Bonfire and Bullies


As we drove home, I started giggling. Electra came to the window closest to the driver and asked, “What’s so funny?”

“The thousand-mile stare,” I said. “At some point in the ceremony, just about half the kids suddenly seemed to realize, ‘hey, this is really happening.’ And they seem surprised even after twelve years of preparation. Thirteen for some.“

“Don’t be mean,” she said.

“I wasn’t! I was thinking some of us were in kindergarten.”

“Oh. I thought someone had been set back a grade.”

“Well, yes, ‘Are trees’ did take two tries at tenth grade,” I said. “And he’s one that had the stare.”

“Kinda like you did in New York,” she smiled.

“That was kind of amazing,” I said.

“Are we talking about the same thing?” she asked.

“I hope to Phallic we are!”

“Don’t blaspheme,” she laughed.

We made it through another mile in silence. “So, uh, why did you do it?”

“Well, either I finally trust you enough to share everything with you, or I figured out that by sexing you, I would own you, body and soul.” She laughed. “One or the other.”

“Or both,” I said happily.

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That night was the senior bonfire. Two miles outside of town, someone had set a field aside for as big a pile of wood as we could construct.

I contributed the only thing I’d ever constructed, a bookshelf.

“Is that what it is?” Electra asked. She ran alongside my feet as I dragged it out to the car.

“It’s shelving separated by risers, yes, so it’s a bookshelf.”

“Were you angry when you made it?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

There was one flat smooth side so I slid it down the stairs using that. It wasn’t the top or the bottom, of course.

Electra waited at the top until I was all the way to the bottom, then hopped down after.

Dad was in the kitchen, planning the post-graduation barbecue. Chicken wings were marinating already in tandoori-spiced yogurt, ribs were being rubbed and watermelons were on ice.

“The bookcase!” he said as he saw me round the corner. “You’re not packing that, surely?”

“Bonfire,” I said. I paused as two nails snagged on the carpet.

“Oh, sure,” he said. “Burning the evidence. Who’s your alibi?”

“That would be me, sir!” Electra shouted from his ankle. “We were at the bookstore all night!”

“Will there be alcohol?” Dad asked.

“At the bookstore? Of course not, sir.”

“Good. And how are you getting there?”

“I’m driving,” I said. “But I’m the designated driver. For the bookstore. Which has no alcohol, but there is a cover charge. Coke’s free for the night.”

He paused. “I’m not going to condone underage drinking, but if the choice is a drunk driver of telling a parent, call me.”

“Yes, sir,” we both said.

“That, uh, goes for your friends, too. We can always find a place for someone to sleep it off.” He picked up Electra to hold her were he could look both of us in the eyes. “I’m not saying we’ll hide ANYTHING from their parents, but we will see to it that they’re safe until morning.”

“And then play cymbals to celebrate the hangover,” Mom said as she walked in.

“Which beats the hell out of wrapping something around a telephone pole,” Dad mused.

“I have to get this into the Tantive IV,” I said. I left the door open for Electra to follow.

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We delivered the bookcase early, then I spent the afternoon lining the cargo space with vinyl.

I wasn’t going to take it personally if friends and classmates barfed in my car, but neither was I planning to smell it for the next year.

Chip and Tracie collected car keys and watched for people who were too far gone to celebrate any more.

It got easy when the bonfire was burned down to coals. If people walked to the keg in a straight line over the coals, they were either enlightened beings or too drunk to feel their sneakers melting.

Either way, they were bundled into someone’s car for delivery.

We got them to their porch. That was all anyone had guaranteed. Their car keys went in the mail box or the mail slot by the door.

On the fourth or fifth trip back to the bonfire, Electra noted that the guy I had just dropped off had been a bully for most of my academic career.

“Yeah, so?” I asked.

“You made sure he was comfortable on the porch swing. I’d have dragged him up the gravel driveway face down.”

“Did… Did he ever bully you? I can go back.”

“NO!” she said quickly. “But… Isn’t he the one who locked you in the principal’s office?”

“And made me slip all my clothes out under the door before he unlocked it, yeah,” I remembered.

“Did he unlock it?”

“Not until I had made a pair of pants by stapling lunch menu pages together.” I winced. “I got paper cuts in my-“

“DON’T WANT TO KNOW!” she shouted. I smiled. She smiled back. I pulled into the field to find three guys stacked like cordwood near my parking place. Chip toasted me with a beer. He’d help me load them into the barfmobile. Chrissy, who was staying sober to drive him home, hugged his side.

“I, uh… I’m feeling lucky, Electra. I’m happy, my future is bright, I have friends I never anticipated. I guess I can be generous.”

“Okay,” she said slowly.

“Would you feel better to know that I dragged him over the grass by his underwear? He’s got a wedgie that’ll take power tools to remove.”

“OH, thank God,” she said. “I mean, it’s like I didn’t even know what LANGUAGE you were talking in.”

I laughed and opened the hatch.



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Index

67. Rehearsal

69. Graduation