Authors: John Goode
He actually said that—“fucking end you.” I swear, as a generation, people my age have been ruined by horrible dialogue in action movies. The things we think are intimidating and threatening really just sound so stupid coming out of anyone who isn’t
Arnold Schwarzenegger that I honestly don’t think we will ever recover. Instead of
reacting to his Terminator-like threat, I decided to move past that and ask, “So, you know that guy?” I motioned back toward the bar.
Even in the dark I could see his face flush, and I went back to thinking I was going to get slugged.
“I’m not going to tell anyone,” I said, holding my hands up in surrender. “I was just wondering if he kissed everyone who tipped or if it was just you.”
I waited patiently for the gears in his mind to make a complete cycle. It was obvious I had seen him kissing the guy, so there was no use in denying that, but it looked like he was struggling with saying it out loud to someone else. Finally he spit out, “I’ve seen him a couple of weeks in a row. I’ve never seen him kiss anyone else.”
That made sense to me; with the abundance of ugly, old guys who pawed on male strippers every night, getting tipped by a young jock like Kelly must be the closest thing to a vacation they get. I, of course, would never possess the body to strip nor the face to attract a stripper, so it was all theoretical to me. “He’s hot,” I said, when it was obvious Kelly wasn’t going to continue talking.
He nodded and then leaned back against his truck. “Okay, so what do you want?”
It was so abrupt I just stood there in confusion.
“Not to say anything, what do you want?” he clarified.
“Nothing,” I answered quickly and honestly. He gave me an unbelieving look, and I added, “I’m not going to blackmail you. I mean, if I did that I’d have to admit I was gay too.”
He came off the truck so fast that one second he was there, and the next he was in my face, gripping my shirt tight. “I. Am. Not. A. Fag,” he enunciated slowly in my face. “You say that again, and I will kill you.”
See, that was a much better threat, all around more believable.
“I won’t,” I babbled, seriously scared of being beaten to death in a parking lot. “I swear!”
His fist hovered there above my head, my own private sword of Damocles for me to marvel at. I could see the wavering in Kelly’s eyes, unsure if he could trust me or not. I suppose the fear on my face was enough because he let me go, and I fell to the ground. “If you say one word about this, no one will believe you.” He opened the door to his truck. “And then I will crack your head open like a pumpkin.”
And back to the lame threats again.
I didn’t say anything as he started his truck and pulled off into the night. I watched his taillights fade away as I wondered what exactly I would do with the information that Kelly Aimes liked guys.
I didn’t say anything to anyone the rest of summer. After all, what was there to gain from it? The people I ran with wouldn’t care, and no one else would even believe me. So I filed it away as one of those things I knew and no one else did and went on with my life. When school rolled around again, I was pretty fired up, not only because it was my last year but because I was finally a senior, which meant it was my time to shine.
I held that thought for almost two full class periods before I was rudely informed by the universe that it was never going to happen.
Our school had a tradition—well, not so much a tradition as it was a reoccurring nightmare for those suffered to endure it. The ones who did it called it trashing; the ones who suffered it called it the worst thing imaginable. Basically, two douche bags grab you from behind and carry you to the nearest trash can. Now, I guess if they had bothered to pick out a trash can beforehand that, say, wasn’t already filled with trash, it might not be as bad, but they don’t, so it is. Now the joy of this little spectacle is that there is a crowd of people who already know what is about to occur to you and have gathered around the trash can in anticipation of seeing someone’s whole day ruined.
I don’t have to tell you that trashing doesn’t happen to many jocks.
Normally this happens to freshmen the first week of school, as a kind of welcome-to-hell kind of thing, but occasionally it’s done with older students, especially if they can’t defend themselves. So in other words, it happens to whoever the jock overlords deem are lacking in their undying faith to their popularity. It had been done to me three different times my freshmen year until I learned how to get to my classes without going through the quad. So the thought of being trashed had faded from my mind, which of course was a huge mistake.
It was the first day back, and I was wearing the vintage Ramones tour shirt from when they played Mothers in 1975 because I thought it was safe to inject a little culture into Foster High. Instead all I did was add to the mindless enjoyment of the masses when I was grabbed and thrown into a trash can. Now it is easy to brush this off since it was the first day of school and barely third period. I mean, how much trash could be in there?
Well, it turns out it can be halfway filled with the nastiest, spoiled food that had been tossed out when the cafeteria staff got back from their break. It seems the jocks had decided an empty can wasn’t nearly as funny as a can filled with rotten fruit and meat. All I could think as I slowly sank into the gunk was that the shirt had cost me thirty bucks on eBay and was now ruined.
Now when one is thrown into a trash can, there are certain limitations placed on your movement that may not be obvious to the random observer. If you were thrown in ass first, which I was, your body is then squeezed to a V shape as you sink into the wretched mass of organic material beneath you, your arms pinned to your side as you find your knees hanging on to the side of the can, keeping you from falling all the way in.
The long and short of it is that you are stuck like a turtle on its back, and the process of getting out is as humiliating as getting thrown in.
I could barely hear the roaring laughter over the deafening sound of blood rushing to my head in anger. The smell, that had been fleeting in my panic, was now settling in, and the automatic revulsion caused by it made me try to get away from it violently, which then caused the laughter to get louder. It wasn’t the humiliation—well, at least it wasn’t at that very moment—it was the fact that this rotting concoction was seeping into my clothes, and that there was literally no way I was going to be able to continue to classes without going home first and changing. That thought brought more and more anger as I flailed about helplessly to get out of the trash can.
In the end I was so pathetic that I was saved by a girl.
Sammy’s voice broke the almost thunderous laughter as she came running up to the trash can. “What the fuck is your malfunction?” She put her hand out to help me up, but she didn’t have the strength to get me free, and I eventually fell back into the can, spilling even more trash on me.
The laughter exploded like we were a comedy team.
“Looks like Punky Smurf didn’t eat her spinach today,” a guy taunted her from the crowd. I couldn’t see who it was because my head was pressed up against the side of the trash can, but I knew the voice all too well.
Kelly.
“Fuck you, Aimes,” she said, looking down at me with a sad look. “Hold on.”
I closed my eyes and held my breath as she kicked the side of the can with her Doc Martens. The world tilted to the right as the can fell over to its side. I came flying out onto the blacktop, propelled by a virtual river of muck that washed over me. I tried to wipe my face clean as well as I could before daring to try to breathe.
The moment I did, I began to throw up violently.
I’m not sure what kind of sadistic bastard came up with the evolutionary process of human vomit, but if I meet them in the afterlife, I plan on kicking them squarely in their higher-power balls. There is nothing that makes you aware that there are things about your body you cannot control like projectile vomiting uncontrollably in front of a crowd. Of course, this was easily as funny as me getting thrown in the can, which brought even louder peals of glee from the people watching me struggle to my knees.
Luckily my nose began to lose all function, no doubt from the overload from rotten food and vomit all over me. I looked up and saw Sammy kneeling next to me. The pity in her eyes was too much to bear. She reached out to help me to my feet, and I pushed her hand away angrily. “Get off me,” I roared, causing even more approval from the studio audience. From across the quad I could hear Mr. Raymond’s voice calling out, asking what was going on. People began to scatter, as was the protocol when being caught at the scene of the crime. Everyone ran in different directions, knowing they couldn’t catch everyone. All you did was pray you were one of the lucky ones that escaped.
I took a deep breath and got ready to stand when Kelly’s face appeared next to mine. His smile was everything a smile shouldn’t be, and it struck a chord of terror in my chest. It was an evil smile, a smile that not only said he was enjoying seeing me so debased, but that the fact it had turned out so badly for me was almost orgasmic to him. I froze as he said in a low voice, “Welcome back to school. We clear on where we stand?”
I looked at him, confused. “But I didn’t say anything,” I confessed uselessly.
“I know.” His smile faded instantly. “And now you know what happens when you do, right?”
Neither one of us said a word as Mr. Raymond came rushing up to me. “What is going on here?” he demanded.
Kelly stood up and shrugged. “No idea, sir. Looks like someone was hungry and went dumpster diving.”
I slowly stood up as Mr. Raymond glared at Kelly. “Get out of here, Aimes, before I kick you off the football team.” Kelly held his hands up in surrender and backed away. His eyes locked with mine, and I saw the menace in them before he turned around and walked off with his friends.
It was at that moment, August 21, 10:44 a.m., that I made my choice. I decided right then and there, Kelly Aimes was on my list, number one with a bullet.
Sammy and I didn’t talk to each other for almost a month after that. I am sure she was pissed I had snapped at her, and I was just mad. I planned and planned to find some way to get Kelly back for what he had done to me. There had to be a way, something I could do to get justice. I couldn’t just walk up to him and beat him senseless. I wasn’t strong enough, and he had too many friends. I was smarter than him, smarter than all of them. There had to be a way for me to get even.
That was when I heard about Brad and Kyle.
It was sickening how fast the word spread around school about how Kelly had tried to bully Kyle and how Brad had not only stuck up for him but actually kissed him in the middle of the quad. And in one fell swoop, Kyle Stilleno had unknowingly taken the only unique trait I possessed and made it his own. Thursday I was the only gay guy at Foster High. Friday, Kyle and Brad were the only people in the world who had ever kissed before. It was as infuriating as it was insulting, and I voiced my opinion loudly over lunch to the drama crew.
“I was gay way before those two ever thought about liking each other,” I proclaimed as we ate lunch in the auditorium. “I don’t even think Greymark is gay. He’s just using this as a chance to be considered open-minded and cooler than he actually is.”
Everyone but Sammy nodded as I went on. She just watched me talk with an odd look on her face. Finally I turned to her and asked. “What? You don’t agree with me?”
She paused, obviously weighing whether she should say something or not. “I can’t believe that anyone would pretend to be gay in this school, even if they thought it would make them cool.” She locked eyes with me. “And we both know that it won’t.”
“You’re on his side?” I was incensed she would even argue with me about this.
“I’m not on anyone’s side. I’m just saying that if anyone in this school should know how hard those two are going to have it, you’re the person.”
Everyone looked back to me, and I literally bit my tongue not to explode at her. Taking a deep breath, I said, “The only reason anyone cares what they are doing is because it is Brad Greymark doing it. I’ve been gay forever, and has anyone ever said one thing about it?” She opened her mouth to respond, but I kept talking. “Also, it is a huge sign of how shallow Kyle is. I mean, come on. He’s going to fall for the dumb jock? That is all about looks when he knew I was available.”
Most everyone else nodded, but Sammy didn’t. “How would he know? I’ve never seen you talk to him before.”
“And you’re with me all day every day? Trust me, I’ve talked to Kyle Stilleno before, and he is just another shallow, stuck-up queer, only caring about looks and nothing about what is inside.”
More people nodded and agreed, since most of the drama crew were not the best-looking people in the world. It was a popular belief that anyone who didn’t give us the time of day were shallow assholes who didn’t know what they were missing. Of course, I didn’t add that I wouldn’t touch one of them with a ten-foot pole, because, I mean, the first thing a ruler must know is not to piss off his subjects.
The subject was dropped, and we went back to eating lunch, but I knew this wasn’t over with Sammy.
I spent the weekend ignoring the whole town by locking myself in my room and working on mashups. With my headphones on, an atomic bomb could have gone off outside and I would have no idea. I tried to put Kyle and Brad out of my head, but it was that sore on the top of your mouth you can’t stop messing with. There was no way Kyle couldn’t have known about me. I mean, since junior high I have been teased and beaten on because I was gay. How clueless could he be not to know that I was gay and maybe liked him?
I liked him?
Where did that come from?
It was like a lightning strike. I just sat there and realized I had liked him for a few seconds. He was cute, he was smart, he was socially awkward… the more I thought about it, the madder I got. We could have been perfect—well, if not perfect, certainly not as miserable as I had been most of my life. In seconds, the perfect, polished image I had of him in my mind crumbled to just another superficial asshole from Foster. He wasn’t different. He was just like the rest of them, and I had been stupid enough to think differently.