Winger (34 page)

And I can’t even explain how much I wanted to rip into Casey about what I knew, and out him in front of his hairy, tattooed roommate, but I literally bit down on my tongue and went to bed without saying another word.

SEANIE AVOIDED ME THE WHOLE
next day. He wouldn’t talk to me in Conditioning or even at our team meeting at the end of the day.

We didn’t have practice on Halloween. Coach let us out early. Most of the guys on the team didn’t live in O-Hall. That meant they were all going to the dinner party, while the O-Hall boys would be the only twelve kids eating in the mess hall and then going home.

Alone.

At least some of us had costumes. And I knew that Joey and Kevin were going to do whatever they could to make sure we all had something to laugh about that night. So I just tried to not think about what Annie was going to be doing without me.

But, of course, that was like trying to not think about getting kicked in the balls right as you’re watching that foot make contact.

Things like this were really the worst part of being assigned to O-Hall, because as Joey, Kevin, and I left the mess hall after our quiet dinner, we could all hear the sound of the music coming from the activities center.

And I’m not going to lie about it, but even though Annie and I had made our commitment to each other, the sound of that music was eating me up on the walk back to my room.

I didn’t say anything to Joey about running into Casey the night before.

I probably should have, now that I think about it, but at the time, I just thought it would make Joey want to fight him. But when we got back to O-Hall and we saw the painfully unhot Mary-Todd-Mrs.-Singer standing on the stairs (which was the first time I’d ever seen Mrs. Singer in the presence of any of the other guys, so I was a little relieved to finally know she was
real
), I found out something that was almost unbelievable.

“Mr. Farrow is not here this evening,” she said. “He’s left me in charge.”

Which, I thought, meant she actually
was
going to cook me and eat me.

“I don’t care what you boys do. Just stay off my floor and keep the noise down, and none of us will get into trouble. Correct?”

I looked at Kevin and Joey.

They heard it too.

So, to me, the “I don’t care what you boys do” part was as good as a permission slip for us to go to the dance.

The Wild Boy of Bainbridge Island was ready to break free.

We ran upstairs to dig out the costumes.

“I think she killed Mr. Farrow,” I said. “Or she’s got him chained to her bed.”

Then Kevin said, “Maybe we should have stalled her a little longer to give him a chance to finish chewing off his arm, then.”

SO THERE I WAS, STANDING
in the middle of the floor, wearing absolutely nothing but those Pokémon briefs, when the door pushed opened and Chas and Casey walked in.

Chas just stared at me and shook his head.

“What?” I said.

But it really did creep me out the way that Casey looked at me, especially considering what I knew about him, and what he obviously thought about me and Joey, too.

God! That was all I needed after the crap I’d been through that week, to have some angry, horny, gay football player chasing after me, or jealously thinking I’d been having sex with the guy he was attracted to.

Casey Palmer was a dangerous psychopath.

“Your costumes are there in the cubby,” I said. “Have fun. You’re going to like what we got.”

Joey and I had left a bag marked
CHAS
, and one marked
PALMER,
inside my closet after we separated out the goods.

I didn’t really want to be alone with them when they opened the bags and saw what we got for them to wear, so I was glad when the convict-striped Joey appeared down the hallway, walking toward my open door.

“Joey!” I called, and he came over.

“You’re not going like
that
, are you, Ryan Dean?” he said.

I just gave Joey a dirty look, but I noticed as Casey eyed him, then looked back at me, back and forth, like he was watching a tennis match or something. And I wanted to say,
Dude, you have it so fucking wrong about me and Joey, you stupid moron
, but it was so obvious what he was thinking.

He was burning up. I could see him turning red, how his hands shook.

Like he was actually
jealous
of me, and in a totally, obviously gay way, too. I couldn’t decide whether it was funny, scary, or what.

I pulled the Wild Boy leopard skin up over my legs and tied the single strap on my shoulder. I had to tie it pretty loose, because the fake-jagged-cut bottom barely covered my nuts.

I thought it was perfect.

“Oh, yeah, Annie will dig this,” I said, hoping that Casey was paying attention to the fact that I
wasn’t
talking about a guy.

I slipped my bare feet into my running shoes and walked past Joey. “I’m going to go get some hair gel from Kevin.”

And, as I left, I heard Chas saying, “I’m not putting that shit on,” and Casey complaining, “Is that all you fucking got me?”

So I guess they weren’t totally satisfied with their outfits.

But they put them on anyway. And I don’t know why Casey Palmer had to tag along with us, either. He could have gone out with Nick or any of the other assholes from O-Hall, but he was making it so obvious—to Joey and me, at least—that he had some kind of perverted interest in hanging around us.

Casey Palmer was after something.

What a fucking dolt.

Chas looked especially ridiculous.

We didn’t really think about it that night in Bannock, but not too many women come in size six foot four, so he had to cut the feet out of the pantyhose just to get the crotch past his knees.

Then he had his own pair of Pokémon briefs on top of the red nylons.

I said, “Oh! Twinsies!” And I lifted up my loincloth.

Chas flipped me off.

He wore our blue rugby socks to cover the holes at his feet, then a white T-shirt we had marked up with a big blue
C
, and, finally, the cape, which, since it was for a kid, went down to just the top of his ass.

Yeah, Joey confirmed what I sensed all along: You couldn’t get much gayer looking than that.

Kevin looked great. He was all in black, with that hook-hand sticking out from his sling. Of course, he had an eye patch, and he’d tied his hair down under a doo rag made from an old black T-shirt.

It was a big deal for Kevin to do that, because his perfect blond hair was always, well . . . perfect. Kevin Cantrell had magic hair. It never even got messed up playing rugby, and he hated wearing anything that would put one strand out of place. Then he had a three-pointed pirate hat on top of the doo rag, and he’d even taken a black Sharpie and drawn a moustache (that was about half as thick as Isabel’s) across his lip.

Kevin was a great sport. He would do anything, even if it meant permanent marker to the face.

He even offered to draw chest and leg hairs on the Wild Boy of Bainbridge Island, but the whole permanent-ink thing was a deal breaker as far as I was concerned.

Casey Palmer just moped along with us, stung and angry, wearing that cheesy elastic-band-highly-flammable-carcinogenic-plastic Wonder Woman mask and dangling about a yard-and-a-half-long cord of gold lamé from his right hand.

And on that long walk across campus from O-Hall to the dance, I kept wondering the same few things over and over.

First, why the hell is Casey tagging along with us, and who is going to be the one to orchestrate the ditching of his ass? Second, it is really,
really
cold walking around practically naked. And, oh, by the way, third, it feels like my balls have turned into frozen raisins and the skin on my one exposed nipple has shriveled to the size of . . . uh . . . something . . . that’s really small and round. And hard.

Or something.

Brrrrrr.

And I didn’t even think, the whole way over there, that they weren’t going to let the O-Hall boys into the dance once we got there, but that’s exactly what was going to happen.

“Ryan Dean West? What are you doing out?”

The old pervert, Mr. Wellins, was working the door.

He added, “Fantastic costume, by the way.”

Yeah. Whatever. Stop staring at my shrunken nipple.

But I knew Mr. Wellins liked me. I could lay it on so thick when I wrote essays for him, and, of course, I had the highest grade in his Lit class. I knew exactly what he wanted to hear:
duh
, sex.

Why don’t other kids get that?

It’s never about what
you
think, it’s about what the professor
wants
you to think.

No-brainer.

“But you boys are going to get into trouble for being out of Opportunity Hall.”

I knew I had to work my magic.

Anyway, my eyes were watering already. I really did need to pee, even though I thought it would probably come out in sharp yellow ice cubes.

Ouch. Thinking about that made my eyes water even more.

“They gave us permission at O-Hall to come out tonight,” I said. “Because we’ve been very good, Mr. Wellins. You could call over and ask Mrs. Singer, and she’ll confirm it.”

Mr. Wellins looked like a judge weighing character-reference testimony.

I was shivering.

I said, “Oh. And I have my final essay for you on
In Our Time
.”

And I knew this was a kill shot: “I wrote it on the sexual tension between Nick and Bill in ‘The Three-Day Blow.’ ”

Yeah, I know. Too easy with a title like that, but I wasn’t going to go there.

I continued, “I mean, how they get drunk together, alone in the cabin, and Nick puts on a pair of Bill’s socks, and Bill tells Nick how he’s glad Nick didn’t get married. Very thick with the taboo of forbidden, unacted upon, and unrequited homosexual curiosity, I think.”

I swear to God, Mr. Wellins looked so emotionally moved, I thought he was going to start sobbing. “You are brilliant, Ryan Dean.”

I just made that shit up on the spot because of how much I had to pee, and how much I wanted in to the dance.

Ugh.
Now I knew I’d have to go hammer out that crappy essay before Lit class.

Sorry, Hemingway, but this old guy murdered some of your best chops for a generation of students.

Mr. Wellins said, “Well, it does sound to me as though you boys have been applying yourselves. Have a good time at the dance, Ryan Dean, and I’ll look forward to seeing that essay tomorrow.”

Crap.

Forbidden and unacted upon.

Sometimes, I surprise myself by how much of an idiot I am.

IN THE DOOR, HIGH FIVES
from joey and Kevin for playing Mr. Wellins like one of those balsa-wood-paddle-and-a-red-bouncy-ball-attached-on-a-long-rubber-band-with-a-staple-in-it-that-I-don’t-know-what-the-hell-they’re-called-things, and . . .

First stop: urinals.

So, I’m standing there, thinking,
Hey, wearing a miniskirt really does save a lot of time and trouble when a guy needs to pee. Convenient.

When I came out into the dance hall, I found Joey and Kevin, but Casey and Chas were gone, thankfully.

It was hard to recognize anyone else, because I didn’t know what kids were wearing what costumes, and the place was so dark and crowded. I decided I’d have to do my duty and fully check out every single girl there—and, potentially, every cross-dresser—until I found Annie.

I swung past Joey and Kevin and said, “I’m going to look for Annie. I’ll see you guys later. Whatever you do, try to ditch Palmer for good.”

Joey smiled and nodded.

Kevin leaned to my ear and said, “Oh, I don’t think Palmer’s going to be around us after what Joey just said to him.”

I looked at Joey. “What did you say to him?”

“Nothing,” Joey said. “Don’t worry about it. Go find your girlfriend.”

Later, I found out from Kevin that Joey told Casey Palmer straight
out that there were plenty of gay kids at Pine Mountain and that Casey needed to stop hitting on him, and that Joey would be happy to introduce him to some of the other gay boys around school.

He said it loud enough that people heard it. Chas Becker, in his permanent state of cluelessness, didn’t realize that Joey Cosentino was not joking.

A girl from the soccer team, wearing a grass skirt, glided up to Kevin and started cooing over his stab wound. Yeah—it was the whole stitches thing with some of these girls. Next thing I saw, Kevin had his hook looped into the top of her skirt and she was leading him out to dance.

The dance floor was crowded with kids dressed in every imaginable disguise. A few of them wore school clothes, which, I guess, was a kind of costume in itself, because there wasn’t much sense in bothering to pack a Halloween costume for incarceration at Pine Mountain. Still, I was glad for mine, especially when I’d get the incidental brush-up from a girl. It was by far the best costume there.

The air in the room was thick and humid.

I waded out through the pulsing, vibrating crowd.

I saw Seanie sitting down on a giant L-shaped sofa next to Isabel. They were drinking sodas. I knew I’d never find him dancing, he was so uptight about stuff like that. And, of course, Seanie was dressed like a flasher, wearing a long yellow raincoat with what looked like nothing on underneath it. Isabel seemed more than a little uncomfortable next to him and kept an obvious gap between them open on the couch. I figured Seanie had already played the want-to-see-
what-I-have-on-underneath-my-raincoat game with her.

Isabel was dressed like an octopus or something. I didn’t really get it, but she had a lot of arms. Oh, and a moustache, which I still found kind of hot.