Teachers don’t get that I actually like it at school.
I stay as long as I can, and so I end up walking home every day. Sometimes I go to the old gym and work out, or I walk to my under-the-table job at the building supply store. But mostly I go hang at Clay’s house and play video games.
I met Clay at the start of seventh grade. We were all new to the junior high, and there was some stupid hazing getting handed out, but as the new kid in town, Clay wasn’t just new to the upperclassmen, he was new to us, too. That made it worse for him. For everyone else, the hazing was lame—shoving in the hall, pushing runts into lockers. Pack dynamics.
I already had a bit of a reputation, and I had begun to cement it on that first day. Punched an eighth-grader in the stomach when he got in my face, doubled him over, and walked away before a teacher saw. It was enough that unless I flirted with the wrong girl, I was pretty much going to be left alone.
The day I first met Clay, I was in a good mood. Having a pretty great day.
Not Clay, though. He was trying to get to class and the eighth-and ninth-grade pre-dropouts were blocking his way. They wouldn’t let him through to the hall. Stupid, proud fool that he was, Clay would not back down, turn, and go the long way around. And he wouldn’t throw a punch, either, but I didn’t know that at first.
Let me tell you, Clay shines like a new penny in a grate, and that is not a good thing.
Anyone could tell Clay had a future. That he had someone at home who cared about him. But he didn’t fit in with the preps; his clothes weren’t that nice. He didn’t fit in with any of the groups. That was enough for most people.
That was enough for me, too. Just in a different way. I walked right up behind him. Like I needed to get through the door, too.
It went about like you’d expect.
When the leader finally stepped to me and threw a punch, you could see it coming a mile away. I slapped it aside, pivoted, and drilled a fist into his solar plexus. Gasping, eyes big like he was trying to catch his slammed-out breath through them, the bully stumbled aside. The others backed up, except for one who lunged at Clay. He chunked a lousy punch at Clay’s face, mostly hitting his chin. Clay fell down and didn’t get up. Just put his hands up, saying, “I won’t fight you.”
The second guy blinked at him, like he was trying to do fractions in his head. Then he realized his friends were moving away, and I wasn’t.
He left with the rest of them.
Clay stood up, and I handed him his bag. We walked through the doors. Once we were on the other side and down the hall a ways, Clay stopped and glared at me.
“I suppose you think that makes us friends now?”
I will never forget it. A busted lip, blood dripping on his new shirt. And he was pissed off at me.
I couldn’t help it. My lips twitched up, and it felt like a bit in my mouth, in a good way, like something was taking hold, steering the smile onto my face. Sticking it there. Nailing it in place. Something you couldn’t even think about. Something full and inflating—filling up the empty places and under it, a laugh.
I worked really hard not to laugh. I didn’t want him to think I was laughing at him.
He had that look in his eyes. Like he knew he was being stupid but was still too fired-up-proud to care. Like it was at war in him. A battle for his expression.
“Well, yeah?” I made it a question. Trying not to laugh. Because I liked this kid. Skinny and on the short side, and absolutely disregarding that fact in the face of those bullies, not backing down, even if he wouldn’t fight.
How the hell do you not want to be that guy’s friend?
He glared at me, but the smile was sliding in, and the laughter, too. And that’s when we became friends.
To almost everyone else, Clay is practically invisible. He’s still a little short, but he slouches so it’s hard to tell how much. He’s rail thin with shaggy hair, and he’s got this narrow face. It makes him look younger than he is.
But he’s dead-loyal and smart. Like I said, he’s one of those weird ones that you can tell has a future, and yet he somehow doesn’t count in the here and now. Like someone just randomly decides this. And he has to wear that until he graduates. Apart from Nico and Spud, he’s the only one I hang out with at school. And since he doesn’t count, it doesn’t affect my reputation in a single solitary way that I have a real friend. People think I’m psycho. That’s fine with me.
When it gets near enough to dinnertime, I usually head home, from Clay’s house or from work. Because you don’t want to get home after my father, or he’ll notice you: ice-blue eyes tracking as you walk in, his thick, mortuary-pale fists clenched.
During the day he sleeps but is gone by the time school gets out, heading to meet his buddies. They’ll go work out at a run-down gym that looks like a prison yard moved indoors and is filled with meaty juice-heads just like him.
He spends the rest of his time at the strip joint out near the airport. And I can’t catalog his activities there, except I know he runs book on any fights or games going on and loans money to people stupid or desperate enough to take it. And of course sells drugs, which is how he got collared last time.
He gets the girls to bring free drinks and give free dances, his sorry racket enough to make him sugar daddy for life to the spent girls who work there.
But he’s a low-level crook, ousted when it gets to the most lucrative time—night—having to hand over all but a small percent of the take to the next guy. All of which means when he heads home he’s been drinking, is pissed off, and you do not want him to notice you.
So that’s how it all started. Like any other day, I was walking home from Clay’s, heading deep into crap land. Trying to ignore the screaming little kids. Trying not to think.