Read Online Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes by Chris Crutcher - Free Book Online Page A

open.”
    â€œThe point is,” Sarah Byrnes said as Dale stuffed his face with my corn chips, “that Mautz singed Eric’s butt for producing a paper he said was trash, but he used the information in it to singe your butt. And speaking of butts, who do you think got the biggest bang out of you kicking Eric’s?”
    â€œMe?” Dale said, smiling, nodding toward me, salty crumbs sticking to his lower lip and chin.
    Sarah Byrnes shook her head. “Couldn’t have been much of a big deal for you, unless you’re the biggest wus since Mr. Rogers.” She cast a semidisgusted look at me. “You could’ve got a better fight out of Norman Nickerson. Mautz, that’s who really got off on it. He got Eric good and didn’t have to lift a finger because hehad a goon do it for him.”
    Dale achieved a passable imitation of thinking. “Maybe you’re right,” he said finally. “So what?”
    â€œSo we want to keep printing the paper and we don’t want to get killed doing it. We have a deal to make with you.”
    â€œMake it.”
    â€œYou protect us, and your name is never seen in Crispy Pork Rinds again, unless it’s for receiving a Congressional Medal of Honor. You can be on the staff. Every week we’ll let you pick one thing to write about and we’ll do all the grunt work. It’ll be like you’re literate.”
    Dale didn’t pick up on the last comment, but the rest must have sounded good, though he didn’t make any promises. Sarah Byrnes said after he was gone that we were free to go right on pleading the Fifth and cranking out our weekly rag.
    Â 
    It is nearly impossible for me to admit to people, be they friend or foe, what is important to me. A counselor friend of Mom’s once said that’s merely a function of adolescence—that teenagers are into separating from our parents and others in authority in order to establish our independence. To do that effectively we have tobelieve ourselves as immortal and are therefore incapable of facing our emotional truths.
    Well, let me make something perfectly clear (as Richard Nixon says on those old news clips about the Watergate scandal, right before he’s about to fill the room with fog) I am not immortal. I’ve spent more than ten hours in the psych ward with Sarah Byrnes—really and truly the toughest person in our solar system—and I’ll tell you what, if life can shoot Sarah Byrnes out of the sky, it can nail me blindfolded.
    In truth, the only reason I don’t allow people up close and personal with my emotional self is that I hate to be embarrassed. I can’t afford it. I spent years being embarrassed because I was fat and clumsy and afraid. I wanted to be tough like Sarah Byrnes, to stand straight and tall, oblivious to my gut eclipsing my belt buckle, and say, “Up yours!” But I was paralyzed, so I developed this pretty credible comedy act—I’m the I-Don’t-Care-Kid—which is what I assume most other kids do. But I’m not stupid; I believe there is important shit to be dealt with.
    That’s why I like Lemry’s Contemporary American Thought class, which we call CAT for short. Lemry makes it safe to give any idea consideration, and she is ferocious in protecting the sensibilities of anyone willingto take a risk. You can celebrate or slam any idea you want, but you can’t slam people. It’s the most important class I have, and I’m glad both my friends and enemies are signed up.
    Ellerby is there, and so is Mark Brittain.
    And so is Jody Mueller.
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    I almost bowl Brittain over beating the bell into CAT. He’s standing just inside the doorway talking with his girlfriend—who should be mine but doesn’t know it—Jody Mueller, the classiest-looking girl in our school and maybe the Milky Way.
    â€œHey, Mobe, take it easy.” Brittain acts as if he likes me, but after