Beau, Lee, The Bomb Read online

  “Exactly.” He nods quite seriously. “My dad hates all those ‘ass-wipes.’ ”

  “I think my dad kind of likes them. In Alaska everyone considers themselves this rugged individualist—at least back in the ’70s, what with the legal pot and all.”

  “What? Weed was legal in the ’70s? Seriously?”

  “In Alaska. Yeah.”

  New Dude Beau looks at me. “Wow. What happened?”

  I sigh and nod knowingly.

  “I know . . .” Even though I don’t. I’ve never smoked pot.

  New Dude Beau looks at me.

  “By the way—hi. My name is Beau.”

  Which I know, but I get all flustered again.

  “Rylee Winters. Also known as Rusty.” Like I’m going to sell him a car or something. Why don’t I just add “put ’er there, fella!” and stick my hand out like a total freaking mutant. Jeez, I make myself cringe.

  He doesn’t appear to notice.

  “Cool. You’re the third girl Riley I’ve known.”

  “How many guy Rileys?”

  “Um . . . like, eighty?”

  We both nod and smile.

  “I know, right?” I say. I had an Uncle Riley.

  And then the baboon boys arrive.

  I’ve been sitting on this low stone wall, and Beau has been standing over by the bus sign. The alpha baboon and his two trusty baboon aides swagger down the street from the cul-de-sac they live in. They have trickily dressed in human clothing, entirely saggin’.

  So gangsta! My favorite part is when these lil’ butt-itches scrawl “Straight Outta Compton” or “Pimps Up, Hos Down” or some other twaddle on their little monkey bags. As if! They would be eaten by toddlers and house cats in South Central LA! And they sound like idiots!

  Spare me from lily-white posing posers shipped in from the burbs.

  As am I—lily-white—but not a poser. I live right here in inner city Seattle and go to their crappy schools. But I don’t claim any “street cred,” as these young folks say nowadays.

  Beau, once again, looks really calm and doesn’t do or say anything. The worst of the jerks comes up to him.

  “Hey, douche! Where’s your gay shirt? Get it dirty?”

  Beau doesn’t even answer. He just looks at him and shrugs. Sort of smiles and shakes his head like, “Really?”

  “Where is it, faggot?”

  “Dude, why are you even acting like this?”

  “ ’Cause I hate effin’ fags, that’s why. Fag.”

  “But you don’t know anything about me. Why are you just assuming?”

  “You have a fag face and wear fag clothes and sound like a fag. That’s why. Fag.”

  To my utter amazement, Beau doesn’t look intimidated or afraid or angry or in any way pissed off. He keeps his eyes on the boy, whose mother named him Nick, but for whom I have other names, and shrugs like, “Sucks to be you then.”

  Nick isn’t as assured now because usually kids get all one way or the other when he starts. He is such a silly bully. He moved here in the third grade and has been wasting the air of my town ever since.

  He’s used to kids freaking out, bursting into tears, and running off so he can chase them etc. when he starts his little mandrill-power displays.

  None of which Beau did. So Nick escalated. He got up into Beau’s personal face space and was so close he could almost touch him. He was a little taller and put his face menacingly into Beau’s.

  Beau looked disgusted and turned his face, and then Nick shoved him.

  Backward on his butt. Hard.

  Beau was up almost before he was down. Before anyone else could even move.

  “Leave me alone, dude. You don’t even know my name. I don’t even know yours.” Beau moved away. Nick just ran at him, and then I saw the most wonderful thing I had seen in a long time.

  Beau caught Nick’s hand and did something that stopped him and forced him to his knees.

  It was stellar, though I couldn’t really see what he did. One minute Nick is going to punch Beau’s face and the next he is kneeling in front of him, moaning in contrition.

  Well, maybe not contrition, but he’s on his knees and moaning.

  It’s beyond awesome, and I’m standing amazed and excited, euphoric that I’m actually enthusiastic! Woo!

  Beau drops Nick’s hand and stands there, waiting. Nick looks at his hand and gets to his feet. Puts it in his armpit.

  I notice his two friends are not jumping in. Good to know who’s got your back.

  Red-face Nick rushes him again like he’s going to strangle him, and this time Beau takes a step to him, grabs his hand again, and down goes Nick—down goes Nick! I almost cheer!

  I tell you, mis amigos, it is regal.

  As the bus pulls up and Nick stands up again, dirty wet knees making him look like the loser he was, and is, and will always be, he gives one clown-fish stink-eye to Beau as he gets on the bus and hisses:

  “It’s on, faggot.”

  Have you ever heard the saying, “The enemy of my enemy is my friend”?

  There’s something to that.

  I was liking Beau just for himself when we talked, but now I liked Beau for being awesome and kicking the butt of this jerk who has been making my life miserable for oh-so-many years.

  I was glad when I saw I had three classes with him, one of which was English, still my fave . . . as my English teacher used to be, as well. Mr. Adkins, my English teacher, my hero, the most popular teacher at the school. Pitter-pat. That was my lil’ heart when I thought about him.

  But now that’s changed. Now I know a little story about my English teacher.

  My only “friend,” Leonie Caitiff, who, I’m pretty sure, is only my friend because we were assigned the same table, told me about it when we were sitting in art class together.

  Thus, Mr. Adkins used to be my favorite teacher.

  Past tense.

  I broke up with him in my heart when I found out he seduced Leonie.

  I know. It’s bad.

  Now, I’m going to tell you a sad and messed-up story about the grown man who @$%*!!^ the crazy little sophomore while he was her teacher in high school. Ready?

  Reread above sentence.

  ’Cause that is pretty much the story. Unfortunately not that big a news flash.

  Leonie was not quite fifteen when she started having sex with him.

  I know. I said it was bad.

  They “fell in love,” you see. She told me.

  Like I said, Leonie Caitiff speaks to me because we were assigned to sit at the same table in art class. She started talking to me after about a week of busting on me to seem cooler in front of the other kids, which stopped when she realized it didn’t help.

  I understood. She is rejected by the cool kids ’cuz she has a really scandalous reputation; she got boobs in fourth grade and because she’s wild and does stuff with guys . . . on the freaking bus.

  Which so doesn’t help. The boys want her, but they mock her. They call her “Turbo-Ho” or “Turbo” for short. They laugh at her. But that doesn’t seem to matter to her. She has this huge, sad need for male approval, does Leonie Caitiff.

  And believe me, she gets good grades in English.

  I look up from my art when she scurries in and sits down. Cartooning is our art elective this quarter. Art class is downstairs in the school basement, beside the home ec kitchen, and the whole classroom smells like cookies today. It reminds me I like cookies, which is something other people like to remind me of as well.

  Leonie is rushed. She makes it in the nick of time, as the bell rings.

  “Did you get my text?” She sits down and starts brushing her huge mane of hair.

  She is very pretty. She is full of color; her blue-green eyes and long curly red-gold hair complement her paper-white skin and tons of pale gold freckles. Her hair is what red hair should look like. She smokes a lot so her teeth are a little more colorful than they should be, and nobody has taught the wee thing how to appl
y makeup so it doesn’t look trashy, thus her lipstick’s a maroon slash of color that clashes with her hair, but all in all she is strikingly good looking.

  “No.” I look over at her. “My phone is off.”

  “Why?”

  “Um . . . ’cuz I already know what it would say?”

  “Whatever. I just got a text from him.” She starts scrabbling through her gigantic bag for her phone.

  “Awesome! What does he want? To correct your paper? How appropriate! That’s wonderful!” She can’t even hear my sarcasm.

  “He wants to meet here on Saturday. Then go somewhere.”

  “Leonie! No!”

  “Rusty! Yes!”

  A wadded-up piece of paper rolls across my freshly inked caption. Of course Leonie has to unwad it and read the message: “T—ride home bus 34.” She looks over at the pig trough that threw it, hoping it’s this one guy she thinks is cute. She nods at him, smiling.

  “Leonie Caitiff! That is disgusting!” I feel like smacking her. “They don’t even like you!”

  She looks at me then, hurt and hip deep in denial.

  “Yes, they do!”

  “No, they don’t! They call you T and Turbo and throw things at you. They’re horrible!”

  “You just don’t understand, Rusty, because you’re a virgin. You just can’t get it.” She says the word virgin smirking, like it means ax murderer or baby eater or something.

  “I do get when someone is being disrespected, which you totally are,” I hiss back.

  The guys at the other table are oinking in delight. They aren’t even all assigned to the same table, but our teacher is a small dude and doesn’t want to mess with them. He ignores the noise. I feel my anger, which is the only thing that I ever feel reliably, begin to rise. I swallow it down. I return to my ink.

  New Dude Beau comes into art class. He gives the teacher a note, and the teacher gestures him to our table. It is the only one that doesn’t already have four people at it, but I think Great—now we are officially the freak table, and wait for the assault of “things butt-wipes throw at freaks” to begin raining down on us.

  Leonie looks up, and I see her eyes get dark . . . oh, boy, here we go. She smiles.

  “Hi. Are you at our table?”

  “Yeah. Hi. I’m Beau.” He’s still standing, hesitating. The class is in chaos, as usual, so no one even much notices yet, though the first bell has rung.

  Then the second one rings. The din decreases a decibel. He sits down.

  “I’m Leonie.” She starts twiddling her hair, a sure sign with that one.

  “Hi.”

  “Do you need some paper? I have another pen. . . .” She leans over to push these things across the table to him in a way that you can totally see down her shirt. He looks away quickly.

  “Thanks.”

  I look over at him. He starts digging around like there is something so interesting in his backpack, but I notice that the tips of his ears are bright red.

  Ole Leonie strikes again. I go back to my lettering. Capital letter A. Capital letter A.

  I like cartooning class. Mr. J plays old rock from when he was a teenager. Today we hear The Dark Side of the Moon by Pink Floyd. Yesterday it was The Police. The day before: AC/DC. Before that: “Space Oddity.”

  My favorite so far is Talking Heads’ “Once in a Lifetime.” I like how David Byrne chops.

  Plus, his suit in the video looks like something SpongeBob would wear to traffic court.

  I said that to Mr. J and he cracked up. He said I have the makings of a disaffected hipster. I had no idea what he meant, but I smiled anyway because it was good to hear someone offering an unvicious opinion about what I have the makings of.

  Mr. J also said if I did become one, to promise never to get my face tattooed or shave my eyebrows or pierce my eyelids. He was goofing, but I totally agreed.

  I don’t need to go out of my way to find dis-affection. I have it around me here by the ton.

  So Leonie continues to chat up Beau. He starts by giving her monosyllabic answers, but she is so sweet (when she wants to be) that he can’t resist for long. Neither could I when she started talking to me.

  She gathers the intelligence that Beau will be seventeen in May, that “Beau” is not short for anything else; that his last name is Gales; he just moved here from the Midwest; he was born there; that he likes his mom and his stepdad, who live here, but doesn’t like his dad at all, who lives there; that he is probably more of a dog person that a cat person, though he doesn’t have any pets right now; that his favorite color is iridescence; and his middle name is John.

  Good work, Detective Nosy McNoserson. I think you have captured our man.

  We return to our cartooning. I don’t like to talk while I caption because it makes me spell things wrong, which is an automatic fail. Leonie can hardly even hold the pen because she has big old fingernails like the ladies down at the DMV.

  She never gets better than a C plus. Probably because Mr. J is happily married.

  See, I think mean thoughts, but I’m not really mean. I don’t mean to be mean. I’m just not that surprised by meanness, deep down. If it’s not messed up one way, it’ll be messed up some other way.

  I feel we live in messed-up times. Everyone laughs at personal pain, no matter how heartless. People casually watch torture on TV shows and aren’t even freaked.

  Whatever . . . welcome to the new Dark Ages.

  I feel offended and empty a lot. I feel empty the most, empty and totally lonely. Stranded. Stuck here in Stoopidville, goin’ to Baboon High.

  Today the unthinkable happened.

  I have been eating lunch by myself for my entire life. When we even share the same lunch period, Leonie always sits with the doofs, just yukkin’ it up, like a hyena. It’s so typical.

  I myself have also developed a routine: I sit down. I unwrap my stuff and open a book. Then I put on my headphones and read through lunch. I am not available to anything except physical contact; sounds and sights cannot affect me. I have my armor on.

  And so that’s exactly what I was doing when Beau came up to one of the empty seats around me in the otherwise crowded to overflowing cafeteria and sat down.

  I looked up in panic.

  “You probably don’t want to do that.” I looked at him in confusion and a little anger. He was just going to make us (read: me) a target.

  He didn’t budge. He just looked at me.

  “Why?” He didn’t seem to understand.

  “If you sit here, they will say things.” I was trying to talk without moving my mouth, like a spy or something. I didn’t want to draw any attention.

  “So?” He just shook his head and looked at me in resignation. “If I don’t sit here, they will still say things.” He shrugged. “They’re a plague of frogs. What are you reading now?”

  I looked down at my book quickly. I could feel an incredulous smile coming on.

  The truth will set you free.

  I ate lunch with someone today.

  And just like that, we start hanging out together. I can use my mom’s car almost whenever I want it, and as long as it has as much gas in it when I bring it back blah-blah and be careful blah-blah, then I can use it.

  So now: We rollin’ in the minivan!

  Beau has a lot of stories. He’s done a lot of things I haven’t, among which are drinking beer and smoking pot. He tried it in Kansas.

  He says it’s not a big deal.

  I disagree.

  Leonie agrees.

  She, of course, has been drunk a lot. She also smokes pot a lot because I smell it on her at school. No matter how much I dog her on it.

  I’m not going to deal with drugs or sex right now in my life. I am the smartest person I know, and I don’t think either will help me memorize or learn, which is what I do best. Luckily, the guys of Baboon High do not seem bummed about me passing on sex. They appear to be bearing up stoically.

  However, I do plan on investigating everything wh
en I go to college. See what all the fuss is about. When I’m older and have a bunch of friends.

  Someday . . .

  I will have my own place and a lot of buddies and classmates, and we will sit up all night, talking and drinking beer and passing joints, discussing things like infinity and the middle class and protesting for change, like I see people do on TV, only more peacefully, hopefully. And maybe I’ll meet some singular guy and we’ll hit it off. . . .

  Optimistically, this is how it will work, even in community college, which is where I’m headed. At least for the first couple of years. Then we’ll see.

  We’ve been able to save a lot, Mom and me, almost enough for the whole first year, which I think is pretty good. I have it in my bank account. I don’t know what I’ll choose for a major yet. I will need further calculation.

  The next day after school Beau, Leonie, and I go down to Lake Washington and sit on the picnic tables. The water is blue, and the breeze is light so it’s perfect. It stays about seventy degrees in October till it gets rainy and wet. Then we “fall back” an hour into standard time and it gets dark and cold till late spring. It also occasionally snows, which is ghastly for us, though other parts of the country find us pants-wetting funny because we’ll abandon our cars if, like, more than twenty flakes fall from the sky.

  It’s beautiful now because of the late Indian summer, all warm with red and gold leaves. We sit enjoying the aquamarine water’s reflection of the clouds. We throw sticks at the Canadian geese flock when they keep waddling over to beg from us. We are not fans. They honk and crap everywhere. Like everywhere.

  Leonie lights up a cig. Blue smoke wafts. Beau looks at her.

  “How much are smokes these days?”

  She looks at him like he’s going to give her grief for smoking, which is exactly what he is going to do.

  “A lot.”

  “Like ten dollars?”

  “Not quite.”

  “But a good way to spend your money, huh? Like almost three hundred bucks a month?”

  Leonie looks shocked, and I see her doing mental arithmetic. Beau goes on.

  “How much in a year . . . let’s see . . . bring down the zero . . . wow—about the same as buying a sports car!”