Lunchmeat Read online

  “No, no. Ha, it’s just that people have been saying that to me all my life. It was more of a reflex. Sorry.”

  “That’s okay. But I did hear you lost a friend recently? Or…”

  “No, my friend’s dad died last year. It’s been…”

  “Awwww, you poor thing. Come here.” And she pulled me in close, the sidestream of smoke snaking into the air next to my face.

  I felt guilty accepting that hug. Karl needed that hug. Go hug Karl!

  And then she kissed me. It wasn’t particularly precise and it didn’t feel particularly good, but I will say this: I enjoyed the taste of kissing after a cigarette.

  “Eyy ohh! Look at this!” shouted Sonny, arms spread out from his sides as if to say finally. “How are the two lovebirds? How ’bout a shot to celebrate?” Sonny took a shot, by himself, straight from the bottle of vodka.

  “Goddammit!” screamed Katie, storming down the driveway. “Ricky and his shitbag friends are on their way here. Now.”

  “What, why? What are you talking about?” said Diana.

  “I was on the phone with him. He would not stop calling me. And fucking Joey started yelling ‘pussy’ over my shoulder. So he freaked out and said he’s on his way with his ‘boys.’ Ugh, he’s such a douche.”

  I hopped off the rock wall and waited to hear the plan like a foot soldier awaiting orders from his paladin to defend against an orcish assault.

  “How the fuck does he know where Tank’s house is, Katie? Fuck it. Vito, go tell Joey and them to get out here. Kate, how many did he say…”

  I turned on a dime and sprinted up the driveway like I was Deion Sanders covering Jerry Rice. “Yo yo yo yo,” I said, trying to catch my breath. “Some guy from Westfield, Ricky something, is coming with his boys.”

  “Fuck him,” said Joey, not even putting down his Solo cup of mixed everything. “I’ll knock that Wonder-Bread-eatin’, ketchup-on-pasta-puttin’ little bitch the fuck out.”

  We followed Joey outside to his car, where he popped the trunk and started handing out miniature bats—the kind they give away at minor league baseball promotions—to each of us like we were in the armory. “Mafia bats,” he called them; easier to conceal, but they still packed a wallop on a kneecap.

  “Give me one of them,” said Sonny as he pulled his white t-shirt over his head, leaving him in nothing but tattoos and a guinea tee.

  Joey and Sonny were linebackers, built thick like Tank, but with two extra years in the weight room. I had a growing frame but had yet to fill out, and without any tattoos or piercings—my mother said she’d rip them right out of my ears—I practically felt naked standing there fully clothed.

  I had never met Ricky, at least I didn’t think I had; perhaps he too was at the party with the invigorating globe collection and I merely ignored his advances. But when he pulled up in his Mercedes SUV adjacent to the driveway and popped out in his blue collared shirt and khaki shorts—all of his ‘boys’ were in similar, if not matching, attire—and began firing off “guido,” “greasy,” and “guinea,” I couldn’t help but visualize a senior-year Pierce Stone.

  The girls rushed them, forming a barrier between us, telling them to get the hell out of here—we are Hell—and go home. I gripped the Mafia bat until my skin sounded like tightening rope. Part of me wanted to resolve the matter without fighting and preach nonviolence like the good Lord intended, but another part of me wanted to use violence so very, very badly.

  There was a bunch of shouting and finger-pointing and honestly it was all so convoluted that I couldn’t make out specifics. There were a lot “faggot” and “cocksucker” and other colorful, derogatory terms for homosexuals flung around. I followed Joey and Sonny’s lead, grabbed Diana by the waist and moved her out of the way, and sized up the kid in the pink—pink—Ralph Lauren polo.

  We would’ve killed them—weren’t they ever told “don’t show up to a Mafia bat fight with fists”? But no one threw down. Ricky and the ‘boys’ got back in the Mercedes and peeled off down Tank’s street, getting in one more barrage of “cocksuckers” and “faggots” as they hung out the windows.

  It felt good to mobilize as a unit—that feeling of camaraderie I was trying to get when I asked Tony and George to hide in the bushes with weapons and protect the Halloween decorations on Mischief Night.

  “We would’ve fuckin’ merked ’em,” said Joey, turning toward Katie.

  “Yo, you guys see Vito?” started Carmine. “Yo Vito, I thought you were going to fuckin’ kill that kid. I look over and Vito’s just silent, got this game face on and everything.”

  “I bet Vito’s the nastiest motherfucker out of all of us,” said Sonny, putting his arm around my shoulder.

  “Yo, let’s set off those fireworks to celebrate. Like the Romans and triumph and shit,” said Joey.

  “You idiots are gonna get the cops called on us,” said Carina.

  “Fuck it, my cousin Paulie is a cop over in Springfield. We’ll be fine,” said Carmine.

  “That’s not how it works,” said Carina.

  Diana sauntered over to me as we headed back inside. “Hey, thanks for not crackin’ any skulls.” She grabbed my forearm, running her fingers through my arm hair jungle, and worked her way down to my hand. I was still humming and caught myself purposely taking my time to get inside the house, hoping that Mercedes would make its way back down Tank’s street. “Hey, let’s go downstairs,” she said, redirecting me from the front door and down the outside steps that led directly to Tank’s bedroom. “You have condoms, right?” she asked—plural, like I worked at a 7-11.

  “Um… no.”

  “Okay, take one of Freddy’s. What do you guys call him, Tank?”

  Tank has condoms? How would she know Tank has condoms? An assumption, I guess.

  When I saw the ubiquitous silhouette of the Trojan soldier bust on the purple box, the sonorous “Trojan Man!” jingle played in my head. Yes, I’m a Trojan, a mighty warrior of the Ancient World—and to the victor go the spoils. I looked at Diana, my spoil of war, whose nose ring glittered in the dark bedroom like she was one of Hector’s concubines.

  She grabbed me by the hand and led me to Carina’s room, where an extra bed had sat near the window waiting for Diana, for me, for us, for what I would assume its entire existence—I pictured it surrounded by flowing waters and cornucopias of fruits, nuts, and oils, but alas, no such revelry awaited us across the hall, merely a twin bed in plain white sheets.

  We crashed onto the mattress and tugged and gnawed and kissed. She still tasted like cigarettes. It was like a cartoon whirlwind of smacking hips and lips with clothing flying out from the fray. Boom! I was naked, hard, and still humming, but unsure of what to do next.

  Diana grabbed me by the dick and ripped open the condom with her teeth—I almost came instantly. She slid it on and rolled it down—crimp, crimp, crimp—like trying to push a rubber band down a rolled-up poster. She pulled me on top of her and I fell between her legs.

  Outside, my paisanos sucked in the summer night in a bacchanalian gaiety. I checked out my own budding biceps and forearm muscles, accentuated by the shadows of the moonlight beaming through the sliding glass door, and pictured myself in filthy golden gauntlets, covered in blood, my sword wedged in the corner of the room where my Mafia bat rested.

  “Are you ready?” she asked, snapping me back from my campaign in the Aegean.

  Am I ready? Am I ready to lose my virginity? I’ve been ready for that since I realized I wasn’t, in fact, sick during that magical episode of Three’s Company.

  I pulled back my hips and entered manhood with a thrust like I was reading from the Torah. I could feel all of the…

  “You’re not in.”

  “Oh…” I realigned my hips, like I was taking the second free throw after a botched first attempt. Again, I thrusted, missed, and hit butt cheek. Thrust—mis
s—thigh. Thrust—miss—taint. I felt beads of sweat start to form around my brow, mocking me like a crown of thorns. With each failed attempt, I could hear a squeaky little voice whisper in my ear: “Still a virgin. Still a virgin. Still a virgin.” The humming adrenaline began to fade as I remembered that Hector, and the Trojans, in fact lost the war.

  “Hey, you okay? Want me to get on…”

  But before she could finish her sweet offer, I made one last thrust—a spiteful, maniacal thrust like I was punching in the dark—and hit bull’s-eye.

  “Ohhh, there ya go!”

  I saw stars, perhaps a crackling celebration of my ascension into manhood. Orange and yellow meteors zoomed and popped past the sliding glass door, and I continued to thrust into Diana as my paisanos engaged in a Roman candle fight on the front lawn.

  I found a table in the corner and texted Tank and Carmine to meet me. The waves of dejected freshman boys came pouring into the cafeteria, personifying the old adage “misery loves company.” Until Paxton, whose voice was at a constant full volume, came roaring up to my table waving a crumpled piece of paper, sporting his devilish grin.

  “What ya got there, Paxton?”

  “Oh baby, Vic. I’ve got the list.”

  Was he still carrying around the hot list from sixth grade? I figured that perhaps Paxton’s coping mechanism for the sudden fall down the social totem pole upon entering freshman year was digging up that old list to relive a happier, simpler, gentler time.

  “What list?”

  “I knew he had it!” Pierce Stone joined us; Silas soon followed. “Let me see it again.” He snatched the paper from Paxton’s hands and smoothed it on the table.

  I checked my phone for a text from Carmine or Tank—nothing. Those two were habitually late, usually caused by a last-second shirt switch or a hair touch-up, but I had seen them in the hall between second and third periods, so I knew they had actually come to school.

  “Oh my God,” Pierce Stone laughed. “This shit… this is brutal.”

  Little Slut Bitches ’05 was written at the top of the wrinkled paper, followed by what I assumed was the list comprising the “little slut bitches” and their transgressions.

  I remembered Tony and George talking about the “slut list” when they were in high school, and how it was this annual thing the seniors did to the freshman. I didn’t know much else, but I could tell by the way Pierce Stone licked his lips and smiled that he was about to tell me.

  “I still think Julie’s is the funniest,” he started. “Number one, Julie Fischer: ‘I love cum on my pretty face. My eyes are so big they make great targets. Ready! Aim! Fire, boys!’” Pierce Stone and Paxton laughed.

  “Who’s two again?” asked Paxton.

  “Jenna. Jenna Tisch: ‘I have a small mouth, but don’t worry, I still like BIG cocks. I need you to come on my teeth because they’re too brown.’”

  “Not bad,” said Paxton.

  “Guys, I think this is pretty fucked up,” said Silas.

  “Don’t be a bitch,” said Pierce Stone. “It’s a tradition. The seniors have been doin’ this since the ’90s.”

  “Jessie’s isn’t bad,” said Paxton. “Jessie Levinson: ‘I like dick without a condom. Don’t worry about getting me pregnant, it will save me from going to Syracuse!’”

  “I think we should just throw it out,” said Silas.

  “Dude, listen. The girls want to be on this list,” started Pierce Stone. “It’s like some ass-backwards rite of passage. The seniors do this as a preemptive strike for when their boyfriends start ‘scumming.’”

  “What?”

  “Scumming, it’s like… when the seniors get drunk and hook up with the freshman. My brother used to do it. It’s cool, okay? We just gotta wait our turn,” Pierce Stone clarified.

  “Not me,” I said, causing all of them to turn, surprised, as if they had forgotten I was there. “I banged this girl from Westfield and she’s actually…”

  “Bullshit, Ferraro,” Pierce Stone snapped. “Yeah, and Farber lost his virginity at camp two years ago.”

  “Still, I think we should get rid of it,” said Silas.

  “Okay, Silas, well, guess what? Remember when you and Julie were hooking up this summer? Well, she and the rest of the girls held a blowjob seminar in Rosenblatt’s bathroom.”

  “When?”

  “When you were back in Africa.”

  “She had a bushel of bananas,” said Paxton. “Crackin’ ’em off at the husk like a zookeeper!”

  “She never gave me a blowjob.”

  “Exactly,” said Pierce Stone.

  Tank held the bottom of his shirt to his chin as he flexed in his full-length mirror. “Carina! Turn that shit down! She makes one Puerto Rican friend and now all she plays is fucking Daddy Yankee.”

  Carmine, Sonny, and Joey came rumbling down the steps. They had returned from a tanning session—the second that day—at Soleil Sands on Millburn Avenue. I could see the pink underneath where they’d picked at the crackling skin. I’d gone once or twice, but I didn’t like it; the tanning pod was claustrophobic, like an engine was going to pop out the bottom and fire me into outer-fucking-space.

  “Eyy ohh!” said Carmine as the three of them came into Tank’s bedroom.

  “Look at this guy, flexin’ in the mirror, thinking he’s tough,” said Joey, punching Tank’s shoulder.

  “I can’t get rid of this,” Tank said, running his fingers over the little pudge on his lower abs.

  “You’ll never get rid of that,” said Carmine. “That’s ‘guinea fat.’ All the pasta dinners and breads and cheeses and everything. You got an Italian mom? You got guinea fat.”

  “Vito doesn’t have it,” said Sonny. “Kid’s skinny and cut. Got a fighter’s body. Yo Vito, how do you stay so lean?”

  “My ma’s not Italian,” I said.

  “Oh, that’s right, that’s why you got those light eyes? Lucky fuck.”

  “My dad thinks we might be part Norman, also.”

  “Part what?”

  “Norman. They were originally Scandinavians who carved out part of France and eventually took over parts of Southern Italy and Sicily. Bohemond of Taranto was a Crusader king.”

  “I don’t know what this kid says half the time,” said Joey.

  “He’s got that Short Hills education,” said Sonny.

  “That was like four years ago. We’ve all been in the same schools since sixth grade. Tank lives in Short Hills. We’re in Short Hills right now!”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” said Carmine.

  “Are you calling me stupid?” said Tank, turning away from the mirror. “Carina! Turn that shit down!”

  “Yo Vito, you’re coming to Logan’s tonight, right?” said Sonny.

  “Yo, I heard that these Chinese kids have been running their mouths. Saying they’re going to take over the neighborhood and shit like that. They’re supposed to be there,” said Joey.

  “Yeah, I’m gonna go. I have a private QB lesson in a few hours with this ex-NFL player.”

  “Ohhh shit. Yo, Vito is going to take us to States next year,” said Carmine, doing his best imitation of a three-step drop.

  Later that night, my father dropped me off at Logan’s house, where I met my paisanos congregating on the front porch. I told him it was a captain’s meeting, but it was actually a Fight Club.

  “Why did you guys do your hair?” I asked. “Don’t we wear a helmet during this thing?” They looked at me as if the thought of being in public without doing your hair was some sort of foreign concept.

  “I don’t need a helmet. I’ll knock these faggots out one-two,” said Joey, giving Carmine one, then two, punches on the arm.

  “Eyy, ohh. That’s my beatin’-off arm!”

  Uproar.

  We followed the driveway that wrapped around t
he house into an empty two-car garage that was beginning to fill up with mostly seniors and juniors cracking open Coors Lights and passing around a glass handle of Smirnoff.

  “What’s the first rule of Fight Club?!” asked Logan, a senior defensive end who led the team in sacks last year.

  “You don’t talk…”

  “… talk about Fight…”

  “… talk about Fight Club!” shouted the groups in a layered echo.

  Our Fight Club wasn’t exactly like the movie that inspired it. We wore helmets and gloves and kept our shirts on.

  My paisanos and I wedged into the ring of flesh next to a group of Ukrainian kids wearing matching t-shirts that said Born to be Free. I couldn’t help staring at the empty space where high schoolers would soon battle like gladiators in the ring—only dumping golden sand on the gray garage floor would make it more authentic.

  More groups started to flood into the garage—the soccer team with a few members of each grade’s Jew Crew; some Pakistanis; more football players; Tiago and a few of his Brazilian cousins (they used the term as liberally as we did) from Ironbound, Newark; and a handful of the Chinese kids that Sonny said had been running their mouths. Typically girls weren’t permitted at Fight Club, but Logan was close with the basketball captains, so he allowed them to bring their girlfriends—if anything, to make the gladiators fight harder—everyone fights harder when girls are around.

  “Hey! Vic!” shouted Julie Fischer, disrupting my concentration. She had come in with Aaron Podhoretz, a senior small forward on the basketball team. “Are you the only freshman guy here?” She scanned the garage, not considering Tank or Carmine in her count. “I think Josh and Paxton and them might be coming later. You talk to them at all?”

  Them? I stared past Julie Fischer, hoping Pierce Stone would strut his way through the door and we’d duel it out like Rocky Marciano and whatever boxer the WASP community revered: “Dammit, Ferraro! You knocked my teeth out!”

  More basketball players flooded the garage, and Maria DiMonica, a girl from California who moved in with her uncle in the Poet’s Section a few years ago, came in attached to the point guard’s elbow. She was a stellar softball player with the kind of tight body you saw on Olympic athletes. My father would come home from her games saying he spoke with a coach or recruiter from UCLA, LSU, Michigan, etc. “Vito, ya know, that is the kind of girl you should be dating.”