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  “Because that’s the bottom line and Bret Hendricks said so!” I say, doing my best Stone Cold Austin impersonation, which nobody in the band ever appreciates.

  “You and your wrestling crap,” Sean says. “What a welfare white trash soap opera.”

  The fact that his parents make in an hour what my dad does in a day has never come between us, but it’s always there and comments like that don’t make it easy to forget, but I let it pass. “I won’t fight you. You’re acting like an asshole, but you’re still my friend.”

  “I was Alex’s bud long before you. I’m his best friend,” Sean responds, making it sound like a grade school playground tussle. “I’m his best friend, and you’re just his freak boy-toy!”

  “Freak boy?” I repeat these magic words. I held back with my dad, with Hitchings and Principal Morgan, but they aren’t close to me, so their comments don’t seem real. More angry than afraid, I dive at Sean. I don’t want revenge, I just want a break from this rain of ridicule. Since I won’t or can’t fight Hitchings, I’ll settle for his neighbor. Sean swings wildly, but I land a hard punch to his nose, which explodes in blood. Alex quickly jumps in and holds me back before any more punches are thrown, but I first manage to push Sean hard into his drum set and onto the floor. We’re sprawled on the floor, breathing heavily, when Sean starts laughing even as blood trickles over his lips.

  “Lucky punch,” Sean says, then laughs. He knows he could kick my ass; so do I. Lucky punches, like lightning, strike just once.

  There’s quiet while Alex puts his Gibson back in the case. Sean and I sit on the floor, about ten feet apart. After a few moments, Alex taps me on the shoulder, “Come on, let’s go.”

  I stare over at Sean. I want to be angry at him, but I’m more surprised than seething mad.

  “Alex, have you seen Kylee?” I ask, my eyes still staring at Sean, who has this goofy grin on his face, like nothing happened other than maybe my lucky shot sobered him up some.

  “I’ll check,” Alex says as he walks over to the basement window with its clear view of the driveway. While he’s on the other side of the room, I decide it’s gut-check time.

  I get off the floor, go over toward Sean, and stick out my hand at him. “I’m sorry Sean.”

  He shakes my hand, double pumps it. “I’m sorry too, but one good thing came from this.”

  “What’s that?” I ask.

  But before he can answer, Alex yells, “Kylee’s car is gone.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “The snotsmobile is snots to be found,” Alex says, walking back over and grabbing the Gibson. “I got you, but are you up for a visit with my sweetheart of the graveyard shift?”

  “Do I have a choice?” I respond.

  “No,” Alex says, and we all laugh. So the evening ends on a high note, which is all I’d be singing anymore if Sean had bigger drumsticks and better aim.

  “Let’s call Kylee from Venus and ask her to join us, okay?” I ask Alex.

  He moves his head, nodding yes, even though I know he’d rather say no. Loyal to the end friend.

  “Sean you wanna come?” I ask Sean, who has relocated to where Kylee was sitting, even finishing up the rest of her smoke. He shakes his head no, then I shake his hand again, adding a high five for good measure. As Alex and I start up the stairs, I realize I’ve forgotten something. “Hey, Sean, you said something good came of all this?”

  He laughs, then points to the trickle of blood coming from his nose. “I know how you can finally get back at Bob Hitchings.”

  “How?” I’m confused and Alex looks equally perplexed.

  “Let him beat the shit out of you and then sue his dad’s rich ass,” Sean says with a laugh.

  “One problem with that plan,” I note. “There’s a name for me getting into a fight with Bob Hitchings.”

  “And what’s that?” Alex butts in.

  I pause just for a second before I speak. “Suicide.”

  Sixteen

  January 5, Junior Year

  “What’s the problem now, Hendricks?”

  My behavior was severe enough for King’s eyes to make a rare appearance from behind his newspaper. Another day of English class goes by with us silently reading from the required novel, The Grapes of Wrath, while Mold King Cold does his required USA Today sports score reading and crossword puzzle. A new year begins the same as the old one ended.

  “None, sir,” Hitchings replies, reclining back in his chair and stuffing the lighter he’d been flicking in my ear back into his pants.

  “I want to change my seat,” I say, grabbing my books and jumping from my chair.

  “Seats in this room are assigned by me,” Mr. King announces. “Sit back down, Hendricks!”

  “No, I’m not sitting here anymore,” I say in a calm and nonde-fiant tone.

  “Do you want to go take another trip to see Mr. Morgan?” Mr. King asks.

  “No, I want Hitchings to stop trying to light my hair on fire,” I say, turning around and pointing at him. Despite the new tangerine streak in my hair, I don’t want it to become burnt orange tinged and singed.

  Mr. King makes the ultimate effort of tearing himself away from his newspaper and walking over to us. “And how is he doing that? By rubbing two sticks together?”

  “No, only Sean the drummer boy can do that,” I say, shooting Sean a smile, in hope that Sean will come to my defense, but he avoids eye contact. Even though we made up after the fight, there’s still some tension with Sean, and with Kylee. She told me that the angry side of me she saw at rehearsal that night scared her. We made up with a make-out session in the snotsmobile the next day, but since then, it seems likes she’s been avoiding me.

  “I’m not doing anything,” Hitchings says, the glow of innocence lacking from his face.

  “He’s got a lighter in his pocket,” I say, pointing to Hitchings’s perfectly pressed prep pants.

  “Stop looking at my crotch,” Hitching says loudly enough for everyone to hear. It gets a laugh. He silently mouths “faggot” for my fringe benefit only.

  “Bob, I’d need a microscope to see something that small,” I reply, and it gets a colossal cackle from the class. Lots of the non-water-walker students in class are laughing the loudest.

  “That’s enough, the both of you,” King says. I’m not sure who got to him, or maybe it’s just what passes for his conscience, but he’s let up on me since that rough beginning of the year. Maybe because I hadn’t bothered to fight or talk back again. I just took it, until today.

  “Just search him, you’ll find the lighter,” I say, still keeping a safe distance in case Hitchings decides to take a swing at me with one of the meaty paws now hidden in his pockets.

  King’s smile is crooked. “Well, Mr. Hendricks, that would violate his civil rights. From what I hear from Mr. Morgan, you know all about these constitutional issues.”

  Hitchings guffaws. I sigh, surrender, and then sit back down, closing up The Grapes of Wrath. I’m like the book’s protagonist, Tom Joad, with Hitchings as my personal dustbowl.

  I don’t bother to go back to reading, since I read Steinbeck’s masterpiece last summer. I put my head down on the desk and imagine I’m resting in Kylee’s arms. I don’t fall asleep, but daydream of a better place. Like the Joads, I’m looking for a promised land far away from Flint.

  When the bell rings, I make a quick exit, then wait for Sean outside the door.

  “Sean, what gives?” I ask. “I thought we were cool.”

  “It’s all good,” Sean replies, cool and clichéd. “Look, I gotta get to my next class.”

  “Thanks for backing me up in there, NOT!” I reply, not getting the hint.

  “What can I say?” Sean says. “I don’t want to get involved. You know that Hitchings lives around the corner from me. His dad and mine are pals. I just want to stay out of it.”

  “What if he’d torched my hair?” I ask.

  “You didn’t need me. You nailed him,” Sean says with
a cheese-eating grin.

  “What?” I reply.

  “You’re right about Hitchings, you know,” Sean says, leaning in closer, the smell of clove cigarettes still lingering from his before-school smoke. “I had gym class with him last year. He’s got a little bitty worm down there, not like the monster between your legs.”

  My face turns red as Sean gives me a good-natured slap on the back. “Thanks, I think.”

  “What are friends for?” Sean says.

  “Oh, one more thing: I thought of a little problem with your master plan.” “My what?”

  “Remember? Getting Hitchings to fight me for the lawsuit,” I say. “Even if I wasn’t at fault, I’d get suspended for fighting. It’d be my third strike, and I’d be out of school.”

  “Well, that’s one way to get out of homework,” Sean says as the bell rings. “It took some real stones to stand up to Hitchings and King like that. Sorry I didn’t have your back.”

  “There’s always a next time, so you owe me,” I reply, and he winks in return. I’ve got to do something to avoid there being a next time, since Hitchings isn’t going away. So, rather than heading toward second period theater class with Mr. Douglas, I walk toward Mrs. Pfeil’s office.

  “Come on in, Bret,” Mrs. Pfeil says, surprised to see me. This is the first time I’ve ever seen her other than as a result of Morgan’s prime directive. “What can I help you with today?”

  “I have to get out of Mr. King’s English class,” I say, quickly sitting down, and settling down with a deep breath. “Transfer me when the new semester starts later this month.”

  “You know that’s hard to do,” Mrs. Pfeil says, punching something into her keyboard. “You need to learn to get along with your teachers, even if you don’t like them or think they play favorites.”

  “Okay, fine, in that case, I want to drop the course, take an F, and repeat it over the summer because if not, I’m going say something raw to King,” I say, clumsily improvising a solution.

  “Which would lead to your third suspension,” she adds, although we both know the truth and consequences. “Contrary to what you believe, nobody, even Mr. Morgan, wants that.”

  “I don’t believe you,” I say under my breath.

  “Bret, you’re very bright, talented, energetic, and creative, but—”

  “Keep going, keep going,” I say, encouraging her with my hands.

  “But you’re only one student,” Mrs. Pfeil continues. “Mr. Morgan has to worry about the fate of eight hundred students here at Southwestern, so I hardly think he has the time to single you out.”

  “You ever heard of Delmore Schwartz?” I ask, not giving her time to answer. “He’s this great American poet who wrote a book called In Dreams Begin Responsibilities, and he said ‘Even paranoid people have real enemies.’”

  She laughs. “Point well taken. Not true in this case, but well taken.”

  “Mr. King doesn’t like me,” I remind her. “I want to make sure that nothing happens, so I don’t lose control and get expelled.”

  “Maybe this is a valuable lesson in self-control,” she says. I want to tell her: Look, lady, I’ve lived with someone who hasn’t had a drink in sixteen years, so I know all about self-control.

  “Then get me out of his class because I’m not learning anything. Look, a new term is starting and I want a fresh start. Isn’t there anything you can do?” I’m barely disguising my desperation.

  “You feel like starting the new year with some new goals?”

  “Yes, Mrs. Pfeil,” I don’t mean to sound sarcastic; I just do. But she’s right, it’s insane to do the same things and expect different results. I’m giving myself a constant headache running headfirst into the brick walls: I can’t fight, I’m tired of freezing, so all that’s left is to flee.

  “Okay, I’ll see what I can do.” She takes a pass out of her desk drawer for me to hand off to Mr. Douglas. For every King, there is a Pfeil or a Douglas.

  “Look, I’ll be happy just to get to a state college, but I need another English teacher other than Coach King,” I say, even knowing that I would need an academic scholarship in order to go to college to study theater. Dad has told me he won’t put a cent toward me studying “that acting crap” and I know most schools would much rather hand out scholarships to helmet heads like Hitchings rather than stage stars like me. Dad’s only offered to help foot the bill if I learn a trade.

  “Like I said, let me see what I can do,” she says, and I believe her, even if Stone Cold Steve Austin’s motto of DTA (Don’t Trust Anyone) is a good one.

  “I’ll take any class first period if you can get me out of there.”

  “Anything?” she repeats mischievously.

  “Okay, maybe not woodshop,” I say and then laugh, eliciting a smile from her.

  “You sure that wouldn’t appeal to you, Bret?”

  “I think I already know everything I’ll need to know about that.”

  “Oh?” She opens a file drawer, and I hope it’s to grab a class-change form.

  “My dad taught me that if you can’t do something right, do it wrong with a hammer.”

  She nods and laughs. “My father taught me the same thing.”

  “He’s also teaching me that the nail that sticks out the farthest gets hammered hardest.”

  “I’ve never heard that one,” she comments as I get up to leave.

  “He teaches me that every day, in one way or another.”

  “You see, maybe your dad has a lot to teach you,” she says as I leave her office.

  “I guess,” I mumble. My head hurts not just from my dad’s hammering and yammering, but from the hard truth that lies in that cliché. He’s not going to change and neither is the world, so I have to. He hasn’t been talking about the oil in the car, but the same stubborn blood running through both his veins and mine.

  Seventeen

  February 12, Early Evening, Junior Year

  “Bret—you sure you want to do this?”

  “One hundred percent!” I shout as I put the third and final box of books and videos into the back of Alex’s car. “Let’s get moving.”

  “Moving you away from Monday night TV!” Alex says as we speed off from my house to Jellybean and toward a break with my past. I’m selling my wrestling videos (except Summer Slam 1997) and my books (except Steinbeck) to get money to buy Kylee the perfect Valentine’s Day present. But it’s not just about money, it’s also about budgeting my time. With the winter musical coming up, the band needing more rehearsals, more shows for me to usher at Whiting, and Kylee wanting and deserving more attention—not to mention school—I need more time in my life. So I’m laying the smackdown on watching wrestling. We’re also doing this on Monday, since I want to make sure I don’t run into Kylee because some of the stuff I’m selling are gifts from her to buy her something nice in return. I’m safe because she’s helping her mom at the Food Bank, as she’s done every Monday night since Christmas.

  “Hey, listen to this new demo,” Alex says, pulling a tape from his bowling shirt pocket.

  “Another ode to Elizabeth?” I ask, already knowing the answer.

  “There is no other,” Alex says, popping in the tape and turning up the volume. I pull the fedora over my eyes so I can concentrate on the music. I dare not speak. Alex believes his demos, like his songs, are sacred texts deserving praise, attention, and then more praise. I try to focus. It’s obvious he’s written another hook-filled gem. I’m bopping my head as I scratch the stubble on my face, which I intend to keep. After Jellybean, I’m going to return the razor my dad gave me for Christmas, and take the fifty bucks over to Sean’s to pay him back for Kylee’s birthday-gift loan. Even though it’s February, I feel like I’m starting the New Year fresh and focused.

  Mrs. Pfeil is helping me with that, since she kept her word and got me transferred into Mr. Popham’s English class. The pluses are I know people in there. There’s Becca Levy and her buddy Will Kennedy. He’s always seemed like just
another jocko yahoo, but maybe I’ve been judging him by his clique instead of his capabilities. The minus is that the class is second period, which means I needed to drop Mr. Douglas’s theater class. I hated bringing him the news, but he was cool about it, reminding me that he’s casting the after-school winter musical Bye Bye Birdie next week, and there’s a great role for me as the Elvis character. He tells me the audition is a formality. He also wants me to get Alex to play in the orchestra. The thought of Alex in a tux playing show tunes on his Gibson is pretty funny.

  “What do you think?” Alex says as the song finishes. I know there’s only one answer.

  “Genius,” I say, and it’s true, even if my brain didn’t lie still while I listened.

  “You think?”

  “I know,” I reassure him. “Better than ninety-nine percent of the crap on the radio.”

  “That doesn’t take much,” Alex says, setting himself up to launch into another lengthy and lively rant about the miserable state of modern music. “Nothing is original and—”

  “Let me ask you something,” I interrupt his monologue, because he made me think about my dialogue with Kylee a while back. “Alex, what do you think it’s like to be normal?”

  “It’s like a sweater: it fits, it’s comfortable, and it’s boring,” he says, matter-of-factly.

  “Really?”

  “I don’t plan to get married, have 2.3 children, live in the suburbs like Sean, vacation in Cancun, that whole SUV-powered super-success plan.” Alex launches an all-new tirade, but his offensive outpourings seem to be a great defense against people who make fun of him.

  “And why’s that?”

  “I couldn’t afford it for one thing, and for another, I don’t have the wardrobe. I mean, look at me!” Alex, who isn’t ashamed of who he is, like I am sometimes, is quite the sight today. Ratty jeans, a Goodwill-issue well-worn black T-shirt with red writing that says “Spear Britney,” and new antique granny glasses. Unlike me, he has so many piercings, it’s a wonder he doesn’t rust when it rains. His growing beard hides his pockmarked face perfectly. “Why do you ask?”