Hirsh Sawhney - South Haven

When Siddharth finally decided it was time to spend the night at his new friend’s house, it was because he was sure Eddie wasn’t going to be there. He ended up having a good time. He and Luca just sat around listening to music and talking, and they also taught Luca’s little brother how to ride a bicycle with training wheels. At night, over a game of Monopoly, Luca said he’d heard that Marc was smoking reefer.

“Smoking what?” said Siddharth.

“You know — grass.”

“I haven’t heard anything about that.” But he knew Marc was getting stoned, and the truth was, he was nicer high. When Marc came home stoned, they stayed up late talking, and he asked Siddharth interesting questions: “If the world was ending and you could only save one person — would it be your dad? Or the president?” “If you had to kill yourself, would you do it with a gun, or by jumping off a bridge? Keep in mind that I hear drowning yourself is the most painless way to die.” These conversations made Siddharth feel older. They made him feel that his special connection with Marc wasn’t totally dead.

Luca said, “Yo, weed’s fucked up, kid.”

“Why’s it fucked up? You’re always talking about getting hammered.”

“Yeah, but that’s different.”

“If anyone can take care of himself, it’s Marc.”

“All I’m saying is that reefer’s for porch monkeys.”

“For what?”

“For jigaboos,” said Luca.

These were new terms for Siddharth. But he knew they were racist, and that made him nervous. Racism was definitely bad. His father had called racists the biggest cowards.

All of a sudden, there was a knock at the door, and Mr. Peroti barged in. He was a beanpole of a man with a thick Italian accent who put in twelve-hour days at his Howard Avenue beauty salon.

“Boys,” announced Mr. Peroti, “time for dinner.”

“Dad,” said Luca, “this kid doesn’t know what a porch monkey is.”

“Enough porch monkey talk,” said Mr. Peroti. “I get enough of that at work.”

“One question, Dad: how do you get all that nigger sweat off you — all those pointy little Negro hairs?”

Siddharth’s stomach tightened. He counted his Monopoly money to avoid making eye contact with either of them. He had heard the N-word said in movies and on Marc’s rap tapes. But this was the first time he was hearing it said in real life — the first time he was hearing it said by a regular person. He told himself that his friend was joking, that he needed to lighten up.

“You’re bad,” said Mr. Peroti, who was shaking his head but smiling. “Hurry up, Luca. Your mom’s gonna chop off your hands.”

* * *

Halloween was on a Sunday that year. Luca invited him and Eddie to come straight over to his house from school. The plan was to go trick-or-treating in his neighborhood and then have a sleepover. Siddharth was excited, but anxious. The thought of ending up in handcuffs just two months before his thirteenth birthday wasn’t appealing. Not to mention, Luca was on the same bus route as Sharon Nagorski. Luca had told him about the things he said to her on the way home from school — that she was a slut, a loser, a wild boar. When Luca gloated over his cruelty, a part of Siddharth wanted to say that Sharon had changed — that she was cool once you got to know her. But he would always just laugh before changing the subject.

As Halloween approached, Siddharth tried to figure out an alternate way of getting to Luca’s. But Ms. Farber wouldn’t be around that afternoon, and his father had an evening class. Mohan Lal said he could drop off Siddharth at nine, but that wouldn’t work because then he would miss the best part of the evening.

On Halloween morning, it started drizzling as Siddharth and Timmy Connor made their way to the Miller farmhouse, passing smiling jack-o-lanterns and garbage bags bursting with decomposing brown leaves. Timmy told him about a new pellet gun that his father had gotten him for his fourteenth birthday, and how he had used it to kill a squirrel. Siddharth was too worked up to listen. He had a note in his pocket that gave him permission to take the bus home with Luca. He wondered if he should crumple it up and throw it into the sewer.

For some reason, Sharon wasn’t in English class, and he felt a deep sense of relief. Maybe she was absent. But when he walked into science, she was standing at their station, preparing materials for the day’s lab. She was wearing a strange homemade costume, which consisted of a yellow T-shirt with pieces of cardboard attached on the side. There was also a disc-shaped piece of golden cardboard on her head. He said, “What the hell are you supposed to be?”

Sharon told him that the entire band had dressed up as their instruments. “What about you?” she asked. “Too cool for costumes?”

“I didn’t feel like dressing up,” said Siddharth.

“Are you going out tonight?”

He responded with silence.

She poked him in the chest. “Hey, is everything okay?”

“Everything’s fine. I gotta go to the bathroom.”

Siddharth grabbed the lav pass and headed down the hallway. He was glad that that the bathroom was empty. He placed his hands on the sink and stared at himself in the mirror, noting that the little hairs above his lip were getting thicker. If he could only hang out with Marc tonight, then he wouldn’t be worrying about any of this. But Marc was going out with Andy Wurtzel, and that was the way things were now. Siddharth recalled a conversation he’d had with his father, after their last dinner at Pasta Palace. He had asked Mohan Lal why he hadn’t stood up for Mustafa when the man was always so nice to them. Mohan Lal said, “Son, you’ll understand once you’re my age. One has to be true to his values. And there is no greater virtue than loyalty.”

Siddharth gave the paper towel dispenser a solid punch with the top two knuckles of his right hand, just as he had learned in karate. As usual, his father’s words were of no help to him. He had no idea which one of his friends was more deserving of his loyalty.

* * *

When the last bell of the day sounded, he found Luca at his locker with Eddie whispering into his ear.

“Yo, what’s up?” said Siddharth.

“We’re just doing some planning,” said Eddie.

“What’s the plan?” asked Siddharth.

“The plan?” said Eddie. “Tonight we’re gonna pop your cherry. Tonight we’re gonna get you a freaking mailbox.”

“Pop your cherry,” repeated Luca, shaking his head and smiling.

Luca and Eddie boarded the school bus first, and Siddharth followed behind. He handed his note to the driver, who was wearing a mesh baseball cap. Siddharth spotted Sharon in the sixth row. Fortunately, she was staring out the window. Holding his breath, he kept his eyes glued to the ribbed rubber walkway and scurried past her. Luca and Eddie were seated in the second-to-last row, and Siddharth sat alone in the seat before theirs. The bus pulled out of the lot, and a ninth grade girl in the back lifted a live rabbit from her backpack. Everyone cooed over it for most of the ride. At one point, Eddie grabbed the animal and held it up to his face, miming that he was giving it cunnilingus. Siddharth chuckled, but he tried to keep himself from laughing too hard. As the bus navigated the quiet, soggy streets of South Haven, he occasionally stole furtive glances at Sharon. Maybe she hadn’t even realized he was there. Twenty-five minutes into the ride, he saw her gather her things and prepare to leave. He was grateful that the journey had passed without any incident.

The bus stopped, and Sharon exited along with four other kids. Siddharth watched as she walked toward her house, weighed down by her bursting backpack and clunky trumpet case. This was the first time he was seeing the house that her mother had rented. It was a tiny ranch, with chipping paint and overgrown grass. On the front lawn sat an old sofa and a rusty, broken-down jeep. The sunless sky made it all seem especially dreary. In that moment, Siddharth realized something: Sharon was poor. In that moment, he felt worse for her than he ever had before. But he also felt like he barely knew her. He felt uneasy about letting her back into his life.