Dark Dragons (28 page)

Four minutes later, he stood in front of Marcus’s locker,
checking both ends of the hallway, before opening it: a varsity football
jacket, notebooks, schoolbooks, nothing taped to the inside like pictures or
tassels or mementos of any kind.  A boring ass locker.

He gathered everything in his arms, closed the locker, and
headed for the side entrance just down the hallway.  Outside, he tossed
Marcus’s shit in the Dumpster next to the teachers-only parking spaces. 
As the notebook flew in the air, everything inside spilled out and scattered
across the nearly full Dumpster.  Darren was about to turn and head back
for detention when he spotted a color photograph of . . . Marcus? . . . dressed
only in a leather, studded chest harness and rubber thong?  Darren reached
in and turned the photo around.

“Jesus Christ,” he cracked.

It
was
Marcus . . . standing in front of a bathroom
mirror with his smart phone, his tongue licking his teeth, and his ridiculously
small prick poking out of a zippered opening in the thong.  It was creepy
and hilarious at the same time. 
Trying out for a Village
People-tribute band?
  Why the hell would Marcus bring this picture to
school?  Probably for the same reason guileless teenagers took naughty
pictures of themselves with their cell phones that wound up online——because
they were stupid.

Darren would make Marcus pay for his furtive audacity. 
Two minutes later, he was in Mr. Ellis’s office while the band teacher
conducted his students in the next room.  To a horribly mangled rendition
of “Another One Bites The Dust” coming through the walls, Darren began to run
off copies of Marcus’s S&M, wack-off pic on Ellis’s laser printer.  He
emptied the paper tray.

With about three hundred copies in hand, Darren stuck one
through the ventilation slot of each locker, careful to keep his eyes open for
teachers.  One did appear from around a corner, but Darren was in between
lockers, and he simply kept walking while the teacher smiled and went
past.  After the hallway cleared, Darren picked up where he left
off.  He managed to get every locker on the first floor, about two hundred
of them, before heading upstairs to continue his revenge.  Five minutes
later, he popped the last one in.  There were still another hundred
lockers remaining, but oh well.  He made his point.

“Did you fall in?” Mr. Kerns whispered after Darren returned
to detention.

“Mr. Barstow wanted to talk to me in his office,” he lied,
handing the bathroom pass back.

When Darren sat down, he looked over at Marcus who was
staring.  Darren flipped him the bird.  Marcus’s eyebrows lowered
before he went back to his book.

When the three o’clock bell rang ten minutes later to
announce the end of the school day, the results of Darren’s Payback were
immediate.  It began as a wave.  It seemed to rise near the gymnasium
first before moving east toward the cafeteria.  Around the science wing,
it reached a crescendo, and then overtook the computer/typing classrooms
nearby.  From upstairs, it came down from all three stairwells like a
class-five hurricane.

Laughter.  Catcalls.  Whistles. 
Oh my god
’s. 
What the fuck?’
s
.  It’s Marcus Lutze
’s.  A bunch of
people were singing “Y.M.C.A.” near the math rooms.  Teachers were angrily
trying to gather up as many of the pictures as possible.  Darren strolled
the hallways with a smile.  He wished D.B. were here to see this.

Marcus was not at his locker.  Darren wanted to see the
look of horror and despair on his face, but the jock was nowhere to be
seen.  Only when he met Tony, Nate and Jorge at the bike racks outside,
did he see Marcus standing next to his Corvette in a rather heated argument
with his buddies, Greg Shaw and Tom Nichols.  A couple of guys on the
football team walked by, said something, and Marcus shouted, “Fuck you!”

“Did you get one of these, too?” Tony asked him, holding
Marcus’s picture.

“Yeah . . . I’m the one who found it in his locker and
printed them up.”

“What?”
Tony, Jorge and Nate exclaimed together.

Darren pulled out a roll of pennies from his backpack that he
had kept in the bottom of his bag for months, never compiling the nerve to use
it.  Now he would.

“How did you get into his locker?” Jorge asked.

Darren didn’t answer.  He had already acquired
“lock-on” and began to ingress the target.

*

“You two are the only ones who know my locker combination!”
Marcus shouted.

“We didn’t open it!” Greg shouted back.

“I’m the one who did this to you, asshole.”

Marcus turned around.  Darren Seymour had one foot on
the Corvette’s back bumper.

“So what are you going to do about it, huh?  I bet you
won’t bring naughty cell phone pictures of yourself to school anymore.” 
Darren held up the color original.  “No lipstick?”

Marcus lost it.  He lunged to attack.

*

Darren flung the picture away, tightened his grip around the
roll of pennies and brought the punch out of his sock.  The jock’s head
went sideways against his Corvette, followed by the rest of him.  Marcus
put his hands to his face and stumbled back, then tripped over his feet. 
He was on his ass a second later.

*

“Holy jizzim, the crazy bastard did it,” Tony giggled.

*

All Darren could do was stand there and wonder why only the
bad guys in the movies were knocked unconscious with a good hard knock.

Marcus got to his feet and felt his jaw, Darren hopping it
was broken.  He stepped back and saw that everyone in the parking lot was
staring.  Someone in the distance shouted, “Alright, Seymour!”  Then
he noticed boundless rage come over Marcus’s face, the scariest look Darren had
ever seen——full of teeth, blood and spit.

Oh shit, I’m gonna die.

*

“Oh shit, he’s gonna die,” Tony said.

*

Marcus lunged to attack, and Darren felt his own jaw
exploded and a rock-heavy fist sail into his stomach.  He staggered back
and managed to sneak in another punch to Marcus’s cheek——something
crunched——before the jock was all over him.  Blow after blow assailed his
body from every direction.  He brought his arms up to defend but couldn’t
stop Marcus’s muscular assault.  A vicious right-hook smashed into his
chin, and Darren nearly cried out but checked it.

From behind, Tony flew in like Jackie Chan and planted both
feet on Marcus’s back, sending him forward against his Corvette.  
Before he landed on the pavement, Tony managed to——somehow——put his fist into
Greg Shaw’s face.

Darren paused for a moment to take in and enjoy what he just
saw Tony do.  Years of torment from the hands of a vicious older brother
had obviously beefed him up.

Before Marcus could push off from the car to rip Tony’s
liver out, Darren came back, blood running down his face, and brought an
uppercut fist into Marcus’s nut sack.  The jock let out a sound like a
mating walrus and landed on his knees before keeling over, eyes wide, chin
buried in his chest.

That cued up Greggie and Tommy to wade into Darren and Tony
like drunk rednecks on a pair of lost city boys in the wrong bar.  Darren
tripped and landed on his knees just as Greg tried to surgically implant his
left Nike into Darren’s gut.  Tom pulled Tony off the ground by the neck
and smashed him in the face with a single punch, which tore out Tony’s nose
ring in the process.  Mr. Barstowe, a couple of janitors, and even a guy
in a minivan picking up his kid parted the crowd and joined the melee, prying
angry, wild bodies off one another.

“Stop it!” Barstowe cried.  “Stop it!”

Tony apparently didn’t know who Barstowe was during the
confusion, only that he was fighting, too.  Without thinking, and keeping
in character, Tony pulled out a blind-punch that put Barstowe on his wallet.

“Oh, sorry!” Tony cried.

Darren groped around on his hands and knees, watching the
blood drip off his face.  His insides felt like goo.  His knuckles
were cut, and he saw pennies scattered all over.  He hurt like hell, but
he also felt good . . . alive.  Released.  He just got his ass
kicked, but so did Marcus.  Probably the first time since the third
grade.  Not bad for one day’s adventure.  Yeah, he felt all
right.  That was until he looked up and saw Double V’s standing there with
her boyfriend.

Darren couldn’t tell what Vanessa’s expression conveyed. 
Disgust?  Anger?  Concern?  Nothing?  He didn’t know. 
All he knew was that he felt ashamed to be on his knees before her, blood
dripping down his face, looking weak, while she stood there and looked
gorgeous.  Quickly, he looked away and brushed imaginary dirt off his leg.

“You okay, guy?” Todd asked, helping Darren get to his feet.

“I’m fine, thanks.”

Barstowe promptly grabbed Darren by the arm, dragging Tony
behind him, and led both of them away with a single line of blood running down
his cheek.

“I swear to God, I didn’t know it was you, Mr. Barstowe,”
Tony pleaded.  “Honest.”

“You’re dead, Seymour!” Marcus roared over the shoulder of
one of the janitors.  “Hear me?  Don’t go to sleep tonight!”

Darren wanted to crawl into a bubble, one that kept out
light and sound, and stay there until he came out old, shriveled and gray.

*

“Damn, Seymour, remind me never to cross you in the future,”
Tony said, still giggling at Marcus’s picture on the coffee table.

“Don’t take sick ass photographs of yourself and I won’t.”

“Wasn’t that fight awesome?”  Tony swung Darren’s
baseball bat at an imaginary opponent.  “We took ’em on and kicked ass,
baby.”

“We got our asses kicked, too,” Darren reminded him and put
a cold washcloth on his cheek.

“Yeah, but we got some good shots in.  Hey, look at it
this way——at least we get to spend some more time together in detention.” 
Tony grabbed the remote and turned the TV on.  “Did you see me put ‘Bar
Stool’ on his ass?  I couldn’t believe it.  I didn’t even know it was
him until my fist was half-way there.  Course, it was moving so fast I
couldn’t stop it.”

“Uh-huh.”

“It was worth it.  We’re outlaws, man.  America’s
Most Wanted.”

Darren adjusted the washcloth on his face and leaned back in
the couch. 
Yeah, America’s Most Wanted, alright
.  What did
his moment of revenge really accomplish, besides a possible invitation to death
and a humiliating encounter with Vanessa?  Darren didn’t feel any stronger
or rise in self-esteem either.  Embarrassing Marcus Lutze and denying him
a harassment-free school year hadn’t solved a damn thing.

The doorbell rang, and Darren jumped, thinking Marcus, but
realized Marcus would never bother with such courtesy before barging in and
commencing the ass beating. 
Please don’t let it be Vanessa.

Tony took the baseball bat with him and opened the
door.  A redhead girl with several earrings, a torn t-shirt and baggy
green pants stood on Darren’s porch.

“Michelle!” Tony said.  “What are you doing here,
ginger snap?”  It was the girl Tony had wrecked the other night. 
Darren had heard every lewd, disgusting detail the next day.

“Not much.  I went over to your house, and your dad
screamed at me to leave.  So I went over to Nate’s, and he said you were
here.”

“Did you see me and Marcus Lutze get into it today?”

“Yeah, I did.  Me and Heather King were smoking a joint
in Aston Burke’s car just a few feet away.  We saw the whole thing. 
I saw you put ‘Bar Stool’ on his ass.  That was pretty cool.”

Darren rolled his eyes and put the washcloth back on his
face.

“So what’s up?  Goddamn girl, you’re lookin’ good!”

“I just wondered if you wanted to go to the Gardens with
me?”

Tony smiled, the look of a coy six year-old on his
face.  “Of course.”

The burnout crowd liked to stalk the hills above Descanso
Gardens to drink beer, smoke pot and crank their car stereos.  Everyone
else called it Welfare Hill because all the Lady Burnouts got knocked up there.

Tony grabbed his sneakers, gave Darren a look, and said with
a sly grin, “Wish me luck.”

Michelle giggled.

Darren waved him off.  “Have fun.”

Tony and his girl left, and Darren found himself alone once
again.  Everyone had a girlfriend tonight.  Everyone was getting
play.  He felt an all too familiar jealousy gnaw his insides when the
thought came to him of Todd and Vanessa making out by candlelight.

*

Allison apparently had another round of bar hopping with her
gal pals or some other important Monday night engagement because Darren found a
note on the coffee table when he woke from his nap: “Back around 12 or
so.  Love ya, Mom.”

For the rest of the day, Darren let his doldrums meander on
like a slow river, not knowing where it would take him, still unable to get out
of the canoe.  Standing in the shower, he let the warm water beat into his
face, but it would not rinse away the foulness and go down the drain.  He
looked at himself and thought about what he saw.  There wasn’t much to
think about, other than feeling like an alien in a human body.  His brain
was running on something else, another fuel, the original connections reprogrammed
into a different mode.  At times, for no apparent reason, he would feel
confused, then horny, then depressed.  Angry.  The jumble of emotions
didn’t make sense.

It was exhilarating to fly and fight in machines born on
another world, but he had sacrificed dearly for it.  The ship in the
forest had done more than just insert complicated information.  It had
pushed aside some of his memories into a dormant state to make room for what he
needed to know.  He couldn’t remember Nate’s phone number or recognize
some of the controls on the TV remote.  There were song lyrics he could no
longer recollect . . . he used to be able to sing “Hotel California” without
pause, but now he couldn’t recall the last six verses.