Brutal by Michael Harmon Read Free Book Online

and lived on having contempt for students.
    I imagined myself in one of their silly robes, front and center at a competition and singing my heart out, and I didn't laugh at it. I knew I'd like it. I would. I'd like thefeeling, because that's what singing was all about. But I wasn't about to be a part of something that every grain of my being was against, and the name of the varsity choir, the Elite, said it all. If you didn't look the part and play the part and have all the proper pedigrees, you were nothing.
    I wasn't nothing, though. I could sing, and now the tables were turned. I shut her out and made her feel like crap just like she went around doing to other people. She could take her professionally trained hand puppets and stick them up her big butt for all I cared.
    I turned the first corner from the school and saw Velveeta walking a block up, his lanky gait recognizable even from this distance. I quickened my pace, hoping to catch him before we got home, but then he took a left through a large vacant lot and disappeared.
    As I approached the overgrown lot, I saw the path he'd gone down and followed, thinking it was a shortcut. As I entered the narrow path, I saw the flash of his T-shirt before he disappeared around the brush thirty yards ahead.
    Then I heard muffled voices. I slowed, not sneaking, but interested in what was going on, and rounded the corner. Maybe he was scoring some dope or something. The path straightened from there on, with the backyard fences of houses on one side and the brush on the other. Velveeta stood in front of two guys, both of them big, and the smiles on their faces weren't friendly.
    I stopped, watching as they talked. I couldn't hear what was being said, but Velveeta held a piece of paper in his hand and kept gesturing to it. Then one of them laughed, ripping the paper away and crumpling it up. He threw it on the ground, then pointed, directing Velveeta to pick it up.
    Velveeta shuffled, and this time I heard the guy order him to pick it up.
    As Velveeta bent, the bigger of the two pounced on his back and smashed him to the ground, pinning his neck with his palm. With Velveeta's cheek pressed against the dirt and the crumpled paper in front of him, the other guy squatted down and laughed. “Eat it, cheese head.”
    My stomach did somersaults, and I knew I should do something. I didn't, though. I couldn't. I don't know why. My feet froze to the path. I could only watch as one of the guys picked up the paper and forced it into Velveeta's mouth. “Chew it, bitch. Take it down, boy. That's right. Eat it.”
    With the paper stuffed halfway into his mouth, Velveeta refused to chew. The kid pinning him pressed harder on his neck. Velveeta grunted, and his body, sprawled on the ground, tightened spastically, resisting the pressure. Tears welled in my eyes, but I couldn't do it. I couldn't tell them to stop, but like a car wreck, I couldn't stop watching, either. Velveeta chewed. They laughed. “Choke it down, retard. Oh yeah. Did your dead bitch of a mother feed you like this, you desert pig?” the one on top said, then ordered him to swallow it.
    Velveeta didn't, and this time, the kid squatting in front of his face reared back and punched his forehead, the dull thud reaching my ears. I stepped out and yelled, screaming my head off with every cussword known to man coming out. They sprang up, staring at the screaming crazy loon for a few seconds before flipping me off and strutting down the path laughing. Velveeta lay still.
    I walked to him, not wanting to be here, but not able toleave. I didn't want to see this. Nobody should see this. I knelt. His breath came in sharp rasps, eyes wide and staring at nothing as drool from the corner of his lip puddled in the dirt. His cheek bulged with the paper, and like a slow-motion movie scene, he parted his lips and the mushed-up contents plopped out, filaments of slobber running streams from it to his mouth. He didn't move. I looked away. “Are you