12

            The second day of the week began with a black sky that gradually faded into a dark gray.  Ever so progressively, Kyle commenced his routine before he set his feet on the floor. He still felt as if he had been smashed by a dump truck and then run over by it as it was slammed into reverse. He gazed out the window and the streetlights were still blazing their orange halogen rays all along the asphalt. He focused his eyes on the intersection and noticed that it was not lit up. He moved away from the window and sat back down on his bed. The cloud over his head wasn't black and didn't emit rain. It was clear and made from anhydrous ammonia. Kyle felt that anyone who came across him would end up scarred forever in any way conceivable.  He felt completely and utterly worthless thanks to the acid-burning remarks his parents made. He wasn't sure how he would react on this day. He felt mentally gone yet he was mentally there. He wondered if he would snap so it would force the school to be evacuated and he would be hauled to a sanitarium. His thoughts were deep this morning and they were surely on the dark end of both spectrums, mental and emotional. Would he lash out in a vicious way? Would he become the teen who thought all things were truly pointless? Would he end up swallowing a half a bottle of toilet cleaner to end his misery?

            The day hadn't even begun and he was thinking it might be his last.

            This was a feeling he had felt several times before.

            He got off the bed and meandered over toward the bathroom. He flipped on the light and stared into the mirror. The red and faded black lines were still noticeable even at a distance. People would whisper about his suicide attempt and even try questioning him about it. They would taunt him about not going the distance and rebuke him for not giving anybody else a chance to do the job for him. Kyle picked up his toothbrush and began to clean his pearly whites. "You should have pulled to the right" echoed through his head like noise in a unoccupied gymnasium. He spit the gunk out of his mouth and sighed loudly.

            "I would have pulled to the right. You know that I physically couldn't do it," Kyle told himself repeatedly.

            He rinsed his mouth out and put the toothbrush in the medicine cabinet. He continued with the rest of his daily rituals in relative peace and was finished by 6:30am.  Kyle found the evil football sitting on the counter in the same spot Aaron had placed it the night before.  He swiftly put the ball into his backpack. As he readied himself to go, he heard the door open from the master bedroom. Kyle slipped quietly out the front door and down the front path to the sidewalk. It was bitterly cold on that October morn and Kyle breathed out long and hard. The action reminded him of a smoker trying to relieve stress. With much time to spare, Kyle walked to the nearest intersection and sat down on the curb. He scanned the area and there were no signs of blue convertibles or red junk-mobiles. He sighted to the east and saw a long line of sycamore trees that ended the street he lived on only half a block away. He looked to the west and saw houses that reminded him of a perspective lesson from an art class. He looked to the north and it looked like the west but shorter. He looked to the south and saw the entrance to the city park.  Without warning, an orange light suddenly came on over Kyle's head.  It had shocked the youngster to view this initially but then he realized that the light at this particular intersection was almost always schizoid. He looked back at the pavement in the intersection.

            "Is this supposed to mean something? Is there some sort of point to this, mister orange light?" Kyle asked acerbically.

            Perceptibly, the streetlight didn't respond and Kyle imitated a chain smoker once more. Even his theoretical mentality couldn't pick up on the imagery. Maybe it was foreshadowing but he didn't know for sure. All he could think about were the events of the past weekend. Pinpointing events and finding the connections between them was a talent Kyle proudly displayed. He knew the football incident was the one that really cranked his parents’ axles. It was the same football incident that sent Weezer over the deep end. That same incident made Coach Gregson do a reenactment of the famed Krakatoa eruption. That event had made his life much, much worse in only two short days. As he mulled over the event and those subsequent, the rationale for the stealing of the football entered his thinking. He took the ball in a mingling of boldness and loathing.  He felt that he had a right to do it but he didn't understand the concept of unintended consequences. With his whole heart, he knew he couldn't give that ball back to Weezer because it would show that Kyle had his tail between his legs. In this case however, survival was more imperative than principle because the object in question was a ten-dollar pigskin. Weighing his options with a heavy heart, Kyle decided to do what Mary had suggested. Even if the chance of forgiveness was one out of infinity, he had no choice but to return the cursed object.

            The cold was sneaking up on him and chilling him to the bone. Kyle got up and stared at the end once more. He looked to the north and began to trudge that way. It wasn't even seventh hour of the day and he was headed for the other place he hated.  Kyle had never been to school this early before but considering the newfound fascism of his parents, he knew it was a better option.  He did the depressed man traipse with his hands in his pockets and his mind still on events past.  He came to the school and found several vehicles in the parking lot. The doors were unlocked because the junior varsity volleyball team practiced early in the morning. He walked in and slowly went to his locker. He put his bag in the locker and he shut it silently. He slid down with his back against the locker and groaned loudly. He scanned the hall and remembered other incidents bygone. Every day that he walked this hall, he heard the insults from freshmen, the indifference and eyeing looks of the sophomores, and the taunts and malicious actions from the juniors and the seniors. 

            His mind went into VCR mode and he rewound and played the first serious incident he ever had with Weezer.  Weezer slammed Kyle into the wall at the end of the hallway where the flow of students always came to commence the day's activities. With the assistance of Moby and Wings, Kyle was held against the wall as Weezer ripped his pants down and began to paddle Kyle with a shoe. In front of one hundred students, Kyle was utterly humiliated on his first day of high school and it got steadily worse from then on. He had heard a few of his classmates whisper and wonder if he would do a reenactment of Springfield, Oregon. Kyle shuddered as his mind rested on the idea of him playing the infamous Kip Kinkel. After hearing about that event, Kyle swallowed that suicide would be a more acceptable answer. Thinking about the likely effects, he would be Frank "Grimy" Grimes except to those who tormented him and they would pick a number and do it on his grave. His stomach turned and he got to his feet. He ran to the end of the hallway and lost his cookies it in a trashcan. With a deliberate pace, Kyle made his way to the nearby washroom to right himself.  He didn't plan to have his eyes come in contact with the monument to football dishonor.

            A trophy case was near the bathroom entrance. It contained the recollections to the triumphs to a corrupt dynasty (trophies, signed footballs, team and individual plaques). At the top center of the case was a picture of Coach Jerkoff wearing a blue designer suit and a grin that could kill an East German bombshell. There was a plaque below the picture that showed the records for every season that Edward Gregson coached and a final record that would make any other good coach bow his head in shame. In fifteen seasons, Gregson had garnished twelve winning seasons (eight of them undefeated), eight district titles, six state titles, almost thirty playoff wins, and a total win percentage greater than sixty-five. Several Mayfield players went on to greater football glory as the other pictures dictated. Team photo after team photo showed male teens with attitudes of business only. There was not a happy face among the entire monument except the one that belonged to the biggest jerk-off of them all. Kyle nearly reenacted his last protein spatter on the trophy case but he ran toward the bathroom instead.

            A few minutes passed and it was well into the seventh hour of the day when Kyle came back to the hallway of torment. School started precisely on the eighth hour and some students had appeared there to conquer their own school matters. Unless a streaker ran down the hallway, Kyle would be the center of attention.

            "Hey, dickmunch! Ready for another week of pain?" a freshman boy yelled from behind him.

            Kyle turned around and saw three pieces of fresh meat. The one who had thrown the base-laced remark was named Timmy Price. This kid was on the freshman football squad and he thought that he was tough s**t. Kyle could not stand a fraction of a second in Timmy's presence.

            "Go away, little one, before you a big one crushes you!" Kyle retorted.

            Timmy wasn't exactly scrawny since he was the starting center and nose tackle on the freshmen squad, "I ain't little, you pansified dipshit. I could f*****g kick your a*s from here to the Ohio state line and I’d still have energy to make the return trip."

            Kyle's eyes had a glint of psychosis in them, "Drift and die, Price! If you decide to f**k with me anymore today, I will make a permanent price change somewhere sacred!"

            Timmy Price wasn't known to back down from a challenge and this happened to be his first time. Timmy backed away and turned in the opposite direction. Kyle turned the other way and tried to put to a smile on his face but it wasn't working. He sighed noisily and undertook returning to his locker.

            He turned the corner and two big hands grabbed onto his shirt. Kyle was slammed against the wall opposing the long corridor. Several students and an educator caught sight of the unfolding event. Weezer pressed his left elbow against Kyle's windpipe. He compressed tighter as Kyle made a gasping face.

            Weezer voiced with fire, "Payback is coming and this is only a taste of what it will be. If you think you can escape what I have in store for you, then there's too much blood against your skull. There is no amount of satisfaction that you can give me even if you practice apologetics."

            Kyle tried to push Weezer's elbow away but Weezer gave an unequal and opposite reaction. 

            Weezer continued in the same inflection, "Push me away once more and I will kill you here. You are just an utterly useless waste of space and a brown stain on the underwear of society. Nobody will ever miss you!"

            Kyle started seeing colors when Weezer decided to let Kyle breathe. Kyle fell to his knees and began to inhale like a victim of a near drowning. Weezer stared down and grabbed Kyle's face in his left hand.

            "You won't see when the revenge will come but it will come today. Got that, dickmunch?" Weezer said with a sadistic smirk.

            "May your lungs be burned with anhydrous ammonia, Captain Asthma!" Kyle hollered as he got his air back.

            Weezer sneered wider, "I do the jeering here, dickmunch! Debase me one more time and I will crush your windpipe! Know your role, mutant s**t. You are the smallpox infection and I am the vaccine. F**k with me anymore and you will be the next obituary in the city paper! Got that, dumbfuck?!"

            The crowd had widened to include additional students and faculty. Wanting the humiliation to end, Kyle agreed to Weezer's terms.

            "I relent, Weezer. Let me go," Kyle stated.

            "What is the magic word, dickmunch?" Weezer asked.

            Kyle pleaded to his abuser, "Please, Weezer. Please let me go."

            Weezer laughed for a second and pushed Kyle's face up and exposed his neck to the world.

            "Nice line, Kyle. What happened? Did you try to strangle yourself with electrical cord?" Weezer inquired with sadistic joy.

            "Stop this, Weezer. I said the magic word," Kyle countered in with unfettered dread.

            Weezer was having too much fun, "You know, Kyle. If you were trying to strangle yourself, you should have hanged the other end of that cord to a fulcrum on the ceiling. Don't you remember your physical science lessons from last year? I thought you were the smartest little s**t this side of the Wabash?"

            Kyle moaned in misery, "Come on, Weezer. You've made your point."

            Weezer refused to cower to such doggery, "My bench max is three-fifty and I can throw a sixteen pound shotput forty-five and a half feet, you pitiful pinhead. I know the basics of physics and I can use them to my advantage considering your position right now. Don't say another word to me unless you want your atlas separated from your axis."

            Weezer tightened his grip around Kyle's face. Kyle's alarm had exponentially multiplied since he couldn't move his head. Weezer's baneful visage had expanded as well.

            "For your defiance, this is where it ends. For your compliance, this is where it starts," Weezer verbalized in an almost enamored tone.

            This was the turning point but it came not at the hands of the executioner. A strong kick came down on the backside of Weezer's left knee. Weezer winced in pain and he was forced to let go of Kyle. A strong right hook connected with Weezer's right eye and he fell back on the floor. Weezer felt a shoe placed on his manhood. With his right eye temporarily paralyzed, he saw an incensed redhead staring over him with teeth and fists clenched.

            Mary spoke with an exacting edge, "If you place another hand on him, I will deconstruct you creatively starting with where my left foot is currently placed. The only Breathalyzer tests you will give will involve a mechanical device. Do you comprehend, s**t stain?"

            Without warning, one of the worthless faculty members realized she had a spine and she pulled Mary off of Weezer. Before she was hauled to the principal's office, she stared at Kyle and mouthed the words "I love you".  Kyle fell back against the wall and nodded at her in quick succession. Two other educators grabbed Weezer and helped him to his feet. Kyle just watched as both people were being escorted away. He couldn't begin to consider why he wasn't being hauled away. He surveyed the remaining crowd and they did the same to him. Kyle cringed against the wall and quickened his breathing. It was silent for a long twenty seconds when someone finally opened up.

            "You cost us our quarterback, you jackshit reject!" It was the maniacally upsetting voice of Timmy Price.

            "Yeah, cesspool stench! Our team leader is out for the count because of you!" Troy McHahn, the junior kicker, voiced with annoyance.

            "F**k him hardcore, McHahn. The b*****d finally received he what he deserved," Kyle retorted in a monotone timbre.

            Shelby Merty made her presence known, "F**k you hardcore, you little c**k-smoker! I am going to rip your little w***e to shreds and my nails are sharp enough to do the job, too. She will eye implants by the time I done with her!"

            Kyle happily acknowledged it, "Holy s**t, Shelby, I don't think you would know how to do that. I think you would drive yourself into a ditch first because you left the turn signal on."

            Shelby became extremely irate and pushed her way through the crowd.  She shoved her way through a pack of indifferent sophomores and seized Kyle by the shirt.

            She bellowed, "I am not a wimpy female, dickmunch! I don't like cracks about my hair color either! One more blonde joke will leave you hanging without a scrotum!" Shelby screeched.

            Kyle wasn't in the mood either, "I am not a p***y lightweight, you s****y b***h! Let go of me before I break the cardinal rule of male/female relations!"

            "You strike me and you will have the entire football team on you like microbes on ground beef!" She laughed and then smiled, "In fact, they will turn you into ground beef and then the microbes will be all over you!"

            His dread had finally melted away, "Nice witticism, Shelby. Of course, I am fifty percent smarter than you and I am not afraid to hit back, especially if you threaten to unleash the whole football team on me. So, go f**k your football!"

            Shelby was about to slap him when a teacher grabbed her hand and ordered her to stop. The five-minute signal sounded and Shelby reluctantly backed away and Kyle stood back against the wall once more. The vexed educator told everyone to go to class and they disembarked. The instructor then stared at Kyle giving the young man a look of discontent.

            "Get to class now, Kyle. You are not in any trouble," He stated as his eyes became bloodshot.

            "Why not, Mr. Desmond?" Kyle asked with a fearful sigh.

            Mr. Desmond was cryptic despite possessing a monstrous disposition, "It's called a norm, Kyle. That’s an unwritten rule."

            Kyle raised his eyebrows in confusion, "What do you mean?"

            Mr. Desmond wasn't a monster after all, just a teacher at his wit’s end with all the immorality living inside the school’s walls, "If you are on the football team, then you aren't to be punished unless it involves serious harm to some other party. You haven't seriously harmed anyone. This norm has been in practice for quite a while. Is that enough for you?"

            Kyle just nodded and there was silent lucidity between them.  Mr. Desmond walked in the direction of the trophy case. Kyle began toward his locker but he stopped as he passed the threshold of the hallway. Mr. Desmond had momentarily ceased at the trophy case and mouthed something that appeared to be derogatory. His head was angled upward so Kyle took it to mean that Mr. Desmond was staring at the likeness of Coach Jerkoff.  Kyle turned away and headed toward his locker. He opened the metal door and retrieved some of his books and a red three-subject notebook. He glared at his backpack for a second or two and then he opened it. The pigskin was still there waiting to be returned to its rightful owner. Right then, he wished he had the filet knife so he could slice the ball along one of the long ridges. Kyle let out a deafening huff and slammed his locker door. With his frustration at a constant high, he sauntered to his first period class knowing the day would never be hassle-free.

            Wishful thinking isn't a guarantee of future success since downtrodden thought is usually within our minds at all times. All of Kyle's fellow sophomores either ignored him or made nasty cracks about the spectacle in the main corridor. The other sophomore football players despised him more than ever before. During times between lessons and class breaks, he could swear that the boys where plotting against him. Kyle kept a vigil over his shoulder in case somebody decided to assist Weezer in his revenge scheme. As lunchtime rolled around, he was humming the words of his favorite song but it still wasn't having the same effect as the day before. It had come out that Mary was stranded in a small room with nothing but her homework. She had been sentenced to three days of suspension in school and it had dejected Kyle further. 

            Lunch was another period of "bash Kyle into the ground". To avoid turmoil, he decided to take a place at the rear of the chow line. Like a ghost with an agenda, Timmy Price cut in line much to Kyle's shame. Kyle countered Timmy's action with a gaze that could penetrate body armor. Timmy mouthed the phrase 'f**k off' and turned away.  Timmy grabbed his tray and Kyle followed suit. Both boys soon arrived at the milk cooler. Timmy lifted a carton of white moo juice and Kyle chose one of chocolate.  Timmy trudged to the cafeteria and Kyle could only the other kid's backside.  Kyle entered the room and a foot greeted him on the other side.

            Timmy Price led the motion, he took the rear as tormented one fell down. With a push and a pull from his forefinger and thumb, Timmy dumped a pint of two percent on Kyle's head. Four other freshmen and sophomore football players subsequently followed Timmy's lead. Too bruised all over to make any sort of retaliation, Kyle limped out of the cafeteria. Everybody snickered and derided him as he headed toward the gymnasium.  Kyle spent the rest of lunch period in the locker room showering and crying. If anyone had walked in on him, no one would have been able to tell that Kyle was weeping through the jets of water.