Raisinheart

by Tom Lichtenberg

Copyright 2010 by Tom Lichtenberg

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only, and may not be resold. Thanks and enjoy!

Magic

Around the time I turned twelve, my best friend and my worst enemy were one and the same. He was my best friend because he was my only friend, even though I didn't even like him. I had a lot of enemies, but he was the worst, or at least tied for the title. His name was Alan Belew. Mine is Jimmy Kruzel. The other important person in this story is a girl named Dana Sanderson. She wasn't a friend or an enemy. I don't even know what she was. We were temporary partners in a plot to get, and get rid of, Alan Belew. She wanted to get him. I wanted to get rid of him. We thought maybe we could help each other out. It was a dumb idea, but far from the dumbest we came up with that fall.

I had just come back from a year somewhere else. Let me tell you, going away for a year as a kid, and then coming back, is a great way to lose all your friends. They all moved on and left me out. I could hardly believe it. These were kids I had known pretty much all my life, kids I had played with, gone to school with, had sleepovers with, gone camping with, hung out with, kicked the can with, you name it. But now we were all turning twelve, and I'd missed out on one crucial ceremony - the spinning the bottle with. How did my childhood buddies all pair up into romantic couples in the space of a prepubescent year? Yet they did. All of them, it seemed, except the girl with the cooties, the Nazi boy, and the two brand new kids: Alan Belew, and Dana Sanderson.

I found out all about it on the first day of sixth grade. Brandon was with Sarah. Tucker was with Jenny. Carl with Candy. Gregory with Terry. Erica and Charlie. Even Annie, whose family had just changed their last name from Barkowicki to Barnes, was hooked up with Scooter McDaniel. The twins, Marcie and Margie, had boyfriends in Ricky and Rajel. That left Ariel (Cootie Girl) and Duncan (Nazi Boy), and Dana and Alan, and yours truly, myself, on the outside of the glorious circle of light. You'd think that soon there would be only one - the extra boy would be totally alone, and I was certain that that would be me. It seemed inevitable that the other two pairs would form as I have just named them.

It was all new to me and I wasn't ready. I wanted my friends back, and I didn't like girls, not for holding hands, kissing and going steady at least. Or maybe I did but didn't want to admit it. The thing was, I was small, I was weak, I was shy and I was convinced I was ugly as well. It was not going to be a good year. That first day at school, I stood there at recess with nobody talking to me, nobody bothering with me, too nervous and scared to do anything myself, just watching my former friends gather together and command secret audiences with coded messages, gestures and expressions. I was like a rabbit exposed in a field, and it didn't take long for Alan Belew, raptor that he was, to swoop down.

I don't think we'd ever spoken to each other before that moment, when he came up beside me and slugged me right in the shoulder. It hurt so bad I cried out and tears came before I could stop them.

"Look at those jackholes!" he scoffed, not even noticing my pain. "Do you even like any of these kids?"

"I guess so", I muttered, even though I wasn't sure about that anymore. Charlie Evans had been my best friend from kindergarten until then. I lived next door to Rajel Patel and two doors down from Ricky Ventura. I had known them all my life. I'd been in love with Annie Barkowicki when I was only seven. Yeah, I liked those kids. Too bad they didn't like me anymore. I could hardly believe the way they'd shut me out, like they'd forgotten my entire existence. The first thing I did when we moved back there was to go knock on Charlie's door, and he just shrugged on the porch and told me he was busy. Went right back inside, and I had been missing him so much. I had even written him a letter from Virginia where we'd been. It was just like that with all the others. Too busy. Sorry. Can't. Maybe some other time or maybe not. We'd come home in the middle of the summer and I don't think I played with any of my former friends even once till school began, and now that school had begun it was more of the same. Just this moron towering over me and leaning his bad breath into my face.

"Bunch of losers if I ever saw one", he said, and spat on the dirt. He really did. He spat. I was totally grossed out. This Alan kid was big, and mean. He was taller than any of the other kids and maybe even a year older. He'd probably been held back 'cause he was stupid too. Couldn't even tell you ten times ten, which I knew because Miss Hacksaw'd asked him that very question just before break. He hadn't even bothered to answer, just kind of snorted and folded his arms across his chest. Light brown hair, cut short in bangs. Tortoise shell glasses. Freckles. Light brown eyes as well. Wore these horizontal striped shirts with collars always, short sleeves and wore short pants all the time as well. Knobby knees and beat up old white sneakers. I think it was the same two or three shirts, now that I think about it. His family didn't have any money.

They'd just moved in to the little apartment building around the corner from my house - four small apartments sharing a weird little concrete patio that wrapped around the rear of the place and came abruptly to a halt along either side like a really bad haircut. He was the only kid in that place I'm pretty sure, the only kid then, and before, and since. I swear I never saw another one. Later on he told me that his dad was in the military, which is why they moved around so much. He knew about Virginia too. Newport News. Arlington. Lorton and Langley. He figured that our dads probably knew each other, but my dad was some kind of bureaucrat, and his was some kind of sergeant so I doubted it, and I was right.

"Come on", he pushed me that first minute. "I'll race you to the hole in the fence and back".

"I don't want to race", I started to say, but it was no use. He shoved me forward, then pushed me again, then kept pushing and shoving until I gave up and finally started to run. I was no match for the guy. He was at least a foot taller and weighed maybe fifty pounds more than me, which was no feat. I think I still weighed around sixty when I was twelve years old. I was basically a runt. Still am. So Alan Belew kept jogging right beside me while I got madder and madder and ran faster and faster, as fast as I could because I wanted to beat him, wanted to do something I could be happy about at least, but he was barely even breathing as he kept right up with me. We got to the hole in the fence at about the same time, but then, turning around, he shouted out something and took off like a cheetah. He was back where we started before I was even halfway there.

Some of the other kids had turned to watch and he knew it, and he turned toward them as he finished, and took a deep bow. Every single one of those kids looked away without a word and he was left to kick a rock, which naturally hit me in the shin as I approached and knocked me right down, ripping my pants at the knee as I fell. Recess was over right then, so there I was, dirty and sweaty and torn pants and all, I had to go right back to class, no time to clean up. Then when he got there, Alan somehow sat next to me - I was certain he hadn't been sitting there earlier - and whenever Miss Hacksaw wasn't looking, he reached over and poked me in the side with a pencil.

I guess he was in love with me or something. I couldn't get away from him. As soon as school ended I made a dash for the door, but there he was catching up to me, insisting on walking back home with me. After all, we went the same way and lived only houses apart. He told me some stories concerning himself. He didn't like animals. He made paper airplanes. He liked football and wrestling and guns. He knew a big secret he couldn't tell anyone. His father would kill him if he did. Did I want to come over and see his collection of arrows? He made them himself. He wouldn't take no for an answer. There was ice cream and his mother was working. She'd never know and what did he care if she did? He hated his mother. His dad was all right.

Their apartment was shabbier than I had imagined. They had a worn out green couch and a battered old table, and that was pretty much all there was in the main room, aside from the beat up old rug and a TV which sat unplugged on the floor. Alan told me it was broken. His room consisted of a piece of foam rubber which lay on the ground, some pretty impressive paper airplanes and a small pile of clothes, all equally dirty or equally clean, depending on how you decided to judge it. There was also a collection of sticks on the windowsill, which he'd turned into arrows just like he'd said. I'd say there were maybe twenty of them, all the same length more or less, with very sharp points and at the other end, feathers, gray and purple. He told me he'd plucked them from pigeons himself. He'd sneak up on the birds, grab them, pull out a feather or two and then let them go. I didn't believe him, but somehow those actually were pigeon feathers.

His parents' bedroom door was closed, and in all the times I visited there it remained so, forever. I never caught a glimpse of that place. The kitchen, well, you can imagine. A few pots and pans, but everything else was of plastic or paper - the plates, utensils - except for an assortment of sharp looking knives. Alan pointed them out with some pride. He used them for whittling and carving. He picked up one of the larger ones and casually mentioned it had killed a man at one time. I didn't press him for details and he put it away with some ceremony.

The walls were barren. I remember how strange it seemed to me then. I was raised in a house where the walls were practically covered with stuff - paintings by my sister, drawings by me, posters and prints from all over. My mother even taped postcards she especially liked to the walls. Alan Belew's place was empty. Well, I reminded myself, he did say that they moved around a lot. Different place every year. Probably got tired of packing up stuff so that's why they didn't have any. He offered me some ice cream but I said no thanks, because I felt guilty to take anything. The boy had so little to begin with.

"Suit yourself", he replied, helping himself to a half-box of chocolate, then wolfing it down, scooping it out with his hands. He had ice cream all over his face and his arms and just wiped it all off on his shirt when he finished.

"Come on", he declared, "let's go back outside. There's something I want to show you".

I just wanted to go. I had to get home. My mother would worry, I told him, and maybe he had had enough of my whining by then, because he said "Suit yourself" one more time, and then went to his room, slamming the door shut behind him. I let myself out and tried to get ready for the yelling my mother would give me as soon as she saw my new pants.

Every school day after that, Alan Belew was waiting for me outside on the sidewalk by my home. He never once knocked on the door, or called, or even asked if I wanted to walk the five blocks with him. He just made sure to arrive there early enough, and waited. It was no use trying to avoid him. He would wait as long as it took. Sooner or later I would run out of excuses and my mother would push me out the front door and there I was, stuck. I soon discovered that getting slugged was now part of my daily routine. It was the way he had of saying hello. He'd punch me in the arm or the shoulder and without a word we'd head down the street towards school.

Along the way we crossed a bridge over some railroad tracks, followed by a detour through some weeds across a vacant lot, then down another side street to the elementary school. In those days, sixth grade was the top of the line. All your life you waited until you could be the top dog, because right after that you were shipped off to junior high, you had to take the bus and be the small fry once again. But I was always the small fry, and sixth grade turned out to be the same old story for me, only now I had a crazy sort of bodyguard, the kind that does the opposite of protect you. Hardly a day went by without Alan Belew daring me to do something incredibly dangerous and stupid, like jump off the bridge onto a train rushing by underneath, or throwing an egg at the garbage man riding the back of his truck, or sticking my hand through the fence where the mean German Shepherd was drooling to bite it. I almost did all of these things, out of the fear that if I didn't do them on my own he would push me, or throw me, or make me somehow do them. I didn't really think about the consequences. At the time, it seemed to me that any of those options would probably lead to somehow escaping the presence of Alan Belew, if only briefly. At the very last moment he'd let me off the hook with a snort and a caustic insult.

"What an idiot", he'd say. "You sure take the cake", and then pull me away from the scene of the dare.

I hated that boy. I hated his breath, the sound of his voice, the smell of his putrid old shirts. I was a virtual prisoner from the moment I left home in the morning, all day long at the school, until I got home, if he let me go home, in the evening. It turned out we both stayed for day care. Me and him and a bunch of littler kids in a room with a nasty old man who always made us play cards, Mr. Snittle. He had children as young as six playing poker and gambling with pretzel sticks. Alan was always in trouble. More often than not, he was punished with detention for things that he did in the classroom. Mr. Snittle also ran that, and he knew just how to make a kid suffer. Once he discovered that Alan had some natural mechanical talents, he started bringing in all sorts of interesting magazines of that sort, and refused to let Alan read them. He brought in Alan's favorite snacks - marshmallow rice krispie treats - and wouldn't let Alan eat them. He made him watch while the other kids got to do things he enjoyed. On our way home after a typical Snittleday, I was sure to get the brunt of his rage, mixed in with the usual assortment of improbable tales, such as the time that a rattlesnake jumped up and bit him on the elbow, or how his father felled two elk with one shot from a crossbow.

I lied to my parents about it, about the torn clothing, the bruises, the bleeding. I had become very accident prone all at once. I couldn't tell anyone. Nobody knew, and it went on like this for weeks. I didn't realize it at the time, but everything changed when a girl in my class took me aside at recess one day, and started to quiz me about him. I didn't really know Dana Sanderson. She lived in the gigantic apartment complex about a mile from my house - I didn't even know which floor she lived on - and we had never talked to each other before. She was almost as tall as Alan, which meant that she towered over me. She had long straight brown hair, a lot of freckles, and a couple of bumps which would turn into breasts, but for the moment seemed hardly to be there at all. There was nothing special about her. She never spoke up in class. She didn't seem to have many friends or any particular interests.

"He's your friend, right?" she asked me.

"Who is?” I asked.

"Alan", she gestured impatiently at him. He was walking alone by the fence, kicking rocks.

"I guess", I replied.

"I want him", she told me directly. "Will you help me to get him?” she asked. I had no idea what she meant, but I think I had a glimmer of hope that maybe she would take him from me. It would be a clean transfer. I'd just hand him over and that would be that. I'd be free.

"Sure", I replied. "If I can."

"Good", Dana told me, and started walking away, and I stood there, wondering what that was all about.

I didn't hear another word from Dana Sanderson for several days, and began to wonder if maybe I'd just imagined that whole conversation. School days had been bad enough, but now, even on the weekends, I would wake up, peek out my second floor window, and see Alan Belew hanging around on the sidewalk across the street, waiting for me to come outside. It was just my good luck, my only luck at the time, that he was for some reason afraid to come and knock at the door. On the other hand, it meant I was trapped in my own home. I would have to wait for my parents to insist on taking me somewhere, or else sneak out the back and play as quietly as possible, making sure I didn't venture anywhere that was visible from the street. One Saturday he remained out front for nearly three hours.

When Dana did call, it was on a Sunday morning and Alan was nowhere in sight. I had never received a phone call from a girl before in my life, and I remember feeling a little flattered. I shouldn't have.

"Jimmy?” she asked, after I had come to the phone and said "hi".

"Yeah?"

I tried to sound cool.

"Do you have your shovel ready?” she wanted to know.

"My shovel?"

I was confused.

"Like we talked about", Dana replied.

"I don't know what you mean."

"You were going to come over today, and you said you'd bring your shovel", she told me. This was entirely news to me. I think she had played back a conversation with me in her head so many times she was convinced it had actually happened. It turned out this was very typical of her. She must have had a lot of imaginary friends when she was small, because she had a whole quiet world going on in that big brown head of hers. She didn't talk much, but when she did, she often began in the middle of some long involved story that nobody around her knew anything about. The funny part was, she didn't even notice. I don't think she had much time for other people and their little realities.

As it was, I didn't mind having an excuse to get out of the house and do something, anything, with anyone other than Alan. I told her I'd bring my shovel right over. She told me to meet her in the parking lot outside the apartment building, "on the south side", she said, as if I'd have any idea what that meant. I could never tell what the "northeast" corner or any directions were all about. Still can't. I figured I'd fake it, and find her somehow, which it turned out was easy to do, because a twelve year old girl with a shovel was easy to spot in a big old empty lot with nobody around.

Dana Sanderson meant business, and I soon discovered what business she meant. There was a small patch of woods not far from the apartment building, concealed by a huge mound of dirt that lined the lot. It was almost as if they had excavated a ten story hole, and piled all the dirt right next to the ten story building they put in there. We climbed with our shovels over that hill, and entered the woods. I followed Dana, who knew exactly where she was going; a spot behind a big weeping willow and in front of a stand of blue spruce trees.

"Help me dig", she commanded, which were the first words she spoke after a cursory greeting upon my arrival. She started in digging herself, and pointed at an area next to where she was working. I proceeded to match her output, shovel for shovel, as we dug out the soft red dirt and piled it next to the trees. I had to admit I was beginning to wonder. What were we digging for, and what did it have to do with Alan Belew? I thought if I asked her, though, it might make her mad, and then she wouldn't want to hang out with me anymore. That's how pathetic I was by that point. I was happy to be this girl's slave labor, if only because it made me feel needed. I knew the whole thing seemed crazy, but I think I was actually happy. I've always liked doing mindless work, which maybe explains how I ended up doing pretty much that with most of my grown-up years.

We dug for what seemed like an hour, in silence, and made a lot of progress, for what it was worth. We had dug out a coffin-sized rectangle, about six feet long, maybe three feet deep. Dana leaned back on her shovel, wiping the sweat from her face on her sleeve.

"It's going to be harder than I thought", she declared.

"I wish I'd brought water", she added.

"Maybe we could go up to your place for a drink", I suggested, but she shook her head.

"My dad is in town", she informed me, as if that explained something.

"What are we actually doing?” I finally asked her. She stared at me as if I was a complete imbecile for entirely forgetting the long involved talk that we'd had in her mind.

"Like I told you?” she shook her head impatiently. "I want to have a make-out chamber so when you bring Alan over, him and me can make out".

Him and me? Making out? I did not understand at all what she said. I was going to bring Alan over? It was all beginning to make sense, in a weird sort of way. Of course I still didn't know what a "make-out chamber" was, but I was suddenly interested. Dana described her design in more detail.

"It's got to have a roof", she'd decided. "So it's got to be high enough for that, but then we don't have to stand up in it really. It's just got to have some floor kind of thing. I was thinking maybe a rug. I could get one. So maybe four feet? What do you think? And the steps to go down, over there".

She scrambled around in the pit, gesturing at the various locations. Two steps would lead in from the front and go to the bottom, to the rug, which would be under a canopy of sorts. The pit would be half-roofed, half-open. I suggested it should be maybe six feet so you could stand up inside if you wanted, and she thought maybe so. But we weren't even half done the pit part, and she was already exhausted. I was tired too but didn't want to admit it.

"It's probably lunch time", she told me. "I ought to get home so he doesn't get mad", and without another word, not even a 'thanks', she got up and left me there in the woods. I stood around for a while, trying to admire our progress. It was really just a hole in the ground, but it gave me something to think about. Maybe I could have a make-out chamber too. If I did, then who would I ever make out with? I thought I was lucky that Dana didn't ask me that question, but I didn't need to worry. Dana wasn't the least bit interested in me, in who I was, or what I liked, or anything. I was only two things to her, a body with a shovel, and the sole living friend of Alan Belew.

It took two another two Sundays to finish it. I was proud of the steps I made, which turned out pretty nice, and we did get to five feet and change in the back. For the roof she found some old corrugated plastic from what must have been somebody's greenhouse somewhere. I didn't ask questions and she didn't give answers. Dana Sanderson hardly ever talked the whole time, at least not aloud. Her sole ambition, it seemed, was to get him and kiss him. Sometimes she blurted that out. She must have been thinking about it a lot. She found an old battered sheepskin that went perfectly with our decor; pine cones, needles and duff. I wanted to add some nice touches, a hand painted sign maybe, but she ruled it all out. It wasn't just a make-out chamber, it was a secret make-out chamber. Nobody should know what it was or who made it.

I got used to the digging and sweating and waiting for orders. I figured she'd tell me what I was expected to do when the time came, so I wasn't surprised when she informed me that the following Saturday at precisely eleven a.m., I was to bring Alan Belew to the spot, and then go away and leave "him and her" all alone.

My next problem was how to do it. Alan never took orders from me. He never even took my suggestions. It was always whatever HE wanted to do, and I'd go along or else I'd get slugged. That was how I ended up stealing baseball cards from Mr. Henley at the drugstore. It was how I put a board with nails sticking up on old lady Magnusson's driveway. It was how I found myself dashing across the tracks just before the train came. I was pretty sure that Alan Belew was sent by the Devil to kill me, and the way things were going, I was hoping he would.

Well, not really. Dana Sanderson was going to be my salvation. All the other kids in the class were suddenly into making out whenever and wherever they could. You’d catch them at recess in places they knew they were not allowed to be. The boys would be "copping a feel" and the girls would be "letting" them. There were a whole lot of baseball metaphors flying about, but Alan and I hadn't gotten there yet. I figured he'd be closer than me, seeing as he was so much bigger and all. In my mind, size mattered, meaning height. The taller guys had the prettier girls, and yet Alan was tallest of all and had none. I wanted to bring up the subject but didn't know how, and at the same time I didn't want to jinx my only chance to get rid of him. I figured that the moment Dana "got him and kissed him", I'd be totally free.

On that Saturday he was waiting as usual and this time I jumped out of bed and ran out there to join him.

"What do you want to do?" I cheerfully asked. He looked at me carefully. This was certainly not my usual behavior.

"I don't know", he replied, and I saw my chance.

"I could show you something you wouldn't believe", I teased him.

"Oh yeah, like what?” he retorted.

"Come on, down the hill, and I'll show you", I said. I was doing my best to seem confident and brave. Maybe if I led, he would follow, I reasoned, and it turned out for once I was right. I started walking and he decided to join me. We walked down the street, around the corner past his house, and then down the steep hill to the Lakeview apartments. I was just hoping we weren't too early. Dana was very specific.

"So what is this thing", he kept asking me every ten paces, but I was keeping my secret.

"You'll see", I promised. "It's not far away."

"Where is it?” he prompted.

"Not far", I replied. I was practically skipping by then. The very idea - freedom! - was ringing in my head like a bell. All it would take was a kiss, and the toad that I was would still be a toad, but he at least would be a happier frog.

We entered the long road to the apartment building parking lot, and Alan began to hang back.

"Are we going in there?” he asked.

"Nope", I assured him, "not inside. Over there", and I pointed at the dirt mounds. He was still leery until I veered away from the building. He really had a phobia about people's front doors, it turned out. It wasn't just mine.

When we got the mounds I leaped up and scrambled along the top of their ridge. I knew he would like that. Dirt, speed and height were a great combination for him. He ran up the side and blew by me in giant strides. I hopped off toward the chamber and called out.

"Over here!” I shouted, and he came running back and jumped down in a leap. As we entered the woods I put my finger up to my lips and shushed him.

"We have to be quiet", I whispered. "It's a secret."

I think that I had him intrigued. We tiptoed very gently around the lean trees, and tried not to make any sounds. When we brushed past the willow I slowed the pace down even more. Come on, I was wishing as hard as I could. Be here, Dana. You'd better be here! We came to the clearing, and then there she was.

Dana Sanderson was dressed up as never before. She was wearing cut off jean shorts, a yellow tank top, high heels and lipstick. She stood in what must have been her idea of a seductive pose, with one hand on a hip, and the other hand bent away from her body, backhand sort of, and twitching. I was impressed. She looked pretty good, and she even had almost a smile on her face.

Alan Belew burst out laughing.

"Looks like somebody found out your secret!” he shouted, and punched me in the shoulder, knocking me down to the ground.

"You look pretty dumb!” he told Dana. "What are you doing out here in those shoes?"

"Come here and I'll show you", she challenged him.

He wasn't used to being told what to do. I could tell he was very resistant. I expected him then to say no and run off. I was surprised when instead he said,

"Sure, if you want", and took a few steps closer to her.

"Come here", she repeated, using her bent hand to wave him over.

He took two more steps.

"You can show me from here", he advised her. He was still, oh maybe six feet away. I was behind him, just getting up, and wondering if I should beat it already. Dana would probably have given me a look to just that effect if she wasn't so totally smitten. She had completely forgotten I ever existed.

"Uh-uh", she told him and there was that smile coming out of her face for maybe the first time in years.

"Oh all right", he muttered, and walked up beside her. As soon as he did, she grabbed both his hands with her own and she kissed him, full on the lips with her eyes shut tight and gripping his fingers so tightly he had no chance to escape.

That's when I ran. I was just following orders and I didn't look back. I didn't even want to know, not then, not later, not ever, and as it turned out, I never did. The trick worked. She was right. She got him and kissed him and that was all that it took. I was free.

After that there was only Nazi Boy, Cootie Girl and me left unpaired. Turned out Cootie Girl liked me, but I couldn't do it, so I just let Nazi Boy win. I didn't care. None of those people would ever be my friends, never again. They say that when one door is closed, another door opens. I don't know what they are talking about. All those doors closed, and when that last one slammed shut I was glad.

Awards

By the time I was fourteen I was pretty good at being alone. God knows I'd had a lot of practice, but I was still somehow a magnet for all things undesirable. I had accumulated a whole host which clung to me like various rusty odds and ends. I had nicknames which I won't repeat here. I had legends spread about me, ranging from the time my own cat bit my ear half off, to the rumor of what I'd done with Cootie Girl and where. Everybody knew these stories and whispered them in the hallways as I passed, or so I imagined. I was also well on my way to being pretty much insane. What else can you call it when you wander around in a fog of mostly imaginary miseries?

Unfortunately, enough of those were not so intangible. I had continued my pattern of attracting exactly one and only one friend, each of whom belonged to families which strangely moved out of the state within a year of their child befriending me.

There had been Hakim Marsala, a miniature virtuoso celloist I met in the seventh grade. I got to know him in music class and I think we were friends because we were the only boys smaller than the smallest girl, and because we were always the last to pack up our instruments and get them out of the room. Hakim's cello was approximately twice his height and weight and it was I have to admit pretty funny to watch him struggle with the thing. His father had come up with a system to hook the case up with wheels but the straps on which the wheels were attached were elastic, like suspenders, and it was impossible to get their configuration right, so he ended up dragging it along on one wheel at a time while the other wheels occasionally whacked the floor or squealed like broken shopping carts. One day the whole apparatus collapsed on top of him while he was trying to maneuver it down the stairs and he and the cello fell in a clump right on top of Mrs. Angeline. They ended up mouth to mouth on the landing, with his bow poking out of her skirt. Most unseemly.

Hakim was also a chatterbox in private and it was my great privilege to get to listen to the history of his illustrious family while riding the bus every day. Most of his ancestors had done something or other and he was under a great deal or pressure to "amount", as he put it. Each generation of Marsalas had outdone the previous one, and seeing as his father had been his country's Ambassador to Somewhere it was hard to see how he was going to do it. The poor guy worried an awful lot.

After Hakim relocated, I met up with Danny Wheat, another small fry. By this point I had managed to reach nearly eighty pounds and had also become a bookworm. This was a fantastic combination guaranteed to make you really popular in a school of mostly big fat idiots. Danny was a smart kid, and a funny one too. Where I tried to hide and be quiet, he was always drawing attention to himself, and by extension, to me. Danny was the first to pipe up about the quality of the lunch in the cafeteria. He was the loudest to snort in class whenever a teacher said something ridiculous. He just couldn't help himself and was at his worst in those classes where he knew more than the teacher did. He would raise his hand and wave it wildly until he was finally called on and he'd say,

"Actually, that isn't quite right".

Then he would proceed to revise the lecture accordingly until the teacher made him shut up. He knew more about history, politics, other cultures, religions, science and literature than anybody else, it seemed. The one thing he didn't know much about was sports, and Mr. Stones, the gym teacher, never let him forget it.

"I've heard about you", he informed Danny menacingly in front of everybody. "You're the kid who always knows better. Am I right? Am I right? Am I right?"

He'd get in front of Danny's face and splutter and spit like a sergeant in the army. Stones was a flat-topped, boulder-shaped lump of a man with bad breath and a worse mentality. He had a system of counting where everything was measured in laps around the gym in winter, or around the track the rest of the year. If you forgot your special socks, two laps. If you forgot your special shorts, four laps. If you spoke when you were not being spoken to, ten laps. He had most of the kids running around in circles most of the time, but especially Danny and me. He called us "The Wheat Twins", and thought it was very funny. It was a joke on the crackers called Wheat Thins, because we were both skinny, and then there were two of us, so the Thins became Twins. I gave him points for trying to be witty, but I hated that man. He singled us out for extra punishment, I'm sure of it. Neither of us was able to perform to his standards. We couldn't climb the rope to the ceiling. We couldn't vault over the horse. We couldn't hit any target with any ball.

"Wheat Twins!” he'd yell and we'd have to come running "on the double" or else he'd "let us have it". Naturally, everybody else in the school picked up on the title pretty soon, and it was "Wheat Twins" wherever we went. One particular protégé of Mr. Stones was a very mean and very large boy named Rick Fripperone. I used to call him Rick "Frickin" Fripperone because every other word out of his mouth was the F word. In my mind I still see him as a sort of half-grown clone of Mr. Stones, with that same rock filled brain and that same wicked sneer. Fripperone would follow me around issuing taunts and challenges he knew I had no hope of matching.

"Hey, Frickin Kruze Control", he'd catch up to me, "Bet you can't frickin climb that frickin tree", and he'd point to the giant maple beside the gymnasium. Of course I couldn't climb the darn tree. There were no branches until at least eight feet off the ground. I'd say,

"Of course I can't climb that tree. There's no branches until at least eight feet off the ground."

"I can frickin climb it", he'd say, "What? You don't believe me? You calling me a liar?"

I could only sigh. This became a daily ritual for me. Fripperone would corner me somewhere and work the conversation into a situation where I was obviously calling him a liar and questioning his integrity, which required him to do some physical damage to either me or something in my possession. He especially enjoyed destroying my homework and school projects, kicking me, pushing me to the ground, or even pressing my hand hard against a brick wall. On separate occasions he broke two of my fingers. There seemed to be no escape from this reign of terror, and it felt like everywhere I turned, there he was. The bastard must have gone to bully school and aced his studies there because I swear he was a classic.

Naturally, Fripperone was rarely ever by himself. As a textbook bully, he had to have his little gang of toadies, which included four fat boneheads even duller and pettier than he was. They even had their appropriate ranks and stationed themselves around him accordingly. It was a cast right out of your favorite television show. He even had tryouts, walk-ons who didn't meet expectations and were quickly cut out of the group.

The right-hand man was taller and darker, of course. This was an Irish boy known only as Jockstrap. The name actually referred to his odor and not his parts. Jockstrap's favorite maneuver was the fake push followed by the real push, whereby he'd pretend to knock you over, like a quarterback's pump fake, draw back slightly, and then actually push you down. If you winced, you lost. If you didn't, down you went in any case.

Number two was the roundest boy, a yellow-haired tubby named King who had a vicious black dog of the same name. King was famous for his laugh, which was loud and wet and hard to stop. Any little comment set him off as long as it was made by his boss. Fripperone was guaranteed a positive reception which only encouraged him to repeat the most ignorant things, like "your momma's got chicken wings", a phrase which nearly caused King to choke on his own spit every time.

Three and four were brothers, Curly and Rags. Seriously. They had the same dad, a Filipino mechanic named Manny, and different moms. Curly was dark brown skinned and nearly bald (you get the joke) and Rags wore heavy flannel shirts unbuttoned all year round, with a torn up t-shirt underneath the flashy fake gold chain around his neck. Both of them were strong as anything and fairly quiet. I always thought they'd go their own way sooner or later, form a gang of their own, why not, but they never did. The two remained close to Fripperone for as long as I remained in that crappy little town. I never did understand why.

This crew would make the rounds through the school at regular intervals several times a day, and if you were small, or made their shit list through some other means, you'd want to stay out of their way. Danny Wheat and I used to dive into broom closets, anywhere, if we saw them coming. One time of course they caught us and locked us in there. We just stayed put all afternoon until the janitors came and let us out, and considered ourselves pretty lucky.

Danny and I never ran out of things to talk about, it seemed. This kid was so full of information I could listen all day even if I didn't grasp a tenth of what he was saying. He knew about particle physics. He knew about light. He knew about hereditary genetics and micro technology and the agricultural techniques of ancient Babylon. He was the first person who ever got me interested in anything, really. None of my teachers had ever piqued my curiosity that way. After a while I noticed a change had come over me. I started to pay attention in class. I started to think about things. Up until then, I don't know. I must have been unconscious or something.

It turned out I wasn't as dumb as I thought. I always knew that my sister was the brainy one, so I thought I'd have to get by on luck, and so far that wasn't going so well. Now I was figuring things out, remembering facts and putting ideas together.  Danny was encouraging, too. He was happy to have somebody to talk to. Well, then his family moved away. That sucked. It was the end of the 'Wheat Twins' business at least, but on the other hand, now I was all on my own one more time.

The next friend I had was the most unexpected. I was sitting in history class, trying to be fascinated by the list of British kings dully being recited by the teacher, when a new boy came in and took the desk right beside me. My first impression was, oh god, not another one. He was a huge, sweaty behemoth of a kid named Dennis Hobbs. I guessed he was another Fripperone but as it turned out, I was wrong. Dennis was a sweetheart in a football player’s body, a friendly, soft-spoken guy who was not very good at school but was terrified of failure. He was so afraid of getting poor grades that he trembled all over his body the entire time he was leaning over and copying my answers on tests. When he got caught, he burst into tears and mumbled,

"I don't care. I don't care", as the teacher escorted him out into the hallway and pointed him in the direction of the principal's office. I felt terrible for Dennis, and when I saw him later in the cafeteria I went right over and sat next to him. If you knew me you'd know that was very unusual. I was the guy always finding the farthest darkest corner I could possibly hide in. I really was a perfect target for bullies; small, weak, frightened, timid, alone, a natural victim, like a wounded antelope out there on the plains. I sat right next to him and I apologized.

"If I'd known you were copying", I told him, "I would've made it easier. I would've tilted my paper up on my notebook or something so you wouldn't have to lean."

I demonstrated how I would've done with such exaggeration I even got a smile out of him.

"Really", I said, "Anytime. I'm happy to help."

It was a good move on my part. Hobbs was a favorite of Mr. Stones, who doubled as the coach of the football team and recognized a star player when he saw one. Dennis was the anchor of the offensive line, and the bulwark of the defense as well. The school team went from mediocre to pretty good with just the one addition. Dennis was not so quick in class but he was fast to notice what was going on with me, and it wasn't long before Mr. Stones left off picking on me. I realized, finally, that a textbook bully situation cried out for the textbook bodyguard response. Why I didn't think of it sooner? I could have kicked myself.

It didn't work, though. Fripperone took it as a challenge. Although he was a teammate of Hobbs on the football team, as were everyone in his gang, and he had no intention of getting on Dennis's bad side, he still wasn't going to let go of the hold he had on me. It was just too much fun and he couldn't resist. Now when he caught me out there on the prairie, he teased me about my big friend.

"Feeling pretty frickin smart now aren't we?” he taunted. "Now that we've got our frickin protector. Well, I don't see your frickin boyfriend right now. Where'd he frickin go? What're you frickin gonna do without him?" All of that kind of thing followed of course by the usual physical brutality. To make matters worse, I had been doing so well in my classes that I was invited to an awards ceremony Wednesday where I was scheduled to receive a medal in Science. Fripperone found out about that and decided to hold his own "awards ceremony". This one was going to be held behind the train station on Thursday at six o'clock, and if I didn't show up to get my "award", he was personally going to "beat the frickin crap" out of me so bad I wouldn't be able to stand up for a week.

For once in my life, I blabbed. All this time I had been so afraid to open my mouth and tell anyone. Of course Danny Wheat knew all about all of it too, but he, like me, kept it shut. I couldn't believe my rotten luck to win a stupid award and have it turn into another nightmare. It came out unexpectedly. Dennis Hobbs had an English paper due, a five page essay about epic poetry, and there was no way, simply no way on this planet he was ever going to get that done. I volunteered to do it for him.

"Piece of cake", I said, "only when is it due because I might not live long enough?"

Then I had to tell him about the awards ceremonies, both of them. I was thinking maybe I'd just run away from home. I'd been kind of planning on doing that someday anyway, so why not get a head start, even though at fourteen it might not be the best timing-wise.

"We'll trade", Dennis suggested. "I'll be you and you'll be me. You do my English paper, and I'll go to Fripperone's little ceremony. I'll tell him I'm you. I want to see what he says".

"No, no", I protested, "that will only make everything worse." I told him about the "frickin boyfriend" comments and all of that. This only made him more determined.

"In that case", he told me, "I'm going to be handing out some awards of my own."

Which he did. I actually heard the story from Curly, who stood back with Rags and watched the whole thing. Dennis showed up and said he was me, like he'd promised.

"Yo", he said walking up to the gang at the station. "Here I am. Where's my frickin award?"

"What're you talking about, Dennis?” Fripperone retorted. "We're just hanging out here."

"Not what I heard", Dennis told him. "I'll give you a minute to come up with my prize. Then I'm going to be giving you yours", and he went right up to Fripperone and stood in his face.

"I'm waiting, Rick", he said.

"Get outta here", said Fripperone. "We don't want no trouble with you. And anyways we got a game Saturday."

"You might be sitting that one out", Dennis said. "On account of you not feeling so good."

And he sucker punched him in the gut right then and there. Then he lifted his chin and smashed his frickin face in. Broke his nose in two places.

"I heard about you, Fripperone", he said. "I heard you ain't shit. Now I know."

Fripperone was moaning on the ground and clutching his bloody face. Jockstrap did nothing. King didn't even laugh. Curly and Rags didn't move.

"Maybe you didn't figure out that bodyguard shit", Dennis told them. "This is how it works. Mess with Kruzel and you're messing with me. Understood?"

I never had a problem at school after that.

I did a pretty good job on the epic poetry paper. Dennis had begged me not to make it "too smart" because he really did care if he got caught. I lowered my sights and pulled off a really inadequate comparison of Homer and Milton, whereas Homer was blind and Milton was too, and so forth. Dennis was thrilled to get a "C" on the report. This was a solid lesson that served me well in future endeavors, to deliver on expectations rather than potential. Dennis assured me he had kept our deal a secret, but somehow word got around and I found myself offering my services to a host of kids in need, or at least in want. Some of my choices were strategic; I prepared a science report for Curly, complete with the seven proof steps demanded by the teacher, as well as a History of Lithuania for Cindy Ballworthy, who wasn't dumb by any means but was much too busy with her cheer-leading to sit around doing pointless schoolwork.

And I almost started feeling pretty okay about myself for the first time in years. I even grew a few inches and gained a few pounds! I don't know if any of that was connected, but I developed some new routines. I walked to school and back instead of riding on the bus. I took to looking other kids in the eye and even saying hello sometimes. I raised my hand in class once or twice. I even called up Callie Hewitt on the phone and asked her to the spring dance, and didn't kill myself when she said 'no'. I thought that maybe, finally, a door had opened for a change.

I was getting ahead of myself.

One afternoon in April, I think it was the fourth, I was walking home from school along Trichester Avenue, past the University practice football field. It was a beautiful warm day and I was thinking up a strategy for writing a midterm paper for Dennis Hobbs about "The Founding Fathers and Our Basic Freedoms". It seemed to me that most of our freedoms revolve around money, the freedom to earn it, to keep it or to spend it as we wish. You could write anything you wanted but it meant nothing unless some people invested money to publish it and other people spent money to read it. You could say anything you want but it was pointless unless you had the money for TV or radio time to make people listen. This sounded like a good theme to me and I was working out the expected paragraph formats in my mind and didn't notice the guy walking towards me from the other direction. I didn't see him until I nearly bumped right into him.

He stood in the middle of the sidewalk and refused to let me pass. I dodged one way, and then the other, and he moved to block me every time. I looked up at him, and was about to ask him what his problem was when he said,

"Want to wrestle?"

"No", I said. "I don't want to wrestle."

"Too bad", he said, and he lifted me up by the armpits and threw me down the small hill onto the practice football field. Before I had a chance to even get up, he was on me, pulling me one way, pushing me the other, pinning me down by the shoulders, and shouting,

"Come on, wrestle."

This guy was maybe a year or two older than me, but much, much bigger, probably eight inches taller and a hundred pounds heavier. He was dressed much as I was, regular school attire; decent pants, shirt, nice shoes. I kept saying,

"I don't want to wrestle!” and he kept saying,

"Too bad! Come on, wrestle."

It was a pathetic fight. The more he insisted, the angrier I got, and the angrier I got the more I tried to get up and get away. The more I tried to do that, the worse it got for me. As I fought harder, he fought harder. He was hardly breaking a sweat by the time I was frantically struggling for my life. I could barely budge the guy but I was putting everything into it soon enough.

I don't know how long it went on. It seemed like hours but maybe it was only ten or fifteen minutes. We rolled around on that field and by the end I was bleeding all over, my face, my legs, my arms. My pants were torn. My shirt was ripped. One of my shoes was broken apart. I was crying, sweating, cursing and this boy, this creature, just got up and walked away like nothing had even happened.

I could only think one thing as I staggered to my feet and shuffled home.

"It sucks to be me."

I didn't want to be me anymore.

"There's got to be a way", I told myself. "Maybe I could get somebody else to be me for a change. Or maybe I could just stop this me altogether."

I remember glancing over in the direction of the railroad tracks where Alan Belew used to make me risk my life for no reason except his boredom. I could wait for a train and jump off that bridge, or just run right out in front of it. That would put an end to that. I couldn't understand how someone could be so unlucky that the devil himself couldn't resist a good kick. It was hard, but I realized it couldn't go on that way forever. I could blame everything and everyone but the real problem was, I was only fourteen. My true enemy was time. It could make me wait and there was nothing I could do about it.

Glory

The summer in which I turned fifteen was the longest summer of my life. It began and ended in the loneliest house in the world, my home. My sister had left for college in May, and after that there was only me. I lived on various combinations of raisins, peanut butter, bananas, carrots, cream cheese and white bread toast. My every meal was made of these, with an occasional apple or an orange soda thrown in. I hardly ever saw my parents, and they hardly ever saw each other. My father was always "working late" and my mother was busy with her women's clubs, and it was a long time before I came to know that the both of them had other lovers and nearly complete alternative lives on the side. This was none of my business, and none of each other's, for that matter. They had long since tired of the whole 'family' thing. My sister and I had known it, and more or less looked after each other, but now she was gone, and I was left to deal with the wreckage.

At least the year at school had slipped by without too many problems. All of us were small fry now; even Fripperone and Jockstrap were as lost in the enormous regional high school as I was, and I almost never crossed their paths. These giants were now relegated to the junior varsity squads, and made to run through rookie gauntlets by the older boys who lorded over them. Secretly I snickered at this change in their fortunes, and lurked sometimes after school near the practice fields to see them being put through their paces. Of the whole gang only Rags retained a sense of self-respect that year. He never said much, and didn't have to. He had a look in his eyes that no one was going to mess with, as if they sensed that any bread they cast upon those waters would certainly come back to haunt them times a hundred.

My only agony was Annie Barkowicki. I know, I know, her family had changed their name to Barnes years before, but she was still, and always would be Annie Barkowicki to me. I don't remember exactly when it was I first fell in love with her, but it could have been as early as age six, when we were thrown together in the first grade and were actually friends. We played a lot in those days, sometimes just the two of us, and sometimes with others. She came over to my house. I went over to hers. We ran around in the fields and on the playgrounds, climbing trees, exploring creeks, playing make-believe pirates, Annie always leading the way with me always tailing along. It often seemed my early childhood mainly consisted in listening to the sound of her voice, barking orders. This lasted well into the fourth grade, up until the day my family moved away for a year. When we returned, everything was different, especially Annie Barkowicki, who had become Annie Barnes in precisely that period.

I should tell you what she looked like. Shortish, straw-blond hair, pale blue eyes, short and thin and strong as a little girl, but tall and thin and strong as a young lady. While we had been the same size at six, she towered over me in the sixth grade, and by the ninth grade, the differences were far greater. She was never beautiful, but she had one of those temporary bodies that some young women seem to get; perfect in every way for one or two years, and then, a total transformation, generally not for the better. That year, ninth grade, was one of the years of her glory. And yet she was still a tomboy who mostly hung around with guys, played tackle football even, to the sheer amazement and delight of every young man in the neighborhood. She didn't act like she was even aware that all their touching and grabbing had little to do with trying to bring her down. She was elusive, though, and quick; even at that age she was faster than most of them.

There was always something to admire about Annie Barkowicki. She was friends with almost everyone. She didn't belong to any exclusive group, and seemed to be above the whole in-crowd mentality. Girls who tried to put her down found themselves suddenly very unpopular with the boys, who all wanted to be on her good side. She wasn't the smartest kid, but she tried hard in every class and truly earned every B and C that she got. She wasn't the best at any one thing, but she was always cheerful, and never gave up. There was really only one person in her whole world she had absolutely no use for, and that, of course was me. I never knew why it was that way. I didn't know why she had stopped being my friend, or why she never did want to be my friend again, and I couldn't work up the courage to ask her. She didn't exactly shun me. It was nothing like that. If I did manage to say 'hello' on occasion, she always returned the greeting, and then quickly moved on. I had the feeling that I had somehow wronged her without knowing it, and there was nothing I could do to make it up. I only wished I knew what it was!

My great misfortune of ninth grade was to share a class or two with her every day. English and Spanish, too, my least favorites. I was so bored in those classes, being far more interested in science and math in those days, that I would sit there and literally fill up pages and pages of notebook paper with tally marks, one for each second that slowly ticked away on the big round clock on the wall above the teacher's desk. I was in the third row, two rows behind her, and while my hand was making those little tally marks, my eyes were on her hair, on her head, on her back, and imagining her face looking straight into mine, way up close, with a nice big smile and a romantically friendly look in her eyes. Those classes were sheer torture, and I would rush out of them at the sound of the bell just as fast as I could, racing away from any contact or sight or sound of her. Once I was safely in another room, I could look around and, not seeing her, breathe a little again.

Did I tell you she lived next door? Right next door, and as my bedroom window faced the street it was constant temptation to go stand there and look, and see if maybe, just maybe she was out there, and I could see her. As the summer approached, I knew this was going to be my suffering. I had to think of a way to force myself out of it. My best idea was to get a job. Get a job and wake up early every day and go away to that job and stay at that job as long as I could, just stay there until it was dark and then it would be safe to come home because looking out of the window into the night could not possibly bring any remote satisfaction. I knew myself too well, but I also knew there were no jobs to be had for a skinny little fourteen year old boy who had no knowledge or skills of any practical kind.

I looked, though, and actually did find a few little jobs that I could do. These were pointless, stupid jobs. One consisted merely of standing on a street corner trying to pass out leaflets for a movie theater. Nobody wanted those scraps of paper, but I couldn't return with the pile, so I would usually slip around the block and dump them in a trash can before my shift was up. I got another job bagging up mowed grass, and another one sweeping driveways. These were the days when a boy could walk around the neighborhood, knocking on doors, asking about odd jobs. I spent far more time walking around begging this way than actually doing anything for anyone. As a result, I wore out my shoes and had to spend much of the money I earned to buy new ones. What bothered me more than anything, though, was the loneliness.

I had no friends. Usually in my life I had had at least one at all times but for some reason, that year had brought no one into my life. It seemed like weeks would go by without an actual conversation. The silence inside my head was matched by the silence reaching my ears from the words I didn't hear. Of course this was entirely my own fault. I had nothing to say to anyone, so no one had anything to say to me. I didn't try to make friends and didn't really know how. I didn't sit with people at lunch in the cafeteria at school; instead, I took my tray outside to the sidewalk and literally sat on the curb and ate out there with the buses and the cars. I didn't raise my hand in class. It was as if I had made a vow of silence. At home there was no one to talk to, with my sister gone and my parents otherwise engaged. When I did speak, such as asking people if they needed their lawns mowed, my voice cracked and I often had to repeat myself because I was apparently inaudible as well as practically invisible.

My wanderings in search of labor were mainly excuses to get away from the street where I lived, where I knew Annie Barkowicki was located as well. It was almost comical the way I would deliberately retreat from the block, attempting to escape while straining to catch any glimpse of her if possible. Sometimes I just gave up and sat on the front steps, staring at the front steps of her house, daring myself to look away if she appeared. At those times she never did. The only times I saw her were when I was already exhausted, or hot and sweaty, or dirty, or angry, or in any other way completely unprepared and unfit for any encounter. I started to hate her almost as much as I loved her, and I would curse at myself and curse at her and the whole danged world at the unfairness of everything and everyone.

It wasn't easy being such a loser. It took a lot of practice and I spent the summer perfecting the art. It would almost be a relief to go back to school in the fall, were it not for the fact that school was the one place I would be guaranteed to see Annie Barkowicki every day, if not on the bus then in class or in the halls. I thought about asking my parents if we could possible move away again but I knew it was impossible. I was trapped and there was nothing I could do about it. I had to endure another three years until, until what? Life after high school seemed to me as barren a wilderness as high school itself seemed at the time. I had no idea what I would do, or whatever would become of my life. To tell the truth, I was pretty sure I would end it by then, in some suitably dramatic fashion. I had a lot of schemes and plans to off myself, beginning and usually ending with the train tracks down the street. It was just so obvious, but I was also a coward, and had a feeling that life might just get better some bright shiny day. I had the feeling, but I didn't really believe it. Every day seemed exactly the same as the one before - endless, hopeless, and grim.

And then one day my life did change. It happened just like that, and it was easy, too easy almost. It was the first day back at school. I had waited for Annie Barkowicki to leave her house and followed her to the school bus stop. I had waited there, watching her chat with her friends. I had sat many rows behind her, still watching her and listening to her. I didn't sit next to anyone. I was the only one who had a seat to himself. Funny how I remember that now. I followed her, and hundreds of other kids, it seemed, into the school and found my home room assignment. I was not surprised, because I was definitely cursed, to find that she was also in my home room again. I took my seat, muttering to myself about my lousy luck, when somebody tapped me on the shoulder. I turned to my left and saw it was my old protector, Dennis Hobbs. We hadn't spoken to each other at all the previous year, and hadn't even seen each other during the summer, so I was surprised to see him smiling at me and saying how great it was to see me, and how he'd been meaning to call me up, and had something he'd been wanting to ask me.

I just said okay and waited for him to tell me what it was. I couldn't really believe it at first. He said he was tired of being a stupid jock and wanted to get smart. He was hoping I could help. He had started reading books over the summer and was enjoying it. He listed some of the books he had read, mostly adventure books like 'Robinson Crusoe' and 'The African Queen', and 'The Sea Wolf'. Those were all books that I really liked as well and I told him that. Then he started telling me that what he really wanted was to get smart all over. He wanted to get Science smart. He wanted to get Math smart. He wanted to get History smart. No more cheating and copying. No more paying kids to do his homework. No more football. That one really shocked me. No more football? Was he sure? Because you could do school work and also sports if you wanted. Plenty of people did that. But no, he was sure. He had already resigned from the team to the dismay of his coach and fellow students.

Football is bad for your head, he told me. People get clobbered and then they get dumb. He had already had enough of being stupid. Why get worse? As it turned out, we both had a study hall period together on three days out of the week, so we spent that time doing tutoring. I would help him with all of his subjects and it turned out to be a really good thing for me too. Dennis was real friendly, and he had a lot of friends, too, so pretty soon I found myself becoming accepted and acknowledged by other actual people, and I even started talking, out loud, and sort of even making friends. Dennis was actually a pretty quick learner, and by winter he had already pretty much caught up with the grade, was getting all B's and really didn't require any more assistance from me, but we kept on with it, now doing our homework together pretty much, and aside from that, I was gradually becoming "one of the guys".

Okay, the truth is that by "gradually" I mean incredibly slowly, almost imperceptibly, as if it wasn't even happening at all, and by "becoming one of the guys" I mean I was totally and completely deluding myself. I wasn't going to ever be one of those guys. The people Dennis knew - those who surrounded him, clung to him, and looked to him at every turn - were a strange and rowdy bunch. I was in awe of some, kind of shocked by others, but mainly afraid of them all. This group included boys who ranged in age from twelve to eighteen, from pipsqueaks to practically grown men, who in a sense had formed almost a nation around the imposing figure of Dennis Hobbs.

He had by this time developed a deep, rich baritone voice, so deep in fact it was often difficult to decipher what he was saying. The words started from somewhere down in the belly and sounded like they emerged from there as well. Though he was only five foot six, he weighed more than two hundred pounds and, at sixteen, was not nearly fully grown yet. He was massive in every respect, from his size fifteen shoes to his overgrown skull. While he was intent on becoming a scholar (as he put it) he was at the same time the leader in a sort of half-real half-pretend game known as Pumpkin. I don't know why they called it that. Hobbs might have been the inventor, or he might have borrowed it from someone else, I never knew, but the gist of the game was following obscure orders to the letter and reporting on their achievement in detail and in secret. Dennis did not directly invite me into the group, but I sort of became de facto involved merely because I was spending so much time in his company. Our study halls were continually interrupted by the comings and goings of this group.

There was "Tadpole" Jenkins, the youngest of them all, a seventh grader who knew absolutely no fear. He would literally commit felonies for Hobbs. I saw it. Breaking and entering. Grand theft. Grand theft auto even - this tiny little guy jimmied into a Mustang, cracked the key case, hotwired the thing and drove off, while barely able to glimpse over the dashboard. He was a jittery little guy too, always shimmying and shaking, never still for a moment. He had these weird green eyes that bugged out of his head like a frog, hence the nickname. His best friend was Candy Coolidge, a fourteen year old butch girl with a spiky blue Mohawk and pink heart-shaped glasses. Candy was a thief as well who specialized in shoplifting. It was said that Candy had robbed every major store in town. She was also renowned for her imitation fart sounds.

'Jazzy' Roberts was the high school's star basketball player, a six foot seven junior with professional potential, who was hooked on following Pumpkin orders. Jazzy would do anything for Dennis, anything at all, even dressing up like a girl and coming to school wearing a skirt, high heels, lipstick and stockings. Everybody knew it was part of the game, everyone except the teachers, who shipped him off to the principal for counseling. Jazzy played the whole thing through, being 'girl for a day' just as he'd been instructed.

Camelia Franzen was another one of Dennis Hobbs' devotees. A senior, Camelia was famous in her own way even without the game. She had strung up a high-wire between the main school building and the gym and tight roped across it all by herself during a lunch period one day. Later she admitted she'd been drunk the whole time. She was also famous for the parties she threw at her rich family's house, inviting dozens of kids and trashing the place every time that her parents were away. Her folks were so rich they just hired this company that specialized in "teenage recovery", as they called it. Even before they came home they would put in a call and have the place all cleaned up. Everyone in the school believed that Camelia was Dennis' girlfriend, but she wasn't. He repeatedly told me he didn't have time for that kind of thing. He said he wasn't ready yet.

There were other characters that came in and out of the group, but mostly those were the core. Dennis would let them assign jobs for the newbies. Whenever it was Tadpole's turn, you knew there was going to be trouble. He was the guy who had ordered Mitch Howard to race the A-train down the tracks, all the way from Senson Street to Visitation Avenue. Let's just say that the train eventually made it to the end of the line, while Howard, alive, did not. They talked about all these things openly, even in the high school library, even with me, an outsider, sitting right there next to Dennis. They probably assumed I was deaf as well as blind, dumb as well as invisible. Dennis never talked about Pumpkin with me, alone, but he took no pains to hide his conversations about it. He was neither proud nor embarrassed, but simply matter of fact. Pumpkin was real, and he was in charge. I thought it was something like a business to him, and for all I knew he even made money off it. There was more than one side to Dennis Hobbs. There were more than two sides, in fact. I was getting to know a whole bunch of them.

For the first few months of our little project, Dennis asked me no personal questions. He kept to the work at hand, which was to help him get smart. As we achieved this goal, however, he started to show a little more interest in me. He wanted to know about my family, about our history, our descendants, our genetic components. This began as a side branch of our Science work but soon led up to the present. He had heard something about my sister, and wanted to know more about her. He remembered the 'Wheat Twins' episodes in gym class, and wanted to know more about me, and my friends. This was a pretty short story. Then he wanted to know about my girlfriends, and refused to believe I had never had any. Surely there was someone special, he insisted. He started getting nosy, but he was impossible to resist. Something about Dennis Hobbs made everybody talk in the end, so even I broke down, and after holding out for several sessions, finally let out the truth about me and Annie Barkowicki. Hobbs did not seem surprised. He even congratulated me on my choice of obsession, calling her a worthy target. He proceeded to offer me advice, and assured me that if I just did exactly what he told me to, he would he help me get close to my dream. Another thing about Hobbs. Whatever he said, you believed him, and I did.

He had a way of prefacing every point he wanted to make with a long preamble that seemed to have nothing at all to do with the subject. When he got around to advising me on women, he began with a lecture on squirrels. Squirrels, he told me, apparently live a spurious life, but in fact have it all planned down to the nutshell. Each day the squirrel knows exactly the scope and compass of his routine. From the morning twittering to the afternoon territorial chasing, and every scampering and scavenging in between. Nothing is left to chance. Well, naturally, the availability of the nuts and sundries in question are largely out of the squirrel's control, but none of his tactics or strategies are lacking in his tiny squirrel brain. Humans, on the other hand, have no idea what they're up to half the time. They wake up in the morning and wonder what they will do that day. They dream of impossible things, have wishes and desires far outside the boundaries of actual probability. They set their sights too high, in other words. Witness the squirrel, Hobbs propounded. It knows its limitations.

My problem, as he saw it, was that I had set my sights too high when it came to Annie Barkowicki. She would make a fine catch for somebody someday, he continued, but that day had not yet come. She was still not catchable. Therefore, I should not be attempting that feat. I should be “lining myself up”. This is exactly how he put it. Lining myself up, or aligning myself up, something like that, I was never quite sure. Ever since he had begun to read literature, his vocabulary had exploded and that, combined with his unintelligible baritone, made comprehension a chore. It was enough to get the gist of his banter.

You want to be there, Dennis advised me, on hand, ever ready, in the moment, present. I replied that after all, I did live next door to her - how much more present could I be? But he waved me off, saying I did not understand. To be there in her life, he explained, a part of her day, a cog in her machine, something necessary, required. I had no idea how that was going to happen. I was there on the bus. I was there in English class (again!). I was there staring out my bedroom window hoping to catch a glimpse of her. How much more there could I realistically get? His answer was, to be a supplier. To find out what it was she liked, and to provide it for her. Give her stuff, in other words, no matter what, and no matter the cost. If she liked diet soda, I was to have one ready at all times. If she liked chocolate ice cream, I was to have it, as needed. If she wanted help with her homework. If she wanted a ride somewhere. If she wanted a new dress. If she only wanted money. Find out what she wants, he repeated, and make sure to get it for her, give it to her, and not just once but often, repeatedly, and reliably. He would do me one more favor, he told me. He would do the finding out, and he would let me know, but in the meantime, there were some favors he would like me to do for him, if I didn't mind too much.

Mind too much? Heck, I could hardly believe my luck, which was certain to change with this god, this hero, this superstar on my side. I was already glowing with the light of Dennis Hobbs' favoritism. People acknowledged me in the hallways. They let me pass if they were in my way. It was known that Hobbs had knighted me in his own way. I was Sir James Kruzel at that point. I knew it was nothing I had done and nothing I had earned and nothing I deserved, but I basked in the reflected glory anyway. I was having my moment of dignity and I liked it very much. Plus, the promise of gaining stature in the eyes of Annie Barkowicki was a carrot that kept me going. Of course I wouldn't mind too much.

So that was how I came to be doing extra studying on my own time in areas of interest to Hobbs. He would assign me special projects that I would investigate and report on to him. He wanted to know about North Africa, for example. He had the notion that his forebears had come from there, Libya, perhaps, or Tunisia. It certainly was possible. I found out everything I could about the history of that region and enlightened him. He was interested in genealogy. I showed him how to go about the research. He was fascinated by genetics. I learned as much as I could in order to pass it along to him. I suppose I also benefited from these studies - certainly it was way more interesting than the regular school work which I could do in my sleep, and often did, for I stayed up late at night doing research, and sleepwalked through the hours in class. In return for all this overtime, Dennis kept me informed of his Barkowicki progress. He said he had people on the case. He had enlisted certain friends, people who knew people who knew Annie. Finally one day he came to me with the result of all that detective work.

Cigarettes. Annie wanted smokes. She was not allowed to have them but wanted them desperately. This was easy, I thought. I can do that! I wasn't quite sure how I was going to get them myself, but once again, Dennis Hobbs came to the rescue. He had access to cartons, and not just any old brand, but exactly the kind she craved. He doled them out to me, and I found a way to smuggle them in to her. The first time I did it, I was scared right out of my mind. I tailed her home from the bus stop after school, and jogged up next to her. I said, “hey, I think I might have something for you”. She turned and peered at me but said nothing. That's when I brandished the pack of menthol lights. I could see her whole face change with anticipation. “Take 'em”, I said, and put them into her hands. “Not my brand”, I added, and with a dash of derring-do I sort of winked and said something incredibly stupid, like 'catch you later', and I sauntered off, or at least I hoped it looked like I was sauntering.

After that, I was there, all right, every week or so. She would come up to me after we got off the bus and ask if I happened to have any, and of course I always did. I carried a pack with me at all times. I even slept with a pack of those darn things in my pajama shirt pocket, just in case she climbed up the front porch pillar and walked across the roof and tapped on my window in the middle of the night. I was prepared. Hobbs was satisfied. He said I had a good spot. I was pretty well aligned. He thought that she was ripening a bit too. His words. She had already busted out in all those physical female ways, but the emotion wasn't there yet. She was getting ready, though, and he could tell. He even ventured to predict the exact week when Annie Barkowicki would feel, for the first time in her life, that she wanted a boy in that way. He put it down for the second week of March.

That was a fine, long winter that year, working for Hobbs, getting aligned for Annie, feeling that I was finally making progress in life. I pretty much had my hands full. Hobbs kept me going on various projects, and the rest of the time I was dreaming about her and hoping I wasn't setting my sights too high. By the time the month of March came around, I was getting ready to make my move. I didn't tell Dennis about it, or rather, I didn't ask him if I should. I was pretty sure of myself at that point. Annie was spending moments with me regularly. Kids were making room for me in the cafeteria. My grades were stellar. I was just like the squirrel. I had my thing down pat. On my own I'd discovered another of her special needs and started serving up chocolate covered wafers as regularly as menthol lights. One day I had merely asked her if there was anything else she'd been craving lately. It was as easy as that. Talk to a girl. Ask her what she wants. Give it to her. I figured the sky was the limit.

By now we were chatting with each other at the bus stop in the mornings too. I don't even know what we talked about. My head was simply swimming. It was probably little more than 'good morning' and 'hey, school sucks', and stuff like that, but for the boy who had only dreamed of exchanging intimate banter like this, it was all good. I won't go into all the gory details of how I swaggered around the halls, how I bounced up and down in my seat in class, how I stayed up late at night preparing reports for Hobbs as if it was going to make my fortune. There were a few weeks there when I was on top of my game like never before and rarely since. Hobbs certainly noticed. He was not shy of showing his appreciation and showered me with compliments, telling me that a man of my skills would go far, that very important people could use a guy like me.

Monday, March 9. That was the date I had circled on my calendar, literally, the page-three-girls pinup wall calendar in my bedroom. It was clearly the second week of the month, no one could argue with that, and I had written in the box, in small letters, a proverb Hobbs never tired of telling me: when the fruit is ripe, it falls from the tree. I had kept my plan simple, also according to Hobbs’ wisdom. Short and sweet, I waited and waited for the long school day to end. Then the bus. Then a brief interlude while Annie said goodbye to a couple of her friends while I hung back, loitering, and waiting some more. Then she turned and noticed me there and she smiled. We walked together across the street and up towards her house. She gave me the little questioning chin lift she'd come to use to signify, 'got any smokes?’ I gave her the little head down completion of the nod to indicate 'but of course, my dear', and she laughed a little at our routine. I mentioned there was something I wanted to tell her. She stopped and turned towards me. I gestured towards her front porch. We hopped up the steps and stood by the door. I stepped a little closer. With my right hand I took her left, and then I got up on my tippie toes and I kissed her on the mouth.

Just like that. I planted that kiss right there and she didn't stop me and she didn't push me away, but she didn't kiss back either. She just let me. My initial thrill subsided and I removed my lips from her face and dropped back to my heels. She smiled again. She told me it was okay. She just wasn't ready yet. Her exact words.

“I'm just not ready yet”.

Where had I heard that one before? I handed over the cigarettes and she said thanks, and then with her right hand she patted me on the cheek, said thanks again, and went inside her house. Patted me on the cheek. Was that a good sign? Was there potential in that gesture for genuine eventual true love, or did it signify she considered me something like a cute little puppy dog? I didn't know. I was all confused and too excited to think straight. I had made my move. It was the second week of March. The fruit was supposed to be ripe and was supposed to be falling from the tree. Was it falling? Well, if it was, I was certainly 'there', wasn't I? Just like Hobbs had told me to be.

Annie was especially nice to me the next morning too. She went out of her way and even asked me to sit next to her on the bus. This had never happened before. There was something different about her, for sure, but I couldn't say exactly what it was because I was seeing in hyper-vision. She was more than real in my eyes. It seemed I could distinguish every strand of her hair, every pore on her cheeks, and every sparkle in her eyes. Time stood still and yet roared by too fast at the same instant. Was she looking at me? Was that her hand touching mine? Oh yes, it was time to get up. We'd arrived at the school. It was painful to separate. I could not conceive of the notion of being apart from her. Really, that's how I felt. At that moment I wanted nothing more than to follow her around all day and just be near, just be there, but I couldn't. I had to get to class.

There were two hours before I saw her again. First there was Chemistry class, always a bad idea first thing in the morning. I was daydreaming and clumsy and mixed one wrong thing with another wrong thing and the combination was a plume of smoke and a kind of bubbly blue liquid that leaped out of the decanter and stained my shirt and pants. That was terrific. Next was Social Studies, which at that time meant sorry excuses for why our country had to go and occupy some harmless little nation full or poor people who only wanted to be left alone. The waste of time and energy was simply wrong. I should not be there. I should be with Annie. And I would be with her soon, I reasoned. After Social Studies and before English there was study hall. Usually that meant going to the library, finding Dennis and presenting my latest work, but I had nothing to show him that day. He had given me an assignment but I'd blown it off. I didn't even remember what it was. I was only thinking of her and of my plan to track her down between periods and, and, and … well, my plan was not yet complete. Just to see her, I guess, that was it.

The Social Studies teacher was ranting about something when the ball rang, and he made us wait a minute while he finished whatever it was he was saying. I was itching to go, half-risen from my seat like every other kid in the room, and when he finally dismissed us I ran out of there and through the crowded halls to the spot where I'd predicted she would have to cross, but she wasn't there. I was cursing that darn teacher under my breath, and rushed off to the hall which held her next class, but when I got there, she was nowhere in sight, not in the hall, and not in the room. I sighed, and decided I would just have to wait another hour until English class, when I would definitely see her, and started back towards the library, but as I looked up, I caught a glimpse of Annie turning the corner up ahead.

By this time, the halls were clearing, as the next period had just begun, and she was not going to class. I followed. I got to the corner just in time to see her slip out a side door. She was walking fast, nearly running. Where was she going? I walked faster too but when I got outside, I didn't see her. To the left was the gym building. To the right was the auditorium. She would have no reason I could think of to go to either of those places. I tried the auditorium first. There was no one in there, not in the main area, and not back stage either. I went back out and circled the building but she wasn't there, so I went over to the gym. I went inside, and saw a class of seniors doing calisthenics. Unless she was in the girls' locker room, she wasn't in there, so I went back out and circled the building.

And there she was, standing against the side of the building and smoking one of her precious menthol lights. I slowed down and tried to compose myself before she saw me, because I was a mess, sweaty and panting with my blue-stained chemical-smelling outfit. I wiped my forehead with my sleeve and made an attempt to pat down my hair, then I took a deep breath, and took a step toward her, but that is as far as I got. Someone else was coming from the other direction. Annie threw down her butt and ran toward him and then leaped into his arms. He caught her and spun her around a couple of times, and then, with her legs wrapped around his waist, he pushed her up against the brick wall of the gym and their faces converged at the lips. It was some pretty passionate stuff, I have to admit. It was Tuesday, March 10, and apparently the fruit was definitely falling from the tree, right into the waiting and willing arms of my buddy and pal and leader, Dennis Hobbs, because he was the guy who was holding her. He was the guy who was kissing her. He was the guy who got her in all of her glory.

You'd think I would have seen it coming, but what did I know? Nothing. I turned around, and slowly walked away, telling myself that at least I knew it was over, and that should be a relief, but it wasn't. I felt my heart would turn to stone, and I wish it had, because then it wouldn't have hurt so much.