Текст книги "Palo Alto Stories"

Автор книги: James Franco

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Текущая страница: 2 (всего у книги 11 страниц)

Lockheed

Math is my dad’s favorite subject. He works in Silicon Valley at IBM. He does math all day. I hate math. He makes me study with him, so I’m really good in math class, but I don’t announce it because I’m a girl.

When I got to high school I didn’t have friends. My best friend moved away, and I wasn’t popular. I didn’t go to parties. I got drunk only once, at a wedding. I puked behind a gazebo. I was with my cousin Jamie, who is gay. He goes to high school in Menlo Park, which is a five-minute drive. He is my only friend. He smokes menthol cigarettes.

After school I would go home. Me and Mom and Tim would watch Roseanneat the dinner table because Dad wasn’t there to say no.

Then Dad would come home and we would study.

A lot of times my math tests were on Thursdays, so my dad and I would study extra long on Wednesdays, and I would miss Beverly Hills 90210. I never taped it.

I did so well in math class that I got this internship for the summer at Lockheed Martin. They make missiles and satellites. I was the only girl out of ten students who got selected. My dad was very excited.

He said, “Marissa, one day you and I will work together.”

That summer, between my freshman and sophomore years, I worked for a Swedish guy named Jan, pronounced Yan. My job was to watch old film reels of the moon. There were hundreds. I worked in a cold, windowless basement. The reels would run from one spool to another on this old machine that looked like a tank. I was supposed to record blemishes and splices in the film. Sometimes the moon was full; sometimes it would get a little more full as I watched. Sometimes the film was scratched so badly it skipped, or it broke. I was in the basement forty hours a week. I watched so many moons.

It got so boring, I stopped looking for splices. Instead, I drew pictures on computer paper that I pulled from the recycling bin. Jan was never around, so I drew a lot. I drew rainbows, and people, and cities, and guns, and people getting shot and bleeding, and people having sex. When I got tired I just drew doodles. I tried to draw portraits of people I knew. My family always looked ridiculous, but funny because the pictures resembled them, but not enough. Then I drew all these things from my childhood, like Hello Kitty and Rainbow Brite and My Little Pony. I drew my brother’s G.I. Joes. I made the My Little Ponys kill the G.I. Joes.

I drew hundreds of pictures and they were all bad. I wasn’t good at drawing. It was also a little sad to draw so much because I could see everything that was inside me. I had drawn everything I could think of. All that was inside me was a bunch of toys, and TV shows, and my family. My life was boring. I only had one kiss, and it was with my gay cousin, Jamie.

One day, Jan came down to the basement. He saw all my little drawings. He didn’t say much. He picked them up and looked at them. He looked at every picture that was there. When he finished with each, he put it onto a neat pile.

He was tall and restrained, with clean, fading blond hair, combed back, with a slight wave in the front. He had a plain gold wedding band. As he looked at the pictures, I tried to imagine what he did for fun, but I couldn’t. He put the last picture down on the neat stack and looked at me.

“How is Mr. Moon?” he asked. In his accent his words came out short and clean. There was a hint of warmth, but it was contained.

“I found a few scratches today,” I said.

“Good,” he said, and left. I didn’t draw any more that day. I looked at the moon.

The next day I was back in the basement. It was almost lunchtime, and Jan came in.

“Come here,” he said, and turned and walked out. I followed him down the hall and outside. We crossed the parking lot, me following him. The surface of the blacktop was melting where they had put tar to fill in the cracks. There were no trees in the parking lot and the sun was pushing hard. I followed the back of Jan’s light yellow shirt and tan slacks over to his truck. It was an old, faded mustard-colored pickup that said TOYOTA in white on the back.

When I got to the truck, he was messing around with something in the stake bed. He put the back part that said TOYOTA down. On top of this, he laid out a big, black portfolio. He opened it and there were drawings inside.

“Look,” he said. He stepped back, and I looked. He said, “These are mine.”

They were good. They were mostly portraits. There were a bunch of portraits of a pretty woman’s face, all the same woman. He was a lot better than I was.

“That’s Greta, my wife,” he said. “She was not my wife then, when I made them. She became my wife.”

“She’s very beautiful,” I said. She was. Prettier than me.

“I did these when I was at school,” he said. “I wanted to be artist. But it was no good. It is no good to be artist. I practiced every day, eight hours a day. Then I could draw like Michelangelo. Then what? There is already Michelangelo. I realized there was nothing more to do. In science, there is always more to learn. Always more.”

I didn’t look at him; I looked at his pictures. I felt very lonely. I pictured him and his wife, alone at a long table, eating some bland Swedish food, not talking. The only sounds were from the utensils hitting the plates, and the squish of their gentle chewing.

“So,” he said. “You see.” He reached over me and shut the portfolio to punctuate the “You see,” but I didn’t know what to see. Then I looked at him. He stood there and looked at me. We were so awkward.

“Okay,” he said finally. “See you.”

“See you,” I said.

That summer, my only friend was my cousin Jamie. He was smart, and knew what he liked. He could be pretty mean behind people’s backs because people were so mean to his face.

Jamie invited me to a Fourth of July party, at this Menlo girl’s house, Katie Hesher. It was my first high school party. She lived on the other side of the San Francisquito Creek. It was woodsy over there. It was this big, one-story wooden house, like a fancy log cabin. We got there around nine. There were roomfuls of people. Everyone was drinking beer, mostly Keystone Light. I recognized a lot of people from my school, Paly, but I’d never seen them outside of school.

Jamie got me a beer; I opened it and held it. Jamie went off somewhere, and I sat on a couch in the living room. People came and sat on the couch, and talked, and left. I sat there for a long time. I didn’t know anyone from Menlo, and I didn’t know the people from my school. I sipped my beer. It was like thick, frothy urine.

I thought about Jan’s Fourth of July. I imagined him going to a movie. He was with his wife, Greta. They entered the theater with their arms around each other. They were smiling. Maybe they were going to see Schindler’s List.They sat in the movie and ate popcorn and enjoyed it and were serious about life.

After a while, I got up and went outside. There was a mist. I walked down the long driveway, under the large sycamore trees. The noise from the party got quieter the farther I walked. At the end of the driveway, I crossed the street. On the other side was the San Francisquito Creek bed. It was very deep and steep and I could barely see the water at the bottom. It was so dark.

I still had my beer. I couldn’t finish it. I took another sip, and then dumped the rest out into the dirt. The creek trickled in the black below, the bushes around me were still. I kept the can, and I walked back across the road and up the driveway. I saw a guy from my school, a water polo player named Zack Cuttle. He was standing behind one of the cars in the driveway. I was about to say hi, but then I realized that he was probably peeing. I tried to walk by discreetly. As I passed, I could see that his eyes were closed. I looked over, and I realized that he wasn’t peeing; he was getting a blow job from someone behind the car. I stood there for a second. Then I walked quickly before he saw me. I went up the stairs and back inside.

I couldn’t find my cousin Jamie. I sat back on the couch, right in the middle. There were lots of people around. Everyone was talking so loudly. After a few minutes, Zack Cuttle and Stephanie Jeffs walked inside. I looked at them, and then I looked down. They went into the kitchen, where a lot of people were.

Then this guy sat next to me. Ronny Feldman. He sat right next to me on the couch. He was a bad kid and he was handsome. He had gone to my school but had been kicked out.

“What are you doing here?” he said.

“I came with my cousin.”

“But why are you here?”

“I don’t know,” I said. He laughed. Then he grabbed my beer can and shook it a little. He laughed again because it was empty. He put it on the table.

“Here,” he said, and gave me another Keystone Light. I was already feeling light-headed from the first beer.

“Thanks,” I said. He was wearing a white T-shirt that was thin from being washed so many times. The neck was wasting away. His arms were thin but muscular. They had all these old scars and bruises on them. He had short, straight blond hair and a cherubic face, with a perfect nose. He was so handsome, but also like a little boy and dangerous.

I didn’t know what to say, so I opened the beer and took a sip. Too big of a sip. I choked.

“Easy,” he said. He patted me on the back.

He kept patting me, even after I stopped choking. I didn’t stop him. He did it softly. One of his friends walked by, this black guy named Camper Williams. He had skinny arms and legs, but a fat belly. His face was like a pit bull’s.

“That’s fucked-up, Ronny,” said Camper.

“What?” said Ronny. He stopped patting me. Camper laughed and walked away.

We sat there, and then I said, “Why did you get kicked out of school?”

“Because I broke all the windows in this asshole’s car.”

“Why did you do that?”

“This motherfucker, Brian Simpson, threw some eggs at me.”

“Why?” I was very interested.

“Whatever. On the Sunday before, I was walking, and I saw this car drive by. Someone said something, and then I saw the car turn around . . .”

“Where?” I said.

He looked at me funnily, like who cared where it happened, and then he said, “Over on East Meadow. So they drove back and they threw eggs at me. I fucking chased them, but they were gone. I guess Brian thought I wouldn’t recognize the car, but I did. So on that next Monday, I went to school at lunchtime . . .”

“You didn’t go to first period?”

“No, I—no, I skipped first period.” He seemed like he was laughing at me a little bit. But not in a bad way. “I just went at lunch, to fuck up his car. I smashed every window with a bat. They kicked me out for that.”

“So now where do you go?”

“I went to this continuation school, Shoreline, but I got kicked out because I was the only white dude with all these black and Mexican dudes from East Palo Alto. They thought they could fuck with me, but they couldn’t. They kicked me out for fighting. Now I go to this school for idiots and I’m with the realretards.”

He was so. So dirty, and just moving in front of me, and cute. I was in love with him, especially because he was talking to me.

“I bet you’re smart,” he said. It was the best moment of my life.

Then this guy came up to him. He looked part Latino.

“What’s up, little bitch?” the Latino guy said to Ronny. Ronny was calm. He looked up at the Latino guy. This guy was older.

“Fuck you,” said Ronny, but softly. Then it seemed like the party got quieter.

Katie Hesher came out of the kitchen. She looked upset. She said, “Ronny, don’t! Not in my parents’ house.”

“Come outside, little bitch,” said the older guy to Ronny. The older guy looked like an ugly wolf. He had a skinny face, and pointy, uneven teeth. There were zits all over his nose. “Come outside, little Ronny,” he said.

“Ronny, kick this spic’s fucking ass,” said someone in the crowd. Ronny stood up.

“Don’t get hurt,” I said. He didn’t hear me. Everything was fast and scary. I sat there for a minute on the couch. Everyone else was pushing to get outside, after Ronny. I was still waiting for Ronny to finish talking. He was telling me I was smart and he was looking at me. But he was gone. It was like it hadn’t happened.

I got up and squeezed onto the porch with all the people. Mist was on the front lawn. The whole party was out there. Ronny was in front of everyone. I couldn’t see the Latino guy. Ronny took his shirt off. He was thin, and tough, and wiry in the mist. The guys were cheering him on. He was laughing with excitement. He had a big white smile. The other guys worked up this chant. They were saying, “Wetback attack,” over and over. Ronny’s older brother was there, Boris. I only knew who he was because he was a legend. He had got into more trouble than Ronny did when he was in high school. They were both Russian. I knew that. I don’t know how I knew that. Boris took his shirt off too. A bunch of the guys took their shirts off. I was standing behind so many people on the porch. It started to rain a little. Their bodies were pearly in the misty rain. Their chests were flexing and their stomachs were breathing.

Then everyone was fighting. It wasn’t just Ronny. All the Latino guy’s friends, and Ronny’s friends. There was shouting. I couldn’t see Ronny; he was in the middle of everything. I saw Boris, he was shouting at someone, then he was fighting again. There was a guy on the ground, in the grass, facedown. Two guys were kicking him. One of the guys kicking was Ronny; he kicked and stomped. It was hard to see through all the people on the porch.

Then a bunch of the fighters were running away. It was the Latino guy and his friends. Ronny and some others ran after them. And then they all disappeared, except Boris and a black guy; they went over and punched and kicked the guy on the ground.

A car drove up very fast. It was a white SUV. There was a person on the hood. The car stopped abruptly and the person fell off into the street. Then the SUV backed up and drove away. Everyone on the lawn ran to the body. I did too. It was Ronny. I could see his face through the heads. His eyes were slightly opened, like a whale’s eyes. They lifted him; he was trying to say something. They took him out of the street, and laid him on the grass section between the sidewalk and the street. Then someone yelled. Everyone looked.

The white SUV was driving back. It swerved up onto the sidewalk, toward the group around Ronny. The headlights lit up the whole scene in yellow. Everyone scrambled and dove out of the way, and the SUV drove over Ronny’s body. It was fast. His body jerked up from the sidewalk and turned over, so that he was facedown with his arms splayed.

Girls were screaming, and then I knew that it was me who was screaming. I couldn’t see anything for a while. The SUV was gone. I walked to the middle of the lawn to see. Boris was at Ronny’s side. He was crying. He was trying to turn Ronny over. Everyone was shouting, arguing about what to do. People told Boris not to turn him over. Boris was yelling at everyone to call the police. There was blood coming out on the sidewalk, slowly, from under Ronny’s face.

About half of the people walked or ran to their cars and drove off. I saw Katie Hesher crying on the porch with some people comforting her. Some of the neighbors were coming out in sweatpants and slippers. A neighbor woman in a flannel shirt went over to Katie. When I looked back again, the neighbor was kneeling in front of Katie on the steps, comforting her. Boris had turned Ronny over. Ronny’s face was smashed on one side, and swollen like a white balloon on the other. Nobody did anything until the police arrived. Boris had his hand on Ronny’s chest and was talking softly to him.

There were about five police cars, and then ten, and an ambulance, and a fire truck. All the flashing lights lit up the trees, and they turned the misty rain red, just above the cars. The paramedics were calm. They checked Ronny, and then gently lifted him onto a gurney and put him into the ambulance.

Then the police were asking for statements. I was one of the people they talked to. A heavy policewoman with regular clothes and brown hair in a bun asked me questions. She had a tough exterior, but she was gentle with me. I told her everything about the car, and about how the fight had started. I told her about when Ronny and I were talking on the couch. She asked if I was Ronny’s girlfriend.

I said no.

Did I know him pretty well? No, but.

“But what?” she asked.

“Well, he told me I was smart. I mean, I think he liked me.” She looked at me like she didn’t understand what I was saying. Then she thanked me, and said she would call if she needed more information.

She never called. The Latino guy, Richard Alvaro, was arrested. Ronny died. I didn’t get invited to the funeral. Nobody knew that I was the last person he had talked to.

I worked at Lockheed for the rest of the summer. I didn’t draw anymore. My parents could tell I was sad, but I couldn’t tell them why. I couldn’t even tell Jamie. I didn’t do much but watch the moon. It floated there, on the films, reverberant. I began picturing Ronny’s face in the moon. My face was there too and he was kissing me. Whenever there was a scratch on the film it would pull me out of the daydream, and I would mark it down.

American History

Then the other day in tenth-grade American History, Mr. Hurston was teaching us about slavery and we had to act out a mock debate between the slave states and the free states. I played Mississippi, and I had to pretend that I wanted slavery to remain legal. Me and the other four slave state guys sat on one side of the room and faced the five kids from the free states. The rest of the class watched us with dull stares.

I’m not the most outgoing person, but no one was really saying anything. So I started it off.

“We need the blacks to be slaves because this country would fall apart without them.”

Jerry Holtz represented New York and the good side. Jerry was handsome and good and a good soccer player. His hair was short in a crew cut and looked just right.

“Look,” he said. “We don’t want to cause any problems with you slave states, but the country can survive without slavery nowadays. We’ve established ourselves apart from England, and new industry is taking the country to new levels.”

“That may be all fine and dandy for you,” I said. I was getting into it a little. “But we Southern states depend on slave labor to run our plantations. It’s been done this way since the beginning, and there is no reason to change now.”

Then it was funny; something happened. Stephen Gary got really mad.

“What are you people saying?” he said. “It’s wrong! It’s dead wrong. I can’t believe you’re talking about it so calmly like this!” Stephen was playing Massachusetts, and he sat next to Jerry. His outburst was a shock to everyone. Stephen’s face was flushed, and his eyes were big. He looked mad and like he was going to cry at the same time. Mr. Hurston’s face was blank and he stared into the back wall. I looked to the other students. Some were interested in the debate now. Lewis, the only black kid in class, had a blank look on his face too. Stacey, the prettiest girl in class, was picking a scab off the back of her hand.

My slave state partners didn’t say anything so I spoke up again.

“It is not wrong,” I said to Stephen as calmly as possible. I was being real rational. “It is our God-given right as white Americans to own slaves because we are a superior race.”

Stephen’s big eyes got bigger, and his mouth became a black hole. He stood like that and no one said anything. Everyone was waiting. Good Jerry had begun to speak again when Stephen jumped up from his seat, his belly shaking like a water bed. He was screaming.

“You racists! Ray-sists! No wonder Hitler killed all the Jews, because you’re all a bunch of racists!”

In general, Stephen was an idiot. He didn’t have many friends. He wasn’t handsome, he didn’t play sports, and he was really quiet. But more than that, he was just strange—the way he picked food from his braces in class and left the little colored bits on his desktop, or like when he told Mrs. Steinbach that he wouldn’t read The Picture of Dorian Graybecause gay people were goblins who stole children to use in sacrifices. But usually he didn’t say much.

The class was very interested in the debate now. Ivan and John were laughing silently in the corner. Stacey had stopped picking her scab and looked from Stephen to me.

I said, “I think that that is a pretty racist statement in itself. And I don’t really know how it applies, especially because I’m not Jewish, but I think it’s the wrong century.”

Mr. Hurston broke off his stare and landed back on earth for a second.

“Yes, Stephen, you can’t say that because it’s a hundred years past the time we’re depicting here.”

“Hitler is timeless!” screeched Stephen. Now he wascrying. Most people were laughing out loud now. John and Ivan were about dying in the corner. They slapped each other’s back and cackled. Lewis, the black kid, was over in his spot doing nothing.

“Stephen, why don’t you sit down,” said Mr. Hurston.

“No, I won’t sit down! I won’t bow down to these racists! They deserve to die! They should burn in the ovens!”

Now even cool Stacey looked surprised. Then she smiled. Everyone was having a great time except Stephen. I really felt bad for him, but Stacey’s smile did something to me. If I look back on it, that’s what did it, that little upturn at the sides of her glossy pink lips. I wanted to make Stephen go crazy so that I could see Stacey smile.

“Well, Stephen,” I said. “Since we’re confusing different centuries, why don’t I bring up a little book called The Bell Curve. It shows that whites and Asians are superior to black people.”

“Racist! Racist Jewish institutional testing. It doesn’t count,” screeched Stephen. He was gesticulating now. His arms swung out at his sides like coiled wet towels and his belly shook some more.

“Boys,” said Mr. Hurston. “You can state your opinions as freely as you like, but you must keep the discussion to the 1860s.”

Stacey wasn’t smiling anymore. She was bored. She went back to picking the scab on the back of her hand.

I should have stopped arguing with Stephen but I didn’t. I know I got everything I deserved afterward, but I couldn’t stop because I wanted Stacey to laugh. I looked over at Lewis, but he still had that dumb stare. Lewis was a bad student. He hung out with the tough black crowd. There weren’t many black students at the school, but a group of them hung out together and acted like they were a gang. Lewis was the runt of the group. It didn’t look like anything I was saying even registered with him so I really got into it.

“Niggers,” I said, and “Niggers” and “Niggers.” I kept saying it as part of my act. And Stephen would scream and bring his arms together in a strangling gesture. He’d grit his teeth and hiss and strangle the air to emphasize his points. I couldn’t believe that Mr. Hurston allowed it to go on. It was a real show. Everyone was laughing except Stacey and Lewis.

And then it was over. Mr. Hurston ended the debate a minute before the bell rang. He told Stephen to sit down, but he wouldn’t. Then he told the class that it was a great exercise and that it was okay and brave of me to act like I had, using the N word and all, because it gave everyone a sense of what people were like back then.

“Some foolish people have tried to get the N word removed from Huckleberry Finnbecause they find it offensive. Good-intentioned idiots,” said Mr. Hurston. “But if they were ever successful, we would lose a sense of what things were like before us. And if we don’t know our history . . .”

“. . . we’re doomed to repeat it,” the class mumbled as the bell rang. Everyone stuffed notebooks into bags. From across the room I saw Stephen leave with his head down. Mr. Hurston called after him but he was out the door.

I went back to my regular seat to get my stuff. Stacey’s desk was a seat away from mine. She was already packed up when I got there.

“Pretty funny, huh?” I said.

“What?” she asked.

“Stephen, getting all mad like that.”

“I thought it was kind of scary,” she said. I didn’t have anything else to say so she walked out.

The rest of the day was uneventful. I ate lunch, went to the rest of my classes, and then walked home after school. I passed the field and saw Jerry Holtz and the soccer team warming up for the big game against Gunn.

That night I called Stacey. I got her number when I volunteered us for a joint report on the Salem witch trials at the beginning of the year. She never helped me with the report, but I had asked her if I could keep her phone number, just to see how she was doing sometimes. I had never used it.

I was nervous as I called. I had prepared some funny things to say when she answered, but she didn’t answer and I didn’t leave a message. I called her a few more times that night while I watched Beavis and Butt-Headand then The X-Files.I got her machine each time. Her voice was hoarse, and the way she said “Stacey” was so raspy and whispered it made me want to squeeze my penis until it hurt. Later, when I called again, I realized that it was a pager, so I typed in my home number. In the middle of playing DOOM on my computer, I heard the phone ring. It was about eleven thirty. There was loud music wherever she was.

“Hello? . . . Hello?” she said, close to the phone. Hearing her voice outside of class made me tingle at the back of my neck.

“Hey, it’s Jeremy,” I said.

“Oh, hey,” she said.

“Where are you?” I asked.

“Hugh?” she said. There were other voices near her.

“What are you doing?” I said.

She was having a hard time hearing me.

“Who is this?”

“It’s Jeremy. Jeremy Thompson?”

“Oh, hi. What’s up, Jeremy?”

“I don’t know . . . I just thought we might hang out sometime.”

“Oh. What do you mean?”

“I don’t know, I just thought we could maybe do something sometime.”

“Okay . . . sure.”

“Okay,” I said. Then there wasn’t much else to say. I forgot all my jokes.

Then she said, “Okay, I’m going to go.”

“Okay, I’ll call you sometime,” I said.

“Okay, bye.” She hung up, but not before I heard someone ask, “Who was that?” I bit my lip really hard until it almost bled. Her voice was echoing in the cold air. I was left with my computer screen and the empty room and the blackness outside in the backyard, and everything felt empty. I couldn’t go back to my video game with her voice still in my head, and those other voices too. I couldn’t play the game anymore without feeling like I was wasting my life. I watched some more television in the living room until my father came home at twelve thirty and told me to go to bed.

I had PE first period. It was a drag getting into those stupid uniforms first thing in the morning. Short green sweat shorts and tight off-white T-shirts. I’d always get depressed playing softball with all the other dweebs who didn’t get excused from PE because they played sports. I’m usually late. The day after Stephen’s outburst, I was getting dressed alone in the locker room when Lewis came in, followed by a bunch of the tough black guys: Ezra, Jackson, Damon, Roland, and two big white guys that hung out with them, a fat guy named Mike Farley, and a muscular guy named Damian Petrone. They were all older and all really big. Next to them Lewis was a skinny midget.

Jackson walked up to me. He played running back for the school and got most of our touchdowns. He was six foot three. I was trying to pull on my PE shorts when he pushed me down onto the bench.

“Use that nigger word to my face,” he said.

“Excuse me?”

“Come on, use that fucking nigger word to my face, white boy.” He put his hand on top of my head so that I couldn’t stand up from the bench. He didn’t push down; he just held it there so I couldn’t stand up.

“Come on, white boy, say that fucking nigger word.”

“Call him a nigger,” said Mike, the fat white guy.

“Listen, I was just doing it for class, I don’t really think those things.”

“What things, white boy?” said Jackson.

“Those things I said. I was just saying them because I was supposed to.”

“You’re supposed to? Your teacher told you to call Lewis a nigger?”

“I didn’t call Lewis a nigger.”

He slapped me across the face.

“Watch your fucking mouth,” he said, not laughing anymore. I looked up at him. I looked at the others. They were all serious now. I turned to skinny Lewis with his big round head.

“Lewis, you know I didn’t call you anything.”

Lewis didn’t say anything. He stood there with his arms crossed. He gave me that same blank stare that he gave me in the classroom.

“Listen, I didn’t mean what I was saying, okay? I was just doing it for class and because I wanted to see Stephen Gary get crazy.”

“Lewis,” said Jackson. That was it, just “Lewis,” like they had already talked about doing something and now was the time to do it. Lewis looked at Jackson and then at me, but he just stood there.

In a slow, cold voice Ezra said, “Lewis, break off this motherfucking honky.” It came out of his cruel face like a rocky stream.

“Lewis, I was being an idiot. I was just trying to make Stephen crazy. You saw how crazy he got,” I said.

“Why’d you want to make him crazy?” said Lewis.

“I don’t know. I was just trying to show off. You heard Mr. Hurston, he said I was just doing what I was supposed to do.”

Lewis was staring down at me. He didn’t look really tough, but he was trying. Then he said, “Thomas Jefferson was doing what he was supposed to do, and he done raped his slaves.”

“What?” I said. “What does that mean?”

Lewis stepped back and then hit my nose. There was an explosion between my eyes. I fell back and hit my head against the lockers and fell into the space between the lockers and the bench. My legs were still up on the bench, but my butt was on the cement. I held my nose, and there were tears coming into my eyes, but just as a physical reaction.

I squinted through my fingers and saw Lewis looking down at me. His regular dumb look was angry now. Unsure but trying not to be unsure. I took my hand away from my face and looked at it; there was a lot of blood on my fingers. I heard all the other guys cheering Lewis on. He still looked unsure, but I could tell he was going to do something. I pulled my feet off the bench and slid underneath it. It was really dirty down there and wet. On the underside of the bench there was some old gray gum, and at the bottom of one of the lockers it said I LOVE YOU BITCH! Who wrote that? It was pretty creative.