The color and style were bad enough. The fact it was covered in l-a-r-g-e pink, gray, and white trout (or were they salmon?) was even worse. “Mom, I can’t wear this to school. It’s …”—he paused to think real hard of a word that wouldn’t get him grounded for life—“hideous. If anyone sees me in this, I’l be an outcast relegated to the loser corner of the cafeteria.” As always, she scoffed at his protest. “Oh, shush. There’s nothing wrong with that shirt. Wanda told me at the Goodwil store that it came in from one of those big mansions down in the Garden District. That shirt belonged to the son of a fine upstanding man and since that’s what I’m raising you to be …” Nick ground his teeth. “I’d rather be a delinquent no one picks on.”
She let out a deep sound of aggravation as she paused while flipping bacon. “No one’s going to pick on you, Nicky.
The school has a strict no-bul ying policy.” Yeah, right. That wasn’t worth the “contract” paper it was written on. Especial y since the bul ies were il iterate idiots who couldn’t read it anyway.
Jeez. Why wouldn’t she listen to him? It wasn’t like he wasn’t the one going into the lion’s den every day and having to traverse the brutality of high school land mines. Honestly, he was sick of it and there was nothing he could do.
He was a massive loser dork and no one at school ever let him forget that. Not the teachers, the principal, and especial y not the other students.
Why can’t I flash forward and bypass this whole high school nightmare?
Because his mom wouldn’t let him. Only hoodlums dropped out of school and she didn’t work as hard as she did to raise up another piece of worthless scum—it was a harped-on litany permanently carved into his brain. It ranked right up there with:
“Be a good boy, Nicky. Graduate. Go to college. Get a good job. Marry a good girl. Have lots of grandbabies and never miss a holy day of obligation at church.” His mom had already road-mapped his entire future with no diversions or pit stops al owed.
But at the end of the day, he loved his mom and appreciated everything she did for him. Except for this whole
“Do what I say, Nicky. I’m not listening to you because I know better” thing she said al the time.
He wasn’t stupid and he wasn’t a troublemaker. She had no idea what he went through at school, and every time he tried to explain it, she refused to listen. It was so frustrating.
Gah, can’t I catch swine flu or something? Just for the next four years until he was able to graduate and move on to a life that didn’t include constant humiliation? After al , the swine flu had kil ed mil ions of people in 1918 and several more during outbreaks in the seventies and eighties. Was it too much to ask that another mutant strain of it incapacitate him for a few years?
Maybe a good bout of parvo …
You’re not a dog, Nick.
True, no dog would be caught dead wearing this shirt.
Whizzing on it would be another matter. …
Sighing in useless angst, he looked down at the crap shirt he wanted desperately to burn. Okay, fine. He’d do what he always did whenever his mom made him look like a flaming moron.
He’d own it.
I don’t want to own this. I look epically stupid.
Man up, Nick. You can take it. You’ve taken a lot worse.
Yeah, al right. Fine. Let them laugh. He couldn’t stop that anyway. If it wasn’t the shirt, they’d humiliate him over something else. His shoes. His haircut. And if al else failed, they’d insult his name. Nick the dick, or dickless Nicholas.
Didn’t matter what he said or did, those who mocked would mock anything. Some people were just wired wrong and they couldn’t live unless they were making other people suffer.
His Aunt Menyara always said no one could make him feel inferior unless he al owed them to.
Problem was, he al owed it a lot more than he wanted to.
His mom set a chipped blue plate on the side of the rusted-out stove. “Sit down, baby, and eat something. I was reading in a magazine that someone left at the club that kids score much higher on tests and do a lot better in school whenever they have breakfast.” She smiled and held the package of bacon up for him to see. “And look. It’s not expired this time.” He laughed at something that real y wasn’t funny. One of the guys who came into his mom’s club was a local grocer who would give them meat sometimes when it expired since al the guy did was throw it out anyway.
“As long as we eat it quick, it won’t make us sick.” Another litany he hated.
Picking up the crispy bacon, he glanced around the tiny condo they cal ed home. It was one of four that had been carved out of an old run-down house. Made up of three smal rooms—the kitchen/living room, his mom’s bedroom, and the bathroom—it wasn’t much, but it was theirs and his mom was proud of it, so he tried to be proud too.
Most days.
He winced as he looked at his corner where his mom had strung up dark blue blankets to make a room for him on his last birthday. His clothes were kept in an old laundry basket on the floor, set next to his mattress that was covered with Star Wars sheets he’d had since he was nine—another present his mom had picked up at a yard sale.
“One day, Mom, I’m going to buy us a real y nice house.” With real y nice stuff in it.
She smiled, but her eyes said she didn’t believe a word he spoke. “I know you wil , baby. Now eat up and get to school. I don’t want you dropping out like me.” She paused as a hurt look flitted across her face. “You can see exactly what that gets you.”