A Boy and His Corpse (24 page)

             
Alan felt the arena shake as he heard the roar of the crowd above him. When he looked up, he saw his dad smiling. Alan smiled back.

James tapped Alan and laughed. “You hear that? It’s for us, man. It’s actually for us!”

They sat in one of the locker rooms of Madison Square Garden. There was no telling how many smelly stars and athletes had inhabited this locker room. But with the 25 corpses down here of all different shapes and sizes, the room smelled surprisingly lemony. And his mother didn’t even make a stink about it, either. She merely pinched her nose.

              “We’re bo real prow a you, sa,” she said, which roughly translated to, “We’re both real proud of you, son.”

              “That we are,” Herbert said, putting his arm around her. “That we are.”

              Mort sat dead eyed but smiling on the bench opposite Alan. He wore purple pants and boots that went up to his knees. Alan didn’t know why, but Mort now had a smile on his face that never seemed to go away.

              Above, the crowd grew louder as the foot stomping overhead became thunderous. Even from down here, Alan heard International Wrestling Federation founder, Andrew McCarrick, speaking on the microphone for his new organization, the Undead Wrestling Federation.

              “Fanatics,” he screamed, and the crowd replied, “What!?”

“I’ve seen a lot in my day.”

“What?!”

“But I’ve never seen what you’re about to see here tonight.”

“What?!”

“It’s my pleasure, no, my
honor
to introduce you to the U-W-eeeeeeF!

The crowd took up a chant.

“U-W-F! U-W-F! U-W-F! U-W-F!”

Herbert smiled at Alan. “That sounds like your cue, son.”

Alan stood up, and his pet, Mort, stood up with him.

“It’s go time!” James shouted.

Alan walked out the locker room and through the halls of MSG with the crowd still chanting above him.

“U-W-F! U-W-F! U-W-F! U-W-F!”

It was the sweetest sound he’d ever heard.

Here is the first chapter of my third book,
The Interdimensional Subwoofer.

1.

“Jesus, Ernie, where the hell are these pledges at?” Jorge asks me. “Your brother’s supposed to be on top of this.”

“I’ll talk to him,” I tell him, annoyed. “You just worry about the noise level tonight.”

My brother became the pledge leader this semester, which means he’s in charge of mentoring the pledges and making sure they’re here when we need them. But he’s done a lousy job so far, and I have to pick up the slack for him. As the Vice-President of this house, he’s making my ass look bad.

There’s a harsh scraping sound coming from the next room over and Jorge does a 180. It’s Colin, one of our fall pledges. He’s dragging a keg into the room when he should be carrying it. As it stands, he’s chipping away at the already crumbling floor.

              “Hey, hey, hey,” Jorge shouts. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

The pledge stands there agog.  “I was, uh, just bringing up this keg like Frater Richard told—”

“I know what you
think
you were doing, but you were doing it all wrong. Now, hit the deck, maggot!”

              The pledge lets go of the keg and leaps to the floor in push-up position.

              “Twenty, sir?” the pledge asks. His long, black hair falls in his face as he stares at the scuffed up, tiled floor, which reeks of stale beer and crushed cigarettes.

              “Why aren’t your pledge brothers here, maggot?”

              “Sir, I don’t know, sir!” the pledge shouts.

              “Then give me 40!”

              “Sir, yes, sir!”

Jorge hates everybody, but he especially hates pledges, who he finds to be “worthless pieces of meat.” This is besides the fact that he was probably the most worthless, good for nothing pledge, who ever stepped foot inside the Theta Rho chapter of Chi Nu Phi.
And I should know, since I was his pledge brother. How he got to be President of this house, I’ll never know.

              “One!” the pledge shouts as he goes down. “Two!”

              “I can’t heeeear yoooou!”

              “Three!” he screams, his pale forehead turning beat red.

              I don’t have time for this. I have to deal with my brother.

              Ever since Tita Zelda died a couple years back, Carlos hasn’t been the same. He used to cook all the time and we even had dreams of starting a Filipino restaurant together. But he’s been drinking a lot now, and getting into fights. And that’s the last thing we need tonight. A drunk Carlos is an angry Carlos. Carlos drink, Carlos smash!

              Tonight, by the way, is “Travel the World Night.” It’s our biggest event of the year and we use it to entice young men to become potential pledges. In other words, we want to recruit you, son.

As I leave the room and rush up the stairs, I pass by a variety of paddles. All of them have the names of brothers who once lived and served this house. There are even
more
paddles in the basement, with some of them dating as far back as 1910. I kid you not.

              I turn at the top of the stairs and head toward the red door at the end of the hall, which smells of mildew and stale weed. This is where my brother and I live. Sharing a room with Carlos lets me be closer to him, which helps me keep him away from liquor. The whole house wins.

When I open the door, I find Carlos sitting on the floor Indian style, shirtless. He’s playing video games next to his former pledge brother, Charles Makinde. Charles is a rail thin African who hails all the way from Tanzania. Or at least, that’s where he says he comes from. But he doesn’t even have an accent, so he might just be pulling my leg.

Well, anyway, Charles is a cool guy, but he’s also pretty weird, especially when he’s hammered. Sometimes, he’ll talk about how he believes in other dimensions and stuff like that. He’ll say stuff like, “There are other worlds right next door. You only have to listen for them.” Whatever
that
means. Again, he’s a strange dude, but I really like him. He crossed last semester with my brother, so they’re really close. They’re also new, so they’re the lowest ranking brothers in the house.

              “Hey,” I say, closing the door behind me.

              Neither Charles nor Carlos responds. Just then, there’s an explosion on the screen, and Charles hops up and hoots.

              “Ha! Gotcha!” he barks before doing a little dance.

              “Yooooo, how could I hit you when you kept jumpin’ around like that?” Carlos chucks his controller across the floor.

              “Oh, hey, Ernie,” Charles says. “The pledges here yet?”

              “No. Just Colin. That’s actually what I wanted to talk to my brother about. Can you step out for a second?”

              Charles glances at my brother, but Carlos puts his hand up. “Anything you have to say to me you can say in front of Charles.”

              “Look, it’s cool, man,” Charles says. “I’m sure it’s important.”

              “Sit back down,” Carlos says, and this puts Charles in an awkward position. Carlos is his best friend and they crossed together, but since I have a higher ranking than him, I can make him leave if I want to, which I do.

              “Scram,” I say. “You can come back after I’m done with him.”

              Charles offers a half-hearted smile at Carlos and leaves. He shuts the door behind him. As soon as he’s gone, I lay into my brother.

              “Why is Colin the only pledge here?”

              “Get off my back. The others said they’ll be here soon,” Carlos says, clicking out of multiplayer mode.

              “What do you mean they’ll be here
soon
? They should be here
now
.”

              “They’ll get here when they get here. What do you want from me?”

              Carlos starts playing his game. Gunfire rattles the room.

              I go to grab the controller from him, but he moves his hands away.

              “Yo, chill,
nigga
!”

“Nigga,” says the
mestizo
Filipino from Jersey City.  Mestizo means light-skinned in Tagalog. Most people don’t even think we’re related because I’m so much darker than him.

“Don’t tell
me
to chill. You got Jorge breathing down my neck downstairs because you’re too lazy to do your job.”

“What, are you afraid of him or somethin’?”

“I’m not afraid of anybody. But when you mess up, it makes me look bad.”

Carlos rolls his eyes. “Oh, boo, hoo, hoo, so the Vice-President looks bad for a change. So what?”

I go to grab the controller again, even though the game is still paused, and he moves his arms again.

              “Yo,
chill
,” he says. “What do you want from me anyway, huh? I called them, aiight? They said they’re on their way.”

              “You’re supposed to be in
charge
of them, Carlos. When I was your pledge class leader, was I easy on you?”

“No, but you were also a massive dickhead, and I ain’t gonna be like that.”

I rub my forehead and take a deep breath. In doing so, I manage to take a whiff of the filthy clothes strewn across the room. They smell like BO and un-wiped ass. “You know, man,” I say, shaking my head. “Sometimes, I wish I didn’t speak up for you when it came to getting you into this house.”

              “What you tryin’ to say?” He stands up and gives me a vicious stare. “You sayin’ I couldn’t get into this house wit’out you?”

              “Don’t put words in my mouth.”

              “Naw, that’s
exactly
what you’re saying. You think I
needed
you to get in here.”

              Well, the truth is out. I might as well roll with it.

              “Yeah, well, you pretty much did, right? You’re supposed to be
at least
a sophomore before you can pledge this house, and you pledged as a Freshmen.
And a Fall Freshman at that
. How do you think you managed that, huh? You think they let you pledge just out of the goodness of their hearts?”

              Carlos just nods. “Aiight, so maybe I
wouldn’t
have gotten into this house wit’out you, but you ain’t no different.”

“What do you mean?”

“You wouldn’t even be in this
school
without Aunt Zelda’s money, so I guess we’re both dependents, huh? Me on you, and you on our dead aunt.”

              “Don’t bring Tita Zelda into this, asshole.”

              “Don’t call me an asshole,
faggot
.”

              I push my brother and he pushes me back before rushing right into my face. His hot breath smells like protein bars. Even though my brother has a six-pack of abs and cannonballs for muscles, I won’t take being called a faggot from him, even if it’s true.

              He scowls and I stare him right back in the eyes. It’s like being kids all over again, except he’s bigger than me now.

              Still, I stand my ground. “Why’d you call me a faggot?”

              My brother’s scowl turns into a twisted smile.

              “I thought you were comfortable being queer.”

              “I am, which is why I have no problem kicking your ass for calling me that.”

              Carlos gives me his best ice grill, but then, he eventually swats the air “You ain’t even about that life.” He walks over to the bar in the corner of the room by the window.

              I follow him, wanting to diffuse the tension. It wasn’t supposed to get personal. “Alright, look, man. As the head of your pledge class, it’s your responsibility
to make sure they’re here right now. Not mine, and not Jorge’s.

              He ducks beneath the bar and pulls up a bottle of Coke. I forbid alcohol in our room. He pours the black liquid in a red, plastic cup and takes a sip.

              “And they
will
be here,” he says. “I already told you that.”

              I stare at him, waiting for him to say more, but he doesn’t. I cross my arms.

              “You know, that was really messed up what you said before about Tita Zelda,” I tell him.