Project X by Jim Shepard Read Free Book Online

a little to stir things around. He stands up.
    There’s a pin like the thing you stick in a turkey in the biggest pipe leading into the furnace, at the part where the pipe’s going sideways. He slides the pin out and shifts the pipe around until it moves. It opens, but not far enough for the saucepan to fit in.
    â€œShit,”
he says.
    â€œIt doesn’t fit?” I go.
    â€œShit,”
he says. He wrestles with it for five minutes, with me holding the light on it. Then he kicks the side of the furnace and sits on the floor.
    â€œHow about we pour some of it in the baggie and just leave the baggie open in there?” I ask him.
    He doesn’t say anything. He’s probably wondering if you could get enough stuff in the baggie to do any good.
    â€œGod
damn
it,” he finally says.
    The furnace clicks on. The open pipe makes it sound louder than it probably normally would.
    â€œLemme think,” Flake goes. He stands up and walks over to the furnace. I zigzag the light around while he’s thinking. “Shit,” he goes. He slides the pipe back where it was, then drops his pants and pisses on the side of the furnace.
    Walking home he’s mad because his piss ended up splashing around and got on his shoes.
    â€œWhat’re you looking at?” he wants to know.
    â€œAbsolutely nothing,” I go.
    He squishes along. My feet are wetter than his, but his probably feel wetter. “Somebody’s going to pay for this,” he finally says.
    â€œYour mom, when she washes your socks?” I go.
    An old guy in an SUV trails us all the way home. He has to go about a mile an hour to keep from getting ahead of us. We stay on the road anyway. It’s a long walk and the guy never speeds up. It must be four in the morning by this point. We don’t see a single other car on the road. When we get to Flake’s street, he turns to the SUV and puts his hands on both sides of his crotch and moves them up and down his thighs and belly. “Oh, baby,” he says. “C’mon, baby.” Then he turns and heads down to his house.

3
    There’s this sixth-grader who’s decided he can’t leave us alone. He always wears the same black t-shirt that says SCREW THE SYSTEM under whatever other shirt he’s got on. Flake gets a kick out of it when he first sees it.
    â€œYour mother lets you wear that?” he asks the kid. We’re standing in the lunch line and the kid has six chocolate milks and nothing else on his tray.
    â€œYour mother,” the kid says back.
    â€œHe’s not cracking on your mother,” I tell him. “He’s asking you a
question
.”
    â€œ
Your
mother,” the kid goes to me.
    â€œOh my God,” Flake goes. “This little shit’s crazier than I am.”
    You can see it’s made the kid’s day. “I’ll kick your ass,” the kid says. He’s like three feet two. His hair sticks straight up.
    Flake asks him his name.
    â€œHerman,” the kid says.
    â€œHermie,” Flake says. “I like that.”
    â€œHerman,” the kid says.
    â€œHermie,” Flake says.
    â€œHerman,” the kid says.
    â€œWell, I’m glad that’s settled,” I go.
    â€œUp yours,” the kid says.
    Flake gives me a look. We both crack up.
    â€œSo can I sit with you?” the kid says, when we finally get through the line.
    â€œNo,” Flake goes.
    We have combination locks for our lockers. Every day I get worried I’m not going to be able to open it. That’s what kind of hopeless feeboid pussy
I
am—I worry about being able to open my locker. The lock’s no good. You have like two seconds to open it between classes, and everybody else is opening theirs. Three straight days I can’t do it. The first day I try it twelve different ways, getting sweatier and sweatier, while everybody else gets their stuff and slams their doors and takes off. I stand there,