Permanent Adhesives (25 page)

Reyandlo cleared his throat. “Society of—”

“Yeah, yeah,” Kate said, cutting him off. “What’s part of an army? Am I leading a brigade, a company, a squad, what do you call it?”

“Does it really matter Kate?” I asked. “We can’t putz around here too long.”

“It’s very important.”

“Just call them your platoon,” I said with a sigh.

“Oh, I like that,” she said, smiling. “Let’s go troops.” They went off in their direction, and we went in ours.

My group’s first goal was to hang up my giant Sasha Santiago cutout. There were five of us: me, Dave, Reynaldo, Anna, and the youngster—Eric. We were in the same neighborhood as Quirks. Last time Elias and I had hit it, it was just posters. I felt that the neighborhood needed to be graced with a giant Sasha. After a bit of meandering and trying not to look suspicious—which was hard because I did have a kid in camo pants, a ninja, a character from my comic, and an elf following—we found the perfect location. It was on the side of a building facing right across from another building. A narrow alley separated the two, so if you were walking down the sidewalk in the one direction and were about to look both ways to cross the tiny alleyway, you’d most definitely see Sasha. If you were driving the one direction down the street, you’d be more than likely to see her, or if you were going that way on the bus, and you happened to look over, you might also see her.

Anna assisted me in the putting up of the Sasha, and Dave, Reynaldo, and Eric stood guard. Eric stood right near us, and Dave and Reynaldo were at either ends of the sidewalk. If my phone buzzed or rang it meant we had to go—a cop or nosey citizen was spotted. Once the big Sasha was complete (she looked superb by the way), we went and hit up several more locations. The smaller cutouts went pretty quickly.

“What about one on the sidewalk?” Dean asked as we congregated outside of a trendy clothing store trying to make it look like we were waiting for him to tie his shoe. We just really stopped for a quick thinking break.

“Sure,” I said, looking around, making sure we were still in the clear. I reached in the bag of dry goods—stickers, posters, cutouts, clean gloves, paper towels— that Anna held and pulled out a cutout and passed it down to Dean. I then swung off my backpack and placed it at my feet. He lifted the flap, loosened the knot, un-wrapped the brush from the plastic bag it was wrapped in, and opened the bucket of wheat paste. He plunged in the brush and quickly got to work. I stretched from side to side, and Dave stretched his thighs, and the others got into various exercise poses. I guess it was an unspoken group decision to make it look like we were out for our nightly exercises or something, which, by the way, I’m sure looked very suspicious. Just as Dean was finishing up, all of our phones buzzed or rang.

“That means we got to jet,” I said. We all helped Dean throw the supplies back in my bag, and we started back for the car. We were about a block from the car when a mass of teens came running in our direction. It was Kate and her group. “Hurry, hurry,” she said. “There’s a cop in a patrol car around the corner coming in this direction. I think he followed us from a couple blocks over.”

“Oh crap,” was pretty much the general response, and we all ran down the block in the direction of our vehicles.

“C’mon,” Kate said, urging everybody along. She was in front of all of us. She could actually be fast when she wanted to. We made our way down the block, and Brian had the minivan open before they even got to it. Kate and I descended upon her car, and we knocked on the window. Elias was still asleep, and Roberto joined in the sleep parade. His face was pressed against the steering wheel and a little bit of drool was seeping from the corner of his mouth.

“Roberto,” Kate said in a loud whisper. “Roberto,” she said again, and her light knocking on the window went to straight up banging with her fist.

Roberto sat up and looked around. He looked pretty confused with his eyes squinted and wiping the drool off his mouth with the heel of his hand. Kate banged on the window again, and he looked over.

“Let us in you dumb nut,” Kate said with a growl.

Roberto nodded, and the locks popped open. Kate ran around the car and jumped in the passenger seat, and I climbed in the back pushing Elias, so he’d sit up. He woke up in just as a confused state as Roberto did. I heard Brian take off in his mom’s minivan. My phone rang and I saw it was Reynaldo, so I answered.

“Hey,” he said, gasping for breath. I had a feeling that he too, didn’t get cardio exercise in very often. “See ya tomorrow.”

“Yeah, sure, okay. I’m glad you guys spotted that cop.”

“Same here.”

“Okay, bye,” I said, hanging up.

Kate then ordered Roberto to drive.

It was the day after our secret mission, and Elias and I had decided we were finally going to figure out our English project. It was due in a matter of days. Elias was lying back on his side, propped up on his elbow. “See, that could be our paper. How the book still relates to youth today, and that is why it’s a timeless classic.” He sat up smiling at me and crossed his legs. He grabbed his laptop from the ground, put a pillow on his lap, and placed his computer on top. I held a spiral notebook and pen. Elias kept smiling at me while I jotted done a few items. His face quickly fell when we heard the front door.

“Crap,” Elias said under his breath.

“We can finish up at the library or something,” I said.

Elias nodded and closed his computer. “C’mon, before she realizes we’re back here.”

I shoved my notebook into my backpack, and Elias slipped on his shoes. I started pulling my shoes on when Elias’ mom appeared in the doorway. Her lips were pursued tightly together, and she held a piece of paper and an envelope that was torn open. Elias looked over his shoulder at her.

“I have a letter here from your school,” she said.

“Okay and?” Elias murmured looking down at his nails.

“Well, you figure since I’ve been ignoring their calls they’d leave me alone.”

“What, huh, what’s the letter ‘bout?”

“It’s from your counselor or something, wants to speak with me about you.”

“You didn’t show up to my IEP meeting, so they probably want to fill you in on stuff.”

“What, just so they can tell me my kid’s retarded.”

“I’m not we—”

“Wedawded? Is that what you were going to say? The goddamn word is retarded. You can’t even say it, Jesus Christ. How stupid can you be?”

Elias started blankly at the wall and sucked on his bottom lip. He opened his mouth to say something but all that came out was, “Ut.”

“What, you gonna say mommy, mommy, I’m not stupid. I just talk stupid. I’m pretty sure it’s a package deal and now look at this ordeal you’ve caused,” she said, twisting her lip—making it look like she was snarling out the corner of her mouth—and holding up the letter.

Elias looked at the ground down to his right and grabbed his messenger bag. He took a deep breath and shoved his computer inside.

“Do not ignore me. I am talking to you,” she shouted at Elias.

I wanted to interject, but I wasn’t sure how much help I’d be, but then I couldn’t hold myself back. “Why should he listen to you? All you’re doing is putting him down.”

His mom looked at me with her eyebrows drawn in and licked her lips. “I don’t know who in the hell you think you are little miss, but you better shut your goddamn little mouth right now. He’s pretending he doesn’t hear me cuz the truth hurts.” She then reached forward, grabbed a handful of Elias’ hair, and yanked his head all the way back, so he was looking up at her. “It does. Oh yes, it does. I know you’re fully aware of what a sack of shit dumbass you are. Don’t ever forget that.”

I scrambled to my feet. I’m not too sure what my intentions were, but Elias’s mom looked at me, and I kid you not, she growled. I promptly sat back down. She was an intimidating woman. I felt that if I didn’t obey there’d be some sort of severe consequence.

She looked back down at Elias. “I will have no part in your quest to cure your idiocy. You’re beyond help,” his mom said, letting go of his hair then slapping him upside the head. She crumpled up the letter and threw it at Elias, leaving us sitting there. At first, Elias didn’t move or say anything. He just sat there sucking on his lip and blinking his eyes. I sat in stunned silence. I couldn’t believe what I just heard. His mother was beyond cruel. She went out of her way to purposely belittle him. My parents sucked, but they had never gone out of their way to make me feel like nothing. Remember how I said I thought I kind of drew a short straw in life as did Elias? Well, his straw was much shorter than I previously thought it to be. I mean, how could a mother talk to her own son like that? It was unbelievable.

“We should go,” Elias whispered, trying his best not to make eye contact with me. I nodded and we gathered up our stuff, slipped on our jackets, and went out the backdoor. Elias jumped down the back steps and quickly disappeared down the gangway.

“Elias wait,” I said.

He chose to keep going.

“C’mon, wait, seriously.”

He dropped his shoulders, stopped, and let me catch up and started walking again.

“Stop, will you. Don’t listen to your mom, okay?”

He stopped and looked at me, sniffled, and then pinched the bridge of his nose. “Don’t worry ‘bout it, okay?”

“No, she has no right to talk to you like that, nobody does,” I said, thinking about how my dad also talked to him.

Elias sighed and nodded, “No, its fine.”

I grabbed his hands and made him face me. “No, it’s not. You shouldn’t have to take that.”

“Well, I do, so…”

“So, no.”

“No Molly, it’s just the way it is. I hear the same crap from her day in and day out. It’s just part of my life.”

“Well, it shouldn’t be.”

“Well, it is, okay, so drop it.”

“No, I’m not dropping it.”

Elias pursed his lips and drew his eyebrows in. “I’m serious.”

I took a deep breath and thought about just leaving it be, but instead I said, “Elias, you’re my boyfriend now. We have to have some form of communication. We have to talk about things. I mean this is—”

He let go of my hands and cut me off. “Fuckin’ leave it be Molly!” he yelled. He actually yelled. It was the loudest I had ever heard him. I knew he had a lot more in there to get out, so I kept pressing.

“Elias I can tell she really hurt you.”

He shook his head and in a controlled low tone, he said, “I can take it. I’m used to it.” Personally, I was hoping he’d yell some more.

“God, no, that’s what I’m saying, it’s not right.”

Elias opened his mouth and pointed a finger, but didn’t say anything.

“Yell at someone Elias. Yell at me more. Yell at your mom. She shouldn’t be able to treat you like that.”

“Oh, it’s just that easy, huh? By getting mad it’ll make everything better?” Elias rubbed his hands over his face. “It makes no difference what I do or say, yelling or not.”

“Say something.”

“What, to who? I yell at my mom and she just makes fun of me. It’s pointless. What else is there to do?”

“Not believe her.”

He blinked and squeezed his eyes shut and looked away over his shoulder.

“Well, I guess I’m just so stupid I do.”

“God Elias, how do I get through to you? Forget your mother. Screw everything she has ever said to you. There’s nothing wrong with you. You’re perfect the way you are. You’re one of the smartest people I know. And any mother would be proud to have you for their son.”

“Except my own.”

I put my hand on his chin and made him look at me. “I’m serious Elias.”

He blinked his eyes again. I could tell he was trying to hold back tears. His eyes were moist and were starting to get bloodshot. I hugged him, and he hugged me back like he was trying to grab onto life itself. He put his head on my shoulder and stayed in the embrace. He wouldn’t let himself cry. I could hear him sniffling and breathing deeply trying to hold it in. We stood there on the sidewalk as the sun went down and the leaves that were left on the trees rustled and blew off in the wind. I could hear the traffic whish by from the busy street that was at the end of our block. People in cars coming home from work, maybe going home to their own children, maybe to make them too feel like they’re a clump of nothing, but hopefully at least one or two of those parents were going home to their kids to say, “Do you realize how much I love you and what a great kid you are?” If there was a good one at that moment, they were unfortunately not headed in our direction.

After a bit Elias sat down on the sidewalk in front of his house. I sat down next to him on the cold cement. He didn’t say anything. He was just looking off at something in the distance.

“You know that night you punched me?” he asked after a few more minutes of silence.

I nodded because it was a hard night to forget.

“I keep coming up with different excuses as to why I said what I said, but the thing is I really liked you, and I never imagined you’d actually like me back. At first, you were just trying to be nice to me cuz you felt bad about your sister calling my mom a home wrecker, at least I’m pretty sure. And you know what? I wasn’t even mad about that. I just think I didn’t know how to react, and then we started talking at the party, and we were kinda hitting it off, and I liked you since I first saw you, but then I kept thinking what if she gets to know the real me cuz I was pretty set on the fact that after that night, you’d realize who you were talking to, and you’d be done with me, so to stave off any of that pain, I decided to hurt you first and then you’d leave me alone, but then afterwards I so deeply regretted what I did. God I felt so bad.”