Bait Dog An Atlanta Burns Novel - By Chuck Wendig Page 0,11
* *
Final bell of the day. Atlanta’s at her locker. Putting all the books she should be taking home into her locker because she doesn’t give two rats fucking in a dirty gym sock what homework she has to do tonight, and when she turns around she sees them down the hall by one of the custodial closets.
Jonesy stands, hips cocked, lips in an amused sneer. Virgil’s next to him. Big beef-cannon arms crossed so hard and tight the skin looks like an over-cooked sausage, like it might split at any second.
Reason she hasn’t seen them in a week is that they were put on suspension for something or other. Getting into troubles like cock-witted assholes sometimes do. But now she sees them.
They see her seeing them, and that’s what they want. Jonesy does a little chin-lift, a little head-nod. He might as well drag a comical finger across his throat and point to her.
Then they turn the corner and go. She hears them laughing. Jonesy. That cackle.
Great. Just what she needs.
* * *
“So,” she asks. “What’s it like being gay?”
Atlanta walks along the edge of a barren cornfield, a field nobody plows year after year but whose clumpy rows still feature the dead clusters of long-forgotten corn. Chris Coyne walks next to her. He’s twirling a rolled-up comic book in his hand while Shane wades into the field proper, poking the ground with a stick, diligently hunting for, well, something.
He shrugs. “I think I’m supposed to answer with: fabulous. And then I should do a back-flip and fire-off pink bottle rockets or something.”
“Sounds like fun.”
“What it’s really like is, moments of unbridled delight punctuated by long stretches of misery, uncertainty, and oppression.”
She shrugs. “Same as any teenager, then.”
“Say that if you want. And maybe it is. Maybe we all have our own bullshit to deal with. But I can tell you that it sure ain’t easy, sister.”
“Those YouTube videos would like you know that It Gets Better.”
“Uh-huh.” He laughs, but not in a funny way. Takes the comic book out and unrolls it, then re-rolls it: a nervous habit. “That’s all well and good, those videos. Nice enough, I guess. But that’s like whispering in someone’s ear as they’re getting raped: oh, hey, gosh, don’t worry, they’ll stop sticking it in you without your permission at some point in the future. Then it’s all ponies and bubble-gum. For now, just lie back and think of England.” He stops walking, suddenly. Eyes her up. Face sad. “Well. You know what I’m talking about.”
She doesn’t say anything and keeps walking, forcing him to play catch up.
He continues: “I’m just saying, I could use with a little less, it gets better, and a little more, here’s how to make it better now. Or even, here’s how to stop bullying gay people just because they’re gay, you fucking asshole thug prick-slit Nazi motherfucker.”
“That sounds a little long for a catchphrase,” she says.
“I found one!” Shane says from ten feet away. He holds up a small black flinty stone, his face a triumphant moon. But then he holds it close and squints, then sighs. “Never mind.” He pitches the stone away, grumbling.
“How’d you two hook up?” she asks Coyne, gesturing toward Shane.
“We’re not butt buddies, if that’s what you’re asking. I’m done with those. The last one did not end well, let me tell you.”
“I—“ she frowns, sticks out her lip. “I did not mean that, now stop. I just meant, you two seem like odd friends. Most times I see you with the Gay Mafia—“
“La Cozy Nostra?”
“Whatever. I’m just saying, you two seem an odd pair of ducks. You’re an agent of fabulosity—“
“While he sits in his basement building a 64-bit Ubuntu box?”
She crooks an eyebrow. “I don’t know what the hell you just said, so I’m going to go ahead and assume that you’re as big a nerd as he is, no matter how nice you dress.”
“Bingo. We met at the comic book store in Bloomsburg.” He shakes his comic book at her, as if to demonstrate. She catches a glimpse of the cover: Captain America. Coyne must note her dubious face, because he adds: “What, did you think we all just sit around reading the homo version of Cosmopolitan? Nine ways to tickle the taint? The Cosmo guide to being a power-bottom?”
She shrugs it off, but points to the book. “Seriously, though? Captain America? You just find him sexy, don’t you?”
“Please. I’ll have you know, he’s too muscular for me. I