I am seventeen years old and not much else when I meet Dean Vogel. I see him for the first time as he walks through the double-door entrance of Washington High School in September of my senior year, battered backpack slung over one shoulder, summer tan very much lingering, a hint of something lemony, and a fairly large hole near the right armpit of his white t-shirt, revealing rippled muscles. His eyes make me feel cold, but not in a bad way—in a “something’s about to happen” way. He walks a few steps past the main bulletin board, his eyes sweeping over the bright pink flyers and sports sign-up sheets and club notices and kinda creepy mentor programs posters until his eyes meet mine. My eyes are not like his. Mine are just dark brown—a Little League teammate of mine called them “shit chic.” His have that thing where the colorful part of your eye is lined in a very sharp black, and the inside part, the whatsitcalled, the iris, yes the iris, is all gray-blue except for the middle, which looks like a little lion’s mane. I know all this because all of the sudden, he’s standing extremely close to me. He puts on a weird accent, or at least I think he does because I’ve never heard him speak before, and he says, “Greetings, heus, hello! Care to direct me to where Ms. Green enraptures her students with the joys of domestic life?” Because I don’t understand most of the words he says, I only say Um. He slaps his forehead, smiling, his teeth kinda screwy and yellow looking, before he speaks in what I assume is his normal voice—“Ah! How ridiculously, unforgivably rude of me!” He clears his throat, and with his nose pointed towards the ceiling, he says, “I, sir, am the one, the only, the great and powerful, the recently expelled, Dean Vogel, here at the esteemed Washington High School to make sure my education is complete and American as apple-goddamn-pie. And you are?” I mumble my name and Dean smiles again. “Well it is certainly dandy to meet you, partner. Reckon you could lemme know where the tantalizingly single Ms. Green’s classroom is?” I point at the door directly behind him and he laughs, but all high and faggy-like, says, “Not a talkative fella, are you?” and as I turn away to go to math, which I hate because Mr. Rincon has a curved, birdy nose that looks like my dead grandfather’s and I didn’t like to be around my dead grandfather because he smelled weird and said the word “Negro” and showed too much skin for a man his age, and Mr. Rincon also has this big body that reminds me of a moose, he kind of…ambles, is what I think the word is, anyway I turn to go to math and I see Dean shaking Ms. Green’s hand very hard and then I laugh because I realize he’s just doing it to see her tits shake and she doesn’t even realize. I go to math and count the minutes and when Mr. Rincon looks up from the lesson plan and pushes his glasses down his nose and takes a big sigh and says “Why don’t you come on up here and take a stab at this one?” and my numbers look like letters and every second feels longer than the last one and I get to finally, mercifully, sit down, and count the seconds until lunch. Just 10 more minutes and it will only be an hour. 9. 8.

Dean, according to most stories, was expelled from Huntington High for either a) hacking into the school’s grading system and giving himself all F’s in protest of a detention b) putting a car in the main lobby of the school right in front of the statue of the first principal of the school, and that science teachers couldn’t figure out how he got the car in there c) getting caught receiving a blowjob from the principal’s wife in the principal’s office and d) driving an AP US Gov teacher to suicide in his first two weeks as a teacher. I don’t know which is true and I don’t ask him because I rarely see him. I do occasionally glimpse him strolling through the hallway—yes, strolling—humming and wearing the same torn t-shirt and green corduroys he always wears. Sometimes he grins at me, other times just an understated nod. It is already September 17th when Mr. Rincon has already made me bring two tests to my parents, “to be signed and returned me pronto, young man,” and Mrs. Burckhardt in my English class has drowned my papers in a sea of red, I think that’s from something, yes definitely, though I can’t remember, and Mr. McClatchy has asked me if I think he has a secretary to just print out any old assignment I email to him, all this has happened, when Dean walks into my film appreciation class with Mr. Hillman with a note and a shirt that says, in marker, “The Man Himself”, and announces that he has moved from his old elective to this one, though he’d rather not go into the details. I notice how odd his body looks for the first time. His chin is strong and his whole upper half looks manly as all hell, clearly cut underneath the threadbare t-shirt (does he have more than one?), but his legs, his legs and his hips, so feminine, so slender and wispy and, weirdest of all, nearly hairless. He sees me in the back, grins, slides into the chair, takes a deep breath, says, “Thank the fucking Lord and all of his secretaries that you’re here”, getting a look from Mr. Hillman. The movie begins—it’s called Crash, I think, which makes Dean sneer for some reason, which I see right before I fall asleep. I wake up and Mr. Hillman and Dean are both standing, all the other kids, Ricky Ledo and Hannah Collis and Rohun Bhagat are all staring, eyes wide and some jaws dropped, and a pool of drool has formed where my mouth was resting on the table and Dean is telling Mr. Hillman that he should be ashamed “for showing such a presumptuous, pompous, pathetic excuse of a film for these impressionable young minds. Where did you get your teaching degree?” and my drool looks like one of the Good lakes, the big ones, but I can’t tell which one and Mr. Hillman is smiling and Dean is smiling but Mr. Hillman is also shaking his head and sucking in through his teeth and looking at the floor while he smiles so I know his smile is way different from Dean’s. Dean gets kicked out of the class, but first he tells me that I’ll never get to “truly appreciate the beauty of cinema unless you come with me, my liege. Let me razzle-dazzle you. I want to give you a real film and culture appreciation class. You’ll thank me, believe you me, and—you know, I see you’re still not convinced, so you know what sir, my boss usually tells me not to do this, but for a special customer like you, I can make an exception, because you’re the sort of business this company strives for—I have some of the absolutely most face-melting, brain-eroding, giggle-inducing weed you’ve ever seen. My guy calls it ‘The Last of the Mohicans’, but he won’t tell me why, which is pretty funny.” What can I say? I say yes. He says come over Friday night after the football game.

I wait all week for Friday. My parents ask me if I’m all right all the time and I always say yeah and then they look at each other and make a face like I’m not in the room or something and then they smile and leave. Mr. Rincon starts to be in my nightmares—they go like this. I am sitting in a room, and everything is green. The chairs, the couches, the carpet, the walls, my skin, the shelves, the lamps, the light—all of it, a bright green. It is pleasant, and it is just me. Then, Mr. Rincon is in front of me in an instant. He tells me to find the red. I blink, and I tell him I don’t understand, but he can only roll his eyes and tell me to find the red, and the way he does it scares the shit out of me, so I start slowly at first, looking at couch pillows, looking behind the curtains, turning on the lamps, but no luck, but he only gestures with his eyebrows to keep looking and so I get more frantic, throwing aside books and tearing apart pillows and punching through walls and I’m crying and the tears, green as everything else, hit the floor and make a loud splash, until I get so crazy that I start ripping off my own skin, tossing aside intestines and other pink gooey stuff to find the red, find the red, until I get all the way down to my heart and I rip it out and it’s red, thank God thank you God it’s red, and Mr. Rincon raises his big moose body out of his chair and sniffs and tells me that the heart is “Maroon, not red.” Then he snatches the heart out of my hand and I stare and I’m scared and then he smiles like Lex Luthor does, with high, arched eyebrows to let you know it’s an evil smile, and then he laughs and rips the heart with his teeth and then I wake up.

“Class, class settle down,” says Dean, wearing a dress shirt, tie, and a tweed jacket on top but only boxer briefs down below. I am sitting in a big lumpy green beanbag chair in Dean’s basement, waiting for Dean to continue. “Now I know that not all of you consider yourselves film connoisseurs, exactly, and that’s fine. Very few people do, and, AND, even fewer actually are. They fall for tricks that, really, class, aren’t even that difficult to see through—yes, they do. It’s the sad truth.” I should mention Dean is wearing glasses with the lenses poked out and that behind him the television is paused on something but I can’t tell what because Dean has put a big piece of paper over the screen that says, “OUR FEATURE PRESENTATION WILL BEGIN SHORTLY. THANK YOU FOR YOUR PATIENCE.” Dean continues. “People see a stray tit or split-second testicle and think that makes the movie “edgy.” People, class, people think that minimal dialogue must mean that every word someone says must be of the absolute utmost importance. And, most recently and most annoyingly, people have come to the consensus that nostalgia is the whole joke, rather than just the mushrooms on the steak, if you will. Why is this?” Dean scans the basement. To his right is a set of shelves packed tightly with cans of paint. On the right is an unfinished wall. Under his feet is a fake tiger rug. The only poster is of a banana. In the middle of the room, sitting on the beanbag chair, is me. It is unclear whether or not he is going to answer his own question. He keeps going. “For our feature presentation, for our very first class, we’ve got a real treat for you, folks. A capital C Classic. The tale of an incomprehensible lounge singer, a small town, and a severed ear. Ladies and gentleman, David Lynch’s Blue Velvet.” He signals to me to clap and I do and I smile and he smiles, and the he rips the paper off the screen and flips the lights down and grabs another beanbag chair, his maroon, and pulls up next to me, and then we watch the movie. I try to focus but it’s hard—who is whose husband? What’s her name? What’s happening? If that dead guy in the yellow suit is dead, how is he standing? Who the fuck is the well-dressed man? I am about to ask Dean to pause the movie for a second but he is staring at the screen so intensely that I don’t wanna pull him away. The credits start to roll and Dean flips the lights back on, adjusts his fake glasses, and looks at me. “Well?” I don’t know, Dean, I say, scratching the back of my head. I didn’t really get it. “Any of it?” he asks, with genuine surprise. Any of it, I say. “We’re gonna watch another movie, compatriot. I’m not giving up on you quite yet, soldier, you’ve got a life and two kids to think about here.” He signals that he will just be a second and walks upstairs. The clock says 9:42 but it feels much earlier. The screen is paused on a blue curtain, which I guess is the blue velvet. I still have no idea what is going on. He comes running back down the stairs. “Okay—Taxi Driver, The Maltese Falcon, or Play it Again, Sam? Ladies choice.” I tell him I don’t care and he rolls his eyes and picks Play it Again, Sam. It’s kinda funny, but there’s this other guy who talks weird and seems like a dream and the whole thing seems like there’s supposed to be some sort of a message and I tell Dean that and he bites his thumbnail and says, “Okay.” He stands in front of the television, looks up at me, and says, “Class…It is clear that too many teachers have given up on you before.” He takes a minute to let that sink in. “Too many teachers have mailed it in, just said ‘Fuck it’ and given you a B+. Too many teachers have decided you weren’t worth pursuing. Well, I’m not those teachers, class. I am Mr. Dean Vogel, and I want you to appreciate these films, not because they’ll make you smart or culturally literate or be able to sound intelligent when someone mentions the movie but because I want you, yes you, to accrue the wisdom you deserve. People say that knowledge is power, kiddo, but they’re wrong. Wisdom is power. Knowledge without wisdom is nothing. It’s bullets without a gun. We’re going to keep watching movies until we find one that speaks to you. Class, I can practically hear America the Beautiful playing behind me—is this getting through?” I grin at him and he grins backs and presses play. For the rest of the night and for most of the day Saturday, we watch Vertigo, Lost in Translation, The English Patient (“As a test,” Dean tells me, “to see if you’re seduced by platitudinal pabulum.” I have no idea what that means but I think it means he doesn’t like the movie.), Ishtar (“One of the most criminally underrated movies of all-time”), and The Jerk, which I like. But even though we watch and watch and watch, I just don’t get it like Dean gets it, and I can see in his face and hear in his tone what see and hear from Mrs. Burckhardt when I go to her for extra help on my paper and I try to listen and nod and understand but it’s clear to both of us that I’m just not going to get it. “Movies,” Dean starts as the credits for Requiem for a Dream roll behind him, “are clearly not your thing.” Yeah, sorry, I say, looking at my feet and wondering if my left foot is larger than my right one. “We’re gonna have to find something else, pal. Stop that moping, young man—chin up, stiff upper lip, all that shit. Come back next Friday and we’ll start your new lessons.” I look at the clock, askew on the wall, and I see that it’s almost 11:00 PM on Saturday, and that I’ve been in Dean’s home for over 24 hours, breaking only for “the one and only” The Last of the Mohicans stuff Dean had and a pizza run that got topped off with Cheetos and pepperoni. I tell Dean I have homework, which isn’t a lie, and he waves goodbye, but he seems kinda quietly angry about it, which surprises me, and then I walk out the front door and realize I haven’t seen or heard Dean’s parents once the entire time.

Dean has a theory. We’re sitting on my back porch, watching my neighbor Mrs. Lillard do gardening in a low cut tank top. It is not unpleasant. “So here’s my theory,” he says, even though his eyes are still glued to the frayed edges of the pink beater. “And it’s gonna get real here, friend. You ready?” I nod. “Good. Ok. So, in the past few years, this whole phenomenon of, like, the ‘man-crush’ or whatever has become ubiquitous—that means it’s, like, everywhere. C’mon man. Read a book. Anyway. But, at the same time, guys, especially high school guys, are really not radically different from 10, 20, 30 years ago, when admitting something like a ‘man-crush’ would get you ostracized and called a queer and all that shit. So why is it suddenly acceptable?” Why, Dean. “Porn.” I think this is the first time since I’ve met him that Dean surprised me. Porn? “Here’s why. What’s at the base of a ‘man-crush?’ It’s an unspoken, or maybe spoken, implication that you find that particular man attractive. If I walk away from a movie theater going, damn, Ryan Gosling makes me feel funny, it’s because, even though I am a hetersosexual male, I found him attractive. As far as I know, I won’t be acting on that feeling any time soon, with any guy. So why the attraction?” I am literally on the edge of my seat. Oh, do tell, Dean. “Because, because, because beacauuuuse of porn. I, like most 21st century teenagers, was exposed to sex for the first time and for the majority of time while watching porn. That’s what my brain interprets as sex—porn. In porn, I’ll most often see an attractive female with a usually faceless male who’s, anatomically speaking, doing pretty well for himself. Now—when I see an attractive man in public, after spending so much time on my own just barely glancing at them, my brain thinks I’m about to watch him go rail some poor girl.” He hasn’t looked up at me for a while. He is very intensely focused on this. “So what’s the logical conclusion? My brain sees an attractive male. It usually only sees attractive males with attractive females, to whom I myself am attracted. But, but, because there isn’t a female in the vicinity, my brain switches the attraction from the non-existent female to the male in front of me, thereby creating a sort of non-sexual crush and I will take my goddamn Nobel now, please.” You’re weird, Dean. “You’re weird, you queer. I’m gonna go inside and get some Coke, do me a favor and at least pretend like you’re not watching my ass on the way in.” He’s still laughing at his own joke when he comes back out, but hey, so am I.

I have Math last period on Friday, which is terrible because Mr. Rincon isn’t one of those teachers to say, “It’s Friday, last period, let’s relax”, no, he schedules a test for that day, which I studied and studied for, asked Dean for help on, did all the practice problems and asked questions in class that Mr. Rincon answered with a sigh, but when I look down at the sheet the numbers meld together and it’s so sad it’s almost funny how much I don’t understand what I’m looking at, and out of 17 questions I can only answer 6 and so I finish earlier than everyone else because I get to a point where I can’t even bring myself to keep looking at the numbers. I bring the test up to Mr. Rincon and he motions with his pen, bright green, to sit down next to him while he grades my test, which he does as everyone else finishes, and none of them look like I do when I finish. Once Mark Napier hands in his test and closes the door, Mr. Rincon takes off his glasses and spins his chair toward me and says “You know, I can only help you if you help yourself, John.” That isn’t my name but I don’t correct him. “You’ve gotta meet me halfway. I mean, look at this, John.” He hands me back my test, and in the top right hand corner is a big ‘56’ surrounded by a green circle, and my heart falls, because I really tried, I tried so hard, I stayed in every night during the week and told Dean I couldn’t hang out and studied until my eyes throbbed and I try to tell Mr. Rincon this but he cuts me off and says, “John, John, look. (Deep breath, and I notice that his teeth have black fillings.) I say this as someone who’s been an educator for 35 years—if you were really trying, you’d get the results. (He leans back in his chair and puts his hands up, like to say, “What can I do?”) Show me the results and I’ll believe that you’re trying. You don’t just get to say ‘Oh, I tried, better let everything else just be handed to me now’. That’s not how the world works, John, and the sooner you learn that the better. I’ll need this signed by your parents. John, I don’t like doing this, but I just wanna see a little less green (he laughs, but only with his voice—his eyes and mouth stay the same as before) on that paper, okay? Okay. Go home. Have a good weekend.” I mumble thank you and walk out of the room and stop and then I start sweating, run to the bathroom, runrunrun, stuff a paper towel in my mouth and scream, as loud as I can, until my eyes feel like they’re going to bleed and my neck hurts, and I vomit a little bit and for a split second I think that Mr. Ed the janitor is going to walk into the bathroom to smoke what he thinks is a secret cigarette and rather than find an empty bathroom he’ll find me with a paper towel bulging out of my mouth, bile lining the edges of my fixed O of a mouth, so I quickly spit out the paper towel and drink lukewarm water out of the faucet and walk home and text Dean that I’m feeling sick and don’t wanna hang out today. He answers that okay, that’s fine, and what time am I coming over. I contemplate this and answer 10:00. I have work to do.

Dean, I say. “Ooooone second there, partner,” he mumbles, sitting on the maroon beanbag chair, fiddling with something in the corner. Dean, I say again, except this time instead of just saying Dean the emphasis is on the end of the word, so he knows I’m serious. He turns, smiles, says “Yes, my friend.” Dean why do you hang out with me. This is the first time I’ve ever asked him, and this seems to surprise us both—even coming out of my mouth it feels funny. “Why do I hang out with you?” he says, rubbing his chin, and it’s a while until he says anything. “Tell you what. How far have you gotten in Hamlet?” Mrs. Burckhardt’s cat vest and tendency to give me C’s flashes into my mind and I say we just finished Act IV. “Okay. So I want you to think about this for a second. Think about Horatio. Is Horatio a good friend?” I say I guess. “Why?” Shit shit goddamn if I had known he was gonna quiz me I would’ve read over the book a little more. Um, I say, he’s like, nice to Hamlet, doesn’t judge him, and as I say that last bit Dean motions ‘Go on’ with his hands, and I say that Horatio isn’t fashion’s slave, which Hamlet likes, and then Dean stops me. “Passion’s slave dude, passion’s slave. And, it’s actually pretty funny you brought that up, because I was gonna do that. Here’s the deal—in the Hamlet of our relationship, I’m Hamlet. Am I kind of a self-aggrandizing dick? Yes. Do I know what I’m talking about most of the time? You bet. Do I take up about 99% of the conversation? Yes, and it’s exhausting, by the way. You, my friend, you are Horatio. With you, I feel like I can say what I want—I mean, I always say what I want, but with you I don’t feel like I have to feel bad about it, even a little. You don’t really seem like you’re at all concerned with what other people think. And are you the most book-smart guy in the world? No. And sorry if that offends you. But you have something that I think most people don’t have and something I definitely don’t have. You don’t rush to judge. You don’t…you don’t look at a person and start to look for imperfections. You try to see the good in people—and I’ve been called an elitist and pretentious and all that since I was a kid because I’ve always had trouble doing the opposite. I search for the bad. I relish finding the bad. When I find the bad, I see the offending party in my mind’s eye, in my brain’s tribunal, and I hold that bad over that person’s head and say ‘See? See? You’re a piece of shit like everyone else.’ Like I’m some kind of übermensch. But I’m not.” He’s quiet for a while, playing with the tag on the beanbag chair, and then he looks up and says, “Do you know why I got expelled from my old school?” I shake my head no. “I’m sure you’ve heard some of those other stories, but I can assure you this is the only one among them endowed with the truth, my friend.” He puts up one finger and the walks upstairs, coming back down with two Milky Way’s, though it seems they are both for him. I don’t mind. Then he starts. “I didn’t dislike Oliver Goulet—he was a just another kid. Could’ve laid off of a Big Mac here or there, but he wasn’t obese or anything. I thought he seemed like a good enough guy. From afar, at least. Junior year he was in my English class, and he’s sitting next to me. I’ve never seen him this close up, and then I notice, for the first time, what a weird looking person he is. His necks hangs down, fat, like a pouch full of water. He’s still got terrible acne, real bad, and you can tell where picks at it. His haircut, that bowl thing he had going on, made him look like he should be institutionalized. His eyes were kinda dead, kinda milky, always not really looking at anything, half-closed, almost. The smell—oh my God. Anyway, I’m noticing how strange he is, for like the first time, and he’s sitting there, totally oblivious, and I think to myself, damn, I’m gonna be sitting next to this the whole year? I didn’t wanna have it. No one would switch with me, so for the first few months of school, I just worked with other people on projects and presentations and had minimal contact with Oliver. I’d be sitting in class, he’d huff and puff his way in, zipper down on his huge and yet somehow not big enough jeans, late, plop down, burp out a ‘Hi’, get a nod from me, and that was it. Occasionally he’d ask what the teacher said, but that was that. Finally, near the end of the first semester, we’ve got a huge group project. Huge. Like 15% of the grade huge. To top it off, I’d been messing around a lot, and because of it, my getting an A rested on this assignment. Franny and Zooey, we’d just finished it, and all of us groups were supposed to present on a particular theme of the book. So of course, I get paired with Oliver. Who, of course, can barely spell his own name. We work together after school almost every day for two whole schools weeks and then three more days. By that point, the project just needed i’s and t’s dotted and crossed or whatever, and then it would be done. The paper was flawless. Really, really flawless. I mean, we got a good topic, prayer, so it was a bit of a softball to begin with, but I mean, I just fucking hit that one right outta Fenway, man. I mean, it was profound, it was funny and serious at the same time, it was concise, it hit on all of the right stuff. Best of all, it was basically all me. Oliver and I would sit next to each other, me thinking of the best substitute for the word ‘transcend’, him already on snack number two, and he’d mumble incoherently about the book and I’d nod back, but it was just a few hours of me writing and Oliver watching. Anyway. We’re, and by we’re I mean I’m, putting on finishing touches on the paper. Oliver rouses himself from his great slumber, wipes some spit off his chin, and asks if he can have a look at the paper real quick. I oblige, offer him my chair in front of the computer. He sits down, Pepsi in hand, scrolls down for a bit, nodding and sniffing. He goes for a sip of Pepsi, and this shit, this sweaty handed sack of fat, he drops the Pepsi on the computer. Next thing I know the screen is dark and I’m pushing Oliver aside to figure out what the hell is going on. It’s clear right away that the computer is broken and there’s no way of getting anything off of it. The paper’s gone. I turn and I look at Oliver, and, and, and this, this guy, clearly has a look on his face like he wants to sorry, but this fuckin’ guy, he takes a sip of Pepsi. I swallowed and walked away and went to find my English teacher. He told me I should’ve had the paper backed up somewhere else, in the event of an accident, and that we were still required to give a presentation at the assigned time. So the next day, I try and remember what I can from the paper, but because of the lack of visual aid and Oliver’s inability to do anything but nod and grunt and puff during the presentation. We got a 67, and I got a B for the semester. Now the rest of the year was gonna be an uphill battle for an A. When my parents home they bitched me out for an hour, I yelled, they yelled, and I end up walking out of the house. I don’t know where to go but then I remember that Oliver texted me his address once, in case I’d ever want to work at his house or something. He lived pretty far, like a forty-five minute walk, but my only other option was the park and there were always scary bums in rags there and so I skipped that. I show up at the Goulet residence, and lo and behold, Oliver’s fatass parents open the door and giggle and moo and invite me in for dinner. Oliver’s already at the table and looks like genuinely happy to see me. We have the nicest dinner man, the nicest dinner. Oliver was kinda quiet but he said some funny stuff here and there and his parents were crazy nice and asked me a whole bunch of stuff about school and my life that my parents don’t even ask. They told me I could stay for as long as I needed and set up a bed for me on the couch. As I was about to fall asleep, at like 9:30, by the way they all go to bed super early, anyway as I’m about to go to sleep I get this feeling, a bad feeling, like a…like a hovering black cloud feeling, and run back to my house. My parents are asleep when I get home, and I shower and go right to bed. I didn’t leave my room the whole weekend, and then Monday, I saw Oliver at lunch, drinking a Pepsi. I don’t know why but that was the thing, man. That was the thing that set me off. I went fucking ballistic. I walked up to him and shoved the Pepsi can in his face, and it spilled all over while the top part cut his lip. I started beating his head, my knuckles were getting raw from hitting his teeth so much, his nose was pouring blood, and he was whimpering, like a baby, like a real baby he sounded like, and he didn’t even ever try to protect himself. His hands stayed down and his head barely turned. My head felt like a block of stone but I just kept going until some teacher pulled me off of him, and I got expelled that day. Oliver switched schools, no one’s heard from him, but his face looked 20 years older, I heard. I was 17 and they were pushing for me to get tried as an adult but the judge let me off, just told me do community service. I worked in clean-up at that hiking trail, up near Cutler Ave., and after I stood in that absolute cesspool of a stream, picking up empty Gatorade bottles and egg cartons and the occasional wallet, tossing frogs around, all the hair on my legs fell off, and I don’t really think it’s comin’ back, either. Anyway, after that, I switched here, like 10 days before school started, and that’s why I’m here.” Dean looks at me, eyes softer than I’ve ever seen them, and I sense that he wants me to say something. “Say something, man,” he says. I don’t know, Dean. Can…can we just get back to what we were doing? I know this is the wrong thing to say but I say it anyway and Dean gives me a weird look. He brushes it off quickly, really quickly, like goes back to eating pizza and puts his cowboy hat on and leans back in the beanbag chair. “Okay.” He looks excited. He finishes chewing, wipes his mouth with the back of his arm. “New cultural gateway drug for you. I think this might help.” He heads over to his record player, I’ve never seen one before, not in real life anyway, and he puts on a record that has the same banana as the poster on the wall. I really don’t like it, Dean, I say, after the whiny, scratchy guitars and the manly woman stop. He plays a few more for me—Astral Weeks (“I know it’s cliché, but hey, fuck ‘em”), Treasure, Paul’s Boutique, and Illmatic. After every one Dean looks at me with raised eyebrows and I nod and go Wow but I have to finally admit to him that yeah, Dean, they all sound good, I like the sounds, but I don’t get it. It’s been hours of listening to music at this point. Dean gets a look on his face, puts a record on, looks at me, says, “Last try, apple pie”, and puts the needle down. He hands me a sheet of lyrics. It’s like, orchestral music, horns and string instruments and stuff, and it’s big, inspiring music, if you’re into that sort of thing. It’s also in Italian, the words I mean. And it’s crazy. Like, the words sound so nice in Italian, but the lyrics are insane. The whole thing’s about Mussolini and how awesome he is and how kick-ass Italy’s gene pool is but like, we learned in History, Mussolini just like took for himself and ended up getting hanged in a town square. I start telling Dean this and his eyebrows shoot up and he motions for me to go on, and I start talking about how crazy it sounds, the beautiful music with the kinda scary lyrics about like pledging fealty and the greatness of fascism and stuff and how it makes the whole thing sound…sinister? Is that a word? Yes? Okay. Then that’s what it sounds like Dean, sinister. Dean smiles, lightly, and says, “I think we’ve found your thing.” Over the next few weekends, we compare anthems, “La Marseillaise”, “Giovinezza” again, “Horst Wessel Lied”, “Scotland the Brave” (my favorite, though Dean liked “Flower of Scotland” more), and a whole bunch of others. I think I finally feel like Dean does when he gets something. I know what the composers are trying to say, what they’re trying to say about their countries, about their people, about their lives. Dean gives me some historical context here and there so I can understand some names and places and references, but even he has to look stuff up here and there.

On December 14th, Homecoming, last football game of the year, I am happy. For real, happy. I will be eighteen on Saturday, and Dean and I are going to a party, though I don’t think anyone there will actually know it’s my birthday, but Dean says we’ll make it my personal birthday party. Before that, we will go to the football game. We’re terrible this year. Like really terrible. The Washington High School Generals are 2-8, but they look like they’re having fun, so I guess that’s good. For Homecoming, we’re playing Davisville Area High, they’re from out in the “country”, bunch of big corn-fed boys, future farmers, but for now they’re 7-3 and pounding the shit out of our players. The performance of our national anthem is kinda weak, but it doesn’t bother me. Dean and I are sitting away from the student section, talking about our plans for Saturday night, our beloved Generals down 21-0 late in the second quarter, when this big kid, like a big kid, dark hair, really nice green eyes, a tattoo of a cross on his wrist, no jacket in the freezing cold, motions to Dean. I raise an eyebrow at Dean but he says, “Nah, it’s cool. I gotta go talk to him real quick.” He starts down the metal bleachers, Vans clanking on the stairs, and I hear him go, “My my! Daniel my boy it’s been ten years if it’s been a day!” I laugh and decide that tomorrow night I am going to tell Dean just how much he’s meant to me these past few months. It seems like the right time. I wait for Dean to return, hoping he gets my telepathic message to pick up a couple of hot dogs. Then it’s halftime. Then the third quarter. Then the fourth quarter. With six minutes left in fourth quarter and the Generals hoping for a miracle down 56-10, I finally get worried about Dean. It’s not like him to just walk off without saying anything. I leave my seat, it’s icy, I feel icy, and I start walking around the concourse, checking the bathrooms, looking back at the stands, but I can’t find him. He’s not in the parking lot either, and by the time I turn back from the parking lot, everyone is leaving the stadium. I look for Dean’s face but I can’t find him anywhere. I run back into the stadium, run near the bleachers, and then I’m running past the bleachers all the way at the far northern section of the stadium, that stupid stadium, with the blue and yellow bunting everywhere and the “s” in Generals fading on the press box, when I hear vomiting from under the bleachers, and then whimpering. Dean is crumpled, he looks bad, so so bad, his face is all bloody and he’s still throwing up and he’s crying and the tears are leaving streaks in the blood, he looks like a Indian chief, he’s crying and I’m crying and I call 911.

They don’t let me visit Dean for a few days. He has a few broken ribs, a broken nose, a little internal bleeding, and other stuff too. He won’t say who did it or why to anyone. When I get there, we sit in silence for a long time, watching ESPN, but not really. I look at him, looking like a little kid with a big boy nose on the hospital bed, and I finally say, Dean, what happened man? “I deserved it, honestly,” he says, shaking his head, very slowly. His words come out a little choppy on account of a few chipped teeth. “I’ve been buying from them for a while but I’ve just been borrowing for the last month or so, and I swore I’d have the cash on a certain day and I didn’t. I deserved it. Have you heard anything from school?” Yeah, Dean. I’m hearing that as soon as you’re ready to talk they wanna ask you about what happened and who you think did it. He groans. I leave. He calls me two days later. “Hey.” Hey. “So here’s what happened. Principal Krendall came in, told me to tell him what happened. I didn’t say shit. He gave me an ultimatum, that pompous prick. He told me…he told me I could tell him what happened and who did it, but he couldn’t promise immunity or any Goodfellas bullshit like that. Or, I could not tell him, and I could get expelled, again.” Wow. Oh, wow. What are you gonna do, Dean? “I’m gonna tell him what happened.” Dean! What! Why—“Calm down man, calm down. Jesus, you’re gonna kill someone like that. Listen…here’s the thing.” Dean stops, and for the first time since I’ve met him, he seems like he’s at a loss for words. I think of Blue Velvet in his basement until he starts again. “I’ve been talking my way out of shit since I was like 5 years old. It’s not a good way to be. I don’t like it. Not at all. Whatever happens is gonna be bad, no doubt, and honestly, I’ll probably get expelled either way. I wanna just do it on my terms. I’m gonna tell them what happened. I think it’s the right thing to do.” Jesus, man. Well…shit. “Oh, and Lyle?” Yeah, Dean. “Happy birthday, man.” Thanks Dean. I leave right then, really happy for Dean. Even though he probably won’t be at school with me anymore, he lives close, so we’ll get to hang out. We’ll be fine.

Then he goes and fucks it up. Dean, so noble and such a martyr in the hospital, can’t do it when the time comes, I hear. He refuses to say a word, instead he gets expelled and his parents get divorced and they move, far. I think I’m mad at him. I’m not sure. A few weeks after he leaves I get a package—a CD, with “D” written on the front, and on the back, a playlist. It’s a list of my favorite anthems, but the last track is the one that surprises me when I hear it, because track 11 is Dean’s voice, and all he says is, “I’m sorry, Horatio.”

I’m gonna start hearing from colleges soon. My parents are excited, and so am I. It’s gonna be good, I think. I don’t think about Dean for a while, but all I know is, I have a different dream about Mr. Rincon, now. Dean and I are laying on the football field, looking at each other, and “Scotland the Brave” is playing on the loudspeaker, when all of the sudden Mr. Rincon shows up, carrying a sword. Next thing I know, I’m holding a sword too, and the bleachers are packed, really packed, everyone is there. Mr. Rincon is wearing a button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and he’s got that sword, dripping with something green. He looks like he hasn’t shaved in a few days. My sword is smaller, and he smirks and comes at me with his sword with a guttural sort of belch but I’m far more agile than he is, I’m avoiding thrusts from him and dancing around and the crowd is going insane, the bagpipes are really going, and finally I make my move, I sweep my leg and knock him on his ass, I step on his wrist like they do in the movies, I look down at him, he’s snarling up at me, and I plunge downwards, green blood spurting everywhere, people are losing their goddamn minds on the bleachers, cheering, cheering, I’m covered in his green blood, but I’m glowing, glowing red, “rutilant” is the word Dean would use, and I raise the sword, and scream, the anthem blaring, the power of the entirety of the Scottish people behind me, and then I see Dean, standing on the sideline, his white shirt with some green specks on it, fading a bit, but not before he smiles at me.