Stick (3 page)

I couldn't remember ever seeing a blind kid. But Mr. Lloyd told us boys in gym class that masturbating does that kind of stuff to you. So, I thought, maybe it makes your ear fall off.

“It really
doesn't
stunt your growth and make you go blind?” I asked.

“Maybe that's why I'm                shorter than you.” Bosten pulled our car right alongside the Buckleys' station wagon. I looked outside, guiltily, like Paul's parents might be watching or maybe listening to us, but they weren't there.

“Besides,” Bosten said, grabbing his crotch and adjusting himself, “I may be short and blind,               but I'm happy.”

“You are dumb.” I laughed. I wasn't embarrassed or anything talking to Bosten about jerking off. I loved my brother too much to be embarrassed about anything around him.

I opened the door and got out.

And Bosten said, “Stick!           Sticker!          Help me! I'm blind! I can't see!”

I laughed again. Bosten got out and came around to my side of the car. He put his arm around my shoulder and whispered right into that one sound spot on my head, with his lips so close I could feel the heat from his breath.

“You know what I'm going to do later on, when we go home?         When I get                  home tonight,     I'm going to jerk myself off right into the goddamned dryer.”

“You are totally sick, Bosten.”

*   *   *

It rained that night.

We walked toward the gym—it gave off heat and noise and light—through puddles in the parking lot.

I pulled my hat down low. Bosten wore a cap that said
DWHS
.

At the game, we sat next to Paul's parents, Joy and Ian Buckley. They were close friends with our parents, so Bosten and I both knew we had to be careful about what we said around them.

I sat between Bosten and Mrs. Buckley. She was on my right, so I couldn't really hear her. Occasionally, she would put her hand on my knee to get my attention, and she'd ask questions or say nice things, so I had to make up replies, just to be polite.

How are your mom and dad, Stark?

She called me Stark.

We are so looking forward to having your family over for dinner on Sunday.

When she put her hand on my knee, it felt soft and warm. I thought about that woman in the bathtub. Mrs. Buckley made me get an erection right there, sitting in the bleachers at my brother's high school.

*   *   *

I loved basketball,
but I'd never have the guts to play it.

How could I ever get out there on the floor with all those boys and their perfect and flawless bodies running around with me—being watched by so many eyes?

Wilson High was playing a team from Bremerton. Paul was out there most of the game, too. Well, at least what we saw of the game, that is.

Bosten and I got thrown out of the gym during the second half.

Mrs. Nolan, the dean of students, told us we were lucky we didn't get arrested, but it didn't matter. I knew Mr. and Mrs. Buckley would tell our parents all about what we did if they heard about it from the other kids at the game that night.

We'd waited until after halftime to go pee. During the break, the toilets get so crowded it's almost impossible to pee. Bosten stood in line to get a Coke and I went into the boys' restroom.

There was one other kid, standing in front of the urinal. He was an eighth grader I knew, named Ricky Dostal. Ricky was in the same gym class as me, and he had this tough little man-body he got from playing Pop Warner football and spending an hour every day in his garage lifting weights while his dad sat there and smoked cigarettes and told his son how great he was going to be. Ricky was also a year older than all the other boys in eighth grade. Mr. Dostal held him back just so he would be bigger and stronger for high school football. Personally, I'd rather have to go to the doctor for jerking off too much than spend an extra year in junior high. We always hated each other, so all I could do was ignore him and pretend he wasn't there.

It didn't work.

When he turned away from the pisser, he noticed I'd been standing a few feet away from him.

Ricky said, “Hey,

retard. How's the head wound?”

What could I do?

You can't do or say anything when you're standing there holding your dick.

Ricky reached out and swiped the beanie from my head.

“You sonofabitch!” I hurriedly zipped up and turned toward him. I remember that I was thinking about what Emily had said to me earlier—about how I needed to learn to fight back.

But I wasn't like that.

Ricky shoved me and I spun back and nearly fell into the urinal.

It was one of those ones that ran along the length of the wall, open, with no dividers, about chest high.

“What'd you say about my mom,       freak?”

There's always piss all over the floor in school gym restrooms.

Ricky flipped my hat down into the piss in the bottom of the urinal. Then he smiled at me and stared straight into my eyes.

I hated it when people stared at me.

I figured I was going to get hit.

I looked down at my feet.

“Isn't that          your beanie there      in the piss drain, Stick?”

I didn't answer him.

That's when Bosten came in, holding a Coke. I didn't hear him.

Neither did Ricky, I guess.

“I think you should put it on, Stick. You need             to cover that shit on your head,” Ricky said.

I looked up. I wasn't scared of him.

Bosten casually set his Coke down on the sink behind Ricky and cleared his throat. And just when Ricky Dostal turned his face, Bosten punched him so hard, just below the eye, that I could feel the
whack!
of my brother's fist vibrating up through the yellowed restroom floor.

Ricky spun back toward me so fast that droplets of his blood splashed onto the tiles above the chrome water pipe that dripped a continuous flow all along the length of the wall's open urinal.

He was out before he hit the ground, completely unconscious, lying on his side with his face in the piss on the floor. There was a dark red gash that arced all the way across Ricky's cheekbone, and blood splashed everywhere across the floor, over Ricky's gray face.

It almost looked like somebody had been murdered in there.

Bosten didn't say a thing to me. He just took a sip through the straw in his Coke, set it back down on the sink, then stepped over Ricky, went to the end of the urinal, and peed.

I stood over Ricky, watching the pool of blood run through the grooves between the tiles on the floor, mixing with urine, finding its way, eventually, into the bottom of the piss trough.

“Want some?” Bosten offered me his Coke.

I was thirsty.

Ricky moaned, began to roll over. He was a mess, soaked in piss and blood.

“Wait a second,” Bosten said. “Here.”

Then he took off his cap and put it on my head.

“As long           as I live, Stick, no one's ever going to do that               to you again.”

During the game, as we sat beside Mrs. Buckley, who didn't even notice that I was wearing my brother's ball cap, we saw the dean of students walking across the floor, scanning the bleachers for me and Bosten.

So he leaned over to me and whispered, “Come on, Stick. We might as well go turn ourselves in.”

And that's how Bosten and I got thrown out of the game that night.

We waited in the car for the game to end.

I found myself feeling sorry for Ricky.

I was sure that at that moment, he was lying in a hospital emergency room, smelling like piss, while some doctor leaned over him and stitched up the cut my brother laid across his face.

I turned, so that I was looking out the window. The rain had stopped and I could see a few stars in the breaks between clouds.

I didn't want to look at Bosten, anyway.

“Do you want your hat back?” I said.

“No.       Are you okay? I hope                you're not mad at me.”

That's when I felt like crying.

So I wouldn't look at Bosten.

He knew.

“I'm sorry, Stick.”

And words like those, from my brother, were the kind of words that could get inside my head and whirr around like mad hornets trying to find  a way out.

Sure he was sorry.

I knew what he meant.

He wasn't sorry he busted

that fucker's face open.

He wasn't sorry we got thrown out of a

goddamned basketball game.

Those were things to be proud of.

Those were things you'd laugh about

and tell stories about over and over.

Things like that make normal boys normal

boys.

But goddamnit, goddamnit, GODDAMNIT

I knew what Bosten was sorry about.

He was sorry about
me
, like he felt

some kind of responsibility for me being me.

Like he knew what she was thinking every time

Mom looked at me, so he was sorry for that.

Like he had to admit

that since nobody else was sorry for me,

he might as well do the job.

Just like cleaning out the goddamned dryer.

But it wasn't Bosten's job to feel sorry for me,

and GODDAMNIT

I AM SORRY

I DID THIS TO YOU, BOSTEN.

I AM SORRY.

PAUL

Cars started.
People filed out of the gymnasium.

Bosten opened his door and got out.

“Mrs. Buckley,” he said.

Then I couldn't hear anything.

He closed the door.

I watched him talking to Paul's parents until they got into their car and drove off. And Bosten just leaned against the hood of the Toyota, facing the gym, waiting for the players to come out.

“I'm not mad at you, Bosten,” I said. “Why would I be?”

But he couldn't hear me, either.

I got out and stood next to Bosten when I saw Paul coming. I knew they'd expect me to ride in the backseat, anyway.

I shoved my brother's shoulder.

“What did you say to the Buckleys?”

“I told them we got thrown out. And that I punched a kid in the bathroom who was                 messing with you.”

“Oh.”

It would be trouble.

“Don't worry about it. It was me, not you,” he said. “So I asked           them if we could                                                take Paul to Crazy Eric's before we went home. They said it was okay.”

“Are we really going to Crazy Eric's?”

Bosten laughed. “Hell no.”

He grabbed the bill on my cap and pulled it down in front of my nose.

Across the lot, Paul shouted good-byes to the other players.

Paul Buckley was just a bit taller than me, and solid—definitely not a stick. He carried a canvas bag slung over his shoulders. His hair was wet. I could tell by the way he walked they'd won their game.

He came up to us, smiling, red-faced, and slapped a hand into Bosten's.

“Nice game,” Bosten said.

“Hey, Stick.” Paul nodded to me and I nodded back.

“Buck.”

“Well, to be completely honest,” Bosten said, “we didn't actually see the whole game. We got thrown out before the end because I beat the shit out of Ricky Dostal in the bathroom.”

“That was you guys?” Paul smiled; had a look of awe on his face. “I heard someone                     almost                       got                             
killed
in there.”

“I busted him up pretty good for screwing with             Stick.”

I felt sick.

“You're going to get                   suspended,” Paul said, but he was still smiling.

“I know.” Bosten jangled the car keys. “So               let's go have some fun and mess shit up           before my mom and dad totally destroy Stick's and my life.”

So much for Bosten trying to assure me it was going to be all on him.

I knew better, anyway. No punishments were ever exclusively limited to Bosten in our house.

Paul beamed. “Wait till you see what I got from Francis.”

Francis was Paul's brother. He was in the army, stationed in Texas, and visited the Buckleys every few months. Whenever Francis brought surprises for his younger brother, it usually meant I was either going to have to watch Paul and Bosten attempt to smoke Mexican pot or blow things up.

That night, it meant both.

*   *   *

Bosten drove out to the short stretch
of low bank beach at Pilot Point and parked.

He left the lights on, and I watched how the dashboard glow made him look green.

“You might need to drive us home,            Stick,” he said.

I already knew that.

And I'd seen seventh graders who could roll better joints than Bosten, but I loved to watch how completely inept he and Paul were whenever they got into their “danger mode.”

Personally, I hated the smell of pot.

But I did wonder how Mom would hold a joint, if she ever smoked one.

Paul reached back between the seats and handed his baggie of weed and rolling papers to me. “Will you     put            this in my bag?”

When I unzipped Paul's gym bag, a fog of steam and sweat escaped. I almost gagged. It made my hand wet to slip his baggie back inside it. I touched something wet and clothy. I tried not to think about what disgusting article of Paul's uniform it may have been.

“Buck, the stuff in your bag reeks like armpit,” I said.