Sons of the 613 (17 page)

She's showing me the various film-crew badges she has and telling me about how she's saving up to move to LA, when she glances at her watch and says, “Unless I'm crazy, it's Friday.”

“Yes.”

She smiles at me, eyebrows raised.

“No,” I say, realizing what she means. “No, I don't want to.”

“I told your brother I'd take care of you.”

“He keeps me out of school all the time. Can't I just . . . stay?”

“I have to work.”

I slump down in my chair and play idly with my fork, tapping it on the plate.

“You're adorable like that,” she says.

I look up and she sticks her lower lip out, imitating me.

“I'm not pouting.”

“Yes you are. It's cute.”

“Okay, I'm pouting.”

She reaches out with her fork and gives me a very gentle poke on the hand.

“Hey.”

I do some more nonpouting.

“Hey,” she says, poke-poking.

“What.”

“I really enjoy hanging out with you, Isaac. You're good company.”

“Really?”

“Yes. Really. I'm very comfortable with you for some reason. You're easy to talk to. You and me”—she does the two fingers pointing back and forth between our eyes thing—“we've got that connection, whatever it is.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. You think I'd take just any man home?”

I smile and blush.

“C'mon, I'll give you a ride to school.”

 

And so I make my arrival at Edina Junior High School on the back of her Vespa, clinging tight to her, hoping that the entire student body is lined up to see me. They're not, though, because I'm late and everyone is in homeroom, and Lesley is running late for work, too, so our goodbye is hurried and awkward and I don't get a chance to say any of the things I had prepared. We pull up to the curb, and I just hop off and hand her the helmet, and she gives me another peck on the forehead, then makes a shooing motion with her hand. “Go, go!” she says.

I reluctantly start walking backwards, but she's busy fastening the extra helmet to the seat and not even looking at me, so I finally turn and go.

“Wait!” she says from behind me, and I turn eagerly. She's gesturing for me to come back, and I do, practically sprinting, visualizing an intense embrace. Instead she's holding a tube of product.

“Can't let you go in like that.”

It's heaven, the twenty seconds she spends fussing over me, her fingers running through my hair, and I have to fight to keep myself from reaching up and placing my hands on hers.

“There. Go! Fly!”

Another swat on the butt like at the restaurant, and I fly, soaring on golden angels' wings toward the waiting entranceway to school. The bell that signals the end of homeroom rings a welcome as I pass through the doorway, a completely transformed Isaac from the last time I was here: triumphant, confident, invincible, the hero returning. Right into the most horrific, humiliating day I've ever had.

I'm so deliriously happy. I'm happy as I walk into the entrance, happy as I make my way down the hall, happy as I reach my locker, and happy as I spot my peeps near the trophy case.

And then I become unhappy very, very quickly.

 

“No, seriously, what the hell are you wearing?” Danny says.

He's not saying it as a joke or to tease me. He's saying it with an edge in his voice, like I've offended him.

“I'm wearing. Clothes.”

It's been about a minute since I walked up to them and got stunned silence in response to my greeting. No one has even said anything about my black eye. Steve's mouth is literally hanging open, like I just told him I'm gay or that I'm his father, or both.

“What is this shirt? Who are the Beat?” says Paul.

“It's just a shirt,” I say, and smile.

“Is that . . . gel?” says Steve.

“Yeah. Here.” I lean my head forward for them to touch. No takers. I straighten up. They watch me silently.

“What?” I say.

The three of them exchange glances, then look back at me, and then I understand: I've betrayed them. I'm leaving them. I'm better than them. That's what the clothes say.

“Look, I have some new clothes, I got a haircut. It's still me,” I say.

No one answers. I can see the suspicion in their eyes, the resentment, and all my prior happiness is suddenly drowned by a helpless fear that I never saw coming, a queasy panic that my friends might abandon me.

“You see this?” I say, grinning, pointing to my eye, hoping to redirect everything back to the path it should be on, the one where we're all friends. “My brother hit me.”

What, for dressing like an art fag? Why, because you think you're one of the Jonas Brothers? How come, because you .
.
 . ?

But no one makes any joke or says anything about it. Instead, Danny says, “Where the hell were you last night?”

“Danny, I'm really sorry, I just . . .”

“Just what?”

“I was going to call you.”

“It was his birthday party,” says Paul. “We've been talking about it for weeks.”

“I know, but—”

“You blew us off three times in a row,” says Steve.

“My brother—”

“I called you, like, fifty times,” says Danny.

“I told you, my brother threw my phone in the creek.”

“I called your home phone, too. And e-mailed.”

“I know, I just . . .”

They stare at me like I'm a stranger.

“I didn't mean to miss your party. I was going to call.”

Nothing.

“Can we just play this weekend? I promise, promise, promise I'll be there.”

They're all silent, glancing at each other.

“What.”

“We're starting a new game.”

“A new map? A new campaign?”

“Yes.”

I'm not sure where to start asking questions.

“Well . . .”

“We
already
started,” clarifies Steve.

We all stand there, the next part obvious, but no one wanting to say it out loud. Finally I do, hoping the answer will somehow be different: “Without me?”

“You should have called me back,” says Danny, and then he turns and walks away, and Paul and Steve go with him.

 

I'm literally shaking as I walk to the next class. I sit in my seat, staring at my desk, trying to calm myself down. I'll talk to them at lunch. I'll talk to them and make everything better. But when I take my tray to our table they're not there. And they don't come. Which means they all talked about it and decided to eat outside.

There's part of me that's able to believe that it was unintentional, that they just forgot to tell me where they'd be. That's what I tell myself as I walk the perimeter of the school, looking for them. Then I spot them on the grass by door seven, and then Paul sees me and says something to the other two, and they get up and walk in the other direction.

The rest of the day I am a tooth chewing on tin foil. I'm trapped in a room where a thousand fingernails squeal over chalkboard walls. Everyone in the school can sense it, I know. Everyone can see me now, can see that I've been abandoned and rejected and shamed. I'm burned by eyes glancing at me and my new clothes, my idiot clothes, my idiot hair, people whispering and smirking. Even Sarah Blumgartner looks at me with derision: I pass her in the hall and she stops dead, staring at me, and then covers her mouth as she laughs.

I was right this morning: I
am
a different person now, but different in the wrongest way; I'm John Slenkar when he jumped into the middle of the dance floor during Spring Fling and started break dancing, thinking he was cool when everyone was laughing at him.

Eric Weinberg notices me. He stops as we pass each other in the common area, stops and stares at me and doesn't divert his gaze, almost in surprise, like I've joined his wraithworld and we're fully solid to each other while everyone else is transparent vapor. I drop my eyes and turn away.

I've gotten too excited, run too far away from the herd, rolled in the wrong grass and drunk the wrong water and shed my camouflage and I don't smell right anymore, and the herd is rejecting me. And now that I'm visible and smell wrong for the herd, the predators pick it up, and my day gets far, far worse.

M
ERIT
B
ADGE
: P
UBLIC
H
UMILIATION

“Hey, faggot!”

I fumble with my backpack, my desperate desire to zip it closed making it take twice as long. All around me kids are streaming out of the school, heading home for the day.

“Hey, faggot!”

It's all of them, the whole group, the Assholes and their Associate Assholes: Bill and Jason and Kurt and Guy and Tim and Kevin.

“What's up, faggot?”

Nice clothes, nice hair, what a faggot, what a faggot, Jewboy, faggot faggot faggot.

The zipper is jammed and there're too many books in there, but I throw it over my shoulder anyway and start walking. So it bursts open, and two-inch-thick textbooks spew forth and
thump thud thump
onto the pavement, slipping from my hands when I try to gather them up, my haste again undoing my efforts. I'll have to drop my books and bag and make a run for it, but while I'm trying to decide what to do they've already surrounded me, grabbing at my backpack and jerking me to a halt.

“Leave me alone!” I say, and immediately wish I hadn't.

“Oh, leave me alone!”

“What a faggot!”

“Leave me alone!” they all mimic, a chorus of them mocking me, whapping me on the top of the head with open hands.

“Nice bag, dumbass,” says Tim, and yanks it out of my hands.

“Give it back!”

Why say that?

“You want to make me?” he says, the others jeering and laughing. “Come on, come and take it.”

How is it a circle of kids can form so quickly? There's suddenly a dense wall around us, layers thick, everyone crowding in, people shouting, “Fight! Fight!”

Tim pushes me, saying things, pushing me more. He's got me by the shirt, Lesley's shirt, and it's starting to rip.

“Don't wreck my shirt!” I say, and again it's the stupidest thing I could possibly say at the moment. He spins in a circle, pulling me to stumble along, the shirt tearing further. He hurls me to the ground, and I get up again and he pushes me. I want to punch him, to tackle him, but I'm powerless. The tears are coming, and I don't want them. The crowd around us feels thousands deep, every single student there, faces fascinated or eager or pitying or hungry, and then I see them: Steve and Paul and Danny, just watching, not doing anything to help. My peeps.

And then I see
her:
Patricia Morrison, staring at me with the same excited curiosity as the rest. The first time I've ever registered in her consciousness, imprinted in her brain as a victim who deserves what he gets because he's too weak.

And then I see
him:
Josh.

I think for a second that I've imagined it, but no, he's standing in the back of the circle, towering over everyone, his arms crossed, his expression completely dispassionate.

“Help—” I breathe before Tim tackles me to the ground and scrambles on top, sitting on my chest. He's saying stuff to me, horrible things, but I can barely hear him, and he's slapping my face. He's spitting on my face now. I know Josh taught me how to get out from this, but I'm paralyzed, pathetic. Tim spits in my face some more and slaps me, and again, and I don't do anything. I know that Josh is just watching and judging me.

Then Tim stands up, bored with me, fresh out of ways to humiliate me. More taunts delivered from an upright position, gleeful cackling from his cronies, other kids saying things. My life is over. Even Eric Weinberg wouldn't talk to me now.

“Get up.”

Josh stands over me.

“Get UP!”

His huge hand gathers up a fistful of my already-ruined shirt and lifts me roughly to my feet. The seams making tearing noises.

“Get your books.”

I go to retrieve my books, head down. Kids are dispersing or lingering, not sure what the arrival of the golem means. Danny and Steve and Paul are gone. Patricia is gone. Tim and the Assholes seem to sense that Josh isn't a threat to them, and they're still nearby, darting close to talk smack to me and then retreating, and then repeating it again. Josh doesn't pay them any mind, because he agrees with them, and it makes them bolder, showing off in front of him, still calling me a faggot, an asshole, a pussy. And then Tim says, very clearly, “Stupid Jew.”

What it is, I realize, is that he somehow doesn't get that Josh is my brother.

Josh absently reaches out and grabs Tim by the upper arm and spins him around to face him. There is a long two seconds where Tim and Josh are looking at each other, Tim with a face caught in the transition between scornful snarl and surprise—how dare this guy grab me!—Josh with a calm expression that says,
Look at me. Look at me, because I want you to understand that what's about to happen is very intentional.
Then he slaps Tim across the face.

Not a slap, an open-hand blow to the side of the head, Josh's palm nearly the size of Tim's skull. The impact is so loud that I make a coughing, gaspy sound. It's a lazy, relaxed swing for Josh, but it literally knocks Tim to the ground. His eyes glaze for a moment. He's propped up unevenly on one hand and one elbow, looking at Josh, stunned.

Everyone is frozen. Me. The Assholes. Any kids left in the immediate area. We're all rigid and wide-eyed and terrified, me maybe more than anyone, because I know Josh, know what he's like when the rage shuts off his brain.