FRUITCAKE, Chapters 1 + 2
I love witches and magic and
dress-up and make believe.
-Helena Bonham Carter, Known Faerie
FRESHMAN YEAR
1992
Chapter One
Free Your Mind
In the mirror, he rolled the ball
in slow circles over his outstretched lips. The gloss shot raspberry flavor on
to the tip of his tongue. Smacked his lips and pressed play on his CD alarm
clock. En Vogue, Free Your Mind.
From the closet, he snatched a floral
rayon shirt, pulled up a pair of acid-washed denim, rolling them up three,
chunky times. Then, his mother’s Maybelline foundation to smooth over the
rosacea on his cheeks. He was not his mother’s shade, and as such, his face
appeared framed in a creamy circle.
Jesus came down from the wall above
his bed to play the role of microphone. Writhing on the bed while molesting
Jesus, he worked himself into a grab bag of sexy poses he’d seen on MTV. Rotating
his tongue around Jesus’ wounds, he was careful to retract his teeth. Less than
a year ago, during a peculiar bout of stomach flu and Mariah Carey, Jesus near
possessed him, leaving him with a cracked tooth.
Before we venture any further,
there are, no doubt, those of you who were born after 1992. Perhaps, even after
Destiny’s Child’s self-titled debut album. A time, we’ll refer to as pre-Beyoncé.
In pre-Beyoncé times, there existed an entire world of Contemporary R&B. A
time when Mariah Carey sang live. Leading the charge were En Vogue, Lisa Lisa
and the Cult Jam, Janet Jackson, Whitney Houston, SWV. If you’ve never heard “No
Ordinary Love”, you should stop reading right now and google these four people:
1.)
Sade
2.)
Tawny
Kitaen
3.)
Johnny Carson
4.)
Rodney King
As he buttoned his top, beginning a
healthy distance down from the clavicle, he practiced mutating his esses into
more of a masculine, Sean Connery shh sound. From under his bed, he pulled a
two by four, fastening it to his back with bungee cords. On went a pair of
penny loafers, placing a dime in each keeper. A witch before he knew it.
He walked around the bedroom,
impaled by the wooden crucifix, forcefully blurting into the mirror introductions
of “how do you do?”, choking on his deepened voice, adding a masculine –s here
and there. “The flowershh are shho lovely!”. Had it not been for the deceit of
a limp-wristed handshake, he might have passed. For an alien learning “the
ropes”.
There is no fear greater than a
queer’s first day in high school. The
night before, he stuffed a backpack in eager preparation, crossing items off a
monogrammed notepad as they went in.
In the kitchen, he popped two Eggo
waffles into the toaster. As he waited, he watched the diabetic cat shaking its
way to a floor bound bowl, eventually submerging its head into the kibble. After
several moments, when the cat did not reemerge, he shouted its name, “Skittles!”
The cat came around and began to shake its way back out of the room,
disappearing into the foyer.
Out come the waffles on to a plate.
From the freezer, a pint of vanilla ice cream. A scoop between, topped off with
fake maple syrup. He never had a taste for the real stuff. Too woody. And his
mother was inclined to store brand foods and factory outlets. He resented her
deeply for his Lee’s jeans.
Two minutes to spare until the
yellow death machine arrived, he called upon his Catholic upbringing with
prayer, spitting melting corn syrup confection with each word.
“In the name of the Father, the Son
and the Holy Ghost. Ghoshht.
Dear Jesus, please protect me Lord
on this day, the first day of a new school. I have not always been there for
you in the past, and neither have you for me, if we’re being honest. But maybe
today you could send me some of that fabulous saintly magic for once? It’s the
least you can do. Especially after that tooth incident. And the talent show! I
still haven’t forgiven you for that one! But I’m working on it. I know that
life was super hard for you but I don’t remember anything in the Bible about
getting stuck in a leotard after performing several fantastic and very
difficult magic tricks to Let’s Get Physical by my savior and patron saint of
disco pop, Olivia Newton John. I came up with the water into red Kool-aid thing
myself. You of all people should appreciate that. And also, we should probably
address the ‘tit incident’ soon but I don’t really want to get into that right
now. If you could perform one of your miracles today, please make me invisible.
And please sit me in the front of home room closest to the teacher. The back is
usually full of assholes and the middle is like the middle of the ocean.
Anything could happen!
Amen.”
He catches the sound of the bus, a
metal asthmatic attack on wheels, laboring itself up the hill like a paraplegic
horse shot with a tranquilizer. Grabbing the half-eaten breakfast dessert, he
stumbles to the back door, adding-
“Oh, and Jesus? Please don’t make
me run a mile in gym class. Thankshh.”
Skipping down the driveway, he
mounts the bus with a careful pride. Surveying the inhabitants like captive
creatures at Sea World, he takes a quick assessment of where the sharks are.
Over time, they swim towards the back, but first day is always a free-for-all
before each find their respective cages or feeding grounds. A few seats back,
floating in a particularly discreet part of the water, he catches a minnow,
looking more nervous than he. He shimmies into the seat. From behind coke
bottle glasses, Minnow stares ahead, unmoved.
He says, “Hi. I’m Stephen.”
“Hi. That’s a really cool shirt,”
replied Minnow.
“It’s rayon.”
“Rayon,” Minnow repeats, slurping
the word.
“It’s a versatile fiber.”
The bus lurches ahead, sending both
foreheads to smack the seat in front. As the smell Minnow began to rise like
Jesus on day three, he thought to himself, this is going to be a long ride.
Chapter Two
Shark!
The horror! The yellow death
machine was sixth to arrive and the parking lot was busting at the belt. The
last fifteen minutes, he dodged spit balls that collected in Minnow’s hair, by
taking the position he’d learned on a rowdy flight to Disney World. He felt as
if getting transferred from county jail to the state correctional facility. Once,
he had a pet cucumber named Mel Gibson on which he practiced magic tricks in
the basement. A lethal weapon indeed! But, Stephen wasn’t oblivious enough to
think every cop looked like Mel Gibson. Who could afford the hairspray? And so,
with Mel, the cop fantasy ended. For now.
Some soul was getting fed his
Trapper Keeper by the glass doors. This is what reality saw, but what Stephen
witnessed were townsfolk in unfinished garments and clunky shoes, pushing the
chair out from under the noose-dangling witch. As he walked past, clutching the
backpack straps like a parachute, he caught the algae-green eyes of a
pockmarked interloper who stopped for a moment to shoot two big, evil eye
lasers right into Stephen’s brain.
He pushed through the glass doors
and was immediately surrounded by a feeding frenzy. Squinting his eyes to
adjust to the fluorescent lighting, he noticed the upper classmen snarling like
gargoyles at the sides of the hall, swooping on freshmen as they tried to pass
unnoticed. It was the scene from Hitchcock’s The Birds. And everyone else was
Tippi.
His shirt was the first to take a verbal
hit. Followed by the jeans. He could’ve killed his mother! He waited patiently
for someone to notice how rich his loafers were. But, no. Instead, what really
took him by surprise was the abuse directed at his backpack.
“What a plain, plain, black
backpack! You’re so stupid! Are you poor?!”
Stephen wrenched his upper lip to
his nose, rolling his eyes. What he really wanted to do was spin around and
shout, “fuck you, whore!”, but instead chose, “thank you!”
Whore was pretty much the worst thing
you could say to a teenage girl. Slut was more or less acceptable because it
meant you weren’t the one thing that was worse than a slut, a virgin. But whore
meant you practically made a profession out of it. Also, it was a well-known
rumor that sluts wore their fourteen-karat gold crucifixes on the outside of
their sweaters and whores kept theirs tucked close to the breasts. Everyone in
the school would know a whore by how many boys had seen the style of the cross,
Jesus or without.
Thrown to ground by a chaotic rush,
Stephen watched as the tormentors dragged the witch by their Nike Air t-shirt up
the hallway. Nearly trampled by the stampede, a saving hand grabbed Stephen’s
arm and tossed him through a door and into a classroom with chairs lined in
rows, facing an upright piano. Attached to the hand was an old woman with short,
vanishing, musty yellow hair. She smelled like a motel room air-conditioner,
hacking through every word.
“Are you a singer?” Hack.
This was a question he could get
behind. “Why, yes. Yes, I am!”
“Chorus meets Monday, Wednesday and
Thursday after school.” Hack.
“That’s quite a commitment.”
“We need some tenors. How high can
you sing?”
Stephen cleared his throat, rounded
up some spit in his mouth, swallowing it. Taking a deep breath, Stephen smashed
his loafers into the shitty carpet, coiling up his fingers like Carrie at the
prom, and let out a vibrating falsetto that could best be described as Vision
of Love slowed to sixty percent.
“Jesus Christ.”
This was not the response Stephen
anticipated.
“Come back after last class and
we’ll see what happens.” She hacked as she showed him the door, unceremoniously
slamming it behind him.
“Rude.”
As he fished out a paper from the
backpack, Stephen’s stomach gurgled something fierce. The home printer was low
on ink. He could make out only the first two numbers of home room. Two two. He
was met with one of two choices. Stephen could try and figure it out on his
own, one of ten numbers, or go to the school office and ask. Not a place he wanted
to show face on first day.
He chose the office. It was a
circus. As he slinked up to the desk, he was ignored. All eyes were turned
towards a door left slightly ajar. The booming voice inside came through clear
as day.
“Young man, you must know that guns
are not allowed in school. Fake or otherwise!” The voice belonged to a hairless
giant, belly slumped over his belt, who poked out his big shiny head and shut
the door. The plaque on the door read Vice Principal.
“Can I help you?” asked a
secretarial type.
“I’m looking for my home room.”
“Did you get a class schedule?”
“Yes. But my printer ran out of ink
and I can’t seem to-”
Before he could finish, the woman
snatched the sheet from Stephen’s hand, giving him a paper cut. “You need a
cartridge.”
“I’m sorry?”
“An ink cartridge!”
“I know!”
Stephen was beginning to think
everyone here was deaf. So, to insure he was heard, he raised his voice. “I
can’t read the last number! My mother didn’t order a new cartridge!! Can you
tell me which way to go?!!!”
“You don’t need to yell. What’s
your name? I can’t read that either.”
“Stephen.”
“Last name?”
“Kowalczyk.”
“What?”
“Stephen Kowalczyk.”
“You’re going to have to spell that.”
Stephen only got a few letters out before he
was asked to go back and repeat them. This was taking forever. The bell rang.
“C-Z-Y-”
“Wait, what? Go from C again.”
“C-Z-Y-Z!!”
“Again, with the yelling. One minute.”
The bell rang again. It was certain death. If
he arrived at home room late, he would no longer be invisible. He’d be a disruption
and everyone would see. God knows what could happen! His brain flooded with
images from every horror movie he’d ever seen and he was a horror movie
fanatic. Practically seen them all. More terrifying than any horror film, he
imagined he might go by way of the Snow White ride at Disney World, strapped
down in a claustrophobic two-seater next to his mother, entirely out of his
control, passing under the mechanical Queen who would throw a fiberglass
boulder aimed straight for his face. Stephen yelped at the thought. No matter
how fat he got, he’d always have his face.
And then, the horror of horrors! The morning
announcement. This death was going to be bad. Real bad.
Reemerging from a ten foot tall filing cabinet,
secretarial type said, “Here we go. Two two seven.”
“Mary!”
“Come again?”
“The TV show. Never mind. Bye.” Stephen ran
out.
This time in the hallway was the most sketch. Like
midnight on Hallowe’en, when dead steel workers clawed their way out of the
grave, unhappy and revenge-fueled. Also, it looked a lot like the alleys in Law
and Order when the drug deals were going down. Only a few stragglers in long,
leather coats staring at the floor for a sign. If there was a sale at the
Rite-Aid on black hair dye, he didn’t get the paper saver.
As he entered two two seven, the air rushed
out. All of the nightmares he had about playing Christine in the Broadway musical
Phantom of the Opera, when he couldn’t remember the lyrics to the title song,
felt less unreal as all eyes stared.
A very, very, very, very, very excruciatingly
long pause.
“You’re late,” the Queen foamed at the mouth.
Literally, foamed. From ten feet away, Stephen could see the white crust at the
corners of her mouth. Stephen explained the incident with the printer ink and
the time he’d spent in the office waiting for the gatekeeper to tell him where
to go, throwing in a small bit about the terror of guns in school. He could’ve
said all this. But in the moment, all that came out was, “RAYON!”
Stephen took a seat. It was not in the front.
It was not in the back. It was in the fucking middle.
Not two seconds later, the first big bitch was
creeping up. Great, he thought. There they were again, the algae eyes and
pockmarks, within smelling distance. Didn’t anybody shower anymore?
Stephen dropped his backpack opposite side of
the desk from Big Bitch. An Olympic tactic he’d perfected in middle school,
Stephen ignored danger by pretending to search for candy. He’d even gotten his
entire head in. But, no dice. The facial volcanos boiled down the back of his
neck.
“Is that a purse?” quizzed Big Bitch.
A purse, Stephen thought, does it look like a
fucking purse?
“No. It’s a backpack. Would you like me to
spell that for you?”
“What you say?”
If this asshole on the intercom weren’t
prattling on about the joys of joining a club or intramurals, Stephen could
pack up and get the hell out of there. However, they were going in alphabetical
order. Badminton.
“Give me a Kleenex from that purse,” Big Bitch
spit. Stephen thought, maybe he’ll use it to wipe that fucking ooze off of his
face, reaching into the backpack and pulling out one, and only one, from a
travel pouch.
Perhaps, Big Bitch didn’t mean any harm. Maybe,
he really needed a Kleenex. Maybe, his mother couldn’t afford a purse and so
he’d never seen one. Stephen played it as simple overreacting. High school
didn’t need to be so bad.
As Stephen put himself in his happy place, the
Kleenex met his cheek with a slap. Big Bitch took a swipe, bringing the tissue
to his algae eyes, “what is this?”
Panic ensued and the first bead of sweat rolled
down Stephen’s neck like fucking spider. This was it, he thought. Over before
it began. Motherfucking asshat!
Big Bitch shoved the tan-stained tissue under
Stephen’s nose. Everything stopped. The birds outside stopped chirping. The
wind rustled the trees, newly planted by ex-con janitors. The asshole on the
intercom spoke in a demon whisper. The Queen momentarily stopped foaming at the
mouth and the whole world ceased to rotate on its axis. It’s moments like these
when you’re faced with a life-altering decision. You could-
The bell rang.
“It’s Maybelline you big bitch!” Stephen’s
loafers clicked as he ran out of the room.
Click here for Chap. 3
Click here for Chap. 3
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