“But Victor…” She spotted Ms. O’Donnell across the room and lowered her voice. “I want to kiss you.”
“Eghh!” I jumped up from the seat.
“Victor, are you okay?” asked Ms. O’Donnell, looking up from a masterpiece finger painting on which Andrius Varnas was putting the finishing touches. “Do you need Mrs. Lydell to walk you to the bathroom?”
“He doesn’t have to poop, Ms. O’Donnell,” started Pierce Stone, leaning back in his chair. “Michaela just wants to suck his face!”
Uproar.
“Enough, Pierce!”
“I’m a girl. I like him,” Michaela pleaded.
I thought I was going to puke.
“I know, Michaela, and that’s fine. But you can’t kiss Victor here.”
“That’s why I asked him for a playdate! Ahhhhhhhhhhhh!” I thought her screech would shatter the windows.
“Calm down. Sit and paint. Victor, your mother always puts a second shirt in your backpack. Go change in the bathroom.”
I went to the bathroom under the auspices of the classroom aide, Mrs. Lydell—any excuse to escape Michaela’s developed licentiousness. Mrs. Lydell was a round woman with hair dyed dark red, which stuck out like she had been electrocuted. Her lipstick was always smudged in the corner of her mouth, and it was that same dark red, like she had selected them both from a swatch.
The first bathroom stall was occupied. The second and only remaining stall had urine covering the seat—there is a spot reserved in Hell for those who don’t clean up after they tinkle on the seat. I pulled off my t-shirt and put on the one my mom had put in my bag for these frequent mishaps. It was too short; it barely covered my waist.
“Are you pooping or peeing?” asked the occupier of the stall next to me.
“I’m not poopin’ or peein’,” I said. “I’m changing my shirt.”
“How come?”
“’Cause I got sauce on it.”
“Oh, okay.” He let out a fart.
“Gross… Wait… Karl?”
“Vic?”
“Karl, whatcha doin’ in here?”
“I’m peeing.”
I lowered my head until I could see Karl’s light-up Ninja Turtles shoes barely touching the floor.
“Then why are ya sittin’ down? That’s how girls tinkle.”
“I thought I had to poop, but instead I’ve just been farting. Do you even know how girls pee?”
“Yeah, from their butts!”
Uproar.
“Hey, Karl,” I started, attempting to swallow my laughter, “what shirt are you wearing?”
“My Warcraft shirt.”
“That’s a good one.”
“I like it.”
“Is it big?”
“What do you mean?”
“Is it big on you?”
“Kinda.”
“Karl, we need to trade shirts.”
“Why?”
“Because I got sauce all over mine and this one is too small.”
“But I don’t want a shirt with sauce all over it.”
“No, not that one. My mom packed me another, but it’s too small for me.”
“Well… what’s on it?”
“A T. rex.”
“Hmm… what color is it?”
“The shirt or the T. rex?”
“The shirt.”
“It’s blue.”
“I like red.”
“Come on, Karl, please? We can trade back before your mom picks us up.”
“Hmm… okay.”
“Yeah?! Okay, great. Thanks so much.”
“Just don’t get any sauce on it.”
“I won’t.”
“And Vic.”
“Yeah?”
“You know girls don’t pee out of their butts… right?”
“…”
After school, Karl and I would wait for his mom to pick us up in her white ’96 Jeep Cherokee. We weren’t permitted to stand on the grass while we waited. Fifth-graders who wore bright orange sashes enforced this puritanical rule; they were called “Safeties.” Denying us six- and seven-year-olds access to that lush green lawn only fed our fervor. When we saw the Jeep approaching the school, Karl and I would dart out across the grass like it was a battlefield, screaming our heads off like berserking orcs. Max Barabander and Eldrige Barriston (the eldest Barriston brother) would chase us until they, too, reached the grass, but they wouldn’t cross and instead would yell, “Just wait until tomorrow, Vic and Karl!” from the blacktop that wrapped around the school. But they could never catch me. Even at seven I was fast enough to evade many of the fifth-graders, especially when I had a head start. Karl was another story. He was short and pudgy, and when he ran his backpack would pop up and down. It was never fully closed, so his notebooks were always on the verge of falling out.
We usually stopped for an after-school snack: Burger King, Taco Bell, or Wendy’s were the typical choices. Man, how I could devour that garbage, I mean really throw it back—and I wouldn’t gain a pound, either. I was a twig. I hated when family would tell me that too: “Vito, you’re skin and bones. Ya gotta eat!”
I ordered the classic chicken sandwich at Burger King—that succulent breaded monster—and met Karl and Mrs. G at the booth after filling my cup with Pepsi. Mrs. G knew about my father’s no-soda rule, but she didn’t tell him. I liked that about Mrs. G.
Before I could tear into the beast, a couple of guys from my class raced over to our booth, practically knocking each other over to get the first word in. It was Paxton Shaffer and Lenny Hooker.
“Vic! Karl!”
“Hey guys,” I said, tucking my sandwich to the side as if they had come to steal it.
“We’re playing kickball this weekend behind the school. You guys want to play?”
Karl had barely taken a breather from his sack of golden fries. He chomped on them with robotic precision—three chomps per fry.
“I think I can, but I have to ask my dad,” I said.
“Karl?” asked Lenny.
“Karl, answer your friend,” said Mrs. G.
“Yeah. Sure. Okay,” Karl said while picking the pickles off his Whopper.
Our dinner table was forest-green and had indents and etches all over it. Sometimes when I put off eating my broccoli or spinach, I would dig my nail into these etches and run my fingertips along the grooves. I sat at the table while my mother was on the phone; the creaking plastic spiral cord followed her around the kitchen like a sand-colored vine, getting caught in those knots that reminded me of the loops on a roller coaster. The cord was not quite as bright as my
