Biggie (13 page)

“I mean, we get a guy a number and he complains,” Killer says to Kyle.

What am I supposed to do with this? Should I text her?

“It's funny, Jet,” Killer says. “Now, you're the only one without a girlfriend in the group.”

“Did you say I would text her?” I whisper.

“I have options,” Jet says. “Don't worry about me. Just figuring stuff out.”

“Guys, should I call her?” I say a little louder, but my words are still being drowned out by their worthless chatter.

“Jet, are you talking about Becky?” Killer asks. “She wants nothing to do with you.”

“SHOULD I TEXT HER OR SOMETHING!”

Everyone in the Perkins parking lot, even the twenty-something married couple thirty feet away, freezes in silence. I just breathe and wonder when the last time was that I screamed in public. I'm not sure I ever have.

“Yeah, you should text her,” Kyle says. “This is a good night, Biggie. You saved a girl and she gave you her number.”

“This is how we work,” Killer says. “Drive us around, buy us Perkins, buy us beer, and we get you a girlfriend.”

“I didn't ask for one.” My voice returns to a whisper.

Chapter 23

A Text

“You need to throw up,” Killer says. “Do you know how to do that?”

I really don't, so I shake my head as a cop car pulls into the driveway.

“Craig won't arrest us because we play football, but he will take your license,” Killer continues. “He always makes examples of the non-athletes. Go behind your truck by the tailgate, bend over, and stick your finger deep down your throat. Dude, you have like three seconds go. We'll distract him.”

I can't get busted for drinking. Mom would kill me.
Damn, Henry, why do you drink with these guys? Okay, calm down and just put your finger in your throat.
It won't be that bad. I bend down behind my truck and stick my finger into my mouth.

“What are you guys up to?” the officer asks the guys off in the distance.

“Nothing, sir, just standing by a fire,” Jet says. “Isn't it a nice night, officer?”

As I start to hear the officer walking toward me, I bend over, stick my finger down my throat, and choke. Reflex pulls my finger out of my mouth. Two deep breaths and I stick my finger down again, farther this time. My knuckle passes my two front teeth, my shoulders bounce, and my eyes water, blurring my vision. Once again, nothing comes up.

“I hear something,” the officer says. “Is someone behind the truck?”

I start to shake. I have to do this. As I hear footsteps, I put two fingers in my throat as far as I can. My spine comes alive and tries to escape the ribs and skin on my back. I feel liquid slither on the bottom of my hand. It's surprisingly hot, almost burning my cold hand. I pull out the two fingers and bile follows all over the frozen gravel.

“Awesome,” Kyle says.

I look up and he's holding Jet's camera phone in the back of my truck bed. He must have sneaked in there while I was talking to Killer.

“I can't believe you actually threw up,” he said.

Kyle leaps out of the truck like the bed's on fire. To show off in front of his friends, he hurdles the side of the truck bed and, after a five-foot drop, lands awkwardly on the gravel. He uses his free hand to balance himself, but he still slips on the gravel driveway. Kyle wiping out brings more laughs from Killer and Matt, along with the officer who Kyle said could arrest me for drinking.

The officer is a guy named Craig. He's about five-foot-seven, maybe, and a durable two hundred pounds, probably a former wrestler. He looks old with his face beat up from zit scars. The stubble on his chin tells me he hasn't shaved for a day or two. He opens a pack of Marlboros and lights a cigarette. He takes a long puff and blows the smoke out over the flames of the bonfire.

Kyle makes the guys forget about his fall by pushing Play on my video—a fat kid hiding behind a truck with one, then two fingers down his throat. He has everything—the running behind the truck, the bending over, the failed attempt when I start to cry, and finally the puke flying out of my mouth like I am part of an exorcism.

The guys erupt with laughter. Craig grabs the phone to get a better look.

“I can't believe you finally got someone to believe you, Killer,” Craig says. “I never thought you would pull this plan off.”

Let me translate what Craig's saying: I can't believe you found someone so stupid.

I wipe puke leftovers from my chin. I grip my jeans with both hands and clean as much puke off my hands as I can as I walk closer to the guys and the cop. Jet has long since retrieved the beer from the empty field, and although none of guys are drinking, the beer sits right next to his leg.

“Are you all right?” Kyle asks. “No hard feelings. We wouldn't have tried it if we didn't know that you're always up for a good joke. Everybody is going to think this video is hilarious.”

I don't say I'm fine or that I'm not. I just stand there, rubbing vomit onto my jeans. My mouth and throat hurt with a sharp dentist pain. My cheeks are soft from the cold and the tears, and my eyes itch, like someone waved pollen right in front of me. My hair sticks straight up from frozen sweat. I stumble when I walk. The bitter taste of bile on my tongue forces me to spit, but the more I do, the stronger the taste of vomit is in my mouth.

Kyle grabs a beer and hands it to me. I don't want it. I need bottled water, not beer, but I take it anyway. He tells me it will help. It doesn't. The beer mixes with the bile and I bend over the frozen ground and throw up again. The bottle slips out of my trembling fingers, and beer escapes and slips and slides around small pieces of gravel. The smell churns my beat-up stomach and if I had anything left in my stomach, I would upchuck that too.

“You need a doctor?” Craig, the officer, asks.

“No,” I say. “I'm okay. I just need some water.”

“I've got some in my squad car,” Craig says. “I'll grab you a bottle of water.”

Kyle offers me a hand and then pulls me up. Upright, I use the top of my sweatshirt to wipe off even more vomit residue from my chin and lips. Kyle and I walk over to the other guys, who are still watching the video. Their foreheads are red from laughing so hard. They are probably watching it for the tenth time, while I continue to clean myself up.

“You threw up a lot,” Craig says. “I got a cold hamburger from Molly's in my squad car. You can have it.”

It's been two months since I've been to Molly's. To be honest, I'm shocked the place is still open without my daily food purchases. Since I have stopped running with Laser, I'm relying solely on healthy eating to lose weight.

“No, the water's fine.” I rip open a bottle of generic water. With bile still on my tongue, the water tastes dirty, almost like it was sitting in a bucket of pebbles before going in the clear, plastic bottle. The more I drink, the better it tastes. As I finish the sixteen-ounces, I feel all right.

“Biggie's losing weight,” Kyle says. “He's lost like twenty-five pounds.” Kyle rubs my shoulder like he's my dad. “He's going out for the baseball team.”

“Your dad's Aaron Abbott?” Craig asks.

I always answer yes to that question, even though it's not true. Aaron signed away his rights to me before leaving for college. He legally said he wanted nothing to do with me, but I still tell people he's my father. I guess because the alternative means admitting I was abandoned. That's a story I don't want to tell.

“When's the last time you saw him?” Craig asks.

“I've never seen him,” I say.

The entire group gives me a weird, confused look.

“How is it in a small town like this, you've never seen Aaron Abbott? He's at like every big sporting event.”

“Biggie's never been to a sporting event,” Jet says accurately. “That probably explains why.”

“You're just like him,” Killer interrupts.

“Yeah. People always say we look alike,” I reply.

“No, you act just like him. He never says anything. He just stands there and stares.”

“Shut up,” Kyle says. “I can't believe you're still mad that he ignored you after the state title game.”

“Oh, he didn't ignore me. He looked at me, just glared, like it was all my fault.” Like a stern father, Killer points his finger at all of us before saying, “I pitch a decent game. You guys know it.”

“I don't know. He shook my hand. It thought he was alright that night,” Kyle says.

“Of course, he shook your hand. You hit a three-run blast,” Killer says. “He thought you played a good game, but me, he just stared at me. Every time, I've ever seen him, he's just stood in the back, said nothing, and judged everyone. Just like Biggie.”

The words shock my system. I feel myself leap out of my body.

“I don't do that,” I defend myself.

Killer takes a long drink and says, “Whatever. I don't like him.”

My phone chimes. It's a text message from Courtney. She can't be in a ditch again. The text reads,
We are partying at my sis's. You should come with friends. Thank you for other night.

Wow, I kind of thought Courtney didn't like me. I followed Killer's advice and texted her, but out chats were boring, and she often disappeared after a text or two. After a couple nights of staring at my phone waiting for her to respond to some stupid question, I gave up.

Courtney was nice in person. She called me Henry and laughed at my joke, but my goal still is to date Annabelle. All of my hard work is for her, not some girl who goes to Waverly-Shell Rock High School, which is thirty miles away from Finch. If I wanted a long-distance relationship, I'd stick with my online girlfriends.

As I go to erase the message, I taste leftover vomit in my mouth. I just threw up, on purpose, and they have it on video. Plus, I think Killer's mad at me because of Aaron. I need to look cool again, and what's cooler than hooking up with a girl? Here goes nothing.

“Anybody want to party with the ditch girls?”

I hold up my phone.

Jet grabs my vomit-juice-filled sweatshirt and does his best to swing me back and forth. Because I weigh twice what he does, he does more tugging than shoving.

“College girls!” he yells to the starry sky.

Chapter 24

Are You Disappointed?

Texting with Courtney, I am able to find out some basic information. The girls are actually at her older sister's Jenna's house. Jenna's nineteen, two years older than Courtney, and a student at Coe College in Cedar Rapids. It's pretty impressive to live in a house as a college freshman, a feat Jenna pulls off by working full-time at a cell phone store.

The house is small, probably built in the 1950s. Not much to see in the front, just a rectangular picture window and a few shoveled cement steps leading to an aluminum screen door that Jet pounds on several times.

Jenna opens the door, yells, “The party's here,” and releases a strong whiff of alcohol. Apparently, the party has been going on for awhile.

Jenna looks like a skinnier version of Courtney. She also has shorter black hair and brown eyes instead of green. She's wearing a navy blue Northern Iowa Panthers T-shirt and jeans with just soft blue socks on her tiny, square feet.

It's easy to see that three girls live here. Every piece of furniture—from the coffee table to the two end tables to the leather couch—shines in the absence of dust. As I walk through the front door, I see into a kitchen that could probably fit a breakfast table and two chairs, but the girls left the linoleum floor bare. There are two microwaves, black and white, and a wine rack filled with empty bottles.

We take our shoes off and set foot on the carpet, thin and apartment beige. The room fills with the sound of a man singing country music, but I can't see a stereo. I assume somewhere hidden are an iPod and a pair of tiny, but potent speakers.

Courtney walks in, and I recognize her smile, but little else. She's bigger than I remember. Not taller, just bigger. She's perfectly round, not one part of her body an hourglass. But she knows what works for her. The guys' eyes go right for her low-cut red shirt, which she must have spent an hour squeezing into. It's tight, but not as tight as her dark black jeans. She's wearing white tennis shoes with blue laces.

“Hey, Henry,” she says and circles her arms for me to come in for a hug, which I do. I squeeze just enough to feel her D cups press against me.

“Henry.” Killer laughs. “Only his mom calls him Henry. We call the fat bastard Biggie or Big.”

“You already said that joke at Perkins, Brian,” she remembers accurately.

“Any of the college girls single?” Jet wastes little time.

“Nope, I'm the only single one in the bunch,” Courtney says, “although one of the roommates is with a cheating asshole.”

“Let me know when she arrives,” Jet says.

Courtney and I sit on the couch in complete silence. I'm speechless. I don't know what to talk about. All I really want to talk about is the red shirt. I practically have to grit my teeth to keep my eyes on Courtney's face and not on her big boobs. As I look into her eyes, I can't think of anything to say.

“Why aren't you talking to me?” She pulls me out of my daydream.

Earlier this week when Courtney didn't answer one of my texts, I was pissed. Now, the tables are turned and she's waiting for me to talk. I'm tempted to pull out my phone and just send her a text, but knowing that would be very weird, I just grin back.

“Are you disappointed?” she asks. Her back's straight. The smiling and hunching has ended.

“No, why would I be?”

“I don't know,” she answers. “You're just dozing off.”

“I'm sorry,” I say. “I like your shirt.”

Oh my God! I basically just told her I love her boobs. I'm screwed. She's going to slap me, and we're going to have to leave.

“Thanks, it's new.” Her smile reappears. “I saw the shirt at the mall yesterday and just had to have it.”

She has hypnotic eyes and an amazing smile, and, of course, the boobs, but I wish she looked more like Annabelle. Courtney has her tongue pierced, which is hot, but Annabelle has her nose pierced—a little silver stud, hardly even visible, but so sexy.
Stop thinking about her. She's with Killer.

“Do you think it looks good on me?” she asks.

While I should just say, “Yes,” I go blank. My eyes focus on her face.

Courtney's cheeks are dark with no life. Annabelle has freckles, not many, maybe a dozen, but I love how red they shined when she yelled at me outside the convenience store. All I really want to say is, “Courtney, you're nice, but you're no Annabelle,” but I can't say that, so I'm moving on.

“Henry.” She tries again to force a response. “Why did you come here if you aren't going to talk to me?”

“Courtney,” I say. “I'm shy.”

“Oh,” she says, stunned. “You seemed to say a lot when we were texting.”

Over her shoulder, I see Kyle tapping his phone on the way to the bathroom. “I have to pee, one sec.” I jump up and follow Kyle into the bathroom.

“Dude,” Kyle says. “There's only one toilet, so give a man some privacy.”

I ignore his command. “I need you to help me.”

“I ain't holding shit,” he jokes.

“No! Really! Why would I want? Never mind,” I go on, flustered, running words together without pauses. “I'm speechless. I can't talk to her.”

“Turn around, so I can take a leak,” Kyle commands.

I follow orders. Now facing a pink bathrobe hanging on the bathroom door, I continue, “We're just sitting there, not saying anything.” I rattle off the words as a hard, steady stream of piss enters the toilet bowl. “Now, she wants to know if I think she's ugly. She thinks I'm disappointed.”

The stream stops and next I hear a zipper connecting. “Do you?”

I turn around as Kyle pulls the sink lever for hot and then rubs his hands under the water like he's trying to start a fire. “Do I what?” I ask.

“Do you think she's ugly?”

“No.”

“Well, tell her that,” Kyle says. “That's a good icebreaker. I don't think you're ugly.”

“I'm seriously speechless. It's like writer's block.”

“Listen, Big.” Kyle starts a pep talk. “Where are we?”

“A bathroom.”

“No, what town?”

“Marion.”

“And why are we here?”

“She invited us.”

“This chick likes you. Okay, this isn't some online thing. She has seen you, talked to you, and likes you.”

It seems like Kyle likes Courtney more than I do. I can't explain it but I have no desire to sit and talk to her. All I want to do is stare at her partially unbuttoned red shirt.

“Can you just come and talk to her?” I beg. “I'm just really uncomfortable sitting with her.”

Kyle turns off the water. “You're uncomfortable because you like her. I was the same way early on with Michelle. Thankfully, she talked so much that I could just sit there.”

“No,” I argue. “I don't think she's for me. Don't tell anyone, but I'm just going to wait and see what happens with Killer and Annabelle.”

Shaking his hands dry, Kyle says, “Dude, do not, I repeat do not, wait for Annabelle. She's not that great.”

“You don't know her like I do,” I say.

“Oh, I know her. She and Michelle have been best friends since kindergarten, so I have hung out with Annabelle a million times. She's not that great. She loves to throw around insults. I mean, she's kind of bitchy. And, she doesn't put out at all.”

Kyle rubs his hands on his jeans to finish the drying process. “Why would you want to go out with a girl who is going to be mean to you and won't let you touch her? This girl, I mean look at that shirt. She's going to let you touch her. Hell, probably a lot more, and she's nicer.”

“If Annabelle's so bad, why is Killer dating her?”

Kyle just smiles and releases a slow, cocky laugh. “I told him something, something Michelle told me.”

“What?”

“Annabelle says she's waiting for marriage,” he says. “So Killer thinks he can get her to”—he stops for a second, tilts his head, and squints his eyes, before snapping his fingers—“break her vow. That's what he said. He wants to be the first guy she screws. They don't date. They don't go out to dinner. Well, nowhere but Molly's. They don't go to movies. All they do is hang out inside while Killer makes one move after another.”

“What an asshole,” I say.

Kyle opens the door. “C'mon, I'll help you talk to her.”

Courtney is still sitting on the couch, alone. She finishes taking a drink from a green glass with blue and red flowers painted on the side.

“Courtney, you know Kyle,” I say, so relieved to no longer be in a one-on-one situation.

“Of course,” she says.

“I was just curious what's in the glass, Mrs. I-love-cocktails-more-than-beer,” Kyle says with complete comfort, probably because he has a hot girlfriend.

“Oh, I call it a Courtney.” She laughs without hunching over, tilting her back. “It's part Bacardi, part Red Bull, and part Mountain Dew.”

My first reaction is, hey if we're ever out of gas, that's the strongest combination of caffeine ever. While I'm thinking about how long Courtney will be awake, Kyle keeps on talking for me.

“So, did you invent that?”

“Well, no, it's probably not a Courtney, but I love it, so I gave it my name. A guy made it for me at a party last summer.”

“Nice,” Kyle says. “Can I have a little sip?”

While Kyle innocently flirts with Courtney, Killer not so innocently flirts with Jenna. She's leaning up against the refrigerator and he's leaning toward her, using his outstretched arm to balance himself against the fridge and keep a little distance from Jenna's body. She's wearing a smile that looks voluntary. I draw a small smile when I watch them walk into a bedroom and shut the door behind them.

“Kyle”—I break up their discussion of booze and Cedar Rapids's parties—“looks like Killer's not waiting for Annabelle anymore.”

“Probably not,” Kyle says. “He can't control himself.”

“Dammit, I don't need this tonight,” Courtney says.

Her disappointment is quickly followed by the sounds of car doors closing out front.

“This is just perfect.” Courtney hops up to talk to her sister. As Courtney knocks on the bedroom door, three guys, none much bigger than Jet, walk through the door and shake snow off their clothes.

“Who are you guys?” one asks. Kyle and I are about to introduce ourselves when Courtney races back to the living room and stands between us and the new guys.

“Hey, Ben. Good to see you.” Courtney hugs Ben, who I can only assume is Jenna's boyfriend.

“Where's Jenna?”

“Holy shit, Biggie,” Kyle whispers.

“She must be in her bedroom, Ben,” Courtney says. “She'll be right out.”

I rarely talk. That isn't a lie. I have literally gone days without speaking, so even I'm surprised when I let “Awesome” slip out.

Now everyone is looking at me. By speaking up, I appear to know something. I seem to have information for Ben. He takes a few steps toward me, and I straighten my back and lift my shoulders.

“What's going on, Court?” Ben asks her but is staring me down. His face glows like a roaring fire. He starts to look rougher, tougher, slightly bigger and stronger. His muscles expand and, I'm not lying, he grows and his brown hair somehow transforms from a gentleman's part to a thug's crew cut.

“Who are these guys?” he asks.

“They pulled me out of the ditch. Remember, I told you about them,” Courtney says. “Ben, nothing's going on. This is my good friend Henry and his friends Kyle and Jet. Oh, I don't know your real name, I'm sorry. They came down from Finch.”

Ben barely listens. Now his eyes are focused on the kitchen. He slips past Courtney, who unsuccessfully steps in front of him. He disappears into the kitchen. We can hear him pound on what I'm guessing is Jenna's bedroom door. The door rattles so hard that I can almost feel the floor move, like we're on a boat.

“Baby, let me in!” Ben screams in between punches to the door.

“Have you ever been in a fight?” Kyle whispers.

I can't take my eyes off the kitchen or my ears off the pounding. I don't answer Kyle's question and he continues, “You're a big guy. If things go bad, just get in the way. Nobody's going to mess with a giant like you.”

“Ben, calm the hell down,” Jenna screams, still out of sight.

“Who the fuck is he?” Ben returns her scream even louder.

“No one calls the cops,” Kyle says as Courtney and Ben's two friends run into the kitchen. “Big, we got to get Killer and get him out of here. If the cops come and see us and all of this alcohol, we're suspended for this weekend's playoff game.”

“I was simply showing him my gymnastics trophies,” Jenna says. “He wanted to see them.”

“With the door locked? I'm not an idiot,” Ben says.

Kyle grabs the top of my sweatshirt, like a mother of a two-year-old, and pulls me into the kitchen. “C'mon, Biggie. You need to scare the shit out of this guy.”

We get into the kitchen and Jenna has all ten of her fingers clenched around Ben's shirt. She's pushing him away from her door like she's trying to keep a couch from falling down steps. He pulls on Jenna's hair so hard she falls to the ground. Killer just stands there and zips up his jeans, which destroys the gymnastic trophy theory.

“It's time, Big,” Kyle says.

Kyle's wrong. It isn't time—it's already too late because Ben decks Killer. As Killer falls, Ben's two friends grab and hold him back up. Kyle runs into the kitchen while Ben punches Killer again. This time, his knuckles cut open Killer's cheek. Kyle grabs Ben's arm and attempts to throw him up against the wall. Ben knees him in the leg, and as Kyle bends down, Ben throws his elbow up against Kyle's forehead.

“Stop it!” I yell.