Soul Mates

by Thomas Melo

  “Why do you have spray paint?” Tyler asked.

  “It’s part of our senior prank that we’re gonna pull,” Lilith interjected.

  “I don’t know. Remember the last senior prank when Chris Brush and Frank Loccaro got caught after they moved all of the textbooks in the faculty supply room into the faculty bathroom?”

  “Yeah! Yeah! And they made a big oak-tag sign and leaned it up against the pile of books that said ‘REEDING MATERIAL FOR THE SHITTER.’ Reading spelled with two E’s, the dumb fucks.”

  “Yeah,” Tyler laughed. “That’s how the shitheads got caught. Mr. Nolan was Chris Brush’s English teacher and recognized that idiotic spelling mistake that Chris had always made. That got them into the principal’s office, and then they copped to it shortly after that,” Tyler chortled through the entire story. When it came time to reveal the consequences, Ty’s laughter dissipated very quickly. “They couldn’t attend graduation and they ended up getting left back a year.”

  “They can’t do that, can they?” Jayson suddenly chimed in with an air of trepidation.

  “They can’t hold you back if you have all the credits to graduate, you morons. There has to be more to that story that you aren’t aware of,” Lilith explained. “So, are we doing this, or what? Ty, it’ll be fine, trust me.”

  “I don’t even know what you planned. What’s the prank?”

  “We’re gonna spray-paint the moose’s pecker black, giving him a nice giant black moose-cock,” Jayson elucidated.

  Tyler stood there and stared at his friend and girlfriend for a few moments and then, when he couldn’t contain it any longer, belched out a volley of laughter into the crook of his arm. Jayson and Lilith looked at each other and smiled before turning back to enjoy watching Tyler laugh it up.

  “I think he’s in,” Jayson concluded.

  “Guys, it’s hilarious, it is,“ his laughter beginning to trail off, “but I am not spray-painting the Coopersmith Moose’s dick.”

  “We’re gonna be fine, trust me,” Lilith assured him.

  “Why do you want me to do it? Why not Jayson?”

  “Fine, I will do it,” Jayson triumphed.

  Lilith looked at Tyler and gave that signature indifferent shoulder shrug of hers. This time, that shoulder shrug said, “Who has the infantile genitalia now, Ty?” It wasn’t only what her shrug said, it was what her eyes screamed with certainty.

  He had been through this before with Lilith. Well, not this particular scenario per se, but he had disappointed her before…and Tyler hated to disappoint. The result, if he didn’t concede after the “evil-eyes” were deployed? Perpetual annoying silence followed by an unexpected and abrupt sexual anorexia. The physical playtime they both enjoyed was great, not only was she the prettiest girl he had ever laid eyes on up until this point in his young life, but he was also one of the few of his peers who were sexually active, period. With that came a sense of pride and bragging rights–if Tyler were the type to brag, which he wasn’t. It would just be easier to do this little thing to appease her. After all, she said it’d be fine, and when was she ever wrong?

  “Give me the can. You both better keep a look-out though. I’m serious!”

  Game-set-match, check-mate, ballgame over.

  Jayson emphatically opened the bag and removed the spray can, and thus, his responsibility if things went sour.

  Lilith’s scowl immediately morphed into a smile.

  “Keep a look-out. I have to climb onto the base of it so I can reach it.”

  “I think it’s called a plinth, Ty,” Jayson pompously informed his friend.

  “Shut the fuck up, Jay,” Tyler answered, not impressed with his friend’s factoid.

  Tyler worked quick. He didn’t think he would’ve felt more exposed if he was taking a dump into an open toilet on the pitcher’s mound in Yankee Stadium. It was late, so traffic was light, but Tyler could not help but feel that if there was a cop around, he would roll by at any second, just in time to see Tyler giving the huge bronze donger a paint-job. Tyler’s nerves were beginning to get to him. He started thinking about how if he was caught, and busted for vandalism it might be a slight hindrance in his plan to become a police officer.

  Finally, he finished his art project. When the sun came up that morning, bringing light to a brand new day full of possibilities, residents traveling west on both High Country Road and Felicity Avenue would now get a nice expedient view of the town symbol’s shiny black phallus. Lucky them! Ironically enough, the black paint complemented the green of the patina quite nicely. It really made the green pop, as they would say on HGTV.

  Tyler climbed down from the mighty plinth and began walking immediately west towards the direction in which he came on Felicity Avenue. Lilith and Jayson quickly followed. Tyler was shaking, almost visibly, but it wasn’t fear that he was shaking with; it was adrenaline. The adrenaline rush was simultaneously good and corrupt. He wasn’t the type of young man who liked the uncertainty and potentially precarious circumstances which brought on the tainted adrenaline, but he enjoyed the chemically induced rush that it provided like any other human being.

  The three of them headed down Felicity Avenue, pausing to turn back and admire Ty’s handiwork. They couldn’t help themselves; they all erupted into hysterical laughter, much like when the idea they (Tyler) had just executed was first presented to Ty. Tyler looked down at the spray can that he had just used to deface the Coopersmith moose, and tossed it jokingly at his girlfriend like a hot potato, who, did to the same to Jayson, to which Jayson finally ended the spray-can version of Hot Potato by launching the can deep into the woods which flanked Felicity Avenue on both sides.

  When the group got about one block away from the all-night convenience store, where Tyler had parked his car, less than a mile away from Coopersmith Park, Lilith informed Jayson that it would be best for him to do something else with the rest of his evening because Lilith felt it was time for what AC/DC had so elegantly described as “making a meal out of Tyler.” She shook him alllllllllllll niiiiiiiiiiiight loooooooonnnng!

  Chapter 5

  The next day at school, the halls were aflutter with the adolescent buzzing of rumors relating to the moose’s cosmetic procedure. The gossip got more and more grandiose and fallacious the more it was passed around from one simple ear to the next until the senior prank evolved and degenerated to the perpetrators “duct-taping the moose cock to the Coopersmith moose’s mouth so it looked like he was sucking his own dick,” if you believed Jacob Whitaker, the biggest imbecile in the school…no, the county.

  Tyler, Lilith, and Jayson stuck close together that day; the opposite of what professional criminals might/should do after they just completed a wildly successful and lucrative bank heist. But, they weren’t criminals, were they? Vandals? Absolutely, but criminals? Perhaps “delinquents” was more fitting. Put another way; if they were criminals, they certainly weren’t reprobates of the upper echelon.

  The group was enjoying the buzz following the success of their prank, but subconsciously they were grouped together that day because of the apprehension they felt when they heard that the local news channel and newspaper were covering the story; and even more nerve-racking, the police had showed up at the monument. The police were in a particularly foul mood because their squadron of cruisers parked window to window was interrupted. To say that the entire group was apprehensive is a moderate stretch of the truth. Tyler and Jayson were apprehensive. Lilith couldn’t have cared less. She was enjoying the commotion. She almost wanted people to know it was them who owned the “ingenious prank” as it was now being referred all over Alan B. Shepard High School.

  “Are you guys hearing this? This is fucking great! No senior prank is ever going to top this.”

  Tyler offered his girlfriend a wan smile and Jayson chuckled nervously. Lilith’s smile dissipated somewhat when she realized her enthusiasm and joy weren’t reciprocally met.

  “Fuck sake, guys! It’s not like we killed anyone. B
esides, no one knows it was us,” Lilith pointed out.

  “Yeah, well, if you keep talking about it at regular volume in a crowded fucking hallway, they will figure out it was us!” Jayson countered, teetering precariously on becoming unhinged from the stalking guilt which had suddenly become galvanized the second he stepped foot into the school.

  “Calm down, Jay,” Tyler chimed in, showing blind loyalty to his girlfriend. However, he agreed wholeheartedly with his friend, and while he hid it axiomatically better than Jayson, Tyler was feeling the exact same way.

  “Fine. We gotta go. If we’re late for Colabza’s class, he’ll lock the door. God forbid.”

  “You know, you’re literally the only student that doesn’t like Mr. Colabza,” Tyler said. And this was the extent of his rebellion against Lilith. The hostility in his voice was almost noticeable…almost. Lilith switched tactics, able to read her boyfriend, and realizing that perhaps she would have to take things a bit slower if she were to achieve her ultimate goal with him. She said it herself at dinner at Buon Mangia. She had big plans after high school…for the both of them.

  The late-bell rang and Lilith and Tyler squeezed in just as the door to Mr. Colabza’s class was closing. Lilith shooting her teacher a brief knowing look which made the hair on his neck stand at attention.

  “Sorry, Mr. Colabza. I had to go to the restroom first,” Tyler explained. His teacher just looked down at his shoes and finished closing the classroom door, still bothered by Lilith’s suggestive glance.

  Jim Colabza wasn’t on his game today. Typically, in order to engage the class right away so that there wasn’t any chit-chat or fooling around, he would have a “DO NOW” listed on the dry-erase smart-board, just below the date, that the students would focus on as he quietly took attendance–a staple for every new teacher which he had never abandoned. But there was no “DO NOW” on the board today. No date even. Today was the first time in his 22-year career that he had forgotten to include the date on his board. Obviously the implications of this neglect spoke greater volumes than the simple fact of neglecting to provide the date for the seniors who had mentally checked-out weeks earlier anyway.

  The students continued to buzz about the moose’s makeover quietly in the classroom. Even though there was no “DO NOW” on the board, they had enough respect for Mr. Colabza that if they were to talk while he took attendance, at least they would chatter quietly and not shove their teacher’s face in their defiance. The sibilance of the words “moose” and “Coopersmith’s” fluttered daintily around the seasoned classroom. The muttering heard in the classroom made a disparate and cacophonous mixture with the word “ardelio” that was swirling around Jim Colabza’s head in an endless loop and had been since early that morning. Jim glanced up from his grade book where the names of all 26 of his PIG students was listed and looked out at them, scanning the room.

  ssss-smith’s-ardelio-cooper-meddler-cock-smith’s-police-ardelio-meddler…

  Jim Colabza rubbed his weary eyes with the palms of his hands like an exhausted toddler and began looking around the room again. His gaze was initially drawn to Tyler because he was the only one not talking and/or whispering in the classroom. Instead, he was silently looking out the window into the hazy pre-summer air and pondered where he was going, and what paths he would choose to get there, and, of course, he thought of Lilith. It wasn’t only Tyler’s silence which drew his teacher’s attention, but also the look of distress and uncertainty on his face, as if something of great mass was resting (cemented) upon his shoulders.

  Jim Colabza knew at that moment that Tyler was involved in the senior prank, which had already become a big deal. He could read it on his face with little effort. He knew Lilith was not only involved, but most likely put Tyler up to it. Nothing he knew about human behavior said that people do things out of character without some degree of prompting or other outside provocation. Humans were creatures of habit and Tyler was never a trouble maker in the years Jim Colabza had known him. He didn’t give two shits–or three for that matter–about the vandalism his once innocent student had taken part in. Like his neglecting of the “DO NOW” and the date on his dry-erase smart-board, the event had greater implications than just an isolated act of vandalism in the form of an adolescent prank. It wasn’t just peer pressure from his girlfriend, it was as if he was losing control altogether.

  Jim thought this and also thought, “Don’t you be an ardelio! Don’t you do it!” As sick with fright and concern as he was, he still almost burst out into laughter at this thought. “Oh, don’t you do it, James Colabza! Don’t you be a pesky ardelio!”

  Mr. Colabza’s eyes shifted from his right, where his favorite student, for whom he possessed genuine concern and care for, sat over to the left side of the room where his least favorite student, for whom he had legitimate disdain, was seated. Jim’s eyes found Lilith, that bitch, that-that-thing from some other astral plain. Jim wasn’t a religious man, but he knew–he didn’t know why or how, but he knew–that Lilith was someone or something else.

  Lilith was turned around in her chair, speaking to the female student behind her, (Tracy Oseroski) when Jim’s eyes landed on her. She felt this, oh yes, she did, and slowly turned her head back around so her eyes could meet her teacher’s. Their eyes locked and then the rest of Lilith’s body followed her eyes as she slowly straightened herself in her seat. She sat, hands curled into each other, and gave a quick glance over to her boyfriend, which Jim followed with his own eyes.

  Ardelio…meddler

  Tyler was still staring out the window, seemingly deep in thought. Jim brought his eyes back to Lilith and she did the same and met his gaze. A knowing and almost arrogant smirk dominated her countenance.

  Ardelio…meddler

  Her hands were folded in front of her on her desk as she twiddled her thumbs, and then came Lilith’s chilling wink. The wink that made Jim literally cover his mouth in order to keep a feminine screech from escaping his mouth in the middle of his PIG class in front of 26 high school seniors.

  Don’t you be a nosey, meddling, tattle-tail, buttinski, failed basketball playing, faggot, cunt. Hear me well, ardelio…hear me well.

  Jim Colabza heard very well.

  * * *

  Later that evening, after the entire Swanson family was safe and sound and settled in their home, and after their stomachs were full from dinner, Tyler retired to the sanctity and solitude of his room to finish some homework and then turn his brain off by lounging in front of the television for a couple of hours before he slipped off into a restful sleep.

  Downstairs in the Swanson house, Ray and Cindy took advantage of their son’s absence and decided to have a serious chat.

  That day, word had spread around town about what “some high school pricks”–as they were referred in some circles–had done to the moose in Coopersmith’s Park. Word spreads fast, even in an abstemiously large town such as St. Anastasio. These days, in case you don’t have your ear to the ground, there are hundreds of other ways to get new and juicy chinwag…or gossip, to the layperson. If you aren’t cemented to your social media pick-of-the-year, then you may be glued to your local news stations, or have your face buried in a good old fashioned and practically obsolete newspaper. If none of those tickle your fancy, then good old fashioned word of mouth goes a long way…quite literally is this case.

  Cindy Swanson was on her lunch hour (which was actually 45 minutes) at work, futzing around on her smartphone, when Angelica, the middle-aged, office busy-body, nosey-nosey-Parker-Posey, came meandering into the break room like a whirling dervish. Angelica was the type that could not wait to come into work the next day for the sole purpose of telling everyone that her new neighbor had paid for his house up front and in cash. Or how about how she asked for advice about whether or not she should tell her other neighbor that her husband was cheating on her, not because she was legitimately concerned mind you, but because she couldn’t wait to discuss the juicy caveat and the accompanying details with
the other squawking hens who surrounded her cubicle, of which Cindy was not a part.

  Angelica opened the door to the break room so hard that it smacked into the wall and shook the picture frames that were hanging there, which displayed inspirational passages over scenic photography. It startled Cindy to the point that she spilled some of her soda onto the table. Cindy looked up at her co-worker with latent contempt that was slowly stirring from its inertia.

  “Oh my God, Cindy, you have to turn on the news!” she started.

  “Yeah, Ang, I’m really not–”

  “Trust me, you’ll want to see this, it’s hilarious,” Angelica maintained as she was already pointing the remote at the idle television.

  Cindy didn’t know exactly what to expect, but what she knew she could bank on was the fact that nothing she was about to see could be hilarious for the simple fact that Angelica thought it was. Angelica was the late-to-the-party resident co-worker who would show you an internet clip on her phone that everyone had already seen 100 times already but insisted that you just had to see it, not unlike the news broadcast in this case.

  The TV came on and she switched to the local news channel just in time to see the pixilated genitalia of the moose statue in Coopersmith’s Park. The journalist, who was doing her remote broadcast, live at the park, went on to explain that while the local authorities didn’t have any leads, their suspicions pointed toward possible culprits from Alan B. Shepard High School, who were part of a longstanding and long frowned upon tradition: the notorious senior prank.

  Angelica went on laughing her head off while Cindy was sitting quietly waiting for her to finish her outburst.

  “Oh, come on! You have to think that was kinda funny! They painted the moose’s junk black!”

  Cindy noncommittally smiled, just so she didn’t feel like she was being rude. Fact was, she would have found it marginally humorous had it not been Angelica who was delivering the news. Again, Cindy would’ve found it marginally humorous.