Chapter 3
In the morning, we roll up to the drive-thru at Whataburger on our way to school for some priority breakfast taquitos in Felix's Honda Civic. Felix always drives me to school because my van is an unreliable hunk of junk and I don't have the money to pay the school parking fee.
I'm in the passenger seat, holding up our newest drag gnome over Felix to the speaker, talking with the exaggerated voice of an old man.
“Hello, I'm sixty-five in gnome years. Would I qualify for the senior breakfast discount?”
“We don't have no gnome discount,” the lady on the speaker says earnestly.
“That's a discrimination lawsuit waiting to happen,” I say. Felix pushes me back into my seat.
“Your total is fifteen eighty-nine. Please pull up to the second window.”
We stop at Oyster Pit Park and eat our tacos in the car. Felix is unusually quiet. He's mad at me. I need to go ahead and nip this in the bud.
“Penny for your thoughts,” I say.
“None at the moment,” he says, but I know he's lying.
“Then I'll give you mine.” I take a deep breath and start with an apology for whatever weird thing I said or did last night. “I was extra nervous because of the storm, and I didn't want you to think I was—”
“We were practically drunk off your aunt's cheap wine. No worries,” he says.
But I give him a “come on” look until he realizes I'm not letting go.
“I've been hiding something from you,” he says. “I think Bill Skarsg?rd is hot.”
I laugh. Felix turns away and shuts his eyes.
“But it's not a Bill-Skarsg?rd-is-hot thing. It's a me thing,” he says.
“I thought you were in love with Scarlett Johansson.”
“She was my beard.”
“Why didn't you tell me before?” I ask.
“You seemed really grossed out at the idea last night.”
“I mean, it's okay to be gay for Bill Skarsg?rd. It's okay to be gay, period. If you are, that's awesome. You're already more interesting than the losers and the creeps in this town.”
“Last night—I didn't want you to think I was trying to molest you or something by holding you,” he says.
“No!”
“You're my best friend. I want to help you.”
“And I want to help you, too. So, your secret's safe with me,” I tell him.
“You know, there's a gay-straight alliance at school. But if we went to one of their meetings, someone might tell my sisters. And if my parents found out…”
“No, that's In Crowd territory,” I say.
The In Crowd is Byron, Darren, and Carsten, three openly gay seniors as mean as they are glamorous and gorgeous.
Byron Murphee is the president of both the GSA and the theater club.
He's sort of like if Cleopatra was reincarnated as a queer theater kid.
Getting into his line of sight and watching him judge you is like falling into a lagoon full of jellyfish, so the more we stay out of his way, the less likely we are to get stung.
Byron's dating Carsten, which has got to be awkward for Darren, but they still march through the halls as a domineering trio.
I look at the gnome.
“Anyway. This is our last gnome. It's sad,” I say.
“Time to set her loose,” Felix says. “But take a picture so we can remember her.”
I make sure the coast is clear, then race across the park to place her at the top of the playground. Now everybody can see our final masterpiece.
“Run free, madam. Thanks for the memories!”
I snap a photo and hurry back to the car before anybody sees me.
“Play ‘Plainsong' by the Cure,” Felix tells the car. This is his favorite song, and he plays it every time we drive to school because it's such a vibe. I like to think of it as our battle anthem as we face the day that awaits us.
As Felix drives us through a two-lane road in a subdivision, a red BMW rides our ass.
Did I mention Darren Lam has an equally awful sister?
Her name is Aubrey, and she's in the driver's seat of the BMW.
Her boyfriend, Roland Greenway, sits in the front seat.
They're the most obnoxious, holier-than-thou couple at Oyster Pit High School.
Roland is our school's golden boy due to his rabid commitment to policing the morals of everything along with his aw, shucks smile.
Naturally, they turn and give us the stink eye as they speed right past Felix's car and merge in front of us.
We sit at a stoplight across the road from a never-ending train.
I can see both of them looking in the rearview mirror at us.
Probably talking shit because that's all they're capable of doing outside of participating in every club and AP class so they can spirit themselves away to the elite Ivy League schools they claim to hate so much.
Oh, they're also in a dead heat with Byron and Carsten for prom court this year.
That's a battle of the bastards I look forward to.
The train disappears and the light turns green. Aubrey speeds off so quickly that she leaves us in the dust.
“Of course she's Speedy Gonzales. She's got that type A rage,” I say.
A siren goes off and an enormous police truck whizzes past us, behind Aubrey's car, and pulls her over.
“Not Aubrey Lam getting pulled over by a cop on the first day of school!” Felix shouts as we drive past them.
The Oyster Pit Police Department used all its funds to buy these monster-truck-sized police trucks, and now you see them all over the town. When one is right on your tail, it's like being chased by a bloodthirsty giant. I think Aubrey getting caught by one on the first day of school is a good omen.
After getting to the school parking lot and spending forever looking for a spot, we walk what feels like a mile to the front entrance of the school.
Our clothes are already soaked with sweat.
I hate this place. I hate when there's a storm.
I hate when it's sunny. But at least the sweet, arctic air of an overcooled public facility is about to relieve us as we open the doors.
It doesn't help that I'm wearing blue jeans and my horror movie monsters sweater, but I've got even more scars on my legs and arms that I don't want people at school to gawk at. Felix is dressed smartly for the weather: an Astros cap, a thin white shirt, and linen shorts.
Just as I'm about to embrace the cold A/C, a nuclear-hot wave of musty air blasts us, and we, along with all the others entering at the same time, collectively groan.
The air conditioning is out. On the first day of school. In Texas. The electricity goes out for any reason in Oyster Pit. A squirrel could fart on a power line and nuke the entire power grid.
It's almost pitch-black inside. Because the building's architect was mainly a prison architect, our school was designed with no windows except for in the gym.
In front of the main office, there's a large statue of a cartoon eagle where our panther mascot used to stand.
Next to it is a hanging poster listing six “IntegriTruth Values.”
“Are we at the right school?” I ask Felix.
One of the office clerks scowls at me with beads of sweat rolling down her forehead. She points toward the gym.
“Go get your schedule in there. Don't ask me any questions.”
On the way to the gym, two frenzied teachers drenched in sweat rush past me. I hear one of them frantically whisper the words “teacher shortage” and “salary cuts.” It's going to be that kind of year, huh?
Dr. Collins, our principal, greets us with a warm “good morning!” even though her makeup is melting down her face.
Large portable fans are blowing inside the gym. I wait in line for my schedule and IntegriTruth laptop.
Rosalyn Wetherly, the oldest and most evil teacher in school, is handing out schedules. Of course she would remain during a mass teacher exodus, just to spite us all. She's so ghostly and powdery-looking that she resembles a female Count Orlok, which is why I call her Rosferatu.
Towering in front of me is Sutter Breedlove, the worst person at our school.
He's got the IQ of a soggy circus peanut that's been floating in a half-empty beer cup at the bottom of a garbage can.
He's good at sniffing out the weakest person in a room and going for the jugular.
Also, he's on the swim team, so I'm convinced all that time in pool chlorine has made him a psychopath.
Last year on Halloween, I made him mad.
“My Frankenstein costume is better than yours,” he said, bolts in both sides of his neck and stitches all over his face, to none other than me, about my you-know-what. I know—extra marks for creativity.
“You're actually Frankenstein's monster,” I responded. “Frankenstein is the doctor. To be a doctor, you'd need more than two brain cells.” Our whole chemistry class “oooohed” while Sutter took an entire ten seconds to decode my insult in his collapsing peanut brain.
“Just wait, you freak,” he said quietly to me, and I've been avoiding him ever since.
When he turns around, I shuffle to the other side of him so he won't see me.
I get my loaner laptop and my schedule. At first look, I groan.
“They put me in Spanish again? I already passed that my freshman year!”
“You're in Spanish II,” Felix says, looking over my classes. “You have to take two years to graduate.”
“That's so fascist.”
“Looks like we'll be seeing a lot of each other this year, Wade,” Rosferatu tells me. Yikes, I have Texas History with her. But why am I taking that? Is that a new class?
Up in the bleachers, the girl to the left of us opens up a can of flaky tuna, unleashing a putrid seafood smell while she picks at the protein with a plastic fork. The smell wafts around as though a sea trawler crashed into the gym and dumped dead fish all over the floor.
A guy with dyed green hair in front of us demonstrates his double-jointed hand to everybody, freaking them out.
The guy to the right of us hides inside his hoodie, the smoke from his vape pen slowly hovering out of his hood and covering his face. He looks like a graveyard ghost.