Rotters (7 page)

I saw a girl turn to her friend and mouth in disbelief the words
special liking
. I nodded quickly in Laverne’s general direction and made telling head-fakes toward Mr. Pratt’s class. She seemed to understand and waved cheerfully, oblivious that half of the class waved at me in perfect mockery as I entered. Still, Laverne’s information had been useful. Anything to get out of study hall, where idle, bored kids were bound to start saying, or throwing, anything.

I sailed through Pratt’s class with no trouble; cautiously, I let myself nurture optimism. Calculus went just as well; Coach Winter, apparently a feared figure on the practice field, kept order with drill-sergeant authority. It was biology that I most feared, and that was where problems began anew.

Gottschalk demanded that notes be taken, and it was still early enough in the semester that students paid attention. The
lights were dimmed to facilitate viewing transparencies on an old-fashioned overhead projector. I was glad for the darkness: no one could see me and I could resist looking at any faces, Celeste Carpenter’s in particular. Between statements by Gottschalk, the only sound was the scratching of pencils. It was during such a moment that my stomach, empty for nearly forty-eight hours, constricted and squirted out a noise of at least six seconds in duration.

I clutched my gut and waited for the laughs. They came. “Lunch is one period away,” Gottschalk sang from the front of the room. The titters died down. I clutched my gut and made frantic pleas to God, even though they were what my mother would’ve called wasted prayers. About one minute later, another sound, this one like a blast of flatulence. More laughter. Again, Gottschalk reined in the class; again, a few minutes later, more elongated and high-pitched squelching. If I were someone more confident and with a cooler head, I could have laughed these off, even turned them to my advantage—I’d seen guys successfully woo girls by magisterially claiming their own farts. For me, it was too late; the absurdity was reaching outrageous levels. In a twisted bit of mercy, I could not fully concentrate on my own mortification, as I was gripped by hunger pains the likes of which I’d never felt. I had to eat.

I rode out the rest of the class by taking notes so fanatically they ran off the page and onto the desk. All I could think of was food: the distasteful spread of yesterday’s lunch was now my most fervent desire, if only I had the money to buy it. When the lunch bell rang, it was all I could do not to sprint for the door. I pretended to tie my shoes so I could be the last one out.

I staggered the wrong way down the hallway, applying one
hand of pressure against my stomach. Smells drifted at me from everywhere: vanilla shampoo, cherry lip balm, Cheetos breath, an underarm deodorant reminiscent of lime. My mouth swam with saliva. I heard shouts fade toward the lunchroom, footsteps, too, and then echoing around my skull was the last in a series of lockers slammed shut.

Laverne’s advice about unreliable lockers came back to me verbatim. I let my steps drift to the right until I found myself at an arbitrary locker. I looked both ways. My blood felt thin.

I pulled at the handle. To my surprise, Laverne was right—the lock did not hold. Only the lower corner of the door remained jammed in place. Inside the locker I could see a hooded sweatshirt, a backpack—and a purse. Just one meal and then the money would be returned, I swore it, and I’d slide the repayment, with interest, through the vent. I shook the door and it thundered like a sheet of aluminum. Too loud, though no more so than my stomach. I kicked at the corner and it crashed like a cymbal. I kicked it again.

The door banged open against the adjacent locker. Wincing, my stomach acids boiling, I grabbed the purse and unzipped it and looked inside. I was not aware of the block of sunlight on the hallway floor to my right until it was pierced by someone’s shadow.

It was Gottschalk, motionless, observing me through his thick and rippled features. I looked at the purse in my hand. It was dainty, sequined, and pink. There was no way I could turn this into something it wasn’t. Slowly I put the purse back into the locker and shut the door. I turned my eyes to the biology teacher, but all I could see was my mother’s shamed expression. My hands were shaking; it might have been food deprivation, or it might not.

“The ruling class at this school is not effective at applying discipline,” Gottschalk said finally. “They’re not effective at prevention, they’re not effective at detection, they’re not effective at sniffing out losers—in short, they’re not effective. This is why I do not involve them unless absolutely necessary.”

I found myself nodding thoughtfully. It was a pitiful attempt to win him over. I felt like a child.

“Mr. Crouch, I appreciate the difficulties of acclimation. We were all new somewhere at some time. But this, to be blunt, is quite over any line we could draw. Not that I’m surprised. I foresaw problems with you right away. It’s not all your fault, of course. As you’ll learn in class, genetics has a big part to play in each of us. Nevertheless, the onus is always upon the individual to overcome and transcend those genetics. Biology, Mr. Crouch, it all comes back to biology.”

I was still nodding. My neck muscles, made of water and coffee, wobbled.

“So here is what happens now. You walk away from here knowing that the next time you do this, it’s not suspension, it’s expulsion. You also walk away knowing you have an enemy and you’re looking at him. Oh, surprised? That an instructor can say such things? I am not of the new guard, Mr. Crouch. What you get from me, in the class or out, you earn by acting like a man. I suggest you brush up on your biology. Because every day from here on out it is going to be you versus me. Am I making myself clear? Any time I want an answer, it’s you I’m going to call on first. Any time I feel like assigning additional work, guess what? You’re the first one invited. Until I feel you have earned this back, this shameful act, you don’t have a stone to stand on, a pot to poop in.” The thick curds of his features straightened. “That’s the whole kit and caboodle, Crouch. Get to lunch.”

T
HE METTLE IT TOOK
to coerce my legs into action and lead me away from study hall was equal to any accomplishment up to that point in my life. I slanted my way to the office. Laverne was not there. It was just as well. I mumbled something about signing up for band. They told me that Mr. Granger, the band instructor, had a free period right now and that I could go see him right away. They indicated the direction and I slid across the wall until I was there.

Mr. Granger was a tall, thin man with round glasses and an abbreviated mustache. When I appeared in his doorway he blinked at me as if I had blood gushing out of my mouth. “I’m Joey Crouch,” I rasped. “I’m here for band.”

He beckoned me with a hummingbird gesture that reminded me of my mom at her most impatient. I collapsed into a chair alongside his desk. My eyes locked onto a dish of peppermint candies nearly lost amid the desktop clutter.

“Candy?” It was all I could say.

“What, you want a piece?” he asked, but before the question was out of his mouth I had three in my hand and was furiously shredding the wrappers. I sucked and crunched, closing my eyes, the sugar stinging my tongue. Mr. Granger crossed his arms and watched me.

“What do you play?” he asked after a while.

“Trumpet,” I mumbled from behind the peppermints.

“You have it with you?”

I shook my head, grinding the candies to pink salt.

“My name is Ted Granger,” he said. The introduction
seemed misplaced. I nodded anyway, thinking it might buy me a few more candies. “All my troops just call me Ted.”

“Joey.”

“Joey, you’re a transfer,” he said. “You don’t have the Bloughton drawl. Nor do I, as you might have noticed. Even though I’ve been here fifteen years this semester. Ted’s Army never dies—the troops might change, but the war never ends. What brings you to Bloughton? What do your folks do?”

They were questions best avoided. I busied myself with using a pinkie to dislodge peppermint from a molar. He slapped his hands against the gray slacks pleated across slender thighs. “I’ve got a loaner horn. Come on, let’s see what you can do.”

Belly buzzing with syrup, I moved to an empty chair before a lowered music stand. Ted put a trumpet in my hands and sat slightly behind me.

“Play me a C scale,” he said. I raised the instrument. The mouthpiece looked like home and I brought it to my mouth. I blew, feeling the tightness of my lips lock into the C. Once I heard the note, I held it—within was the sight of Boris emptying his spit valve in the next chair over, the smell of my old bedroom where I’d practiced, the sound of my mother in the next room humming an echo to my every note. This was
her
instrument. Even dead, she could still save me. The note kept on, strong, for fifteen or twenty seconds. Finally it lost consistency and fractured. I opened my eyes and sat there panting.

“Well, we’ve established that you can play the hell out of C,” Ted said.

I gave him the scale he wanted, ascending C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C, and racing back down. I burned through another few
scales and then dodged around as Ted looked me over. “I hope you don’t have braces,” he said. “You’re smashing your lips to the metal like you’re trying to french it.” He set a piece of paper before me, barred and dotted. I played through it the best I could, my fingertips sensing the instrument’s need for valve oil, the minute dents that pocked its shell. “Posture,” said Ted. “Your diaphragm has a purpose, you know.” Vibration anesthetized my lips, but even the bad notes sounded good; I played faster. “Medium pressure, medium pressure,” Ted said. “What’s with the chipmunk cheeks? Keep those things flat.” As fast as I wanted to play, as hard as I wanted to keep up the illusion, the song was fragmenting and my fingers were turning to butter. The dots on the page ran from me like bugs. “Firm your corners, Joey. Did I just see you breathe through your nose?”

I shook my head and started over at the first line: C, C, G, B-flat, C. My fingers—thief’s fingers, now—missed some of them entirely. I circled back: C, C, G, B-flat, C—I could hold on to nothing. The cracks in the illusion were huge now: this man next to me was a stranger, my mother was dead, Boris was gone, Chicago had been wiped off the map. C, C, G, B-flat, C—

And this time I hit all of them. A moment later I realized that Ted’s fingers were delicately moving atop my own, guiding them up and down with nearly imperceptible pressure. “I don’t know what you’re used to, but Ted’s Army is very small,” he said. His fingers continued imploring. “But we can use you. You missed camp, of course, but I bet you catch on quick. Individual practice is once or twice a week, depending. We meet as a group on Fridays, then for three hours every other day after school. Next week we have our first football game, though if you need to sit that one out, so be it.” At some
point his thin fingers had retracted just enough so that only the weight of their shadows transferred their magic. I sounded good.

I stopped and looked at him, lips stunned, throat raw, and lungs aching. Hope, the most painful feeling of all, flickered somewhere even deeper.

D
URING THE BREAK BEFORE
my final class I nearly ran into Woody and some of his gang. I veered quickly, hoping he didn’t see me. Too late. “Crotch!” one of them hollered.

I kept moving. The clatter of lockers buried much of the guttural laughter. “Where’s the fire, Crotch?” called someone else. I stopped at my locker to dump off some of Ted’s paperwork. They swept toward me, a male chorus: “Crooooootch!” A hand swatted my locker door shut; it barely missed my nose. I focused on my shoes and made them move, right, left, one foot after another. A girl’s voice, now, apprehensive but bubbling: “How’s it hanging, Crotch?”

One foot after another, around the corner, my unfortunate nickname chirping in my wake. From the corner of my eye I saw the wall of flesh called Rhino. I watched my feet pick up speed.

“Crotch,” Rhino purred pleasantly. There was a blur of motion. Then my testicles seemed to explode. My folder dropped from my hand; distantly I saw multicolored paper, including Laverne’s salmon packet, fan across the tile. Heat knifed my gut. Cold tears sprang from my eyes. My hands instinctively clasped at my balls. There was laughter but it was
muted in a storm of pain. I took a shuddering step to the side and my foot landed on one of the salmon-colored papers and slid out from under me. I fell to my knees. Blood: I swore I could feel it pumping from my ruptured scrotum. My body curled in on itself like a worm.

The bell rang. Somewhere a class was beginning without me. My hot forehead pivoted against the cold floor. “Crotch”—I should have seen this coming. The rest of the week, the month, the year: the horror film of my life played out before me. I would never be safe.

I hauled myself up with help from a fire extinguisher. Not caring who might be watching, I stuck a gentle hand down the front of my shorts and checked for damage. There was only swelling. I limped down the hall and gingerly lowered myself down twenty stairs. The cafeteria, the pay phone—it took me five more minutes to get there. I prayed for enough money in the return-change slot to augment the change in my pocket. A miracle: it was there. I gripped the icy coins in my sweaty fist and almost cried.

Quarters and dimes rattled home. My finger banged through a familiar sequence.

“Boris here.”

“Boris!” My voice sounded throttled. “It’s Joey.”

“Joey, shit. I didn’t recognize the number,” he said. “How you doing? You’re in luck, they let us sit outside for study hall. Everyone’s texting and shit. Mr. Tepper doesn’t even care, it’s great.”

“Great,” I said, my shoulders quaking. Boris
did
sound great, so normal, so happy. I knew the meager hill of sun-blasted grass that he was sitting on and could almost feel its dog-pelt texture.

“So what’s up? How’s Iowa?”

I snorted back tears and tried to focus on the doodles of penises and breasts that covered the base of the phone. “It’s bad, Boris. I want to come home.”