And he’s not scared of fighting me, either, Gurion. He should be. I’d tear him down if he attacked me, but he’s not scared of fighting me, I’m not saying he is. And whether or not he’s aware of my loyalty’s resilience, it’s definitely not regret for having betrayed me, much less any feeling of guilt, that keeps him from attacking me. The reason he doesn’t attack me is the same reason he tells everyone it’s me who writes SLOKUM DIES FRIDAY: my public displays of enmity serve him.
He knows I’m a villain in the eyes of all those kids he wants to worship him (there is no denying it; neither of us can deny how little I’m liked, how many kids would love to see me ended), and he knows that if their villain is Bam’s enemy, and Bam’s enemy appears afraid to fight Bam, that makes Bam their hero. Crazy as THAT might look written down, I’m positive I’m right. And he’s right, too — I make him their hero. Or at least I help to. And a hero under threat, Gurion, always appears more heroic than a hero victorious. If he were to beat my ass — and he does believe that would be the outcome (another thing I’m sure of — I know this kid) — they would worship him less, because what enemy of Slokum could take my place? Who do they fear more than Benji Nakamook? Who do they hate more than me? No one. So my hatred of him — no matter its forthright nature, its snow-white purity — it doesn’t hurt his standing; it’s all to his benefit. And so I get to have my cake and eat it too. I get to hate him out loud and protect him all at once. I go forth without compromise, integrity intact, the unbetraying villain.
At least until this afternoon, when I betrayed you, letting him hold you in the air like that. Out of loyalty to my own code of loyalties, I maintained the older of two loyalties. I preserved my own integrity. But it wasn’t pleasant. I didn’t enjoy it. My heart was bucking.
And now you say, “Who cares? Who cares, though?” right? This is the part where you say, “Who cares what your heart did? How about your legs? How about what they DIDN’T? How about your fists? You sound like a bancer, talking fancy betrayal and loyalty bullshit, principled bullshit, self-dramatizing bullshit. You sound like a trailer for an action movie. You should have HIT that kid. You should have HELPED me.”
And you’re right. But so was I, Gurion. And what I’m trying to tell you is I did the harder thing. I didn’t do what I wanted — that would’ve been the easy thing. I hated just standing there, but thought I had to just stand there and so I just stood there. I did what I thought I had to do, and I hated what I thought I had to do, and because I hated it, I knew I was right… or thought I knew I was right. I don’t know anymore. I don’t know what to do.
If what I’ve always believed is true — that without our loyalties we’re nothing — then our worth is determined by nothing other than the strength of our loyalties. And if I conclude that what I’ve always believed is false — that our worth is determined by something other or more than the strength of our loyalties — I would, according to my current code of loyalty, be doing so out of worthlessness, or snakiness. So what should I trust? The code I’ve always trusted that now rings false, or the urge to abandon that code, which is an urge I’ve always defied with contempt, but which screamed true in the two-hill field, and has continued its screaming ever since? I have to decide. I’m not saying I don’t. If I don’t, I’m a pussy. And I’m not going to get all purple and sobby about it, but except for in those moments prior to choosing between my parents, I have not felt worse than this. I want you to know that. Juvie was cake compared to this, and Slokum’s betrayal an ice-cream sandwich. I’m all backward, Gurion. Most people, they get fucked up the worst when someone else fucks them up. Not me. The only thing that really fucks me up is when I fuck up. I don’t understand any of us.
And I don’t expect you to understand why I betrayed you, but I’m hoping you won’t MISunderstand. I’m telling you I’m your friend, and if you want to hate me for what I failed to do, okay, I get that. I accept it, even. If you hate me, though, Gurion, you’ll be hating a friend — a lousy friend who betrayed you, that is true, but not an enemy, not by a longshot. I don’t want your hatred. An enemy would. An enemy would court it. What I want is your forgiveness. And I guess that’s how I should have started. That would have been the most honest way, to ask you to forgive me for the way that I am — if not for the way I’ve made myself, then for the way I was made. Whichever way you see it. Any way you can forgive me. I’ve been trying to give you one without telling lies.
I know, at least, that I’ve told you no lies.
Your loyal blowhard friend who betrayed you,
Benji Nakamook
The tower of my Tower of Restraint dream explicated, I returned the letter to its envelope. Then I climbed off the hood of the car I’d been sitting on — a maroon Ford Escort I was pretty sure was Botha’s — and made my way out of the parking lot.
Ten steps along, a limo crept past me, a stretched SUV with a jacked rear axel. Its wheels were chrome-spinnered, and its plates read NEWTHING, its custom-made hood-ornament a gold-plated microphone. The men in the back hung cigar smoke out the windows, and when it parked beside the dumpster Blake Acer had bombed — his blood clung like rust to the second WE — I saw they were Boystar’s dad and Chaz.
Chaz waved a hand to beckon to a woman who was chanting, “Unaccept-able,” into her celly. She stepped out of her heels and ran tiptoed to the limo. She leaned through the smoke and kissed Chaz on the cheek, and it was boring so I looked away.
The lot had gotten busier. More roadies hauled more implements down the semi’s tongue-like ramp: speakers, footlights, a soundboard. Techs inside newsvans keyed at rugged-looking laptops; dish antennas rotated and bowed. A curious bandkid leaked gooze out both nostrils while a high-haired Ashley did a curtsy at a cameraman. Some Highway 61 guys fought about a chapstick and three talking heads traded sugar-free chiclets, smiling like it hurt when smitten Jennys turned to gape. Two of these Jennys manned a table at the curb. Across their foreheads, in lipstick, was INDIANS. In front of their table, girls stood ten-deep, waiting in line to get their own foreheads INDIANS’d.
As I approached the front entrance, June leapt from the shrubs. She bit my shoulder, and I called her Jellybean and pinched her hip til she wiggled. The smell of her hair got me warm and relaxed, and we bumped each other sideways as we staggered at the building like our legs were manacled.
I think I’m friends with Benji again, I told her.
“You never weren’t,” she said.
I said, How long do pep rallies last here?
“A period.”
Good, I said. Can you get sent to Nurse Clyde a few minutes after third starts? I’ll do the same thing and we’ll meet up like yesterday.
June said she’d do it and we entered the school. The Sentinel halted us just past his booth. No surprise there — we’d both ditched detention. “Two of you: Office,” the Sentinal said.
June said, “You office.”
Jerry didn’t hear. He asked me, “How’s your mom?”
I flashed him the Look of The End.
He pretended confusion, and we followed him through Main Hall.
Boystar flyers were all over the place, taped to anything flat and stationary. Support pillars were plastered with red and white construction paper. Matching streamers hung in clusters from the ceiling like curtains. Jerry before us, we tore as we went. Helium balloons nodded and swayed, the taut lengths of ribbon that anchored them to locker-vents angling sharp in our wake. June freed a balloon and pulled out its plug. She aimed at my face, let fly, and I ducked it. It spiraled six feet and fizzled on an Ashley. She glowered at June, and June flicked the plug at her. The Ashley’s INDIANS went crumply.