The last thing you remember…
11:38 AM
You tense up, ready to rush him, but his brother steps in front of you, his hands on your chest.
“Oh, no no,” he says, just loud enough for you to hear. “You do not want to do that. Be smart. Walk away.”
“Let him go, Sal,” his brother says. “He’s a big boy. He can take care of himself.”
“You his protector?” you ask Sal.
“No, yours,” he says. “He’s an asshole, but he’s my brother.”
This is meant to calm you, this is your final out, but his words flick some kind of switch in your chest. A sound escapes from somewhere deep in your gut, something instinctive and feral, and a blind fury overtakes you. Shoving Sal’s hands away, you lunge for his brother.
The last thing you remember is the smirk on his face, and his arm whipping out at you.
You’re sitting on a padded table in the nurse’s office holding a dripping bag of ice to the back of your head. Your head is comfortably numb, but cold water is leaking down the side of your neck and slowly soaking the front of your shirt. The nurse walks into the narrow room and opens the cabinet next to you. “Can I take this off now?” you ask.
“No,” she says. “And sit up. I don’t want you falling asleep.” She takes out a folded sanitary napkin from the cabinet and slides it into the front pocket of her uniform. You know because there are some just like it in the bathroom drawer at home. She disappears around the corner and you hear her say, “Here you go, sweetheart.”
You return to staring at the Please Don’t Drink and Drive poster on the wall across from you. The caption in bold letters reads, “There are no heroes in this locker room,” and there is a black and white image of what appears to be a row of very large and very shiny lockers, with stainless steel doors big enough to climb through. And that’s it. And you’re thinking maybe that’s what the varsity locker rooms must look like, but, still, you just don’t get it. The poster next to it makes more sense. “Think of your best friend,” it reads. “Now think of your best friend dead.” There is no picture, just a symbol of a car behind a martini glass with a red no-sign on top, and the final caption, “Don’t Drive Drunk.”
A man clears his throat just outside and you hear the nurse say, “Yes, go on in.”
Principal Granger appears from around the corner. “There he is,” he says, as if you are his proud discovery. “Well now, you don’t seem too bad.” He steps closer. “Let’s have a look.”
You lean forward and remove the ice bag.
“Hum,” he says, and you feel his fingers prod the numb spot on the back of your head. “See, the swelling’s already gone down. You’re going to be just fine.”
“What about him,” you say, “the guy that hit me.”
He steps back to look at you. “Son,” he says, tilting his head to one side and frowning with concern. “No one hit you. You fell and bumped your head. It was an accident.”
“No, it wasn’t.”
“I assure you, it was. I’ve already spoken to several students and they all say they saw you trip and fall.”
You feel your face getting hot. “But…”
He puts one of his big hands on your shoulder. “These things happen, son. Nothing to be embarrassed about.”
As soon as he leaves, the nurse comes back into the room.
“Can I go now?” you ask.
“No,” she says, taking the bag of watery ice from your hand and dropping it in the sink. She seems angry, but when she places the palm of her hand across your forehead and holds it there for a moment, you think, maybe not at you.
Finally, when school ends, she says you can go. Eric, Gus, and Rudy are waiting outside the office.
“Dude,” says Gus, rushing up to put his arm around you. “We thought you were dead.”
Rudy gives you a soft punch to the arm. “You were amazing, man! You made this Wookie noise and rushed him, all Kamikaze and shit.”
“He does this slap-around punch,” Gus says, stepping in front of you and pantomiming the movement, “to the back of your head, and boom, out go your lights.” He crumbles forward, embracing you in slow motion. “You fell into his arms, dude,” he says, looking up at you. “I’m serious. It was kind of beautiful, really.”
“Here,” says Eric, handing you your backpack. “Now we have to celebrate.”
You shrug it onto your shoulder, feeling a pull at the back of your neck. “Celebrate what? That I got my ass kicked. I didn’t even get one punch in.”
“I never thought you were going to punch him,” Rudy says. “Maybe bite him.”
“No, man,” says Eric. “Celebrate that you stood up to that fucking asshole, and that you lived.”
Eric is smaller than you. Maybe a head shorter, and at least twenty pounds lighter. You don’t know why it matters so much to hear this from him, but it does.
“Yeah, dude,” says Gus. “You know how close you were to ending up in a mortuary?”
And then you get it, then you get the stupid poster.
CHOOSE:
(A) Go find your bus (Sorry, it’s the only way home).
THE MISADVENTURES OF MATTHEW VAN DER BOOT is a work of fiction. All names, characters, and places are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental … no matter how many times you ask.