The Cake is a Lie Page 5

  I entered a long begrudging state where my feelings went into hibernation and the world got a little more inherently sucky. I stopped scurrying past the cool kid circles or taking my routes to class around the outside of campus. I walked by myself right through the packed hallways and courtyards. When you’re at the bottom, there’s nothing to lose.

  10. Rumors

  I still kept tabs on Jonsen, on all of them. I was an addict for the latest gossip, I heard the stories. Jonsen was always fighting. He had a special feud with the Mexican clique. Well they were mostly Mexican, they had a few short, non-intimidating black guys too. I would get so upset watching the Mexican kids mean mug people in the hallways. I was raised so differently, we could barely coexist, let alone be friends.

  In 7th grade, you won’t find many guys as tall and willing to fight as Jonsen and Kace. The Mexican crew didn’t have a real heavy hitter to match them, but for what they lacked in a Hector type, they made up with in numbers. Kace and Jonsen would take on their whole crew in the Cafeteria. Then, after they all got suspended, they would meet up behind the local QFC and brawl some more. One by one, Jonsen would fight their whole posse, when he dinked one to the ground the next one would step right up. It wasn’t even fair–he was so much bigger and athletic. It wasn’t even that impressive.

  I would hear how Jonsen was cheating on the beautiful and sweet Nicole with the gangsterish, half-Chinese, sexy bad-girl Karen. I even heard about him and my precious Mia Illy, how he made out with her pussy. The musketeers even had a song they teased Mia with: “Mia, Mia, you’re the man. Nobody can eat a pussy like Jonsen can.” All this when I knew Jonsen was still in love with Mari Smith from our grade school class. She had gone to Kellogg, and as expected, started dating the most popular boys there. I knew she still loved him, too, but couldn’t take him back after all the cheating.

  I heard about one of the richest girls in our school, Tanya Tillman. She was kind of cute minus her general chubbiness and corresponding need to wear really tight clothing and tons of makeup. I heard how Lauren was always inviting Chris, Mark and Morris over to her mansion in Richmond beach. How they would hang out in her hot tub and eat all her food. About how Chris wouldn’t kiss her, but finally let her suck his dick in a closet at her house. How they locked her in the closet afterward.

  Janae was dating some guy four years older and acting too cool for everyone these days.

  When I’d watch Matt on the bus acting like he was the coolest man alive I’d smile, knowing his little secret.

  Jonsen went on the school field trip to New York. Except for sheer formality everyone knew the school field trip was only for 8th graders only. One night Mark and Chris grabbed John Webb, one of their roommates, out of the shower and locked him out in the hallway naked. Everyone took naked pictures of him on their cell phones.

  Pacey was always trying to get Rachel Goody, the second coolest girl at Einstein, to give him hand jobs under the table during their science class.

  Karina Cannon was once my best kindergarten friend, we would run around the multicolored carpet all day on our hands and knees playing Lion King together. She would be Nalla and I would be Symba. Nalla and Symba would clash and fight but inevitably we would get married and start a family by the end of the day. Karina went to hang out with Jonsen and DMF after school one day. After Karina walked all the way to DMF’s, Jonsen and DMF ran inside DMF’s house and locked her outside. DMF finally agreed to let her come in on the condition that she gave him a blow job through the window first. When she finished, they shut the window and told her to go home. Better to be tricked than forced.[3]

  Above all, I heard about weed. They were all smoking weed. I heard about how Danny O, the most bad-ass, don’t give a fuck 8th grader at Einstein (his dad was in prison) was always keeping his weed in his hat because the teachers didn’t search there. About how Jonsen, Tim, Kace, and DMF would just leave school before first period and mysteriously never come back.

  And with every story I heard, I became more certain of what I wanted. How could I live life without ever being friends with Janae, without getting Loren and Jonsen back? Without dating Mia Illy? Could you call that a life?

  [3] Karina skyrocketed to popularity in middle school, on behalf of her well-developed body and penchant for weed, alcohol, and boys. Every month she got a little chubbier though, and as her muffin top grew the mole on her forehead bothered you more and more and her tight jeans and shirts became more and more trashy. By freshmen year it was all over, well she still hung around the party scene, and you always said hi when you saw her, briefly, out of respect for what she once had been.

  Part 2.

  11. Brandon Ledoux (Winter, 2001)

  “Ms. Chicovic!” I waved my hand in the air beckoning our moderately pretty science teacher over to my table.

  “Yes, Marco?”

  “Ms. Chicovic, I love your sweater. You’re so stylish.” My worksheet partner suppressed a snicker into his shoulder.

  “Well thank you, Marco,” She laughed, “Do you have a question?”

  “Yes, we’re stumped on number 7. What is the powerhouse of the cell? Is it the DNA?”

  “Well the DNA is like the boss of the cell, so you’re close, but the powerhouse is the Mitochondria, that’s where all the cell’s energy comes from.”

  I tuned out everything except for ‘Mitochondria,’ and happily filled in the blank.

  Then I shouted, “You’re the best ever, Ms. Chicovic, seriously, Ms. Chicovic, will you marry me?” This bit killed, I picked up the routine from Loren. He was always being playfully forward to cute teachers, walking the fine line between enthusiastic suck-up and flirtatious player.

  Ms. Chicovic and everyone in my vicinity laughed except for the one person I was trying to make laugh. Brandon Ledoux, my meal ticket back to the big time. I’d been sitting behind him, or next to him, or in front of him all quarter.

  Brandon was the head of one of the mediocrely cool 7th grade guy cliques at Einstein. Three had risen above the rest, although none were close to Jonsen, Kace, DMF and Tim. One was the skater clique, a respectable bunch of social up and comers. Another one revolved around a punk rock band a few guys had formed, “Seconds to Failure.” Lastly, there was Brandon’s clique, the sports guys. Their niche wasn’t as strong as the other groups, they weren’t sports stars or anything, but they wore basketball shorts and jerseys all the time.

  I wasn’t good at skating or music so the sports guys were my best bet. And fate put me and Brandon Ledoux in the same science class.

  Brandon’s masculine, G.I. Joe face came complete with a dimple in his prominent chin. He was only medium height but his puffy, shaggy naturally-highlighted blond hair made him look two inches taller. He didn’t like to smile because of his bad teeth. He listened to his headphones most of the time in class, slouched in his chair like was too cool to be there. I was the total opposite, I was always trying to show off in class, either by shouting out the next joke or getting the right answer. I prided myself on being a straight-A student.

  Brandon knew about me too, well he knew I knew Jonsen. It was enough that he nodded at me when we made eye contact walking into class in the morning.

  “Alright class,” Ms. Chicovic announced. “If you haven’t finished the worksheets take it home as homework. We have to talk about your end of the quarter group projects.” A pool of anxiety throbbed inside me. I’d been anticipating this partner project—it was my big opportunity. I stared at the back of Brandon’s Shawn Kemp jersey. How long until I got another opportunity like this? A year? Who else was he going to partner with? He made it very clear every day he didn’t have any friends in the class.

  “Yo, Ledoux.” I whispered, leaning forward–calling people by their last names will always be in.

  He turned around.

  “Be my partner.”

  He nodded, “I’m down.”

  We didn’t talk about it again until the day before it was due. It wasn’t cool to pester your
partner about science projects. We made plans to meet after school at his house.

  Standing on his porch that afternoon I knew I had to bring my A-game to get Brandon to like me. I knocked and rang the doorbell but no one answered, I walked around the well landscaped rambler and looked in the windows, but the inside was dark and empty. I waited around the porch awkwardly for a half hour before giving up. Brooding in my own despair I stayed up all night doing the project by myself. I came up with Ian the Ice-Cube, a cape wearing superhero that could transform into a solid, liquid, or gas to fight crime.

  When I got to science class the next day Brandon looked worried sick. His headphone wearing, emotionless shield couldn’t even hide it.

  He didn’t even have a good excuse, “I’m sorry man I forgot.” He certainly didn’t grovel, an F clearly wasn’t the end of the world for him.

  I kept it cool, “No worries.” I handed him the big project board so he could see I put his name on it.

  Our presentation was a success, I did all the talking, Brandon didn’t push his luck and try to talk. When we sat back down I saw a side of Brandon I’d never seen before. He was noticeably excited.

  “Do you… Do you like wrestling?” He asked vulnerably. I paused, I knew of wrestling. But the wrestling fad had come and gone years ago. It was all staged. I looked at Brandon and wondered if this was a test, was I missing something? He seemed genuine so I took the risk.

  “Ya, I love wrestling,” I lied.

  16 pillows were sprawled across Brandon’s living room floor, gathered from every room in his house. I was hunched over in the middle pretending to be “dazed,” letting my arms and head dangle loosely.

  “Do you smell what the rock is cooking?” Brandon yelled out behind me. That’s “The Rock’s” catchphrase. The Rock was the figurehead of the latest wrestling generation. Brandon was obsessed. The Rock’s catchphrase was the dumbest thing I’d ever heard—an insult to his predecessor’s “Austin 3:16 says I just whooped your ass.” But I played along for everything I was worth.

  Brandon picked me up from behind and swung me over his side, slamming me down for the 5th time. He went for the pin but I squirmed out of it with all my force, I tried to push him onto his back and pin him down for once. He didn’t like that one bit, he stopped playing nice and kicked and clawed his way out of it. I was learning it was best to always let him win. No wonder none of Brandon’s friends liked wrestling.

  The plan was working though, outside of the wrestling we were bonding. Brandon wasn’t as emotionless and cold as he pretended at school, deep down he had a passion for learning and was okay with being goofy. Also importantly, he liked that I had a know-it-all opinion about everything. I knew that all our shoes and were made by little girls in sweatshops and I loved to sarcastically remind everyone about it.

  After two weeks of wrestling I even got a greater say in what we did after school. I stopped voting for wrestling and gradually we moved on. Soon we even started hanging out between classes. After doing that for a little bit he eventually encouraged me to come with him into his clique’s circle. “Come on man, come with me, it’s no big deal, I got your back.” It was my first real circle.

  Brandon’s three best friends were Tysen, Devin and Brian. Tysen had a pale face with a huge smile and wavy blond hair, like an innocent farm boy. Tysen was the joker of the crew, always bringing comic attention to himself–he measured up as a worthy steward, but that was my thing. Devin was a goody-to-shoes. Not beyond goggling a girl, but when he did it you couldn’t tell if he was being sincere or giving you a secret test. Brian was soft spoken and genuinely just nice. I was just so happy to be included.

  Unfortunately, Devin, Tysen and Brian weren’t so happy. Their core group of friends had stood since first grade. And they didn’t go to an alternative grade school where everyone was more-or-less forced to include everyone like I did. Regular grade schools were super cut throat. These three had all earned it and my inclusion was clearly not a group decision, they wanted me gone. But I’d gotten a foothold and I was going to cling onto it for dear life. So I pretended not to see their unfriendly eyes and I ignored their cold body language. When Tysen dumped his plate of spaghetti on my head for laughs at lunch I fought back ferociously and dumped my spaghetti right back on his head. I’d finally made new friends.

  12. The Nug (Winter, 2001)

  I gently rubbed my finger over the enter button while I mulled over the instant message I was writing to DeezBfosho4u.

  “Hey Jae, this is Marco. I lost Kelly’s IM could you tell her I need some weed.” I’d been doing this the past few nights, writing the text in the box without sending it. Rewriting it, “yo dawg this is marco i lost kelly’s im she’s sold me some pot before.”

  It wasn’t long after Brandon and I became friends that I’d caught a break in my other grand plan. I’d discovered my first pot lead, Jae Yang. Jae was a short stocky, asian kid with the ego of a giant. When I talked to him it only took two seconds to figure out all he wanted to do was talk about himself. I wasn’t a huge fan, you gotta be more tactful than that. But Jae was top ten in 7th grader popularity, he even had some 8th grade best friends.

  I had P.E. with Jae, and was on his radar because Jonsen somehow knew Jae’s older sister, Kelly. We’d hung out at their house a few times. Jae had stared coldly at us from his kitchen table, eating his bowl of cereal, as Kelly led Jonsen and me down to their basement. Kelly was three years older than us. She ultimately resisted Jonsen’s charms, but she had plenty of fun flirting with him for a while. None of it was what it seemed, but to Jae, it seemed like Jonsen was the motherfucking shit, and by association I was someone to know.

  One P.E. class, Jae and I had been awkwardly standing next to each other, waiting to run wind sprints across the gym, when for the lack of something better to say, I’d said, “Yo Jae, how’s Kelly?”

  “She’s selling weed now,” He’d replied off handedly.

  “Ohh yaa, I heard about that.” I’d lied, super believably.

  I was in. I’d began hatching a master plan to use Jae’s belief that I was cool to my advantage. Phase one was getting his Instant Messenger username. After a few educated inquires I’d got it through a mutual girlfriend, I wrote it down hastily on one of my binder covers: DeezBfosho4u.

  Staring at the message for the hundredth time, I finally went for it and pressed send before nervously closing my eyes to wait for the Xylophone returned message sound effect. A few minutes passed.

  “DOdodo.” I waited thirty seconds more, afraid to open my eyes.

  “Noooo screw that,” Jae had responded. Jae had a way of scoffing as if something was unbearably retarded, I imagined it through the screen as I read all the “ooo’s.” Uh oh.

  My prior attempt to buy weed had gone terribly. I’d just walked up to DMF when he was standing alone in the hall and said, “Hey we should get high sometime.” It was one of my worst ideas ever. He’d just said, “Uhhhh,” And then started laughing, as if he was so caught off guard he really didn’t know what to say. The worst part was the way he looked at me, he honestly didn’t even know I existed. He’d probably written the whole incident out of his mind in a second, dismissing it as some weird, unexplainable occurrence.

  I wallowed in despair in front of my computer.

  “DOdodo.”

  “I got a way better connection bro,” Jae wrote. “Go through me bro, my sisters way skimpy, trust me, my guy’s got the fattest sacks.”

  “Oh ok,” I typed excitedly, not knowing what “skimpy” or “fattest sacks” meant.

  “So how much do you want?” He wrote back instantaneously. I’d clearly stumbled onto Jae’s favorite topic of conversation.

  “How much do you sell?” I tried. I hadn’t thought this far ahead. I was shooting blind at this point. On the other side of the screen, Jae grinned smugly.

  He made a big profit, but on a smoggy Friday morning, Jae sold weed to a naive, innocent 7th grader who had no business buying weed. We m
et like two secret agents on the outskirts of Einstein, he reached out his fist and dropped the baggy into my waiting hand. Then we went our separate ways. I immediately shoved the baggy into my underwear. My pulse beat harder with every step I took deeper into campus. All I wanted to do was go to the bathroom and look at the weed, but I was too scared. I went through class looking at the door every two seconds, certain the vice principle was going show up and call my name. I didn’t get to savor the satisfaction of having weed in my underwear while reading out loud in honors English, and solving equations on the big board in math class. It was even worse during the car ride with my mom and step dad over to Duncan’s house that night, constantly aware that life would not go on if they smelled the odor.

  It was all worth it. I walked into Duncan’s basement, threw the baggy on his coffee table and sat down next to him like nothing happened. Duncan was speechless, trying to piece together what was happening.

  “Is that weed, Marco?” He calmly inquired after a moment.

  “Maybe,” I replied mysteriously. The baggy sat alone for five minutes while we tried to out chill each other. When he finally picked it up to investigate, my own urges became too much and I began trying to grab it from him. I had to feel it again. We fought over holding it, touching the sticky texture, smelling the bizarre aroma. The weed was just one solid, really hard green thing. Not fluffy and spread out in small bits like I’d always imagined. Jae had called what he sold me a “nug.” He’d kept going on and on about how big of a nug it was, how he was the best hook up ever. My favorite part had been how tightly and crisply rolled up the bag had been before I opened it.

  I kept unsuccessfully rolling the baggy as tightly as I could to try and duplicate the way Jae had originally wrapped it.

  Duncan told me his big weed story again even though I’d heard it a dozen times.

  In 4th grade his mom and her friends let him puff on a pipe they were passing around. It was a stupid story because it had a terrible ending–Duncan couldn’t even say for sure if he’d gotten high or not. I’d demand he think harder and remember, but he just couldn’t say.