The Downside of Being Up (10 page)

“Okay, moving along now . . .”

“And don't give me attitude, either,” she said. “I mean, I'm not the one who's got the entire neighborhood thinking that we're a family of perverts.”

“Great to see ya. Appreciate the time . . .” I pushed her away.

“Take your hands off me, jerk. Your psycho appointment with the wacko doctor is now today instead of tomorrow. Mom said don't be late 'cause the therapist is still mad about you popping a boner in front of all those yoga freaks.”

I stood there with nothing else to possibly say.

“Geesh!” said Hill. “You are such a zero.”

She stormed away. A moment passed.

“That's my sister,” I finally said to Allison.

“You have the same nose,” she replied.

“She's in seventh grade,” I added.

“I like her belt.”

“She hates me,” I told her.

Allison reached out, took my bag of M&M's, then popped a yellow one into her mouth.

“Really? I couldn't tell,” she said, chewing.

“Seems I kinda gotta go somewhere after school,” I said.

“Your helicopter?”

“The yacht,” I said. “Just had it painted.”

Allison turned the bag upside down and poured the last two M&M's into her hand.

“Got it,” she said.

“But maybe we could walk together tomorrow?” I asked hopefully.

Allison crumpled up the empty bag. Of course, she was going to dump me, tell me she had changed her mind about walking home with me, changed her mind about being friends with me and, worst of all, changed her mind about going to the Big Dance with me.

After all, if I were her, that's what I would have done. Clearly I was mayor of a city called Loserville.

“Ya know, Bobby,” she began.

“Yeah,” I said, completely understanding.

“Walking with you tomorrow, well . . .” She paused. “My limo driver, he's got this schedule to keep.”

I raised my eyes. “Your limo driver?”

“What?” she said. “You think you're the only one with a private chauffeur in this neighborhood? Get with the program. This is middle school. If you don't have a limo driver, you don't have anything.”

She popped a brown M&M into her mouth.

“Right,” I said with a big smile. “Well then, check with your driver and let me know.”

“I'll do that,” she answered.

“You know how to contact me?” I asked.

“I do,” she said.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, Bobby, I'm sure. I do have a school e-chat account, remember?”

“Oh yeah,” I said. “Well then, okay . . . um, bye-bye.”

“Not bye-bye,” she said. “One bye.”

I cocked my head to the side, not quite understanding.

“Two hi's, one bye,” she explained. “Hi-hi because it's good to see each other, but one bye because it's not as good to leave. And bring more M&M's tomorrow,” she added. “My dad only lets me bring fruit.”

Then she popped my last M&M, a green one, into her mouth and munched.

If it would have been legal to get married while still in eighth grade, I swear I wouldda headed out ring shopping right then and there.

She turned and waved. “Bye,” she said.

“Bye.”

The rest of that day I was unable to walk to any of my classes. All I could do was float. I was feeling sky-high, like nothing in this whole entire world could bring me down.

When I got to the brown door inside the counseling office after school, I gave three small knocks to a little musical beat that played in my head, then entered.

“Happy Wednesday, Dr. Cox.”

“Happy Wednesday to you as well, Bobby,” she answered. Today's sleeveless top was navy blue. I could see the veins running all the way up her biceps. “Sorry I had to change appointment times.”

“No worries.”

“Well, I'm glad you're in a good mood, because today we're going to take the Freudian approach.”

“Whatever,” I answered.

“Please, have a seat on the couch.”

I lay back.
Hey,
I thought,
this thing's pretty comfortable.

“All right, fire away.” I was ready to take on the world.

“Okay, we'll begin with a few basic questions.” Dr. Cox took out a notepad and adjusted her skinny eyeglasses. “Have you ever seen your mother naked?”

I shot up off the couch, but gently, she pushed me back down.

“It's okay, Bobby. A lot of boys your age are curious about the female body.”

“My mom's not a female,” I said. “She's, like, a mom.”

“All right, tell me about your father. I assume you've seen him naked, correct?”

“Do we have to talk about this?”

“Tell me,” she said, looking over the rim of her glasses. “Would you say the dimensions of your father's penis are, one: intimidatingly large; two: exceedingly small; or three: appropriately sized for a man of his height and weight?”

“Um . . .”

I did everything I could
not
to think about my dad's pickle.

“I'll read the options again. One: intimidatingly large; two: exceedingly small; or three: appropriately—”

“Can I use the restroom?”

“You need to pee?” she asked.

“I need to puke,” I said.

She looked down at her little chart and checked off a box.

“Still reluctant to participate in his recovery,” she said to herself, but loud enough for me to hear it. “Recommendation: extended analysis.”

Now, everyone my age knows there is really only one place you are not allowed to get a boner. Nope, it's not church. I've sported wood on the pew a bunch of times. And no, it's not the swimming pool, either. Although I do admit, bathing-suit boners are the worst. Ain't no backstroke when you have one of those woodies going, I tell ya that. No, the only place you are not allowed to get a boner is in the boys' locker room. It's like an unspoken rule of life or something.

Of course, it's not really fair that they make all the boys get naked with one another at the same time. I mean, just because I'm in eighth grade doesn't mean that I'm as big as some of the other eighth graders.

Not that I'm a pecker peeker or anything.

See, when you're getting naked in a room full of other naked people, as I happened to be doing the next day, it's kind of like driving by a car accident. You don't want to look to see what the damage is, but you kind of can't help yourself either, and most of the time you do end up catching a glimpse. But to do that in the boys' locker room is strictly off-limits.

Me, I strip and I dress. No small talk. No extended towel drying. No allowing my wanker to flop around in front of other people. Strip and dress, that's the rule.

“Hey, Bobby, want to hear my latest poem for English class?”

“Finkelstein!! Put on some clothes.”

“What?” he said. “We're all men here.”

I turned away from Finkelstein's hairless bologna. Jeez, the kid didn't even have a sprout of pubes yet?

“Finkelstein,” I ordered. “Put on some clothes and stop staring me in the face with your dinglehoffer, ya freak.”

“Okay, you don't want to hear my poem for English class, fine. Let's hear yours,” he said, putting his hands on his hips.

“I haven't done it yet,” I said, looking away. Still no towel.

“You know you can't pass English this quarter without having recited a poem in front of the class, Bobby,” he informed me. “And if you don't pass third quarter English, they automatically make you go to summer school.”

“I'll do it,” I said.

“When?”

“I said, I'll . . .”

Just then, while trying to avoid looking at Finkelstein, I noticed Tommy Williams.

And he had the hugest schlong I had ever seen!

My God, it was the thickest, beefiest, longest, down-to-his-knee pecker I had ever witnessed on an eighth grader. And I bet that when he got a boner, it grew to be the size of a big-league baseball bat.

“Uh, Bobby . . . ?” Finkelstein asked.

I didn't respond. Tommy possessed the most mammoth tube ever attached to a thirteen-year-old boy in the history of children. Elephants had less reproductive material.

“Um, Bobby . . . ,” Finkelstein said again.

How did Tommy even walk?

“Hey, Bobby, snap out of it! What are you doing, staring at Tommy's penis?”

Suddenly, every boy in the locker room froze . . . then turned to stare at me.

“Shut up, Finkelstein!” I said. Jeez, why don't you use a megaphone?

But it was too late.

Tommy quickly pulled up his underwear. I quickly pulled up mine. Python boy wore jungle-print boxers. Me, I wore tighty-whities.

So pathetic.

“Dude, you staring at my wang?”

“No, of course not. No way, man.”

Oh God, I had just broken the golden rule of the boys' locker rooms: no pecker peeking.

Tommy stepped so close, we were nose to nose. Actually, we weren't nose to nose because he was six inches taller than me. I had to bend my head all the way back just to keep eye contact with him.

“I'm going to ask you just one more time, Connor: Were you staring at my dong?”

“Staring? No,” I said, my heart beating about a million miles a minute. “I mean, did I accidentally take a look?” I continued. “I might have. You know, a little glance, like the kind when a person is searching to find the clock on the wall, but instead sees another boy's sexual organ.”

Bam!
Tommy punched me in the face. The force knocked me over a locker-room bench and I crashed to the gray tile floor.

“Fight! Fight! Fight!” Finkelstein shouted, cheering us on like we were gladiators.

Why is Finkelstein cheering?
I thought. I mean, I had already taken one shot to the head and if I got up, Tommy would have pulverized me into hamburger.

I stayed down. Besides, I'd been pecker peeking; I kinda deserved to get popped.

Tommy glared. “Keep your eyes in your own head, punk!” he said, and then he stormed off.

A moment later, I picked myself up off the floor.

“Wow, Bobby, are you okay?”

“Shut up, Finkelstein.”

I touched the side of my face, right below my eye.

“He really nailed you good.”

“Would you shut up, Finkelstein?” I said.

Ow, that really hurt,
I thought.

If only, however, that was the greatest pain I was to suffer.

My brain was hazy for the rest of that day after I'd gotten walloped by Tommy. All afternoon long I couldn't focus on a darn thing.

I couldn't pay attention to any of my teachers' blabbering.

I couldn't focus on stupid Nathan Ox as he called me a hundred thousand penis-themed insults.

I wasn't even able to pay attention to the three more times that Alfred Finkelstein said “She wants to taste my taste buds” when another round of girls rejected his invitation to the Big Dance.

All I could concentrate on was one thing. And it wasn't my eye. Okay, I'd been bopped. Big deal. Like I said, I deserved it. No, I was being distracted by something else entirely: walking Allison home from school. As each minute passed bringing us closer to the end of the day, I got more and more excited. And jumpy. And happy and nervous, too. Truly, the last bell to end the last class of that Thursday could not have come fast enough.

“Hi-hi,” Allison said when she saw me walking up the hall. Funny how the entire afternoon I was rushing to get to this moment, but now that it had arrived, all I wanted to do was slow time down, like have each second on the clock take an hour or something.

It's weird how girls can make your head so fuzzy. More fuzzy than a punch, that's for sure.

“Hi-hi,” I responded.

“What happened to your face?”

“Navy SEAL mission. Can't really talk about it,” I said. “Sometimes I work for the government.”

“Saving hostages?” she asked.

“Taking out terrorists, disabling nuclear devices,” I answered. “All while doing math homework for your dad.”

“Sounds like you're pretty busy.”

“Not too busy to walk you home,” I answered. “And look what I brought.”

I took out a yellow bag of Peanut M&M's. She smiled.

“Of course, I don't know what
you're
gonna eat,” I added.

She laughed. I tore open the bag and poured three or four into her hand.

We headed toward the front gate of campus, over the grass no one was ever supposed to walk on—which kids always did—side by side. Even though there were like fifty million students all around us, it felt like Allison and I were the only two people on the planet.

“So, what's it like being a teacher's kid?” I asked.

“You get answers to all the tests.”

“You do?” I said.

“Naw, I wish,” she replied. “Basically, it's like being any other parent's kid, I guess. I mean, my dad still treats me like I'm three years old, I hit him up for money when I need stuff, and he's hopeless when it comes to new technology. He stills uses a calculator from, like, the nineteen eighties.”

“I wasn't even born yet,” I said.