Jim Shepard - Project X

“So now you’re not eating?” my dad asks after a while.

Gus comes into my room and sits with me sometimes, then goes out again.

“Can I tell you something?” my dad says, another time, at dinner.

“No,” I go.

Finally, after a week and a half, I call Flake’s house. The phone rings and rings and no one picks up.

In the mornings when I look in the mirror to comb my hair it looks like I have two black eyes.

My dad sits there while I have breakfast. He asks how I’m sleeping. I tell him I have no idea.

Hermie starts hanging out with me before the homeroom bell rings in the morning. He doesn’t say anything about Flake. At first he doesn’t say much at all.

“Listen, you gotta help me get back at Budzinski,” he finally goes.

“Who is this kid?” I go.

He points across the playground but there’s like forty kids where he’s pointing.

It’s about the third day he’s been hanging around, and we’re both watching other kids have fun. A bunch of them are seeing how many it takes to clog the tunnel slide for the grammar school. They’re falling out and getting stuck and everybody’s screaming.

He scratches his back through his SCREW THE SYSTEM shirt.

“You ever wash that?” I ask him.

“My mom does,” he goes. “You ever wash those?” he says about my pants.

Near the window where Flake and I broke in I can see the girl who was crying three straight days last week. She’s creeping around trying to sneak up on a pigeon. The pigeon keeps walking just out of her reach.

“You don’t look so good,” he goes. I make a face and he drops the subject.

Two other girls are standing there making fun of the one who’s creeping around after the pigeon. Every so often she looks over when she doesn’t think they’re looking. She’s the kind of girl who follows along with all the conversations and smiles whenever she gets noticed. The sun comes out and the whole playground gets warmer.

“So would you help me?” he goes.

“Help you what?” I go.

“With Budzinski,” he goes.

“I’m not gonna help you beat up some sixth-grader,” I tell him.

“I don’t want you to help beat him up,” he goes. “I just need help with a plan.”

“A plan,” I go. “Just hide behind a bush and hit him with a stick.”

“That’s a plan?” Hermie goes.

“He’s a sixth-grader,” I go. “Take his candy. Push him down in the sandbox.”

This pisses him off so much he shuts up for a while.

“I went after him with a stick,” he finally goes.

“You went after him with a stick?” I ask him.

“He took it away and hit me with it.” He looks ashamed.

This is what my life has come down to. I’m talking to sixth-graders about who beat who with a stick.

Hermie’s tearing up, just thinking about it.

“Hey, it happens,” I tell him.

“No it doesn’t,” he goes. “Not to anyone else.”

“I get my ass kicked all the time,” I tell him. “Are you kidding?”

He wipes his face and looks at his feet. He has an expression like getting compared to me isn’t a help.

The bell rings for homeroom.

“ Some body’s gotta do something,” he goes as we stand up and head inside. We get shoved aside by everybody who’s more anxious than we are to get in.

“I’m gonna get the gun,” he tells me the next day before homeroom. “Let’s see what he does then.”

“What are you talking about?” I ask.

“Let’s see what he does then,” he goes.

“What, you’re gonna get your dad’s gun and shoot him?” I go. I have this whirling in my stomach. I even put my hand on it.

“They’ll know they can’t fuck with me,” he goes.

“Of course they can fuck with you,” I go. “You’re like two feet tall.”

He looks out over the playground like it’d be hard to stop with just Budzinski.

“Don’t talk stupid,” I tell him. I don’t know what else to say.

“I’m not talking stupid,” he goes.

“It sure sounds like it,” I tell him.

“No it doesn’t,” he goes.

Two fat girls are two steps down from us on the front stairs. “Which is better, an A or an A minus?” one goes.

“What’re you talking about?” the other one goes.

“I got this,” Hermie tells me. He shows me a knife inside his backpack. It’s one of those knives you use to clean fish.

“What are you doing?” I go. “Are you fucking nuts?” He puts the knife down at the bottom of his pack and pulls out one of his school folders. “Are you fucking nuts?” I ask him again. “Bringing that to school?”

He starts pulling papers out of the folder, looking for something, spreading everything out so he can see. Some slide down the steps.

I stop one that’s about to blow away. “You can’t just get a gun,” I tell him.

He keeps looking for whatever it is. He’s not making much progress.

“You hear me?” I ask him.

“Leave me alone,” he goes. He’s crying again. Then he slips and the whole folder dumps open. Assignments and worksheets slide down the cement. They’re filled with X’s and red marks. The homeroom bell rings. He’s scrambling around trying to get everything before the stampede reaches the stairs. I help with some papers right around me. A kid who’s running past doesn’t see him bending down and decks him. They both go flying. It’s a big hit with the kids who have a view of it.

I help him up and he shakes loose and gets the rest of his papers and carries them into the building in a mess under his arm.

He doesn’t show up the next day once I’m off the bus and hanging around. That night it occurs to me while I’m patrolling the house that we could be in real trouble if this nimrod takes out a gun and waves it around at school. That could be the end of our plan. Though I don’t even know if our plan is still on. This occurs to me while I’m sitting in the living room in the dark watching cars drive by down the street.

I get like one hour’s sleep. The next morning I circle the playground, but Hermie’s not there and neither is Flake.

In English we all have to sign a poster that covers a whole cabinet wall and says “English 8: In Our Own Words.” The last four sentences at the bottom are

I want to succeed in high school, but I know it will be a challenge.

I am not a loser. (Somebody’s already crossed out the not.)

I will be a nobody to most and a somebody to a few.

In 8th grade, I am a nervous student.

I find a clear spot and sign “F.U. Verymuch” so only I can read it. Bethany, the girl Flake was talking about, comes up to me after class in the hall and hands me a folded piece of pink paper. When she lifts her hand her wristwatch always slides down practically to her elbow. She’s carrying a zebra-skin pencil case.

“What’s this?” I go.

“It’s for you,” she says, and her friends watch and giggle.

I read it on the way to math.

I’m pissed that I was excited there for a minute because a girl was giving me a note. I almost ball the thing up and throw it away, but I don’t.

Bethany and her friends follow me while I’m reading. It makes me paranoid. I spend two periods thinking about what to do with it. Finally, since I’m alone again at lunch, I fill it out. I write “with” after “hot sex” and draw an arrow to “fruit.” I write “with” after “good talks” and draw an arrow to “big gloppy desserts.” I draw an arrow from “girls” to “$$$$$$$,” and just leave “boys” and “good friends” blank.