“I’m following you.”
Good, I said.
And I saw that it was.
The rest of the ride I sat by Dingle and Salvador. Dingle said, “Bro,” and banged fists with me. Salvador offered me a lime-wedge. I sucked it and tried not to wince, but did. “Almost,” said Salvador.
“You almost had it,” said Dingle. “For real. You want to see me bleed? I won’t even charge you.”
That’s okay, I said.
“What’s your favorite Palahniuk?”
I’ve never read him.
“Bro,” said Dingle.
What? I said.
“Dude,” he said.
The parking lot was thick with unfamiliar vehicles and non-scholastic personnel. Long-haired guys wearing leather eased a giant spotlight down an eighteen-wheeler’s trailer-ramp. Men chokered with chunky headphones erected broadcast dishes in the beds of tricked-out pickups. It wasn’t that cold outside, just a touch below freezing, but the air was damp from the morning drizzle, and the first breath I took after stepping off the bus gave me a one-shake chill and came out white.
Main Man and Vincie played slapslap on the curb. Scott kept saying “Smack.” I didn’t see June anywhere.
“Smack,” Scott said, and Vincie pulled his hands away.
I came up beside them. None of us wore gloves.
“Smackattack,” said Main Man, and he scored again.
Vincie cocked his chin at me and winked ≠ “I am letting Main Man win,” though I thought it did, and I didn’t believe him — his flinching seemed authentically defensive. He said to Mookus, “Four — one you, but that’s the last time I fall for it.”
He fell for it once more, or seemed to, and then it was his turn to slap.
Main Man said, “Smack.” Vincie balked, lost the point.
“That’s cheap,” he said.
Haha, I said.
Main Man looked past me, saying nothing.
It would take him another minute to rout Vincie 13–5. Between the clouds, strips of sky shone green. Wind blew low and hard and sudden enough to tousle the loops of our shoelace-knots. A shallow puddle on the pavement spread.
“Smack-ack,” said Main Man, and the game was over.
Vincie cocked his chin and winked.
He beat you sound, I said.
“Fuck does that have to do with anything?” Vincie said. He cocked his chin once more and I saw that his winking wasn’t conspiratorial. It was a blinker-action for the chin-cocking, which had, itself, been a brandishment: there was a mouth-shaped welt near his collarbone. That’s what I was supposed to look at.
Nice hatermark, I said.
“It’s called a hickey when you’re in love.”
Wouldn’t that be when it’s called a lovebite? I said.
“If you’re some kinda gothy fucken sap, maybe,” said Vincie. “You ever get one, though? You should really get one from June, man. Starla Flangent, I’ll tell you what. When Vincie held her hand she felt e lec tric ity.”
Benji, I said.
“Fuck does Benji have to do with anything?”
When Benji held her hand.
“I don’t think you’re right.”
I’m right.
“We’re talking about the same song?”
‘The Love You Save,’ I said. I said, Jackson 5.
“Whatever, Gurion. All I’m saying is getting a hickey like this one — I want to play drums for a Motown outfit. I want to rob banks. Listen—”
“No you fucken listen!” Scott said.
“Okay,” said Vincie.
Okay, I said.
We’d never heard Main Man curse before, and his eyeballs were trembling like Mr. Klapper’s, as if straining to take in a sight too large for Main Man’s field of vision to accommodate. He lifted his left foot a couple inches off the pavement, said, “I’m singing today? I’m singing today,” then lost his balance and set the foot back down.
What’s wrong? I asked him.
“I forgot,” he said. Then he did the foot thing again.
“He’s nervous,” Vincie said, “cause his parents aren’t coming.”
That true, Scott? I said.
Main Man wouldn’t look at me.
“His little brother Jimmy called me last night to tell me,” said Vincie. “I never even knew there was a little brother Jimmy. What a nice little brother. You got a nice little brother, Scott. Jimmy called and told me their parents had to go to some long-weekend Christian retreat thing in Wisconsin today, and Scott forgot all about it til they reminded him last night during dinner when he told them he was psyched for them to see him perform. But I say: So what? I say: So fucken what? I say: Better no parents, especially real Christian ones, since how many girls are gonna be in that audience, and girls are the ones that give hickies, not parents. So no parents isn’t something to be nervous about, right? So he shouldn’t be nervous about that, Gurion, should he?”
No, I said. You shouldn’t, Scott.
“If he’s gonna be nervous, he should be nervous cause he’s about to get famous, right?”
Right, I said.
“Why he should be nervous is cause, starting second period, every Jenny and Ashley at Aptakisic’s gonna chase him through the hallways Hard Day’s Night—style for the rest of his life just to touch his fucken shirt, right?”
Exactly, I said.
“‘Scott Mookus! Oh my God! It’s Scott fucken Mookus! I want to touch his shirt! That’s a shirt he once sweated in! I want to touch his shirt and then suck on my hand and make him a part of me!’”
Vincie put his fist out, but Main Man wouldn’t bang it.
Main Man, I said, Vincie’s telling you—
“Am I still singing today?” he said. “Do I still get to sing?”
Yeah, I said. Of course, I said. I said, Don’t worry. What’re you worried about?
He handed me a letter in an unmarked envelope. I didn’t need to open it to know from who.
11/16&17/06
Gurion,
For the past few hours, I’ve been thinking I’d call you as soon as I figured out what to say, but I haven’t been able to figure that out, and it’s almost ten, and I hate the phone anyway, so instead I’ve decided to write you this letter. I still can’t figure out what to say, though. I can’t figure out the right way to start. I know THIS isn’t it, but I’m thinking: Well, at least it’s honest so far. At least you can be honest. Try and stay honest.
We’ve had about forty imaginary conversations since sundown, and none of them have gone the way I wanted them to. You call me one name then I call you the same name and then we start yelling, or I deliver some high-flown speech that explains pretty much everything but for what it’s supposed to. One’s about the meaning of love. Another’s about the trappings of loyalty. A third’s about friendship, a fourth about enmity. You get the idea. Anyway, after each speech, you call me out. You say, “That’s all just great, Benji. You’re a really smart guy, what a talent for discourse, what a way you have with words, but why the fuck did you stand there in the two-hill field, crying like a fucken baby instead of helping me?” And I tell you, “I thought I just explained that, man.” And you tell me I didn’t, and I see that you’re right, and then I launch into some other irrelevant soliloquy.
I’d like to tell you, “I froze,” but that sounds like I’m saying I didn’t have a choice. I did have a choice, I know I had a choice, and what’s more is I knew I had a choice at the time. I chose at the time to stand there and watch. And I could say, “I wish I hadn’t made that choice,” but that doesn’t really hit the mark either. It’s more like I wish that I hadn’t been me, a person who’d have made that same choice every time. I might as well be wishing we lived on the sun.