by Frank Criscenti
Johnny and I used to discuss pain and death. We debated which was worse, having a red-hot poker shoved up your ass or drowning in a vat of shit.
Johnny's sister, Meagan, is thirteen. That's a year older than Johnny and me. She's one of those people who's always nice to everyone. She got a great smile, perfect hair, and a star-shaped blotch of dark skin on her face.
One day I came by to see Johnny, and Meagan answered the door. She told me, "Johnny's out getting a haircut."
"Oh." I thought I should leave but something held me there.
"It's a nice day, don't you think?" she said. I said it was for a school day. "That's a nice shirt. The color looks good on you. Is it new?"
I shook my head. As shirts go, the shirt I was wearing seemed ordinary but for the lime-green color of it.
We stood there without saying anything for a minute.
"Well," she said. "It's been nice talking to you... Goodbye." She stayed at the door.
"Yeah," I mumbled because I didn't know what to say. She went inside and closed the door slow. After the door was closed, she looked out the little window in the door.
I waved. "Later." She smiled and waved back. I liked Johnny's sister even with that thing on her face. I liked her a lot.
One day at school, my teacher, Old Man Harvey grabbed me and shook me because I threw a book at this bastard, Tom Neidharder, who used to be my best friend. Someone told me Neidharder called my mother a name. I can't even say what he called her, it's that bad. Knowing Neidharder like I do, I know he said it.
I couldn't even think straight after the shaking Old Man Harvey gave me. People are always messing with me because I'm kind of skinny. People say I don't eat enough.
When I got home I told my mother I had a headache. I told her what happened except the throwing the book.part. She called Randy, my stepfather, into the room to hear. I could tell he'd been drinking by the smell. When I told him the story he got mad as hell. He and my mother decided to go to school.
In the office, Randy threatened to beat the hell out of Old Man Harvey, the principal, the whole lousy P.T.A., if anyone at school ever laid a hand on me again. Randy said, "I'll discipline my own kid. I don't need you to do it for me." It kind of embarrassed me. He didn't need to make a big deal about it.
Then Harvey came in and told them I threw a book. On the way home Randy got me pretty good. My mother sat in the front seat with him. I sat in the back. While he drove, he cursed me and swung his fast across the back seat and caught me square in the head a couple of times. My mother would bob her head out of the way of his swinging fist every time, but I couldn't duck him.
Funny how Randy could do that--drive and curse and hit you at the same time. Even when you moved right behind him where you thought it was safe, somehow could swing his fist and catch you pretty good. He must be double-jointed or something.
When you think about it, getting a red hot poker shoved up your ass would screw up your insides pretty good. Might not kill you but just make it so you wouldn't want to live anymore. If you drowned in a vat of shit, at least you'd be dead. At least you wouldn't suffer as much.
"What's that thing on your sister's face?" I asked Johnny one time.
"I don't know," he said. "Just some stupid birthmark. She hates it. What do you think is worse, having a red-hot poker shoved up your ass or having you dick cut off a quarter-inch at a time?"
"Try them both and then report back to me." I said. Johnny grinned. He was always grinning about something stupid.
One time I knew Johnny wasn't going to be home. I put on my lime-green shirt and went to his house. As I knocked on the door, I felt like some kind of asshole standing there. His sister answered.
"Johnny home?"
"No," she said. "How are you? Have a nice day in school."
"No, I don't really like school." I took a deep breath. "Did you have a nice day?" I asked.
"It was great. We did wood blocks in art." We stood there looking stupid. "Well, Johnny will be back later," she said after a minute when nobody said anything.
"Oh," I said.
"Guess I should go in," she said, then started to ease the door shut.
"I like your hair," I said.
"She blushed. The blotch even turned red. She swung the door open, walked down the three stairs to me, beaming. I kissed her square on the lips. She kissed me back, then ran back inside and closed the door and didn't even look out the little window.
When I got home that afternoon my apartment was a shambles. Lamps were knocked off tables. All my stepfather's clothes were thrown in the hall. There were broken dishes in the living room. My mother was crying. She had a shiner under her left eye. Guess she hadn't ducked at least one of my stepfather's punches. My stepfather wasn't around, but he'd come back. He always did.
"The lousy bastard," my mother mumbled.
I tried to clean up some of the shit, but sometimes when stuff like that happens you just don't feel like it.
The whole idea of always talking about red-hot pokers up the ass or drowning in shit started to annoy me. Seemed like Johnny couldn't really think about anything else.
One day after school, we wandered around town, going nowhere. Johnny going on and on about nothing important. At this construction site, we yanked a couple of stakes with the red flags attached to the end out of the ground. We started a sword fight. I stuck him in the stomach.
"I killed you," I said.
"You just wounded me," he said.
"You'd be laying on the ground bleeding to death!"
"Like hell!" He swung the stake back and forth as if he wasn't even hurt. It really pissed me off, him acting like that.
"You would be dying," I screamed.
"I'm a ninja warrior."
I swung the stake and he blocked it with his.
"Not so hard," he said. "You'll break it."
I smashed the stake into his. They hit together so hard I could feel it all the way through my arm.
"Take it easy," he said. But I didn't want to take it easy. I wanted him to know he was wrong--wanted him to understand that you couldn't get stabbed in the stomach and keep on fighting, so I jabbed him again in the same place, but harder.
"Ugh," he said when I hit him this time.
"I got you again," I said.
"It's just a flesh wound!"
"You're dead!" I screamed.
He kept swinging his sword toward me, which went "whoosh" every time he swung. It was enough to drive you crazy. I feinted toward his belly then bashed my sword down on his head. Johnny went down, bleeding.
He howled and cried. "Am I going to die?"
"No," I said, though I wasn't really sure. I helped him home, left him in the kitchen with his mother wiping the blood off his head with a damp washcloth.
Johnny's parents made my parents and me come over that night to their house. My stepfather punched me in the stomach before we left. I had to lie on the ground for about five minutes before I could catch my breath. At Johnny's house, my mother wore sunglasses to hide her shiner.
The adults sent me into the living room to sit with Johnny and Johnny's sister while they discussed what should happen to me. Whatever Johnny's parents could think up wouldn't be as bad as what Randy would do.
As we sat in the living room, Johnny kept showing me where they put the five stitches in his head. He said he'd barely felt it when I hit him. He said he didn't even cry when he got the stitches. I said it was an accident. Johnny said he knew it was. Stupid asshole, Johnny.
Meagan asked if I was going to get in big trouble. She asked me nice, like she cared. Johnny sat on the couch between us. Just when I wanted to tell his sister how scared I was, he kept talking about how his skull still felt numb, trying to make me feel worse than I already did.
Johnny's father and mother called me into the kitchen after about a half-hour. Randy got up, stood behind me. He put his hand on the back of my neck and dug his fingers in just enough so I'd know I'd really screwed up this time. Johnny's mother and father gave me this speech. They said I couldn't come over to their house for a month. Said it been agreed that it was the best punishment. They said they knew it was an accident but that we shouldn't have been fighting with stakes in the first place. Johnny would get punished too, for pulling such a dumb stunt, they said. His mother said I was lucky I hadn't put Johnny's eye out of something. When they were done lecturing me, Randy squeezed hard, and I said I was sorry.
On the way home my stepfather yelled at me. He worked himself into a frenzy. The spit ran down his face as he shrieked. After he'd worked himself up good, he pulled the car onto the side of the road He climbed into the back seat and started wailing on me.
My mother sat in front still wearing her sunglasses. While he beat me, she just looked out the front window, even when I begged her to make him stop. The only thing she said the whole time was, "Not his face."
Johnny walked around school like a war hero. He said after we left his parents took him and his sister out for hamburgers and ice cream. He got to order anything he wanted, so he got a shake at the burger place and a banana split at the ice cream place. I never said a word. I couldn't brag about what my stepfather had done to me. Randy told me not too. My insides hurt as if someone had shoved a red-hot poker up my ass.
I saw Meagan a few days later at the mall. We walked around awhile, holding hands. It was cold that night, so Meagan wore these soft knit gloves. When it started to get dark we went into the parking lot. Our breath puffed in the air like we'd been smoking cigarettes. I put my arms around her waist and we kissed. I told her she was pretty. She covered the thing on her face. I pulled her hand away. I said, "I like you the way you are. You don't have to hide anything from me." We kissed again.
Later, she asked what happened to me for what I did to Johnny. I showed her the bruises on my ribs.
"Does it hurt?" she asked, all concerned.
"Nah," I said.
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From Furious Fictions 92, #1.
