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A massive torrent of water steadily fell upon the hard sidewalk, sending drops of rain down at a rate of twenty seven thousand per minute, and covering the area of an approximate square mile. Jerry endured several to the face, causing him to swerve dangerously. He blinked furiously to fend of the drops, and pedaling faster helped, too. Children and parent alike fled to the safe padding of home, heaving the toys and otherwise rusted equipment back inside to assemble another day. Jerry could recall that time when he the same as those blissfully ignorant children; the feeling he experienced from the special, select moments that he now referred to as ‘freetime’. He wanted them to go on forever, that sense of perfect harmony, nothing could go wrong. He felt it every night out, every trip to the movies, every barbecue with the neighbors; every time Jerry had felt ‘freetime’. Over the years, ‘freetime’ had diminished, losing importance and priority in his life. He missed those hours of carefree youthfulness. But now he felt like the ‘freetime’ had been resurrected by Ashley, in one way or another. So he pedaled onward.
“Look at that.”
Jerry pointed to a garden in the backyard of a small green house. The bright, vibrant colors of the flowers spoke to him, invoking images of planting sunflower seeds in the spring with his mother years ago. Ashley groaned a little since the rain was almost soaking her jeans to disintegration, but smiled at Jerry’s keen survey of the garden. It was picturesque; the two sitting on a bike, enjoying what was left of nature in the world. Jerry tried illustrating the two together:
“That could be us.”
“Huh?”
“That could be us. A flourishing garden. Today was like planting the seeds. Now we just have to water them consistently.”
Ashley had her arms wrapped around his stomach for the duration of the ride; she set fire to his intestines with the slightest touch, when she grabbed him by the chest from fear of falling off the bike after sharp turns or disarming bumps. Now she moved her hands toward his package, swaying her tongue over her shiny teeth.
“You sure are an inspired guy.”
Jerry turned his head toward her.
“It isn’t too hard in this beautiful world we live in, with all the beautiful gardens. And all the beautiful faces.”
Jerry stared into Ashley’s eyes, the desire tearing his heart to tiny bits and pieces of what it previously was. She melted him with that face, the heat burning and making him catch fire. She smiled and complemented back.
“Thanks. I think you’re good looking too. You don’t have to be subtle about it.”
“Alright.”
Jerry resumed pedaling, smiling. “She likes me”, he thought. “Try not to screw it up.”
As they arrived at her house, Ashley jumped off and ran up to the door.
“Wait!”
Jerry pulled out his phone to get her number, but Ashley gestured a negative.
“That’s my parents driving right there.”
Jerry glanced to the right and saw a Honda charging toward her house, and waved goodbye quickly, while swiftly turning his bike to get away. Dread invaded his body in an instant. The bum….
The bum was standing in front of him. How did he sneak up like that? The bum was there, smirking. Stop smirking, what’s so goddamn funny? Why are you smirking? The bum was standing, on fire. On fire. Wait, how was he on fire when he was standing…. No, wait, no. This can’t be real, snap out of it, snap out of it….
The Honda blasted a honk that could be heard across the town district. Jerry, startled and confused, realized he was directly in front of the car and sped off away from Ashley’s driveway. “That was weird”, he thought. That bum. He couldn’t shake that fuckin’ bum. Jerry tried to ignore the thought and softly began to badly sing. “I used to ruuule the worlddd; seas would rise when I gave the word…”
The weekend disappeared quickly, as it usually does when you are thirteen. Jerry woke up on Monday with an unparalleled hunger for waffles, and jumped out of bed before his alarm commenced screaming. Arriving to his kitchen, Jerry realized the waffles were being rationed until the next trip to Target, and so he served himself a bowl of Kix. According to law, his parents would stay in bed until about 7:06 A.M., and then slam their fists upon the alarm/radio clock that spewed ABC News @7:05, their mouths an abyss of nicotine traces and bad breath. On awaking, they would stumble toward the respective bathrooms in which they showered, and hurry off to the endless monotony of employed life. Jerry took this time in the morning to ponder what would happen at school, about his progressively improving ability to write, of whom he believed he had a chance with, and other bits of his life concerning Monday. Every business week began this way, for the past ten years of his life. He took out some homework that he had put off and scribbled out answers, making sure it looked like he put zero effort into each pencil stroke; after all, it was just Math homework. After he was finished scribbling, Jerry tiptoed to the downstairs computer. Scanning My Documents for signs of life, he picked out a poem made specifically for that day of the week; “Mondays”, one of his earlier poems, designed for laughs.
Mondays
Mondays are like a large plate of your least favorite vegetable;
it smells foul, it tastes horrible, and you want to immediately scrape it into the garbage. But you cannot skip Mondays; they are
part of your life, like your bizarrely annoying young sibling.
So, just like with your siblings, bear with Monday, and try your best to even be polite and smile.
It was also one of his more poorly constructed poems; besides, he had written it on a Tuesday. Nevertheless, he printed it out to show to his lunch mates and possibly memorize for the next time he met Ashley.
When Jerry got on the bus, he surveyed the area for empty seats. Not that he needed to; the second row from the back was always open in the morning. Plopping down, he looked at the seats around him, full of familiar but semi-hostile faces: Hank, in the seat opposite Jerry, was whittling away at the edge of his iPod with his thumb; Frank, who had attempted picking a fight with Jerry a few days back in gym class for questioning who should have the next at-bat in a game of kickball; and last and certainly close to least, Clarice, who was an emo with a special contempt for any and all of Jerry’s stories and poems.
“Hank, please; your thumb could be severely injured that way.”
“Please, Jerry; shut your fuckin’ mouth before I shove my fist into it.”
Of course Frank had to interrupt like that, with profanities and all that. Jerry decided to spin the conversation with a quip at Frank’s alleged crush on Clarice.
“I don’t think swearing will impress certain people on the bus, as much as you think it will, F-Dog.”
“I said shut your fuckin’…”
Clarice rolled her eyes and broke up the soon-to-be brawl.
“Both of you shut it. I’m tired. All that studying for the Social Studies test makes me pissed.”
“True dat.”
Hank’s comment took weight off the back of the talking.
“Ooo, you’re such a gangsta, Hank. ‘Where da fuck is mah weed, bitches?’”
“Good one, Jerry.”
“You’re cool now.”
Neither Clarice nor Frank found anything Jerry said to have an ounce of humor. Karl Marx would’ve thought they were boring. The only thing Jerry could plausibly believe that they wanted to continue life was because of the flaming rings they had to dodge to get to each other’s heart. Which, if Clarice kept being an antisocial bitch, would not happen in the imaginable future.
“So, how were your respective weekends?”
“Boring.”
“Boring.”
“Gosh Jerry, it sure was super duper exciting!”
The routine played over again, like a broken record. Clarice had a one word answer, Frank would copy her answer, and Hank would throw Jerry half of a bone.
“You know, I just realized something…”
Jerry instantly created dramatic tension with this offhand remark. Everyone was on the edge of their bus seats when Jerry followed up with:
“Hank rhymes with Frank. Ha! I knew you guys were the same in one way or another!”
“Funnnny.”
The kids on the bus had no interest in the state of Jerry’s being, so the majority of the day he tried to stay away from them. Fortunately, the only classes he had with Frank were Gym and Math, which were earlier in the morning. Clarice was in Lit with him and Social Studies, and sometimes fancied sitting near the area of Jerry at lunch. Hank, being the least despised of all the bus members, sat with Jerry’s group during lunch and was in his Math, English, Social Studies and Gym classes. Jerry’s group of friends all sat with him at lunch: Brian, who was his best friend and had hooked him up with Ashley, had a good sense of humor that almost matched Jerry’s and good looks that overmatched Jerry’s, the most popular of the group; aptly named Sebastian, who had an obsession with anything Disney; Dan, who was inclined to make sexual jokes every twenty two seconds and was a self proclaimed ‘Screwdini’; Timmy, a fellow writer, whose work was just slightly better than Jerry’s; Raymond, the third in command of the group, a sort of nonchalant middle man, if you would call him that; and finally, aptly named Harry, who had an obsession with everything Harry Potter and had absolutely no life outside of that.
Hank sat at the furthest end of the groups area, since he had only started sitting there beginning in April, and had not yet molded into the group fully.
Jerry’s locker resembled Kurt Cobain in 1994. Not with red liquid every which way, but papers were crumpled and ripped, books were opened and askew, placed at odd angles. Let’s say his locker looked like an emotional wreck; you couldn’t help but think that if the locker was a person, it would shoot itself because it was so damn ugly. Ignoring the appearance of his locker, Jerry, hastily removed the required books from his locker and slammed it shut, to prevent anyone from investigating the inside. Although he didn’t give a goat’s fuck if anybody saw his locker, Jerry preferred that no suggestions to clean it out got within hearing range.
As Jerry entered his Math class, the overwhelming sense of complete and utter boredom took over his brain functions and gently persuaded him into a deep coma of endless calculations and equations. Jerry hated Math. His friend Timmy once stressed “If Math were a person, I would cut off his head, urinate on him, and throw the remnants into a large body of water.” Jerry wished he had said that, as the comment gave Timmy notoriety and fame among his fellow students, as the majority of them also felt the same about Algebra. Timmy even got a congratulatory trip to the principal’s office, for swearing. As Mr.Lullings began harping about the Pythagorean Theorem, Jerry let out a huge yawn that cut through whatever the teacher was beginning to say.
“Jerry. Was that at all necessary? I know you must be very tired this morning; in fact, it seems you are very tired every morning, from what I’ve heard.”
“Yes, Mr.Lullings. It was necessary, since I wanted to drown out whatever nonsense you were going to force into my ‘open, learning mind’.”
Jerry accentuated those words with air quotes. Mr.Lullings tried swallowing calmly, but he gave the impression that he was afraid, and a loud ‘gulp’ was heard across the classroom. Jerry rested his head on the shiny desk and began to fake snore, his classmates desperately containing laughs. Mr.Lullings shakily began his next sentences, slowly getting back on track and eventually calming himself with a handkerchief to the forehead.
The lunch bell yelled triumphantly above the ramblings of the teachers at 11:45, awaking some and giving many a good reason to fist pump. Students flooded into the halls; the scene looked like the biblical Exodus. Jerry always knew a good comparison when he saw one. A tidal wave of people swept him into the cafeteria, depositing him gently to the reflective floors that would soon be decorated by chewed edibles differing in degrees of completion. Jerry was glad that he had so handily crafted a peanut butter and jelly sandwich this specific day. He went directly to his usual seat, propping up his feet to reserve for the others in his group. About three minutes and thirty five seconds later, Harry, Sebastian and Brian arrived, with Dan and Hank following close behind.
“You know Disney helped make all of those Pixar movies, like Monsters Inc., Finding Nemo, and, great movie, Toy Story?”
“Sorcerer’s Stone beats all those crappy movies.”
“Oh, you mean with Daniel Fagcliffe?”
“Shut your face, Disney is a Communist regime and Walt was a Hitler look-alike.”
Jerry sighed while the two argued, knowing fully well they would probably begin throwing slaps if he didn’t intervene with some wit.
“Alright, can you two get a room or something?”
Sebastian registered the crack before Harry did, and replied with venom;
“Shut up, Jerry. Go screw one of Brian’s whores, why don’t you?”
“Hey, hey, hey… I don’t have any whores, o.k. They’re my bitchs, not whores, let’s get that clear.”
Brian kept a straight face, while Harry, Raymond and Sebastian giggled, disarmed by the sudden humor. Hank smiled, but stayed out of the conversation, since he didn’t know how to contribute to it.
“By the way, Jerry, how did it work out?”
“Pretty good. I think she likes me, but I don’t have her number.”
“Don’t worry; I’ll get it to you after lunch.”
The other members seemed confused about this ‘she’. Raymond furrowed his brows in deep thought, while Harry and Sebastian whispered, feeling confident that they knew who ‘she’ was, but Hank looked up with another thought on his mind.
“Hey, where’s Timmy?”
Everyone was taken aback at the question; it was not only unusual that Hank was actually speaking to the entire group, but that Timmy was not present at lunchtime, which was his favorite ‘class’, directly quoted from him. Jerry was volunteered to search and groaned, rising to inspect the halls for the missing Timmy.
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