Stand-Off (15 page)

“Where are my clothes?”

“They're in the spruce tree.” Spotted John hitchhiked a thumb toward the window through Cotton Balls's bedroom doorway.

“Why are they in a tree?”

“We threw them out the window because you admitted that you buried our sock,” Cotton Balls said. “It was only fair.”

“After you crashed, Cotton Balls woke up and we thought we should throw your only sock in the tree, but then we thought justice would require more than that. You're lucky we left you in your little boy undies. Balls was going to toss those, too,” Spotted John added.

On the one hand, I was proud of myself for confessing that I was the one who had buried Spotted John's door sock. It made me feel saintly and absolved. On the other hand, I suppose I couldn't really blame them for getting even, so I was grateful Cotton Balls didn't take my underwear, too. But still, it made me sad to think that my clothes were about fifty feet above the ground, dangling from the limbs of a spruce tree in a cold Oregon drizzle.

“They're not
little boy undies
,” I said.

Spotted John countered, “Whatever.”

“I don't have any pants,” I said.

Cotton Balls shrugged. “Well, duh. Pretty much everyone who has Internet access is currently aware of that, dude.”

“Did you really—”

Spotted John's laughter was enough to cut my question short.

“You guys are dicks.”

I really
did
say that. That's not swearing, right? I mean, the word “dick” could mean a lot of things, right? Probably not when a teenage boy says it. Well, probably never. I wondered if I should maybe go to the chapel and pray or something.

“Sorry I called you guys a swear word for penises,” I confessed again. I was getting pretty good at coming clean. Except to anyone over, like, seventeen.

“Ha ha ha.” They laughed like morons.

“You are such a dork, Ryan Dean,” Spotted John said.

I hugged my knees to my chest. “The thing is, I really
don't
have any school pants now. I ripped my only other pair when I did this.” I pointed out the bandage on my knee.

In the end, Spotted John and Cotton Balls turned out to be solid teammates, even if they did get unreasonably excited by the photos of me and Mabel they'd uploaded to the Internet. But, in the end, I was also a little late to Conditioning class because I had to play
Goldilocks-tries-on-pants-that-are-too-fat-and-too-short-and-pants-that-are-too-fat-and-too-tall before deciding that it was probably best if I just borrowed a pair of Spotted John's and rolled them up, which was marginally against the rules.

And I still went to school that day dressed in a Pine Mountain uniform that was so ill-fitted, I looked like a Vienna sausage in a sleeping bag.

I also had to borrow some of Cotton Balls's shoes because my dorm room key was locked inside Unit 113, which was just below the spruce tree that had been decorated with my only clothes.

At least neckties only come in one size.

I FELT BETTER THAT DAY.
At least, until I got to Dr. Wellins's Creative Writing class.

For one thing, it was a no-practice Friday, since most of the guys on the rugby team were leaving Pine Mountain and going home for the weekend after lunch. That gave my ribs, which were loosely swaddled in the tentlike outfit hybridized from Cotton Balls's and Spotted John's schoolboy uniforms, three days to tighten up.

Also, I had finally slept without nightmares, and without waking up in the middle of the night terrified about something I couldn't really grasp—that terrible dark figure that seemed to follow me everywhere, waiting to do something else to me. If I was afraid of anything that morning, it was about what would happen to me when I had to go back to my own room, and my own bed, and be alone all weekend with someone I never wanted to talk to—and alone with myself.

Considering he was a psycho ninja, and despite the fact that he posted Internet photographs of me sleeping in my underwear in a compromising situation with the inflatable girl doll named Mabel, Spotted John was an okay guy. He not only loaned me clothes to wear, he also slipped a couple pain pills into the pocket of his too-tall-and-too-fat pants that I had to cinch up with a belt that didn't have enough holes for a Ryan-Dean-West-size occupant. I pretty much had
to hang on to Spotted John's belt all day to keep my—his—school pants from ending up around my ankles.

In Health class, Mrs. Blyleven gave the boys a lecture on testicular cancer. Then she made us watch an actual cartoon that showed us how to perform a testicular self-exam, which resulted in Seanie Flaherty being asked to stand out in the hallway for suggesting what our homework assignment was going to be.

He'd said, “Are we going to have to fondle our balls for homework, Mrs. B?”

It was so awkward and uncomfortable being with all those boys in that deathly quiet room, watching a cartoon about our balls. It was also uncomfortable because the pain pill I'd taken in Spotted John Nygaard's drug den had worn off, and I just couldn't sit comfortably in that goddamned plastic desk chair.

Mrs. Blyleven noticed me wriggling and shifting around in my seat.

“I apologize if the subject of the film makes you feel uncomfortable, Ryan Dean, but this really is an important topic for young men over the age of fifteen,” Mrs. Blyleven said. Then she patted my shoulder and added, “No need to be embarrassed about it, Ryan Dean.”

The other guys in class laughed at me, and Mrs. Blyleven scolded them. “This is a Health class, boys! There is nothing to laugh about here!”

Which made the other boys laugh more.

Crap.

Mrs. Blyleven seemed to take pleasure in watching us boys squirm in embarrassed discomfort when she told us things about ourselves we didn't really want to hear from a middle-aged woman. So I pretended to take notes during the cartoon, but I was really writing a goddamned poem (on borrowed notebook paper, since all my stuff had been locked inside Unit 113) about
my body
for Dr. Wellins's class.

I decided to work in a bit about a self-exam of my balls.

And although Seanie was exiled to the hallway during the ball-check cartoon, he was right about our homework. Mrs. Blyleven really did assign us to perform what she called a TSE over the weekend, and then she said that on Monday we'd have to hand in a paragraph about what we experienced.

What guy could possibly write an entire paragraph about what he experiences while checking his balls?

Gross.

Maybe I could just hand my poem in to her, I thought.

•  •  •

I figured that if I ran, I might catch Annie on her way between classes, since I'd missed seeing her at breakfast. When I found her coming out of her British Lit class, I was sweating and out of breath, and my oversize shirt was coming untucked from my too-loose belt and too-big pants.

“Oh, Ryan Dean! You look terrible! And you missed breakfast again.”

I always thought it was hot when Annie scolded me. I was also hot from running through the halls.

I held her hand and stood as close to her as I could without breaking any Pine Mountain required-distance-between-friends guidelines. “Sorry, Annie. I overslept and ended up being a little late to Conditioning class.”

“You have to stop missing meals, Ryan Dean. Look at you. Are you losing weight? It looks like your clothes are draperies.”

To be honest,
my
clothes actually
were
draperies. On a spruce tree. And I
was
losing weight, not that I had much I could afford to give up.

“I had to borrow these clothes from Spotted John and Cotton Balls because I got . . . um, locked out of my room this morning when the Abernathy left.”

Annie laughed. It always made me feel wonderful when my girlfriend laughed, like there was nothing at all that could possibly hurt me, anywhere. “Why do these things always happen to you, Ryan Dean?”

“Admit it, Annie. It's what you love about me. And my body. Which reminds me—you might find this interesting—Mrs. B taught us boys how to do a TSE, a testicle self-examination.”

Annie blushed, the same color as when she gazed upon the fetal, hedgehog-like, Sam Abernathy. “And how did Mrs. Blyleven teach a bunch of guys how to do
that
?”

“Well, it was a cartoon, to be honest. And the main character was a fox. Named Timmy, the TSE Fox. And Timmy the TSE Fox had hands. The hands, and opposable thumbs, are necessary things, in case you were wondering how to do one. Oh, and balls, too. Very necessary. I wrote a poem about it, kind of, for Dr. Wellins's class. The old perv made us write poems reflecting on our bodies while we were naked. Here. I better get to class or I'll be late and the Abernathy will probably send out a search team for me again.”

I passed a folded sheet of paper to Annie.

“What's this?”

“It's a copy of my naked poem for Dr. Wellins. So you can think about me when you're gone this weekend.”

I winked at Annie.

“You're such a pervert!” she said.

“That's the other thing you love about me, Annie.” I squeezed her hand. “See you in
Foods class
.”

•  •  •

The Abernathy wriggled and squirmed in his seat when I walked into Dr. Wellins's class.

“Ryan Dean! You have gigantic clothes on!”

I held on to my pants. “Don't talk to me.”

“I brought your backpack, just in case you had any important homework in there—like your poem about your body. And speaking of your body, how are
your ribs
?”

When he said “your ribs,” the Abernathy whispered as though we were sharing some darkly conspiratorial secret.

“Never talk to me about my body again.”

And why was this kid so nice to me, anyway? Couldn't he see I neither wanted nor deserved his bubbliness? Maybe he was in an especially good mood because he'd been able to write his naked poem, or shower and poop without having to ask me to leave my own fucking dorm room.

I should probably never think about Sam Abernathy composing naked poetry, or showering and pooping, again.

It's all too much.

“I hope my young scholars are emotionally prepared to share their poetry,” Dr. Wellins announced when he walked onto the stage of his classroom, waving his tweed-sleeved arm in a dramatic flourish. “Shall we start with Crit Group One—Abernathy and West?”

Shit.

I took the poem I'd written in Health class out of the gallon-size back pocket on Spotted John's school pants and told the Abernathy, “Alphabetical order, Snack-Pack. You're going first.”

Okay. It's like this: I'm not going to try to completely recall the psychological torment of listening to what was actually in Sam Abernathy's poem about his naked body, which is also something I never want to think about again, but it was called “Nude Reclining with Popcorn on a Princess Snugglewarm Blanket,” and parts of it
included the phrases “What fleshy form lies here reposed, nude, at the mirror by the foot of his bed?” and “These narrow buttocks curve, peachlike in the absent morn”—because, two things: One, the only mirror in our room is at the foot of
my
bed—not
his
bed,
my
bed, and the Abernathy was clearly “reposed” on
my
bed, which also happened to have the
only
Princess Fucking Snugglewarm blanket, which the Abernathy was naked on, which is extremely gross; and, second,
“peachlike buttocks”
? Not only did I never want to think about the Abernathy's fruity buttocks again, I also decided I would never eat another peach as long as I lived. And when the little peach-assed puppy was finished reciting his poem to the class (and he recited from memory, with no paper in front of him, which was even grosser than if he'd read it), Dr. Wellins closed his eyes and lowered his chin, as though he were receiving a message from God. Then he removed his handkerchief and dabbed at the corners of his eyes.

“May I see your paper, Mr. Abernathy?” the pretentious old douche asked. (He always referred to us as “Mr.” or “Miss,” ever since he became “Dr.”)

“Sure!” The Abernathy gave himself a quick little TSE, like he either needed to go pee really bad, or he, well, was giving himself a quick little TSE, which was another thing I never wanted to think about happening on Sam Abernathy's little Ts again.

Dr. Wellins held Sam Abernathy's poem at the perfect bifocal angle so he could read it, and he either read it really slowly or he dozed off
for a quick nap, because it was a full three minutes before he said anything to the class.

“What we have here,” he began, “is a singular effort—an outstanding example—of what is called a pantoum. Fine work, young man!”

Pantoum
. I wanted to shoot myself.

“Thank you, sir!” The Abernathy jiggled his narrow peachy ass in his seat and scratched at his little wiener again.

“And, Mr. West?” Dr. Wellins said. “Please share your poem with us.”

I cleared my throat and stood up, hoping some massive volcano in the Cascades would erupt before I could even read the title.

“Well?” Dr. Wellins prodded. “What are you waiting for, Mr. West?”

“I thought I heard a volcano.”

Dr. Wellins cocked his head, the way a collie might do when someone blows a dog whistle.

“No. That's the title of my poem, sir. ‘I Thought I Heard a Volcano,' by Ryan Dean West.”

It went, unfortunately, like this:

A half-cooled furloughed devil wriggled up through a fissure

from a volcano that erupted near to Boston's Charles River.

Quite obviously naked as Pope Innocent's nose,