Chapter 10: A Dance with Dirk

The weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas are quite busy at Pizza Depot with tons of call-in orders. People are Christmas shopping and putting up decorations thus more likely to gravitate to the ease of ordering carryout.

This evening is cold and it’s lightly snowing outside, but in contrast, it’s really hot back here in the kitchen with the roaring ovens. Glancing over by what we call the Order-Up Window, a large opening in the wall between the dining area and the kitchen with a shelf that we set pizzas on ready to go out, I hear someone call my name. “Kyle! Hey, Kyle.” It’s Jeff waving.

I walk over, “Hey dude, what’s up?”

“When do you get off work?”

“In about half an hour.”

“You hungry? Wanna hang out and split a pizza?” Jeff asks.

“Sure, I’ll toss one together. See you in a little bit.”

I punch out a couple of minutes after 9:00, grab the pepperoni pizza I made, pay for it, and find Jeff in the dining area. One nice thing is, I get an employee discount for working here, 20% off menu prices and pop is free. My friend seems happy and anxious to share some news with me. “Dude, you’re never gonna guess what happened.”

“What?”

“I asked Bethany if she would like to go out sometime and she said yes!”

“Bethany Hobson?” I ask, “As in, Tiffany’s friend, Bethany?”

“Yes!”

Bethany Hobson is originally from Tennessee, her family moved here about five years ago. All this time in Michigan and she still holds on to her quaint southern accent; it gives her a cute southern-belle quality. She’s a really nice, down-to-earth caring person, and a great friend to Tiffany. Bethany stuck by her side the whole time she was removing herself from the popular in-crowd at school; I doubt Bethany ever cared much for those assholes either.

“Wow! That’s great, Jeff. I didn’t know you had a thing for Bethany.”

Jeff’s face flushes a little red. “Yeah, I kinda kept it to myself ... you know ... in case she turned me down.”

“Maybe we can double-date sometime, you, Bethany, Tiffany, and I.”

“That sounds great.”

“I’m happy, man, good for you!” I tell him.

Jeff looks down, “Thanks Kyle, I wish Marc would see it the same way.”

“What do you mean? What’s up with Marc?”

Jeff sighs. “Marc’s been a real asshole when you aren’t around, ever since you told us you had sex last summer. Just the other day he said, I don’t know how Kyle can even kiss that Tiffany knowing she’s had some other guy’s cum in her mouth.”

I sit back and roll my eyes as Jeff continues, “Then earlier today, I told him what I just told you about Bethany saying yes and he got all indignant, like, yeah, whatever, dude. It’s like he’s pissed at me now because I’m going to take Bethany out on a date.”

Time for some confidential one-on-one with Jeff. “Okay, can you keep this between us and never let what I’m gonna say leave here?”

“Yeah, absolutely.”

“Okay, the thing about Tiffany and that cum incident? It was me, it was mine.”

Jeff’s mouth drops open. “I knew it! Something inside told me. I had a feeling it was you.”

“No one can ever know that, not even Marc,” I stress the importance. “I know it’s been a couple of months since that day, but I’ll still get my ass pounded to a pulp if that got out.”

“Don’t worry, it’ll never leave my lips. But ... How exactly did that happen? We were at school ... where would you and she...?”

“You know that supply closet in the Biology Room?”

“Ahh ... Okay, gotcha,” Jeff nods. He knows what I’m talking about.

“Now, my thoughts on Marc,” I continue. “This is just my opinion, but it’s like Marc has always thought of himself as the chick magnet of the three of us and that he should be the first one of us to get laid. It’s a big deal to him. When I told you guys that I wasn’t a virgin anymore, he totally didn’t want to believe me, but deep down, he knew I wouldn’t lie about something like that. Now, add that you may have something good going with Bethany, and here he is in last place; last place in a race he concocted all on his own. I guess I can understand the why of why he’s acting so pissy, but that’s his own damn fault for making this out to be some sort of competition - not ours.”

Jeff takes this in and nods. “I can see it now that you put it that way.”

“Don’t get me wrong,” I add, “I like Marc and he’s a good friend but he’s the one that needs to come down from his pedestal, get over it, and grow up.”

Jeff agrees. We finish our pizza and shoot the shit about all kinds of things, new Xbox and PlayStation games coming out, people at school, and all that kind of fun stuff. As we are getting ready to leave, I tell him, “Don’t worry too much about Marc, he’ll be fine. Just know that I’m happy for you.”

“Thanks, man!’’

A high school lunchroom can be quite a noisy place with several hundred people all talking at once. Ever notice in situations like this how your hearing can hone in and select a single voice across all the commotion? All the other voices seem to fade, and that one voice becomes clearer. That’s what’s happening to me today.

I’m having lunch with Marc, Jeff, and half a dozen other people. Across the expansive lunchroom, are the jock’s tables, where Dirk can be found with Justin, Blake, Jodie, and that whole group. In a slight lull of the collective voices, I catch a fragment of something Dirk is asking Justin and Blake, “ ... seen anyone at my locker?”

This perks up my attention and I utilize that primal hearing skill to fine-tune Dirk in. “ ... keeps leaving notes in my locker...” and, “ ... wants me to meet them after school to help them with something.” Justin and Blake give shrugs, their body language clearly shows that they have no idea what Dirk is talking about. This is interesting, I figured Justin and Blake would be the first two dipshits Dirk would have invited along to witness an after-school face-pounding session on some dweeb stupid enough to push his buttons.

Later in the hallway, I hear Dirk boom, this guy rarely just talks, he must boom. “Hey, Donny!” Donny Melman stops and looks back as Dirk shouts, “You and I need to talk about something later.” Donny doesn’t acknowledge him, turns, and walks away, only now in more of a hurry.

Donny Melman transferred to our school a year ago from Lindenwood, the other high school in our district. He’s a skinny, clean-cut kid, maybe a couple of inches shorter than me. He seems friendly enough, but is pretty quiet, and tends to keep to himself; it’s no secret that Donny is gay. I hear he transferred here because he was being bullied and harassed at Lindenwood.

This is one good thing I can say about most of my fellow students here at Maplewood, we’re generally accepting and don’t make issues about the way Donny is. If you notice I say most of my fellow students; I am sure Donny is an easy target of ridicule by our alpha-male Neanderthal football team. I’ve never actually witnessed anything from the jocks directed specifically at him so hopefully, it’s not as bad as I’m imagining for Donny’s sake. I feel bad for what he’s probably gone through to make him transfer schools.

As I’m sitting in class far off in thought, I’m pondering as to just what it is that Dirk would possibly want to talk to Donny about. I do know Dirk is on the hunt for whoever put those notes in his locker. Could he be thinking that Donny left them by any chance? He certainly would be an easy mark for a guy like Dirk. If this is the case, my actions may have inadvertently set Donny up for a shit-storm he didn’t ask for. Now, I feel like a complete ass. Maybe I should shadow Donny and see what comes of this.

After class, I see Donny down the hall near one of the boys’ bathrooms. I figure I’ll just hang back and keep an eye on him. As the bell rings and hallways clear, I see Dirk come from around the corner, grab Donny by the arm and drag him into the bathroom. Okay, this horseshit has gone far enough, I am not going to let Donny take heat for my actions.

I dart into the bathroom after them and see that Dirk has Donny cornered with his arm out and hand planted on the wall not letting him pass. It doesn’t look like Dirk has hit him or anything yet, so that’s good. “Leave him alone. Dirk. Let him go!”

Dirk turns his attention to me and shouts, “Get the holy fuckin’ hell outta here asshole!”

“No! The only one that’s leaving is him.” I point to Donny.

Dirk takes a few steps towards me as Donny slips by and out of the bathroom. I faintly hear him mutter, “It’s okay, you really didn’t need to do this...”

Dirk rushes me and pushes my shoulders back, slamming me into the wall which I, in turn, use to push myself off of and slam my entire body weight back into him shoving him into the hand-washing sinks. God this guy is huge! And heavy!

“You’re fuckin’ dead now, punk!” Dirk bellows and takes a swing with his right. I raise my left arm to block the blow and my forearm takes the hit but is flung back with such force, it goes instantly tingly and numb. I was momentarily surprised at how quickly I blocked his first throw, but my quick lapse of self-praise opened him up to land his left fist on the side of my face causing spit and probably blood to fly out of the side of my mouth.

I attempt to deliver an elbow to his gut with my right, but Dirk easily spins me around and sends me head-first into the concrete block wall, bashing my forehead. This collision makes my thoughts and vision go fuzzy, totally disorienting me. In my haze, Dirk wastes no time using the opportunity to land several additional blows on me.

When I gain enough sense to even try to throw a hit back, he grabs me by my shoulders and shoves me backward through a stall door. Now I know what a rag doll feels like being tossed about in some child’s tantrum. My ass lands hard on the toilet inside. Dirk shoved me with such force that my back jams up hard into the chrome flusher mechanism - that really hurts and knocks all the wind out of me. Hearing the toilet flush under me causes some feeble humor I have left to ponder, well, that’s a new way to flush.

Dirk reaches in and grabs me by the front of my t-shirt and pulls, lifting me completely off the toilet. In the process, my shirt rips from my collar and most of the way down the front. For some reason, him ripping my shirt pisses me off more than the shoves, blood drawing, and punches he’s delivering. With a new rage fueled by my ripped shirt, I put my body weight behind a right hook and catch him hard on the jaw. It was a good one too, my hand instantly began to sting.

“Break it up! Break it up!” I hear someone yelling. Dirk lunges at me again but is pulled back by Mr. Tessner, an Algebra teacher who just happened to enter the bathroom. He grabs Dirk firmly by the back of his shirt. “I said break it up!” he hollers again.

We both stop, red hot with rage, glaring at each other. I feel blood trickling down the right side of my face from where he sent me into the wall and smashed my forehead. On the plus side, I see that I drew a little of his blood from the one successful blow I landed on his jaw.

Mr. Tessner assesses us and determines that we can both walk. “You two, office! NOW!”

Class in session, 4th or 5th Period, I think, I can’t remember, so the halls are empty as we are marched to the administrative hub of our school. Being that I looked the worst of us, I’m sent to the school nurse first to get cleaned up. After that, I’m to sit in one of the office’s small conference rooms and wait for Principal Krausburg.

Mr. Krausburg and Mrs. Gordon, a school counselor, come in, sit down and ask for my side of the story. I tell them how I saw Dirk grab Donny Melman and drag him into the bathroom with the intention to beat him up. I stepped in to stop the fight and was attacked by Dirk.

Mrs. Gordon offers, “Dirk told us that he was minding his own business and that it was you who flew into a rage and attacked him for no apparent reason.”

“Well, that’s total bullshit,” I tell them.

Mr. Krasuburg sighs and tells me, “Either way, Mr. Stevenson, we are going to have to suspend you and Mr. Larch for two days, effective immediately. We’ve called your mother to come to pick you up.”

They leave the room and go to the next room where Dirk must be. I can easily hear muffled shouting through the wall. I catch something Mr. Krausburg is saying, “ ... this is it, Dirk, there have been countless warnings, way too many detentions, and way too many suspensions. One more incident and you will be kicked out of this school missing all graduation ceremonies.” It sounds like Dirk is a frequent visitor to this school’s office, big surprise there - sheesh.

My mother arrives and she’s not happy, actually, she’s quite pissed. I hear the school nurse tell her that she should probably take me to the hospital so they can look at my back and check for a possible head concussion.

In the car, Mom is fuming, “Kyle, what in god’s name are you doing getting into fistfights at school? I would have expected something like this from your brother, but now you? I thought you knew better?”

I explain the situation as I told Mr. Krausburg and Mrs. Gordon earlier. She calms once she realizes I was trying to do a good thing by keeping a fight from happening but also scolds me for putting myself in danger with a brute like Dirk. Mothers protect their sons.

Thanks to social media, my dance with Dirk is all around the school now and my phone is blowing-up like crazy, I turn it off when we get to the hospital. They check me out and find no serious injury to my back, just some major bruising. I’ll need to take it easy for the next several days with lots of bed rest. They also find no immediate signs of concussion, just a nasty scrape on my forehead that they put a bandage on. I’m to expect to be plenty sore for the next several days, but I figured that anyway.

Later that afternoon Dad was mad about how the school suspended me for trying to do the right thing. That’s the way the schools are now, there’s zero tolerance for fighting no matter who’s right and who’s wrong. Luke is happy that I got at least one hit in on that ass-wipe.

Tiffany is upset, but not mad at me. In a way, her reaction to this is very similar to my mother’s. She wants to know when she can come to see me; I tell her to give me a couple of days to recuperate.

I call Bill Moore at work and tell him what happened and that I won’t be available to work this weekend. He’s cool with it and wants me to take all the time I need, not to worry, and come back when I’m ready.

I guess I won’t be doing too much of anything these next few days, an unplanned four-day weekend for me.

The next day is Thursday and do I ever have one helluva pounding headache. Both my parents are at work and Luke is at school, he’ll be home late because he has after-school band practice today. At noon, Jeff texts me that Donny Melman wants to come here to thank me for yesterday and if it’s okay for him to give Donny my address. I text Jeff back and tell him that’s fine.

At a quarter to three, I hear a knock on the front door, that must be Donny. After lying around all day, my muscles have stiffened up and it sure hurts standing up, my whole body is aching. I let Donny in and we have seats in the family room. “Wow, you look like shit,” he tells me.

“Yeah, I feel like it too.”

“Listen, Kyle, I wanted to come by to thank you in person for what you did yesterday.”

“It’s okay, I couldn’t let that fucker get away with what he was going to do to you.”

Donny looks down for a moment and then says, “As much as I truly appreciate what you did, I don’t need or want you to defend me.”

“No offense, Donny, but you’re skinnier and shorter than I am. Look at what he did to me.”

“Just because I am not a big guy doesn’t mean that I don’t know how to defend myself. Trust me,” he says, “defending myself is something I was forced to learn at Lindenwood,”

“I just couldn’t let it happen, Dirk has been bullying people, myself included, for years—”

“And what you did was an admirable thing,” Donny cuts in. “But please tell me you won’t put yourself in harm’s way for me. I can handle guys like Dirk.” I’m not so sure about that, but he seems pretty confident of himself and explains, “I couldn’t stay in that bathroom and help you with Dirk. I wanted to, but if I get caught fighting just one time, I’m all done and I’ll be kicked out of school ... for good.”

Okay, now I’m confused.

Donny continues, “Yes, I left Lindenwood because I was being bullied, but the real reason I was transferred to Maplewood was for fighting back too much. I’m on what could be called probation, of sorts. It’s a second chance that I simply cannot blow if I want to graduate.”

“That’s just not right. You get bullied, you learn to defend yourself, and now you are on probation?”

“It sucks, trust me, I know, but it all comes down to who knows who in this town, who’s more important than who, who rubs shoulders with who at the golf club, call it politics, call it whatever, it’s fucked-up. What chance does a little queer boy like me have?”

“So, what are you supposed to do if this happens again? Take the pounding?”

He holds his hands up and shrugs, “All I can do is try to avoid it at all costs.”

I tell Donny the reason I went into that bathroom is that I had been leaving nasty notes in Dirk’s locker to rile him up. I explain how Dirk was pissing me off with the whole condom business, the incident in the parking lot at Pizza Depot, and how I figured he might now mistakenly be Dirk’s target because of my actions.

Donny thinks for a moment. “I can see why you might think so, but I’m not sure that was it at all. I doubt Dirk was planning to hurt me; what little he did say was something ... completely different...” He pauses, looks at the time, and says, “I’d better get going, my parents worry when I’m late.”

When I try to stand up, I wince in pain. “Let me help you.” Donny helps me up and reaches out to shake my hand. “Kyle, again, thank you for being there and looking out for me, you are proof there really are good people in this world.”

With that, he leaves. I feel relieved Donny doesn’t think anything I did caused Dirk to corner him, but I still wonder exactly what Dirk wanted to talk to him about. Donny seemed to fall quiet about that part, and at this point, it’s moot and probably none of my business.

On Friday morning my parents pop their heads into my room to tell me that they’re leaving for work and to call or text if I need anything. Just as I doze off, Luke hollers that he’s leaving for school ... sigh ... can’t sleep now, might as well just get up.

My muscles are still pretty stiff and sore this morning, mostly from inactivity lying in bed all night. It’ll probably do me some good to get up and move around; at least I don’t have the pounding headache anymore. I make my way to the kitchen to get myself some cereal and hear my phone bloop; it’s Tiffany texting me from 1st Period. “Can I see you after school today?”