Little Chicago (12 page)

Ellen Hedd suddenly laughs.

I imagine them nude together. He's turning her nipples like dials.

Fuck you, I suddenly say to Mr. Stone.

It barks out of my mouth like a cough.

Excuse me? Mr. Stone says, his face serious all of a sudden.

Nobody says a word. You can hear the sleet hitting cars in the parking lot.

And then I am crying and my face is twitching so much I think it might stick funny.

That, my friend, is a mistake, Mr. Stone says, handing me the letter back.

I put it in my pocket and just sit there.

He adds, That is a very big mistake. I hope you don't have anything planned after school today.

This means I will get an hour of detention.

This is not a good thing.

In the cafeteria I am sitting alone at Mary Jane Paddington's table.

Today's hot lunch menu is chicken patties or veggie burgers. I will pretend it is dog testicles and squirrel feet so as to not get hungry.

When Mary Jane Paddington enters the cafeteria, Andy and Greg Bauer walk up to her and splash her with red paint from a Dixie cup.

They call Andy and Greg Bauer the Crewcut Brothers cause they're twins and they both got blond crewcuts. They have PlayStation 2 and they let everyone in the sixth grade in on this fact.

P-two! they'll say. P-two at the Bauers'! Twenty-four seven, three sixty-five!

One of the other things they'll do is walk up to you and yell, Tornado drill! Get in position!

This usually happens when there are no adults around. Like in the boys' bathroom or near the Science Lab after fourth period.

When they yell this you have to crouch down in proper tornado drill position. If you don't they'll either thump you on the forehead with a knuckle or pull your underwear up your crack. This is called a wedgie and it's not a very pleasant experience.

They can get several kids to do a tornado drill at the same time. Once I saw seven kids drop to the floor.

After he splashes the paint Greg Bauer yells, Skanky titless whore!

Mary Jane Paddington drops her books and then the Crewcut Brothers run out of the cafeteria laughing like witches.

Greg Bauer makes sure to jump over the Paddington Pit.

Andy Bauer forgets to jump but acts like his leg is infested with
AIDS
and limps away.

The entire cafeteria is pointing and laughing.

The red paint makes it look like Mary Jane Paddington got sprayed with an Uzi. Some of it gets smeared on her books when she picks them up off the floor.

I go to help Mary Jane Paddington but she won't let me. It's funny how she's not even mad.

You don't have to help me, she says.

Oh, I say. Okay.

Then I just stand there.

Get away, she says.

For some reason I feel like sprinting.

I run through the other side of the cafeteria and go to the teachers' lounge.

My body just moves on its own.

I try bursting through the door like they do in the movies.

I use my shoulder and it hurts.

All the tables are empty. The only person in the lounge is an old guy with a push broom.

He's wearing all blue and he's the oldest person I've ever seen.

I am breathing like an animal.

I think I could eat a bug.

Who are you? I ask.

I'm Charlie, he says. The new janitor.

His voice is like a pencil on paper.

Where are all the teachers? I ask.

I don't know, he says. Maybe they went out to eat. They got that new place at the mall. The one with the waterfall.

I picture them all eating chicken wings and soaking their feet in the waterfall. They're laughing and their faces are smeared with barbecue sauce.

I say, If you see them tell them they fucking suck, okay?

He says, Okeydoke, and makes a face like he's lost.

Before my next class I have a bathroom emergency.

I am sitting on the toilet in the last stall.

Above the toilet paper dispenser, in red ink, someone has written the following triple-X smut line:

MARY JANE PADDINGTON SUCKS BIG BLACK DICK.

I imagine her doing this and I have to pinch my arm to stop seeing it.

The door doesn't close right but at least there's a door. The first and second stalls don't even have doors.

Bathroom emergencies are often a product of stress, I am convinced of this.

Language Arts is next and I have to hurry.

My insides feel all torn up and gluey. It's like I swallowed coins and gum.

I almost cry out from the pain in my guts when someone enters.

I can hear feet and clothes and breathing.

He doesn't urinate and he's not washing his hands.

And now there are too many sounds being made for one person. And whispers too.

I can't hold my stomach anymore and my gas farts out like a trumpet.

Then the door to my stall flies open and one of the Crewcut Brothers is standing there. I think it's Greg but sometimes I can't tell.

He is holding a Dixie cup full of red paint.

His shirt is so blue I almost touch it.

Fucking faggot buttfuck sissy! he says, and throws the paint on me.

It's redder on me than it was in the cup.

It oozes down Shay's sweatshirt and gets on my testicles.

When I look up he's gone.

I can hear him laughing with his brother as the bathroom door opens and closes.

In Language Arts I sit still and say nothing.

I think about my collection of fuck-ups and freeing my karma.

I imagine my head bald and icy.

When I came into class Mrs. Brill asked me what happened to my shirt but I had no comment.

Did that happen in Shop? she asked.

I just nodded and took my seat.

Mrs. Brill doesn't push you when she knows you're just being quiet.

She asks Derek Klein to read several paragraphs of a speech written by a famous Native American man called Sitting Bull.

I tune most of it out and imagine that he sits a lot and stares at cows.

I see him wearing a big headdress of feathers and bones.

I see him being a hundred million years old with a face like wet paper.

When Mrs. Brill asks us to write our thoughts in response to what Derek Klein read, I write:

Sitting Bull sat a lot and stared at cows. He was a hundred million years old.

In detention you have to sit completely still. Mrs. Ovitron doesn't even let you do your homework.

She's got big teeth and a face like a kangaroo.

Stillness, she says. Complete stillness.

Roxanne Peterson and Tony Randa are in detention for smoking. They are eighth graders and they always make out behind the high-jump mats in the gymnasium.

They are sitting in front of me and I can smell cigarettes on their clothes.

Blacky, Mrs. Ovitron says, Mr. Stone would like you to write an essay about why it is you feel the need to swear. Five hundred words. You'll place it on my desk at the end of the hour. Is that clear?

Yes, I say.

Mrs. Ovitron says, Get to work then.

I take out my notebook and start the essay.

I write:

I feel the need to swear because swearing allows you to use important words that you would not otherwise use. This is not good or acceptable behavior, I realize this fact.

My hand gets a cramp, so I stop writing. I count the words. It is only thirty-one words.

When I try to come up with other things my head just gets heavy, so I write
fuck
four hundred and sixty-one times and then add:

is not acceptable language for the sixth grade.

This takes me nearly the full hour cause I press my pen in really hard with each
fuck.

You'd be surprised how difficult it is to write the same word four hundred and sixty-one times while pressing your pen in.

When detention is over my hand feels like it got stepped on.

I turn in my essay and leave.

I look over my shoulder but Mrs. Ovitron is not interested in what I wrote.

She'll probably burn it.

I can practically see her getting ready to light the match.

11

I walk home on Caton Farm Road.

I don't stop at the construction site but I watch it as I pass by.

There are several men inside the unfinished house. They are measuring things and using tools. One guy has a hammer. It's the biggest hammer I've ever seen. They are all wearing hardhats and blond boots. The guy with the hammer sits and drinks out of a metal thermos. The stuff in the thermos steams up through the whole house.

I get this feeling that if they see me they will chase me down.

So I start to run.

It is sleeting again and my ears feel like vegetables from the freezer.

Mary Jane Paddington's Koren Motors windbreaker is making swishing noises.

According to Coach Corcoran my running form is sub-par.

Sub-par, Brown! he shouted when we were doing the fifty-yard dash. Sub-par form! Sub-par!

After I crossed the finish line Steve Degerald added, You run like a fuckin pansy, Chicken Legs.

When I got home that night I looked up
pansy
in the dictionary. The first definition said that a pansy was a garden plant. The second one said it was an effeminate youth.

Of the two definitions, I prefer to think of myself as a garden plant.

I decide to cut through Hamil Woods. The trees are silver with sleet.

I walk across the baseball field and stop at the Smudge Man's sewage hole. I dip low and put my face near the opening.

It doesn't smell like sewage at all. It smells more like mud and grass.

I wait but I don't hear anything.

I think maybe he's tuning his violin.

Or maybe he's time-traveling to the Himalayan Mountains many centuries ago.

Suddenly a bunch of blackbirds spring from a tree.

When they caw they sound like people screaming.

I almost fall into the hole but I keep my footing.

Here's your chance! I yell down the hole. You don't even need your violin!

I wait for a few more minutes but nothing happens, so I walk away.

At the edge of Hamil Woods I see the deer again.

It comes right out and stands there like it forgot something. You can see its breath smoking out of its nose.

I take two steps toward it and it just stays there.

Hey, I say.

Its fur is wet from the rain.

Its head is huge and solemn.

I take two more steps toward it. Nothing happens, so I take two more.

There's something wrong with one of its ears. Like part of it got chewed off by another animal.

Mr. Prisby will occasionally talk about the food chain and predator-prey relationships. Birds eat worms. Big fish eat little fish.

I imagine a wolf in the woods. It's got yellow eyes and a snarling snout.

When I put my hand on the deer I am surprised at how warm it is. I can feel a pulse in its neck. It's pulsing so hard I can almost hear it.

Up close the deer smells like Hamburger Helper. Its eyes are huge and liquidy.

So brown they could almost put you to sleep.

Then the wind gusts through the trees and the deer jerks away. When it jerks I jerk too and my shoe falls off.

And then, just like that, it's gone.

Like it got thought by the woods and then the woods changed its mind.

I stand there and try to follow its path through the trees but there's nothing.

I leave my shoe and keep walking home.

I smell my hand frequently and I am glad that the deer's still on it.

The houses along Black Road look like they're all keeping secrets. I imagine people staring out at me from cracks in their curtains.

My feet start to sting again and just before I turn onto our street I take my other shoe off and throw it at a car.

It's a green Dodge Dart and it looks very old.

The car is parked, so this is not such a brave thing to do.

But it feels good to throw the shoe and it makes a loud noise when it hits the car.

I almost want to go back and throw it again.

When I finally get home there is a man with tools leaving our house. He is short and has a muscular neck.

He also has a face like a pig's. It's red and swollen-looking.

Who are you? I ask.

I'm the plumber, he says. I came to fix the heat.

Oh, I say.

Tolstoy called.

Who's Tolstoy? I ask.

I think that's your little brother, right?

Sort of, I say. Is it fixed?

Yep. The pilot light of your boiler went out. It's happening all over town. It's pretty common when it gets cold so unexpectedly like this.

There's a black Swiss Army knife attached to his belt. Al Johnson was going to buy me one of these for our one-year anniversary. It was going to be a secret between him and me cause Ma wouldn't have approved.

It's called the Swiss Army Champ Utility System and it's got many functions.

It's got scissors and a saw.

It's got pliers, too.

I imagine taking the plumber's knife and using it for criminal purposes.

He says, You realize you aren't wearing any shoes?

I say, I know.

It's getting awfully cold out to be walking around barefoot.

My hand sort of reaches toward the knife.

You feeling okay? he asks, taking a step back.

I'm not falling, I say.

What? he says.

I say, I said I'm not falling!

Okay, he says.

There is a white van with lettering on one side and he points to it. It says
PISTOL PETE'S PLUMBING.

I imagine him in the van. He eats McDonald's and throws all the wrappers in the back seat.

Well, he says, I better get to my next appointment. Take it easy.

Then he walks by me and gets in the van.

I can hear his door shut and the engine start.

Move, I tell my legs.

Move now, I say.