Burn (3 page)

“Hey, Cameron.”

“Hey.” Cameron doesn’t know any of their names. What’s the point? He’ll never be one of them.
Different philosophies,
he thinks. Cameron was raised by a man who screamed at him if he cried. But there’s more than that of his father in him. Every time he sees one of them, wrapped in all their black, he thinks,
Crybabies.
He wonders,
If life is so bad for them, then why don’t they end it?
He wants to know if they ever thought about it. Fading to black.

Cameron jogs past them, takes the steps two at a time, and pushes through the doors. It’s standing room only. All the kids who are usually outside, chatting or cramming last minute homework into notebooks, are knotted in the halls. Their laughter sounds like breaking glass.

He weaves through them, his head up, his eyes scanning faces. He doesn’t run. If he sees Patterson or his chump friends, he keeps his pace and looks for a hall or a door he can turn into. That’s not running; it’s dodging bullets.

He catches pieces of conversation. The girls talk about clothes, phone calls, and what they want to do over the weekend. The boys talk about the game the night before, whose pants they want to get into, and jokes they heard from their fathers.

He could talk about those things, too. He likes baseball and never misses a Pirates game. But he doesn’t look like a player. Unless you look the part, no one listens to you.

No one respects you.

There isn’t a girl he’s interested in. Not yet. But he could make that part up; most of the guys do anyway. Cameron is sure of this because some of the stories he’s heard are too fantastic to be true. Like Jumbo Harris making it with two girls at the same time. He doesn’t believe that. Girls giving head in the boys’ bathroom, he heard that a few weeks ago, and believes it. He’s been in there and heard giggling. It wouldn’t take much to create a story someone would believe. The jokes, maybe he could get a few from Randy.

But none of this really matters, because he has no one to tell a story to.

Cameron turns the corner and just his luck, Rich Patterson is there, leaning against a locker, hovering over a girl.
Probably a cheerleader.
Cameron can’t see her; Patterson’s body blocks hers, but he’s playing with her hair, a long ponytail the color of a caramel apple.

The girl laughs, her voice bubbling up from her throat, and Cameron thinks she sounds like one of those garden fountains. It’s beautiful and he gets lost in it for a minute, forgetting where he is and who he’s looking at. Who made her laugh like that.

Patterson is good at just about everything. And that really sucks.

A group of kids passes between them, breaking Cameron’s paralysis. He pivots on his heel and heads back the way he came. Fast enough. Patterson couldn’t have seen him. He walks the long way through the crowded halls, sliding between warm bodies made musty with rain and absorbing the sounds of life as though through a filter.

Sometimes words are so close he feels them on his skin; sometimes he reaches for them and they slip between his fingers. It’s like living painfully aware of everything around you, and the next minute knowing you’re drawing your last breath. There is no middle ground, no comfort, no escape.

He skirts a group of kids talking, laughing, and turns down freshman hall and runs right into two Red Coats — jock jackets. Patterson and his sidekick, Murphy.

“It’s Cameron Diaz,” Rich says, like he’s happy to see him.

“You’re all wet,” Murphy says. “You on your way to a wet T-shirt contest?”

Cameron leads with his shoulder, planning to walk around them. He never ducks his head — he won’t give them that. But he doesn’t look them in the eye, either.

They shift, blocking him.

“Now, don’t be stuck-up, Cameron,” Patterson says. “Talk to us. You trying out for next year’s cheerleading squad? That’s after school today.”

“You don’t want to miss that,” Murphy says.

“You want to show us what you have?”

“Yeah. We’ll give you some tips,” Murphy offers. “We’ve seen them up close and personal.”

“Yeah. We know their moves real good.”

“Piss off,” Cameron says, which he knows is a mistake. They never like what he has to say and mostly Cameron just keeps his mouth shut and concentrates on pushing the anger back. Biting down on it so it doesn’t become all he is.

He can feel it taking over. Feel it burning up from his fingertips, from his toes, so his hands and feet are on fire. He wants to let it take over — is afraid of what will happen when he does. Not
if
anymore, but
when.
Soon. He’s going to let go and become a windmill of swinging arms and fists that’ll put them into next Tuesday. He likes that thought so much he smiles a little. Another mistake.

“What’s so funny about being a boy-girl?” Patterson asks.

“Nothing. Nothing at all,” Murphy says.

Cameron feels their hands under his armpits, then his feet leave the floor. They walk with him to an open classroom and drop him inside the door, then shut it behind them. Cameron looks around him. Empty.

“No rescue,” Patterson says. “But we’re willing to let you outta here. Of course, you have to do something for us first.”

Murphy snickers. “Give us a cheer, Cameron Diaz.”

“You know you’re not leaving until you do.”

“You know if you don’t we’re going to have to make you.”

Cameron gets that feeling again, where his stomach is pushing up his throat, choking off his air. He knows what they’ll do to him if he doesn’t play cheerleader. They’re not creative; they never change their routine. Murphy will hold him and Patterson will use him as a punching bag. He’ll hit Cameron in the stomach until he pukes. It doesn’t leave bruises. Not that anyone can see. No evidence.

Cameron prepares himself, because there’s no way he’s going to act the fag and give them what they want. He pulls his stomach in, makes it tense. Sometimes that helps. He starts that whole believing thing;
my stomach is as hard as rock.
If he buys into it he doesn’t feel the pain until later. Much later, when no one is around to see him folded over himself and an even sorrier sight than he is usually.

“Oh, come on, Cameron.” Murphy circles him. “What if we ask you nice?” He puts his arm around his neck until Cameron’s chin is above the guy’s elbow. “Cameron, will you please do a cheer for us?” He reaches for Cameron’s wrist, twists it up behind him and makes his voice thin and high. “How about ‘two-four-six-eight, who do we appreciate?’ We like that one.”

“Go to hell,” Cameron says. At least he doesn’t give in. He has that. He never does any of the things they tell him to. Not the time they wanted him to drink toilet water, on his own or with their help, or the time they stole his clothes when he was in the shower and they offered him a choice: run naked through the girls’ gym or go naked the rest of the day. Cameron waited them out, past the tardy bell, then pulled a set of loaner PE clothes from the bin and got through the day.

“Last chance, Diaz.” Patterson rolls up his fists.

Cameron feels every one of Patterson’s knuckles in the soft part of his stomach, below the arch of his ribs. The breath shoots out of his lungs; his heart stops, then kicks against his chest. His body tries to curl over itself.

“Hold him up,” Patterson orders.

Murphy yanks him up, pulling back on his shoulders so that his stomach is easily accessible. He says, “You’re a real girl, Diaz. You never put out. A guy’s gotta take it.”

“I don’t mind working for it.” Patterson has his hands up again, fists like a boxer. “You gonna dance, Cameron?”

Cameron keeps his mouth shut this time. It’ll end sooner if he says nothing. If he stands as still as a post and sucks up what they have for him.

This time, the punch lands on his rib bones. He hears Patterson’s knuckles crack and knows he’ll have a bruise.

“Damn! You want to hold him still? I gotta pitch with this hand tomorrow.”

But before Patterson can swing again, Cameron hears the metallic click of keys in the door knob. They hear it, too, and fall back, Patterson taking a casual stance with his hands stuffed into his front pockets. Slowly, Cameron’s body loosens up. He wants to rub his stomach, ease the burn there, but won’t do it. Not here. Not in front of them.

The door opens and Mrs. Cowan, Cameron’s English teacher, strides into the room. And stops. Her eyebrows lift, but she’s fast to recover.

“What’s going on here?” She puts a hand on her hip in her I-mean-business pose.

“Just a private conversation,” Patterson says.

“Really?” She doesn’t believe him.

“Cameron helps us with our math,” Murphy says. “He’s a genius, you know?”

She thinks about this, looks him up and down. Her lips pucker a little.

“That true, Cameron?”

Cameron tries to stand up a little straighter, feels his stomach muscles tug, but he keeps his face from showing it.

“Yeah. Every word.”

“I’m not convinced,” she says.

She moves toward her desk, turns and stares at them, probably wondering what she should do with them. Cameron knows it’s his job to make her believe. He knows what will happen if he doesn’t. He’ll spend the next couple of days waiting to be jumped, pulled into a bathroom, and creamed.

“It’s true,” he says. “We had a conversation.” When she continues to look at him with doubt making her face all soft and inviting, Cameron puts a little anger in his voice. “I don’t have to like what we were talking about, do I?”

“No,” she agrees. “So long as it was talk.” Her shoulders give and she tells Cameron to leave first. “You two stay a few minutes.”

Cameron makes sure his walk to the door is slow, then he stands there, trying to pour cement into his shaking knees as he waits for a break in the crowds flooding to class. He enters the heavy stream after a group of girls and watches their faces, their bright, sunny faces, and open mouths talking and laughing. But all he can think about is how much he hates this school. His hate is a steady roar that fills his ears. He can’t think beyond it, and so he just moves with everyone else.

“Hey! Grady!”

Cameron feels his name tug at his consciousness and turns toward it. And looks down. Pinon, the only guy smaller than Cameron at Madison High. The only guy lower on the food chain. Even Cameron doesn’t like him — stands as far away from him as possible in PE class, hoping they won’t be paired up for play. Same thing in Spanish class. Even when the teacher does group them together, Cameron refuses to move his desk, to look at Pinon, or even speak to him. And it’s not just because Pinon is a crybaby, tearing up every time the Red Coats pick on him. It’s because Pinon is the real boy-girl on campus. Or maybe all girl.

“What did they do to you?” Pinon asks.

The little guy is bouncing on his toes, like one of those yippy lap dogs.

“Did they hit you?” he asks.

Cameron wants to swat him. He gets a picture in his mind of Pinon, smashed against the wall, oozing blood and guts, and smiles. He used to feel bad for the guy, with the two of them being the favorite targets of the jock squad. But that’s all they have in common. Pinon tucks himself into a tight little ball when the Red Coats fall on him. They bat him around a little bit and he cries.

Cameron stops and looks at Pinon, his thin face, his white-white skin and nervous fingers picking at his shirt buttons. He digs around inside himself for a little compassion and comes up empty.

“I was just the warm-up. You’re the real show, Pinon.”

Cameron pushes away from him and starts looking at room numbers. Another tardy will lower his grade; he can’t afford that.

MONDAY

9:05AM

The only part of history Cameron likes is the battles. Not just the ones on the pages of their textbook, but the daily scrimmages Mr. Hart, their teacher, has with Eddie Fain. The boy is disturbed and is in a special room for the rest of the school day. Cameron takes his chair, two rows over from Eddie, and watches him drill a straightened paperclip into the desktop. Mr. Hart is watching, too. When the bell rings, he asks, “Mr. Fain, do you plan to pay for that desk?”

“My father could. He could buy and sell you, too.”

He keeps drilling. Last week, Eddie tore the pages out of his textbook, one at a time, for about ten minutes before Mr. Hart asked him if he was going to buy that, too. You have to pace yourself with Eddie. Let him burn off some steam before you pounce on him. Otherwise, he’s scary.

Cameron watched him pin a senior to a wall and keep him there with his elbow pressed over the guy’s throat while he turned red, then blue, and squirmed like a mouse in the mouth of a cat. And that was Eddie’s reaction to being told he didn’t belong in senior hall — to get out before they moved him out. Eddie wasn’t ready to move.

Mr. Hart is still working on his timing. He doesn’t have it down yet, just how long Eddie needs before he can be approached. Hart pulls out the tab he keeps on Eddie. He reads it aloud.

“One plastic student chair — make sure your father gets that in blue; a dry eraser; two dozen dry erase markers; the window we replaced in October; two textbooks; a yardstick; and now a desktop. That brings your total to about four hundred dollars.”

While Mr. Hart is reading the list, Eddie blows the mound of sawdust from his desktop and begins twisting the piece of metal into the palm of his hand. He draws blood quickly and lets it pool on the desk.

“You’ll own this school before long,” Mr. Hart says and looks up from his list. “Damn.”

Cameron thinks,
What did Hart expect?
Eddie’s father is in prison and any time anyone mentions him Eddie self-destructs. But this is the first time Cameron sees Eddie inflict physical pain on himself.

“You’re going to the nurse, young man, and then straight to the vice principal.”

Mr. Hart pulls a pass out of a desk drawer and begins writing on it, changes his mind, and reaches for the phone.

“It’s Fain,” he says into the receiver. “Destroying school property and himself. Yes. Yes.” He nods. “Come and get him.”

He hangs up and turns back to Eddie. “Drop that.”