Hero–Type (14 page)

I shove it all aside to work on my speech. I'm not stupid or anything, but I don't try really hard in school, so this is sort of like doing a triathlon after not working out for a long time. I'm using all these brain muscles I haven't used in, like, a thousand years.

It takes the whole weekend and a bunch of trips to the library for research. Dad asks what I'm up to and I tell him it's a project for school, which isn't a total lie.

By the time I'm done, it's late Sunday. I rehearse, say my speech out loud over and over again—whispering to keep from waking up Dad—so I can be sure it's under three minutes.

It's pretty good.

I
think
it's pretty good.

Will Leah think it's pretty good? Because not only would it be cool to have her take one step closer to me, but it would also be cool to have someone on my side in all of this. Someone who
agrees
with me, I mean. It's nice that the Council has my back, but they don't really
care
about any of this.

I call Flip on his cell so that I can read the speech to him, but he doesn't answer, which means he's probably in the back seat of his car with Fam. I close my eyes real tight and try to banish the image of their pasty, skinny bodies locked together.

So I call Jedi. I can hear his PS3 in the background the whole time I'm reading the speech to him.

"Sounds good to me," he says.

"Dude, were you even listening?"

"Uh-huh. Whoa! Damn! Almost died!"

"Jedi, help me out here. Does it suck or not?"

"Hang on. Save point." I listen to some yelling and screaming and bullets in the background and then it all goes quiet. "OK.
Vvvvvvvhhhnn.
Kross, man, it sounds OK to me, but what do I know?"

"But do you think it will convince people?"

"Convince people of what?
Vvvvvvvhhhnn."

Oh. My. God. If I could jump through the telephone line and choke him to death, I would do it. I swear.

"Dude. I'm trying to get people to think for themselves. You know? To stop doing what everyone else does just
because
everyone else does it. Or just because everyone has
always
done it."

"Why the hell do you care?"

I don't have an answer for that. I just
do.
Isn't that enough?

I try Speedo next. "You know what I've been thinking?" he says before I can even start to read my speech. "I think there should be
ribbons
... for
ribbons."

"What?"

"Yeah. Like ribbons for your car that say 'Ribbon Awareness' or 'Support the Ribbons,' you know? Wouldn't that be funny?"

"Dude, your tightie-whities are so tight they're cutting off the blood supply to your brain."

"I started wearing boxers this weekend," he informs me. "It's very strange that everything can breathe down there."

Ew.

"You need to chill," he says. "Everyone'll forget about all of this over the weekend anyway."

OK, so Speedo's no help.

Tit's my last call. He actually lets me read through the whole thing. Then he's quiet for a while before he says, "Kross, you sure you want to do this?"

"Why?"

I can almost hear him picking his words. "I mean, I get that you're doing this to impress Leah with how fearless you are, but—"

"That's
not
why I'm doing it!"

"Man, you've got a boner the size of the bridge s
up
port for her. And she goes hanging around with Riordon and his pals—"

"Shut up, Tit."

"—and you know that you don't stand a chance against any of those guys in a fight or anything, so—"

"Dude, shut
up."

"—you figure you'll stomp him into the ground with your mouth instead and then she's all impressed and everything and you guys go off into the sunset together, right?"

I sit there. I stare at Dad's bedroom door because it's one of the only things to stare at in this place.

"Right?" Tit says again.

"No," I lie. But he's right. I didn't realize it until he said it, but he's right.

"You really think any of that's gonna happen?"

"I don't know. I'm just trying to make a point. I just want people to get off my back about things. Show them that just because you don't have a ribbon or whatever, it doesn't mean you're a bad guy."

"Good luck with that." He sounds like he really means it.

"Thanks, Tit."

Monday morning, before school, Dad's gone and I watch a tape again. I still hate myself for doing this; I'm still powerless
not
to do it. I should destroy it, is what I should do. I should tear them up—all of them—and smash the cases like my camcorder is smashed and then I could never watch again, but I just can't bring myself to do it.

On the way to school, I listen to the radio: WIIY's
Morning Madness with Skip and Skippy.
And this is how I learn what Flip was
really
up to over the weekend, and it didn't involve negotiating the clasp on Fam's size-AA training bra.

"It's gotta be kids," says Skip (or Skippy—I can never keep them straight).

"No, man," says Skippy (or, again, Skip). "Kids can't pull that off."

"Are you crazy?
Only
kids could pull it off. It's so juvenile..."

"You're just jealous you didn't think of it first."

"True ... If you're just joining us," says Skip, "we're talking about the image that was spammed out to newspapers and TV stations in the area today, including our own
Morning Madness
anchor desk..."

"Located in the third-floor men's room, in the stinky stall."

"Right. Anyway, it's a fu—"

"Watch it, man! FCC!"

"I was going to say 'funny.'"

"Sure you were."

God, get to the point!

As if he can hear my thoughts, Skip says, "It looks like someone took a blow-up doll and dressed it up in some red, white, and blue lingerie—"

"Very tasteful," Skippy interjects. "Very patriotic."

"—and has it, uh,
her
posed with a, uh..."

"A marital aid."

"That's no aid. That's a marital
tower."
Skippy starts cracking up. "I mean, that's the biggest, uh..."

"Marital aid," Skippy gasps.

"I've ever seen. This thing needs its own zip code."

"And an altimeter."

"Needless to say, she's in a very, uh,
compromising
position with this thing—"

"Not that it looks like she minds."

Skippy still can't breathe.

"And there's a word balloon here that says, 'Keep it UP, America!'"

"Tell them the best part!" Skippy says.

"Well, the best part is that in the background, you can see ... Well, it looks like a car dealership, with flags and some of that red, white, and blue what-do-ya-call-it? Bunting."

"
Bunting,
" says Skippy, like it's pornographic.

"And a caller in the previous hour tells us that this is, in fact, the car dealership up in Brookdale, the one owned by the
mayor
of Brookdale. And Brookdale's where they're having all this mess with the kid who—"

I turn off the radio. I don't need to hear any more.

Speedo, as usual, is totally wrong. The weekend has made no difference at all. I get the hard looks that I've become accustomed to by now as I enter school. Leah sort of tilts her head as I walk by. I choose to interpret that as a quiet show of support.

In the media center, Mrs. Grant sits me at a table and points a camera at me.

"Are you sure you're ready for this?" she asks.

"I don't really have a choice now."

She shrugs. "There can be something wrong with the camera today."

"Thanks, but no."

Dr. Goethe announces "something special this morning," and explains that "our local hero" is going to discuss politics and free speech. You can almost hear a hiss throughout the school.

"And tomorrow morning, John Riordon will present an opposing viewpoint." This time, there's no "almost" about it—I hear cheers echoing all the way down the hall.

Great.

Mrs. Grant nods to me, and here I am, on TV for the second time in as many weeks.

"Hi, South Brook. I've been thinking about some of the things that have been said around here. The things I've said and the things that have been said to me. And you know what the best part is? That we're
allowed
to say them. We live in a country where we can say whatever we want.

"But I guess what's been bothering me is that people don't really feel like they
can
say whatever they want. Because if they say something that isn't popular, they're going to be yelled at or laughed at or beat up. And that's not cool.

"After I was on
Justice!
everyone in school wanted to hang around me. It was crazy. It was like I was some kind of hero. And then with a picture in the paper, it all changed. And no one ever came up to me and asked me why I took those ribbons off my car. No one ever wanted to know. It's like everyone was sharing one brain and one thought: 'Ribbons good. No ribbons bad.'

"Well, what's the point of freedom of speech if everyone says and thinks the same thing anyway? What's the point of freedom of speech if everyone is
forced
to say the same thing? Or afraid to say anything different?

"So here's why I took off those ribbons: because no one can tell me what they're for. It's the easiest thing in the world to spend a buck on a ribbon and slap it on your car and think that you're doing something to support the troops. But you don't support the troops by putting things on your car. That doesn't help anyone. It's not like all of the money people spend on ribbons goes to the troops. I looked around and I can't even figure out if
any
of it goes to them! I found all these places online that sell ribbons, but none of them say they donate any money to the troops.

"It's like ... It's like someone's making a lot of money on this, you know?

"If you want to support the troops, raise money to send them care packages and maybe try to figure out how to bring them home so they don't die. I did some research, and did you know that during World War II, people really made sacrifices for the troops? They collected scrap metal and old rubber tires to be recycled into weapons and stuff. They recycled paper for the troops to use. They rationed gasoline and food, all to help the war effort. They
sacrificed.

"And what have
we
done? Not much. We spend a buck on a magnet and we tell anyone who doesn't that they're not patriotic or they don't love their country or they hate the troops. We don't sacrifice—we just go with the flow and don't ask questions.

"And look, about the Pledge. People say it every day, but no one thinks about it. So what's the point, then? And why is it only kids who say it? My dad doesn't say the Pledge every morning when he goes to work, and unless your parents are teachers, I bet they don't either. So why say it? If you want to say it, great. But why should you
have
to say it? I've heard some people say that it shows you love your country. Well, that's fine, but you could hate the country and still say the Pledge and no one would ever know. Nothing would blow up, you wouldn't glow or anything. And if you don't know the story of the Pledge and what its purpose is, then, well, you're just mouthing the words. And then they don't mean anything.

"I guess what I'm saying is that I wish people would think for themselves. Don't just do what everyone else does—use your own brain and figure things out for yourself. If you want to put a ribbon on your car because it's important to you, then great—just don't do it because everyone else is doing it or because you're afraid not to.

"Because freedom of speech is pretty pointless if everyone keeps saying the same thing."

And that's it. Mrs. Grant cuts away to Dr. Goethe, who thanks me and goes into the morning announcements. Meanwhile, I've got ten gallons of sweat streaming down my back and under my arms, but I feel pretty good. I feel like I've accomplished something.

Then I go to the locker room for gym class, and I get the crap beat out of me.

W
ELL, NOT TOTALLY
. But it's not fun. Mr. Kaltenbach comes in just as two guys have me backed up against the lockers in a little nook behind the showers.

"Think you're some kinda hot shit hero?"

Bang—punch to the shoulder. Just a warm-up punch, showing me what they could do, what they
would
do.

"Whiny little
liberal.
Your dad ought to kick the shit out of you for the stuff you've been saying."

I guess they didn't read last week's
Loco.

I'm figuring I stand a decent chance of at least nailing one of them in the balls before they take me down when Mr. Kaltenbach wanders over.