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SINISTER

7.

A sharp pain throbbed behind his left eye. It was the smell of formaldehyde causing the hurt, he thought. The stench rose from the pigs, each cut open like a tiny autopsy victim . It hung in the air, thick, and slithered into his sinuses. The taste of it scratched at his gag reflex. He stood near the back of the room, his own pig cadaver in a silver tray. Some of the kids gave their pig a name. He hadn’t. It seemed cruel enough that the pig was already a plastic-like corpse, its limbs splayed and pinned down, and its midsection slashed open and peeled open wide to expose its organs. Did it really need the insult of being named after all that?

“Pancreas,” the teacher called out.

It was practice for the final exam where every organ had to be identified. He used a refracting tool to nudge his pig’s spleen aside and expose its pancreas. The teacher walked between desks, checking where her students had poked the torn apart bodies.

“Okay, now find the cecum.”

The cecum was where the small intestine joined the large intestine. His pig’s small intestine was a mass of tight, grey coils. The innards of the pig had no shine to it. Even the parts that had retained some color, like the liver and its heart, were tinted with gray death. Garren poked the corpse again and, as he did, his gag reflex kicked in. The hard surge from his stomach churned bile into his mouth and he backed away from the dissection station. He heard his classmates laughing as he fled.

“Look who’s blowing chunks,” one of them said. “Again.”

His stomach settled as he moved down the hall, away from the smell. He wiped at his eyes. The teacher stepped up behind him.

“Having a bad morning?”

Her smile was supposed to express professional concern, he guessed, but it had a mocking slant to it.

He shook his head, a motion that was more embarrassment than yes or no.

She asked again, “Are you having a bad morning.”

His breakfast had been stale cereal from a crumpled box he kept in his backpack. As he’d eaten it from his hand, he’d listened to his mother cook for the daddy. The kitchen’s floorboards creaked as she moved from the stove to the counter to the table and back. After a while, he’d heard the back door slam. Then, when the daddy was gone she’d released him. He rose from the darkness and climbed the stairs, stiff legged, to face her crazy eyes. Her eyes were big and nurturing when she asked, “Do you want some eggs before school?” It frightened him, her eyes and the gentleness in them because it meant that, to her, nothing unusual had happened. He’d left the house, silent and starving, and made it to school in time for first period.

“Nothing too bad,” he said.

“Pull yourself together as soon as you can.”

“Have you ever noticed that the harder you try not to throw up the more you have to?” He asked the question as meaningless banter, something she might smile about for real.

She told him, “I never needed to throw up in biology class.” Then she returned to the classroom and shut the door.

He paced the hall, craving a cigarette. If he could kill a few more minutes, he’d return to class just as the pigs were being zipped into their plastic bags and going back to the refrigerator. He started to bite a nail, but the dead-pig smell was on his flesh and he shoved both hands into his pockets. His shoes squeaked against the floor and, after a while, he felt he couldn’t delay any longer. He moved to the door, rubbed his left temple where most of the headache was and took a deep breath of non-poisoned air. Then he entered the room.

On the way to his pig he passed a tall, broad shouldered boy named Todd Febie who said, loud enough for everyone to hear, “What a pussy.” Todd’s sidekick, another boy around the same size named Jason Lastosso, laughed.

Garren walked to his pig, ignoring the chortling little laughs that trailed after him like another kind of stink. Idiot morons, he thought. Those guys keep their letterman’s jackets on all day and they make fun of me? And to call me a pussy… One day of my life would kill both of them. A single day…

The teacher called out, “Bag ‘em!”

Garren gathered all of his tools. They were never cleaned. Working with dead fetal pigs required no sterilization, he guessed. He stuffed his torn pig in its bag, carried it to the fridge and slid it onto a wire rack. He grabbed his textbook and notebook and then saw that Todd stood between him and the exit.

“Did your little tummy get all upset?”

Any reaction was pointless. If he grinned and played along, Todd would be encouraged and keep going. If he got mad, Todd would punch him.

“Did you at least make it to the bathroom?”

Garren sidestepped the tall, muscular boy to reach the door and escape. Todd took half a step and blocked him.

“I asked you something,” he said. “I’m concerned about you. Can’t you see that?”

Todd’s buddy, Jason, moved in to further block his path.

Helpless and cornered, Garren looked up.

“I just want to know if you’re okay, that’s all.”

“Fine,” he said. It came out like a defeated grunt.

“Good,” Todd said, “’cause if I stepped in a puddle of your vomit I’d kick your ass and make you lick it up, faggot.”

Jason loosed a raucous giggle. Todd looked over at him, please, and Garren shot toward the door. Other kids were leaving, all exiting in a line. One of them, a girl with blonde hair put his hand on his shoulder. He jumped at her touch.

“He only gives you a hard time because he knows he’ll end up working for you someday,” she said.

Garren didn’t know what to say to that. He wasn’t a brain. It wasn’t like Todd teased him about being super smart or some kind of science nerd. Todd teased him for being a loser. Besides, pity from a hot girl only made his stomach want to retch again and his head pound louder. He hurried into the throng of students.

Sometimes he wondered why he bothered to escape the basement. Why not just roll over on the basement floor and surrender. When it came to the pariahs, guys like Todd had free reign. And when it came to home, the daddy and his madness ruled every breath he took. Now his insides vibrated with something other than nausea and it seethed throughout him in a boil. He walked fast, head down, knees shaking.

He passed his next class and ran into the bathroom instead. He held his hands under the hot water until they turned pink, then decided he’d had enough of school – and humiliation – for the day. His hands shook and it took a few tries to get the combination to his locker right. He dumped the Biology book, heaved his backpack on and headed for a side exit. He left Manitou High School as the tardy bell rang and stuck his thumb into his mouth. As he crossed the parking lot he bit the tip of his thumb so hard that a pebble sized chunk of flesh came off in his teech.

“Fuck,” he said.

He lit a cigarette and inhaled deep, killing the taste of dead pig, and made it to the street. Sometimes, he thought, all he wanted to do was scream and the only thing that prevented him from letting it out was the scary feeling that he’d never be able to stop.

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