KABOOM

by Brian Adams

  “How about a pixie—you’d look so hot in that,” Ashley said. “You’d be like Emma Watson. Kevin’s hands would be all over it.”

  “Looks like Kevin’s hands are pretty preoccupied with something else right now,” I said, scowling.

  Sitting in our seats in the auditorium we had watched Sandra Lewis, a senior, sweep in and practically tackle Kevin, putting her arms around him and flinging her hair all over his face and getting all gooey-eyed and stupid the way girls always seemed to around the popular crew.

  Ever since the reenactment incident with the wayward rammer, I had become painfully aware how much I hated Sandra Lewis. Loathed her. Despised her. I knew it was stupid and wrong and made me seem like a silly, petty third grader, but I couldn’t seem to help it. I really couldn’t.

  Not that I knew her from a hole in the wall. I don’t think I had ever said a single word to her. But still, I hated her with a passion. If she were trapped in a collapsed, abandoned mine and I was the only one who knew about it, I wouldn’t tell a soul. I’d let her claw the walls until her nail-less, bleeding fingers were worn to the bone. I’d laugh and laugh as she died the death of a thousand screams. Or so I pictured it, anyway.

  And it’s not as if they were even going out. Britt had told me that Kevin didn’t have a girlfriend. All of Ashley’s and my sources, few and far between and as they were, confirmed that he was unattached.

  I was well aware that I had as much chance with him as one of Sadie’s goats had to sprout wings and start flying. But hey, once you had put anti-itch cream on someone’s neck and stared down their shirt and held an ice pack on their enormous head bump, you can never go back to the way things were. Kind of like how it was with cutting down the flags on Tom’s trees.

  Only not.

  And that kiss. That kiss and that handshake that maybe, just maybe, was more than a shake. They both seemed to have gone on forever.

  And hadn’t he told me I looked hot? And that I’d saved his life?

  A girl could dream, couldn’t she?

  “She’s a bitch,” Ashley said.

  “Who?” I replied, feigning innocence.

  Ashley gave me the look.

  “Look at her hair. It’s like she fell for the old fork-in-the-electric-outlet routine. Zap! Frankenstein’s bride’s got nothing on her. And she’s friends with Angie Warton, so she’s got to be evil.”

  Yeowww! Ashley was sharpening her kitty claws.

  Angie Warton was the girl who had been throwing herself at Marc Potvin lately. Ashley felt the same way about Angie that I felt about Sandra. Just our luck to have crushes on two popular boys who already had girls hanging all over them.

  “Asswipes!” Ashley said.

  I nodded my head and contemplated the cruel injustices of the world.

  Anyway, back to the assembly.

  Mr. Miller, the principal, was a wispy scarecrow of a man with enormous baboon-like eyebrows and a pencil-thin moustache that gave him an old black-and-white-movie kind of look. Not in a mysterious, classic way but more just plain ridiculous. We were convinced he had barely survived his hideous high school years, wasting away as a tormented member of Kingdom Number One (Loser!) and was now gleefully getting his pay backs on all of us at Greenfield High. The vicious cycle where the tortured becomes the torturer, the oppressed the oppressor. Such tragedy.

  “I’ll have nothing but quiet!” Mr. Miller yelled into the microphone, his words lost in a rising squeal of feedback.

  Not a soul stopped talking. No one even looked up.

  “There will be silence!” he bellowed again. Even more bedlam.

  “If you do not stop your chatter this instant, you will be marched straight back to class!”

  That got people’s attention. The dull roar subsided to whispers and muffled giggles.

  “We have a very important topic to discuss today,” Miller continued. “One that is of vital concern to all of us. One that has affected this community of ours in an ongoing and tragic way.”

  “Oh my God!” Ashley whispered. “Talk about tragic! If this is what I think it is I’m going to blurf right now!”

  Mr. Miller droned on. “I would like to introduce two very special guest speakers. Two young men whose lives have been shattered, but through perseverance, hard word, and the grace of God, they have clawed their way back to the land of the living.”

  Grumbling from the audience.

  Tragedy of tragedies, we were to be subjected to yet another dog and pony show on the evils of crystal meth.

  Believe me, I’ve got nothing against recovering addicts doing their community-service gig and preaching the good word to all of us impressionable adolescents. Hooray for them. I mean it. I really do. It must be hard as heck to get up in the front of a bunch of snickering high school students and reveal that your life has been one big clustermuck. It takes guts to tell the world what a complete loser and moron you’ve been.

  It’s just that we’ve heard it so many effin times that I could repeat word for word exactly what those dudes were going to say:

  “When I was your age I thought I was invincible.”

  Or: “I was like, ‘Hey, just once or twice, I wasn’t going to get hooked.’”

  Or: “I thought, what’s the problem? I can stop any time I want.”

  And then they’d drone on and on, recounting the nightmare of debauchery, heartbreak, ripping people off, screwing everyone you knew and everyone you didn’t, and not giving a crap about anything but getting high. Winding up in jail and thanking the Lord you were still alive to tell your tale of woe and misery. I once was lost and now I’m found. Blah blah blah.

  And that is exactly what they did.

  No one made fun of them. No one yelled obnoxious comments. They were just ignored. I’m not sure which was worse.

  I know, it sounds cruel and heartless. But by my age, you pretty much either got the message or you didn’t. It was too-little-too-late to be trucking out the same-old-same-old “just say no” thing. They needed to start that with Britt’s class. Or even earlier. Get at the little dweebs while they were still figuring things out.

  Sad but true: you could tell who was getting sucked into the dark side pretty early on. Whose families were so screwed up, who was so neglected, abused, and abandoned, who was so wild and crazy that crystal meth seemed like a step up for them.

  Sure, there were exceptions. Good kids gone bad.

  Like Jon Buntington.

  In ninth grade he was a Three (Friend) with definite Four (Possibility) potential. He was smart, funny, hot, and nice to everyone. And then something happened. Who knows what? Evil works in mysterious ways. It all went totally wrong and unraveled just like that and he spiraled downhill in an insane way until all was chaos and hell and crystal meth, and before you knew it he was off to live with his uncle in Nebraska who was a retired state cop and was going to knock that crap out of him.

  He had returned to school at the end of September. Drug-free, quiet, reserved, but clearly still fighting demons.

  But the Jon Buntingtons were few and far between. Most were of the Carl Stenson variety. Dad in jail. Single mom, strung out, on welfare. No money. In fourth grade he burned down his neighbor’s barn. In sixth grade he was expelled for punching a substitute teacher in the nose. In eighth grade he did his first fling in juvenile detention for assaulting some girl. Last year he was a bona fide, card-carrying member of the crystal meth club and off in la-la land smoking and then shooting up. Now he was spending the first of Lord knows how many years in juvie for robbing a convenience store outside Greenfield.

  Bad kid who stayed bad.

  I worried about a lot of things. Fortunately, going off the deep end and doing crystal meth was not one of them.

  And, after all, there were other, much more pressing concerns to angst about.

  “I don’t get what he sees in her,” Ashley said.

  “Neither do I. She’s such a poser,” I whispered back.

  “Exactly,” Ash
ley said. “And look at her outfit. I mean, Goodwill’s fine, but that? Seriously!”

  “Wait a minute,” I said, confused. “Isn’t that the same top that you had on a few days ago?”

  “What are you talking about?” Ashley said. Like most everyone else, we had traded in our whispers for a normal conversation. We couldn’t hear the meth heads’ presentation even if we had tried.

  “The beige Urban Outfitter top. The one I said looked so good on you.”

  “She does not have that top on.”

  “She does too!”

  Ashley squinted her eyes and looked again.

  “Cyndie!” Ashley said. “I was talking about Angie. Not Sandra.”

  Mercifully, the two meth heads eventually had had enough of us, mumbled some final incoherent gobbledygook, and fled the stage.

  Mr. Miller returned to the microphone. You could see by his scowls and shaking head he was peeved that we had been such an inattentive audience. Students were getting their backpacks together and shuffling around, ready to bolt for the door.

  “I am not done with you yet!” Miller shouted. Oh, the unbridled joy of listening to our fearless leader shriek at us.

  “He sounds like one of Sadie’s goats when they get screwed by the billy,” Ashley said. “Blaaahhh!”

  I laughed.

  “Two important items to note,” Mr. Miller continued. “Number one. There will be no grinding at the upcoming school dance this Friday. Absolutely no grinding. Those observed displaying this rude and vulgar act will be escorted out of the cafeteria immediately. Do I make myself clear?”

  “What’s grinding?” some smart-aleck yelled out.

  “You know perfectly well what grinding is, young man!” Mr. Miller answered.

  “You mean this?” He and the girl next to him stood up. They turned, back to front, and the guy pressed his man parts against the girl’s rear. They starting grinding away.

  The crowd went wild. People were hooting and hollering, rebel yelling and rapping it down. A bunch of other kids stood up and started doing the same.

  “That is enough!” Mr. Miller yelled. More feedback from the microphone. Teachers intervened and order was restored.

  “I have one more announcement to make,” Miller thundered.

  “First crystal meth. Then grinding. What could possibly top those two?” Ashley asked.

  “How about big hair?” I said. “No more crystal meth, grinding, or big hair. The big three. Banished forever. Greenfield High would be such a kinder and gentler place.”

  “As some of you may know,” Mr. Miller continued, “American Coal Company is working on a project on Mount Tom. It will be of tremendous benefit to our local economy and bring additional jobs into town. There is to be a road built to the top of the mountain, where the work will commence. Someone has been removing flagging on trees that are to be cut down. Two young adults have been observed frequenting that site.”

  Ashley reached out and took my hand. We both held our breath.

  “Let there be no mistake. This will be treated as a crime and not some silly prank. If, or shall I say when, the perpetrators are caught, they will be dealt with accordingly.”

  “What are you going to do, grind them up?” yelled the same kid who had been dancing a minute ago.

  “Grind! Grind! Grind!” students starting chanting.

  “This is not a joke!” Miller thundered, the feedback squeal continuing. “If you see or know anything about these incidents you will report it to my office immediately. This behavior is not to be tolerated. You are dismissed.”

  Everybody got up and began grinding their way down the aisles and back to class.

  Everybody got up except Ashley and me. We sat glued to our seats. Immobilized. Paralyzed.

  What if someone was on to us? What if someone knew?

  If we got ratted out there would be hell to pay. The potential punishment was beyond terrifying.

  Expelled from school? Sent to jail? Run out of town?

  “Bunch of fucking tree huggers,” the boy next to us said to his friend. His friend laughed. “Environmentalists! If I caught ’em, I’d shoot ’em.”

  Oh my God! And now add to the list “murdered”?

  For the first time ever I was happy that an assembly was over.

  22

  “SO MUCH FOR EVEN THINKING about Kevin Malloy and grinding,” I said. “If we get caught and we somehow manage to come out of this alive, I’m going to be grounded for life!”

  Ashley and I were walking home from school. It was hot and humid as hell. My underarms dripped with sweat. My bra was soaked. My eye shadow had run all the way down to my socks. It was partly from the weather, but mostly it was from worrying about what had gone down in the assembly.

  “Look on the bright side,” Ashley said. “We’re tree huggers! We’re environmentalists! We have a name! A label! We’re finally somebody!”

  “We’ll be somebody, all right. How about felons? Convicts? The ones they find in shallow graves ten years from now?” I was still trying to catch my breath from the bombshell Mr. Miller had dropped. Although, truth be told, I did have to admit there was a certain prestige that came with being labeled.

  “How could anyone see what we did as a bad thing?” Ashley said. “I mean, saving the environment? Hugging trees? What could possibly be wrong with that? I just don’t get it.”

  “I don’t know, Ash,” I said. “The more we get into this, the more I think there are a lot of people who just don’t get it. We’re not exactly short on stupid around here. Or anywhere else for that matter.” I was thinking about the news reports I had watched on television with Britt. West Virginia sure hadn’t cornered the market on morons.

  Ashley dropped her nail polish and was bending down to pick it up when Bert Stanmere with Michael Mead riding shotgun, the two guys who had almost hit us a few weeks before, came hauling ass around the corner in their beat-up pickup. Bert slammed on his brakes, swerved around us, and honked.

  “Oh, yeah, baby!” he yelled. “Bend over some more! Show us what you got!”

  Ashley gave them the finger.

  “If there was a reality show called The Stupids, Bert and Michael would be the stars,” Ashley said.

  I choose to ignore the fact that Ashley’s skirt had flipped up while she was crouching in the middle of a busy road.

  “Along with Angie Warton and Sandra Lewis,” she continued.

  “Exactly,” I said. “Anyway, what’s our next step?”

  “I don’t know. Dog poop in their perfume? Hot pepper in their deodorant? We could try . . .”

  “Ashley!” I said. “I wasn’t talking about Angie and Sandra. I was talking about saving Mount Tom.”

  “Oh yeah,” Ashley said. “That.”

  “What are we going to do now that we’re outlaws?” I asked.

  “Be the smartest outlaws we can be!” Ashley said. “What else can we do? And it shouldn’t be too hard to pull that one off. After all, we’re so effin superior to everyone else!”

  I laughed, trying my best to dispel the shadow of fear and dread that Mr. Miller had cast over us. I liked the tree-hugger label. And being called an environmentalist was actually pretty sweet. But outlaws? I needed a little more time to wrap my brain around that one.

  But hey, if I was going to be an outlaw at least I wasn’t doing it alone. I had my Ashley. We were a gang. So what if we were only a gang of two? That meant there was plenty of room for more.

  Giggling in the face of death, grinning at the ugly specter of catastrophe, we locked arms and skipped all the way home.

  23

  IN THE PAST, if Dad or Auntie Sadie had asked me to go to yet another Civil War reenactment I would have had a hissy fit. Acted like a three-year-old and thrown a tantrum. Refused to go. Barricaded myself in my room.

  But times had changed. I had my hoop skirt on an hour and a half before Auntie Sadie had even arrived.

  I was totally bummed. This was the last reenactment of the
season. My very last time to save Kevin from whatever catastrophe befell him.

  “What’s gotten into her?” Dad asked Britt.

  “She has a boyfriend!” Britt said.

  “Shut up, Britt! I do not have a boyfriend.”

  “Do too!”

  “I do not!”

  “Who’s the guy?” Dad asked.

  “There is no guy!” I insisted.

  “His name is Kevin Malloy,” Britt said. “He’s in your division, Dad. He’s the one that got stung by the yellow jackets and then got hit by the rammer.”

  “I’m surprised he’s still alive,” Dad said. “Must be a glutton for punishment. I didn’t even know you were dating, Cyndie. It’s good to tell me these things. He seems like a nice-enough boy.”

  “Dad, I am not dating him!”

  “Then who are you dating?” Dad asked.

  “No one!”

  “Wait. You have a boyfriend that you’re not dating?”

  “I’ll be outside waiting for Sadie!” I yelled, storming out of the living room. “If any of you say one more word about anything to anyone . . .”

  “What’s gotten into her?” I could hear Dad ask Britt again.

  “She has a boyfriend!” Britt said.

  •

  Miracle of miracles, the reenactment went off without a hitch. Private Kevin did not get stung by yellow jackets. Private Kevin did not experience near-decapitation by a wayward rammer. He did not fall and twist his ankle the way the chief engineer to General Meade did. He did not have a sugar attack and slink away to get an ice cream cone the way the artilleryman on the Union side did. He did not floss his teeth while lying dead on the battlefield and endure taunts of “dead man flossing!” from the spectators the way the Confederate flag bearer did.

  He didn’t even die. Private Kevin led the charge down the hill that rolled up the Union left flank, taking a dozen prisoners and helping the Confederates win the Battle of Big Bend. Kevin was the hero of the last battle of the year!

  I was bummed. I was hoping for some minor injury, at the very least a scrape or a bruise, something that would have sent him to the nurse’s tent. I was hoping for some little boo-boo that would allow my magic fingers to go to work on a sore foot. But, damn, damn, double damn, he had emerged from the battle victorious, without a hair on that handsome head even ruffled. I didn’t even get a chance to talk to him!