Chapter Three
Saturday, October 9th
Evening of Fenton High homecoming dance
I thought I’d found more pix of Caitlin on the Homegrown Video site, but it was this blonde with bad fake tits. She was hot, and soon so was I, until I clicked on the last photo showing the girl’s cum-covered face. A bone-chilling thought shot through me. All these girls are some father’s daughter, somebody else’s sister and some other family’s nightmare come true. Is there some other seventeen-year-old boy somewhere in the world finding his sister on a porn site? Given the seemingly infinite universe of porn, it is most likely I’m not the only one feeling a wave of emotions as I watch a loved one having sex—not to share personal intimacy, but for impersonal entertainment and erotic excitement.
Yet, finding Caitlin on a porn site falls into the shocked but not totally surprised category.
Unskilled in sports, untalented in the arts and uninterested in school, the one thing Caitlin always had going for her was physical self. A cute middle child who craved attention from anyone, as she got older, she used her body to get noticed by boys. This hit home the summer before seventh grade, when Caitlin was about to start her sophomore year. My fellow non-jock friends like Kevin Baker began summer in my room shooting aliens on video games. On the first super-hot day, we headed to our back yard pool—which now sits empty—only to find Caitlin there tanning. I’d tried not to notice but it was hard not to miss how Caitlin had quickly transformed from flat-chested to filled out. She did nothing to conceal that fact either.
After that, whenever my friends came over to the house, the guys would head to the pool if Caitlin was around. They’d noticed Caitlin in a big way, but she’d noticed them, too. In a few days, she went from ignoring us to making herself the center of attention. A red thong bikini, a fondness for walking in front of my friends on endless non-existent errands and a newfound enthusiasm for pool volleyball did the trick. For years she’d lived in Carol’s shadow, but now in the bright sunlight, she shone on her own, for the world—or at least my friends—to see.
“Carson! It’s time to go!” Mom yells. They’re dropping me at First Wok, where my best pal Tim works, on their way to Saturday mass at Holy Family. My parents were never devout, just Easter and Christmas Catholics, but Caitlin changed that, too. They re-embraced religion when Caitlin started breaking bad. Like if she didn’t change, then it was God’s fault, not theirs.
At First Wok, I glom a free meal, drink coffee and hang out with Tim in between customers, the few there are. I watch him wait tables. He watches me scribble in my notebook. The sweetest sound in the world is when an exciting idea comes and I click the pen so words flow like the endless refills of coffee Tim pours in my cup. Truth is, I’m not even writing. I’m just transposing the dream movie from my mind to paper. I never wanted a tablet or laptop. There’s something satisfying about the rubbing of pen against paper that no computer can match. Friction creates the best fiction in so many ways.
Near the end of his shift, Tim sits at the table with me. He’s a math machine, but he doesn’t need mad skills to add up the few tip dollars he earned tonight. Just like the stores I visited to apply for work without any success since nobody in Flint is hiring teens this fall, First Wok’s business is dying with everything else in Fenton, in Michigan. I can almost feel the squeeze of my mitten-shaped state shrinking.
“You think your uncle could give me a job here?” I don’t look up when I ask.
“Carson, dude, I don’t think so, but I’ll ask him,” Tim replies.
“I’ll do anything. Wash dishes, bus tables, whatever.”
“I thought you wanted to be a writer, not a waiter?” He wipes his wire-rimmed glasses clean. “I wish you had my job, but I wish for lots of things. Should I name my want list for you?”
I chuckle. Tim, like me, is alone on homecoming. Most of our male friends are more adept at calculating a hypotenuse than hooking up. Given the male to female ratio in math and science AP classes, guys like Tim analyze the odds of coupling and know better than to expend the effort. “It’ll make a great story to tell your kids, Tim—when you’re rich—about the value of hard work.”
“Maybe,” Tim says. That Tim will be successful and live that American dream is all but certain. He’s a lock for schools that Dad wouldn’t imagine that I could get into, like MIT or Carnegie Mellon. We’ll both apply to Princeton, but my chances of getting in, let alone affording that school, are less than zero. Tim’s got a leg-up on that ladder off this rocky ground.
“Thanks, Tiny Tim Wang,” I crack.
“You’re welcome, Big Carson Penis,” he says, per usual. How was his family to know one hundred and fifty years ago when they arrived as Chinese immigrants in California that ‘Wang’ would take on a different meaning, especially in the immature universe of guys like us? Although, as I know from the monster cocks of porn, I’m Average Size Carson, at best.
“Well, ask him, okay?” I say softly. I hate asking friends for favors, especially Tim, and not only because he’s never ever asked me for any favor for any reason. One of the last of many favors I asked was to help set me up with Thien last spring, but that totally backfired. Tim still goes to Honor Society meetings, but I’m NHS non grata. Thien avoids me like the plague I am.
“But a job would put such a crimp in your social life,” he cracks.
“My social life is watching you spill soup,” I counter. “What am I clinging to?”
He laughs. We met in ninth grade, during gym, as we battled over who would not be the last one for whatever teams were forming. Tim always got picked last because he’s never met a meal that he didn’t like or finish. I got picked next to last because I’m just clumsy, which I blame on the Banks growth spurt curse. Carol grew from adorable to attractive overnight, while I leaped from short and skilled to tall and awkward between eighth and ninth grade. Caitlin’s growth spurt took her from A-cup to C-cup in one summer. With how Caitlin showed off in every online photo and YouTube vid, it was really a ‘see-me’ cup. Once Caitlin ran, my junior high friends like Kevin stopped hanging out, and Tim fell into the open slot. Senior year upon us, we’re still best friends.
“I’d need off the third Thursday of every month, when the creative writing club meets.”
“How’s that club going?” The first meeting was three weeks ago, but Tim’s been so busy with work, studying and college stuff that we’ve had no time to talk other than occasional IMs.
“You’re looking at the new vice president of the Fenton High creative writing club!” I say with mock pride to overshadow my disappointment. You always shout the big lie.
“Vice President? So who’s president?”
“Josh Brown,” I sigh. “Don’t worry. I’m making plans.”
“Assassination,” Tim says, very seriously, which is very funny.
“I’d do it, except I don’t want people to know my middle name. It seems the only people you know the middle names of are those who follow in the tradition of assassins like John Wilkes Booth or Lee Harvey Oswald,” I say.
Tim laughs. It echoes in the almost empty restaurant. “What is your middle name?”
“Danger,” I reply.
He laughs again, like he would at my real middle name—August.
“Carson Danger Banks—if that is your real name—I’ll keep your secret safe,” Tim says. Part of me wants to ease in with speaking of secrets, but I’m not ready to reveal what I learned about Caitlin to Tim. Porn’s everywhere, yet it’s also oddly private. “But, dude, I don’t understand.”
“Understand what?”
“Understand how they couldn’t elect you president, it was your idea. That’s so unfair.”
“No, that’s high school.” Another laugh.
“Do you know why Josh is even back in school?” Tim asks. Josh had been at a private school the past three years, but re-emerged for his senior year at Fenton.
“Maybe it’s the Second Coming. The weather calls for cloudy skies with a chance of Four Horsemen,” I crack. “I’d ask Josh, but doubt he’d stoop so low as to talk to someone like me.”
“Carson, relax, he’s just a person,” Tim says before he waits on a rare customer, leaving me with my twisted thoughts. Josh isn’t just a person any more than Gatsby is just a guy who Nick knows. I don’t know Josh well enough to hate him as a person. It’s the idea of him that angers me. He’s everything I dream of being, yet deep down doubt that I’ll ever achieve.