Guardian Angel
7 Zit
I DON’T KNOW if it was the lake water or hormones or nerves, but the first day of my seventh year of school was the worst day of my life. So far. When I got home from delivering papers, I took my shower and my face felt funny. I looked in the mirror and had a huge red zit on the side of my nose. Great. Just great. I didn’t even bother to put on one of my new shirts. Why waste the look on a face like this? School rules dictated that boys had to wear shirts with collars, but I’d inherited a couple polo shirts from Carl’s little brother, Rich. So last year they were worn by a fifth grader. This year they were almost too big on a seventh grader. I wore my good jeans from last year. It all would have looked okay if it wasn’t for the huge red splotch on my nose.
And I wasn’t in class with any of my usual friends. In seventh grade we moved to St. Joe Valley Junior-Senior High School. There were two other elementary schools that fed this school so there were a lot of strangers. In sixth grade we passed classes, but all our classes were with the same group of kids that stayed together. In junior high, we were put with other kids who were supposed to be at the same level for that particular subject. I was surprised to find that most of the kids in my Earth Science class were eighth graders.
I’d had to meet with my guidance counselor after taking a bunch of tests last spring and he just asked what I wanted to study this year. He handed me a list of courses with a short paragraph describing each one and I chose six classes that looked interesting. He nixed one of them and told me I had to have Physical Education. Crap! I was hoping I was done with that. Another year of getting hit in the head with volleyballs and basketballs. I wished I would grow. If I stood really tall and straight, I was just edging 4'7". One thing, though, was that with all the exercise I got every morning delivering newspapers, I was no longer as pudgy. I had really strong legs and the rest of me had thinned down. I hadn’t lost any weight, but I looked skinnier. Last year’s good jeans were a little baggy in the waist but were kind of high on my ankle.
And there was no mid-way recess. We went to class four periods straight and then had lunch. Then we had three more classes. Lunch was longer because they had more kids to feed. The senior high schoolers had three periods in the morning and lunch so they wouldn’t be in the lunchroom with us. A lot of kids brought sack lunches. I wondered if I could do that.
The result was that the first time I saw my usual gang was noon. Carl and Doug had kept looking away from me on the bus and I just knew it was because of the big bloomer on my nose. I was surprised when the seat I got at the table was between Brenda and a new girl I’d never met. It was a big, round table and there were eleven of us at it even though it was only set up to seat ten. We just pushed another chair in. I noticed that Samantha’s new boyfriend got a seat and Cassie was there, too. We looked at each other and looked away quickly. I was kind of embarrassed. She must think I was some kind of devil’s spawn pervert.
The first thing Brenda said when I sat down was “Oh God! You’ve got a big zit.” Gee. Thanks for noticing and calling everyone’s attention to it. She started rummaging around in her purse and my lunch got ignored as she forced me to sit facing her so she could apply a cream that would ‘shrink and hide.’ Why not just put it all over me?
After she’d finished doctoring my nose she turned me back to face the new girl.
“Brian, this is Rose. Rose, meet Brian. Rose is from Osceola Elementary but she’s really cool. We're going to be cheerleaders together. Rose, Brian is our pet. If you treat him nicely, you can pet him, too.” Their pet? Oh Jesus!
“Does he pet back?” Rose asked. Her voice was so sexy I kind of melted in my seat. So did the other three guys at the table. I turned and really looked at Rose. She must have been the same kind of early bloomer that Brenda was. She was stacked and had deep blue eyes and blonde hair. I should have said something clever.
“Hi.” Yeah, that was it. In about three seconds, the table was chattering and part of the talk was about cheerleader tryouts. We didn’t have cheerleaders in elementary because we didn’t have sports teams in elementary. But in junior high we’d have football, basketball, wrestling, and track. I figured Brenda and Rose were shoo-ins for spots on the cheerleader squad. At least as they were talking and I was shoveling as much food in my mouth as I could, it gave me a chance to recover my presence. I looked at my plate and noticed there was another roll on it. I glanced at Rose and she smiled at me.
“So what sport do you play, Brian?” she asked sweetly. The girls giggled.
“Oh. I’m a boxer.”
“Really? Do they have a boxing team here at St. Joe Valley or do you have to compete independently?” She was really interested. This was too easy.
“It’s an intramural thing. And actually, I’m more of a punching bag.” She looked at me and spit milk out her nose.
“Oh, just call me Grace,” she laughed as she mopped up the mess with a napkin. “We’re in the same Earth Science class, by the way. Want to study together sometimes?”
“That would be cool, Grace. Maybe we’re in the same Phys Ed class, too.” Everyone laughed. When we all stood up head to our next class, I was shocked to find out Rose was only as tall as me. Cool!
The worst part about Phys Ed—aside from the fact that Rose wasn’t in my class? Well, it’s hard to say. Getting run over by guys playing basketball? Heavy exercise the next period after lunch? Having Lionel Trane—yeah, that was really his name—lift me up and hold me over his head so I could almost dunk the basketball? That guy is seriously tall and strong. Our basketball team will rock! Or maybe having twenty other guys strip naked with you and file into showers that were cold enough to shrink the proudest cock into oblivion and get laughed at because everybody just assumes that if you are short you must be looking straight ahead at their junk? Yeah, that would be it. I'm not that fucking short!
“Hey runt, what you looking at?”
“Eyes up, short-stuff. That meat’s for girls only.”
The best part about Phys Ed? Besides it only lasted one period each day? The taunts died a quick death.
“Assholes!” Lionel yelled at the guys in the shower. “This guy’s my buddy. He might be the only reason I’m eligible to play basketball this year. You mess with him, you mess with me. Got it?” Everybody got it except me. I was back at the “reason I’m eligible” statement. On the way to study hall, Lionel walked down the hall beside me. I’d never been around a black kid before other than those couple weeks in the summer with Angela, nor around anyone who was nearly two feet taller than me. I wasn’t sure if it was comforting or frightening.
“Uh… thanks for making the guys lay off me back there, Lionel.”
“No prob, bro. Didn’t mean to blindside you, though. I intended to get to know you a little and then ask if you’d give me a hand if I had any trouble with my classes. The word is that you’re called ‘Brain Trust.’ I’m really a pretty good student, but sometimes I just can’t get past something a teacher says. A friend of my brother said you might help me out a little now and then. I’d appreciate that.” That was a new twist on my name that I hadn’t heard. Lionel was from Rockwell Elementary so somehow word that I was smart had gotten around. Brian Frost had just become Brain Trust. I wondered who told him. Well, it could be worse. And having a friend who was six-foot seven and intimidating as hell wouldn’t hurt either.
“Lionel, you’re going to be hell on the basketball court and it would be an honor to make sure you stay eligible as long as I’m not doing your homework for you. Anything in particular you might need help with?”
“Most of my classes are going to be okay. I’m really good with history. But Math and English are going to kick my butt. You pretty good in those?”
“Yeah. I’m best in science, but math and English are no problem once you get the basics down. I’ll be happy to help.”
We got to study hall and found seats. I felt bad for Lionel. He was like a giant sitting in a child’s chair. That had to be uncomfortable as hell. I was going to do something about that. How can you study when you’re folded up like an accordion?
Lunch on Wednesday was different. Samantha and Simon had moved to a different table with Liz and the guy from her church. It felt like the girls kept looking at me, though. I didn’t see Cassie at all. I invited Lionel to join our table.
“You sure it would be okay? Mostly the brothers sit over there.” He nodded with his head toward a couple tables that were completely filled with black kids.
“Look, friend,” I said. “Either you join me at our table and get introduced to my gang, or I’m going to be the shortest, palest, scaredest little shit sitting at yours.”
“Cool. I’m gonna be the tallest, blackest, scaredest big shit sitting at your table. Today. Tomorrow you meet the brothers and sisters.” I laughed. I was going to like this guy.
When Lionel and I sat down at the table everybody’s eyes got big. We didn’t consider ourselves prejudiced or anything. We just didn’t have any experience. I had more than anybody since science camp with Angela. I still regretted not going this summer.
Located out in the country, Range Road Elementary where I went was pretty much all rural white kids. We were German and English and Polish and pretty much anything else you could get out of Europe and plant on a farm. Rockwell Elementary got most of its kids from around the factory that worked with steel for the auto industry. It was just outside the city limits and even there, people of color were rare. There were a good number of kids whose parents had come specifically to work at the factory.
Osceola had mostly white with a few Hispanic kids whose parents worked at lots of different jobs. Grandpa used to hire some to work on the farm at harvest, but those jobs were few and far between now. A lot of them worked in restaurants and as janitors. I had even less experience with Hispanics than I did with blacks. All told, St. Joe Valley probably didn’t have more than 50 kids who weren’t lily white in a population of around 1,500.
Lionel sat beside Brenda who had been holding a seat for me. I slipped around the table between Rose and Whitney.
“Guys, I want you all to meet Lionel. We share a couple classes and I’m going to help him with English and Math so he makes the St. Joe Valley Junior High basketball team a state champion.” I didn’t even know if we had junior high state champions. It didn’t make a difference. Lionel was going to be my friend. My introduction seemed to make a difference, though. Brenda, bless her heart, jumped right in.
“That’s so cool, Lionel. I’m Brenda. Rose and I are hoping we’ll be cheering for you on the squad.” He smiled and Rose waved at him to let him know she was the other person Brenda was talking about. I noticed Carl was a little sullen, but he shook hands with Lionel and said he hoped they’d be playing together.
“We always need you little guys because you’re so fast,” Lionel laughed. I think it was the first time Carl had ever been called a little guy.
“Just so you guys know,” I said, “Lionel also put guys in their place in Phys Ed. I don’t think I’ll have a problem there. At least not one that involves getting beat up. I might end up being on the bottom of a pile, but nobody will be throwing punches. And tomorrow, I’m going to eat lunch over there.” I pointed at the tables of black kids. “We don’t live in the dark ages, guys. There’s no reason for us not to make friends.”
There was a little hesitation, but before long there were smiles and nods all around. We talked a lot about our schools and what classes we were taking. It turned out that Rose and Lionel were in the same English class.
“Can I join your study group for English?” she asked.
“Rose, who could ever say ‘no’ to you?” I asked and sighed. They laughed and she punched me in the shoulder.
“Okay. Can I join you at the other table tomorrow? Or is that a private initiation Brian has to go through, Lionel?”
“Whooo. Now I’ll have two people to protect. You don’t mind if I protect Brian first, do you?” Lionel asked. Everybody laughed. I think Rose thought he was serious, though.
After Phys Ed I went to my study hall teacher and asked if I could have a pass to go to the office to work out a problem with my schedule. She was pretty much just a proctor who had about three classes at a time in her room and handed me the pass without even looking up. I headed to my guidance counselor.
“Any problems, Brian?” he asked.
“Hi, Mr. Taylor. No problem with my classes per se, but there is a problem I hope you can help me with.”
“Any seventh grader who can use per se in a sentence deserves all the help I can give him,” he laughed. “Shoot.”
“There’s a kid in my study hall who I like and respect and is becoming a friend even though I only met him on the first day of school. The thing is, he’s as tall as I am short. If you averaged the two of us together, nobody would ever notice us.”
“Hmm. You must be talking about Lionel Trane.”
“Yessir. The thing is, I know the high school desks are a little bigger than the junior high desks because on average we are shorter. Heck, I could still sit at a third grade desk and be fine. But Lionel is really uncomfortable in the little desks that most junior high kids sit at. I was wondering if it would be too much of a problem to move one of the bigger desks into each of his classrooms. I could organize volunteers to do the work if it would be okay, sir.”
“And why is Lionel having you come to me instead of seeing his own guidance counselor?”
“Oh. He doesn’t know I’m here. I just couldn’t help noticing him folded up like an origami swan in study hall and it occurred to me that bigger desks might be available.”
Mr. Taylor looked at me for a long time. I started getting uncomfortable. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea.
“I will look at Mr. Trane’s schedule and see to it that a larger desk is moved into each of his classrooms. His teachers will let him know which seat to take.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“He might not be happy about it, you know,” Mr. Taylor said. “The teacher might put his desk in the front row.”
“Speaking as a kid who is height-challenged, sir, that might be really unfair to the kids who can’t see over him.” We both laughed and he waved me away to study hall.
“How you rate getting your skinny ass in such a big desk, Choo-Choo?” one of the guys at the table asked. He was a big guy, too, but not in height. I choked at the name ‘Choo-Choo.’ I noticed Rose barely keeping from spewing milk.
“I don’t know. I just showed up in class and the teachers pointed me to a new desk. Apparently, they only make that adjustment based on height and not on width.” The kids at the table laughed.
“What’s with you two crackers coming to sit with us black kids?” a girl asked. “And taking Lionel to that paleface table to sit with you uppity white kids? You looking to get some of our dark meat, honey?” she asked Rose. It was going to get pissy. Lionel warned me his crowd was a little coarser than mine, but felt they were good people. I guess when you’ve been treated one way all your life you start acting like everything is suspect. I’d considered this the night before and thought a bunch about how I’d respond. I just hoped I read them all correctly.
“Oh, Sugar,” I said, using the name she’d been introduce by, “she’s a lesbian. We were hoping you’d be interested in a little two on one.” There was shocked silence at the table, including Rose who just stared at me like she was about to kill me. I couldn’t spare the time. I kept my eyes locked on Sugar.
“Well, Lordy-me. I think I just wet my panties,” Sugar said at last. “You okay, Cracker.”
“You okay, too, Sugar,” I said. She smiled at me. That was it for our initiation. We were on about our classes and what teacher we liked and didn’t like. I invited Sugar to join Lionel and me at the other table tomorrow.
“He told them I was a lesbian!” Rose squeaked the next day at lunch. There were open mouths all around the table.
“I believed him,” Sugar said. “Your boy here has a wicked tongue.”
“Well, none of us really know that for sure,” Whitney laughed. Everybody was laughing but Brenda was leaning over whispering in her ear. Whitney’s eyes got big and she gasped. “None of us here at the table, I mean,” she corrected herself. I frowned at Brenda. That was not for her to tell, even if Cassie told her. Brenda blushed and looked down.
“What’s going on this weekend?” Rhiannon asked. That got us moving forward and when lunch ended, we were all having fun and laughing. I think some of the other tables in the lunchroom were jealous.
And that’s how seventh grade progressed. By Thanksgiving, we’d quit going back and forth between tables and just all sat together at adjacent tables. Half a dozen more kids from Rockwell and Range Road had joined us and a couple others from Osceola. The beefy guy, Jackson, who complained that Lionel got a bigger desk went to his guidance counselor and they brought a desk for him to his classes. One of the classes had both of them in it, but two classrooms they used at different times so they could use the same desk. And in November, basketball season started.
I never really managed to get up to bat with Rose, even though she often sat next to me at lunch and actually did get together to study a few times. I was pretty awed by her. She was nice and we were friends, but she was like Brenda. There was never any indication that I was more than part of the group of friends she hung out with. Whitney was a foot taller than me and claimed both my fairy loops, but we had a kind of joking relationship. We were good friends. It was obvious that all the girls liked me, but not in that way. Well, I still had the coolest sexiest girls in the junior high as my best friends and two of them were even cheerleaders. I saw the occasional envious look I got from some of the guys. If they knew, they wouldn’t be quite so envious.
Lionel was an awesome center on our basketball team. He just shot over the top of everybody and scored. In Phys Ed, he and I worked out our own play. The first time we ran it everybody just stopped and stared. I ran down the court beside him as he dribbled the ball. I couldn’t dribble worth crap. He’d bounce the ball hard and I’d step in front of him as soon as he released it. I jumped and he threw me. I grabbed the ball on the way up and slam dunked it, hanging on the rim. Then I dropped to the floor and pumped my arm. Of course, Lionel should have gotten the score. I had the ball, but he shot me. It was interesting, though, because guys actually started to guard me seriously when I got the ball. It was only gym class, but still, it was getting so I could hit the rim now when I shot and Lionel would reach up and tap it in.
I went to the dances after every home junior high game on Saturday afternoons and Brenda, Rose, Whitney, Sugar, and all the others took turns dancing with me. Then they’d go off and join their ‘dates.’ Nobody stepped up to the challenge of being ‘Brian’s date.’ I liked the fact that Rose often chose me for slow dances. Being the same size had advantages and she felt really nice.
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