Butter (6 page)

I was a little too winded for the walk home, so I called my mom to pick me up and told her I'd meet her in the parking lot behind the Salad Stop. I took a seat on a concrete bumper in front of one of the three tiny parking spots in the walled lot. I'd only been waiting a minute when I heard a car pull into the cramped space.
That was fast!
I looked up—not my mom's Range Rover, just some Mustang.

Suddenly, a bunch of doors were opening at once. Both the driver's and passenger's doors of the Mustang flew open as the back door of the Salad Stop banged against the stucco wall, shaking paint and plaster loose in a fine stream of dust. The faces came too fast to take in all at once. All I had time to register were four garish Salad Stop uniforms and two kids around Jeremy's age in regular clothes, and then they were on me.

They circled my little concrete curb so tight, I couldn't get up.

“Now who's going to be sorry?” Jeremy hissed. I noticed he had removed his hair net.

“What's this fat ass doing at a salad bar anyway?” one of the boys from the car asked.

“Not paying, for one thing,” a guy in a uniform snarled. He looked older than all the others—maybe too old for high school even.

“I didn't take the food,” I said, and felt ashamed to hear my voice shaking.

“Well, we can't exactly put it back in the bar, can we?”

“I'll give you money.” I scrambled for my wallet.

“This ain't no robbery, Sasquatch!” The uniformed guy sounded offended. “Keep your wallet.”

“Then what do you want?” I asked.

Jeremy stepped closer, tightening the circle. “We want you to apologize to Brian.”

“Hey, leave me out of it.”

Brian came into focus over Jeremy's shoulder. He was apart from the offensive circle, checking over his shoulder so often it looked like a twitch.

“Dude, he called you a phone-sex operator!”

“I don't care what he called me. He doesn't owe me an apology.” Then Brian looked directly at me. “You don't owe me anything, okay? We're square.”

“Then apologize to
me
!” Jeremy leaned over me, blocking my view of Brian.

The indignation rising up inside of me was stronger than the fear. It wasn't like these guys were thugs. They were just teenagers, barely older than me, and all quite a bit smaller, come to think of it. Pound for pound, we were almost evenly matched—all of them against me. That thought floated some courage to my lips.

“I'm not apologizing to you for shit,” I said. “I didn't even do anything to you.”

“In that case, I just came out here to give you your lunch.” Jeremy smiled.

“Oh yeah? And you called in backup to give me my salad?” I jerked my head at the two boys from the Mustang, the ones not in uniforms.

“I brought something I think you'll like even better.” Jeremy held his hand out to his older-looking coworker, who passed him something long and greasy wrapped in a napkin.

“I'm not hungry,” I said, eyeing the oil-spotted napkin with fear.

“I don't care,” Jeremy hissed. He unrolled the napkin slowly, letting the yellow stick inside fall across his palm.

“Gross.” One of the boys in plain clothes grimaced—
or was that a grin
?

“I'm not eating that, obviously.” I shrugged at Jeremy, no longer frightened. Clearly he was just messing with me. They didn't actually expect me to eat a stick of butter. “So unless you're going to hit me with it or something, I gotta go. My mom's gonna be here any minute anyway.” I tried to stand up, but the guys in uniforms pushed me back down by the shoulders.

“What the hell?” I struggled against the hands holding me down.

“Eat it,” Jeremy said, holding the stick out to me.

“Fuck you.”

“Eat it or I will make your life so miserable this year you'll wish you'd choked on it.”

He can't be serious
. “I'm not eating plain butter.”

“Oh. Well, sorry,” Jeremy said, sugar dripping off his tongue. “I would've brought you some bread, but I hear you don't like bread.” Then he crouched in front of me and pushed the stick closer. “Eat it.”

“No way! I told you, I'm not eating—”

“Grab his hands,” Jeremy commanded. And before I could react, the two Mustang boys were at my knees, pressing my arms to my thighs.

I craned my neck for a glance at the street. Where was my mom? One of the sets of hands on my shoulders moved to my head, forcing it to face forward.

It gave me a view of Brian behind Jeremy. “Do something!” I shouted at him.

“Hey, Jeremy, that's enough,” Brian said.

“That's it?” My eyes bugged at Brian. “That's it?”

He turned a cold stare at me and stuffed his hands in his pockets.

I wanted to call him a pussy, a coward, and so much worse, but I barely got a word out before something slick and salty rolled over my tongue, choking off my insults. I tried to turn my head, but it was locked between those hands. My gag reflex kicked in, pushing the stick of butter back out of my mouth and onto the ground. I coughed, spraying one of Jeremy's friends with tiny yellow droplets.

Jeremy had the stick of butter off the ground and aimed for my mouth again in under a second. This time, he put his other hand behind my head, preparing to hold the butter in place.

“Stop!” I managed through a cough. “I'll eat it! I'll eat it.”

Jeremy smiled. “Awesome.” Then, playing the role of a gentleman, he used the discarded napkins to wipe gravel and debris off the stick of butter before holding it out to me. His friends released my arms, and I raised one shakily to take the stick from Jeremy. I figured I could just lick it a little—drag it out until my mom showed up and chased everyone off.

But she didn't come, and soon Jeremy and his cronies were threatening to hold me down again. So I took a bite … then two. After the third one, I threw up on my feet.

“Sick,” a voice whispered.

Someone else retched. I couldn't tell which one was getting sick watching me, because puking always made my eyes water, and they were blurred over now, making the shapes of all the boys swim together.

Only Jeremy came into focus. Unlike the others, he didn't sound impressed or disgusted—just cold.

“Finish it,” he ordered.

I took a deep breath and an even deeper bite, more than half of the stick gone now. My body convulsed, threatening to bring up what I'd just put down. And I wasn't sure anymore if all the tears in my eyes were just from throwing up.

“Please,” I whimpered.

“You're almost there,” a voice coached. Someone was trying to comfort me—someone who couldn't handle it now that they saw what they were asking me to do. Well, they weren't getting off that easy. I don't know what came over me, but all at once, I wanted to show them I was tougher than they were. They couldn't even keep the contents of their stomach
watching
me
eat the stick of butter, but I could finish the rest of it
and
keep it down. I wanted those pussies to know who they were messing with.

I stuffed the last third of the stick in my mouth and mashed it down just enough to swallow the blob whole. Tears poured down my face, an air bubble got stuck somewhere between my chest and my throat, but that butter didn't come back up.

“Wow,” one of the uniformed guys breathed. “That was hard core.” Then he slapped me on the back like we were friends. I shifted my shoulder and smacked his hand away.

“Damn! Be an asshole then,” he said. “I was just trying to give you a compliment.”

I wondered for a moment what it must feel like to go through life that completely ignorant.

“We gotta get back in the kitchen,” the guy said.

Yeah, show's over. Get out of here
.

The uniforms shuffled back into the Salad Stop. I watched as Brian turned to join them. He looked back over his shoulder, right into my eyes, and mouthed, “I'm sorry.”

I gave him the finger.

“That was insane,” one of the Mustang boys said. He was grinning from ear to ear and slapping Jeremy a high-five. “We're outta here. Call me if you need a ride home from work.” Then he and the final sidekick were back in the Mustang and pulling away. I wondered vaguely again where my mom could possibly be.

“You just earned a free pass, freshman,” Jeremy said quietly,
his face just inches from mine. “You keep taking orders like that, and you'll see high school's not so bad.”

The older uniformed guy reappeared. “Hey, Jeremy, you gotta get back inside. Megan's backed up at the register, and she's totally freaking out.” He nudged Jeremy's shoulder with his knee. “Seriously, man. Back to work, c'mon.”

Then he turned his focus to me. “Hey, kid, what's your name anyway?”

I stayed silent, but Jeremy stood up finally, staring down at the tears on my face, the greasy mess in my hands, and answered for me.

“His name's
Butter
.”

I don't even remember picking up my sax, but at some point during my memory, I had started blowing. I was barely conscious of what I was playing—“Stop the Bus,” a blues tune with an electric guitar line I could easily mimic on the saxophone.

I was just hitting the bridge when there was a rap at my door—a powerful one, not delicate like my mom's touch. I played louder, pushing through to the final chorus. The knock continued, demanding to be heard over the music.
Dad?
I was surprised enough to lower the sax from my lips. Dad hadn't punished me for anything in years, but maybe the school-skipping shenanigans had been enough to merit a grounding. I opened the door and stepped back in shock.

The Professor was in my hallway. In one hand, he held a backpack; in the other, a trumpet case.

“You left this at school,” he said, tossing the backpack onto my bed.

“Thanks.”

I didn't know what else to say. The Professor didn't really make house calls.

“May I come in?” he asked.

I held the door open and shuffled to the side to let him pass.

“Good choice.” He pointed to a poster on my wall, a 1950s pinup of Brigitte Bardot.

I pointed too, at his trumpet case. “What's that for?”

The Professor fingered the case. “I heard there was an incident in the cafeteria with Anna McGinn. What happened?”

“Nothing. It was stupid.”

The Professor sat on my bed, trumpet case in his lap, and waited for more.

“Really, Professor, it was nothing. Anna got in a fight with some other girl, and I just asked her if she was okay. And some jerk butted in, so I left. It was no big deal.”

The Professor waved an arm toward my overstuffed chair, inviting me to sit in my own room. I stayed on my feet.

“No big deal? That's why you left school? Why you left your backpack in the cafeteria? Why you didn't even check out at the front office?”

“Are you the band teacher or the warden?”

The Professor smiled, but it didn't crinkle his eyes the way his smiles usually did. “I just thought you might want to talk about it.”

“There's nothing to talk about.” I pointed again to his trumpet case. “So? What's that for?”

He ran two palms over the flat, smooth case. “I also thought you might like to play a little.”

“I'm not in the mood.” My sax was still attached to one hand.

The Professor looked pointedly at it, then at me. “Okay,” he said, standing up. “I know a solo act when I see one. But if you change your mind, I have rehearsal with the Brass Boys down at Logan's tonight. Come by if you feel like playing—or even just listening.”

“I won't feel like it.”

God, I was being such an asshole.

The Professor shrugged. “See you tomorrow at school then. You will be at school, right?”

“I guess.”

“Good.”

Then he was gone—or not so much gone as downstairs telling my parents what had happened. I could hear them whispering in the kitchen. Snatches of the conversation came floating up through my open doorway.

“… lunchtime … sort of altercation … can be so cruel … hard on him … can just get him in band next semester …”

I shut the door, but I could still hear their voices echoing around my room. They didn't even know what really happened, but there they were in the kitchen anyway, whispering about how to fix it.

I knew my sax would be enough to drown them out, but I also knew they'd hear me playing, and that made me feel like I had company. I waited until the Professor left and told my parents I was going to meet him down at Logan's. But I had no
intention of playing with the Professor or anyone else that night. I needed to be truly alone, and there was only one place I knew I could go for that.

• • •

I parked the BMW in the shadowy lot at the foot of the mountain. Actually, “mountain” was an exaggeration. Really, all we had in central Arizona were hills and valleys with grand names like Camelback Mountain and Echo Canyon. They were high enough to create scenery, but it wasn't like they had a timberline or anything.

Anyway, this mountain was my mountain, and even in the dark, I knew it by heart—not that I climbed it anymore. Dad and I used to hike up to the top at sunset, taking turns hauling a telescope. Then we'd wait for the stars to pop into the sky overhead like magic, and Dad would quiz me on the constellations. In addition to being a football fan, my dad was an astronomy buff, an amateur historian, and a professional accountant. Good luck being his kid and failing at
anything
.

My eyes fell on the saxophone in the passenger seat. Of course the one thing I'd never failed at was something Dad didn't give a damn about. Well, he could keep his stupid telescope. I'd rather have my music—and our mountain—all to myself.