he’d play the sympathy card. He’d tell an elaborate story about his parents crossing the border and struggling to speak English, and he would get off scot-free.
But Perez didn’t seem like a sympathetic character now. He swaggered up to Chris Cho and nudged him in the ribs with his fist.
“Hey, buddy!” Perez said in a loud, unpleasant voice that let me know he wasn’t Cho’s “buddy” at all.
Cho lowered his head and tried to walk past Perez down the hallway. But Perez sidestepped easily and blocked Cho’s way.
“Nuh-uh-uh.” Perez shook his head. “Gotta pay the toll.”
Cho looked up with a blank face. I was watching from my locker down the hall, but Perez moved so quickly toward Chris Cho that I didn’t know what had happened until I saw Perez hold Cho’s wallet up above his head.
“Let’s see what we have in here,” Perez said. Lowering the leather wallet, he pulled it open with both hands. “Ten… eighteen bucks. Not bad today, Cho.”
Perez removed five bills from Cho’s wallet before letting it drop to the floor. He folded the bills in half and put them in his pocket. Then he clapped Cho on the shoulder like a teammate and walked away.
As I walked past Cho, he was picking up his wallet from the hallway floor. I reminded myself that vampires didn’t care about petty human interactions. I was a vampire, therefore I didn’t care about what was happening to Chris Cho. I didn’t feel bad for him—or feel empathy for him—at all.
In Jenny Beckman, I had my first female friend.
Being close to a girl—I mean, literally being within three feet of a girl—was new to me.
The motto at St. Luke’s dances was “Leave room for the Holy Spirit.” Our dean and chaperones would tell this to any guy who was dancing too close to a girl. I’m not sure anyone was concerned about the Holy Spirit being there as much as they were worried about St. Luke’s guys rubbing their khaki boners all over those poor girls. As for the Holy Spirit, I’m pretty sure if He could be anywhere in Heaven or on Earth, He would not have chosen to sweat it out beneath that lame disco ball and spill Kool-Aid down his dress shirt like the rest of us.
I was never told to “Leave room for the Holy Spirit.” Of course, I’d attended only two dances at St. Luke’s—the first one freshman year, when I was hopeful about meeting girls, and the last one sophomore year, when I collected tickets. I didn’t dance at either one, and I actually got closer to a girl when I was collecting tickets. I shared the ticket table with a suspicious student government leader from St. Mary’s who accused me of stealing from the cash box. I recounted the crumpled five-dollar bills and cigarette butts in the cash box while, in the center of the dance floor, Luke yelled himself hoarse and pumped his fist in a circle of girls. Luke is unafraid to look like an idiot, so he’s a great dancer. He’s also unafraid to get physically close to girls, which is the main reason I’ve avoided dancing for sixteen years.
Now I had Jenny around, all the time, with no room for the Holy Spirit. I got to see all her quirks and emotions up close and personal. And Jesus, she had a lot of emotions.
“I can’t believe Kayla Bateman got out of gym today,” Jenny was saying. “It’s, like, put on a sports bra. I’m pretty sure you can play dodgeball with big boobs. They’re, like, extra protection.”
Kayla Bateman apparently has some medical condition where her boobs won’t stop growing. It’s, like, a type of gigantism for boobs. She’s the Andre the Giant of boobs. Although I’d seen Kayla talking to our male gym teacher, and I’m pretty sure it wasn’t the doctor’s note that got her out of class.
After three weeks of friendship, I had already decided that a lot of Jenny’s frustrations in life derived from the fact that Kayla Bateman had enormous boobs and Jenny had no boobs. Well, not no boobs. I definitely still would have looked if she flashed me. Jenny had small boobs. Jenny would never admit that she was jealous of Kayla, but I picked up on it anyway. I have more sensitivity than the average male Clearasil user.
Personally, I thought a great solution would be to take some of Kayla Bateman’s boobs and give them to Jenny. Like, just lipo-suck Kayla’s