We were almost to the bridge. I was jumping, but i knew I wouldn't get the same thrill today as I usually do. It wasn't just Duane and I on the bus as usually at this time as we barrel down the hill in the giant yellow North East Community School District bus numbered 6, Lonny was also with us. We were both ten now, and still in the same class. Lonny had grown up to be quite a fat ass.
He had taken to wearing ripped up shirts that were way to big for him. On the shirts were pictures of bangle tigers and great white sharks, and they looked as though they had been washed a thousand times. Lonny also always wore gray sweatpants with stains on them. They weren't piss or shit stains, but weird stains like spaghetto's or chocolate malts. I can't imagine the sweatpants had ever been washed once. I understood that his family was poor, but so was mine, and at least I wore clothes that didn't make me look like the dirtiest kid alive.
At school, my friends and I made fun of Lonny. He was a useless. In class, he would raise his hand and ask the dumbest questions. "Mrs. Loverly, what is the worst planet?" he'd ask. or "Mrs. Loverly, would a dolphin ever eat another dolphin?" I can only imagine that Mrs. Loverly, our 5th grade teacher, hated him as much as we did. She had to.
Mrs. Loverly was great. She lived next door to us, so I had known her for years. This was great, because if i didn't get an assingment done at school, I could just walk it across the road and hand it in after school. However, if i wanted to play sick and skip school, i couldn't go outside after 3pm, for fear of her seeing me. I don't know what she would have done, but I'd feel bad making her do it.
My best friends, Joel Copper and Tyler Todd, and I would call Lonny faggot or queer or homo. I never thought he was gay, i just thought that he sucked and those were the words to describe someone who sucks. But then again, one time a few years ago Lonny told me that sometimes he'd stick his index finger inside his asshole, so he may very well have been gay.
When we hit the bridge, I did fly high in the air. I was happy and it was a lot of fun, even if Lonny was there. Duane was laughing from the drivers seat. I often wondered if this was the best part of his day. If he waited all day just for this moment. If this was why he was a bus driver in the first place, so that he could drive fast down the hill and launch me into the air. This was the only time he ever showed emotion, the rest of the bus ride he looked like he had a terrible tooth ache. he wouldn't smile or say hello to anyone. I am guessing on days when i was sick he was terribly heart broken. Sometimes he'd even talk to me. When i'd step off the bus he'd say "We really got ya up there today didn't we?" and i'd say yep. Then he'd say "Pertner hit your head on the roof huh?", and i said yep again. then i said bye, and he'd shut the doors and drive off.
Lonnie didn't jump. He was asleep with his head against the window of the seat next to mine. I could only imagine he was dreaming of Ross Perot, Captain Picard and Zach Morris playing baseball or of what it would be like to get trapped inside a giant volleyball. He had also started to snore, so I got up and walked the isle to the seat behind Duane and sat down there. I did this while the bus was moving, which would be completely against the rules normally, but since Duane and I were the only ones awake on the bus, so he didn't care.
I had taken a practice mad minute out of my maroon and black Nike trapper keeper and started going over it. How the fuck was I supposed to do 20 multiplication problems in a minute when the numerator was 12? 12 times 0, 1 or 2 was easy enough, but jesus, you'd have to be a genius to know what 12 times 7 was. So i asked Duane what 12 times 7 was, and he answered back, "63", and i wrote that down. Thank God, 1 done.
Then Duane said, "turn around and look at Lonny back there" so i put the mad minute down and turned around to see he was still asleep against the window. Duane told me to watch, and then he jerked the steering wheel of the giant yellow bus quickly from the left to the right. and back. This made Lonny rock up forward and then slam hard into the window. He woke up quick and looked like he had just fallen out of a tree.
"Are you Ok back there Lonny?" Duane said, "a cat rain out in front of us and i was forced to swerve."
Lonnie shook his head and rubbed the side that hit the window, and asked what the cats name was. That made me curious if someone could be really retarded without actually looking like that kid on that tv show.
The reason Lonnie was on the bus still, was because he was going to my house. It was one of my most embarrassing moments of 5th grade.
That morning, Tyler, who i had been friends with since first grade, had made the comment that Lonny smelled exactly like fumunda cheese. I wasn't sure what fumunda cheese smelt like but I knew it was fermented under the ball sacks of sweaty french men, and it made sense that the smell coming off of Lonny was quite comparable, so for the rest of the day we called him "Scroat-meal". Scroat-meal just accepted that we were rude to him, but he would still always be around us. It was as if he liked being picked on, or maybe he just didn't care.
During silent reading, Lonny aka Scroat-meal, would lay on the floor and read the book Sideways Stories from Wayside School while Cinnamon, the class ferret, sat on his face. Tyler, Joel and I were reading a Where's Waldo book. Silent Reading had a great catch 22. We had to read, but, we could read any book on the class book shelves. Which had Where's Waldo books, and Guinness books of worlds records and that sorta thing, along with Beverly Cleary books and Shel Silverstein books. So naturally, we would just look at a where's waldo book.
Tyler said he wondered how his and my grandfathers, who were both named Keith, could be such good friends with Lonny's father, who was the same age as our grandparents. We decided that old farmers could get along, even if one of them had a son who smelt like shit and was pretty much a retard.
I told Joel and Tyler, how I heard once from my aunt that Lonny's older sister Maureen George, who was my fathers age, was a drug addict and that she was actually Lonny's mother. But Maureen was to fucked up to take care of him, so her mom and dad, Donald and Geraldine George, became his parents. At that time they were both in there late 40s.
Joel asked if Lonnie knew about all this, and we agreed it would be terrible to find out all of a sudden that your parents where your grandparents and your sister was your mother. We also came tot he agreement that ol' Scroat-meal was to fucking dumb to care anyways. He could be abandoned out in the woods with a note from his parents that said "Suck It, we hate you!" and he'd just stand there and eat his boogers.
After our conversation during silent reading, we got ready for Social studies when an announcement came over the intercom:
Receptionist: Mrs. Loverly?
Mrs. Loverly: Yes?
Receptionist: Is Albert Elsner and Lonny George there?
I sunk in my plastic chair. An announcement that involved the both of us had to mean trouble. Had someone told on me for putting Cinnamon's shit in Lonny's bag? Or had he himself turned us in for stealing his coat and hiding it in the lost and found box during the Arbor Day Assembly. No matter what, I knew I was totally fucked, and Joel and Tyler knew it too.
They were both staring at me, with faces straight as can be. It was as if they were pleading to me not to rat them out. I was sort of hoping that the receptionist would ask if Joel and Tyler were in the room too, so at least if i went down i'd go down with friends. But still, I could feel the stains in my armpits growing and i felt like i was going to throw up.
Receptionist: Will you tell Lonny that he is to ride the bus all the way to Patrick's after school today?
Mrs. Loverly: I'll tell them.
And just like that I felt a boulder lifted off me and replaced with a large rock. Joel and Tyler went from terrified to ecstatic. Tyler said, "oh Albert, are you two gonna play dolls and have a tea party?" Some kids around us laughed, but i just put my head down.
I wanted social studies to take forever so that the day wouldn't end. As if the schools bells were only to ring when Mrs. Loverly's full lesson plans were finished. We were all reading from the book aloud, taking turns after each paragraph. Tyler picked Lonny to read, and so he did. It took him forever to read a 3 sentence paragraph because he could barely read at all. And he would still pronounce words wrong, like he said "though" instead of "tough". Apparently he thought the indians chasing down a buffalo was very "though" to do.
Of course, when Lonny was finished reading, he picked me to read next. This made Tyler and Joel laugh, and i glared at them. I started to read my sentence about what the hyde of the buffaloes were used for when the bell rang. I now had 40 minutes until it was just Lonny, Duane and myself on the bus.
When i looked up from the seat behind Duane, he was looking into the mirror as if waiting to catch my eye. When I noticed, he smiled and started to talk.
"The cat's name was Blow Job", he told Lonny, and Lonny said that was a funny name for a cat. Then Duane looked at me and i was laughing. Lonny didn't know what Blow Job was, where as I had recently heard it had something to do with when a penis is put in girls mouth. And that was funny.
The bus pulled in front of my drive way and Duane opened the door. Lonny and I got off and Duane said to Lonny before he shut the doors that if he saw the cat on the way home he'd pick it up for him, because he'd really like blow job. Then Duane said that he may just keep it for himself, cause he could use a Blow Job to. Lonny smiled and said thanks.
We walked up the dirt/gravel driveway and Lonny said that the ravines in it looked like the grand canyon, then i said his hair cut made him look like a retard and started to run up the drive way.
I got inside and my mom was waiting by the door. She hugged me and kissed me and asked where Lonny was. I told her that I didn't know. I really knew he was outside, probably on the porch by now, but it seemed cool to pretend that I hadn't noticed he rode the bus to our house.
Lonny walked in the door and my mom said hi, and hugged him too. I thought that was really weird, because my mom never liked Geraldine and always talked about how gross Lonny was when she'd see him out in the yard playing. She would say that it was a shame that his life was sure gonna be tough.
My mom told Lonny and I to go to my room and play. I didn't want to do that, I didn't want him in my room. Thoughts of Lonny, thoughts of Scroat-meal taking a shit on my brand new NFL bed spread, or blowing his nose on one of my t-shirts made me crazy. But, I listened to my mom and we went in anyways.
I pulled the covers off my bed and sat on the sheets. Lonny sat in my Kansas City Chiefs camping chair. The chair looked like it was ready to tear and break from his weight. What a fat shit. What a fat smelly fucker.
I turned on the tv and it was on PBS. Sometimes I'd watch the shows on PBS because i liked them. If Tyler or Joel saw me watching PBS I'd be embarrassed, but I don't know why. Since Lonny was the only one in the room who'd see me watching PBS I wasn't embarrassed, but i don't know why.
The show was about this scientist named Bill teaching us how to build things. On this episode he was showing how to build a volcano out of baking soda and vinegar. Lonny really liked the show, he kept looking at me and saying "that's cool, idn't it?" I didn't answer, and he went back to watching the show.
It actually was kinda cool, the way this reaction, baking soda and vinegar with red food coloring, would make such a mess. I wondered if that's how volcanoes really worked. Obviously, there isn't baking soda and vinegar colored red under ground, but maybe 2 other things mix and make volcanoes blow up. I bet i could ask Mrs. Loverly about this, she'd know. Maybe she would let me make a model like this and do it for the whole class. That'd be really cool.
Then Lonny looked over and asked if i thought it'd be cool if Mrs. Loverly let us build one of these models for class. and i told him that he was gay, and that volcanoes were gay too, and then i clicked the tv off. Lonny wasn't phased he just looked at the window at the cows that were in the field behind our house.
I rolled my eyes at Lonny then started thumbing through my baseball card album i had on the floor. Joel and Tyler may know a lot more about baseball then me, but I have a ton more cards then them. Then there was a knock on my bedroom door.
I opened the door and my mom was standing there. It was weird because no one ever knocked in our house. My mom would usually yell from the kitchen. It always bugged me because she would yell, "ALBIE!" and i would yell back "WHAT?" and she'd yell back "I DIDN'T SAY WHAT, I SAID COME HERE!". It pissed me off because that's not what happened at all. She never said anything except my name. But, the fact that she was knocking on my door was different, as if my bedroom was my own apartment. Thoughts of installing a refrigerator and sink passed through my head, until my mom spoke.
She asked me to come into the kitchen, so i did. Lonny stayed in my room. When i got into the kitchen i could tell that my dad, grandma and grandpa were all in the living room. And so was Maureen, Lonny's Sister/Mom. I hadn't seen her in a long time. I always remembered her being skinny and pretty, but she was fat and ugly now, but I could tell it was her still. She was smoking long cigarettes, longer then my mom and dads. Maureen George was the only person I knew who smoked those.
My mom asked me to sit at the kitchen table, because we needed to talk. I started the conversation, by asking why the heck Lonny was in my room. My mom just looked at me, and said to hold on a second. But I kept talking, I told her how embarrassing it was for me when the news came over the intercom, I told her how much Joel, Tyler and i hated him. How he let the ferret sit on his face. I think i even mentioned the Famunda Cheese, but I can't be sure. The whole time i was talking, my mother just stared at me with sad eyes. As if every word I said was hurting her feelings.
This pissed me off. Why would my mom be so defensive of this little shit. She herself said his life would be tough and that he was gross. So I kept talking I said, that I wanted Lonny to go. I didn't want him in my room, or in our house. Never before had I put my foot down like this, I imagined my father and grandfather would be so proud, me sticking up for myself and my beliefs in such a way. My beliefs of Lonny being a piece of shit asshole who doesn't deserve to be in our ranch style.
Then, after I said that about wanting Lonny out, I stopped talking. My mom still looked sad, and she had a tear in her eye. She grabbed my hands and held them, and told me to listen to her.
She said "There was an accident today Patrick. Lonny's mom and dad, Geraldine and Donny, they died."
I was floored. I felt sick to my stomach, like that time Joel and I drank the brown liquor we found in his grandpa's garage. My mom cried now, it was no longer a few tears. All my hatred for Lonny was gone. All my angst and anger, was gone. I wasn't the same kid i'd spent the last 3 years turning myself into. I wasn't cool, or uncool, or popular. I was just a kid sitting at a table with his mom.
I asked her how. And she told me that this morning, after Lonny got on the bus, Don went out to help Grandpa Keith in the field and the two of them we're working on the hay bailer and something snapped, and it hit Don in the neck. It killed him instantly, and that Grandpa had tried all he could to stop the bleeding, but it wouldn't stop.
All I could see was my grandpa in the field, in the middle of the hot day, trying the best he could to save Don's life, while Lonny was in class laying on the floor reading Sideways Stories from Wayside School with Cinnamon perched on his face.
After a minute, I asked what happened to Geraldine. I guess, my grandpa had put Don in the back of the truck and drove down the field road and over to Lonny's house. He knocked on the door, and when Geraldine came to it he said that he was very sorry. Then she ran to the truck and saw Don laying there, and she couldn't handle it. She had a heart attack and died right there in the driveway. For the second time that afternoon my grandfather watched two of his best friends lives end right in front of him, and he couldn't do anything about it.
It hurt so bad. The news of what had happened this afternoon. It hurt me so bad, and it wasn't even my parents. I barely even knew Geraldine and Don. Sometimes they'd go fishing in Minnesota and have a fish fry and i'd see them there. I always knew they thought Lonny and I were such good friends. I was really sad. I wondered if my Grandpa was ok, I knew that it'd be really crazy to have all that happen in one day.
Then I heard my bed room door open. Lonny must have gotten bored alone in my room, and he decided to come see what was up. That's when it hit me that he had no idea. I mean, I knew he wouldn't know. But when i realized he'd have to be told, it hurt. It seemed forever from the sound of him opening my door and when he finally came around the hall corner and into the kitchen.
"I'm hungry, do you have any tuna fish Sharon?"
That is what Lonny said when he walked into the kitchen. All he wanted was some tuna fish sandwiches, but that wasn't what he was going to get. Instead, he was going to get news that would change his life. His terrible, smelly, tough life. I got up and walked out of the kitchen and right out the front door. I sat down on the porch steps. It was about 6:00, and it was still sunny out. The day was beautiful.
After about 2 minutes of me sitting on the porch, my dog Pogso came over and I started to pet her. after about another minute, Pogso and I heard a loud scream from the kitchen. It was so loud she started barking. I didn't know what the sound was at first, and when i looked in through the window to the kitchen table where my mom and Lonny were, i saw that Lonny was screaming.
He kept screaming "NO NO NO NO", and he was hitting his fists on the table. He started to move his hands around and knocked stuff off the table. The plastic bill holder that sat on the table, that my dad would use to keep track of the bills, it fell to the floor and i can only imagine it broke. There were papers everywhere, and i couldn't see everything through the curtains, but i could see my mom was standing. She grabbed Lonny and hugged him, and he stopped moving, but he continued to scream. "No No No" He just kept screaming the same thing, over and over.
After an hour, I went back in side, it was now starting to get dark, and even though i was 11 years old, i hated being outside alone after dark. Inside, Lonny was in the living room asleep on the love seat. My grandma and grandpa were sitting on the couch, Maureen in the recliner, and my mom and dad were sitting on the fire place platform. no one was talking. not a word. I walked in and sat indian style on the floor in front of my mom and dad.
I still felt sick, knowing what i knew. Knowing that Lonny's life would never be the same. That his mom and dad, even if they weren't his real mom and dad were dead. That he would never see them again. They would never get to hug Lonny, scroat-meal, the smelly fat ass who was there son/grandson whom they loved. I felt like i could throw up, if i had anything in my stomach to throw up.
After a couple minutes, my grandpa looked over at me and said, as if the day was like any other day ever, "So what'd you and Lonny do at school today Albie?". And I threw up all over the carpet.
