Summary: Lupus attempts to understand the ever infuriated Tanner Boyle.
Author's Note: Relies most heavily on new version of movie for background, especially for Lupus's description. None of the 70's sequels are taken into account.
Warnings: Language, Alcohol and possibly drug abuse, Descriptions and graphic scenes of domestic violence, homosexual relationship, graphic sex scenes. This is an "M" rated story, meaning if you are here then you should be Mature enough to decide not to read if you disapprove of anything listed in this warning.
Sometimes Bird Poop Tastes Like Candy
Chapter 1:
Clouds are like whispers. Soft. Light. Buoyant. Easily carried away with the wind. I watch them above me, forming and dispersing, their own endless cycle of life and death. Beneath me the grass is wet. It seeps through my gym shorts – horrible, mesh, maroon colored things that creep up unpleasantly. It cools my skin.
This day is warm. This day is nice. There is hardly a breeze and the clouds that I watch move slow and are a brilliant, stark white. They sit low in the sky and hover over the sun like a theater curtain that can't be pulled because the rope and pulley are broken.
I pulled the curtain for the last school production; Frog and Toad. I did a very good job, never missed a cue. Miss Landris, the drama teacher, could never remember my name. I didn't mind, she never called on me.
I don't like to be called in class. That morning Mr. Digger, algebra teacher, I think...or maybe I'm in geometry this year...well, he called on me. I had to walk up to the board, solve a problem. He stood at my shoulder, tap-tap-tapping his fingers against his arm. It was very distracting. Everyone watched me, their eyes hot on my back. My face had been very, very red. I know because I was told so later.
Everyone laughed. As usual.
I could devour those clouds. I imagine they feel like cotton candy, fibers melting on my tongue. I don't imagine they have much of a taste. Like rainwater, maybe, hot and slightly acidic. Sometimes people see shapes and objects in clouds.
I don't.
I just see clouds.
And a ball. Small, round, also white like the clouds but slightly scuffed and stained with dirt from the infield. It spirals down towards me and...
POP!
Everything is black. Then blurry. People stand over me. A boy is hovering, knelt beside me, his face fills my eyes. I know him. Shaggy blond hair, clear blue eyes. He calls my name. He looks concerned, that space between his eyebrows just above the bridge of his nose is very wrinkled. He seems breathless but calls to me despite.
"Loop...Lupus! Are you alright?"
"Move back, Boyle," a gruff voice barks. The boy is shoved aside and I immediately miss his face. I like that look he wears, it hurts my chest in a strangely good way.
A grown man's face replaces the boy's. Balding and bulldog-ish, frowning. He wears a blue t-shirt taut around his flatulent belly and meaty arms. A silver whistle bounces against his chest on a long chain. He likes to blow that whistle to get our attention. Usually when he already has it and when we're all standing close. It's loud, shrill, claws at my ears so that I can't help but cover them and hope he stops.
The man – he's our Phys Ed teacher Coach Murdoch – looks me over. I'm used to being looked at like that. Like a perpetual disappointment. He waggles several fingers in front of my face. They remind me of thick, pink sausages.
It make me hungry.
I had a tuna on white for lunch. It was smothered in ketchup and the other people at the table made faces at me and said nasty things about it. But that was a couple hours ago and we've been outside for nearly twenty minutes. My stomach rumbles.
"How many, Timothy?" Coach Murdoch asks. The other boys are whispering now. Clouds billowing by on a gentle breeze.
I have a bag of popcorn at home. Its in the bottom of my sock drawer. There's less than half-left, but its kettle corn. So sweet and salty, thinking about it makes my mouth water. I wonder how long we have left of school.
"Timothy...Timothy Lupus!"
I startle.
Coach looks pinker than usual, except for the skin around his mouth, its turning white. I think because he's pressing his mouth so tightly together.
I pull myself to sitting.
The entire class has surrounded me and are watching; some with smirks like Gargoyle statues from ancient Gothic style buildings – I saw them on a postcard – and some with obvious boredom.
Except for that boy.
He stands close by me with arms folded and foot tapping nervously. Still that worry edges his features. It's nice. Much nicer than the anger that's usually there.
Tanner.
Tanner Boyle.
I decide then that his name suits him. He is a pot always ready to boil over. Those clear blue eyes of his, usually cutting the world apart with a razor sharp glare, are looking at me. Looking into me.
A shiver races my spine.
I suddenly realize I should say something.
"I like to eat popcorn kernels. They're crunchy," I admit quietly. It seems somewhat appropriate.
Well, actually I'm not really sure how appropriate it is but Tanner is awash with relief which must mean it wasn't an entirely wrong thing to say. Maybe. I think.
"Great. His brain's rattled," Coach Murdoch curses, tossing his hands violently in the air and I wince guiltily because when I'm near and someone is upset it's usually at me, "All I need is for that goddamn PTA to take baseball away and soon all you boys'll be left with are wiffle balls and frisbee."
"No, no, Coach," Tanner interjects quickly, "His brain was rattled long before getting smacked with any damn baseball. He's fine. Trust me. I've smacked him with a lot of baseballs. He's just being Lupus."
Coach Murdoch doesn't seem convinced. He stares at me for a long time with displeasure, which I'm used to but it still makes me feel uncomfortable. I hope Tanner will say something again. I like when he speaks up for me. He always says the words I want to say but I don't know I want to say them until the moment he does.
"Right." Coach Murdoch sniffs loudly, shifts his gaze to the ground and kicks at the grass casually. He mumbles, "Better send him to the nurse anyhow, make sure he ain't concussed or something." He clears his throat loudly then and to Tanner says, "Alright, Boyle, take Timmy up to Nurse Goodkind."
The anger swarms Tanner's face again. He reels on Coach.
"What?!" he explodes, "Why do I gotta do it?"
"Don't act like you don't want to, Boyle," one of the boys, Freddy or Teddy...something like that, says. Or jeers, actually. Because Freddy-Teddy-something is the type of boy who jeers.
"Yeah," another boy – his name reminds me of a rodent, or a bird, or some other animal – pitches in, "You'll want to make sure your girlfriend makes it safe and sound."
I blink. I didn't know Tanner had a girlfriend. I look around for her. The other boys are laughing, making more comments about this person I had never even heard of. I wonder why I'm the only one who didn't know.
"Boys," Coach Murdoch admonishes half-heartedly. He's still staring at the ground, hands on his hips and shaking his head. I think he's still upset about the PTA, at least, that's what he said. I think. He glances at me every now and then and the weary look makes me squirm.
Tanner thuds his mitt, actually, it's the school's mitt because it belongs to the school but anyway...he thuds it to the ground and turns on the boys. I've seen that look now on his face before. I'm very familiar with that look. His hands are curled into fists, clenched at his side and poised to attack. His lip is curled in a sneer, tongue behind also poised to attack.
"Shut it, Beiderman," he growls warning. I don't know which boy is Beiderman. Maybe Freddy-Teddy-something.
"Oh, what's the matter, Boyle? Are you mad I beaned you're girlfriend?" Freddy-Teddy-something, again, jeers.
Yeah. He's probably, definitely, maybe, perhaps Beiderman. I notice his nose is slightly upturned, snout like. He isn't very tall, and his arms and legs are stubby. He makes me think of a pig.
I saw a pig once. In the third grade. We went on a class field trip to a farm...Perkins Farm, I think it was called. There was a large pig there, almost three times my size...or at least, my size in third grade. It was brown and black. It rolled in the mud and when I got close to its pen it grunted at me. I cried. My teacher let me sit on the bus the rest of the trip.
The busdriver, a heavyset woman with peppery hair, had sat in her driver's seat and read to me from her book. I didn't quite get what she was reading and I told her so. It's romance, she had explained, you'll understand it when you're older.
Older now. Still don't get it.
"Did you see the way Boyle ran over when you hit him? Oh, he was so scared for his spazhoid girlfriend," the other boy laughs. He has red, red, red, red hair. It furls and curls and twines around itself. He also has an endless supply of freckles. They dot every available inch of his milky face and scatter down his neck.
"That's it," Tanner has boiled over. He shoves one of the boys, "You wanna go!"
They all are ready until Coach Murdoch blows his whistle. It grates my ears and I slap hands protectively over them. Then he drops it, with a thump-thumpity-thump against his blubbery breast and grabs Tanner's collar. He yanks back, hard, and Tanner gags.
Instantly, Tanner's fury dies, settling now to a low simmer.
"That's enough," Coach roars, "You boys. Mile. Now. Start running."
Groans wave from the mass of boys. They toss down their mitts – school's mitts – and reluctantly begin their jogs around the field. Coach has his attention on Tanner again. Their eyes are locked with one another. I can't decide who has the fiercer glare. Tanner, probably. If fights were won by sheer force of rage alone, then Tanner would win every time.
But they aren't.
So he doesn't.
"Boyle, what the hell's wrong with you! This is the same shit that got ya' kicked off the team. Now get him off the ground and to the Nurse's office. Pronto!"
Coach Murdoch spins on heel and marches away at that, satisfied his commands have been effectively commanding. Now he'll go sit on the far bench and eat the large party sized bag of M&Ms he has shoved in his pocket while waiting for the boys to finish jogging. If he's still upset, he'll make them run again.
Tanner grumbles things I can't hear but am sure are profane and violent. He grabs my arm and jerks it, a silent demand to get on my feet. I let him drag me up because I like the way his fingers wrap around my bicep, encircling it entirely. There's something comforting in the way he touches me. I think because, rough as it may be, it seems gentler than it would be were I someone else. Maybe. I think.
I follow Tanner from the field, swiping the grass blades and dampness from my bottom and my legs. He stalks along the cement pathway leading to the main school building. His arms hang stiff at his side and he mutters things under his breath. Sometimes I hear them, mostly I don't. They sound like things that would make me blush.
I think about how he looks now. And how he looked then. When we first met. Not met, met; as in the first time we saw one another, were told the others name, because that was years before. But when we first really met. Five years ago, on a baseball field. We were bears then. And we were bad news.
Tanner was angry all the time, sort of like now, but not really. His anger seemed to go in all directions back then, and now it seems more focused. He was short. Shorter than everyone. Shorter than me. And he was scrawny. Of course, we were all scrawny then, twiggy arms and beanpole legs. But he felt large. His presence filled a room.
Now he's taller. Still shorter than most, but taller than he was and taller than me. Everyone is taller than me now. He isn't scrawny now, either. He's still slender, but carved with lean muscle. Swimmers have that same physique, I think, slim and toned. He doesn't swim. Well, I'm sure he does for fun, but not on a team or anything.
I've heard girls call him 'cute', and even once 'sexy'. I'm still scrawny. And girls don't talk about me. At least, not that I know of. It doesn't bother me though. I think I prefer it that way. I wouldn't like the attention.
His presence still fills a room. Or maybe it doesn't and I just think it does.
"I didn't know you had girlfriend," I say it because I feel like I should say something. And it sort of stings that I didn't know and somehow I think saying it aloud will make the stinging stop.
"I don't."
Wow. It worked.
"Oh."
We're silent. Our pace is slow and the school feels forever away. Which I like. The longer it takes, the longer we have. It was nice to be near someone. Walking beside him as though we were a pair and not two individuals headed to the same place.
When we played baseball, back when we were bears, it was always like this. He and I, us and them. I was never alone. Never lonely. But now we don't play baseball. We aren't bears. And I'm always alone. Always lonely.
"He was talking about you," Tanner mutters. He's making an effort to sound annoyed but his words just seem resigned.
I think about what he's said. Oh. I was Tanner's girlfriend. The thought heats my face and causes my belly to lurch. I'm not sure what it is that unsettles me, being called a girl or being called his girl.
Maybe it's both.
"Me."
Maybe it's neither.
"Yeah. You. And geez, Loop, would it've killed ya' to pay attention for one goddamn half-hour. You were right field, for crying out loud. All you gotta do is watch for the ball and put you're mitt up when it's coming – if it ever comes. That's all. Why's that so fucking hard?"
I shrug. Tanner sniffs loudly. He opens the school door, lets me walk through first, then follows me inside. We shuffle down the tiled hallways, our footsteps echoing like a symphony.
Tanner looks like he's thinking, brow scrunched again and lips pressed thin. He watches the tile pass beneath our feet. So I decide to think too. About right field.
In league baseball, right field is where the weakest fielder but stronger batter is put, because in league baseball, you're always one or the other. In High School Phys Ed baseball, right field is where the strange kid no one wants to actually catch a ball thrown from is banished, because in High School, you're only there for the participation points.
I always play right field.
At least when I was a bear it didn't feel like a punishment for existing.
"How's you're head?"
Tanner is looking at me again with that worry and my heart catches for a moment. Those clear blue eyes are swallowing me whole. We've reached the nurse's office and are stopped. He leans back against the door. We aren't going in, not yet. I don't mind. I like to watch him. He is an endless swirl of energy. Even standing still he seems to be in constant motion.
He's waiting for a reply and I wonder what I should say. I had forgotten why we came there.
"My head?"
He rolls his eyes. Maybe that was wrong.
"I told Coach this was a waste of time. Beiderman couldn't hit the ball hard enough to crack a window; let alone your skull."
Tanner smirks at me and I smile back instinctively.
It feels like summer. The way summer was five years ago, four years ago, three; back before expectations, puberty, the league draft, and high school devoured, divided, destroyed our team. Summer. When we were the Bad News Bears. Unbeatable, no. Unstoppable, always.
"I miss summer," I tell him because I think he'll understand. He gives me a questioning look and I realize, sadly, that he doesn't.
The bell rings, an ecstatic, high-pitched pulsing overhead. I flinch and Tanner sighs.
"Shit. Now I gotta walk all the way back to the locker room and change. You think that asshole Murdoch'll give me a hall pass? Fuck, no." He kicks away from the door and starts back the way we came. I begin to follow him and he stops me, "Listen, Loop, just stay here and tell the nurse you got conked with a ball and aren't feeling well. Even if ya are. That'll get ya' outta've last class or at the very least a hall pass."
I want to say something more, ask him to stay, try to explain our loss of childhood aching in my soul, but he disappears into the flood of other kids now bursting out of their classrooms into the hall before I can think of the words.
I decide in that moment, in a weird way, Tanner Boyle is also like a whisper.