Charles Benoit - You

“You’re going to be sixteen soon, Kyle. Sixteen . Do you know what that means?”

What does it mean? You can get a job, but you could’ve done that at fifteen with a waiver on your working permit. You could get your driver’s license, but your father has made it clear that you can’t even get your permit until you get a job and have five hundred bucks in the bank to cover the jump in his insurance premium. You can’t vote until you’re eighteen, not that you care, and you can’t buy beer until you’re twenty-one, something you’re beginning to care more and more about. And you have to be seventeen to legally drop out of school. You’re not going to, but it’s nice to know you have options. You remember reading somewhere that in some state in the South you can get married at sixteen without your parents’ permission, so there’s always that.

“I never see you hanging around with Rick or Dan anymore. You were friends for years. You should give them a call.”

So they can tell you all about how wonderful it is at Odyssey? So they can ask you questions about Midlands and then glance at each other with that look while you’re answering, like you’re confirming all the things they heard about the dump? So they can tell you how they’re going into AP classes next year? So you can sit around and talk about the good old days, back before you were a loser? So you can feel even worse about yourself?

“Or that pretty black girl. You know. What was her name?”

Denica. You met her in sixth grade. Back then she used to catch a special bus to the high school every day just to take eleventh-grade math. She was smart and had this funny laugh and she always smelled like cocoa butter. She was the first girl you ever kissed and you remember that she wore bubblegum-flavored lip gloss. Your mom always calls her That Pretty Black Girl, as if that’s all that mattered about her.

“She was nice.”

Yes, she was.

“You should call her.”

Ah, but you did call her, didn’t you? Back in ninth grade. You talked for twenty minutes. Then you heard her mom in the background ask her a question and she said, “some boy,” and her mom asked another question and she said, “No, he goes to Midlands.” The way she said it and the way her mom laughed when she heard it made you wish you could take the call back.

“And I wish you wouldn’t slouch like that when I’m talking to you. Sit up straight, why don’t you? Is that how you would sit in a job interview, all slouched over like that? And did you ever pick up an application from the grocery store like I asked? It seems like that HELP WANTED sign is up every other week. You could have had that job if you had gone over the first time I told you. And how many times have I told you that you have to write up a résumé? Why did I bother buying that program for the computer if you’re not going to use it? I’m telling you, Kyle, I am done talking to you about these things.”

You wish.

Naturally, that Zack kid is in your English class.

He’s sitting two rows over, but there’s nobody in the seat between you, so you have a clear view of him. He’s wearing jeans and sneakers, new, but neither in what could be referred to as the adolescent fashion of the day.

And he’s wearing a lime green sport coat.

It looks ridiculous, especially with the yellow shirt underneath, yet it fits so well that you realize that it’s not something his father outgrew. He’s kicked back, all slumped down, his legs stretched out, his feet crossed at the ankles way up under Megan’s seat. He’s got the front cover of Romeo and Juliet curled around to the back, the book propped up on the edge of his desk, and for some reason he’s laughing.

Ms. Casey wants you all to read Act II, Scene 1 silently to yourselves while she takes attendance or does whatever she does with her grade book every day before class. Nobody really reads when she says this, since you all know she’s going to go back and have you read it as a class anyway. But it’s Zack’s first day and he can be forgiven for doing what he was told. It’s the laughing part that has everyone, even Ms. Casey, glancing over at him.

“It’s Zack, right?” Ms. Casey says, looking at him then at the paper in her hand, so it’s obvious that she knows that’s his name.

He looks up from his book, his laugh dying to an open-mouth smile. “No, it’s Zack McDade . Right’s just my nature.” He gives a little wave and goes back to reading, the chuckling laugh starting up with the first line.

Ms. Casey closes her eyes and sighs and for once you can relate. She pauses a half beat longer than usual and even the nerdy kids are peeking over to see what she’ll do. “Zack, we’re reading silently to ourselves, so that means no distracting-”

“Sorry. Can’t be done.”

“Excuse me?”

“No problem, apology accepted,” he says, and keeps on reading.

A line crossed, her tone shifts. “Mr. McDade.”

He looks up and now everybody is watching. “Yes?”

“We are reading silently to ourselves. Do you know what that means?”

He tilts the book down and looks up at the ceiling, one hand coming up to his chin, like he’s pondering the question. “Well,” he says, drawing the word out with a growl, “since we can’t very well read silently to each other, I’m assuming-and this is just a guess, so jump in if I’m way off base here-that you want us to consume Act Two, Scene One without verbalizing the words or the content therein.”

Ms. Casey gives him an icy stare.

“Well then,” he continues, “it seems we have a problem.”

Her stare drops a few more degrees.

“Ms. Casey, as much as I’d like to comply with your quite reasonable request, it is scientifically impossible to read Act Two, Scene One of Romeo and Juliet without laughing. It simply cannot be done.” He sits up and gets this excited look on his face, flipping a page back in the book, then holding up his hand to stop her interruption before it starts.

“Mercutio is talking about Romeo and says, ‘’twould anger him to raise a spirit in his mistress’ circle, of some strange nature, letting it there stand till she had laid it and conjur’d it down.’” He looks up at Ms. Casey. “You want me to read jokes about virgins, erections, and hand jobs without laughing? It cannot be done.”

You’re in the last seat of the row and even from there you can see her eyes narrowing, her nostrils flaring out. If you can see it, so can he.

“And then there’s line thirty-eight. I mean I’d expect it in, say, The Naughty Stewardess . But a class assignment? You sure you should be letting us read this porn, Ms. C.?”

So, like everybody else in the class, you look at the line-the open-arsed part is obvious, but what’s a pop’rin pear? And even though they’re laughing, you know your classmates don’t have a clue. This is Midlands High, not Odyssey. Students here don’t get Shakespeare. Ms. Casey has all but said it since passing out the book a very long week ago.

But apparently somebody does get Shakespeare. Or he knows how to pretend he does.

Either way, it makes no difference.

Without taking her eyes off Zack, Ms. Casey reaches for the pad of preprinted forms they use when they send someone down to the vice principal’s office. You know the form well and you wonder if she’ll check the Disruptive Behavior or the Insubordination box.

Either way, it makes no difference.

At the door, checked form in hand, Zack turns back to face the class. “‘Parting is such sweet sorrow, that I shall say good night till it be morrow.’” But before he closes the door, he looks at you and gives a nod. You nod back.