American Outlaw - Jesse James [8]
The bell rang.
“Class.”
“You go ahead,” he said. “I have pressing business to attend to.” He strode off in pursuit of that ass.
I walked down the hall slowly, watching the crowd part in front of me: permed-out cheerleaders and red-eyed stoners, math nerds and Mexicans, Dungeons-and-Dragons freaks in tight corduroys pressed up against gym rats walking the steroid swagger, Zeppelin dorks eyeing hair-metal chicks with horny hostility. And then I saw Tom Dixon, the captain of the varsity football team, coming toward me.
Dixon was an eighties jock dickhead straight out of Central Casting: a chick magnet with tight, white pegged pants, who must have owned the best Conair blow-dryer money could buy. He used it skillfully, creating a blond feathered ’do that winged out majestically. Tom stood in front of me, blocking my way.
“Hey, fag,” he said pleasantly, “I know who you are. You’re that Jesse James kid.”
I didn’t say anything.
“Didn’t you hear me?” Tom’s smile curled into a sneer. He looked at me and kind of snorted. “So, what’s that you’re wearing, kid?”
I looked down at the used button-down shirt I’d bought for school, with my own money. The collar was frayed.
“Don’t you have any fucking pride, kid? I mean, I wouldn’t come to school wearing a piece of shit like that if you paid me.” He laughed again. The two kids who flanked him, his football flunkies, laughed, too.
“Goddamn, kid, aren’t you gonna say anything back to me?” His voice lowered menacingly. “I mean, I’m talking to you. Are you deaf, faggot?”
Suddenly, BOOM! He sucker-punched me in the stomach as hard as he could. It knocked all the breath out of me. I struggled for a second, but I didn’t fall. We stared at each other for a long second, motionless. A small crowd of kids had gathered around us, and they watched us now, breathing quietly.
We both stood there for a minute, eyefucking each other.
Then I pushed past him and kept walking.
“Exactly, dick!” called one of Dixon’s flunkies, laughing. “Go cry to your mommy! And don’t even think about coming to tryouts unless you want some more.”
I stomped off to class. I was never too great in school in the first place—composition I was okay at, and metal shop was my specialty, but beyond that, I just never tried. Shop was a good opportunity to laugh at all the stoners in there, who all seemed to be making either bongs or silencers. I remember the day one kid got his long hair caught in a drill press. It was real high-speed shit: didn’t even move his head, just scalped him. It was all bloody.
That afternoon, Bobby and I walked down to the football field together.
“So, we gonna rock this shit, James?”
“Of course,” I answered. Inside, I wasn’t so sure.
Uniforms were doled out. The returning varsity got theirs first, of course. They all seemed to know one another: cool kids with big muscles and giant shoulders, making jokes and cracking wise. From a short distance, I saw Tom pointing over at me. He said something to one of his flunkies, and the whole group of them laughed.
“Hey,” Bobby said, curious, “did that fucker just point you out?”
“Nah. Don’t think so.”
“He just fucking pointed at you, man! Why are all of them laughing?”
“It’s nothing,” I said. “He just punched me in the stomach today, that’s all.”
“You’re kidding, right?” Bobby said, aghast. “That kid punched you? What are you going to do?”
“Nothing. I’m gonna play football.”
“Jesse James, I swear.” Bobby’s face grew dark. “If you go pussy on me, I will personally kick your ass myself.”
“All right, jerkoffs!” a coach called out. “Enough yapping! Come and get your rags.” The JV kids swarmed around the coaches, trying to get uniforms. We were an ugly little crew. Tiny runts, fatsos with man-tits, white trash, mean losers, and punks with messed-up lives. As a whole, we were one big zit cluster, a dog pile of teenaged assholes hoping against hope to make the