Tribes (2 page)

"What?" Though Elissa has been my closest friend for years, anthropological vernacular can still escape her. "What did he say?"

"He asked whether you and I engage in sexual intimacy and what I thought of the experience. His exact words were: 'Hey, Percy, what's Freak Girl like in the sack?'"

"Freak Girl," she echoed quietly. "Freak Girl?"

"
His
moniker. Don't let it upset you. The gifted are often shunned by lesser intellects. Darwin himself experienced this throughout his lifetime. Besides, I struck back with a witticism. I likened Justin to a body orifice and he took offense."

"You called him an asshole?"

"Please! I was more specific. I implied he was the mythical ape rectum that shat across the known universe. You should have seen the look on his face—well, once he figured out it was an insult, that is."

"Oh, Percy." She shook her head. Her earrings, two tiny spiders, swung back and forth.

"I know. Not wise. His machismo dictated he must respond in a physical manner. Obvious, now."

"What got into you? We ignore his type. They aren't our tribe. They don't matter."

Our tribe. Let me explain. Numerous tribes exist in friction at our school. The Logo Tribe exhibits name brands wherever and whenever possible. The Digerati Tribe worships bytes and silicon chips. The Lipstick/Hairspray Tribe performs elaborate appearance alterations to attract mates. The Gee-the-Seventies-Were-Great-Even-Though-I-Wasn't-Born-Yet Tribe has predictable backward habits. The Hockey Tribe subdivides into Oilers, Canadiens, Rangers, and other assorted clans.

And finally there's us, the quasi-omniscient Observers.

We are a cohesive group of two—Elissa and I. We are privileged with a special disposition: We don't like the same music as everyone else, don't wear the same baggy clothes, can't always decode their dialects. We seem to have awakened from a Rip Van Winkle-like sleep to behold the ritualistic world called Grade Twelve. The natives fascinate us.

Justin's thumping was a primitive message: I'd trespassed on his territory.

"How do my abrasions look?" I asked.

Elissa smiled. Her braces were removed three months ago, but I am amazed still at the white perfection of her teeth. I'm forever intrigued by mankind's ability to connive improvements on our evolution. "Not too bad," she said. "You'll have bruises for sure."

"He held back. If truly angry he would break at least one bone."

"C'mon, enough sitting around." She helped me to my feet. "We'll be late. You going to tell anyone about him?"

"No point. He reaffirmed he's the alpha male. If I'm careful he won't exhibit again before graduation."

We headed up to Groverly High: a hulking, ancient redbrick edifice centered with long stone steps leading to gigantic oak doors. Ascending the steps, you are forced to look directly up at the face of the school. Glorify the architect. See the vision of forefather Walter Groverly, who blessed the architect's design. See there is no escape—the moatlike river blocks off the rear, the street outlines the front. The building has a hundred windows, yet none at ground level. Escape impossible. A perfect plan.

Until Willard Spokes, that is. One year ago, he fell in love with Marcia Grady of the Lipstick/Hairspray Tribe. Willard was too shy to express his amorous feelings. Upon discovering that Marcia dated a basketball player, Willard picked the lock of the belfry and jumped from the tower. He smashed on the cement four stories below. This was after the morning bell rang, so only stragglers witnessed the event.

Willard didn't regain consciousness. After three days in the ICU, he passed to the next world while his mother held his hand. If not for that aerial misadventure, he'd have graduated this coming Thursday too.

He'd be grinning like a plump simian and cracking jokes. He was a leading member of the Smile Tribe.

Onward. When you step through Groverly's gigantic oak doors, you enter an über-hallway, standing on hardwood that creaks, suggesting that the building will momentarily collapse under the weight of teenagers and heavy angst.

After my father's untimely departure, money became scarce. My mother was forced to withdraw me from private school and I was sent here for Grade Ten. Groverly still constitutes my habitat for six and a half hours a day, five days a week, unless I partake of any G.A.S.A.'s (Groverly After School Activities).

Elissa escorted me to my locker. En route she pointed to a bleached-blond girl. "Madonna Cult—I thought they were extinct." The female was called Karen, and she was the product of a Blue Collar-Lipstick/Hairspray Tribe union. A crucifix and a black pearl necklace hung between her net shirt-girded mammae.

"Definitely," I agreed. "Sad, isn't it? Clinging to the past. Not even Madonna's dance tracks could revive her cult. A tribe in decline—uh-oh." I bent down so my head wasn't visible through the masses, a reflex bequeathed by my hominid ancestors, who would crouch in marsh reeds to avoid predators.

Elissa also scrunched down. "Uh-oh what?"

I glanced over my shoulder. "Michael and Nicole sighting."

She giggled. "The Jesus Freaks."

"The Born-Again Tribe," I corrected. "I don't want their anti-evolution chant again. It's always so...circular."

Elissa stood and stretched her neck, ostrich-like. "They're gone. Heading for homeroom. Punctual as Jesus commanded, I guess." She glanced at her portable chronometer, a Gucci. "Two minutes to the ritual sounding of the bell. You ready for algebra?"

I straightened my back. Major pain sparked from seven vertebrae. "Y-yes."

"Ah, the study of the incestuous breeding of numbers and letters. Invented by Professor Algebrady. Objective: to induce coma."

I smiled. Elissa invented fake histories for all our classes. She produced her reliable pen and printed the words
believe nothing
across her binder. She replaced the writing utensil in her shirt pocket and held up the notebook. "Today's motto! Did you know handwriting is a 'makework' invention? A monk liked its appearance, so he made his novices use it. Then civilizations worldwide mimicked the style. Printing is faster and clearer. Test it sometime."

"Yeah...okay."

Elissa's encyclopedic mind catalogued stacks of anecdotes about our societal fallacies. It was her raison d'étre. Her parents are trial lawyers, so her house is home to constant allegation, rebuttal and proof. And expensive furniture no one sits on.

"So you're okay?" she asked.

"Yes. Just a hazard of my job."

"Maybe splash water on your face. At least clean the scratches; you know how bacteria love open wounds. Could contract the flesh-eating disease and expire before second period."

I smiled. The bell clanged like a fire alarm.

I must correct my observation. There was no bell, only an electronic recording of one. It had the same effect, though.

"Assimilation time," I announced. We assumed our impartial anthro faces. Elissa amalgamated with the crowd, her head bobbing.

I headed into the field. Four steps later a deep voice commanded, "Percy Montmount, come here."

It was the leader of all the Groverly High strata. He-Whose-First-Name-Is-Too-Sacred-to-Speak.

Principal Michaels.

two

THE LUCK OF THE BEOTHUKS

Michaels waved me toward his office. He was adept at using his gargantuan hands to communicate. I obeyed. Justin sat in the outer waiting room, conducting a staredown with the floor—a sitzkrieg. He took time out to glower at me. I exhibited no antagonistic behaviors.

I hesitated at the door to the inner sanctum. What was protocol? Leave it open? Did Principal Michaels wish to display ascendancy to all? Or close the door, thereby inflaming plebeian wonder at the execution of his power?

Principal Michaels sat at his desk. His hand signaled
Close the door
.

I did so. He gestured to an adjacent wooden chair. I sat. His use of nonverbal signals was perhaps intended to intimidate me.

The office was spacious and clean, every book shelved, binding face out, and every spit-polished wall plaque hung squarely. The desk was exactly in the center of the room.

"Hello, Percy," he said carefully. "How. Are. You. Today?" His slow elocution indicated that he assumed I was mentally challenged.

"Fine, I am," I answered, opting to mimic Dr. Seuss.

Principal Michaels cracked a crooked smile. Though a backward hominid, he was amiable. He was ruddy-faced and bald, heavyset, with amazingly thick eyebrows. They replicated two black, well-fed caterpillars clinging midbrow.

"Why are you smirking?" he asked.

"I—I'm sorry. I was preparing to sneeze." And I did. Lightly. Obviously fake.

His blue, serious eyes cooled. "There was a scuffle outside the schoolyard. What are those cuts on your face?"

I held myself rigid. "The result of a biking accident, sir."

"Did you ride your bike this morning?"

I paused. I had walked the three blocks from home. "No. Last night, sir."

"They look fresh. I was told you were in a fight with Justin Anverson."

I had overlooked the fleet-footed tribe of Sneaks who lurk, awaiting the chance to insinuate themselves with the school patriarchy, intending to advance their grades and general status.

"First, sir, it was not a fight so much as an insightful interaction. Second, it was my fault. I transgressed the cultural boundaries between tribes, and this provoked him."

The principal's right caterpillar wiggled. "I don't understand. Did you start the fight?"

"It was not a fight. But take comfort: All is aright now. I know better. I knew all along—I just 'slipped up,' as they say. There will be no future altercations. Guaranteed."

Principal Michaels frowned. The caterpillars clung in place, then inched toward each other. "You're saying there won't be any more fights?"

"I will be mindful of the protocol. I won't trespass again."

Michaels examined me solemnly. "I'll be honest, Percy. I don't know if you're joking or serious. Neither pleases me. Your teachers have told me you've drifted away from your fellow students. And to be frank, some of your behavior is rather odd. Mr. Nicol said he caught you hiding in the dressing room, spying on the boys' soccer team at halftime."

"That incident was misinterpreted. I wasn't spying. I was curious about motivational speeches during athletic competitions. I attempt to be cordial to my peers, sir, but I must not influence their rituals. That's why I was hiding."

"Rituals?"

"Yes." I stopped. How to explain my whole project? "Their rituals," I repeated. "Their lingo, haircuts, special signals, all of that, sir."

His frown remained. "I want you to see Mr. Verplaz. You understand why, don't you?"

The school therapist. Again. He was a singularly valuable hominid. "Of course, sir. I will visit the shaman—I mean Mr. Verplaz."

"I get the feeling you're stressed, Percy. Are you worried about graduation?"

"No. Why?"

"It can be a tough time. Mr. Verplaz will help with coping strategies. I'll also talk to your parents."

I sucked air in sharply.

He had forgotten Dad was dead. Principal Michaels had mixed me up with one of the hundreds under his authority, but in that instant I believed he would call my father, somehow communicate through the misty nebular spirals of the Netherworld and get a message to Dad.

Tell him
.
.
.
Tell him
.
.
.

Tell him I'm trying. I'm trying very, very hard.

"Percy? What's wrong?"

Relief: He paused. I covered my eyes with my hands but quickly pulled them away. Wet palms. Salt stung my cut face. This was not to happen. Another error.

"Is there something...?"Principal Michaels stood and took a hesitant step. "Did I...are you...all right?"

I stared at my hands. Tears. The universal symptom of emotional distress. "No," I said. "Yes. All right. Everything's all right." I rose, then turned and departed the sanctum.

The bathroom was empty. I must not display emotions to analysands.

I examined my hominid face in the mirror. Long and thin, with bulging chin muscles—a result of nightly tooth-grinding? Beneath short brown hair, a slanted forehead gleaming with a thin sheen. Sweat.

I look sad, lost,
concluded the part of my brain that examined.
Poor little
Australo-Percy-ithecus...
can't find happiness. Can't control the physical manifestations of grief.

The voice steeled me. I had made errors in the field. I needed to concentrate on my task. It was time to perform my ritual. I retreated into a cubicle and closed the door.

I undid the top four buttons on my shirt, exposing a nearly hairless chest. I pushed my hand into my pocket for my container, opened it carefully and extracted a sharpened implement.

There was once a tribe in Newfoundland called the Beothuks. They were skilled canoeists who painted themselves and most everything they owned with red ochre. Don't bother looking for them. They're extinct. They were squeezed to death by Micmacs on one side and fish-hungry Europeans on the other. No longer able to fish their own waters, the shy Beothuks moved inland and starved. The last to be seen by outsiders was Nancy Shanawdithit, who died of TB in 1829. The rest disappeared. Few details of their customs are known.

But I imagined them. Before the final Beothuk died, he had grief to expel, so he traded a bone pendant with the Naskapi for three porcupine quills. He poked his flesh and his sadness leaked out.

I forced the pin through the pale skin around my left nipple. I felt a joyous pain and then...release.

I withdrew the pin and repeated the procedure.

I imagined I was the last abandoned, lonely, out-of-luck Beothuk, far away on my island, staring at the sea, longing for my tribe. My people. All gone. Forever. Dead.

I slowly closed the container and with keen deliberation refastened the four buttons.