The Obstacle Course

by JF Freedman

  My hair was turning white from the snow. It was covering my head and shoulders, too.

  “You get inside where it’s warm,” the driver said.

  “I’m going straight home,” I promised him.

  He crunched the gears and pulled away, heading for Washington. I stood there and watched him go, feeling the snow falling on my head.

  Even though it was cold out I took my time walking home. It was past seven, so I was already late for dinner; no sense rushing a bad thing. I looked in some of the windows as I walked down the street. People were eating dinner or watching television. Some were doing both at the same time. I know everybody in the neighborhood, practically. Ravensburg’s one of these real old towns going back to the 1600s, there’re stones in the graveyards going back to 1640. I like the graveyard, it’s quiet there, not scary at all. I have friends whose people go clear back to the 1600s in Ravensburg, you can see their family names on some of the old markers. There’s no real reason to stay here but hardly anybody ever leaves. Not me, though. When the time comes I’m leaving in a cloud of dust and a hearty “Hi, ho, Silver, away.”

  The lights were on in our kitchen. I peeked through the window. My family was eating dinner. Even from outside I knew what it was: Swiss steak, kale, potatoes, and bread to dip in the gravy. None of those things are my favorites, but beggars can’t be choosers. My old man, as usual, was washing his down with a jelly-jar glass of booze—probably Four Roses, his everyday poison.

  I was jittery—being late for dinner is a sure way to piss my old man off. Just about everything I do pisses him off. He’s pissed off with me about something almost every day.

  I counted from twenty backwards three times, took a deep breath, and ran inside, huffing and puffing like I’d been running a mile.

  “I couldn’t help it!” I immediately started improvising like mad, you never know, someday someone might believe you. “I swear to God I’d’ve been home an hour ago but this old lady got a flat tire and I had to help her fix it ’cause she was going to Prince Georges Hospital ’cause her husband’s got cancer. He could die any minute.”

  My old man didn’t even bother to look up from his plate.

  “Tell me another one.”

  I threw my coat on the couch, sat down at the table.

  “It’s true, I swear to God.” I blew on my hands to get them warm. “Boy, I’m starving, what’s for dinner, mom?”

  She shuffled over to the oven, took out my plate (which she’d kept warm, like always), and put it in front of me without saying a word. She’s been doing this for years.

  Ruthie glanced over at me.

  “I liked the story about the kid whose dog got run over better,” she said, real snide.

  “Up yours,” I told her under my breath. Like her shit don’t stink.

  “You can do the dishes tonight,” my mother told me.

  That was okay, it beats the shit out of getting your ass tanned any day. Her and Ruthie got up to go in the living room for a smoke. She looked tired—she usually looks tired. Even though I don’t favor women coloring their hair unless they’re old and gray, my mom’s one woman who ought to. It’s this kind of dishwater-blond that doesn’t look pretty no matter how she styles it. She doesn’t wear makeup around the house, so the lines around her mouth and eyes are starting to show pretty strong. She’s only thirty-six but she’s aging fast. Living in my family’ll do that to you.

  Ruthie was wearing one of her extra-tight Orion sweaters, the kind where her bra shows through. She doesn’t hide them, that’s for sure. By the time she’s twenty-five she’ll have an ass as wide as two ax handles, the way she chows down. She’s built good now, though—once in a while I’ll sneak a look at her while she’s getting undressed. She’s got a set on her like Jayne Mansfield, I swear to God. All my buddies’re always trying to get me to let them sneak a look, but I never do. She’s my sister, after all, and anyway my old man would whip my ass from here to Hyattsville if he ever caught us.

  My dad polished off the last of his drink, belched like a car backfiring, and went in to watch television. My plate looked like something the dog would’ve thrown up, but I ate it all anyway.

  Hits or cracks?”

  “Cracks.”

  Burt peeled the stamp off the back of the Camels pack. There was an H 1 written underneath.

  “It’s always hits,” Joe complained.

  “So say hits,” Burt answered.

  Joe pulled his left arm out of his jacket and rolled up his shirtsleeve. Burt pinched some skin behind his biceps, and gave Joe a mean-looking frog with the first knuckle of his middle finger.

  “Shit!” Joe flinched.

  They hurt, especially when someone who knows how to give them does it. Joe’s arm’ll be black and blue all day from that one frog.

  We’ve been playing this game since third grade, when we started smoking. All packs of Camels have either the letter H or the letter K behind the tobacco stamp. The H always has the number one after it, while the K can have any number, usually ten or more, up to fifty. Almost all packs have an H, but if you ever get a K, you can frog a guy to death, which is why people will choose K, even if it almost never comes up.

  Me, Joe Matthews and Burt Kellogg, the Three Musketeers we call ourselves, were hunched down between cars in the teachers’ parking lot, near where the teachers’ lounge is located. They’re my best friends, true asshole buddies, one for all and all for one. We’ve been tight as brothers since seventh grade when Burt moved to Ravensburg from Brookland, in D.C.

  Clarence Kane was with us, also. He’s okay, but he’s not close, he’s just another kid.

  We were sharing a butt, our jackets tight around our necks to keep warm. I was wearing my new Ravensburg High jacket, which I’d just gotten at the high school bookstore. I finally couldn’t stand that raggedy-ass old jacket of mine anymore, so I bought this new one with some money from my secret stash. It was totally cherry—midnight-blue with white trim, and lined inside, so it was extra-warm. My parents probably figured I’d bought it out of last summer’s lawnmowing earnings. They don’t give a shit as long as it doesn’t come out of their pockets, my old man especially.

  “Nice jacket, Roy,” Burt said. He fingered the material.

  “Hands off the merchandise,” I told him. “I don’t want your goddamn cooties.”

  “Touchy touchy touchy.”

  Before I could stop myself, this humongous belch rolled up my throat and out my mouth. My mom had made Spam and eggs for breakfast; Spam’ll make me belch every time.

  “Shit, man,” Burt complained. “Ain’t you got no couth?”

  “Saves wear and tear on the asshole,” I informed him.

  It was cold out, dry-cold. We were early, we had time to kill before we had to be inside for homeroom. Clarence passed the crumpled-up Camel to me. We usually smoke Camels ’cause they’re a cent cheaper than Luckies and you can play hits or cracks with them. I took it carefully between my thumb and forefinger and took a hard drag, making sure my lips were drawn back tight against my gums.

  A piece of tobacco stuck to my lip anyway. I spat it out.

  “Don’t nigger-lip it, Roy, goddamnit,” Clarence hissed.

  I French-inhaled like I’ve seen my sister do. She learned that from the movies. I passed the butt left, to Burt.

  “Don’t get your bowels in an uproar,” I told Clarence.

  Burt took a drag and passed the butt to Joe.

  “You know what Danny Detweiler told me?” Joe asked, taking a deep drag. “He said he finger-fucked Darlene Mast at the movies Saturday night.” He passed the cig over to Clarence.

  My breath froze in my throat. The idea that anybody would’ve touched Darlene Mast gave me a hard knot in my stomach; that it was Danny Detweiler, the one kid in the whole school I hate with a purple passion, made the thought especially shitty.

  “Who told you that crap?” Burt asked skeptically.

  “Danny. He said he had her so hot he almost came in
his Jockeys.”

  Burt turned to me. “You believe that?”

  I shrugged like I could give a shit either way. No one knows how I feel about Darlene, not even my best buddies. But my asshole was so tight you couldn’t have forced a BB up it with an air gun.

  “Well, I don’t,” Clarence said, “’cause I saw Darlene at the skating rink Saturday night and Danny wasn’t even there.”

  “Darlene’s the worst cockteaser that ever lived,” Burt added. “That girl’s gonna cause more cases of blue balls in history before she’s through.”

  “Aw, come on, man, she is not,” I countered as casually as I could, wanting to defend her without giving myself away. “You’re probably jealous because she never pays you any attention,” I said, pretending like I was kidding him.

  “She’s a little cockteaser,” Burt assured me, “take it from the pro. She’ll tell a guy she likes him just to get another guy jealous. She did it to Kevin Rooney last fall—remember how he thought she was all hot for him? She didn’t give a flying fuck for Kevin, she just wanted to make some DeMatha creep jealous. Broke poor ol’ Kevin’s heart for at least two, three days. I feel for the poor bastard ever gets involved with her,” he added with finality, dismissing any yearnings towards her on his part, which was fine with me, I don’t like being in competition with my buddies. It’s an unwritten code between us, if one of us likes a girl and declares it, the others keep hands off, even if they like her, too.

  “I knew Danny was full of it,” Joe said, pissed off at himself for having been taken in. “Lying motherfucker.”

  Even though I didn’t care for Burt calling Darlene a cock-teaser, I can’t tell you how relieved I felt. I was lightheaded, it had shook me up so bad—the thought of Darlene and Danny together. The thought of Darlene and anybody together.

  Nobody knows that Darlene is the love of my life and the constant object of my most personal sexual dreams. Especially her—she barely knows I exist, even though we’ve been in the same grade, the same homeroom even, for two and a half years. That’s not true, I mean literally, she certainly knows I exist, everybody in the school knows I exist, but it’s like it doesn’t matter to her, she ignores me so bad. Sometimes I think she ignores me just because she’s aware of me and wants to show me that she isn’t.

  I remember the first time I saw Darlene naked. It was in seventh grade, more than two years ago. Me and Joe and Burt had finished gym class and were hanging around. It was winter and gym was held inside. The girls were down at the other end of the gym playing volleyball, jumping around and squealing. After the bell had rung to signal it was time to go change, Joe whistled me over.

  “Hey, Poole,” he’d commanded, “get your ass up here.”

  I’d followed him and Burt up onto the stage, which is at the end of the gym. (It’s a combination gym and auditorium, we have assemblies in there as well as sports.) While the other boys in our class went to take their showers we’d hid behind the curtains on the side of the stage next to the girls’ locker room.

  “Take a look,” Joe had told us.

  He pulled aside a loose piece of beaverboard that exposed the stairs leading from the girls’ locker room down to their shower, which was a flight below.

  “How’d you find out about this?” Burt had asked, real wide-eyed. We were young and hairless boys still, but old enough to know how important this knowledge was.

  “My brother told me,” Joe had boasted. “Old family tradition.” Joe’s brother’s in senior high, a real rock.

  We had watched in silence as the girls ran out of their locker room, down the stairs to the showers. Most of them were still flat, since they were only seventh-graders, but a few were starting to get real titties. Nancy Calhoun and Sonja Swarrel and Carrie Bestrow passed in front of our eyes, girls we’d known all our lives, from before first grade even.

  Then Darlene had emerged. I had never seen her before. Until this summer she lived in handover, which is two towns over from Ravensburg, and went to elementary school there. Now she bussed in here, like most of the kids.

  She ran down the stairs on her tiptoes, almost like she was dancing. Her titties were just starting to come out—not like now, which are perfect, not huge like my sister’s but just right, the size of oranges and perfectly shaped. Her long dark hair fell down her shoulders like a cloud almost. I knew I was in love the second I saw her.

  I’ve never asked her out. Not once. She’d say “no” anyway so why make myself miserable? I hear she has a boyfriend at DeMatha, which is this Catholic high school in Hyattsville specializing in basketball—some junior hotshot who has his own wheels. If he goes to DeMatha he probably has an IQ in the high teens at least. That’s okay—in a little more than a year I’ll be sixteen, with wheels of my own. Then she’ll see how cool I am.

  “Shit.” Burt looked up suddenly, interrupting my reverie. “Here comes Duffy.”

  Joe stomped the butt out and flipped it under the nearest car. Horace Duffy is the principal. He used to be a gym teacher, that tells you how good a school it is, when the gym teacher becomes the principal. He’s bald as a cue ball and getting fat, but he’s still tough as hell. Here it was the middle of winter and this guy’s walking around in a short-sleeve shirt and a bow tie. It could be colder than a brass toilet seat in the Yukon and Duffy’ll be walking around without his coat on. He really is tougher than shit. We don’t like to admit that he’s tougher than us, but he definitely is.

  We stood up, acting real nonchalant, like we were going to pull one over on him. This guy’s probably seen more shit than all of us have put together.

  “What’re you boys doing out here?” he asked pleasantly. That’s his style, one moment he’s real buddy-buddy, the next he’s an inch away from ripping you a new asshole. You never know when, either, it’s part of what makes him so scary.

  “Nothing, Mr. Duffy,” I said.

  “How’s about moving it inside? I’m getting tired of seeing y’all in detention hall.” He laid a heavy hand on my shoulder—it was not a comforting gesture, to say the least. “Especially you, Mr. Poole,” he told me with this evil smile.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Didn’t you have any homework last night?” he asked me. He could see I didn’t have any of my schoolbooks with me. None of the other guys did, either, but he’d picked me out this morning to rag on. He gets on me a lot, I’ll bet he gets on me as much as any kid in the whole school.

  “I already left them in my locker, Mr. Duffy.”

  “Glad to hear it. I’ve noticed your grades haven’t been the best this year.”

  “They’ll get better, I promise.”

  “I’m going to hold you to it, Roy. All of you,” he said, looking at everyone. “You’re smart boys, there’s no reason you shouldn’t be doing better.”

  We nodded our heads and shuffled our feet. We get this all the time from teachers, how we’re really smart and just don’t apply ourselves. I’ve been hearing that shit from first grade. Actually, it’s true. At least I am, I don’t know about these other guys, but I can be smart when I want to be. The thing is, who cares about being smart in such a dumb school? The other thing is I don’t look like a brain or act like one so my teachers treat me like I’m dogshit, which is how they treat most of the kids here. It’s not exactly the best way to get somebody to do better. Anyway, I’ll buckle down when I get to high school, ’cause I’ll have to get good grades to get into Annapolis.

  Satisfied that he’d gotten our attention, Duffy turned on his heel and strolled away. Burt kissed his middle finger and shot him the bird.

  “Detention hall next week, Kellogg,” Duffy sang out, not even turning around to look at us. The guy’s got eyes in the back of his head, I swear to God.

  “Hey Sarkie babe,” I whispered under my breath, “you do the math homework?”

  In the whole time I’ve been in this school I’ve never cracked a book. Hardly anybody I know ever does. The only ones that do are the brains, who are so weird they
actually like studying, and the dipshits, who are too scared not to.

  Of course, that can present problems, like if you’ve got a math assignment due and you haven’t done it, which was the case this morning.

  Sarkind is the uncoolest kid in my class. He’s this short, fat wet-shit. His name is Lewis but no one ever calls him that except the teachers. He’s one of the “brains” in the class, always studying and getting straight A’s. Guys like Duffy love his ass, but I’ll bet he doesn’t have one friend in the school. I kind of feel sorry for him, actually. He can’t help it if he’s a jerk. I could get straight A’s too if all I wanted to do was study all night long, but I’ve got better things to do with my time.

  He didn’t answer. He was too busy strapping his slide rule onto his belt. He’s one of these kids who wears his belt about six inches under his armpits, and always has his slide rule on it. He’s probably the only kid in the whole school who knows how to use the damn thing. Actually, I’m going to have to learn how because you do a lot of math at Annapolis. Maybe I can get Sarkie to teach me. He’d love to have me as his friend. In his whole life he’s probably never dreamed he could have a friend like me.

  “Lend it to me, will you?” I asked. “I had to take my mother out shopping last night and ran out of time.”

  “Shut up down there!” Mr. Archibald, one of the teachers monitoring the halls, called out in our direction. We’re not allowed to talk in the halls. It’s one of the millions of rules we have.