By InsidiousCynic

Tuesday, September 15 – Zane Patterson

My street name is Zane “The Creep” Patterson. It’s a funny story. There was this one girl in public school—Brooke Parentela—who I really liked in the seventh grade. But she hated me. She avoided me like the plague. She would call me “trailer trash,” and all her friends would laugh at me. I didn’t care. I was kind of obsessed. I followed her around a lot, until I took it too far. I followed her home late one night after a basketball game. I climbed over a fence into the Parentelas’ yard to look into her bedroom window. 

Why on Earth would I do that? Well, I might have been a teensy bit drunk.

Anyway, she saw me, screamed, and called for her parents. Her Dad, the provincial police officer, ran out of the house with a Glock and emptied a clip at me. 

Yep, that’s my life for you.

Luckily it was pitch dark and officer Parentela was the worst shot on the force or I woulda been a goner.

The story spread quickly, and within a week I had become “The Creep”.

But things won’t be the same this time, I think. I can’t afford to blow it this time the way I did back then.

I look over my left shoulder to where D.K. is sleeping on her desk. My heart rate fluctuates a little. She makes slacking off in class a beautiful art. A beautiful, beautifu—

“Zane?” says Davi. “Did you hear the question?”

I snap my head forward. “Uhhhhh…”

Davi sighs. “Why did Jesus have to die on the cross?”

I scratch my head. “Um…to pay for our sins so that we have a chance at salvation and eternal life even though the wages of sin are death?”

Davi’s eyes bulge with surprise. “That’s, uh, that’s right. You’ve been paying attention.”

“Uh-huh…” I say, distracted.

During lunch, Thad and I head out into the woods behind the school. We talk as we share a cigarette.

“How’d you get that answer in Bible?” Thad asks.

“Which question?”

“Why did Jesus die on the—”

“Oh yeah… I don’t know. I guess between school and church and Davi and the pastor blabbing about all that stuff all the time, I just picked up a thing or two.”

Thad asks, “You’re not actually falling for all that stuff, are you?” 

I shrug. “I dunno. I guess I believe there’s a God. That’s about it.”

“Yeah, well, don’t let ‘em brainwash you,” says Thad, lifting his cigarette to his cracked lips. “It’ll save you a lot of pain in the long-run.”

I nod pensively. “Yeah.”

I look up into the treetops. The leaves are turning orange and yellow, and some are already starting to fall. The way the branches sway in the cool breeze of late summer remind me of the way D.K’s hair bounced as she jumped to catch a frisbee. Or a basketball. Or a hockey puck.

I groan. “What is wrong with me?” I think aloud.

“You talk too much, that’s what.”

After school, I see D.K. and Hannah leave the school together. Now, the way I see it, I have two choices. Go home like a regular person and upstanding citizen, or follow the criminal impulse to stalk the girl of my dreams. The answer’s obvious to me.

Who knows, maybe I’ll get a new nickname out of it.

I follow from a distance and pretend to read the first textbook I pull out of my bag. The history textbook.

“And in 1941, the Japanese Empire launched a surprise attack on the American naval base of Pearl Harbour. This attack took months of planning and strict secrecy…”

D.K and Hannah are talking about something, but I’m out of earshot. I can’t risk getting any closer. They’re laughing a lot, smiling a lot, and I try to imagine what they’re saying. But nothing comes to mind.

What do people talk about? I mean normal people. Not drunks or rednecks or self-proclaimed gangsters.

It was like they lived in a different world from me that I wasn’t allowed to be a part of.

I followed them out of the school and down Elmont street, and dive into some bushes as they turn the corner. I watched them until they parted ways. 

I can’t help but notice how they stop smiling the moment they thought the other isn’t looking. Kinda how my mom does with me and Ira. Hannah looks tired. D.K. seems lost in thought. And I feel worried for them because I know those faces. They were the faces of mom after the fight with dad, Ronan or Thad the days after a bad street fight, my own face in the mirror on one of those bad days.

Maybe I’m more normal than I thought.

Then I remembered that I was hiding in the bushes, spying on girls, and I returned to my senses.