Dear Life, You Suck (7 page)

My throwdown with Pitbull is getting closer by the minute. He’s been hassling me like a warthog in heat since last spring, saying I have a horseshoe stuffed up my ass and that’s the only reason I managed to kick the snot out of two of his football buddies who were bullying some Little Ones. He’s been promoting this fight like he’s Don King or something.

Wynona returns to her seat. She ignores Pitbull, who’s directly in front of her, faux-boxing with one of his football pals. They’re both wearing varsity jackets with enormous drooling wolverines embroidered on the back. If our school were located in a more civilized part of the world, they’d be throwing their fists into a nice game of rock, paper, scissors instead of at each other’s heads. Fighting ain’t a big deal here in Lumberjack Land. It’s like a hockey game brawl. Everyone pretends to be against it, but it’s what they root for. Which is messed up when you think about it.

I wonder what Wynona was going to say to me.
“Maybe sometime . . .” Maybe sometime what, Wynona?

“Cricket, did you know there were volcanoes near Lake Winnipesaukee in New Hampshire approximately one hundred and twenty-five million years ago?” Green Day asks.

I don’t answer him. I’m pretty sure he’s speaking rhetorically anyway.

Wynona looks at her watch, shakes her head, and picks up a book.

Pitbull’s noticed me again. He’s flicking his chin in my direction and whispering to his teammates. One of his pals is holding him back by the bicep. He yanks his arm away and steps toward me. “You wanna go right now, Scarface? Finish what you started, asshole.”

Everyone in the room looks at me.

I stare at Pitbull without flinching.

I see Green Day shift in his seat out of the corner of my eye.

“Cricket?” His voice is low and jittery.

“Don’t worry, Reg. He won’t do nothing in school.”

Wynona sets her book down. “Buster, please.”

He ignores her.

The door swings open and Mrs. Emory rushes in even later than usual. She breaks up the football huddle and they take their seats in the second and third rows. Pitbull starts fiddling with Wynona’s night-black hair. He looks like a toddler poking a kitten.

Mrs. Emory walks the aisles as everyone settles in. She’s a spindly brainiac. Tall and gangly with long limbs and a puny head. Kinda like me.

Green Day passes me a sheet of paper. It’s labeled
Yellowstone Caldera Project Outline and Research Strategy
. Jeez Louise, it’s typed and everything. And we just got the assignment last week. Green Day’s a schoolaholic.

The word
Strategy
makes me think about my boathouse boxing workouts with Caretaker. Caretaker and I have been working on a Pitbull fight strategy since the beginning of the summer. You need a strategy when you fight a dude that’s got a hundred pounds on you and is gonna charge you angry and wired like a pit bull. Brawling’s more about mind than size. A lot more. Most people don’t understand that. Don’t get me wrong. Some swizzle stick, chess champion, asthma dork ain’t gonna mindify his way out of a down-home ass-whupping. But a small fighter with skill and brains can stomp an ignoramus no matter how much poundage the dunderhead’s got on him.

One thing Caretaker said stuck in my head like peanut butter to the roof of my mouth. He wasn’t exactly talking about fighting, but I knew he meant it about fighting—one of those metafornical-type tales where the teller aims the words at your ears while he’s poking you elsewhere. He said if a killer dog ever charges you with the aim of chomping you a chew toy destruction, grab him by the front legs and yank them apart like you would an oversize turkey wishbone. You’ll rip the dog’s heart in half. I think about that heart-ripping story a lot when I’m training for my Pitbull fight.

Wynona spins around and swats Pitbull’s hand away from her head. She’s got a fake smile plastered on. Pitbull keeps poking her like he’s checking the firmness of a bundt cake.

Saying I have a crush on Wynona is an understatement. She’s been global warming my southern hemisphere ever since she moved here. She’s only lived in Naskeag for three years, and that length of time don’t count for nothing in Maine. Maine’s glacial. She’s lived in Maine all her life, but if your house isn’t inside the county lines and wasn’t built by the bare hands of a blood relative, you’re from
away
. Mainers are wicked particular about geographical origins.
Hatchin’ chickens in the stove don’t make ’em muffins
. Whatever the hell that means. To make matters worse, Wynona’s from Portland, so she’s also a
suthunah
.

I look at a rendering of a volcano in Green Day’s textbook.
Lava
. I gaze at Wynona’s coal-colored mane, and another four-letter L-word comes to mind. I wasn’t going to admit this but here goes. The old L-word has tickled the lining of my cranial squeezebox during various Wynona ruminations. I don’t know, though. Tough to affix a word to something when you don’t know its meaning. And even if I did, how can you
L
someone you don’t know? You can
F
people you don’t know, but you can’t
L
them.

But if I’m not prepared to use the L-word, what word should I use?
Attraction
? Lame.
Caring
? Super lame.
Fondness
? Oh, sweet Jesus, just bedazzle my ass in leather chaps and ship me off to Big Gay Al’s.
Lust
? Disrespectful. Don’t get me wrong. I get plenty knotted south of the equator when Wynona’s nearby, but it’s the good kind of knots, not the knotty kind. Not like the raunchy naughtytime hankerings I have when I reminisce about the working girls I knew when I lived in Boston with my foster whore. Yeah, I had friends who were pros. No big deal. I ain’t whore-aphobic.

Wynona’s dating Pitbull is an enema I’d like to get to the bottom of. My guess is she’s ice-screwed herself to Pitbull since he’s the quickest route to Popularity Peak. I can’t imagine she’ll care much for the view once she’s up there, though.

I look at the back of Wynona’s head. Pitbull’s still fiddling with her long black hair.

I imagine her spinning around and screaming like Bette Davis in
Of Human Bondage. “It made me sick when I had to let ya kiss me. I only did it because ya begged me, ya hounded me, you drove me crazy! And after you kissed me, I always used to wipe my mouth! Wipe my mouth!”

The vision makes me chuckle.

When the final bell rings, I grab my books from my locker and head to the courtyard to meet the Little Ones. As soon as I step outside, I know I’m gonna be in a fight. Every eye is on me. Hundreds of them. It’s a familiar glower. Like I’m some friggin’ horror movie villain.

Andrew Pendleton, one of my roomies at the Prison, is sprawled on the ground, sobbing next to his knapsack. Pitbull’s hovering over him, flipping though Andrew’s Spider-Man comic book. He looks like Godzilla in his army fatigues and green T-shirt.

Tiny bubbles tingle in my calves, float to my thighs, stomach, chest, throat, head. The pressure builds.

So, today’s the day. I guess this afternoon’s cafeteria incident motivated him.

I push my hood off, drop my books, and start toward Pitbull.

I know what the landscapers were thinking when they decided on cobblestone, but I’m thinking something totally different. Wobbly and uneven. Tricky to keep your footing. And damn hard on the noggin when you go down. Not like dirt or grass. I stuff my iPod in my pocket next to my letter and wonder if what’s about to happen should be listed as a reason on my response to Foxy Moxie. Reckon this could be diddled on either side of the page.

The sun’s bright, so I squint, which the rabble probably figure I’m doing to look angry and badass, but I’m not. I’m just trying to see. I’m not badass. Angry, yes, but not badass.

I smirk. Pitbull gawks at me with the same confused expression he gets in class. He can’t figure out how a skinstick like me comatosed his linebacker buddies. His teeth are brown, and he drools when he barks. “Well, looky here. Asshole season opened early this year. You ready to eat some dirt, hand-me-downs?”

I stare at him with a blank face. No words. Never words. Just the stare. Part of Caretaker’s strategy.

I zoom out my view.
Damn, he’s big
. Bigger than Caretaker’s heavy bag. Concrete-statue big. My gut fizzles like there’s a wrestling match going on in there between two cobras whose tubey shoots are full of shaken-up Mountain Dew. I sure as hell hope Caretaker’s strategy works, ’cause if phase one fails, there ain’t gonna be a phase two. Unless collapsing to the ground in a puddle of my own blood can be considered a phase.

The crowd’s huge. All swarming around Pitbull like he’s Rocky friggin’ Balboa. Never ceases to amaze me how many people will watch a fight but how few will participate. I mean, here’s this helpless little fifth-grader who can’t be more than three feet tall sprawled on the ground, and there’s not a single person stepping forward to help. And you wonder why I ain’t all sappy-happy to hang around this asshole-infested ball of gall.

In fact, this scene proves my point perfectly. No one gives a damn about anything but themselves. These pocketed hands are proof of that. Bunch of no-good wastes of space. Makes me want to skull-pop every jostling puss here. Gotta remember to include this reason in my Moxie letter.
People suck
.

“I’m gonna wipe my ass with your face, orphan,” Pitbull growls.

I rivet a deep stare at Andrew. His face is so pale, it looks like some brownnose clapped the blackboard erasers clean on it. I focus on his tears. Stare until reality morphs into memory, memory into fear, fear into pain, pain into rage, and rage into energy. Another part of the strategy. It usually doesn’t take long. There it is.

“Teach you to mind your own friggin’ business, flatlander. You think you’re some fuckin’ hero or something?”

Out of the corner of my eye, I see Wynona running toward Pitbull. The sea of students parts. I’m glad she’s here, but it raises the stakes. I have to win now. Her black hair is bouncing wildly, like she’s filming a shampoo commercial. Other things are bouncing too, but it wouldn’t be gentlemanly of me to elucidate those jiggling profuntitties. Her face is the color of sunset. I bet her skin’s as soft as the inside of a rose petal. Like velvet.
Damn, she’s pretty
. As pretty as Pitbull is mean.

Pitbull takes a step toward me. “I’m talking to you, faggot!” I glimpse a twinge of fear in his face.
Good
. Every twinge in him releases one in me. He’s got reason to be scared. Not about whipping me, ’cause he’s got a better-than-average chance of doing that. But about the price. Anyone who’s ever fought me knows the price. Even those who’ve won. You may win, but you’ll feel like you lost. I don’t go down easy. You’ll limp away with painful mementos: split lip, bruised ribs, black eye, smashed nuts, a busted nose. That’s why I’ve never had a rematch. Not one.

I twirl my ring and it jars a memory.
They’re only fists. All he has are fists
.

Some would say the honorable thing would be to twist that hunk of metal so the jagged letters aren’t pointing forward with the intent of slicing my opponent a back alley mischief. If Pitbull weren’t twice my size, I’d concur. But fightin’ and politin’ ain’t compatible roomies. I learned that lesson the hard way. The bigger the dog, the dirtier the brawl. That’s a life truism for sure.
Truism
. Sweet word. Sounds like one of my made-up ones, but it ain’t.

There’s a story behind my ring, but Pitbull’s close now, and I don’t want to think about it.

Wynona’s almost to him, but he’s not gonna wait.

I breathe and balance. I’ll only have one chance to get this right. Caretaker’s words echo in my head.
Wait, wait, till he takes the bait. Make him commit before you duck and hit
. Everything around me fades. The only sounds are his footsteps and my breathing.
Wait, wait, bait. Commit, duck, hit
.

Pitbull charges me with his fists high. “Say hello to my little friend, you scar-faced fucking freak.” He pulls his right hand back toward his shoulder and twists his body.

I drop my chin, tense my legs, clench my fists.

He launches his right fist at my head with all his weight behind it.

In one smooth motion, I do the move I’ve been practicing for months. I dive under his punch and hurl a straight right into his solar plexus. I connect hard just under his ribs. His fat swallows my fist. I yank it out and spin.

Pitbull groans and buckles. It’s knocked the wind out of him. He wheezes for air and drops to one knee. He’s trying to cuss me out something fierce, but words aren’t coming. Just growls and drool. Suddenly, I don’t see Pitbull. I see a Doberman pinscher.

The crowd reappears, and I hear them mumbling. Some of them turn away. They think the fight’s over.
Think again, dipshits
. The only way I’ll keep this dog from coming after me for revenge is by ripping his heart in half here and now.

I charge Pitbull and bash him in the side of the head with my boot heel.

He topples over.

Pitbull still has his fight face on, which surprises me. He’s got one hand on his head and the other on his gut, but he’s far from giving up. His expression is an amalgam of fear, rage, and embarrassment. He tries to push himself to his feet, but stumbles. A tinge of admiration drips down my throat.

I can hear Wynona screaming something from somewhere, but I can’t make out her words. I’m glad she’s still here. Teach her what a bigmouth, all-talk asshole her boyfriend is. I want to look for her, gaze into her emerald eyes, but I don’t dare turn my back on Godzilla. If I give him more than a few seconds, he’ll be on his feet, and that’s the last thing I want. Rage makes people monster-strong. I know that firsthand.

I don’t want to get too close yet, so I go to work on his midsection with the steel toe of my boot. After a few vicious kicks to his gut, he rolls onto his back.

More kids leave. Others cover their eyes.
Yeah, a tough show to stay tuned into when it’s on the Real Life channel, eh, pussies?

Pitbull’s blubbering like a baby. I can tell that he’s done fighting. Too bad I ain’t. His moans jam more rage into me than pity.