King of the Screwups

by K L Going

  There’s something unnerving about being blamed for stuff you didn’t do. The only thing worse is getting blamed for things you did do. In English, Orlando hands me back the essay he made me stay late to write, and it has a C– marked at the top along with the words “More supporting details.”

  Great.

  And that’s only the beginning. First it’s, “Sit up, Liam,” then it’s, “The chalkboard would be in the front of the room, not out the window,” then, “Where’s your notebook?” He nags me about every little thing, and even makes me read out loud. Apparently we’re reading Shakespeare, which I hate. When it comes to class, my plan was to keep my mouth shut because people always assume quiet people are smart and studious, but Orlando calls on me three times and I get every answer wrong.

  To make matters worse, Jen catches me as we’re leaving.

  “Mr. DeSoto is a really tough teacher,” she says, “but once you get caught up, you’ll like him.” This is nice of her, only Darleen walks by right when she says it. Jen’s leaning toward me, looking sympathetic, and Darleen smirks knowingly, and I know what she’s thinking.

  Don’t try to pretend you’re not Mr. Popularity . . .

  I am doomed.

  19

  THE NEXT MORNING when my alarm goes off, I force myself not to hit snooze. I crawl out of bed, take my towel down the hall to the bathroom, and get ready to shower. I turn the water on so it’s steaming up the room, but I run my hand over the mirror and stare at my reflection before I get in. I want to see some shred of Dad staring back at me, but all I see is Mom.

  I let the reflection cloud back up again, and for a moment I want to heave, but I step in the shower instead and let the hot water wash everything away.

  While I’m in there, I give myself a pep talk that goes something like this:

  Damn it, Liam, you idiot, this should not be so hard. Stop screwing the fuck up.

  It’s not much of a pep talk, but by the time I get out of the shower I’ve resolved that today people will actually notice how uncool I am.

  Once again things start out okay. When Pete isn’t looking, I sneak into his closet and dig around to find an outfit even worse than the one I wore yesterday. I’m in luck because he owns both an actual fringed vest and some very old pants that have bell-bottoms. This seems too good to be true, and when I try them on they’re too short and way too wide, which is even better because then I can wear an ugly belt. I flatten my hair, gel my cowlick, stick my pens prominently in the pocket of the vest, and wait for the school bus.

  The bus driver goes right past Pete’s trailer and stops for Darleen, so I jog over and trip going up the stairs. Then just for good measure, I trip again as the bus doors shut. The driver glares at me, as if my tripping insults him.

  “No funny business,” he reminds me, and I nod, sliding into the seat next to Becky. It’s odd though. Yesterday everyone was sitting in the back of the bus when I got on, but today they’re all sitting up front, almost as if they’re waiting for me.

  A guy in a football jersey gives me a nod and kicks his feet up on the bus seat.

  There’s also this girl sitting behind me who is dressed all in black, and she’s got on the perfect Goth makeup. She sizes me up, then looks back out the window.

  “Hey, Liam, I heard you’re in Jen Van Sant’s English class,” some guy in a fedora says. “She’s hot, huh?”

  “Yeah, I love that class,” I say, dodging the hot issue. “I am going to ace English this year.”

  “Are you sure?” Becky asks. “Because I could tutor you if you need help.”

  Darleen smirks at me over her shoulder.

  “That’s okay. I won’t need help,” I lie, but the fedora kid interrupts.

  “I heard Mr. DeSoto is in a band with your uncle. You seen ’em?”

  Now there are two ways to play my cards here. I could pretend that I’m horrified by Pete’s band and hope that makes me uncool by association with something horrific, or I could pretend to love Pete’s band and hope that makes me uncool by virtue of having bad taste. I go with bad taste.

  “Yeah, I’ve heard them,” I lie. “Great stuff. I love seventies music. Stuff like ABBA and Bowie . . .” I can’t think of any other musicians from the seventies. “And Bowie . . . and ABBA.”

  “Is it really a drag band?”

  I think about what Mom told me when she was reminiscing about the band. “Nah,” I say. “It’s a glam-rock cover band, not a drag band.”

  Everyone looks blank, so I feel compelled to repeat her lecture.

  “A drag band dresses up like women, but a glam-rock band just dresses up. You know, crazy stuff. Leather pants. Sequinned jackets. Feather boas. It’s gender-bending. Very retro Manhattan.”

  Once again everyone is staring, so I run my fingers through my hair the way I do when I want it to look tousled. It’s a nervous habit, but then I remember I don’t want it to look tousled, so I smooth it all back down again.

  “They’re still a bunch of fags,” mutters a voice, just loud enough to be overheard. My first thought is to wonder what kind of teenager still thinks like this when we live in the twenty-first century. But then it sinks in. The bus driver is staring at me in his rearview mirror, simultaneously pretending he didn’t make that comment and challenging me to do something about it.

  I feel the blood rush to my face.

  No one’s going to mess with Aunt Pete.

  “I suppose some people might put them down,” I say loudly, as if I’m still talking to the kid who asked the original question, “but that would be pretty ignorant. Every rock and roller dresses up. My uncle’s got more balls than most men in this town; that’s what I think.”

  The Goth girl sits up and makes a fist. “Yeah,” she hollers. She’s looking at me like she has newfound respect, and then she slips me a cigarette real sly, like we’re friends now. This might have felt good, only the cigarette barely touches my hand before the bus comes to a screeching halt.

  Crap.

  The bus driver stands up. “No smoking on the bus,” he growls. “I want you off.”

  “What? I wasn’t even smoking!”

  “Off.”

  “But I don’t know the way to school.”

  This time the driver actually grins. “I warned you,” he says.

  “Isn’t this against the law or something?”

  The driver steps forward and glares. “Are you threatening me?” he asks, real low and quiet. “Because if you’re threatening me, you’ll find out what I’m capable of. Besides, you weren’t on my list in the first place.”

  I may not be the smartest guy in the world, but I know when it’s time to shut my mouth, so I get off and stand on the side of the road. The bus peels away, and my perfect look gets showered in a dirt cloud.

  The situation has now hit maximum fucked up.

  20

  “DON’T TURN HERE! Slow down. Are you even paying attention?”

  I’m fourteen, and Mom, Dad, and I are on our way to visit some friends of Mom’s who live in the country. Mom is driving, and I’m sitting up front with her because just before we left the house, when Dad was about to slip into the front seat, Mom said, “Oh, Allan, let Liam sit there.”

  So Dad slunk into the backseat and now he’s been in a bad mood ever since. Mom and I are having a great time though. Mom is driving real fast on the deserted country roads, and every time she takes a turn she laughs and laughs.

  “This is just like that time we were late delivering that evening dress to Mrs. Arnauld in Tremont, isn’t it, Li? Remember how fabulous that dress was?”

  I do. It was practically couture. Brown suede with fur trim, designed specifically for the buyer.

  “Yeah. Remember how she threw it in her closet like we’d delivered the dry cleaning?”

  Mom laughs until she snorts, and I see Dad watching her from the backseat. There’s something far away in his expression, and for an instant I feel sorry for my father.

  “It was an amaz
ing dress, Dad,” I say, turning toward him. “Mrs. Arnauld is this rich old lady who likes to think she knows about fashion, but she really doesn’t, so Mom always does this thing where . . .”

  The expression on Dad’s face disappears.

  “Pull over,” he says to Mom. “You’re lost, Sarah. You’re driving way too fast and you have no idea where you’re going.”

  Mom stops laughing and looks surprised.

  “But, Allan, we’re . . .”

  “Pull. Over. Honestly, if the two of you could stop talking for two minutes and pay attention to your surroundings, we might not end up going in circles.”

  Mom looks for a spot to pull the car over, but the country roads are narrow and there’s no place safe. She slows way down, but Dad leans forward impatiently.

  “Liam,” he says, “tell your mother to pull the car over!”

  “Ma . . .”

  “I’m trying. I’m trying!”

  “There. You could have pulled over right there.” Dad points over Mom’s shoulder, and Mom’s hands grip the steering wheel so tight her knuckles turn white.

  “I didn’t see it,” she says, just as I yell, “There’s a spot, Mom!” So first she swerves right and then she swerves left, and no one sees the minivan coming toward us until Mom plows into it. There’s a loud metallic grinding noise and then a hiss as steam escapes the front of our car. Dad slams his fists against the seat cushion as the driver of the minivan gets out and heads toward us.

  “Now look what you’ve done! Why couldn’t you just watch where you were going? Would that have been so hard?” Dad gets out to smooth things over, slamming the door hard behind him.

  I should watch where the bus is headed as it drives away, but instead I stand on the side of the road staring at my shoes. I can feel that my cowlick is drooping, so I run my fingers through my hair again, and this time I don’t bother to flatten it out. I take off Pete’s vest and sling it over my shoulder and untuck my shirt. I’m pretty sure that by the time I arrive school will have started, and that means, at best, I can show up late and get detention. And if I get detention, that won’t look at all studious, so all the bad things everyone thinks of me will be confirmed.

  So I might as well give up.

  There’s a plaza up the road on the right, which seems as good a place to stop as any. There’s an animal feed store (dull), a liquor store (tempting, but I resist), and a hair salon (usually great, but this one advertises cuts for only $10 and they use old Vidal Sassoon photos in their windows—obviously pathetic). I’m beginning to give up on this place, but the fourth shop catches my eye.

  HIS AND HERS APPAREL.

  When I open the front door, I’m greeted by the sound of chimes. There’s an impressive display of lingerie on one wall, and an entire rack devoted to men’s boxer shorts—nice brands, too. Tommy Hilfiger. Ralph Lauren. Nautica. I pick up a pair of black silk, no-button fly shorts, and I’m examining the waistband when I hear a voice from the back of the store.

  “We’re not actually open for another . . .”

  I drop the boxer shorts, then hurry to pick them up again.

  “Liam?”

  “Oh. Uh, hi, Eddie.”

  I try to look casual, but that’s hard to do when you’re holding black silk boxer shorts in the middle of the morning on a school day. Eddie looks surprised. He glances at my too-short bell-bottoms and frowns.

  “What are you doing here?” he asks. “Aren’t you supposed to be in school?”

  Hmmm. Right. School.

  “Well, yeah, but there was this incident on the bus this morning . . .”

  Eddie’s holding an entire stack of multicolored women’s thongs, and he dumps them on the checkout counter the minute I say “incident.”

  “Oh no,” he says. “Do not tell me you got kicked off the bus.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t except . . .”

  “Why? What did you do? Ohmygod! Petey’s going to have a fit and then your father’s going to go insane!”

  This is not helping.

  “No one needs to tell my father,” I say quickly. “And it wasn’t my fault. I swear! I got kicked off for smoking, but I hadn’t even smoked yet. I would’ve gone straight to school, but I got lost.”

  I reach into my pocket to prove I’m telling the truth. One cigarette. Unlit. Eddie picks it up, letting it dangle between his fingers, then he throws it into a garbage can under the register.

  “Those are filthy. You shouldn’t even have that.” He shakes his hands as if they’re somehow contaminated. Then he sits down on a stool behind the register.

  “What are we going to do?” He looks like he might have a seizure and it’s all my fault.

  “Maybe you could give me a ride?”

  Eddie considers. “No. That will never do,” he says miserably. “Mabel Merriman gets her hair done today, and she always comes in here first and spends a crisp hundred-dollar bill. I can’t risk leaving.” He fans himself. “I could call Petey.” Now I’m the one who’s miserable.

  “No! Don’t do that. I mean, he’s sleeping and there’s no need to wake him up, right?”

  If Aunt Pete finds out about this, I’m gone for sure.

  “I could call the school and maybe someone would come pick you up?”

  I think about that idea, but I don’t like it.

  “I don’t think they do that,” I tell Eddie. “Maybe I should just crash here for a while. You could drive me home at noon and I’ll tell everyone I felt sick today.”

  It’s not my best plan, but I don’t know what else to do. Eddie sighs loudly. He looks around the shop as if he’ll find another option hidden in the women’s bathing suit section.

  “All right,” he says at last, “but if Petey has a fit, this is all your fault.”

  Now, that’s a given.

  Eddie and I both sag against the counter. I feel pretty bad that I’ve dragged him into all this, so I try to make conversation.

  “You own this shop?” I ask, glancing around. Eddie nods.

  “It’s cool. I like the way you’ve blended the lingerie with the pajamas and bathing suits. I’ll bet you increase your market that way.”

  Eddie perks up, but then he deflates.

  “Actually,” he whispers, “hardly anyone shops here except some of the women who get their hair cut at Mavis’s Beauty Shop.” He pauses, and then, even though I haven’t said anything yet, he nods. “I know,” he says. “That place is a disgrace. I mean, Vidal Sassoon posters from nineteen ninety-five? What are they thinking?”

  “And ten-dollar cuts?” I add. “Nothing says bad like cheap.”

  Eddie nods very seriously. “Oh, honey,” he says. “You don’t know the half of it. Those women get their twenty-dollar perms, then they waltz over here and expect to get a good bra-and-panties set for under fifteen bucks. I tell them—I say, darlings, that is silk you’re holding between your fingers. Pure silk with a delicate lace trim and rhinestone detailing. That is a lace and satin, hand wash only, imported corset and garter belt with matching thong. These things are not cheap! And they ask me when I’m having a half-price sale. Can you imagine?”

  “You don’t . . . do that?” I ask, trying to phrase the question tactfully. Mom always says that good fabrics are never on sale.

  “Hardly ever,” Eddie says. Then he looks down. “It’s just that I don’t sell enough some months. I’ve tried advertising, but we don’t get a lot of traffic in Pineville, and I think a lot of the townspeople order stuff online.” He looks as if he’s just admitted the entire town buys crack. “They order from JCPenney or those country catalogs that sell granny underwear with crocheted red, white, and blue hearts. You know the places.”

  Yup. Paragons of kitsch.

  “It’s not your fault,” I say. “Some people can’t be reached.”

  He sighs. “I’m sure it wasn’t your fault about the bus, either,” he says. “I mean, you weren’t actually smoking the cigarette, so the bus driver should have at least waited un
til you lit it.”

  “The thing is,” I tell Eddie, leaning in, “the driver didn’t like me right from the start. He wouldn’t stop at Pete’s trailer, and then he gave me this whole lecture about no funny business after all I’d done was climb the stairs. Then he made a comment about the band . . .”

  The look on Eddie’s face says that he can guess what the comment was without having to ask.

  “Was the driver’s name Bernie?”

  I shrug. “I don’t know. He was a short, round guy with huge ears.”

  “Yup. That’s Bernie.”

  “You know him?”

  Eddie grimaces. “Yeah.” He props his white snakeskin boots on the counter and tips his stool back. “I hate to say it, sugar, but this is a smaaalll town. Everyone knows everyone, and most people have known each other way too long, if you know what I mean. Our friend Bernie used to beat the crap out of Orlando and me when we were in grade school, but then we grew and he didn’t, and we started the band when Petey moved to town in high school. He’s hated us for years. I’m surprised he even let you on the bus in the first place.”

  I drum my fingers on the counter.

  “So it wasn’t my fault he didn’t like me?”

  “’Fraid not.”

  “And he probably would have kicked me off anyway?”

  “Probably.”

  This is the best news I’ve had all day. I stand up, feeling my second wind kick in. “I’m going to buy us breakfast,” I say, because my stomach is growling loudly. Then I remember I don’t have any money with me.

  “Er . . . or maybe I’m going to go pour us each a tall glass of water.”

  Eddie pops open the cash drawer and hands me a ten.

  “Go wild,” he says. “Mae’s Pit Stop is down the street. Walk to the post office then hang a right. On your way back, walk to the post office and hang a left. Don’t get lost!”

  21

  “HOW ABOUT THIS ONE FOR THE SHOP WINDOW?”

  Mom holds up a gown imported from Italy. It’s long and slim with a buckle in the back and a plunging neckline. The fabric is the color of espresso with extra cream.