Disclaimer: Jonathan Larson owns; I'm just borrowing the characters to express my teenage angst.

ROGER

One time my parents sent me to a shrink. I didn't like it. He told me to keep a diary. I did. Then he read it. He asked me, Why did I write in present tense about things that had already happened? And I told him, because I still want to feel them. He said I had issues. I couldn't let things go, he said. We're going to practice letting things go, Roger. I hated the way he said my name. We're going to practice with this. He made me watch him burn my diary. Now, that wasn't so bad, was it, Roger? Because it was just paper, not a part of you. Stop crying, Roger.

I learned how to remember everything. I learned how to catalog my life in the scars I made, this one from the first time Dad hit me, before I knew he was wrong and not me. This one because I didn't want to feel anything when my dog died, because I was the one who didn't latch the gate properly. This one because I was scared I wasn't human because I'm so bad. This one from the day Mark found out. This one. This one. For Mark, who didn't deserve this burden.

I learned how to scream.

---

Before I know what I'm doing, I've knocked the pipette away. "No! You can't!"

Mrs. Anders gives me a condescending look. "Things die. This is how it is in real life," she says. I know that already.

"This isn't real life." Ignoring me, she steps forward, again brandishing her pipette. One look at the oil sloshing around in the head and I want to be sick. She wants Benjy to live in that stuff. It's torture. "Stop it. Get away. I won't let you." I'm babbling. This is a bad situation for me; I don't know what to do. I haven't planned this. My heart is pounding. I can't think, can't plan.

"Cool it, Davis," someone calls. Suddenly the entire class is watching me, watching this protest and laughing. Don't they see anything wrong? Do none of them see anything wrong with this… this sadism?

Collins says, "C'mon, man." He says it like this is unimportant. Anyone else would get slugged for that, but Collins never thinks anything is important. Everything rolls off his back; he's a real-live Sisyphus.

"Roger--" Mark squeaks. I know I'm scaring him and I feel a little bad, but most of what I do scares Mark. Roger, don't smoke. Roger, don't walk on the railing. Roger, don't hurt yourself. I have to, Mark, I'm sorry, I don't know how to be good like you are. And how can he disagree? Mark watched his grandfather die; I was there when he fell to pieces, undone entirely, yet here he condones this poisoning?

I'm too furious to stop now. I might pass out. "You! You should be supporting me--" Taking advantage of my distraction, Anders creeps up, pipette in hand. "No! Get away, I said! You will not kill Benjamin Franklin!"

"Mr Davis, that is enough--"

No, it isn't. It won't be enough until she leaves him alone. I grab the water chamber from out environment and leap up onto the lab table. "Get away from him!" I warn her.

"Davis!"

"Roger, come on, come down." There's something in Mark's eyes, something in his face. His eyes are dull. Mark doesn't care.

I don't understand. Mark always cares. Mark cares about everything, everybody. Mark watched his grandfather die and trembled because he could do nothing to reverse the process, to make the bad cells stop splitting and spreading and starving the good cells that Mark Cohen, Sr., needed to survive. How can Mark not care about preventing further death? How can Mark not care about me, standing here, alone? How can he abandon me like this?

And looking around the room, it's all I see: dead eyes. Some are laughing at me. Some are angry. Only Collins can look away, but he can't face me. I'm beginning to cry.

"Doesn't… anybody care?"

---

Mark was named after his grandfather, Mark Cohen, Sr. Mark's father's name is Elias. In the Jewish culture, it's usually considered an insult to name a baby after a living relative. When Mark was born, his grandfather had just been diagnosed with cancer. Mark's parents named him Mark because they hoped he would learn from and be like his namesake.

Mark Cohen, Sr., went into the hospital for the last time when Mark and I were in eighth grade. Mark went to visit him every day. He showed me one of the film reels. "You come here, Marcus, you film me, why? You want me on film? You never film me before, never carry that thing around, but this you want to remember?" Mark Cohen, Sr. was cantankerous to the end. Before, Mark had only drooled over the old camera. He bought it to film his grandfather, spent a fair deal of his Bar Mitzvah money to keep his memories safe.

One night, Mark knocked on my window. "He came home," he said, then burst into tears. He cried for a long time, then he fell asleep on my bed. I took off his shoes and socks, and pulled the blanket over him, then called Mrs. Cohen and told her that Mark was fine, he had come over and was a little upset but he was asleep now, and would it be all right if he spent the night? I didn't want to wake him.

We cut class together. Sometimes we went and sat by the aquaduct, especially after a rainy day. It seemed winter that year had latched itself firmly to Scarsdale; it was late March and still raining. Other times we sat behind the art building. Mark never cried at school, just got quiet and trembled. I would hold him and rock him, which seemed to help.

One night, it was raining, and I was sitting at my desk listening to a tape recording of Louis Armstrong. I remember only for the irony. Mark tapped on the window.

"Christ, Mark!" As though that meant anything. He was crying. I knew.

Mark couldn't settle down. He kept spinning, confused, looking for something but he didn't know what. I finally just grabbed him and held him. He nearly fell, all the fight gone from his muscles, and he whimpered, "I hate April… I hate April…"

Mark cried for a long time. I let him lay on my bed, soaked though he was, and gave him my teddy to hold. While Mark was crying, I lay next to him, hugging him and stroking his hair and muttering things that meant nothing but that I was listening and I was there. I started to get up to call his mother, once Mark had calmed down, but he grabbed my hand. "Don't," he told me, so I stayed.

Someday I'll write out the whole story. Some day, but not today.

---

I'm going to write a book: The Roger Davis Guide to Being Bad. The most important lesson will be the first: what is bad? Bad is everything. It is attitude. It is stance. It is the underlying concept in your every word, the arsenic lacing your tone. Bad is tough and takes work and it hurts to be bad. You have to be dedicated.

Right now I'm in the counseling office, because after security dragged me out of the lab I started crying… maybe before that. I kept sobbing, and when I realized the plastic bottle was no longer clutched to my chest I cried harder, wailing, so they brought me to see Ms. Ariata instead of taking me to the principal, who knows me well enough already.

"So… Roger," she says, in a sweet voice. It's so fake I wonder what she is trying to hide from me. Is it contempt? I think it's contempt. I'm a contemptible fellow, so I am. I'm bad. Bad is smelling like a horse with every drop of sweat. Bad is something you have to be through and through, and I am bad. Even the way I sit shouts 'bad': my wrists are crossed on the table, shoulders loose, jaw loose, left heel kicking the back of my right ankle. I move my tongue like I have a wad of chewing gum, feeling each word.

Ms. Ariata says, "Why don't you tell me about the fish?"

Ariata's young. She's maybe in her thirties with black hair swept up in clips with butterflies on them. "He's a betta. His name is Benjamin Franklin," I say. Ariata is either pregnant or insecure; she has a little bulge of a belly, not fat, but it's there. She's sitting across from me with her hands on the table, fingers stacked, leaning in like she's real interested. Adults never care. Most people don't. Play 'em, every last shitbag. Fuck 'em as bad as you can.

No wedding ring: Ariata is insecure. It's probably stress eating; this is her first year here. "I don't…" I shift in my chair, snivel a little. "I don't want him to die," I say. My eyes go big and round; I look up to face her, pleading. "You know?" It's true. I don't want Benjy to die. I'm manipulating Ariata, though, in letting myself grow emotional.

Ariata smiles, a real smile this time. "Of course not, Roger. We never want things to die. But death is a natural part of life. This is a fact we must, sadly, accept."

"I know, Ma'am, but if I let them finish the experiment then I'm killing Benjy, murdering him. Blood on my hands." I show her my hands. They're fairly clean, though my nails are rimmed in black. I colored them with a fountain pen one day in English, because I was bored. Dad… Dad really did not like that.

"Roger, you knew what to expect. You were forewarned--"

I shake my head so hard I feel my hair bouncing. "I wasn't. She never said we had to put in oil. Ms. Ariata, I can't kill things. It's a Commandment." I hate church. Church is… I always fall asleep in church and my mom pinches me awake. The Roger Davis Guide to Being Bad will include a section on the proper manner in which to sleep through church, which means that I must learn to proper manner in which to sleep through church. So I don't actually care about Commandments, but it sounds good.

Ariata is convinced, and thinks I'm just an unusually compassionate boy, and why don't I come in and talk to her, say during Library Practice on Fridays? We can start next week.

---

I've barely slid onto a bench at lunch but Collins asks, "So, how'd it go?"

I shrug. "I dunno. They made me take a drug test and I'm meeting with Ariata on Fridays. You could've helped me. Benjy's your fish as much as mine."

Collins laughs. "And how is your cheeseburger?" he asks.

"Garden burger I'll have you know." I'm not a vegetarian. The cafeteria happened to be serving garden-cheeseburgers today, and my metabolism is pathetically stereotypical. Hot lunches may just be the high points of my day.

It doesn't matter. Mark won't look at me when I try to force an explanation, and Collins laughs it off, so I give up. "Still want to hang out today?" I ask. "I guess I'm the class freak now."

Collins laughs and steals one of my French fries. Jerk. "You've always been the class freak," he says, and Mark laughs a little. I don't mind. I laugh, too. People think that I dominate Mark. It's not true. I just give him opportunities. I offer him a share of my badness. Mark has a wild streak, he just needs a little help letting it out.

TO BE CONTINUED

Reviews are appreciated (wink, wink... nudge, nudge...)