Bruiser (8 page)

I saw the weak hearts of my classmates shredded by conformity, bloated and numb, as they iced the wounds of acceptance in the primordial gym, hoping to heal themselves into popularity,

Who have devolved into Play-Doh pumped through a sleazy suburban press, stamped in identical molds, all bearing chunks of bleak ice, comet-cold in their chests,

Who look down their surgically set noses at me, the boy most likely to die by lethal injection with no crime beyond the refusal to permit their swollen, shredded cardiac chill to fill my heart as well,

Yet out of this frigid pool of judgment stepped Brontë, untainted by the cold, radiating warmth in a rhythmic pulse through her veins, echoing now in mine, just as the slice across her palm is now my
burden, taken by accident, yet held with purposeful triumph,

As I now reach to double-check the unreliable lock on my bathroom door, which gives no privacy, least of all from Uncle Hoyt, who, in fits of paranoia, must know everything,
everything
that goes on beneath his termite-ridden, shingle-shedding roof,

Where I now carefully peel the bandage from my hand, revealing shades of brown and red, flesh damaged and bruised, hoping to redress the wound before my uncle can find out, the wound that I have no idea how Brontë got, for in my fuzz-brained love haze, I forgot to question,

Which will heal without mystery or magic at the normal pace of life—in a week, two weeks, three—like the raw-knuckle scabs of her brother, now mine, too, like the bruises, breaks, and scrapes, the scars of a lifelong battle that defines me,

Like the fresh wound that cannot be concealed as my uncle swings open the maliciously disloyal bathroom door, and getting a healthy look at the fresh red line sliced across the heel of my hand, knowing from my unmet gaze that I'm holding a secret, which gives him permission to hold me hostage.

 

“Get that cut today, did you?”

“Yes.”

“Didja take it from Cody?”

“No.”

“That boy'd cut his head off with safety scissors.”

“I didn't take it from Cody; it happened at school.”

 

My uncle knows about the things I can do—the pain that I take—and knowing makes him still crazier and more protective, but of himself, not of me.

I muffle the screaming wound with a white gauze square; but nervous, tense, I press too hard and wince, a small twitch almost imperceptible, and he's looking at me with searing intensity, seeing all.

 

“Hurt?”

“No.”

“You're lying.”

“It's nothing.”

“It don't look like nothing.”

“It'll heal.”

“You gonna tell me how you got it?”

 

He, with zero trust, zero tolerance, zeroes in on my eyes that once knew only how to betray me but lately have learned the wicked wartime trick of holding secrets in
a darker place and coding them to a cipher my uncle isn't clever enough to crack.

 

“I told you it's nothing. Some girl in the hallway.”

“Some girl?”

“Coulda been something sharp on her backpack; I don't know.”

“And you're saying I should believe that?”

“I'm saying you should take your dump and let me be.”

 

And, as I leave the bathroom, my uncle hurls a warning scowl to remind me that mouthing off will buy me a world of punishment, but not today, because it's not worth his time, then he closes the door to take the call of nature, leaving me to stride, giddy with relief, down the hall and into the room I share with my brother,

Where Cody plays with plastic army men, and he, the general of a pigsty battlefront, glances at my bandaged hand but asks no questions, sibling-smart in his willful ignorance, knowing he can't know, because eight-year-olds don't just tell secrets, they sing them on every unwanted wavelength, and since Cody's mouth betrays him even more often than my eyes betray me, he doesn't ask, because he knows he can't sing to our uncle the things I haven't told him,

So the wound remains secure as I lie on my bed, like a blood oath aching a sweet reminder of the secret I share with Brontë, this moment marking the first time I've seen my gift as a wonder and not a curse,

For standing between Cody and his pain is my obligation, and standing between my uncle and his pain is my rent, but the pain I coax from Brontë is my joy.

I will not give in

To an interrogation

Even from Brontë

 

On a day in the park where wind-torn clouds sweep a frenetic sky in vivid Van Gogh strokes, while Brontë and I read Homer on the grass, studying for an epic exam of cyclopean proportions, I will not give in to the interrogation,

As Cody jumps from a tree, oblivious to the strain he puts on my shins, then climbs again recklessly, no thought of consequences, his survival skills a casualty of his painless existence, I will not give in to the interrogation,

While Brontë leans into my lap, and I read
The Odyssey
aloud, feeling her need to know grow stronger the longer I avoid it, until she notices that I'm reciting the book entirely from memory, and she finds the first question to begin the barrage—but just as Odysseus resists the sirens, I will not give in to the interrogation.

 

“You memorized
The Odyssey?”

“So what? Homer did it, and I'm not even blind.”

“The whole thing?”

“Only the parts I've read.”

“That's amazing, Brew.”

“It's just something I do.”

“Like the healing?”

“It's not healing; it's stealing.”

“Excuse me?”

“The pain doesn't leave; it just jumps to me.”

“How do you explain that?”

“I don't.”

 

As the sun hides behind the shearing clouds, the temperature plunges and frustrated mothers race to their children, coats at the ready to battle the schizophrenic day, and Brontë ignores the breeze, knowing the sun will strobe on again in a moment;
yet if she's cold she does not care, because she's begun the inquisition,

And I wonder if her need to know is stronger than my need to remain unexposed.

 

“How did it start?

Do you choose who you heal?

How do you choose?

Who do you choose?

Does anyone know?

How does it work?

Do you have to be touching?

Why won't you answer?

Aren't you listening?

Brew?”

 

Even as I offer Brontë nothing but silence, her hand ventures beneath my shirt, roaming my back to make a gentle accounting of my wounds—asking me if it hurts, telling her that it does, just a little—then her hand moves around to my chest, and just as I realize she's not feeling wounds anymore, she tickles my neck, giggles, and pulls back her hand, and I think how different this is—how I've never been teased, at least not like this, not the way a girl teases her boyfriend,
And the raw power of that thought makes me surrender, giving in to the interrogation, willfully spilling forth things I've never told a soul.

 

“For as long as I can remember I've stolen,

Ripping all the hurts from the people I love,

And from no one else.

I don't choose it,

I don't want it,

But because they found a place in my heart

I steal their pain as soon as I'm near them,

And all because I got caught caring.

But those others,

ALL the others,

Dripping their disapproval like summer sweat,

They're on the outside,

And I will never let them in.

Never.

Let them keep their broken bones,

Shed their own blood,

I hate them.

I have to hate them, don't you see?

Because what if I didn't?

What if I suddenly started to care?

And their friends became my friends,

And every ache and pain,

Every last bit of damage,

Drained from them to me,

Until I was nothing but fractures and sprains,

Cuts and concussions,

But as long as I keep them on the right side of resentment,

Despising them all,

I'm safe.”

 

Listening keenly, passing no judgment, Brontë takes it all in, then leaning close, she kisses my ear, healing me in a way she will never understand, and she whispers, “But you did choose to care about Tennyson and me. You let us in, Brew.”

So I nod and whisper back: “Promise you'll close the door behind you.”

Here are the ten things

I will never tell Brontë

Or anyone else:

• 1) My father could be one of five men I've met,
  

• 2) Cody's only my half brother, but he doesn't know it.
  

• 3) Men were constantly falling in love with my mother,
  

• 4) We once joined a cult that eventually changed its name
  

• 5) My mother developed ovarian cancer.
  

• 6) She left us with Uncle Hoyt when she first got sick;
  

• 7) She called me every day until she died.
  

• 8) Someday I want the government to find me,
  

• 9) Someday I want to be on a Wheaties box,
  

• 10) Someday I want to wake up and be normal.
  

With neck hairs standing on end, secret panic tripping in my brain, I cross into the petri dish of despair, the chasm of chaos, the school cafeteria,

Where larval troglodytes of blue and white collar breeds practice the vicious social skills of peacock preening and primate posturing amid the satanic smell of institutional ravioli,

When I reluctantly join the line for food, I avoid all eyes but notice, across the cafeteria, Tennyson and his girlfriend, Katrina,

Who cling to each other like statically charged particles, and I wonder if Brontë might cling to me in the same way, even while under the judgmental glare of the hormonal high school petting zoo, if she didn't avoid the cafeteria on principle,

When a hairless ape named Ozzy O'Dell forces his way in front of me as if I'm nothing more than a piece of soy-stretched meat lurking in the ravioli and calls me the nickname he would much rather call the special ed kids, if he could get away with it.

 

“Hey, Short-bus, make some room.”

“No. The end of the line's back there.”

“I don't think so—we're in a hurry.”

“So am I.”

“For what? Freak practice?”

 

While he laughs at his own idiotic joke, I think how, in the past, I would just let it go, but meeting Brontë has changed me, and I'm boldly standing up for myself in places that used to give me vertigo, so as the lazy-eyed lunch lady hands Ozzy a plate of ravioli, I tell him how shaving his head for swim team was not a good idea, because it emphasizes how small his brain is, the same way his Speedo emphasizes how small other things are,

Which makes his friends laugh at him instead of at me, and Ozzy laughs, too, telling me it's so funny I deserve to get my ravioli first, because I've earned it, then he hands over his plate full of the slithery, sluglike pasta pockets, and I'm confused enough to think that
maybe he's sincere, because I don't know the rules of the game,

When he rests his finger on the edge of my tray, not forcefully enough for the lazy-eyed lunch lady to notice but enough to shift the balance and flip the whole tray, turning the ravioli into projectile pasta, splattering every available surface, including the expensive fashion statements of several speechless kids,

Who believe Ozzy when he calls me a clumsy waste of life, all eyes turning in my direction as if I'm the one to blame, and I know I'm beaten because as much as I want to expel my fury right in his face, as much as I want to play whack-a-mole on his hairless head, I can't, and wouldn't they all laugh from here to the edge of their miserable universe if they knew that the boy most likely to fry was incapable of lifting a finger to hurt anyone, even if the hurt was earned.

With nothing left but humiliation and red sauce, I just want to escape, until Tennyson arrives out of nowhere, barging his way between us, casting himself as an unlikely avenger, and says,

 

“Got a problem, Ozzy?”

 

While the lazy-eyed lunch lady, out of touch with anything
on the far side of the warming trays, hands a plate of ravioli to Ozzy, which Tennyson grabs from him and gives to me, asking Ozzy if he plans to do anything about it because, if he does, he should fill out his complaint form in triplicate and shove them in all three of his bodily orifices,

Which Ozzy has no comeback line for because he's still trying to figure out which three orifices Tennyson might be referring to, if he even knows what an orifice is, and even though I don't want Tennyson fighting my battles for me, I can't help but crack a smile, because now I finally understand what it means to have a friend, and maybe it's worth the pain I'll endure because of it.