Project X (15 page)

“You worry about that?” I go.

He does his constipated-monkey thing. Inka inka inka inka.

“Guess you don't,” I go.

“Oh, I almost forgot,” he says. He pulls out two packages of little rubber plugs. “Earplugs. My dad says you can't believe how loud they are.”

He wants to play something from his
Great Speeches
CD that he says will psych us up, but he has to keep it turned down so low that I can't make out what the guy's saying even when we have our ears right up to the speakers. He keeps asking if I can hear it and finally gets mad and turns it off.

“You know what I think about?” he says once we're back up on the bed.

There's a noise downstairs. We both stop.

After a minute, we gather all the clips and slide them into the duffels, then angle the guns in after them and slide both duffels under the bed.

We listen again. A car goes by.

“You know what I think about?” he asks again.

I shake my head.

He rubs his face. “The way when something terrible happens somewhere there's all these flags and flowers and candles, pictures of the people who died and pages of sayings and poems. I don't think about my picture in the papers or on TV. I think about that stuff.” He's looking down at his crotch. “What're you looking at my dick for?” he goes.

“That's where you were looking,” I go.

“You ever think about stuff like that?” he goes. “All those flowers and shit lined up for months and months?”

I shrug. “I guess,” I go.

He gives me a look.

The look gets me pissed off. Why am I always the pussy? I think.

“Let's do it,” he tells me.

It's easier if we put one duffel on top of the other and grab both handles. It takes us about a block and a half to figure this out. We lug the things along worrying about cars, but we only see one that's heading in the wrong direction.

We circle the school out in the athletic fields to avoid the lights on the building, then hustle the bags over to the back stairs and dump them underneath where it's dark. We both stand around with our hands on our thighs, breathing hard.

I can hear Flake feeling around in the dark. “They never
fixed
this?” he goes. The window opens and I hear him sliding through.

He calls for the bags. I pull them over and he drags them through. When I climb in I forget how far the drop is and lose my balance and knock him over against the bags.

“It's all right,” he goes.

The corridors are narrow so we each have to carry our own. We put them on our backs and hunch over while we walk. We sling the handles over our shoulders. He gets out his little flashlight and holds it in his teeth. We go through some doors and then up the stairs. The door at the top is locked.

He sits down. He's still got the flashlight in his teeth, and it's shining on part of the stair railing.

“What do we do now?” I go.

He sits there. A minute goes by.

“Remember that guy in the SUV?” he goes.

It takes me a second to figure out who he's talking about. Plus it's hard to understand him with the flashlight in his mouth. “The old guy?” I go.

“Yeah,” he goes. When he nods the light slides up and down the railing. “The guy that followed us.”

The cement's cold on my butt. He's waiting for me to say something. “I know who you mean,” I tell him.

“He followed me again last week,” he goes. “At like four in the morning.”

I slide my duffel around so it's not hurting my hip. “What were you doing out?” I go.

He ignores the question. “I got in his car,” he goes. I can see him watching me. “He gave me a blow job.” The light in his mouth moves a little. “You hear me?”

“Yeah,” I go. “Why'd you let him?”

He shrugs. “I wanted to know what it felt like.” Then he gets up and hoists the duffel higher on his back. “Come on.”

“Where're we going?” I whisper.

We go back down the stairs and along some corridors and turn a different way. That leads to another locked door. We turn back and go up some other stairs. The duffels are heavy.

At the top there's another door. He hesitates, and then puts his hand on it. It opens. “The door down to the art storeroom,” he goes. “I figured they'd leave it open.”

It's two hallways to Flake's locker. He opens it and stuffs the duffel in standing up. It barely fits and we have to tuck in part of it so it doesn't catch on the door. The next hallway over we find mine. Flake holds the flashlight while I work the combination. Of course I can't get it to open.

“Gimme that,” he finally says. “What's the combination?”

It works on the first try for him. We go back out the way we came.

We don't talk until we're off school property. “You forgot your shit for us to bury,” he tells me.

“Yeah,” I go.

“I won't bury mine, then, either,” he goes after a minute. “They'll find it anyway.”

When I get home I stand outside my house in the front yard and look at it. The moon's out. The trees make black patterns over one side with their shadows.

It's four o'clock. I think about Flake in the car with the old guy.

I head down my driveway. My sneakers are still making those rubbery sounds on the pavement. I look at our bushes. I look at the garage. I look at our mosh-volleyball court.

I stand in the back porch for a minute, getting used to the indoor darkness. My feet are wet from the grass. I get a drink of water and go upstairs. I stand around in the upstairs hallway and then peep into Gus's room. He's on his back with a hand above his head. He's holding his new Nerf against his side with the other hand.

I put a finger near his face on the pillow. When I go to leave, he says, “What're you doing?”

“Shhh,” I tell him. I come back to the bed and get down on one knee beside his head.

“Is it dark out?” he wants to know.

“Yeah, it's still dark,” I whisper.

“Is Mommy up?” he goes.

“Mommy's sleeping,” I go.

“What're you doing?” he goes.

“I'm just going to sleep,” I tell him. “You go to sleep, too.” I pull the covers up to his chest. “You like your Nerf ball?” I go.

“Yeah,” he goes.

“This one's pink,” he tells me.

I clear my throat. One of his shoes is on the windowsill for some reason.

“Don't be sad,” he tells me.

“That's what everybody says,” I go. “Why does everybody say that?”

“I don't know,” he says.

“I just get so
mad
sometimes,” I tell him. I get mad just thinking about it. I make a fist and push it as hard as I can into my hip.

He holds up his ball and I tuck it back under the covers. “How's your ear?” I go.

“It hurts,” he says.

“Does it hurt now?” I ask him.

“No,” he says.

We don't say anything for a few minutes. He rolls onto his side. He's starting to get drowsy again.

“Okay, go to sleep now,” I whisper.

“Good night,” he goes.

“Good night,” I go. “You're a great little guy, you know that?”

“Yeah,” he goes. “But leave the door open,” he goes.

For the first time in however long my mom has to wake me up for school. “Let's
go,
” she says. I have no idea how long she's been in my room.

While I get dressed she strips the bed and talks about when she's going to come get me. She has errands to run so she won't get there till a quarter of twelve or so.

I sit on the floor and pull on my cargo shorts. Assembly's at eleven.

“You're not wearing your pants,” she says.

I had my clothes all arranged in order so I could get them on faster.

I look at her and she looks at me. Something goes across her expression. She twists the sheets together and lifts them up and carries them down the stairs.

I forget my earplugs and have to go back up to my room.

Everything I eat and drink feels like it stays up in my throat. “Your brother's conked out this morning, too,” my mom goes. She's making and wrapping sandwiches to eat on the road. She reminds me not to forget to show my homeroom teacher the note. “And be where I said,” she tells me. “Don't make us come looking all over the building for you.”

“I won't,” I go. “Where's Dad?”

“He went in early to practice his thing,” she tells me.

“Tell him I said good luck,” I go.

“You're going to be late,” she says.

I stop at the door but she's already gone down to the basement with a load of laundry.

At the bus stop the ninth-graders are having a loogie contest. One kid hawks one way farther than anybody else, and it lands on my pack. “Hey,” I go.

“Hey,”
the kid goes. The other kids laugh.

I don't have anything to wipe it off with. I end up dragging it along the grass and it just smears around.

“Hey,”
the kid goes. The whole ride they keep saying it to each other—
“Hey”
—and then they all laugh.

I wait by myself on the playground before homeroom. Flake stays away from me.

When the bell rings I go sit in my chair and look at the pinecone on my homeroom teacher's desk. It's next to her water bottle. Some kids are whispering during announcements, and a girl in front of me goes, “Oh my God,
what
is so funny?”

Assembly's fourth period, so I'll be getting out of math. My foot keeps bouncing on the floor under my desk.

In English they're diagramming sentences. Ms. Meier calls on me to go up to the board three straight times, and even though I didn't do the homework I get all three sentences right. After the third one, a girl goes, “Edwin's on a
roll,
” and Michelle goes, “I swear, there's someone in his brain
doing
this for him.”

When I sit back down, my hands are shaking. Ms. Meier tells me I'm doing great. “Can you look up when I'm talking to you?” she asks. “Thanks.”

When she turns to write on the board, two boys in front of me slap palms and touch knuckles across the aisle. She passes around some handouts, and Michelle takes out her three-hole punch for anybody with three-ring binders.

In Spanish somebody's put up a new poster over the blackboard of an elephant on a beach ball. Over the elephant it says THE KEY TO LIFE IS BALANCE.

“What's on your pack?” the girl across from me asks.

Flake finds me in the hall before third period. “Go to the bathroom and wait for the bell before you come out,” he goes. “Bring the whole duffel to the doors. I'll take care of the wedge. And wait till you see me at the double doors. Go in when I go in. Don't go in before I go in.”

“Look at you two making your big plans,” Tawanda says when she goes by.

In science the black girl who always takes her arms out of her sweater sleeves and sits there like a bundle hugs herself all class long. The bell rings after what seems like five minutes. My hands are numb. I blink three times to focus my eyes.

Everybody's heading in the same direction but me. On the way to the bathroom I pass one of the special-ed rooms. On the desk there's a stegosaur made of egg cartons. In the bathroom two kids are wrestling at the sink and I wait in a stall until they finally leave. The bell sounds for the start of fourth period.

I hear the pep band start up.

The hall's empty when I look out. The sound of kids finding a place to sit on the pullout bleachers is like a far-off rolling boom. One little kid runs past the stairs at the far end of the hall and skids when he tries to turn. My locker's right across from me. I cross to it and work the combination. I can hear the principal telling everyone to settle down. The second number slips so I start over. The next time the first number slips. The time after that everything goes right but the thing still doesn't open.

Michelle comes along while I'm yanking on the handle and kicking the door. “What're you doing?” she goes. “What's your combination?”

I tell her and she bends over and puts her face next to the lock and opens it. When she swings the door open I stop it halfway and thank her.

“You're gonna be later than I am,” she goes, and then takes off.

When she's gone I wrestle the duffel out of the locker one end at a time. The principal starts in on the first part of his talk. I drag the duffel up onto my back and start for the gym. “And in JV footbaaaaall,” the principal says, and the kids all cheer. It sounds like Flake's CD.

I dump the bag down before I look around the last corner. There's no one near the doors.

When was I supposed to load in the clip? I squat and root around for it, and then for the gun. I can't get the barrel clear of the bag. Finally I drop to my butt, stand the gun up, and ram the thing in. I remember another clip but it won't fit in my pocket. I grab the gun and run for the wall next to the doors. Flake hisses something so loud from the other doors that I can tell how pissed off he is even though I can't hear what he's saying. He leans out from the wall with his carbine.

I slap my back to the cinder block. My heartbeat's going in my ears. I hold the gun so the barrel's up and away from my face. I remember the safety and fumble it off.

When I look back at the other doors Flake's away from the wall and facing them. His expression is like he wishes he could scream in my ear. When he sees he's got my attention he grabs the handle and swings the door open and disappears.

I breathe in all the air I can and push away from the wall and grab the door handle myself. I pull the thing open.

Michelle's standing in front of me. She turns and looks at me and then looks at the gun.

The vice principal is next to the wall inside the door. I turn the barrel to him. He has a look like I found something strange in the hall and holds a hand out toward the stock.