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“Don’t worry about it, man, he’s an asshole.”
Tom didn’t say anything, he just kept changing into his gym clothes. Isaac busied himself with his lock while Sam stared at Tom determinedly. Lunch had just ended, but Tom was still hungry.
“You hearing me, Tom? Screw that jock.” Sam mouthed something angrily at Isaac and jerked his head towards Tom.
Isaac sniffed and started wiping his glasses on his shirt. “Sam is right Tom, he’s a putz.”
“No, I’m the putz! I’m the one whose sandwich, yogurt and orange were used for throwing practice by the goddamn starting pitcher!” Tom shouted.
“Yeah…what an arm!”
“Hey Isaac! As soon as your done idolizing my tormentor could we get out of this sweatatorium?”
“Oh calm down Tommy boy. Whether or not it’s your yogurt being thrown, it’s still cool to see what happens to even the best-sealed dairy item after it has been accelerating towards the Earth at 9.8 meters per second per second for…well, if he threw it about 40 meters in the air…you ready on the calculator, Sam?”
“Sure thing!” Sam’s hand snapped to his left wrist and he started hitting minute buttons. “Okay so if velocity equals the square root of two-gravity-height…just a second here…”
“Oh my God you nerds! Stop calculating the hang time of my lunch!”
Sam and Isaac exchanged superior looks. “Why is someone who thinks that balancing chemical equations is cool accusing us of being nerds?”
The mutual understanding of their unconventional interests silenced the three friends and they quickly finished changing to minimize their exposure to the odious miasma that had amassed in the locker room over the years.
Back in the gym, the fear of death-by-dodge ball took Tom’s mind off of the pitcher. In the first round, Tom got lucky and was hit in the foot. He wasn’t going to leave his fate in the hands of the firing squad before him, however, and in the second round, when the coach wasn’t looking, he fell over, feigning ball-to-nose contact. It was similar to the way his mother told him to behave if he ever saw a bear: just be still and you’ll be left alone, honey. Since the coach’s intelligence was, in fact, only marginally inferior to that of a well-trained brown bear, the ruse worked perfectly and he took his seat next to Sam on the bench. They cheered on Isaac, who thought of gym as an opportunity to “have fun and get some good exercise.” Sure, Isaac had his quirks, but Tom and Sam liked him just the same.
Isaac was one of the last people to get out and as he joined Sam and Tom on the bench, red-faced and panting, Tom asked him, “Enjoying yourself?”
“Oh, yeah! Can’t get enough of this game, man. I don’t have much of an arm but I’m quite the dodger.” To demonstrate, he rolled sideways, nearly knocking an especially supercilious Junior in the process. Fortunately for Isaac, he could never tell the difference between veneration and disdain so he puffed his chest out and flashed the girl a bracey smile.
“Doesn’t it bother you that you could lose the ability to have children if one of those jocks pulls a cheap shot on you?”
“Nah, they seem to go after the sissies more. Like you and Sam, for example.”
“Hey!” Sam interjected, “I got hit square in the stomach! I earned my spot on the bench. Tom here’s the one who displayed the fortitude of a dry leaf out there.”
Isaac sagely replied, “You see, gentlemen, it’s all about respect. I may be a Trekkie, but I try out there. These guys are a lot like gorillas. If you act weak, they’ll think you’re weak. If you act confident, you may not end up the alpha, but you also don’t have anyone aiming for your balls.”
“So you’re saying that life would be easier if we started trying to fit in better?” accused Sam.
“No, Tom, mi amigo, I believe you are referring to the phenomenon known as ‘being a poser.’ I try in gym because I want to. But then again…” And still slightly out of breath, Isaac turned to Sam and said, “Why didn’t we think of this before! If only we dressed how other people think we should dress and cared about the stupid gossipy shit people think we should care about, we would surely find happiness!”
“Why Isaac! I do believe you are on to something! Let us begin the transformation right…now!” And with that he turned to the class and shouted, “I love Janet Jackson and Vanilla Ice and… the GAP!” The Junior Isaac impressed a moment before curled her lip and turned away. Sam turned back to his friends and grinned with satisfaction. Isaac laughed at Sam’s antics but Tom just inspected his shoes’ aglets. Before the next round started, Tom snuck off to the bathroom. After ten minutes passed, he figured that class was over and he crept back into the gym.
“Goldman! Where the hell did you disappear to? Your team needed you!” Coach winked to a passing jock who guffawed.
“I had to go to the bathroom…stomach ache, must have been something I ate at lunch.”
“From what I heard, unless humiliation makes you queasy, Goldman, I don’t see what part of your lunch could have made you ill.” Tom turned pale. “Oop! Do you need to go back in for round two now?”
Tom’s jaw dropped a little and he stared at his gym teacher in disbelief. It was not the cruelty that surprised Tom, it was the rapidity with with gossip spread across this God-forsaken building that was awe-inspiring. The coach stared back with a smirk that said “Boy am I on fire today!” Defeated, Tom walked out of the gym towards the locker room.
Dinner at the Goldman household that night was the same as usual. As Tom tried to lock the day’s events in a vault, his mother prepared the TNT.
“Did you learn anything interesting today, honey?”
“No, mom”
“Not a thing? Then what are our tax dollars paying for?”
“I didn’t say I didn’t learn anything, I said I didn’t learn anything interesting.”
“Fine, smart alec, tell me anything you learned today.”
“I learned about sublimation in chem. It’s when a solid turns into a gas without becoming a liquid first. Well, the class learned about it. I read that chapter a few weeks ago.”
“Aw, that’s my boy! Always ahead in his studies!” Tom’s mother beamed at him and put her hand on his head affectionately. Tom smiled weakly at her. He never told her how his days really went anymore. If history taught Tom anything, it was that his mom was a greater danger to his social life than black eyeliner and a trench coat.
Whenever Tom’s mom found out he was being picked on, she would storm into the office of the first teacher or administrator she saw and rant about how “This school is run by thugs! How can you let the misfits beat up our country’s future like this? If you don’t do something about this, I’ll do something about you!” Oh, yes. Mama Bear Goldman had threatened no fewer than four teachers during her son’s academic career, so he just smiled and nodded.
Tom lay awake in bed that night, unable to fall asleep. He saw the dark outline of his desk chair, and the light from the moon was just enough for him to make out the outfit he had laid out for school tomorrow. Across the back of the chair lay a pair of carefully ripped jeans and a shirt from, of all places, the GAP. As he stared at this Judas of outfits, Tom silently debated with himself: I’m not doing anything wrong, I can dress however I want.
But you’re not dressing however you want! You’re dressing how others want you to.
And what if I want to look like others? What if I’m sick and tired of being an untouchable?
Anyone who considers you an untouchable because of the way you dress is an ass.
Yep that’s definitely Mom talking. And the fact remains that people will leave me alone if I dress this way. That shut Tom’s conscience up. Unfortunately, he forgot that this fact also applied to his friends.
When Tom passed Sam in the hall the next day, Sam did a double-take. “Why is this preppy kid talking to me?” he thought. When he saw that it was Tom his jaw dropped.
“Ha! Since when do you dress like Kurt Cobain and the class president’s love child?”
“What do you mean? These are normal clothes!”
“Are they?” He narrowed his gaze on the hole in over Tom’s right knee. “If your performance in gym class is any indication of your level of physical activity, then that rip is a fraud…Why’re you dressed like that?”
“Because the clothes make the man!” Tom said a little overzealously.
“What the hell does that mean? Wearing clothes that other people wear makes you more manly?”
“Perhaps, Sam. Perhaps I’m a man who doesn’t want his lunch sent into orbit anymore.”
“And you think that shirt will help! You think that oaf will leave you alone just because you’re not wearing your ‘I Roll With Trolls’ D&D shirt anymore? I think you’re in for a rude awakening, geek. I have to go to trig now but good luck to you and your magical +3 bully resistance shirt.”
Tom was hurt by this exchange, but he really couldn’t have expected anything else. Even he thought he was a traitor, a coward, a quitter. Sam and Isaac would never resort to using retail camouflage to hide from bullies. They dressed in their nerdy clothes, said their nerdy things and they didn’t give a shit who heard or saw them. Of course, Tom thought, They’re not going to get laid until they’re thirty.
Tom made his way to his locker. The pretty girl he was always too afraid to talk to was there, but so were all her giggly girlfriends. Looks like Tom would go another day without talking to her. As Tom got his books out of his locker he listened to their conversation:
“…so we’ll meet at 7:00?”
“Yes, Dana. At 7:00. Way to listen. And I only had to repeat myself three times!”
“You didn’t say it three times…and you were talking into your locker…I couldn’t hear is all.”
Another friend interrupted her, “Shut up Dana. Anyway, Jess, what’re you going to wear? I hear Brett’s going to the mall on Friday, too.”
“I don’t know. I just…put something on. I don’t plan out all of my outfits you know. Who’s that neurotic that they can’t go a day without spending an hour in front of a mirror every morning?” She then forced a laugh that all of her friends quickly joined.
One of the girl’s boyfriends then walked up and strutted around the hall for her like a peacock on steroids. She loved it. Tom glanced over, saw the jock engaged in his super-sophisticated mating ritual and chuckled a bit. But as those who watch nature specials know, camouflage doesn’t work very well if the hidden prey suddenly yells, “Hey! Eat me!”
The jock spotted the chuckle and the testosterone that had a death-grip on his brain left room for only one thought: kill the nerd! Seconds later the jock was holding Tom in the air by his collar, pinning him against his locker. “What’s funny, fag?”
“Mike Myers? Adam Sandler? Um…who else… wait, let me think”
“Oh, so it looks like you’re funny too! One clever, dead, loser, aren’t you?”
“What? No! I thought you wanted to know…”
“For tips? So I could go watch SNL tapes? Because I’m obviously trying to make people laugh. Hey, maybe the folks will get a good kick out of…” And suddenly Tom was being dragged. He heard his collar rip and started shouting at the muscle to let him go. Tom became dizzy as the jock used his collar as a handle and yelled, “Look everyone! Fag hammer throw!” The jock started spinning Tom around, trying to get him airborne. This only went on for another ten seconds or so, because at that point Tom’s collar completely separated from his shirt and he slid across the floor, slamming into the pretty girl’s open locker. She squealed at him to get away, get away, you’re bending my homework. For her sake Tom tried to scramble up, but his ankle must have twisted because it wouldn’t support his weight.
The jock came over. “Allow me, Jess.” And with a friendly smile he started kicking Tom out of the way with his instep. Having disposed of the garbage, Jess laughed and thanked the kind gentleman for his services. The bell rang and Tom was left moaning in front of his locker. His left knee was ripped and bleeding and his collar lay on the floor beside him. He was too busy inspecting his injuries to notice that Dana hadn’t shuffled off with the rest of her herd.
“That was stupid of you,” she said.
Tom cocked an eyebrow and replied, “I suppose you have more success dealing with these pricks?” Tom then squawked, “Shut up, Dana! Don’t make me repeat myself, Dana!” He then sat up against his locker and focused on keeping his ankle steady.
“At least they don’t break my ankle.”
“Broken ankles heal. In a week I’ll be able to walk again, but you’ll still be a tool.”
“I’m not a tool! My friends are always on edge is all.”
“And yet they seem to get along with each other just fine…how mysterious!”
“You little shit! You think you understand my friends and my life from little sound bites you catch while eavesdropping?”
“Yes, yes. I’m sure they only embarrass you in public. But in private they’re all very apologetic that they have to keep up this façade of you being the group bitch. In private you’re the leader, right? In private Jess hangs on your every w-…”
Before Tom could get finish, he yelled out in pain as Dana decided to end the conversation prematurely by kicking his injured ankle. As Tom lay there moaning and stretching his hands toward his ankle, Dana leaned over him and said, “You don’t know what you’re talking about, geek. Next time you decide to laugh as someone, make sure it’s not the strongest, most popular guy in school.” She then pulled her leg back for one more kick and…
“NO!” Tom screamed. Dana put her leg back down and started laughing. She then wound up once more, just so she could see Tom’s entire body freeze with agonized anticipation. She smiled at Tom mirthlessly and runway-walked away.
Tom stayed put until the end of class, not that he had any say in the matter. After the bell rang, Sam and Isaac walked up to him and Sam asked “Want to go eat?”
Tom looked up at Sam, annoyed by his lack of sympathy. “Do you think we could stop by the nurse’s office first, buddy?”
“Sure.”
“But hurry up,” Isaac added, “I played soccer in 4th Period since Mrs. Sims is out sick and now I’m wicked hungry.”
Sam and Isaac helped Tom to his feet and walked him to the nurse’s office. The sprain wasn’t that bad so she just bandaged it to keep it still and gave Tom a crutch that had been forgotten there weeks before. Tom thanked her and the three friends headed over to the cafeteria.
“I see your camouflage failed, Tommy boy.”
“That it did, Sammy boy.”
“So what’s your next move?” Sam asked, holding a fake microphone to Tom.
Tom pushed his hand away and said, “I’m not sure…But I definitely need to think of something that’ll make me look less repugnant to the fairer sex. Maybe if I gel my hair it’ll distract from my Starfleet Command shirt.”
“Dude, nothing can distract attention from that shirt. You look like Kirk himself in it. Like a skinny, dumber version…”
“Really? You think I look like Kirk in it?” Tom Shatnered his voice and recited, “‘These are the voyages of the Starship Enterprise…’” He then grinned and turned to Isaac and Sam and said, “Spock, McCoy, let’s go to the mess hall and get some lunch.”
