Monday (part 1)

There's this word in the English language, "Apocalypse." It doesn't mean what everyone thinks it does.

Well, actually, that's not true. It does mean what everyone says it does, because that's how language works. If everyone suddenly decided to call a pig a tree, then "tree" would mean pig, and the dictionary can go fuck itself. Kind of like how when someone bitches out a bush or a shrub, they mean the president, not the greenery on their lawn. But when the word "apocalypse" was first invented, it meant "vision," or perhaps "revelation," not "armageddon" the way it does now.

So "Apocalypse" has always been one of my little code words, which I use to myself whenever I mean that something has just been discovered, that's about to blow everything out of the water.

Today was one of those days.

When I came in to school, I could tell that everyone was excited. Which really wasn't surprising. Today's the first day of the Naked In School program here at Mount Hill Public High, and eight unlucky losers were going to pulled out of ranks to parade around naked all week. The Program's spreading. What do you expect? We don't hear much about Central High, which hosted the original Program, because Central's, what, sixty miles from here? But it was a massive success over at Westport High last year that they're doing it again, even though they started it three years ago, and it took until the third to get it right. We don't see much of them, though, because Westport's fifteen or twenty miles from us. But it's spreading. Slowly, but surely. I mean, let's not even talk about the rumors I've heard about a new high school in Westport. Mandatory Programs for all, they say.

But we're talking here first. I don't go to Westport; my parents finagled and got me into Mount Hill instead. Mr. Trineer, our school's primary advocate for The Program, pitched it to the sports teams first, and they went all-out for it. They loved the idea. Naked girls? What more do you need to say? (The baseball team, it was whispered, was especially enthusiastic, along with nods and winks that meant I was supposed to understand what they were talking about.) The Associated Student Body wasn't quite as keen on the idea, though, and the PTA even less so, but it got through. And today was the first day of its implementation.

Fine with me. I didn't sign up. No, thank you. I have bad hair and no muscles and too many pimples and nobody looks at me twice. The only people who'd touch me would be the ones trying to rip something off. That's what everyone seems to think I'm good for. Look, it's Brandon! Let's mutilate him! Which is why I'll be keeping my clothes securely on this quarter, thank you.

But as I was packing things into my locker, Principal Zelvetti's voice echoed out over the PA system: Would Brandon Chambers please come to the principal's office immediately. Brandon Chambers, please come to the principal's office immediately.

Everyone near me looked at me. I looked back. I didn't get it either. What had I possibly done in my three minutes on-campus to get myself in trouble? But when the principal calls, you come.

When I walked into the office, there were seven other people already there. There were a few people I didn't recognize—maybe they were freshmen. They'd only been around for a few weeks, and it's not like I'm a social butterfly. One of the girls I recognized, Candace Bernholtz, a sophomore, because we'd had a class together last year. And I recognized Steven Proust too. Of course, you'd have to be blind-deaf-and-dumb not to know him 'round these parts. Any organization worth being in, he's part of. Big man on campus. Interestingly enough his girlfriend was there too. Shannon Salvolestra. What, exactly, had we all managed to do to bring us in here?

I also recognized a girl. Arie Chang. I didn't know they made Chinese goth girls until I met her. Not that she's, like, studded with piercings and wearing fishnet stockings or anything. I dunno if that'd fly in a Chinese family. But she does have the long black hair and the all-black clothes and the sort of overcoat thing, so that we can't see her arms and legs at all, and what she lacks in eyeshadow she makes up with bags under her eyes. She's really weird. And the funny thing is that schedules don't seem to apply to her. We have English together, among other classes. If I'm three minutes late, Mr. Cavanagh will give me a pretty thorough chewing-out. But he just turns a blind eye if she's late. And according to my friends who have her in other classes, it's much the same there.

"All right, everyone," said Dr. Zelvetti. She looked way too cheerful. "Now that we're all here, we'll start the procedures. As you all know, you've been selected to participate in The Program this week—"

What?

"Uh, Dr. Zelvetti," I said. "I didn't sign up."

"I'm aware of that, Mr. Chambers, thank you," said Dr. Zelvetti. "Here is a copy of the pamphlet, which I'm sure you've all heard of—"

"Dr. Zelvetti," I said again. "I didn't sign—"

"Yes, thank you, Mr. Chambers," Dr. Zelvetti said. "If you will all open your pamphlets, we'll review the—"

"Dr. Zelvetti..." said Steven Proust. His face was troubled. "I'm pretty sure that if he didn't sign up, and if his parents didn't sign him up, he shouldn't be—"

"Thank you, Mr. Proust," said Dr. Zelvetti, stern anger on her lined face, and I knew the argument was over. "As it just so happens, Mr. Chambers is facing a... Special situation. I'm not at liberty to explain it to him just yet, but he will be informed. At that point, he'll have the option to enter The Program or remain out of it. But first—we need to review these rules." Her face brooked no insubordination. "Are there any more questions."

A bated silence was her only answer.

"Good. Please look at page two, where Rule One is spelled out in detail. As you know, The Program is about..."

The rest of it washed over me. We were keeping the pamphlets, I didn't need to listen. Besides, I wasn't going to need it. I was getting out of here. In the meanwhile, Dr. Zelvetti was discussing an innovation in The Program. Along with the Buddy system, Mount Hill was implementing a sort of Mentor system; the seniors, Steven and Shannon, were supposed to look out for the other participants, guide them, take care of them, etc. Of course, that meant leading by example, so they lost their clothes first. Then the freshmen disrobed, and then the sophomores, and they all followed Steve and Shannon out the door like a nervous flock of chicks.

And then it was just me and Arie and Dr. Zelvetti.

"Brandon," Dr. Zelvetti said. "We have... Something of a special situation here."

Oh great, I thought.

"Arie is... Well, you've been in school with her for a year, you know that there are things she does that are... Different. Her excused tardiness or absence from class, for instance."

Or the fact that the principal stands up for her while she just sits there hunched over looking dead, I thought.

"We were all very pleased when she decided to go through The Program," Dr. Zelvetti said. "Sometimes it's hard for her to... Muster up any enthusiasm for an activity. But here she is. And she needed a partner. We picked you, because of... Certain experiences you two have shared."

Dr. Zelvetti looked straight at me when she said that, with those deceptively mild black eyes in her cocoa-dark face, and when she said it, I understood exactly what was going on.

And when Arie took off her clothes, I understood why she always wore long sleeves.

"Let me guess," I said. "You say your cat did it."

She spoke for the first time. "I just wear long sleeves." And looked at me, too. It was the first time she had looked directly at anybody all day.

"Even in summer," I said.

"You get used to it," Arie said, her voice dead.

Arie Chang had long black hair and tilted green eyes and the flat, smooth face of most Asians. She calls herself Chinese, but my friend Tim Kwan says she might have some Japanese in her too. She barely reached five and a half feet in height and wasn't the most curvy of people, but she was still pretty. Her skin, with clothes gone, was pale and clear and smooth. Her breasts weren't large, but they were shapely and capped with small, brown nipples. And her arms and legs were marked with parallel rows of diagonal scars.

"You know," I said, feeling deadened, "you could have stuck to your shoulders."

"I thought of that," Arie said. "But it was too late."

"I see you're familiar with the situation," Dr. Zelvetti said in tones of dryest satisfaction.

"Just a little," I said through numb lips.

"With that in mind, you can understand why we've made a special dispensation," Dr. Zelvetti said. "Ms. Chang needs a Program partner. There is no one else with your—unique qualifications—in this school, much less who has entered in The Program. No one else who can help her."

I said nothing.

"Mr. Chambers," Dr. Zelvetti said. "Would you consent to be entered into The Program voluntarily, and be chosen to be Ms. Chang's partner for this week?" And she fixed me with her steely eyes, and there was no way I could say no without seeing that flare of instant disapproval in her eyes. And I knew I was caught.

After I disrobed, Dr. Zelvetti sent us to the library until second period, with notes excusing our absence. Well, my absence at least. Arie hardly needed it. "Talk," she said, "get to know each other. I want this to be a fruitful week for both of you."

Then why you keep piling disaster upon disaster, I thought. This is an explosion waiting to happen.

There's this rule, it's an addendum to Murphy's Law. Not only is it, "If something can go wrong, it will," but also, "and at the worst possible time." My life is the epitome of that law. Not only am I just about the worst candidate for The Program—who's gonna give me the eye? Not my girlfriend, I can tell you that—but I do not want to sing the choir concert naked on Wednesday. Which is how life works. It slugs you upside the head every chance it gets.

"Your arms are clear," Arie said to me. "I don't see any scars."

Without comment, I turned my wrists up. There were only two of them, parallel to the lines where the heel of my palm met my arms. As far as I'm concerned, that's two more than I need.

"I'm surprised you hadn't heard," I said. "It was big news freshman year."

"I just moved here last year, remember," Arie said. Oh yeah. She hadn't been here freshman year. Hadn't been there when I'd been late to school, tardy, declared completely absent; hadn't been there when Mrs. Krenshaw, annoyed at the school's interruption of her morning schedule, annoyed to be listed as my emergency contact, had come into my room and found me where I'd passed out, my wrists sloppily opened, barely bleeding. Hadn't been there when they'd rushed me to the hospital and pumped my stomach free of Valium. Hadn't been there for the meeting Dr. Zelvetti called in the auditorium, where she told the freshman class the sad news, where she asked for their prayers on my behalf, when she offered the school counselors for anyone who felt the way I did. Hadn't been there the next day, and the next week, and the next month, when whispers followed me everywhere I went, when people came up and asked in hushed tones whether they could see the scars on my wrists.

Just remembering it made my stomach turn. Holy God in heaven, how had I survived that?

"So," I said to Arie Chang. "What's the deal?"

"The deal," she asked, with barely a break in her monotone to indicate a question mark.

"The deal," I said. "Why are you doing this? You're goth girl. You're not entirely out of the Hole yet. Parading your scars around is just gonna cause trouble. Nobody understands SI." I was being more blunt than I ought to have, but... Dammit, I just felt tired. The Hole. How many days had it been since I escaped it? Not nearly enough, that was sure; there is no number large enough when you ask that question. And why was Dr. Zelvetti pairing me up with this girl from the grave, who was already threatening to drag me back into it?

Arie looked away, clearly displeased, but she drew breath and said, "Just that. It was part of what I'd have to do to get some leeway in my schedule. Dr. Zelvetti said, you know. 'You can miss class as much as you need to, except for this one week, when you're gonna do The Program.' And here I am."

"And here you are," I repeated.

"You don't have scars, but you know what SI is," Arie said.

"I had a friend on the Internet who did it," I said. "I never picked it up, thankfully, but there were times when it was close."

Conversation just sort of pittered out after that, and we sat there for a while, not really saying anything, our minds wandering. I found myself, not by any intention of my own, looking at her body. She'd never be a supermodel, but she was pretty in her way. She was definitely a natural black—how often have you heard someone say that?—and she didn't shave. That was okay. With her Chinese ancestry, she didn't have a lot of body hair, and normally she wore clothes that covered her from the collar down. No one would be able to see anything. But now it was all out there. And I doubted anyone would be paying much attention to her underarm hair, because there were a lot more interesting things on her to notice.

Arie's eyes flashed. "What," she said.

Startled, I realized I'd been staring at her tits the entire time I was zoned out. "Sorry," I said. "I was... Thinking."

She gave me a narrow, cross look.

I rolled my eyes. "Fine, then. I wasn't having improper fantasies about you, but you're not going to believe that anyway, so who cares. Come on," I said, standing up, "let's head to English."

Heading to English early—we got there five minutes before passing period started—turned out to be a stroke of genius, because English with Mr. Cavanaugh is down in this basement, and not a lot of people would come past us. For some reason, I didn't want people to see Arie—because then people would connect it to me. And they'd ask questions, and they'd make inferences, and everything they said would remind me about the Hole, and then the Hole would reach out its scaly, sucker-covered tendrils, and yank me back in. And I didn't want that.

My two best friends share English with me—Sajel Malhotra and Zachary Crane. Zach, when he saw me, gave a whoop and said, "Wow, Brandon, strutting your manly stuff, aintcha!" There isn't a moment of the day when Zach isn't smiling, and while sometimes it's galling (Damn him and his innocent glee!) today I found it strangely comforting.

"Nonsense," said Sajel. "That's not Brandon. It's a pod person with no dignity. The real Brandon must be kidnapped somewhere."

"So, where'd your clothes go," Zach said. "Got lost in your closet and had to come out naked?"

"No, I got... Railroaded into The Program, basically," I said.

"What do you mean," Sajel asked.

"What, so is this your partner then," Zach asked, glancing at Arie. His constant grin slid off his face as he got a closer look at Arie-with-no-clothes-on. "Whoa, dude, what happened to her arms?"

Arie said nothing, just sort of looked off into the distance, and I spoke up for her. "Maybe we'd best leave that for class. A lot of people will probably ask. I'd rather do that than explain it to everyone individually."

I was right, too. Mr. Cavanaugh had sharp eyes—of course, both of us had ended up near the front of the classroom, because his seating chart went alphabetically—and he asked what was going on.

"Ask Brandon," Arie said flatly. "He knows."

I gave her a glare. Thanks, hon, pass the ball to me. They're your scars. It's your Hole. I'm not even supposed to be here. But I stood up and explained, angry at Arie, and feeling vaguely foolish, like someone giving a book report. On the most outrageous subject imagineable.

"Arie engages in an activity known as self-injury, or SI. Some people call it self-mutilation, but that's not the same thing. It's not self-destructive in intention, it's a coping mechanism. SI is a response to depression or excessive stress. It involves pinching or burning one's skin, pricking onself with needles, cutting oneself with knives or razors... Intentional injury. Besides being a form of stress relief, the resulting injury triggers the body's natural endorphins, which creates a slight natural high."

"How the hell do you know all this," Zach said aloud. "What are you, a psychologist?"

Before Dr. Cavanaugh could round on him, Sajel swatted him on the back of the head and said, "Shut up, dipshit." She pointed at my wrists.

I could see the understanding turn in Zach's eyes, in the eyes of my classmates. It was like a door swinging shut.

"Thank you, Brandon," Mr. Cavanaugh said, "sit down. Arie, I take it you're clinically depressed, then."

Arie didn't answer, and Mr. Cavanaugh said sharply, "Arie."

"Yes," Arie said sullenly.

"Can you explain what clinical depression is," Mr. Cavanaugh asked.

"It's a chemical imbalance in your brain that makes it hard for you to feel positive about anything," said Arie in a monotone. She was sitting sideways at her desk, her hands folded above her knees, hunched over, staring at her ankles.

"How long has this been going on," Mr. Cavanaugh asked.

"Since I was fourteen," Arie said.

"What caused it," Mr. Cavanaugh asked.

Arie didn't answer. This was my area of expertise, so I felt like I should speak up. "It can be a lot of things. Some people have a genetic predisposition to it. It can be situational—something in your environment that makes you feel bad about yourself. Maybe someone's mean to you; maybe you just have bad luck and things keep going wrong. Sometimes it just happens for no apparent reason. It's hard to pin it down."

"Which of those do you think fits you, Arie," Mr. Cavanaugh asked.

"The situation," Arie said.

"What about it," Mr. Cavanaugh asked, and suddenly I saw the reason behind all this question, penned up but barely visible—grief, leaking out around the corners of his eyes.

"My parents," Arie said. "They don't love me."

"What makes you say that," Mr. Cavanaugh asked.

"The way they act," Arie said. "They always expect me to do what they tell me to. And not complain. I have to be perfect for them."

"Are you in counseling?" "No." "Why not?" "Because I know my parents wouldn't pay for it." "Have you asked them?" "No." "Then how do you know they won't pay for it?"

"Perfect daughters don't need counseling," Arie said. She gave Mr. Cavanaugh a dirty look, as if to say, How stupid are you?

Mr. Cavanaugh's eyebrow twitched, and something turned in his eyes, like walls coming up.

"Well," he said. "This is no fit talk for Arie's and Brandon's first day in The Program. And I have a class to teach. Brandon, do you need to request relief? Arie, the rules have been changed so that you can request it as well."

"After that little discourse," I said, letting my eyebrows raise. "I think everyone's forgotten to get turned on." And indeed, everyone looked a little pale and skittish, about as far from horny as you could get. A glance at Arie, sitting there mutely in her own little world, showed that she was in much the same boat.

So Mr. Cavanaugh started his dissection of Romeo and Juliet. But I don't think any of us were paying attention.

At break I was finally able to meet up with the rest of my friends. Zach and Sajel, of course, already knew what was going on; and so, like as not, did Tim and Kelsey, because they'd heard the announcement.

"Well, hello," Kelsey said when I walked up, "look who lost his clothes on the way to school."

"I stole 'em," Zach jumped in. "Just yanked him behind one of the portables, bonked 'im on the head, took his clothes. They're in my locker."

For a second, I felt like ripping his head off—For fuck's sake, I've just been railroaded into this! Let's have some fucking sympathy here!—but my sense of humor made a comeback from somewhere and I shuddered theatrically. "God, I've been manhandled by Zach Crane. While I was naked, no less. I have got to take a shower."

"Hey," Zach retorted, grinning. He held up his hands. "There's a lot of girls around this school who'd love to have these hands all over 'em."

"Yes," I said, "and seeing as how I'm not a girl..."

"What are you talking about," Zach said, "you are too a girl, just take a look at— Whoops." And the crazy man actually reached between my legs and held up my penis. "Looks like you are a guy after all." He dropped it again and held up his hands innocently. "Sorry, man."

It would have been so easy to kill him right then.

No, play along. No matter how much you'd like to punch him. Play along. No matter how deeply the sanctity of your person has been defiled. Zach Crane is automatically exempt from Rule Three, no request from him is reasonable, everybody knows that, but play along. I gave my dick a dubious look and then said, "Thanks, Zach. You know, I may need that later in life. But now you've permanently contaminated it. No one will touch it again."

"Whoa, zing," Kelsey laughed.

I slung my arm over Zach's shoulder and leaned against him. "That's my buddy Zach, always looking out for me."

"Whoa whoa whoa," Zach said, hastily ridding himself of my arm. "Off with the naked man!"

Yeah. That's Zach for ya. If I touch him again before break ends, it will be to snap his neck.

Sajel, thankfully, took some pity on me. Well, sort of. "Where's Jane," she asked. Jane's my girlfriend.

"Dunno," I said, trying to keep my voice calm. "Probably scared off by the sight of dick."

"Who's your partner, then," Tim asked. Tim Kwan is Korean (I think) and he's still got an accent. He's really very quiet, most of the time, but he's a lot more reliable than Zach is. At least, if he hasn't got anything nice to say, he shuts up. Right, Zach?

"Arie Chang," I said.

"Whoa, really," Kelsey asked. "That goth girl? I don't think anyone's seen an inch of her skin since she was born, and now she's naked?"

It gets better, I thought, and for an instant's malicious hesitation I considered spilling the beans—but years of keeping secrets, mine and others's, won over, and all I said was, "Yeah."

"How do you think she's dealing with getting felt up," Kelsey asked. She's a sweet girl, is Kelsey Waters, but tact? Not her strong point.

"I dunno," I said. "She was dating that one guy, what... Patrick Slade. Back at the beginning of last year. It's possible she knows what all that stuff is for."

"What, you mean like her haha," Sajel asked.

"Yes, Sajel, her haha." That's been our group's pet word for vagina ever since Sajel coined it in a burst of either ironic brilliance or dazzling sexual repression. She was scrambling around for a word when trying to ask what life would be like if little girls' dolls had sexual organs, and after the dust settled, we just kept saying it.

"So what are you suggesting," Tim asked, giving me an overly-leery smile. "Are you besmirching her honor or something? Because she went out with Patrick Slade, she's automatically depraved?"

I laughed. "Well, you know Patrick." He's our school's resident horndog. "He'll fuck anything that walks."

"Anything that's on four legs and isn't a table," Kelsey interjected cheerfully.

"But that doesn't mean she let him," Tim said.

"Yeah, that's true," I said. "But, still. I mean, you never know."

"Hey," Zach said suddenly, and the tone of his voice—all the normal jest and cheer gone—made us turn our heads.

It was Arie Chang. You could tell pretty easily because she was naked, because of the bowed head, because of the long black hair in a curtain around her. But the other thing that made people up and take notice...

"Dude," Zach said in wondering tones. "Nobody's touching her."

The scars, I thought to myself. Poor kid has more lines than a zipper. Everyone's scared off.

The halls were pretty quiet now, everybody staring. I wasn't sure what to do at all. Zach, bless his heart (or maybe curse it), took matters into his own hands. He waved them around and shouted, "Hey, Arie! You need some fondling? I gotcher fondling right here!"

His echo rebounded on itself. The entire school stared at him. Zach didn't even blink. He's got balls, that one. (Mostly because when he was in the womb, he worked on growing those and neglected his brains.)

Arie just gave him a look, with the rest of the school in silent, frozen motion around her. Then she walked over. And around her, the school came back to life.

"Hey, baby," Zach said, the sort of grin on his face that would make a father reach for his shotgun. "What's cookin'?"

Kelsey was having none of it. "What happened to your arms?" Tim, for his part, just looked wide-eyed clueless, like someone had just taken something very important from him.

"I don't want to talk about it," Arie said stiffly.

Kelsey blinked, and I knew her mothering instinct was kicking in. "What, is it something in your childhood, did your cat—"

"I don't want to talk about it," Arie said, in a tone of voice that brooked no argument; and thankfully, Kelsey shut up. And Sajel leaned over and said, "I'll explain it to you later," which made Kelsey look a little more comfortable.

"Is nobody, like... Touching you," Zach asked.

"No," Arie said.

"That kinda sucks," Zach said.

"I don't care," Arie said.

"See, if I were in The Program, I'd be all like, parading—" and he did this crazy thing where he looked like he was surfing, just sidling around grooving like nobody's business. "—and it'd be all like, Come on, ladies, and get the—"

"Well I'm glad I'm not you then!" Arie said loudly, and Sajel and Kelsey burst out laughing. Zach, for his part, simply looked miffed, as if to say, Who wouldn't want to be me? But that's Zach for you.

"You don't want to be touched?" I asked Arie.

"Do you," Arie retorted.

I shrugged. Well, there was one girl I'd like to be touched by... But she wasn't going to, whether I was naked or not. And others were going to feel me up, that's just the way it goes. Since I'd been roped into it. By Ms. Chang over here. And friggin Dr. Zelvetti. I might as well take some pleasure in it, I guess, since nothing else is going to go right this week. And to be fair, no small number of people had come along with 'reasonable requests' for me (more, in fact, than I had expected), so maybe some good might come out of this week.

But I didn't feel like explaining all of that, so I shrugged.

"I feel like I'm being used," Arie said.

"Well, hey," Zach injected, "if they wanna use me, I don't mind. At least it's fun."

"And seeing as how I am not you..." Arie retorted.

Somebody spoke up behind me. "Oh, Arie, are you in The Program this week? Wow. Who's your partner?"

There was a bit of a silence at that one.

"Me," I said, turning. "I am."

Jane, who was standing behind me, just sort of stared at me and got really pale. "You."

"Hi, yeah, good to see you too," I said.

"You're in The Program," Jane said in strangled tones.

"Why hello, Jane, how are you today, Very well, just fine, thank you for asking Brandon, you're such a nice boyfriend, always looking out for me," I said. I know I shouldn't've been so sarcastic, but once I started it was really hard to stop.

"You're in The Program, " Jane said, somewhere on the border of Heart-Attack Land.

I had no patience with her right then. "Well, unless I'm about to get slapped with a detention for indecent exposure, yes, I am."

"You're in The Program," Jane said.

"Are we going to get past this sentence any time soon," I asked.

"You're not wearing any clothes!" Jane cried.

Sajel said to me, "Brandon, if you're dating her for her brains, I have to say, you made really bad choice."

Jane just stood there, looking shell-shocked. She hunches over all the time so she has no shoulder definition, and she isn't a looker in any sense of the word. Her face is one they used to call 'handsome, ' of all things, and she doesn't take very good care of her hair, which is a deep, subtle bronze and otherwise might have been her best feature. She simply isn't one for physical appearances. But she's a good friend, and I like her. Most of the time.

I said, dryly, "Yeah, but she's got the best grades in the school, so maybe some of it will rub off on me."

"I can't believe you're not wearing any clothes," Jane gaped. "I can't believe you're..." Her eyes trailed miserably down my body and then jerked away precipitously once they reached my crotch (something had stood up to say hello, if you get my drift) and she colored visibly.