Bludgeoner: Episode 2
The Last Day
The room buzzed with energy, like the charged particles before a lightning strike. Overlapping conversations filled the homeroom as Stu Mason and his girlfriend, Christine, settled into their usual chairs near the back. As Christine talked, Stu did his best to act naturally.
“I can’t believe we’re almost out of here,” Christine said, bouncing in her chair. “Isn’t it crazy?”
This was the last day of high school. It should have been the best day of Stu’s life, the official start of summer before college started, but he felt like someone had wrapped their hand around his neck. He tried to smile, to agree with her, but it wasn’t easy with a churning stomach.
“Crazy,” he echoed. Christine’s brow furrowed as she leaned over.
“Are you okay? You look kinda pale.”
“Me? Of course, yeah. I just … have a lot to think about,” he replied, beads of sweat dotting his forehead.
At least that part was true. Stu’s dad had given the entire family a lot to think about a month earlier. They’d just finished one of mom’s impossibly dry meatloaves when his father dropped the bombshell: he’d been offered a big promotion, with better pay, but it meant packing their things and moving across the country to New York. There were more details after that, but Stu couldn’t hear them over the roaring in his ears.
He had a life here in San Palmo, something his parents either didn’t understand or didn’t care about. Just because he was sixteen didn’t mean he was some child wandering around without purpose. Most of it admittedly centered on his girlfriend, who to his shame he hadn’t told about the move yet. He’d tried to, but each time the words formed, he lost the nerve to break her heart.
“Like what?” Christine’s innocent eyes searched his face. Stu’s tongue suddenly felt like sandpaper. “You know you can tell me anything.”
“Look, I …” The words caught in Stu’s throat. He couldn’t bring himself to say it, not with her eyes filled with so much trust. “I … I just love you so much,” he choked.
“I know that, stupid,” she said with a smile. “You really had me scared there for a second.”
“Yeah,” he laughed. “Sorry.”
Across the school, Roxy sat on the dirty sink of the girls bathroom, her pink and purple streaked hair half-covering her face. She flicked her lighter and brought the flame to the fresh cigarette hanging from her cherry-red lips.
The bathroom door flung open, crashing into the tile wall. Where most girls would jump off the sink and hide the contraband cigarette, Roxy continued to light it without flinching. She didn’t care if she was caught smoking any day of the year, least of all the last day of school.
Besides, it was only Betsy.
“You’ll never guess what Keith is telling people,” Betsy said, quickly closing the door behind her. Betsy had a flair for the dramatic, even for a drama kid. She was always rushing from one emergency to another. Roxy mostly kept Betsy around for entertainment value, otherwise they had little in common. She took a moment to inhale deeply, watching the burning glow at the end of her cigarette.
“He finally admitted to sucking off the entire team,” she guessed.
“Ew, no.” Betsy rushed to push open the window before a teacher smelled smoke. She turned to Roxy and took a long, dramatic pause. “He said you guys did it under the bleachers.” Roxy took another drag as she contemplated this information. “You didn’t, though, right?”
“Not with Keith.”
Betsy almost laughed with relief, then caught herself. “Wait, with someone else?”
Roxy blew out an annoyed lungful of smoke. “Aren’t you supposed to be in class or something?”
“Sorry, I just thought you’d want to know.”
“You thought wrong.” Roxy jumped down from the sink, taking one final drag before flicking her cigarette out the open window. “Keith can say whatever the fuck he wants. It’s not like anyone will believe me.”
“But why would he say that?”
“Because he’s an asshole, Betsy, just like the rest of them.” She elbowed the door open. “At least after today our sentence is over. No more assholes holding us back.”
By noon, Stu was a wreck. As he walked with Christine to fourth period social studies, he decided he couldn’t wait any longer. He summoned his strength and turned to her, ready to tell her the news.
“I have to say goodbye to Nancy,” Christine announced, running off so fast she nearly knocked someone over. Stu’s heart grew heavier with each step she took; he wasn’t sure if he’d ever get the chance to tell her the bad news.
“Yo,” Brandon called out as he jogged up. His muscular frame and confident stride were a stark contrast to Stu’s hunched shoulders. “You look like shit, man.”
“I’m fine,” he lied. He couldn’t tell Brandon the truth, either. Not right now. “End of year jitters, I guess.”
“Right.” Brandon nodded, not convinced. “Well, don’t let it get to you. We’ve got a whole summer ahead of us before college starts. I plan to get up to some wild shit.”
Stu forced a chuckle, but it sounded hollow.
“Hey, Brandon!” Roxy’s voice echoed through the hallway, catching the attention of a few students. She strolled up to Brandon and Stu, combat boots thudding against the linoleum floor and a cigarette tucked behind her ear. “Your friend Keith is a dickhead.”
Brandon couldn’t wait to hear this one. He and Roxy had been childhood friends, best friends, really, but their paths had split as they got older. He had football, and she had her weird music and even weirder clothes. Still, he couldn’t say all the changes she’d gone through were bad. “What did that jackass do now?”
“Spread lies, as usual. This one involved me under the bleachers.”
He winced. Keith was his closest friend on the football team, and always had Brandon’s back in a fight, but the guy had a habit of stirring up shit and dragging Brandon into it. “Yeah, that sounds like him. I’ll talk to him about it.”
“Sure you will.”
Brandon turned back to Stu, hoping to change the subject. “Anyway, are we on for the lake tonight?”
“Sounds like fun,” Stu said, faking enthusiasm. As far back as everyone in San Palmo could remember, it was customary to go out drinking on Lake Conklin the first day of summer vacation. Most of the kids didn’t do it anymore, but a few of them still held onto tradition.
“Eric isn’t going, is he?”
Stu shrugged. “He’s not exactly big on parties,” he replied, in his head adding, Or you. Eric may have played it off, but he’d never forgiven Brandon for picking on him relentlessly back in freshman year.
“Are you having a party or something?” Betsy appeared from the crowd, clutching her books.
“Why, you gonna narc on us?” Brandon shot back. She looked hurt by the insinuation, and yet they all knew Betsy was the first to roll over at the sign of trouble. She pulled her books in tighter to shield herself.
“Maybe I want to go. You know I’ve never actually tried beer.”
Brandon laughed. “Oh my God, I’d actually pay to see that,” he said, and Betsy smiled. She’d always felt like an outsider, the butt of a thousand jokes. She liked the idea of ending her high school career on a positive note. Not as a joke, but an equal.
“We’re going out to the lake,” Roxy said bluntly. “All night, no adult supervision. Can you handle that?”
Betsy took a moment to think of all the snakes and animals and bugs that inhabited the woods around Lake Conklin. How if someone were injured they’d be so far away from medical attention. How it was so easy to drown in a dark lake with no lifeguards on duty, no one who knew CPR. And yet all that paled in the face of ending high school as the ultimate square.
This was it. Her last chance to rewrite history.
“Hell yes,” she said defiantly. Despite herself, Roxy smirked.
Jennifer, her cheerleader uniform hugging her body, strolled past the group on long legs. “I hope I’m invited,” she said, and Roxy gave her a saccharine smile.
“Wouldn’t dream of leaving you out.”
Jennifer flipped her blonde hair over her shoulder. “See you tonight, boys.” And with that she kept walking, Brandon staring at her legs as she went.
Roxy punched Brandon in the arm. “Looking for an inflater valve?”
“I’ll check for it later,” he replied with a grin.
As Brandon and Roxy began to argue again, Stu sunk deeper into his own head. The thought of spending one last night with his friends before he left San Palmo only turned his stomach more sour than it was. He was already formulating an excuse to stay home; anything to avoid the truth just a little longer.
The final bell rang overhead, its jarring sound echoing throughout the halls along with a cheer from the students. And with that, their life at San Palmo High School was officially over.
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