Bloodthirsty

by Flynn Meaney

  All through the room you could hear stifled laughter, a mild background sound, a buzzing, an indicator of excitement.

  “All right, Mr. Frame,” Mrs. Rove said.

  She walked out in front of her desk and crossed her arms, like a challenge to me. She asked, “Can you back this theory up with some evidence from our poem here?”

  I held the paper in front of my face and examined it critically, although I practically knew the thing by heart. “To His Coy Mistress” was in the seventeen-pound Norton poetry anthology I’d requested for my eighth birthday. I’d read it then, and after puberty I’d read the poem again and saw new meaning in it.

  “The speaker asks for sex directly in the last paragraph. He says, ‘let us sport us while we may.’ Basically, ‘let us do it.’ And in the second stanza, he tries to scare her by saying that if they don’t do it now, worms will get at her ‘long preserved virginity.’ The speaker thinks the girl has been a virgin for way too long.

  “Further,” I continued, “in the first stanza, the growing ‘vegetable love’ is actually the guy’s erection.”

  All over the classroom, students sat straight up.

  “Which,” I added, grinning, “means the phrase ‘vaster than empires’ is pretty arrogant on his part.”

  Mrs. Rove removed her glasses. When she sat down behind her desk, she seemed to relinquish to me the run of the class.

  “What about the title, Mr. Frame?” Mrs. Rove asked. “I’m sure you have something to say about that.”

  I cleared my throat, aware that everyone was watching me, and, for once, liking it.

  “They said ‘coy’ back then,” I said. “But today, we would call her… a cock-tease.”

  Nate Kirkland stopped midpick. Matt Katz had not only woken up, but started taking notes. Later I would see “get a vegetable boner” as that day’s homework in his agenda. Jason Burke had surrendered to himself in the game of tic-tac-toe. And the girls in the class? The way the girls were looking at me, you would think that not only did I know what a pickle flip was, I could also do it damn well.

  chapter 10

  “I’m not going to Yeoman’s party tonight,” Jenny told me that Friday, hopping up on the hallway ledge where I was sitting, finishing my precalculus homework. For some reason, I always put off precalculus homework. Probably out of spite. I hate math—but don’t tell Kate that.

  I looked up. Jenny was wearing a skirt held together with safety pins. Were they fake, like the fruit bowls some people put on their tables? Or were they real safety pins? If I unhooked the safety pins, would her skirt fall open? Sometimes I had these involuntarily sexual thoughts about Jenny. Just because she’s always around. And because I’m always having involuntary sexual thoughts.

  “What party?” I asked.

  “Will Yeoman’s,” Jenny said. “You know, Will Yeoman? That guy who’s a dumber version of Jason Burke?”

  “Oh, right,” I said, graphing a squiggly parabola. Then I looked up at Jenny, amused. “He is a dumber Jason Burke.”

  Jason Burke was blond and good at sports and pretty smart. Will Yeoman was blond and good at sports, but a little rougher, a little bigger, and clumsier and stupider. Together they looked like a lesson on the evolution of man.

  “Will Yeoman’s parents are gone for the weekend,” Jenny told me, pulling her legs up and crossing them on the narrow ledge. “So the party’s in the whole house, not just the basement. Ashley Milano is gonna perform those stripper moves she learned from her pole-dancing lessons, and Will’s creepy uncle is getting beer for the downstairs.”

  “That uncle who friended all those girls on Facebook?” I asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “He’ll probably try to come to the party,” I said, remembering that was how else I had heard of Will Yeoman. Will Yeoman’s uncle had “poked” Kayla Bateman on Facebook so much that she tried to get him on To Catch a Predator.

  “Anyway, I’m not going.” Jenny crossed her arms emphatically.

  I scribbled “Finn Frame, Period Three Precalc” on my homework and closed my binder.

  I asked Jenny what she wanted me to ask her: “Why aren’t you going?”

  The monologue that burst forth indicated that Jenny was very glad I had asked.

  “It’s just dumb girls who complain about how guys bother them, but their complaints are really a thinly disguised boast of how much the guy likes them,” Jenny began. “Like Kayla Bateman will talk about how senior guys throw food down her shirt when they’re out to lunch, as if it’s annoying, but the whole point of her bringing it up is to brag about how the senior guys take her out to lunch and that she has big boobs. I hate when all girls think about is guys.”

  This from a girl with a home library of heroines who donned stilettos and low-cut dresses while running to escape mortal danger. Ah, well.

  “Is Will, like, inviting people to his party?” I asked.

  This placated Jenny. She went on a whole rant about how Will never specifically invited her to his parties, but the Monday after his parties, he’d ask, “Hey, why didn’t you show up, Jenny?”

  “So I guess I’m supposed to, like, assume I’m invited,” Jenny said. “Or he’ll be mad that I didn’t go!”

  Jenny especially liked this idea, the idea that Will would be upset if she didn’t show up to his party—or that he would notice. From what I’d seen at Pelham Public, people kind of forgot about Jenny. These kids had all known one another since they had baby teeth. They only found interesting those classmates who had undergone big changes since those days—for example, everyone was very interested in Kayla Bateman’s big changes.

  But even when she’s super gothed out, Jenny doesn’t stand out like that. Everyone at school has known her—quirky, small, and harmless—since kindergarten. When she wears shirts displaying firey tongues or knives dripping with blood, they just look down at her and say, “Hey, Jenny.”

  “Hey, Jenny,” Jason Burke said, stopping by our ledge. “Can I borrow the precalc homework?”

  “Yeah, sure! I’m just finishing it now,” Jenny said. She has a poorly concealed crush on Jason Burke, although she always says, “Pelham boys are sooo dumb.”

  “Can I bring it to you in homeroom?”

  “Great. Thanks so much, Jenny.” And Jason took off at a jog.

  Jenny turned to me. “Finn, can I have your homework?”

  At lunch, Kate asked me, “Are you going to Yeoman’s party tonight?”

  “Yeoman’s? How do you know about that?” I scoffed at her.

  “Everyone knows about that,” she said.

  “You’re a sophomore,” I told her with disdain. “You’re too young for underage drinking.”

  “Shut up!” Kate said, and she hit me lightly. My arm felt hot where she’d touched it. “I don’t drink. And I don’t really go to parties.”

  Wow! Kate was really brave to say that out loud! I was so impressed. There were at least ten kids in earshot of us, and Kate was admitting that she didn’t drink. That was like me casually proclaiming I had an undescended testicle (I don’t, I swear! I’m just saying it’s considered freakish not to drink or go to parties when you’re a high school student. No offense to the undescended).

  No matter how much Johnny Frackas bugged me at St. Luke’s, I hadn’t ever admitted that I just didn’t want to drink. I made up a football team’s worth of imaginary drinking buddies to avoid this revelation. But Kate was just so cool. She could admit that she didn’t like drinking or parties, and it didn’t make her lame. It only made her… cooler.

  “That’s amazing!” I burst out.

  She gave me a strange look.

  “I mean, that’s cool,” I said. “That you don’t go to parties. Parties aren’t that… cool.”

  “I was gonna say,” Kate continued, “if you’re not going to Yeoman’s, you should come see that new action movie with me. Apparently these agent guys have better suits than Will Smith in Men in Black.”

  “Oh, yeah,” I said
. I was smooth and casual, but in reality the idea of hanging out with Kate outside of school made me feel like I could hurdle Mount Everest. “That sounds… yeah, sure. Yeah.”

  “So you’re not going?” Kate asked.

  “What?”

  “To Yeoman’s.”

  “Nah. I was gonna skip it anyway.”

  “Good!” Kate said, twisting off her Snapple cap. “I haven’t been to the movies in forever. Can you pick me up?”

  “Yeah, sure,” I said. “Does anyone else need a ride?”

  “Like who else?”

  “Who’s coming?”

  Kate shrugged. “You can invite whoever you want.”

  “No, but, who did you invite?”

  “You.”

  “Just me?” My voice squeaked on “me,” and I coughed elaborately to cover it up.

  Kate raised an eyebrow. “Yes.”

  “So just you and me,” I confirmed, trying to pitch my voice lower.

  “Don’t worry, it’s not a girly movie or anything,” she said. “There’s lots of explosions and guy stuff for you.”

  Wow. Kate was not just asking me to a movie; she was asking me to a movie she’d chosen for a guy. So she thought of me as a guy. One who needed blood and action and superpowers. I’d always assumed if a girl took me to a movie, it would be Jane Austen’s latest sappy big-screen resurrection. Okay, so that had already happened. And that “girl” had been my mom.

  “I live in Larchmont,” Kate continued. “Do you know how to get there?”

  “Larchmont?” I said. “That’s, like, four towns north of here, isn’t it?”

  She said, “Twenty minutes, tops. I’ll buy the popcorn.”

  “Wait, aren’t you in a different school district?” I asked.

  Most Pelham Public kids lived, like I did, less than a mile from our school.

  “I switched schools, but my parents didn’t want to move,” Kate said. “So I actually pay tuition here. Don’t tell anyone; it’s totally lame.”

  “Weird,” I said. “Why did you switch?”

  “Just geeky stuff,” Kate said. “They didn’t have as many AP math classes.” She shrugged. “So I’ll text you my address!”

  Switching schools to take AP classes seemed weird to me, but the thought passed quickly through my very occupied brain. All my neurons were charged and chest-bumping each other with the joy of knowing that I, Finbar Frame, was going out with Kate.

  That night, I was leaving the house at the same time as Luke, who was going with some teammates to the bars on Arthur Avenue. Arthur Avenue is in the Bronx, near Luke’s school. I would have slaughtered Luke, Cain and Abel–style, for use of the Volvo on this particular night. Luckily, he didn’t need the car because (a) he could take the train there and (b) going to a bar underage and then driving is five times dumber than just going to a bar underage. Which Luke was already doing.

  “Do you have a fake ID?” I asked him as we both grabbed jackets from the closet near the front door.

  “I just got one yesterday,” Luke said. “This senior guy doctors up fake IDs in the bathroom at school.”

  Luke took out his wallet and showed me the ID card. It was an Alabama license, and the guy on it had a beard.

  “No way are you this guy!” I laughed aloud, snatching the card from Luke’s hand. “This guy’s, what, forty? Oh my God, he was born in the seventies, he is…”

  “Where’s everyone going?” my mother asked.

  She came out of the kitchen holding what looked like a cell phone. Luke and I knew it was actually a handheld UV light that killed germs. My mother regularly woke us up by shooting laser beams at the invisible bacteria around our room.

  “Finn’s taking the car to the movies,” Luke said. “I’m going to a Fordham Prep thing.”

  “What kind of Fordham Prep thing?” my mother asked.

  “Some school ministry thing,” Luke said. “Prayers, refreshments, you know.”

  “I knew Fordham Prep would be good for you!” My mother clapped her UV light between her palms.

  While she was kvelling over Luke’s deepened Catholicism, I pushed open the door. I was glad my mother was focused on the bad twin. It allowed me to slip out with just a “Bye, Mom!” and avoid interrogation that would lead to a million questions about Kate.

  Luke followed me down the front steps a few seconds later.

  “Prayers?” I smirked, beeping the Volvo alarm off from a few feet away.

  Luke crossed himself before heading off on foot to the train station. “I’ll say grace before my first Bud Light. And I’ll say a prayer for you, too, Finn—for your date.”

  * * *

  Later that evening, after the movie, Kate and I left the theater side by side. As we emerged from the dark and I was blown away by how she looked in the renewed light, she asked me, “What’d you think?”

  What did I think? I thought Kate fit perfectly in my passenger seat, asking politely before she scanned the radio on commercial. I thought she had great taste in music (she had turned off Nickelback and turned on the new Jay-Z song). I thought Kate had great taste in snacks (popcorn with extra artificial butter, orange Fanta), although I was tortured by the popcorn smell and wished vampires indulged, at least in Junior Mints, once in a while. I thought Kate had a laugh so great that every time she laughed, I wished I had written the script (although, actually, the scriptwriters hadn’t meant the script to be funny. It was just funny because it was so bad). I was crazy about her.

  “It was ridiculous to begin with,” I said. “Then Miley Cyrus showed up!”

  “I know, right?” Kate laughed. “I mean, is she really the first person the mayor of New York would call to fight terrorism?”

  “Miley Cyrus shouldn’t be allowed in action movies. Or any movies.”

  “Hey, hold up.” Kate grinned. “You better make an exception for Hannah Montana: The Movie.”

  “Ohhh,” I said, nodding knowingly. “So you were a Hannah Montana girl?”

  “So what?” Kate said defensively. “I bet you were a Pokémon guy. C’mon, admit it, you were a Pokémon guy.”

  “Not even close,” I told her.

  Mental note: hide three binders of Pokémon cards. Change eBay username from Pikachu4U. To… well, anything else.

  As I drove Kate home, I was a little worried, because so far she had shot down any attempt of chivalry on my part. She’d opened the car door for herself, even though I tried to beat her to it. I’d let her step ahead of me in the ticket line, but then she’d been called down to the farthest ticket counter, and as I was trying to decide if I should follow her, I got called to the closest ticket counter. So she paid for her own ticket. All these things made me wonder if I could call this a date, or if it was just two people hanging out to avoid watching Ashley Milano strip-dance at a crowded kegger. Maybe I’d given Kate the “just friends” impression by not opening her car door or paying for her movie ticket. Or maybe I’d given her the “crappy date” impression.

  Or maybe she was a militant feminist and my paying for her ticket or holding her door would have offended her. Yes, totally. My wussiness was a good thing.

  But when we got a little closer, Kate began to fidget with the zipper of her jacket. And she actually sounded nervous when she spoke up over the Jay-Z song on the radio.

  “Hey, Finn, I have a favor to ask.”

  A favor? I’m sure I could oblige. Did she need me to kiss her? Lean over the gearshift and take off her shirt? Throw her in the back and…

  “Can you come say hi to my dad?”

  Wow. So the opposite of what I had in mind.

  But I answered, “Sure,” automatically.

  Nerves shot through me and made it extra difficult to parallel park. I really needed to make a good impression on Kate’s dad. He wanted to make sure that I was a safe and dependable guy…. Wait, hold up… this was fantastic! That meant that Kate had insinuated somehow that I was not a safe and dependable guy. How awesome! Kate didn’t think I
was safe and dependable (or rather, she didn’t know I was safe and dependable). Kate thought I was dark and mysterious! She thought I was dangerous, which was miraculous, considering the whole night I’d stayed five miles below the speed limit. This whole vampire thing must be working!

  Or maybe Kate’s dad thought I was a different kind of dangerous. Maybe he thought I was someone way worse than a vampire. Maybe he thought I was an older guy who had a decent chance of scoring with his daughter. He thought this was a date. I practically skipped around the car to climb Kate’s front steps. This was a date!

  chapter 11

  Something drew me again and again to the conflict between Chris Perez and Chris Cho. I shouldn’t have cared. Not only was apathy part of my vampire agenda, but I had never spoken to Perez or Cho in my life. Yet I kept finding excuses to leave physics between the class period and the lab period. I even volunteered to be shot during the paintball lab so I could escape to my locker for a change of clothes. When I reached my locker, I would watch from twenty-five feet down the hall while Chris Perez robbed Chris Cho.

  The first few times I watched, Perez roughed Cho around a little bit. He pulled at the lapels of his jacket to bring him close, then pushed him back into a locker or a bathroom door. He cuffed him on the jaw a little too hard. Then Perez would pat down Cho’s chest and his jacket pockets. He’d undo the Velcro of Cho’s pocket, dig inside, and pull something out. He treated everything as if it were his, violating Cho’s Velcro, his jacket, his wallet.

  Perez started by taking cash. Whatever Cho had on him. Cho wised up and started carrying less cash on him—down from two twenties, to a few singles, finally to no cash at all. But then Perez stole his leather wallet. After his wallet was gone, Cho would purposefully bring in objects, offerings for the ancient god that was Chris Perez. A CD or DVD, then this gold key ring that looked like it should have belonged to a mafioso, not a pubescent Asian American. Once I saw Cho try to give Perez a book. Perez rejected that, turned Cho’s backpack upside down, flipped his pockets inside out, and took his iPod Touch instead.