If It Bleeds Page 14
But he wouldn’t, appropriate or not. He was dead.
I went home.
* * *
In September of 2009, I started school at Gates Falls Middle along with my friends Margie, Regina, and Billy. We rode in a little used bus which quickly earned us the jeering nickname of Short Bus Kids from the Gates kids. I eventually got taller (although I stopped two inches short of six feet, which sort of broke my heart), but on that first day of school, I was the shortest kid in the eighth grade. Which made me a perfect target for Kenny Yanko, a hulking troublemaker who had been kept back that year and whose picture should have been in the dictionary next to the word bully.
Our first class wasn’t a class at all, but a school assembly for the new kids from the so-called “tuition towns” of Harlow, Motton, and Shiloh Church. The principal that year (and for many years to come) was a tall, shambling fellow with a bald head so shiny it looked Simonized. This was Mr. Albert Douglas, known to the kids as either Alkie Al or Dipso Doug. None of the kids had ever actually seen him loaded, but it was an article of faith back then that he drank like a fish.
He took the podium, welcomed “this group of fine new students” to Gates Falls Middle, and told us about all the wonderful things that awaited us in the coming academic year. These included band, glee club, debate club, photography club, Future Farmers of America, and all the sports we could handle (as long as they were baseball, track, soccer, or lacrosse—there would be no football option until high school). He explained about Dress-Up Fridays once a month, when boys would be expected to wear ties and sport jackets and girls would be expected to wear dresses (no hems more than two inches above the knee, please). Last of all, he told us there was to be absolutely no initiations of the new out-of-town students. Us, in other words. Apparently the year before, a transfer student from Vermont had wound up in Central Maine General after being forced to chug-a-lug three bottles of Gatorade, and now the tradition had been banned. Then he wished us well and sent us off on what he called “our academic adventure.”
My fears about getting lost in this huge new school turned out to be groundless, because it really wasn’t huge at all. All my classes except for period-seven English were on the second floor, and I liked all my teachers. I had been scared of math class, but it turned out we were picking up pretty much where I’d left off, so that was okay. I was feeling pretty good about the whole thing until the four-minute change of classes between period six and period seven.
I headed down the hall to the stairs, past slamming lockers, gabbing kids, and the smell of Beefaroni from the cafeteria. I had just reached the top of the stairs when a hand grabbed me. “Hey, new boy. Not so fast.”
I turned and saw a six-foot troll with an acne-blasted face. His black hair hung down to his shoulders in greasy clumps. Small dark eyes peered out at me from beneath a protruding shelf of forehead. They were filled with bogus merriment. He was wearing stovepipe jeans and scuffed biker boots. In one hand he held a paper bag.
“Take it.”
Clueless, I took it. Kids were hurrying past me and down the stairs, some with quick sideways glances at the kid with the long black hair.
“Look inside.”
I did. There was a rag, a brush, and a can of Kiwi boot polish. I tried to hand the bag back. “I have to get to class.”
“Uh-uh, new boy. Not until you shine my boots.”
Clueless no more. It was an initiation stunt, and although expressly forbidden by the principal just that morning, I thought about doing it. Then I thought about all the kids hurrying downstairs past us. They would see the little country boy from Harlow on his knees with that rag and brush and can of polish. The story would spread fast. Yet I still might have done it, because this kid was much bigger than I was, and I didn’t like the look in his eyes. I would love to beat the shit out of you, that look said. Just give me an excuse, new boy.
Then I thought of what Mr. Harrigan would think if he ever saw me down on my knees, humbly shining this oaf’s shoes.
“No,” I said.
“No’s a mistake you don’t want to make,” the kid said. “You better fucking believe it.”
“Boys? Say, boys? Is there a problem here?”
It was Ms. Hargensen, my earth science teacher. She was young and pretty, couldn’t have been long out of college, but she had an air of confidence about her that said she took no shit.
The big boy shook his head: no problem here.
“All good,” I said, handing the bag back to its owner.
“What’s your name?” Ms. Hargensen asked. She wasn’t looking at me.
“Kenny Yanko.”
“And what’s in your bag, Kenny?”
“Nothing.”
“It wouldn’t be an initiation kit, would it?”
“No,” he said. “I gotta go to class.”
I did, too. The crowd of kids going downstairs was thinning out, and pretty soon the bell was going to ring.
“I’m sure you do, Kenny, but one more second.” She switched her attention to me. “Craig, right?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“What’s in that bag, Craig? I’m curious.”
I thought of telling her. Not out of any Boy Scout honesty-is-the-best-policy bullshit, but because he had scared me and now I was pissed off. And (might as well admit it) because I had an adult here to run interference. Then I thought, How would Mr. Harrigan handle this? Would he snitch?
“The rest of his lunch,” I said. “Half a sandwich. He asked me if I wanted it.”
If she had taken the bag and looked inside, we both would have been in trouble, but she didn’t . . . although I bet she knew. She just told us to get to class and went clicking away on her medium just-right-for-school heels.
I started down the stairs, and Kenny Yanko grabbed me again. “You should have shined em, new boy.”
That pissed me off more. “I just saved your ass. You should be saying thank you.”
He flushed, which did not complement all those erupting volcanos on his face. “You should have shined em.” He started away, then turned back, still holding his stupid paper bag. “Fuck your thanks, new boy. And fuck you.”
A week later, Kenny Yanko got into it with Mr. Arsenault, the woodshop teacher, and hucked a hand sander at him. Kenny had had no less than three suspensions during his two years at Gates Falls Middle—after my confrontation with him at the top of the stairs, I found out he was sort of a legend—and that was the last straw. He was expelled, and I thought my problems with him were over.
* * *
Like most smalltown schools, Gates Falls Middle was very big on traditions. Dress-Up Fridays was just one of many. There was Carrying the Boot (which meant standing in front of the IGA and asking for contributions to the fire department), and Doing the Mile (running around the gym twenty times in phys ed), and singing the school song at the monthly assemblies.
Another of these traditions was the Autumn Dance, a Sadie Hawkins kind of deal where the girls were supposed to ask the boys. Margie Washburn asked me, and of course I said yes, because I wanted to go on being friends with her even though I didn’t like her, you know, that way. I asked my dad to drive us, which he was more than happy to do. Regina Michaels asked Billy Bogan, so it was a double date. It was especially good because Regina whispered to me in study hall that she’d only asked Billy because he was my friend.