Bad Kid by David Crabb Read Free Book Online Page A

deductive method required to figure out why people in high school had the friends they had. Reminding myself of that made it easier to judge them, and judging them made being alone feel easier. Friendships were basic and beneath me.
    But on certain days, in certain moods, it all looked so pleasant. I’d watch them cackling hysterically while reading a note by someone’s locker or giggling over a foot-long pizza-cheese strand in the cafeteria. Suddenly I’d think that no ill will or cruelty could exist in them. And in that brief instant I would doubt all the careful planning I’d done based on my fear and dread. For a split second I’d feel like a fool. But then I’d remember the dull thud of those heavy, brown leather books on either side of my skull and know that my manifesto was right.
    On the last day of school before Christmas break, while the gym class did indoor push-ups and jumping jacks, I watched Greg chat with a few other boys at the edge of the bleachers. The boys looked normal, but I assumed that they, like Greg, harbored some gruesome physical abnormalities that kept them from participating in class.
    As I started my set of one hundred push-ups, I consideredeach possible secret illness or malady. Perhaps, beneath all those fashionable clothes, Greg’s body was horribly deformed. After all, I’d never seen him shirtless or in a tank top. What if he had been in a fire that precisely disfigured his torso but somehow left the smooth, sinewy skin of his arms intact? Realizing I’d never seen him in shorts, I thought that maybe he’d lost his legs in a car accident. Under those perfectly fitted Girbaud jeans might be a complex system of steel rods and hydraulic joints, intricate prostheses that allowed Greg to walk but not run, jog, or jump. I imagined rubbing soothing salve into the burnt cheese pizza–skin of his chest while singing him to sleep at night. In the morning, he’d passionately kiss me good-bye after I WD-40ed the high-tech gears and pulleys of his squeaky RoboCop legs.
    Each deformity I imagined was more grotesque than the last, but it didn’t matter. I would love him regardless of his scabby foot-long tail, boil-covered penis, or swastika-shaped port-wine birthmark. I would love him for what was on the inside, as he would love me. Greg was gorgeous and effortlessly cool, and he smelled great. And one day he would be mine.
    Pushing my body off the ground for the ninety-ninth time, I peered with laser-focused intensity at my intended’s face, thinking, What could be wrong with someone who looks so perfect?
    â€œOne hundred,” I groaned before lying flat on the ground. I raised my head up to the bleachers as rivulets of sweat stung my eyeballs, gazing at the length of Greg’s body flexing and twitching as he yawned.
    â€œWhy are you lying there like a dead frog?” Coach Allen asked, his blinding white sneakers so close to my face I could smell them.
    â€œJust . . . need . . . one . . . minute . . .” I panted, breathing deeply and slowly against the red rubber mat beneath me.
    â€œWell, don’t be late, Crabb,” he grunted before shuffling away. I lingered on the gymnasium floor and closed my eyes, hoping that the unyielding boner beneath me would dissipate so I could stand up.
    Maybe I wasn’t quite ready to meet Greg. After the holidays , I told myself as the gym emptied. After the holidays .

    During some of the more painfully anxious years of my life, I would find solace in other peoples’ pets. In any situation around family or my parents’ friends in which I felt vulnerable to questions about sports and girlfriends, I would find the pet immediately and force every bit of my love and attention onto it. I cannot tell you how many hours I spent in my mom’s boyfriends’ backyards or my grandparents’ garage playing fetch or tug-of-war with a mutt. Parties with other kids my age were the worst,