You'll Miss Me When I'm Gone (11 page)

CHAPTER ELEVEN

 

T
anya was supposed to meet him by his locker, which had the word
FREAK
scrawled across it in indelible black marker. Damon's locker was the only one that had been defaced in the second floor's west corridor.

Some asshole—probably Ron, Reed, or one of their buddies—had written the epithet on his locker last Friday. Damon had reported the offense to Principal Dunmore right away. It looked like the janitor had tried to clean off the insulting word, because the letters were slightly blurred now. Obviously it needed to be painted over—a couple of coats, at least.

The hallway was clearing out, and only a few stragglers lingered by their lockers. Most everyone had already gone to the cafeteria. Tanya ambled up the corridor in another one of her thrift store ensembles: this time, a tight sleeveless top that showed off her flabby, white arms, and green Bermuda shorts.

“I guess we're just a couple of nonconformists,” she'd always say. “You and I, we have to pay a price for being unique . . .”

Damon cringed inside whenever she implied they were two of a kind. He wasn't like her at all. He just wanted to be left alone, but Tanya relished being different.

He often thought people might stop picking on him if he spent less time with Tanya. But the truth was he'd miss her if they quit being friends. Tanya could make an evening of eating Cheetos and barbecue potato chips in front of TV infomercials incredibly fun. If it weren't for her, he might have gone crazy from the loneliness. Still, as much as he liked her, Tanya also annoyed the hell out of him sometimes. She could be bossy and manipulative. Plus, she was such a slob. With just the right clothes, makeup, some hair care, and a healthy diet, she could have made herself a lot more attractive.

“Today from the Gag-Me-Royally Cafeteria, you have a selection of shepherd's pie or beef tacos,” Tanya announced, approaching him. “Both were undoubtedly made from the leftover Gag-Me meatloaf we gagged on yesterday!”

“Which was left over from the Gag-Me Salisbury steak we gagged on on Monday,” Damon added, rolling his eyes.

Tanya leaned against a locker next to his. “I vote we go to 7-Eleven, buy ourselves a couple of ice cream sandwiches and some Fritos, and make that our lunch. It's a lot safer than what Gag-Me-Royally is offering.”

They rarely ate in the cafeteria, where they were sitting ducks for abuse. When the weather allowed, he and Tanya would buy something at the nearby 7-Eleven or the Safeway deli counter, and then sit outside on the playfield's bleachers. No one bothered them there.

“Actually, an ice cream sandwich sounds pretty good right now,” he said, leaning against his locker. “Let's eat outside today. Then we can—”

He didn't get to finish. Out of the corner of his eye, he glimpsed someone coming up behind Tanya. If it had been Reed or Ron, he might have noticed sooner, because he was always on his guard when they approached. Damon didn't have time to see who this was. He didn't see the big plastic cup in the guy's hand.

All at once, a rancid-smelling liquid splattered him in the face. The force of it felt like a hard slap. He toppled back and banged into his locker. Tanya let out a startled shriek.

Whatever it was, the stuff got in his eyes, blinding him. Damon felt so helpless. He heard a couple of people in the hallway laughing.

“Oh my God, look at you!” Tanya gasped. “It's all down the front of you . . .”

“What is it?” Damon cried, wiping his eyes. “What—what did they throw on me? I can't tell. God, it stinks . . .”

“Shit, I think it's bong water . . .”

Damon had tried marijuana once—with Tanya. But he wasn't crazy about the results, especially the feeling that he was losing control. They hadn't used a bong, but he knew what it was. He'd had no idea the water in those pipe contraptions could smell so putrid. It soaked the front of his cherished yellow short-sleeve shirt—the one that made his arms look less spindly.

As soon as he could focus, he saw Tanya gaping at him. “That shit heel!” she growled. “You know what you should do? Right now, you should march into Dunmore's office, stink up the place, and tell him what just happened. He should know the level of crap they've been inflicting on you . . .”

Grimacing from the stench, Damon shook his head at her. Principal Dunmore already knew what was going on. And Damon didn't feel like marching down a flight of stairs and through three corridors, reeking of vile bong water, just to prove a point to the principal.

“Did you see who did it?” Tanya asked. “It happened so fast, I didn't get a chance . . .”

Damon kept shaking his head. He turned away and started to work the combination on his locker. He was trembling.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

He opened his locker and pulled out the gray crew-neck sweatshirt he kept in there for emergencies. “I can't stand this stink for another second,” he muttered. “I need to wash off and change . . .”

“But you'll ruin it!” she argued. “You won't make any kind of real impression on Dunmore if you walk into his office all cleaned up . . .”

Damon tried to ignore her. “Let me handle this myself,” he muttered, grabbing an old plastic bag out of his locker. He figured he could stuff the rancid-smelling shirt into the bag and present the evidence to Dunmore that way.

Despite the horrible stench emitting from him, Tanya hovered annoyingly close by. “Okay, if you need to wash off before you go see him, if that's the way you want it, fine. I'll go with you to see Dunmore and we'll tell him exactly what happened. I'll make him understand—”

“You don't have to,” he said under his breath. Right now, more than anything, he just wanted her to shut up. He kept his head down to avoid looking at her—or anyone else, for that matter. People in the hallway were still snickering at him.

“You need me there when you talk to him,” she continued. “I'm a witness . . .”

He shut his locker and headed toward the men's room. “I'm okay on my own.”

Tanya followed him. “Well, I'll stand guard outside the restroom while you change. You never know what these creeps are going to pull . . .”

Damon swiveled around. “Goddamn it! Would you just leave me alone?”

Her mouth open, Tanya stopped dead and stared at him.

He turned and ran for the restroom. Ducking inside, he let the door swing shut behind him. Damon didn't see anyone at the urinals or in the stalls. He was alone in there, and for that he was grateful, because he'd already started crying.

The fluorescent overhead light flickered a bit as he moved to the sinks. His every step seemed to echo off the ugly blue-and-gray tiled walls. He set the sweater and empty plastic bag on the counter. Then he peeled off his wet, smelly shirt and threw it in one of the sinks.

At the next sink down the counter, he pushed the faucet cap to dispense some water for a few moments. There were no spigots. Obviously the powers that be at the high school didn't trust the students to turn off a faucet themselves. Bent over the sink, Damon had to pump the faucet cap again and again so he could wash his face. Then he slurped some water to rinse out his mouth.

All the while, he tried to ignore the three words that had been scratched onto the bottom corner of the mirror at the beginning of the school year:

Principal Dunmore knew about it and promised they'd replace the mirror just as soon as they could. He knew what was happening.

The meetings with Dunmore were practically the only times Damon's parents saw each other. Those conferences were like impromptu family reunions. Within the next day or two, they'd probably have another session with Dunmore—about this bong-water incident.

Shirtless, Damon pumped the faucet cap several times to fill the sink that held his smelly shirt. Then he dispensed some soap into his shaky hand and rubbed it over the material. He knew he was destroying the “evidence,” but he couldn't stand the smell. What had just happened had been humiliating enough. He didn't need everyone in the school to know. He imagined this awful stench following him around as he took the soiled shirt to Dunmore's office. It was just the kind of thing that would get around and earn him a new nickname.

Damon heard people talking and laughing in the hallway. He wondered if Tanya was standing guard outside the restroom. He'd probably chased her away. He hadn't meant to snap at her, but she really got on his nerves sometimes.

The last thing he wanted was for someone to come in here and find him half-naked and teary-eyed. Mortified, he couldn't even look at his own pale reflection—any more than he wanted to look at the slur scratched in the corner of the mirror.

He told himself he'd survived worse.

The scariest incident had happened on a rainy Friday last May. Tanya was home sick, so Damon had to eat lunch alone. He picked up a container of milk and two “Marshmallow Munchee” bars (Gag-Me Royally's lame attempt at Rice Krispies treats) in the cafeteria. Then he got the hell out of there. He took refuge in the lobby of the empty auditorium across the courtyard from the cafeteria. He sometimes ate there with Tanya when bad weather prevented them from having lunch on the bleachers. They'd sit on one of the cushioned benches along the lobby wall. Out the window, they'd watch the smokers and stoners across the quad, puffing away.

During lunch hour on that Friday, the motley group of smokers huddled in doorways or wore their hoodies to shield them from the rain. As he nibbled on his Marshmallow Munchee, Damon found himself missing Tanya, who could be pretty funny with her comments about that crowd of burnouts.

Then he noticed two people who didn't belong among them.

The backward blue Dodgers hat was a dead giveaway.

Emerging from the group, Reed and Ron strutted up the short walkway toward the building that housed the auditorium.

In a panic, Damon sprung to his feet. He tossed what was left of his lunch into a trash can and ducked into the darkened theater. He figured they'd start searching for him in the rows of vacant seats. So he raced down into the orchestra pit—to a small door that accessed a storage area under the stage. Opening the door, he caught a glimpse of what was inside the tiny crawl space: extra folding chairs and sheet music stands for the orchestra members. He bent down and scurried into the cubbyhole.

With his every movement, he was a still a slave to his OCD, first having to touch and test the door, the latch, and the cold, dirty cement floor. As Damon curled up inside the cramped storage area, he took one last look at the empty auditorium and then shut the small door. There was no inside handle, so he couldn't shut the door completely. It remained open a crack, which was fine by him. The last thing he wanted was to be trapped inside there.

Damon kept perfectly still as he listened to Ron and Reed stomp into the theater. Their all-too-familiar cackling echoed in the near-empty auditorium. One of them shushed the other.

“The freak's in here somewhere,” he heard Reed whisper.

“He doesn't have his fag hag to protect him today,” Ron said.

He listened to them talk, their voices getting louder and clearer as they came closer to the stage. Damon tried to keep still, but he couldn't stop shaking. The small, dusty crawl space seemed to shrink around him with every passing second. He hated it in there. Yet the alternative seemed too horrible to imagine. Reed and Ron could do whatever they wanted to him here. No teacher was around to stop it. No one would hear him crying out for help.

Suddenly, it got deathly quiet. Someone was in the orchestra pit. Damon could hear the footsteps on the other side of the door. The crack in the small doorway was too slight to peek outside at who it was or what they were doing. Still, Damon leaned closer to the crevice to see what he could.

All at once, the door banged shut—just inches from his face.

He recoiled, banging his head on the low ceiling and knocking into some music stands. They made a loud clatter.

Past that, he heard them snicker.

“I guess the freak's not here,” Reed said. But from his sarcastic tone, Reed seemed to know exactly where he was.

Damon held his breath. He heard a chair or a music stand being dragged across the floor. It sounded like Reed or Ron had propped it against the little door to the storage space.

Were they blocking the doorway, maybe wedging a chair against it?

He couldn't tell.

He pushed on the door, but it didn't budge.

“Hey!” he dared to call out. He gave the door another shove. But it didn't do any good.

He heard them laughing. The cackling grew more distant. Damon realized they were leaving him trapped in there.

“Hey, wait a minute!” he yelled, banging on the small door. “Don't go! Come back, please, come back! Don't leave me in here!”

“I guess he isn't around,” Reed announced—in that same sarcastic tone.

Ron chuckled. Their voices were fading.

“NO!” Damon screamed, squirming inside the tiny, black crawl space. Suddenly, he couldn't get a breath. He pounded on the door again and again.

When he stopped, it was silent. He couldn't hear them anymore. They were gone.

Struggling within the confines of the tiny space, Damon repositioned himself and then gave the door a kick. But it didn't move.

Damon twisted to one side and reached for his smart phone in the pocket of his cargo pants. He knew the battery was low, but maybe it still had enough juice for one phone call. And at least he'd have some light. The storage space was so dark he couldn't even see his hand in front of his face.