The bell rang. Kids were up and gone almost before the question had been finished. Adam yanked off the ring and dropped it into the teacher's palm.
"You sure you're all right, Adam? Do you need to talk to someone?"
Without answering, he stood and grabbed his books, trying to ignore her questions.
"Are you depressed or anything?"
He wanted to scream it in her face, pound it into her skull:
I do not have a fuckin’ problem, all the purple, yellow, and red kids do! If not for them, that ring would be pure white.
He left her and her ridiculous toy ring behind and marched away to his first class.
He wanted to be hopeful that his teacher, Mrs. Steiner, liked his story and would help him publish it. But the fact lingered—his soul was black, deprived, lifeless, worse than all the evil incarnates breaking past him.
"Hey, Adam McRetard!" a spike-haired boy said to him as he walked north. Funny stares and crude treatments came and went as usual from kids of all ages, sizes and classes, until he entered class.
***
The teacher seemed haunted by Adam's arrival. Her face, besides riddled with age spots, was also riddled with trepidation. Adam was used to this look, but not from Mrs. Steiner. She stared at him now, her eyes too big and too green. Adam could not comfort himself. He figured he'd done something wrong, but what? To whom? How? When? Where?
The class started to fill up quickly. Loads of demons and minions came plowing in like flies drawn to shit.
The sudden shrill of the bell was so loud, it gave Adam a headache. When he looked up at the teacher, she was still watching him.
Why?
She rolled her eyes, opened a desk drawer, took out some stapled papers, and said, "Good morning, class. Today we're going over a passage in our composition book. I also graded your short essays on The Batter. First, however, I want to read you something somebody in this class wrote. A short story—" She looked right at Adam.
Uh-oh
, he thought.
"Might I add that this is a very strange story about the devil's son, who was freed from Hell."
Don't you dare.
"Who wrote it?" some girl in the back asked. "I want to know who wrote it.”
Adam scraped his feet against the carpet.
Don't say it, don't say my name—
She began to read: "Syraqt was a demon from Hell—the devil's son. His only son. For fun, he liked to sneak through dark places and slaughter human people: age, race, gender—did not matter. It was a sport. A very, very competitive sport, since all of Satan's other demons liked to kill people as well—"
One boy, a few seats over from Adam, covered his mouth, laughing.
"Oh my God!" some girl gasped.
The teacher continued, "These entities’ only fear was crucifixes and churches. They were more afraid of these than anything else. These two things were the only things that could stop them, too.
“
But Syraqt, the head of the evil army, would not succumb to defeat. He was sworn by his father, the devil, to end the world and teach God a lesson—" She stopped reading and flipped through the pages, shaking her head.
"Who wrote it?" the girl again asked, this time raising a hand.
The tension skyrocketed within Adam. He could not stop shifting in his seat or playing with his pencil or looking down.
Do not say it!
"The whole story was written by Adam McNicols." Not only did she say it; she pointed at him, leaving no doubt to anyone.
Adam would not look up from his desk.
All I ever wanted was to be the next Stephen King.
"Oh my God, that's soooo sacrilegious!" another girl said.
"Crazy, not right in the head."
"That was complete crap," a boy snickered.
The teacher stared down this little devil in the scruffy black clothes. She feared him and disliked his wretched soul for writing such a horrible little story. Mrs. Steiner was just another Southern Baptist, the most close-minded kind of Christ-lover in existence. She would not tolerate anything pro-Satan or simply weird, and Halloween was her least favorite time of year. Back in ’73, she even wrote a nasty letter to Warner Brothers, protesting against the release of the film The Exorcist.
Fucking bitch
, Adam thought.
Before anymore ridicule could be placed on Adam's trembling frame, he stood and darted out of the room, humiliated for the hundredth time. He went straight to the bathroom to recover yet again, and refused to leave until the bell rang again. Mrs. Steiner was not concerned. She did not really want him in her classroom anymore today, anyway.
***
Second and third period class came and went soon enough. Adam walked to lunch, his face throbbing red. Once there, he sat at same table by the window with his friend Josh.
One of the kids across the aisle from them, a boy from Adam's English class, stopped eating a slice of pizza long enough to show Adam the sign of the cross with his fingers.
"What's his problem?" Josh asked Adam.
Adam dove into his bag like a pre-programmed robot and removed a Hershy bar. "He's a—“ For fear of the boy overhearing him, Adam did not finish saying:
Motherfucking son of a bitch.
"—never mind. It's not important. Nothing's important anymore."
"What do you mean?" Josh asked, sipping on a can of 7up.
“
What do you mean what do I mean? Everybody in this place just—pisses me off," he whispered.
Josh did not hear him. "What's that?”
Adam shook his head and ate his candy bar.
So many things to say, too many feelings I can't control, and no courage to tell anyone.
In time, that
would
change.
***
Lunch passed. Homeroom class returned. Adam sat in his seat, resting restlessly on his unbalanced school books before the bell rang. The room was filled with monsters on all sides: geeky creatures from the far side of technology, jock-type mongrels who looked like the poster children for army commercials, dirt-ball trailer trash inbreds with no sense of bathing, and beady, cat-like preps who could win over the most stubborn of teachers.
Erica—Adam did not want to classify her as anything other than gorgeous, but he knew that her beauty was only skin deep.
Today she was crying, hurt once again by that loser boyfriend of hers. Her group of friends comforted her.
Adam sat up, grabbed his ink pen, and began drawing on his book cover.
"He—he loves me. Deep down inside I know he does," Erica said.
"Guys can just be asses that way," one of her friends told her.
Not me. I'd treat you like gold.
The drawing of a demented-looking creature on brown paper began to take shape.
"And he flirts with other girls. He says he doesn't, but I know he does. I see the way he looks at Marsha.”
"It's okay,” her friend said, "all guys are sex crazed—"
—
horns, claws, muscles...
If you were my girl, I would not need to look at any other girl. You are perfect in my eyes.
Erica walked up to the vacant teacher's desk, grabbed a few tissues from the box, and blew.
—
A severed human head, which was being held by this life-like demonic depiction.
“
I just hate guys."
"They don't treat you right," another of her friends said.
"All after nookie."
Lie.
—
Blood dripping to the soil below. Monster grinning.
Adam wasn't aware of this, but the dirty mullet-haired boy sitting across from him sneaked a peek of his grotesque drawing and said, "What are you, a fucking devil worshiper?"
By this time, Erica was walking down the aisle, had overheard him, and also glanced at the picture. Disgusted and arrogant, she looked at Adam and said, "He
is
a devil worshiper. I guarantee it. Weirdo—ewww, don't look at me!"
Hurtful, untrue.
Why, was his only question. Devil worshiper, weirdo, freak, loser, nobody, gay, faggot, sissy, pussy, wuss, idiot, moron, dumbass, assfuck, retard, piece of shit—
Is it the truth?
All I ever wanted was one simple thing... acceptance.
Obviously inherited.
Or maybe it's just me—I'm the mistake.
Either way, something's got to give.
***
Art whizzed past and math class dwindled away. Adam pretended to do algebra when he really wrote down an extra scene for a story.
Five minutes prior to the final ring of the bell, someone knocked on Mr. Saunter's door.
"Enter," the teacher said. The door opened and a kid stepped in, handing him a note.
"Okay," he said, "thanks, Cindy."
Cindy, a little revolting bitch Adam remembered from eighth grade, left.
"Adam?" the teacher said.
Adam looked up as if he was about to be attacked.
"After school detention. No hall pass for walking out in first-period class?"
That fucking old whore! All cause I wrote a simple story. Has anyone ever heard of self-expression? Art? A journey of the mind and spirit?
Fuck that—I ain't going to detention for something I did not do. When the bell rings, I'm outta here.
If only my mom knew how bad these people are, I'd never have to come to this hellhole again.
The bell did ring. Adam did not go to detention. He skipped it like he knew nothing about it and went home.
There were really few sights in the world more pleasurable to Adam than when he saw his house rising in the distance from between the Buxton's shitbox and the Longstand's white monstrosity during the bus ride back. This was, without a doubt, Adam's favorite part of the day.
As he walked up his porch steps, cold but calm, he heard his dog Muffy barking and whimpering from within.
Ahh... home at last.
No more school books, no more teacher's dirty looks.
He entered and took a big whiff. Muffy came running in from the living room, tail going haywire, her teeth revealed to show a cute doggy grin. Adam knelt down and petted her, kissed her. "Hey, Muffin, Muffins, Muffins! Whatcha doing, buddy? Yeah, that's my Muffyyy! Back from a week at the vets. I know, I know. I missed your, buddy. Missed you lots. I’m so glad you’re okay now.”
She sniffed his leg, then turned and ran back into the living room, excited that her human brother was home. Muffy, the only dog he’d ever known—the only creature he would have given his life for—had had a tumor in her belly. But that was then. She was now healthy again, with many more doggy years ahead of her. The veterinarians had saved and prolonged her life.
"Mom? Mooom?"
Every light in the house was off. Adam just shrugged and ran upstairs. Before he made it to the top, there was a knock on the front door. Seven blows of brass against wood, parted gingerly—Chris’s usual knock.
Adam went back down and opened the door.
"Yo, homeboy!" Chris said, joking.
"Whazzzzup, G-funk mothafucka in da hiz-ouze?"
Chris, still holding his book bag, just laughed.
"Come in. You'll freeze your ass off out there. It's, like, twenty degrees."
***
Moments later, they were both sitting on Adam's bed. Adam rhythmically turned on Full House.
"God, what is it with you and this show?"
"I just grew up watching it."
"Yeah, I grew up watching some pretty stupid cartoons, too. Doesn't make it a good show. The people on there are—"
Adam finished: "—One dimensional?"
"Exactly. There's a family problem, people in the audience
awwww
, and they hug, and it's all okay again. Really, in what world?”
Adam thought he had a point but dismissed it because he loved the show.
But you watch re-runs of Friends
, Adam thought of saying. He despised that sitcom.
"How many times have you seen each episode? I mean, really?" Chris asked.
"I lost count."
"Hell, I've seen it so many times because of you that I know every character's name by heart. It's sick, I tell you! Sick!" Chris joked, pushing him. Adam was not joking. He had nothing to joke about.
"See your girlfriend today?" Chris asked, making kissing sounds.
"Yeah."
"I'd do her.”
"I wouldn't. She's too beautiful. I respect her too much. Besides, she'd rather date morons. Complete crap, man. Why does she—"
Chris interrupted: "—You know what I heard? You ‘member that one time when she came to school with the black eye? When she
claimed
the volleyball hit her? What
really
happened was that he’d smacked her. John Groveer says he saw it happen at a party."
Adam thought about her, about holding her, about looking her in the eyes and telling her he loved her—