Blood Orange Soda

I’m standing in front of a crowded church and I can’t bring myself to read the eulogy I wrote last night. I’m at the lectern and I smell the aroma of white and black lilies on the altar behind me. The church is full of my small circle of friends and also classmates I hardly know. I notice my best friend Weezer sitting in the front with his parents. He’s dressed less Gothy today; no leather and skinny jeans but a black sweater and khakis. I went full-Goth with guyliner, black lipstick and lots of metal around my neck and wrists. I’m in mourning and it should look that way, right?  

I see my English Lit teacher Ms. Andreesen. Officer Denny, the sheriff who monitors our hallways, stands in the back of the church with his arms folded. My Goth and Emo friends from the Vampire Club are in the back pews – safety in numbers, I guess.

My sharp, sarcastic tongue usually gets me into trouble and sometimes it bails me out too. So I crack a joke. “My mom hates that I wear her makeup,” I say as I nod to her. I hear laughter and the sorrow in the church eases enough for me to breathe again…

                                                      *** 

Thursday, October 10

I’m flat on my back along the 20-yard line looking up at a football player and I’m thinking to myself, “How much does he weigh?” He’s not wearing any pads and neither am I because he’s a jock-turned-bully and I’m the freaky Goth kid who’s playing the role of tackling dummy. I’m out of breath from his body slam and praying for sweet death to overtake me when my Angel of Mercy grabs the bully’s arm.

“C’mon, leave Darius alone,” Angel says to my bully.

Yeah, her name really is Angel but her last name isn’t mercy, it’s Martin. I happen to think Angel of Mercy suits her better because she saved my ass so many times when we were in middle school. Now I’m a freshman at Stearns County High School, and she’s my sophomore bodyguard.

The jock-bully, Bao Wang, flexes, smiling down at me, and spits, “Go home freak.”

I try to obey by sitting up in the wet grass. The school football stadium looks so much larger when you’re sitting on the field. I realize what a rush it must be for jocks like Bao to play here beneath the stadium lights with fans cheering. It’s October and I haven’t attended a single game because most Friday nights I’m too busy to pretend to watch our Corn Cobbers pop some unsuspecting team like the St. Cloud Apollo Eagles.

I stand, brushing grass clippings from the sleeves of my black hoodie. I feel grass in my mop of black hair and the crack of my ass, but I leave it as Bao photographs me with his phone.

I know, right? Who does that?

            I flip him the bird. He laughs at my feeble attempt at anarchy. “Ha! That’s one for RenRen,” he says.

RenRen is the Chinese version of Facebook followed by all the Asian foreign exchange students at our little school on the American prairie. Welcome to boring Lake Wobegon suckers!

            “C’mon, you really have to hurt him and then post it online?” Angel says in disgust.

            “He’ll live,” Bao says in an Asian-English accent or what we call Anglish. “You dying are you, Darius?”

            I bow toward my bully, “Namaste, the light in me honors the gargantuan light in you,” I say with mock respect. I continue brushing-off grass clippings as Angel walks over to me.

            “Namaste? Ha! You’re not revenging, Darius?” Bao asks with a thunderous laugh.

            Revenging? Is that even a word? I might be avenging or retaliating in the future but right now I’ve been smacked down too hard to do anything other than stagger home.