Winger

Seanie sat beside JP, but JP wasn’t talking. He just stared out the window, brooding, until he fell to sleep.

I sat stretched out in a bench seat by myself. I looked back the length of the bus and saw that Joey was alone too. So I got up and stumbled down the aisle to sit with him. Joey put his arm across the back of the seat in front of him and lay his head down on it. He had to be hurting about Kevin, but who wasn’t? It wasn’t Joey’s fault.

“Hey,” I said.

Joey didn’t answer.

I never saw anyone on the team cry before, but just then I thought Joey might have been. And I felt really awkward, but I put my arm around Joey’s shoulders. And then I thought how stupid I was for feeling like that because I wouldn’t feel weird about putting an arm around Seanie or Kevin or any other guy friend of mine who was hurting.

Seanie turned around from where he was sitting up near the front of the bus, and he looked at me and mouthed “homo,” then smiled. That was just Seanie being Seanie. So I flipped him off.

“Everything’s going to be okay, Joe,” I said. “You want to talk or something?”

Then I patted his head and put my hand down so I could push myself up to stand.

“Oh, and hey, I never did say thanks for that pass, Joe. So, thanks. Oh, and I’m breaking up with Megan tomorrow. I swear. As soon as we make out one more time, that’s it. Well, maybe twice more. Okay, three more times. But that is it.”

I laughed. Joey looked at me.

He looked pissed.

“I’m just kidding, Joey.”

I stood up and looked out the window.

“How stupid was that, anyway, trying to jump a guy in front of his whole rugby team?” I said.

Joey didn’t say anything.

“Okay. I’ll go now. I guess you don’t want to talk. Sorry, I just thought this fucking ride was getting boring.”

“Since when do you cuss?” Joey said.

“I cussed when Seanie stepped on my balls yesterday.”

“That doesn’t count.”

“In that case, I take back what I just said about the bus ride, just to keep my record clean.”

“Sit down,” Joey said.

“Okay.” I sat next to Joey.

“And, yeah, it was a pretty stupid thing to do,” Joey said.

“The one guy said he was your cousin. That’s why I pointed you out. I’m really sorry, Joe.”

“He isn’t my cousin. And it wasn’t your fault.”

“At least Kevin’s going to be okay,” I said. “He might have saved your life.”

“Yeah.”

“Do you know what it was about, Joey?”

“Yeah, I do.”

“Okay,” I said. “Well, you know I totally trust you, Joey. I know you can keep a secret for me. So if you want to tell me anything about it, it’s okay, and if you don’t want to talk about it, I understand too.”

Joey took a deep breath. He glanced around. The bus was dead. Nearly everyone was asleep.

He said, “The kid with the knife. His name’s Mike. His brother and I used to see each other. When his folks found out, they flipped. They sent him away to a hospital for crazy kids.”

“Oh.”

Joey said, “It fucked him up worse than anything. Mike told me he was going to come after me one day. I never believed him.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.” Joey cleared his throat. “I never tell anyone this shit, Ryan Dean.”

“I won’t say anything, Joe.”

“I know.”

“Did you tell the cops?” I asked.

Joey nodded his head. “I wrote it all down, Ryan Dean.”

“Oh. Okay.” I drummed my fingers against my leg. That Band-Aid, which had become a symbol of my life, was really starting to bug me. “Hey, Joey? Can I tell you about how stupid my mom is?”

He looked at me. In the dark, I could see he looked really serious and tired, but his eyes were kind of smiling.

“Sure.”

Then I told him the whole thing about the phone call and the condoms and the “how to have sex the first time” pamphlet, and Joey actually laughed out loud.

“Oh, your mom just cares about you, Ryan Dean, and sometimes parents don’t really understand the best way to show it. But that is fucking funny.”

“I swear to God, Joe. My life is a nightmare.”

“I don’t think so. Not compared with most guys’.”

“And I haven’t even talked to you since the other night, but thanks for getting in Chas’s face too.”

“Did you actually punch him?” Joey asked.

“As hard as I could. And I am pretty sure he would have killed me if you didn’t stop him.”

“Damn.”

“Hey, Joey? What would you do if, let’s say hypothetically, you had to sleep in a bunk bed over Betch and you had a giant Gatorade bottle filled with your own, foamy, day-old piss just sitting there getting cold in your bed?”

And Joey laughed again, like he didn’t believe I was telling him the truth.

On that bus ride home, I believe Joey Cosentino and I became best friends.

Chapter Forty-Five

BY THE TIME WE GOT back to O-Hall, it was almost midnight.

Joey and I followed behind Chas, up the stairwell and down the hall. I hoped he’d run into Mrs. Singer, but, when I thought about it, it seemed like I was the only boy in the whole building who’d ever had any run-ins with her.

Maybe she didn’t even really exist.

I decided that sometime before Halloween, I’d have to design a Ryan Dean West is-the-permafrost-eye- poison-known-as-the-unhot-Mrs.-Singer-actually-of-this-universe? experiment, fully controlling, of course, for all unexpected variables.

We checked in with Farrow and said good night to Joey, and I envied him for having a room to himself, even under the circumstances. Then I went to the bathroom-slash-execution-chamber to pee, and Chas headed off to our room alone.

When I got to the room, Chas was already in his bed, but the lights were on.

“What’s in the package?” Chas said.

I groaned.

A white FedEx mailer was sitting on my bunk.

I am such a loser.

“Some porn and a box of rubbers,” I said. “From my mom.”

“Whatever. You’re a fucking dick, Winger.” And Chas rolled over and covered his head, mumbling something about kicking my ass one day.

Confronting Chas Becker with the truth was the surest way to get him to think I was lying.