Stand-Off (16 page)

since in the pits of hell not a-one of us wears clothes.

He's gotten very thin due to his metabolic rate,

and sleeplessness caused by a haunting bugbear called Nate.

If you want to see his body, look at Spotted John's website,

where he's posted sex photos of him and a girl named Mabel last night.

He has practically no body hair and his breath smells like burritos,

President Grover Cleveland had a moustache and a lot of pocket vetoes.

He doesn't know just why his roommate is immune to his meanness.

It took all goddamned
²
day to craft a mention of his penis,

which reminds him that he should try to contact the board of education,

because in Health class his homework is to do a testicular self-examination.

“A sonnet!” Dr. Wellins squealed. “And the rhymes are so organic, so unforced!”

What an idiot.

Burritos and pocket vetoes?

“And I'd like to point out that I found a word that rhymes with ‘penis,' I worked in a reference to Mark Twain
³
, my favorite author,
plus
I avoided the use of one-P-P-O-V,” I said.

“Remarkable, young Mr. West! Simply
remarkable
.”

“Thank you, Dr. Wellins.”

I sat down.

The peach-assed Abernathy squirmed and kicked and smiled and tugged at his balls. “That was awesome, Ryan Dean! But what's a testicular self-examination?”

“Don't talk to me.”

2
. Look, it's not swearing if it's in a poem. It's art.

3
. “A half-cooled furloughed devil.”

JUST MY LUCK.

Mrs. O'Hare had us make peach crisp in Culinary Arts class. I nearly vomited twice thinking about that which I never wanted to think about—Sam Abernathy's narrow, peachy buttocks—which, as far as I knew, had never actually been seen by any living person. Not that I was on a mission to be the first.

Gross.

“How many pocket vetoes did President Cleveland have?” Annie asked.

“Oh. I take it you read my poem.”

“It was really good!” the Abernathy gushed.

I stabbed a bad-dog finger at him and said, “No.”

He just didn't have a clue.

And then I said, “About two hundred and thirty, I think.”

“That
is
a lot.” Annie laughed. “And did you manage to do your health homework yet?”

“What? Sitting at my desk in Dr. Wellins's class? I don't think so, Annie. Anyway, I'd ask you to be my study buddy for it, but I'm not going to see you till Monday.”

Then Annie smiled, looked at the Abernathy, and blushed.

What was she thinking?

Totally gross.

•  •  •

“If you want to hang out at my house with me this weekend, my parents wouldn't mind. I think they like you more than they like me, Ryan Dean,” Seanie said. At lunch, I walked out to his car with him and Annie.

Seanie Flaherty was Annie Altman's airport chauffeur this year, which didn't really worry me, because Seanie was so weird, and I knew Annie didn't think he was cute or anything. And really, Seanie did not like girls. If he didn't want to admit it, I didn't care. It wasn't going to change our friendship.

But hanging out at Seanie's house was really boring because he never did anything except creep around on the Internet and play shooter video games. What was worse was that his parents always tried to start conversations with me about going to college or growing up, and after they'd run out of things to say they'd start talking about church, which is something I'd always have to go to with them if I ever spent the weekend at Seanie Flaherty's house.

So, no.

“What are you planning on doing this weekend?” I asked.

“Besides my TSE and reflective ball-grabbing paragraph? Nothing. Just hanging out. Me and my balls,” Seanie said. “But Spotted John told me to look at his website, though. He said there was stuff on it that's funnier than shit.”

I knew I was never going to hear the end of the teasing about the night I spent with inflatable Mabel.

After I watched Seanie drive off with my girlfriend, I bit off half of one of the pain pills Spotted John had left in my pocket. My ribs were feeling better, but then again I hadn't been hit yet. Still, I was pretty sure I'd be okay by practice on Monday, so I wouldn't have to fake it or lie to Coach M.

Then I did what I almost always did on Friday afternoons after saying good-bye to my friends: I got depressed and mopey, and walked slowly back toward the boys' dorm.

Alone.

And on my way there, as a cold wind blew across the lake and stung my nonfruity facial cheeks, some of my other Ryan Dean Wests invaded the wasteland of my head to have a go at me, as so often is the case when I am alone.

RYAN DEAN WEST 2:
Bet you're scared about being alone this weekend, aren't you?

RYAN DEAN WEST 1:
I'm not alone. I have the Abernathy.

RYAN DEAN WEST 2:
Oh yeah, your good buddy. And don't forget, you have Spotted John, too—the guy who posted pictures on the Internet of you in your underwear cuddling with his inflatable girlfriend.

RYAN DEAN WEST 3:
I've seen them! They're hilarious.

RYAN DEAN WEST 1:
Screw you, guys.

NATE:
I've seen them too. I'm always watching you, kid.

RYAN DEAN WEST 1:
You're not allowed in my head.

NATE:
You can't get rid of me, kid. It's as simple as that.

RYAN DEAN WEST 2:
Why don't you kick his ass? What are you afraid of, Ryan Dean? You can't let that dude run your life.

RYAN DEAN WEST 1:
I wish you'd all just shut up and leave me alone.

I ran back to Unit 113. I think the pain pill must have been kicking in, because I couldn't feel my ribs at all. To be honest, I couldn't feel much of anything beyond being upset and pissed off, which are things pain pills can't do too much for. I needed to get out, away from everything, and the only thing I could think to do was to go for a long run.

But, of course, I had to knock. My key was still locked inside, where I'd left it the night before.

“Oh! Hi, Ryan Dean!” the Abernathy said when he opened the door, dressed in his obvious weekend leisure outfit: camo sweatpants, plaid flannel bedroom slippers, and a hoodie with a rainbow print of cats wearing space helmets and shooting lasers at each other.

“Hi.”

Then I was, like,
Did I just say “hi” to the Abernathy?

It was a reflex. Sometimes guys just can't stop themselves from saying hi when someone wearing slippers surprises us with a greeting at an open door. I had to shake it out of my head.

Do not talk to him. Do not talk to him.

I kicked off Cotton Balls's shoes and climbed out of the tent of clothes he and Spotted John had loaned me. Then I got into my running gear.

“Are you going for a run?”

“Yes.”

What was I doing? That pain pill must have had some kind of truth serum in it or something. That must have been why I confessed to Spotted John and Cotton Balls about burying their goddamned sock in the hall palm.

Think about peaches, think about peaches
.

Totally gross.

My stomach hurt.

“Can I come with you?”

What was he saying? I couldn't just allow the Abernathy to run with me. What if somebody
saw us
? What if Spotted John's poison nice pills made me say yes?

I had to get control.

“Maybe next time.”

I already had a hand on the doorknob, but then, cursing myself for apparently having no ability to ward off the politeness side effect of Spotted John's goddamned pill, I had to turn around and grab my key off the desk.

Wait.
Lack of interest in sex????

“Okay! Next time, then,” the Abernathy burbled. He pointed out the open window.

Shit.

Two girls were walking past our building, giggling because they'd been watching me undress. Whatever. Porno Ryan Dean was probably already at ten thousand hits and counting on Spotted John's fucking website, anyway.

And the Abernathy prattled on, “Oh! By the way, I noticed your clothes were hanging up in the tree out there. What were your clothes doing in a tree, Ryan Dean?”

“Hiding from bears.”

I needed to shut the hell up.

The Abernathy was jiggling with joy over the fact that he'd engaged me in conversation. A quick Little-Sam TSE, and he went on, “Ha ha! You're so funny, Ryan Dean! Anyway, Mr. Bream helped me get them down. I'm doing laundry right now, so I put them in with my stuff. I don't mind. It's no bother at all! I like doing laundry. Is there anything else you need to have washed, dried, and folded?”

My clothes taking a bath with the Abernathy's? So gross.

“Uh, no thanks.”

What was I
doing
? I had to get out of there before I actually got into a full-blown civil conversation with the boy with an ass of peach.

“I gotta go, Sam.”

I was a babbling fountain of idiotic niceties.

IF I WASN'T SUCH A
coward, I'd have punched myself in the face. But I managed to get out of Unit 113 before I let go any more unrestrained, pleasant chitchat with Sam Abernathy.

I jogged off, away from the boys' dorm on the trail along the lake.

The rain felt like a stranger sneezed cold spit-mist on me, and I was feeling a little guilty (and spit on), thinking about how guilty Annie would make me feel for being so mean to Sam Abernathy, which would probably make him feel sad if he had any clue about how I felt about everything.

That's a lot of feeling going on there.

Look: It's not like the Abernathy was a
bad guy
. That's what I said to myself, at least.

What everyone—Sam Abernathy included—just couldn't understand was the simple fact that Ryan Dean West was not going to make friends with anyone else this year. What's the point in friendship? When bad things happen to your friends, it hurts worse than if it was your own heart breaking. So it was a matter of practicality. Dominic Cosentino obviously understood that. That's why he treated me like a piece of shit, which was an entirely appropriate reaction to my own
over-the-top-Sam-Abernathy-give-myself-an-excited-little-TSE-tug-and-let-me-be-your-best-pal idiocy. In the same way it wasn't my task to help Sam Abernathy through the rough patch that was destined to be his freshman year at Pine Mountain, it also wasn't Nico's responsibility to help me get over what happened to his brother Joey.

I got that, okay?

The world would be so much better off if nobody cared for anybody, ever.

Nico knew that. Lesson learned.

I ran.

When I got away from the main campus, I slipped off my shirt and left it hanging on a trail marker. I liked running in the rain without a shirt, no matter how cold it was—it was like taking a shower outside and letting the universe spit on me, which is something that the universe always seemed to get a kick out of. Headmaster Dude-with-the-unpronounceable-last-name invoked a new rule last semester: that boys could not go running without shirts on if we were anywhere near the campus. He said it was “inappropriate.” I'd like to see him run in his fucking Brooks Brothers suit and shiny loafers. What an idiot. He was most likely some kind of ghastly monster, I decided, who only ever showed skin from the cuff links down and from his collar stays up. His real skin was probably grotesquely pocked with pus-oozing boils and would blind any mortal human who gazed upon it.

And I don't know what happened, but somehow, something lured me toward the old abandoned O-Hall, which the school had closed down after Joey died, when they reintroduced all of us “bad” kids back to PM's general population.

O-Hall never did anything to reform me. I was living proof of its failure. I drank beer with Spotted John last night, and then I passed out on his dirty sofa bed, practically naked, with a girl of some tarnished history that obviously involved Cotton Balls's affections and maybe multiple other suitors that I didn't want to know the first thing about. What O-Hall did do to me, though, was make me realize how human we all are, how we all have weaknesses and little empty spots that are almost impossible to fill.

The windows on O-Hall's bottom floor—the one that had been constantly empty because it was the designated girls' floor, and God knows girls never do anything bad—were all tightly boarded over with thick plywood. The upstairs windows had been left uncovered. I suppose the people in charge of shutting down O-Hall figured the only way someone might break in or vandalize the place would be through the ground floor.

That was dumb.