Read Online Why Aren't You Smiling? by Alvin Orloff - Free Book Online Page B

way to a single vision of life with Rick.
    But being a Burnout involved more than clutter and clothing, it meant eating lunch at the Benches. Every day was an adventure there. Occasionally I’d share a few innocuous words with Kai or another boy, and sometimes I’d even consent to play handball, but mostly nobody spoke to me and I simply observed the amazing variety of bizarre and anti-social behavior. I saw one kid produce a teacher’s purse he’d lifted from her desk, another sold pot right in front of me, and yet another regaled his friends with a lengthy (and possibly fictional) account of screwing our classmate, Janet Bertinelli, who he referred to as his “old lady.”
    Once Douglas spotted me at the Benches. He was alone, and yet acted with the same supreme confidence he’d previously had with his henchmen to back him up. “Hey, Faggot, suck any good cocks lately?” I was appalled. Hadn’t he gotten the message that I was no longer a Dweeb but a Burnout and that this sort of harassment was thus completely inappropriate? He ought to have been holding his nose and saying, “What stinks?”
    â€œLeave me alone,” I pleaded, quickly shoving my sandwich into my book bag. Douglas walked over, and with one swift motion, scooped out my sandwich and threw it into the middle of a handball game. Instinctive fear froze my mind and body. Douglas socked me on the upper arm, hard. “That’s for being ugly.” I covered the injury with my hand. He socked me there again, hurting my fingers as well as my arm beneath. “That’s for being fat.” I pulled my hand away and Douglas re-socked the bruise. “That’s for being a fag.” It felt like my flesh had dissolved into mush and his fist was hitting right against bone. I suppressed a whimper as he hit me again. “That’s for being a Dweeb.”
    This focused my fear, pain, and humiliation into fury. “I am not a Dweeb!” I barked. I couldn’t say I was a Burnout because Burnouts were too indifferent to social categories to call themselves that, but I had to let him know. “I always eat lunch at the Benches!”
    He looked at me quizzically. “So?”
    It occurred to me that Douglas wasn’t terribly bright. He was just a sadist who roamed through the world in search of victims, blithely unaware of all social and spatial divisions. Before I could answer his “So?” I beheld a sight too wondrous for words. The handball players had taken offense at Douglas interrupting their game with my sandwich and were now huddled around Douglas’s book bag… peeing! In spite of the pain in my arm (and the vague sense that people who Loved didn’t laugh at the misfortunes of others), I broke into a joyous cackle. Douglas turned to see what I was looking at and let out a holler.
    There was an altercation, of course. Fists and foul language flew. I wanted to join in the fun, but Douglas was already outnumbered, I didn’t know how to fight, and was a devout pacifist anyway. When finally Douglas left the scene holding his bag by two fingers with a disgusted look on his face, I gave the handball players a standing ovation. They smiled and bowed deeply from the waist like concert pianists and returned to their game. I was left alone to berate myself for my unChristian feelings towards Douglas.
    At Christmas vacation, Danny came home from college. I’d been looking forward to letting him see how I’d transformed, imagining the look of wondrous admiration he’d bestow upon me as I told him about my Journey. I was, after all, rather young to be undertaking such a serious spiritual quest. When he walked in the door, however, I nearly recoiled. His hair was now a little shorter than mine, the respectable medium length of young people on TV sit-coms. After greeting my parents, Danny, as usual, shut himself in his room and began blasting his stereo. I waited a