Project X (6 page)

“Poor Edwin had a hard time today,” the kid's mother told my mom when she came to pick me up. I got a shovel from our garage and tried to go back. My mom had to call my dad.

“No more pool parties,” my dad goes.

“You better believe it,” I tell him.

“All right, we made a mistake,” he tells me. “From now on, whatever happens, it's because we made that one mistake.”

“Can we just drop this?” my mom goes.

Gus is taking all this in without saying a thing.

“I don't need to talk about it,” I tell her.

The phone rings. Nobody answers it. The answering machine clicks on but whoever it is doesn't leave a message.

“You just shouldn't have made me go, that's all,” I tell her.

“Oh my God,” my mom says.

5

My English teacher is coming down the hall in the morning before homeroom. Of course I'm having trouble with my locker and when I finally rip it open I'm rushing to dump stuff out of my knapsack and pick up other stuff for first and second period. My math book and some papers flop onto the floor, and Dickhead, the kid who beat me with a plank, is going by and scuffs them out into the middle of the hall.

Of course my teacher doesn't see that. She helps me pick stuff up.

“Thanks, Ms. Meier,” I tell her.

“What's this?” she goes. It's a drawing of a pot with curvy fumes coming off it. The pot has a skull and crossbones on it and next to the pot it says 200 degrees in Flake's spaz handwriting.

The look on my face catches her attention. I'm staring at the thing thinking, I can't believe I didn't get rid of this.

“What is this?” she goes.

It's a chemistry experiment, I tell her. The bell rings.

“You're not old enough to take chemistry,” she says.

“No, I don't mean for school,” I go. “My dad got me one of those sets.”

She turns the paper over to look at the front again and asks, “What's supposed to be in the pot?”

“I don't know,” I tell her. “Chemicals.”

“Why does it have a skull and crossbones?” she wants to know.

“I don't know. Because it looks cool,” I tell her.

She thinks about it for a while and then hands it back to me. “Can you write me a pass?” I ask her.

She says okay and before homeroom I go to the bathroom. There's a boy leaning over the sink to put on Chap-Stick in the bathroom mirror. In a stall I tear the picture into two thousand pieces and flush them down the toilet.

“Bowel trouble?” the vice principal asks when I pop out into the hall. It's empty and quiet.

“I got diarrhea,” I tell him.

“Mr. Davis, do you think I have problems?” Bethany asks as she goes by with a girlfriend.

“I reserve the right to not answer that question,” he tells her, and they both laugh.

“Mighty quiet in there for diarrhea,” he tells me once they're gone.

Up yours, I think, on the way to homeroom.

Step two is figuring out a way of sealing up the little door in the gym. We talk about it either at Flake's house or in the fort. After what my mom said about our sitting around and talking about getting even with people, my room's out.

Step one I get all the credit for, according to Flake. Step one was figuring out we could do it in the gym instead of having to lock up the whole school.

The door's not very big but it's a harder problem than it looks like. It has to be something we can do fast. It has to be something we can do with stuff we can bring to school without anybody noticing. And it has to be something nobody'd notice for at least a few minutes.

We're not coming up with anything right off the top of our heads.

We've already figured other stuff out. We'd have the guns in our lockers. We'd go for the all-school assembly before Thanksgiving. They hang big crepe-paper turkeys and shit on the windows and doors, and that might help hide whatever we do to the lock.

I keep coming back to duct tape, because it's one of those doors where you hit the bar to open it from the inside. But Flake thinks duct tape's too easy to see and wouldn't be strong enough anyway.

“With enough tape it would be strong enough,” I go. We're in his bedroom and he's got the
Great Speeches
CD going in case his mother or somebody wanders by the door.

“What're you, gonna stand there for thirty minutes wrapping duct tape around things?” he goes.

“I don't think it would take that long,” I tell him.

“Who do you think was the best serial killer?” he goes. He knows I have a book about it.

“It depends,” I go. “Ed Gein was pretty fucked up.”

He looks grossed out. I told him about Ed Gein.

“I keep thinking we could get a hammer or chisel and just smash the shit out of the thing that goes into the wall,” he goes. “You know, the thing that sticks out.”

“Yeah, like that wouldn't make a gigantic noise,” I go.

“Well, I'd rather make a gigantic noise than stand there for eight hours,” he goes. “If nobody sees you right when you do it, you could take off by the time people came.”

Suppose they came and checked out the door, I ask, and he makes a face. What about we bring a lock, I ask. Like a bike lock.

“There's nothing on the wall to lock the bar to,” he says.

We think about it. He's got a sketch of the door and draws lines from the bar in various directions. “What we need to do is do like a test,” he goes.

He's right. That's the only way we're going to figure this out. “We can't be all set to go and get there and find out it's not gonna work,” I tell him.

“Who's got doors like that that we can screw around with?” he wants to know.

“The mall,” I go.

“No, those are different,” he goes. “Besides, who's gonna let us screw around with doors at the mall?”

I keep thinking.

“Use your head,” he goes.

“Use yours,” I tell him.

We sit there, Flake drawing big X's on his sketch pad.

“Who's this?” I ask him, about who's talking on the CD.

“Charles Lindbergh,” he goes. “Some of those doors in the basement near the furnace were the bar kind.”

“We're gonna go back there?” I go. “We broke the window. They know someone was there.”

“We'll check it out,” he says. “We'll wait a few weeks. If it doesn't look easy, we won't do it.”

“I don't know,” I go.

“Well, then come up with someplace else,” he says, like it's settled.

I don't like it but it's the best plan we've got right now. “What'd Charles Lindbergh do?” I go.

“Why don't you read a book and find out?” he goes.

“I just told you about Ed Gein,” I go.

“Ever hear of the
Spirit of St. Louis
?” he goes.

“Yeah,” I go.

“So there you go,” he says.

“So I don't like sports,” I go.

“God, help me,” he goes. “Mother of God, help me.”

“Oh, yeah. Poor you,” I go.

When his dad drives off to pick up some takeout we head into the garage to investigate his tools.

We start with his big red toolbox. He keeps it locked, but even I've seen where he hides the key. We root around in it. Everything's big and heavy, so digging around makes an unbelievable amount of noise.

“What're you boys doing out there?” his mom calls from the kitchen window.

“Making trouble,” Flake calls back.

“You better not be in your father's things,” she calls.

He stops rooting for minute, to let her wander into another room.

“What is this?” I ask. I hold it up.

“I have no clue,” he goes. “Put it back.”

There's nothing it looks like we can use. Needle-nose pliers, regular pliers, a big red wrench I can barely lift, two hammers, two measuring tapes. Little plastic boxes of screws. Rubber gloves.

He grinds his teeth like he does when he's starting to get pissed. I barely get my fingers out of there before he slams the top shut.

“What about up here?” I point at the particleboard his dad hung on the wall. It has holes for hooks and big stuff hanging from the hooks. Oversized scissors, a T square, an old hand drill, electrical tape, duct tape. Bungee cords. I take one down. “What about this?” I go.

“How long's it take to take off bungee cords?” he goes. He makes a disgusted noise that sounds like a push on a bicycle pump. “How about Scotch tape?” he goes.

“Okay. It was just a question,” I go.

“You could slide like a rake handle across the door and through the bar,” I tell him a minute later.

“I thought of that,” he tells me. “You can also just slide it right back out again.”

“Yeah,” I go.

He sits on the cement, checking for wet spots from oil or antifreeze or whatever else is leaking out of his father's car. I squat next to him.

“Worried about your pants?” he goes.

“I got like one nonqueer pair of pants,” I go. “I'm not getting shit all over them for no reason.”

“What's up with that?” he goes. “Why can't you buy another pair a pants?”

“Roddy?” his mom calls. It sounds like she's farther away than the kitchen.

“Right here,” Flake calls back.

We look up at the particleboard and all around the rest of the garage.

“I was always jealous of kids who could take like two sticks and build something that would catch a raccoon,” he goes.

I know how he feels. “It sucks that we can't think of anything,” I tell him. It really does.

“All we're trying to do is keep a lot of people in one place while we shoot at them,” he goes. “Why's it have to be so hard?”

His dad's car pulls into the driveway. He accelerates when he sees Flake sitting in the middle of his garage and then he brakes before he reaches us.

“Suppose your brakes didn't work?” Flake goes when his dad gets out of the car.

His dad hefts the takeout bag onto his shoulder like he's starting a long hike. “My point entirely,” he goes.

“What's that mean?” I ask once his dad's in the house.

“Who knows, with him?” Flake goes. He gets off the floor and wipes his hands.

It's a nice day so his dad and mom come back outside with the takeout and a half-gallon of ginger ale and some plastic cups. They spread out on the picnic table. They don't ask if we want anything, so we sit in the grass and look over at them. Flake chews on individual blades and then a dandelion stalk. The sun feels good on my back.

“Your parents ever try and get you interested in sports?” his dad calls over to me.

I shrug.

He shakes his head. It looks like they're having quesadillas. “Music?” he asks.

My mom got me an acoustic guitar one year for Christmas. Gus used to fill it with dirt and drag it around the yard on a string. “Nah,” I go.

“We tried to get Roddy excited about music,” his dad goes.

“You got me one of those pianos for like one-year-olds,” Flake goes.

“You want a real piano?” his mom asks.

“No,” Flake goes.

“We'll get you a real piano if you want one,” his mom says.

“I don't want one,” he goes.

“All right, then,” his dad says.

“God,” Flake goes, under his breath.

“Roddy's grandmother was a wonderful musician,” his dad goes.

Flake's looking off into the neighbor's yard.

“Was she?” I finally go.

“She could've been a professional,” his dad goes.

“All she ever did was complain about her health,” Flake goes to me. “And she lived to be like a hundred and two.”

“What'd he say?” his dad goes.

“What do you care?” Flake goes.

“What'd you
say
to him?” his dad goes.

“He was telling me about her,” I go.

He looks skeptical but keeps eating. Flake's mom is off in her own world, looking at her ginger ale.

“How did I end up with a kid with no ambition?” his dad finally goes. His mom shakes her head, like she doesn't know.

“Don't worry about the no ambition part,” Flake tells him.

“You got some?” his dad asks.

“I'm working on it,” Flake goes.

“You don't look like you're working on it,” his dad says.

“I'm working on it right now,” Flake goes.

I whack his leg to shut him up. He tears up more grass and won't look at me.

His dad spreads out the quesadilla's wrapping with the palm of his hand. “Glad to hear it,” he finally goes.

6

I come over to Flake's the next day after school and he's in his garage sitting on the floor doing something with his hand. He doesn't answer when I say hey from the driveway.

I ask what he's doing. Coming in out of the sunlight it's hard to see at first. He's holding a can of spray paint an inch from the back of his hand and spraying the same spot. The paint's blue. It's dripping onto the cement under his hand.

“What're you
doing
?” I go.

He keeps spraying. The smell's making his eyes water.

“What're you
doing
?” I go.

He stops and looks at the spot he's been spraying.

“Your dad's gonna be pissed about the paint on the floor,” I tell him.

He looks at it. It's not a very big puddle, but still.

“A few years ago I was trying to make a model,” he tells me. He's got his eye right up to the part of his hand where the paint is. “When I was spray painting it, I found something out.”

“So?” I finally go. “What'd you find out?”

He puts the nozzle up against the part he's already painted on his hand and sprays again. “You can fuck up your skin like this,” he goes. “If you do it long enough.”

I crouch next to him. Like that'll help me figure out what he thinks he's doing. Up close, the smell from the paint's so intense that I feel like I'm squinting when I'm not.

“You are one weird kid,” I finally go.

“It's like a burn, but a burn that doesn't burn,” he goes.

“See?” he goes. “It's making a blister.”

“What'd you do to your hand, Roddy?” my mom asks as soon as we come into the house.

“Burned it,” Flake goes.

“How'd you burn it?” my mom goes. She's all alarmed. She gets in front of us.

“Wasn't careful,” he goes.

“Were you playing with matches?” she asks. She looks at me.

“Oh, no,” he goes.

“Let me see,” she goes. She takes his hand with both of hers. He cleaned the paint off with thinner and that made the blistering worse. There are pink bubbles from his thumb to his pointer finger and down to his wrist.

“I got aloe,” she goes. “You want aloe?”

“My mom gave me some,” he goes.

“Well, I hope you weren't doing something stupid,” she goes.

“Sometimes I need to be more careful,” he tells her. He means it.

“Were you guys doing anything stupid?” she asks me.

“He was already hurt when I got there,” I go. “I just brought him over here.”

We're up in my room a minute and a half before the phone rings and my mom calls up the stairs that it's for Flake.

“Were you painting in my garage?” his dad asks him. I can hear every word he says.

“We tried to clean it up,” Flake says.

“You didn't try too hard,” his dad goes.

“I can hear like every word he's saying,” I tell Flake.

He nods. “I'll clean it some more,” he promises.

His dad swears a few times and then gets off the phone.

We sit and stare at his hand for a while. “Edwin,” my mom calls.

“Edwin,” Flake goes.

I go over to the door and open it. “What do you want?” I call down to her.

“There's a boy here to see you,” she goes.

I look over at Flake, who thinks it's funny.

“I don't know any boys,” I go.

“I'm sending him up,” she says.

Hermie comes up the stairs two at a time.

“Who said you could come over?” I go.

“Your mom,” he goes.

“My mom said you could come
up
,” I tell him. “Who said you could come
over
?”

“
I
said,” he goes.

“You said?” Flake goes. “Midgets make the rules now?”

“Don't make me kick your ass,” Hermie goes. He's having the time of his tiny life. “Listen,” he goes. He's looking around the room.

“Don't get comfortable,” I tell him.

“I got a proposition for you guys,” he goes.

“A proposition?” Flake says.

“Yeah, a proposition,” Hermie goes. “You wanna hear it or not?”

Flake grabs him by the shorts and the collar of his shirt. I can hear Hermie grabbing at the banister as they go downstairs and complaining about something all the way out. The back door slams, then Flake comes walking back up and shuts the door behind him.

“Did that boy leave already?” my mom calls from the back of the house.

We can't talk in my house and Flake doesn't want to go back to his so we walk to the fort. When we get up to the underpass and duck under the concrete Flake hits his head. He's still swearing when we see Dickhead and Weensie and two other kids sitting there with our candles and sketch pads. We had a box stuck up on a drainage pipe with some stuff in it, and the stuff is spread all over the dirt. There's nothing on any of the sketch pads that anybody could figure out.

“This is ours,” Flake goes, holding his head.

“Yours?” Weensie goes. “You own the highway?” I don't know where he got his name. He's got freckles that look like they were drawn on and a space between his front teeth.

“Oh, this is
theirs,
” one of the other kids says. “Everything here is theirs.”

The other kids laugh.

“That's ours too,” Flake says, about the sketch pads and candles.

“Why don't you take 'em from us?” Dickhead says.

We stand there, half in and half out. “Fuck,” Flake finally says. He rubs his head some more.

“Hurt yourself?” Dickhead goes.

“You dumped all our shit out,” I go. “Who said you could dump all our shit out?” We had gum, pencils, a little flashlight and some napkins in the box. Flake liked to jerk off sometimes.

They don't say anything. They just look at us. Dickhead has one droopy eye, and he's always grinning up at you, like you're just about to get the joke.

“Gimme the flashlight,” I go. “And gimme the sketch pads.”

“Oooo,” Weensie and another kid go. “Oooo.”

Weensie turns the flashlight on and shines it in my eyes. He turns it off and on again. He shakes his hand to make it like a strobe.

“Give him the flashlight,” Flake goes. He's finally let go of his head.

They make more scared noises. Flake wanders off and circles around on the slope up to the road. When he comes back he's got a flat rock the size of a paperback.

“What're you, gonna hit us with that?” Dickhead goes. “You tryin' to fucking scare me with a rock?”

Flake takes the flat side and brings it to his head, and then lowers it and brings it back up again, like he's demonstrating how to do something.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Dickhead goes. He sounds like he really wants to know, all of a sudden.

No one says anything. One of the kids coughs and clears his throat and spits. “Aw, give it to him,” another kid says.

“Why should I?” Weensie asks him. But then he rolls the flashlight over to me.

“Give him the sketch pads,” Flake goes.

“Put the rock down,” Dickhead goes.

“Give him the sketch pads,” Flake goes.

“You put the rock down,” Dickhead goes.

Flake puts the rock at his feet.

“These drawings suck, by the way,” Dickhead goes. He tosses the two little pads out to me.

“Blow me,” Flake goes.

“I'll fucking kick your ass,” Dickhead goes.

“Kick my ass,” Flake goes.

You can see Dickhead deciding.

“Kick my ass,” Flake goes.

Dickhead starts to get up.

“Let 'em go,” Weensie says.

“Who wants to screw around with these dildoes?” another kid says.

“This is our place,” Dickhead says to Flake. “You find another place to blow each other. And take your rocks with you.”

“Oooo,” one of the kids goes. The rest of them laugh.

Flake turns and is halfway up the embankment before I realize he's leaving. We don't talk at all on the walk home. When he turns off for his house, he doesn't say anything and neither do I.

“You still pissed?” I ask him the next day, which is a Saturday. His dad and mom are spending the afternoon getting shown around a condo they're not going to buy so they can get a free TV. Flake's pulled out the guns and ammo and we're making sure we know how everything fits together.

“You still pissed?”
he goes, in a pussy voice.

I tilt up the carbine's barrel. “Put this in your mouth,” I go.

He's got newspaper spread on his dad's bed so we don't get oil on the blanket. The Kalashnikov's easy. You can see right where the clip goes. At first I don't want to put it in because I'm worried we won't be able to get it out.

“We're gonna have to get it out at
school,
” he says.

“We are?” I go.

“What happens when you want to change clips?” he wants to know.

“Oh, yeah,” I go.

He shakes his head.

I turn over his dad's nine-millimeter, which looks like something a secret agent would use. Its clip is heavier than a rock that size. Flake's looking at it, too. We both just look at it for a few minutes. I'm still thinking about changing clips. “Think we're really gonna do this?” I go.

Flake shrugs. He's still looking at the pistol. We hear some kids ride by on bikes, but we can't tell who they are. “Let's do this later,” he says.

“Okay,” I go.

We put everything back in their cases. At first the snaps on the outside of the big one won't close, but finally we get it. I push it into the closet while Flake puts the ammo away. When he gets back we fold up all the newspaper and look around to see if we missed anything.

“What do you want to do now?” Flake finally goes.

I'm as depressed as he is. “Who knows?” I go.

He takes the newspaper under his arm and leaves. I can hear him in the kitchen. When I get in there he's sitting at the table crying.

“We are such pussies,” he goes.

I sit down across from him but there's nothing to say.

He sniffs and rubs his face and then cleans his hand and nose on a napkin from the napkin holder.

“Wanna play mosh volleyball?” I go.

“No,” he goes.

“Wanna throw rocks?” I go. Sometimes we throw little rocks at cars from a sand-and-gravel lot where we can get a running start when we get chased.

“No,” he goes.

“So what do you want to do?” I go.

He puts his head on the table and leaves it there for a few minutes. “All right, let's throw rocks,” he goes.

On Monday at breakfast my mom tells me that the meeting with the vice principal and Ms. Meier is going to be tomorrow, which is the same day as Gus's birthday party.

“That should be festive,” she says.

“The kid didn't do the scheduling,” my dad goes. He's up early and looking at something on his laptop at the kitchen table.

“Can I try your coffee?” I ask him.

“Maybe you should try one bite of breakfast,” my mom says.

“I ate one bite,” I tell her.

“This graph is perfectly incoherent,” my dad goes. He turns the computer to show me, then taps around on the keyboard.

“I hate when that happens,” my mom says. She's rooting in a little bowl for change for my lunch money.

I move his mug closer and take a sip. It's so full I have to lean over it.

“Can I try?” Gus says.

“It's not good for you,” my dad goes.

My mom reminds me I'm going to be late. She dumps the lunch money into an envelope and hands it over. I stuff it into my pack. “I hope you finished the rest of your homework,” she says.

My dad looks at me when I come around from the other side of the table. “We gotta get you some new pants,” he goes. “How often does he
wear
those pants?”

“Every day,” my mom tells him.

“Oh, was I supposed to have noticed sooner than this?” he asks her.

“Don't you need a jacket?” she asks me.

“I'm all right,” I tell her, but when I open the back door it's freezing.

“What about your homework?” she calls.

“I didn't need to do it all,” I go.

“You going to say good-bye to your brother?” she asks.

“Bye, Edwin,” Gus calls.

I poke my head back in. “How old you gonna be, Gus?” I ask him. “How old you gonna be on your birthday?”

He holds up the right number of fingers.

At the bus stop the ninth-graders leave me alone. Outside before the bell rings I don't see Flake. At the lockers I get mine open without much trouble.

In first-period English I get called on once and I know the answer. In second and third period I have a stomachache but it goes away. In math the teacher goes, “How many people didn't get to finish the whole worksheet?” and I raise my hand along with a few other kids and he just leaves it at that.

At lunch I make a joke in line about the chocolate pudding and Tawanda and another kid laugh. “Hey, how'd that World of Color project come out?” the other kid, a cross-eyed girl, wants to know. “Don't ask,” Tawanda tells her. A kid who's holding everybody up looking for a cookie with chocolate chips instead of raisins has a booger hanging out of her nose and nobody tells her.

No Flake once I'm out of the line with my tray, so I sit by myself.

In fifth period two kids get into a fight before class as I'm coming through the door and I end up having to help break it up. They both get sent to the vice principal.

“Boys're like dogs,” a girl by the window says, and everybody laughs.

“Well, girls're like . . .” a boy goes, and when he can't think of anything the class laughs again.

“I'm not going to be here Monday,” another kid goes. Nobody's paying any attention. “I'm not going to be here Tuesday, either,” he adds.