|
|
|
|
| -by bing |
|
I sit in Mr. Dutcher's basement science classroom at Harborview Intermediate School.
It is 1985; Madonna's "Boy Toy" phase is in its heyday, a cowboy actor is in the White House,
and Rob Lowe is my favorite movie star. Well, only because I had to pick someone to have a
crush on since everyone else did, so I have plastered pictures of him in various films on the
inside of my puke-green locker – The Outsiders, Oxford Blues, Class. Jimmy Crankowsky, the bane of my existence, or at least one of the banes of my existence, sits at the desk to my left. He is small, the same height as me, making him the third shortest boy in the school after Justin Herman, who sits behind me, and Evan Greenberg, who I'll wind up going out with for six months come spring until he dumps me for my best friend. Jimmy has braces on his buck teeth, beady rat eyes and wears one of those polyester boy shirts, the kind with ugly brown, blue and cream colored stripes, long sleeves, and three buttons at the collar. There's a big pink stain on his right arm, Kool-Aid perhaps, or Hawaiian Punch, but he doesn't seem to care. He is, after all, a boy.
We are in the front row on the left-hand side of the classroom. I hate assigned seats, and Mr. Dutcher's giant lab table that he uses as a desk ends just in front of me. It's hard to resist reaching out to rub my fingers along the smooth, cool blackness that is his desktop, but instead I focus my eyes on the hard, green glob of gum, like a giant neon booger, that someone stuck beneath the lip, the part that hangs about an inch over my desk. I stare at the glob and try to disappear. I'm wearing my favorite outfit, or at least it was my favorite when I put it on this morning, grooving along to Tears for Fears on WPLJ playing on my clock radio, then listening to Jim Kerr and the Morning Crew tell the daily dirty joke at 7:14 (Q: What do Brooklyn and pantyhose have in common? A: Flatbush). This outfit is cool cuz it contains three "in" styles in one. When I got home from camp in August, only four months ago though it feels like a lifetime, I called Jackie on the phone, and we poured over our back-to-school issues of Seventeen while she filled me in on all I missed while I was stuck in the woods with no contact to civilization. The magazine proclaimed that this fall was all about plaid and paisley, so when I went back-to-school shopping with mom, everything I picked out, down to the new PJs, was plaid and paisley, so I wouldn't look like the total dork I am. This outfit hit the jackpot: no joke-plaid, paisley and stirrup pants, another trend, all in one. It's black, aqua and fuschia. The oversized sweater is mostly aqua with big black paisleys on the front, and the stirrup pants have all three colors in plaid flannel. I felt so cool when I put it on this morning, but now I'm realizing that, duh, I fucked up. I'm wearing skinny nylon fuschia kneesocks, which are the perfect color but are totally, completely wrong. I should've worn slouchy cheerleader socks like everyone in their right mind, and I look like a total spaz. Plus, even worse, my shoes are really dumb; I knew I shouldn'tve listened to mom about getting "comfortable shoes." How comfortable will they be when I'm getting my ass kicked? I'll never, ever, not even in a million billion years, listen to anything she ever says again, as long as I live. These shoes are so retarded: gray Candies ballet flats which first of all don't match my outfit, and even though they have little hole patterns in the shape of paisleys, which is sorta cool, they have rounded toes, like a baby's shoes, and rubber soles that make a fart sound when I walk if I'm not careful. I shift my weight and tuck my feet up under me even though I know I'll pay for it later with aching knees. Then he opens his big, fat trap. "Hey tittie girl."
I ignore him and focus on the statement Mr. Dutcher just wrote on the board: bacteria in your mouth multiplies so fast it could fill the entire universe in less than a day. How is that even possible? Where does it all
Ow! Shit, never let your guard down, idiot, keep your back against the chair. How did he manage to reach around and snap my bra without Mr. Dutcher even noticing? I swear he was looking right over here. He's nice enough for a science teacher, but he is so fucking clueless, a big bearded Neanderthal who is either blind or simply refuses to see what goes on right beneath his chiselly nose.
Jimmy leans over and whispers just loud enough for Justin Herman to hear, "Maggie has a better body but she has no ass. You have a better ass." Behind me, Justin snickers and snorts under his breath like a miniature horse. My face burns and I'm sure it's at least the color of my fuschia socks. Stupid fair skin. Fucking asshole. Mutant turtle turd.
The image of beautiful blonde Maggie Howard dances perfect pirouettes before my eyes, displaying tiny perfect boobs and hyperarched feet that look achingly beautiful in pink satin pointe shoes. I look down at my own unruly flesh, all 71 pounds of it, boobs sprouting on my child's body like tumors so I look like a mutant 7-year-old with the chest of Dolly Fucking Parton. I wish I was a boy. I wish I was a boy. I wish. I was. A boy.
Mr. Dutcher turns his back to the class to draw a chalk representation of mouth bacteria from outer space, and Jimmy once more leans over and with his right hand, his sticky paw with boy-grime under the fingernails, he squeezes my left breast fast and hard, so hard tears fill my eyes and I almost cry out.
Instead, I coil up tighter, dig my nails deep into my palms and focus on the green blob of gum as I try harder to become invisible, to simply disappear until it's all over.
|
|
