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Read My Lips(55)

By:Daryl Banner


He never learns. I never learn.

The next week, I was snuck up on by some idiot I didn’t even know during gym class who thought he’d make a joke out of me. I made a funnier one out of him when I slammed his face into the locker.

I clench shut my eyes, remembering the dazed, glassy look in his eyes when metal met skull.

I was not a monster. I felt remorse. I felt the pain of every fucker I beat up. I felt their pain because I could feel a little bit of my own leaving me with every swing, kick, and bloody nose. Still, no matter how many dumb kids I beat up, no matter if it was them provoking me or vice versa, the pain never went away.

Why is he so angry? This was the lovely question the principal had for my mom and dad. We need to get to the bottom of this. Clayton’s been suspended twice. I really don’t want to expel him.

The interpreter, some twenty-something college babe, looked sadder and sadder each time we had one of these meetings. She shifted so much in her seat. I would stare at her moving hands, watching her sharp green eyes, watching her cross and uncross those long, slender legs of hers.

Do you have anything to say for yourself? I watch the interpreter’s smooth fingers, signing for the principal.

In response, I signed to her: Want to fuck in the supply closet after this shit is over?

She swallowed hard, slowly faced Principal Harris, then said: “He says he’s very sorry.”

An hour later, I showed the interpreter just how sorry I was by ramming her against a rack of shrink-wrapped sponges, scouring rags, and mop-heads, my jeans at my ankles and her skirt hiked halfway up her shuddering, porcelain back.

I am my father’s son.

Out of nowhere, Brant comes around the couch, the sight of him pulling me mercifully out of Yellow Mills High. I look up at him, confused. “Forgot my lucky glove,” he mouths, swiping it off the coffee table. He freezes, noting the expression on my face, if I had to guess. “You alright?” he asks, his brow furrowing.

I shake my head no.

Brant abandons his lucky bowling glove like it means nothing to him, plopping down on the couch. “What’s going on?” he asks.

“Dessie,” I mumble.

He swipes my phone away and types:



Didn’t you bang her

the other night?



I snort and grab my phone back, then shake my head no. “We talked,” I mumble sourly. “It was good.”

“Good??” he asks, not caring to mask his disbelief.

To him, a night of sitting on the couch with a hot girl like Dessie and just … talking … is probably the most boring thing he’s ever heard.

“I’m tired of …” I start to say, then swallow my words. Something about remembering all the kids I’ve beaten up, all the girls I’ve dicked around with, all the mistakes of my parents I’ve blindly—or perhaps even freely—repeated … I feel so shitty suddenly.

Brant waves his hand, urging me to go on, his bright blue eyes flashing at me with urgency.

I try again, but with a different tack. “That anger problem my dad says won’t go away. My inner demon. My bitterness. I’m so tired of using it to … to just keep all the … to keep girls away, or …”

Brant slaps a hand on my shoulder, which shuts me up. He leans in and says something I don’t catch.

So I ignore the words and push on. “But I’m afraid I can’t help it. I feel like I piss on everything I care about. And I barely know her. We just started getting to know each other, but I feel … I feel like …”

Brant moves his lips again. “You’re talking a lot,” I think he says.

I am. I meet Brant’s eyes, realizing that he’s one of the only things that kept me sane during all of my worst years. Between those visits to the principal’s office, there was Brant throwing his arm over my back. Brant, telling people to fuck off. Brant, my pair of ears when I had none. Brant snuck into my house while I was suspended, even skipping a day to spend it with me behind my parents’ backs. Brant may very well be the reason I’m still alive.

If I didn’t have him in my life …

“I want … I want to talk more,” I push out. “I have a … I have a fucking voice.”

“You have a fucking voice!” he repeats back, a smile spreading across his face as he grips my shoulders and shakes me.

Dmitri pokes his head out of his room, shirtless and sweaty. He signs at me: What the fuck about a voice?

“Nothing,” I say back to him, pushing the words out despite my discomfort. “Just that I have one.”

Dmitri squints, confused, then signs: Oh.

I smirk. “You can go back to jerking off, Dmitri.”

He flips me the finger, then shuts his door.