I’ll start with your hair: violet hair. It’s not overdone: it doesn’t look like somebody put a purple mop on your head, because you can see that beautiful brown hair (like your eyes, because I’m just ahead in describing your head; I guess I’m jumping below) peeking through. Now, your mouth, which I’m learning centimeter by centimeter (as you are, mine), is too beautiful for words. I love your mouth all on its own; even more when it’s attached to mine.
From the tips of your tiny fingers down to your dancer’s feet, everything in between is simply perfect. That time we showered together at your parent’s house, I just watched one drop of water make its way from your neck and down your back, down, down. I wished I was that single drop of water, but then I realized if I were, I would never hear your sweet voice, and you would never make me laugh out loud. You told me once that I stood out, but I’m so glad I’m not standing out there alone, but instead sharing your laughter, your shower, and your heart.
Did I talk about your legs yet? Those beautiful legs that fly with the greatest of ease across the stage. You defy the laws of gravity—is it because you are an angel?
K, there you are from head to toe, and I haven’t even talked about the best parts of you yet: your heart and how kind you are to me. Your mind and how smart, funny, quick, and sarcastic you are. Your soul, which lights a fire inside of me and keeps me burning through the long days and longer nights when we’re apart, and how you make me feel part of something.
Alex is my best friend and I once envied him, his fearlessness, his talent, his wit, and that his dad wasn’t around to hate him the way mine hates me. Sean is my next best friend, but I envied him as well. Not just his good looks and piles of green, but also his whole shy but confident self. He always seems to get what he wants. Anyway, I used to envy all my friends, but not anymore. Because from the first time I saw you, Kylee Edmonds, you were all that I wanted. So, now it’s time for them to envy me. Now it’s time for every bozo like Bob Hitchings to envy me. It’s time for the thousands of men in Flint, the millions in Michigan, the millions and millions of men in the United States, and the couple billion the world over to envy me, because it’s me and only me that gets to hold you. Happy birthday. You’re the real thing, and I live you.
B
Thirteen
December 7, Junior Year
“He wrote what?”
I can hear Principal Morgan through the glass window that separates the outer office from his inner sanctum. He looks like he’s ready to explode. I can almost see him twitching as he reaches for the telephone to call my parents. I’m not afraid because Dad is safely at work, and Mom will support me; I can count on that. It also looks like I can count on being ousted from Southwestern. No doubt about it, this is strike three and I’m outta here.
“Don’t even think about printing this!” Morgan shouts at Mr. Popham, the school newspaper adviser.
I’m glad that Morgan seems angrier with Popham than with me. I did nothing more than express myself, only to get slapped down one more time. After the fall play (The Crucible) wrapped last week, Mr. Douglas had some of us participate in forensic debates against each other. We didn’t have a real team like other schools, although there was always money for sports squads, but Mr. Douglas wanted us to get experience doing research, thinking on our feet, and preparing arguments. He and Mr. Popham had agreed that since there was also no money for prizes, the winning debaters would get their speeches published in the school paper, since only the theater kids even got to hear our forensic gymnastics. Which was all well and good, until I won, and mentioned the unmentionable nine-letter word at Southwestern High School: Columbine. My winning speech was called “Dylan and Eric Were Victims Too.”
It takes a while to get all of the concerned parties together, which gives my mom time to get to school. Once she arrives, they take us into a conference room. She looks upset; no doubt worried about the scene this will create at home because this is one situation we can’t hide. We never lie to my dad, but we also never actually told him about my two other suspensions. Mom is good—maybe too good—about protecting me on stuff like this. She knows that fire doesn’t need any more fuel, and this is gasoline.
“Bret, tell us why you decided to write this,” Ms. Pfeil says, to start the meeting.
“It was a debate, and I thought it’d work best if I chose something controversial. This seemed like a good thing to write about,” I respond. “What’s wrong with that? I was just doing what a good debater is supposed to do.”
“You are lucky, buster, that the board has yet to approve the zero-tolerance policy we have submitted to them, or you would be in jail right now for verbal assault,” Morgan says, livid.
“Bob, just a second. That seems a little harsh,” Mr. Douglas says, rushing to my defense. Morgan shoots Mr. Douglas a look that seems to say, “We’ll talk about this later,” but I know Mr. Douglas. He will be there for me, and I can tell Morgan wishes he wasn’t.
“We’re not going to publish this trash in the paper, right Mr. Popham?” Morgan says.
Popham doesn’t respond right away. I don’t know him that well, but he seems like a pretty cool guy, for a teacher. He looks confused, as he rubs his hand across his forehead.
“What about the First Amendment?” I say, breaking my silence and these chains I feel wrapped in like some high school Houdini. Morgan’s a magician too, because he makes his lips disappear, as he rearranges his tie, no doubt wishing he could wrap it around my neck.
“He’s got a point, Bob,” Mr. Douglas says. “We said we would publish the winners, and Bret won outright. We shouldn’t censor his opinion. To me, it just doesn’t seem fair.”
“This isn’t about what’s fair,” Morgan says, continuing his love affair with the obvious. “This is about what is best for this school, which is my decision and not yours.”
“Well, maybe the teacher’s union or the ACLU would see it differently?” Mr. Douglas says almost rhetorically, as he pulls out a notepad and pencil.
“The question is moot,” Morgan says. “What was your agreement, again?”
“That we would publish the speeches of the winning students,” Mr. Popham replies.
“Right. As of this moment, Bret Hendricks is no longer a student here. I’m suspending him for this incident, and pursuant to board policy, this third suspension means he will be expelled from school,” Morgan says, so full of my damnation I think he might crack wide open.
Finally, Mom speaks. “If you suspend him, we will sue you and the school board.”
“What?” Morgan is stunned. I am too. Mr. Douglas, on the other hand, just smiles.
“I know I’m only a cashier at Wal-Mart, but I have enough common sense to know it’s wrong to suspend a student for writing a speech, just because you don’t agree with it,” Mom replies. I don’t know the family finances, but I know there’s no way we can afford a lawyer. Even though my father is the poker player of the family, my mom is pretty good at bluffing. I hope Morgan can’t see what I spy: her hands trembling under the table.
“You can’t suspend Bret for something I asked him to do,” Mr. Douglas says, stepping in front of the bullet. “If you want to suspend someone, try starting with me.”
“I agree,” Mr. Popham says, making it three against one, with Mrs. Pfeil undecided.
“All right then, there will be no suspension at this time,” Morgan says after a long pause. “But what you don’t understand, Mrs. Hendricks—”
“I do understand,” Mom, says cutting him off. “You don’t understand my son.”
Morgan looks like he’s possessed by some kind of hell spawn about to projectile puke. “No, I don’t understand a young man who wears his hair like a girl, dresses like a homeless person, and writes a paper glorifying mass murderers.”
“Wait a minute!” I cry. “Did you even hear or read the speech?”
Mr. Popham interjects, “I told Mr. Morgan what was in your speech. It concerned me too. I believe in free speech,
but in times like these, we have to be very careful.”
“Then you misrepresented what I said,” I counter. “This isn’t fair. If I did something wrong, then punish me. But I didn’t do anything wrong, I just expressed an opinion.”
“A very dangerous opinion,” Morgan says firmly, anxious to have the final word.
“Don’t you think we’re all overreacting a little?” Mrs. Pfeil asks.
“Bret, what did you say?” Mom asks, bringing herself back into the conversation. Her hand and voice are still shaking, no doubt from lack of information, as she hadn’t read the speech. I usually let her read my stuff because she is really good with grammar, but this speech I held close to the heart.
“That’s not the point. We will not tolerate this sort of continued antisocial behavior from your son,” Morgan starts. “Perhaps we should discuss a transfer to an alternative school.”
“No way!” I exclaim. I don’t want to leave school, especially now that Morgan wants it.
“My son is not transferring,” Mom says firmly. “Honey, tell me what you said.”
“I said what happened at Columbine was terrible. I didn’t say it was a good thing. I didn’t say that Dylan and Eric were heroes. In fact, they were two sick mofos, and what they did was very wrong. They killed a lot of people and hurt a lot of people. But I also pointed out that how they had been treated at their school was wrong too. I said they were the first victims.”
“How you can feel sympathy for those sick, twisted murderers is beyond me,” Morgan says.
“Not sympathy, Mr. Morgan, but empathy. Everything that happened to them happens here, every day,” I say, almost spitting out the words.
“That’s not true.” Morgan says, his eyes focused on his desk, not me.
I turn around and push my Kylee-matching violet-tinted ponytail aside. “Look at this.”
Morgan doesn’t move, but my mom stares in shock at the back of my neck, which is covered with small bruises. Hitchings has given me the school’s only black-and-blue neck.
“What in the world?” Mom says. I think she’s going to cry, she looks so upset.
“Bob Hitchings, every day during King’s English class,” I say, looking down at the floor, hating that I am admitting my helplessness. “Whenever King’s back is turned, he jabs or slaps me with a pencil, sometimes a pen, sometimes his hand.”
“Bret, that’s terrible,” Mr. Douglas says. Mr. Popham seems to nod in agreement.
“It’s not just me,” I say, certain that me and Hitchings aren’t the only harassment duo.
“Honey, why didn’t you say something?” Mom asks, the look of concern on her face obviously not shared by Morgan.
“What was I going to say?” I feel like screaming. “And to whom?”
“You should have told someone!” My mother wants to hug me, but she knows that I would die from that scene. “Did you know about this, Mrs. Pfeil?”
“No, I did not. Bret, why didn’t you say anything to me when we spoke?” Mrs. Pfeil asks.
“And get Hitchings in trouble?” I say, throwing my hands in the air. “Then he would just finish the job. I figured I would take a little pain and avoid a beating. What else can I do?”
“You will talk with this student?” Mom says, looking right at Morgan.
“I’ll deal with Hitchings,” I say bravely, yet not knowing when and where and how.
Morgan looks like he has ten thousand volts running through him. “What do you mean by that?”
“Nothing,” I say, again looking down, keeping myself grounded. Lacking resources or recourse, I let my imagination run wild, envisioning Hitchings’s day of reckoning, but I know better and had to let them know too. “I’m not like them, you know that, Mom?”
“Like who?” Mom asks.
“Dylan and Eric, or any of those other kids who shot up their schools,” I say.
Morgan is hanging on every word, waiting for me to hang myself, no doubt.
“I know, honey,” Mom says softly.
“You know why?” I ask her, but I’m directing this at Morgan. He needs to know his police state won’t be breeched, that Southwestern won’t be on the cover of Time magazine.
“Why?” she responds, letting me tell my story.
“Because you and Dad taught me right from wrong, and that if you hurt, you don’t take it out on other people,” I say, sitting up straight, as I stare Morgan down. “Because even though Dad owns a rifle, I don’t know where he keeps it or how to use it. I don’t really care that much about Hitchings and the other bullyboys. They’ll get theirs, just not from me. One day, I’ll be gone from here, maybe acting on Broadway or on stage at the Whiting, but Hitchings will still be in Flint, probably working at a car wash or a 7-Eleven. He’ll be jerking Slurpees for a living, and one day a stack of magazines will come in, and he’ll unpack them and see me on the cover of Entertainment Weekly or Rolling Stone. And you know what? You’ll still be here too, Mr. Morgan. Ten years from now, telling kids to stay in line and not disrupt your little apple-cart world. So, you see, I don’t want vengeance, and I don’t believe violence solves anything. What I want is a reckoning, and I’m willing to wait for it to happen.”
I can tell Mr. Douglas wants to smile but, great actor that he is, he won’t break his character of being the responsible adult. Deep down, I can tell he’s proud of me.
“Are you through?” Morgan says, hands on hips, disgust on his dour, flat face.
“And I want my speech published,” I say, my confidence growing.
“We’ll discuss that later,” Morgan says, meaning my part in the discussion is over. I won’t push the point, although I am amazed at how easily Morgan caved when people stood up to him. I wish I could have done it by myself, but Mom made a great tag-team partner. She isn’t formally educated, but she was smart enough to know when Morgan was both wrong and outnumbered.
“So, you’re not suspending him, right?” Mom says, seeking clarification and closure.
“Not this time, but remember the school board’s policy. Bret’s already been suspended for his inappropriate behavior toward Coach King and the incident at Homecoming. One more strike, and he’s out. And I don’t expect to hear the word Columbine come out of his mouth again, understand?” Then Morgan leans close to me. “I’m willing to wait too.”
I jam my hands into my pockets to keep my middle fingers from shooting in the air and sending me slithering from school.
“Bret, we’ll work this out,” Mr. Douglas says, putting his hand on my shoulder. “You’ve got too much talent to throw it away on something like this.”
I could sense what he’s really saying. If Hitchings isn’t worth it, neither is Morgan. I put my hat on my head as I leave the conference room, making sure that I don’t stare Morgan down, because now it’s about which one of us will be the first to blink.
Fourteen
December 26, Afternoon, Junior Year
“You really think I should sue the school board?”
“One hundred percent!” Mr. Edmonds says. As per usual, his enthusiasm is greater than any one man should generate without a permit. “Bret, I’m sure you would win.”
“I know people at the Flint office of the American Civil Liberties Union. Let me just make the call,” Mrs. Edmonds says, practically jumping up from the dining room table.
“Mom, it’s okay, Bret can handle it,” Kylee says, stepping in.
“One call, that’s all we need to make,” Mrs. Edmonds says, starting to dial her practically attached-to-her-hand cell phone. “This could be a great crusade.”
“Mrs. Edmonds, it’s okay,” I say. Kylee’s parents exhausted, entertained, and intrigued me with her mom’s frequent speech making and her dad’s regular forays into folk singing.
“That’s what’s wrong with this country!” Mr. Edmonds exclaims while pouring us each a small glass of wine, but I pass. “No respect for civil liberties and basic human rights.”
Kylee’s parents are what my da
d calls “no-good liberal do-gooders,” which is just one of the many reasons, even though Kylee and I have been dating for over four months, we’ve never had our parents in the same room together. I did Christmas yesterday with my parents, then came here for leftovers that are better than my family’s main course.
Their house isn’t a lot bigger than ours, but it’s so different, and not just because everything seems covered in cat hair. Looking around the house, I see how it is crammed with lots of books, but no romance novels; instead, there are tomes about history, politics, and travel. Instead of a TV blaring, classical music plays. The main features of their living room are an unabridged Oxford English Dictionary, an Encyclopedia Britannica, a framed photograph of Martin Luther King Jr., and the movie poster of Fahrenheit 9/11. The room’s centerpiece is a portrait of a younger Kylee—with long, chestnut-colored hair, dancing—painted by Mrs. Edmonds. The only thing my mother paints is her nails.
“Come on, let’s go,” Kylee says rising from the table; my eyes follow her like always.
“Where are you two off to now?” Mrs. Edmonds asks, only she isn’t grilling us; she makes it sound like wherever we’re going, it’s going to be exciting.
“Laying down tracks,” I say almost grudgingly, because I really just want to stay and hang with Kylee’s parents. Sean’s dad has bought him new recording equipment for Christmas, so we’re going to break it in by cutting songs, including a new one by Alex, for a CD Sean’s mom is financing. Which pretty much sums up the band. I’m the bass in the back and booming voice in front, Alex is the vision and scribe, while Sean’s the beat and bank account.
“Are you one hundred percent sure you don’t want me to sing a little Dylan with your band?” Mr. Edmonds says, eliciting a sigh from his only child and a kiss on the cheek from his wife. He launches into “Blowin’ in the Wind”: “How many roads must a man walk down—”
“No, Daddy, that won’t be necessary,” Kylee interrupts, her tiny hand covering her eyes as she speaks “Besides, I’m the band’s beautiful muse.”
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