Frank Portman - King Dork

Well, it was a bit better with the music. Not the music as played by me and Sam Hellerman and Todd Panchowski, which was pure (devil-head) cacophony. I mean how it sounded in my head. Maybe you’ll have to trust me on that.

Anyway, I just thought you should see what my mom had been reading when she flipped out. Plus I’m kind of proud of that song and I’m showing off a little, even though you have to sing “from” a little weird to make it sound like it 160

rhymes with “prom.” But actually, that’s kind of like my favorite part.

I totally couldn’t see what the big deal was. It’s a pretty ordinary topic. Not too shocking or unusual. They make a pamphlet about it, for Christ’s sake. In fact, it wasn’t even me in the song. The song had been inspired by the pamphlet girl, as I’ve explained; and as for those specific lyrics, I had in fact been feeling sorry for myself while pretending to be Yasmynne Schmick when I came up with most of them. But I couldn’t figure out a way to explain that to my mom and Little Big Tom without causing even more confusion.

When my mom is in crazy mode it’s just not possible to talk to her reasonably. Still, I gave it a shot, trying to make it as simple as possible.

“I’m not on drugs and I’m not going to kill myself,” I said.

And it was true. I really wasn’t. Though I couldn’t tell you why not.

No one knew what to say. Then Little Big Tom cleared his throat and filled in some of the background.

My own cleverness had tripped me up. Way back, I had needed to find an excuse for why I never spent much time at home, particularly after school. The real reason was that LBT

kind of freaked me out back then, and I felt so uncomfortable with the whole vibe of the Henderson-Tucci household that even the ghastly pall of Hellerman Manor seemed preferable to it. So I invented a series of clubs I was supposed to be in, plausible ones like the Chess Club, Rocketry Club, Monty Python Club, The Middle-earthlings, or the Trekster Gods, and sometimes crazy ones I would make up for my own amusement, like the Caulking and Stripping Club, or the Doorknob Appreciators Society, otherwise known as the Knob-heads. Not that they ever paid much attention to what the clubs were called. My brilliant humor, once again wasted.

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Ironically, part of the reason I started hanging out at home more, in addition to the fact that we couldn’t do band activities at Sam Hellerman’s, was that I had started to warm up to Little Big Tom, even actually almost kind of liked being around him sometimes. But to them it looked like I had suddenly lost interest in all the clubs and afterschool activities.

That was a Danger Sign. Then they found the lyrics and pamphlet and that had tipped the whole thing over. I screwed up.

And now I was looking at a vast stretch of inept suicide-watch activity from the parental units for some time to come.

“You’re not going to like this, chief,” Little Big Tom began. What? What could they confiscate in this situation? I was all ears.

“We’d like you to see someone. Just to talk to you and help you work things out.”

Out of the three people in that room, there were two in serious need of psychiatric help, and I wasn’t one of them.

This point would have been lost on them, though, because between them they were already “seeing” a small army of counselors, therapists, psychiatrists, psychologists, analysts, facilitators, and what have you. They thought that was man’s natural state. In fact, I was surprised they hadn’t tried to force me to go to a shrink long before this, if only in the spirit of trying to provide me with everything they hadn’t had as kids.

It was going to be a drag, of course, but as punishments go, I’d certainly had worse.

LI N DA’S PANCAKE S ON B ROADWAY

The following day, Sam Hellerman and I decided to skip PE.

The main reason was because we had just started boxing and sometimes that’s just too much to take. Sam Hellerman was 162

doing it mostly in solidarity with me. I mean, he didn’t really need to, as he had a special talent that made boxing easy for him. But also, he had said, somewhat mysteriously, that there was something important that we needed to discuss, and that he had something to show me. He wouldn’t tell me what it was. “Just wait,” was all he would say.

There’s pretty much nowhere to go in Hillmont except for this place called Linda’s Pancakes on Broadway. When all else fails, which is in fact quite often, Sam Hellerman and I end up going there to sit in a booth and drink coffee from these big plastic pitchers they refer to as bottomless cups.

So the state and the school district and the Hillmont school administrators had decided that Sam Hellerman and I would spend second period that day standing in a ring hitting each other, or getting hit by someone else, or watching somebody else hitting somebody else. But instead, at least for this one day, there we were, in a booth at Linda’s Pancakes on Broadway, discussing this and that.

Actually, I should explain how PE boxing works. They don’t have a real ring. Instead, there’s a mat on the floor of the lanai, and everyone stands on the edge of the mat in a kind of human ring while the two poor kids who have to box each other stand in the middle. If one of the boxers gets too close to the human ring, the ring people in that particular area are supposed to shove him back toward the middle. I probably don’t have to mention that everybody has to wear the tiny George Michael shorts while this is all going on. It’s your basic nightmare.

While the boys are doing boxing, the girls are over on the other side of the lanai doing Rape Prevention, but they’ll always come over to watch if there’s an interesting matchup, making the whole thing even more embarrassing. There’s this pretense, never verbalized without a snicker, that they 163

have boxing to “teach you how to defend yourself.” But in reality, it’s just a way for a certain type of guy to be able to beat up on a certain other type of guy during class time as well as before and after school.

They’re required to stop the festivities at “first blood” (I kid you not, that’s the phrase they use). So your best strategy is to try to get hit in the nose and start bleeding as soon as you can and thus spare yourself the rest of the state-mandated beating. Sure, the PE teacher will then lead the class in a rousing chant of “pussy, pussy, pussy” at you, but they’re always saying that. Beats getting beat.

Sam Hellerman’s special boxing talent was that he got nosebleeds all the time. He was so good at it that he could pretty much start bleeding at will, through the power of his mind. Mr. Donnelly would put him in the ring and roar: “I’m warning you, Hellerman! If you start bleeding before you’re hit, there will be hell to pay!” But little Sam Hellerman would just stand there with an angelic look, bleeding away. Mr.

Donnelly would glower and yell and turn twenty-three shades of red, but he couldn’t touch Sam Hellerman because that would probably have been good for about three or four million dollars, by a conservative estimate. Sam Hellerman’s dad is a lawyer, as he makes sure to inform every PE teacher on the first day of class.

The best part, though, is when he leaves the ring to go to the nurse’s office and tries to get as much of his blood on as many PE goons and their stuff as he can. I’ll say it again: that Sam Hellerman is a genius.

Cutting class wasn’t so smart, really, as we’d pay for it later. But sometimes you need a mental health day.

I settled into my side of the booth and looked at Sam Hellerman expectantly. He was cagey, and only seemed to 164

want to talk about trivial matters rather than this big important thing about which he had called the meeting. Finally, I just came out and said, “What’s the story, Hellerman?”