Cornered (23 page)

The first thing we do is watch hours of video and pick out Kruzeman's greatest hits. “Let me take this audio track and see what I can do,” I say.

It's against all my musical instincts, but I take the audio from Kruzeman's greatest hits video and take most of Sunday assembling an Auto-Tuned dance pop song with Kruzeman on vocals. “You're a disgrace,” he warbles on the chorus. I e-mail the file to Toni and don't think much about it until she comes up to me at lunch, smartphone in hand, and says, “Look at this!”

On the screen is a YouTube video entitled “Bringin' Crazy Back.” And it has ten thousand hits. “It's only been uploaded since last night! We've got ten thousand views already!”

I like how she said “we.”

The next day, I turn on the radio while I'm eating breakfast and the Morning Zoo guys are playing our song.

“Can you imagine if that guy was your teacher?” one says.

“I think I would have been expelled,” the other guy responds.

The following day, Mom gets an e-mail from the Massachusetts Anti-Bullying task force. They want to talk to all the parents whose kids are in Kruzeman's classes as they investigate allegations of educational bullying.

Three days and one point two million views later, the news trucks show up at Boston Classical High School. Bridget Tran y Garcia from Fox 36 stops me on my way in to school. I panic for a minute. Toni told me how she created a new e-mail and a different YouTube account through anonomizing proxy servers, like I have any idea what that means, but I'm still afraid they've nailed me as a co-creator. “Excuse me, young man. We're here to get student reactions to the ‘Bringin' Crazy Back' video. Have you seen it?”

“Yeah.”

“And how do you think it reflects on Boston Classical High School that one of your teachers is the laughingstock of the nation?” Oh man, I am
totally
recording this. That phrase is just music to my ears.

“I guess it doesn't make Boston Classical High School look very good.”

“How do you like the video?”

I can't help smiling. “I freaking love it,” I say.

• • •

I wish I could say that Kruzeman resigns in disgrace, but no.

Here's what happens instead: an assembly for ninth grade students in which Mr. Kelly reads to us some Massachusetts law statute or whatever about how videotaping someone without their knowledge or consent is forbidden. Oh yeah, and then there's the fact that they've figured out that the footage came from our class. So every member of our class gets called in one by one.

I look at Toni when they start calling people out of our class, and she smiles at me. It's nice to know my co-conspirator won't give me up.

When it's my turn to get to Mr. Kelly's office, I sit down and he says to me, “We know it was you, Kevin.”

“Funny,” I say. “But apparently you've said that to everybody you've had in here today.” He really doesn't think students talk to each other?

This actually seems to catch him off-guard for a second, but he quickly gets his mojo back. “This is a serious matter. Tell me everything you know about this video.”

“I know it's kind of a dance-pop number. Not my favorite kind of music, but that ‘you're a disgrace' hook is really catchy, I'm not gonna lie. Is it based on, like a Justin Timberlake song? Lady Gaga, maybe?”

Mr. Kelly takes a deep breath, and when he speaks again, he's very quiet. “When we find out who's responsible for this, there will be serious consequences.”

“Well,” I say. “Good luck with that. I don't know a thing about it.”

“That's not what Julie Chen told us,” he says. I look at him. It's a good try, but he just picked the wrong girl.

I reach into my backpack and pull out my agenda book, which contains the Boston Classical code of conduct.

“Honor is crucial to academic excellence,” I read. “Cheating, plagiarism, and other forms of dishonesty undermine the Boston Classical learning environment and will be dealt with within the code of discipline.”

I look up at Mr. Kelly and smile.

“Are you accusing me of lying?” he says.

“No, sir. I just like to recite the code of conduct. I find it comforting.”

“Get out of my office,” he says.

• • •

When she gets home from work that day, Mom asks how school was.

“Oh, you know, the usual. Mr. Kelly called me in to the office and asked if I made the ‘Bringin' Crazy Back' video.”

Mom looks at me. A hint of a smile creeps to her lips. “And what did you tell him?”

“I told him I had no idea who made the video.”

“And is that true?”

I'm not sure exactly how to play this. I don't think she'd be mad, but I really don't want to risk a lecture about how you have to follow the rules and not take stupid chances, or whatever kind of thing she might say.

“Mother. I'm shocked that you think I would lie to the administration at Boston Classical High School.”

Mom gives me a squinty-eyed stare. I think she knows. Or suspects. “Well,” she finally says, “I bet that kid's parents are pretty proud.”

“I certainly hope so,” I say.

“Yeah. You can count on it,” she says.

• • •

YouTube pulls the video a couple of days later after Kruzeman complains, but of course it's been posted by like twenty other people by that point. They use it on the comedy shows where they make fun of stuff on the Internet, and somebody smarter than me prints up shirts that say “You're a Disgrace.” The star of some reality show is wearing one in my mom's
US Weekly
.

And then, a week later, somebody posts a video of their toddler falling over as a golden retriever loudly farts in his face. Babies, dogs, and farts—you can't compete with that, and “Max Takes a Tumble” dethrones us as the most popular video in America. “Bringin' Crazy Back” passes into pop culture history.

Kruzeman doesn't exactly turn nice or anything, but maybe because he's not sure when he's being recorded. At least he stops being as abusive as he has been in the past. He doesn't make fun of my clothes or tell anybody they're a disgrace anymore. It probably won't last, but if it gets me through to the end of the year, I'll be fine with that.

And the day after “Max Takes a Tumble” gets its ten millionth hit, Toni runs up to me after school. “Hey, Kevin. You have any of your metal songs lying around?”

“I mean. Yeah, but—”

“Because I could never have . . . that whole thing was . . . well I just wanted to thank you for the Kruzeman thing, and I know it's not your kind of music, but I have like tons of horror movies and stuff. So if you want I could make a video for one of your songs. You know, only if you want . . .”

I smile. “Yeah. That sounds great. You want to . . . uh, we can talk about it on the bus and stuff? On the way home?”

“Yeah,” she says. We start walking toward the bus stop, and I honestly don't know if it's her or me who starts it, but we're holding hands. And even though we were supposed to talk about our next project on the bus, we don't end up saying a word.

BY
M
ATTHUE
R
OTH

V
ADIM SOUNDED SURPRISED
when I called him to hang out, but he didn't say no. He told me to meet him at the public park, in the baseball field where nobody played baseball. It was across from a hollowed-out swimming pool that the neighborhood kids used for roller hockey during the day and other things during the night. I didn't know what. I only knew never to come here after dark. When we came to America, Vadim and me, fresh off the plane, the American kids told us that they caught children after dark and sold them. But we were new here. We didn't know how it worked, America in general, or the way kids dealt with each other. You could tell us anything.

“Why'd you want to meet here?” I asked.

“Why did you want to meet at all?” said Vadim.

“We have not seen each other since last year.” I poked his ribs like my uncle who always tries to be funny and never is. I was being clever, you know? Yesterday was Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year, and the dual meaning was not lost on Vadim.

“That doesn't mean we must see each other
this
year,” he shot back.

I tried to ignore the uneasiness. It was good to talk to Vadim—to open up my mouth and have him understand everything. All my words and all my intentions. We spoke our own language, a combination of English and Russian and words from science fiction books. Nobody understood me like he did.

“Hey, Vadim,” I said. “You know how you're supposed to ask forgiveness from everyone you know, for anything you did to them, whether it was on purpose or by accident?”

“Yes.” He refused to make eye contact.

“Well . . . do you forgive me?”

“For what?”

“For you know what.”

“For maybe I think you should
say
it,” he said.

“For losing my accent and getting all new friends and ignoring you for the entire first whole month of school.”

I held my breath. I hated saying stuff like that, stuff that was true and damaging. It made me feel like I was poking holes in my own stomach.

“A good start,” he offered.

“So, do you?” I said.

“Do I forgive you?”

“Yes!”

“Not yet.”

I felt stunted and impotent. I remembered from somewhere—from that lone year of Hebrew school, maybe—that you had to ask someone if they forgave you three times. If they
didn't, at the end of the third asking, you were absolved and you didn't have to ask again. But before then, you were still guilty. Forgiveness wasn't an on-and-off switch; it was a combination lock.

And Vadim, it seemed, for now still held the key to that combination.

I fumbled for something to say.

“Uh . . . how were your services?”

Vadim looked at me askew—but at least now he was looking at me. “Are you really asking me that question?”

“Sure. Why not?”

He looked disgusted, even less likely to answer. “How were yours?”

“Crazy. We went to that Orthodox synagogue. There was a wall separating us from all the women. The only thing you could see was the outline of their breasts. So, guess what I spent all services thinking about.”

Vadim's face broke into a big toothy smile like he'd been waiting for this. No matter how he felt about me now, I was still the only person in the world he'd ever been able to candidly talk about girls with. And by
girls,
I don't mean the female species that was created on whatever day, but I mean the objects of the all-consuming lust that suddenly possessed our minds and bodies.

“What are you looking at me like that for?” I chided. “At least your parents' synagogue is Reform. You can actually
see
them.”

“Is even worse, Jupiter. They sit right
there
. Right in front of you. And we're there for four hours. It's almost like you're
supposed
to stare at them. And they're
praying
, which only makes you feel worse and more guilty for checking them out. You're feeling all spiritual and
pobozny
, because you're connected to the universe and you can do anything, then you open your eyes and there
they
are, and all you wanna do is touch 'em.”

“Wow.” I was stunned. Riveted. “Whose?”

Vadim hesitated. “Karla Bozulich.”

“But she's your cousin!” I cringed.

“I know.” Vadim looked down at himself, miserable. “That should feel wrong, shouldn't it? But her breasts are nice ones.”

I couldn't argue with that, and Vadim couldn't bring himself to say anything else. I sat in silence, letting him lead. After a while, he checked his watch.

“It is twelve o'clock,” he said. “I have to go.”

“What? Already? I just got here. . . .”

“It's twelve noon. I need to visit my cousins. Come with me?”

• • •

When we were little, the kids in the park, the Americans, used to play games with our minds. We knew they were tricking us, of course. The way they laughed. The way they'd beat us up if we didn't do what they said. Somehow we always ended up in this playground anyway.

I was small. Vadim was tiny. Together, we made a better target practice than either of the video arcades at Roosevelt Mall. A common getaway from a common enemy: this was how Vadim and I decided to be friends.

Now we were wiser. Now we knew names for the things that went on in this park:
betting
and
gangfights
and
dealing.
We knew more things, but it didn't make us safer.