Symptoms of Being Human (7 page)

I have a mixture of strange and pleasant dreams.

ON FRIDAY MORNING, MOM TAKES
me to school early so she can get to her parent-teacher conferences on time, and when she drops me off, the campus seems empty. But as I'm approaching the gates, movement on the athletic field below catches my eye. I squint: it's Bec's brother, Erik, standing on the otherwise deserted football field with Jim Vickers.

At first, I'm not sure what they're doing. Vickers stands close behind him with his hands on Erik's hips, almost like a dance instructor. He adjusts Erik's stance, then positions his arms, and I realize he's holding a football. At Vickers's nod, Erik hurls the ball, and it sails about twenty yards before falling back to the turf. Vickers says something, and Erik tries again. This time the ball goes farther. They talk for a moment, and then Erik reaches into his pocket and hands Vickers something—a piece of gum or candy, maybe; it's hard to tell at this distance.
Then the two of them walk out of sight behind the gym.

I stand there for a minute, wondering why the hell the two of them were down there together. It looked like Vickers was teaching him how to throw—but why? Bec did say that Erik wanted to make the team, and I suppose it's possible that Vickers is trying to help—but somehow, I don't buy that. Not from him. Then again, Erik handed him something; maybe it was a trade for the lesson. Either way, it's probably none of my business—so I turn and make my way across the quad.

Solo is waiting for me outside AP English. We haven't spoken for days—not since he denied me at lunch. At the sight of him, anger flares up in my chest.

“Hey,” he says.

I walk right past him and into Miss Crane's empty classroom; he follows. Picking a desk in the middle of the room, I slump down in the chair, drag my English textbook out of my bag, and pretend to start reading.

Solo drops into the desk next to mine. “How long are you planning to ignore me?”

I turn the page.

“A rough estimate is cool,” he continues. “I just want to be able to plan my route to class so I can avoid the Medusa death glare you keep giving me.”

“I don't know,” I say, my eyes still on my book. “How long are you planning to pretend you don't know me when I walk into the cafeteria?”

Solo lets out an exasperated sigh. “Oh, please. Don't be such a drama queen.”

“I'm not being a drama queen. You completely ignored me!”

“I did not ignore you. I gave you a cautionary glance, indicating that that particular table would not be a good choice for you.”

“A cautionary glance
?
”

“I was trying to help.”

I shake my head and look back down at my book.

“Oh, come on,” Solo says. “We all do what we have to do to get along. Don't pretend you didn't stand at the top of those stairs and look at every single table and think, ‘I don't want to sit with those people. Ew, I don't want to sit with
those
people, either. Oh, look, those people like sports! They'll
never
understand my existential crisis.'”

I snap my book shut and glare at him. “That's easy for you to say. No one messes with you. You don't look—like I look.”

Solo bursts out of his desk.

“I look like
this
!” he says, gesturing first at his face, then at his enormous frame. “You don't think I had a rough time the first week I came here?”

I'm breathing hard and fast through my nose, like my dad does when he's angry.

Solo points a thick finger at me. “You walk around here like you're better than everyone. Like you're surrounded by a bunch of shallow, bigoted assholes.”

I open my mouth to reply, but at that moment, the door opens and two girls walk in. One of them is Sierra; I steel myself for her glare, but she doesn't even look at me as she takes a seat near the front. I'm relieved. I glance at Solo, and we make a silent agreement: to be continued.

We don't speak on the way to Government, but I don't try
to avoid him, either; I just walk behind him. It's much easier to navigate the halls in his wake.

And then I walk into Brennan's classroom and see the word “QUIZ” on the whiteboard, and everything that happened last night comes rushing back to me: My study session with Bec. The awkward sexual tension. Finding my blog listed on that LGBTQ website.

Just as the bell rings, Bec walks in, looking frazzled. Her hair is tucked up into a newsboy cap, and I notice dark circles under her eyes. As she slips into the desk in front of mine, I want to say something to her—but what? Twice while Brennan drones on about his grading system, I almost tap her on the shoulder, but I pull my hand back at the last minute.

Finally, Brennan starts handing out quizzes. When Bec turns to pass them on, she mouths, “Good luck,” and then smiles at me, causing my stomach to squirm pleasantly.

When the bell rings at the end of class, she's the first one out of her seat. She drops her quiz on Brennan's desk and gives me a weird little wave as she walks out of the classroom. I consider going after her, but what would I say? “Hey, thanks for the studying, want to make out later?” Just the thought makes me blush.

In Precalc I pay precisely zero attention; my thoughts have turned to the bigger issues plaguing me. Why did Bec leave class in such a hurry—is she avoiding me? Is it because of the weirdness during our study date, which may or may not have been an
actual
date? And, as if this train of thought isn't distracting enough, Solo's indictment keeps replaying in my head.

“You walk around here like you're better than everyone. Like
you're surrounded by a bunch of shallow, bigoted assholes.”

But the thing is—I
am
surrounded by shallow, bigoted assholes. Within one minute of setting foot on this campus, I was called “it.” Later that same day, my gender was called into question in the middle of the cafeteria by half the Park Hills football team. Even the anonymous visitor to my own freaking blog called me “fag.” How does that fail to qualify as being surrounded by shallow, bigoted assholes?

By the time French is over, I'm seething. I'm going to find Solo, and we're going to have this out.

From my vantage point at the top of the stairs, I spot Solo seated at his usual table. Cole is there, his long, stringy hair pulled back into a ponytail, and so is the redheaded kid with glasses who always seems to be hanging around.

Jim Vickers sits facing Solo, his bulging shoulders stretching the fabric of a Park Hills Lions T-shirt. Sierra is practically in his lap. Solo makes a comment, and Vickers responds by throwing a ketchup-soaked french fry at him; it splats on Solo's chest and sticks there. Sierra throws back her head and laughs. Solo peels the fry off his shirt and starts to dab at the red stain with a paper napkin. I don't understand why he tolerates this treatment—I only know
I
won't. I clench my jaw and start down the stairs, taking two at a time.

And then I'm in the Gauntlet.

But this time I'm not trying to sneak past unseen; my head is high and my shoulders are set. Solo looks up as if he intends to say something to Vickers, but when he sees me, his eyes go wide and he shakes his head. Sierra notices and turns to look in my direction. When she recognizes me, she smiles and says
something to the group that I can't hear.

Ignoring them, I walk up to the table and face Solo—but before I can address him, Vickers interrupts.

“Hey, Solo, it's your boyfriend.” He looks me up and down. “Oh, sorry. Girlfriend?”

Vickers and Cole laugh, and Sierra leans toward me.

“Seriously, it's hard to tell,” she says. “Are you, like, an effeminate dude, or just an ugly chick?”

More laughter. I feel my face turning red.

Vickers says, “What she's trying to ask is, are you a
dyke
or are you a
faggot
?”

With heat rising in my cheeks, I ignore him and turn to Solo. “Can I talk to you for a minute?”

But Solo is frozen, glaring at Vickers.

“That's not really it, babe,” Sierra says to Vickers, her voice dripping with artificial sweetness. “What I want to know is”—she turns toward me gestures at my crotch—“is there, like, a dick in there? Or a vag?”

“Oh, damn!” Vickers says. Cole snorts.

It takes me a moment to react; I'm honestly surprised. It's one thing to whisper about me to her friends, or to laugh when her boyfriend taunts me—but I didn't expect Sierra to be openly aggressive.

Slowly, I turn and look her in the eye. “That's none of your business,” I say. “And, while I'm flattered by your interest, you're really not my type.”

The redheaded kid howls with laughter and claps his hands. Vickers smacks him on the arm, and he shuts up.

Sierra's face is white with rage. I feel a rush of triumph—
but underneath it, my adrenaline is surging.

Then, slowly, Vickers stands, and the group goes quiet.

“You want to repeat what you just said to my girlfriend, faggot?”

The blood drains from my face. I take a step backward.

And then Solo is on his feet, his imposing frame towering over the table. He reaches out a massive hand and claps Vickers on the shoulder.

“Sit down, bro,” he says. “You're being an ass.”

Cole's eyes widen in surprise, and the redheaded kid shrinks back in his seat. Vickers glares at Solo—and for a moment, I think he's going to hit him. But after a few seconds, Sierra reaches up and touches Vickers's arm, and he shakes his head and sits down.

Solo blinks, grabs his backpack, and starts up the aisle without further hesitation.

He doesn't say a word as I follow him through the outdoor hallway and around the back of the auditorium. I think he'll turn left and head toward the ramp, but instead, he plunges down the slope toward the parking lot, and I hurry after him.

His car is an ancient, peeling, silver Toyota hatchback. The back window is plastered to the point of opacity with decals; featured prominently among them are a vintage KROQ FM bumper sticker and a Rebel Alliance logo.

“Lift up the door when you open it, or it'll fall off,” he says.

“Where are we going?” I ask.

“We're ditching.”

TEN MINUTES LATER WE'RE SPEEDING
down the freeway, Solo's hatchback shuddering like a porta-potty in a 5.0 magnitude earthquake.

“Where are we going?” I yell.

Yelling is necessary because the radiator in Solo's car is shot, so he keeps the heater on full blast to prevent the car from overheating, which means all four windows have to be rolled down or else the car becomes a pizza oven.

He replies, but I think I mishear him, because it sounds like he says, “The Reagan Years.”

But then we get off the freeway in downtown Fullerton, and sure enough, there it is, lodged between a tiny sushi restaurant and a hair salon: the Reagan Years. Solo pushes open the door and we step inside.

It's an authentic eighties video arcade, packed wall-to-wall
with old-school stand-up games like
Galaga
and
Dig Dug
and
Donkey Kong
. An old Oingo Boingo song blares from tinny speakers, and two square TVs mounted overhead show crackly, low-resolution MTV videos.

“This place is awesome,” I say.

“Wait till you see the back.”

We walk around a big partition, and there's a full-blown fifties soda fountain, complete with checkered linoleum flooring and red vinyl bar stools. The guy behind the counter is even wearing one of those little paper hats.

“When I get pissed,” Solo says, “I play
Ms. Pac-Man
.”

He produces a roll of quarters from his backpack, and I follow him to one of the sit-down table games. He squeezes into a tiny chair, plugs two quarters into the machine, and starts to play, yanking on the joystick as though his physical strength might somehow make the cheesy 8-bit graphics move faster. I watch him play for a while, noticing the way he presses his lips together like a trumpet player when he concentrates. It's kind of adorable.

“I'll get drinks,” I say.

“Chocolate malted,” he replies without looking up. Something about the way he says it—even though we haven't begun to work things out yet—gives me a sense of relief, as though it's already understood that we're going to move past this and be friends.

He's not paying attention to me, but I smile at him anyway. “Coming right up.”

When I return with the drinks, Solo is just finishing a game. He stands, pumps a fist, and extends both middle fingers to the screen.

“Eat that, machine!” he yells. “I ain't afraid of no ghosts!”

I set his malted on the game table and unscrew the cap on my water bottle.

“You don't like malteds?” Solo says, leaning over to take a long drink from his straw.

For a moment, I consider launching into the whole vegan thing, but just the thought of it exhausts me, so I shake my head instead.

Solo shrugs. “More for me. Did you order fries?”

I nod. “Can I ask you a question?”

“Shoot.”

“Do you really think I walk around acting like I'm better than everyone else?”

Solo takes another long pull on his malted. “I think you assume everyone is going to be your enemy. And by doing that, you sort of make it come true.”

“So you think I made Jim Vickers call me ‘dyke' and ‘faggot'?”

Solo shakes his head. “No, of course you didn't
make
him. You maybe
invited
him to.”

“
Invited
him to? Please tell me how I invited someone to attack and humiliate me in front of the entire cafeteria.”

“See, this is what I'm talking about.”

“What?”

“I met you four days ago. Today, I abandoned my teammates of three
years
to ditch school and take you to the largest fifties soda fountain-slash-eighties video arcade in the western hemisphere—but are you grateful? No. You want to fight with me.”

I glare at him.

“You invite it,” he says, “because you dress in a way that makes it nearly impossible for people to tell if you're a boy or a girl.”

“It's none of their business,” I reply.

Solo sighs, then leans across the table. “How much do you think I weigh?”

“What?”

“How much do you think I weigh?”

I shake my head. “I have no idea.”

“Look me in the eye and tell me you haven't guessed a number.”

I hold his gaze but say nothing.

“I'll bet it was the first thing you thought about when you saw me. Maybe the second, after trying to figure out what race I am.”

I look down. Solo sits back.

“I can't dress like a skinny person,” he says. “Or a white person. I am what I am. And people are going to react.”

“That's different,” I say.

“I'm sure it is,” Solo says. “But the point is, if I walked around waiting for people to call me ‘fat boy' so that I could get into a fight about it, I'd
always
be in a fight.” He leans over and finishes his malted with one final slurp, then pushes the glass away.

I look at him. He smiles, and his enormous cheeks sort of fold up and hide his ears.

“People really messed with you your first week?” I ask.

“Yeah,” Solo says.

“But you're huge. You'd think they'd know better.”

Solo throws up his hands. “Right?”

“What did they say?”

“The usual. Remarks about my weight. Wetback jokes.”

“Long swim from Samoa,” I say.

Solo wags his finger at me. “Nothing pisses me off more than an improperly applied racial epithet. Know your minorities, people. They should make a pamphlet.”

I laugh.

Solo says, “My first day in PE, Coach Terrance pulled me aside and asked if I was interested in being on the offensive line. I didn't know what the hell he was talking about. Then he asked me if I liked video games. I thought he was making fun of me—but when I said yes, he told me to go buy
Madden NFL
and play it for a week.”

“The football coach told you to buy a video game?”

“Crazy, right? But I did. And I totally fell in love with football.”

“What is there to love about
football
?”

“Well, it's like . . . ,” he begins, sheepishly. “You've read Harry Potter, right?”

“Seven times all the way through.”

“Okay. Well, I'm sitting there playing
Madden
on my PlayStation, and it occurs to me that football is basically Wizard's Chess.”

I cock my head.

“You call your play, you line up your guys, and you let them fight. That's a down. Sometimes you gain ground, sometimes you lose it. It's not just a bunch of sweaty jocks out there
banging into each other. You have to know your opponent. You have to think ten moves ahead.”

The guy from the counter shows up with our fries. “Enjoy,” he says, and then walks off.

I reach for a fry, and Solo continues.

“Anyway, when I came back the next week, Coach asked me what I thought about
Madden
, and I just started jabbering at him, telling him what I liked about the game. You should have seen the smile on his face. You'd have thought he just won the lottery.”

“So you joined the team.”

Solo shakes his head, frowning. When he replies, his voice is low and flat. “What I did was go to the gym every day for two weeks, and eat nothing but baked potatoes and boiled chicken breasts. Then I went to the tryouts—and practically got laughed off the field.”

“They laughed at you? And you still wanted to join the team?”

“They knew me as the three-hundred-pound brown kid with the furry Chewbacca backpack. I didn't fit in yet. I hadn't passed the test.” He reaches for a handful of fries. “And yes, I
did
still want to join the team. I wanted to play.”

“So what happened at tryouts?”

He answers with his mouth full. “I tackled Vickers in the first drill. Laid him out flat.”

“Was he pissed?”

Solo shakes his head, swallows. “Nope. He was impressed. Grudgingly, but still. That's how I earned my way in. By proving myself on the field.” He looks at me. “That, and I had to lose the Chewbacca backpack.”

“You did not.”

He shrugs. “It took a long time to lose the nickname Chewie. But eventually, I became Solo. I like that a lot better.”

“Wow,” I say. “So you gave up something you really loved just to fit in with a bunch of guys who laughed at you and called you fat.”

Solo folds his arms. “I didn't stop liking
Star Wars
, or even talking about it. I just stopped wearing the furry backpack to school. You'd have done the same thing.”

I look at Solo, then down at my lap. “I think this is where the analogy breaks down for me.”

“Explain.”

“I can't just stop wearing a backpack.”

Solo raises his eyebrows. “Care to elaborate?”

I open my mouth, then shut it. Is this the person I want to come out to? And, if he is, what will I say?

Solo leans in. “Look. I don't expect you to spill your guts to me. Your business is your business. Dress how you want to dress. Let people wonder. Fuck 'em.”

I smile.

Solo raises a finger. “But you've got to stop looking for a fight every time someone makes a comment. High school sucks for everyone.”

I feel my smile fade, and I sit back in the chair. “It kind of feels like you're defending those guys.”

Solo shrugs. “There will always be guys like Jim Vickers. But I'm not going to let them stop me from doing what I want. And neither should you.”