janitors, who hid beneath the stairwells smoking, were around.
“How come you so white, boy?” Derrick Holmes asked with a laugh. Derrick was a huge kid, with a massive chest and forearms and a face as wide as a bull’s.
“Looks like your moms must a gave it up,” the other kid, Mike Porter—slighter, ganglier, with a loose, fluid kind of coolness—said, and then shoved Rod against his locker by his neck. “How come you think you’re better than all the rest of us, huh?” Mike tore off Rod’s clip-on tie and spat. “Prancing around with fucking white kids.” He swatted the side of Rod’s head and laughed.
Rod wasn’t the kind of kid who would fight back. He just closed his eyes and let Derrick Holmes dump a plastic garbage can full of papers and trash all over his head. “Go home to your whitefolks, Oreo.”
When I asked him about it that Saturday, we were on the bus heading to the flea market. Rod was looking for the Velvet Underground on vinyl and I was looking for the guy from Chinatown who sold switchblades and butterfly knives, the things that were illegal to sell in the back of kung-fu magazines. I had been eyeing this one silver pearl inlaid but terfly knife for weeks. I was convinced what Rod needed was some sort of weapon he could flash and not another out-of-date record from some group that no one had heard of except his dad.
“How come you didn’t fight back?” I asked. “You could have done something.”
“You don’t get it. Even if I fought back, they wouldn’t get it.”
“‘Get it’? Who cares if they ‘get it’? If someone is out to hurt you, you got to fight back, man.”
“That’s not the way me and my dad see it. He’s been hassled. He says they just want you to act like an animal, you know. But if you do, then you’re no better than them.”
“Yeah,” I said, “I don’t know about any of that. I just know if someone knocked my shit out of my hands, I’d start swinging.”
“Maybe that’s why no one fucks with you.”
“Maybe,” I said, thinking of getting hit in the head with the egg in the stall. I never told anyone about it. Why? Because it was fucking humiliating and I never really knew if they had done it to me on purpose or if they would have just done it to anybody, and, well, like I said, it was pretty fucking embarrassing.
“Yeah, maybe,” he said.
“Hey, you thinking about asking anyone to Homecoming?” I asked. “It’s coming up quick.”
“Who? Who am I going to ask?” he said, shaking his head. “The only other people I talk to is you and my mom and dad. And I ain’t asking any of you.”
At the flea market, we ended up stopping at this booth where this man had all kinds of weird, foreign horror flicks. The guy was tall and thin with a brown ponytail that ran down his back. He was wearing a Blizzard of Oz T-shirt and was smoking, nodding his head to some Dio he had playing.
“You guys wanna see something scary, check this one out—it’s from Italy,” he said, sliding a videotape of Lucio Fulchi’s Beyond across to me.
“Dude, I’ve seen that one already. It’s garbage,” I said.
“OK, how about Evil Dead? ” the guy asked.
“Man, that came out like ten years ago. Do you got anything, like, unknown?”
“Have you ever seen El Santo, the masked wrestler from the ’50s?”
“Duh,” I said. “I was asking about serious horror.”
“Well, OK, how about this,” he said, sliding a blank VHS tape toward me. “It’s a VHS transfer from an old 8mm.”
I picked up the videotape and read the title: Lion vs. Tiger!
“What the hell is that?” I asked.
“Five bucks to find out,” he said. I had the five bucks I was planning on spending on the butterfly knife, but Lion vs. Tiger! How could you resist it?
We went back to Rod’s house, locked his bedroom door, slid the tape inside, and waited. A black screen came up:
THIS DOCUMENT IS A WORK OF FACT: SADLY, WHILE FILMING A SHORT FILM WITH THE VERHOEVEN CIRCUS IN
“How come you so white, boy?” Derrick Holmes asked with a laugh. Derrick was a huge kid, with a massive chest and forearms and a face as wide as a bull’s.
“Looks like your moms must a gave it up,” the other kid, Mike Porter—slighter, ganglier, with a loose, fluid kind of coolness—said, and then shoved Rod against his locker by his neck. “How come you think you’re better than all the rest of us, huh?” Mike tore off Rod’s clip-on tie and spat. “Prancing around with fucking white kids.” He swatted the side of Rod’s head and laughed.
Rod wasn’t the kind of kid who would fight back. He just closed his eyes and let Derrick Holmes dump a plastic garbage can full of papers and trash all over his head. “Go home to your whitefolks, Oreo.”
When I asked him about it that Saturday, we were on the bus heading to the flea market. Rod was looking for the Velvet Underground on vinyl and I was looking for the guy from Chinatown who sold switchblades and butterfly knives, the things that were illegal to sell in the back of kung-fu magazines. I had been eyeing this one silver pearl inlaid but terfly knife for weeks. I was convinced what Rod needed was some sort of weapon he could flash and not another out-of-date record from some group that no one had heard of except his dad.
“How come you didn’t fight back?” I asked. “You could have done something.”
“You don’t get it. Even if I fought back, they wouldn’t get it.”
“‘Get it’? Who cares if they ‘get it’? If someone is out to hurt you, you got to fight back, man.”
“That’s not the way me and my dad see it. He’s been hassled. He says they just want you to act like an animal, you know. But if you do, then you’re no better than them.”
“Yeah,” I said, “I don’t know about any of that. I just know if someone knocked my shit out of my hands, I’d start swinging.”
“Maybe that’s why no one fucks with you.”
“Maybe,” I said, thinking of getting hit in the head with the egg in the stall. I never told anyone about it. Why? Because it was fucking humiliating and I never really knew if they had done it to me on purpose or if they would have just done it to anybody, and, well, like I said, it was pretty fucking embarrassing.
“Yeah, maybe,” he said.
“Hey, you thinking about asking anyone to Homecoming?” I asked. “It’s coming up quick.”
“Who? Who am I going to ask?” he said, shaking his head. “The only other people I talk to is you and my mom and dad. And I ain’t asking any of you.”
At the flea market, we ended up stopping at this booth where this man had all kinds of weird, foreign horror flicks. The guy was tall and thin with a brown ponytail that ran down his back. He was wearing a Blizzard of Oz T-shirt and was smoking, nodding his head to some Dio he had playing.
“You guys wanna see something scary, check this one out—it’s from Italy,” he said, sliding a videotape of Lucio Fulchi’s Beyond across to me.
“Dude, I’ve seen that one already. It’s garbage,” I said.
“OK, how about Evil Dead? ” the guy asked.
“Man, that came out like ten years ago. Do you got anything, like, unknown?”
“Have you ever seen El Santo, the masked wrestler from the ’50s?”
“Duh,” I said. “I was asking about serious horror.”
“Well, OK, how about this,” he said, sliding a blank VHS tape toward me. “It’s a VHS transfer from an old 8mm.”
I picked up the videotape and read the title: Lion vs. Tiger!
“What the hell is that?” I asked.
“Five bucks to find out,” he said. I had the five bucks I was planning on spending on the butterfly knife, but Lion vs. Tiger! How could you resist it?
We went back to Rod’s house, locked his bedroom door, slid the tape inside, and waited. A black screen came up:
THIS DOCUMENT IS A WORK OF FACT: SADLY, WHILE FILMING A SHORT FILM WITH THE VERHOEVEN CIRCUS IN
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