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Chapter 40 – Boobie, Destroyer of Boys

I, 'Narrator Kenzie', take full responsibility for the above title.

There are plenty of things I take responsibility for and plenty I have no part in.

I don’t just toss the word ‘responsibility’ out there because it’s one of those words you settle on when you can’t think of something else. It has meaning for me.

I’ve mentioned my sophomore English teacher, Mr. Van Zand (not his real name, but that’s beside the point). One of his big things in class was constantly drilling into us the word and concept of responsibility.

He would use it daily. He would give examples from his life where he made the mistake of not taking full responsibility and it came back to bite him. He also practiced what he preached by accepting responsibility, and all it entailed, when it was warranted.

However, for class, the word became a daily joke with back-of-the-room snickers. Responsibility. That’s what Mr. Z says. Just bring it up in conversation or do an impression of his speaking cadence and you were met with giggles. I never mocked it, but I will take responsibility for laughing with those that did more than once.

He had a good humor about it but, at the same time, I know he meant what he said. I found that rare, especially for most teachers. They often have a line about how you should be more like this or do that because you’ll do better in life and all that piddling shit.

At the same time, you always had this sneaking suspicion they didn’t buy it either. The most insufferable kinds of teachers come off as used car salesmen with worse hair. The least insufferable just want you to sit down and shut up so everyone can somehow survive the damn day to get to the next one to get to the weekend.

But, for Mr. Van Zand, he spoke about responsibility like he wanted to leave a mark. A true mark. I’m sure he even said that exact thing around about the last day or week of class. He wanted us all to take the idea of responsibility with us beyond those doors. I doubt most people did, even after hearing it so many times.

To most, it was just another word. Responsibility. Plug it into a trite meme to spoof or cute it up.

Respon “seal” bility.

Have a seal with its head down and a bucket of eaten fish beside it with a trainer looking stern and their hands on their hips. Never mind that a dozen other words would be far more appropriate.  

Any word can literally lose all tangible, real meaning and become just ‘another word’. Like courage, loneliness, cleverness, feelings, and so many others. All casualties to the crush of a million, anonymous tongues.

And so we are left with countless words that mean nothing, that have no bite, no power, and we are powerless in turn. And the responsibility falls only on all of us.

My responsibility on that fading, flickering day clutched me like she was afraid I might dissolve if she let go for even an instant.

Wes/Lea released a contended breath through her nose and put out these words with a drifting question after them, “What if…you can’t? I mean…what if you can’t find a way to make me a boy?”

I noticed her conspicuous omission of the words ‘back into’ or any variation thereof. The dogs behind their fences gave a questioning scatter of barks before unleashing their full fury. After flinching, I answered Wes, “It’s better to focus on the positive…on that there’s going to be a way.”

She nodded again, silently. I was sure her hair was longer now. Her nose and eyebrows were definitely a little slimmer, though not by much. Just marginal changes but, with her sweater, it was hard to tell that much about her figure aside from the fact she hadn’t gotten any shorter.

The worst of the nerves didn’t hit me till I could see my driveway up ahead. The small comfort was that no cars were missing from it and neither of my parents were outside, stomping around the area. Deep breath.

I walked with Wes to the front door. It was locked. I put my key in the deadbolt and turned it as gingerly as possible, as though that would help.

My dad stood over by the rotary, corded hang-up phone that barely stretched more than a few feet from the wall. He leaned over with a fierce glare. He finished his call, and I braced myself.

“THERE YOU ARE! Where WERE you?! I was calling and calling and calling everyone we knew. I was about to call the police. Your mom is very upset!”

For being away not even thirty minutes. The abbreviated version after that launched into every iteration of kidnapping, rape, murder, and kissing a boy that he could summon from his cobbled together memories of the local news. Wes lingered at my side.

When he finally slowed down, he gave her a narrowed look and asked, “Who’s that?”

Stepping forward, Wes smiled politely and announced, “Sorry, Mr. Waller. I’m Lea, a friend of Kenzie’s from school. I live down the road. I was out and ran into Kenzie. It’s all my fault that she’s late. She stopped to commiserate with me, because I was upset.” She bowed deeply with her hands on her legs.

Dad leaned on his heels with a stern sigh. “Well…I see….” He soon turned his attention back to me, “…but you should have still tried to come back sooner! Mom is really upset. Go apologize to her…now…” He looked tempted to yell the last word but restrained himself with company present.

Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

I kept my head down and nodded back at him. Wes folded her hands and asked my dad, “May I use your phone to call home?”

He offered it up eagerly as he gestured for me to continue to the bedroom. The master bedroom. My parent’s bedroom. Although them being in the same bed hadn’t really meant anything for a long time.

The less said about the adjoining bathroom in those years, the better. I tended to use the one closer to my room anyway.

Beside a dresser along the nearest wall was a small table and lamp. My mom often remixed the story of how she just happened to come back home when heading to work to find that the shade of the lamp had been turned too close to the bulb and was beginning to smolder. She surmised that if she hadn’t gone back then we would’ve lost everything to a fire. Despite her best efforts, this wasn’t one of those things she could blame me for, since none of us remembered who had left it like that.

I've told a version of this story too.

A pile of clothes destined to remain there forever surrounded a dusty pole lamp. It was their old bed back then, with a sag towards the middle that forced you to sit on the edge of the mattress. Mom noticed me immediately and gingerly sat up.

“You scared me so much. I’m shaking. I had to lie down. Where were you?!” She fumed, her eyes even darker from the dim room.

Deep breath.

“I just went around the block, but I saw a friend from school who was crying and I had to see what was wrong and if I could help.” No stutters. No nerves. Yeah, right... My body ached and quivered.

She clenched her mouth and scolded, “You shouldn’t have even been out there. What did I just say to you about getting involved in things that are NOT your business?”

“I know. But she needed a friend. People need friends sometimes.” My neck burned, and my throat itched. While our house held the persistent, tickling presence of dust from our Sears vacuum being far past its prime, at least that assaulting, noxious presence from before had been blasted away. But that had done nothing about the presence of my mother.

She shook her head dismissively. “I’m so sorry that I never taught you to make better, wiser choices. I know you hate me…you just ran off. But you know I’ve never laid a hand on you. I’ve been good to you. You have everything you could ever want. Why do you despise me so?”

If anyone would like to track the logic of my mother’s above statement, feel free. For me, living it and standing there knowing even my facial expressions would give fuel to whatever reaction she wanted, left me stressed about every single moment.

Deep breath. Judging eyes.

“I told the neighbors what you wanted me to say, and I saw Jeanne. She sends her best and thanks.”

My mother’s gaze softened with a rough sigh. “Thank you. You know she takes good care of us. We need more like her in this neighborhood. Less like her son-in-law… always going boozing when she’s away.”

Good so far. I’d skipped her questions. So long as she didn’t notice that. Something else now. “My friend is calling home…so her family knows where she is.”

Mom brushed back her still-slightly-permed hair and glared at me as she noted, “At least she knows the right thing to do and not worry her family. Which friend is it?”

“Lea.” And that’s really all I needed to tell her. But I kept going. “She’s from my English class and we’ve talked a bit. We sometimes work together. I know her a bit. But I saw her by the flood basin a few streets over and she was sitting down and crying. I comforted her and she offered to walk home with me. Which is…safer than either of us walking home alone in this kind of neighborhood, right?”

It was the perfect sort of ‘gotcha’ moment that just occurred to me. My mother narrowed her eyes and pressed, “It’s good you weren’t out alone, but you never should’ve been out walking around willy-nilly in the first place. Do you want bad things to happen to you? Because they will.”

One last, deep breath. “I’m sorry for heading out like that, but I kept safe. I kept a friend safe. I’ll think better next time…” Whatever that meant, but it seemed like what she wanted to hear from me.

She reiterated, “You better.”

I ebbed away from her and back into the living room. Lea was still on the phone. She used Spanish in a quiet but quick manner. I caught the words “estoy bien” amidst a sea of others. She sighed a few times. My dad had his attention on the television. I relayed to him that I’d apologized to mom.

He pressed, “Don’t ever do it again. Don’t just run off like that when we don’t know where you’re going and when you’ll be back. Do you understand?”

They were wearing me down. I managed a nod for him and said, “Alright. I know. I have homework.”

“Get on with it.”

I had my bag with me when Lea hung up. She walked over and relayed, “Umm…I’m sorry. This is kind of an impetuous imposition, but may I stay over for a little while? There’s nothing wrong at home but we have some…others staying over, and it’s made things stressful. I promise to not get in anyone’s way. Kenzie and I will do all our homework and everything and I’ll leave later.”

She rushed through her words with a breathless energy I could only imagine wielding right then. She smiled at me with her hand twisting in my direction, quietly begging for me to reach out for it.

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Art by Alexis Rillera/Anirhapsodist