Book Excerpt (Chapter 1)
Danny sat on the curb of the parking lot. Watching the rain dive towards the asphalt, splashing into the gutter and soak a large cardboard box that his father had thrown into an empty parking space. The edges were sagging, almost gravity laden or taking on the years of age that only humans were supposed to get. The words “bedroom” scrawled on the side in barely legible sharpie markings were dripping down the side of the box as the rain started coming down harder. The air thick, pushing against his eyes and pushed down his throat with each breath. Its like being stuck in an oven while being sprayed with a hose.
The soft pitter-patter now turned into a louder thump, thump off of car hoods and trashcan lids. As he waited for his sister to finish in the bathroom, and his mother to find the keys to the van he watched a small cat clawing at a half-eaten cheeseburger on the other side of the parking lot. Its thin frame, matted fur, and wet paws moved in a mesmerizing pattern, forward and back digging into the wrapper, as he thought about the circumstances that brought that cat here. He thought about the owners, if it had any, the friends it had, that excluded the mice, or if it ever had a home. Did it ever feel the warmth of a fireplace or was it a stray, uncaught by the pound trying to defend itself? He supposed it didn’t much matter as he stood up, wiped off the rain from his pant legs only to realize you can’t wipe off the rain, because it sticks to you. So he headed for the door to the motel room. As he popped the door open he turned to see the cat frozen in place, staring straight back at him with small piece of yellow and green cheese sticking out of its mouth. With its eyes blinking slowly as he watched, he frowned and walked inside, leaving the cat to its fate as the cat left him to his.
There was little that Danny Benson wanted to do more than dig a hole and crawl inside never to be seen again. Moreover, it wasn’t necessarily that Danny wanted to disappear because of something he’d done. He didn’t want to deal with his family anymore, and with most kids not wanting the summer to come to an end, Danny found himself an oddity that welcomed the change from the solitary confinement of this motel room. He hated the wallpaper, the beds, and the smell. Hated the way the wallpaper curled back on itself when you touched it, and the water marks from the ceiling as they streamed down to the floor, turning the paper from green to yellow. Most of things he hated he didn’t have any reason to hate, he just did, and to him that seemed a good enough reason to not want to be here, but where was he going to go. As if many fourteen year old boys can do much with finding a job or quick cash that seems to appear to only a select few of wise investors who spent $12.95 on a home buying guide, which always seems too good to be true. So he had to live with the hate welling up inside him as he stood and surveyed the motel room, while his mother looked frantically around the room for her keys while as father slept, his snoring shaking the water in the glass next to him.
“Rebecca you ready, yet?” he yelled into the bathroom door.
The sound of his voice seemed to go unheard, so he yelled again, as his mother yelled “Eureka” and clasped the keys in her hands like a trophy.
“Yeah I heard you. Shit, I need to look good for the first day back.”
“First you gotta have something to work with,” he retorted.
“Funny, butt munch,” said Rebecca hurled the door open, and pushed past him to grab her book bag on the bed. “If only we could do something with that,” she said and pointed to his hair.
Danny looked up and pushed a hand through his hair, confused. He’d washed it last night and brushed his hair a bit when he woke up, but without a his beanie it was the best he could do. It’s not like he was preparing for the first day Olympics as Rebecca seemed to have been doing with the near hour long bathroom extravaganza, which had only given him the few minutes between her deciding which outfit she was going to wear out of her suitcase and finding her makeup bag underneath the bed. He was just a guy, so what if it was his first day of high school its not like anything of real importance ever happens on the first day, he couldn’t even remember what he wore his first day of eighth grade. He rubbed the top of his head and readjusted the hair with a confused look on his face.
“What’s wrong with my—”
“Nothing, honey” Danny’s mom interjected, “now let’s get going. You don’t need to be late for the first day, and I especially don’t need the phone call or the hassle.”
Danny’s mom pushed them both towards the van and slammed the hotel door behind them.
“Mom!” Rebecca yelled. “I forgot my bag on the bed, geez, as if were gonna be late.”
“Actually with only fifteen minutes to get there that is basically what we are going to be.”
“Why don’t we just stay home today?” Danny interjected.
Rebecca stopped for a few seconds as she pushed open the door to the motel room, and looked back as if she was waiting for mom to say yes. As if the stars and planets would have aligned for that one moment.
“What are you looking at me for? Neither one of you are staying home on the first day,” she said. “What is wrong with my children to think that they would get away with something like that?”
There was a collective sigh between the two of them, which was about the only thing that the both of them had agreed on lately. Sibling rivalry was something Danny had heard about and still didn’t quite understand. There had to be a physicist who could explain the concept had he asked or written a letter, explaining his dilemma in a letter with the opening line: My sister is crazy and I don’t know why she explodes at the tiniest issues, like watching the wrong channel on the TV or sitting to close to her in a restaurant booth.” Maybe there was some equation to help the brothers like him who had no clue what was wrong with their teenage sisters, all hyped on hormones, as if that was an excuse, he had scoffed once to his friend Richard when he had stayed at the house drooling over his sister. He’d smacked him a few times for checking Rebecca our in her bikini while she was in the backyard with her boyfriend, Derrick, to knock him back into reality and the conversations of her craziness and to his reply he said, “I wish she would hit me when I was bad.” After walking away he wasn’t any closer to understand what was wrong with his hormonal sister, but then again Danny had read somewhere that no man ever would understand the thinking of women, apparently they had far less brain cells to compete with the job. As he stepped into the back of the van he laughed, causing Rebecca, and his mom to look back at him, he smiled aptly and stared out the side of the glass at the cat slinking away from the trashcan and his already eaten sandwich.
“You are so weird, you know that, so weird,” Rebecca said, clicking her seatbelt in place and adjusting it with her index finger. “So weird.”
All Danny could do was smile and guess that the day was right to be a good day, since everything bad had happened when it was sunny.
He sat with his head on the glass of the van as his sister babbled on about some cruel teacher she’d heard about and how her life was going to be miserable. He muttered “join the club” under his breathe, but no one heard him, which was a usual occurrence for him. He liked the way the rain droplets streaked across the glass leaving little parts of themselves behind as they moved further along. However, that didn’t keep his attention for long as he fogged up the glass and drew happy faces with his pinky finger. He glanced at the front and saw his mom looking back at him through the rearview mirror, obviously not really listening to Rebecca either, but she quickly looked away and tried to finish the conversation, which included “Really” and “You don’t say honey.”
They pulled up to the school and Rebecca jumped out first, hurried along with her bag over her head. Danny was slower as he opened the sliding door, put his hand out to see how hard the rain was coming down before he got out. Since it wasn’t coming down very hard, he got out slowly slung his backpack over his shoulder, and shut the door on the words his mother was starting to say. Probably telling him “to have a good day,” or “buck-up cowboy” which probably wasn’t the case, but he figured that the Eastern upbringing was starting to make a comeback. The van merged back into traffic and drove away, Danny turned once to look but didn’t care at least he was out of that motel room.
It was his first day as a high school student, freshman, he thought couldn’t be as bad as the movies portrayed it. Still he made his way down the grassy hill that lay just outside the front gate, which was a water catch, now slightly filled and into the school grounds. Concrete walks were everywhere, and what seemed like a three tier wall stretched around the front of the buildings painted a pale red, with a planter at the top. He remembered Rebecca describe it to him ad where he had to go to check in, but it was much bigger than she’d made it seem. He saw a glimpse of her pink bad disappear into the main doors, and so he started off in the same direction. His clothes were starting to feel damp as he stepped up his pace to a jog towards the door, but about ten feet from the door someone slapped him in the back and Danny turned to them with a fist to see Richard.
“Whoa! Didn’t meant to hurt you man. It’s been too long, Danny.”
Danny dropped his fist and high-fived him. Richard was taller than him by about few inches, even though on several occasions he tried to say that he was a foot taller, but it was just one of the arguments Richard liked to get himself into. The sort of person who liked to argue even if he was wrong, because he considered it an adrenaline rush, which would qualify him for the Olympics, if debating, was ever to be admitted. His faded AC/DC shirt peeked through the opening of his jacket, while Richards brown hair poked through at every angle from underneath his grey baseball cap.
“So what’ve you been up to?”
“Nothing much,” Danny replied making his way towards the door and out of the rain. “What are you doing out here?”
“Getting soaked waiting for you, and when I thought you were gonna be ditching your first day, your butt finally shows up.”
“Mom couldn’t find her keys, and Rebecca, was well, being—”
“Where is she?”
“Who?”
“You sister, your hot sister.” He craned his neck and turned his head in every direction trying to see here in the crowd of kids running towards the main buildings.
“Rich, you know I hate it when you do that or talk about her as if she is some kinda model you pretend fondling.”
“I know it grosses you out, I know. That’s why I keep doing it,” said Richard making puking noises and gestures as Danny walked into the main building.
“Stop were in high school now.”
“Yeah and you’re a freshman, big whoop.”
“Were both freshman,” he replied and socked Richard in the gut.
He rubs his stomach and leans into Danny, coughing, “Don’t say that. I don’t want to be flushed man.”
“Pretty sure that they’ll figure it out when were standing in line for our classes and ID’s.”
Richard readjusts Danny’s head towards a group of guys wearing letterman’s jackets, each one pointing and grinding their fists into their hands. From where Danny was it looked like a group of monkeys marking their territory through intimidation, he smiled to himself as if Jane Goodall or some scientist was in the bushes watching, and taping the incident as it happened. How weird he figured next that they actually did that, and wondered if instead of a discovery channel special that maybe a movie was being taped without him knowing, an MTV, or Lifetime special on the brain dead of local high schools. Richard stood up straighter, a meerkat or bear making himself look larger.
“Let’s get this over with,” he said his voice deeper.
“What happened to your voice?”
“What are you talking about? Aren’t you intimidated yet?” Richard asked his voice as deep as before.
“You’re an idiot, let’s just get this over with.”
Richard coughs, “Those guys are harmless, and probably a bunch of brain dead idiots.”
Richard lunges forward into Danny as another jock bumps into him, looks back and then joins up with the rest of his group. Richard watches as the guy tells his friends about what he’d said, and one of them points right at him and walks away laughing. A sigh of relief washes over Richard’s face.
“See what did I tell you. Nothin’ but a bunch of idi—” says Richard as he looks behind him to see if there is another jock behind him. “Idiots.”
“Not so sure.”
Danny listened as the echo of students talking and laughing filled his head.
“Do you ever think that everyone is making fun of you behind your back?” Danny asked.
“All the time”
“Really.”
“No. That’s just weird, besides if I thought that then it would mean every time somebody said something that I couldn’t hear I would think it was about me and that would…wait, why is that what you been thinking lately?”
“Are you nuts? I was just asking a question. Can’t I ask questions?”
Richard glared at Danny, one eyebrow raised and turned slowly around to the admin area window to get his class assignment. Danny followed suit, he gave the old woman behind the window his name and she sorted through a box. She extracted the sheet with his name on it and handed it to him, her liver spotted hands shook slightly as he pulled it from her grip and smiled. Danny still wondered if he was being as crazy or weird to be thinking that everyone was laughing at him, but it felt as if they were. And while the nagging feeling in the back of his head told him to walk up to everyone and demand to know what they were talking about pushed forward, he pushed back to focus on the class schedule in his hands. Though as his fingers lined each one of his classes in sequence, like an invisible highlighter he wondered if maybe it was because he wanted to tell Richard what had happened. What would he think of him? Maybe it was better if Richard didn’t know about his family, and so he pushed the nausea down and considered that the longer he kept the lie the easier it would be for him to keep. It was better to live in the lie, he said to himself, and that is what he was determined to do.
In every way imaginable Danny hoped for a way to get back to class and out of this particular situation. At least in some small way he know that name of the jock who started laughing at them earlier. It could have been a right of passage if Danny hadn’t known better, to gain his own bully on the first day of school was like running into a burning building without so much as a prayer in your underwear. Danny stared back at Jake, his eyes burning into his head, his laughing and breath made his eyelids shutter, with his corneas fogging up as if he had glasses on. Jake slapped the palm of his hand against the hard concrete wall as close to Danny’s head without hitting him and laughed. His huge frame, broad shoulders and slicked back blonde hair were what caused him to be a good captain on the field, probably, and to be as intimidating as he was off the field. It could also have been the smell of body odor that permeated his never-been-wasted jacket that was the second clue, and his shirt partially soaked through with sweat that made Danny want to run more. There was a good chance that the locker room would have been easier on the nostrils than having Jake’s arm propped up strategically enough to give such open access to the full array of intoxicating odors.
“So you think that you’re better than us?”
Danny didn’t say anything, but swallowed hard as Jack spat the words back at him with more emphasis and bad breath than before.
“Maybe he needs his memory jogged,” said Jake’s friend behind him watched spastically for someone who might see them.
“Come on, man, hurry up. I can’t get in trouble again or my mom’s gonna kill me.”
“Don’t worry.”
Jake tightened his grip around Danny’s collar and readied his other hand into a fist to punch him in the face. However it was short lived as Grandma yelled from down the hall. She was a campus supervisor, thought to be resurrected from the dead, and even with age thick on her bones, some guessed right, but with so many rumors it was hard to tell which were true. All anyone knew was that you didn’t mess with Grandma. And with the words of her yell, Jake’s friend too off running in the opposite direction, which set her own pursuit into action. Jack took a little longer to start running, as he slapped Danny first across the face and while he made a break towards the back doors at the other end of the hallway. It was his guess that Grandma had chosen to catch Jake was because he was closer. With both outside and Grandma’s shouting echoing off the buildings façade, Danny watched as Jake attempted to jump the fence, but got stuck. This left Grandma ample opportunity to reach up like a small, aggressive polar bear in need of a meal, and with one hand she reached up and pulled him off the fence and planted Jake face first into the cement. Danny saw her yell something at him, and gestured for him to get up as she stretched her back obviously tired from the run. He smiled on the inside, as Grandma walked Jake to him. She reminded him of an old warden who knew how to handle the prisoners, or in this case the students and to think that the same woman whom he’d heard stories about in history class an hour ago were true. She pointed at him with a single, veiny finger and asked for his pass. He pulled it from his pocket, unfolded it and handed it to her slowly. It was warm to the touch and sweaty from his pocket as Grandma examined it, gave Danny a quick look and handed it back.
“Did he hurt you?”
Danny felt the tingle in his cheek from the couple of slaps Jake subjected him to before she had showed up, but despite his want to tell her, Jake glared at him and he fought against the urge to be truthful again. He shook his head no.
“You sure?” she asked trying to coax what information she knew he had as she looked right at his red cheek.
Danny shook his head no, all the while keeping his vision locked on Jake’s face watching for a new sign that he was in for more punishment later, when the warden wasn’t around.
“Well get back to class then.”
Danny moved away in the opposite direction quickly, and glanced over his shoulder watching the two of them, the predator and her prey, march the rest of the distance of the main hall to the Admin office. Danny was sure that he would see Jake again soon and probably would feel the slight bit of regret for not being honest. He didn’t want to stir the pot, and did as his father had done which was to flee rather than fight. As he crumpled the pass in his right hand, he rubbed his chest with his left hand and told himself to let it go. To let it be and not worry on the things no one cared about, but him.
Later in the day at lunch, Richard told Danny how he’d been trash-canned by Jake when he was between classes. He felt bad for his friend and in the same instance angry, but he let it go as well, like so many things and faked a laugh or two. As Richard gestured about how he was finding bits of paper in his pockets after or how his shirt smelled like spoiled milk. How do you deal with guys like Jake? Danny wondered if maybe this was an unpleasant fact until either Jake dropped out or Danny transferred to another school. Though as his friend kept repeating the same story about how he was going to make Jake pay next time, but maybe it was a thing your father taught you. Taught you how to hold your fist, how to stand—the father of a kid who slapped a piece of cold meat on your face and said, “Good job son, now next time try to win,” but that father for him didn’t exist.
“Maybe next time you’ll clock him once.”
Richard laughed and slapped Danny on the back.
“Maybe. Maybe I will,” Richard replied as he stared making Rocky like jabs into a metal door.