Project X

3

There’s this sixth-grader who’s decided he can’t leave us alone. He always wears the same black t-shirt that says SCREW THE SYSTEM under whatever other shirt he’s got on. Flake gets a kick out of it when he first sees it.

“Your mother lets you wear that?” he asks the kid. We’re standing in the lunch line and the kid has six chocolate milks and nothing else on his tray.

“Your mother,” the kid says back.

“He’s not cracking on your mother,” I tell him. “He’s asking you a question.”

“Your mother,” the kid goes to me.

“Oh my God,” Flake goes. “This little shit’s crazier than I am.”

You can see it’s made the kid’s day. “I’ll kick your ass,” the kid says. He’s like three feet two. His hair sticks straight up.

Flake asks him his name.

“Herman,” the kid says.

“Hermie,” Flake says. “I like that.”

“Herman,” the kid says.

“Hermie,” Flake says.

“Herman,” the kid says.

“Well, I’m glad that’s settled,” I go.

“Up yours,” the kid says.

Flake gives me a look. We both crack up.

“So can I sit with you?” the kid says, when we finally get through the line.

“No,” Flake goes.

We have combination locks for our lockers. Every day I get worried I’m not going to be able to open it. That’s what kind of hopeless feeboid pussy I am—I worry about being able to open my locker. The lock’s no good. You have like two seconds to open it between classes, and everybody else is opening theirs. Three straight days I can’t do it. The first day I try it twelve different ways, getting sweatier and sweatier, while everybody else gets their stuff and slams their doors and takes off. I stand there, looking at my little slip of paper like I can’t read three numbers. During study period I ask for another locker. The janitor comes over to check it out, opens it no problem, and walks away. The second day I bang the thing around, kick it. Knee it. Some of the kids around me cheer. The third day I try to pretend I’ve already gotten what I need.

“Where’s your text, young man?” my English teacher wants to know.

“In my locker,” I tell her.

“What good is it doing you there?” she asks.

“Sometimes I wonder,” I tell her.

“Did you hear me?” she goes. “What’s it doing in your locker?”

I just sit there. The kid across from me holds up his book, to show me what it looks like.

“Why is it in your locker?” she goes.

The second hand makes its little jerks around the clock on the wall. Under the clock there’s a construction-paper sign that says WHO OR WHOM???

“Do you want to explain why to the principal?” she asks me.

“He can’t get his locker open,” some kid finally says from the back of the room. Everybody laughs.

“Is that really true?” the teacher goes.

“Oh, fuck me,” I say under my breath.

When I look up she’s got the kind of expression you get when somebody drops something huge on your foot.

Nobody says anything for a minute. A boy in the back coughs. There’s a plant on her desk, and a picture of Paris. You can tell because of the Eiffel Tower. There’s a carved wood sign like businessmen have that stands up facing us. The sign says YES. AND . . . ?

I have a headache that goes from one ear to the other and over the top and down my neck. I wipe and wipe and wipe my eyes. “I guess you heard that, huh?” I finally go.

“Ms. Meier says you’re not to come back to her room until you’re ready to act like a human being,” the vice principal tells me. He’s a young guy and his jacket’s too short for his arms. His shirtsleeves stick out like half a foot. I’ve got nothing against him.

I’m in his chair. He took the one that’s supposed to be for the kids.

“When do you think that might be?” he wants to know.

I tilt my head and lift my shoulders.

“Can you use words?” he asks.

“I’m ready now,” I tell him.

He leans forward and looks sideways, like the room goes on a long way in that direction. Then he looks back at me. “Anything you want to tell me?” he goes. “You having trouble at home?”

I think about it. “Yeah, I guess,” I go.

“You want to talk to me about it?” he asks.

“I don’t think so,” I go.

He starts looking sideways again. He’s got Extreme Sports photos like parasurfing and heliskiing over his bookcase. “I have to tell you, a lot of us are starting to worry about you,” he tells me.

“A lot of us?” I go.

“Ms. Meier, myself, Mrs. Pruitt . . .” he goes. He makes it clear he could keep going. “So what happened today?” he asks.

“I can’t get my locker open,” I tell him.

The period bell rings and there’s the usual thunder in the hall. Kids are yelling and laughing and locker doors are banging and crashing. No other kid in the school has a problem with his locker.

He’s holding up his thumb and scraping away at the top of it. “You can’t get your locker open,” he finally says.

“Why does everyone repeat what I say?” I go.

“Is that what’s supposed to’ve happened today?” he says.

“It’s not supposed to’ve happened,” I tell him. “It did happen. I couldn’t get my locker open.”

He keeps looking at me.

“I worry about it all the time. Getting up, getting on the bus, coming down the hall, I’m worried,” I tell him. “I don’t sleep, thinking about it.”

“Why don’t you get a new locker?” His voice is quiet, like I’m shitting him.

“The janitor wouldn’t give me one,” I tell him.

He puts his elbow on his knee and his chin in his hand.

“It’s embarrassing,” I tell him.

“Okay,” he goes.

“Kids my age hate being embarrassed,” I tell him.

The noise in the hall is pretty much gone by this point. Everybody’s at their next class. He’s got a framed list on the table next to me. It says, Group Needs: Cooperation, Creativity, Sensitivity, Respect, Passion, Freedom of Speech, Change of Pace, Group Work, Clear Explanations, Fun.

“Am I gonna get a note for next period?” I ask him.

He puts his fingers together under his nose like he’s praying.

“Because I’m gonna need a note,” I go.

He gets up from the kid’s chair and comes around behind his desk. He picks up a framed picture of his dog. The frame has little plastic bones around the outside. All right, he finally says. Detention for a week. Starting today.

“I’m telling the truth, here,” I go.

“Yeah. Our interview’s over, Edwin,” he goes.

“Whatever,” I tell him.

“Tell your parents I’ll be in touch,” he goes.

My eyes feel like marbles they’re so tired. I put my hands under my glasses and cover them up. My fingers feel cool on my eye sockets.

“You hear me?” he says.

“I may keep it a surprise,” I go.

He laughs and shakes his head. “God,” he says. “Kids like you used to get their butt kicked when I was a kid.”

“They still do,” I tell him.

There are four other kids in detention with me, two ninth-graders, and Tawanda, and another kid who always pulls his sweatshirt hood completely over his head and face. The monitor hasn’t shown up yet.

“What’re you doing here?” I go to Tawanda. The ninth-graders ignore us. One’s cleaning his fingernails with a credit card. There’s a photo on the wall of a kid staring into space. Underneath it says, THE MIND IS A TERRIBLE THING TO WASTE.

“You know,” Tawanda goes. “Just bein’ my old self.”

The monitor comes in and gives us some rules and sits and starts doing his grade sheets. I pull out some homework. I’m the farthest back, near the window. The sweatshirt kid just sits there, a hood. One of the ninth-graders goes, “She took an entire grade off just for that?” There’s a little scratching noise and when I look out Flake’s doing his constipated monkey. I can’t hear the inka inka inka through the glass. He makes a few signals that I can’t figure out and then loses interest and leaves.

I’m behind on what I’m supposed to do for the World of Color project. There’s paper and markers in my pack, so I could do that. I can’t tell if Tawanda’s working on it or not. She’s too far up front. The idea sucks but it’s our fault. Michelle wanted to do a poster of a rainforest tree with people of all different colors as fruit. Tawanda made a face and wanted to know if she meant heads hanging down like apples. They didn’t have to hang like apples, Michelle told her. I asked if they could be severed heads. Michelle asked if we had any better ideas. Tawanda said she didn’t. They both looked at me. “You tell me what to draw, I’ll draw it,” I told them. So we’re supposed to be doing the apples.

We already started it. Some of the heads are already on the tree. My red Indian looks like Lava Man.

The ninth-grader in front of me tears the piece of paper he’s been working on from his binder and passes it back. I’m so surprised that I take it and look at it. It says, “Asshole asshole asshole asshole asshole asshole asshole asshole asshole asshole asshole asshole asshole asshole asshole,” all the way down the page. The whole thing is filled. “Asshole,” he whispers.

“No talking,” the monitor says.

“Asshole,” the kid whispers again, after a minute.

“Mr. Hanratty,” the monitor says. “What did I just say?”

“I didn’t say anything,” I go.

“Can I move my seat?” the ninth-grader asks.

“Leave him alone, Mr. Hanratty,” the monitor says.

I’ve still got the sheet of assholes in my hand. It’s a pretty amazing thing, when you think about it.

The ninth-grader raises his hand.

“What is it, Mr. Sfikas?” the monitor wants to know.

“He’s swearing at me,” the kid goes. “Can you tell him to stop?”

“He keeps putting his hand down his pants and grabbing himself,” I go. “He keeps doing this thing with his hand.”

The kid turns around with his mouth open.

“His whole chair moves,” I go. “It’s gross.”

The other ninth-grader’s laughing. Tawanda’s turned all the way around in her chair. The kid gets a megadeath look on his face. “I’m gonna fucking kill you,” he whispers. He says it like he can’t really believe it himself.

“He’s doing it again,” I tell the monitor.

We get put into separate empty classrooms and told to not move. Mine has a big sign that says BLACK AND WHITE AND READ ALL OVER and has reviews of books by sixth-graders pinned up on the walls all around the room.

The monitor looks in every ten minutes or so. When he lets me out at four-thirty, the kid’s waiting on the side steps with his friend. One of the custodians breaks it up. But before he gets there my shirt’s torn off and one of my teeth gets knocked through my lip.

“So I know where that kid lives,” Hermie tells me a couple days later between classes. He’s wearing black-and-white camo pants. I didn’t even know they made them that small.

“Can I help you?” I go. I’m wrestling with my combination lock. I’m in no mood for anything.

“Spin it all the way around three times before you start,” he tells me.

I spin it once and then give it a yank. The whole locker shakes.

“Your mouth looks all fucked up,” he says.

“Up yours, midget,” I tell him. The hall’s starting to thin out. The few lockers that are still open get shut.

My lower lip’s so swollen that it feels like I could touch my nose with it. When I pass down the hall, kids look at it. The nice girls flinch and the mean ones talk about it.

“You are such a tube steak,” he goes. He takes off to make it to his class. I make a caveman noise and bang my head against the locker and try it once more. It doesn’t open. I leave my head against it. The bell rings. I spin the thing three times and try again, and it pops right open.

Before detention that afternoon he sticks his head into the detention room and gives me a little wave.

“You seen Freddy Budzinski?” he goes. His hair’s a rat’s nest on top but crew-cutty on the sides. It makes his neck look like a stick.

“You seen him or not?” he goes.

“What do you want?” I ask.

“I’ll go slow,” he tells me. “Have you seen Freddy Budzinski?”

“I have no idea who you’re talking about,” I tell him.

He looks around like he’s thinking about buying the place, and then checks down the hall to see if the monitor’s coming. “This your last day of detention?”

I take out my math book and flop it open.

“I’m gonna kill Freddy Budzinski when I see him,” he goes.

“It’s very hard to concentrate with all the noise in here,” I tell him.

He flops in a chair next to me and sits still for a minute, spreading his legs as wide as he can. He starts drumming on the desktop with his thumbs.

“I really like that sound,” I tell him. “Keep making that sound.”

He stops and looks up at the history-project covers pinned on the walls. His mouth hangs open, and he breathes through it like something’s clogged. On the floor there’s a poster of a sunflower that somebody’s torn down.

“So you don’t want to know where that kid lives?” he finally goes.

I take off a sneaker and shake it out and fish around in it and put it back on. It takes a minute to tie it up again.

“Where you guys hanging out tonight?” he wants to know. Then he hears the monitor coming down the hall and he’s out of his chair and over to the door in a second. “I’ll come by and see what you guys’re doing,” he says. He bumps into the monitor trying to get through the door.

“This Student Council?” he asks.

“Does it look like Student Council?” the monitor asks.

“It really doesn’t,” Hermie goes. “I’m all turned around.”

I can hear him getting running starts and sliding on the polished floor, all the way down the hall. The monitor’s new today, taking over for the other guy. “What happened to you?” he wants to know when he sees my face.

Hermie comes by that night and bangs on the back-porch screen, but we don’t let him in. Before he finally leaves he tells us where the ninth-grader lives. We spend the night coming up with things we could do to the kid but nothing any good. We walk over there the next night to see if anything better comes to us and run right into the kid and his friends and they chase us halfway home. One kid gets some great shots in on Flake’s head before we get away, and someone else kicks me in the tailbone again, just when it was starting to feel better.

The next night we’re all pissed off and depressed and sitting around in Flake’s basement. “So you wanna check out my dad’s guns?” he goes. His parents have gone out to a movie or dinner or Canada. They’re not going to be back until late.

I’m sitting on the softest pillow in the house and have to keep getting up and moving it around underneath me. “What kind’s he got?” I go. It’s not like I’ve never seen a gun.

“Guns,” Flake goes. “More than one.”

“Okay,” I go. “What kinds?”

He starts upstairs. “Are you comin’?” he calls down, so I follow him. He’s in his parents’ bedroom. He pulls the shirts on hangers in his dad’s closet to the side, and there’s a box like a suitcase that could hold a little kid. Inside the box are some duffels, and inside the duffels are some guns.

We look at them on the bed. They’re all heavy.

“This one’s a carbine,” he tells me. “It’s from WW Two.”

“WW Two?” I go. I can’t get comfortable on my butt so end up on my hands and knees.

“Shut up,” he says.

“And what’s this?” I ask him.

“That’s a Kalashnikov,” he goes.

I get off the bed to pick it up, and swing it around with the butt on my shoulder, aiming at the ceiling. It feels like a parking meter.

“Russian,” he says.

“Duh,” I go.

“It’s actually not,” he goes. “It’s Chinese. An AK-47. But the K stands for Kalashnikov. My dad says that’s close enough for him.”

It’s big and ugly and black, with a stubby little barrel and a three-pronged sight.

The other one’s called a nine-millimeter.

“So are these new?” I go.

“New hobby,” he says. “He went to a gun show last week.”

“Does he have bullets?” I go.

“He hides them in a different place,” Flake goes.

The next night he calls when I’m brushing my teeth. My butt’s still killing me. I think it might be broken. “You thinking what I’m thinking?” he asks.

“What’re you thinking?” I ask. The mint in the toothpaste stings the scabs in my lip.

“I think you are thinking what I’m thinking,” he goes.

I get sweaty for a minute and then it stops. “That is like those kids at that Colorado school,” I tell him.

“Not the way we’re gonna do it,” he goes.

“What was that school called?” I go.

“What’re you, the evening news?” he goes. “You want to do this or not?”

“I get to pick which one I use,” I go.

“We’d go in with all three,” he goes. “The other one’ll be backup. And we gotta plan it, too. We gotta plan it better than that other thing.”

“That’s for sure,” I go.

He’s quiet for a minute. I go over to the sink and spit.

“What’re you doing?” he wants to know.

“Brushing my teeth,” I tell him.

“I’m not just talking here, you know,” he goes. “I’m not just playing.”

I spit again. “I didn’t say you were.”

“You just playing?” he goes.

“Nope,” I tell him.

“I think you are just playing,” he goes.

“Well,” I go. “Wait and see.”

The next day’s Saturday and I’m up early. My sleep is all screwed up.

I’m lying in the middle of the parking lot at the grocery store. The parking lot’s empty. The grocery store’s closed.

“What’re you doing down there?” somebody asks. He’s a short little guy with a beret.

“Bonjour,” I go.

“Hello to you, too,” he says. “What’re you doing down there?”

“Just resting,” I tell him.

“Is it comfortable?” he asks.

“More or less,” I go.

He’s unloading stuff from his pickup. “You want a ride home?” he goes.

“I live right over here,” I tell him.

He dumps a big case on the pavement and takes out a toolbox. More stuff is unpacked and snapped together. I turn my head so I can see, but I don’t get up. It’s a beautiful day. There was one cloud, but it left.

“Model rocketry,” he goes. “Wanna see?”

“No,” I tell him.

It takes forever to get set up. He hums to himself while he works. When he fires the first one off it makes a sound like a power nozzle on a hose and goes straight up until it’s just a flicker and you’re not even sure you can still see it. Then there’s a pop, far off, and a dot appears: the parachute.