David had lived on the same block with the same boys since he was born and he had never once hung out with them. No, that was a lie. When he was a baby—barely more than an extension to his mother—the mothers on the street thought that since it was 'Oh, so cute, we all have boys' that they should have a playgroup. It basically consisted of them all writhing on a blanket. David had gone to them until he was three and Jack hit him rather rudely over the head with an action figure. His mother, who would put him in a hermetically sealed bubble if she could, pulled him away and told his mother to keep her crazy demon child (her words, not his) to herself.
He had never been back. Now he was sixteen, still lived on the same block with the same boys, and rarely spoke to any of them. They were this clique, all with these stupid nickames while David was just David. David the outsider. David whose overprotective mother couldn't handle her precious baby being hit over the head with a Michelangelo toy thirteen years ago. He walked through the tunnel that led under the highway and connected their neighborhood with the school with them and occasionally walked down the same sidewalk with one of them. But they never spoke. He couldn't even keep all of their dumb nicknames straight—not that he cared of course.
Today, though, it seemed as though David would have to talk them. There was a chain link fence separating the cement patio of the bike rack that was at the mouth of the tunnel from the grass of the school's lawn. Apparently, someone had locked both gates and sequestered the students behind the fence.
"What the hell?" Racetrack—why did they call him that? Did he like NASCAR or something?—took in the fence. "Idiots."
David kept his head down, not wanting to be seen. He didn't want to make himself out to them as the unathletic boob that he was so he sat at the foot of the fence to await for the arrival of the janitor to unlock it. The girls in the neighborhood had all gone to their cars in the front of the school. Apparently, the boys on his block were the only ones who had to walk like David did.
He saw the rest coming. That idiot Jack—or the turtle hitter as he was affectionately referred to in his household—was moving back and forth quickly while explaining something to some others. He kept gesturing to a black eye and laughing. David caught words like 'cops' and 'chasing' and 'window' and it just confirmed his suspicions that Jack was an imbecile.
"Hey, Cowboy!" Racetrack yelled back to him. "What the fuck?"
Jack bounded over to him, tossed his backpack clean over before throwing himself against the fence. David happened to be leaning against it and felt his body pitch forward with the sudden addition of Jack's weight and the resulting quake. He tumbled onto the grass and turned to see Jack land nimbly on his feet before tumbling back a few steps and falling on his rear and the heels of his hands. The others let out peals of laughter.
Before David could regain his composure, the others all jumped on the fence and started climbing over. Some, like the Spot the creepy boy who lived next door to him, jumped over like the fence was a vaulting horse. Others, like Racetrack, took their time. One boy, who lived on the other side of David and the extent of what he knew about him was that he was called Skittery and had a creepy fascination with Buffy the Vampire Slayer fell right on his butt, legs splayed in front of him.
"Nice," a boy David knew to be called Snitch congratulated him sardonically.
Skittery, who had been smoking when he had tried to jump, just spat out his cigarette along with a stream of smoke.
"Aren't you going to climb?"
David looked around to see that all of his neighbors were already over the fence.
"You, Danny."
David turned to see Mush Meyers—a boy from his chemistry class—pointing at him.
"David," he corrected, mentally noting that that was the first word he had spoken to Mush since they were three.
"Whatever. Aren't you going to climb?" he quirked a brow.
"No."
"Why not?"
"Mush, leave him alone," Spot commanded. "He's too good to associate with us."
David ignored him and went back to waiting for someone to unlock the gate. The fence was shaken by another quake and David found himself staring at a pair of size thirteen Doc Martens. Slowly, he let his gaze travel up to see Jack's grinning face, one eye surrounded by that awful bruise.
"Come on, Davey," he said jovially. "I'll help ya over."
He hated when people called him Davey. He especially hated when they grabbed his stuff. Just as Jack did when he lifted his backpack and flung it over the fence.
"Hey!" he blurted. "What was that for?"
"I said I'll help ya over if ya can't do it on your own," he replied indignantly.
Jack laced his fingers and held his hands out with the palms up. He was expecting David to step into them.
"You know, I think I'll just…"
Apparently, Jack's "help" was beyond solely involving him stepping into his hands. He reached forward and grasped David around the waist before all but tossing him over.
"Damn, you're skinny," he remarked as he watched him cling for his life to the chain.
Now he had no choice. Step by step, he carefully dropped to the ground, landing on his feet…before falling backwards. Jack vaulted over the fence once more and stuck his hand out to help him.
"Leave me alone," he snapped, snatching up his backpack and starting to storm away.
Great, now he had to walk with them. This time, though, luck was on his side. The second they emerged from the tunnel, the boys piled into two cars instead of trekking the two miles to their street. David was left, thankfully, alone.
After Jack's little attempt to help, he half-expected him to offer him a ride. Fortunately, he did not so David got to walk two miles in the hot sun past all of the other houses by himself.
And he was just fine with that.
--
Skittery lit a fresh cigarette on the car's lighter and blew noxious air into the car.
"Hey," Jack screwed his face up. "I quit, douche bag, so if you smoke, direct all cancer air out the window."
Skittery turned the crank to lower the window, the metal rod sticking in some places. He leaned back in the cracked leather seat as Jack pulled into his driveway. Spot leaned forward.
"So, Kelly," he smirked at Jack. "What's this big epiphany you had at the party last night?"
"Like he remembers anything," Skittery laughed. "Seriously. He was drunk off his ass!"
Jack held his hand up. "I remember some things. I mean, I can't describe them but I remember them. I remember you carrying me, Skits. And I remember jumping into Snitch's pool and then being really freezing and rolling on the ground. And then I remember being on all fours and puking into a bush. Then I remember waking up and being all 'whoo! Let's party!'"
Spot and Skittery laughed. Spot leaned back and kicked the fourth person in the car.
"Narcolepsy boy, up!" he proclaimed. "We're here."
Blink gave them all the finger but rose and stretched anyway.
"I was fucking exhausted," he remarked, ruffling his blonde hair. "Fucking Larkson was all over my fucking ass today because I didn't fucking have my monologue memorized. So I was all 'It's hard to memorize a monologue when you only have one fucking eye!' and then she wrote me up for language."
Blink was the foulest mouthed boy of their group, peppering his words with 'fuck' and 'shit' wherever applicable. It really counteracted with his usually sunny demeanor.
"Everyone get out of my car," Jack announced.
The three other boys who traveled with Jack in his tiny Rabbit (which had been his father's) got out and met with the others who were leaning against Mush's much more stylish purple Corvette (also his father's).
"So Jack," Race started. "What's the big secret?"
Skittery nodded in agreement to the curiosity and plopped on the ground, still smoking. Jack looked at the cigarette and really wanted one. Were his friends even ready for it?
"Guys," he took a deep breath. "I'm gay."
Much to his surprise, Race stuck both fists in the air. "Spot, you ass! You owe me ten bucks!"
Jack tore his gaze from Skittery's cigarette and cocked a brow. "You two were betting on my sexuality? And how did you even know?"
Spot shrugged. "I thought all the tongue action with guys at parties was for show. Race said it made you gay or bi or whatever. He won."
"…I made out with guys at parties?"
They dissolved into laughter. Jack gave them the finger.
"No thanks!" they shouted in unison.
Spot was a creepy kid, brewing who knows what in his basement, but there were times, like this, where he was a normal kid.
"Anyone else have any sexual epiphanies or can we get to the keg?" Blink asked ruefully.
"Keg? No keg today," Snitch said sourly. "Brother took it back to college. So we just have to loiter here like the delinquents we are."
"Shit, fucking Larkson had me craving some fucking booze today," he pouted.
"Wah, wah," Snitch waggled his tongue at him. "Go cry to your mommy, Blinky."
He shoved him but a smile had broken through.
"Oh hey," Snitch suddenly snapped his fingers. "Chocolate Herpes broke up."
"I thought they had already broken up when Nathan left," Spot held his hand out for a cigarette.
"No, they just got a new drummer. Well, John and Corey got super pissed at each other."
"Why?"
"Because John's a poseur," Snitch explained. "Or so Corey says. So they were going to fight after school and Nathan was gonna sell tickets but then their girlfriends broke it up."
Spot lit the cigarette and plopped next to Skittery on the ground.
"How do you know that?" Mush asked, leaning back on the hood of his car and letting his t-shirt ride up so his abs could enjoy the afternoon sun.
"Because I was there. Duh!"
Skittery stamped out his cigarette. "Their music sucked anyway. Corey is all trying to bring back a punk scene. Whoever thinks that they can bring a punk scene to St. Cloud is a moron."
"I think the only reason people liked them," Jack intoned. "Was because their name was pretty kicking."
Snitch stuck his hand in the air. "All me! All me! They asked me frosh year what their name should be."
"Are you their groupie?" Spot sneered.
"No, Jack is," he shoved him.
Jack glared. "I should have never told you guys I was gay."
"We all knew," Blink pointed out. "We were just waiting for the fucking announcement. I mean, seriously, how fucking many of us are closeted?"
Snitch shoved him. "Speak for yourself, Louie."
"So what if I fucking am? I am a fucking drama dork, aren't I?"
Mush cracked an eye open. "You're gay?"
He shrugged. "I just said 'so what if I fucking am?'. Imply what you fucking wish."
Blink smiled conspiratorially and joined Spot and Skittery on the ground just as David Jacobs walked by.
"Hey," Mush, always the polite one, decided to try and start a conversation. "Did you get the ionic compound notes? I was at the nurse's office."
David kept his head down and even quickened his step.
"Or…not," Mush fell back down on the hood.
"He's so weird," Spot remarked.
"Coming from you?" Skittery laughed.
"Shut up, Buffyphile," he snapped. "I'm not that weird."
"You're building fucking weapons of mass destruction in your fucking basement," Blink stated. "Chemical fucking warfare."
"Hey!" Mush sat up. "Can you help me with my chem homework?"
Spot waved his hand and shrugged. "They're not weapons of mass destruction. They're chemicals and science stuff. You know, Blink, things you wouldn't understand."
Blink shrugged and shoved him. Spot, being as light as he was, tumbled into the grass, his cigarette going with him.
"I'm a drama nerd. I don't need no fucking science."
"You know," Jack mused. "That would have been a good variation of a Blazing Saddles quote if you didn't have to Blink-ize it."
"Speaking of which," Race suddenly snapped his fingers. "I found Johnny Dangerously in the five buck bin at Wal-Mart. I was all 'hell yeah!' when I found it."
"I love that bin," Skittery enthused. "I found the first two episodes of Buffy in there once."
"I fell in there once," Snitch remarked. "Not fun times."
Blink and Skittery cracked up.
"How did you fucking fall in there?"
"I was reaching for Frogs, right? And I lost my balance and…Point Break stabbed me! That movie has sharp corners! So yeah, I fell in and then had to crawl out and be all 'I didn't fall in.' All cool-like."
Race joined Blink, Spot and Skittery in the grass, leaving Snitch and Jack as the only ones standing.
"Aren't you banned from Wal-Mart?" he cocked an eyebrow.
"This was before I got banned. Besides, my banning was so unfair."
"I love that your continuous theft didn't get you banned but trying to get the cranes to work did," Mush stated from the hood.
Snitch tossed him a dirty look. "Those cranes were rigged. I was doing the citizens of St. Cloud a favor and that's how they repay me."
"You're an idiot," Jack said, plopping onto the ground. Inwardly, he was cheering. His friends understood. How could they not? They had a lifetime of friendship under their belts. If Jack sprouted another head that decided that it wanted to be Spiderman, they'd understand.
--
David sat at the dinner table, kicking his legs and trying to solve a particularly difficult calculus problem. He wanted to shoot the guidance counselor who thought that it was okay that he, a sophomore, could take a class like advanced calculus. Usually, he was fine with it. Math geek he was, he loved trigonometry and geometry—right triangles were pure joy—and algebra. The joy of plugging in the right number into a set-in-stone formula was immeasurable. That was why he hated getting stuck on problems.
And the incessant noise from Skittery's house next door was doing him no favors.
"Fucking fuckity fuck!" someone yelled. "Mush, you fucking ass!"
David sighed and closed his book, admitting defeat. No, not defeat. A temporary surrender until the imbeciles next door finally quieted their noise-holes.
Idly, he went to the window and split the blinds ever so slightly. Just out of curiosity, to see what all the noise was about.
Jack was running with Spot's three dogs. Each was the size of a small horse. A stupid idea to have three of them because the lawns in their neighborhood were postage stamps at best. His father often said that the Conlons didn't have dogs, they had cattle. Spot himself was smoking illegally on the grass with that boy Skittery who was also illegally smoking. They were seated near a boom box that was belting out annoyingly campy old rap music. So far, David had heard 'Push It' and 'Baby Got Back'. It was now currently blaring 'Ice Ice Baby' while Snitch pretended to be Vanilla Ice.
The blonde kid who got all of the leads in the school plays (and always, in David's opinion, looked like someone's evil twin from a soap opera with that eye patch) was chasing around Mush who had apparently wronged him in some way.
"David?" with a start, he turned to see his little brother Les coming down the stairs. "Sarah wants to know what the noise is."
"It's the boys outside," he explained.
"She's trying to sleep," Les continued. "She said for you to make them quiet. She's crying."
Les's eyes got really large with worry. David nodded but kicked himself inside. Great, now he had to tell them to keep it down. And that may have to include explaining about his sister.
"Alright," he said. "Be back in a few."
Sighing, he slipped out the door and plodded next door. 'Ice Ice Baby' had morphed into, for some reason, 'Hakuna Matata' and Race and Spot were singing loudly to it.
David had to stand at the edge of Skittery's lawn with his arms crossed over his chest for a good minute or so before anyone acknowledged his presence.
Jack stopped frolicking with the horses and signaled for Skittery to turn off the music.
"What can I do ya for?" he smirked.
David couldn't meet his black-eyed gazed so he stared down at Jack's now bare, rather large feet.
"Um…could you guys keep it down? My sister's trying to sleep," he mumbled.
"Isn't your sister, like, eighteen?" Spot sneered.
Great, couldn't they have assumed she was a little baby that needed eighteen hours a day?
"Yeah but…she's tired," he shrugged. "She had a long day."
There. It was a lie but it worked.
"Alright, but tell me…what's so fascinating about my feet?" Jack laughed. "You've been staring at them like they're going to impart the divine mysteries of the ancient world."
David snapped his head up. Alright, maybe Jack wasn't that big of an idiot.
"We'll keep it down," Skittery stated. "But riddle me this, Batman. How come you stay inside all day?"
"I have to work," David turned and started to go, wanting desperately to get back to his calculus homework.
"Join us," Mush exclaimed, giving blondie—it was Blink or Patchy or something—ample opportunity to tackle him and start pounding him lightly.
"Yeah," Jack stated.
David shook his head, disgusted at the thought. "No thanks. Mom's not home. Uh…later."
He rushed back inside. As he sat back at the table and opened his book, he was surprised to find that they were true to their word. The music didn't start back up and there was no more yelling.
Maybe there was more to them than he had thought. David shook his head and picked up his pencil. Yeah, right.
--
A/N: So, what do you all think? Should I continue it or no? Oh, and for the record, St. Cloud is a real place. It's the town right by my town (at least, before I move). Also, there is a tunnel connecting my neighborhood to the school. And Chocolate Herpes is actually a band but I changed the members' names for privacy purposes. That aside, yeah. Review and all that. Tell me if I should build on this.