My gifts and talents were discovered by others. The first was this guy Fish Head, that had perfected the exact combination of BO and Axe spray to fend off attackers. It was a normal day in math, with me covering notebook pages with drawings because we did smoke-all in that class. Mrs. Jackson would pass out her worksheets and then read a paperback or paint her nails for the rest of the period. To this day, adding up numbers puts that sharp polish smell in my head. This is still the dummy class obviously. I was doing the math tutoring, but it had yet to take.
“Hey Demon, drawl me some different kind of pussies right quick!” Fish Head whispered, and by “whisper,” I mean the entire back of the class laughed.
I was not that acquainted with pussies to know there were different kinds. I asked did he mean like shaved or not shaved, but no. He had names for different types. “Like tits,” he said. “You know how they’s as many kinds of tits as they is kinds of cars?”
I’d never really thought about it. Not that I was admitting to that.
“Like your long low ones.” Fish Head, not being great with words, was trying to explain with his hands. Other guys jumped in to help. “Slab sides, pontoons,” they said. “Vans.”
Somebody had a Playboy, worth a thousand words like they say. I only got to keep it till the end of class, but I can study a thing and keep it in my mind’s eye. I started charging guys for these drawings, fifty cents for parts, a dollar a whole body. Minus the face. For faces and hands I would have to charge extra because they take the most time, and there was no interest. Then I told these guys I needed to keep their magazines overnight, to get better familiar on the different makes and models. My chassis fixation took a new turn.
The one thing I could count on, surprisingly, turned out to be Angus. I’d not had any friend since Maggot, and that had been awhile. You don’t just hang out with a girl normally, but in no way shape or form did Angus seem like one. It wasn’t even the kick-ass boots or knowing cars. It was the zero bullshit. If you ever met a middle school girl, you know what they are: volcano eruptions of bullshit. Every minute a new emergency, the best friend turned enemy. Some guy that was flirting yesterday, now talking to some other girl. Every body part too big or too small and oh I hate this dress and Lord what if I’m pregnant. My own girl experience didn’t run that deep, I mainly knew this from Angus. She had no tolerance, and needed to gripe. A lot.
“So I told Michaela, look, your ass is your ass. Simple fact. It’s going to look that way whether you’re wearing those particular jeans or not, so why keep asking me?”
“‘Or not,’” I said, “is something to picture.”
“Don’t go there, young friend.”
Too late, I already had. Artist’s rendition. Angus wouldn’t know this, being no part of the Fish Head crowd, but the Ass of Michaela was a legend in its time.
Angus paused her gripe to hand me a leaf bag, Mattie Kate being on a tear that fall about raking up the yard. Maybe just wanting us out of her hair while she vacuumed, or not in Angus’s room on PlayStation all hours. Raking leaves though. There’s always more going to fall. I shoved leaves in those bags till they were dead packed, like bags of bricks. My disposal experience was vast. “Okay,” I said. “You preached. Check Michaela off your ass-pain list.”
“Oh, no. This is not Mario where you blast the Goomba and it’s gone. Michaela is the undead of Monkey Island. She keeps coming back.”
My choice for those leaves would have been arson, but the county had outdoor burning laws, and Angus as far as legal shit was a freaking cop. It made no sense, given the whole thugged-outedness of her, but her worry was Coach. He could lose his job in a heartbeat.
“So we’re in PE, I’m minding my own beeswax, and here comes Donna.” （Cue the Minnie Mouse voice.） “‘Elizabeth told me Michaela said to tell you she’s not talking to you.’ And I’m like, I’m sorry, was Michaela under the impression I wanted conversation? I was assigned to her as partners on our Antarctica project because Mr. Norwood gives me the charity cases, and Michaela thinks penguins live at the North Pole with Santa’s motherfucking elves.”
You had to be amazed any girl would try, but some did. Maybe because of Coach, anything in his orbit being godlike. Or maybe it was Angus they wanted a piece of, the attitude, clothes, whatever. Doomed efforts. She did have guy friends, nerds and gamers, this Sax individual that played drums. Most guys though were terrified of Angus. Me included. But with Coach permanently checked out, it left a gap. The deeper we went into fall, the less we saw of him at home. The Generals were undefeated, opponents falling one by one, and every soul in Lee County dead proud. At practice, the smallest screwup would mean an extra half hour of suicides up the bleachers and Coach shitting his mood all over the grass. One man’s fail is every man’s punishment, a team is a body, etc. At home he lived in his office watching replays. He never even knew about the Mr. Armstrong business, he just signed the forms without looking.