Trays are
heard skiing into the dishwater. Utensils plop into dishy suds. The gym floor
is always spotless and reeks heavily of the antiseptic fluid Frank Shleuther
and Kadeem’s father uses to cleanse the floor three times a day. Trays are
heard being emptied with solid thwacks into the garbage cans that remind
Patrick of Chimney’s. The fifth and sixth graders linger on the bleachers. Beneath the stage are catacombs where chairs
are stowed in long, rafted pillars. A giant sun engulfed by foamy hair
embellished the Northern side of the gymnasium. HOME OF THE COMETS. Proclaiming
that this is Comet Country. Two giant ropes curl in near the left hand side of
stage. A neon tennis ball is spotted stuck in one of the giant rafters
overlooking the vestigial tabletops. Two fire doors are located on each side of
the collapsible lunch tables like British beefeaters. Above are handcrafted
banners proclaiming a plurality of State Basketball Championships, each banner
cut like a ribbon inheriting the size of a Chinese Kite with silky tendrils. An
assembly meets in the autumn to retire grade school jerseys and hoist up last
years’ championship team.
“Get a load of this shit.” Patrick
points, his signature revolver fires.
“This is like grade school,
people.” Observes Hale, followed by a ‘No duh’ somewhere among his friends.
“Not only that, we don’t even play
the secular grade schools here in town. Only the parochial.”
“Which is all like, what, three
here in town, thirty in the entire state.”
“ If even...”
Fiery-haired chief lunch lady
Marilyn enters the floor with a clip board, marking long-legged skewed red v’s
as she slices past the boys. Hale quickly lumbers his limbs up to surprise her
from behind, pinching her shoulders and tap dancing out for her his request.
“Hey good lookin’. Whatcha got
cookin? Howsabout cookin’ something up for me?”
He returns to the table with six
more bread and butters, two patties and a complimentary napkin for Patrick, “To
wipe out all the shit that’s been coming out of your mouth lately.”
Head of custodial arts, Frank
Sleutcher begins to mop the newly refurbished gymnasium floor. Frank stutters
and has distinct nose hairs and the basketball five imitate him behind his mop
hunch, his rumored visible hard-on for the lunch ladies.
“Hey Miss-miss-miss Johnson. May I
sma-sma-smell your va-va-va-ja-ja jihna?”
A
flannel attired and weak-lashed and eraser stubbed Frank turns and
smiles.
“Fra-fra-fra Frank. Do you like to
e-e-eat Ja-Ja-Ja Johnson’s for bra-bra-bra breakfast.”
Frank just bites down his lips and
stutters out the importance of a nutritious diet, stuttering as he says that
kids these days just don’t realize that with their coco puffs and rock music
and everything. The boys can make out his dentures case in Franks flannel side
pocket.
Eric and Aron and Mario all laugh.
The principle struts by and grins at their conversation before berating Iola
Clitty for chewing with her mouth open.
“Iola, lets not be gross.”
Iola eats lunch by herself. Because
of a slight birth defect, Iola’s nostrils seem wrenched open and her corky
teeth protrude, crookedly. Mr. Mooney once used Iola as an animate visual in
his Anatomy and Physiology. She was asked by several sources not to audition
for the cheerleading squad because the lack of funding and the so-called
shortage of new uniforms. Truth is, Alicia Durham’s mom swore to principle M.
that she saw lice balls inhabit Iola’s hair during the sermon one Sunday and
refused to be the parental sponsor if Iola got permitted to cheer on the squad.
The perfect and pristine cheerleaders, wear their attire to class on game days
which is often three to four times a week. It is widely known that her clothes
are hand me downs from the Mission
“What the fuck is up with that shit?”
Patrick.
“She’s like piss poor.” Hale.
“I’m not sticking up for her or
anything like that, but last year in Sunday School the teacher said that the
only thing Iola got for Christmas, while everyone else was receiving Nintendo
and sequels to Mario and Zelda, all Iola received was a pair of a hand me down
pair of socks.” Notes VonB.
Mario slinks behind the girl and
begins to rattle his torso. A cheerleader with a waterfall spume bowed on the
top of her head catapults a spoonful of Marilyn’s finest, splatting it on her
shirt.
“Oh, Iola, tell me you want it. Oh,
yeah, it’s been so long. Oh, yeah, harder, harder, faster spank me! Oh,
yeah!!!”
Iola appears to be perplexed.
Opening her mouth, before she has finished chewing all the way Mario, then
places his hand over his jock, thrusts his pelvis out one more time and
comments.
“Open your mouth a little bit
wider. You gotta make room for my sausages, baby. Oh yeah.”
The gymnasium erupts. The teachers
appear to be conferring by themselves-hand pocketed and tie straightening,
pointing to the retired basketball jerseys on the wall.
“That isn’t right.” Patrick.
“Why do they always pick on
her?” Hale.
Aron Bowman struts over and slides
down next to Iola, putting his arm around her and asking her, again, if she would
like to go steady with him. When her lips offer a crumbly yes, Aron responds.
“Sorry, I don’t study lice-infested
lesbians in my rodent laboratory.”
Mario laughs with a condescending
HA slathered in Donna’s face. She smiles back before facing down into her food.
“Somebody needs to stand up to that
ass hole.”
“Shit. Don’t do it.”
“Just ignore him, it’s not worth
it.”
“Turn the other cheek.”
“Only if it’s a full moon and I can
stick a veggie tale cucumber up his conniving ass.”
“Good one.”
“Poor girl.”
“I mean….”
“Wha?”
Patrick often starts declarative
sentences meaning something and then pauses and waits for his compadre to
inquire what it is that he means.
“Do you know how much my parents
are paying for me to attend this self-ordained shit hole?”
“How much?”
“Well, I don’t know for sure, I
never came right out and just asked them. But it’s over three hundred a month
for myself, Allan and Sarah since we’re not authorized members of the church.
Shit, it may even be as much as three hundred dollars for each of us to attend
this so-called Christian institution.”
“Blessed be
the poor.”
“That’s too much.”
“The meek shall inherit the earth.”
“The meek doesn’t have five
children and an exorbitant cable bill to budget every month.”
“Where do you think all our church
offerings go to?”
In unison.
“Basketball.”
“I’ll gladly basket Mario and
Aron’s balls and then shove them so far up their…..”
“Patrick lets not be vindictive.”
“Oh. That’s a good one; let’s see
here. Vin, dick, tive.”
Patrick morphs into his spelling
bee championship collar. Patrick has never studied for a spelling test once and
always manages to get A with multiple pluses that look like either connective
telephone poles or Miss Mooney’s salute to Calvary .
Patrick always shrugs when the tests are handed back like it was no big
deal; making paper airplanes out of the
folded test afterwards, claiming that it was nothing a very mediocre orangutan
couldn’t sign with his bipedal feet. The All school spelling bee transpires
yearly in March, in between Tornado Drills and Basketball Nationals, Patrick
has been runner up for the past three consecutive springs, missing easy words
because, as Patrick claims, he got bored standing all up their, in fort of the
school, with just Dave’s cousin, principle nerd Matthew Schneider, to keep him
company. Patrick always has a habit of making sure his zipper is not afraid of
heights in public, and last year Mr. Money sent the spelling Bee in abeyance
when he looked Patrick straight in the eye and asked him if there was something
personal he needed to take care of before the Bee resumes, Patrick. What is
most intriguing about Patrick’s natural ability to make or spell close to damn
near anything is the fashion and motions his body conducts and performs
throughout his enhanced oration. Slowly
bridging his arms into a pensive gruff, Patrick slowly says the word out loud
with a puzzled McReynolds humf. His eyes then umbrella into the Northwest as
if scrutinizing a constellation, before a jean-zipper wiggle with his lips,
says the offers the words “now” and “hum” out loud, again, before properly
spelling out the given word. Mouthing each I with a first person’s apostle’s
creed proclamation.
“Now,
Hum…..Vee-EYE-end-dee-EYE-see-kay-tee-EYE-vee-e- (pause.) period.”
“He’s good.”
Clap. Patrick bows. A new hinge on
the conversation is slowly being creaked open.
“Thank you. Thank you. Never once
studied for a spelling bee and I always get an A.”
“Patrick, how do you do it?”
“It’s a secret my old man ( god bless
‘me) once taught me.”
“Which is…”
“When you stand in front of the
class and get real apprehensive, all you do is look at the prettiest girl in
the class room an imagine her naked.”
“And it works?”
Patrick responds by tilting his
head to Hale as if Von B had just said something tinged with condescension.
“Please.”
“So who were you thinking of,
Holly?”
“Well,”
“It may
surprise you.”
“Who?”
“Well, this really isn’t the most
apt time to.”
“It’s not Misses Money by chance,
would it?”
“Yeah, in her long johns and
grading pen sandwiched between her lips like a rubber cigar.”
The chocolate milk half ballooned
in Patrick’s mouth nearly implodes as he chokes, “What!”
“It’s alright Pat, you’re
surrounded by People who love and care for you.”
“Look,” Patrick articulates, trying
to justify his friend’s accusations, “Just because I had that one dream a
couple months ago doesn’t mean that I…..”
“Can you imagine her with whips and
chains?”
“And leather.”
“Cha-ching.” Hale distends his
wrist, half-way between the swing of a handbell and the jerk of a fish pole.
VonBehren then pretends that he is lassoing a splintered calf and reeling her
in.
“Well, if she has a whip, Patrick
sure as hell needs a ball and chain.” Hale puns, laughing.
“Well a chain is easier for Patrick
to come by than the balls.” D. Von Behren touché, forming an invisible sword
slash above the trays.
“Can we please like change the
subject or else I’m leaving.” Insinuates Patrick, to which VonB just looks at
Patrick as if to say that’ll be the day without
“I’m leaving this summer.” Hale.
“Where to?”
“Florida
For the past four years Dave and
Dave and Patrick have contrived extensive spring plans anticipating come June
1st to traverse down to the sunny, golden avenue intersections of Florida
“All we need is a lawnmower engine,
a few good year tires and my parent’s king size bed frame, and dude, and we’re
off.”
“We tried that last year.”
“And that would’ve worked too.”
Patrick insists by pointing.
“My dad said he’d pay for our round
trip airfare if we could get that vehicle to Pekin
“It worked well going down on
hills-with, of course, the slight exception of the brakes.”
“Hey, if the barefoot brake
methodology was good enough for Fred Flintstone.” Patrick insists.
“The barefoot brake and crash
methodology, you mean.” Hale rectifies Pat’s statement.
The boys make sounds of brakes
suddenly being slammed into a battered fingernail screech. Von Behren forms
cymbals with his palms, as if to recreate a crash overture and Hale pretends to
be smoking his soup spoons like one of Castro’s finest, telling the boys that
they could all learn a lot from a dummy, prodding Patrick with the inside curve
of his spoon.
“Isn’t that right, DUMMY.” Hale
nudges with a stately brush of elbow, Patrick nods his head like an otter.
“Ok, ok, slight brake deficiency,
I’ll admit it.”
“But you gotta admit, sucker was
one hell of a vehicle to mow lawns with.” Jokes VonB.
“Another problem was that it used
up too much gas.”
“And it only got up to about ten
miles and hour.”
“Not this year.” Patrick looks both
ways in his very Private-eyes-are-watching- you intuitive manner and then
invites his friends to huddle up. He
unvelcroes the flaps to his homemade Trapper Keeper where he keeps most of his
character sheets and stories, before upholding a stencil, holding it up in the
air like a Neanderthals fresh kill.
“Is it?”
“No.”
“Yes. Yes it is.” Patrick nods.
“A…”
“…Thruster.”
“Oh Baby, is it.”
Patrick has traced a blueprint of
what looks like a half-consumed ho-ho farting. The words THRUST HER thickly headline the top. A sticker of
Donatello wielding his Bo choking it Chinese chicken style is pasted directly
below the diagram.
“Oh my…”
“God…”
“Told you I could.” Responds Patrick sounding like a little kid
making a sandcastle wager.
“In God we thrust, all others must
be blown away.”
“Patrick, you’re not as thought as
I dumb you were.” Chides Hale.
“It was what my old man always told
me before he was swallowed and chewed to cyberspace cider thanks to Apple’s
latest PC—You could learn a lot from the stiff elbow-grease ingenuity of a
McReynolds—Shut The Fuck UP!”
“Will it work?”
“I believe what you mean to say is
will it work once again.”
“Please,”
“No way.”
“ Dude, my dad engendered a
diminutive protocol for Derby Days last year, only the hoity-toity blonde
haired North side judges disqualified it for fear it would incinerate the track
and stink up the lower level of Northwood’s Mall.”
“Damn.” Adds Von Behren, his mouth
ajar, bits of masticated food visible inside the oval gape of his lips.
“Which means, we fire this bad boy
up, we could make it down to the citrus state in, oh, I dunno, what? Twenty
minutes at most?” Patrick pauses and sways his head metronomically when he says
the words oh and what.
“No…”
“…way.”
“Please. Dude. Look.”
Hale begins his Marilyn jiggle-dance in
elation.
“Hey-eh Patrick,” Hale elbows, “We Thrust Her
all the way down to Florida, and then we Thrust Her all over and inside the
fine state of Florida, and then we Thrust all of the Hers we previously
thrusted in Florida back up and into the good old state of Illinois.” Hale’s
eyebrows perch up, emitting the last sentence with multiple inserted ‘Hey-Hays”
and “Whew-hoos” and pronouncing Illinois phonetically, stapled with a thinly
curved ‘s’, so that it sounds like two.
Patrick then instructs the boys to
re-huddle around the Traper Keeper. In a camouflage dossier marked TO THE
EXTREME: CLASSIFIED, reclines three Kelly green folders labeled LIFE
CAMPAIGNS. One is a high school itinerary, one is marked top, top classified,
the initials, H.L. outlined in a broken heart in the left hand corner, and the
final is one is labeled Florida
“One pm, wake up in famous celebrity endorsed
hotel with only a slight hangover from numerous screwdrivers the night before.
Two pm, assuage hangover with shower, three shots of espresso and pay per view.
Three pm, leave celebrity endorsed hotel for Nude Beach
We had
somehow gotten it into our minds that all Florida Logan
“Waahhhhhh.” Patrick intones,
beginning to drool. “Naked Women.”
“Yuck.” Jeremiah straightens the
knot in his clip-on tie, leaves momentarily to go back up for seconds.
“Can you imagine Dave, once we get
down to Florida
VonBehren has often contradicted
Patrick’s lascivious perspective by postulating an ‘imagine, what if’ scenario.
“Patrick, imagine what it would be
like if you and your family go down to a nude beach.”
“What!”
“It would be like…,”
Patrick: “No need to ask,” Patrick
grabs his raiment in the super-man center, his clothes denuding in one forcefully
thrusted whiff. Patrick then begins canting the vocal intonations of his friend
Hale while clacking his calloused heels together in the hot sand.
“Nude beach, here I come, whew-hoo!”
“Damnit Allan quit that.” Harks Mr.
McReynolds. Allan, trying to impress innocent bare naked worshipers of the sun
with his ability to stand on his head and quote the pig Latin alphabet
backwards while holding his erection. In an endeavor intent on
making his youngest male sibling look like more of an
imbecile than he already is, Patrick accosts Allan by shoving him in the arid
sand, trying to coerce Allan’s neck through the sand.
“Allan, come on, show the pleasant
internationally renowned Nude Model your imitation of the human Ostrich.”
“NO. Stop.”
Patrick shoves Allan’s noggin’ in
the sand. The international nude model slowly exhales a sigh, as if someone is
getting in the way of her fair share of the sun.
“Damn.” Allan wiggles his legs as
Patrick stops to enjoy an idyllic panoramic of the scenery. Ahhh. The natural way of life A film of moist,
succulent tan flesh, nude and natural, the way God intended, buffeted in double
rows of reclining chairs as long as the eye can see, and, now that his brother
has burrowed his head in the sand, he appears to be the only, dare he say,
eligible male, hugging the shore line.
“Hey Patrick, maybe you should have
brought your flashlight, told all the girls you we’re a traveling gynecologist
or something.” Hale says at the lunch
table.
“Good
afternoon,” Patrick says aloud, in his daydream, holding out a tube of sun
block in one hand and a snake light in the other, “I’m Doctor McReynolds PhD, I
was just wondering if I can take a look around today and make sure that
everything is alright (which I’m sure it is-hint hint into Hale’s shoulder
blade). Now open up and say ahhhhh,”
Patrick is drooling on top of his
Chicken patty and mash potatoes. Jeremiah Noel looks at Patrick and says that
he is gross, the way someone accuses someone else of farting during chapel. Von
Behren continues with his story.
Next thing you know Von Behren
struts out onto the shore, wearing just his spectacles to, as he says,
ameliorate the scenery. Without more than a snigger and salutation, he points
to Patrick’s ass, cups his hand over his mouth and chuckles.
“Wha’d you do, Pat, just come back
from taking a dump?” VonB points southwest. As Patrick turns, an orbital ring
is seen indented into the folds of his bare ass. The Celebratory nude model
begins to laugh, almost spitting out her Nestea. Patrick stares at Von Behren
disgruntled, naked and irked. His face begins to chance color. I though you
guys were…
“…my friends.”
“Welcome to Florida
“Hmmmmmfh.”
Hale looks both ways and flattens
out a spoon, claiming that once this goes through the dishwater it will petrify
like a rock.
“Practicing for my high school
days.”
“Dude, do you know how many girls
there are in high school?”
“Have you browsed through Tim’s
yearbook?”
Patrick once again acknowledges
David Von Behrens’s query with a ‘Please.’
“Please. I like know that book
better than my own confirmation book, the Manual Mirror”
Hale continues to smother his spoon
with the side of his palm, thinking back on the time he played the blacksmith
in the school musical. He aims the freshly flattened javelin in the direction
of Mario, whose butt is still blocking Donna Landis open mouth.
“I know a good home for this.”
“Dude,” Patrick once again, “A
Boeing 747 couldn’t even fill that rump.”
All the boys laugh, Patrick,
continues.
“If only we could find a way to
nail close their derisive, splintered lips. What I wouldn’t give right now for
a reliable hammer and a few crooked nails.” Patrick pantomimes like he is
nailing close Mario’s lips with a hammer, his lips, emitting multiple, ‘take
that,’ and ‘here ya’ go’. Three table down reverend Morningwood, momentarily
raising his head from his plate, observes Patrick and wonders out loud, to
himself, if Patrick is publicly rehearsing for next years, Martin Luther
Reformation day special, nailing his ninety-five thesis on the nature of the
cock-sucking Lutheran imbecile.
If only we could. Hale says to
himself. If only we could.
After sister Amy showed Patrick
WHERE THERE’S A WILL THERE WILL B AN A educational Beta, Patrick has been much
more vocal in eliciting his pent up and haggard emotions. Patrick cursed out
Javon Worthington in the lunch line all of six days ago, last Friday. Javon
offered a comment that Patrick’s two front teeth resembled the equivalent of a
dusty, biblical shekel. Goody-two-shoes homemade cross-crocheted intern Miss
Chamberlain overheard Patrick tell Javon Worthington explicitly where to go and
by which orifice on his body is the proper means to get there. She removed
Patrick to the principle offices, where a Mr. Mooney, licking the steel edge of
his LUTHERAN SCHOOL SHARE CHRIST pen, like an ostrich quill and ink, mandated
Patrick to a week of detention.
“But sir, Javon Worthington? Have
you heard some of the shit he says? Some of the stuff he plans on bringing to
school for what he calls Show-n-Blow?” Of course Patrick didn’t say the word
shit in front of Coach M.
“Now, Patrick, as one of the four
traveling apostles I’m sure once said, “You did the time you spray the grime.”
“What?”
“I think they wrote it on one of
the twelve gospels.”
“Don’t you mean twelve apostles and
four gospels?”
“Patrick, you know that is exactly
what I just said, please don’t distort my sentences with your fictitious
account of God’s good earth.”
Mr. Mooney’s office desk is a heap of littered
basketball itinerary and basketball uniform order forms and basketball practice
schedules xeroxed on the back of old science worksheets. Mr. Mooney clears his
throat and says to a daydreaming Patrick what sounds like, “Tits have
cucumbered-bunned two bye detention that shoes Oslo
“What!!!!!”
“Patrick, allow me to repeat myself
once again-It has come to my attention that you also have become good friends
with Holly Lyons-what do you think I just said.”
Patrick reveals to Mr. Mooney what
he originally thought and of course, a referral is written, just to keep it on
record-Patrick being scolded by the principle once again that his imagination
is overly active and that he should spend more time watching televised sporting
events on the weekends.
His mind perambulates him back from last week,
to the lunchroom today. Younger students report to the bleachers after lunch
while the older students often linger at the lunch tables, jeering at those
less fortunate. Von Behren has consumed five chocolate milks (with squashed
cartons). Hale is dancing, performing his signature Harley-Davidson jig, asking
if any of the boys are once again up for a little dice clattering on the monkey
bars at recess. Patrick lets go of a sly, becoming grin and before Von Behren
clears his throat with a deep inner throttle. Mario Rutherford and Aron Bowman
slide down next to Patrick. Todd Nelson, Joey Lyons and Tierl Gibson all hover
around. All of a sudden Mario speaks in a tone that is high and sounds like he
is imbued with helium.
“Patrick-we all wrote you a song.
Would you like to hear it?” Patrick ignores them and begins to talk about
Wolverine and Iron Horse. The boys ask the same question again.
“Uhm-no. Not particularly. Thank
you.” Patrick face swirls the other direction like Mrs. Mooney’s swivel chair.
“No Patrick-we wrote you a song. We
need to sing it.” Bowman says, counting to four and snapping his fingers like
the temptations do on television:
“It’s the story. Of a lovely Lady.
Who was bringing up three very lovely girls.
All of them had hair of gold-like their
mothers.
The youngest one in curls.”
Patrick’s face does not answer, his
face turns an irked Capri-sun punch colored and his eyes bite the other
direction in an endeavor to ignore them. Bowman, dressed in one of his multiple
jaded blue DON’T WORRY BE HAPPY t-shirts, slices his arm around Patrick again.
“Patrick have you heard of Mrs.
Brady’s older sister named PAM? Actually, I missed the episode where Marsha
decides to go Lesbo and makes out with her potato-chip tooth Irish cousin
Helen. Sadly, I don’t think her cousin got off on it as much as your mom did
when I had her last night.”
Patrick’s dander hardly has a wick. He tosses his plastic
platter of chicken parts and gravy to the left like frisbee golf while his
mouth accelerates without having revved up.
“God Damn you BumFuck Bowman! Shut
the FUCK up.”
To which the sounds of clattering
high heels and slinking penny loafers are heard brushing over linoleum and
scurrying around the tables, asking the boys in a condescending drone who just
said that and was it by any chance Patrick. Jeremiah Noel tries not to look in
Patrick’s general direction when the teachers look at Jeremiah Noel. Mr. Mooney
clasps his arms together sternly and says that maybe we should punish the whole
class by considering canceling the school field trip to Dixon
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