and then counter-clockwise. Twenty-five laps one way, 25 the other. I would pedal faster and faster, trying to reach escape velocity so I could break out of the orbit of life at the hotel and into a better world. One with sex but with no BING! BING! BING! or Bennys or johns.
Just one week before the end of school, I found a note on my chair that said, “FUCKIN CHINKS GO BACK TO CHINA!” I smiled and sat down. Three boys — Ray Millar, Chris Cohen, and Robbie Malone — grinned and nodded to each other.
Ray was a bony kid with uneven sheaves of black hair. His frequent smiles showed filthy braces. Chris, who was called “Crispy” because of the fried, bubbly texture of his acne-ridden face, was on the fatter side of chubby and wore his hair in a crew cut because he thought bangs caused pimples. Robbie was skinny like Ray and looked meaner. Not in a menacing way, but like the underfed caged lab rat at the back of the classroom.
I felt around inside my desk for my ruler, the one with the metal rim from my father’s workshop. I slipped it into the sleeve of my shirt. As we filed out for gym class, I cupped my right hand to keep the ruler up my sleeve. I saw that orange cones and hard rubber balls had been set up in the gym as we walked to the girls’ and boys’ locker rooms. Dodge ball again.
I sat down on the scarred, splintered locker-room bench and watched Crispy. He was the biggest of the three. If I came at him, I knew Ray and Robbie would back off. I was right. As I came up to Crispy, hands at my sides, those skinny white boys slipped away like dogs at the sound of a newspaper rolling up. Crispy saw me but played it cool, working on his combination lock. He looked at me from the corner of his eye, spinning the dial to the right, six, seven, then eight times.
“That was a nice note you left on my desk,” I said quietly. Crispy turned his head, keeping his hand on the lock.
“What are you talking about?” he asked with a smile. I shook the ruler free from my sleeve and swung the metal edge down onto his hand. He screamed like a girl, delicately holding his limp, bleeding hand like a carefully arranged bouquet. I brought up my foot and planted my Puma into his stomach, aiming for lunch. When he dropped to his knees and puked, I saw that I’d hit breakfast, too.
On the last day of school, my seventh-grade teacher Miss Creach called me up to the front of the class. I’d gotten the top report card. She gave me a hug and a t-shirt printed with a picture of a German Shepherd. “Top Dog” was written on the back. Miss Creach was young, about 25, and had a really pretty face, eyes, and hair, like Agent 99 on “Get Smart.” She was kinda skinny with nice legs that she liked to unveil with a tug on her skirt when she sat down. Her ass seemed to have the right plumpness, too. But her tits were too small. That was the only thing wrong with her. That wouldn’t stop some guys, though. There were a lot of letters in the magazines from fans of that.
“And second place is Lee Anderson,” said Miss Creach. From my seat I stared at Lee Anderson’s ass as she went up to the front. She got a hug and a book of certificates for free French fries at McDonald’s.
When she walked by to go back to her seat, I held up the t-shirt and said, “Lee, I’ll trade ya!”
“No way!” she called back, smiling.
As I turned back to the front I saw that Miss Creach was frowning at me.
Now that summer vacation had arrived, the walkers lingered around the parking lot before going home. That let them hang out a little longer with the kids who had to wait for buses. Because of family vacations, a lot of friends wouldn’t see each other the entire summer.
Walkers were kids who lived so close to school, they didn’t have to ride buses. My stop was one of the farthest from the school, so I was never a walker. I never had family vacations, either.
Boys from the intermediate school across the street had come by to check up on the tit growth of my classmates. The burnouts smoked cigarettes and wore cut-off denim jackets with “Black Sabbath” or “Led Zeppelin” painted on the back. They were also on the hunt for fags. They’d taunted and punched the smaller boys all year, and today was their last chance until next year.
Crispy huddled by me. He’d given me three hard-core magazines to not kick his ass anymore.
“Regina Garrison is giving blow jobs under the bleachers by the soccer field,” he said.
“Fucking bullshit,” I said.
“She doesn’t care if people watch,” Crispy said.
Suddenly there were five intermediate-school kids surrounding us.
“There’s a fucking faggot right here!” yelled a tall, skinny burnout, pointing to Crispy. There were so many of them, I didn’t know what to do, so I stuck my hands in my pockets. Crispy dropped his bag and froze, then went limp in an act of self defense.
“Your dad got my dad fired!” yelled one of the burnouts. “You’re so dead, little faggot!”
They grabbed Crispy’s arms. In my head, I was yelling for him to kick them, but Crispy just tried to ball himself up.
Now I understood how someone could just stand aside and watch their friend get beaten up. It wasn’t that we were outnumbered, but when you see someone give up and not even try to fight, you wonder why you should. Why stick up for someone who won’t even fight for himself?
“You’re not even going to punch me, you little girl?” taunted the burnout. “I think it’s time to recycle you.” He got two other intermediate kids, and they picked Crispy up by the legs. Crispy wriggled and screamed. They opened the lid to the garbage can and pumped him down headfirst into the trash. I heard Crispy’s head banging on the sides of the can.
Then they pulled him out and dumped him in a bush. I could hear Crispy crying. His face was cut and bleeding, though it didn’t look much worse than with the pimples alone.
“Hey, over here!” yelled a burnout about my size. He was pointing at me. “C’mon, you slanted cunt!” he shouted.
I pulled out a screwdriver from my back pocket.
“Shit, are you fucking crazy?” he asked, backing up. I didn’t say anything. “Fucking psycho Bruce Lee. Go back to that fucking chinky hotel. You’re crazy!”
After they left, I picked up Crispy’s bag and helped him up. Crispy was still crying. We walked to the buses, stepping over crushed cigarette butts littering the lawn. It reminded me of all the trash I swept up when the Bennys were back at the hotel in full force. I could tell that for all their posturing, the burnouts were still novices at smoking. The butts weren’t sucked down to the filter the way people at the hotel would do it.
“What the hell are you kids doing!” yelled Mrs.
Krackowski. Her bus was idling at the curb and she was standing at the top of the boarding steps with the door open. She was only about five feet tall, but she was as tough as cold biscuits. A huge pair of shades obscured most of her face.
“They just beat him up!” I yelled back. Crispy kept crying and wiping his bloody face.
“Just get him in here, and let’s go! You’re holding everybody up!” Mrs. Krackowski spat out. “This is one hell of a way to end your last day of school!”
Renting
