Authors: Chuck Stepanek
“And he’s bad, bad,
Demon
Brown. He dresses like a circus clown.” Sergeant Denker was truly in top form today. The class took up the refrain. “Bad, bad
Demon
Brown….”
Throughout this the TA grinned and took in the show. Damn! What a kick ass gig! Get totally buzzed on some grade A Columbian and then listen to tunes. He could do this job lying down the rest of his life. And even though his buzz was just starting to wear off, these little dudes were having a hell of a party singing about demons and clowns or some shit. Damn! What a great gig!”
For Demon it was
not
a great gig. Eventually Jim Croce gave way to Jim Stafford who told a story about spiders, snakes, frogs and a girl named Marylou. Sergeant Denker made a few token attempts at altering the new lyrics, then aborted the mission in lieu of an emerging spitball skirmish at his flank.
The records continued to spin, the class continued their study hall of doodling and spitballs, the TA grinned endlessly and fingered his advance ticket to this
weekend’s
Foghat concert; discretely tucked in his breast pocket in front of his pack of “E-Z” rolling papers. And the newly named Demon shrunk in his chair in shame.
So different. He was still sooo different. He felt the rest of the world zoom away and out of focus. “They” were all together. ‘They’ knew about music. ‘They’ made fun of his clothes. (His clothes?) ‘They’ could laugh and talk and poke fun as if it were something easy, something normal.
‘He’ was none of those things.
After class, no longer in his ears, but torturing his mind, the music and words cycled over and over just like the Shondells and their OCD lyrics. “Burn! Demon! Dresses like a circus clown! Luv, luv me do. Gawd! Burn is right! The demon! Plaids, checkers and stripes oh my! Crimson and clover, over and over and over.
Thankfully, Music appreciation was the last class of the day. Demon deposited his books in his locker and headed toward the exit.
“Beware the demon approaches!” A random voice ahead and to his left. “The demon circus clown!” A fellow contributor.
And from Andy or Randy Bushnell (who at his best could barely remember his locker combination from one week to the next) an easily recalled old taunt: “He’s a kilt! You’d be better off wearing dresses you demon thing!”
Conspicuously Demon bailed out of the building and made a hard left. Away from the bike racks, away from the parking lot for upperclassmen. Away, it didn’t matter where, it just had to be away. He had a lot to think about but few skills with which to perform it.
He happened upon the faculty parking lot by chance. Even the smokers avoided this outer part of the building for risk of earning a demerit. And since it would be another half an hour (even on this beautiful spring day) before the first teacher exited the building, Demon was alone.
He sat near the corner of the building and watched as the student body poured out of the main entrance.
‘He dresses like a circus clown!’ Demon dropped his chin and looked at his shirt and pants. ‘Plaids, checkers and stripes oh my!’
He didn’t understand. Not at first, but he saw. He saw what they had been saying. His pants looked like they had come out of a pack of Fruit Stripe gum. A very old pack of gum that is; faded stripes of the primary colors stretched from waist to cuff.
And above it, his shirt: An orange and black checkered flannel that could induce a migraine from its garish design.
“Circus clown.” He mumbled disgustedly. But he knew they were right. This was how Bozo and Ronald McDonald looked on TV. All he was missing was a red rubber nose and a pair of floppy shoes to complete the ensemble.
But how was he supposed to dress? Demon looked back over the vacating student body. Not a single student had striped or checkered pants. In fact, virtually every one of them were wearing blue jeans.
‘Jeans’ he mentally inventoried. ‘I need jeans.’
And with the exception of a few broad-striped rugby shirts, worn principally by guys who needed the horizontal advantage to help their anemic physiques, there wasn’t a checkered or plaid shirt in the bunch.
‘Plain shirts’ he added to his inventory.
‘Why?’ The question ran through his mind but not his lips. ‘Why didn’t they tell me!’
The tears were close, but this was not the place for crying. He stuffed the tears deep into his favorite hiding spot; the spot that was now getting rather crowded but still served its purpose.
And though the day was still sunny and warm, Demon would have given anything for it to be cold. At least he would have had his jacket to cover part of his shame.
He waited until most of the students left before retrieving his bike and slithering toward home. There he would see if he had anything plain to wear, at least until he was able to figure out where to buy clothes.
But there was also the issue of music. This whole mess had started because he didn’t know about the music that kids listen to. Where could he find out about music?
And that took him to money. Clothes and music didn’t come for free.
He received no allowance. What little money he did have had been invested in shampoo and toothpaste. He needed to get a job.
As he pedaled along
Valley street
, Demon realized that the art of becoming human had just become very complicated. That, and expensive. He could already hear his mother: “Why are you spending money on clothes! Vanity! Pray for Strength! You already have two pairs of pants! Such wastefulness!”
Maybe he could pretend that he bought just one pair of jeans and hide the rest. With the shirts it would be harder.
“Someone gave me the shirts.” He tested the lie and found it to be passable.
Pants, shirts, but still music. That would be the tough one. Wasting perfectly good money on records would
never
be accepted. Plus, there just wasn’t a lie good enough to explain a stack of 45’s and the new record player they would require. These were the thoughts that rolled through Demon’s mind as he hugged the shoulder of road.
As he puzzled over his dilemma a piece of shit 67 Ford Falcon shadowed his progress, inching closer and closer. The driver crept to within 30 feet of the brightly clad cyclist, then tossed the transmission into neutral and roared the engine.
Whipped out of his reverie, Demon snapped his head back and nearly dumped the bike. Heart pounding in his throat he tottered between: ‘Thank you god, I’m going to die – relieve me of my misery” and ‘no, not now! Right when I’ve almost got it all figured out!”
God, and the driver of the Falcon, decided to grant Demon another sunrise.
“Hey Demon! They really gave it to you in music class today.” The stealthy driver pulled up next to the breathless cyclist and leisurely swung an elbow out the window.
Demon looked over in apprehension…and then relaxed. At least a little. The face looking out of the driver’s side window was a safe face. It was the face of Jon Hemmingburg, otherwise known as Jon ‘Hummingbird.’
Or more simply, ‘The Bird.’
Chapter 2
1
Growing up, every youngster knows a Jon Hemmingburg. The Jon Hemmingburg’s of the world are the complete package. They are the ones who decide what games the neighborhood kids should play; when it’s cool to throw crabapples at cars and when it’s not cool to do the same with
ice balls
.
They’re the ones who aren’t afraid to get wet during water fights. “Come on you pussies! It’s only water. Attack those fuckers!”
They are as nimble with their physical abilities as they are with their good natured taunts. They are the playground champions at box hockey, the relay race and obstacle course. In backyard games of tackle football they innately know the distinction between when a player is feigning an injury and when a kid is truly hurt. And when that kid is truly hurt, they are the ones to respond. Kneeling beside them, sharing the right words, lifting them by the belt when they have the wind knocked out of them.
When targeted by upperclassmen during freshmen initiation, the Jon Hemmingburg’s don’t squeal, protest or run. They endure the wedgie, snuggie, or other indignity, then calmly drape their shirttail over the dislodged underwear and silently walk away, denying the upperclassman of the hoped for response.
And when Jon Hemmingburg’s are choosing sides for playground games of kickball or smear the queer, they have the stones to pick
first
the kids who are fat, wimpy, slow, awkward or any combination thereof. Not for the purpose of winning the
game, but for the chance to lead a rag-tag bunch of misfits in an epic battle of David vs. Goliath.
Hemmingburg’s are the trendsetters. They are the first to start collections. Stickers! Too cool! STP, Valvoline, and the elusive Champion Spark Plugs peel off decal. And then after every other kid has started his own sticker collection, the Jon Hemmingburg’s have moved on; being the first to collect beer cans; and not just the regular stuff, but prized rarities like the seven ounce Coors can or the new 16 ounce tallboys.
Always the first.
First to smoke and openly pass around butts to new nicotine recruits. First to try beer; and then having the moxie to declare that it tastes like llama piss. First to toke up, and wisely recognize the necessity to keep the knowledge, that it fucking rocks, limited to a discrete few that share the sentiment.
The Bird leaned back in the Falcon’s driver’s seat and grinned much like the TA had in music appreciation class. The brick of Columbian gold that had arrived from the twin cities last week was now selling nicely to a wide variety of patrons at a nickel, dime and in one special case, a dollar a bag. After school he had wasted no time in getting wasted.
The Bird looked at Demon, and involuntarily tugged at the pack of Kool’s in his shirt pocket. He started to shake one out of the deck when he realized that he already a lit grit in the other hand.
“Ha! Yup, guess I got plenty.” He covered the guffaw with a charade of taking inventory. “Just checking to see what I got left.” He re-parked the pack and then took a satisfying draw from his active stick.
Even stoned on the good stuff-- check that, on the
great
stuff, the Bird was one cool customer.
“You need a ride Demon? I got 45 minutes to kill before work and you ain’t handling that bike too well.” The words came out with miniature jets of menthol smoke between each syllable. He smiled again like an egg-suck dog nosing through his third nest.
Demon eased considerably. He knew that the Bird wasn’t messing with him. He had never been unkind and had even showed streaks of being friendly at times. The fact that he had used the “D” word didn’t carry the same sting as it had when he had heard it from his classmates. Coming out of the Bird’s mouth it had a tone of understanding. Besides, he was smoking right in front of him. It conveyed an element of trust, being able to do something and know that the other person wouldn’t tell on you.
The offer of a ride
was
tempting, if not a little scary even with the completely safe Hummingbird. He shook his head, looked down, and then formed four words: