Soda in the Hair

The boy and his friend were standing in front of the boy’s house, next to the minivan, on a Saturday morning. It was early, and the sunlight was still thin and harmless. Another hour or so remained before it would turn a deeper copper color and the heat would transform into pure radiation. “Is that Leslie?” the boy’s friend said. The boy looked up the street. It was Leslie walking towards them, no doubt. The boy instinctively ran his fingers through his hair, realizing he had forgotten to put gel in it. His best friend had made a surprise visit to his house that morning, and the boy had not bothered to groom himself just for that. It was like a nightmare. He pictured his hair, dry and fluffy and huge, blowing in the breeze like a game show host standing on the deck of a cruise ship. It was simply unacceptable, with Lelsie coming straight towards them.

The boy ducked behind the minivan and tipped some of the soda he was drinking from onto his scalp. “What are you doing !” his friend shrieked. ““Shut up!” the boy whisper-screamed as he kneaded the soda through his hair, using his fingers like a comb to squeeze texture and asymmetrical angles into it, before suddenly emerging upright and then awkwardly resting his forearm on the hood of the minivan. He instantly decided against the minivan pose and instead violently pushed his fingers through his sticky hair one last time and pulled the chain around his neck outside of his “Stussy (™) t-shirt so that the jade pineapple pendulum (with “gold” leaves) that hung from it would be visible.

Leslie passed by slowly on the opposite side of the street, smiling at them, her fingers tinkle-waving, and then pushed her bangs to the side before tipping her head slightly downward, as if exhausted by the effort. The boy noticed that Leslie looked different from how she did in school, as he tried to surreptitiously wipe away the soda drops dribbling down his forehead; she also hadn't styled her hair. In a sense, that made their hair even, but still, he knew he had done the right thing. His lack of social status meant that he simply couldn’t have risked having her see him that way, with flat, fluffy hair. He was meant to be “climbing after all. As she faded away, he realized that he had never seen her away from school and out in the wild, until now.

Just then, the lawn sprinklers exploded to life, saturating the steaming lawn and breaking the strange summer morning spell. “HA!” the boy’s friend howled. ““What was that about! You didn’t even say anything!” The boy mechanically joined in his friend’s laughter, without really matching it. Inside, he knew he had done what was necessary. It was Leslie, after all, walking by “his family's minivan on a Saturday morning. On Monday, new possibilities would likely open for the boy.

Grasshoppers

The boy froze when he saw the big, grey-green grasshopper sitting dead center in the space in front of his front door. He tried to muster the courage to dash around the creature and imagined making a series of convincing feints toward the doorknob, but his body stayed where it was, a safe distance from any lethal leap the grasshopper might dare conceive of. He would have to wait hours until his mother came home. Once again, simply being alive was pure humiliation.

He remembered how all of this had started: “The boy was standing in a circle of other boys who had cornered a huge gray-green grasshopper. He was standing further away than the other boys when one of them finally took decisive action and reached down and scooped it up in his palm. The boy with the grasshopper began jabbing it towards each of them as if to throw it in their face. The other boys mostly laughed, and some flinched, but the boy could not stop himself from sprinting away in terror. The pack of boys, many of them older and howling with joy, were energized by a primal energy as they chased him down like a mechanical rabbit and had him restrained within a few seconds. The boy fought back hard, as if for his life. Once they pinned his arms down on the asphalt, tears arrived. The boy with the grasshopper leaned down and methodically set the grasshopper on the boy's cheek, then raised both arms like a benediction.

When the boy’s mother finally came home, it was dark, and she asked him why he was still standing outside. He was so exhausted and demoralized that he simply pointed at the grasshopper. To be safe, he turned his head and moved back a few feet as she casually shooed the indifferent insect away and opened the door for him.

A few years after the porch incident, while mowing the side lawn of a different, much larger house, the boy saw a grasshopper leap up and away from the machine. The boy instantly felt the same old fear, despite being older now. He had assiduously avoided scenarios where grasshoppers might be present since the porch incident, and this approach had served him well. Now he admonished himself severely for his cowardice while at the same time attempting to collect himself by staring straight ahead and not looking down. It didn’t make any difference. He saw grasshoppers everywhere now, formations of them hovering within the clouds of freshly clipped grass that the machine spat out. He finally couldn’t take it anymore and walked away from the machine.

When his mother asked why he had stopped mowing the lawn midway, he simply said, “Grasshoppers.” He knew her mind was flashing back to the porch incident by her disappointed expression. The boy tried bargaining with her, but they could not come up with a convincing cover story. She finally said that she was obliged to report the incident to his stepfather, who sat silhouetted in the dimly lit living room with a can of beer.

The Drunk Mom

The boy was at a classmate's house, one he had never hung out with outside of school. It was always strange and interesting to see the inside of a friend’s house for the first time. The house was very dark and quiet inside, with every window and curtain closed. That was not so unusual; it was summer, after all, but the general shabbiness, the smell of cigarette smoke, the dishes in the sink, the wine glasses everywhere, and the clothes scattered around the carpet made him uncomfortable. He was embarrassed for his friend. “Who’s that there?” a woman’s rough voice shouted from down the hall. “Do you have a friend over?” the same voice said quickly, trying to speak in a softer tone this time, the boy noticed. ‘Yeah, it’s fine, Mom, you don’t need to come out.” “Ok, dear,” said the female voice, trying to sound like a TV mom, it seemed to the boy. “Let’s watch TV,” the friend said, sounding very relieved.

A few minutes later, the boy heard water running in the kitchen and saw the woman washing the dishes. He couldn't get a clear view, but he noticed that she was tall and wearing loose-fitting clothes, sweats or pajamas that hung low and loosely at her hips and neckline. Her hair was arranged in a messy pile on top of her head, and she was wearing sunglasses. “Can you not do that right now, Mom?” his friend yelled. “We can’t hear the TV.” “Of course, sweetheart,” she replied again in the nice voice, slurring her words a bit.

A few minutes passed in silence, and the friend said, “Let’s get out of here,” and then they both rose to leave. As they passed the hallway that led to the front door, the mom called out from the bathroom,” Are you going out, boys?” The boy looked down the hall and noticed that the bathroom door was open and the light was on. “Yes, we’re going out,” the boy’s friend said sternly. ‘Wait, come here and say goodbye first, boys,” the mom said in the rough voice she had first used. The friend instantly gestured for the boy to ignore her and follow him out the front door, but the boy betrayed his friend, shrugging his shoulders as if to say, “What choice do I have? I’m a guest here, merely a child, and I must follow the adult hostess's instructions. In truth, the boy wanted to see. The friend stayed there, frozen in place, as the boy walked slowly down the hall towards the open bathroom door. He could hear water sloshing as he came nearer to the entrance, until he was close enough to see her reflected in the bathroom mirror, without actually stepping inside the bathroom.

In the mirror, the mom was lying on her back in the bath, drinking wine, and still wearing sunglasses. It was incredible. He could not make out her details because of the suds and because he feared holding his gaze long enough to see what he wanted to see. “You can come in, honey,” she said, smiling. “It’s ok,” the boy said. He instantly berated himself: He was the only boy alive in the world who would lack the courage to step inside that bathroom. “You want to spend the night, honey? I can call your mom.” The mom said.

“WE GOTTA GO!” his friend shouted from down the hall, still holding open the front door. The mom just grimaced, more like an actress than in a real way, and then raised an arm from the suds, the one without a wine glass, and held it up like toast, while tinkling her fingertips to say goodbye. The boy focused his attention on the suds that dripped from her tricep like foamy flesh. “You’re welcome anytime, sweetheart,” he heard as he headed back down the hall.

Outside, the sun was overpowering. It was like stepping onto a different planet after being inside that house. They both walked quietly for a while until his friend, in a very serious tone, said, “Hey. Don’t say anything.” The boy sympathized with his friend and nodded, knowing that he would, in fact, say something.

The French Connection

The boy’s latest best friend was actually named “Jacques, and his mother (another single mom, like all of his friends' moms) was actually “French. She even “looked French. She wore a stylish scarf tied around her neck, a powder-blue blazer with large white buttons, a strand of big pearls, and a lot of makeup, tastefully applied, it seemed to the boy. “She sells Mary Kay,” Jaques had said, either to apologize or explain, as if the reference to “Mary Kay” spoke for itself. This was the first time the boy had visited Jacque’s apartment.

Eventually, the boy and Jaques started to play the game where you write a word on the other person's bare back with your index finger, and then the other person tries to guess the word. As they took turns, the words got longer and longer, and the writing moved lower and lower, and the talking stopped. They were lying on the bed covered in sweat, playing this game with their pants pulled down about halfway, when Jacques' mom knocked on the door and said, in her incredible French accent, ““Au revoir, boys, time to make zee sales!”

Her voice broke the feverish spell, and they both snapped into attention, pulling up their pants in a flash. They both stayed quiet and did not make eye contact at any point after that. “I’m gonna go,” the boy finally said, to change things. Jaques did not walk him down to the door on his way out.

The next day at recess, the class was playing dodgeball. Midway through the game, once the boy had caught the ball (instead of dodging it), Jaques stepped directly in front of the boy and stood stone still, staring at him and making himself a target, so that the boy would have to throw the ball at Jaques. So the boy did, but not as hard as he could have. The boy was arguably the best, most vicious player in the class, so this compromise was a considerable sacrifice for him. Jaques had simply turned his shoulders and offered his back without trying to dodge the ball that hit him.

This tactic of self-sacrifice by a competent player had never been seen before in dodgeball history, and the boy and everyone else were stunned. As the ball bounced away after striking Jacque’s back, he immediately rushed over to the boy and punched him square in the face with a closed fist, a real man’s punch, like in the movies. Jacques stood over the boy, his fists clenched, panting. Their grossly obese teacher rose from the tiny stool her body engulfed, waddled over, and stood between the two of them before declaring the game over. The other children groaned and dispersed while staring and gesturing at the boy as they passed. It was a historic event in the history of dodgeball. Malcolm, the only kid in school with a full silver satin Fila track suit trimmed in black stripes, leaned over to the boy and said, ““Daaamn, Jacques just whipped your “ass.”

The Brick

“Eddie Spaghetti, your meatballs are ready,” the boy chortled for about the hundredth time as he threw a rock over the fence in the general direction of Eddie. The insult always got a laugh, and the boy could never resist it despite Eddie’s rage. The children had formed teams of one boy and one girl, on either side of a wooden fence intended to keep children from playing on the train tracks, located about 25 yards from the fence. The two teams were engaged in a rock fight, where each team, blinded by not being able to see the people on the other side, would hurl rocks at each other over the fence. The boy was waiting for his partner to take her turn when he suddenly felt lightheaded. His partner, the young girl, began to scream. Eddie had thrown a brick planter piece that hit the boy square on the scalp. A perfect strike.

Blood began streaming down his face. Feeling confused and moving more slowly than he meant to, the boy wiped away at the blood and staggered towards his apartment, where his mother and aunt lived. Before he reached his house, his rock war partner’s mother, hearing her daughter scream, had run out of the house and began to scream herself. “Stay here!” she ordered and then went to fetch the boy's mother. The twin girls who also lived in the court stopped their double-dutch jump rope game and froze, staring at the bloody boy.

The boy's mother emerged from the house, screamed, ran back inside, and then wrapped a wet towel around the boy's head. In the car on the way to the hospital, with the boy holding the blood-soaked towel to his head, his mother finally asked what had happened. “We were having a rock fight, and Eddie Spaghetti threw a brick,” the boy said. “I could slap you,” the mother said, fighting back tears. The boy understood. A week earlier, the boy's German Shepherd had snapped at Eddie Spaghetti’s sister after she pretended to slap the boy as part of a game. “I’ll have that dog put down!” Eddie’s mother had screamed. “So many screaming mothers in my life lately, the boy thought. “Still, all of this can’t be easy for them, he thought, looking over at his mother sobbing and strangling the steering wheel. Pressing the towel harder against his head, the boy felt proud of himself for this passing moment of empathy.

The Babysitters

The boy was sitting quietly, eavesdropping on the carpeted steps that led upstairs to the bedrooms, when he heard his mother whisper into the phone, ““I haven’t had sex in six months.” The boy immediately felt a little sick, and he tried to shake the words out of his mind. The mother was going on a date later that night with the man who would eventually become the boy’s stepfather. The future stepfather had performed a trick on his last date with his mother, involving putting a lizard to sleep by rubbing its belly. The boy had understood what was happening when his mother left them alone in the backyard. It was a kind of tryout, and the man had come up with the lizard trick and had therefore passed a certain test. His mother had mentioned the story numerous times afterward, as if the three of them now shared a common history.

The boy was shocked when his new babysitters arrived later that night. They were the two teenage girls who lived nearby that he often stared at. A bit later, a third girlfriend also showed up. The trio of teenage girls paid him so much attention that he was in heaven for what felt like hours. Eventually, they all ended up on his bottom bunk bed, wrestling. The girls were toying with his body and talking about him as if he could not hear. (Throughout the performance, the babysitters intimated that the boy had seduced “them.) “Oh, he likes that. Look at him squirm,” they said as they moved their hands over the bulge in his underwear. “He’s got a hard-on!” one screeched as the boy thrust his groin in the air. The girls finally stepped away and congregated, whispering and giggling, and then one of them, encouraged by the others, leaned down and swirled her tongue in the boy’s ear as she massaged his inner thigh. The boy nearly passed out. It was the greatest night of his young life.

Later, after the babysitters had left, the boy was awakened by the sound of moaning in his mother’s bedroom. He instantly felt hatred for his mother and his future stepfather for being so insensitive and making him hear these horrible sounds and the images they conjured. In a way, it sounded like his mother was being hurt, but he knew that she wasn’t, and that made it worse. She “wanted this to happen. The boy went to his toy closet, grabbed his aluminum baseball bat, and walked to his mother's door. The song “Stairway to Heaven was playing at full volume in the room, but it still did not drown out his mother’s moaning. The boy held the bat tightly in one hand and knocked on their bedroom door with the other, but it seemed they could not hear him.