Little Chicago Page 9

  In the kitchen the window is covered with frost.

  It looks like crystal spiderwebs. The field behind the house is frosted, too, and then the woods come out of the field all sudden and black.

  The abandoned Ford Taurus looks like it’s thinking. The FUCK is still there and now someone has added YOU right next to it. I’m pretty sure Shay was hiding drugs in it for a while.

  There was this time I saw her and Flahive crawl out of the back seat and walk back to the house. You could tell there was something fishy going on by their faces. They both looked scared and excited at the same time.

  Once I told Shay that I was going to call the police if she didn’t stop doing drugs.

  I’ll call the cops, I said.

  Be my guest, she said. They don’t got nothin on me.

  Then I said, I hope you get AIDS! and she slapped me so hard I turned a circle. One of her nails scratched a line in my face and it bled.

  I hope your foot falls off! I screamed.

  Then I ran down the street and hid at the bus stop.

  There aren’t many hiding places at the bus stop but Shay never came out to find me, so I guess it worked.

  I open the kitchen window and look out at the field. A deer is standing next to the car now. It’s staring at me like it wants to say something.

  Run! I say to it for some reason. Run!

  I’m afraid that whoever wrote FUCK and YOU is lurking around somewhere and they might hurt the deer.

  Run! I say again.

  But it just stands there.

  I watch the deer for another minute and close the window.

  I try and wash a glass but the sponge is frozen so I just eat my Pop-Tart and hold my mouth under the tap to drink.

  The dishes stink like fish and sourness and I know washing them will be left up to Cheedle. He usually does them when he gets home from school.

  Cheedle scores huge amounts of points with Ma for this kind of enthusiasm for household chores.

  On the kitchen table there is no note from Ma but there is a letter with my name on it. It’s in a small white envelope with no return address. I think it might be money from my Uncle Jack.

  My birthday’s on November seventeenth and my Uncle Jack usually sends ten dollars to be put toward clothes or school items such as books or Mead spiral notebooks.

  I think about this for a moment and I realize that I will be twelve.

  This is a dozen years.

  I’ll be like eggs and donuts.

  The birthday money is perfect timing, considering that Eric Duggan is no longer paying for my hot lunch.

  I put the letter in my pocket and continue getting ready for school.

  I open Shay’s door and I’m surprised to find that she’s in her room for once. When she sleeps she makes a face like her head hurts.

  Her room is colder than mine and I find it superhuman that she didn’t burrow under her covers in the middle of the night.

  I touch her head several times.

  Shay brushes my hand away and wakes.

  Hey, I say.

  She says, Hey.

  She pulls her covers over herself and groans.

  She says, Why is it so fucking cold in here?

  I don’t know, I say. The whole house is freezing.

  Why are you waking me up, Blacky?

  Cause I don’t have any clean clothes.

  Well, wear dirty ones, she says.

  Okay.

  Wear your Planet of the Apes shirt.

  I wore it yesterday, I say.

  What about a sweater?

  I don’t know where Ma keeps em.

  Hang on, she says, and gets out of bed with her sheets wrapped around her.

  She digs in her bottom drawer and hands me a black sweatshirt that says BIG DICKS FOR LITTLE CHICKS.

  Here, she says. It’s the only clean thing I got.

  Thanks, I say.

  Just wear it inside out. You can tear off the tag if you want.

  Okay.

  And don’t forget to brush your teeth. And scrape your tongue, you have dickbreath again.

  Then Shay lights a cigarette and smokes.

  Sometimes Shay will brush her teeth with Cheedle’s toothbrush. I have caught her doing this several times. Once I saw her using his toothbrush while chewing grape Bubble Yum. I tried to do this too, but it didn’t work. All the gum got stuck in the bristles. These are the kinds of things Shay does better than anyone.

  I just stand there for a minute.

  What? she says.

  Do you have my pants? I say.

  They’re still at Betty’s. I’ll get em tonight. Just wear your Sunday slacks.

  Okay.

  Then Shay blows the smoke into one of the Airwick air fresheners and sits on the floor.

  In the bathroom I brush my teeth and scrape my tongue.

  The water is so cold I can’t even wash my hands all the way and they wind up slick and mossy.

  I have this one cowlick that I have to wet to make stay down but I decide against it for fear of pneumonia and other cold-weather diseases.

  After the bathroom I go into my room and make layers. I use Shay’s sweatshirt and my J.C. Penney’s jean jacket with twice the stitching.

  I wish I had a hat.

  It might definitely help matters.

  I think about wearing a plastic bag on my head but this would be idiotic and noisy.

  But I worry about frostbite.

  Once Eric Duggan told me that if you get frostbite various body parts turn black and start falling off. He said he saw it on the Science Network.

  I imagine my ears rolling around on the floor.

  It is so cold out it doesn’t even make any sense.

  At the bus stop two kids are wearing snow parkas.

  Three kids walk up to the other two. These three are also wearing snow parkas.

  Everyone looks like astronauts.

  Mary Jane Paddington comes around the corner. She walks like she has extra time for stuff. I admire this and it makes me think of how I always feel slow and speedy at the same time.

  I have never seen Mary Jane Paddington on the bus. She is wearing many layers of sweatshirts and sweaters and a windbreaker that says KOREN MOTORS on the back. She is also wearing a blue knit hat that makes her head look huge. Her hair sneaks out at the ears.

  Hey, I say.

  Hey, she says, and nudges my shoulder.

  I try and nudge her back but I miss.

  She says, Pretty cold, huh?

  Her breath smells like toothpaste and cereal.

  All the kids in parkas are watching us like we’re on display in a glass case.

  You warm enough? she asks.

  Sort of, I say, but I know she can see me shivering.

  Here, she says, and unsnaps her windbreaker and hands it to me. It’s red and says BILL on the front.

  Who’s Bill? I ask.

  My dad, she says. He sells cars at Koren Motors.

  Thanks, I say.

  We stand there and make silver smoke. The windbreaker helps a little but I can’t stop shivering.

  This girl with a blue ski vest turns and stares at us for a minute. Her face is pretty and clean.

  Mary Jane Paddington says, What are you lookin at, bitch? and then the girl turns away.

  When the bus finally comes we get on first and go all the way to the back.

  They don’t let boys and girls sit together, so Mary Jane Paddington and I sit across the aisle.

  Her jacket is warmer on the bus and I am surprised to find that it doesn’t smell.

  In Math Skills Mr. Stone is walking up and down the rows like a bad-ass. Sometimes I think he wants to headbutt me cause he gets this look in his eye.

  Besides being the sixth-grade Math Skills teacher Mr. Stone is also the wrestling coach and he never lets you forget this fact. He’s always trying to bring wrestling themes into the classroom.

  He’ll say, If Ray Larkin, my guy at a hundred and thirty-five pounds, nee
ds to lose eight pounds to make weight but it’s Districts and the officials are granting a two-pound leeway, what’s the absolute heaviest Ray Larkin can weigh in order to be allowed to wrestle the match?

  Or:

  If Tom Piano has been my heavyweight and he wants to wrestle for me at one sixty-five and he’s been up all night wrapped in plastics trying to sweat off the six pounds he was over at weigh-ins, what’s his actual weight before he puts the plastics on, considering it’s not Districts and there’s only a one-pound leeway?

  It can go on this way for weeks.

  Once when I was leaving class he said, You could be wrestling peewee for us this year, Brown.

  I just stood there like wood.

  He added, There’s nobody light enough to wrestle that weight. You’re a skinny little runt but I’ll bet you’re wiry.

  I thought about wires and imagined breaking a phone and yanking all the guts out.

  Mr. Stone said, It’s a good way to get the girls after you.

  I said, No, thanks.

  Then he added, We’ll make a man of you yet, Brown.

  Today we’re simplifying fractions. Eight tenths down to four fifths. Nine twenty-sevenths to one third. Numerators and denominators.

  I think this would be a good name for a rock band: the Numerators and Denominators.

  While Mr. Stone is at the board simplifying forty-two one-hundred-and-twenty-eighths I take the letter from the kitchen table out of my back pocket and slide it into my Math Skills spiral notebook.

  I use the tip of my pencil to make a slit in the envelope.

  I am careful to use very tiny movements.

  While at the chalkboard Mr. Stone can get very casual. But if he suspects something going on behind him he’ll turn into a secret agent ready to pounce.

  All those wrestler types are good when their backs are turned, I’m convinced of this.

  After I make the slit I slide my thumb into the hole and carefully open the top of the envelope. Inside there is a short letter printed on a scrap of notebook paper.

  Dear Girl,

  It’s hard being apart. Will you come visit me?

  Endlessly, Boy

  PS. Don’t tell your mother I wrote this.

  I wonder if Al Johnson could read my letter from the windshield of that bulldozer.

  I wonder if it’s possible for people to know your thoughts before you think them.

  My face gets so hot it almost stings.

  Suddenly the letter is snatched off my desk.

  I whirl.

  Mr. Stone is holding it over his head.

  What have we here? he says. Are you writing notes during class, Mr. Brown?

  No, I say.

  He says, Perhaps I should share it.

  Don’t, I say.

  Don’t? he says, smiling.

  His teeth are crooked and loose-looking. One of them is long and sharp and this sometimes makes him resemble a wolf with human skin.

  Read it, Chad Orlin says behind me.

  Mr. Stone says, I should, shouldn’t I, Chad.

  Read it, Ellen Hedd says, and laughs.

  Please don’t, I say.

  Through the window you can see the rain freezing.

  I believe in lessons, Mr. Stone says to the class. A lesson taught is a lesson learned.

  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 swa
llowed 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?