Swing State (5 page)

8.

T
ODAY AT THE LIBRARY
I
FOUND
some blank resumes online. I filled one in. There's not much on there. I mean, I go to school. I tried soccer for a while. That's it. I can't tell them about M-80s or anything like that.

* * *

It would've taken me all day to walk to the part of town where the restaurants are. I forgot about that until it was time to go. So I borrowed a bike from the rack outside after ninth period. Just a few steps from my locker to the door, then a few more to the rack. That old security guard is only there when everyone comes in and after tenth period. Nice and easy.

I brought the nicest clothes I had in a paper bag and changed in the bathroom. I hope no one saw me in that dorky outfit.

There are no sidewalks, so I felt the cars whiz by.

At each place I said hello, I'm looking for employment. They all said would you like to fill out an application? And I said I brought a resume. Ten copies. I didn't think I was going to use them all, but I did. A few of those places looked at me like I knew what I was doing. It's cool.

* * *

This morning when I was having cereal with Ross, Don said where the hell did that bike come from? I was like what bike? Don said you know damn well what bike. I thought it'd be worse if I lied so I was like well, I borrowed it from a kid I know, which is kinda true. I mean, I didn't know who I borrowed it from, but I was gonna return it. But Don said you stole it, you little shit.

I started laughing because of what he said, little shit.

He goes you think it's funny? You think it's funny to steal and then laugh in my face about it? I'll show you funny. And then he slapped me. First time since he got back.

Ross kept eating.

It mostly stung.

Don said your mother might not give a shit about the way you act, but I'm not gonna live under the safe roof as a disrespecting thief.

I could feel his handprint across my face.

I said I borrowed it.

He goes so now you're a liar, too. Want another one?

I said I'm going to return it right now.

You get your act together, he said. Cut the shit. There are more important things to think about than yourself, you know. You think about this family.

I wanted to say this isn't your family, but I didn't want to get hit again.

No one said anything when I put the bike back on the rack.

It was gone after school.

* * *

Those fucking nerds were sitting at their table today at lunch. I went over and was like hey, you know, my mom needs more
medicine, she's not feeling very well. One of them said we gave you money already. I said she's very sick, and she appreciates donations.

Nobody moved, so I was like I heard she has some space in her room. Like, an extra hospital bed. In case anyone needs it.

They all kept looking at me, so I was like in case anyone here needs it.

They put money on the table.

Easy.

* * *

I went to the quarry after school. Steve and all those guys were up there. I thought they might be.

Mary was there. And Earl, jumping.

Steve said Dixon.

I said what's up?

Earl had a towel. I pointed at it. He nodded.

Steve said big game this weekend.

I went that's what I hear.

He asked if I was gonna go. I told him I was thinking about it.

He said why don't you come with us?

I looked at Mary. She nodded.

I said I'd go with them.

He asked if I knew Whispering Pines. I said yeah. He said we'll meet over there and get fucked up and then go to the game. You in?

When I asked when to meet, he said dusk. Best time.

I asked if that would leave us enough time to walk over. Earl laughed and said how old are you, anyway?

I said what do you mean? Steve said you don't have your license yet?

I shook my head.

Mary was still smiling.

Steve said we'll have plenty of time to get over there. Don't worry.

I said cool. I'll be here at dusk.

Steve asked if I wanted a beer. Mary was drinking one. I said yeah. He threw one to me just like last time.

I opened it and he went what's new with you?

I said nothing. Looking for work.

Earl said where you been lookin'? I told him restaurant row. He said you might get something over there. Those places go through a lot of people. Jobs suck. But hey, they're jobs. Got any experience?

I shook my head and took a swig.

Steve said try the mills?

I said nope. Don't want to block Earl.

Earl said haha. Then, good money over there.

I said I'll never get in. Everyone in town wants to.

Mary finished her beer. I watched her crush the can and throw it toward the quarry.

Just dumb luck, he said. Like, they need someone, see your application, boom.

I said it's not that easy.

He said no reason for it. Just dumb luck. Seriously. Boom.

* * *

Don's not here. Neither is Mom. Or Ross. I'm in the kitchen. Mom bought bananas. Or Don did.

We never have bananas.

* * *

Hey. Everyone just came in.

* * *

They visited some recruiter.

Mom cooked a chicken. It started smelling really good.

She came by and knocked on the door and said are you in there? I said yeah. She said come eat.

I went out there and she had a candle on the table. She never does that. She said we're gonna eat as a family. I can't remember the last time we were all home at the same time.

She made the chicken, and green beans.

We sat down and she said Ross, tell your sister about today.

He told me they talked to Nebraska. It's his first choice. Pretty soon he'd sign a letter of intent.

I said awesome. I don't know anything about that school. Or that state. I think there's corn.

Great school, Don said. Great football school.

Then he said you'd think maybe your sister would want to see you play.

She is, he said. With Steve Remlinger and Earl Lang.

I didn't even know Earl's last name.

Mom said who are they? and Ross said Steve used to go to Armbrister High. Before he dropped out.

I told Ross to shut up. What an asshole, right? Why would he do that?

Don put both hands on the table and stood up and said are they the ones who convinced you to steal the bike?

I was like I told you, I borrowed it. And I gave it back! Then, of course, Mom was like what bike? Don started telling her about finding it out back. Mom was all oh, Dixon, like she always is when she's mad. I said I told you, I borrowed it. Don said bullshit. You're turning into a thief and I think it's because of those guys you're hanging around with.

I said I don't hang out with them too much and Ross said except for when you go to the quarry. I was like Ross, shut up and Don slapped me. Same place as last time.

He said it's time you learned some respect.

Mom said Don's right. You never used to be like this.

I said like what? And Mom said a thief. Hanging around with the wrong crowd. I said I never hung out with any crowd and she said well, you're with the wrong one now.

I've known those guys for a while, at least a little. So I said whatever.

Don got up and said don't talk to your mother like that and I was like whatever, again. So he goes you need to get your act together. I was like you're on the couch drunk every day, you should talk. He started yelling and Mom started crying and Ross just sat there.

I ran out. Don stood at the door and yelled YOU GET YOUR ASS BACK HERE! I could see people looking out their windows at us.

I didn't know where to go, so I went to the parking lot.

Ding was sitting in his car.

I got in.

He said got something for me?

I shook my head.

He asked if I was okay.

I nodded. Probably looked like shit. I said where are you going?

He said nowhere. Then he handed me a bottle. Want some of this?

I took it and pulled. Jesus. Whiskey. Made me cough. He laughed when I gave it back. Not a whiskey girl, huh?

I said no. Venerable. Then I asked him to pass the whiskey back.

He did. I took another pull.

He went how old are you again? I said not old enough for you. Then I told him to take me for a ride. I started to lift my shirt and he said not here.

He backed out of the parking lot and turned the radio on. Block Party Weekend is all week now, I guess. Van Halen.

He turned and I knew when he did we were going to the Pines. There's nothing else out that way. He pulled in and said do you know this place? and I said yeah except I think it came out weird. Like there was still crying caught in my throat or something.

He pulled into the driveway of one of the houses I use and lit a smoke. He held out the pack and I took one. Then he gave me his lighter.

So, he said.

I said so back.

He took a big drag off his cigarette and held it. The smoke came out of his nose. Cool-looking.

When he finished he opened his window and flicked it out. There's always butts and glass out there.

He said this is a good place to get away from everyone. They're never gonna finish these.

I was like yeah. Thinking of that cigarette butt. Everyone trying to get away but there's no place to go so we all wind up out there. Ding in his car asking me questions he already knows the answers to. Steve and Earl before games. Everyone goes to the Pines. Smoking butts and drinking. Except my stupid brother.

9.

Z
ACHARIAH ATE IN SILENCE IN THE
handicapped bathroom.

A pee welled in his bladder. His last few had been flecked with blood, and the dull ache he had grown accustomed to after Paul hit him was worse than usual.

It hadn't occurred to him until he woke that he should've used his powers to stop him. He'd forgotten. Stupid.

He wanted to go to the nurse for some aspirin or Advil—his dad must've finished the bottle—but she'd ask questions he couldn't answer. If anyone found out about the beatings, there would be more waiting for him. And if he was taken from his dad, he'd land in a group home, which would be worse than getting hit a little—the residents would pick on him and beat him up and maybe even rape him. Zachariah heard that happened sometimes. Plus, the food was probably terrible.

So he finished his sandwich and went back to the library.

He'd forgotten to pack his game show notebook and wasn't in the mood for research. He'd look at recipes.

None of the measurements made sense to him. In class, he always had trouble with conversions—there were so many to remember!—and he sometimes failed his food math tests. Mrs.
Lafrancoise was always nice about it, saying he had other gifts. And when he had to double or triple recipes, he always did so without measuring; the dishes came out right. No math required. He just knew.

He looked online at recipes featuring ingredients he had never used. He imagined what it would be like to prepare arugula, mahimahi, pork tenderloin. When
Love Balloon
got big he'd have dinner parties for all of his famous friends and make dishes with these new ingredients.

Being famous would be fun. People would say there goes Zack Fox, the greatest game show writer of all time instead of there goes that loser Zachariah Tietz.

It was soccer that did it. He played in a rec league on fall weekends, so he was pretty good. Not great, but not so terrible that he embarrassed himself either. Maybe a little rusty that day. He liked playing defense the best. It wasn't loud, popular guys who played that position—those kids, who he thought looked like underwear models, were always strikers, hitting their chests and yelling when they scored goals. Zachariah preferred to quietly keep the other team's chest-thumpers from scoring, taking immense satisfaction in breaking up drives to the net. His friend Rick was a striker. He wasn't very good, though. Usually Jim and Sal played midfield, and Kenny was goalie.

Out on the field during lunch, a few weeks before they were let out for the summer, he assumed his usual spot by the goal and waited for play to come to him.

Rick was the only one of his friends playing. Malvern O'Hare, an eighth grader who played with the high school kids on the Armbrister traveling team, got the ball and moved toward Zachariah and the goal. The other kids playing defense were out of position.

Malvern's feints and dekes didn't work on Zachariah, who focused on the opposing player's torso rather than his feet. When the ball spun up from the ground Zachariah jumped to bounce it off his chest. The spin, though, altered the ball's trajectory. He was hit in the nuts.

Zachariah was first startled, then relieved that he hadn't been hit harder. The ball's spin had prevented him from being hurt. That could have been really bad, he remembered thinking in midair—milliseconds before Malvern O'Hare's sneakered foot connected squarely with his nuts.

The number of people who claimed to have witnessed what happened next grew over summer break. Zachariah, having been dragged to every Armbrister football game since his mother left when he was three, was familiar with this phenomenon; he knew that not everyone who claimed to be present when Roger Conroy threw The Pass had been there, just as he knew that no one watched pickup soccer games during lunch. The only people involved were the ones playing; everyone else was busy doing something on their own or in groups. Yet the whispered—and sometimes shouted—claims of having seen Zachariah Tietz simultaneously piss himself and puke during lunch that day grew by the hour afterward, until everyone who claimed to be present would have overflowed Armbrister Middle's auditorium.

Zachariah felt his pants dampen as he lay on the ground, gasping for breath in the seconds before brutal nausea wrenched his stomach with more force than he knew was possible. This is the hardest I have ever been hit in the nuts, he thought. He'd been hit above the waist enough to know what to expect, but never so hard below that the contents of his stomach evacuated
themselves on their own accord. He was shocked by the speed and thrust of first his lunch, then his breakfast as he struggled to his knees, hands on the ground—so shocked that he did not immediately think of the consequences of his accident, just the pain.

Malvern O'Hare, returning from depositing the ball from the net, stood over Zachariah.

“Oh, man,” he said. “I'm really—”

Zachariah puked again.

Malvern didn't ogle as Zachariah heaved onto the field grass. He is given credit, though, for noticing the spreading darkness on Zachariah's cords.

“Look!” he shouted, wonder in his voice. “He's puking and pissing!”

Zachariah's instinct was to flee, but he was again incapacitated by vomiting.

The spectacular nature of the accident dictated there was no exit strategy. Any chance that he might somehow leave with his predicament unnoticed was dashed by Malvern's amazed cry, drawing a crowd of curiosity seekers from an adjacent field.

The first bell rang. Zachariah, still heaving, looked up to find a small throng around him.

He wiped vomit residue from his mouth. The pain in his nuts felt like a new heart, pumping sickness to every part of his body.

Malvern O'Hare tried—and failed—to pull on a serious face. “I'm sorry I kicked you, mate,” he said, smirking. “It was an accident.”

Zachariah nodded weakly.

“I never saw anyone puke and piss themselves before.”

Zachariah didn't know how to respond to this. Neither had he.

Rick stood, hands on his hips, watching.

“Rick,” Zachariah said. Even speaking was an effort. He wanted to lie down. “I—”

From across the field, Mr. Danforth, the leather-lunged shop teacher, yelled “FIRST BELL,” which translated to: you're going to be late.

Rick turned and, without looking back, walked toward the door.

The gawking ring slowly broke up. Zachariah struggled to rise, feeling upon himself the pressure of dozens of pairs of eyes from craning heads. He waited to get used to the pain, but every second remained agonizing, as if new. Presently his nuts began to thud. Each now weighed at least half a ton.

He couldn't go back inside. His cords were dripping with piss, and his shirt bore jets of smelly, hardening puke. And there was still the matter of his throbbing nuts. There was no way he could concentrate on anything. He had to go home.

He found walking possible at a greatly reduced pace. Zachariah cut slowly around the building and started back for his house. If any teacher asked what he was doing, there was ample evidence that he needed to change on his shirt and dripping from his pants. But, somehow, no one saw him.

It took twice as long to get home as usual. Several times he had to stop and sit down. At first he thought the pain might have diminished since he was kicked, but walking back—movement—meant new, never before experienced dimensions of nausea gripping his stomach, his nuts, pumping through his body.

Cars honked as he lumbered down the sidewalk.

He soaked his cords and shirt in warm water and vinegar when he got home. While he showered, he thought about Rick, standing there with his hands on his hips. How he had seen Zachariah on the ground and had walked away.

Maybe he didn't want to be late, Zachariah thought. He was worried about getting to class.

But he knew this wasn't true. Rick had been too embarrassed to help him. Zachariah wondered how he would have reacted if it had been Rick who puked and got kicked in the nuts. He thought he would have helped Rick to the nurse.

Freshly showered, he put his clothes into the washing machine. He briefly considered going back to school. The pain in his nuts, while dulled, was still bad enough that he couldn't concentrate.

He got into bed and pulled the covers over his head. His dad usually came home around five thirty and expected dinner. He looked at the clock: twelve forty. Plenty of time.

But he was yanked from bed half an hour later.

“Why am I getting calls that you're skipping school?”

There was no alcohol on his father's breath, thank goodness, but hot rage was still inches from his face.

“Dad, I—”

“What? What was it?” Spittle hit Zachariah's cheeks.

“We were playing soccer, Dad. And I—got hit in the nuts. Really hard!”

“I don't give a damn. Everyone gets hit in the jewels. You know what you do? You MAN UP. Deal with it! You don't make me leave money at my station. You know how much your little nap costs?”

“But, Dad, when I got hit it was really bad. I—”

“Not as bad as it's gonna be.”

How had he not seen the sock?

The next day, the familiar pain was there, stronger than usual. He walked deliberately, like he'd aged fifty years since the previous afternoon.

Nothing was different until he got to his locker.

Kids he didn't know walked by. Piss, some said.

Ralph, others said.

Girls tittered.

Look how slow he walks, someone said. Laughter.

Musta gotten kicked real hard.

More laughter.

On his desk in study hall, first period, the word “piss” was written on his desk in block letters.

A paper football, flipped onto his desk from somewhere behind: PISS TIETZ.

How had everyone found out?

In every class now, and in the hallway to and from them, someone calling him either Ralph or Piss. And not just guys he recognized, either. Kids from the sixth and seventh grades. Guys, girls.

At lunch, Zachariah moved through the line with a cheeseburger and tater tots and a carton of lemonade on his tray.

Some kid in front of him, a little smaller, said you like lemonade? I hear you're pretty good at making it.

Zachariah bit his lip. He was bigger. But if he punched the kid he'd get sent to the principal. And then he'd get home and be in real trouble. The physical ramifications of skipping two classes had been with him all day when he turned his head too quickly or tried to walk faster than he should have. What would his dad do to him if he got in a fight?

The kid held up his own carton of lemonade.

Jim and Rick and Kenny weren't sitting at their regular table.

He found them at the far end of the cafeteria, as if they were hiding.

“Hey, guys,” he said. “You moved.”

Silence.

“You moved.”

“Aren't you the kid who puked all over himself yesterday?”

“Very funny.”

“And you pissed yourself. Right?”

“Rick, you were there.”

“I saw some guy I don't know piss himself and puke.”

“That was me.”

Jim's tater tots held a particular fascination; Kenny watched the clock on the wall intensely.

“You know me.”

“We don't know anyone who pisses himself,” Rick said.

“Come on. We—”

“No one in school wants to hang out with a pisser.”

“But—”

“Good luck finding someplace to sit,” Rick said.

For a few days afterward, Zachariah tried eating in the cafeteria. No one was happy to see him arrive at their table. Kids from class or soccer got up and left, or didn't speak to him, or, once, told him to fuck off.

He began eating his lunch in the bathroom. At least the year is almost over, he thought. I'll be going to a new school in September, where everyone will forget this. I'll have new friends.

Then, over the summer, he gained weight—so much that his dad called the doctor.

His father was angry to take time off work, but did not beat him: the doctor would see bruises if he did. Zachariah expected—and received—payback once the appointments passed.

“This is a lot of weight for a small period of time,” the doctor said. “But it is not unprecedented. It happens sometimes, usually to girls.”

After answering questions about diet, sleep, and exercise, the doctor said Zachariah's added weight was a phase he would grow out of. Try to exercise more than you do, he said. It's summer, so this shouldn't be a problem. Watch your diet. Don't overdo it at barbecues.

Zachariah rode his newly uncomfortable bike what felt like fifty miles a day, all over town, hoping he'd win the Weight Loss Fitness Challenge. He tried not to eat too much. Drank a lot of water. But somehow he gained more weight. And when the school year started, no one had forgotten his accident. His weight gain made him a target for people who hadn't heard about the soccer field.

As he sat there in the library, he realized there was research to be done.

It was strange that his new bulk came in such close proximity to his powers emerging. What if both had been caused by the same thing? Maybe they had started that day, like there was some gland down there that activated when he got kicked in the nuts. The Internet had to have something on psychic powers, right?