Read Online In Zanesville by Jo Ann Beard - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Jo Ann Beard
Tags: Fiction
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picnic table where we pretended to
be Vic and Gin, friends of my parents who hosted my family’s yearly fishing vacations. The real Vic and Gin owned a motel
in the Wisconsin Dells and once gave me something off the check-in counter in their lobby—a black plastic thing that held
a card for the vacationers to fill out when they registered. Attached to the black plastic thing was a chain and a pen, which
had run dry. Danny and I used it in our game of Vic and Gin, which consisted of one of us pretending to be a traveler and
the other pretending to be a motel owner. The game gradually devolved into Gin making Vic plates of food out of sticks, grass,
and maple seeds, which he would then pretend to eat. Eventually we drifted apart. Now he’s become suave and massive, his head
sitting like a pea atop his shoulder pads.
He nods as he passes.
“Hi,” I say.
The cheerleaders are their usual glossy selves, wearing letter sweaters over turtlenecks, short pleated skirts, and leg-colored
tights. They stretch and mill around, talking to one another while absentmindedly doing the semaphore signals that go along
with their cheers. Two of them move off the gravel into the grass and spot each other doing backflips.
The football team has momentarily turned its attention from the cheerleaders to the band’s majorettes, who just took off their
coats, unveiling sequined leotards, fringed wrist cuffs, and white ankle boots. They are all ninth graders, like the restof us, but the whole corps seems to have developed quite graphically overnight: they look middle-aged and lewd, parts of them
drifting out of the packed leotards.
“Band people!”
From a distance Wilton seems small compared to his wife, and he keeps losing his balance and having to jump down from the
bumper. Felicia is standing in a cluster of clarinets, but so far I don’t see any flutes, just an ocean of ill-fitting wool.
Everyone I look at seems to be scratching their neck.
In the same way people can resemble their dogs, the flutes are a thin and tremulous bunch, led by Larue Varrick, a pale, cautious
girl with red-rimmed eyes. I join them, somewhere in the middle, with the woodwinds right behind us. Felicia reaches over
and taps my shoulder.
“This coat is itching me,” she says.
The cheerleaders and the football players are waiting for the band to take shape so they can get into formation behind us.
They’re standing around, some with arms folded, some with hands on hips, watching the proceedings bemusedly, the same way
grown-ups might stand in a doorway and watch a cartoon.
“What’s wrong?” Felicia asks me.
The giant kid on tuba straggles up, his pants dragging, and stops to apply Chap Stick to the bottom half of his face, chin
and all. Two cheerleaders gape at him and then abruptly turn their backs to compose themselves. When they turn back they’re
poker faced, deliberately not looking at each other. Suddenly I’m flooded with the same feeling of humiliation that I get
when someone from school accidentally sees me with my parents.
“What?” Felicia says curiously. In the hat, she looks as tall as the Empire State Building. I can feel my ears standing out
like tabs on either side of my head.
I hadn’t realized before, but now I do: We’ve made a terrible mistake. Band is weird.
I’d like to be the kind of person who can do something weird and not become weird because of it, but that’s out of reach for
me—I am what I do at this point, and if I do this I’m done for. Once I march in their parade, I will be in it forever, uniform
or not.
Felicia, unaware, has gone back to her spot. She’s been stationed in the very middle like a tent pole, and I’m on an end,
where everyone in Zanesville can get a good look.
Help.
Drum roll.
Help.
Cymbals.
With that, Wilton sweeps his arms upward and then downward, sending the band shuffling forward, out of the parking lot and
into the street, toward
be Vic and Gin, friends of my parents who hosted my family’s yearly fishing vacations. The real Vic and Gin owned a motel
in the Wisconsin Dells and once gave me something off the check-in counter in their lobby—a black plastic thing that held
a card for the vacationers to fill out when they registered. Attached to the black plastic thing was a chain and a pen, which
had run dry. Danny and I used it in our game of Vic and Gin, which consisted of one of us pretending to be a traveler and
the other pretending to be a motel owner. The game gradually devolved into Gin making Vic plates of food out of sticks, grass,
and maple seeds, which he would then pretend to eat. Eventually we drifted apart. Now he’s become suave and massive, his head
sitting like a pea atop his shoulder pads.
He nods as he passes.
“Hi,” I say.
The cheerleaders are their usual glossy selves, wearing letter sweaters over turtlenecks, short pleated skirts, and leg-colored
tights. They stretch and mill around, talking to one another while absentmindedly doing the semaphore signals that go along
with their cheers. Two of them move off the gravel into the grass and spot each other doing backflips.
The football team has momentarily turned its attention from the cheerleaders to the band’s majorettes, who just took off their
coats, unveiling sequined leotards, fringed wrist cuffs, and white ankle boots. They are all ninth graders, like the restof us, but the whole corps seems to have developed quite graphically overnight: they look middle-aged and lewd, parts of them
drifting out of the packed leotards.
“Band people!”
From a distance Wilton seems small compared to his wife, and he keeps losing his balance and having to jump down from the
bumper. Felicia is standing in a cluster of clarinets, but so far I don’t see any flutes, just an ocean of ill-fitting wool.
Everyone I look at seems to be scratching their neck.
In the same way people can resemble their dogs, the flutes are a thin and tremulous bunch, led by Larue Varrick, a pale, cautious
girl with red-rimmed eyes. I join them, somewhere in the middle, with the woodwinds right behind us. Felicia reaches over
and taps my shoulder.
“This coat is itching me,” she says.
The cheerleaders and the football players are waiting for the band to take shape so they can get into formation behind us.
They’re standing around, some with arms folded, some with hands on hips, watching the proceedings bemusedly, the same way
grown-ups might stand in a doorway and watch a cartoon.
“What’s wrong?” Felicia asks me.
The giant kid on tuba straggles up, his pants dragging, and stops to apply Chap Stick to the bottom half of his face, chin
and all. Two cheerleaders gape at him and then abruptly turn their backs to compose themselves. When they turn back they’re
poker faced, deliberately not looking at each other. Suddenly I’m flooded with the same feeling of humiliation that I get
when someone from school accidentally sees me with my parents.
“What?” Felicia says curiously. In the hat, she looks as tall as the Empire State Building. I can feel my ears standing out
like tabs on either side of my head.
I hadn’t realized before, but now I do: We’ve made a terrible mistake. Band is weird.
I’d like to be the kind of person who can do something weird and not become weird because of it, but that’s out of reach for
me—I am what I do at this point, and if I do this I’m done for. Once I march in their parade, I will be in it forever, uniform
or not.
Felicia, unaware, has gone back to her spot. She’s been stationed in the very middle like a tent pole, and I’m on an end,
where everyone in Zanesville can get a good look.
Help.
Drum roll.
Help.
Cymbals.
With that, Wilton sweeps his arms upward and then downward, sending the band shuffling forward, out of the parking lot and
into the street, toward
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