Be More Chill (14 page)

D
ON
’
T WORRY.
W
ORRYING RUINS YOUR POSTURE.
D
ISPLAY THOSE PECS WE DEVELOPED LAST NIGHT.

I jut my chest out.

N
OW WE
’
LL SETTLE THIS.
A
SK
R
ICH IF YOU CAN TALK TO HIM ALONE FOR A SECOND.

“Rich, can you come over here one minute? I gotta ask you something.” I lead my former tormentor to the other side of the school steps—the girls turn their heads at us like
motion-sensitive cameras. Once I have Rich alone, I await instructions.

S
AY
, “U
P UP DOWN DOWN LEFT RIGHT LEFT RIGHT
B A
START
.”

“Up up down down left right left right B A start.”

Rich’s face lights up: “You got one!” He hugs me gruffly; he’s a little short for it, but I hug back.

“Yeah, I got one. Is that like their secret code or something?”

“I don’t know. They have their own way of communicating with one another; it’s pretty complicated. I’m stoked you got yours. But hey…where’d you get
it?”

“Well—”

R
EACH INTO YOUR POCKETS.

You want me to give him that other $100?

Y
ES.
F
INDER
’
S FEE.
B
ELIEVE ME, IT
’
S WORTH IT
.

“I went and got it through the information you gave me, Rich, so I figured maybe you’d want a little bit of money for it.”

“Hell yeah!” Rich puts his hand out. “You’re lucky I don’t beat your ass for not buying it through me, though.” He smiles.

I hand him the money.

“Seriously,” he lowers his voice, “thanks a lot. Things are kinda bad at my house.”

I nod.

G
OOD JOB.

“Let’s go back to the girls,” Rich says. “I’ll introduce you.”

Rich leads me back to his cadre of females, arrayed at the top of the steps as if they are waiting for an audition and not for school. It’s a group I’m familiar with from afar: Abby
and Brooke and Celine plus others, girls with slight but compelling variations on how a teenage girl should look: glitter, eyebrow rings, color contacts, lip gloss I can almost smell from here.

“Everybody, this is my friend Jeremy,” Rich proclaims. His friend! Awesome! A bewildering number of hands—although it’s really just seven—get touched by my soft
hand as I move around the circle saying hello. “Hi, ladies,” I say to all the girls.

I make the mistake of shaking Celine’s hand but the squip keeps me in line for the rest of them—I
slap
instead of shaking, to denote sexual readiness. It’s a special,
slow kind of slap; as my hand leaves each girl’s, my fingertips linger just long enough for heat to flow from my eyes to theirs. The squip keeps track of their names but doesn’t need
to—these are people I’ve watched and envied since freshman year.

“So…everybody hear about Eminem?” submits Tal, a tiny kid, one of the nongirls in the group.

“Ick…” Abby pouts.

B
E JADED AND PROFANE.

“I heard that s_i_ yesterday afternoon,” I say. “I’m surprised he didn’t get a_ _  _u _ _ _ _ to death.”

The group chuckles! I never knew making people
chuckle
could feel so good. It’s not like some of them chuckle and others talk out of the side of their mouths about me—they all
glitter in my humor.

D
ISMISSED.

“Anybody see
Dismissed
yesterday?” I offer.

“Aw, that was a good one,” Rich chimes in.

“Really? You’re into that show?” Unbelievable. Maybe my squip and Rich’s are teaming up.

Y
ES
. M
AYBE
.

“I’m totally into it—”

“Me too!” Brooke pipes up, getting my attention.

B
ROOKE
! N
OW
! G
IVE THE FORMER GIRLFRIEND STORY
, the squip orders, and I go into a riff that we planned this morning.

“I don’t like watching TV, but ever since I got out of this re
la
tionship?…” I say to Brooke. She nods. “I have to watch
Dismissed
just to distract
myself from the pain, you know?” I keep my eyes heavily lidded, like I’m sad or stoned or broken in some way.

“Awww,” Brooke looks down. She’s not bad looking. N
O SHE
’
S NOT
. “Who’d you break up with?”

“Katrina.”

“Katrina Lohst?”

“Yeah.” That really is Katrina’s last name; it’s like a cosmic joke—

“You never went out with Katrina!” a shrill, dry voice accuses me from across the circle. It belongs to Ibby—the only thing anyone knows about her is that she got in a romantic
situation with a football guy on Middle Borough’s staircase and she was on her knees on one step while he was on the step above her and then the entire football team came charging up the
stairs and she freaked out and popped off him and slid down on her knees and had to wear knee bandages for the next few weeks. “I don’t know what’s up with you, Jeremy. Like three
days go you
knew
you were a loser and you didn’t butt into our conversations and stuff.”

R
ETALIATION
, the squip advises before submitting a line.

“Hey, Ibby,” I scuff my shoe on school property. “I heard there was this sale on kneepads at Tar-
get
.” I pronounce Target with the French ending the way the girls
do.

“F_ _k you.” Ibby leaves; one of her friends goes with her, but the other girls stay loyal to the cause.

“I don’t know what’s up with that,” I say to the group, squip-prompted again. “It’s like some people just prejudge everybody and don’t give anyone a
chance to be
themselves
, you know?”

“Yeah.” Brooke smiles.

“So you went out with Katrina too?” Rich asks me. That makes me wonder if
he
really went out with her, but the squip tells me that it isn’t important who did or
didn’t go out with Katrina in this universe—it gives you status to say it, and it’s possible in so many universes, you might as well just say it.

“Only a little,” I respond.

“F_ _ _ that c_ _ _ _ _ _ _,” Rich spits. The girls jump; Rich was always a great curser, even before he got a squip. “So who’s going to class and who’s gonna hang
with me in the dank and creepy spot?”

“I’m out,” says Celine, as are Tal and this girl Jessica from my play.…_ _ _k, I totally forgot about the play!

W
HAT ARE YOU WORRIED ABOUT
? L
INES
?

Oh, right. Abby and Brooke stick around so it’s just Rich, two girls and myself—an illustrious foursome—who make our way to the “dank and creepy spot” to do
something dank and creepy. I hope.

Wow. People are in class right now.

Y
ES
,
YES
. D
ON
’
T MUSE SO MUCH
. T
AKE THE PIECE
.

Rich is passing me his pipe because we’re smoking pot outside school in some bushes. Who knew the dank and creepy spot would really be this dank and creepy? I can see the bike rack through
a hedge and a few kids kowtowing to it, kneeling to lock up their rides as the late bell rings. The late bell! Jeez, how can I ever worry about the late bell again?

J
EEZ
?

Sorry.

I take the pipe as it’s passed to me. I’ve never smoked pot before—

A
ND YOU
’
RE NOT GOING TO NOW
. I
T IMPEDES COMMUNICATION PARAMETERS
.

What do I do, then?

S
MOKE NORMALLY
; I’
LL FILTER THE ACTIVE COMPOUNDS OUT OF THE CAPILLARIES IN YOUR SKULL
.

“Jeremy, you crackin’ out over there? You gonna hit it or not?”

I pull with my lips, but no smoke comes into my mouth. I
T HAS A CARB
. P
UT YOUR FINGER OVER THAT LITTLE HOLE
. I do, then pull again. It works. I
pass to Brooke, sitting cross-legged next to me, as I exhale carefully away from her face.
Uck
.

So if I can’t smoke pot because of you, how come Rich is smoking?

H
E
’
S PROBABLY FILTERING AS WELL
. H
E HAS TO KEEP UP APPEARANCES
. O
R HE HAS HIS SQUIP OFF
.

That’s ridiculous. Do you stop people from drinking, too?

A
BSOLUTELY
. Y
OU HAVE TO SHUT ME OFF BEFORE YOU DRINK
. I’
LL START ORDERING YOU TO KILL PEOPLE
.

Really?

P
OSSIBLY
.

“So Jeremy, I’ve never seen you smoke before,” Brooke says, passing to Abby with experienced grace.

D
O THE DUST JOKE
.

“That’s because I’m so busy smoking dust,” I say. “You know, PCP? I chief that sh_ _ in a shed outside my house all day and have visions.”

“Shut up!” Brooke hits me playfully. “You do
not
!”

“Yeah, he does; I’ve seen him,” Rich nods, hitting. “Jeremy’s a madman, this kid.” Rich slips an arm around Abby; she blushes. Awww…

D
ON
’
T YOU THINK YOU
’
D BETTER FOLLOW SUIT
?

Right, right. I look at Brooke. How to tackle this? There are so many parts of a girl’s body and they’re all so compelling. Do I put a hand on her leg?

N
O
. S
IT CLOSE TO HER SO YOUR LEGS ARE TOUCHING
.

I comply.

N
OW PUT YOUR HAND BEHIND HER AND START TRACING YOUR FINGERS UP AND DOWN HER BACK
.

This is impossible; this is impossible; this is not something I could ever do, but I look over at Rich and he’s already doing it so what the _ _ck, I do it. I put an arm behind Brooke and
smile at her and she smiles back as I touch the little womanly dent between the side of her back and her hip. Then I start to trace up and down.

“That’s nice,” she whispers.

“Jeremy!” Rich barks. “You want this?”

“No,” I say without looking at the pipe. Brooke shakes her head too. My fingers curl and uncurl on her back. K
EEP LOOKING HER IN THE FACE
. Y
OU
’
RE DOING FINE
. Her eyes are pretty, green I think, and one strand of hair has fallen over them. N
OW LEAN IN
. Y
OU
’
VE GOT THIS
. Y
OU
’
VE GOT THIS LOCKED UP
. My body leans forward tiny degree after tiny degree and
there I am, with my lips wetting themselves on Brooke’s, kissing. My first kiss!

D
ON
’
T MESS THIS UP
! P
ART HER LIPS SLOWLY WITH YOUR TONGUE
. H
AVE YOUR HAND GRAB HER BACK
.
D
ON
’
T LET IT JUST REST ON HER
. Y
OU
’
RE THE MAN
;
YOU HAVE TO LEAD
THIS
.

Gosh, people’s mouths taste so
weird
. It’s like, well, I guess I expected Brooke’s to taste better than mine or at least different. You get used to the way your own
mouth tastes and you get so obsessed about other people’s that when you finally get to one, you think it’ll taste like
something
, something beside pot smoke, you know, like
chocolate maybe? Her tongue traces lines on mine and I put my other hand on her leg, just holding it there, trying to put my tongue in deeper.

D
OING OKAY, DOING OKAY
. R
UB HER BACK
.

Damn! Brooke’s mouth is big! Now it’s all the way open and I’m in there licking away—it’s like a never-ending cave! Wow!

W
OULD YOU SHUT UP AND CONCENTRATE
?

Brooke’s hands are in my hair; I hope my dandruff isn’t attacking her too much. I open my eyes, which have been closed the whole time—not because I was told to close them, just
naturally—and her eyes are open too, curious, twinkling. We both laugh and pull apart at our accidental eye contact. Then we keep kissing.

“Mgmmmph,”
she says.

T
AKE YOUR TIME
, the squip says. B
UT IN SIXTY SECONDS YOU
’
RE GOING TO WANT TO START TOUCHING HER BREASTS
.
O
THERWISE SHE
’
LL GET OFFENDED
.

Okay. Brooke has very small breasts; that was something I noticed back on top of the steps.

T
HAT
’
S WHY YOU
’
VE GOT TO MAKE SURE TO TOUCH THEM
. O
THERWISE SHE
’
LL FEEL BAD
. I
T DOESN
’
T MATTER IF THEY
’
RE SMALL
;
WHAT
’
S IMPORTANT IS THAT THEY HAVE NIPPLES ON THEM
. G
IRLS LIKE THEIR NIPPLES
.

I move my tongue back and forth and up and down and in and out—I even move it a little bit in four-dimensional space, since I take so much time. Heh-heh. I bet I’m moving in 5D space
too, like hyperspace, like I’m a hyperspace kisser—