Falls Street (1) Chapter 1 – Anti-hope We called up Crash about eleven o’clock. He’s a light sleeper and fast on the draw. He can get to the phone before his Mom wakes up. Everyone in Moonville knows she’s a major bitch, too. And his Dad thinks he’s queer and said he’d shoot him once. Crash whispered to us that he’d be on his way, but you never could tell with him, because sometimes he still thinks he’s dreaming and rolls back over to go to sleep. Other times, somebody in the house makes a noise, and he gets all paranoid that it’s his old man, and he’s been drinking again. Nothing worse than catching him halfway up the stairs, staggering to bed. You can’t blame the guy, though. He only drinks to take the edge off, slaved most of his life away in the paper mill, and wasn’t about to see his eldest son grow up like some prissy girl. Crash was smart and all, polite and quiet. His mom likes him a lot, but usually wants him to stay at home, especially on a school nights, even in the summer. His mother would yell at him when he bought some of those vinyl pants and gloves, telling him to hide it all from his father. That stuff was all stashed away in a bag, in a box, in a hole in the wall. The pot, and they never thought to look for it, was right in his sock drawer along side the nudie magazines he swiped from his Dad. The old man had to have known they were missing. Apparently, that was okay. Whenever anyone thinks of Christopher “Crash” Pascowski, they usually get this idea that he’s a wise ass. He gets the better of most people, and he backs out of almost every fight by cracking jokes about how easy it’d be to beat him up. Sometimes, I’d like to knock his teeth out, though. Right after he talks somebody big and dirty out of rearranging his face, I’d like to crack him right in the atom’s apple and see what he says then. He’s a hard luck case most of the time, and that’s why we don’t get along all that well. We’re all hard luck cases. We’re all standing around like matching cards from different decks. It’s all right when we’re paling around together, laughing at old Hammer horror flicks and eating Easy Cheese. Once you throw us in a situation where there’s something to be had, we’re all clawing at each to throw down our sad story. And I’d be ready to go, too, but I’ve been so angry and I don’t know why. Most people think about him being a wise ass, but I don’t. I try not to think about punching him in the teeth or knocking blood across his shiny, long blonde hair. I try to think of his bicycle reflectors when he jumped the gorge by Foster Hill. I try to think about the Radial Flyer ramming Mrs. Henderson’s side porch, and him dragging his left leg running from the bulldog next door. If you build a baby carriage for Crash, you’d better put roll bars on it. From birth, he was always trying things that he swore he could do. He always ended up breaking something other than his bones, and if I had known him earlier on, we might have been real good friends. Of course, pot makes him a little less adventurous. Crash hadn’t even suggested anything interesting, just playing fighting video games and playing the occasional game of king of the mountain with big wooden swords he made in his father’s work shed. We were a bit old for that anyway, so we made sure that the game was mostly hitting and shoving so no one felt like they were five years old and playing pretend. The only thing we were pretending is that we weren’t trying to hit each other as hard as we could. And no matter how hard it hurt, no one ever admitted to being hurt by anybody. Crash didn’t end up making it that night, and that set some kind of strange tone. It was something weird in the way that we didn’t take much stock in who was there, only that he wasn’t and that he might still arrive. It’s not that he’s a focal point. He’s sort of a thermometer. No one wants to do anything when he’s not around, because if he’s willing to sneak out for it, everyone’s sure it must be good. If he stays home, they all assume it’s not much better to do than sit around flipping the channels when the folks are in bed. And I’ve had my share of nights where I’ve just sat in the dark, whacking it, because the parents were asleep and Cinemax was on, but some nights, you get that burnt up leaf smell or maybe it’s the runoff from someone’s barbeque that afternoon, but you can’t fight knowing it’s summer, moving fast. I rush outside at night when you can’t really tell the clouds are moving. Even the tides are gone at the lake, even the dogs are giving it a rest. The trees are loud as hell in the wind, though. Sometimes, it gets that way right before it sprinkles, either those tiny spikes where you say, “hey, it ain’t raining” or those big fat ones that splash at your eyes. You can’t talk around those. The grass on the field gets wet and soccer teams fall like tin soldiers, frozen on the way down, until bang. They get it in the back, usually, just like I did that one time. And we don’t play when it rains, because we don’t want to tell anybody that anyone got hurt while we were doing something we weren’t supposed to. Carrie Ann starts out in the middle of these things, right where she doesn’t belong. She’s the one most likely to get caught. Her Dad stays up nights, and her mother’s a PTA mom. She’s been an honor student, straight through school, will probably get drafted for Track & Field for some college. She’s got a ticket out of here if she doesn’t screw it up, but I’m always skeptical about these things. I don’t believe that any amount of promise and personal drive can keep you going once you realize that you actually can screw up, that for once in your life, it’s allowed. Listen to all our parents, hers and mine included, at their parties and reunions, always gabbing about the shit they used to pull and pranks they got away with. If half of it’s bullshit, then it’s still not fair what their doing to us with the cops in the school and the state police checking cars. All it has us doing is fanning out, hiding out like dogs from our parents and community. A whole generation is locked in doors watching television to make up for the shit we’re not allowed to do that they all did in the first place. When the money runs dry in any town, I think the first thing they cut out is insurance. Kids can’t be kids, boys aren’t boys, and girls were never allowed to be anything in the first place. There just isn’t enough money to make up for damages, expected or unexpected, not even enough money to breath. Sure as hell, not enough to sigh. And Carrie Ann was never suspected of anything. She’s the perfect machine, inhaling and exhaling with efficiency. A runner. That’s all they know about her. So, if she sneaks out, all she’s probably going to do is run. Sad thing is that no one knows anything else about her really. I think about her and all I can imagine are the strides and the bouncing ponytail. All I really feel watching her going around in circles is a strange sense that the whole thing’s backwards. She’s on that track, and I feel like she’s getting somewhere with every stride. Even when I’m at home watching TV thinking about it, she’s out there more constant than a heartbeat, solid, running around and around. And we’re all going in so many directions, stopping here, turning there, and I wonder why it feels more like we’re the ones repeating everything like she’s really moving and we’re all caught in some big long first step. I don’t know. I think about sex a lot, mostly, and she is something else. She’d have to be with all the running she does. And somehow she can do it without stinking from the sweat. Maybe, I’m distracted by the dark patch on her shirt forming that sloppy V between her breasts. She’s got that strange way of breathing that makes her sound like she’s speaking. Breathes have accents with her. When she runs past you, you almost think you heard her say something, but you missed it, not because it wasn’t loud enough, but because you weren’t ready for it. That’s the way it is with me when my folks don’t know what I say. I say things loud enough most of the time. They just weren’t ready to hear it. And there are a lot of things in my mind that they aren’t ready to here. I’m not sure if it makes a story or not, or even if anyone would want to read it, but I’m trying to think things through. So much exists, it’s almost too weird to believe this isn’t the real world, and the real world is something strange and weak and corporate behind the TV shows and commercials. I’m trying to tell somebody, before it’s over, before this all gets passed on. There’s something wrong we were supposed to right at the end of this, I’m sure, but I’m afraid we might be missing it. I’m afraid that tomorrow or whenever, I’m going to realize it’s gone, be glad it’s gone, and forget that it’s gone all at once. *** Later that night, I was catching the tail end of a soft-core porno with Shauna O’Brien in it. It had something to do with her having an obsession with her schoolteacher. It’s funny, but the plots of these things are the real gems, because they give you exactly what you’re most curious about. Looking around, especially at the mall in mid-August, the place is crammed with people who are products of at least one orgasm. Someone shot on target that many times to make that many people. Think about that when you’re on 690 outside of Syracuse around five. Each one of those cars has at least one story behind it. Sex happens. The question is how? I’m always thinking that these things have to make sense. Some kind of logical progression has to happen, innuendoes, a look, a tension, something, something else, then all of the suddenly it’s a silent agreement. And there’s Shauna with her ruffled dark hair breaking down the equation for us all by delivering a few strange head motions, tracing a man’s hairline with her fingertips, then the skirt flips over her head and it’s on. The story is the important part. Trying to understand the rudimentary way things work is kind of hard when the volume is off. I’m never really sure. Mostly, I’m just ready for the hand motions. If a girl does this or that, I know what it means. And that would lead me to believe since it’s the same set of motions and a different scenario each time, it must not matter much what she’s saying at all, just what she’s doing and suggesting with her eyes. The only way to really tell what’s going on is whether or not you’re turned on by it. And while I’m a bit of a pervert, admittedly, I’m not turned on by much. So, I’m rarely turned on at the wrong time. Occasionally, I catch a strange vibe that’s intended for somebody else, but that’s what you get when you’re in the line of fire. A lot of girls at our school are just plain sluts, firing off strange looks in every direction just trying to see if they work or not. It’s not really mature behavior, but I guess a lot of them would fuck you just for the sake of research. You can’t catch the big fish, until you can catch the little ones. Besides, there’s not much worry about disease when everyone here’s only been with the same group. All virgins to start. Aids doesn’t just magically appear. Out of the whole class, I’d say that only ten percent are having sex, and five percent on a regular basis. That means the five percent is just sort of rotating around slowly, and sometimes branching out with the five percent from other schools. This ain’t a real big area so I’d say that only about sixty or seventy people could possibly be in the mix. And that’s why it’s funny looking at all the cars parked at the Carousel Mall or seeing all those cars lined up by the lake on the 4th of July. It kind of makes you uncomfortable, really. All those stories ending in sex had to happen. And no matter how ridiculous these porno films are, it’s still somehow more realistic than everything else I’ve seen out there. Parents try to talk around the issue like you never had or will have gentiles, but they’re quick on the draw with words like fag, queer, and homo. I wonder sometimes if Dad even knows what that all means. Kids at school will say shit, and that’s the worst thing in the world, to be thought of as gay around here. It’s all right if you are gay, though. Everyone just knows and refuses to talk about it. They treat you like you have the plague, but at least they leave you alone. If they just think of you as gay, then they’ll call you every name in the book, sock you in the nuts until you can’t feel them or ever imagine using them for anything at all. Eventually, you just want to scream it whether it’s true or not, yell at the top of your lungs, “I’m a fucking faggot, all right!” And that’s when things get messed up, because as long as they’re twisting your arm or rubbing your face in the mud, you could say you fuck dead cows and it doesn’t mean anything other than that they got power over you. They smile and laugh, because of the power, and it doesn’t have anything to do with sex at all. But I’ve seen it mess people’s heads up real bad, getting them to question what they are what they’re not, and if being beat every day or so has to have a reason behind it, I could understand why kids like Starky are always a little confused about what they are. I hate to see that. It’s a hard thing to be forced into. I don’t believe that the world is designed to beat us into acceptance of what we are and are not. I think it’s all opportunity, money, and greed. And I watch those porno movies thinking about all the undertones in the positions of their bodies, how the woman can’t be on top without the man reaching up to mesh up her chest and her acting like that’s what she wants. I can feel something sick behind it all, and I’m not talking about pornographic stuff. I’m past all that, really. What I mean is that something is wrong with these movies, the repetitions, those things you can expect to see in every single scene. Those motions the women make with their eyes and necks are the same I see Kristy Lee making in history class to every guy in her field of view. She’s practicing them like she’s seen them somewhere before. And I know I’m onto something that makes me want to throw up if I think too hard about it. That’s when I just start thinking about sex again, thinking about her tight black skirt and how you could see the outline of her underwear underneath it. I start thinking about how she slowly bobs her legs, crosses and uncrosses them. And I wonder if she’s watching the same movie I’m up watching, and imagining how she’s going to need somebody to practice this on. And that’s the sort of thing that I spend time thinking about. I close my eyes as soon as I’ve got the image down, and I don’t even need to see Shauna anymore. All I need is to imagine being in the right place at the right time. Funny, though, I can’t ever imagine sleeping beside anyone like that with their head motions and strange looks. I like to dream at night. Strange, but I can’t ever seem to have sex in a dream. One thing or another goes wrong. The best dreams are always about being known and stable with someone. There’s usually the promise of sex in there, but I wake up before I get any. I don’t know why. They’re my dreams. It’s not that I can’t imagine sex. I’ve seen it on TV, and I can imagine every other thing that’s happened to anybody else on TV. I can’t even get a girl naked in my dreams. It’s weird. Oh well, it’s not much good remembering dreams anyway. Everything there is all fuzzy, and it’s nothing like sitting one row back and one row over from Kristy Lee in Global Studies. And it doesn’t matter who holds your hand in a dream, it’s really just a fuzzy face. Most of the time you decide on who it was when you wake up depending on how you feel. I’ve always wished that it meant something to feel like it was this girl or that girl, but I know that it’s just me being a wuss and hoping for things. I don’t know why, though. Hope is a word that I don’t like using. It only exists in sitcoms when they’ve got a few extra minutes for characters to reflect before their problems get solves at the end of the half hour. It’s not a real thing. People don’t sit around and hope. It’s just the opposite. Kids, who get picked on everyday like Starky, sit around outside the school waiting, eager for someone to knock his books over or trying to trip up his feet. It’s his way in. It’s his connection to the real world. And I’m sure every fantasy he’s ever had about a girl, if he’s ever had one, has been about punching her boyfriend out first. I can relate to that. Sometimes, I like to know who they are first, who’s going with who, so I can imagine him on top of her yelling, so I play hero and take her away. That’s just stuff I think in private, though. I know that’s all absurd shit, but that’s the closest thing to hope I can think of. That’s silly, sitting around, wishing that no body touches you isn’t any kind of hope that’s real. Of course, you’d never actually be there when someone like Tommy Campogna threw a punch at Donna Smith. It just doesn’t happen that way, and even if I was there, I don’t think I’d feel it was my place to do anything about it. I’d feel real guilty if she had to get hit in the cheek just so I could have sex with her. I don’t think I’d want it that way if I saw him hit her like everyone knows he does, but if I saw him… I mean, if I was right there and he did it real hard, I’d try to knock his eyeballs out. He’d probably beat the ever-loving shit out of me, but that’s all right. Even if I stood up and knocked him out, though, I don’t think I could touch her. I don’t think I could lay a hand on her. But still, sometimes, late at night when I want to think up a way of getting to touch her, the first thing that comes to mind is punching that fat fuck’s lights out. I’ve got comic books and videotapes up here. I make a good chunk recording these porno flicks for those kids who don’t even get cable. It’s a weird thing to be known for, but it’s better than being known for having weed all the time. Sure, Crash and his lot have more friends, but at least I’m peddling something clean. I don’t push at all. I just mention a few things here and there, say to Colombo, “Hey, you should have seen the bitch that was on last night” and sure enough he’s got a couple bucks ready for a tape. I don’t make enough profit for more than a few dollars to buy sodas and snacks with. Mostly I buy comic books like X-Men and Spiderman. I don’t care if they are corporate or not. It’s good shit, great characters, good writing. None of that flood fill coloring and weird drawings where you can see veins in people’s eyes. I like detail, but I’m not too crazy about some of that crap. Image and Darkhorse aren’t my style. I like to keep things simple like that. I hear that Spawn and Sandman have great stories, but that new stuff’s been kicking for a while and it’s impossible to jump right into the middle of it. I have trouble following the stuff I read. And I have trouble paying for the extras as it is. Crossovers and collectables are running pretty expensive these days. That’s the same with everything, though. At least I can tell my parents I was never into clothes. I asked them please stop buying me shit you think looks cool. Don’t buy me anything at all. You don’t have any clue about anything. I don’t want a neon pink shirt with the word, “Rad” on it. I don’t need a New York Mets hat with some mutant baseball smiling on the front. I’ve said, “if you want to get me anything, just stick to one color or the other, blue or red. One solid color, that’s it.” And I’ve got a dresser full of red and blue shirts and cheap blue jeans. The jeans are a little tight, and I complain. Every year, I buy new jeans, and I grow out of them real quick. I’m still a small guy, though. A 28inch waist isn’t all that bad to have considering how nobody wants to be with a fat ass, but now I’m realizing you need muscles and cash if you’re ever going to get anywhere. I haven’t got any of that going for me. If I wanted to make it work, I’d probably have to give up comics and videogames. Then where would I be? I’d probably be stuck at home watching porno movies, while my nice new clothes hung on the hangers. Yet, sex happens all the time. Either right now or in the future, a big wave of it must hit everybody. Late in middle school, I remember thinking it would be high school. And I know it must be ramped in college. Right now, though, I can’t help but thinking about Kristy Lee on her back in some guy’s car getting it real hard out there on some country roadside. I think about how Sarah Highroad must have parties every time her mother wants to hang out with her friends. They must be blasting music on the stereo somewhere with stark white carpets and a big screen TV. I think of her all wet and tipsy holding a bottle of red wine, beckoning one of the Ruth boys over into her mother’s bedroom. I think about how it must be happening with all of the exact same head moves I see on the TV late at night. It all follows some kind of secret language. Only, I don’t think they feel sick at all, like I do sometimes. I don’t think they get a strange feeling when he’s messing up her breasts. I don’t think I can imagine her on top at all, either. Just two pale arms out where all the gold and silver bracelets jingle to the rhythm of thrusts. *** I think I mentioned the Ruth boys, and I’m sorry. Somehow, they always get in there somewhere when I’m thinking. I guess it’s ‘cause I hate them so damn much. They moved here a couple of months ago from Auburn, and damn it, Auburn is not a big city or nothing, but they’ve been walking around the school like a couple of hardasses just sprung out of prison. Randy’s got a shaved head and a tattoo on his arm of barbwire. The other one, Kyle, works out all the time in the weight room at school doing leg lifts so he can run fast and kick harder when he plays goalie for soccer. He’s got a good leg on him. He ought to, but he’s a total bitch, wacking people in the head when they don’t make a play. The last year I could play in the summer league, I remember him yelling and bitching at his team. I didn’t want to lose. I refused to let us lose. I tried real hard. Made one goal myself and two assists, but we ended up dropping it by one goal. And he slapped everyone’s hands at the end of the game like he was supposed to, but he shouted out, “good game” as loud as he could in all our faces before he exploded in laughter at the very end. I wanted a good reason to punch him. I still do. Kyle isn’t much, though. Randy’s the real bastard. He throws his weight around a lot. In study hall, he used to throw insults at everybody and follow them with putting his hands up like a boxer or giving kids looks like he was some kind of animal. Then he’d laugh, and girls would actually eat that shit up. He’d knock books off my desk, call me and Ray fucking faggots, and they’d eat it right up. They loved it. And there was never reason enough to throw a punch. That’s what he wanted most of all. If somebody else started it, he could almost get away with it, but he’s a damned moron because no one would believe a kid like Ray or Lucas would ever start the fight. Most of the time, we all got punished my reputation. So, he’d get sent to ISS and we’d just get a talking to anyway. That may seem unfair, but the whole school knows he ain’t worth a shit. And I think more than one teacher would love to see him get his. I really don’t want it to be me, but I always think about Sarah Highroad, how she laughs along with his stupid jokes, and I really want to do something. I don’t know what, and I don’t know to who. She’s one of those rich girls who knows she’s something and uses it all the time. She’s the type that would call a total dork over and tell him she was curious just so she could pump him for information to use in future insults. They think I’m paranoid about this stuff, and parents don’t care because everyone says that high school’s tough for everyone, but this bitch is some kind of devil, I’d say. She once spent a whole study hall saying whom she’d consider sleeping with, and I asked to leave, because I knew what was going to happen. Not a guy in the room wasn’t hoping that she’d point at him, even though she would either laugh or pretend to think about it and then laugh. She got to Lucas and then started rattling off all the things he’d have to do before she’d even think about it. She went straight through his wardrobe, then talked about the funny way he walks, and got to his haircut. All this before saying he should get a “bigger nose” and “stop looking at her so much.” And she knows she’s got me. Dark hair and green eyes are too much for me, I think. It’s either that or the clothes. She’s like a magazine. It’s the difference between seeing some nameless lady naked on TV and seeing some movie star show her tits for the first time. She’s that way, glamorous, something to aspire to. And for all you can hate her, you freeze when she’s tearing into you. No matter how much you know she can cut you, you sit in your chair, eager, waiting. I’ve gotten mine before, the whole time hoping she didn’t say anything about the hard-on I had for her, knowing that somehow she knew. And I always want to do something, but I don’t know what. The only thing I can think of is to beat the shit out of Randy. Someone has to, and I really hope it isn’t me, because I won’t win, and I just couldn’t take losing to him. I just couldn’t handle him walking away with her. When people ask you who you want to fuck, and they will, you always have to say a name, a safe name, too, just so no one thinks you’re queer. I tell my friends and anyone who might want to beat me up, that I’d like to fuck Connie Stultz, because every guy in their right mind wants to fuck Connie Stutlz. And as far as anyone I know is concerned, no one will fuck Connie Stutlz. I only mention this, because if I ever had the free will to say who I’d fuck if some magic spell made it so, it’d be Sarah for damn sure. I just don’t feel like saying it, because if it ever got back to her, then she’d just use it against me somehow, pretend to show a little bit of her tit to me and then turn away to show one of her girlfriends while they both laugh about it. I’ve seen her do that before. Instead, if you just say, Connie Stutlz, you’re in good shape, since every dork, geek, nerd, jock, and asshole alike wants to get his hands on her. She’s universally held as the pinnacle of sexuality for our entire class. Breaking it down, I don’t know why. She’s hot and extremely friendly. Sure, she’s great friends with everyone I hate to death, but she’s always got a smile on her face, always at the forefront of everything, student senate and fund raisers, and all. She’s a popular girl with great clothes and hair. She goes to a tanning salon all the time, too. All year round she wears flowered dresses. And I can remember all her best colors even during the summertime when I never see her around. And yes, she has a great body. She turns heads easy, but I don’t really think about her that much. In fact, after I notice her, I tend to forget she’s around, until somebody else comes up says, hey, wouldn’t you like to grab a piece of that ass. And of course, you nod or say, yeah, because you don’t want anyone to think you’re gay. She always remembers my name, and that’s strange. I hope she hasn’t heard it too much. Maybe it sticks because we used to take a lot of the same classes, and she thinks Ray has a great sense of humor, and he most certainly does when he’s not trying too hard. I don’t mind getting remembered by association. It’s the only thing real good that comes out of people like us hanging around each other. Otherwise, us knowing each other is just counter productive. You can’t afford to mention somebody else when you’re trying to get some place. Combining efforts was never thought of. It’s all too territorial. As long as there’s some kind of dispute going on, things are tense, but no one has to feels like a total jerk for saying, “this girl’s mine” because he knows the others would call him on it. Besides, I don’t think we’re a very original lot. If one person gets anywhere with any girl, the whole flock is swarming in, because they can’t believe that one of the others could get somewhere that he couldn’t. And we’re not too particular with who the girl is, though, the feelings end up strong enough. So, in the back of my head, I feel like I’m hung up on Sarah, trying to get that to stick, because otherwise, I’d be there trying to unbutton the same pair of pants Ray’s after. I’ve done it before, and the only reason I couldn’t get anywhere was because I wasn’t as quick as he is. He’s got pretty good comebacks and all. It helps him out against thugs like Randy, but not for too long. Randy just laughs with him a bit and waits until he can slug him or threaten to. Ray can’t say much more after that except, “whatever” and that’s as good as saying, “I’m gay.” And I hope he doesn’t say anything to me when Ray is there, because Ray would wrap his arms around mine and hold me back. Sometimes, I really think Ray wants to kick my ass just to prove once and for all that he could. He’s got some chunk on him, so he can take a hit, but if it ever comes down to it, I’d cheat. I’d damn near rip off his balls, just because I don’t think we have time for that sort of shit between us. I think there’s no guts in it. What would take guts is him coming up with some reasons why I’ve been an asshole, something I couldn’t talk around. And then I’d say he was right about the whole thing, too, but he hasn’t got balls enough to say, “this girl is mine” or admit that the only way up is on my back and Starky’s back, burying everything that’s “un-cool” on his way. And I’d been fine with it, if he’d just do it straight up and stop pretending he’s my friend, because once someone like Randy is laughing with you and not at you, it’s a sort trip before you both end up laugh at somebody else. That day’s long off. He’s caught in limbo, not sure he can or that he can’t, knowing things have got to change. And they do, but not the way we’d like. They change because time runs out, school years end, people move away eventually. Someday, I’m sure, I’ll be living somewhere people ask, “who do you want to fuck?”, and I’ll forget they don’t know who Connie Stultz is, and they wouldn’t care if I told them. She’d just be some girl, some name you bring up at reunions with people you never liked in the first place. It’s like during the summer when Crash would say, “Guess who I saw last week?” She’d end up being some kind of myth. Out there somewhere, she’s getting everything she wants, smiling and laughing with her friends having great sex whenever she wants it, although I can’t say I’ve ever seen her act like she wanted it. She doesn’t do any of those head motions or looks. She just is. And somewhere on a plain we can never touch, she just is. And oddly enough, I wonder if she’s ever lonely. And I wonder if she’d ever want to talk to somebody. I’m sure she does talk to somebody, though, and that thought, too, probably has to do with wanting to jump her. Oh well. I never said I was a nice guy, really. If anything, I’m trying real hard to be an honest guy. Some people walk around trying have so many layers. Jeff comes around sometimes making everyone think he smokes, he drinks, and he’s suicidal, but what good does that do him. It’s just the same hand anyone of us would throw if we had to if we thought it’d make someone feel sorry for us. He doesn’t claim to want anything for it, though, but if that were the case, he wouldn’t come around then. Sure, sometimes we don’t see him around, and we ask him to do things and he doesn’t want to. We always hear about it. He’ll call one of us, talk and talk for hours around some problem no one understands, and he’ll let us know that he doesn’t want to see anybody. At night, I’m sure he’s not doing anything special. I’m sure the whole time he has to lie awake thinking about the big picture about how hating so much about everybody is going to pay off in the future. I don’t see how. He’s missing his life that way, behind a long coat and a flask that probably just has water in it anyway. He’s one of those people who stays in love with the same girl for years and never bothers to talk to her. Of course, everyone knows it, and she knows it, but she most certainly forgets it since it’s just a detail. He’s not a reality or anything. He doesn’t bother with sending letters or nothing like that. Sometimes, he holds silent grudges and that’s about it. He had this thing for a girl on the field hockey team once, and he stood behind the fence watching her play, never saying a word. Whenever someone would talk to him, he’d be all funny, whispering, and scratching his goatee. Everyone said he was drunk, too. At least Ray gets his face out there, following a girl around, cracking jokes, building up to getting her number so he can ask her what she’s doing in the summer. I can say I’m almost proud of him for us, our group, but I know he wouldn’t think he’s doing anything for us. It’s not like we could all celebrate together when he finally gets laid. I’m sure he’d want to, and I think I’d go along with it, but only just to confuse him. For a smart guy, he’s real easy to disappoint. And that whole thing got me thinking about love, and how that’s another word like hope. Only I’ve heard about love and think that it’s still somewhere in this mess, but I can’t quite see through it. In the mornings when I wake up from the best dreams, I’d be inclined to lie still and feel like that’s love and place whatever name I’d like on some invisible mantel, but that can’t be it. Still, that’s as close as I think I can get to understanding what it really is. I know about TV and how they distort things, how everything has its fashionable version and then the real life version, the difference between a model and just some girl. And that movie theater romantic comedy love has to have its real version, too. And maybe it’d be something gritty and kind of hard to stomach, like that hope I was talking about. Maybe, it is just like waiting for someone to make you punch him. I don’t know, but if Connie Stultz can be a walking model compared to anybody else, then maybe there’s a Hollywood love, too. But that’s still got to be out there, clinging to one person, locked up tight lost in the summer. And I’m in here. At least Ray gets phone numbers, trying to stay in touch with that whole phantom plain out there. He’s gonna get some of it someday I’m sure, when someone else has their fill or someone’s on their way up or down. He’ll be there. But it’s hard to imagine him doing anything but slobbering and sweating once the time comes. I could never see him in one of those movies or making himself at home on top of some girl on a nice clean white rug. Funny thing is that I can clearly imagine him on the bottom, while some girl’s working him off. I can imagine his smile and his lumpy white legs dangling. I can even imagine his big dirty feet hanging off the bed and two hands reaching up meshing up her breasts. I think I believe that, and it doesn’t make me sick at all for some reason. For some reason it seems long overdue, and if I were there at that party, maybe, I’d have a look just so I could tell everyone that Ray was telling the truth when he’d tell us all the next day. Somehow, that’d be easier than just hearing about it and having to pretend I don’t believe him or that it’s crude to talk about a girl like that. I don’t know why I think about other people’s stories so much. I don’t know why I know so much about how and why it’s happen for everyone else. All that stuff makes me feel like I know it’s never going to happen for me, like some of it’s wrong, and there isn’t enough leeway in the entire world to make it happen for me. And I know that the most that’d ever happen is Randy Ruth busting my face open all too easy. And I get feeling like I’m dead and just remembering everything, while nothing really happens on these summer days at all. And someday, that’s the way it’s going to be, every story I know is in the past tense. Everything was or is going to happen, and all that I am doesn’t really mean anything. The world gets bigger, I know, and time runs out. And every Connie Stultz disappears into America, but I think Sarah Highroad stays with you if you don’t find some way around it. And summer nights you go outside where you can’t tell the clouds are moving or the world is moving, thinking time might of froze and that there’s always a chance you might run into her. And the last thing you want to do is sleep. We called Crash Pascowski at around eleven o’clock. *** Sometimes, you get to know things you shouldn’t. Like for instance, if I were ever adopted I don’t see what the sense is in finding out about it, because it’s not going to change my situation any just throw in a lot of periphery details that I probably shouldn’t worry about anyway. What’s the sense in knowing about a girl’s sex life, really? That stuff draws you out of bounds. And I think anything that draws you out of bounds, gets you curious about things, dark things, that’s what evil is. I think I can prove this, too, if I had to present this story before a judge. Maybe, I’m just excited because I’m involved a bit, and I don’t want to be, or maybe I’ve been curious about it all so long that I’m sick of it, and I’ll call it evil just to get me to shut up. Those prissy kids and their role-playing games and fishnet stockings don’t know a damn thing about evil. All they know is a fashion statement. Half of them ain’t seen shit and would wash their face of everything just to get a few extra bucks if they knew it would make them fit some place else. This things that got me so curious, I can’t wash off or turn on for the promise of a better life. It’s sick and weird, and I have to know. There’s got to be something wrong with that. They say curiosity can breed invention, but so many inventions have scraped up the earth good, not that I think about that much. Something feels wrong, I’ll just say, and I felt it before Crash finished peddling his ass up the road. On Thursday nights we were supposed to play soccer. Charlie Palmer was the oldest one of us, probably supposed to be in college. He might have been taking classes at the community college, but I never asked. He just stood by smoking cigarettes quietly sometimes kicking his hacky sack. Once, he brought a flask with him, passed it around all of once, and tucked it away. He didn’t even say what it was or why he chose to hand it out. It might have had something to do with the cold rain and uncomfortable silence after a hard fought three on three game. I felt it, whatever it was. I could have sworn he was smiling or at least he would have if he could keep his mind out of wherever it usually was. In some strange way, he was my idol, cool, cold, and best of all, quiet. No one had anything on Charlie Palmer. To anyone’s knowledge he never made an un-cool move in his entire life. If he slipped and fell on the field, he got up slow and fell into a player’s stance just like natural with grass clinging wherever. He ran it off, even if it was right there on his face. Someone called the scrubs from Green St. over, too. Sometimes, they’d be around trying to score weed from Crash. They’d play soccer sometimes, too, but they had to be on the same team so they could talk. They were two of the most rancid, foul-mouthed girls in the whole town. Rachel had this idea that she was hot shit, and I’m sure a bunch of real choice individuals, ex-cons or soon-to-be cons, had tapped her ass on a number of occasions under bleachers of various sporting events in the county. In the right light, sometimes, you could almost say she had a nice body, overlooking the grayish tint to her skin, the picked scabs on her thighs, and the occasional zit cluster on her cheeks but I always thought of her as a hardcore skank. Whenever I would consider it, I knew it was time to go home and get my ass to bed. The other girl, Candice, was real quiet and fat. She had this big brown cotton candy hair that blew out over her big round head. She had a mole in the same place as Cindy Crawford, and I also thought that was funny like she was some kind of monster that ate her and assumed her traits. Candice might have been a bitch. No one could tell, because she was always whispering to Rachel, this and that. She’d point, they’d say something, and then the snickering would start. Get any amount of smoke in them and they’re speaking an unheard language, laughing it up. Sure, it might be just private jokes, but the bullshit Rachel will say to the guys she wants to bah is pure trash. I don’t even want to know what they won’t say out loud. Starky showed up, as he does from time to time when he’s not working on a model train or trying to prove that something interesting happens if you beat Metroid five times consecutively. Ray, who is usually opposed to biking out of his way, had mentioned that he might show up. Sports were never his thing, so I doubted it. I didn’t see any reason to wait for him. The regulars were there, though, showing up right on time like they were waiting for it all day in a car parked around the corner. Carrie Ann was drinking out of a plastic pepsi bottle filled with water. Vic was cracking some jokes that weren’t funny, and Cliff was chuckling. Colombo was kicking the ball around already. Colombo was designated goalie, because he’s one big fat ass. I don’t know why. He’d never miss a damn game. And he dives like he’s some kind of acrobat, but when you’ve got that much fat on you, there’s not much hope of getting to the ball in time. He’s got one hell of a goal kick, and it’s probably as good as Kyle Ruth’s. I always spend time hoping and not hoping that Kyle shows up. Sometimes, he pulls up in a car with his little brother and a whole crew is out there drinking sodas, eating chips, and smoking pot watching us. And if I’m stuck on defense, I’m sitting there trying to hear what their saying and who they’re laughing at, but I never can, because Kyle’s yelling like the big asshole that he is, the skanks from Green St. are cackling like the bitches they are, and it’s impossible to hear anything. I really wanted to play for some reason. I was kind of hoping he came alone, and I kind of wasn’t. Kyle never showed, and it was already getting kind of late when Crash rolled up. He padlocked his bike to the payphone and unhooked his water bottle. They could smell it before he opened it up. The top fell off the bottle with a popping noise, and he slid out the little bag. The skanks were lit up, and they starting that whispering and laughing shit again. Everyone was in a sort of huddle around Crash and I, but out on the fringe of it, I saw Charlie toss a cigarette at the gutter and start up a side conversation with Carrie Ann. That’s what I thought it was, but Charlie didn’t say much at all. His low voice got lost underneath everything, and I heard a few high sounds of Carrie’s responses. And I saw a sigh run straight through her body. Right then I noticed that she wasn’t running. Something about her seemed closer to sleep. And I was expecting Charlie to say something about it, but he just nodded like they had just come into agreement about something. Then, I saw the weirdest thing over Rachel’s zit spotted shoulder. Charlie gave a quick shake of his head and a flash of small teeth. Half a grin was there and gone before I could say I saw it. For some reason, I wanted to point and laugh, but I wasn’t a part of that moment. I was a part of the other moment, the one with Crash opening up a ziplock bag and Colombo shouting something about the papers he grabbed from his grandfather’s dresser. I was deep in it, laughing at jokes I wasn’t even hearing. I stepped to the side a bit and nearly fell off the curb. Charlie led them all in beneath the chain that kept cars off the field. When I came through, Carrie Ann was on the far side stretching for the game. Charlie always picked captains. I never wanted to be a captain. I hated having to pick people that I didn’t care for just because I knew I couldn’t win if I just picked Starky and Crash. It almost never worked out that we got to play to together. It was never the case that we were all put together. I looked at it as a blessing that we were even allowed there. Starky was an especially bad player. Crash was kind of lazy, and I have coordination problems, I guess, because I’m always thinking about something else. If you want to win, you have to pick Charlie, and then probably, Vic, because he’s got good control. Of course, Cliff is a plus to have, because he’s dirty. Once I caught one of his elbows in the face and my glasses went flying back towards the penalty box. I couldn’t see well enough to find them, and the sluts didn’t care to point them out to me. Carrie Ann handed them to me, and I think she must have been laughing, because she was smiling. I’m sure a lot of people were laughing, everyone except Charlie and Starky. Charlie never pays attention to that sort of thing, and neither does Starky. Charlie has other things on his mind, and Starky just can’t tell what he’s supposed to do when, so he usually doesn’t do anything. That’s probably why they let him play, and they probably let me play, because I come with the set. I don’t mind being known by association. It’s not always a bad thing. Charlie picked Vic and Cliff to be captains. Vic picked Charlie, which pretty much awarded them the win in advance. Cliff was pretty bitter from the start so I knew that it was a choice between winning and catching an elbow to the face. As big and strong as he is, he’s just not any good at soccer. He falls down a lot, he swears when he’s not fast enough, and he can’t pass worth a shit. We always end up facing off, though, and if he’s particularly upset about losing, he’s pretty rough to play against. The last thing you see are these white arms peppered in red freckles before you get shoved to the ground. I knew it was a choice between being on the losing team or being knocked around by Cliff. Cliff picked Colombo. Vic took Carrie Ann. The skanks went with Cliff. Crash and I went with Vic. Starky was shipped to Cliff, since it’s only fair that they get one extra guy. “Yeah,” Cliff said walking backwards towards his goal. “But, our extra guy sucks.” “Do you want to trade?” Charlie asked. He was the official captain of whatever team he was on. We all turned to him to get our field positions. “Yeah, Starky for…” Cliff said pointing at our side of the field with is fleshy freckled arm. “Anybody you got.” “All right,” he said turning to us. “Who wants to go?” “Yeah,” I said, and I don’t know why I do this. I think I really wanted to be a cowboy or something. Maybe my Dad’s watching those John Wayne movies always rubbed off on me, because if someone has to volunteer for something, I’m always right there ready like the whole scenario is some kind of war, and I’ve got to be the fearless loner. And I had to do it, because Charlie asked, and I know it’s silly, but that’s the main reason. He had two words that meant more than the loudest “good game” shouted by some jacked up moron like Kyle Ruth. “Good deal,” he said waving me over with a slow swing of his arm. I took up a position in midfield ready to run. “What the hell you doing shithead?” Cliff shouted over his shoulder. “I ain’t given the positions, yet.” “Well, hurry it up over there,” Vic said kicking his cleats together. They were black with white trim. So were his shorts, so was his shirt, and his sweatband was white hugging jet-black hair. His father was something big, I guess. Vic was the cleanest kid in school, and it didn’t matter if he broke windows in the elementary school or helped set a dumpster fire in the parking lot, he just kept coming across as clean and sharp. He hardly ever fell down, and he passed the ball perfectly and often. Most kids liked him, and usually that would mean that I’d dislike him on principle, but he really seemed like a stand up guy. Everything he was involved in always seemed harmless. He’s just this small guy, the kind that reminds you that we’re all kids still with at least a couple more inches left to grow and couple more immature things to get away with. Cliff put me on defense on the right side. One skank was in front and one was in the middle. Of course, they converged somewhere kind of on the right to talk about whatever. Way back on the other side, Starky was shuttering in goal. Colombo was behind me chewing gum. Charlie gave the kickoff to Cliff’s team. Cliff really didn’t have a plan for this since he sent everyone else behind him. So, he kicked the ball forward and then back to Colombo in goal. Colombo booted the thing real hard and almost took off my head with it. I moved up to midfield, and Cliff chased the ball around. Charlie and Carrie Ann were waiting around one on each side of me. Spreading my arms out and looking over one shoulder then the other, I tried to keep an eye on them in case they made a run for the goal. Cliff gave Crash a shove and got to ball just before Starky could get a hand on it. Seeing Cliff barreling, Starky didn’t feel much like putting forth the extra effort, I guess. Cliff did a nice celebration dance while Starky sucked his fingers from where Cliff clipped them with his shin pad. The next time around, Charlie and Carrie Ann passed around cliff, and Vic stood in the mid field in case the ball came back out. I kept on my side, and Charlie made his shot from the right to tie up the game. That was the way it was going for a while, but Cliff started tiring out and losing the control of the ball. Crash would give it a boot, and then Vic, Carrie Ann, and Charlie took turns shooting on the right side. The best the skanks would do was get in the way. Candice turned on the ball once or twice and took it right in the ass. It made a nice thumping noise. Once or twice the ball came her way and she wailed it out of bounds. The not-quite-so worthless skank, Rachel, was able to force Charlie to shoot around her. He didn’t make it every time, so I guess it was a good strategy. Sometimes, Charlie and I would go one on one, but he’d always end up dumping the ball off to Vic or Carrie and that was the end of it. He never got around me, though. I made damn sure. Cliff said he needed Colombo on offense. This is interesting considering Colombo is hands down the slowest moving object to ever walk out on a soccer field. Still, he had a good boot, and what Cliff couldn’t knock over with his elbows, Colombo could scare away with the ball. Rachel waved her arms around demanding to be put in goal, that way she could pose and make stupid noises whenever the ball went past her. I appointment myself center defense. All it meant was I’d have to listen to Candice screech, “stay on your side, yuck!” because apparently, I’m diseased. I chased Charlie around quite a bit and stole the ball out from under Vic a couple of time. Of course, all I did with the ball was kick it real hard up field. Colombo almost never got it before Crash did. The running was getting to me, chasing passes back and forth between Charlie and Vic. They didn’t seem to be breaking a sweet, but I was having trouble seeing. Keeping my head low, hunching over a bit, I could get the best view of Vic’s feet when he was about to lose just the slightest bit of control so I could stick my leg in and swipe the ball. And I stayed square to Charlie’s feet, couldn’t even bother to look up to see him. I had to know him by his sneakers, plain and faded Pumas that had to have been three years old at least. I never let them challenge me for the ball. I just got my foot on it, and blasted it forward with that weird hook I always get. Then, I look up to see where it went. Usually, it’s in the corner by the outside of the penalty box and Crash is all over it. That hard bong of a ball cleared across the fields with the raking of grass as it takes off is my cue to relax for a second or two. All the intensity of running down Vic or trying to keep from being tricked by Charlie who isn’t even trying that hard, all of it ends with that sound. And it’s all me, too. The whole end of the field goes dead without the ball there, and I’m the only thing remotely living, breathing heavy and spitting. And those few moments before that ball hits the ground when everybody’s looking at it are like nothing else. Then, the skanks from Green Street turn to talk to one another again. Crash sends the ball forward, while Colombo stumbles around trying to get back to at least midfield before the tide changes again. And before the ball gets there, I’ve get them all scouted out. I pick one or the other and stay with them.
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