Damaged (2 page)

Hmm.

Wouldn't work. Too risky. Firstly, the gutters weren't structurally strong, and secondly, a second-story fall to the pavement below would guarantee him a hospital visit, a place even worse than school.

Ummm...

Or he could do it the usual way: fight, bitch, and complain. Start a feud with the mother who might as well have sent him directly to Afghanistan.

He finally decided to charm his way out of it. Worth a shot.

Nervous of the outcome, Adam stood, exited his room, and peered over the banister. The heavy aroma of bacon hit his sense of smell like a Godsend. He could hear it sizzling, popping and whining.

"Mom? Mom?"

Thudding footfalls. His mother stepped into view, greasy spatula in hand. She tilted her head back to look up at him through the small gap between the staircase and the banister. "You want some bacon and eggs before you go? You know, you better take a shower."

Oh, what do I say?

“
Mom, uh, about school—" He wondered if she could sense his intentions already. "I don't—I don't know if, well—"

She sighed. It was not a big exhale, but one of those,
I can't believe you, you are ridiculous
, ones.

"Adam," she said sternly, "you get your shower and you go to school. You're not pulling this stunt today. You gave me your word yesterday. I
will
call your dad to come and get you, if I have to. You know how mad he will be, getting a call at work that you played hooky again. Now,
go
!" She raised the spatula like it was a magical wand and shook it at him.

"Mom," he began, "I'm not going to—" He stopped.

Her eyes turned hellish. She could have melted the icecaps with that gaze.

It was not that Adam was afraid of his father; Adam's main concern was David's follow-through. He usually took further action than his mother did. Once last month when Adam had had a temper tantrum, unwilling to leave for school, David had called the truant officer, who, in turn, called and explained to Adam the repercussions of being absent too many times in a row. The verdict was grimmer than merely ditching Blake High: he would be sent to a juvenile delinquent facility until he complied with the laws of society.

School was bad, but prison, an actual adolescent prison—this little threat forced Adam's butt down in class for a full three weeks straight.

I cannot go there.

"Jesus Christ," Adam said, stomach churning, "I'll go. Fucking bullshit."

She watched him with concern as he approached the bathroom.

"I ain't learning anything," he told her. "I ain't going to try. No use for school. It's for a bunch of stupid idiots."

He showered (making sure to boost the cold and use the hot sparingly—the latter, on its own, produced a spray of water hot enough to melt plastic, and he had the melted container to prove it), brushed his chipped, yellow-stained teeth, and pissed about a quart of urine before he was finally ready to go. The part leading up to leaving the house for the bus was excruciating. His heart raced erratically as he lastly brushed his light brown hair, which was parted exactly in the middle. It was his favorite feature, his hair. His eyes, brown and deep, came in close second. His nose, long and crooked, came in last place. He looked like a completely normal kid, neither fat nor skinny but right in-between.

But he did not feel that way at all. Sure, he could smile in front of the mirror at home and enjoy some of his features, but when he saw his reflection in public, amongst people, he looked different—like an ugly teenage son of a bitch who did not belong in the world. A reject. A nobody. Inside, he was dying, struggling to hold onto something that was quickly fading away.

Adam wanted to cry. He wanted to rip his brain out and throw it across the room. Too many negative emotions gnawed at his self-esteem like maggots gnawing on meat.

Sleep helped, but didn't really treat it.

Writing was the glue that kept him together.
Without a way to vent, what would I do?
He couldn't tell his parents what was wrong; he honestly didn't think they would believe him or accept him for it.

Adam looked at himself once more in the mirror and groaned like a dying animal. Without allowing himself to eat his favorite breakfast meal, he left for school.

***

The air was especially cold, and the sky was especially gloomy. Particles of snow dwindled down from above in scattered flakes. Armed with a book-bag, Adam hiked up Charles Street with his head so low he looked as if he had a neck injury. Cars whizzed past him as he turned a corner and walked up the sidewalk toward the bus stop. He looked up only now and then to make sure he was headed in the right direction.

Less than a block away, two teenage girls—sophomores—stood together on the corner, waiting for the Number 22 as well. Neither were lookers; one had an eye so lazy it may have been on a permanent vacation, and the other was so heavyset she could have rivaled the New Year’s blimp.

As soon as Adam spotted them, he wondered how they would treat him today and what crude comments they'd whisper about him under their breath. They weren't
unlike
anyone else. In fact, they were quite typical. They were already gawking and giggling at the greenhorn. That’s what they did every day… at the least.

A black Hummer, shiny and showroom-new, beeped as it rumbled past the girls. The lazy-eyed one waved and said, "Hey, baby!" It didn’t matter to her what the driver may have looked like behind those tinted windows; if he owned that vehicle, he was game and fuckable.

With desperate eyes, Adam glanced at the passing Hummer. He’d always wished he’d had a car. Then he wouldn't have to deal with those unattractive bitches standing by the STOP sign anymore. They hadn't liked him in grade school, they had made fun of him in junior high, and they still thought he was a piece of shit.

Six blocks away, the long yellow bus shot into view. To Adam, it was not a bus but a paddy wagon, a transportation to eternal Hell. A vehicle carrying a load of demonic teenagers.

His legs felt weak as he hiked those last two blocks, yearning to turn around and run back home.

Almost there
, he told himself.
You will survive today.

I hope.

The bus came closer, speeding up, then slowing down at the corner by Barb's Tanning Salon. Adam envisioned the Blake County bus sharpening its claws inside its cabin, waiting to slice and saute him until he was no more. School buses were not a sign of education in his mind but a sign of extreme distress, like an ambulance and patrol car rolled into one. He did not even like walking down the street when one was rolling by with kids inside.

Now one approached, its wheels slowing their spin, its door squealing open, welcoming him into the abyss.

In order to catch it before it left him in the dust, he broke into a jog, head down, eyes forward, and shoes untied. The winter air brushed past him, all too cold.

The freakish lazy-eyed girl and the mega-pig went on board, watching him, expecting him to foul-up. And as Adam looked up, the girls' forecast came true. Adam stepped on his untied shoelace, which was too long to begin with. The fall was so fast, he didn't know what hit him. His knees made a soft thud against the pavement, like a potato being crushed by a small brick. He held out his hands to protect himself and ended up scraping his palms off the rough concrete.

The embarrassment was far worse than the injury. The two girls laughed loudly and for a long time. Adam could feel every single kid on that bus laughing as well, not giving two shit's less about his well being.

He just sat there, asking God why it had to happen, why he had to take a spill in front of
everybody.

But God didn't answer. Adam took this as the answer—God did not love him. The Man Upstairs did not even like him.

By the time he got himself together, he, more or less, woke up. Adam had had a mild panic attack. From the time it took the bus to get from Barb's Tanning Salon to its current location, Adam couldn't recall. It was the third attack he'd recently had, and as before, everyone and everything around him looked and sounded funny.

The bus was parked aside him now, its door open, the driver, a decent-looking overweight gentleman with long blond hair who liked
most
kids, was laughing silently at him.

Adam stood, dusted off his palms, and got onto the bus. The driver looked at him like he was a clown with a
kick me
sign taped to his back.

"Hi," Adam said kindly.

"Yeah," the driver said, shutting the door and shaking his head.

Adam sauntered down the aisle, knowing what was coming. It did.

"Have a nice trip?" one skinny redheaded boy in the second seat asked him.

"It's winter," a very attractive brunette girl with braces in the third seat queried, "not fall!" She burst out laughing with her friend, a thick black girl who looked at Adam and said, "Don't look at me, retard."

He went his way, very hurt, very angry.

"Ever hear of Velcro?" one muscular kid wearing a Blake High School jacket said.

Adam kept walking, passing more kids, who either laughed at him or mumbled something about him under their breath. He reached the back seat and sat alone, the only single seat on the bus. Nobody here cared about him, and he had done nothing wrong to anybody.

***

Number 22 reached Blake High School at 7:45 A.M. Kids poured into the building. Adam did not want to leave the bus, but he knew he didn't have a choice.

He was the last one to get out and the most reluctant one to enter through those glass doors.

For him, entering the place was like being sucked dry of every decent emotion. True prison, physically, mentally, spiritually. Not the place to learn or make friends but a place to be beaten down by big kids with 4.0 grades and no
real
intelligence. In many ways, Adam thought it was worse than a high-security prison, save being stabbed and screwed up the ass by a three hundred pound queer. At least there you got sentenced for doing something wrong; here it was reversed. Being the frail one in this institution was its real crime.

Many fish swam mindlessly around him. Some of the girls, attractive or not, flew in different directions, ignoring Adam as if he weren't even there. Oh, but they did know. They just didn't want him to be. They glanced at everyone else.

Adam's face was always whiter when he entered, his mannerisms awkward and tense. He sometimes played with the lint or change in his pockets to ease the anxiety. His heart beat so quickly that he was afraid everyone else could hear it. He just stood there, the only stagnate one amongst them all, and watched them slowly dissipate.

"Hey, queer!" one kid whispered in his ear from behind.

As Adam went to turn, the kid, a dark-complected boy with curly black hair, shoved him. Adam's head, in mid-rotation, flew forward. The boy, Ralph Donaldson, the quarterback for the football team, burst out laughing with his jocular buddies. To them, he was nothing more than a punching bag they needed for football practice.

Adam, knowing immediately who it was, took off down the hall, not exactly running, not exactly walking. Some of the girls pointed at him and laughed.

Now
they noticed him.

He was completely invisible until they teased him; then he was the show.

***

The bell rang a few moments later. The halls were empty within seconds. You could have cracked a whip and the teenagers disappeared. Adam entered his homeroom class just in time.

The teacher, Mrs. Gavin, a short, skinny middle-aged woman, was writing something on the chalkboard.
Now she is a nice one,
Adam thought. She had given him A's when he really had failed, and she once even patted him on his shoulder while he was doing a test.

For those grateful gestures, Adam would have given her the shirt off his back.

She smiled and set down the chalk. "Hey, Adam."

Adam took his seat—his favorite in the house—the last one in the back row. Not one teenager in class turned to acknowledge him, the ghost among the living.

Students broke the silence and chatted amongst each other while they waited for the first-period bell to ring. Everybody knew at least
somebody
in here, all except for Adam. He had one best friend who he'd known since kindergarten and one pretty good friend who he'd known since seventh grade. That was it. And none were in this room.

Adam missed Junior High. Somewhat. There, the harassment wasn't quite as bad. It was tolerable. He sorely missed primary school, back when he knew everybody, had a whole classroom full of friends, got excellent grades, and was once, in fourth grade, hoisted off the ground by his peers when he scored the winning point in kickball.

He sat here with a tiny grin on his face, thinking about that time... when anxiety did not exist.

The world's a cruel place
, he realized presently. The grin was no more.

Mrs. Gavin watched him from her desk as he sat there, his face void of emotion. She, like a mother, wanted to break the shell that surrounded him only too much. There was something very genuine about this beautiful young man, despite the box in which he was trapped.