The Cake is a Lie (6 page)

[1]
Eventually we
realized Loren made most of what he said up. But he told the best
stories.

My brain started freezing up, getting
stuck on repeat. I’m not cool enough to hang with them, I’m going
to make a fool of myself. I need to run away. You’ve fought through
this feeling countless times, I reassured myself, you always
succeed.

Step by step my feet followed Jonsen
off my plank of anxiety. We walked over to Janae and her two
sidekicks, Isa and Mia Illy.

For all I noticed they might as well
have been wearing garbage bags. I was into faces.
Well-proportioned, unique cute faces. And these were three of the
most beautiful faces I’d ever seen. It’s cruel that you can
recognize such great beauty at such a young age.

Janae and Isa were half asian, Mia was
white and the least developed of the three. She was shorter with
freckles and light brown hair. She was kind of a tomboy, loud, with
a big Buddha smile that she used a lot. Isa was taller and slightly
more Asian than Janae. She had a skinny face with a strikingly
serious look glued on. Quieter, elegant and mysterious.

Janae was the perfect combination of
the two. All three had mischievous eyes.

Janae, it was a movie star’s name.
There were 20 Jennifers at Einstein and 20 Lisas, but only one
Janae, one Jonsen.

You don’t get to be Janae and Mia in
middle school without a strong elementary school rep. Janae and Mia
had both ruled their respective kingdoms, Highland Terrace and
Sunset.

One of Mia’s teachers had
once failed her on a test, “You gross, ugly mother fucker, you
disgust me. I swear to god I’m going to make your life a living
fucking hell if you don’t change my grade.” She’d been written up
more times than anyone at Sunset. Listening to her swear, you got
the impression she’d been swearing since three. Janae liked to
swear at teachers too, but she also liked to give blowjobs, and
overdose on pills during class. Janae and Mia had first met in
6
^th
grade, on the ferry to a camp. One of Janae’s friends had been
telling a story about Mia when, in usual Janae fashion, she
spontaneously yelled out, “FUCK MIA ILLY.” So the whole ferry could
hear it. Little did she know, Mia was sitting two isles
away.

“
I’m Mia Illy, bitch. What
the fuck is your problem bitch?”

It was destiny. A year
later, halfway through 7
^th
grade, they became best
friends. Janae being Janae brought her best childhood friend, Isa,
to the partnership and all together they became known as “The
Musketeers.”

Always on the verge of laughter, they
were masters at hiding their anxieties. But Jonsen was a king, he
ran over and scooped Mia into the air, spinning her around before
putting her down.

“
Sup, girllss” Jonsen said
in his most teasing manner. “You tryin’ to kick it?”

They all laughed. They got a kick out
of Jonsen.

“
Uhhhhh.. Ya.” Janae
answered. She drew “uh” out as if Jonsen’s question was obvious,
then finished the subtle dis with her signature half-hearted bass
cackle to ease the tension.

“
This is Marco,” Jonsen
introduced me.

I waved very non-threateningly, two
steps back from the group. “Hey.”

“
What up,” they all chimed.
They must be perplexed as to why Jonsen’s friends with me, I
thought. They must think I’m really funny.

“
Missed my bus.” I gave an
excuse for being in their presence.

For a second Mia and I looked at each
other and really saw each other. Number 2s see each other. I knew
her pain, watching Janae hook up with the guys she loved. I saw the
way Mia looked at Jonsen. Mia wouldn’t be a number 2 to anyone else
but Janae.

“
Well Illy has to go to
soccer, but me and Isa are going to Isa’s house to hang out.” Janae
told us. “Her parents aren’t home.” I couldn’t believe this was
happening.

“
Tight,” Jonsen
replied.

Mia left and the four of us began our
walk through the empty school.

This is more like it, I
thought, I’m the shit, I always knew it. I kept hoping we’d run
into someone I knew, some 7
^th
graders. Even better, Robin.
But Einstein was empty besides us.

Janae and Isa told me I
looked and sounded exactly like Matt Robinson, the
8
^th
grader on my bus. I took it as a compliment, lots of people
talked about Matt Robinson. Except I didn’t see the comparison
because Matt had bleached blond hair and braces. They said it was
my voice, it was squeaky and high pitched, just like
Matt.

As we got farther from the school I got
more worried. We eventually stopped at a public bus stop. I’d never
ridden a public bus by myself before. I imagined myself getting
lost and having to knock on a stranger’s door for help.

“
How much?” I asked when I
got on the bus. I didn’t even have any money.

“
I got you bro,” Jonsen said
from behind me.

We got on the empty bus and took our
places across from Janae and Isa. Awkward silence. I tried to think
of something good to say. My usual questions wouldn’t impress
Janae. I couldn’t ask them if their parents were divorced. I
couldn’t use my pimp routine. I had to think of something perfect.
I positioned my lips to ask Janae if cum really cleared away
pimples but then decided against it at the last second.

“
So, are you circumcised?”
Janae asked me with a stone cold, studying look.

I smiled. Well, well, I mused, the game
begins.

“
Fuck that,” I replied
passionately. I was uncircumcised and proud. My mom was strongly
against circumcision. A trickle of confidence hit me, I got
this.

“
So you are just like Matt
Robinson.” They both shouted in unison before dying
giggling.

“
Matt’s uncircumcised?”
Jonsen asked, with a surprised look.

“
Ya. Janae tried to give him
a BJ once,” Isa chimed in. “His penis was so small she couldn’t
even do it. And it was uncircumcised. It looked like a small
elephant.” Janae kind of scowled at Isa to keep up
pretenses.

Isa thought up something bright, “Hey
that must be why Matt likes peanuts so much. Because his penis is a
small elephant.” The pair grabbed each other in stiches, their
mouths opened so wide their teeth stuck out like horses.

It was a battle of overcoming
anxieties, and in the face of their non-stop giggling at me and
Matt I officially surrendered. I was thrown far, far away from my
comfort zone. My penis was tiny and didn’t even have a single hair
on it. And that was before I knew uncircumcised penises weren’t
cool.

“
Peanuts?” Jonsen asked,
puzzled.

“
Ya, when he came over he
ate a whole bowl of peanuts,” Isa told us. This was not a good
topic for me. I shifted into crisis mode. I didn’t even go into my
usual passionate spiel against circumcision, and I truly loved
debating circumcision. Jonsen was circumcised, he would listen to
my rants about how most of the penis’ nerve ending are in the
foreskin. An argument my uncle would always passionately make when
the topic came up.

“
How big are your penises?”
Janae asked, staring straight at me.

My automatic reflex for this one kicked
in.

“
Six…inches,” I regurgitated
with my best poker face.

“
And you?” She turned to
Jonsen.

“
Oh me? I’m small” Jonsen
said with a serious face. “Probably two and a half inches when I’m
hard. But it’s not about the size you know, it’s about what you can
do with it.”

They cracked up laughing. Jonsen let a
big smile spread across his face. God he was brilliant. He probably
had an 8 inch penis.

I don’t remember the rest of the
conversation that afternoon, I just remember my outfit. Blue
sweater vest, dark green cargo pants. Short brown hair perfectly
parted down the middle.

When we got to Isa’s we sat on her
couch and turned on the TV. It was a nice house. Jonsen and Janae
sat next to each other, after a few minutes they were making out.
Janae pulled her leg over his lap and started straddling him. Isa
and I looked at each other and shared smiles. I was used to it now,
so it bothered me a lot less.

Jonsen picked Janae up into the air and
then pushed her down on the couch with his weight as she attacked
him with her mouth and hips. Then he started dry humping her
through his boxers, slowly in a circle at first, then faster and
faster. Soon he was dry humping the shit out of her, his skinny
butt was moving up and down like a jack hammer. Eventually they
went upstairs.

Isa began doing the dishes. We didn’t
say a single word to each other. I just pretended to watch TV and
she washed dishes. Eventually they came down in a frazzled mess.
Isa informed everyone that Jonsen and I had to leave because one of
her parents was coming home soon.

As soon as were out of the door Jonsen
started going on and on, promising me Janae and him didn’t actually
have sex. Confessing that he couldn’t get an erection no matter how
hard he tried. I knew he was lying to me, because he didn’t want me
to get upset like last time. He was babying me.

He told me the story three times, he
couldn’t get a boner so he just kept eating her out, trying to buy
time while he tried to calm down. Every time he told it I became
more and more certain he was making the whole thing up detail by
detail in order to shelter me. Because he felt guilty for putting
me in this situation again. I was so mad at him, not for having sex
with Janae, but because he was now lying about it. [2]

When Jonsen and I said bye that night
we both knew our friendship was over. Jonsen didn’t say “peace” to
me, he knew me too well. I was too far behind. I knew I’d have to
catch up before we could be friends again.

[2]
In actuality, he
was telling the truth and was genuinely worried and venting. Scared
something was wrong with him, scared she would tell people.

After Jonsen left me, it was a big fall
to the bottom. You don’t just make new life-partner,
best-friends-for-life overnight. Under Jonsen’s wing I hadn’t
nurtured very many friendships with kids my age, why bother, I was
destined to hang out with the older kids (A true social mastermind
learns it’s important to maintain as many relationships as
possible, even if you only have the energy and patience for a
simple conversation. You never know).

My only other friend was Avi Miller
(Duncan, too, but he was busy skyrocketing to popularity at
Kellogg). Avi and I met in grade school, but, he was in the program
for kids with smart parents dubbed “the highly capable” program.
Avi was really smart, he knew a lot about all sorts of things. We
could talk about history. More importantly, he listened to me with
fascination as I talked about history. He also had a great sense of
sarcasm and self-deprecation. But Avi had goofy, curly red hair and
a big boney nose. Not cool. He didn’t care at all about fashion.
Patterns, colors, size, none of it. He wore his dad’s old
sweatshirts or just whatever. He was complex though because
underneath his blasé clothing was a shimmering six pack. He was on
a very serious gymnastics team–Oh ya, being a gymnastic star wasn’t
cool either. Avi’s favorite thing to do was take his shirt off at
any opportunity. I couldn’t even look at his stomach when he did,
it made me so jealous.

One friend, that was it. After school,
I’d go over to Avi’s house and we’d watch MTV and make fun of the
rap videos.

“
Did you hear that, Avi? He
said “cut” instead of sex. That’s soo brilliant. Trick Daddy’s just
smarter, Avi, how do you compete with that genius? He’s just
better.”

It wasn’t a terrible existence. Have
you ever looked at a Magic card before? They’re
orgasmic.

But every morning at Einstein I got off
the bus all too aware that Mia Illy was thinking about some guy
that wasn’t me.

I entered a long begrudging state where
my feelings went into hibernation and the world got a little more
inherently sucky. I stopped scurrying past the cool kid circles or
taking my routes to class around the outside of campus. I walked by
myself right through the packed hallways and courtyards. When
you’re at the bottom, there’s nothing to lose.

I still kept tabs on Jonsen, on all of
them. I was an addict for the latest gossip, I heard the stories.
Jonsen was always fighting. He had a special feud with the Mexican
clique. Well they were mostly Mexican, they had a few short,
non-intimidating black guys too. I would get so upset watching the
Mexican kids mean mug people in the hallways. I was raised so
differently, we could barely coexist, let alone be
friends.

In 7
^th
grade, you won’t find many
guys as tall and willing to fight as Jonsen and Kace. The Mexican
crew didn’t have a real heavy hitter to match them, but for what
they lacked in a Hector type, they made up with in numbers. Kace
and Jonsen would take on their whole crew in the Cafeteria. Then,
after they all got suspended, they would meet up behind the local
QFC and brawl some more. One by one, Jonsen would fight their whole
posse, when he dinked one to the ground the next one would step
right up. It wasn’t even fair–he was so much bigger and athletic.
It wasn’t even that impressive.