Chapter 3 #2
In a way, high school really is a haunted graveyard. We loom through the halls all day like the undead, searching for the next bit of misery that has been forced on us.
Speaking of the undead, the gym grows quiet and everybody looks at the entrance. Someone's in a faceless black cloak and wielding a prop scythe. They walk slowly into the gym. As soon as I see Carsten Selesky and Darren Lam behind them, I know it's Byron Murphee.
“The GSA is dead! Long live the GSA!” Byron shouts as Carsten and Darren toss glitter like some kind of ancient funeral ritual.
Once they reach the middle of the gym, Carsten and Darren tear off the cloak, revealing Byron in a Statue of Liberty costume.
He pulls a string hanging from his side and deploys an enormous rainbow peacock train that spreads out behind him.
The words “BLOOD ON YOUR HANDS” are painted in all caps across the feathers in dripping, murderous red.
The gym is a sonic kaleidoscope of boos, cheers, whistles, and applause.
“Cowards, all of you! Cowards! Shame! Shame! Shame!” Byron shouts at everybody.
Somebody behind me asks what they're talking about.
“They banned the gay-straight alliance because of this new IntegriTruth thing, so Byron is protesting,” one guy says.
“Good. We don't need that shit in our school,” another says. I glance at Felix. He's staring at his feet, contemplating. I know he heard that. I wish I could say something, but maybe it's best to keep your head down in these situations.
A group of teachers scramble around the In Crowd to shut down the commotion. They escort Byron out, one pulling him along by the arm like he's a bad kindergartener, but his train gets stuck in the doorway and jolts him back into the gym like a rubber band.
It's hard to describe the amount of celebrity and power Byron has at our school.
One time at a Beyoncé concert in Houston, he got pulled up on stage to sing a duet with her.
His face is on our Black History Month posters every year, along with Duke Ellington, MLK Jr., and Barbara Jordan.
He's pretty much an academic and artistic genius.
He even taught himself French and Italian, and now he's fluent.
He's also a grade-A snob.
Once everybody settles onto the bleachers, Dr. Collins goes up to the microphone and gives us the usual “Well, it's a new year!” speech.
“As you should know by now, the grades and test scores were not up to par last year, and there's been some changes in our district.
I'm pleased to remind y'all about our new partnership with an organization called IntegriTruth to help us get back on track and in the good graces of the Texas Education Agency. Give a round of applause for the CEO, Brandon Barton Buckley!”
The varsity band launches into “I've Been Workin' on the Railroad,” and someone trots into the middle of the gym wearing a costume of the same eagle statue I saw earlier.
“The stars at night are big and bright…” the person in the costume sings, waiting for a response. He's got a gristly, folksy voice that sounds familiar to me, and not in a good way.
None of us indulge him except Aubrey and Roland, who clap their hands four times and shout, “Deep in the heart of Texas!” You can barely hear them over the fans.
“No, no, no!” The man pulls off the mask impatiently, revealing a big pouf of platinum-blond hair and sparkling white teeth.
Oh, gross. It's him! The creep who grabbed me yesterday at work!
I poke Felix's shoulder. “That's the pedo who got me fired!”
“Pitiful!” the man yells into the microphone. He unzips his costume and steps out of it, wearing boots and a gaudy western-style suit that have been completely embroidered with rhinestones.
“That's the guy?” Felix asks.
“You kids are supposed to clap your hands four times and sing, Deep in the heart of Texas! Have you no pride in your own homeland?”
“He looks like the Babadook if the Babadook worked at a casino,” Felix says.
“The Grabadook,” I say.
Brandon makes us repeat the call-and-response until he sees every one of us moving our mouths. He's got these lifeless snake eyes that warp his smile into something uncanny.
“That's better! Woo, it's hotter than a Hill Country hoedown in here.
I'm Brandon Barton Buckley, the CEO of IntegriTruth Educational Solutions.
We've partnered up with your school district to give you a Texas-first education.
We're not like California. We are proud of our heritage and traditional values.
To be a true Texan, you've got to have Texas values.
And I ask you, what are your values? I value my heritage.
I'm all Texan, baby! Seventh-generation. And a descendant of the late, great Davy Crockett!”
Felix's eyes squint suspiciously. “Wasn't Davy Crockett actually from Tennessee?”
“Maybe he had a baby at the Alamo,” I say. Not that facts matter in this world.
From his rhinestone-embroidered man-purse, Brandon pulls out the same raggedy, bloody coonskin cap he wore at my job yesterday and puts it on his head like he's coronating himself. “This here is the cap he wore when he died at the Alamo with all the other martyrs who were fighting for our freedom!”
Oohs and aahs and wows ring throughout the gym.
“I wear this every day as tradition and duty with pride in my heritage. That's three of our IntegriTruth core values!” He asks us if we can name the other three, and of course Aubrey and Roland beat everybody to the punch.
“Your teachers will assign you points based on your demonstration of these values. Whoever gets enough will join me for a surprise on IntegriTruth Spirit Day next February, so you'd do right to start earning those points now!”
I can't wait to not go to whatever that is.
“As an example of how IntegriTruth is going to reshape your school culture and get you in the Texas spirit, the dance team has a special performance for you this morning to celebrate our great state's German heritage!
Let's welcome the Bluebonnet Blossoms as they perform ‘Texas, Oh Texas, You Have My Heart'!”
A man at a saloon-style piano strikes up a polka waltz.
A group of girls wearing traditional German dirndls pitter-patter in lines from both sides of the stage, flashing wide, creepy grins while skipping toward the front in two symmetrical arcs.
The coordination is inhumanly perfect. Their hair is braided, with bluebonnets sticking out across their hairlines and over their ears like a crown.
The white aprons on their skirts waft in the air in front of them as they spin and clap to the polka.
The girls sing:
Oh Texas, oh Texas, du bist mein Herz
Hier lebe ich ein Leben ohne Schmerz
Die Lupinen sind blau wie der Himmel,
Wenn die Erde ?l blutet, herrscht ein Gewimmel
Die Wursten sind gut, das bier ist so fein,
Der Colorado ist unser Rhein!
I feel like I'm in a David Lynch movie. These are the same girls who, only a year ago, were doing disorganized, peppy dances to Taylor Swift.
Through whatever superhuman strength the dancers have, they maintain their robotic smiles as sweat pours down their faces.
Behind them, someone unfurls a large cloth landscape painting of bluebonnets and Indian paintbrushes sprawled across a prairie.
There's a giant red sun glowing above them, except inside the sun shines the painted face of Brandon Barton Buckley, sporting his gross coonskin cap and a sparkly grin.
The girls face each other and perform an intricately choreographed patty-cake dance.
Schnitzel und polka und guns, yeehaw!
The longhorns in the cattle runs, yeehaw!
The stars here are so big und bright, yeehaw!
Remember the Alamo fight, yeehaw!
“I saw something like this in a documentary about North Korea,” Felix says.
Right as this dystopian display of folk horror can't get any nuttier, something wet hits my head.
Of course I'd be sitting right where there's a leak in the ceiling.
I scratch the back of my head, but my fingers comb through something snot-caked and squishy.
I take a whiff of my fingers and smell fish.
Behind me, Tuna Girl giggles with her hand over her mouth. Next to her is, of course, Sutter Breedlove, who can barely contain himself either. His hand doesn't do a great job of concealing the tuna can by his side.
The vape ghost right next to me is conked out. I snatch the vape pen from his fingers and frisbee it at Sutter's face. Like the lightning-speed aquabro that he is, he ducks quickly and successfully.
Instead, the vape pen slams into the bleacher behind him and ricochets in the foot space until it hits the ground with a dink. A magnesium flash and an explosion follow, shooting out sparks all across the bleachers.
The stampede starts with a wave of screams, followed by a panicked rush off the bleachers. Students fall everywhere and push each other out of the way to get to the exit. You'd think I dumped pig blood on the prom queen and she was using her telekinesis to kill us all.
Somebody pulls the fire alarm. The teachers scream at us to get to the exits in an orderly line, but they don't seem to grasp the fear of dying in a public school.
Now we're all scattered across the football field with the sun slapping its big dick in our faces and mosquitoes taking kamikaze dives at our necks and legs.
I could use a nice beach and breeze right now. Like something out of LA. California would be nice right about now.
Felix and I stare at each other awkwardly, the kind of stare where you know you screwed up majorly and hopefully nobody finds out you're the culprit.
If Sutter and Tuna Girl want to rat me out, I will take them straight down to hell with me.
The chaos would have been worthwhile if I nailed Sutter in his stupid smug face.
Dr. Collins walks past us, looking us over and shaking her head as she speaks into her walkie-talkie.
“Well, happy Monday!” she says.