The Haters by Jesse Andrews Read Free Book Online Page B

you okay?” asked Russell.
    â€œDon’t worry about me,” I said, grimly committed to making two completely incompatible faces at the same time.
    â€œYou’re making kind of a strange face.”
    â€œNo. I’m not.”
    â€œThere isn’t something in your eye or something?”
    â€œDon’t come,” said Ash. “I don’t want you guys to come.”
    â€œYou sure,” I said.
    â€œYeah,” she said, and gave me a little smile.
    â€œSounds good,” said Corey uncertainly.
    â€œLet’s go see Bill,” she said to Russell.
    And they left. And Corey and I went into the dorm, alone.
    The common room was full of dudes. But no one was interested in talking to us except Tim, the scumbag guitarist.
    â€œYou cats caused quite a stir,” he said to us in a voice that was trying to be at least half an octave deeper than it actually was. “Especially the
lady
.”
    Corey actually just sped up and walked out of the room.
    â€œJoin me for a square?” Tim said to me, twirling a cigarette pack and almost dropping it.
    And before I knew what was happening, I found myself out behind the dorm’s fire exit for fifteen minutes, watching Tim chain-smoke Parliaments and listening to him tell me How It Is. He was talking in Stage Four Jazz Voice about Ash in particular and ladies in general and how he always found himself falling for crazy ladies, ladies with
fire
, where sometimes the fire burnsslow and sometimes it burns hot, and the only thing they like better than bossing you is when you step up and boss
them
.
    â€œThey
jones
on you mannin’ up, down, and sideways, my froond,” he told me. “And it’s the
only
game in town that’ll get ’em to quit bossin’ you every which.”
    Then he took a long drag, chuckled, and looked me in the eye.
    He was probably trying to get his eyes to twinkle. But the effect was sort of just squinty and intense. It was the face of when someone is trying to fart, except there’s a razor’s edge between farting and pooping.
    I had restricted myself to politely murmured agreement up to that point. But “froond” was just a bridge too far.
    â€œFroond?” I repeated. I didn’t even know how to begin raising objections to it. I found myself just repeating it over and over. “Froond? . . . froond.
Froond
.”
    â€œFroond, like ‘friend,’” said Tim.
    â€œYeah. But, uh. But, Tim. Who says ‘froond.’”
    â€œSpeakers of the lingo known as Ger-manical, my froond.”
    â€œOkay. Well, German. Not Germanical. Second,
in
German, according to every German class I’ve ever taken, it’s
froynd
.”
    â€œF-R-U-E-N-D? Believe that spellifies
froond
.”
    â€œWell, that doesn’t, but also, it’s E-U. Not U-E. Pronounced
froynd
.”
    â€œDepends on the, uh, dialecticaciosi-
cality.”
    â€œThe dialect. No. No dialect has ‘froond.’”
    â€œAgree to disagree.”
    â€œTim. It’s always
froynd
. Everywhere. Also, you’re wrongabout women. Women hate being bossed around. That’s the whole reason feminism exists. And in general, man, you gotta not talk like that.”
    Tim kept smiling, but his face did something between a blink and a flinch.
    â€œTalk like what,” he said.
    â€œTalk, like, this whole made-up thing, where every sentence you’re trying to remind people that you play jazz and aren’t just some other suburban white kid with orthodontist parents.”
    Now his face had gone a kind of ugly blank. But I had to keep going.
    â€œYou gotta not try to talk black. Because let’s be honest, that’s what you’re trying to do. You’re trying to do blackvoice. So stop. You’re not even doing it right. I mean, you just tried to throw ‘froond’ in there.”
    We gazed at each other.
    Then he said: “Well, this is how I talk