Giraffe People

by Jill Malone

  “So?”

  “So she’s not giving you her fucking number.”

  “Oh, you said a naughty word. I’m telling your mom.” He screws around and glares at me. Doug is brown-haired and brown-eyed and has a sweet face that he thinks gives him a disadvantage with girls. “Who’s her boyfriend?”

  “That dude Jay.”

  “The baseball guy?” Doug asks, scowling.

  “Yeah.”

  “Oh shit.” He glances at my brother. “I hate that fucking dude. He dated Tina last year, and even after he dumped her, she still talks about him like he pisses diamonds.” Doug turns back to me. “Look, Cole, if anything changes, I want her number. You’ll keep me informed, right?”

  “Count on me.”

  “Excellent.” He turns back around, and switches the station. “Dude, when are you going to get some decent speakers?”

  Bangs is in the parking lot, popping ollies beside the opened rear doors of a two-toned brown van. Two other guys sit inside the van on plush brown swivel seats. All three of them have the same haircut. One says something and Bangs turns to stare at me.

  “Hey,” he says.

  “Hey,” I say.

  “Well, well,” Doug says behind me.

  Bangs kicks his board up and falls in with us without a word to the guys in the van. Tied around his waist is a torn plaid shirt.

  “Let me have that.” He takes my gym bag and throws it over his shoulder.

  “I’m Doug,” Doug says.

  “Christian.”

  Doug sneers at me. “Have a moral day, kids.”

  “Prick,” I whisper to his back.

  Bangs walks me to my locker. “Those guys were your brothers?” And suddenly I feel bad for not introducing him.

  “Yeah, the quiet ones were Nate and Nigel. Nate’s taller.”

  “Cool.” He stuffs my bag into my locker. “See you later.”

  “OK.”

  Perched in the chair of her desk like a preening bird, Kelly regards me. “He what?”

  “Last night he called, and we talked for like an hour.”

  “I am the god of all things.” She says it louder. “I’m the god of all things. Say it.”

  “You’re the god of all things.”

  “I really am. I made this happen.” She’s wearing a silk vest and a skirt. She looks like she’s going to temp as a secretary. No one else I know dresses like this for high school. “You two are my responsibility.”

  I’m worried when she says this. It’s kind of crazy, right? Kind of mad scientist? But the bell rings, and we have to jet, and I don’t have time to analyze the variety of ways I should be troubled.

  In Graphic Arts, Bangs and I process our best shots from the roll at the baseball diamond. He picks a close-up of me—and crops out everything but my hair and face. We shot in black and white and I look like a refugee in a windstorm. For my own part, I pick a shot of him on the fence, defiant, his fingers linked through the cyclone, and one of them missing a nail. I’ve never been able to look at him like this before. To take him in. His eyes are fierce, his nose Roman, his lips fuller than a boy’s should be.

  When I take the photograph out of the fixer, I’m reluctant to hang it up. Then he’s against me in the dark room, pressed to my back, and just for a second instead of the chemicals, I smell him: oatmeal and soap and cinnamon gum.

  My mom still makes my lunch. Every day I get a brown bag with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, white cheese popcorn, pretzels, frosted animal crackers, a fruit roll-up, raw carrots, and a box of raisins. Once, when she was going to visit my grandparents for three weeks, she bagged everything but our sandwiches, and left it all—including extra paper bags—in baskets with each of our names marked on them with freezer tape. She thinks we’re inept and would starve without her.

  Joe is sitting at our table with Matt and Christian Sorrentino (the other Christian—not Bangs) when Kelly and I arrive. Joe wears red Converse all the time—even to gym—and bleaches his hair, and then rats it like Robert Smith. He is The Cure’s biggest fan. I had a crush on him all freshman year. He only ever teases me.

  “Well,” Joe says, “who’s going to get red-carded this afternoon?”

  “My money’s on Kelly,” Matt says between bites of pizza.

  Kelly ignores them, and eats some of my popcorn.

  “What happened to the football player?” Joe asks me.

  “What?”

  “I saw you this morning in the parking lot.”

  “So?”

  “So, what happened to the football player?” Finally he stops staring at me, and looks, instead, at Kelly. “Wasn’t the skater your little project?”

  “What’s a matter, Joe,” Kelly says, “missed another window?”

  “You know, Kelly.” Joe stands and looks down at her. “I hope I’m around when she dumps you. That’ll really be something.”

  He leaves without saying more, and we all look at Kelly. Something happened, but no one’s sure what. Was he talking about me dumping Kelly?

  “What was that?” Christian Sorrentino asks. He’s having Mountain Dew for lunch again.

  “You know Joe,” Kelly says. “All drama all the time.”

  Matt and Christian look at me, and then let it go and ask about our Spanish homework.

  I have study hall with Jeremy. We sit at the smallest table by the Biographies. He hands me a note as soon as I arrive, and watches me while I read it.

  Cole:

  Doug said you had something important to tell me. It’s probably better if you write it. Ms. Adams already yelled at Lollipop for talking.

  Doug is a wicked fuck. I read the note a few more times, and then write a response—

  Do you talk to other girls—I mean on the phone or whatever?

  He takes the note and reads through it and then looks up at me. He has three lines across his forehead, and a divot between his eyes.

  Sure. Girls in my study group.

  It is not right that he’s worried. It’s not right that anyone knew before he did, or that he should feel bad about any of it.

  I talk to another boy. Not about school. He asked if you were my boyfriend and I said I didn’t know.

  He reads the note and does not look up for a long time. I’m supposed to be working on my Biology homework. It seems disrespectful, somehow, to do Biology homework now.

  Do you want him to be your boyfriend?

  I am so tired now. Just holding my pen exhausts me. I read the question again and again.

  “What are you two working on?” Ms. Adams asks. I am so grateful to see her, hovering there, wringing her hands and glaring at us.

  “Biology,” I say, and then I am, with half the period still to go, and a vigilant Ms. Adams checking alternative pursuits.

  When the bell rings, Jeremy asks if I’ll come over to his place tonight. He has the maid’s room in their quarters, and a saltwater fish tank and a waterbed. It’s Mike’s old room, and I have only ever been there with groups of kids during the day. We promised, when they let us date, that we’d never visit one another’s room.

  “OK,” I say. “I’ll come over after my parents go to bed.”

  I score three goals against Freehold, and have to sit out the entire second half of the game to rest my groin. We win by six. Nigel and I make it back to the base in time to catch the last ten minutes of Meghan’s rugby game. A heavy girl with breasts like a prison matron gets her nose broken and there’s blood across her face, and both hands, and her shirt and several of her teammates. I wish I had never seen so much blood, and the way they are painted with it. They stuff cotton up her nose, and she goes right back in.

  “Mom and Dad ordered pizza,” I tell Meghan, after they have won. “Do you want to come over? Dad said he’ll drive you back to the dorm after.”

  She agrees, and drags her grey Army sweats on before we all set off.

  “What’s happened? Why do you look so grim?” Meghan asks me. “Is it the Hamlet paper?” />
  “She gave me an A–.”

  “She really does hate you.”

  “I know, right. How about your Calculus quiz?”

  “B. Calculus is nefarious.”

  “It’s so totally nefarious! Way to dominate the language!” I give her a high five.

  “You two have gotten really weird,” Nigel says.

  Meghan laughs and links her arm through his. From the street, the house lights warm us, and our appetites stir; desperate, striving aches.

  Straight after dinner, Meghan leaves. She has piles of homework, and so do I. By ten-thirty, I finish the bulk of it, and take the stairs down from my room to the wooden back door, which I unlock, and open easily, and then the horrible screen door, and finally I’m in the backyard. Nate’s bedroom light is the only one still on.

  At Jeremy’s, every light is off in the entire building—four sets of families—and I wonder if he fell asleep, if I’m risking getting caught for nothing. I find the backdoor unlocked, slip my shoes off to climb four flights to his room, and let myself in.

  In sweatpants and a white t-shirt, he’s sprawled on the floor reading his History text. He stands when I come in and we both hold our breath. Illicit. Just standing in his room is illicit. Even his clothes seem illicit. A table light, the blue glow of the fish tank, and a boy in the half dark, intent and watchful. Then we hear a door. All the interior doors are metal, and close with a heavy click.

  I’m on the far side of his bed, and flat on my stomach when his bedroom door opens.

  “Hey, son. I thought you’d still be up.” His father closes the door and moves deeper into the room. I can hear him approach me. “I’ve brought you a little snack.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Hungry, weren’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “What are you working on?”

  “History. Another three chapters.”

  “Then I won’t keep you. The hot chocolate should help.”

  “Yes.”

  “Well.” He moves away, and the door opens again. “Well. Good night, then. Not too late, if you please.”

  “No.”

  “Night, son.”

  “Night.”

  Even from the floor, my heart’s a mouthy snitch, calling through the corridors of the building, shouting to his father. I’ve clawed my palms in my panic. They bleed from little half moons.

  Jeremy crouches beside me. “I’m sorry. He never does that. I’m so sorry. I’ve locked it now.”

  “I thought he knew.”

  He smiles, pale and breathless as I am. “I did too.”

  And then he kisses me. Like the kiss from the kitchen, hard and urgent, and I can’t breathe, and I’m crying and we haven’t even done anything, not really, but I’m terrified. All at once, I’m terrified.

  Both of us gasping, he goes on kissing me. His arms cradle me, his hands inside my shirt, and a different urgency comes, one that makes me forget his father stood in this room with us moments before. He presses his knee between my legs, and we roll once. I understand, at last, about Eden: how you could make a soul out of nothing but breath.

  When I wake, we’re spooled, in our clothes, and still on the floor. My arm underneath him is asleep, and tingling, but I’ve never been this warm. Against the window shade, the night presses like a face, and I know I should get up; I should leave him and get home. His breathing is deep and languid and mine.

  I peel away from him, and sneak out; the red glow of his bedside clock reads 3:23.

  Pedantic. Ostentatious in one’s learning. Adjective. Ms. Overhead is pedantic about everything, even stuff that has nothing to do with English.

  My mother has taken up woodworking. Every morning, she puts on overalls and a flannel shirt, and goes to the basement to build benches and ornate shelves with hooks, and freestanding cabinets. She belongs to a sort of club that meets once a month to review one another’s work. Before one of these meetings, she’s stressed, bitchy, and dangerous.

  While I’m pouring cereal, I hear her moving below me, and can feel her absorption, her intensity. It’s distracting.

  “What?” Nigel says, paused in the doorway. And then he hears too, and shakes his head. “She went down there at like 5. She should hang a hammock and then she can just live in the basement.” He places an empty bowl on the counter for me to fill with cereal. “I ran this morning.”

  “How far?”

  “Four miles.”

  “What time did you get up?”

  “Five.”

  “How’s that less crazy than Mom?”

  “I don’t wear overalls.”

  We eat at the kitchen table. He reads a Peanuts book from the seventies, while I finish my Geometry. At 8, Nate will run in, yelling about how he’s hungry and we’re going to be late, and why doesn’t anyone wake him. Until then, I’ll write theorems and think of Jeremy’s breathing, and the burn of him against me when I woke. The eerie gurgle of the fish tank and the way he kissed my face and held me like he was going to lift me up and run from the building. Like the whole place might come down around us.

  Geometry is the most painful thing I know. When I learned about the Inquisition, I imagined them making you solve Geometry problems in little cells for months. That would be so maniacal and wicked. Mr. Henderson uses an overhead projector, and sits at a stool and mumbles his lesson. He has pockmarks and weird moles by his eyelids and totally got stuffed into lockers and garbage cans when he was my age. He’s nice, but in that Please don’t look at me, I’m hideous and shy and just interacting with you hurts me kind of way. So, asking for clarification, not an easy thing.

  “Cole,” he says, glancing at me and then back at his slide. “Would you like to show us your solution for problem 28?”

  I walk up to the board and write my theorem. Being left-handed, even writing on the board is a chore. This problem, I’m pretty sure I’ve done right. I didn’t get a chance to check with Ian before class. Ian likes to wear old bowling shirts he found at Goodwill, and has that blond hair that’s actually white, and keeps telling me I’ll never understand Geometry until I learn to play pool.

  “Good job, Cole.” Mr. Henderson calls on mouse-girl to solve for 32. She is wearing her coat. She does this a lot, and I don’t understand it. Maybe she sneaks outside between classes to smoke.

  I am going to get a B in this class. It’s going to wreck my GPA. The brown van sat in the parking lot, shut up and empty, this morning. We dropped Graphic Arts, so I haven’t seen Bangs yet. I don’t even know if he’s at school.

  Joe tosses a note onto my desk.

  We have a gig Saturday night—a house party. Any chance you could come?

  I wear my skeptical face. You think my parents are going to let me go to a house party? I toss the note back.

  They don’t have to know it’s a house party. Tell them you’re going to the movies. Trevor and I will pick you up.

  Trevor has long, lank black hair, and wears leather vests without a shirt underneath. I smile at him, and write back, Joe, my parents don’t find you guys reassuring. They think you listen to metal and tear the heads off puppies and play Dungeons and Dragons and sacrifice virgins.

  Is that a no? he writes back.

  No. It isn’t. Give me a couple of days to figure something out. Can I bring a friend?

  He’s all grin when he hands me his response.

  Sure, anyone who isn’t Kelly.

  In the hallway, before English, I tell Alicia about the house party.

  “I remember,” she says, “when we all spent Saturday night at the roller rink.”

  “We were twelve.”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you want to go with me?” I ask.

  “Oh no. I am not participating in more of your misadventures. Last time, that party at John Rafferty’s house, my parents grounded me for two weeks. And it was a boring party.”

  Every party I had ever been to was boring. People standing in the same groups they kept at school, talking
about class and each other.

  “But this party has a band.”

  “Girl, you know they just play three chords and holler. Ask Stella, or Kelly; they love courting trouble, just like you.”

  Bangs comes over to our table at lunch and sits beside me. Christian Sorrentino and Matt Cabrese both stare at him, and then at me. Kelly introduces everyone, and Bangs nods at them.

  “What are you doing Saturday?” he asks me.

  “I don’t know.”

  “A friend of mine’s having a party. There’ll be bands and everything.”

  “Bands?” I ask.

  “Yeah, we’re playing.”

  “You’re in a band?”

  “Sure.”

  “What kind of music do you play?”

  “All kinds.” He looks at Kelly. “You two should come.”

  Without checking with me, Kelly says, “We’ll be there.”

  After practice on Friday, Renee and I head over to the football field to watch the second half of the game against Red Bank. Her boyfriend, Dwayne, plays fullback. Football bores me—and, of course, we’re losing—but the games make excellent crowd watching.

  “That girl’s wearing Saran Wrap,” Renee says. We look at her for a while. “She must be cold.”

  It’s interesting how many teachers come to football games. Most of them bring their spouses like this is a date. Coach Robins—our varsity soccer coach—waves me over.

  “Hey, Coach.”

  “I’m glad to see you, Peters. Saves me having to track you down.” Coach Robins is a stretched, muscular man with forty spiked hairs on his head. He seems painfully old to me, but is probably fifty-five. “I saw your game Thursday. You’ve pulled your groin again, haven’t you?”

  How is it proper, this conversation? I nod.

  “I thought so. Listen, I’ve had an idea.” And he explains to me about taking a brace for my hamstring, and folding it in half, and tucking it into my groin. “A little extra support. I think it’ll save you straining the damn thing over and over.”