Ugly Kid Joe

Ugly Kid Joe

         “SHHHHH…you dweebs!” Joe admonished as he peaked through the hole in the privacy fence. He motioned for us to stay down. We stayed down like the good little hooligans we were, but I turned to the rest of the guys and rolled my eyes mockingly. They fought back a burst of laughter. Joe finally turned around and slid down the fence in relief. His cheeks burned red from all the running he had done while trying to elude the cops that had almost caught him earlier.

         Joe was older than the rest of us. He was sixteen and would be a sophomore when school started up again. He had two younger brothers, one of whom was in the same grade as the six of us younger ones, but he was a nerd and we didn’t hang out with him. The youngest of Joe’s brothers was only five. Because of his age, Joe stood about six inches taller than everyone else. We all had to look up, in order to look him in the eye. He was both our bad influence and our guardian. He would lead us into temptation and then deliver us from evil. You could see in his brooding green eyes when he had something on his mind; usually it meant trouble. He was a rich boy and never looked like a thug: his “uniform” of preppiness was Guess jeans, Nike’s and Polo shirts. Despite all the advantages he had been given, there was a restlessness in his face that almost never waned.

         Besides Joe, there was Ally, Brandon, Matt, Kevin, Scott, and then me, the baby of the clan. They almost never treated me any differently, except that I was everyone’s “secret-keeper.” I kept the secrets that didn’t even get shared with the rest of the “brotherhood” of bored, over-indulged, rich boys. I was smarter than all of the rest of them put together. It was my job to work out details of our pranking adventures. We weren’t bad kids…we never did any serious damage…because I was also the group’s conscience. Joe and I were constantly battling over what was going "too far" in our mischief. He didn’t care about his reputation. He was a bad boy, and everyone knew it. The rest of my brethren were good kids, over-achievers, jocks, choir-boys. They were what every other boy in junior high wanted to be.

         With immediate threat of the police gone, Ally asked Joe what we were going to do next. It was about 2 AM, and we were starting to tire, although no one wanted to admit it. We’d had a busy night. It had started at the mall around four. We had done the usual hanging in the arcade until everyone ran of money or became bored with the flashing lights and noise. With the arcade behind us, we sat at the fountain. Joe was lost in thought as he watched the water’s flow into the shallow pool. Somebody made a comment about how much money had been tossed into the fountain. Someone else wondered how much we could steal before we got caught and kicked out of the mall.

         “You dorks,” I said, “read the sign. It says the money goes to charity. Stealing it would just be wrong.” Everybody groaned and told me to shut up. Joe was still lost in his own private thoughts. I sat there next to him and wondered about what was going on inside his head. The gang was getting restless with boredom. Someone would have to come up with a plan soon, or we would end up splitting for the night. I wasn’t ready to go home yet.

         “Come back Joe,” I said, and elbowed our leader in the ribs. His private world disappeared and he was amongst us, once again. “What do you wanna do?” I asked him.

         “Hmmmm. I’m not sure,” he responded. He mulled our options over for a moment. We didn’t have much time before everyone would have to take a break to go home for dinner. He decided we should go into the toy store and see what we could shop-lift. Scott protested that we had money; we should go to the movies. Joe’s jaw hardened in determination. He had made up his mind and the rest of us would follow along or go home. No one wanted to be called a coward, so everyone acquiesced.

         We went into the toy store and were happy to see there was only one clerk working at that moment. The other employee was on break. We couldn’t have had better luck. Shop-lifting would be easy. We all split up and went to different areas of the long aisles. The store wasn't wide, but it was deep. The clerk couldn’t see all the way to the back from her roost at the register. Besides that, we had a plan and we out-numbered her. She couldn’t divide her attention in seven different directions. Joe went up to the register and started talking to her. He was very good at distracting the adults, while the rest of us committed some misbehavior, right under their noses. That was part of the fun…just seeing what we could get away with. We ended up with an array of items. I don’t even remember now what all was stolen. When we had each sufficiently loaded our self down, we made a quiet escape out of the store and to the front of the mall, where our bikes were racked up. Joe continued his distraction of the clerk until we were all assembled and then he unobtrusively made his quiet escape to the rest of us. With our pockets loaded with stolen merchandise, we headed to Ally’s house because he lived closest to the mall.

         When we arrived, we huddled around in his garage. We needed to divide up the spoils of our endeavor. It was curious. Joe was certainly the leader when we were all together, but we shared things with an equality that is rarely achieved. No one was selfish when it came to the group. I often wondered if that equality was due to each of them having everything a kid could want. They didn’t know what it was like to have nothing. They were spoiled. Maybe because they had so much, they valued everything less. I stuffed my take into my pockets, with the intentions of giving it to my brother when I returned home. He would wonder where I had gotten the money to buy the stuff, but it wouldn’t keep him from accepting the gift from me.

         Ally’s mom poked her head out the inside garage door. She told him it was about time for dinner. She smiled until her gaze landed on me. A look of disgust washed over her face and she immediately went back in. Ally rolled his eyes and followed her inside, leaving the door ajar. We could hear their conversation, despite her attempt at hushed tones.

         “What is she doing here?” she asked.

         “She is my friend, mother” Ally replied, with a tone of resentment in his voice.

         “Well you know I don’t like her” she reminded him.

         “Why not?! I don’t understand that,” he protested. He continued “Mom, if it weren’t for her, I wouldn’t be passing half my classes. She’s the reason I have A’s on my report cards. She’s the reason you can go the Country Club and brag about how well your son is doing in school.” Sarcasm dripped from every word as he spoke it.

         The rest of us looked at each other awkwardly. They all had looks of apology and embarrassment at what was being said about me. The silence in the garage was deafening. I could see anger and hatred rising on Joe’s face. Still no one spoke. We wanted to know what else Ally’s mother would say about me.

         It was Ally who spoke next. “Mom…she’s in gifted and talented. She’s so smart, she doesn’t even take regular classes. She skipped a grade. She plays basketball. She’s on Student Council. What else do you want from her?”

         “Well that’s all very nice, Son” she replied. “But she is still not of proper up-bringing. I hate it when you associate with poor people” she told him.

         “Fuck this shit!” Joe said, through gritted teeth. “Let’s go to my house or something.”

         Everyone else looked at their watches and made excuses about needing to get home for dinner. Our fun was over for now. Everybody streamed out of the garage and mounted their bikes. Joe looked at me, wondering if I were going to follow him. I decide that I would, even though I had no idea where he was leading.

         We ended up at one of the city parks we liked to hang out in. On the east side of the park, one of the city’s many creeks flowed. There was a foot bridge across the creek and below it, there were dozens of large rocks. It was the best place in town to find crawdads, minnows, or pebbles to skip along the water’s surface. It was also a great place to sit and be quiet. A couple of the rocks were large enough to stretch out on and look up at the sky. We had all spent plenty of time down in that creek, sometimes all together, sometimes alone, and sometimes in pairs.

         Joe and I hid our bikes in a copse of trees close to the bridge. He was still angry and didn’t wait for me. He hurriedly crawled down the side of the creek to the water’s edge. He was already skipping rocks when I at last reached him. He wasn’t doing a very good job at skipping the rocks this evening, because of his anger. I stood by his side and held his hand. Tears were welling up in his eyes.

         “I hate those people” he whispered.

         “Ally’s mom?”

         “Yes her. And everyone else just like her.” He muttered.

         “She’s just stupid” I tried to console him.

         “They’re all alike,” he said “they all think money is more important than everything else. I hate them for it.”

         “Well, you’re one of them, Rich Boy,” I teased him and squeezed his hand.

         “Shut up” he said sarcastically, finally letting go of the anger. A grin spread across his face like a beautiful sunrise. He was so pretty when he smiled, I always wished he would do more of it. He was so hard to reach, though. He was so full of resentment and angst. He despised the very society his family was a part of. He believed they were ate up with a cancer of shallowness and discrimination. He rebelled against everything he had always known and been taught. I often wondered why. I often wondered what it was that he wanted, exactly. Did he really want to live like I did? Did he really want to know what it was like to sometimes not know where his next meal was going to come from? He didn’t understand what it was like to be poor. He had no clue.

         “Ya know, you’re not so bad yourself, no matter what anybody says about ya,” he joked, but he squeezed my hand and looked me into my eyes as he said those words. He let go of my hand and put his hands up to cup my face and leaned down to kiss me.

         “There you guys are!” Ally exclaimed from the top of the creek bank. “I’ve been looking for you!”

         Joe quickly let go of me and stepped back as Ally made his way down the side of the creek to join us. When he reached us, he apologized for his mom’s stupidity. I sloughed it off and told him it was no big deal. It was over and we decided it was time to have fun. It would be dark soon, so I would have to be getting home. The boys decided find out if Ally could spend the night at Joe’s house. They offered to ride with me to my house, but I told them I would be just fine. I secretly craved the time alone.

         It was beautiful that night. I took the long way home, through all the neighborhoods across town. I knew I would be in trouble for getting home late, but I didn’t care. The smell of summer was on the breeze and I loved it. I was free while I was lazily pedaling and sometimes coasting down those dark streets. It was fairly quiet, except for the occasional sound of someone’s radio wafting out of open windows, or the giggle of little kids, trying to catch lightning bugs. There was no rich or poor on my way home. There was no anger or resentment or exclusion. It was just me, my bike, the streets, and the dark summer night.

         I apologized to my father as I entered the front door. I immediately headed to my bedroom, to avoid his lecture on when I was supposed to be home. He must not have been too worried about it that night, because he didn’t get up from the TV to scold me. I lied there for a little while, thinking about Joe and Ally and wondered how I had managed to make friends of them. Why were they so accepting of me? I didn’t know and decided I didn’t really care. They were my friends and that’s all that mattered. I finally drifted off to sleep, speculating about whether or not Joe was a good kisser.

         Sometime later, I was awaked by a tapping on my window. It was Joe. I quietly slid the window up and asked what he was doing. He said he wanted me to sneak out. We were all going to meet at Scott’s house to go toilet-papering houses. I told him I would meet him down at the end of the street after I dressed. I loved sneaking out. There was such a thrill in not getting caught. We never really did any real damage to anyone’s house. We were really just a nuisance. Joe and I rode quietly to Scott’s house, having to avoid a couple of cop cars along the way.

         When we all assembled, we decided that we would hit a random house that night. No one was holding a grudge against anybody, so it was just for fun, and not for any kind of revenge. Or so we thought. Joe decided that he wanted to T.P. Eddie Sheffield’s house. Eddie was the epitome of snobby elitist that Joe so despised. We all agreed. Eddie’s house was just as good as anyone else’s. We loaded up our weapons of mischief and followed Joe to our target.

         Eddie was allergic to dogs, so the back yard was safe. Joe and Ally threw rolls of toilet paper back and forth, over the house. Brandon, being the smallest and most agile of the bunch, shimmied up into the tree in the front yard, and proceeded to cover it in toilet paper. I was covering the bushes that were up against the front of the house. I didn’t know where Kevin had gone, but Scott and Matt were spelling out rude things on the glass of Eddie’s parents’ cars, like a couple of bakers, decorating giant cakes. I looked up, just in time to see a roll of toilet paper sailing through the air from the back yard. Joe definitely could throw. The sight of the toilet paper struck me as funny. I stifled back a laugh, but couldn’t contain it for very long. Finally, I couldn’t hold it in any longer and doubled over in laughter. A light came on inside Eddie’s house.

         Everyone dropped what they were doing and headed towards their bikes. We knew that the police would be on their way shortly. We had done an adequate job on the house, so no one was upset about the abrupt stop to our mayhem. We all went in different directions, but we knew where we were going. Joe’s house was the closest refuge, so we would all be meeting there, until the threat of detection was passed. Before Joe made it to his house, he had been forced to hide his bike and continue on foot, hiding along the way. When he finally climbed over the privacy fence to his back yard, we was winded and sweaty. We all laughed at him, because none of us had come close to being caught. Then we heard a car coming. Joe peeked out of the hole in the fence.

         We eventually decided that we better all go home, after we were sure the threat of getting caught had passed. I was too far away from home to risk the journey, so Joe and I agreed that I should stay at his house with him and Ally until later that morning. I could always tell my dad I had been out playing since before he had gotten out of bed. He wouldn’t have been any the wiser.

         We said our good-byes and everyone headed home. Ally, Joe and I climbed up the tree in the yard and slid into Joe’s window. We went undetected. We lay there in Joe’s room for awhile, quietly joking about the reaction the toilet paper job would get from everyone, including the victims. I slept that night curled up between the both of them, in the floor.

         We had plenty more fun that summer, but things had changed. When school began again that September, I was no longer such a tomboy. I started cheerleading and hanging out with more girls. Joe went on to the high school. He later asked me out, years later when I had returned to my home town, and we had run into each other on the college campus. We never went out though. Joe had become what he had so loathed as a kid.