Project X

1

First day of FS and where are my good green pants? In the wash. I have one pair of pants that aren’t clown pants and they’re in the wash. They haven’t been washed all summer but today, this morning, they’re in the wash. It’s too cold for cargoes and everything else in my drawer is Queer Nation, and sure enough I’m the only one on the bus in shorts. “Scorcher, isn’t it?” a ninth-grader asks when he goes by my locker. I’m standing there like I’m modeling beachwear. Kids across the hall chuckle and point. I almost head home right then.

“FS, man,” Flake says when he sees my face.

“I can’t take it,” I tell him. “It’s like, twenty minutes, and I can’t take it.”

“Look at your face,” he says, and he has to laugh. He doesn’t mean it in a bad way.

I put my head on my hands in my locker and try to tear the shelf off the wall.

“FS,” he says. At least our first period classes are near each other.

“FS,” I tell him back. We don’t even have homeroom together, though they told us over the summer we would. FS is fuckin’ school. We argue over who thought of it.

My homeroom teacher has a big banner up on the bulletin board that says WELCOME TO EIGHTH GRADE! Underneath it there’s a sign that says LEAVE NO CHILD UNSUCCESSFUL and a handout for EIGHT WAYS OF BEING SMART.

In the doorway of first-period English my feet like freeze. I can’t even get into the room. I will not fucking do this, I think to myself. “What?” the English teacher says.

We’re not in the same gym class, either. And his is fourth period and the first day stuff runs long, so there I am in the cafeteria without him. C’mon, c’mon, c’mon, I go to myself, like some god’ll say, “Oh sorry, Hanratty, you want your only friend? I’ll send him along.”

And who’s there: Hogan, Weensie, and all the other butt-wipes who are always after me. The kid from Darien we call Dickhead who beat me with a plank last spring. He pulled it from his tree house, and his friends held me down. Flake said when he saw my back that I was lucky there were no nails in it.

“Look who’s watching his figure,” the kid goes. I have like one milk pint on my tray.

“Eat me,” I tell him. My eyes are tearing up and I want to pull them out and pound each of them flat on the tray.

“You’re not sittin’ on this side,” the kid says.

“I’ll sit where I want,” I tell him. But I stand there and then head across the room away from him. I want to set fire to every single fixture and chair and window and crappy water-stained ceiling tile in this cafeteria. I can never eat anything here. Just taking a sip of water makes me want to hurl.

I’d fight if it was just him. But he’s got eight thousand friends. Every asshole in the school is his friend.

I’m standing there with my tray. Pint of milk and a Rice Krispies Treat in a little dish. Every table’s worse than the one next to it. It’s the worst feeling in the world.

When you’re standing there in the middle of the floor with no one to eat with, there are about four kids who don’t look at you. The cafeteria holds three hundred.

“Nice shorts,” somebody says.

Even if you don’t eat, you have to just stay until lunch is over anyway. There’s a spot next to a kid from Latvia or Lithuania or something who smells. She has her hair moussed and smashed onto one side of her head like she fell asleep in tree sap. She showed up last year. She has fewer friends than Flake and me. And we only have each other.

“Is this seat taken?” I go.

“I yev a fren coming,” she says.

I end up next to a girl who has to be the most beautiful person in her zip code. The rest of the table is all her friends. One of them I know from grammar school.

“This is a S.M.I.L.E. meeting,” the one I know tells me. She shows me her folder: Students Making an Impact Locally and Everywhere. I eat my Rice Krispies Treat.

“We could sponsor a child,” one girl goes.

“For a year?” somebody says.

“Well, what would you do?” the first girl goes. “Sponsor one for a week?”

They talk about a car wash. After a while they quiet down and I realize they’re looking at me.

“You know who Kel Mitchell is?” the beautiful girl asks me.

“What?” I go. I switch my milk and Rice Krispies Treat on the tray. I never know what to do with my hands.

“You heard of Kel Mitchell?” she says.

When I keep looking at her, she says about me to her friends, “He’s not a random guy.”

“He’s a random guy,” one of them says. “He counts.”

It’s some kind of bet. “Yeah, I know who he is,” I go. “He’s the guy on that thing.”

They’re looking at me like they found a little lizard asleep on the table. “What thing?” one of them says.

“That thing,” I go. My Krispies Treat’s all sticky. I can’t think of anything, but I’m not giving them the satisfaction. “You know, that thing on cable.”

Their faces look like I may have hit it. The beautiful girl goes, “You are so bluffing.”

“Mr. Hanratty,” my fifth period social studies teacher says in front of the whole class. I haven’t even sat down yet. “You going to be favoring us with more of your particular brand of sullenness this year?”

I write my name on the inside of the 20th Century Civilizations cover: E. Hanratty.

“What are you shaking your head about?” he wants to know.

I’m not shaking my head about anything, I tell him.

He asks if I’m calling him a liar.

“I’m not calling you a liar,” I tell him.

He says he’d like me to apologize to my classmates for wasting everybody’s time at the beginning of the semester.

I apologize to them. Kids snicker. “Don’t let it happen again,” a kid behind me murmurs.

“We’re going to be concentrating this year on Innovators,” the teacher says. “Men and women of the twentieth century who found new ways of addressing society’s problems.” A kid in the last row makes a farting noise. The kids around him make snorty and strangled little sounds.

“Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King,” the teacher goes. “Mr. Hanratty? Any names to add to our list?”

“Richard Speck,” I go.

So on day one I get detention. The secretary outside the vice principal’s office congratulates me on being the first kid called in this year.

I don’t see Flake for three straight periods.

“What’s the matter with you?” a girl asks me on the stairs.

I have to call home when detention’s over, since the buses all left an hour ago. My mother comes to get me and drives a mile and a half after I get in before she says anything. I measure it on the odometer.

“Your friend called four times,” she says. “He didn’t seem to know about your detention.”

“You mad?” I ask.

“No, I’m proud,” she says.

“Sorry,” I tell her.

“So what’d you do?” she says. “Talk back?”

“Talk back,” I tell her.

At dinner my dad tells me I’m grounded.

“No more malt shop for me,” I go.

He tells me I’m grounded an extra week.

Flake can’t believe it when I get him on the phone. “That’s fucked up,” he says. I can hear him sucking down a Go-Gurt. He goes through the things like he’s five years old. “How could you get into trouble so fast with everybody?”

He likes what I told the teacher. He thinks my parents should’ve cut me some slack. “FS,” he goes.

“FH,” I tell him.

All the lights and the TV finally go off around midnight. My dad peeks in to make sure I’m not on the computer or sharpening a spoon to cut out his heart. “You asleep?” he says.

“Completely,” I tell him. I have the covers over my face and a hand off each side of the bed.

“Try and avoid any felonies on day two,” he says. “Though I know you already set a standard for yourself.”

“I think Mom’s waiting for you,” I go.

“You got some mouth on you,” he says.

“Good night,” I tell him.

And I can’t sleep. The digital clock on the nightstand makes loose little flipping noises when the minutes change. I put my underwear over it and then can’t take it anymore and have to see how much time has passed. 1:14. 1:51. 1:54. 1:55. I lie there swearing like I’m calling Jesus Fucking Christ on my pillow radio. The flipping noises keep going, each one getting me closer to school.

I get up and go to the bathroom mirror. My nose is eight feet long and I’ve never had a haircut I liked. My glasses are crooked from always being broken. My lips are too big. If I get any skinnier I’ll be able to pull a sock up to my neck.

“Somebody help me,” I go. I squat on the floor with my hands behind my head and rock in place.

“You look worn out,” my mom tells me at breakfast.

“Can I just have orange juice?” I go.

“I’m worried about your weight,” she goes while she watches me drink it. My dad isn’t even up yet. He’s an econ professor at the college and his first class on Tuesdays isn’t until two-something.

“Your pants are ready,” she tells me, to cheer me up. “If you want to wear those green pants you were looking for.”

At the bus stop I squat again. I pull my knapsack by the straps up to the top of my head. The two ninth-graders waiting with me look weirded out.

“That girl who’s on everybody’s shirts is like Satan,” Flake goes at lunch. “She’s like Evil Incarnate.”

“You ever notice how many people around here wear green?” I ask him. “Everybody wears green.”

“Yo,” a seventh-grader says as he passes our table. Flake gives him a miniwave.

“What’s he want?” I go.

Flake’s looking at the dessert line. “I want like a million billion dollars just for travel,” he says.

“Yo, faggot,” a ninth-grader calls from a table across from us. When we look over he lobs something he’s got wadded up. It’s off by like six feet. Me and Flake make like we’re looking for it way off in the distance. The kid wads up something else, but someone else whacks the back of his head with something and then they get into it.

Two girls from sixth-period art, Michelle and Tawanda, ask if they can sit with us.

“Free country,” Flake goes.

They give him a look and turn to me. “So listen,” Michelle says. When her jeans ride down, you can see the “Victoria’s Secret” on the elastic band of her underwear. “We have to do this World of Color thing with three people.”

“And?” Flake goes.

They look at him again. “Tawanda says you’re really good,” Michelle says to me. She’s got ponytails that start way up on both sides of her head. “She says you’re a really good artist.”

“You’re really good,” Tawanda says.

She was in my art class in seventh grade. She did a self-portrait of a round face with big tears dripping out of the eyes called Coffee Skin! that the teacher went apeshit over. I did a drawing called War the Scourge of Life that had War swinging his mace through a whole city, with tiny bloody victims hanging off the spikes, and it got hung next to hers. After everybody’s stuff was up she told me in the hall that my thing was amazing.

Flake starts doing his constipated-monkey thing. It’s so impossible to describe: he grits his teeth with this sleepy expression and jiggles around in his seat and goes Inka inka inka inka. It kills us both. He’s got thick brown hair and his ears stick out, so he makes a good monkey.

“What are you doing?” Michelle says.

“Inka inka inka inka,” he goes.

“Yeah. Well,” Tawanda says, “you want time to think about it? Want to tell us in class?”

“That’d be good,” I tell them.

“He’s not that funny,” Michelle says.

“Inka inka inka inka,” Flake tells her.

They both get up, holding their trays. “Don’t forget,” Michelle says.

“We want you,” Tawanda says, pointing at me. “For our trio.”

“We want you,” Flake says after they’ve gone to sit at a table full of girls. All of them are talking and looking over at us. Michelle gives the back of her pants a tug.

“You da man,” Flake says. “Tawanda wants to touch your art.”

The whole table’s still looking and laughing and Flake points at his crotch and then at them and then at his mouth. One of the girls nods and waves him over.

“Wouldja draw me a picture?” Flake asks me. Then he grits his teeth and acts sleepy. “Inka inka inka inka.”

“So I was thinking,” my mother says after school, standing in my room, on my clothes, waiting for me and Flake to stop what we’re doing. She just walks in whether I’ve got the door shut or not. The lock doesn’t work because I Jackie Chan-ed the knob a month ago when I was pissed and my dad said he wasn’t going to fix it.

“Get off my clothes,” I go.

“You don’t want people walking on your clothes, get them off the floor,” she tells me.

“Ouch,” Flake goes. “Zinger, Dude.”

“I don’t need smart comments from you either, Roddy,” she tells him, and Flake makes like he’s zipping his lip.

She rubs her eyes with her fingertips. She takes her time doing it. Flake and I line up the fat girl in the plaid jumper and miss her but tip the frame, and the whole thing falls off the windowsill. Lately we’ve been aiming at my little brother’s preschool class pictures and seeing who we could hit from across the room with our potato guns. You dig the barrel into the potato before you shoot. We’re always arguing about who hit what, but what’s good is that the potato plug leaves a wet spot. So you can check.

“You’re going to have little bits of potato everywhere,” my mom says.

“This is really an outside kind of toy,” Flake agrees. It’s cracks like that that nearly get him thrown out of the house. One time my dad did throw him out.

“So you want to know what I was thinking?” my mom goes.

“The skinny kid with the glasses,” Flake says. He digs his barrel into the potato and points.

“The one with the nose?” I go.

“No, the one with the—whaddaya mean?” Flake goes. “They all got noses.”

“So go ahead,” I tell him.

“Mr. Hanratty,” my mom goes.

“You missed,” I tell him.

“I know that,” Flake says.

“I’m going to count to three,” my mom goes.

“What?” I go. “What were you thinking?”

“I was thinking you guys might like to go out for that martial arts team or whatever that they’re putting together,” she goes. “Who’s doing it, the soccer coach? It sounds right up your guys’ alley.”

“We don’t have an alley,” Flake goes.

“You guys could really use some extracurriculars,” she goes.

“I know. We should be on the debate team,” Flake goes.

“You’d be great,” I tell him. “Whatever anybody said, you’d be like, ‘Yeah? Your mother.’ ”

“What about you?” Flake goes. “Anytime anybody made a good point you’d be like—” He scrinches up his face like he’s gonna cry.

“Shut up,” I go.

My mom rubs her eyes again. When she stops, she looks sad. “Well, the thing they sent home is on the kitchen table,” she finally says. “If you ever do decide you want to get out of this room.”

She shuts the door and goes downstairs. I load up another round of potato and throw the gun into the closet.

“College,” I finally go. “Anybody who goes to college . . .” I can’t even finish the sentence.

“I wanna be president someday,” Flake goes. “Or maybe Wizard Death Lord.”

We got no Interests. We got no extracurriculars.

“I’m goin’ to Fuck U,” I tell him.

“We’re goin’ to Uzi State,” he tells me back.

As opposed to our classmates. Our classmates achieve every minute of the day. They Strive Higher and Reach Farther. They put together model UN’s while we sit around in study halls with our mouths open. They’re captains of the mah-jongg JV or Vermont Junior Business Achievement or Hot Pants for Social Change. They think this shithole is something to be proud of. The ceilings are falling in and nobody’s had new textbooks in a hundred years, but they’re all School Spirit. They’re dirps: Dicks in Responsible Positions. When one of them gives us grief for being such lazy shits, Flake’ll lower his chin and go Dirp, like he’s burping.

“Let’s go throw rocks,” Flake goes.

“Let’s not and say we did,” I tell him.

“So what do you want to do?” he goes. We don’t watch TV. We hate TV. TV’s a fucking blight.

We climb out the window onto the porch roof, jump over the breezeway to the garage, then hang off the gutter and drop down. Sometimes my mother thinks we’re still up there in my room.

At the practice fields the JV boys’ and girls’ soccer teams are kicking balls around. They’re almost all ninth-graders.

“What’re we doing here?” I want to know.

“How about you stop complaining till you have an idea?” Flake says.

We decide to go to the fort we made under an off-ramp. You can only see in from one direction, and it’s bigger than it looks. We found it one day playing a game where you ride through the gap in the guardrail at top speed. The gap’s about two feet wide, and you have to bomb through without hooking a handlebar or elbow.

Somebody calls “Heads up!” and we duck and a soccer ball whonks Flake right on the head. The ball ends up in some wicked-looking prickers around a Dumpster.

I’m laughing. The kid who kicked the ball is laughing. He’s still in his follow-through. Some of the girls’ team is laughing.

“Ball?” the kid calls. He comes over to the chain-link fence and hangs on it, making faces at his friends.

Flake goes over to the Dumpster like he doesn’t see the prickers and wades right in. “Ow,” he says, and everybody laughs even more. He tears the ball out of the bush and looks at his hand.

“Who puts prickers around a fucking Dumpster?” he says. “What’s wrong with this fucking town?”

“Hey ace, send it back,” the kid goes.

Flake holds it out in front of him.

“Give it all you got, ace,” another kid goes.

“I’ll give it all I got,” Flake says. I can see he’s planning on kicking it to Peru, but he shanks it sideways down the street.

“Fuck,” he shouts. I know better than to say anything.

“Nice leg,” one of the kids says and starts to head around to the gate. The girls from the girls’ team have turned away and gotten in a circle to do some kind of trapping exercise. Everyone’s peppy and there’s lots of shouted encouragement. It looks like the Dance of the Tards.

Flake and the kid reach the ball at the same time. Flake picks it up and turns and booms the thing it has to be fifty yards down the street. It bounces ten feet in the air and keeps going out into the intersection. Cars honk.

By the time I get there the kid’s got Flake on his back and he’s choking him with the collar of his own T-shirt. I grab the kid by the hair. Somebody punches me on the side of the head. We get piled on. The kid I grabbed hits me two or three times in the chest and shoulders as fast as he can and then grinds his hip on my face and someone kicks me in the back. Somebody else kicks me in the tailbone. Flake’s screaming and swearing.

I’m twisting around like a fish. I’m hard to hold down. The kid on my head gets dumped off and another drops onto my chest with his knees on my arms. He knocks the wind out of me and slaps my face in various directions. Flake’s on his stomach with a guy on his legs and a guy on his back. The guy on his back takes off one of his cleats and starts beating on Flake’s head with it. The cleats are rubber. Flake’s head pounds into the dirt. “I’m gonna kill you,” Flake yells at him. “You’re gonna kill me?” the kid repeats, and pounds him with the cleat. “I’m gonna kill you,” Flake says. “You’re gonna kill me?” the kid says.

“Let ’em go,” one of the coaches hollers from the fence. “Now.”

Everybody piles off us, passing around congratulations. Flake gives a kick from where he’s lying but otherwise lets them go. I have my hands over my head. We hear them crossing the street.

There’s grass and stuff in my hair. My nose and mouth are bloody. My ear’s scraped up, too. My hand comes away from it wet. The blood’s stringy and slimy from the crying. It’s hard to spit. I don’t want to move because of my tailbone. I shift my butt and that’s enough to make me stop. Off in the distance I can hear the coach giving the kids shit.

“Fuck,” is all we can say, a couple times, because everything hurts. Flake sniffles and writhes around.

“You all right?” I finally ask him. Over on the practice fields, the teams are heading in and the kids who kicked our ass are running laps.

“Fuck you,” he says. I know how he feels: he wants the world to blow itself up, me included. He tips onto his back. His shirt looks like a slasher movie. His nose is a mess. There’s dirt in his eyes. He puts some fingers on his face and feels around. He hasn’t stopped crying yet.

“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa,” he says. It’s not very loud. He tips back onto his side. It’s one of the saddest sights I’ve seen all year.

“Aaaaauuaaaaauuaaah!” he screams. Even lying in the dirt, I jump a little. He wipes snot off his face and flings it. The kids running laps slow down to look over. Then they speed up again.