Benny's truck was a black 1972 Chevrolet C10 pickup. He drove while Pink—who won the race because he was skinnier and lighter on his feet than Don—rode shotgun and Don squeezed into the middle. Deep Purple's Machine Head played on the truck's eight-track.
"I can't believe you guys signed this thing." Pink was reading over the pledge sheet for the hundredth time.
Don threw his head back, exasperated. "Oh, man. I know! It's a joke, okay? I mean, you think I'm gonna act any different?"
"Well then, why are you even participating in the joke by signing it? That's all I'm saying."
"The joke is you! You're thinkin about this thing too much. Drive you crazy."
"Look at that, look at that." Benny nodded his head forward. Two Vietnamese girls were crossing the street in front of the pickup. One looked over at them, only to avert her gaze the instant she saw Benny sneering. "Second group of them slant-eyed gooks I seen today. What the hell's going on here boys, you know? Why don't they go back to where the fuck they came from, you know?"
Don said, "Okay, okay, okay," which may have been approval or not. Maybe he figured Pink would argue and didn't want to choose sides between his two best friends.
Sure enough, Pink spoke up. "Well, maybe it's 'cause our country had something to do with fuckin up where they came from—"
"Ah, c'mon, shut up."
"—and the least we can do is help the ones that got away, huh, Benny?"
"No way," Don said. "It's the guys we were fighting with, they finally lost."
"Nonono. Don, Don." Benny held up his finger like a father correcting his son. "Not while we were fighting with 'em, okay? Trust me on this one."
Pink rolled his eyes. "Oh look, man, when they were bailing out, when they lost, we lost, man."
"Hey, we never lost no fuckin war. Let's get that straight, alright?"
Pink would have liked to believe that, he really would. His dad was a patriotic man. But Pink's perspective changed he learned Pickford had an older brother who was still categorized as MIA. To see the effect this had on Pickford, an otherwise happy-go-lucky character, took patriotism out of the picture for Pink. "Look man, when the communist troops swarmed down into Saigon—"
Benny scoffed. "Oh c'mon, what are you? Mr. Fuckin-Know-Something all of the sudden?"
"We lost!" Pink insisted.
"Wait. We might not have executed it perfectly, but I believe we killed a lot more of those fuckin gooks than they did us."
"Yeah, we killed a lot more than they did us," Pink conceded, not sounding like he really believed it.
"That's all I'm talkin about." Benny's mood lightened as Edgar Allan Poe Junior High School came into view. "Check it out boys, huh? Been waiting three long years for this one. Those junior high kids are dead meat, I promise ya. We're gonna beat 'em!"
"Oh yeah," Don agreed.
The pickup pulled into the junior high parking lot and came to a crooked stop. Benny and the others jumped out of their seats and climbed into the back. They stood leaning against the truck roof. Each had a beer in his hand. The truck's CB radio was wired with a PA system. Benny held the microphone up to his mouth. When he held down the "talk" button, his jubilant voice rang clear across the whole lot, undoubtedly loud enough for the junior high kids behind the nearest classroom windows to hear.
"Okay, all you freshmen fucks, listen up! It's your lucky day. Usually, you'd be spending your freshman summer gettin your asses busted and running for your worthless little lives. But this year, 'cause we feel so sorry for you, we're gonna take it easy on you and save us all a lot of time. So if you meet here, right here, after school today, you'll only get one licking from each of us. But you run like cowards…it's open season all summer long, boys.
"Oh yeah, and Mitch Kramer? Mitchie! Mitchie, Mitchie, Mitchie!" Pink and Don chuckled. "We're looking for you, pal! Your ass'll be purple before the day is over!" Benny capped off his grand speech with, "Have a nice afternoon," and a kiss into the microphone.
"I hope he heard that," Don said as they climbed out of the truck bed.
"He heard it," Benny said confidently.
The ride back to Lee High was more relaxed than the ride from. No one mentioned the Vietnam debate again. Instead, Benny and Don brainstormed creative ways to torture the freshmen boys all summer long while Pink stayed mostly quiet.
In the school parking lot, Benny's truck pulled up next to Melvin Spivey. Melvin was in a good mood thanks to the Bunco game he played with a few of his boys during lunch, and won. He made more money gambling than some people he knew made from part-time jobs around town.
Pink, Don, and Benny exited the truck and joined Melvin. As Benny and Melvin inspected each other's hazing paddles (Melvin had affectionately dubbed his the "Soul Pole"), the four of them walked nowhere in particular. This led them into the path of the assistant football coach, Coach Moser. Pink's face fell. Moser surveyed his star players with a smug grin. The head coach, Coach Conrad, watched the interaction with stern interest from a dozen yards back. Pink noticed this and his face fell even further.
"So tell me," Moser said, his thumbs hooking into the waistband of his ridiculously short athletic shorts. "Any of you girls gonna be ready to play some football this fall?"
If you only knew, Pink thought.
"I dunno, Coach." Benny grinned cheekily. "I've been doing so good in English classes, I figured I'd take next fall off and become a writer, whaddaya think about that?" Actually, Benny had received a D-minus on his most recent English 12 essay.
Moser chuckled and socked Benny on the arm. "Boy, you wouldn't know how to write your own name if it wasn't stenciled on your locker." The moment he finished saying this, his face ironed out its smiling crinkles and became dead sober. "No seriously, everybody. Now don't go gettin soft on me this summer. You know, you're sitting around the pool all day, chasing the muff around… Break down!"
The order ignited an instinctual response in Don, Benny, and Melvin, who all assumed the "ready" position: squatting with their arms at their sides in an 'L' shape. Pink did nothing but look up to the sky as if to ask God what he did to deserve this.
"Hell, man." Moser groaned. "My grandmother's quicker and tougher than you pansies. 'Course she's six foot three, weighs two-fifty. Runs a four-five forty." This last part was a running gag of Moser's, and Pink had heard it so many times he could mouth it along with him. Moser noticed this. "What's the matter with you, Floyd?" he demanded. "What, quarterbacks don't have to do what their coaches say, is that it? Dawson, did you give him that pledge sheet yet?"
Don played dumb. "Huh?"
"The pledge sheet, you give it to him?"
Pink tapped his hand against his T-shirt pocket. "Yeah, Coach. It's right here."
Moser nodded, pleased. "Well Randy, if you could get that back to us by the end of the day, we'd feel a lot better about it." He pointed at the other three boys. "You guys see that he does this, okay?"
"Alright, Coach," Benny agreed.
Pink turned and began to walk away, desperate to be elsewhere. The others followed him. They made it only a few steps before Conrad's gruff voice called, "Randy Floyd!"
Shit. Pink begrudgingly turned around to face the senior coach. Conrad had his pudgy finger aimed directly at Pink. "Before next fall, you are in need of a serious attitude adjustment, young man. You better get your priorities straight. And watch out with that other crowd you're running with. Don't think I haven't noticed."
You think I'm trying to hide it like some wuss? Pink almost said. Instead, he merely nodded. This was apparently not good enough for Conrad, who barked, "Hey! I want that piece of paper on my desk before you leave here today, you hear me?"
Pink nodded again. Finally, Conrad and Moser both walked inside the school to go about other business. Pink's friends riffed on Conrad's warning as they marched away from the scene.
"Attitude adjustment, know what I mean?" said Benny.
"Priorities straight," Don agreed. "Runs with a bad crowd."
"Bad people." Melvin smiled. "Watch yourself."
Pink halted and took the pledge sheet out of his pocket. He unfolded it once more, looked it over, then crumpled it into a ball. "Yeah well, I've got Coach's and everybody else's attitude-adjusted priorities…right here." He threw the ball and watched it sail a few meager feet, landing in the grass next to the sidewalk.
"Yeah, that's good," Benny muttered, disapproving.
As if dealing with the coaches on this lovely afternoon wasn't enough, the next face to show itself was Fred O'Bannion's. His primer gray 1972 Plymouth Duster came screeching into the parking lot and made a violent stop. If Benny was big and scary, O'Bannion was huge and terrifying. Rumor had it he used to blow up G.I. Joes with firecrackers as a kid and break the nose of anyone who dared call him by his first name. Real psychopath shit. Besides that, he was just plain stupid. He was a grade above theirs and should have been off on the senior trip with the rest of his class, but he failed to graduate. If Pink didn't know better, he would say O'Bannion did this on purpose.
"Ah, did you know O'Bannion flunked?" asked Don.
"Yeah, what a dumb shit," Pink said, a little quiet in case O'Bannion heard. Pink was humble enough to admit he would lose that fight in the first round.
O'Bannion whooped. He popped out of his car with a paddle similar to Benny's in his hand. Inscribed on it was the charming message FAH-Q. "Y'all ready to bust some ass?" he called to his teammates. "Ha, ha!" That was how he laughed. Saying the phrase like he was writing it. "S'up Don, Benny, Melvin. Good to see ya."
Pink didn't think he could handle O'Bannion so soon after dealing with the coaches and began to shuffle away. "See ya in about half an hour," he said to Melvin. Don joined Pink after a moment's hesitation, for which the latter was grateful.
O'Bannion lumbered up to Benny. "Hey. We gotta take your truck, I'm low on gas. Alright? Okay?"
"Yeah."
"Good." O'Bannion surveyed his two compatriots, though he seemed to think of them as more like soldiers, and he the captain. He spotted Melvin bending down to pick up the paper ball that had once been Pink's pledge sheet and frowned. "What're you doing? Pickin up trash? What're you doing?"
Melvin pocketed the pledge sheet. "Don't worry 'bout it."
"You know, Rosa Parks died so you wouldn't have to do shit like that anymore."
"Rosa Parks ain't dead, you fuckin moron." Melvin only dared to talk so boldly because the greatest black woman to ever live was being insulted, otherwise he would have kept his mouth shut.
"Well, somebody's dead."
"Yeah, your momma after I bopped her brains out last night."
O'Bannion lifted his paddle a few inches as if to strike out. Melvin's hand tightened on his own paddle, just in case. He was pretty sure O'Bannion wouldn't actually hit him, but one could never tell with a white boy, especially this particular white boy.
Pink and Don entered the school through the cafeteria. The last period began sometime while they were out at the junior high. They would be seniors any minute now. Pink was no longer sure how he felt about that, if he had ever been sure at all.
"Man, I'm just waiting for one of them idiot coaches to piss me off again."
Don studied his friend out of the corner of his eye as they walked. "I dunno, man, I think you take the whole thing a little too personal. You just gotta shake it off."
"Don, have you ever thought about why we play football? I mean, how many times have you gotten laid strictly because you're a football player, huh?"
They passed a geeky-looking, soon-to-be sophomore in the hall and Don made to punch him in the face. The geek flinched and hurried along. Don smirked to himself. "I dunno," he said, finally answering Pink's question. "A few, probably."
This may or may not have been true. It was hard to tell with Don, who flirted with every halfway-decent-looking girl in sight but had only his own wild tales to support the claim that he was Lee High's number one stud. Pink only knew about one sexual adventure for sure, and that was Don's on-again, off-again romance with the voluptuous Shavonne. He believed those stories because Shavonne was willing to attest to them, at least on the days when she wasn't angry with Don about one thing or another.
"A few?" Pink threw up his arms. "Don, all I'm saying is I bet we could do just as well if we were in a band or something." Maybe better, not that either of them had any musical talent, but to Pink that was beside the point. He came to a stop. They had reached the American History classroom. "Now look, I gotta put in a final appearance, so…"
"Wait a minute." Don lowered his voice. The classroom door was propped open. He tiptoed over. "Who you got going in there?"
Pink shrugged and leaned against the wall. Don peered into the classroom. A girl with curly hair sat in the front row. "Vicky!" Don hissed. "Vicky, skip out! Let's go get naked right now! Let's go! C'monc'monc'mon!" He waggled his tongue and bounced his bushy eyebrows. Vicky started to giggle.
"Dawson!"
"Yeah?" Don instantly straightened up as Ms. Stroud—the youngest, cutest, and most liberal-leaning teacher at Lee High—stormed over.
"Why don't you take it somewhere else?" she suggested, moving to close the door. She noticed Pink and gave him the evil eye. "Oh Mr. Floyd, are you gracing us with your presence today?"
"Uh…" Pink tossed his shoulders. "Might as well." He needed to be marked present in this class, too, after all. He nodded at Don and slid into the classroom.
Ms. Stroud tried to close the door only to find Don's foot in the way. He said, "You know, Ginny, I was thinkin you and I could get together over the summer. I mean, I know it'd be illegal, but we could make things happen. I'll keep it mum's the word, I promise, I swear to God." Ms. Stroud looked Don up and down, patted him on the head like a cute but pathetic dog, and shut the door completely. Inside, he heard her tell the girls in the front row how the '68 Democratic Convention was probably the most bitching time she'd ever had in her life. From what Don could see through the classroom door's small window, even the rare instance of a teacher swearing did little to keep anyone's attention. None of the students were as heavily political as Stroud, and even if they were, the final bell was minutes away from ringing.
Don stared at the spot where Ms. Stroud stood a moment ago. "I'm wearing her down," he decided, and moved along. He had no way of knowing, but this was actually true. According to the secret diary the teacher kept, she found Don a "hot little number" and had plans to "nail him the minute he turns eighteen."
A short way down the hall, Don bumped into Mr. Irvine, the principal. He opened his mouth to begin an excuse, but this was hardly the first time for him to be caught aimlessly walking the school grounds. Irvine growled, "Dawson, either get in a classroom or come into my office. Right now!"
Don's eyes flicked over to the nearest classroom, which was English. "I'm right here in Mrs. Snelgrove's. I was running an errand."
Irvine folded his arms across his chest, waiting. Don called his bluff and entered, closing the door behind him. Mrs. Snelgrove, a woman pushing seventy (at least), sat at her desk reading a romance novel.
"Excuse me, Mrs. Snelgrove." Don spoke with an uncharacteristic politeness, eliciting snickers from Pickford and Michelle, who sat at the back of the class with the latter in the former's lap. "Mr. Irvine is out in the hall and requests to speak with you briefly."
Mrs. Snelgrove sighed and marked her place in the book by dog-earing one of the pages. She was short but fat and exerted unknowable amounts of energy to rise from her chair. She shuffled toward the door and Don watched her every step of the way. The moment she made it through the threshold, he closed the door behind her and clicked the lock.
"Gogogogo!" He charged to the classroom window and threw it open. With practiced ease, he slid out. Michelle leapt from Pickford's lap and they followed him. A couple burnouts did the same. By the time someone got up from their seat and let poor Mrs. Snelgrove back inside, the escape was complete and the final bell was about to ring.
Don waved to Pickford and Michelle, who made a beeline for the parking lot. Keeping low and close to the school's red brick wall, he retraced his steps until he arrived at the window of Ms. Stroud's class. He cupped his hands to his eyes and looked in from the bottom right corner. He spotted Pink and tapped gently on the glass. The sound went unheard, but Don didn't dare tap any louder.
"Dawson!"
Don whirled about to see Irvine leaning halfway out the English classroom's window. He cursed and ran for his life.
"Dawson! First week next semester, you've got a week's detention!"
"Fuck you!"
"Two weeks!"
But Don just kept running. He didn't look back even when the final bell rang.
Every ass in every class launched from its seat at the piercing sound. A mob of kids formed at every door as they all tried to get out at once.
"Okay guys, one more thing," Stroud called over the bell. "This summer, when you're being inundated with all this American-bicentennial-Fourth-of-July brouhaha? Don't forget what you're celebrating, and that's the fact that a bunch of slave-owning, aristocratic white males didn't wanna pay their taxes! Have a good summer!"
No one heard her.
In the halls, kids tore open their lockers and mercilessly ripped textbooks, notebooks, and loose papers to shreds. They hi-fived each other, fired up celebratory cigarettes, and taunted any teachers unlucky enough to cross their paths. As they ran from Lee High, some of them sang in an off-key chorus.
School's out for summer School's out forever My school's been blown to pieces
"Oh yeah, and Mitch Kramer? Mitchie! Mitchie, Mitchie, Mitchie! We're looking for you, pal! Your ass'll be purple before the day is over!"
Mitch Kramer had indeed heard every word Benny said. His naturally wide eyes were even wider than normal as the big senior in the baseball cap called out his name for the entire school to hear. He watched the black pickup truck back out of the parking lot and head down the road in the direction of Lee High. He had no idea why any senior boys would want to haze him in particular over any other incoming freshman. His best guess was it had something to do with his sister. No matter the reason, it wasn't like understanding the seniors' thought process would allow him a chance to reason with them. He may have been just fourteen, but he was smart enough to know an unreasonable bunch of guys when he saw them.
Carl Burnett chuckled pitilessly behind him. "You'd better get outta town. Go spend the summer with your grandparents or something."
Mitch was annoyed by this reaction, but supposed he would have been just as happy if it was Carl's name called out instead of his.
"Hey man," Tommy Houston said. "You are gonna show up to our game tonight, aren't you?"
Truthfully, Mitch had been thinking about ditching the game ever since his life was threatened a moment ago. But… "I'm pitching, I kinda have to," he realized aloud.
"How should we inscribe your tombstone?" Carl asked.
A boy named Jacob paused his paper football game to suggest, "How 'bout 'Bent Over'?"
"Yeah right, pissant." Mitch looked around. "Why aren't they after anybody else?"
"They are, man," Carl insisted. "Believe me."
Mitch did not. He began to watch the clock, astounded at how fast the minutes whooshed by. He thought about how much he would like to make it home safe this afternoon, in time to catch Dark Shadows, a show he secretly liked. Then he spent a few minutes daydreaming about the time his sister's friend Shavonne joined the Kramers on a vacation to the beach when Mitch was in sixth grade and the girls were in ninth. He had fallen a little in love with her that week.
Around the time Don was attempting to seduce Ms. Stroud, the soon-to-be freshmen boys were putting into action a plan of survival. Mitch, Carl, Tommy, and John Hirschfelder huddled together in the back of the classroom. A friend of theirs waved at them from the door. In his hand he displayed a set of car keys, then pointed in the direction of the parking lot.
"Pentico got his brother's car, let's go!" Carl hi-fived Tommy, then nodded at Mitch. "Go talk to him."
Mitch glanced at Mr. Payne, who was busy looking over some papers. Payne had served in Vietnam and was not known as the most easily approachable teacher. Kids liked to call him Mr. Pain behind his back. "I'm not going alone."
Carl and Tommy conceded and stood up from their desks. The three boys eased up to the teacher's desk as if approaching a stray dog they weren't sure was friendly.
Mitch cleared his throat. "Uh…Mr. Payne? Sir?"
Mr. Payne looked up with eyes suggesting he already knew what Mitch would ask. He heard every word the senior boy said over the PA system earlier, and in his old-fashioned mind, this hazing thing was all in good fun. Something to toughen up the younger kids, and God knew kids these days needed toughening up. He smiled an unsympathetic smile and waited.
Mitch said, "You know, every second that you could let us out early would really increase our chances of survival."
Mr. Payne pretended to consider things for a moment. "It's like our sergeant told us before one trip into the jungle…" he began, causing the boys to lower their gazes and pout their faces. He raised his voice to make them jump. "Men! Fifty of ya are leaving on a mission. Twenty-five of ya ain't comin back." Where once this statement would have given Mr. Payne some mixed feelings and painful memories, now it made him grin to see the fear in these boys' eyes. Yes sir, they could use some toughening up.
"That's it, end of story?" Carl whined. "That's your sendoff?"
"You want more? What do you want to hear?"
"I don't know, what happened?"
Payne shrugged matter-of-factly. "Pretty much what he said."
The final bell rang, and where it had once symbolized freedom, to Mitch it now seemed to warn of approaching doom.
He, Carl, Tommy, and Hirschfelder didn't run to Pentico's brother's car. That was the first and worst mistake an incoming freshman could make. They watched as their classmates sprinted for the park or the neighborhood—anywhere that might provide cover—and got intercepted by seniors cruising around in their cars or crouching in bushes, armed with gigantic wooden paddles. Mitch tried not to look directly at anyone getting hazed or anyone doing the hazing, yet couldn't look completely away, either. There were loud popping sounds followed by cries of pain as the much bigger boys drove their weapons into their victims' rear ends.
That's going to be me, Mitch thought glumly. Sooner or later this summer, that's going to be me. It almost seemed pointless to try and run. Maybe he should do what the senior with the microphone suggested and go to his licking like a criminal would march to his firing squad.
But then he was sitting in the backseat of Pentico's brother's car, with Tommy beside him. Carl took shotgun and Pentico was driving.
"Hurry up, Hirschfelder, we're gonna leave your ass!" Carl barked.
"Sorry!" Unlike the other boys, Hirschfelder was trying to salvage some of his notebooks and school supplies for next year, cradling them in his arms. Tommy had to get the door for him.
The moment Hirschfelder was inside, Tommy said, "Let's go, come on!"
Pentico started the car, pausing to assess all the controls and make sure he knew what he was doing. He did, but only barely.
"Back it up!" Carl insisted, then froze. "Oh, shit!"
A black pickup truck had just pulled up next to them. Sitting inside were three huge, grinning apes who must have used remarkable cunning to convince Lee High they were human.
"Oo-whee!" O'Bannion cried joyfully. "Ducks on the pond!"
Next to him, Melvin grinned. "How ya doing, boys?"
Pentico threw the car into gear and peeled out of the lot. Benny's truck followed in close pursuit.
"We're screwed!" Carl shouted. "Lose 'em!"
"I'm trying, man!" Pentico had a tight grip on the wheel, attempting to keep his hands at '10' and '2' while battling the urge to picture himself as Steve McQueen in Bullitt. His foot pressed firmly on the gas, but he didn't want to take the car too high over forty in case any patrol cars were in the neighborhood. The last thing he needed was to get pulled over in his brother's car. The worst part would be that, in all likelihood, the cop would just let the seniors get their kicks in while he watched as punishment for the speeding.
"I think we really pissed 'em off, man! Just drop me off at my house!" Carl turned around to point at Mitch. "Are you still with me?"
Mitch looked at Carl, then the pickup bearing down on them. He figured he had better odds locked safely inside his friend's house than he did stuck in a raging car chase. "Yeah, I guess."
"Fucking turn! This is my house!" Carl pointed out the one in question. Pentico slammed on the brakes, burning rubber. Mitch could see through the back window the seniors realized what was happening. He could just make out the driver, the one in the baseball cap, ordering the giant riding shotgun to Get out and get 'em!
Mitch braced himself to run.
"Good luck, man!" Tommy said, shaking his hand. "Be there tonight!"
If I'm alive. Mitch kicked open the car door and sprung out. His shoes scuffed against concrete as he tried to gain traction. He ran around the back end of the car to the yard and made for the front door. He heard Carl's feet running on the grass next him but didn't turn to look. By all accounts, the two boys should have made it, but O'Bannion's legs were much longer and he intercepted them without hardly running. One of his meaty hands grabbed Mitch and the other grabbed Carl.
He cackled triumphantly. "Nice try, freshmen!"
Mitch's feet were on the front porch. That's how close he came to surviving. But it was like Mr. Payne said: twenty-five soldiers out of fifty never came back, and those weren't good odds any way you looked at it.
O'Bannion dragged Mitch and Carl back a few feet so each of them was face-to-face with one of the wooden poles stretching from the porch's roof to the concrete patio. Mitch heard the sounds of Pentico driving away and the pickup following.
"Tell you what." O'Bannion's expression was one of unmatched glee. "For being such brave little kids, I'm only gonna give each of you five licks. Okay? Alright, grab a pole. Let's get going."
There was nothing left to do but obey. Mitch and Carl each planted their hands against their respective pole, sticking out their butts to present a clear target. O'Bannion raised his paddle above his head. Quiet tension hung in the air. Mitch had his eyes closed, unsure which one of them would get the treatment first.
"I don't think so, creep!"
"Mom?!" Carl squeaked.
Mitch opened his eyes and saw Mrs. Burnett as he had never seen a friend's mom before. She stood in the front door's threshold with her eyes flaming and a shotgun held out toward O'Bannion. Her hands did not shake and her eyelids did not blink. She meant what she was doing with all her heart.
My hero, Mitch thought.
"Carl, get in the house," Mrs. Burnett ordered.
Carl hesitated, if only because he knew this was going to make his eventual torment by O'Bannion's hand all the worse. Hell, five licks wasn't so bad. But the moment his mother aimed a fucking shotgun in this crazy sumbitch's face, the deal was off. Next time O'Bannion caught them, they would be lucky to get five dozen licks.
"Get in the house!" Mrs. Burnett repeated, fiercer.
Finally, Carl moved, and Mitch followed. They hurried inside and disappeared.
"And you…" Mrs. Burnett racked the shotgun to capitalize her point. "Get the hell off my property."
If Benny or Melvin had joined him in exiting the truck, O'Bannion would have had to kill them. He didn't think he had ever been more embarrassed in his life than now. His hands were raised high in the air, the right one still clutching his paddle and clearly displaying its explicit message to Mrs. Burnett.
"Oh well, I'm sorry, ma'am," he stammered pathetically. "I was just escorting your fine young son home from school. There were some ruffians about and I—"
Mrs. Burnett rolled her eyes and went back inside, slamming the front door behind her.
I knew it, O'Bannion lied to himself. She was full of shit. As if she were going to shoot me. Enraged, he called out, "Oh, Mitch! Carl! We'll be seeing each other again!"
He lowered his paddle and began to turn away. Out of the corner of his eye, something colorful flashed. It was the front door, opening back up again, just enough for the freshmen's heads to peek out and smirk at him.
"Oh, that's it!" O'Bannion roared, and they quickly shut the door back again, this time locking it. "I fuckin saw that you little sack of shit! You two are fuckin dead! You hear me? You're fuckin dead! Gah!"
He stormed away from the Burnett house swinging his paddle at empty air, continuing to spew curses and growls at no one in particular.
Darla Marks had once been a cute and well-mannered girl, if not a little prissy. She was still cute, in fact, with her small nose, freckles, and dark eyes. But she was no longer well-mannered. One needed only to hold a single conversation with her to realize her lovely face disguised the coldest heart ever to survive in Texan heat. If you had asked her, she would have told you she was bad, and everyone knew it, and anyone who didn't like her just couldn't handle how bad she was. A more appropriate term would have been bitchy.
She drove her sky-blue 1955 Chevrolet 3100 half-ton pickup to the junior high school, considering the hazing she was about to conduct. Every year, some smartass boy quipped about how the guys' hazing was much more exciting than the girls'. Darla believed this year, as head cheerleader and (in her mind, anyway) head senior girl, she was going to give the guys a run for their money. In the back of her truck was everything she and the other girls would need to make this happen. First on the list were matching white shirts reading SENIORS on the front in bright blue. She distributed one to each of her classmates, making sure they put them on over whatever else they already wore before they went to collect any freshmen girls.
Second on the list was her brand-new whistle, which she kept hanging around her neck like a gym coach. She gave it a good long blow once all the freshmen girls were rounded up, splitting the eardrums of everyone nearby.
"Alright, you little freshmen bitches!" she screeched. "Air raid!"
A moment ago, Simone—who, as Darla's best friend, helped her plan out the entire hazing process—explained to the freshmen girls what this meant. It meant all the girls had to hurry to the ground, lying down on their bellies with their hands planted on the hot concrete. The girls did what they were told to do, but didn't do it fast enough for Darla's liking.
"That was pathetic! Let's try it again! That means get up, you lazy little bitches, get up!"
All the freshmen girls rose to their feet.
"Air raid!"
They all went down again, most of them a little faster but still not nearly fast enough.
"That was horrible, you little slut girls! You little freshmen sluts! Get up! Up! Up! Up! Air raid!"
Kaye watched the goings-on from a few dozen yards away while she smoked a cigarette. She wore one of Darla's shirts like the other senior girls, but refused to participate in the hazing. She didn't see how it would do women any favors to belittle each other in the full view of men like Mike and Tony, who stood nearby.
Mike rattled off his observations on Darla's reign of terror. "See, what's fascinating is the way that not only the school but the entire community seems to be supporting this. Or at least turn their heads. They apparently have permission to use the parking lot. No parents seem to mind." He gestured at a row of ice chests Shavonne had set up, full of sodas. "They're selling concessions. You know?"
"I know," Tony agreed.
"And actually, the freshmen girls are even made to feel privileged to be participating."
"As are the freshmen guys who we're supposed to be busting." Tony shook his head. "It's the ultimate stamp of approval."
While Kaye found the geeks' frequent analytical musings to be annoying, she had to admit this time they were correct.
Darla grew bored of the air raid gag fast. "We seniors, we tried. We gave you all a chance, but since you little prick-teases can't follow instructions, we're just gonna have to try something else, won't we? Seniors?" She waved in her compatriots. In the back of her truck was an assortment of eggs, flour, cinnamon, ketchup, and mustard.
"You love us!" Darla taunted as she armed her right hand with ketchup and her left with mustard. "Smile! You love us!" She then began to squeeze the bottles over the heads of the nearest freshmen girls, paying careful attention to get plenty in their hair and on their clothes. The smart girls had worn their oldest, cheapest outfits to school today. Some of them had not. "Suffer, sisters!" Darla whooped. "Eat it! Open wide!" As she continued to spray, the other senior girls walked around cracking eggs over freshmen heads and topping it off with a big helping of flour.
"Welcome to high school, honey!" Simone taunted as she emptied an entire bag over a poor freshman girl's face.
Across from the parking lot, the two freshmen boys who were playing paper football in Mr. Payne's class earlier that afternoon cowered behind the school workshed.
"Terri's pushing an egg across the parking lot with her nose!" Zach pointed out one of their mutual classmates, and both boys giggled.
"Jodi's got an egg cracked on her butt," Jacob said.
They giggled some more. As they watched the goings-on, they paid careful attention to all the senior boys sitting or standing near the parking lot. The moment any of them even glanced in their direction, the freshmen would be ready to run for the hills.
What they did not realize was how foolish they had been to stick around school at all, and especially how foolish it had been to cower next to the workshed, which was surrounded on three sides by an unclimbable wire fence.
Thus, when Benny and Melvin appeared, the boys had nowhere to go.
"What you boys doing over here?" Melvin asked. He mockingly leaned forward as if to get a better look at the girls' hazing. "Oh, spying on your classmates. Oh, I see."
Benny didn't have time for games and fixed the boys with a terrifying sneer. "What grade you boys in?"
"Going into eighth, sir," Jacob said immediately.
"Don't you lie to me, boy." Benny's fist clenched and unclenched the handle of his paddle, aching to swing it. He glowered with such intensity that Zach's knees actually knocked together, something Zach thought was made up by authors writing books.
"No, it's true," he insisted weakly.
"Then why you boys way over here?" Melvin asked.
"W-We didn't want to be mistaken for freshmen."
Too late for that, Benny thought, and ordered, "Bend over!"
Melvin bounced with excitement. "I've been waiting a long time for this, baby!"
Zach suddenly thought of a way he might still get out of this unscathed. It wasn't an honorable way, but all was fair in love and war, or something. He recognized Benny as the senior who addressed the entire junior high school from his truck during seventh period. "W-What if I told you where Kramer's gonna be tonight?"
Benny paused, considering. "Where Kramer's gonna be tonight? Where would that be?"
Zach hesitated. Guilt washed over him.
"C'mon, where would that be?" Benny demanded.
"You won't bust us?"
Benny exchanged a glance with Melvin. The latter placed his hands on his knees and spoke reassuringly, like a big brother. "Look…tell me where I can find Kramer and I won't bust ya."
Sorry, Mitch. "He's pitching the seven o'clock game."
Benny chuckled. He knew a lie when he heard it and this was not one. "Whaddaya know, Mel?" Pitching the seven o'clock game. That was mighty stupid of Kramer, but Benny would have had to do the same thing if he was starting pitcher for his junior high team.
Jacob began to sidestep, trying to ease past Benny's hulking form. "So we can go now, right?"
Benny reached out with his unarmed hand and firmly pulled Jacob back. "No, no, no. Back over there. Something you guys said—" He cut himself off. Jacob had not moved back far enough for his liking. "Get over there!" he repeated, louder. "Something you guys said disturbs me a little, you know? I like to get things straight. Maybe I'm a little slow. But first of all, you lied to us. Then, you narc on a good friend. Is that right?"
Zach and Jacob glanced at each other. We're doomed, they silently agreed.
"Not talking." Benny shook his head. "You're gonna show me the angle right now."
Zach whined, "You said you wouldn't bust us!"
"Hey, I said I wouldn't bust ya," Melvin corrected, and Zach couldn't believe he fell for the oldest technicality in the book. He had sold out Mitch for nothing.
"And I didn't promise you shit, so assume the angle!" Benny ordered. "C'mon!"
The freshmen reluctantly obeyed, turning to place their hands on the workshed and stick their rears out toward their executor.
His voice dripping with malice, Benny said, "Like my dad used to say to me, he'd say, 'Benny, this is gonna hurt you a lot more than it's gonna hurt me.'"
Zach and Jacob hobbled away from the workshed certain the experience had indeed hurt them a lot more than Benny.
With the freshmen girls properly decorated by all manner of sticky foods and sauces, some of the senior girls began to invent individual little games outside of Darla's main attraction. The cleverest and most embarrassing of these was forcing the shyest freshmen they could find to propose to the senior boys who made up the afternoon's audience.
Shavonne marched Terri—the one Zach saw pushing an egg across the parking lot with her nose—over to where Pink, Don, and Slater sat in the back of Pink's El Camino.
"Propose to Mr. Dawson," Shavonne ordered. When Terri looked at her with confusion, Shavonne urged her to her knees.
Terri looked up at Don, who waited patiently. She asked, "Will you marry me?"
As if he had rehearsed his reply, Don said, "Dunno, what's in it for me?"
Terri looked back up at Shavonne as if to ask what her answer ought to be. Shavonne gave her a look that might have translated to Take a fucking guess.
"Anything you want," Terri said meekly.
"Anything?"
"Yeah."
"Go like this." Don made an exaggerated kissing noise with his mouth. Terri repeated it. This had Pink and Slater grinning, but Don had yet to unleash the worst in himself. Next, he asked, "Do you spit or swallow?"
Shavonne's face scrunched up in disgust. Pink and Slater burst into laughter. Terri had no idea what was so funny. She thought about asking what Don meant, but decided this was the wrong time to hold a conversation. "Whatever you…like?"
"Whatever I like? I would definitely marry you!" Don gave Shavonne a look only the two of them understood. She disliked the implications of it and opted to stand Terri up so they could leave.
"You're an asshole," she called over her shoulder.
"Yes, I am!" Don agreed.
"That's so degrading," Slater said, not really caring. "That's terrible, man."
"Ahaaa!" Don shouted cheerfully, prompting Shavonne to flip him off. She forced Terri to join a group of girls Simone was ordering to fry like bacon, which meant to lie on the hot concrete and flop their arms and legs about like dying fish.
"Fry like bacon, you little freshmen piggies!" Simone encouraged. "Fry! Fry!"
Nearby, Mike and Tony continued to discuss the ongoing rituals. The former now held a red solo cup full of ice-cold soda in his hand. Just because he disagreed with the hazing, didn't mean he was above buying a drink from the concessions stand. It was hot out, after all.
"I believe it's because we don't have a significant rival high school within thirty miles of us," Tony was saying. "You know, most schools have a cross-town rival or the next town over is the mutually agreed upon 'evil other' on which one can project all hostility and blame."
"So it's like we've declared war on ourselves," Mike said. "Feeding off our own."
"Exactly. Under the guise of an initiation ritual."
Both boys straightened up a little as Jodi walked over, a dirty freshman girl on her arm. This girl's name was Sabrina Davis, and she came very close to avoiding this whole mess. She had been standing in a circle with a few girls in the grade below her, trying her best to blend in, when Jodi took notice.
"Hey you," she said. "C'mere. You. Who are you?"
"Uh, nobody," Sabrina said.
"Are you a freshman?"
"Yeah."
"Well, are you in or out?"
Sabrina hesitated before declaring, "In." Unbeknownst to her, this made her a perfect example of what Mike and Tony earlier labeled a "stamp of approval." She had looked up at the tall, beautiful Jodi and, subconsciously, desired to be like her. But if Jodi was a senior, that meant at one point in the past, she had been a freshman. And that meant she had been covered in eggs and flour and made to suck pacifiers and wear dog leashes, too. Naturally, that meant Sabrina needed to follow in those footsteps.
So here she now stood, eggs and mustard in her hair and one of her favorite shirts stained beyond repair. And deep down, she was okay with it.
"Hi," Jodi said to Mike and Tony. They returned the greeting. Jodi smiled pleasantly at Sabrina. "I would like for you to propose to Tony."
Mike's gaze tilted up to the sky. "Oh, God."
"On your knees." Jodi gently but firmly pushed Sabrina off her feet. Actually, she was doing the poor girl a favor. If anyone was incapable of properly mistreating another human being, it was mild-mannered Tony. Sabrina had much less to fear than she probably imagined.
"Will you marry me?" Sabrina asked.
Flustered, Tony turned to Mike. "What am I supposed to say here?"
Mike kept his gaze on the middle distance, somehow even more uncomfortable than his companion. "I—I don't know."
Tony adjusted his glasses. "Um…" He noticed she was a good-looking girl and realized his newfound senior status should be giving him at least a little confidence where before he had none. Choosing to test this, he puffed out his chest and boldly asked, "What'll you do for me, huh?"
Jodi had explained to Sabrina on the way over exactly how to respond. "Um, anything you want."
"Imagine the possibilities," Tony said to Mike, who continued to twitch nervously. Tony decided maybe the overconfident thing didn't suit him after all. "No, seriously," he said to Sabrina, pretending it was all an act. "You can stand up. What's your name?"
She introduced herself. Instinctively, they shook hands, both realizing too late this would leave Tony's covered in grime and goo. He ignored it as best he could. "I'm Tony. Anthony, actually. This is Mike."
"Hey." Mike awkwardly held out his drink toward her in the Cheers gesture.
Tony studied Sabrina, trying to determine if she was shy because she was unpresentable, or young, or like him: smarter than all the other goons in this infernal parking lot. He said, "We were just discussing the utter stupidity of these initiation rituals and we were kinda wondering why someone like you would subject herself to the losing end of it all?"
He would have his answer depending on the sensibility and vocabulary of her reply. Unfortunately, Jodi picked that moment to cut in. "What are we having, social hour over here? I'm supposed to be being a bitch." She pulled Sabrina to her feet. "Back to the pit."
Tony watched Sabrina go. She got a few yards away and glanced back. He had heard that was a good sign a girl was interested in you.
Mike nudged him, looking like he could read Tony's mind. They had known each other long enough it was a distinct possibility. "So uh, am I mistaken or was there a little unspoken thing going on there with that young vixen? You stud."
Tony shrugged. "You know how it is," he said lamely, because he didn't know what else to say.
Mike raised his hands in a No harm, no foul gesture. "I bet she's pretty cute once you clean all the shit off her."
"I bet she is." In fact, Tony thought she was cute even with all the shit on her.
"It's finally happening," Mike said. "We're seniors. There'll now be all kinds of younger girls who think we're cool just by virtue of our age and senior status."
"I guess it's some sort of compensation for all these torturous years of neglect." Tony looked out over the sea of senior girls in their matching shirts. Half of them he'd had a crush on at one point or another. None of them ever returned the sentiment, at least not as far as he knew. "You have to admit, despite our accomplishments in other areas, we don't have a whole lot to show for ourselves in the female category."
"Yeah, and it's pretty tough when you never want to put yourself in a position of maybe something happening." Mike looked at him like this had been a self-destructive way to go through high school. Maybe, in a way, it had been. "You know, maybe if you ever left the poker table—"
"Maybe if I ever left the poker table, what about you?"
Mike threw up his hands. "Whatever, the point is, that's why we're going out tonight. Who knows? You might experience something a little more tangible than an Abraham Lincoln dream."
Tony watched Mike mime Lincoln's beard and wondered, as he so often did, why he picked Mike for a best friend. He asked, "Whose house are we going to?"
"Yours," Mike said.
The girls' hazing was, at last, being brought to an end before their eyes. While the senior boys would continue hunting down and beating freshmen all summer, most of the senior girls liked to get it all done in one afternoon. Darla clapped her hands to get everyone's attention. "Okay, girlies! It's hot out here, and I'm really sick of looking at all of you, so let's just get outta here."
The senior girls began directing the freshmen into the back of Darla's pickup and a few other trucks. It was tradition to run the whole group of hazed girls through the local carwash immediately after the hazing. This was a quick and easy way to clean the muck out of their clothes and hair, and another good example of how the girls tended to minimize the amount of torture they dished out.
Darla noticed one freshman girl give her a dirty look on the way into the truck. "What're you looking at?" she demanded. "Wipe that face off your head, bitch!"
As the girls drove away in their trucks, the seniors led the freshmen in a chant: "Seniors, seniors, seniors are the best! Seniors, seniors, S-E-N-I-O-R-S!"
Pink, Don, and Slater were presently joined by Benny and Melvin, fresh off beating Zach and Jacob. All five cracked open beers and lounged around the El Camino. Don inspected Benny's paddle at the latter's behest.
"That's a hairline fracture," he pointed out.
"I wouldn't doubt it!" Melvin clapped Benny's hand. "My boy was wearing they asses out!"
"Just giving them a little beating they'll never forget," said Benny.
Pink took his turn studying the paddle after Don. "'Here's to ya, Ma,'" he read aloud. This was inscribed on the paddle with permanent marker.
"That's your fuckin mother." Benny took the paddle back.
Melvin looked at Pink as if trying to remember something. After a moment's thought, he did. "Say, man, fuck the coaches." He produced the wadded-up pledge sheet from his pocket and handed it to Pink. "Just do it for us, man."
Pink frowned. "You pick this thing up?"
"Yeah, man."
Benny observed the stubborn flare in Pink's eyes. "He ain't doing shit, man," he said to Melvin, as if this were the first time it was sinking in.
Pink nodded. "You got any more details of my life you got figured out you can let me in on, Ben?"
"I got lotsa details."
O'Bannion appeared out of the blue. "Fellas, fellas!" His wide, childish grin hid the stormy mood he had cursed out of his system on the way over from the Burnett house. He came to a stop next to the car. He launched into his story before anyone had time to acknowledge his arrival. "Oh, you didn't hear, did ya?"
"What?" asked Benny.
"Y'all didn't hear I got a shotgun pulled on my ass?"
There was a chorus of, "No way!" Even Pink showed interest.
"Swear to God!" O'Bannion held each of his classmates' gazes in turn, letting them know how serious he was. "I was like, 'Whoa, bitch, whoa! Easy!'"
"Burnett?"
O'Bannion snapped his fingers. "That's it! Carl Burnett. Him and fuckin Mitch Kramer, man, both those little…ugh! I'm gonna kill those fuckin kids."
Benny smiled. "Mitch Kramer, you say?"
"Yeah, why?"
"Man, don't worry about it," Melvin said. "We got the Kramer category taken care of. Seven o'clock, baseball game. The little kid thinks he's tough?"
O'Bannion's face lit up. "Oh, beautiful! I'm gonna fuckin kill that kid, I'm serious. And then he poked his head out and started smiling at me after I got him. I swear, he's behind his old lady with a shotgun and he's all like this." O'Bannion contorted his face into a monkey-ish smile nothing like Mitch's face. "I'm gonna light him up."
Benny reached for another beer and fiddled with it. "This fuckin can opener I got today is a piece of fuckin shit," he said to no one in particular.
"Slater!" O'Bannion said, as if seeing him for the first time in years. "Gimme some drugs, man!"
Slater ignored him, whispering something to Pink.
"Hey, I told him I'd go with him," Pink said to his teammates. "So, check you later."
"What is this?" O'Bannion asked. He looked to the others for clarification, but neither Don, Benny, nor Melvin felt much like explaining the quarterback's sudden proclivity to spend time with a bunch of burnouts.
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