The Cake is a Lie (15 page)

A week after Ian’s party, Avi’s mom
“caught” him with weed. She demanded to know where he got the weed
and he told her me. His mom called my mom and yelled at her and I
was forbidden from ever hanging out with Avi again.

Of course my mom believed my side of
the story. Especially my allegation that Avi was lying to shift the
blame from himself, the real pot pusher. And as for me and pot, I’d
experimented a few times and didn’t like it. My mom didn’t like his
mom anyways, Avi’s mom was a wino.

A few weeks earlier, I was bringing Avi
to go get baked at Ian’s with me (working against all odds to
integrate him into Ian’s group). When he turned to me and said,
“Marco, is this it? Is this all we’re going to do for the rest of
high school? Smoke weed all the time?” I looked at him like he was
retarded. Smoking weed was my favorite thing to do in the entire
universe. The comment made so little sense I decided it didn’t even
deserve an answer.

A few moments later, as we were
walking, it occurred to me that there was honestly no possible way
guys like Avi and me would ever be popular without pot.
Checkmate.

From the beginning I was suspicious
that Avi made the whole being caught story up. I figured Avi just
wanted to be honest with his parents and told them. Told them that
all his friends were smoking weed. I don’t think he expected how
hard they would come down on him.

For his betrayal of our friendship I
swore to not only never speak to Avi again, but to ruin him, use
all my social sway at Shorewood to make sure he became a loser. I
sanctified this oath through years of dreaming about it. I’d made
my first life enemy. For the next three years, whenever we’d be
forced into the same room together–as soon as I got a glimpse of
that bushy red hair. My sub atomic particles would break away from
whatever they were doing and charge right at him. We never so much
as looked each other’s direction, even if he was standing right in
front of me, but you could feel the tension raging furiously. For
three years. Our smiles getting bigger, our rapturous laughter
getting louder. It wasn’t the most dangerous battle, but it was as
serious and agonizing as any that’s ever been fought.

Shorewood’s varsity quarterback, Greg
Cooks, called hike. I was standing on the far right side of the
field playing cornerback. The whole offense shifted directly
towards me, it was a sweep. I was actually scared. My presence on
the field was only a slight upgrade from a punching bag. The
receiver barely even touched me, he was more worried about blocking
the safety behind me. I was left alone facing the running back. I’d
learned to not try and tackle varsity running backs up high
anymore, but in football you could grab the feet, it was the great
equalizer. You always had a chance if you tried to grab the feet. I
got ready to lunge, to stretch out and grasp on to his ferocious
legs for dear life. I could already feel his cleats trashing into
my helmet and tearing into my arms.

“
BAMM.” I was thrown up into
a side summersault before slamming to the ground. I groveled in
pain. Where did that guy come from?

My head throbbed as I stood up. I
hobbled over to the sideline and sat down. Maybe it’s good I’m
getting high before practice, I laughed ironically.

At the end of freshman year I’d finally
hit my growth spurt. The chubby curse that had plagued me
throughout grade school and middle school had vanished. Tabloid
headlines at the grocery store about losing ten pounds fast no
longer grabbed my attention like a flea to a dog pound. My braces
had come off, too, revealing a perfect bright smile. After 7 years
of thinking, “If only I wasn’t fat and didn’t have dinosaur teeth…”
all of a sudden my excuses were gone.

I’d gotten rid of my sweater vests and
loose button up shirts. I’d started wearing T-shirts without other
layers. I’d even got a big, expensive, black puffy North Face
jacket for my Birthday.

I’d got skinny without changing my
childish eating habits or exercising. It was just my time to grow.
Regardless, this change in my physique had inspired me to go for my
lifelong dream of starring on the football field.

The excursion was failing pretty
miserably. I wasn’t committed to being an athlete. I wasn’t into
weight lifting and training. “Tools” wasting all their time trying
to be like the roid head action figures they grew up with. Everyone
made the JV team, otherwise they would’ve cut me.

“
Yo Marco,” Tysen walked
over to me. Tysen was on the football team and was actually pretty
good, he was the backup quarter back. This earned the respect of
some of the senior’s like Taylor Beck. Tysen even hung out with
them during practice.

“
Man, I got crazy news, you
ready for this.” Tysen’s energy was infectious, like it always was.
“So, Taylor came up to me earlier and invited me to a party at his
house after practice tonight. You wanna go with me?”

“
For real? I’m
in.”

This
was
a fortunate day. I wondered over
why Tysen had decided invite me to go with him, probably because I
had a reputation for partying and he’d never even drank before.
Honestly I didn’t know much about the seniors, they were so far off
my radar I really didn’t pay them any mind, except to make myself
small when they were around. But cars were definitely on my mind as
a sophomore, and the seniors had them, big trucks and
jeeps.

Taylor picked us up by the gym after
practice. Taylor was a big gentle giant, he put off the “deep down
I’m a really nice guy” vibe. I liked that and I liked Taylor. But
he was a man’s man, and didn’t stray too far beyond that
conversationally. We didn’t quite click in these picky
times.

But peering over Taylor’s center
console from the backseat I couldn’t be more ecstatic in the face
of the streaking lights of the night. Taylor told us about how when
he was a sophmore the seniors had took him out partying. He had
such a good time that he decided to keep the tradition going. While
he talked, Tysen and I laughed our loudest at anything that
remotely resembled a joke. All the while I was promising myself I
would never, ever, party with sophomores when I was a
senior.

I’d of course come fully prepared for
this once in a lifetime social event and brought a dub—twamps were
called dubs now. I ask Taylor if he wanted to get high, I
definitely said it cool though, probably used the words bud or
fire.

He declined, “I don’t smoke.” Uh oh. He
was the first cool person I’d met at Shorewood that didn’t smoke. I
felt sorry for him–he was missing out on true happiness.

“
You should ask Hawkins, he
smokes.”

Everyone was meeting up at the local
bowling alley’s parking lot. When we got there some football
players walked over to Taylor’s car and told us everyone was
waiting for a senior cheerleader, Lauren Lo, to go on a beer
run.

The magic of life was all around, I was
a sophomore hanging out with some of the coolest seniors. I’m just
better, I reflected, my life’s special.

Dan Hawkin’s truck was parked a few
spots down from us, it was raised on huge tires. After practice,
Hawkins would take off his shoulder pads and jersey to reveal his
popping, unrivaled abs and a tattoo of a black hawk sprawled across
his back, its wings spread wide open from shoulder blade to
shoulder blade.

Hawkins might have had an amazing last
name, muscles and the most badass tattoo ever. But I was a baby
faced, handsome, straight-A sophomore with a puffy black North Face
hood hanging just barely over my twisted, bleeding eyes. I was
oozing confidence, the kind of confidence that comes from partying
since thirteen. How could you look at me and not shudder at the
potential? I walked over to his car ask him if he wanted to get
toasty, flashing my big, white, perfect teeth.

“
It’s been a while man but
I’m down.” I climbed up into the truck.

Dan was easy to talk to, nice. He
talked kind of like an air head. “Yaaa man, whaat? Oh ya.” Not
impressively clever. I immediately assumed his life had been a
picnic solely on behalf of his physique and good looks. Like Landon
or Jonsen.

Dan blew a hit out his cracked window
far off into the night, he lingered there, with his head resting up
against the glass.

“
I was a sophmore just
yesterday man. I can’t believe I’ll never play football again after
this year. It’s crazy, I’ve been playing football my entire life.”
It was true, the end of Hawkin’s high school reign was looming, he
looked genuinely stressed. Dan was not the kind that goes to
college.

When I told my mom how badly I wanted
to be popular she would always tell me about the most popular kids
in her high school. How when she saw them years later they were all
fat and had drinking problems. She’d describe how their eyes lit up
when the conversation would steer back to high school. How sad it
was. I looked at Dan, sitting in the passenger seat of his truck,
and thought about my mom’s words. I knew deep down there was no way
that was happening to me. I was definitely going to college,
college is where smart guys like me finally got girls like crazy,
where society finally weeded out the dumb jocks like Hawkins and
Jonsen. I couldn’t wait.

Lauren Lo finally showed up in her
glistening Ram truck. I’d never met Lauren before, but I’d
overheard some cheerleaders talking about how Lauren had gotten
everyone wasted before the annual cheerleader flag football
game.

Ceremonially, Lauren came around to
each car. She was extremely outgoing and flirtatious. Dripping
black curly hair. I was immediately captivated by the three
different bright colors faded together on her eyelids, I’d never
seen that before. The ton of make-up thing wasn’t really my style
but it suit her.

She wanted to know all about
me. “Where did
you
come from?” She questioned.

I didn’t really answer, it was best to
drag the mystery out.

“
Who sells you beer?” I
interrogated her back.

“
This goober at Fred Meyers
has a huge crush on me, I can get it anytime I want.” I couldn’t
help but laugh when she laughed. As Lauren asked me what I wanted
to drink her perfectly painted eyes broke every rule for how long
you’re allowed to cordially stare.

She “promised” to hook me up whenever
and gave me her number. [11] The procession of cars headed off to
Taylor’s.

[11]
Making drug
connections, that’s the cool way in high school. They must never
know you actually like them.

Taylor’s house was down by the beach,
where all the fancy rich houses were. His house wasn’t nice, but it
was a great sanctuary of unsupervision. We entered through the
screen doors of an old patio. Then we went down an old,
handlebar-less, nails-sticking-out, wooden stairway to his
basement. Someone had called Taylor’s house the ultimate bachelor
pad and they were right. It had a mini bar–and that’s pretty much
all it took. It was by far the coolest basement I’d ever been in.
Lauren and her friends started making people drinks. Sitting at the
old wooden bar, I told everyone my favorite football team story.
Here’s how it goes:

Somehow I convinced Tysen to take
Adderall for the first time before one of our football games. I was
just always making jokes about how much faster he would be on
Adderall. “Tysen, this shit will make you Speedy Gonzalez,” I’d say
while jogging circles around him, “Tysen, I can’t get tired, I just
can’t, it’s impossible.” The night before one of our games, with a
whole four hours of riding the bench ahead of him, he eventually
caved. Unthinkably, but oh so perfectly, our star quarterback got
hurt and Tysen was thrown in. Tysen, and I say this without a hint
of exaggeration, played the greatest half of quarterback of his
life. Our team still got blown out, we were… not good, but Tysen
made some big completions, even like a 50-yard bomb. After the game
everyone was going wild congratulating him, coaches, players, his
family. I was able to catch him on the way back to the bus. Tysen
was a lick lipping, pupil bulging mess. He looked at me with his
crazy dilated pupils and said “Marco, what did you give me? I don’t
even know what is going on right now.” I keeled over laughing. How
could everyone not notice, how could they not see?

Tysen was being a total wet blanket at
the party. He was freaking out about getting in trouble, apparently
his mom knew all about Taylor’s, she actually might have been the
one that dubbed Taylor’s house “the ultimate bachelor pad.” She had
also threatened to smell Tysen’s breathe when he got back, so he
wasn’t drinking. I kept trying to talk to him, to share the
incredible moment with him, but he didn’t want any of it. He kept
walking away from me to other groups, looking certain that at any
moment his mom was going to show up and break up the
party.

Sitting at Taylor’s bar I felt like I’d
just won 10 trophies. Tysen and I were the shit. We were sophmores
partying with seniors. 2 out of 500. Well, there was one other
sophomore there, Oakley Carter.

Oakley had transferred to Shorewood
from private school at the start of sophomore year. In a million
years I never expected to see her at Taylor’s that night, I knew
people’s crowds and the senior footballers were not supposed to be
her crowd. Even more surprisingly, she was curled up on the other
side of the basement with Pacey Baker, sitting across his lap on a
sofa chair, making out with him hard. She looked like she’d make
out with anyone, she was straight mashed. Pacey knew exactly what
to do with that. When she turned her head away from him to the
party, he reached up his fingers to her chin and steered her mouth
back to his. What a lush, I thought, staring over at them, slutting
her way to the top. I wasn’t impressed, any half way good looking
girl could do that. Rumor was she’d already slept with two seniors
at Shorewood. We were barely a quarter into sophomore year. She was
a certified ho. She probably left private school because all the
girls hated her for hooking up with all the guys.