Tuesday

Tuesday

The next day I was sitting in English, listening to Mrs. Kortchek blabber on about metaphors for the fifth time. I usually like English, because Jeremy’s in there, and because it’s not as boring as math. Mrs. Kortchek was standing behind her lectern, the way she always does. I think she’s the only high school teacher in the whole universe who uses a lectern. She must stand behind it because it makes her look more intimidating. I don’t blame her, though. She’s short and gray-haired. She needs all the help she can get looking tough.

Mrs. Kortchek pointed to the chalkboard with a long pointer-stick. “Here’s an example of a metaphor, ‘His heart was a stone.’ Hearts can’t really be stones. That’s ridiculous. And remember, class, that a metaphor is a comparison between two things.” She kept blabbering on about metaphors while I zoned out.

I already knew what metaphors were. We went over them every year. Who really cares about metaphors anyway? The only thing on my mind was women. Actually, “women” weren’t on my mind; a woman was on my mind. One woman. The woman sitting in the desk right in front of me, within reach, Sarah Brighton.

I use the term “woman” without hesitation. Because even though Sarah’s really a teenager, only fourteen or fifteen years old, like all us freshmen are, she looks and acts like a woman. Just like a full-blown woman. No, not even the word “woman” does her justice. Sarah Brighton is a queen, and I am her lowly servant. She’s polite, she’s smart, she’s gorgeous, she’s perfect.

She’s also Randall’s girlfriend.

Sigh.

This particular Tuesday her blonde hair was done up in a lavish swirl, a swirl that was held in place by a plastic hair clip in the shape of a pink butterfly. Here and there little pearls decorated her hairdo. I stared at her hair and the back of her head for a good while, and then let my eyes drift down to the back of her neck. What a beautiful neck! So smooth and pink. I inhaled, and smelled what must have been the fragrance of perfume or scented lotion. It smelled like strawberries. Or maybe it was Sarah’s natural scent. I soaked in the aroma again, and then my eyes went down to her upper back, where the top of her shirt began. Her skin just above the lacy collar of her blouse was unblemished, pure and young. How I wanted to feel it!

Finally, the back of the chair she was sitting in jutted into my view, blocking my eyes from the remainder of Sarah Brighton’s back. The rest of her body was left to my imagination.

This was the way I saw Sarah most, when I sat behind her in English class. Her hair, her neck, her upper back. Of course, I saw her now and then when she was walking around campus, and sometimes I saw her at lunchtime, but I never got up the nerve to talk to her. It’s not like we were in any of the same clubs or sports or anything. And we had different groups of friends; we never really had a reason to talk. Plus, Randall doesn’t let other guys get too close to her. So I merely sat quietly behind her in English class, looked at her, and enjoyed her while I could, in these fleeting English classes.

**********

“Mickey! Hello! Earth to Mickey!” Mrs. Kortchek was glaring at me. “What is your answer Mr. Marshall?”

“I don’t know,” I stuttered. Wow, I hadn’t even noticed that the lights were out and the class was looking at an overhead transparency. “I uh… I didn’t understand the question. Sorry.”

“The question is, which one of these sentences contains a metaphor?”

I quickly scanned the sentences. “The last one.”

“Good. Try to answer quicker next time.”

**********

The first time I ever met Sarah Brighton was way back in third grade. “Met” isn’t really the right word. That makes it sound like Sarah and I are equals, just meeting each other and having brunch or something. Maybe I should say that I “encountered” Sarah, or I that “had a vision” of Sarah.

Anyway, it was back in third grade, during recess, and Jeremy and I were playing with toy cars in a sandbox. It was a bright spring day, before Arizona got scorching hot. I remember the carefree attitude of elementary school, the birds flying overhead, and the fresh smell of grass and sand had Jeremy and I blissful.

“Vroom vroom! Police officer reporting sir, what’s the problem?” Jeremy moved a little toy police car through the sand.

“Help me! Help me! The cave just collapsed on me!” I called, holding a red convertible buried in the sand. I poked a little hole in the sand with my free hand, and sand from the top of the little mountain started falling.

“Oh no- now the cave is falling on me, too!” Jeremy said, “I’ve got to go get backup.” He moved the little police car over to an ambulance sitting on the wooden railing on the edge of the sandbox. “We got a situation 92 emergency over here! I repeat, a situation 92 emergency!” Jeremy started to move the police car and the ambulance back to the sand cave when a giant shoe came out of nowhere, smashing our sand city.

The shoe belonged to Randall. (Yes, this was the same Randall who is now Sarah Brighton’s boyfriend. It’s a long story.)

“Oh no!” Your city is being attacked by a monster- me!” Randall yelled. “Sorry nerds, it looks like your sissy sand castle is smashed into little itty-bitty bits!” Then Randall started kicking sand into our faces.

“Randall, cut it out! That’s not fair!” I said, trying to be brave.

“So what? Life isn’t fair!” Then he kicked more sand into my face, but I closed my eyes and turned my head. But Jeremy got some sand in his eyes, and he started to cry.

Randall turned to Jeremy. “Aww… is the little baby crying?” Randall said in a whiny baby voice. “Here, let me make it all better.” He picked up a fistful of sand and was about to shove it into Jeremy’s face when all three of us in the sandbox heard-

“Put that sand down!”

We looked up and saw a girl standing just outside the sandbox. A jump rope trailed from her right hand like a whip.

“I said put that sand down!” The girl, who acted very much like a woman, was dressed in white tennis shoes, a pink skirt, and a white T-shirt with a picture of a butterfly on it. Her long blonde hair was in a ponytail, which was tied with a white ribbon that flapped gently in the breeze like a flag.

The anger left Randall’s face. “Who are you?”

“I’m a girl,” she said matter-of-factly. “I’m a new girl.”

None of us knew who she was, or why exactly she commanded our attention, but we all knew she was beautiful. OK, maybe way back in third grade we really didn’t know what beautiful was, but somehow I knew that she wasn’t just a girl, she was a woman- a woman who commanded the respect of males everywhere.

“Never bother these boys again,” she looked right into Randall’s eyes and pointed at him. “Let them play in the sandbox as long as they like. After they’re done, then you can play in the sandbox. Understood?”

Randall stood there like a monkey looking at a human for the first time.

“I said is that understood?”
”Yeah. I mean, Yes, it is understood, ma’am.”

“Good.” The girl turned, her pink skirt twirling, and started jump roping away.

“Wait.” I was so overcome with the singularity of the whole situation that I
could hardly get any words out. I called again, “Wait, please!”

She turned to look at me. I looked at her, and when her eyes met mine, she seemed to look straight through my skin and into my soul. I nearly collapsed. Awestruck, yet wanting to know more, I attempted to speak with her. I knew her time was precious, because women like her always have important things to do, but I had to know the name of my rescuer. “Please, lady, please, tell me your name.”

The woman peered deeper into my eyes. “Sarah,” she said. “Sarah Brighton.” I thought she gave me a slight smile, but I couldn’t be sure. She twirled, and then she was gone.

**********

“Mickey!” I was back in English class and Mrs. Kortchek was yelling at me. I must have zoned out again.

“Yes?”

“Do you understand the assignment?”

“Yeah… yes, I do.” I tapped a finger to my head. “It’s all up here.” Really I had no idea what happened in that whole period, except that Sarah Brighton had been sitting in front of me.

When the bell rang, all the students rushed into the hallway. I did too, but I slowed down to get one more look at Sarah. Sarah and Randall came out of the English classroom together, holding hands.

I walked off alone.

**********

Next period was gym. I went into the locker room, changed into a pair of gray shorts and a plain black T-shirt, and went out to the basketball court for attendance. I saw my friend, Heber, and stood next to him.

Every class period I try to find a friend. Not like a best friend, but just somebody I can stand next to, or be a study partner with. I’m not co-dependant or anything; I just don’t want to look like a loner.

Because if you’re by yourself for too long, eating alone in the cafeteria, for example, you might get bored; you might start playing with your food. Maybe you’ll take the top bun off you hamburger, to reveal the greasy canvas of a beef patty, make a pair of eyeballs out of pickles, a mouth out of a French fry, and maybe you’ll give your new hamburger friend a wavy mustard hairdo. You might imagine that it’s asking you a question. All you have to do is answer your hamburger’s question while a teacher happens to pass by and then- BAM! You’re dragged into the counselor’s office; he straps a gigantic magnet to your head, and starts asking you about how you treat animals.

I want to avoid the counselor’s office, so that’s why I stood next to Heber. The whole class was lined up on the basketball court boundary while Mr. Bullham took attendance.

“Ready for gym?” I asked Heber.

“Ready for death?” Heber had a morbid sense of humor.

After attendance, Mr. Bullham blew his whistle and yelled at us, and we all began jogging around the basketball court. Being whistled at kind of made me feel like a dog, but such is gym class, and such is life.

“Move it! Let’s go!” Mr. Bullham boomed. “Those calories aren’t going to burn themselves!”

Gym class was always the same routine: attendance, jogging while Mr. Bullham whistles and yells, and then some humiliating sport. Whether it was basketball or football or soccer or dodge ball, it was all pretty much the same. The small and the weak were terrified while the more athletic kids were sticking out their chests, grunting, laughing, or tackling. Gym class was practically a time when bullies could get good grades for beating up nerds.

I was jogging slower than I could have, but I was staying behind most of the class to jog with Heber, who was puffing along miserably. Heber always had a rough time in gym. First of all, he had no depth perception, so he was bad at throwing things at a target, and second, he was fat.

“What did you do last night?” I asked Heber.

“Guess.”

“Played video games?”

“Congratulations. You get a cookie. I made it out of my dog’s brains.” Heber let out a half-chuckle, between gasps for air. I was thinking about Heber’s mental health when out of nowhere a beefy shoulder rammed into my back. I stumbled and nearly fell, but I regained my balance and kept jogging. I knew who it was without even looking.

“Oh, sorry gentlemen, I didn’t see you there.” It was Randall. “I guess I should pay better attention next time.” He laughed and sprinted ahead while Heber and I kept plunking along. My back throbbed with pain. Yes, it was the same Randall from the sandbox in third grade. And yes, it was the same Randall who had somehow conned Sarah Brighton into dating him.

Mr. Bullham blew a series of three short, sharp whistles to signal us to stop jogging. Mr. Bullham put his hand under his T-shirt and scratched, revealing a glimpse of a bulging hairy stomach. He waited for the class to gather around him. “Alright, everybody! Come on over here! I got something to say.”

Mr. Bullham stopped scratching his stomach and started pointing at us. “Listen up. Every day after school from now on, I’m going to keep the weight room open for anybody who wants to use it. It’s called open weight room or whatever. If you go to open weight room you can ride the after-school activity bus home.” Mr. Bullham looked at Randall. “Now you can get bulked up for the ladies, right Randall?”

“I already got a lady, coach.” Randall said proudly. Randall always called Mr. Bullham ‘coach’ becasue Randall was on the freshman football team that Mr. Bullham coached.

“Oh yeah, that’s right, you’re with that Brighton girl, aren’t you?”

“Yes sir.” Randall folded his arms and smirked.

I wanted to punch Randall. I wanted to punch Mr. Bullham, too.

“Well, Sarah, she’s a looker, alright.” Mr. Bullham belched. “Excuse me! Wooo! I must of drank too much beer! Root beer, that is. OK, so, for any of you guys who want to catch up with Mr. Love Machine linebacker, here, you can come on in after school and pump some iron. And for the ladies,” he looked over at a group of pudgy girls near the back, “I bet you all want to firm up those thighs and tummies so you can look good in one of them bikinis! Spring Break’s right around the corner!” Mr. Bullham looked at the males in the group again. “But let me tell you, guys, you’re going to have a tough time competing with Randall. Hey Randall, how much are you benching these days?”

“Just broke 200 last night, coach.”

“Woo-hoo! 200! Alright! Did you hear that, class? Randall can bench press 200 pounds! Woo-ee! Isn’t that something? Hey, Randall, why don’t you flex for the class? We wanna see them guns!”

“All right, coach,” Randall rolled up his right shirtsleeve, raised his arm and flexed. “Anybody wanna feel it?”

A girl in the middle of the group jumped up and wiggled her hand in the air. “I’ll feel it!” She pushed her way through the crowd of sweaty students and touched Randall’s bicep. First she poked it with her index finger, and then she ran her open palm up and down Randall’s entire arm.

“Ooooh.” She said. She grabbed his bicep with both hands and squeezed as hard as she could. “Dang, this thing’s like a rock!” She let go, stepped back looked at Randall’s arm in awe. “Can I feel the other one?”

“Sure.” Randal raised his left arm, made a fist, and pulled up the sleeve of his T-shirt. Another girl slipped in and caressed Randall’s right arm. “Hey girls, just don’t tell Sarah I let you feel my muscles, alright?”

Mr. Bullham blew his whistle. “All right, good job Randall! Ok, now, everybody go get a basketball. It’s basketball time! Woo-hoo!”

Everybody scattered in confusion while Mr. Bullham kept blowing his whistle and yelling things like, “Hey, cut that out!” and “Let’s see some hustle!” Some ran off to get basketballs, some went to the bathroom, and some people started shouting at each other about which team they were on. Heber and I didn’t move.

Then I had an idea. “Hey Heber, follow me. And don’t say anything.”

Heber followed me as I walked, as inconspicuously as possible, to the drinking fountain. I took a drink, and then looked around to find Mr. Bullham. He was on the other side of the gym, with his back toward me, feeling Randall’s biceps. I quietly slipped out a door into the lobby, and Heber followed me. We took a few quick steps past a trophy case, and then we went through a set of double doors, which led to the outside. The warm afternoon greeted us with its big beautiful sky. I looked back at Heber and said, “We’re free!”

Heber looked at me in disbelief. “This is crazy. What are we doing? Hey, Mickey, this is crazy. You’re crazy. We’re outside, and we’re supposed to be inside.”

“I know. Are you scared?”

“No. But… it’s like, I don’t know what to do with myself! It’s like I’m an Swayson Elf and I just busted out of the Torken jewel-factory.” Heber was walking around in circles, flapping his arms around. “It’s crazy!” Heber pulled out an imaginary wand and pointed it at a cactus. “Ala-spalacken!”

I didn’t know what Heber was talking about, but it was probably video game stuff. I grabbed Heber by the arm and started pulling him with me. “Come on. Let’s get out of here.” We walked by a brick building, towards the faculty parking lot, and then we saw the desert across the street. We walked through the parking lot, passed the fake green lawns of the high school, and went towards the beautiful desert.
“Uh… Mickey, we’re breaking about 5,000 rules right now.”

“I don’t care. Don’t worry about it. Use your magic power!”

“You know nothing of my magic power.” Heber said.

We looked both ways and ran across the street. We walked into the desert a little ways, and then stopped behind a big palo verde tree, where nobody from campus could see us.

Wow, I was really ditching! I could get detention for this. I had never done anything like this before. I had always been a well-behaved student. But something big was happening in my life right now. Something really big, and I couldn’t describe it.

Out of nowhere, I started screaming at Heber.

“I’m in love with Sarah Brighton, OK? Heber, did you hear that?”

Heber looked a little scared.

“I’m in love with Sarah and I’m in hate with Randall! I mean, who does that guy think he is, anyway? Strutting around all the time, letting those girls rub his arms all over? Did you see that? It’s just ridiculous! I can’t stand it! I don’t know why I have to sit by the sidelines and witness all the injustice in the world. Because that’s what it is Heber, it’s injustice, and in America, citizens are free! I’m supposed to be free, Heber. I’m supposed to pursue my own happiness and my destiny and right now I am not happy!”

I picked up a small rock and threw it as hard as I could at a tree. I sat on the ground, took off one of my shoes, and started beating it violently against the earth. My shoe started making a little hole in the ground, and I was covered in dust. I looked at Heber again. “Listen to me, Heber, you and I are very very very cool people. Did you know that? I sincerely believe that you are a cool guy. You know? And I am too! I don’t think sports are important, I don’t think school dances are that cool, but I know that you’re cool. I mean, I know I don’t know you really well. But surely you must realize that you and me are not on the top of the metaphorical food chain? The popularity totem pole? People don’t think we’re cool, OK? But we are cool, and I’m not at all concerned with what people think about us.” I took a few quick breaths. “I want to get a chick, Heber, I want to get a chick. OK, and, I mean… don’t you want to get a chick?”

“Uh… yeah.” Heber said.

“Of course you do!” I exploded back. “You’re a good man, Heber, you deserve a nice woman. I shouldn’t call them ‘chicks’. I should call them ‘women’. Or ‘girls’, whatever the case may be. Anyway, I want a woman, that’s what I’m trying to say. Anyway, but, I’m not going to settle for just any woman. Oh no. I’m going after Sarah Brighton!” I stood up and started wiggling my shoe in Heber’s face. “Do you hear? I’m going after Sarah! That’s right! You can go after whoever you like, as long as it’s not Sarah, because… because…”

I was at a loss. For a moment I couldn’t think of why I should deserve Sarah more than Heber should deserve her. We were both pretty cool guys. I sat down and bashed my shoe into the ground again. A cactus needle worked it’s way into my gym shorts and poked my thigh.

Then it came to me. Suddenly I knew why I deserved Sarah more than Heber did. I looked back at Heber. “Because I love her more than you do! Plain and simple. My love is bigger and greater than your love. OK? I will tell her of my love and she won’t be able to resist it. I am not water! OK! I do not take the shape of the container I am put in. I am a man- I make containers and I break containers. And I don’t even use containers if I don’t feel like using containers, you know what I mean? Heber, do you understand what I’m saying?”

“I think so,” said Heber.

“OK, then repeat everything I said back to me, because I forgot a lot of it.”

I paced back and forth and kicked up dust while Heber struggled to tell me what I had just told him. “Umm... you said a lot of stuff right now, Mickey. And you said it really fast, and honestly I’m a little frightened of you, but some of what you said is: you’re in love with Sarah, you hate Randall, and you’re ready to do something about it. You’re gonna go out there and get her. And you also said stuff about America and containers and-”

“That’s right,” I interrupted. “This is America and I have the right to be happy and I’m not happy without Sarah. That’s it. I’m not happy without her, so I’m going to pursue her because I am a man! OK. Today is the day that I start my quest- my holy quest, after Sarah, and after love.”

Heber’s faced brightened up. He waved an imaginary sword with one hand and picked up a handful of dirt with the other. “I also am pursuing a woman!” He sliced an invisible enemy and grunted as he threw his handful of dirt at a cactus.

“You are? Heber, that’s wonderful! Who?”

“Julia Hatchet.” His eyes were fixed on something in the air in front of him.

“Julia Hatchet? Who’s that?” I asked.

“Hast thou not heard of Julia Hatchet? She is a sorceress, and she is the fairest of all the maidens of the sun.”

**********

That outburst was just what I needed. A few minutes in the sun, the freedom of the desert, and I was a new man. I was calm again.

Heber and I went back to the gym, where everybody was running around in basketball chaos, and some students asked us where we had been for the last fifteen minutes. I made something up about Heber having trouble with the padlock on his locker. We both joined some students who weren’t actually playing a game of basketball; they were just talking and casually throwing free throws now and then. See, when Mr. Bullham says, “It’s basketball time,” he doesn’t really care what you do as long as he sees students throwing basketballs and running around now and then. As for calling fouls and settling disputes, Mr. Bullham has a very hands-off approach. He doesn’t interfere if there isn’t any blood.

The rest of the class passed quickly. I was just happy that I didn’t have another confrontation with Randall.

I was calm again, but I wasn’t so calm that I lost sight of my goal. I meant what I had said to Heber earlier, out there in the desert across from the school. I was going to win the affections of Sarah. Now, I wasn’t going to run madly around campus, find Sarah and spew out love-crazed nonsense at her; I was going to act normal. So normal, in fact, that no passer-by would be able to detect what I had on my mind.

After gym class, I went into the hallway and saw Jeremy.

“Hey Jeremy,” I said.

“Hey Mickey.” We leaned up against the white brick wall. We had a few minutes before we had to get to our next class. I was wondering if I should tell him about my feelings for Sarah. We hadn’t brought up the love subject since the bus ride yesterday afternoon. Jeremy was my best friend, so I thought that I should open up to him. I sort of wanted to talk with him about more important things than comic books, TV, or homework. I was thinking of a good way to bring up the subject when Jeremy said, “So do you know what your poem is going to be about?”

“Huh?”
“The English class poem. Remember, our homework?” Jeremy stared at me.

“Oh yeah. I mean, no.” That sounded dumb. “I remember that there was an assignment, but I don’t remember what the assignment was. I was kind of daydreaming in English about… well, I was thinking about… I missed the assignment.”

“Don’t worry, it’s not that hard. All you have to do is write a poem and read it out loud to the class tomorrow. The poem can be about anything you want, and it can rhyme, if you want. See, none of that matters. All that matters is that it has to have at least one simile and one metaphor.” Jeremy put his hands in his pockets. “I think my poem’s going to be about what we were talking about on the bus yesterday, about Mr. Meteoroid and Magma Man fighting.”

“That sounds cool.” Really I didn’t think it sounded cool at all.

“My poem will probably end up sounding really nerdy, but I don’t care.” Jeremy said as he shrugged his shoulders. “I think it’ll be cool.” Jeremy took his hands out of his pockets and shifted his backpack, which was wedged between his back and the wall.

We stood there leaning against the wall, watching the students pass us as they were heading to their next class or to wherever they were going. A group of three tough-looking seniors walked by. They held their chins up, swayed their arms a lot, and didn’t say anything. The tallest one was between the two others, and he looked like the toughest of the three. He was scanning the hallway, as if he was daring anybody to challenge him to a fight.

Some laughing girls passed by. They were linked in each other’s arms at the elbows, and they leaned forward when they walked. From what I caught of their conversation, they were gossiping about someone.

Finally a boyfriend and girlfriend walked by, holding hands. They looked happy.

“What were you daydreaming about?” Jeremy asked me.

“Huh?”

“You said you were daydreaming in English class. What were you daydreaming about?”

“Oh, I…I can’t even remember. It was probably about comic books or something.” I shifted my weight from one foot to the other and looked at my watch. Jeremy looked away from me, and from the corner of my eye, I thought I saw him smiling.

“I think I know what you were daydreaming about, Mickey.”

A knot tied in my stomach. I didn’t mind talking about this subject to a nutcase like Heber, but Jeremy was a different story. I looked at Jeremy. “What?” I asked.

“A girl.”

I didn’t say anything.

“And not just any girl. You were drooling over Sarah Brighton.” He said it smugly, as if he knew he was right. Of course, he was right. I had spent so many English classes staring at Sarah’s hair, neck, upper back, and shoulders. I blushed and looked away.

“How’d you know?” I said.

“Come on, it’s kind of hard not to notice. You stare at her every day. It’s like you’re stalking her or you’re a pervert or something.”

I looked at Jeremy in disbelief. “What? You don’t know what you’re talking about. You have no idea what you’re talking about, OK?” I was practically yelling at him. I surprised myself. I had never yelled at Jeremy before. I lowered my voice and started again. “I’m sorry. Look, I didn’t mean to yell, but,” I looked around to see if anybody was in earshot. “But don’t call me a pervert. I like, Sarah, OK? That’s it. I like her. It’s normal, OK?”

“Hey, that’s cool. I’m just saying, it’s too bad there’s nothing you can do about it. Sarah is Randall’s girlfriend. She might as well wear a sign on her boobs that says, ‘Property of Randall. No trespassing. Violators will be pulverized.’”

“I know. You’re right.” I let out a deep breath. “Well, now you know a little more about me.” I bent down to re-tie my shoelace. It wasn’t undone, but the knot was getting loose, and I like my shoelaces tight, so I untied it and then re-tied it.

The next and final period of the day was science. We watched a movie about Mars. Mars is a pretty boring subject to me. Or at least at this time it seemed boring to me, because Mars had nothing to do with Sarah Brighton. But the dramatic voice-over guy tried to make Mars as exciting as possible.

“Mars. The mysterious red planet. One marked by beauty, yet fraught with rage.” It sounded like a movie trailer. “The spherical orb known to mankind as Mars is constantly spinning, twirling, whirling, like a top- yet not like a top, for this celestial body, unlike a child’s toy, will never fall. It cannot fall. For in space, there is no up, and there is no down. There is only blackness. There is only space.”

Watching a movie gave me a chance to relax, sit quietly in the dark and think about Sarah and my plans to woo her. Thank goodness we weren’t doing any experiments today. In my altered mental state, I couldn’t be trusted to handle a Bunsen burner or a dissecting knife.

I took out a piece of paper from my folder and started writing. Hmmm… what do girls like? What do they want? More importantly, what do they want out of a boyfriend? I wrote and wrote and wrote. I scribbled down a few options for winning Sarah and humiliating Randall, crossed out the ridiculous ones, and then simply wrote about my love for Sarah.

Somewhere in the middle of science class, I looked down at my paper and saw that it was filled with doodles of flowers, butterflies, and hearts. Funny, I didn’t even remember drawing those girly things. I must have been daydreaming again.

Twenty minutes left of class. I tried to draw a picture of Sarah, but I soon became frustrated. Representing her beauty on a piece of lined notebook paper in a science class was impossible. But I thought that even a skilled painter, with unlimited time and art supplies, couldn’t capture the beauty, grace and soul of Sarah Brighton.

The science teacher looked up from her crossword puzzle and smiled at me. Poor ignorant teacher. She had no idea what I was thinking about. The science teacher probably thought I was taking notes on the movie. She thought I was fascinated by Mars.

**********

The bell rang. Science class was over, and I was free for the afternoon. Normally at this time I would go to the bus and go home, but today I had other plans. I walked a different way, heading towards the gym.

I went into the locker room, found my locker, undid my combination lock, and sat on a concrete bench painted blue. Nobody was around. I was untying my shoelaces when Mr. Bullham walked by. He stopped and came towards me.

“Mickey?” Mr. Bullham held a football in one hand, and twirled a set of keys with the other. “Mickey Marshall? Is that you?” He let out a big laugh that shook his belly. “Hot dog, it’s Mickey Marshall! Never thought I’d see you here outside of gym class. This ain’t where the chess club meets, you know.” He laughed again.

“I know. But you said in gym earlier that the weight room would be open after school today, right?” I asked.

“That’s right, it sure is.” Mr. Bullham clapped his hands together loudly. “Alright, way to go! Mickey Marshall’s staying after to pump some iron!” His voice boomed throughout the entire locker room. “I tell you, Mickey, all you gotta do is lift weights for two, maybe three months, and I’m telling you, the girls won’t be able to keep they’re hands off you. Yee-haw!”

I don’t know why he had to talk so loud. He was right in front of me. He clapped and laughed again. “Hey, Mickey, watch me catch this football.” Mr. Bullham tossed the football he had been holding, sending it spinning through the air a few feet ahead of him. He stuck his tongue out, watched the football, ran ahead, and caught it. “Woo-hoo! Touchdown!” Then he jogged off, shouting stuff about football.

As I watched him go, it occurred to me that Mr. Bullham and I were very different people.

I continued undressing, and just when I got down to my underwear, I heard a couple of guys come in to the locker room. Their shoes smacked noisily against the floor as they walked, and their voices echoed off the concrete walls. One of them was bragging about how big his truck was. “I’m telling you guys, this thing is huge. It’s red, and it’s got flames on it, and it’s just big. I’ll show it to you sometime.” He talked very loudly. What was it about the gym that made people talk so loud?

I tried to make myself disappear. Luckily, those guys didn’t come near where I was changing. They just passed by and ignored me. Not that I’m afraid of those muscular guys talking about their big trucks, it’s just that… it’s just that… well, OK, maybe I am a little afraid of them.

More and more guys came into the locker room, some guys who shoved each other around and laughed, some guys who were on the football team, and some guys who looked like bodybuilders. I finished changing into my gray shorts and my black T-shirt and walked towards the weight room. Nobody was in there. I must have been early.

When I stepped inside the weight room, I realized that I had never been there before. It’s funny, you would think that after almost a whole school year at Roosevelt High, I would have at least set foot inside the weight room, maybe on a guided tour or something. But no, I had never gotten around to seeing the weight room; the place was foreign to me.

An array of strange mechanical contraptions was spread before me. I knew what some of the things were. I’ve seen a bench-pressing thing before. What are those things called? Maybe it’s just called a bench press. But there were some machines with levers and pins and pulleys and pads in strange places- I had no idea what I was supposed to do with them.

But the strangest part about the whole weight room was the mirrors. Every wall, from floor to ceiling, was covered with mirrors. I turned around in a circle, and on every wall I saw my reflection. I walked up to one of the mirrored walls to get a closer look at myself.

I was scrawny, but I wasn’t without hope. I looked back at the door I had come through and around the weight room to see if anybody else had come in yet, but I was still alone. I looked at myself in the mirror again, right into the reflection of my eyes, and said out loud, “You’re going to get in to shape, Mickey Marshall, and you’re going to get Sarah Brighton.”

I walked over to a rack filled with dumbbells of various sizes. I thought I would start somewhere in the middle, so I tried to pick up one of the mid-sized dumbbells. I grabbed it by the handle and tried to pull, but the thing didn’t budge. I tried again with both hands, but the dumbbell just wasn’t moving. Hmm. Somebody must have pulled a prank and bolted that dumbbell down to the rack.

I moved down to the far left side of the rack where the really small dumbbells were. At the end of the rack, a pair of tiny, two-and-a-half pound weights sat there. They were darling. I picked them up, raised them above my head, and started doing what everybody in the weightlifting world calls “pumping iron.” I held the weights high above my head, as high as I could reach, and then twisted my wrists back and forth, from left to right, and from right to left. I did that for a minute or two, but I wasn’t sure if I was actually exercising any muscles that way, so I lowered the weights down to my shoulders, letting the edge of the dumbbells lightly touch my ears, and then lifted them back up again. Then I lowered them again and then I lifted them again.

After I raised the two-and-a-half pound dumbbells over my head a few times, I decided to lift the weights the way men in prisons do. Or, at least that’s the way the prison inmates in the movies lift weights. I think I had heard somewhere that it’s called “curling.” Or maybe it wasn’t called “curling.” “Curling” is a European sport, I think. Although, I guess it could be both a sport and a weight-lifting term.

I sat down on a black, padded bench nearby and spread my knees apart. I held the dumbbell in my right hand, lowered it between my knees and then lifted it back up, bending my elbow. Then I did it a second time. Then a third time. Then a fourth time. Then a few more times. My arm started to feel funny, so I thought it was time to switch arms. I wasn’t sure what I was doing exactly, but if somebody saw me doing it, they would probably think I was tough. And to make myself even tougher, I started grunting.

After a bit of “curling” or whatever I was doing, I looked at my reflection in the mirror again. Is this all weightlifting was? Lifting a hunk of metal over and over and over? Is this what kept some guys after school every day of the week, for their entire high school careers? Weightlifting seemed really repetitive. I had only been in the weight room for a few minutes, and I was already getting bored.

But then I remembered why I was there. I was there for Sarah.

I put the tiny weights back on the rack and started to pick up a bigger pair of dumbbells when I heard the door open. I looked, and a group of three guys came in. They were the guys who were talking about trucks earlier in the locker room. In a panic, I put the dumbbells back on the rack and retreated to the nearest thing I saw, a stationary bicycle, and tried to look busy.

“Hey, look, there’s a new guy,” the tallest one said. He started walking towards me. He had black hair, and one of his ears was pierced. By the way he moved, I could tell he was the leader of this group.

“Hi, how are you doing?” I said politely, trying not to look nervous.

“Huh.. uh… dude, um, let me give you a little hint, OK?” He walked up to the stationary bike and leaned his elbows on the control panel. He was only a few inches from my face. “Only dweebs use the bikes.”

“Yeah, dweebs and geezers,” one of his cronies said.

“Dweebs and geezers and chicks,” the other on said.

“Yeah, chicks,” They snickered.

He mashed a few buttons on the control panel, without even seeing what he was doing, and a bunch of beeping noises came out of the machine. Suddenly it was very hard to pedal. The other two guys laughed and slapped each other’s hands. I didn’t know what to do, I must have looked terrified, so I faked a laugh. The tallest guy backed off and gave me a little more space.

“So what’s your name?” he said.

“Mickey.”

“That name sucks.”

I smiled and nodded my head. Was he joking?

“You know what my name is? Guess my name.”

Guessing his name was the last thing I wanted to do. I kept pedaling and tried to look like I was thinking. My legs were starting to “feel the burn,” as they say in the weight room world. Or at least that’s what Mr. Bullham yells at us when we do sit-ups and pushups.

“Come on, just make a guess, dude.” He looked frustrated with me. “Any guess. I don’t got all day.”

Jokes usually smooth over uncomfortable situations, so I tried to make a joke. “Rumplestilskin?” I said.
His jaw dropped, and his tongue hung out a little bit.

Clearly this guy knew nothing of German folklore.

He made a fist and put put his knuckles on my chin. Yikes!

I brought my hands in front of my face and quickly said, “I was just kidding about Rumplesteelskin! I don’t think that’s really your name, not at all - I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to say that - really, look, it was supposed to be a joke but I guess it wasn’t really that funny. See, it’s from this story, a fairy tale actually, about this young maiden who-”

“Shut up and guess a real name!” He screamed. I stopped pedaling. “I’ll give you one hint, Mickey: it’s better than your name.”

“Patrick?” I squeaked.

He stared at me for a moment and put his head in his hands. He laughed, took a few steps back, put his hands on his hips, and then looked back up at me and said, “Mickey, I’m gonna be real honest with you, OK?” He took a few steps towards me. “I don’t like you.”

“Dude, his name isn’t Patrick.” It was one of the other two guys. He had his arms folded and seemed very serious. Both guys were watching this confrontation, looking very serious.

The tallest guy with the black hair and earring got even closer to me, pointed to his chest and yelled, “My name is Bulldog, OK? It’s Bulldog! Don’t call me Patrick! Don’t you ever call me Patrick! I’m Bulldog!” Bulldog rubbed his hands together and paced back and forth. Then he stopped pacing and pointed at me again. “Listen, Mickey, you’ve got one more chance to prove yourself. I’m gonna lay down on this bench, right here…” He lay down on a bench. “And you’re gonna get me my free weights. I start with the military press. Get me the 45s.” It was dead silent again.

I got off the stationary bike and walked around. “Free weights? You mean the dumbbells?” I pointed to the dumbbells on the rack.

Bulldog let out a deep breath, as if he were trying to control his anger. “No, I don’t mean the dumbbells, Mickey. Those aren’t dumbbells, OK? Only nerds and old farts call ‘em dumbbells. Those are free weights.” He sat up and got even louder. “They’re called free weights because you can pick em up and uh… they’re all free or something, alright? Gimmie the weights, dweeb!”

I walked along the rack of free weights and got to the forty-five pound dumbbells, or free weights, or whatever they were. They were bigger than the ones that were bolted down earlier. I grabbed one of them with both hands, but the thing wouldn’t move. I let go, put a different grip on it, flexed my whole body, let out a few grunts, and tugged and tugged at the dumbbell. Still nothing.

I looked back at Bulldog, who was on the bench, covering his face with his hands, and was about to explain to him that I was new to the weight room, and I was only a freshman, and the weight was just too heavy for me.

“Get out.” Bulldog pointed to the door. “Just get out, man.”

I sniffed back a tear and left.

*********

I went back in the locker room and changed back into my normal clothes. Luckily there was nobody around to see that I had been crying.

I sat on the blue, concrete bench and looked at my watch. 3:17. The bus was gone by now. I had almost two hours until the after-school bus came. Jeremy was probably wondering where I was. Maybe Manny, the bus driver, was wondering where I was too. And I didn’t tell Mom that I was staying after school. But Mom probably wouldn’t notice I was late. And if she does notice, she probably won’t care.

Feeling a little bored, I put my backpack on, left the locker room, walked down the empty hallway, and went out the door. Once I stepped outside, my body felt the change of going from an air-conditioned building to the outside, outside in Arizona in the spring. A light breeze blew some tree limbs back and forth. They were pretty trees, but they were fake. Well, they weren’t actually fake trees, but these types of trees wouldn’t naturally grow here. They had to plant them and water them on a regular basis. Otherwise they’d die. Same thing with the green grass. The lawns looked pretty, I guess, but the grass wouldn’t naturally grow on this high school campus. We lived in a desert.

I strolled over to a giant tree and sat beneath it to get out of the sun. There was a calmness and a silence about the school that is rarely found during normal school hours. Nobody was walking around. Nobody was heading to classes. It was just me and the trees and the grass, sidewalks, and the big brick buildings.

I took in a deep breath.

I had nothing to do.

Hmmm. It was kind of funny. The plan I had thought up in science class during that stupid Mars movie was to lift weights after school every day for a few weeks, and then Sarah would notice me. Looks like that plan lasted only a few minutes.

I didn’t care about that plan failing, though. If those guys in the weight room didn’t want me around, I didn’t want to be around them. I had better things to do with my time than hang around with idiotic jerks like them.

I picked up a twig from the ground and started breaking it into smaller pieces. Suddenly it occurred to me that if a teacher saw me sitting around the school unsupervised, I would get in trouble. I stood up, thought about where to go, and then decided to go to that spot in the desert Heber and I had found earlier. The teachers couldn’t bother me if I was off-campus.

After stopping by a drinking fountain, I walked through the grass and through the faculty parking lot, and then I crossed the road. I went right to the spot in the desert where I had vented to Heber while we were ditching gym. The little hole I had beaten into the ground with my shoe was still there. I put my backpack on the ground, looked around, cleared away some rocks and sticks with my shoes, and sat down.

I got out a blank piece of paper and started writing. I wrote, “Dear Sarah, Hi, this is Mickey. I sit behind you in English. I’m writing you a letter because there’s something that I have to tell you that I can’t keep quiet about anymore. You’re beautiful, you’re so beautiful, and I know you’re dating Randall, but maybe,” I stopped writing. I wadded up the paper and threw it at a cactus.


The wad of paper sat there on the ground, at the foot of the cactus. I put my head in my hands and looked at the white crumpled ball for a while. It looked uncomfortable, out of place. There it was, an artificial white clump of paper, against the backdrop of the brown earth and the prickly, green cactus. It seemed to stare back at me.

Then the crumpled wad of paper started talking!

It said, “Mickey, I thought you were better than this. Are you really going to litter?” I looked away and folded my arms. I wasn’t in the mood for a lecture on the environment, especially one coming from an inanimate object. But the paper continued, “Mickey, I know you’re upset right now, I know that a lot of things are wrong, but that doesn’t give you the right to mess the world up.”

The paper was right. I always knew littering was wrong.

I walked over to the where the paper lay (???), picked it up, and put it in my pocket. That made me feel a little bit better about myself. I went back by the little hole in the ground and sat down again.

I tried to get my mind off of Sarah. But what else was there to think about? Homework? Yes, that’s right, homework. Jeremy had told me something earlier about an English assignment. A poem. That’s right, I had to write a poem, and it had to have a metaphor and a simile. I got out a fresh piece of paper and a pencil and started writing a poem about Sarah.

I wrote something, and then scribbled it out. Then I wrote something else, and I scribbled that out, too. Everything I wrote just sounded so dumb! Then I wrote simply, “Secret Girl, I like you.” Hmm… that was good.

“I like you.” It was so simple and direct. So honest. And the “Secret Girl” added a nice sense of mystery and intrigue to the poem. I began writing with excitement. In what seemed like no time at all, I filled up a whole page with words, scribbled out a little in some places, added a little bit in other places, and then copied it all down onto a different piece of paper, to make the poem look clean. I read it out loud to myself, felt satisfied, and decided it was good.

I looked down at my watch. 4:45.

It was time to go catch the after school bus.

*********

The bus ride home was uneventful. It was the same as all the other bus rides I had taken home from school, except that the bus was a little emptier at 5 o’clock in the afternoon, and the people on the bus were different than the kids that went home right after school was over. The people on the after school bus were on student council, or in a club, but mostly they were athletes.
Oh, and another interesting thing about the bus ride was that Manny was there. Turns out he’s the bus driver for my after school activity route as well. Like always, he had said, “Hello. It’s good to see you,” when I got on the bus and “Goodbye. See you later,” when I got off the bus. Good old Manny.

When I got to my house, I noticed a black unfamiliar car parked in the driveway. Also, I noticed that the window curtains were shut. Usually we kept them open.

I got the key out of the fake rock, opened the door and walked in.

The first thing I saw was one of my Mom’s glittery red shirt laying (?) on the carpet. I looked up and saw Mom on the couch in a skirt and bra, with her arms around a man I had never seen before. He had one hand in my Mom’s hair and one hand on her hip, and his tongue was in her mouth.

I screamed.

Mom screamed.

She pushed the man away, bolted for the floor, snatched her red shirt, and held it in front of her. I turned around and looked away.

“Mickey!” Mom said. “Oh!” She sat back on the couch, leaving lots of space between her and the man, who was now crossing his legs, folding his arms, and looking at his feet. Mom looked at me and let out an embarrassed laugh. “I thought you were… When you didn’t get home when you usually did, I thought you were playing with your friend Jeremy.”

I kept my head down and headed towards my bedroom.

Mom stood up. “Mickey, no, don’t leave. Please, just listen.” I walked down the hallway and stopped in front of my bedroom door. Mom ran up behind me and put her hand on my shoulder. She had her shirt back on. “I’m sorry to make you uncomfortable, I really am, but this is a natural thing, OK? Daniel and me really like each other, and we’re grown-ups, alright? Remember when we had our special talk about what adults do when they’re in love?”

I put my hand on the doorknob and started to turn it.

“No, Mickey, please don’t run away into your bedroom like you always do. I hate it when you do that!” Mom was about to cry. She lowered her voice. “Mickey, I want you to come out here and meet Daniel. He’s a very nice man.”


Without saying a word, I opened my bedroom door, went inside, and shut the door behind me.

Mom tapped on the door. “Mickey? Mickey, I want you to come out here and meet Daniel. We’re going to have a nice dinner together, the three of us, and you know what? We’ll watch any movie you want. We’ll rent one, if you want to. Is there a movie you want to see, pumpkin?”

I sat on my bed and looked out the window. Out of the square window frame I saw the sun about to set.

Mom knocked on the door. “Mickey, I asked you a question. Why won’t you talk to me? If you’re not going to come out of your little hiding place, at least tell me why.”

I kept staring out the window. The sunset really was beautiful.

She started pounding on the door. “Talk to me Mickey! Just say something to me!” There was a pause. “You know what Mickey? I’m not asking you to come out anymore. I’m ordering you to come out! You’re going to get out of your bedroom, act like a good son, and have a nice evening with Daniel and I. So on the count of three, I’m opening this door, and you’re coming with me.”

I took off my shoes, stood up, and put them in the closet.

“One…”

I took off my backpack and set it down by my desk.

“Two…”

I sat back down on my bed and waited for her to come in.

“Three!” Mom busted in my bedroom, grabbed my upper arm, and led me out of my bedroom. I didn’t put up a fight. Mom wiped away a tear.

Mom and I walked down the hallway, towards the living room. As we entered the living room, Mom started apologizing, “I’m sorry about that little scene, Daniel. But now Mickey is-”

But the man wasn’t on the couch. “Daniel?”

Mom spun around. The man was nowhere to be found.

We heard a car pulling out of the driveway.

Mom bolted out the front door and saw a black car driving down the street. I went to the window, opened the curtains, and saw my Mom running barefoot across the yard. She stopped on the curb, watching the car go all the way to the end of the street. It turned and disappeared into the sunset.

She came inside and started yelling at me. “Mickey, look what you’ve done! He’s gone, and he’s not coming back. You scared Daniel away. If you had acted natural instead of acting like your mother was a whore then maybe he’d still be here with me! I loved him. Did you ever think about that? I know love is something you don’t understand yet, but…” Mom put her hand to her head, let out a few sobs, and then said, “Maybe if you behaved a little better for the men I brought home, you’d have a father by now.”

I went back into my room and shut the door.