Rage

are moving so fast they seem to stand still. He looked like he ate patrol boys for supper. For all I knew, he did.

“Son of a gun, you look slick!” He winked elaborately at Joe. “Son of a gun, you just look slicker than owl shit!” Whack! on the back again. I felt very small. About three inches, I’d say. I was scared of him-I think I had a dim idea that I might have to fight him or crawfish before the day was over, and that I would probably crawfish.

“Don’t break my back, okay?” I said. But he wouldn’t leave it alone. He just kept riding and riding until we got to Carol’s house. I knew the worst the minute we went through the door. Nobody was dressed up. Carol was there in the middle of the room, and she looked really beautiful.

It hurt. She looked beautiful and casual, a shadow glass of sophistication over the just-beginning adolescent. She probably still cried and threw tantrums and locked herself in the bathroom, probably still listened to Beatles records and had a picture of David Cassidy, who was big that year, tucked into the corner of her vanity mirror, but none of that showed. And the fact that it didn’t show hurt me and made me feel dwarfed. She had a rust-colored scarf tied into her hair. She looked fifteen or sixteen, already filling out in front. She was wearing a brown dress. She was laughing with a bunch of kids and gesturing with her hands.

Dicky and Joe went on over and gave her their presents, and she laughed and nodded and thank-you’d, and my God but she looked nice.

I decided to leave. I didn’t want her to see me in my bow tie and my corduroy suit with the little brass buttons. I didn’t want to see her talking with Dicky Cable, who looked like a human Lawnboy to me but who seemed to look pretty good to her. I figured I could slip out before anyone got a really good look at me. Like Lamont Cranston, I would just cloud a few minds and then bug out. I had a buck in my pocket from weeding Mrs. Katzentz’s flower garden the day before, and I could go to the movies in Brunswick if I could hook a ride, and work up a good head of self-pity sitting there in the dark.

But before I could even find the doorknob, Mrs. Granger spotted me.

It wasn’t my day. Imagine a pleated skirt and one of those see-through chiffon blouses on a Sherman tank. A Sherman tank with two gun turrets. Her hair looked like a hurricane, one glump going one way and one glump the other. The two glumps were being held together somehow by a big sateen bow that was poison yellow in color.

“Charlie Decker!” she squealed, and spread out arms that looked like loaves of bread. Big loaves. I almost chickened and ran for it. She was an avalanche getting ready to happen. She was every Japanese horror monster ever made, all rolled into one, Ghidra, Mothra, Godzilla, Rodan, and Tukkan the Terrible trundling across the Granger living room. But that wasn’t the bad part. The bad part was everybody looking at me-you know what I’m talking about.

She gave me a slobbery kiss on the cheek and crowed, “Well, don’t you look nice?” And for one horribly certain second I expected her to add: “Slicker than owl shit!”

Well, I’m not going to torture either you or myself with a blow-by-blow. Where would be the sense? You’ve got the picture. Three hours of unadulterated hell. Dicky was right there with a “Well, don’t you look nice?” at every opportunity. A couple of other kids happened over to ask me who died.

Joe was the only one who stuck by me, but even that embarrassed me a little. I could see him telling kids to lay off, and I didn’t like it very well. It made me feel like the village idiot.

I think the only one who didn’t notice me at all was Carol. It would have bothered me if she had come over and asked me to dance when they put on the records, but it bothered me worse that she didn’t. I couldn’t dance, but it’s the thought that counts.

So I stood around while the Beatles sang “The Ballad of John and Yoko” and “Let It Be,” while the Adreizi Brothers sang “We Gotta Get It On Again,” while Bobby Sherman sang “Hey, Mr. Sun” in his superbly tuneless style. I was giving my best imitation of a flowerpot. The party, meanwhile, went on. Did it ever. It seemed like it was going to go on eternally, the years flashing by outside like leaves in the wind, cars turning into clumps of rust, houses decaying, parents turning into dust, nations rising and falling. I had a feeling that we would still be there when Gabriel flew overhead, clutching the Judgment trump in one hand and a party favor in the other. There was ice cream, there was a big cake that said HAPPY BIRTHDAY, CAROL in green and red icing, there was more dancing, and a couple of kids wanted to play spin the bottle, but Mrs. Granger laughed a big jolly laugh and said no, haha, no no no. Oh, no.

Finally Carol clapped her hands and said we were all going outside and play follow the leader, the game which asks the burning question: Are you ready for tomorrow’s society?

Everybody spilled outside. I could hear them running around and having a good time, or whatever passes for a good time when you’re part of a mass puberty cramp. I lingered behind for a minute, half-thinking Carol would stop for a second, but she hurried right by. I went out and stood on the porch watching. Joe was there too, sitting with one leg hooked over the porch railing, and we both watched. Somehow Joe always seems to be where I end up, with one leg hooked over something, watching.

“She’s stuck up,” he said finally.

“Nah. She’s just busy. Lot of people. You know.'

“Shit,” Joe said.

We were quiet for a minute. Someone yelled, “Hey, Joe!”

“You’ll get crap all over that thing if you play,” Joe said. “Your mother’ll have a kitten.”

“She’ll have two,” I said.

“Come on, Joe!” This time it was Carol. She had changed into denims, probably designed by Edith Head, and she looked flushed and pretty. Joe looked at me. He wanted to look out for me, and suddenly I felt more terrified than at any time since I woke up on that hunting trip up north. After a while, being somebody’s responsibility makes them hate you, and I was scared that Joe might hate me someday. I didn’t know all that then, not at twelve, but I sensed some of it.

“Go on,” I said.

“You sure you don’t want to-?”

“Yeah. Yeah. I got to get home anyway.”

I watched him go, hurt a little that he hadn’t offered to come with me, but relieved in a way. Then I started across the lawn toward the street.

Dicky noticed me. “You on your way, pretty boy?”

I should have said something clever like: Yeah. Give my regards to Broadway. Instead I told him to shut up.

He jackrabbited in front of me as if he had been expecting it, that big lawnmower grin covering the entire lower half of his face. He smelled green and tough, like vines in the jungle. “What was that, pretty boy?”

All of it lumped together, and I felt ugly. Really ugly. I could have spit at Hitler, that’s how ugly I felt. “I said shut up. Get out of my way.”

[In the classroom, Carol Granger put her hands over her eyes… but she didn’t tell me to stop. I respected her for that.]

Everyone was staring, but no one was saying anything. Mrs. Granger was in the house, singing “Swanee” at the top of her voice.

“Maybe you think you can shut me up.” He ran a hand through his oiled hair.

I shoved him aside. It was like being outside myself. It was the first time I ever felt that way. Someone else, some other me, was in the driver’s seat. I was along for the ride, and that was all.

He swung at me; his fist looped down and hit me on the shoulder. It just about paralyzed the big muscle in my arm. Jesus, did that hurt. It was like getting hit with an iceball.

I grabbed him, because I never could box, and shoved him backward across the lawn, that big grin steaming and fuming at me. He dug his heels in and curled an arm around my neck, as if about to kiss me. His other fist started hammering at my back, but it was like someone knocking on a door long ago and far away. We tripped over a pink lawn flamingo and whumped to the ground.

He was strong, but I was desperate. All of a sudden, beating up Dicky Cable was my mission in life. It was what I had been put on earth for. I remembered the Bible story about Jacob wrestling with the angel, and I giggled crazily into Dicky’s face. I was on top, and fighting to stay there.

But all at once he slid away from me-he was awful slippery-and he smashed me across the neck with one arm.

I let out a little cry and went over on my belly. He was astride my back in no time. I tried to turn, but I couldn’t.

I couldn’t. He was going to beat me because I couldn’t. It was all senseless and horrible. I wondered where Carol was. Watching, probably. They were all watching. I felt my corduroy coat ripping out under the arms, the buttons with the heralds embossed on them ripping off one by one on the tough loam. But I couldn’t turn over.

He was laughing. He grabbed my head and slammed it into the ground like a whiffle ball. “Hey, pretty boy!” Slam. Interior stars and the taste of grass in my mouth. Now I was the lawnmower. “Hey, pretty boy, don’t you look nice?” He picked my head up by the hair and slammed it down again. I started to cry.

“Don’t you just look dan-dan-dandy!” Dicky Cable cried merrily, and hammered my head into the ground againfore! “Don’t you just look woooonderfur”

Then he was off me, because Joe had dragged him off. “That’s enough, goddammit!” he was shouting. “Don’t you know that’s enough?”

I got up, still crying. There was dirt in my hair. My head didn’t hurt enough for me to still be crying, but there it was. I couldn’t stop. They were all staring at me with that funny hangdog look kids get when they’ve gone too far, and I could see they didn’t want to look at me and see me crying. They looked at their feet to make sure they were still there. They glanced around at the chain-link fence to make sure no one was stealing it. A few of them glanced over at the swimming pool in the yard next door, just in case someone might be drowning and in need of a quick rescue.

Carol was standing there, and she started to take a step forward. Then she looked around to see if anyone else was stepping forward, and no one else was. Dicky Cable was combing his hair. There was no dirt in it. Carol shuffled her feet. The wind made ripples on her blouse.

Mrs. Granger had stopped singing “Swanee.” She was on the porch, her mouth wide open.

Joe came up and put a hand on my shoulder. “Hey, Charlie,” he said. “What do you say we go now, huh?”

I tried to shove him away and only made myself fall down. “Leave me alone!” I shouted at him. My voice was hoarse and raw. I was sobbing more than yelling. There was only one button left on the corduroy jacket, and it was hanging by a string. The pants were all juiced up with grass stains. I started to crawl around on the matted earth, still crying, picking up buttons. My face was hot.

Dicky was humming some spry ditty and looking as if he might like to comb his hair again. Looking back, I have to admire him for it. At least he didn’t put on a crocodile face about the whole thing.

Mrs. Granger came waddling toward me. “Charlie… Charlie, dear-”

“Shut up, fat old bag!” I screamed. I couldn’t see anything. It was all blurred in my eyes, and all the faces seemed to be crowding in on me. All the hands seemed to have claws. I couldn’t see to pick up any more buttons. “Fat old bag!”

Then I ran away.

I stopped behind an empty house down on Willow Street and just sat there until all the tears dried up. There was dried snot underneath my nose. I spat on my handkerchief and wiped it off. I blew my nose. An alley cat came by, and I tried to pet it. The cat shied from my hand. I knew exactly how he felt.

The suit was pretty well shot, but I didn’t care about that. I didn’t even care about my mother, although she would probably call Dicky Cable’s mother and complain in her cultured voice. But my father. I could see him sitting, looking, carefully poker-faced, saying: How does the other guy look?

And my lie.

I sat down for the best part of an hour, planning to go down to the highway and stick out my thumb, hook a ride out of town, and never come back.

But in the end I went home.

CHAPTER 23