As you walk on by
Will you call my name?
"CLAIRE! SWEETS, YEAH OVER HERE!" rang throughout the hallway as everyone turned and saw the trench-coat clad burner shouting the name of the Prom Queen loud and clear down the halls of Shermer High School. Claire whirled around, eyes narrowed in an attempt to pin who'd been calling for her. She rested her eyes on John Bender, one gloved hand cupped around his mouth to amplify.
She exhaled firmly and quickly turned back to her group. "Well God Almighty Claire, how much did that Saturday detention change you? Are we now friends with the homeless?" Jenny breathed.
"No… 'course not" Claire muttered, avoiding numerous stares from the surrounding crowd of judgemental pricks. Her eyes hovered over to Cal Nicholas who had his arm slung around Lydia, and then she found the boy standing next to the awkward couple, Andy. Their eyes met and he gave her a look that seemed to simply convey shrugging with one's eyes.
"Look at his shirt" seethed Millicent. "He's coming straight from a homeless shelter if you ask me, and once the school blows that wide open they're gonna have no place for some fuck up lunatic, if you ask me."
"Did anybody?" Claire said before she could stop herself. Everyone turned to stare at her.
"Excuse me?" Millicent inquired.
"Did anybody ask you?" God she was dumb. Why did she even bother to open her goddamn mouth the second time if she was just going to end up saying something that would lose her friends in the blink of an eye. "I mean all I'm saying -" she added quickly, trying to make a fast cover up. "Is you can never truly know what's going on in someone's home life, like he could be beaten for all we know, that's all I'm saying." She saw Andy give her a wary look and she glared at him, more out of anger from letting what she had just said slip out.
"You're sleeping with him!" Jenny exclaimed.
"I am not!" Claire retorted indignantly. "Excuse me for believing we shouldn't be so quick to judge!"
"I've got to get to class" Millicent said, grabbing hold of Jenny's arm as she walked. You could just hear the faint, "You know she totally is!" Claire sighed and turned to where Andy, Cal, and Lydia.
"I'm not slee-"
"Sorry Claire, you're gonna have to let me know what stoner sex is like some other time, I'm late too." She pulled Cal along with her as she went, leaving Claire alone with Andy. He surveyed her and shook his head. "What?!" she hissed.
"You can't go blurting out stuff like that. God Claire, if people start figuring out you messed around with Bender, ya know how that looks for me? I was in detention too! They probably figure I hooked up with Brian, for God's sake I don't think anybody knew Allison was capable of moving so they wouldn't figure her."
"We didn't mess around!" Claire growled. "And would it really be so terrible if we stuck to what we said, the shit about sticking together?!"
"Bender had us high as a kite when we said that, do you even think anybody remembers?" Andy reasoned. Claire looked down angrily. "What's wrong?" Andy tried to comfort her.
"It's just shit that we can't be friends."
"Do you even want to?" Andy shrugged. "Would you really want to sacrifice a day at the mall with Millicent to go to the library with Brian? Or how about a therapy session with Allison? Goddammit, the only reason you kissed that burner was because he got in your head about being a virgin, made you cry, and then gave you drugs! No emotions there!"
"FUCK YOU!" Claire screeched.
"Hey, hey you two!" yelled a middle aged teacher down the hall. "Hey, get to class!" Claire shot one last look of disgust at Andy as he turned around, slinging his bag over his shoulder and jaunting down the hall.
She felt the gaze of all her friends as she slowly crept into Spanish 3. She sat down slowly next to Jenny and averted her eyes from everyone else. "Well you can sit there" Jenny began, hushing her voice so that Mr. Incra couldn't hear. "But only if you're back to being Claire Standish, not Claire B-"
"Claire Bender, haha, I get it" Claire sarcastically mumbled. "I don't like him, God. I don't know why he was calling to me, maybe he was talking to another Claire! It was one of the most common names when I was born, you know."
"So you did or did not talk to him this Saturday?"
"Oh God no… you know him, he just spit insults at Vernon and picked fights with Andy, nothing for us to talk about." Jenny narrowed her eyes and Claire quickly stumbled to cover it up. "Er - speaking of which, why'd you get off without detention, they caught you shopping with me."
"Well Vernon likes me" she admitted.
"Fucking disgusting… and you're yelling at me for John Bender supposedly knows who I am."
"You know his full fucking name?"
"Detention role call…." Claire quickly said and Jenny rolled her eyes.
"All I'm sayin, Princess, is if you wanna keep that nickname, your knight in shining armor shouldn't be a thug in shining trenchcoats." Claire smiled slightly.
"You're right."
Brian was jogging down the halls out of breath. He could see Andy just a few feet in front of him, walking with two other Varsity lettermen that Brian didn't know the identities of. "ANDY!" Brian called! "HEY ANDY!" Andy turned around, his friends both stopping with him. One of them smirked and muttered something.
"Hey Andy, this the kid who's ass you taped up?" the other one laughed. Brian looked Andy in the eyes and although he was smiling, he had the dead, cold look in his eyes of contempt, telling Brian a clear message: Go away. Brian opened his mouth slightly and clicked his pen nervously.
"What's your name kid?" Andy said awkwardly, a piece of the worst acting known to history, but there isn't much to be said for the dramatic standards of Varsity wrestlers.
"Andy I -" Brian began.
"This kid's crazy, let's get outta here" one of the other letterman motioned towards the other end of the hall, and Andy grudgingly turned away, looking like he had something he so desperately wanted to say, but couldn't. Brian stood there, struck with embarrassment as he watched the three jocks trump away. He could hear his own heart trying to escape his chest as he caught his breath from all the running.
It was probably dumb for him to want to cry, but he did it anyway. Contrary to the stereotype you have set in your mind, Brian wasn't that kid: the crier, the one who couldn't take a joke. But pouring out the most intimate details about your very essence to a stranger one day, well it's enough to expect a "Hi" back.
Brian quickly wiped his eyes and smiled so he could disguise the redness of his eyes. He looked around the hall for one of his friends, or at least someone to cheer him up, but it just seemed to be a blur of people that he'd never said a word to… except conveniently, maybe the word "Hi."
He saw John walking through the halls. His back was turned, but the greaser hair and general swagger that Bender possessed was enough to let you know. He caught up to the guy and said "He-hey Bender", heavy nerves after what had just happened.
"Looky here, it's Bri. Thought you were gonna blow me off like cherry bitch this morning."
"Na-na-no, I mean, I myself just got ignored by Andy but that's nothing -
"Man I saw this comin' from a mile 'way. You can't change that type of rich kid… it's somethin in their blood, but spoiled entitled brats will be spoiled entitled brats. I would bet you one millllllliiiioooonnnn dollars that if you said hi to Allison right about now, she'd respond. It's the privileged ones without any manners."
"Yeah I mean -"
"I gotta get to class genius, Jenkin's really been riding my ass this week and I've got my fair set of detentions." Bender turned and continued to walk down the hall, leaving Brian alone. Brian had friends, he had Larry (although he hadn't showed up for school since Thursday, he might have even dropped out… his mom didn't work so homeschooling had always been an option for him), Mikey, Cooper…. yet he just didn't feel connected to them anymore. It was something strange.
Allison Reynolds didn't come to school that Monday. She didn't want to explain herself. To anybody. If she wore makeup, if she dressed like the cutesy prep Claire had engineered to come and eat Allison's face off, so many questions would occur. "Who was that?" "Is that Allison Reynolds?" "Did she finally get off that fuckin vodka tonic shit and get her act together?" And then there was the questions Claire might ask if she didn't wear the pink clothing. "Why aren't you wearing the stuff I gave you?" "Did you even listen to a word I said?" That is, if Claire were even to acknowledge her. If anybody even acknowledged her.
She didn't know if she really liked Andy or not. She kissed him, but she had kissed lots of boys (a girl or two if she was being fair, but those were stupid middle school dares), and she was upset, he was high… their reasoning wasn't too stellar. He was into her on a deeper level and she could tell that the first time she ever spoke on that Saturday. That's what ate at her.
John Bender didn't like girls that fucked with his mind. It sounded cliche to say Claire was the first girl who had stood up the great handsome Johnny boy, and it really wasn't true. John hit on every girl who showed two visible lumps under her shirt, just to see the reaction and the contempt in their facial expression. That was the only reason he ever talked to Claire in the first place, and to give Sporto a twist in his jock strap.
When he called out for her in the hallway he really had expected her to respond. That fuckin earring was all it took to convince him of that. But he was wrong, ever so wrong, because the fucking bitch turned around, and didn't acknowledge him. After he wore her fuckin diamond stud in his ear, gallivanting around the hallways with the shit glinting off of every nerds' glasses.
Bender shook his head and headed off to class. Class was John's second favorite part of the day, believe it or not. There was nothing that he enjoyed more (after his daily smoking) then smarting off to some underpaid fag and embarrassing him in front of the class. Besides from that, what else did he have to look forward to? His parents when he got home? He smirked and sauntered into his Lit class.
"Mr. Bender, so nice of you to join us" seethed Mr. Something or Another.
"I do believe, sir, I was only forty five seconds late" Bender pouted. The teacher turned around and grumbled to himself. He was almost as unqualified to teach this class as Bender was. They legitimately paid him to fumble around with a piece of chalk and write some book titles on the board. He was an idiot.
John didn't know many people in this class. Millicent, a popular bitch who he had seen in the hallways hanging out with Claire was sitting in a corner. Some burnout guy Todd doodled a picture of some type of cityscape on his notebook, and to top off the list of names Bender knew here, Janna Biehl sat in the front. John liked Janna. She was fun to smoke with whenever out of his friends scooped her up and brought her out back to their spot by the dumpsters. Wasn't ugly either, if he was being honest. Brown ringlets that were messed up like a tornado hit, freckles, olive complexion: she was not too bad.
John balled up a piece of notebook paper and tossed at the back of Janna's head. She spazzed quickly and turned around, narrowing her brown eyes at him. He shot her a yellow-teethed grin and she smiled a little back. Picking the paper ball off the floor, she uncrumpled it, smoothed it out, and scribbled something on the front of it. Folding it back up, she aimed at Bender's face, at which time he extended a hand and caught it mid air.
Janna turned back around just in time for the teacher to face the class again, and John opened the note.
"Busy tonight?" was all it said. When the professor turned his back again, Janna turned around to see Bender's response. He grinned at her sheepishly and she bit her lip.
"CLARK!" was chorused as Andy stepped into the locker room and Leo jumped on him, ruffling up Andy's hair. "What's the deal bro, you suspended for the match or what?"
"No don't worry man, I'm all good, my dad talked to Principal Wiley and he said it's all a first offense so it's all good."
"First offense?" scoffed Michael. "Freshman year, after JV won that tournament and you climbed up the basketball hoop and started doing pull ups off the backboard -"
"Ha! Totally forgot about that one! Man that was great, and then the day after Coach Masterson asked me to be on Varsity." Ricky snapped me in the back with a towel.
"You shoulda seen the look on his face, though, when Couch approached him. Coulda swore he thought he was getting kicked of JV for the little stunt he pulled, he started shaking and everything. I'd never seen him that scared before!"
"Don't be a prick" Andy interrupted snidely. The locker room erupted in a chorus of laughter.
"Hey Andy, man why is that scrawny kid coming up to us saying hi to you?" asked Lucas.
"Scrawny?" snorted Ricky. "That guy was taller than you and me, Luke, you saw. He just looked like a dick, like he was gonna cry at any minute. You know him Andy? 'Cause he seemed to know you pretty well." Andy wrestled with how to respond for a minute.
"Never seen him before, probably on of Larry's friends coming to try and beat me up. Like he even could."
"Who's Larry?"
"He's that fag who got his ass cheeks taped up!" chimed Mark. Andy mustered up a half grin and then began to change his socks.