gym to offload some of the punch I’d put away. I got as far as the boys’ room door, then someone seized me by the belt with one hand and the back of my neck with the other and propelled me straight down the hall to the side exit that gave on the faculty parking lot. If I hadn’t put out a hand to shove the crash bar, Kenny would have run me into the door face-first.
I have total recall of what followed. I have no idea why the bad memories of childhood and early adolescence are so clear, I only know they are. And this is a very bad memory.
The night air was shockingly cold after the heat of the gym (not to mention the humidity exuded by all those adolescent fruiting bodies). I could see moonlight gleaming on the chrome of the two parked cars belonging to that night’s chaperones, Mr. Taylor and Ms. Hargensen (new teachers got stuck chaperoning because it was, you guessed it, a GFMS tradition). I could hear exhaust banging away through some car’s shot muffler up on Highway 96. And I could feel the hot raw scrape of my palms when Kenny Yanko pushed me down on the parking lot pavement.
“Now get up,” he said. “You got a job to do.”
I got up. I looked at my palms and saw they were bleeding.
There was a bag sitting on one of the parked cars. He took it and held it out. “Shine my boots. Do that and we’ll call it square.”
“Fuck you,” I said, and punched him in the eye.
Total recall, okay? I can remember every time he hit me: five blows in all. I can remember how the last one drove me back against the cinderblock wall of the building and how I told my legs to hold me up and they declined. I just slid slowly down until my butt was on the macadam. I can remember the Black Eyed Peas, faint but audible, doing “Boom Boom Pow.” I can remember Kenny standing over me, breathing hard and saying, “Tell anyone and you’re dead.” But of all the things I can remember, the one I recall best—and treasure—is the sublime and savage satisfaction I felt when my fist connected with his face. It was the only one I got in, but it was a hell of a shot.
Boom boom pow.
* * *
When he was gone, I took my phone out of my pocket. After making sure it wasn’t broken, I called Billy. It was all I could think of to do. He answered on the third ring, shouting to be heard over the chanting of Flo Rida. I told him to come outside and bring Ms. Hargensen. I didn’t want to involve a teacher, but even with my chimes rung pretty good, I knew that was bound to happen eventually, so it seemed best to do it from the jump. I thought it was the way Mr. Harrigan would have handled it.
“Why? What’s up, dude?”
“Some kid beat me up,” I said. “I don’t think I better go back inside. I don’t look so great.”
He came out three minutes later, not only with Ms. Hargensen but Regina and Margie. My friends stared with dismay at my split lip and bloody nose. My clothes were also speckled with blood and my shirt (brand new) was torn.
“Come with me,” Ms. Hargensen said. She didn’t seem upset by the blood, the bruise on my cheek, or the way my mouth was fattening up. “All of you.”
“I don’t want to go in there,” I said, meaning back into the gym annex. “I don’t want to get stared at.”
“Don’t blame you,” she said. “This way.”
She led us to an entrance that said STAFF ONLY, used a key to let us in, and took us to the teachers’ room. It wasn’t exactly luxurious, I’d seen better furniture out on Harlow lawns when people had yard sales, but there were chairs, and I sat in one. She found a first aid kit and sent Regina into the bathroom to get a cold washcloth to put on my nose, which she said didn’t look broken.
Regina came back looking impressed. “There’s Aveda hand cream in there!”
“It’s mine,” Ms. Hargensen said. “Have some if you want. Put this on your nose, Craig. Hold it. Who brought you kids?”
“Craig’s dad,” Margie said. She was looking around at this undiscovered country with wide eyes. Since it was clear I wasn’t going to die, she was