Charles Benoit - You

No, it’s cool.

Why would I have been pissed?

It was just a party.

Yeah, this year for sure.

You turn the corner to walk down the hall- the hall-toward the scene of the crime . There’s a small crowd standing around locker 174.

Well, not that close around.

And there’s Jake, jacking some freshman up against the wall with one hand. His signature move. It’s a small crowd, their freakish size making it look bigger, and you keep walking right toward it.

“Why you laughing, huh? What’s so funny, huh?” It’s Jake, making a new friend.

“I-I-I didn’t…I don’t…I-I…” says the freshman.

“You think it’s funny ?”

Jake’s friends definitely think it is. They’re laughing so hard that no teacher would ever think that in the middle of that beefy crowd some poor freshman is about to have his nose broken. Even the students walking by smile, the laughter infectious. You’d smile, too, if you weren’t fighting to keep a straight face.

“I said, you think it’s funny?”

Then somebody says, “Leave him alone, he didn’t do anything.”

Surprise.

It’s you.

Jake turns, releasing his death grip on the anonymous freshman, who slips out from under Jake’s thigh-size arm. Jake looks at you and blinks, either trying to place the face or imagine what kind of idiot would tell him what to do.

Probably both.

His friends are still bent over laughing as he takes a half step toward you.

“You do this?” he says, pointing back at the open locker door. The sweater is on the floor, but the books are still stacked inside, the curled edges looking like a dried-up waterfall. And there’s the smell.

“Do what?” You can still sound innocent when you have to.

His eyes widen and he jabs his finger a second time. “Did you piss in my locker?”

You’re sure he didn’t mean to do it, but Jake reduces his friends to tears, two of them actually on the floor, holding their sides, all of them crying now, gasping between howls of laughter.

And here’s where you have to think.

Too much smart-ass in your voice and you are dead, right here, in front of everybody. And too little backbone in your answer and you might as well die, right here in front of everybody.

You choose the sarcastic but still friendly voice. It’s a safe choice.

“Yeah,” you say, “it was me. You got me. Yup, I broke into the school, bypassed the alarm, opened your locker, and pissed in it.”

You look right at him as you say it and now everybody is laughing at the ridiculousness of it all. Kyle Chase? Break into school? Bypass an alarm just to pee in a locker? Oh my god , that’s funny!

And you smile, too. Not a smirk, you’re not that stupid. Just a friendly, almost silly smile, the kind a grandmother would find sweet.

You’ve gone and confused him. He reels from side to side, ready to explode but lost, no idea where to strike out. You’d know what to do in this situation, how to just punch out at the wall or the locker or something without thinking, but you don’t believe he’s open to suggestions right now, so you just turn and walk away, Jake’s jock friends even step out of the way to let you pass, laughing so hard they probably can’t see straight.

Ms. Casey is standing in front of the class explaining how she worked all weekend to get the tests graded so she could hand them back Monday morning, and you’re wondering if you’re supposed to be impressed that she did her job.

“Overall, most of you did the level of work you’ve been doing all year. No big surprises there. However,” she says, beaming as she draws the word out, “one student in this class earned a perfect score-and that’s before the bonus.” She pauses, as if expecting you all to burst into cheers. When you don’t she continues, a bit disappointed by the general lack of excitement over the miraculous event.

“When a student earns a perfect score on a test it goes to show that the information was clearly covered and that the test was more than fair.”

And now you understand. The perfect score isn’t due to exceptional student achievement, it’s all because of her brilliant teaching methods.

“I know that all of you are capable of better work. Well, all but one of you, I suppose.” She chuckles at her little joke. “That’s why I decided to grade this test-and everything from this point on-just a bit harder. That means you’ll have to work a little harder, but as that perfect test score shows, you can do it.”

You want to raise your hand and ask Ms. Casey if she thinks it’s fair to change the rules in the middle of the game or if she thinks it’s fair to judge the whole class by what one geek did on one test, but you don’t because you know she’ll say it is fair and that if you simply took more responsibility for your learning you could whatever, and on and on till she got you pissed enough where you’d say something smart-assed and it’s not worth it, any of it, so you say nothing, busy adding UCK to the big red F on your paper.

Forty-six minutes later you join the crowd working its way through the door and out of Ms. Casey’s class when Zack falls in next to you, stuffing his notebook in his backpack as he walks.

“Young Mr. Chase. How goes your day?”

You shrug.

“How’d you do on that little quiz?”

You shrug again. “About what I expected.”

“Me too,” he says, still fumbling with his notebook. “The lovely Ms. Casey tried to rip me off of one of my bonus points because I put down Lupita Ochoa, but she must have gone back and checked. Anyway, I like the Zeffirelli version better. There’s a topless scene with Juliet. Right. Off to math. Later.”

He turns left out the door, you head right, but not before you see the test paper in his backpack, the word perfect printed in red ink along the top of the page.

“Don’t slouch, you’ll get your shirt more wrinkled than it is. And when you shake someone’s hand, don’t have a limp grip. Nothing turns people off faster than a weak handshake. I knew we should have practiced shaking hands before we left the house.”

It’s three o’clock on Monday afternoon. You’re wearing your best sneakers and a pair of pants you never would have bought. You’re also wearing a polo shirt, something else you never would have bought, but at least it’s black. What you’re not wearing is a hoodie. It’s warm out and it’s supposed to stay that way for the next couple of days. Besides, you’re ready for a change.

In your lap is a crisp new manila folder containing two copies of your unimpressive résumé. Your mother is giving you last-minute instructions as she drives you to the mall.

Obviously, this was not your idea.

“And don’t say yeah , say yes . And don’t roll your eyes like that.”

She was waiting for you when you got home from school, noting-before the front door was even shut-that (a) you have not found a job yet, (b) they are done talking to you about it, (c) no one is going to come to the house to offer you a job, and (d) you’re going to apply at Sears today. Apparently your father is sick and tired of waiting for you to get off your lazy ass and get a job. Not the words your mom used when she told you, but you know that’s what he said.

“Don’t ask about the pay. It’ll be minimum wage if anything. I just don’t know why you waited this long.”

Your sister, Paige, is in the backseat, playing with the loose end of her seat belt. She’s singing something to herself and you’re trying to figure out what it is, but your mother is distracting.

“And don’t say that you don’t have any work experience. Tell them how you shovel driveways in the winter. And you used to cut Mr. Frances’s lawn until you…well, it’s probably best if you just don’t mention that.”