Permanent Adhesives (26 page)

“Who do you think I figure out who you were?”

“I dunno, that freak kid who didn’t talk and when he did it sounded like he had problems, that kid who had no actual friends or sense of self-worth. The kid who was severely messed up and du...” I interjected before he could finish the word dumb.

“Hey, you can’t claim the messed up thing for yourself. I think we’re all in the same boat with that one,” I said, giving him a smile, hoping it’d be slightly infectious.

It was. Elias cracked a smile and let out a deep breath.

“I don’t care about the way you talk, or about any of it, none of it.”

He sighed and pulled on his hair.

“You know who you are?”

Elias shrugged in response.

“My great boyfriend.”

He let out a laugh.

“It’s true.”

“So we’re officially boyfriend and girlfriend?”

I smiled. “We have been. It’s been almost three whole days.”

“Good,” Elias said. “Even with all my Eliasness.”

I bumped his side with my elbow. “I like your Eliasness.”

“Ya know, with my, hmm, my speech and stuff?”

“Yeah,” I said. I wasn’t sure if he was talking about me liking him with his speech problems or something else, so I nodded to encourage him to go on to see what he had to say.

“I let myself slip up in English. I knew my teacher also worked with the school’s special services.” He let out a sigh. “You know how you were talking ‘bout hiding the truth?”

I nodded.

“Well, me too. God, I have a crap ton of stuff I’d been hiding, and it was like some of it had to get out. It was like I was getting so tired of keeping it in. It seems it takes so much energy. I kinda want to…” Elias sighed. He clicked his tongue and stuck a finger in his mouth. “Um, how did you phrase—” He just stopped his sentence and sighed. “Nothing,” he then whispered more to himself then me, chewing on his thumbnail.

I nodded. He couldn’t get himself to complete his sentence, but I knew what he was getting at. He wanted to be heard. Elias helped me and my friends get our voices heard; it was time we helped do the same for him.

Wednesday after school I had an emergency club meeting. I put out word that if you wanted to help out a friend with something, then you should show up. Elias was working, so I didn’t have to worry about him being there.

I looked out onto the small crowd who came. Some were seated in the desks, a couple lounged on the floor. Brian and Kate sat side-by-side on a window sill. I couldn’t stop smiling. I knew some really awesome people.

“This started a bit ago about advancing my comic,” I said. “Getting word out, taking it to the next level, but it’s moved past that. It’s no longer just about my comic. It’s our campaign of superbness and with this we have all been brought closer together. It’s about friendship, believing in yourself, liberating yourself through dance on a street corner, trying things you were too scared to do before, doing what you want to do instead of just standing on the sidelines, having your voice heard, and all it took was one person to shove us in the right direction.”

“Yeah, you Molly,” Brian said.

I threw Brian a smile. “This is what I’ve learned from Elias.
Don’t settle for what is. See what it can become. What you can become
. We’ve become night-time ninjas, guerrilla artists, leaders, figure skaters, boyfriends, girlfriends.” I said the last two looking over at Kate and Brian. “Revolutionaries, confident, friends, entrepreneurs, and so much more and it all started cuz Elias said, ‘Let me make it up to you, let me help you expand your comic.’”

“Molly and Elias started the revolution, but we shall carry it on,” Brian said. And there was the revolution talk again. I always thought of overthrowing the government or some major form of power when I heard the word revolution, but then revolution can also mean a change in something. I guess that change was within us.

“Elias told me that you don’t have to speak to be heard, which I totally get now. Now I want to help him get his voice out there, but I’m going to need a crew.”

Between then and roughly around midnight, we had to gather supplies, lay out our attack plan, and make arrangements for everybody to sneak out. We were going to need a fair amount of supplies too: spray paint, paint markers, regular old paint, ladders, buckets, rollers, brushes, walkie-talkies, caffeine. And we also needed to recruit a few more friends who were not too worried about what would happen if we got busted.

Kate, Roberto, and I picked up Elias at his job (he stayed so late for inventory), which he was quite surprised by. I had yet to tell Elias that we were planning on doing a mural sized piece using his art. I told him it was just another nighttime mission. I feared if I told him beforehand he wouldn’t come. There still was a chance he’d freak and make a mad dash, but I figured it was at least worth the effort to try.

“What are we doing here?” Elias asked as Kate pulled into the curb to park.

“This is where we are doing our stuff this evening,” I said as casual as possible.

“Okay…” he slowly said.

“Just get out of the car,” Kate demanded.

We all obeyed and climbed out. We got the supplies that we brought with from the trunk and headed towards the used car dealership. I could see a couple of the other club members heading in our direction. I walked us around to the back of the building where our intended target was. A smile crept across Elias’ face.

“Going big,” I said.

“Superb,” Elias said.

“And with your art.”

Elias’ face fell. “Huh?”

I unzipped my backpack and pulled out his sketchbook page.

“What, wait, no, why do you have that?”

I bit my lip and winced. “I, uh, ripped it outta your sketchbook that one morning. It’s just so awesome and you keep it hidden, and I was—”

Elias interjected before I could finish. “We’re not painting that.”

“But why Elias?”

At that point, everybody was showing up and in most part standing around and staring at Elias and me.

“Because I said so Molly.” He grabbed at the paper, and I stepped back. “I’m not joking,” he said.

“Well, you need to give me a better reason why then.”

Elias sighed and rubbed his hands over his face and went with the biggest cop-out that he could think of. “It’s not related to
The Society of Prodigious Superbness
.”

“We’re expanding. It will be a collaboration of sorts. Think of it like an endorsement and nobody besides us will know it’s your art cuz it’s not like you’re going to sign your name.” I took a step forward, still holding the paper behind my back so he couldn’t get it and gave him a nice sweet little kiss on the mouth.

“Please,” I said, pouting my lips.

“No.”

I gave him another kiss. “Please,” I pleaded again.

“No.”

I was about to give up, but threw out one more kiss, a warm gentle one, with a
please
.

Elias rolled his eyes and sighed. “Fine.”

“Fantastic, we’re gonna need you to help us get started, okay?”

Elias nodded, and we got to work.

I think everybody who ever attended one of our club meetings, at school or Quirk’s, showed up. Each person had a role. Some were on lookout—some standing near and others blocks away—armed with walkie-talkies to let us know of any coming dangers. Some were working on the basic layout of the mural, and some were putting down shapes of color, so Elias could then come in and add the details. Others were just keeping the supplies ready and available. We had some on snack and drink duty, and we all seemed to be having a great time.

*************************

Brian helped hold the stencil against the wall in the lower left-hand side of our mural. I was feeling so good, so fulfilled, so happy. I shook the spray paint can I held and then sprayed over the stencil. When I was done Brian pulled away the stencil, and our mural was an official
Society of Prodigious Superbness
creation.

“Why did you stick it there? You usually sign a piece of art on the right-hand side.” Elias said.

“Because that corner is for the name of the actual artist,” I said with a smile.

Elias crinkled up his nose at me.

“Sure this was a collaboration of sorts. It brought us all together for an awesome evening, but when it comes down to it, this is your piece Elias. We just helped you out.”

Elias shook his head. “No, this is everybody’s.”

“It might be in a way, but it’s truly yours.”

“But why? No. Just leave it like it is,” he said, looking around at everyone who were all standing about taking in our creation, looking at the black-and-white boy character in a world of bubbles popping all around with colorful images and objects bursting forth; it was very awesome.

“Elias, you showed me not to settle for what is, but what could become. You helped us get our message out. We’ve been heard. Now we’re doing the same for you.”

“No, no, I don’t deserve this,” Elias whispered, looking down.

I grabbed his hands. “You do. I just think you need somebody to help you realize it, to show you to ignore any preconceived notions anybody has about you, or you have about yourself, to forget about what people have said or have told you. You’re worthy of this and any good thing that comes your way.”

Elias opened his mouth, but didn’t say anything. He took a deep breath and then said, “Thanks.”

Kate bounded up and threw her arm around Elias’ shoulder. “Now, you can’t sign this
Elias
, so we need to come up with a pretty cool Moniker. Got anything?”

Elias sucked on his lip and shook his head no.

“Any suggestions?” Kate asked us all.

“E. Dog,” Nicki said.

I suppressed a laugh. What was she thinking? However, I gave her credit because she was the first one to come up with anything.

A couple other lame suggestions were thrown out when Brain came up with one. “I got it,” he said. “Quiet Man.”

“Elias?” I asked, looking for his approval.

He nodded yes. Roberto handed him a black paint marker. Elias took a deep breath and walked over to the mural, squat down in the right-hand corner, and signed
Quiet Man
. We all clapped, but kept it to a minimum; we made it too far to get busted then. I hugged Elias and everybody else gave him hi-fives and threw out some exploding fist bumps.

Then while our crew set in to gathering up our supplies, Elias just sat down and started crying, loud choking sobs, like everything he had been suppressing escaped. His shoulders shook, and he tried desperately to wipe away the tears with the heel of his hand, but there were just too many; his face stayed saturated regardless. I sat down next to him and wrapped my arm around his waist. I pulled him in close and held him. Kate came and sat down on his other side and wrapped her arm around his waist too. After a minute Brian then came and sat down next to her, and Roberto sat down on my other side, and Nicki sat down next to him. Somebody must have called everybody else in because the rest of our team was coming out from their watch posts, across the parking lot, and joining us. We all sat together in a couple of lines with our arms wrapped around shoulders and waists, hands in hands, or just sitting close. Nobody asked why Elias was crying. It seemed like they just all understood. We sat there as a unit and took in our masterpiece, Elias’ masterpiece. We came together as one and helped out a friend.

With that mural, we accomplished something, and I think the mural had a different meaning for everybody as we all sat there and took in our own interpretation of it. Being togetherness, hope, overcoming obstacles, having your voice heard, friendship, being a part of something that just might have been larger than you, than all of us. We reveled in our glory, took pride in what we had done—what we did that evening and in the last few weeks. The army of nerds was a thing of the past. We were officially our very own
Society of Prodigious Superbness
. Our bond had sworn us in.

Elias was still crying, but not as heavy. He tipped his head to the right and lay it on my boney shoulder joint. It was cold out that evening, but there was such a warmth between us, in me. I didn’t know what was going to happen the next day or the day after, or what the future even held, but somehow that evening, I felt a relief. I was purely me. I was no longer hiding. I was taking charge of my life no matter what. I hoped my mom would come to her senses about my dad, but even if she didn’t I wasn’t going to let it ruin my life. I had awesome friends and a great boyfriend and
The Society of Prodigious Superbness
. Perhaps aspects of my life weren’t stellar, but I had a prodigious amount of good stuff going for me, so I just had to remind myself of that when I couldn’t control what was going on at home. Things weighed in my favor, even if it didn’t always seem that way.

“Run,” we all of a sudden heard from across the parking lot. I looked up to see Reynaldo running towards us like a mad man with his arms flailing. “Run!” He must have been left on lookout duty.