Project X

12

“You’re eating again,” my dad says to me at dinner. “He’s eating again,” he tells my mother when I don’t say anything.

“I see that,” my mom tells him back. She’s made pork chops and a salad and I’m even eating the salad.

“I’m eating, too,” Gus volunteers.

“So you are,” my dad tells him.

“So you almost finished?” my mom asks my dad. Gus spills his milk. My dad lifts his plate and my mom goes to get a sponge.

“Maybe I picked the wrong topic,” he says. “Who really cares about the World Bank?” He turns to me. “You care about the World Bank?”

“Not right this second,” I tell him.

“There you have it,” my dad says.

“Well, Edwin’s going to be in school,” my mom tells him. She finishes mopping the table and squeezes the sponge out in the sink. “So he’s not going to be able to make it anyway.”

My dad puts his plate back down. “What’s the matter with you?” he asks me.

“What do you mean?” I go.

“You’re making little noises,” he says.

“I am?” I go.

He imitates one.

“I’m doing that?” I ask.

My mom nods. Gus makes the sound, too.

“Something on your mind?” my dad asks.

“I don’t know,” I tell him.

“The old glass head,” he goes.

I put my elbows on the sides of my dish and hold my head steady with my hands. I don’t look at either of them, or at Gus.

“After dinner, you have to have your medicine,” my mom reminds Gus.

“No,” Gus goes.

“Is that for his ear?” I ask, and she nods.

Gus complains for a while and we all finish eating.

“So you don’t want to talk about what’s bothering you?” my dad asks me.

“Maybe in a little while,” I tell him.

“Mom?” Gus asks.

“Something at school?” my mom asks me. She’s got her back to me because she’s carried her dish to the sink.

“I don’t know,” I tell her. “We’ll see.”

“Mom?” Gus asks.

She looks over her shoulder at me and makes an exaggerated disappointed face. My dad gets a pencil from the counter and writes some notes on his paper napkin.

“I think your father’s working too hard,” my mom says to me when she comes back to the table.

“Hard but not well,” my dad goes. He draws a line on his napkin from one note to another.

“Mom?” Gus asks.

“Your ear hurt?” I ask him.

“Yeah,” he goes. He tilts his head and puts his hand on it. His hand’s still holding his fork.

“You’re getting pork in your hair,” my mom goes. She clears my plate, and my dad’s.

Gus has to finish before he gets dessert. I sit upstairs on my bed with my hands back on the sides of my face. I can hear my dad talking to himself in the downstairs bathroom. “Nobody flushes in this house,” he says. Gus is singing to himself instead of eating. His new favorite song is “I’ve Got the Whole World in My Pants.”

He quiets down. My dad turns on the TV. Down the street a dog starts doing the same bark for ten minutes in a row.

I find myself squatting over by the bookcase. I stopped flipping through the serial killers book when I got to the picture of Richard Speck. He doesn’t look like anybody I know.

“Where’d you get that book?” my mom asks from over my shoulder. She smiles when I jump. I didn’t hear her come in. “I can’t believe they have books like that for kids,” she says.

“It’s not for kids,” I tell her.

“That’s for sure,” she says. She puts away some laundry she’s folded in my drawer and picks up my green pants. “These are about ready to go out, aren’t they?” she asks.

“Leave them,” I tell her.

“We can try to find you a new pair like these,” she says.

“They’re okay,” I tell her.

She drops them and holds up her hands like I’ve gotten all bent out of shape. “Why’re you crying?” she asks. She kneels down next to me. “What’s wrong?”

“I bit my tongue,” I tell her.

She wants to see, so I open my mouth. “I don’t see it,” she says.

“It’s on the bottom,” I go. I can’t tell whether she believes me or not. She gets to her feet and watches me for a minute, then picks up the laundry basket and heads downstairs. I hear her saying something to my dad.

I lie down and slide under the bed. I push my hands against the planks holding up the box spring. I hear Gus get halfway up the stairs and then stop. “Where’s my ball?” he asks somebody.

“What?” my mom says. She’s in the TV room with my dad.

“Where’s my Nerf ball?” Gus goes.

“I think you left it outside,” she tells him.

“I want it,” he goes.

“Didn’t you leave it outside?” she asks.

“I want it,” he goes.

“Well, we can’t get it now,” she tells him. “We’ll get it tomorrow.”

He’s quiet a minute and then keeps coming upstairs. I can see his feet inside my room. “Edwin?” he says.

He goes back downstairs. “Where’s Edwin?” he asks. “He’s up in his room,” my mom tells him.

He comes back upstairs. “Edwin?” he calls.

I’m crying again. “Edwin?” he calls.

“I’m under here,” I tell him.

He gets down on his hands and knees and looks under the bed. He laughs and crawls under with me. He’s small enough to slide up next to me and roll over on his back. “Are we hiding?” he asks.

“Yeah,” I tell him. We lie like that until my mom comes up to put him to bed.

“Are we sleeping under the bed tonight?” she asks after she sings him his song and shuts his door. Now I can see her feet where his were. She’s wearing her poofy slippers. “Edwin?” she asks.

“I’m just lying here a minute,” I go.

Her feet turn and the bed creaks when she sits on it. The box spring sags closer. “Can I ask you a question?” she asks.

“Uh-huh,” I go.

“What’s wrong?” she asks.

“Nothing,” I go.

“I’m talking to a bed, here,” she goes. “So something’s wrong.”

I’m crying again. I wipe my face so hard it hurts.

“Edwin?” she goes. I try not to make any noise. She gets off the bed and gets on her hands and knees and lowers her head so she can see. “What’s the matter?” she asks. Honey?”

I wish I were Gus. “I hurt my face,” I tell her.

“What’d you do?” she asks. She reaches a hand under and touches it.

“Rubbed it too hard,” I tell her.

“Oh, Edwin,” she goes.

I slide out and sit up next to her. Tell her about it, the baby part of me goes. I can just imagine Flake’s face. “Oh, Ma,” I go.

She hugs me. “It’s okay,” she goes.

“What is?” I go.

“Whatever it is,” she says. She rubs circles on my back. “Sometimes we can’t handle stuff,” she tells me. “Sometimes it’s just too much.”

“I can handle anything,” I tell her.

“Well, don’t get mad,” she says. “What’re you getting mad for?”

“I’m gonna take a shower,” I go. I get up.

“Wait. What’re you getting mad about?” she says.

“Thanks,” I go.

“Honey, you’re just a little guy,” she tells me. “Don’t take everything so hard.”

“Wait,” she says.

I shut the bathroom door behind me and turn the shower on.

“Shit,” she says.

She finally asks through the bathroom door if we can talk tomorrow, and when I say yes she goes downstairs. I turn off the shower and listen. After I’m sure she’s not coming back I dry off and climb into bed naked. I get a hard-on. “I don’t know what you think you’re doing,” I say to it.

I’m still sniffing and crying. I can’t even stay in bed. It feels like there are bugs in it. Every time I pull the sheets down and turn on the lights, there’s nothing there. I take another shower. I sit in the tub and let the water pound my head until it starts to get cold and I have to turn it off.

I have these weird, dozy, half-dreams sitting in my chair. In one I’m a cowboy. When I remember it it’s a little embarrassing I made myself a cowboy.

I go to the window. Down the street, a few lights are still on.

What will it be like on Saturday? Or a week from Saturday?

I walk all over the room. Sometimes I get down in a squat and press my hands together until they shake. Then I get up again and keep walking.

I grab the phone and dial the first three numbers of our number and then anything, any other four numbers. An answering machine picks up. “Welcome to Target World,” I go after the beep, and then I hang up.

It’s no fun, though, so I don’t do it again.

I go back to the chair. I go back under the bed. This is unreal, I think. This is unreal. But then I think that when people say something’s unreal, they just mean it’s too real.

“Your brother’s upset,” my mom says at breakfast. Gus is crying in the bathroom.

“About what?” I go.

“He can’t find his ball,” she says. “You seen it?”

I nod. “I’ll find it,” I go. I’ll buy him another one, I figure. They have them at the drugstore, and I can ride my bike there.

“Nice way to start the day,” my dad says, sitting down next to me. Gus hears him and starts wailing.

“Don’t make fun of him,” my mom tells him.

“I’m not making fun of him,” my dad goes. “I’m just commenting on our happy home.” She pours him some coffee. “Did he look outside?” he asks.

“He says he looked all over,” my mom tells him.

“I looked all over,” Gus says from the bathroom.

“And how are you today?” my dad asks me.

“I’m good,” I tell him.

“You look great,” he tells me back.

“I think I know where his ball is,” I tell my mom.

“Well, tell him that,” she says. She walks over to the bathroom door. “Honey? Edwin says he knows where your ball is.”

“Where?” Gus wails.

“You’ll have to ask him, honey,” she goes. She comes back into the kitchen.

The bathroom door opens and Gus walks into the room. “You got it?” he asks.

“I think maybe Flake borrowed it,” I go. “I’ll get it from him.”

“Flake has it?” my dad asks.

“I think Flake borrowed it,” I go. “I’ll get it back,” I tell Gus. “I promise.”

“Now?” Gus asks.

“Not now,” I go. I’m so tired it’s like I can’t see. “When I come home from school.”

I finally get my books out of my locker before homeroom and somebody pokes me under the arm and tips them all over the floor.

“Congratulations,” Michelle says when I turn around. “I told you it was a great idea.”

“It wasn’t your idea,” Tawanda tells her. “It was how he did it.”

I assume they mean the tree with the heads. I start collecting books off the floor, and Dickhead goes by and golfs a paperback with his foot all the way down the hall. A few seventh-grade girls twist to avoid it as it sails by.

“What an asshole,” Michelle says, but when he turns on her she looks thrilled.

“What’re you gonna do about it?” he says to me.

“Oh, I got something in mind,” I go. I collect my other books and stand up.

“You got something in mind?” he goes.

“Mr. Lopez,” the vice principal says to him. “Come with me.”

Michelle and Tawanda make gloating noises. “Where you going, Edwin?” Tawanda says to me. “Don’t you be a stranger,” she calls when I’m almost at the other end of the hall, and Michelle laughs. “I got plans for you.”

Before third period I pass the gym. I pass the side door where we’re going to jam the wedge.

Before fourth period outside of math there’s a group of kids standing around laughing and making a lot of noise about a piece of paper. “Make Edwin take it,” one kid goes when I walk up. I can’t even get into the room.

This fat kid gets out of the way and Bethany’s behind him. “Here, Edwin,” she goes. She hands me a different piece of paper that’s folded into a thick triangle. On the outside somebody’s written Sex Test.

“Fischetti has the lowest score so far,” some kid behind her says.

“Let me see that,” Flake goes. He walks over from across the hall.

“No, no,” the fat kid says. “Don’t let him see it.”

Flake holds out his hand. Bethany smiles at him. “Roddy, tell Edwin we need him to fill this out,” she goes.

He looks at me like this is my fault.

“Hey, I don’t wanna do this,” I tell him.

He walks away. “Hey,” I call after him. The bell rings.

Bethany puts her hand on the sex test in my hand and leans closer. “This is for science,” she goes, and her friends laugh. Everybody heads to their classes. Some kids have to run.

We both go into math. I leave the sex test on my desk throughout the period. I don’t open it. The teacher comes down the aisle while somebody’s putting a problem on the board and scoops it up and looks at the title, then throws it in his waste-basket when he gets back to the front of the room.

Ms. Meier finds me in the lunchroom and hands me my copy of A Separate Peace. I left it in her classroom and apparently need it for the assignment tonight.

“How’d you know it was mine?” I ask her. I don’t remember writing my name in it.

“Who else would cross out the A and write No over it?” she goes.

“Mr. Hanratty,” the vice principal says, when I come out of the lunch line with my tray. “A minute of your time.”

“Now?” I go.

“You can eat while we talk,” he says.

We sit at a table full of sixth-graders, including Budzinski. He keeps his eye on us the whole time. I feel like making a gesture toward him, like we’re talking about him.

“I didn’t do anything,” I go. “I was just picking up my books and he kicked one down the hall.”

“Oh, this isn’t about Mr. Lopez,” the vice principal goes.

I offer him a boiled carrot.

He chuckles. “We’ll be sending a note home as well, but I just wanted to remind you that you’re going to be starting that socialization workshop next week,” he goes.

“Oh, God,” I go. I put down my Salisbury steak.

“It’s not going to be that bad,” he goes.

“When?” I go.

“It’s not going to be that bad,” he goes. “You need to give it a chance.”

“Oh, God,” I go.

“Give it a chance,” he tells me.

I push my tray away. I can’t be in school one more minute. “Who else is in it?” I ask him.

He tells me. It’s even worse than I thought. Dickhead, Weensie, Hogan. Two girls I never heard of. Another kid I heard bit the head off a parrot.

“It’s after school,” he goes. “So you won’t miss any class time.”

“Oh, good,” I go.

“The feeling is that you can’t go on like this,” he tells me. “That something radical needs to happen.”

“I think you’re right,” I tell him back. I’m tearing up again. In front of him. In front of the lunchroom. “I think you’re right.”

I go to the nurse’s office. Another headache. I start throwing up, too. During sixth period there’s a knock on the door of the little room where they put me, and when I pull the facecloth off my eyes, Ms. Arnold pokes her head in and comes over to my cot.

“What’s the class doing?” I ask her.

“I gave them an assignment,” she says. She puts her hand on my leg. “Are you okay, Edwin?”

“I got sick,” I tell her.

“I see that,” she says. She smiles the way she did before. I think about her touching my cheek. I start to get a hard-on and pull a knee up to hide it. This is unbelievable.

“Is your stomach bothering you?” she asks.

“Why’re you visiting me?” I ask her back. She’s the last person I want there. When she touches me again I jump.

“Sorry,” she says. She looks embarrassed. “I was looking through your portfolio,” she finally adds.

We keep them in the room, in long narrow cubbies.

“I found the one you called Mental,” she says.

“So?” I go.

“Want to tell me about it?” she asks.

“You saw it,” I go.

“How long’d it take you to do it?” she asks.

“I don’t know,” I go.

“It’s quite a piece,” she says.

It’s a big sheet and I filled it with half-inch marks. Sometimes the marks went through the paper. I did it to count minutes the way guys in prison count days. I kept it underneath other things I was working on. By the end it looked black, when you stepped back. There’s like eight million half-inch marks on it. I wrote Mental at the top of it as a joke, after Tawanda saw it.

“You mind if I show it to some other people?” she asks.

“Like who?” I go.

“Oh, I don’t know,” she says. “Like Mr. Davis. Maybe Mrs. Pruitt.”

“I just saw him at lunch,” I go. I close my eyes. I’m so tired. I spread out again on the cot. Big see-through plates bang around behind my eyelids.

“I’ll let you rest,” I hear her say. Then the door shuts behind her.

“Don’t call me, I’ll call you,” Flake goes when the buses are getting ready to pull out. He’s holding out his two bandaged fingers and flexing them, like he’s getting ready for action.

“More stuff to do, huh?” I go.

He heads off without answering. That’s all right with me. When I get home I get five dollars from my money dish and bike to the drugstore. They have Gus’s football but in a different color. I ask the guy and of course they don’t have one with his color in the back. I go back and forth about it. “Hey, kid, it’s a Nerf ball,” the guy finally goes. “You’re not picking a college here.”

When I ride back up the driveway Gus is playing in a scuffed-up area around some tree roots. He’s got a metal airplane without wings and he’s swooping it around and crashing it into the roots. “You get my ball?” he goes.

I pull it out of the cardboard inside my knapsack and hand it over. He looks at it. His was purple. This one’s pink.

“This one’s pink,” he goes.

“Yours was pink,” I go.

“Mine was pink?” he goes.

“Yours was pink,” I go.

“Mine wasn’t pink,” I hear him go as I head into the house.

“Oh boy, is your dad having a bad day,” my mom goes when I pass through the kitchen.

Gus follows me in. “Mine wasn’t pink,” he tells my mom while I head upstairs.

“What, honey?” my mom asks. I shut my door.

I sit on the bed. By this time tomorrow everything will be different. Everything will be over. It doesn’t feel like that.

I have to get stuff together. I have to get organized. I don’t even know what to organize. I should make a list, I think. I pull a piece of paper and a pencil off my desk and write on my thigh. I write: List:

“Was his ball pink?” my mom calls up the stairs. “He says it wasn’t.”

“It was,” I call back down. “He’s losing his mind.”

“He says it was, honey,” I hear her tell Gus in a low voice. He starts whining. “I like the pink,” I hear her say. “You don’t like the pink?”

“Jesus God Almighty in Heaven,” my dad says from his room. He must have his laptop in there.

I can’t sit still. I get off the bed, walk around the room, sit on the bed again.

I call Flake. His mom says he’s out. “Hold on,” she says. “He just came in.”

“You’re blowing me off?” I say when he gets on the phone.

“What do you want?” he goes.

“I wanted to know if you wanted to come over,” I tell him. I look out my window. Gus is booting the Nerf around the back. Over in our neighbor’s yard their golden retriever is standing at their fence, watching him like he’s dinner.

“Maybe we could have one more game of mosh volleyball,” I go.

“Mosh volleyball,” he goes, like he’ll never do that again. Then I think he probably won’t.

“You all right?” he asks. “You’re panting. You sound like a dog.”

“I’m scared,” I finally tell him.

He’s quiet a second. “Don’t wuss out on me,” he goes. “ You hear me?”

“I’m not wussing out on anybody,” I go.

“Are you crying?” he goes.

“No,” I go.

“Jesus,” he goes.

“What?” I go. My mom comes up the stairs and into my room. She sits on the bed and puts a hand on my side.

“Are you gonna make it?” he goes. “Do I have to come over there and sit with you?”

“No,” I go. “I just wanted to see if you wanted to play volleyball, that’s all.” I look at my mom. She looks sympathetic.

“We got a lot to do tonight,” he goes. “How soon can you come over after everybody’s asleep there?”

My mom still has her hand on my side. She smoothes it up and down like she’s rubbing a dog’s coat.

“I don’t know,” I go.

“One? One-thirty?” he goes.

“Yeah,” I go.

“Which?” he goes. “One?”

“No,” I go.

“One-thirty?” he goes.

“Yeah,” I go.

“All right. Come to the garage,” he tells me. “Don’t forget your stuff for the capsule.”

“The what?” I go.

“The thing we’re gonna bury,” he goes.

My mom smiles at me. She notices the piece of paper with List: on it and smiles again.

“You gonna be all right?” he goes.

“Yeah,” I go. He hangs up.

“You having a fight with Roddy?” my mom asks when I hang up.

“Sort of,” I go.

“It’ll be all right,” she says.

“Thanks,” I go.

She gets off the bed and opens my dresser drawers.

“What’re you doing here?” I ask her.

“I’m helping you pack for tomorrow,” she tells me.

Around midnight Gus has a bad dream. I creep out of bed with my clothes on and stand by his door.

“Edwin,” he moans.

I wait, in case he’s going to wake up. I go back to my room and get under the covers in case my mom comes up to check on him. He doesn’t make any more noise. Across the room on my chair is the little suitcase she packed for the beach.

At one-twenty I go down to the living room and listen. The stairs make noise but my mom and dad don’t. I give it a minute and then leave.

There’s nobody on the streets. Suppose you disappeared? a voice goes. Suppose you never made it to his house? My sneakers make rubbery noises on the pavement the whole way over.

“In here,” Flake says, in one of those whispers you can hear a block away when I turn into his driveway. He’s standing in the garage in the dark.

“What’re you doing with a hockey stick?” I ask when my eyes get used to the dark.

“My dad’s taping up his team’s sticks,” he goes, like that answers my question. He puts the edge of the stick under my chin and flips it up.

“Ow,” I go.

“Shhh,” he goes.

“What’re you doing?” I go. I’m holding my chin with one hand.

“Imagine when a real hockey player does it,” he goes. I hear the clunk when he sets it back against the wall with the others. The dog next door starts barking even though he’s in the house.

“Asshole dog,” Flake says to himself.

He leads me into the house. At the back door he turns and puts his finger to his mouth, like otherwise I’d go in talking. On the stairs we try to walk together so it sounds like one person.

We’re halfway up when his father goes, “Roddy?”

We both freeze.

“Yeah?” Flake goes.

“What’re you doing?” his dad goes.

“Getting some water,” he goes.

“The water upstairs no good?” his dad goes.

We look at each other. “It doesn’t get cold enough,” Flake tells him.

We don’t hear anything for a minute.

“Don’t get up again,” his dad finally says.

After we shut the door and turn on his desk lamp he widens his eyes and tilts his head, like, that was close.

He’s got the gun duffels from inside the cases under the bed. He pulls out the edge of one to show me. Then we sit facing each other on the blanket without saying anything. He watches the clock. I get sad thinking about the little suitcase my mom left on the chair.

When he’s satisfied with the time, he gets on his hands and knees and pulls out the duffels and zips them open. We start with mine. I show him I can release the safety.

“The clip release is this thing here,” he whispers.

“How’d you get them out of your dad’s closet?” I whisper back. “Aren’t you worried he’s gonna see they’re missing?”

He shakes his head. “I locked the cases back up,” he says. “I left the pistol.”

The release is a black metal thing in front of the trigger and behind the clip. Neither of us can work it.

“You’re supposed to use your thumb,” he goes.

“I’m using my thumb,” I tell him.

He takes the gun out of my hands and braces the stock against his belly and works his thumb up under the thing. It’s hard with his bandaged fingers. There’s like a flange that’s bent at a right angle. That’s the release.

“When’re those going to come off?” I go, meaning the bandages.

“The guy said he’d look at them next Thursday,” he goes. He wedges one thumb behind the other and pushes.

“I think they made this with a pair of pliers,” I tell him.

“Well, the Russians. You know,” he says. He turns it to try to get more leverage.

“No, I don’t know,” I go. “I don’t know any Russians.”

“Ha ha,” he goes, and there’s a snap and the clip falls onto the bed.

We snap it back in and try it again. We pretty much get the hang of it.

“How much is in a clip?” I go.

He peers inside one.

“You can’t tell like that,” I go.

“When did you become the expert on automatic weapons?” he goes.

“I know that much,” I go.

“Shhh,” he goes.

I ask how we’re going to carry the extra clips. It turns out that his plan is to have them in the duffels with the guns in our lockers.

“You got pants with pockets big enough to hold a few of these?” he asks.

“I don’t know. Cargo shorts,” I tell him.

“There you go,” he says.

I measure the clip width with my finger and thumb and try to remember how wide the pockets are. I heft the gun. “This is heavy,” I tell him.

“Yeah, it’s really heavy. Hold it farther up with that hand,” he tells me.

I swing it back and forth around the room without the clip in it.

“Wanna trade?” he asks.

“Lemme see yours,” I go, and he hands over the carbine. It feels much lighter. “Maybe,” I go.

“Well, decide,” he goes. “I don’t want us arguing about this tomorrow.”

I take the Kalashnikov in one hand and the carbine in the other. I can’t decide. I start sweating all at once. “I can’t believe we’re really going to do this,” I go.

“I know,” he goes. He locks a clip into the carbine and then ejects it. He sights down the barrel and then lays the gun down on the bed. “You want a Go-Gurt?” he goes. “I brought two up.” I shake my head. He tears off the corner of a Go-Gurt and sucks on it. We have to stay close on the bed so we can hear each other whispering.

“We’ll probably shoot all the wrong people,” I go. I try to make it sound like a joke.

He slurps his Go-Gurt and lays his hand on the barrel of the Kalashnikov.

“You worry about that?” I go.

He does his constipated-monkey thing. Inka inka inka inka.

“Guess you don’t,” I go.

“Oh, I almost forgot,” he says. He pulls out two packages of little rubber plugs. “Earplugs. My dad says you can’t believe how loud they are.”

He wants to play something from his Great Speeches CD that he says will psych us up, but he has to keep it turned down so low that I can’t make out what the guy’s saying even when we have our ears right up to the speakers. He keeps asking if I can hear it and finally gets mad and turns it off.

“You know what I think about?” he says once we’re back up on the bed.

There’s a noise downstairs. We both stop.

After a minute, we gather all the clips and slide them into the duffels, then angle the guns in after them and slide both duffels under the bed.

We listen again. A car goes by.

“You know what I think about?” he asks again.

I shake my head.

He rubs his face. “The way when something terrible happens somewhere there’s all these flags and flowers and candles, pictures of the people who died and pages of sayings and poems. I don’t think about my picture in the papers or on TV. I think about that stuff.” He’s looking down at his crotch. “What’re you looking at my dick for?” he goes.

“That’s where you were looking,” I go.

“You ever think about stuff like that?” he goes. “All those flowers and shit lined up for months and months?”

I shrug. “I guess,” I go.

He gives me a look.

The look gets me pissed off. Why am I always the pussy? I think.

“Let’s do it,” he tells me.

It’s easier if we put one duffel on top of the other and grab both handles. It takes us about a block and a half to figure this out. We lug the things along worrying about cars, but we only see one that’s heading in the wrong direction.

We circle the school out in the athletic fields to avoid the lights on the building, then hustle the bags over to the back stairs and dump them underneath where it’s dark. We both stand around with our hands on our thighs, breathing hard.

I can hear Flake feeling around in the dark. “They never fixed this?” he goes. The window opens and I hear him sliding through.

He calls for the bags. I pull them over and he drags them through. When I climb in I forget how far the drop is and lose my balance and knock him over against the bags.

“It’s all right,” he goes.

The corridors are narrow so we each have to carry our own. We put them on our backs and hunch over while we walk. We sling the handles over our shoulders. He gets out his little flashlight and holds it in his teeth. We go through some doors and then up the stairs. The door at the top is locked.

He sits down. He’s still got the flashlight in his teeth, and it’s shining on part of the stair railing.

“What do we do now?” I go.

He sits there. A minute goes by.

“Remember that guy in the SUV?” he goes.

It takes me a second to figure out who he’s talking about. Plus it’s hard to understand him with the flashlight in his mouth. “The old guy?” I go.

“Yeah,” he goes. When he nods the light slides up and down the railing. “The guy that followed us.”

The cement’s cold on my butt. He’s waiting for me to say something. “I know who you mean,” I tell him.

“He followed me again last week,” he goes. “At like four in the morning.”

I slide my duffel around so it’s not hurting my hip. “What were you doing out?” I go.

He ignores the question. “I got in his car,” he goes. I can see him watching me. “He gave me a blow job.” The light in his mouth moves a little. “You hear me?”

“Yeah,” I go. “Why’d you let him?”

He shrugs. “I wanted to know what it felt like.” Then he gets up and hoists the duffel higher on his back. “Come on.”

“Where’re we going?” I whisper.

We go back down the stairs and along some corridors and turn a different way. That leads to another locked door. We turn back and go up some other stairs. The duffels are heavy.

At the top there’s another door. He hesitates, and then puts his hand on it. It opens. “The door down to the art storeroom,” he goes. “I figured they’d leave it open.”

It’s two hallways to Flake’s locker. He opens it and stuffs the duffel in standing up. It barely fits and we have to tuck in part of it so it doesn’t catch on the door. The next hallway over we find mine. Flake holds the flashlight while I work the combination. Of course I can’t get it to open.

“Gimme that,” he finally says. “What’s the combination?”

It works on the first try for him. We go back out the way we came.

We don’t talk until we’re off school property. “You forgot your shit for us to bury,” he tells me.

“Yeah,” I go.

“I won’t bury mine, then, either,” he goes after a minute. “They’ll find it anyway.”

When I get home I stand outside my house in the front yard and look at it. The moon’s out. The trees make black patterns over one side with their shadows.

It’s four o’clock. I think about Flake in the car with the old guy.

I head down my driveway. My sneakers are still making those rubbery sounds on the pavement. I look at our bushes. I look at the garage. I look at our mosh-volleyball court.

I stand in the back porch for a minute, getting used to the indoor darkness. My feet are wet from the grass. I get a drink of water and go upstairs. I stand around in the upstairs hallway and then peep into Gus’s room. He’s on his back with a hand above his head. He’s holding his new Nerf against his side with the other hand.

I put a finger near his face on the pillow. When I go to leave, he says, “What’re you doing?”

“Shhh,” I tell him. I come back to the bed and get down on one knee beside his head.

“Is it dark out?” he wants to know.

“Yeah, it’s still dark,” I whisper.

“Is Mommy up?” he goes.

“Mommy’s sleeping,” I go.

“What’re you doing?” he goes.

“I’m just going to sleep,” I tell him. “You go to sleep, too.” I pull the covers up to his chest. “You like your Nerf ball?” I go.

“Yeah,” he goes.

“This one’s pink,” he tells me.

I clear my throat. One of his shoes is on the windowsill for some reason.

“Don’t be sad,” he tells me.

“That’s what everybody says,” I go. “Why does everybody say that?”

“I don’t know,” he says.

“I just get so mad sometimes,” I tell him. I get mad just thinking about it. I make a fist and push it as hard as I can into my hip.

He holds up his ball and I tuck it back under the covers. “How’s your ear?” I go.

“It hurts,” he says.

“Does it hurt now?” I ask him.

“No,” he says.

We don’t say anything for a few minutes. He rolls onto his side. He’s starting to get drowsy again.

“Okay, go to sleep now,” I whisper.

“Good night,” he goes.

“Good night,” I go. “You’re a great little guy, you know that?”

“Yeah,” he goes. “But leave the door open,” he goes.

For the first time in however long my mom has to wake me up for school. “Let’s go,” she says. I have no idea how long she’s been in my room.

While I get dressed she strips the bed and talks about when she’s going to come get me. She has errands to run so she won’t get there till a quarter of twelve or so.

I sit on the floor and pull on my cargo shorts. Assembly’s at eleven.

“You’re not wearing your pants,” she says.

I had my clothes all arranged in order so I could get them on faster.

I look at her and she looks at me. Something goes across her expression. She twists the sheets together and lifts them up and carries them down the stairs.

I forget my earplugs and have to go back up to my room.

Everything I eat and drink feels like it stays up in my throat. “Your brother’s conked out this morning, too,” my mom goes. She’s making and wrapping sandwiches to eat on the road. She reminds me not to forget to show my homeroom teacher the note. “And be where I said,” she tells me. “Don’t make us come looking all over the building for you.”

“I won’t,” I go. “Where’s Dad?”

“He went in early to practice his thing,” she tells me.

“Tell him I said good luck,” I go.

“You’re going to be late,” she says.

I stop at the door but she’s already gone down to the basement with a load of laundry.

At the bus stop the ninth-graders are having a loogie contest. One kid hawks one way farther than anybody else, and it lands on my pack. “Hey,” I go.

“Hey,” the kid goes. The other kids laugh.

I don’t have anything to wipe it off with. I end up dragging it along the grass and it just smears around.

“Hey,” the kid goes. The whole ride they keep saying it to each other—“Hey”—and then they all laugh.

I wait by myself on the playground before homeroom. Flake stays away from me.

When the bell rings I go sit in my chair and look at the pinecone on my homeroom teacher’s desk. It’s next to her water bottle. Some kids are whispering during announcements, and a girl in front of me goes, “Oh my God, what is so funny?”

Assembly’s fourth period, so I’ll be getting out of math. My foot keeps bouncing on the floor under my desk.

In English they’re diagramming sentences. Ms. Meier calls on me to go up to the board three straight times, and even though I didn’t do the homework I get all three sentences right. After the third one, a girl goes, “Edwin’s on a roll,” and Michelle goes, “I swear, there’s someone in his brain doing this for him.”

When I sit back down, my hands are shaking. Ms. Meier tells me I’m doing great. “Can you look up when I’m talking to you?” she asks. “Thanks.”

When she turns to write on the board, two boys in front of me slap palms and touch knuckles across the aisle. She passes around some handouts, and Michelle takes out her three-hole punch for anybody with three-ring binders.

In Spanish somebody’s put up a new poster over the blackboard of an elephant on a beach ball. Over the elephant it says THE KEY TO LIFE IS BALANCE.

“What’s on your pack?” the girl across from me asks.

Flake finds me in the hall before third period. “Go to the bathroom and wait for the bell before you come out,” he goes. “Bring the whole duffel to the doors. I’ll take care of the wedge. And wait till you see me at the double doors. Go in when I go in. Don’t go in before I go in.”

“Look at you two making your big plans,” Tawanda says when she goes by.

In science the black girl who always takes her arms out of her sweater sleeves and sits there like a bundle hugs herself all class long. The bell rings after what seems like five minutes. My hands are numb. I blink three times to focus my eyes.

Everybody’s heading in the same direction but me. On the way to the bathroom I pass one of the special-ed rooms. On the desk there’s a stegosaur made of egg cartons. In the bathroom two kids are wrestling at the sink and I wait in a stall until they finally leave. The bell sounds for the start of fourth period.

I hear the pep band start up.

The hall’s empty when I look out. The sound of kids finding a place to sit on the pullout bleachers is like a far-off rolling boom. One little kid runs past the stairs at the far end of the hall and skids when he tries to turn. My locker’s right across from me. I cross to it and work the combination. I can hear the principal telling everyone to settle down. The second number slips so I start over. The next time the first number slips. The time after that everything goes right but the thing still doesn’t open.

Michelle comes along while I’m yanking on the handle and kicking the door. “What’re you doing?” she goes. “What’s your combination?”

I tell her and she bends over and puts her face next to the lock and opens it. When she swings the door open I stop it halfway and thank her.

“You’re gonna be later than I am,” she goes, and then takes off.

When she’s gone I wrestle the duffel out of the locker one end at a time. The principal starts in on the first part of his talk. I drag the duffel up onto my back and start for the gym. “And in JV footbaaaaall,” the principal says, and the kids all cheer. It sounds like Flake’s CD.

I dump the bag down before I look around the last corner. There’s no one near the doors.

When was I supposed to load in the clip? I squat and root around for it, and then for the gun. I can’t get the barrel clear of the bag. Finally I drop to my butt, stand the gun up, and ram the thing in. I remember another clip but it won’t fit in my pocket. I grab the gun and run for the wall next to the doors. Flake hisses something so loud from the other doors that I can tell how pissed off he is even though I can’t hear what he’s saying. He leans out from the wall with his carbine.

I slap my back to the cinder block. My heartbeat’s going in my ears. I hold the gun so the barrel’s up and away from my face. I remember the safety and fumble it off.

When I look back at the other doors Flake’s away from the wall and facing them. His expression is like he wishes he could scream in my ear. When he sees he’s got my attention he grabs the handle and swings the door open and disappears.

I breathe in all the air I can and push away from the wall and grab the door handle myself. I pull the thing open.

Michelle’s standing in front of me. She turns and looks at me and then looks at the gun.

The vice principal is next to the wall inside the door. I turn the barrel to him. He has a look like I found something strange in the hall and holds a hand out toward the stock.

Someone at the other door yells. Someone screams. Flake starts firing. My head recoils even at that distance and I put a hand to my ear. I forgot the earplugs again.

The sound freaks me out. The whole place ricochets with screaming. I see Weensie bumping down the bleachers headfirst on his back. Another kid’s knocked backward into a girl, and red confettis up his shirt.

Everybody who’s not running away from Flake is running at him. One kid gets him around the neck and then falls over somebody underneath him and Flake puts the carbine in his belly and fires. He pulls the barrel away from that kid and keeps firing at everyone around him, the gun so low I can’t see it anymore.

“Shoot your fucking gun!” he screams, and across from me a fat kid loses his footing trying to get off the bleachers and bowls down five or six girls. Flake fires off more rounds and there are other gunshots and he disappears. A security guard out in the middle of the floor is still aiming at him with a pistol and the vice principal knocks me flat and when I hit the ground the Kalashnikov goes off and wild thin trenches spike up out of the hardwood floor until my hand comes off the trigger. The concussion blows in both my ears, and over all the other noise there’s a grinding, high-pitched sound like you hear at the bottom of a pool. It feels like my head is spiraling in on itself. An elbow cracks my ear and it sounds like a wooden block. I can’t see if Flake’s okay and somebody’s got my legs. Some ninth-graders jump on the pile and the vice principal yells for them to get away but they don’t listen. Kids are screaming and colliding trying to get through the doors and falling and climbing on the kids already down.

And I’m screaming louder no matter how deaf I am because I know where I’m headed, with cops and reporters and counselors and shrinks asking what I knew, everybody wanting to know what I was in on and what we wanted. The vice principal’s shouting something in my ear and some kid’s working on a headlock but I keep getting out of it. I’m crying and screaming Flake’s name, which pisses off whoever’s holding my arms, and they start punching my face to shut me up.

And weeks from now when they tell me how Flake died and actually show me on the tape from the security camera I’ll see myself in the background, standing there pointing my gun and doing nothing with it. And Michelle will be like He didn’t shoot and the vice principal will be like He didn’t shoot and everybody will be like Flake was the bad one, Flake fucked him up, Flake made him what he was.

Because they know who Flake was. He took no shit and never lied to himself. Good, I think, do it, while they grind my head into the floor. Now I’m like everybody else—a liar—and nobody knows and nobody cares. Nothing about me is any good. Nothing I wanted to be is left. If I could get hold of the gun I’d turn it on myself. And sometime soon they’ll be right: the danger will be past. My dad will say, standing in the hall one night when he thinks I’m asleep, “Maybe we’re out of the fucking woods here.” And we will be. No more woods. I’m a faggot. I’m a joke. I’m a blowup with nowhere to go, a dick who couldn’t do one simple thing, a house burning down from the inside out.