You know I don't own these characters or the song Right Between the Eyes, written by Graham Nash and preformed by Crosby, Stills Nash and Young. I just have claim to this piece of fanfiction. It's present tense, which I've never done before, so let me know what you think, seriously. I rarely experiment like this, so critique would be awesome. Also, there's some language. Fair warning?
Blessed
'Tis sacrilege for us to take advantage of the blind
Graham Nash
First grade.
Today Steve learned a new vocabulary word. The word is "instigator." It sounds like the word "alligator," except alligators and instigators are different animals.
Mrs. Sullivan looks at Mrs. Randle from across her big impressive desk with a look that says that she hates Mrs. Randle because Mrs. Randle is what some people call "white trash". Mrs. Sullivan tells her very plainly, "Steven has started several fights on the playground. I'm afraid that he's something of an instigator." Mrs. Sullivan looks at Steve like he's something pitiful. It makes Steve feel small, like an ant.
When Steve goes home, he'll get a spanking, but he'll just go on snapping his jaws at people on the playground and getting back at Sodapop Curtis, who made fun of Steve's glasses.
It is all very confusing that he should be the one to get in trouble when Sodapop Curtis was the one who started it all.
Second grade.
Steve hates Keith Mathews more than Sodapop Curtis. Keith and Sodapop are best friends and they make fun of Steve's glasses, which are horn-rimmed and ugly and just old hand-me-downs. If he wasn't stuck with those glasses, he would make fun of them too. But since he is wearing them, he hates them almost as much as he hates Keith and Sodapop.
Steve goes home and asks his brother Sheldon, who is 12 and very smart what to do.
The answer is very simple to Shelly. "Stop wearing them." He reaches down and pulls the ugly glasses off of Steve's face and snaps them in half, then throws them on the gravel. Things get a little hazy, but he can still see okay.
"You look like a real tough guy now. No one will mess with you," Shelly says, grinding his heel into the ground and making the glasses go crunch. Shelly is 12 and a real tough guy and nobody messes with Sheldon Randle. It is who he wants to be when he turns 12.
Third grade.
Keith Mathews has earned the nickname Two-Bit because he can never keep his mouth shut.
Two-Bit Mathews is still the same person who Steve hates very much and he still messes with him. Today Two-Bit calls him an Injun and opens his mouth in a big wide O. He starts to clap his hand against his mouth and dance around Steve, hitting him in the head with the palm of his hand every time he makes a full rotation.
"Tell me a story, Red Boy."
Steve is getting mad. He feels like an instigator again and the more he tries to remember not to be one, the madder he gets. "That's not my name," Steve says. Steve has a quiet voice. Hardly anybody hears him ever.
"What, Red Boy?"
Two-Bit Mathews is in 5th grade and a lot older than Steve. He's also a lot bigger. Steve doesn't repeat himself. Two-Bit keeps hitting Steve on the head while his friend Sodapop watches. Sodapop isn't smiling.
It gives Steve a headache.
Fourth grade.
Steve has never played baseball in his life. He has never picked up a bat, thrown a pitch, or run a base.
Steve is in gym class and it's his turn to bat. He steps up to the plate and in the spring chill he can feel his confidence growing steadier still. The ball is caressing the air, coming at him at an impossibly fast speed. It is physics. It is beautiful.
Steve takes a swing. He swings so hard that the bat flies out of his hands and across the field and the impossibly fast, very beautiful ball that does physics makes contact with Steve's nose. He bleeds so much that he thinks he'll die.
Junior McLaughlin says, "Gross."
Chris Lachance calls him a pussy.
Linda Carter thinks he's dead.
Steve thinks so too.
Steve never plays baseball again.
Fifth grade.
Steve gets a hard-on at recess.
It's raining and the teachers are calling everyone into the classroom. A Mexican girl named Theresa stands in front of him. She turns around and Steve notices that her white shirt is soaked through. He can see her bra and two small, hard lumps under it.
It is simple curiosity. It is beautiful.
Sixth grade.
Grady Palmer is a dumbass. He thinks he's so tough that it makes Steve mad. It pisses Steve off because Grady Palmer can shoot his mouth off about anything.
He tells Grady that he is stupid and wrong and mostly stupid. Grady spits on the ground and says, "Randle, you're such a retard you can't tell a piece of shit from your old lady. You'd probably eat it you're so fucking poor." Grady is tuff and tuff kids are allowed to swear like that.
Steve's ears turn red. He is a red boy and a very angry red boy at that.
Without thinking about anything except how much he hates Grady Palmer, Steve jumps on him and swings his fists like never before in directions that he never thought his body could move. It is ballet. It is beautiful.
He hits Grady in the nose until it bleeds like the time his own nose did. He smacks Grady upside the head and punches him in the balls.
Someone pulls him off of Grady.
Grady is crying. Grady is a candy-ass. Steve knows that and he says so to Mr. Fulton as he sits in his office next to Sodapop Curtis, who pulled Steve off of Grady.
Steve gets a week of detention for beating Grady Palmer up so bad that it almost broke his nose. The baseball that broke Steve's nose never got a detention.
It is injustice.
Seventh grade.
It is Steve's 13th birthday. He's at Sodapop Curtis' house, sitting between Soda, who is his best friend in the world, and Darry, who scares him. Soda's little brother won't stop following them.
At home, Steve's dad is leaning over a toilet. He mixed too much vodka and orange juice and his body just can't take it.
Steve will feel sick later that night too from too much cake.
He thinks that's called irony.
Eighth grade.
Today is Thanksgiving. Steve can't think of very much to be thankful for. He wants to go to Soda's house, but Papa won't let him.
"It's a family holiday," Papa says. Papa stumbles like a baby that is learning to walk. He has forgotten how to use his feet.
Steve doesn't argue back and sits there feeling sad for himself while Mom drinks her sparkling water that they're not allowed to taste and Phoebe talks on the phone with her best friend. Shelly is outside shooting hoops.
Steve sneaks off to Sodapop's and it feels good. It feels amazing. It feels liberating.
Mr. Curtis is quiet. He doesn't talk to Steve much. He just looks at him like he is something pitiful and it makes Steve feel small, like an ant.
It is all bullshit.
Ninth grade.
Steve learned a new word today. The word is cunt, as in, "Your mother is a cunt."
He doesn't know what to define that word as.
Tenth grade.
Steve and Phoebe come home from school. Papa's at work. So is Mom.
Papa comes home from work.
Mom doesn't.
It is lonely.
Eleventh grade.
Steve looks at the place where Dallas died. He misses Dally and the shit they got into together. He misses the fighting and swearing and calling guys who were weaker than them pussies and guys who were tougher than them pussies.
Steve has his first taste of alcohol on that spot with Sodapop. It is Pabst Blue Ribbon, right out of his fridge. It's bitter and fizzy, but he likes it. Later that night he goes home and has another.
Papa notices that he's three beers short.
In a way, it's a little bit funny if you can ignore the unfunny parts of it. In a way, it's knee-slapping hilarious. If you can ignore the very unfunny parts of it.
Twelfth grade.
Steve is grinning so wide that it might be a caricature of him. But it really is Steve and he really is grinning from ear-to-ear. He feels like a faggot in his robe and cap, but goddamn it feels good to be getting out of school.
"Randle, Steven Elliott."
That's me!
His GPA isn't as good as Shelly's, which was a 3.9. Phoebe's is almost as good. It's a 3.7. Steve's GPA is a 3.2. But goddamn, he's almost out of high school.
He takes the diploma.
He's gone.
It is the happiest he will ever be, so he has to live it up.
College.
Vietnam University.
Right now Steve is learning about the human anatomy and all of the ways to make a body blow up. He thinks that when he gets back home he'll become a doctor or a bum. A bum doctor if he can get into some proctology classes.
He tells that joke to a guy named Martinez, but Martinez doesn't get it. Martinez is a dumb fucking ass.
Over there is a little girl who reminds Steve of Theresa, just the way she looks and smiles. She's missing a foot. She comes over to Steve and hands him some fresh wildflowers and says, "For you, Number One."
Steve smiles at her, kisses her cheek and hands her a huge piece of chocolate. "You're an okay kid." He puts the flowers in his helmet and lies back down on the ground.
"Young-Hi," he says. The little girl turns around and grins at him because she loves Steve. She is missing more teeth than she should be. Most of them are rotten. "Have you seen a spoon around here?"
Young-Hi looks confused.
"I guess not." Steve sits up and pretends to snatch her nose away, then he hands her another piece of chocolate. "Get outta here, kid."
"Thank you, Joe." Young-Hi looks like the happiest kid he's ever seen. She's missing an entire goddamn foot. Can you believe it?
"Don't ask a fucking kid where your paraphernalia is," Letch says. Letch likes studying the human anatomy more than Steve does. He loves finding out how people work, but what's more interesting is how people stop working.
He and Steve smoke up. It is chemistry. It is art. It is some kind of peace. It is beautiful.