Sex & Violence Read online

  Anyway. So Tom is hiding out in my room, and his girlfriend Kelly actually comes over to my house. I don’t answer the door, since Tom doesn’t want me to, because he says I’m a bad liar, which maybe is a good thing to have someone notice about you? Again, I don’t know anything about anything. I need a goddamn life handbook or something. Tom explains how Kelly gave him this scrapbook of pictures and he’s done nothing. Not even one of those awful roses from the gas station. Don’t feel bad that I never gave you anything, by the way. I’ve never bought a girl anything. I’m kind of a dick on paper, as you might have picked up. Which might be why Dr. Penny makes me write this shit.

  I wish I could say that there was a good resolution to this story, except there wasn’t. Tom hung around my house and watched baseball on TV and bitched about Kelly a lot, which is probably not the best thing to do for your anniversary. He left pretty late and told me he’d come by in the morning to go fishing. I hate fishing, but I’ve been going with him, because though he is a crappy boyfriend, Tom is all right. So that’s what I learned.

  More later, Evan

  CHAPTER SIX

  On the day of the Tonneson’s Midsummer Party, Tom and I went fishing to escape the preparations and to avoid Kelly, who was still pissed that he’d forgotten their “anniversary.” Tom showed me the scrapbook Kelly gave him, which I had trouble even holding, because it reeked like perfume, was full of pictures of them kissing, and was the pinkest thing I’d ever touched in my life. Not having a mother doesn’t expose you to many items in shades of pastels. Plus I wondered who the hell they made take all those pictures of them while they were kissing.

  Midsummer was also my eighteenth birthday. My dad never did much for my birthday besides take me out to eat and give me some cash, so I was used to not making a big deal about it. But while we’d been at Cub Foods buying stuff for Mrs. Tonneson, I’d kind of let it slip that it was my birthday to Tom, which I regretted, since the Midsummer Party looked like it was going to be excruciating enough with all the glitter and costuming and, unlike Baker’s barbecue, I had no way of avoiding it. Tom and I had been hanging out regularly due to his fight with Kelly over the anniversary, and there was no way I could duck out without him noticing. Which made me feel a little uncomfortable at first, because I wasn’t used to being actual friends with anyone.

  “I wish I was eighteen,” Tom said, after we had been sitting in his boat for a while. “I’d take you to the dirty bookstore down on Shawton Street. But my birthday’s not for two weeks.”

  Tom was grouchy, which wasn’t normal. He was usually pretty content in general, and fishing made him happier still. He didn’t mind that I never brought my own reel, that I just sat there reading E. Church Westmore’s book and eating all Tom’s sunflower seeds while he listened to baseball games on his little radio. We were such a portrait of boyish goodness out on his boat fishing that I felt like we were in a TV movie on one of those wholesome family channels that shows reruns of Little House on the Prairie.

  “You’ve lived all over the place, right, Evan?” Tom asked. “Met a lot of chicks?”

  “I guess,” I said.

  “You ever go out with an Everything-But Girl?”

  “A what?” I asked.

  “See, Kelly’s got this pact with her big sister. A virginity pact. Their mother got knocked up at like age sixteen or something. Had her sister and then Kelly real quick and never married the dad. I don’t even know if they have the same dad, actually. Anyway, then her mom found Jesus and that changed everything and now the older sister goes to some religious college in Missouri and has convinced Kelly that she can’t have sex until she’s married. They made this pact; they even have matching necklaces for it.”

  “Necklaces? For not having sex? Seriously?”

  He nodded and spit a bunch of sunflower seed shells over the side of the boat.

  “Hey, man. Kelly’s great. But that’s sounds awful.”

  “That’s where the Everything But comes in. Because … there’s technicalities. So, maybe she won’t have regular sex. But that doesn’t stop her from blow jobs.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “Nope,” he said. “But it’s like a trap. Like the free buffet at a casino. Everything’s open season, except that one key area.”

  “So … Jesus doesn’t mind blow jobs?”

  “I guess not.” Tom grinned a little, despite himself.

  “What does Jesus think about oral on her? And … ?”

  “He seems cool with all the rest of that too,” he said, his face getting red.

  “I take back what I said before. That doesn’t sound too bad.”

  “No, it’s worse. All I can think about is that one damn thing I’m not allowed to do. It’s ridiculous.”

  It was ridiculous. Tom, with his baseball pennants and his pickup truck and his sunflower seeds, engaging in acts that were sexual crimes in some states. But I also wondered why he couldn’t write Kelly a dumb poem or buy her something that would make her feel better about the anniversary. I know I’d have done it for the remote possibility of a blow job. At least Dirtbag Evan would have. Who knew what the hell I’d do now. Probably nothing. Probably hide in my bedroom and read about the mating habits of loons.

  “Can’t you make her a CD?” I suggested. “Bring her flowers?”

  “She hates all the music I like, and flowers aren’t personal enough,” he said. “I mean, unless I sent with them a long-ass letter about how great she was. And I can’t write for shit. Especially not letters. Who writes letters anymore?”

  I put a big handful of seeds in my mouth and started chewing through them.

  “You’re in luck, man,” I said. “This is truly your lucky day.”

  Later that night, I was playing Frisbee with Tom and Stoner Guy (actual name, Jesse) when Kelly came over, all lovey acting. Tom had given her the letter I had written (recopied in his handwriting, of course, with a few roses from the gas station too), and she was holding it all and crying and acting so goopy that Tom hustled her away as if she was contagious. But then Jesse took me behind the compost bin and we smoked a joint together. He had lost his pipe and apologized for the joint, but I didn’t care. I told him about the pipes in my cabin, and we made plans to smoke the rest of his bag out of those another time.

  “How old are you, Evan?”

  “Eighteen,” I said. Hoping he didn’t know about my birthday.

  “Damn,” he said. “I’m the only junior here. You going this fall to Marchant Falls?”

  “No,” I said, not wanting to tell him that I was technically a junior too but planning to get a GED or homeschool myself online or anything else possible besides walking into some new hellhole again. “We’re just here for the summer.”

  “Are my eyes red?” Jesse asked. “My girlfriend gets pissed when I smoke.”

  “No, you’re okay,” I said, not wanting to get too close to him. Though Jesse seemed pretty harmless, I wasn’t used to this friend thing yet.

  We walked back to the party, which I had been avoiding with the Frisbee, as there was actual dancing on the deck, which was decorated insanely with all this gauzy stuff and Christmas lights and little hanging lanterns. Plus my father was swinging around Brenda and Mrs. Tonneson and a bunch of other middle-aged ladies in a way that made me want to die. Everyone seemed pretty wasted and way too happy for adults, but this was fairly normal for the east side of Pearl Lake. Everyone out here seemed to drink and play cards and board games almost every night, and my father was one of the group as if he’d done it his whole life.

  A bunch of kids were gathered around the fire pit, and Jesse and I sat down with them. Baker was there, with Improbably Tan Redhead, and Tom and Kelly were smashed together on a lounge chair, Kelly still oozing all over Tom. Baker poured Jesse and me some fairy punch from a pitcher, which she had spiked with rum. Kelly whined again for Cherry Lick—she didn’t like rum. I gulped a bunch, though—it was actually pretty good—because between Tom and Kelly and J
esse getting all touchy with the Tan Redhead, I didn’t know where to look.

  “You’re not wearing your crowns!” Tan Redhead said. “Jesse!”

  “What did I tell you about that?” Baker scolded. Tan Redhead produced two boy-fairy crowns for us, which we put on obediently, as Baker had said earlier that people who acted too cool for costumes and theme parties were lame and lacked self-confidence.

  “Where’s Conley?” Kelly asked.

  “She went to Jim’s,” Tom said.

  “But he’s in town tonight with Taber,” Baker said. “Jim hates the Midsummer Party.”

  “How can you hate Midsummer?” Kelly screeched. “It’s so beautiful!”

  I was feeling pretty sloshy right then, which was good, what with all these people and rules about crowns. Baker kept refilling my fairy punch cup, though, and I just slouched lower in my lawn chair until I didn’t have a clear view of my father twirling around Brenda Trieste, who was wearing this weird dress that looked made out of glitter-soaked rags. I looked at Jesse, who was adjusting his fairy crown like it itched and then Tan Redhead kissed him, and Baker said, “Jesus, enough with the public displays of affection!”

  “It’s Midsummer! What do you expect!” Kelly hollered.

  “You know how I feel about that,” Baker said, settling beside me in her lawn chair. She looked a little drunk herself, but nowhere near as drunk as I felt. And unlike me, Baker looked good. I wore a shitty T-shirt and shorts, with the same hoodie I always put on when it got cold and buggy at night, while Baker, dusted with the glitter she’d been decorating with all day, wore this tight shirt that was covered in stars and a little denim skirt that made me wonder how she could sit down without her ass falling through the straps of the lawn chair. Her legs were very long and tan, and I wished she wasn’t sitting by me. And that she didn’t have a boyfriend. It made me want to inch my chair away from her, how good she smelled and how cute she was and how her hair tickled my elbow in the breeze.

  The conversation turned to Jesse and Tan Redhead. Baker was lecturing them because Tan Redhead had asked out Jesse, who was younger, and Baker wasn’t having it because she said guys should do the asking out, not girls. Jesse sat there silent and looking thankful to be stoned.

  “Wait,” I said. “Why does he have to ask again? What’s the problem with her doing it?”

  “If you’re a girl, you shouldn’t have to chase people,” Baker said. “Women have enough problems in life, without having to add that to their burdens. Men benefit from the whole patriarchal construct. They get paid a dollar to my seventy cents. So they can nut up and do the asking out.”

  “Jesse’s so shy,” Tan Redhead said. “He wouldn’t ever approach me. Because I’m older.”

  “It shouldn’t matter,” Baker said, holding up the fairy punch pitcher to Tan Redhead, who shook her head, saying she had to work in the morning.

  I wanted to argue with Baker, but I was too high to form a sentence. Then she got up and went into the Tonneson’s cabin, kind of huffy, like we were all ignorant sexist pricks or whatever.

  “She’s just pissed about Jim,” Kelly said. “He’s such a dick about Midsummer.”

  “She should dump his ass,” Tan Redhead bitched.

  “Why?” Jesse said.

  “Well, why not?” Tan Redhead said. “When people are assholes, you don’t reward them by being their girlfriend.”

  “Maybe she likes him,” Jesse continued. “He is the quarterback.”

  “You’re just saying that because he’s Jim Sweet,” Tan Redhead further bitched to Jesse. “And he’s the quarterback and you’re a year younger and think he’s god.”

  “I don’t think he’s god,” Jesse corrected. “I just recognize that Jim Sweet outweighs me in every possible sense. Weight, muscle mass, coolness, sports records, number of chicks he’s done it with … ” Everyone laughed and Jesse continued. “The fact that he doesn’t drive his dead grandmother’s Buick … ”

  Tan Redhead yelled something about saving money for a better car instead of spending it all on weed, finishing with, “If you did that, then you’d be as cool as Jim Sweet.”

  “Wait,” I said, finally able to be coherent. “His name is Jim Sweet? JIM SWEET? Really? That’s his whole name? Someone named a baby Jim Fucking Sweet?”

  Jesse and I started laughing and the cut on my mouth ripped open again, and Tan Redhead freaked out, but I just wiped the blood on my shorts and kept laughing. Kelly rolled her eyes at us like she was disgusted by our immaturity and Tom smiled, but he wasn’t stoned, so I knew he didn’t get it. But I didn’t care, because I was laughing and Jesse was laughing and I was having fun even though my father was slow dancing with Mrs. Tonneson. I could hear loons crying in the distance, and it was beautiful.

  I was all cotton-mouthed and had to piss, so I went into the Tonneson’s cabin to gulp some water and nod at the adults who were drinking wine in the kitchen while eating cupcakes. But the Tonneson’s bathroom was occupied, so I went out toward the compost bin/pot patch and unzipped to piss. Which turned out to be a terrible choice, because I could hear people whispering—it was faint, given my left ear was still fucked—a girl’s voice saying, Someone’s coming, would you stop it, already? Which made me freeze. Had I just walked in on Everything But featuring Tom and Kelly?

  Then Jim Sweet—JIM SWEET!—emerged from the other side of the pallet fence, pushing past me in the dark. I zipped quickly but then—surprise! Next came Conley, the strap of her tank top fallen over, her blonde hair a mess. Her eyes went wide when she saw me, and she staggered back.

  “It’s not what you think,” she snapped.

  So I turned and ran out of there, faster than I had in weeks, back to my dock, where I proceeded to hock up a bunch of spit and bleed some more from my mouth and laugh and cry and who the fuck knows what else. Then I collapsed against the wood dock and watched the sky spin full of stars.

  Happy Birthday to Me.

  Dear Collette,

  Have you ever stayed up all night at a party? I’d never done that until my eighteenth birthday.

  This year, after Jesse and Tom tossed me into the lake and we all went swimming out to the diving platform, Baker gave me a towel and Kelly taught me this card game called Presidents and Assholes, which I couldn’t figure out, so I kept losing and drinking more. Then Baker made me do shots with her, which involved me barfing off the Tonneson’s dock while she patted my back and hollered, “Time to rally, Evan!” After Kelly and Tom slipped off to do Everything But* behind the compost bin, Tan Redhead drove us into town at three in the morning, and we ate pancakes at Denny’s. Probably the best pancakes I’ve ever eaten. Baker smoked a joint with Jesse and me after that by the Dumpster behind Denny’s. Then we almost got busted when one of the Denny’s line cooks came out for a smoke break, but luckily it was none other than Layne Beauchant, my supervisor from Cub Foods. Baker freaked and clutched my arm until I shook hands with Layne and he laughed and took a hit off Jesse’s joint and said he was surprised that I “partied” because I didn’t seem like the type. He asked me what the hell we had on our heads and then Jesse couldn’t stop laughing, because we were wearing Midsummer fairy crowns, though some of the tin foil was peeling off. I couldn’t begin to explain, so I asked him how many damn jobs he had, and Layne said that having a kid wasn’t cheap. On the way home Baker and I sat in the backseat, smushed together a little, which made me nervous, but she was talking loudly about how you should never go out with people that have the same hair color because it’s obviously a genetic thing and on and on, a whole layer of arguments and rules that outraged Tan Redhead and that I couldn’t follow because pot makes me stupider, not smarter. Plus I have black hair and Baker’s is brown, the same color as her insanely named cheating boyfriend Jim Sweet, so her policy was void when it came to us. (There is no “us,” of course, because she is normal and I’m a lunatic. Anyway.)

  Matched sets are a bad idea, Baker said. Tan Redhead said that was bullshit; should sh
e break up with Jesse if they were both redheads? And that Tom and Kelly were both blond, but Kelly dyed her hair, so what about that? To which Baker started talking about innate traits and evolution and, finally, I just interrupted her by saying, “You have an assload of rules, you know that?” Which made everyone laugh and then Baker pulled away from where her leg was touching mine and got all snobby and said I barely knew her. I apologized and said I was super baked. Then Jesse put the radio on some Mexican station, which played a bunch of music with flutes and guitars that was pretty relaxing, and by the time we got back to Pearl Lake, the sun was coming up and I was feeling good. Still a little high, but not sloshy like before. And then we sat on Baker’s dock and she got us coffee and when she gave me a cup, I felt like she had forgiven me for saying the rule thing and the four of us watched the sun rise and it was fucking beautiful.

  I slept until three in the afternoon the next day. Then woke up and wrote this.

  Later, Evan

  *Everything But Have Sex. Which means no penis/vagina intercourse but all other options are okay. There are girls who do this. It’s apparently a religious thing. I can’t decide if it’s genius or evil. Tom thinks it’s evil, for the record.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Probably you shouldn’t make promises when you’re drunk. Or plan things, either. Because that’s how Baker and I ended up on Story Island a week later.

  Tom had overheard us talking about it at Midsummer, how Baker wanted to go there because summer was wasting away, but she didn’t want to go alone, because what if she fell in a hole and died or something. Though my drunk ass told her I’d come with her, I pointed out that it wasn’t exactly stealthy to moor a boat to a No Trespassing sign by a protected bird habitat. But Tom reasoned that he could drop us off, go fishing, come back in a few hours, and no one would know. It was a fairly big island, after all.

  So, after wading through the weedy water, helping each other up the boulders, pushing aside slippery scum and extending hands to each other until we reached the top, we were on Story Island. I wore shorts and an unstained T-shirt and running shoes and had loaded my backpack with food, water, and bug spray (and Under the Waves, because what if we got stuck there? That book was like my security blanket). Baker was beside me, her hair in two ponytails down her shoulders, with her own backpack full of who-knows-what, in a pair of very short shorts and tall rubber boots and her bikini top under a Marchant Falls Track T-shirt, which was a little see-through, but I was too distracted to check because of the fuckloads of bugs and the overgrown, mushy ground that made me wonder if Soren’s claim about quicksand wasn’t bullshit. E. Church Westmore hadn’t said anything about quicksand. I wished I’d looked it up beforehand, but Baker had come over earlier than I expected, banging on the door and chatting with my father as if they’d known each other forever.