At the junction with Main Hall, I stopped to close my eyes and breathe out the dizzy. When I opened them again, I saw Josh Berman’s sidekick — the kid from the Office, what was his name? Goldman, Cory Goldman — getting monkey-in-the-middled by a pair of icthiied Shovers. Bare-necked between them, turning 180s in rapid succession, Cory Goldman shouted, “Give it! Hey hey! Give it back!” as they arced his balled scarf back and forth above his head. I considered stepping in — I really didn’t like him, but yes, he was an Israelite, but — but before I could decide one way or the other, Berman himself emerged from somewhere behind me and barreled at the Shover who had Cory’s scarf. That Shover saw him coming, and before he got floored, tossed the scarf to the other one, who caught it and ran in the direction of B-Hall, Cory on his tail now, and Berman on Cory’s. Shovers they ran past joined in the chase — some of them Israelites, others of them not — and they grabbed at each other, attempting to capture each other’s scarves, and the Shover Berman’d floored got back on his feet, revolved to face B-Hall, as if to join the chase himself, but encountered a bandkid and stripped him of his flute. He twetched on the flute, told the bandkid, “Get gummed,” then touched the flute’s goozed part to the bandkid’s cheek, and the bandkid cried.
That was when someone yanked my hood and I spun. I grabbed his face by the chin. It was Isadore Momo.
“Aye-yay ah-yah!” he shouted. “I am Momo I am Momo!”
I said, Sorry, Momo, you surprised me.
Beside Momo, an even squattier kid, a kid so chubby his forehead had dimples, seemed to be floating above his own shoes.
“He is my friend Beauregard Pate,” Momo explained. “Beauregard Pate is a man of ideas, and when I tell to him the story of our Gym class and the nipple, he is wanting for to tell you something. Tell to Gurion what you tell to me, Beauregard.”
“You are nice!” shouted Beauregard Pate, nearly breathless. “That is first of all!” The Shover who’d performed the goozeflute on the bandkid popped out of the C-Hall crowd-stream then to accidentally-on-purpose elbow Beauregard sideways. I ankleswept him hard, he hit the floor one-kneed, crawled a couple yards fast, then got up and ran. Beauregard seemed to have noticed none of it. “You were nice to Isadore!” Beauregard continued. “And you have all my best wishes! So secondly, I would like to say, God bless you, Gurion Maccabee! All my best wishes are with you!”
Momo slapped Beauregard on the shoulder and Beauregard high-fived him. They tilted their heads in opposite directions and made meaningful-looking eye-contact, as if cuing one another to patter for the benefit of their Broadway audience, like, “Are you thinking what I’m thinking, Isadore?” “I’m thinking we should turn up the music, Beauregard.” “You mean turn up the music and do a little dancing, Isadore?” “I mean turn up the music and do a lot of dancing, Beauregard!”
The sight of the joy of the chubby always puzzled me. When the chubby had joy, I knew in my heart they were forgetting their chubbiness, but to my eyes it always looked like a celebration of their chubbiness, and I’d feel like an invader and have to go away.
I tried to go away, but Beauregard said, “Wait! I didn’t say what I wanted to say! Please wait?”
I waited. Where was June? The crowd kept pushing by. Beauregard swallowed hard. He said, “We want to ask you if you like gangs commited to social reform. We want to start a gang called Big Ending to end our oppression. We believe that girls would like us more and teachers would stop making faces.”
Why do you believe that? I said.
“Because we believe that girls do not find oppression to be a sexy phenomenon, and we also believe that teachers don’t know they’re making faces when they’re making faces, but that the faces they make encourage our oppressors to oppress us, and therefore we must raise teacher awareness. Will you be the leader of Big Ending?”
I said, Some girls think oppressors are sexy, and some other girls think the oppressed are sexy. I’d never say you shouldn’t start a gang, but you can find a nice girl without starting a gang. And teachers know exactly what they’re doing when they’re making faces at you. Because they’re tall and you’re nice, you think they’re all like your mom who loves you and tries to understand, and some of them are like your mom that way, but most of them aren’t. Most of them think of you the way everyone else thinks of you, because the way everyone else thinks of you is always the easiest way to think of you, so if you want them to stop making faces, you have to stop being oppressed. If you stop being oppressed, then everyone else will think of you different, and so will the teachers who make faces. And they’ll stop making faces.
“So it’s our fault?” said Beauregard. “It’s our fault the teachers make faces?”
No, I said. It’s your enemies’ fault. Stop beating yourself up. It’s your fault that you beat yourself up instead of treating the teachers who make faces like enemies, when that’s what they are. Those teachers are your enemies.
“Will you to lead the Big Ending then?” said Isadore. “If we say the teachers are the enemies?”
I said, No way. I said, Not if you guys are in it.
“But you were so nice to Isadore, Gurion. I thought you were on our side,” Beauregard said.
I am on your side, I said. I said, That’s why I’d never lead Big Ending. The two of you were born to lead it — I’d only get in the way.
They blushed, the red climbing their faces like a juice-spill up mop-strands, and again I tried to go, and again Beauregard said, “Wait!”
And Isadore said, “Will you join us in the Big Ending?”
No, I said. I said, Sometimes I lead things, but I never join them. You have my blessing, though, and if you want Big Ending can be a special arm of the Side of Damage.
“What’s that?”
The thing I lead, I said.
“What is it, though?”
An army.
“What can Big Ending to do for your army?”
I don’t know yet, I said.
“We will do what you want us to do when the time comes.”
To my right, a single cracking sound rose above the crowd-noise in Main Hall. As the three of us revolved, there was another. Maholtz was demonstrating the power of his sap to some seventh-grade girls. He was striking the cinderblock corner of the northern entrance to the cafeteria. “Look out, Jenndy. Stand bank,” he said. “Bank. Come on. Bank. Angshley,” he said, “get Jenndy outta the way, put her over by Jenndy, there. Good,” he said, “now I’m gonnda show you.” Another crack. “Seend?” he said. Another crack. “Seend that?” he said. “It’s just paint,” said an Ashley. “No, it’s wallnd. Don’t you dount me, now.” Crack. “Seend?” said Maholtz. “That’s wallnd. Try and tell me thant’s not wallnd.” “It’s paint.” “I think it’s wall, Ashley.” “It’s not wall, Jenny. If it was wall, it would be a different color than the paint.” “Okay okay,” said Maholtz, “here.” Crack. Crack. Crack. Crack. “And?” he said. “Fine,” said the Ashley, “that’s wall. But before it was paint.” “I can bring down wallngs, girlies, is the poind. You want Maholntz to bring downd the wallnds for you? Maholntz is bringing downd the wallnds for you.”
“I am dreaming very badly of a time to see the Bryguy Maholtz writhing with frantic in the throes of pain and anguish,” said Momo.
“Making that dream come true,” said Beauregard Pate, “will be one of Big Ending’s primary objectives.”
I like that, I said.
And again they blushed.
Four sleepy-looking fifth-graders were sitting in the corner of Nurse Clyde’s office, leaning on each other and whispering. I’d never seen them before. They were short, narrow guys and they all had cartoonface: eyes and lips as large as men’s, jaws and noses and chins that were boy-size. You’d expect them to turn blue when cold, green when sick. If you frightened them and their teeth chattered, it would not be surprising. Or if puffs of steam whistled from their earholes when you slapped them.