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All I did was smack Branley’s hand a little, dent her makeup, and give her a lesson on what her new lipstick tastes like. And I feel like shit.
I turn to face Alex, resting my back against the sink. “Thanks for stopping me.”
“Of course,” she says, as if restraining people is part of her routine. Her eyebrows come together as she scrutinizes the wall above my shoulder.
“Is Marilee Nolan a bitch?” she asks.
“What?”
Alex nods at the wall behind me. “Right there, it says Marilee Nolan is a bitch. Is she?”
“No, I don’t know. Not really. I don’t think so,” I say. But whoever wrote that had a red Sharpie and a lot of conviction.
“We should erase it,” Alex says.
“That’s permanent marker.”
“Nothing is permanent.” Alex pumps the towel dispenser half a dozen times and I find myself playing janitor with her, our knuckles scraping against the cinderblock wall as we wet fistful after fistful of cheap towels.
“I stopped you because it’s easier to fantasize about violence than actually perform it,” she says a few minutes later. “Most people consider things they wouldn’t do in real life, and there’s enough visceral satisfaction in the thought to alleviate the emotion. In reality, hurting another person on purpose is not a simple task, and not everyone is up to it.”
I remember how I wanted to find the guy who threw out the sack of puppies and kick him bloody, how many times I’ve considered punching Branley in the face. But when I actually tried, it all went the wrong way, like a carefully scripted scene I imagined ahead of time falling apart because nobody else knew their lines. Of all the times I imagined smashing her nose until it bled and shredding her pouty lips on her perfect white teeth, I never factored in that look of complete incomprehension on her face when I did it. Now that I can’t unsee it, the absolute innocence in her eyes when I was bent on hurting her is its own revenge, and I feel gut punched even though Branley never raised a finger.
“It’s not restricted to violence,” Alex continues, still scrubbing at the wall. “People fantasize about sex with someone they can’t attain, or what they would do with the money if they won the lottery. It’s wish fulfillment, a break from reality.”
“A way to escape,” I say, thinking about my dad’s words the other day.
Alex nods. “Until it becomes your new prison, and you either live in the daydream or make it reality. And in your case, that would mean going against who you actually are, inside. A good person.”
I toss my last handful of paper towel, now stained pink, into the trash and get myself a fresh one from the dispenser. I wet it and press it against my still-hot face. She’s right. My new friend with a good vocabulary knows me better than I know myself.
“We should go to the office,” I say. “Talk to Miss Reynolds.”
Alex follows me into the hallway and we walk the rest of the way in our special kind of silence, the one that doesn’t need to be broken for us to be comfortable. I get into the guidance office just as Reynolds is hanging up her phone, probably getting a call from Hendricks saying I’m on my way. I don’t know why I’m here. I don’t need her anymore.
Alex made the bathroom more productive than the guidance office, more honest than my father’s confessional. But I say the right words, tell the truth like I’m supposed to, and promise to apologize to Branley, who is reportedly being very mature about the entire thing.
When I’m done, I find Alex waiting for me in the hallway. She’s pressed against the wall underneath the sign for the girls’ bathroom that someone drew on—an erect penis with eyes glaring up her plastic skirt.
I didn’t expect Alex to be there. I am the preacher’s kid. My friends are on the debate team and Quiz Bowl. My friends are in marching band. My friends are in class right now because that’s where they’re supposed to be. Except Alex isn’t.
And I’m pretty damn sure that she’s my friend.
20. JACK
It’s definitely a girl-fight day. First Peekay went after Branley; now Alex and Branley are vying for space in my head. It’s a good thing I have a job where your mind can be elsewhere. In fact, it’s better that way.
Because I kill things for a living.
It’s raining. The holding pens smell like wet shit and anxiety. The living cows might not know what the coppery tinge to the air is, but they do know it’s nothing good. Another one comes down the chute toward me and I put my bolt gun right on its fuzzy forehead, the spot a kid would kiss if this were a stuffed animal being tucked in at night. I pull the trigger and it drops, fifteen hundred pounds of unconscious steaks and hamburger hitting the ground with a meaty thump.
I hook a chain around a back leg and this one is hoisted away from me, tongue lolling. Depending on which line it goes down it might see my dad in a few moments, pupils reflecting his face right before he slits its throat and the brightness fades. He did that job before the animal rights groups said they had to stun them first. He says the pigs would scream like women while they hung and you had to spin them to get their throat pointed at you right. He wore earplugs then.
Now he wears earbuds, says the screaming was almost better because you didn’t hear the skin tearing, the blood dripping onto the concrete. I know for a fact that his playlist is straight classical music. He just stands there all day, a huge guy with a blood-spattered beard wearing a rubber apron, holding a knife, pumping Bach into his ears so he can go somewhere else in his head. Nicest guy you’ll ever meet.
Dad got me this job when I turned eighteen, told me this was the best way to earn money for college and appreciate it at the same time. And I sure as hell do, because there’s another cow already coming down the chute, looking at me with big, confused eyes that won’t close, not even when I pull the trigger. I don’t know how my dad has done this for so many years, but I know why—so that I don’t have to. I love the shit out of him and have grown too old to say it, so when he pulled some strings to get me a shift after school that would overlap with his for one hour I said yes.
Yes because even that little bit of money will help get me through college. Yes because when he asked he expected me to say no. Yes because I don’t think I’m better than him, not by a long shot. Yes because when he’s leaving he walks past me and claps me on the shoulder without speaking. Yes because my dad is a good guy, and I want to be one too.
