Read Online At All Costs by John Gilstrap - Free Book Online Page A

might really be the last one; that this job might be the one to stick. And wouldn’t you know it? After moving every damn year that he could remember, from one dump to another, this butthole of a town was the place his parents decided to sink some roots. Wonderful. If you asked him, the whole state of South Carolina sucked.
    To distract himself from his misery, he thought of Eric Lampier, wondering if Pussy Boy was able to breathe through his nose yet. Poor baby couldn’t even haul his butt into school this morning. Travis’s smile triggered a stab of pain in his eye.
    Yeah, it was worth it.
    The “fight,” such as it was, lasted all of three seconds. After enduring a good two minutes of trash talk in the cafeteria from Eric and his Snob Hill pals, Travis reached his limit when Eric referred to him and his friends as “trailer park shitheads.” He simply stood up, smashed Eric’s nose like a cherry tomato, then sat back down to finish his Tater Tots.
    The fountain of blood and snot ignited an explosion of screams, mostly from the Snob Hill girls, with Eric howling right along with them. God, what a mess. It took maybe two minutes for word to travel to the Gestapo. You’d have thought somebody had a gun, the way they swarmed in there. No one even questioned who was the guilty party. While the nurse slobbered all over Eric, the principal, Mr. Menefee, dragged Travis off toward his office. As they reached the hallway, some panicked grown-up shouted for an ambulance. Was that not the most ridiculous thing you’ve ever heard? An ambulance for a damn broken nose!
    “I’ve had it with you kids!” Menefee growled. That’s the way it always was. In the minds of faculty, everything a Farm Meadows kid did somehow implicated all other Farm Meadows kids as silent accomplices.
    That trailer park kids were unwelcome around there was the worst-kept secret in the world. Best Travis could figure out, J. E. B. Stuart Junior High had been the exclusive domain of the Snob Hill squeaky-cleans until a couple of years ago, when some redistricting bullshit mingled “Farm Meadows trash” with the “Hill youngsters.” He didn’t pretend to understand all the politics—frankly, he didn’t care—but one thing was sure: the teachers and the school administration wanted things back the way they used to be.
    For the life of him, though, Travis couldn’t see why people complained so much. From his perspective, having Farm Meadows kids in the school made the business of discipline a no-brainer for everybody. If there was blood on the tile someplace, punish a trailer park kid. It didn’t really matter that it might be the wrong kid, because everybody from Farm Meadows was guilty of something. Every time a Hill kid smoked, cussed, picked his nose, or jerked off, it was because a Farm Meadows kid had talked him into it. Travis thought it was hysterical. Like there was some conspiracy among him and his friends to lure rich kids away from their brick palaces to come live in shit-heap trailers.
    At J. E. B. Stuart Junior High, a rich kid got to do or say whatever he wanted. Such were his constitutional rights. For Travis and his pals, though, the Constitution seemed to end at the point where they told the rich kids to fuck off. And to touch one of them—particularly with a fist—was more than the system could bear.
    Mr. Menefee— Der Führer to Travis and his friends, thanks to German class—was as pissed as Travis had ever seen him. That’s the word he used, too. Pissed. Travis wondered if he was still going to be “pissed” when he talked to Eric Lampier’s lawyer-daddy. Somehow he didn’t think so. Perturbed, maybe? Acrimonious (a brand-new word to Travis)? Certainly, he’d be something more elevated than pissed.
    Menefee had had it with Travis’s antics. He refused to tolerate violent behavior in his school, goddammit, and no, he didn’t give a shit who started it. They should be ashamed of themselves. When Travis mentioned