Creeps (21 page)

“I know.”

Wayne sits down beside her. “Wanna go?”

“Rather not.”

“But you're the star.”

“Go without me.”

“Would Leo go without Kate?”

“Pfft.”

“What?”

“We're far from Kate and Leo.”

“Not tonight.”

Marjorie pauses.
“Tonight.”

For ages they sit and say nothing, like people at ease with each other, comfortable in the silence.

Then the door at the back opens and Mr. Ricketts walks in. He stops for a moment and scratches the back of his head, then starts stacking chairs.

Marjorie says, “You were excellent.”

“No, you were.” Then, “What do you think our chances are next week?”

“Don't know.”

“I had a dream about St. John's last night: I was on Signal Hill staring at the ocean and whales were breaching.”

It's quiet for a moment.

“Did your mom come?” Wayne says.

“She'd have to wash her hair and get out of her robe for that.” Marjorie pauses. “Doesn't matter. Even if she did come, she wouldn't have seen it.”

Wayne says, “Why'd you change your mind?”

“I don't know.”

“I'm glad you did.”

Mr. Ricketts's voice: “Can't stack chairs with bums in 'em.”

Wayne looks back. “Can we help?”

“Help? They'd have me in a rocking chair
tonight
!”

A hand on top of his own. He looks down and then across at her.

“Let's go,” she says.

“To the reception?”

She shakes her head.

“Where then?”

“You'll see.”

They both stand and Marjorie leads him back towards the stage as Mr. Ricketts coughs and mumbles and drops a chair and curses.

In the wings now and to the backstage where she stops and faces him and kisses him and uses her tongue and he thinks her saliva tastes like raisins.
Then she lets him go and guides him to the door leading into the corridor, and when she pulls it open Pete The Meat is there.

FIVE

Bobby and Harvey are dragging Wayne; Pete's just ahead, holding Marjorie's wrist against her back at an odd angle while his other arm is around her neck and it looks like it hurts but Marjorie's not making a sound; Kenny's pointing towards an open classroom at the end of the hall.

The floor's still wet from where Mr. Ricketts was mopping and Bobby nearly slips and Harvey laughs and Bobby says it's not funny.

Pete turns around and tells them to hurry up and Wayne thinks he's never seen that look on Pete's face before.

Harvey's digging his fingers into Wayne's arm but Wayne hardly feels it, and Bobby's whispering into his ear but Wayne can't make out the words because he still tastes Marjorie's kiss on his lips.

Then they're inside the classroom and Pete
makes Marjorie and Wayne stand against the chalkboard and Kenny closes the door and flicks off the lights and then stands there with the moon through the window lighting his face. Bobby goes to take something out of his pocket and Pete tells him to leave it. “But,” Bobby says, and Pete goes, “Leave it, I said,” so Bobby does.

Pete steps closer and says, “You're missing a nice reception upstairs. They got them Vienna sausages— you'd probably like those, Maple Leaf—and pickle toothpick thingies and egg sandwiches—”

“And Doritos,” Bobby says.

“That's right, Bobby,” Pete says, “and Doritos.” The Meat smiles and his teeth glisten because of the moon. “Your faggot drama teacher made a speech and then got embarrassed when he couldn't find either of you.”

Bobby laughs, but no one laughs along with him. Then Pete turns to Harvey and asks him what he thought of the play and Harvey adjusts his position on the desk he's sitting on and says, “A fuckin' bore.”

Pete nods. “Wasn't it?” Then to Wayne, “And what were they thinking sending Pumphrey out there?”

Kenny shrugs and Bobby laughs again and Pete looks right at Wayne and says, “The leading man, eh? Think that's what you are, Pumphrey?”

“More than you'll ever be,” Marjorie says.

Pete doesn't say anything, just nods, and, despite the murk, it's not hard to make out Harvey getting to full height and Bobby standing with his feet shoulder-width apart and Kenny walking forward.

A truck pulls out of the lot, its headlights shining in the window, allowing Wayne to see everything: the whites of Pete's eyes, and the way The Meat's shirt clings to his chest; Harvey's steel-nosed workboots and nicotine-stained fingers; Bobby's half smile with the now perfect fake tooth highlighting the deficiencies of the rest, their plaque and gingivitis, their crowdedness and cavities; Kenny's furtive glance out the window and then the door, then out the window again; and Marjorie's wet bottom lip from where Wayne's own lips had been just moments ago, and her moist eyes even though she's not crying, and the way her palms are pressed flat against each thigh as if needing something to touch.

Then the lights are gone and it's dark again and Pete's got Marjorie pinned up against the chalkboard by the neck and Wayne shouts, “Let her go!” and then Bobby and Harvey have Wayne pinned up against the chalkboard too and Wayne feels cold despite the heat. Then Pete looks over and says, “He shouts again, put a fuckin' eraser in his gob.” To which Bobby replies, “Bet he'd like something
else
in his gob,” which makes Harvey laugh.

Another vehicle pulls out of the lot, more lights shining in, and Pete tells Kenny to close the fuckin' blinds and Kenny runs over and does it and now it's even darker, just the shapes of things.

No one says anything.

Wayne hears breathing and swallowing and licking of lips and he thinks about that song and being strange and not belonging anywhere and this here's the proof, right?

A voice: Pete's. “Hand it over.”

Bobby snickers and fumbles about and hauls something out of his pocket and hands it to Pete.

Wayne looks and can't make it out at first, but then knows exactly what it is, and he says “No,” but no one seems to hear him.

And now Pete's waving it in front of Marjorie's face and saying, “Sorry, Maple Leaf, it thawed in Bobby's pocket, so we'll have to go easy.”

Harvey and Bobby laugh.

“I figured I'd let you do it yourself, but then I thought: wouldn't it be great if Pumphrey did it for you? Seeing as you like each other so much.”

“Do what?” Wayne says, even though he knows exactly what.

Then Bobby says, “But it's so dark, Pete. How will we see?”

“You'll see, Bobby, don't worry, although sometimes it's better to imagine.” Pete brings the
wiener to his nose and smells it. “I said you'd get what was coming, didn't I, Maple Leaf?”

A silence.

Then Marjorie says, “Should I lie on the desk over there or on the floor or what?”

Pete doesn't answer, so Bobby goes to speak, but Pete tells him to shut up and turns to Marjorie and says, “I know what you're tryin' to do, Maple Leaf.”

Marjorie says nothing.

“But it won't work.”

Bobby says, “What's she tryin' to do, Pete?”

“Act like it doesn't bother her, that's what. So we'll get turned off or something and let them go.”

After a moment Bobby says, “But we're not going to let them go, right, Pete?”

“That's right, we're not. Not until Pumphrey here gives Maple Leaf what she's dyin' for.”

No one says anything.

Wayne feels Harvey's grip loosen, and Bobby— seemingly too wrapped up in breathing and trying to swallow without the spit—lets him go, and Kenny's pacing now like someone waiting for results.

“Not man enough to do it yourself, Pete?” Marjorie says.

And suddenly it's like a cord being yanked out of something, leaving an unexpected and exacerbated silence in its wake that Wayne thinks might go on
forever, except that Pete finally manages to speak. “I'll have my go, Maple Leaf, don't worry.”

Then Bobby says, “Me too, Pete?”

“Yes, Bobby, you too. And Kenny if he wants.”

Kenny doesn't say whether or not he'd like to.

Now Pete's got Marjorie in a bear hug and is carrying her to the back of the room and when Wayne says to put her down, Bobby hits him full force in the stomach. Down Wayne goes and he thinks it funny how easily the tears come compared to how hard it is to breathe. He'll smother, he figures, but then suddenly he's able to draw breath, sucking in great heaps and then wiping the wetness from his cheeks. He looks up and can make out Marjorie, and Pete standing over her waving the wiener as if she were a dog he was teaching a trick to.

“Bring him over, boys,” Pete says.

And he's lifted up despite not having regained his wind and he coughs as he's being dragged there. Now he's standing over Marjorie too and Pete's telling her to take off her pants and make it quick 'cause they don't have all fuckin' night.

Marjorie unbuckles and unzips and slides off and Bobby breathes in Wayne's ear and Harvey squeezes Wayne's arm and Kenny goes over and stands guard by the door and Pete's waving that wiener back and forth like he's conducting something, which, Wayne thinks, he sort of is.

“Grannies,” Bobby says, pointing at Marjorie and laughing.

“How would you know, dickwad?” Pete says. “Spying on your mommy again?”

“No,” Bobby says.

Quiet for a moment.

Pete looks at Marjorie. “The grannies too, Maple Leaf.”

But Marjorie won't, so The Meat tells her for the last time, then Marjorie says, “Why don't
you
take them off, Pete?”

Pete stops waving the wiener. “Don't think I won't, Maple Leaf, yours wouldn't be the first I've taken off.”

Everyone goes still.

Then Pete squats down and reaches out, but Marjorie grabs his hand and says, “Ever take off a pair that actually
wanted
to come off, Pete? From someone you actually liked and who happened to like you, too?”

Pete holds Marjorie's stare, then yanks his hand away and stands up and says, “That's why Pumphrey's going to take them off. You're not my type, Maple Leaf, probably catch E. coli if I stuck it in you.”

“I'll take them off, Pete—”

“No, Bobby,” The Meat says. “Let Pumphrey.”

That noise,
Wayne thinks.
What's that noise?
Then suddenly he knows. It's his own heart pounding
in his ears, in the soles of his feet, in his groin, in the tips of his fingers, inside his skull. The floor's pulsating because of it, as are the blinds, the pencils, the chalk. A tightness at the back of his neck then as he's forced on his knees beside her. The whites of her eyes match the white of her panties and it occurs to him that the world's unsafe somehow. Then she touches his hand as if to say,
It's okay, Wayne Pumphrey, it will soon be done,
but he knows it's not okay and it will never be done and where can you go to be safe if you can't be safe at school?

Now she guides his fingers to the band of her underwear and he lets her and then Harvey makes a grunting sound and Pete says to keep going because Marjorie's dying for it and Bobby repeats, “Dying for it.”

Voices from the parking lot, opened and closed doors, turned ignitions and pumped gas pedals, engines fading into the night, and the quiet. Always that. And he feels the heat in his fingers, the beginnings of her pubic hair and it's coarse and he thinks he wasn't expecting that.

“Thatta boy, Pumphrey,” goes The Meat.

Someone clears his throat. Licks his lips. Swallows. He himself, Wayne realizes. Then he takes his hand away and Pete asks him what he's doing but Wayne won't answer, reaching instead for Marjorie's pants and covering her.

Bobby groans and Pete gets to his knees and grips Wayne by the back of the neck and squeezes, but Wayne doesn't make a sound.

“I was doing you a favour, Pumphrey,” Pete says, “but if you won't do it, I know someone who will.” Pete lifts his head and looks at Bobby.

“Me?” Bobby says.

“That's right.”

But Bobby doesn't move.

“Don't just stand there, dickwad.”

Still Bobby won't go over.

Pete shakes his head and says, “All your talk earlier, and now here you are more chickenshit than Pumphrey.”

“I'm not chicken,” Bobby says.

“No?”

Bobby shakes his head.

“Well get your ass over here then. It's not every day
you
see the real thing.”

“Quit it.”

“Who said that?” Pete wants to know.

Kenny steps forward. “‘Have some fun with them,' you said.”

“This
is
fun,” Pete says. Then to Bobby, “Isn't it?”

Bobby nods.

“Harvey?” The Meat goes.

Harvey nods too. “She's shown it to hundreds, Kenny.”

“That's right, Harvey,” Pete says. “Like eating breakfast for Maple Leaf, this is.”

“What if someone comes?” Kenny says.

“No one's coming, Kenny,” says Pete.

“Yeah, Kenny,” Bobby says.

Harvey goes, “Relax.”

Kenny seems to be considering it. Then he says, “We could get in trouble.”

“What trouble?” says Pete.

“Yeah, what trouble?” repeats Bobby.

“There's no trouble,” Harvey says.

Kenny steps back and grips the doorknob but doesn't leave.

“Way to be, Kenny,” Bobby says.

“This'll all be over before you know it,” Pete says. Then, “Come on Bobby, we don't have all fuckin' night.”

Bobby moves in Marjorie's direction.

“NOT … ANOTHER … STEP,” Wayne says. Bobby stops.

Pete squeezes Wayne's neck hard and says, “Who do you think you are, Pumphrey! Huh? You're
nothing,
remember, so you got no say in what Bobby does.”