Got up at 4:30 as usual. Splashed cold water in my face from the basin that Ma laid out on the table for me. Tripped into the itchy thread of my morning work clothes and I was off to hoe.
Three grueling hours of getting each indention for our field just right for Pa to seed-sprinkle just behind me later. Then I got breakfast: eggs, grits, and potato skins. Then the bus's tires cold be heard squealing to a stop outside. "Have a blessed day at school, Zeb," said Ma. "You too," I thoughtlessly returned. I tried to correct it when I saw my mistake. "I mean... does the house still count as a school if I ain't going here no more?" She slapped my shoulder playfully with a towel. "Get on, you corn dog!" I did as I was carried all the way to the bus by my smile. It simpered away once on there. Always hated the eyes on me once at the judgment seat of the other kid's eyes. I don't look back on school like a tragedy. Everyone got picked on in one way or another. Still, the uniqueness of my torment yet stung all the harder. A dirty blonde guy named Rye popped his freckly head out at me. "Dear GOD on high, Z! Take a ****ing bath at least once in your life, man!" His smaller version of his brother, Trevor, agreed. "Yeah. You stiiiinky!" I muttered, "Sorry," before getting to my seat. I usually sat alone since everyone called me stinky. I didn't think I smelled that bad. Just a little sweaty from working in the fields all morning. I don't even wear the same shoes. I shrugged it off as usual and began to skoot towards the window. But then I realized that I wasn't sitting alone. What looked like a lump of laundry was tussled up near me. I peered closer to hear it snoring. Didn't recognize the matching dark blue of hooded jacket and sweat pants obscuring the face. Sensing my presence, the hooded one muffly said, "Don't bother me. I'm dead asleep. Wake me, and I'll punch your butt." I stiffened to this and left this person alone. Too bad Rye and Trevor didn't have the same concern about me. I felt the flash of their camera phones. Startled me at first because they reminded me of the Miliphen's blasts for a sec. This nonsense again, I inwardly groaned. "Hey guys. Stop taking pictures of me please. My parents don't want me on social media. It's against our ways." Rye giggled. "Don't be a d*** a in the mud, Zebulon. We trying to make you internet famous, boi." Rye focused back on his phone to show me the image. It was me but with some kind of rainbow filter. "Gay Amish Pride!" he sang. Oh. Yeah. Rainbows. Ugh. "Don't post that, Rye. Stuff like that is against our ways too." I don't know why I tried to paw it from them. Just didn't want another after-school meeting. Rye always was too fast for me and it only makes him badger me more. "Whoa, bro. You some kind of homophobe? But Trevor was about to confess his undying love for you." "Shut up, Rye. Everyone knows you suck more d*** than anyone." "Yeah," snorted Rye, "I know you jealous. Besides, didn't you know you're more likely to be gay if you have a brother?" Trevor snickered with a dismissive wave of his hand. "Now you talking incest, Rye? You gonna give Z a stroke over there if you keep that up." I wasn't having this. "Please just delete it, Rye? I don't want you suspended again." I pawed at it again like a fool. He grabbed my wrist, twisted it with a sting, and yanked me towards his harsh face. He spoke in a spitty lisp. "Well that wouldn't happen if someone didn't keep telling on me, you dumb f***." Trevor whooped gayly. "Give Zeb a sloppy kiss, lover boy!" Rye torqued his head to Trevor. "Man, shut up!" I tried to wriggle from Rye's grip on my shirt. I stepped away only to tumble into the hoody. "That's it," its previously muffled voice shrilly snapped. Pandemonium was ablaze all around me. I felt the fists bludgeon into the left side of my neck. I rolled back even more until I was on my butt. From my new angle I saw the sweat pants twirling on my slapping fists, clearly obscured by the hood over the face. The blinded fist flurry fell into Rye and Trevor. They were cut from their debate as the knuckles fired into them. Before I could process any more of the madness, it was over. The bus halted to an abrupt lurch of a stop. "Huh?" The hood flapped off to reveal a red-headed girl's hair. She looked about the devastation. "Please tell me I'm dreaming," she said aloud, seemingly to me. This visit to the Principal was not before school this time. We also had an extra guest. We sat in the lobby facing each other. Trevor and Rye were on two chairs facing the sweat pantsed girl and I. Everyone was blood snorting on their napkins except me. I got an ice cube for my neck and wrist. We stared at each for a minute that burned like an hour. The morning sun flecked through the curtains into my wincing eyes. That made me even more ansy. Then the girl started talking. "Sorry I went savage there, fellas. Just cranky and tired because I been having all nighters on the screens." "Screens?" I found myself saying. She looked at me. "You know... the screens," she explained. She went on undeterred by my vacant stare. "Most go for one. Me? I gots four, baby. Binging on one, games on another, ebook on another, music on another." She put a tone of admitting pride in her words. "Yeah. I'm pretty wired (mostly on coffee)." "That's really unhealthy," chimed in Rye. "You need your sleep, not to mention your eyes... you could go blind from that s***." "Yeah," she conceded, "I know. I guess I'm addicted. Been cutting down on it, but i was so nervous about my first day here that I couldn't help but backslide on the old all-nighter habit again." She came back to me as if I needed the most convincing. "Doing it calms me down. Like I'm staving off an inevitable worry or something, y'know?" "Well sorry you're having a bad first day, miss." She snorted with giggles peppering her napkin with blood. "Miss? Who says that anymore?" "Just look at him," sneered Trevor, "he's the salt of the earth. He Amish." This stopped the laughing, but started new nonsense. "Oh, cool. So your family doesn't do screens like me?" I shrugged with an obvious nod to this followed by a smirk. She flapped her face down in slight, silly shame. Then her crimson locks flipped her back up. "Sorry. I'm stupid. I'm also Bethany... Bethany Jefferson." She extended her hand. I shook it. After an awkward smile exchange I remembered it was time to say my name. "Zebediah... Zebediah McTaggart." "Gonna introduce us to your new girlfriend, Zeb?" broke in Rye with a sneer. I didn't know what to say to that. So I averted my eyes from him. Rye proceeded for me. "I'm Rye," he said with an eye roll over me. "I'm Trevor," Trevor said. "We're the Cringe Bros!" They tonelessly belted with a matching pose of their raised arms. "Cringe Bros? Where have I heard that before?" Beth asked aloud. I like just calling her Beth. "Whoa, dude! She heard of us," squeed Trevor. "As a screen junkie maybe you saw our Youtube channel! We do bad-ass vlogs and pranks! We're gonna be the next Paul brothers!" It clicked for Beth. "Oh yeah! You guys did that... mooning prank...?" "Yeah," went Trevor. "Back in March, right? I think it was called: 'We Mooned the Mail man?' Or was that the garbage man one? I think it was in April? Do you remember, Rye?" "So," Rye said in a husky, self-assured voice, "You like what you saw, Bethy? I'm in pretty good shape down there wouldn't you say?" Beth was thankfully as visibly appalled as I was. "Okay," she replied in a raised tone, "I didn't even say that I liked the video there, bud. So keep your shorts on." "What?" said Trevor as it looked like Beth was crushing his dreams of internet fame. "No offense, really," she explained, "that Paul brothers type stuff isn't for me." "We're not literally like the Paul brothers. It's like... what's it called, Rye?" "Satire..." Rye said turning to the window to take in Beth's rejection. "Yeah. We're just making fun of them. That's why we call ourselves the Cringe Bros. Please don't tell me you disliked it..." Trevor seemed to be on the verge of tears. Beth got really nice about it. "Don't take it so personally, dude. I never hit dislike. I just stop and watch another vid. People just have different preferences." She looked at me for an example. "Zebediah here prefers his Amish Paradise, ya'll prefer to be content creators that I don't prefer, while I just watch what suits me." "Like what?" I found myself asking. "Lots of stuff," she replied, very pleased to share her interests. "Basically all the educational stuff that they don't bother with at school: philosophy, film analysis, politics- the works. I also enjoy lets-plays and the occasional meme compilation too." She might as well have been speaking German to me, but I liked to see her smile. "Zeb," called Principal Ruth, "your parents are in my office. Let's do it." I tried to toss a last look at Beth, but my eyes fell into seeing lewd gestures from the Cringe Bros. One pair of hands: the churn. The other: the butter. They dropped it before the Principal could join my eyes on them. In the office sat Ma and Pa. Both of their arms were crossed. "As your parents and I were discussing we've been trying to figure out what to do about your education situation." "Here we go," mumbled Pa, seeing what was coming. "Are you okay, Zeb?" she said feeling out my face as if the camera 'stole my soul.'" "Fine, Ma. Kids just being jerks." She snapped her neck back to Principal Ruth. "You still haven't answered my question. How can you keep letting such incidences keep happening?" Ruth replied, "I understand your frustration, Mrs. McTaggarat. This school has worked hard to be accepting and understanding of Zeb's culture." "Yet the harassment continues under your watch." "Well, to be fair... this was outside of school grounds..." "You being flippant with me?" "No, Ma'am. Just stating a fact." "So what are you doing about this?" "The Kramer brothers will be put into detention after school today, during which time they'll be better educated on how to respect your family's proud heritage. Then they'll both be suspended again for a day." Ma whirled away in disbelief and back to him in fury. "Yes. Because that's worked so well the last twenty times this year. Can't you try to approach this in a different, more impactful way?" "I'm afraid we can't. Bullying and harassment must always mean detention, suspension, and education on better behaviors." "The pictures were deleted, yes?" added Pa. "Yes, Mr. McTaggarat. Apologies for not mentioning that. We both recall how important it is to your beliefs that we not allow anyone to put your son on social media." "Very good, Mr. Ruth." Pa turned back to Ma. "That'll be the end of this, Abigail. We simply must allow the school to conduct their affairs just as we're left to conduct ours." Ma wasn't having it. "It's once thing leaving a society that poisons itself alone. But I can't abide dipping our children into such muck." "Do..." cautiously began Ruth, "you guys need a minute alone?" "Sit down, Ruth!" bleated Ma by the point of her finger. "Perhaps you'll learn something, so-called schoolmaster." Ma turned back to Pa. "Places like this are no place for Zeb." "Abby," softly said Pa, "you know modern education better prepares Zeb for his Rumspringa away from Amish life. We can't shelter him in our cramped cabin of a classroom forever. Molly takes to it just fine. She's fully ready to face the outside world. But she didn't get there without going through a few hard knocks as well. We got to let Zeb see this through." Ma stared at Pa. Then Ruth. Then me, silently sitting in respectful patience. "No. This is the last straw. I apologize, Mr. Ruth, but Zeb will no longer be attending this institution. Good day. Come along, Zeb." I was shuffled out by my hand as if I was still a little boy... maybe I was. We were out of that school so fast that Ruth, Pa, Rye, and Trevor were but blurs. And Beth? I barely got to see that smallest frown follow me. She must have heard the whole thing. To bad. I liked her. Oh, well. The Lord giveth, the Lord taketh away...
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Archives
October 2016
Categories |