Smile On His Lips and Cuts On His Hips (Jalex)

Fifteen - Something's Wrong With Me

Matt Flyzik, jock, was not known for his intelligence. In fact, rumor was that teachers only gave him passing grades because Dulaney sports teams needed him. Even though this was well known, the apparent half of the school planning on attending his Halloween party put their faith in the fact that he would be able to use enough brain power to not ‘hide’ the alcohol he’d been hoarding in cardboard boxes in his garage.

We were wrong, because, smart as he was, Flyzik did exactly that, and his mom – from what I’d heard – went searching for baby albums, only to be met with copious amounts of booze. I imagine she was somewhat alarmed, because, seriously, half of the school was hardly an exaggeration, Dulaney had two thousand students, and that must have been fucking shit tons of alcohol.

So Flyzik was perennially grounded and hundreds of members of the student population were left with nowhere to go on Halloween night. Maybe it was a good thing, really, that the biggest rager had been canceled only the day before it was supposed to take place, considering that the thirty-first fell on a Wednesday, and teachers would surely be less than impressed when the majority of their students called in sick the next day. I wasn’t particularly disappointed, either – high school parties weren’t my favorite place to be. But I did not want to spend my night dealing with toddlers and watching the sweets in our plastic cauldron slowly be taken from my possession, either.

Luckily, Zack and Rian found me during brunch and informed me that we were going to the Merrick’s for pizza and shitty scary movies. I wasn’t presented with an option, just alerted that I would be there. I mean, it wasn’t like I would have refused the offer, but still. Some courtesy would have been nice, and Zack did look a bit guilty as his boyfriend rambled off the plan, but I didn’t expect anything less from the bossy geek. I hated my friends sometimes, but they were better than nothing, and I suppose that you learn to deal with your companion’s vices.    

This demanding conversation took place after the initial discussion of costumes. Our high school was big on ‘school spirit’, and Spirit Week always took place somewhere around the end of October, this year including Halloween itself. School Colors and Crazy Day had already passed, the week to finish off with Jersey and Twin Day. Each grade got points depending on what percentage of its students participated, and the grand winner was announced at the end of Friday. I’d never been in to it, and tended to wear my trademark black instead of joining in on the activities. Besides, it was totally rigged. My sophomore class had been winning last year, until the seniors threw a hissy fit, pulled near fifty points out of their asses on the last day, and got their award. Literally no point in trying until you’re at the top of the school.

But on Halloween, everyone went all out. There was no official dress code – just the general understanding that shorts should be longer than vaginas and Ariel style seashell tops were not ok – but even that was thrown out on that one day of a year, which some people - Zack, for example - used to their full advantage. He was dressed as some sort of Mexican wrestler/half naked superhero/masked hooker/I don’t even know what, but the costume covered about as much as boxers, and I was slightly worried that Zack and Rian had, in fact, spent the first two periods of the day fucking. The guy had been my friend since fourth grade, and even I couldn’t help thinking that his very muscular, very exposed body was hot.

Rian was a police officer. Lame, overdone, and unoriginal. The buzz cut boy did not give a shit about Halloween, and the only reason I could see him being interested in being a cop was the handcuffs. There was definitely some kinky sex in that couple’s future; hopefully they’d wait until I was gone to get it on.

And I, well, I totally and completely forgot about Halloween. It was ten o’clock Tuesday night when I came out of the shower, noticed the date on my alarm clock, realized what tomorrow was, and panicked. On one hand, I really did not care about the supposedly spooky day at all, but, then again, I didn’t want to be an old man looking back on high school years of missed opportunities and Halloweens spent pretending I was too old and cool to dress up, when, in fact, a couple years later, I actually would be too old for a costume to be socially acceptable. So I seized that opportunity while I could.