RAGE (7 page)

I made it to school early enough Friday morning to return the clothes to the locker from which I’d taken them. They were kind of stiff, but they were clean.

Slowly, I walked to my locker, hoping the day was uneventful. I knew it was a waste of time, though. I don’t recall the last time I’d had a day where something horrible hadn’t happened. Even the days Dominic wasn’t at school, Taylor and Spencer still were. They took up his slack.

I opened my locker, both wondering and afraid of what I was going to find. What I found was nothing like what I’d expected.

Taped to the inside of my door was a note. Written in Carly’s pretty handwriting was, ‘What’s red and smells like blue paint?’ I thought for a second before flipping the note over to find the answer. ‘Red paint.’

I looked down the hall to my right. Carly stood twelve lockers down - I know because I’d counted them a million times - looking at me, hoping this was what would make me smile.

But it didn’t.

The hopeful look fell from her face and she shook her head.

“I’m not done yet,” she yelled to me. She smiled and headed off to Algebra. I put the note on the shelf, grabbed my Algebra book and followed her.

I wanted to smile. I even thought I felt the muscles in my cheeks starting to tighten. But it just wouldn’t come. I guess it had been so long since they’d had to work, they’d forgotten how. But Carly sure seemed determined to remind them.

Wondering why she was so eager to see me smile, I replayed in my mind the conversations we’d had over the last few days. It seemed that she liked me, but I didn’t have anything to compare it to. No one had ever liked me before, which made me wonder why she would. Maybe she took the psycho path through the forest, because she had to be crazy to like me.

I sat down and opened my book. Before the teacher had even begun talking, Carly passed me a note. It said ‘Why was the Algebra book so sad?’ I flipped the note over. ‘It had a lot of problems.’ I slid the note between some pages of my book and looked at her, straight-faced.

She whispered, “You’re a mystery, Brian. But mysteries are meant to be solved. And I’m not giving up.”

I gave her credit for trying. I loved that she wasn’t going to give up. I loved that she cared enough about me to try so hard and put so much thought and effort into it. I loved knowing that she thought about me so much. Just knowing I was on her mind was enough to make me want to smile. But even that couldn’t force those muscles to work.

After English Lit, I returned to my locker to find another note from Carly taped to the inside of my door. It was another joke, another attempt on her part to make me happy. It said ‘Where do dogs go when they lose their tail?’ I turned over the note and read the back. ‘The retail store.’

I looked down the hall, where she was waiting for my response. I shrugged. She shook her head and walked to her next class.

After History, I expected to find another note but didn’t. I wondered if she’d finally grown tired of trying. I realized while in Woodworking that she hadn’t. I don’t think she was going to give up. She was serious and very determined.

She spent the hour telling me jokes and imitating our teacher. Carly was funny. I had fun around her. I just couldn’t laugh or smile. It wasn’t in me. Guess I was just sad to the core.

It really said something that she was trying so hard. I was starting to think she really did like me. Not just like me, but really like me. And when she asked me again if I’d asked anyone to the Spring Fling yet, I was almost positive that she did.

“No,” I answered.

“Are you still planning on not going?”

“Yeah.”

“I think you should go, Brian. You should ask someone.”

“Nobody would go with me even if I asked,” I said, gluing the boards of her shelf into place with wood glue.

“That’s probably not true. I’m sure there’s one girl who’d go with you if you asked.”

I glanced up from the shelf and saw her looking at me strangely, a look I’ve never seen on her face. While it’s true that I had no clue how to read people, I got the feeling that the look was one of hope. I truly believed that she was hoping I’d ask her to the dance.

And I thought about it. But the thought of what would happen when we got there and Dominic and his friends saw us together was enough to make me not ask her. I couldn’t put her through that. I liked her too much to do that to her. Plus, why would I want to bring more suffering on myself. I used the same trick with Dominic that I used with Travis. I tried to keep quiet and unseen. Why bring myself to his attention? And more importantly, why drag Carly down with me?

Carly got quiet after that. I hoped I hadn’t made her mad at me. I wanted to tell her why I didn’t ask her. But she’d probably just try to tell me that I was being silly.

I didn’t pressure her. I let her remain silent until I couldn’t take it anymore.

While we walked to the cafeteria, I tried to cheer her up.

“What do snowmen eat for breakfast?”

I glanced at her and saw her smile. “I don’t know. What?”

“Snowflakes.”

She laughed. It was a beautiful sound.

“Brian, you’re funny. I just wish you would laugh with me. But you will. Just wait and see.” She smiled and ran off to catch up with her friends.

I watched her, and wanted more than anything to have the guts to ask her to the dance. I imagined her all dressed up. She would be gorgeous. I imagined walking into the gymnasium with her, holding her hand and looking at the decorations. I imagined asking her to dance and walking her onto the floor. The thought of dancing close to her made me blush.

But as I sat alone eating my lunch, I realized it would never be more than that; just my imagination.

I didn’t have anything to wear to a dance.

I didn’t even know how to dance.

And worse still, I didn’t have the nerve to even ask her.

As I watched her laughing with her friends, I noticed that she spent a lot of time glancing at me. Usually, that meant that I was the subject of the conversation, and it was never good. But with her, I knew she wasn’t talking about me.

I wondered and hoped if maybe she was imagining me asking her to the dance. Maybe she was imagining me all dressed up, walking into the gym holding hands, and asking her to dance. It seemed so unlikely that anyone would like me, but I was becoming more and more convinced that she did.

The rest of the day went smoothly, with the exception of the time in Biology when Dominic wiped his gloved hand across my face. It wouldn’t have been bad if we hadn’t been dissecting frogs. So now my cheek smelled like formaldehyde and dead frog. It was an easy fix, though. I washed well and could barely smell it after that. If that was all I had to go through today, I’d be happy with it.

Everyone was excited. They always were on Fridays. Kids talked more and teachers taught less. There was energy in the air as everyone shared their plans for the weekend.

As for me, I hated the weekends. It was two days of being stuck in the house with not only Travis, but his drinking buddies. As if he wasn’t bad enough by himself, he brought over other alcoholics who found humor in torturing me. Friday was the one day of the week I hated to see school end.

After Mrs. Madison urged me once again to put some of my work in the art show, I returned to my locker for the final time that week. Inside, taped to the door, was another note from Carly.

‘Brian, sorry I didn’t make you smile this week. Don’t worry. I won’t forget over the weekend. I’ve got two days to think of a way. Do you still have my number? Call me if you need to talk. Or want to smile. See you on Monday.’ She signed it, and listed her phone number again.

As I walked out of the school and headed home, I felt it. Tightness at the corners of my mouth. I almost smiled. It was as close as I’d been in years. I kept the feeling of happiness, or at least the closest thing I’ve ever experienced to happiness, until I walked through the front door of my house.

“It’s about time you got your ass home,” Travis said. He was sitting on the couch, perched on the edge, elbows on his knees. On the coffee table was a large pile of change. He was counting it, and putting it in stacks before rolling it.

I waited for him to start barking out his orders.

“Get this fucking place cleaned up. I got people coming over tonight, and I don’t want it to look like a dump.”

I looked around the room. The only making it look like a dump was Travis’ beer cans and bottles sitting around on tables, stacked in a window sill, and some were even lying on the floor. But I kept my mouth shut and set about cleaning the house. If he kept rolling his change and let me clean and go hide in my room, everything would be fine. But I had no doubt that it wouldn’t work that way. It never worked that way for me. There was always something else.

As I cleaned, he continued to spit out commands and insults.

“When my people get here, you’re to stay in your room, you hear me? I don’t want you running around the house. Nobody wants to see your ugly ass. Nobody wants to talk to you or hear a peep from you, you got that?” He looked at me with the usual scowl of disgust.

I don’t know why he felt he had to tell me to hide in my room. Hadn’t he been paying attention? And if he thought I was so ugly, why was he coming into my room at night and doing those things to me? I kept my mouth shut, and cleaned. I tried to pretend he wasn’t there, but I couldn’t. I walked on eggshells around him. I always had. I felt his eyes on me from time to time, and it made my skin crawl.

When I’d picked up all the beer cans and bottles, washed the dishes in the sink, swept and vacuumed, he looked around the living room and kitchen, inspecting my work.

“If you need anything to eat, you better get it now. I don’t want you back in here tonight. And make me something to eat too. Earn your fucking keep.” I watched him walk back to the couch and plop down. As he counted and rolled the change, change that my mother worked herself to death for, I bit my tongue to keep from telling him to earn his keep.

I made us both an egg sandwich. We didn’t have anything else. I would’ve thought that as much as my mother worked, we’d have been able to afford more food, among other things. And we would’ve been able to if not for Travis’ drinking problem. He had been nothing but a burden on our family since day one. I wished my mother would see it.

“Hurry up, asshole. They’ll be here soon,” Travis barked.

With no forethought and no idea what compelled me to do so, I lifted up the top piece of bread on his egg sandwich and spit on it quietly, looking into the living room to make sure he didn’t see me. It wasn’t much, but it made me feel better.

I carried his spit and egg sandwich to him and stood an arm’s length away, waiting for him to take the sandwich from me.  Half a minute passed before he looked up.

“Sit it on the table, moron. Can’t you see I’m busy?”

Quickly, I put the sandwich on the coffee table beside the piles of change, and retreated to my room with my sandwich. I nibbled away the fried egg and stale bread with no idea how I was going to spend the evening. With any luck, I would just spend it bored out of my mind. But I had a feeling that with his friends coming over, the night was going to be anything except boring.

After I ate, I picked up my notebook and began doodling. Then, I remembered Mrs. Madison trying to talk me into entering the art show. She was right. I should. I didn’t want to be cocky, but I was good at drawing and painting. It didn’t even bother me anymore to think of other people looking at my work. I had already decided that no one would laugh. Why would they? My drawings weren’t funny.

So I stopped doodling and began to sketch some pictures I wanted other people to see. I had a few ideas bouncing around in my head so I decided to use them for the art show.

The first one was a picture of Carly, and was named so. She had her head back, laughing. A wisp of hair spiraled down and hung in front of her right eye. It was entirely made of shades of grey, and would remain so later when I drew this picture again, only bigger. Except for her eyes. I would color them blue. They would pop out of the drawing and draw attention to them, just as I thought they did in real life. They were mesmerizing, those eyes, and I only hoped I could capture that in a charcoal sketch.

When I was finished, I held it up and looked at it from arm’s length. It was good. When I could get to school and do it in charcoal, it would be even better.

The second was a picture of a girl’s hands. In her left hand was a daisy, with only one petal remaining. Her right hand was curled, and between her thumb and forefinger was a petal. Blurry, in the background, you could see all the other petals piled on the ground between her feet. I called this one ‘He Loves Me Not’. If you looked at it, you could see that she had one more petal to pull off the flower, and it would end with ‘he loves me’. I doubted anyone would get it. But that’s okay. No one ever got art except the artist.

As I flipped the page to get started on my third sketch, I heard a crash come from the living room. It startled me and I jumped, dropping my pencil to the floor. I strained to hear over the sound of Travis’ music. I heard laughing and loud talking, but it was too muffled for me to make out anything being said. One of them had no doubt broken something. Something of my mother’s that she had worked so hard to get.

It made me angry that they had so little respect, but there was nothing I could do about it.

Feeling angry and helpless, I picked up my pencil and sketched more pictures, excited now to be doing the art show. I finally, for the first time in years, had something to look forward to and be excited about.

After sketching several more pictures, all of them containing Carly, I yawned and stretched. Looking at the digital alarm clock on the bedside table, I saw that it was either 11:30 or 11:38. I wasn’t sure which because the line that would’ve made the 0 an 8 never lit up. The bulb was burned out when my mom had paid fifty cents for it at a yard sale.

Just noticing how tired I was and how cramped my hand had become, I decided to go to sleep. I put my notebook and my pencil under the bed in case Travis came in. I didn’t want him to see them, and he didn’t deserve to look at them.

I had to pee. I didn’t want to leave my room, though. So I improvised. I quietly slid open the window and peed out it.

With an empty bladder, I crawled into bed and turned off the shadeless lamp on my nightstand. Carefully avoiding the sharp spring, I curled up and thought of Carly. I thought of the way she’d worked so hard trying to make me smile, the way she gave me her t-shirt when mine had been ruined, and the way she had been hinting for me to ask her to the dance. I was sure of it now. She wanted me to ask her.

My mind was made up now. First thing Monday morning, as soon as I saw Carly, I was asking her to the dance. I considered calling her and asking her over the phone, but this was something I wanted to do face to face. I wanted to see her while I asked her so I could gauge her reaction. If I was wrong and she didn’t want me to ask her, I’d know. I certainly didn’t want any pity dates to a dance.

I was excited. I had something else to look forward to now. Between the art show and the spring dance, things were starting to look up for me. At least that’s how it felt.

For so long, I’d just been dragging myself through my life one day at a time. I hated every moment of every day. No matter where I was, at home or at school, I always wished I was at the other place. I faced the same type of enemy everywhere I was. I had no place in which to find comfort or solace.

But now, things were changing. I could feel it. Carly was my comfort. After years of feeling as though I were drowning, I finally felt like I was looking up and could see the surface. I was close.

I fell asleep and dreamt that I was underwater, reaching up for the surface. Then, I was abruptly pulled from the water.

My eyes snapped open, and I realized that it wasn’t just a dream. Travis was standing over my bed, kicking the mattress. He had my left foot in his hands, pulling at me.

I smelled the beer before I even rolled over.

“Hey, fucker, get your ass up and come out here. The boys want something to eat.”

I rubbed my eyes and quickly sat up in bed.

“Let’s go, dumb shit. Don’t make us wait.”

I watched him turn and stumble out the door, headed toward the living room.

Was he serious? Was this a dream? I figured it was better to walk into the living room and see if it was real than sit in here and guess that it was a dream. The beating would be severe if I didn’t obey him. I’d made that mistake before.

I got up and walked down the hallway, heart racing. When I stepped into the living room, I couldn’t help but notice the mess.

A lamp lay on the floor, shattered. The amount of beer bottles scattered around the room made me think maybe I hadn’t picked them all up earlier. They had drunk a lot of beer. But then again, they always did.

Travis’ friend Dale was a short, fat, bald man. He reminded me of Spencer. Much like Spencer, he would do anything to gain the approval of Travis. If Travis told him to eat crap sandwiches, I had no doubt that he would. Looking at Travis and Dale was a glimpse at what the future held for Dominic and Spencer.

Travis’ other friend Mike was tall and skinny. He was covered in tattoos, most of which he’d gotten in prison. He’d only been out for a few months after serving four years for rape. He had stringy black hair that hung past his shoulders, and a goatee. His teeth were crooked and dark near the gums. I liked him even less than I liked Travis.

He and Travis occupied the couch, while Dale sat in the chair at the end of the couch, forming an L with the furniture.

I hesitated as I stepped into the room, assessing the situation. It was a moment too long apparently.

“Boy, Travis,” said Mike. “You were right. He’s fuglier than the last time I saw him.”

The men laughed.

Travis chugged the rest of his beer before throwing the bottle at me. Luckily, he was drunk enough to have horrible aim. That wasn’t always the case. Once, he’d hit me in the head. A large knot had immediately appeared. I’d had a headache for two days after that. I wasn’t able to tell my mom when she’d asked. Travis was there, as usual, to tell her how I’d fell out of a tree. His story wasn’t believable, at least I didn’t think so, but my mother bought it.

She always bought the lies Travis told her.

“Yeah, he’s not a good looking son of a bitch, is he? If he was my boy, he’d be as handsome as me.”

The men laughed again and I crept into the kitchen. I had no idea what to make. We had nearly no food and I was supposed to make food for three drunk men. My options were limited on so many levels.

I opened and closed cabinet doors as quietly as I could, hoping to not draw any attention. It didn’t work, as so many things rarely did for me.

“Get your ass in here, dipshit,” Travis called from the couch. “What the hell are you doing in there?”

“Looking for some food,” I answered quietly as I walked into the living room.

“Damn, boy, didn’t you just eat?” he asked, making his voice go up to a higher pitch. The other men chuckled.

“He keeps eating like that, he’ll end up as fat as his momma,” Dale said. This made me mad for a couple of reasons. First, my mother was not fat. Not even close. She worked so much, fat was afraid of her. Second, who the hell was Dale to call anyone fat? He easily made two normal sized men.

“I wouldn’t mind him being fat,” Travis said, slurring his words. “It’s being stupid I wish he’d change.”

“He that dumb?” asked Mike before finishing a beer.

“Is he dumb? Is water wet?” Travis asked, sending the men into roaring hysterics.

Travis had an audience. When that happened, he was on. He was the usual asshole he always was, only with the glitz and the glamour of having an audience. He paused for laughter, and pretty much waited for applause before delivering his next line.

“Be careful, Travis,” Mike said while eyeing me. “He’s about big enough to whoop your ass.”

Travis blew air through his lips. “Shit. That fucker won’t ever be big enough to whoop my ass. Even if he got big enough, he wouldn’t ever be smart enough. Fucking kid can’t find his ass with both hands.” He paused for laughter, but there wasn’t much. He wasn’t always the comedian he thought he was.

“Now, Trav, he can’t be that dumb,” said Dale.

“The best part of him ran down his momma’s leg,” Travis said.

Mike howled at that. I did not.

“Well, Travis, maybe you ought to quiz the boy. Give him a chance to defend himself,” Mike said after he captured his breath. He wobbled into the kitchen to grab another beer.

“Yeah,” Travis agreed. I could see he was thinking because a look of confusion came across his face. “What’s two plus two?” he finally asked with a smirk.

“Four,” I said quietly.

“Took him long enough,” Mike said popping the top on his beer.

“That one was easy. I’m still surprised he knew it. How about this, dip shit. What’s the capital of Omaha?”

I wasn’t sure what to say. I looked from him to the other two men quickly.

“Shit, Travis! He doesn’t know,” said Dale, slapping his knee and throwing his head back, laughing.

“I know. I told you fuckers he was dumb as ass. You don’t know it, do you? Boy, you’re dumber than I tell people.”

“Omaha isn’t a state,” I said nervously.

“What’s that, pecker face?” Travis asked, getting up and walking toward me.

“I said Omaha isn’t a state. It’s a city. And cities don’t have capitals.”

I saw the anger on Travis’ face. He looked at Mike and Dale and back to me. I had no doubt that he’d beat me in front of them. Not as much as he would if they weren’t here, but he would still slap me. He’d done it before.

But he surprised me.

He walked up to me and stood behind me.

“Is that right, smart ass?” he asked.

I thought of turning to face him, but didn’t. “Yes,” I whispered, staring at the coffee table.

He put his left arm around me and across my chest, cupping my right shoulder with his hand.

To Dale and Mike, he said, “You hear that, boys? Mr. Smarty Pants says Omaha isn’t a state. I guess he thinks he’s pretty damn smart.”

Mike and Dale laughed.

In my ear, Travis said, “Well tell me this, shithead, since you’re so smart. What’s this?”

And then I felt the cold steel press against my temple.