by Bill Tope
In the basement of the high school gym, the boys were gathered round the wrestling mat next to the Universal Gym, waiting their turn to do pushups.
“Forty pushups gets you an A,” barked Coach Hamm, the varsity football coach and instructor for the junior boys’ PE classes. “Thirty gets you a B,” he continued, and so on. “Scott!” he snapped.
A fit-looking boy, with short blond hair and rippling muscles, stepped forward and dropped into position.
“Go,” shouted Coach Hamm.
Immediately, Scott began rapidly extending his arms and dropping to the floor, over and over again. At length, he reached the end of his endurance and sprang lightly to his feet.
“75!” said Hamm. “Good work, Mitch!”
A broad grin flashed across the young man’s unblemished face and he took his place with the other boys.
“Dykstra!” snapped out Hamm, and a pale but sinewy boy stepped forward. “You should be able to beat Mitch, Kenny,” said Hamm with a grin. “After all, you’re a gymnast.”
Dykstra dropped to all fours and rapidly ran off 100 pushups. He seemed to be capable of doing them forever, but mercifully ceased.
“Maybe I should grade on the curve,” suggested the coach with a grin, and all the other boys groaned. “Okay, O’Toole!” he shouted next. Several of the boys chuckled.
Flynn O’Toole, medium-sized and gaunt and and stick-thin, reluctantly came forward and assumed the position.
“C’mon, Pick!” shouted several boys in ridicule. “Betcha’ he can’t do 5,” one told the others. Wagers were made all around.
“Get busy, O’Toole,” growled the coach impatiently. “We ain’t got all day.”
With difficulty, Flynn lowered his torso to the mat and struggled vainly to push himself up again.
After thirty seconds, Hamm came forward and said gleefully, “That’s none…”
Everyone laughed.
At length, Flynn climbed to his feet, his face red, and shook his head in defeat.
“You have to do at least 10 just to get a passing grade–Pick!” said Coach Hamm with a smirk.
With a shrug, Flynn returned to his mates.
_______
In the cafeteria, Flynn sat alone, as he was apt to do, and nibbled with his bad teeth at the Velveeta sandwich his mother had packed for him. There was a cacophany arising from the other children, but Flynn had no part of it. Suddenly, a magical figure materialized at his elbow. It was Kandy, the head cheerleader, vice president of the student body and editor of the student newspaper. Everyone loved Kandy, including Flynn.
“Hi, Flynn,” she said, leaning over his table.
She was, thought Flynn, beautiful. And nice! She was the only person who didn’t call him Pick, though in fairness, most students didn’t talk to him at all.
“Buy a copy of the Daily Crimson, won’t you, Flynn?” she asked sweetly.
Flynn became aware that others were staring at the drama unfolding before them: the school’s most popular and glamorous girl talking to the most unpopular and dweebish boy.
“How much?” he finally managed to ask.
“Ten cents,” Kandy replied.
Flynn fished around in his pocket and then handed the world’s prettiest girl a dime.
She smiled and handed him a copy of the newspaper, said “thanks, Flynn,” and like that, was suddenly gone.
Flynn sat at his table, reading the paper, when Big Rich, the all-state tackle for the football team, walked by and casually poured his lemon Jello onto the paper as he passed. The other students snickered and Flynn crashed back to reality.
_______
“Flynn,” said Flynn’s mom Lilith, “you did good at school this quarter.” She had been reading Flynn’s report card, where he got straight As, but for physical education, where he received only a D-. Coach Hamm had only passed him so he could graduate with the rest of his class. It wasn’t compassion, but rather pressure brought to bear by the school board.
“You didn’t do so well in PE, though,” she remarked. “What happened, son?” she asked.
Flynn shrugged. “I can’t help if I’m not a jock,” he complained.
“That’s okay, you passed,” she said. Lilith had not finished high school.
Flynn looked up. “Thanks, Mom.” She smiled at him with love.
“What classes do you have this quarter?” she asked. The new quarter began next Monday.
“Biology, Trig, Government, PE and American Literature.”
Lilith looked wan. “Well, I can’t help you with any of those classes,” he lamented. “I ain’t smart like you. You should do really good in your literature class; you’re a good reader.”
This was true. The only subject which Flynn enjoyed was reading. He read rapidly and retained all he read. He was proficient at writing essays and themes as well.
“I’ll do my best, Ma,” he said gamely. His mother was his only friend.
“I wish your pa was alive, he was smart,” murmured Lilith sadly. His father had perished in Korea.
Flynn was the only boy in his upper-middle class high school who had but one parent.
_______
There was a buzz running through the classrooms and the corridors at Bellevue High School spring quarter; senior prom was imminent and there was a frenzied rush to get a date and buy prom dresses and rent tuxedos and wash the cars and all the rest.
Flynn sat on the steps leading up to the school before class, finishing his reading. He was perusing The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, the classic by Flynn’s favorite author, Mark Twain. On her way up the steps, Kandy paused and asked Flynn to explain a passage in the text, which Flynn was happy to do. He’d formed a tight friendship with the girl over the past couple of years.
“Thanks, Flynn,” she said breezily, then paused and asked him, “Who are you taking to prom?”
Deadpan, he told her, “I thought I’d take you.”
For just a second, the girl looked stricken, before she realized he was only kidding, then she smiled, punched him in the shoulder and finished climbing the stairs.
Flynn fantasized about attending the prom on the arm of the prettiest girl in the world, then popped back to reality, smiled self-consciously and shook his head. The Flynns lived close to the belt and in any event, couldn’t afford for Flynn to attend the prom. Besides, they didn’t even own a car. He put the issue to the back of his mind. Also, Kandy had confided to him that she was attending prom with Dean, the captain of the football team. Kandy was madly in love with the sure prom king. Flynn was happy that Kandy was happy.
_______
“Flynn,” said Lilith that night, “who are you taking to prom?”
Flynn did a double take. “Prom?” he asked. “I’m not going.”
“Why not, son?” asked Lilith with concern in her voice.
“Because,” he began. “I don’t have any dough. They charge for these things, you know,” he said lightly.
“I’ll pay,” she offered.
Flynn immediately felt guilt. His mother cleaned houses for $1 an hour. That, plus the social security they received for his dead father, didn’t go far. Flynn was embarrassed when she sent him to collect food from the commodities outreach. Children heckled him for being “on the dole.”
“I can’t, Ma,” he protested. He really wanted to go, but then, he wanted to be six feet four inches tall and built like Big Rich. He wanted a girlfriend, a college education and a career…. “We ain’t got a car,” he said bluntly.
Lilith sighed. “I can’t buy you a car, I’m afraid, son. Maybe your date could drive, or her father?”
“It’s too late to ask anyone,” he said. “All the good ones are already taken.” He immediately felt like a heel. Why should he, Pick, expect to date a “good one?”
“I never got to go to prom when I was a girl,” remembered Lilith. “I always felt like I missed out.”
“Why didn’t you go?” asked Flynn.
“Well, I dropped out of school to go to work, when I was 16,” she said. “It was the depression, and a lot of kids couldn’t stay in school. I wasn’t a good student anyway, not very smart,” she said. “I always hoped for better for you, Flynn,” she said wistfully.
Flynn regarded his mother, the only person who had ever loved him. Who ever liked him. He saw a glistening of moisture in her eyes. He made up his mind. “Ma, I’ll go to prom. I’ll find me a date.”
Lilith instantly beamed.
In Biology class, Flynn was attempting to pith his frog, but was having a hard time of it. The creature flopped in his hand and he ran the stylus through the roof of its mouth.
“Shit,” he whispered.
The frog leaped from his hands and sped across the floor of the lab, leaving a trail of blood.
“Hey, Pick,” shouted one boy. “You pithed off your frog!” The children laughed uproariously. Just one girl didn’t laugh. Janine, the school skank, stared blankly at the unfolding drama.
Flynn glanced at her. She wasn’t at all unattractive, in a well-used sort of way. But her clothes were bargain basement and her makeup was more than just a bit overdone. He thought for an instant of asking her to prom, but realized he’d become even more of a school joke, a laughing stock, for taking the girl that every boy had been with, to the toniest event of the school year. He put the idea out of his mind.
______
Kandy stepped up to the mic on the stage of the auditorium during study hall and announced. “Still time to get your prom tickets and tickets for the after-prom. Don’t be the last one!” Flynn’s mom had paid for tickets and had been after him again to ask out a girl, although he’d tried and failed many times. Either the girl was already spoken for or else she would rather slash her own wrists that be seen in public with the Pick. As she walked past him up the aisle to the exit, Kandy paused for a moment and said, “Hi Flynn, did you get a date for prom yet?”
He shook his head sadly.
“Debbie Henson doesn’t have a date,” she told him cautiously.
“Debbie Henson?” he repeated.
Kandy nodded. “She’s a really nice girl, Flynn,” she coaxed. “And I know she wants to go to prom.”
“I don’t know, Kandy,” said Flynn. “I don’t even have a car.”
“Debbie has a car,” she said shortly, squeezed his shoulder, dropped something into his lap and left.
Flynn sighed. Debbie Henson was easily the homeliest girl in the junior class. She had a droning, foghorn voice, no social graces and was just butt-ugly. He shivered. She’s probably never been kissed, he thought. But then, he remembered, neither had he. He glanced down at the piece of paper that Kandy had dropped into his lap. It was Debbie Henson’s telephone number.
_______
“Could I speak to Debbie?” asked Flynn, sitting at the kitchen table and using the phone on the wall.
“Ask her nice, son,” said Lilith, passing under the outstretched coil of telephone wire on her way from the room.
“Hello!” barked Debbie, finally coming to the phone. “Who is this?” she asked.
“This is Flynn.”
“Who?” Debbie said in a loud, unfriendly voice.
“Flynn,” he repeated.
“Look, I don’t know any Flynn,” said Debbie impatiently. “Is this a crank call?” she asked suspiciously.
Flynn rolled his eyes. “Flynn O’Toole,” he said. “I sit right next to you in math,” he reminded her.
“Oh!” she said. “You mean Pick?” and she laughed coarsely.
“Yeah,” he said self-consciously. “Pick.”
“Whatta’ you want?” she demanded huffily.
Flynn shook his head. She wasn’t making this easy. “I wanted to ask you if you wanted to go to prom with me.”
“You waited until two days before the prom to ask me out?” she shrilled. “Well, I already got a date, pal.”
Flynn bleakly wondered who could be as undemanding as him to ask Debbie Henson out. “I see,” he said.
“Besides, I wouldn’t be caught dead at a dance with a Pick!” Then she slammed down the phone.
Flynn sat blinking into the receiver before hanging up.
“No luck, honey?” asked Lilith, suddenly appearing at his side.
He shook his head. “Sorry, Ma.”
“You could go stag,” she suggested weakly, then left the room.
_______
Mrs. Wilson drifted around the room, passing out graded exams for her American Literature class. She handed out Big Rich’s paper and he grimaced.
“Better luck next time, Richard,” said Mrs. Wilson. She handed out Kandy’s paper next, smiled at the popular girl. “B+, Kandy, nice going!” Kandy beamed, turned at her desk and gave Flynn a thumbs up.
After class, Kandy approached Flynn, gave him a one-armed hug. “Thanks for the helping explain Huck Finn,” she said.
“That’s alright,” he said.
“What grade did you get?” she asked.
He showed her his paper: an A+.
She grinned. Just then a dark shadow fell upon the two as Big Rich loomed over them. “Making me look like a stupid ass again, Pick!” growled Rich.
“Maybe that’s only because you are a stupid ass,” retorted Flynn unwisely. He was tired of being picked on by this nitwit.
With that, Big Rich grabbed the smaller boy by the collar and flung him into a locker, where he spilled back out onto the floor.
Coach Hamm, acting as hall monitor that day, put his beefy arm around Rich’s shoulder and steered him away. “Easy, big guy,” he soothed.
“Thanks for all your help, Coach,” said Flynn sardonically, picking himself up from the floor. Hamm smirked and left without another word. Kandy brushed Flynn’s clothes off and then walked away.
Flynn looked up with a start to find another girl staring owlishly through her spectacles at him. It was Janine, the school whore. “Wha… what?” he asked.
“Something you ought to learn, O’Toole,” she said meaningfully. Well, he thought, at least she didn’t call him Pick.
“What?” he asked.
“There’s six square inches of any boy, which make him vulnerable. Any boy.” He stared at her. “Next time,” she told him, “kick him in the balls. He’ll be down for the count. Trust me,” she said, and then she walked away. Flynn stood staring after her.
_______
On prom night, Flynn stood outside the high school gymnasium, which had been converted for the occasion into a ballroom. He was dressed in torn jeans and a Grateful Dead tee shirt and staring at the windows of the building, which were blazing with light. The festivities had been proceeding for a couple of hours. He could hear the music through the windows, all the latest tunes: the Stones, the Doors, the Beatles, even some Velvet Underground and Fats Domino. All the music that Flynn liked. He would’ve liked to be inside, dancing with the other kids, but he hadn’t been able to find a date and even Pick wouldn’t endure the shame of going stag. Only losers did that. All the jocks had dates, he thought, as well as the guys who majored in shop and auto mechanics. He sighed, then plopped down on the bench.
Suddenly he realized he was no longer alone. He looked up and saw a willowy figure; a girl: it was Janine. She was staring at him. “Janine,” he said.
“O’Toole,” she replied.
“Why aren’t you inside?” he asked.
She didn’t answer at first, but rather took a seat next to him on the bench. “Didn’t get an invite,” she said briskly.
Flynn was stunned. “But,” he said, “you’re pretty.”
Janine’s lips twisted wryly. “And?” she said.
“I mean,” stammered Flynn, “even Debbie Henson got a date.”
“I’m a skank, O’Toole. The school whore.”
“That’s not what I meant,” he said hastily.
“It’s the truth, though,” insisted Janine. “I know I’m a laughing stock, the school joke. They think I’ve done it with everyone, balled every boy in school.”
“I never said that,” protested Flynn.
“You thought it, though,” she persisted. “It’s why most of the girls hate me.”
He shrugged. “So, what’s the truth?”
“I’ve made it with a lot of guys,” she admitted. “Not as many as they say, but there have been a lot.”
“Why do you do it?” he asked out of curiosity.
“Why does anyone do it?” she asked rhetorically. “It’s new, it’s different, it marks you as an adult. It’s fun, sometimes, and it makes people like you, accept you. I don’t know, because boys expect it and pay attention to you for it. You get invited out and…” She brought a hand to her face.
“Then why aren’t you at prom?” asked Flynn again.
When Janine took her hand away, Flynn could see a tear glistening in one eye. “Because, at this school, prom is big shit, they put your picture in the newspaper and in the yearbook, and no one wants their picture in the yearbook with the town whore, the big joke. Oh, I got offers to meet up with guys tonight, after the prom, so they could prove their manhood or something, but…”
“Are you gonna do it?” asked Flynn softly.
“I’m here, aren’t I?” she said in a hard voice. “What are you doing here?” she asked, as if registering the boy’s presence for the first time.
“I couldn’t get a date.”
“Flynn, I would’ve gone with you,” she said quietly.
Was she joking? he wondered. They looked at each other for a long moment before Flynn quipped, “You’re that hard up, huh?” They both laughed and laughed, until they cried. In the distance a siren wailed plaintively.
Janine and Flynn sat and talked for the next hour, discovered that they had virtually nothing in common beyond an affection for the Beatles, until Janine checked her watch and remarked that “prom’s over. They’re pigging out at the after-prom now.”
“Hey,” said Flynn, “you hungry?”
“Starving,” she replied.
“Then let’s eat,” he invited, rising to his feet and gesturing at the gym.
“But, we don’t have dates,” Janine said.
“We do now,” he said, and offered up a skinny arm.
“We don’t have tickets,” she objected anew.
Flynn pulled the tickets his mom had worked so hard to pay for out of his breast pocket. “We do now,” he said again.
“But, look how we’re dressed!” she exclaimed.
“So what?” asked Flynn.
“Aren’t you embarrassed to be seen with the school whore?” she wanted to know.
“Perfect date for a Pick,” he replied.
Janine smiled, took Flynn’s arm and then stopped. “Flynn,” she said, “do you want to do it first?”
He could see the uncertainty in her eyes. “No,” he said. “I just wanna eat.”
“Then, afterward, we can…”
“Janine,” he told her, “I just want to spend time with you, you know, enjoy your company.” She looked at him. “I don’t want to make you pregnant,” he added. She pulled back a step.
“Is that what it is?” she asked. “Don’t worry, you won’t. I’m already pregnant.”
“How do you know? You don’t look pregnant,” said Flynn.
“I was pregnant one time before. I know what it feels like.”
“Where’s your baby now?”
“There wasn’t one. I had an abortion.” When he didn’t say anything, Janine asked, “Still wanna have a ham sandwich we me?”
“Roast beef,” he said. “No, are they gonna make you drop out of school?” asked Flynn.
She shook her head no. “I’m graduating early,” she said.
“Are you getting another abortion?” he asked.
“I don’t know. The guy doesn’t even know I’m pregnant. That we’re pregnant.”
“You know who the father is?” Flynn asked.
Janine shook her head no, then grew quiet and said, “I know who it is.” She looked at Flynn.
“Who?” he asked.
“It’s Dean,” she replied. “Close your mouth, Flynn.”
He did so. “You’re pregnant with Dean Steele’s child?” he asked. Dean’s girlfriend, Kandy, was Flynn’s best friend.
“No, I’m pregnant with my baby, Flynn.”
“Does Dean even know you’re pregnant, Janine?”
She shook her head.
“You gonna tell him?” asked Flynn.
“Maybe. If I decide to keep it.”
“Won’t Dean know that you’re having his kid?” asked Flynn.
“Who’s to say it’s his. After all,” she said facetiously, “I do it with every boy in school.”
“Then how do you know it’s his?”
“Because, I don’t do it with every boy in school. Haven’t you been listening? Also, I know how to clock my ovulation and I know when I menstruate. It’s all math, Flynn; a brain like yours should appreciate that,” she said a little sharply. “I thought we were becoming friends.”
“We are. We have. Hey,” he said. She looked up. “Let’s go eat a sardine sandwich or something.” Wrapping one thin appendage around her shoulders, Flynn led Janine into the gym. There was no one at the door to take their tickets.
The after-prom was a melee, but not because everyone was enjoying themselves. One food-laden table had been overturned and meats and bread and drinks and condiments had been spilled over the gym floor. A small lake of pop lay upon the highly polished wood surface. In the foreground, a collapsed gurney stood nearby. Two burly EMTs silently lifted a prone figure onto the contrivance. Flynn craned his neck to see who it was, but couldn’t tell. One of the paramedics swiftly pulled a white sheet up over the head of the apparent victim.
“Oh my God,” said Flynn. “Someone’s died.” The cloth under which the body lay was covered with bright red blood. At that point, Flynn looked around the room and found the 50 or so remaining prom-goers clustered behind them, staring morbidly at the grisly procession. The emergency workers steered the gurney from the room. At that point, everyone released a collective breath.
Flynn and Janine driftled back to where the others were standing. “What happened?” Flynn asked.
“Go screw, Pick,” snarled Big Rich darkly.
Flynn’s mouth fell open. For a while there he’d forgotten that he was the lowly Pick. There was only one person who would give him a straight answer. He looked round for Kandy, but didn’t see her.
“Where’s Kandy?” he asked the crowd at large.
“You just seen here leave,” he was unpleasantly informed.
A spear of ice penetrated his chest and ripped through his heart. Kandy? He turned to watch the vanishing gurney, but already it had disappeared.
The students were sequestered into groups by the newly arrived police and interrogated at length by a detective. They didn’t emerge from the site of the after-prom and the tragedy until well after 4AM. Parents of some of the kids arrived and asked after their children. Flynn asked anxious questions, but the police were in the business of asking questions, not answering them. Word finally got around, however, that Kandy Dutton, the most beautiful girl in the world, had taken her own life by the brutally garish method of slashing both her wrists. She’d performed this macabre procedure in the restroom, then come streaking back into the gym, where she bled out. Why had she done it? No one would say.
_______
Flynn and Janine were having lunch in Flynn’s kitchen, a familiar habit over the past week, when the school had been shuttered due to the Kandy Dutton tragedy.
“Why do you suppose she did it, Jan?” Flynn asked his new friend for the umpteenth time. He had gotten over the shock, but not the horror of the episode.
Janine shrugged, but Flynn could tell she was holding something back.
“What is it? Tell me,” he implored.
“I told Kandy,” she said.
“You told Kandy what?” asked Flynn.
“I told her I was pregnant,” she replied.
Flynn stopped with his soup spoon halfway to his lips. “You what?” he said louder than he’d wanted to.
“I told her I was carrying Dean’s child,” she said. “I felt she had a right to know.”
“Then that’s why Kandy killed herself, because you betrayed her,” charged Flynn excitedly.
“Dean betrayed Kandy,” she asserted. “Kandy was my friend too, Flynn. And she and Dean weren’t even a couple when Dean and I…” She looked across the room at Lilith, who’d been listening attentively. Janine blushed.
“I think I can add something to your discussion which might shed some light on things,” Lilith said unexpectedly. Both children looked at her.
“In the newspaper today, it was revealed that Kandy Dutton was 12 weeks pregnant,” said Lilith. “And,” she went on, “your friend Dean admitted to being intimate with her and said she’d told him she was pregnant. The newspaper story said that the young man had denied to the girl that he was responsible. Said he was going off to college on a football scholarship and didn’t want any… what’d he call it… strings, I think they wrote. He was very broke up about it. He said he was in love with the girl. Too late for that now,” she said thoughtfully. Lilith slipped out through the doorway.
“Sorry I jumped your case, Jan,” said Flynn contritely. “I was just so upset at losing Kandy that I guess I was looking for someone to blame.”
“That’s alright, Flynn. I guess Dean was just no good to anyone. He’ll never see hide nor hair of my baby.”
Flynn’s head shot up. “You’re gonna keep it, then, keep the baby?” he said, very pleased.
She nodded her head, her eyes aglow with a light he’d not seen before.
“Janine,” he said, “I know you’ll need help with the baby, and I’d like to be there for you, even if it’s just as a friend. I care,” he said.
“Don’t ever say ‘just’ a friend, Flynn,” scolded Janine lightly. “There’s room for you in our lives, for sure.”
“What about a name?”
Janine nodded. “Yes, I think I’ll give it one. Good idea.”
Flynn scowled. “No, I mean what name?”
“Well,” she said thoughtfully, “if it’s a girl, then Kandy.” Flynn nodded his approval. “And if it’s a boy, I’ll name it after you.” Flynn grinned broadly. “I’ll call it Pick,” she said, then laughed gaily.