Dear Life, You Suck (14 page)

“Well, I thought you might wanna get trained in a real gym by a real trainer. Maybe set yourself up for making some dough with your fists once you turn eighteen.”

What the fuck? Why would Caretaker think I’d be interested in bashing skulls for a living? “No, thanks.” I walk to the water fountain.

I hear his footsteps behind me. “There’s good money in fighting, Cricks.”

Why’s Caretaker suddenly pushing boxing on me? I got no interest in fighting for money. Why the hell would I bash the nuts of someone who ain’t never done anything against me and who I don’t even know? So I can live in a mansion and wear a shiny-ass clown belt that would make me look like some Special Olympics Ronald McDonald goofball?

“Hell, I bought my house with prize money,” he says, like he can read my mind. “There’s an annual competition just up in Bangor with a five-thousand-dollar purse, Cricket.”

Now, maybe if they had a competition where you could line up to bash the skull of some scumbag son-of-a-bitch who smacks his boy around or sexes up his little girl or fisties his wife to the emergency room, then fuckadoodledoo, I’d catch the first train to Justiceville faster than a Catholic priest on a mute altar boy. But to throw fists for a tuna on rye? What the frig?

Caretaker slaps me on the shoulder. “Nothing to snub your nose at. And you got skills, son.”

Then it hits me. Like a straight right to the forehead. Caretaker thinks that’s all I’m good for. Fighting. I take a long drink of ice-cold water from the fountain. “I ain’t snubbing nothing. I just don’t want to.”

“How come?”

I shrug.

“Cricket, there ain’t nothing to be scared of. I’ve seen you fight. You’d whup every country bumpkin in here.”

“I ain’t scared.”

“Then what’s the problem, son? You gotta have some way to make a living once you’re out on your own. And you never talk about what you’re doing after high school, so I figured maybe you need a plan.”

“I got a plan.”

“Oh you do, do you? What’s your plan?”

I imagine myself sweeping palm fronds off the chapel carpet.

Caretaker crosses his arms over his chest. “I hope to hell your plan don’t involve that dingleberry Greg Dillar you’re always hanging around with. That kid ain’t nothing but trouble, Cricket. All he’ll do is drag your ass down into the mud right alongside him.”

Bolo bangs the bell beside one of the rings with a tiny metal hammer and yells to Caretaker. “We doing this or what?”

Caretaker waves a finger at him.

There’s a guy in the ring wearing headgear and banging his gloves together.

“I ain’t fighting.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t fight for no reason.”

“I sure as shit know that, Cricket. Hell, you forget who you’re talking to, son. I’ve looked in your eyes when we spar. I
damn
sure know you got some big-ass reason for fighting.”

“Exactly, and it ain’t money.”

“Course, I also know the reason ain’t the one you pawn off on the nuns and them other gullible galoots, so you can cut the crap. Don’t blow smoke up my ass and say you fight to protect the Little Ones.
Puuh
. How fuckin’ stupid do you think I am? I know better, Cricks. I know you’re fighting something a damn sight scarier than them little kiddlins getting picked on.”

My scar itches, so I scratch it.

“All I’m saying is, why not fight them demons in the ring and get paid for it? ’Cause they sure as shit ain’t gonna go away on their own. You gotta beat those fuckers outta ya, Cricks. Demons got staying power.”

I look into Caretaker’s face. I can tell he’s pleading for me, not him. Not like the other adults in my life. “I appreciate what you’re trying to do, and I don’t mean no disrespect, but I ain’t interested.”

The guy in the ring dangles his arms over the ropes and hollers at me. “Come on, Tony Montana. Show me what you got.”

A bunch of boxers standing around look at me and laugh.

“Come on, Cricket. Show this loudmouth what’s what.” Caretaker jabs me on the shoulder.

I look at the boxer in the ring. He’s bouncing up and down on his toes and smiling at me from behind his big red mouthpiece. “No. I ain’t got no beef with him.”

“It ain’t got nothing to do with having a beef, son. It’s about using your God-given talents to earn yourself a living. Boxing sure as shit beats working sixty hours a week in some shit-ass factory.”

My God-given talents
. All my life, adults have been tanning my hide for tanning kids’ hides, and now all of a sudden ass-kicking is life affirming. Typical adult about-face crapola. What’s good for the goose I’m gonna cram up your gander. “No, thanks.” I start walking to the door.

“You’re being a damn fool, Crick.”

As I push the door open, the guy inside the ring hollers at me. “Running away, pussy?”

I stop mid-push and look at my hand. The dark red on the door matches the dark red on the gauze.
Caretaker doesn’t know what he’s talking about. I fight to protect the Little Ones
.

“C’mon, Mary,” the boxer yells. “What you ’fraid of? I’ll be gentle, cherry.”

I turn. The guy inside the ring straightens up and puffs out his scrawny chest. Rage bubbles explode inside me. I should do it. Jump into the ring without headgear or gloves and shut the jerk up. Beat the living fuck out of the bigmouth asshole.

Everyone in the place is staring at me. They remind me of the kids in the courtyard standing around Pitbull yesterday. An image of Andrew crying on the ground next to his Spider-Man comic book flashes in my mind.
I fought Pitbull to protect little Andrew.
A memory of lying in a Boston alley with a busted-up face while kids pull the sneakers off my feet flashes in my mind. I shake my head to chase it away.
No, I fought for Andrew. He was on the ground. Pitbull shoved him there. God only knows what Pitbull might have done if I hadn’t stepped in and stopped him. I fight to protect the Little Ones.

I continue walking, and the blood-red door swings shut behind me.

Chants of
pussy
and
faggot
chase me down the hallway.

I fight to protect the Little Ones.

I get to the chapel seven minutes early for my ten a.m. tongue-lashing with Mother Mary Mywayorthehighway, so I lie down in the guilt-enshrouded rear pew.

My morning with Caretaker is still sitting heavy in my gut, like I chowed a dozen of Sister Eliza’s bran muffins. Should I consider fighting for money? Would bashing a kid’s brains in with my fists be any different from bashing them in with drugs? Fists or drugs. Are those really my only two options? Grubs’s words play in my mind.
Naskeag ain’t got a scale small enough
.

Maybe I could come up with my own option, like getting a shit-ass minimum-wage job pumping gas or mowing lawns. But that would just prolong the inevitable.
Demons got staying power
. And I don’t think I’d last very long being ordered around by two-faced, skinflint adults.

Option number three plays in my mind. A shiver scrubwiggles the back of my neck. I sit up and shake it off.

Mother Mary Mothballs taps me on the shoulder and I follow her into her hallowed sanctuary of disciplinary inquisitions and monetary requisitions. A print of the Ten Commandments hangs on one wall, and a chalkboard of the Ten Budget Deficits hangs on another. You’d think an organization that owned so much valuable real estate and priceless art wouldn’t be so friggin’ cheap. Mother Mary grows gray hairs and gets years sliced off her life every September during budget negotiations with the Diocese. At least, that’s what she says.

She plunks her enormous black-draped frame into her enormous brown leather chair behind her enormous black walnut desk and crosses her enormous white fingers in front of her enormous white face. Did I mention Mother Mary is enormous?

She stares at me blankly. If I didn’t know her so well, I’d think she was waiting for me to speak, but she knows better.

We sit like this for a while. How long exactly I don’t know, because if I break away to look at the clock, I lose.

Eventually, she opens a drawer and places a legal-size notepad on the desk. She pulls a pencil from above her ear and starts scratching on the yellow paper. “The rosa rugosa along the stone wall near the west cliff need to be cut back. Weed the rock garden while you’re at it. We don’t have funds for a fall remulching, so just scratch up what’s there and make it look fresh.”

“What’s wrong? Sales of Pope Soap on a Rope been down?”

She sighs, scratches her cheek with the pencil eraser, and scribbles a number two. “Prune the rhodies along the east trail.”

“Maybe the pope should sell a few of them nudie statues he’s got in his master bedroom. He could buy enough bark mulch to landscape the planet.”

“Don’t start, Cricket. I’m in no mood. Three, there are several large tree limbs scattered about as a result of the recent storm. Haul them into the woods behind the barn. Don’t push them over the cliff like you did last time. I don’t want another call from the harbormaster.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. The wind must have blown them there.”

“Please.” Mother Mary digs a number four into the paper and sets the pencil down. She closes her eyes and massages her temples. “You’re almost eighteen, Cricket. You’re practically a man. This has to stop.”

“All right, I’ll drag the tree limbs into the woods.”

“That’s not what I’m talking about, and you know it.” She hasn’t opened her eyes yet. “If you keep this up after you turn eighteen, I won’t be able to bail you out by having a heart-to-heart with the principal.”

“How can you have a heart-to-heart with someone who doesn’t have a heart?”

Mother Mary opens her eyes and glares at me with a granite expression. “This isn’t a joke, Cricket. Principal LaChance has talked to Buster’s parents, and they’re not going to press charges. But he will be discussing yesterday’s incident with the school board. He’s going to recommend that you be expelled permanently if you are involved in one more fight in school. And if you’re expelled from school, the Diocese will recommend to Social Services that you be transferred to a more appropriate facility.”

My gut leaps into my throat. I don’t want her to know that, so I speak slow and calm. “It was self-defense.”

She glares. “Bullspit. It was assault and battery, and it’s a crime.”

“Ask anyone there. I didn’t start it.”

“It’s not about starting it. It’s about ending it.”

“I did end it.”

“Ending it before it starts, Cricket.”

“I can’t control what other people do.”

“You can control yourself.”

“If controlling myself means being a coward, then I’d rather be out of control, thank you very much.”

“Well, prison will control you lickety-split.”

“I can’t get in trouble for defending myself.”

“You have all the answers, don’t you, Cricket?”

“I know my rights.”

“And I know you’re wrong,” Mother Mary Mastiff barks. “What you did to Buster went way beyond self-defense, and you know it. You’re lucky you weren’t arrested.”

Here we go again. Fucking grownups. “The only thing a fighter understands is being put down. It’s the only thing he respects.”

“Then fighters have a lot to learn.”

“Easy for you to say from inside these fairy-tale walls.”

Mother Mary looks down at her hands like she’s thinking about balling them into fists and punching me in the face. Her eyes drift slightly, and I realize she’s not looking at her hands so much as through them. I get that weird mouth-watering, forehead-warming feeling.

She lifts her head and looks at my face like she’s reading off a teleprompter. “You should have walked away, Cricket. Andrew would have survived.” I don’t respond. “Well, what do you have to say for yourself?”

“I don’t have anything to say for myself. You’ve said enough for both of us.”

“Don’t be a wiseass, Cricket. I know that’s like asking a fish not to swim, but try to indulge me.”

A thick brass crucifix hangs on the wall behind her. It’s tilted slightly, like Jesus is leaning over to catch a glimpse of all the people who betrayed him so he can kick their asses when he returns. I hate Jesus right now. He fucked up a lot of shit for those of us who have to live in the real world. “I ain’t gonna turn the other cheek if a dude attacks me, if that’s what you’re wondering. I’d rather go to prison than be a coward. I ain’t Jesus.”

She slips out a crooked smile. “Thank you for clearing that up, Cricket.”

Mother Mary can be tough to read. Sometimes she doesn’t look so menacing. Right now she reminds me of one of those giant teddy bears that dangle from cables in toy stores, so expensive they don’t have price tags.

“We learn more from example than from anything else. Especially when we’re young and impressionable.”

“I agree. That’s why I made them impressions on Pitbull’s face.”

Mother Mary doesn’t laugh. She doesn’t even crack a smile. Bye-bye, teddy bear. Hello, fire-breathing dragon.

“The only thing people learn at the hands of violence is more violence. Someday even Buster Pitswaller will learn that. Who knows—perhaps you’ll be the one to teach him.”

“I seriously doubt it.”

“You never know. The Lord works in mysterious ways. Everyone deserves the benefit of the doubt. Everyone deserves a second chance.”

“Everyone except me.”

“Oh, Cricket, I think we both know you’re way beyond second chances.”

“So I’m not supposed to defend the Little Ones? That doesn’t sound very Christian to me.”

“First of all, let’s not pretend we both don’t know what your fighting is about. Secondly, there are ways of defending the meek without jeopardizing your future.”

“Wow. If Jesus had followed your advice, we’d all be wearing beanies at prayer time.”

Mother Mary’s face hardens. “Jesus never used violence to get his point across.”

“Yeah, I know. How’s he doing?”

Now her fists harden. “Don’t you dare compare the life-and-death struggle of our Lord and Savior to a playground scuffle.”

Playground scuffle?
“And don’t
you
dare pretend Jesus wasn’t pissed off at his friends for not sticking up for him when he got hauled off to the cross. They were no better than every one of them assholes who stood around the courtyard while Andrew got whaled on. Turning the other cheek is bullshit!”