Bleed. Part 13

But it isn't my mother. It's my pain-in-the-booty sister Sadie. Apparently some cop picked her up en route to escape and my mother's cell phone is out of range and Dad's working and can't be reached (even though it's Sat.u.r.day) and there's some social worker there asking Sadie about her red and puffy eyelid and the No Feeding sign Mom pinned to her shirt.

I tell her I'll be right there and hang up.

"Sorry, Sean," I say, scooting out of the chair. "It's been fun, but I really gotta go. My man's waiting for me."

"Just tell me one thing," he says.

"What?"

"Why?"

"Why what?

"Why did you call me? Why did you tell me all this? What do you want?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, you must have some reason." He's glaring at me like this is my fault, not hers, like it's my fault Kelly's such a lying, backstabbing ho.

"I don't know," I snort. "Because Kelly's, you know, kind of a b.i.t.c.h. Everyone knows it."

"You don't know her."

"I know of her," I say, "and that's enough for me."

"You don't know anything about her."

"Yes I do," I say, feeling a wad of tension cram itself in my jaw. "I know plenty."

"Yeah, like what?"

And then I think about it. About her room and what I found. That she used to pray to Mother Mary. But now Mother Mary is all closed up in a box.

I know about the spotted cat and the foreign coins, and that she probably misses her dad. Probably looks in books to try and find what's missing. But no words on love or hurt or isolation have ever helped bring Mary back.

I look away when I feel my eyes betray me and start to fill with tears. "Maybe you're right," I say finally. "Maybe I don't know anything. Maybe it's just me who's the b.i.t.c.h." I throw my backpack over my shoulder and pitch my Coolatta in the trash, now way too sweet from all that sugar.

SAt.u.r.dAY, AUGUST 12, 2:55 P.M. WEST COAST TIME, 5:55 P.M. EAST COAST TIME.

I have a rubber d.i.c.k and I'm not afraid to use it. It used to belong to my mother. When I was little, she'd keep it in the night table beside her bed. I'd take it out and play with it, pretend it was a jumbo hot dog and that I was fixing a barbecue. Then I'd click it on and it would start buzzing and I'd pretend the noise was the sizzle of juicy meat, fighting to burst from inside the tight, hot dog skin, over pretend-flame heat.

Once I put a blob of brown yarn on it for hair and pretended it was Barbie's boyfriend, Buzz. Then another time I poked it inside my underwear to see if I could make it look all bulgy, like a boy. But it was too big to squish the whole thing inside, and so it stood up straight, at least four inches of thick rubber d.i.c.k pointing out the hem of my Cinderella panties like it wanted to chat.

Of course, I was only trying to get a rise out of my mother. Obviously I knew what it was. I'd seen the dangling wee-wees of the neighborhood boys, the Guerino twins, skinny-dipping in their pool, inviting me to come over and play Marco Polo, telling me to shut my eyes and reach out my hand for something long and wet.

My mom would take the rubber d.i.c.k from me and hide it, but that just made me want to seek it out all the more. I'd find it crammed under a stack of bed pillows, sticking up out of an old coat pocket in her closet, or at the way, way back of her underwear drawer. I'd click it on and twirl it around and around, feeling its power sparkle through my hand. I'd be the princess, and the rubber d.i.c.k, my very own magical wand.

You'd think that would have really put my mother over the edge. It didn't. She just got exhausted trying to hide it from me all the time, and so she finally let me keep it and got herself another. A bigger one. With a louder buzz.

I hold the rubber d.i.c.k in my hand, gooey at the tip from old sticker j.i.z.z. A gash in the b.a.l.l.s from the time I took it on a bike ride. I went over a b.u.mp; it jumped from my basket, fell to the ground, and I ended up running it over.

I've decided I'm going to put it to some good use once and for all.

I hate boys today. I hate the way they pretend that they like you when they smile and nod at what you're saying, like what you're saying is actually interesting to them, but then you ask a question or make some comment and realize they're not even listening at all. I hate it when they bring you into the woods because it's secluded and supposedly romantic and lean you back against a jagged rock that cuts right into your shoulder blade and makes you bleed.

When they make you breathe into their ear because it gets them all hot. And then stick their big, fat tongue in your mouth and waggle it back and forth. When they squish your b.o.o.bs like it's fifth grade all over again, like b.o.o.b-squishing is at all pleasurable for you. And go up your skirt and wedge your panties up the crack. And then leave, in the middle of everything, after you've told them about yourself and your family, that your parents got a divorce when you were seven, that your cat, Moses, died on your ninth birthday, and that you've always wanted to be a princess-like you're a stupid, stupid piece of dung.

I hate Robby Hate him. I pick up the cell phone his girlfriend left at the diner today and start searching through the address list. I want to tell her what a backstabbing, two-timing slimeball she has for a boyfriend. I click on the number labeled HOME, talk to some girl who tells me Kelly's away for the summer, visiting her father. Hang up. Find the number labeled DAD. Bingo.

"Is Kelly there?" I ask.

"Just a second," some lady says.

"h.e.l.lo?"

"Hi, Kelly?"

"Yeah."

"My name is Joy. Maybe you remember me? I'm the waitress from the diner you and Robby met at this morning. First, you left your cell phone at my station and now I have it. Second, and much more important, I wanted to let you know that your boyfriend is a two-timing p.i.s.s puddle. After you left him at breakfast, he had me for lunch. And if he even tries to deny it, tell him it was in the woods, behind the high school, and that his wiener is the size of a Planters peanut. Toodles."

I hang up. That felt good, but not nearly good enough. I want to see for myself that he pays. I search through the phone's address list a bit more, hoping to find his number. I want to tell him what I did. I want to hear the pain in his voice when I fib and say that his girlfriend was crying when I told her. When I say that I told her that we PB-and-Jammed, even though we didn't, even though he ran off and left me spread-eagled in the middle of the woods. Left me alone there after I was almost ready to do it with him, after I told him all about myself. But his number isn't even listed in here, and I don't know his last name, so I can't exactly look him up. I click the phone off so Kelly can't call back, and toss it to the floor. Double d.a.m.n!

But that's fine. I breathe. That's okay. Because I've still got my rubber d.i.c.k. And there are still plenty of other boys to pay back while I figure out what to do about Robby.

First on my list ... Danny Winslow. I hate Danny Winslow. More than anything. More than Robby from this afternoon, or Jay from last year. More than the skinny-dipping Guerino twins from the pool. Or peeping Mr. Gallo from next door.

And it's time I make Danny pay. Make them all pay-one by one. See how they like it... their lives being ruined by a stupid, ugly, pulsating d.i.c.k.

Danny Winslow has made my life a living h.e.l.l for five years, ever since the fifth grade. A whole year of bra-snapping and b.o.o.b-pinching. Then two years of riding the bus with him, waiting at the stop while he called me names like Joy-the-boy and Rider-for-hire, and pulled at my hair, and hacked loogies into my lap. Then eighth grade, and all the prank phone calls to my house. All the heavy breathing and telling me how he was whacking off to the sound of my voice.

This past year was the worst.

We ended up in the same freshman algebra cla.s.s. On the first day, he walked in, smiled when he saw me, and slithered into the chair next to mine. He'd make it a habit to come to cla.s.s early and scoot the chair over extra, extra close. He'd lean into my ear and whisper something gross, always with peanut b.u.t.ter-flavored breath. "How about we slip into the janitor's closet?" he'd say. "I can lift up that skirt of yours and pull down those tights. And show you my d.i.c.k and jam it right in. Doesn't that sound so nice? From behind? Right after algebra? You know you wanna, Joy Ryder. You know you wanna ride me."

And then algebra would start and I'd ask Mrs. Fitzpatrick to move my seat, because whenever she'd turn her back to write something on the board, Danny would ask me who I was sucking on that morning because my breath smelled like p.e.n.i.s. But it only smelled that way because I was too nervous to eat and so my mouth was all dry and pasty. Nervous because of him. And what he'd do.

Mrs. Fitzpatrick would ask me why I wanted to move and I'd tell her because Danny was bothering me, but she'd just tell him to stop, to keep his hands to himself, to pay attention to what was on the board. At first I thought it was because she didn't want to mess up her seating chart, all those square tags of cardboard arranged in neat little rows; but then I realized it was because she just didn't believe me. Of course, it didn't help things when she saw me hit him. It was more of a push, really, to the shoulder, like that even hurts. But from then on she didn't take me seriously and told us both to grow up.

He would whisper my full name over and over again, inserting the words "I wanna" in the middle, telling me how much he wanted to screw me-and no one even cared. Most of the kids were lemmings and thought it was the funniest thing in the world to see me suffer like that. The few left over were either too scared of him, or just happy it wasn't them he was bugging, to bother sticking up for me.

I've stopped speaking to my parents several times for naming me after my father's motorcycle. My dad bought the Harley three years before I was born and dubbed it right away. Joy Ryder. The letters in flaming yellow with red sparks airbrushed to the sides of the gas tank. When I came along, he saw naming me after it as paying some tribute to his two most prized possessions.

I grab the rubber d.i.c.k, along with all the money out of my piggy bank and a fistful of dollar bills from my shift this morning, and storm out of my house.

Danny Winslow lives just two blocks down. He and some other jerky boys play basketball in Danny's driveway every day after summer pre-season football practice. I've seen their routine. They come home from McD's, toss their hamburger wrappers into the trash, dump their bags on the porch, and hit the court.

Today, I'm going to crash the game. Cause a big stir. Flash them my loot and hope they let me join the game.

I'll just need to figure out which bag is Danny's. And I hope forty-one dollars is enough.

I can hear them in the distance. The ball bouncing, echoing against the pavement. When Danny sees me approaching, everything stops-my feet, my nerve, the plane flying above, even the echo of the ball-but then his voice breaks the air.

"Hey, p.e.n.i.s Breath, your stench is funkin'up the game."

Jeremy Hicks, the boy I used to play house with in the third grade, is standing behind him, the tips of his fingers tucked into his pockets.

I reach into my bag to feel the rubber d.i.c.k, to feel its power and all it promises.

"Whatcha got in there?" Danny asks. "Some mouthwash? You could use it."

"I've got some money," I say, fanning out a few ones.

"Why don't you take it and get your face fixed? You and Hicks can go together. Hey, Hicks." He turns to Jeremy. "Maybe you and p.e.n.i.s Breath can hook up and go to the plastic surgeon ... get a group discount."

I hate my face. All the purply freckles jumbled over my nose and cheeks. My curly orange hair. Sometimes I feel like it's a costume, that I don't really look this bad. That my skin isn't really as chalky as I think it is; that my eyes aren't quite as big and buggy. That I'm not really this short. And my lips aren't so thin.

Jeremy laughs off Danny's comment, but I can't imagine he thinks all those oozy pimples are really funny.

I swallow down the fear I feel creeping into my mouth, poking at my eyes. "I want to use my money to play."

"What are you talking about?" Danny takes a couple steps toward me, and now we're just a few feet apart-his bullet-gray eyes aiming down at me; his curly brown hair in a sweat wad on his head; those stupid, furry eyebrows, like giant black caterpillars, across the center of his forehead. How I would just love to tell him how stupid they look.

I hate him. I hate him. I HATE him.

"I'll bet you twenty dollars that I can kick your caboose at PIG," I say, stuffing the dollars in my pocket.

"Are you serious?" he asks.

"Do you even have twenty dollars?" I ask.

His four clone friends start squealing in the background like the pigs they really are. Like this is the most action they've gotten in a long time.

"Yeah, I got twenty bucks."

"So you wanna play me?"

I suck at basketball; all sports, really. When I was little, I couldn't even play jump rope right, kept getting my feet all tangled up. But I don't care about winning this game, nor do I care about the twenty bucks. I know I'll win in the end, and that's worth all the money I have.

He socks the basketball into my gut and says, "You just made a big mistake, p.e.n.i.s Breath."

I dribble as best I can, both hands slapping at the ball, over to the net. "I wanna see your twenty bucks before we play."

Danny jogs, I'm-so-tough style, over to the bag-littered porch. He reaches into his bag, a nylon green one with white straps, extracts a wallet and approaches me, waving a twenty dollar bill in the air. "It's just you and me now, p.e.n.i.s Breath," he says, poking his finger into my chest, grinding it in hard to leave his mark.

"I don't mind," I say, my eyes still locked on his bag. "I've always wanted to play you.'

"Yeah, well, you're really gonna get yourself f.u.c.ked today."

"No s.h.i.t," one of the lemmings chimes in.

"Sounds like fun," I fake giggle.

"Yeah?" Danny grabs his crotch. "All five of us on you?"

"No thanks," sweat-faced Bobby Eskinas yells. "Even I'm not that hard up."

"Oh, yeah, that's right," Danny says to him. "I almost forgot you prefer s.c.h.l.o.n.g."

I c.o.c.k my head to the side and smile like what they're saying isn't what I'm really hearing, like we speak two different languages. And try my best not to cry or throw up.

I place my bag down on the porch, next to Danny's, look over my shoulder, and they're all just standing there waiting for me. Double d.a.m.n!

We start playing, and it's really no puzzle as to who's gonna win. Danny's first shot ends up a swish, and within five minutes I already have a big fat P. The lemmings are cheering him on at the sidelines and Danny's trying to act extra cool, getting all fancy, doing backward shots and under-one-leg tosses like he's so great. If I wasted every day of my life throwing a rubber ball at a stupid net, I could do that, too.

Two minutes later I have P-I.

"I smell pig!" Jeremy shouts out. I turn and look at him, can almost hear him-eight years old, whispering from inside the shed behind my house, I'll be the husband and you be the wife and this will be our bedroom.

"Yeah, p.e.n.i.s Breath, close your legs." Danny tosses the ball at my head to knock me back to earth.

At that, they all start laughing, Jeremy flopping back on the gra.s.s like it's the funniest thing he's ever seen and heard. My mouth starts trembling and I want more than anything else to cry-to be at home, in my room, under the covers, my nose pressed into my pillow in blubbering bliss. I look away to try and stop the emotion I feel building up on my face, to try and imagine myself floating above this whole scene, looking down on Danny and his pathetic friends and seeing them for what they really are-pure American white trash.

"Time out," I say, moving over to the steps. "I need a tissue." I hold underneath my nose, pretend that it's running.

"Aw, baby's crying," Danny says. He joins them on the sidelines and they all high-five one another.

Meanwhile, I fish into my bag for a tissue, making sure the rubber d.i.c.k is well within eyeshot beside my change purse, and peek over my shoulder.

They're all just staring at me.

"I need to take a little break," I say, rubbing at my stomach and taking a seat on the steps. "I'm not feeling so good. Female stuff."

"Like we needed to know that," Danny says, poking his finger in his mouth like he's going to heave. "Two minutes or you're a big fat pig by default and I'm twenty bucks richer."

"She's a big fat pig anyway," Jeremy hollers.

They all start laughing again but then resume playing like I don't even exist. My bag still open, I can see the rubber d.i.c.k from here. Danny's bag is just inches away. I decide it would be best to get his bag unzipped first and then make the transfer.

I place my bag atop Danny's, pretending to be searching around for something, using his bag as a makeshift table. While my left hand fishes around in my main compartment, my right hand, concealed by my bag, tugs ever so slowly at his zipper. I get it opened just a couple inches.

That's when I hear him-when my heart clenches into a rock-hard fist.

"Hey, p.e.n.i.s Breath," he shouts, glaring right at me. "What do you think you're doing?"

My mouth trembles open. My upper lip twitches.

"Get your infected s.h.i.t off my stuff," he says, referring to my bag.