell Colin to do it? He's sitting right there."
"Gary, get me the God damned broom."
Disappearing from the room, he returned, staring her down over his glasses. He thrust the broom at her, brand new and clean. Or had it always been that clean? "All you had to do, Helgi, was take a few steps in another room. Surprising, right? And you couldn't find it."
"Gimme that."
"Go to bed," he spat. "I'll take care of this, you can't even stand up, woman, look at you."
She yanked it out of his hand, moving to sweep at the mess of glass and white. Disgusted, my father watched her, eventually rolling his eyes and looking up at me. He gestured for me to follow. "I want you to come see this bullshit."
"What is it?" I asked quietly, still feeling so, so disconnected. The world was spinning around me, and my skin was still on fire. After a few weeks, we told Ronny less and less that I was there, we kissed longer, we touched a little more, sometimes things got taken off. And, coming down from a high, I didn't feel awake.
"They're celebrating the death of this asshole."
I followed my father into the living room, where hardwood floors were only interrupted by stainless carpeting. The dog we had gotten last year, a pudgy Boston terrier of the traditional black and white pattern, was curled in the corner of the couch, panting. Her name was Cookie.
Greyscale photographs of a cheery man in suits, his smile infectious even through the screen, ran on repeat behind a young news reporter.
"Who was he?"
I could see his name quite clearly. Below each photo, his name read 'Harvey Milk 1930-1978.'
"He was a politician. At least, he thought he was. Today's the twenty-fifth anniversary of his death. He thought a pussy like him could run in politics."
They were calling him 'the bravest man alive.' The reporter was smiling as she said his name. She said it was an honour for him to have lived as long as he did.
"What do you mean?"
She said he had set a precedent for people everywhere.
Half-distracted to save from the flush that had reached my cheeks from nervousness, my hands were occupied, scratching at the dog's side until she laid down, stretching her legs out.
Oh, God. Here he went again.
"They think he was some sorta hero 'cause he told the whole damn world he was gay. I don’t think I’d tell anyone if I was a faggot, I’d probably just kill myself. Good thing he got shot 'fore he screwed with our whole government, right?" He let out a rueful laugh, not even waiting for my response. "Don't know what we'd do if the world was run by faeries and dykes. You know that's what they do, Colin, they make you think they're normal, then they do all their weird shit."
"Right," I tried. My throat was suddenly dry, like I'd swallowed the whole Sahara, and my stomach felt all the nausea for it too.
I was shaking.
Cookie sat up, noticing I'd stopped petting her. Irritably, she nipped at one of my fingers until I started to pet her again.
"They're not normal, Colin, I can tell you that. There's no man that likes sleeping with other men 'less he's got something wrong with him upstairs. No woman that likes sleeping with other women, 'less she's batshit crazy."
"Dad, I-I have a paper I need to finish writing..."
"Bah, go." Then, as I started to walk away, I felt his hand grip hard at my arm. I whipped around to face him, and for a long moment, he stared me down, his glasses in his other hand. "You're not a fag, are you?"
Yes.
"N-no, sir."
He broke into a smile, letting go to pat solidly at my back. "That's my boy."
I hardly remember going up the stairs, or the motion I took to lift my computer from my bedroom and move it into Evan's.
I could sit with Evan.
Evan never thought there was anything wrong with me, not even when I pulled up my laptop and sat in front of it, crying, and deleted first my finished copy of a research paper on the pride structures of lions in the wild and started a new draft on a politician, on Harvey Milk.
Evan never judged me.
--
Age 14
Your first day of high school is supposed to be monumental. You're supposed to remember it for the rest of your life. The day before, you eat a big dinner, you go to bed early, you make sure all your things are packed up just right and you know where all your classes are and where your locker is. You get to school fashionably on time on a reeking bus, you go straight to your locker and your friends, and your day goes swimmingly.
Not the oldest Pelley boy. No, sirree, not me, that life is not for me.
I skipped dinner, I stayed up too late with a little handful of pills, I woke up late, forgot half of my things I needed, had no idea where my classes were or my locker, and Jonny waited patiently outside my house for me to get in his car. He said it was on his way to school anyway. Ronny hadn't been in the car; he said he would have rather rode the bus.
And, to boot, I drank too much coffee. I was practically bouncing from nerves and caffeine combined.
First thing in the morning, a fight had broken out in the middle of the hallway. I paid no attention to it, instead just following Jonny's lead around the outskirts and down into the cafeteria. Like a pit of snakes, there were stairs leading down into it, and the whole room was alive, writhing with masses of bodies.
I felt Jonny's fist hit my shoulder, and suddenly I was back to the world again, cleared from thought.
"Colin," he whispered, giving a little push to my side to get me walking once more. We descended into the Hell that was the cafeteria. "How much did you take this morning?"
"Just two," I let out.
I knew I was short for my age, but I'd always thought I was at least sort of tall. Being a freshman reminded me I wasn't. People were staring at me. I wondered for a moment if it was because Jonny was a junior and I wasn't, or maybe Jonny had a reputation, or maybe they were taking bets, or maybe--
"Come on, sit down." Back to the table, Jonny was already sitting at a bench, tugging at my arm. I did as asked, then let out a sigh. "You don't look like you're taking this so well."
"Too much coffee," I answered simply. "That or I accidentally grabbed Mom's Kahlua."
"You'll do fine." His hand touched my knee, and I was lost, studying the area.
The ceiling was smoke-stained, shades of yellow and brown that hadn't been changed for ages, and for a few inches it seemed to drip down over the walls. Linoleum that had once been white cracked and rippled into varying degrees of ruined, lifted in places, and gave way to dark grey-blue carpet once you hit the top of the stairs. No one could tell if it was stained or not, except in the massive spots that could have either been at one time large puddles of vomit, an entire gallon of coffee, or the leftovers of a student whose head was cut off.
Hey, I mean, they told me high school would be brutal.
No one seemed to pay attention to the "no hats" rule. An entire table of young men who looked like they could have been in a gang sported hats of different types, including hoods, while another held boys and girls alike that seemed to have affinities for colourful beanies and pot leaves. Everyone was chewing gum or eating. Someone was wearing a bunny suit.
I'm not kidding. You think I am, but I'm not.
"Jo--"
And the world went dark. Someone's hands were over my eyes.
"Guess who!"
The 'sweet pea' lotion I'd smelled my entire life was a dead giveaway.
"Um..." I humoured her anyway, leaning back. Maybe she’d talk to me more this time. "Tina Turner."
"Who?"
"Prince?"
A pause. "Who?"
"Oh my God, um...Madonna!"
"Isn't she the one with the cone-boobs? Colin, you are a terrible guesser." Letting me see the world again, when I turned -- lo and behold, much to my lack of surprise -- it was Teresa, paired with her lucky red cardigan and skirt and a pair of friends. Friends that, honestly, I'd never seen before, and looked suspiciously similar to her. "It's me!"
"Oh, I knew that." Then, "Where's Ronny?"
"His bus is running late," she answered, a coo in her voice. “I just wanted to say hi before Cassie and Mariah and I go to Choir. Good luck!"
Like that, she was gone, just as quickly as she had appeared.
I shook my head, slowly, and looked back to Jonny, whose dark eyes were wide on me. He sniffed, then gave a toss to his hair and looked away. This time of year, his hair was somewhere between black, brown, and purple -- I couldn't tell anymore, with the way he always was dying it. Not satisfied, he reached up, bony fingers dragging through it, then catching to the incessant loose bracelets he always wore.
I was noticing more about him, now that I saw him beyond his basement and bedroom. He'd changed his nose piercing to a brilliant silver ring, and his gauges hadn't grown any for months, and lately he seemed to like to stare blankly into the distance.
"We got a few minutes before we gotta go to class," he breathed suddenly, looking back at me with a light smile. "I got some advice, okay, write this down."
"I don't have--"
"I got you." Digging into his own backpack, he pulled out a sheet of paper and a pen, thrusting them at me with a grin. "Come on-- go on, write this d-- Colin! I am ashamed of you, look, you're failing high school already, take notes."
"Okay, okay!" Laughing, I sat them down on the table behind us, pretending to write as he spoke. "Hit me, go, I can do this!"
"Rule number one," he announced, leaning forward to hold a finger up, sniffling again despite his grin. "Stay away from girls in big sweaters who eat books like candy."
"Why?" I started doodling a book.
"Those sweaters, they're like tentacles. They pull you in with their quirky little ways and then they hold you with those sweaters and they never let go."
"Right, clingy girls, check."
"Rule two, avoid football games." He stopped me before I could ask why. "Who has to be at a football game?"
I hesitated. "Football players?"
"Cha-ching. And who dates football players?"
"Foot...ball...players' girlfriends?"
"Precisely! So brilliant, I'm so proud of you. Stay away from both of them. I don't care what cheap sex they offer you." As if I was interested anyway. "Rule number three, avoid the drama kids."
"I thought you didn't have a drama department?" I begged through a laugh, met by another grin from Jonny.
"Exactly, and we don't have an actual drama club because we don't have an auditorium. So what the hell are they doing? I don't know, I don't want to know, they're probably all jacking off to Shakespeare." Then, he thought for a moment. "Okay, rule number four, the vending machine on the lefthand side by the gym, the one that has 'Rose is a whore' across the top, avoid that one -- they don't call that Rose the Widowmaker for nothing."
"So, wait, is the vending machine named Rose, or is it named after someone?"
"It's named after the vice principal," he squeaked, hiding his face to laugh. "Okay! Okay, okay, okay! Last rule! Find me before your lunch period, I'll be around here somewhere, and after school. I'll meet you by the Widowmaker. Just, trust me, you don't wanna be around here for long after school's over."
Loud and shrill, a bell sounded off, and Jonny stood instinctively, grabbing his backpack. I followed suit, returning his pen and leaving behind my doodle. He offered to walk me to class, which I gratefully accepted considering I didn't know where my class was.
Somehow, away from the teachers and other students' sight, he managed to sneak a small kiss before abandoning me with little more than well-wishes in front of my classroom.
So this was high school.
--
The first week of school saw me getting a girlfriend. The second week saw her dumping me because I refused to touch her. The third week, I got another...who also had a girlfriend. I learned quickly to avoid older girls.
I never actually questioned myself on getting girlfriends. I just kept Jonny, and our weekend plans, and the pill bottle in my pocket whenever I wanted it.
My teachers learned to hate me and simply pushed me through with B's. I was pretty good at following Jonny's rules for survival, but I never once said I was good at following all rules.
And hell, if they were all jacking off to Shakespeare, it wasn't that difficult to just leave.
What else could "drama kids" be doing?
So, I ventured. I took an evening, and I told my parents I was at a study group. I asked a wandering guy, whose eyes and necklace both told me he was higher than I was, where the drama club was meeting -- he responded with raised eyebrows and a look of concern before finally telling me they met in the cafeteria every day after school.
Walking past the rim of "the pit," there were a few other people in the cafeteria, finishing up pieces of grafitti on the walls, simply sitting there to wait for others, but none of them were paying attention to the troupe at the front of the cafeteria. Meticulously, all of the tables that didn't have benches attached had been pushed together into a tetris-themed stage, and the gaps were covered with plywood no doubt stolen from the engineering classes.
Only about ten kids stood around the makeshift stage, and maybe three were girls. Hesitant and light on my feet to keep quiet, I snuck down the stairs and settled my things against the wall nearby. I could barely hear them.
One of the girls was speaking, her dark hair sticking to pink lipgloss on angry pouting lips. Her pale fingers worked to get the locks away from her mouth. "Really, I don't see the harm in doing Romeo and Juliet again. Sam's more than comfortable playing Mercurio, right?"
One of the others grunted in response. I couldn't tell who.
"B-But Sandra graduated," one of the boys, tanned like he was from Hawaii, stammered, short and shy and careful to push up his glasses. "And Sandra played a perfect Tybalt."
"We've done Romeo and Juliet too many times," another announced, putting one swarthy hand in amoung the circle as if to remind them he was there. "No offense, Sam."
"None taken," Sam responded, one hand against his mouth in thought. For a moment, I stared. How in the hell could someone's eyes be so blue? I struggled to keep up with the conversation.
"I think we ought to do Othello again. We've only done it twice."
No, I still wasn't caught up. I was distracted, staring in a confused sort of way at one of the drama kids, this Sam they kept referring to where he stood, hips cocked. He was older, considerably so, with high cheekbones and lanky shapes to his body, the open flannel overshirt and the plain white T-shirt seeming to eat him alive from how much bigger they were than him. His expression was intent, hidden behind his hand and a mess of hair that I suppose at one time had been long, but now hung in front of his face in awkward clumps.
But he kept talking, his voice fascinatingly low, half-irritated with the rest of the troupe. "I still liked The Tempest. I think we ought to do that one again. I might die if we don't."
And his eyes were so damn blue, like ice or crystals, pale and vibrant, cold and alive all at once, and I was confused.
My phone buzzed, jolting me back to earth.
"Sam, we don't have a costume for Caliban if we do The Tempest."
Ronny's name showed up on the front screen of my phone, alongside a little symbol that read twenty-six new texts.
Briefly, I wondered how long I'd actually been in here if I'd gotten that many texts since then.
But, I flipped the phone open. "Colin, where the hell are you, Teresa's crying. You said you'd be here, you ingr--"
"Hey, hey, hey, Ronny. Yea, go fuck yourself, I don't care."
Right. We were supposed to go see a movie today.
I flipped the phone shut, dropping it on top of my backpack, and I stood, moving quietly again. This time, I slunk closer, leaving my bag where it was.
Ronny could bite me if he thought I actually cared anymore. He hadn't even made an effort to talk to me without swearing up a storm since we'd entered high school.
And I was still confused!
ns216.73.216.238da2
