Why Won't You Love Me?!

WHY WON’T YOU LOVE ME?

A Novel by Pete Nicely

Drawings by Jeff Hurlow

SMASHWORDS EDITION

* * * * *

PUBLISHED BY:

Pete Nicely and Jeff Hurlow on Smashwords

Why Won’t You Love Me?

Copyright © 2011 by Pete Nicely and Jeff Hurlow

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

Smashwords Edition License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author's work.

WHY WON’T YOU LOVE ME?

***

Chapter 1

Charlie

Not one hand rose. No one moved. Nothing thirty-seven but hunched teenagers slunk into undersized desks, staring at anything but me to avoid the humiliation of being called on. Even Jessica Silva—my go-to volunteer in sixth period for a semester and a half—averted her eyes to consider a crack in the linoleum.

Who wants to read just a bit of what you wrote? I asked and paused. When pausing became awkward, I cajoled, C’mon. I searched my thoughts for anything that might ignite the oily rags of apathy in their minds. For extra credit. Someone? Jessica? Karmina? Ricky? Gabe?

Nothing.

All I could do was what teachers and the clergy have done for millennia—loom and stare. Yet as I studied the various shades of indifference on my students’ faces, I realized that my classroom was the most nauseating enclosed space on Earth.

What had been five perfectly straight rows of student desks only that morning now resembled a bumper-car rink at the end of a long summer’s day—each desk in its own nonsensical orbit. The student papers stapled in jagged rows on my bulletin boards, once bright white samples of progress, had aged into the drab yellow of dried urine. And thirty-seven real human frowns reminded me that no matter how anxious I might become, being a teenager felt worse.

Anyone? Gus? Gabe? Lupe?

What happened? Lupe Juarez asked, as if I’d woken her. Lupe’s thickly drawn, overly arched eyebrows—the style of eyebrows worn by 95.9% of the girls in school—gave her an always-startled expression, which she underlined with a frown that expressed extraordinary annoyance.

Fine, y’all. Don’t beg, I said, in my best white-guy voice, and grabbed my spiral-bound journal from beneath a stack of vocab tests on my desk. I’ll get this party started.

Earlier in the day, when I still was on the good side of caffeine, I’d written a paragraph in response to the day’s prompt: Describe your bedroom. So in hopes of not ending another school day with another dismal failure, I decided to go first.

I cleared my throat—nothing was blocking it.

Do it, Mister, Ricky Tecate said. Ricky was a suave kid with gelled hair that never moved.

To calm myself, I imagined the word PETE bright behind me in the style of the ELVIS backdrop from the King’s classic Comeback Special. Finally, I began, From the myriad, multitude and plethora of empty Lean Cuisine trays, half-empty Diet Coke cans and the sour, foul stench emanating from Pete Nicely’s studio apartment—a scant converted motel room with a bathroom door that never quite shuts all the way—one would have to assume that Pete has neither been home nor alive for weeks.

I went on, detailing the experiment in infectious diseases I was conducting in my kitchen sink: Some sort of soapy taquito, Frosted Flakes and corn dog mush was gestating into a living, breathing sugary mold that would, ideally, be used to treat some notable childhood disease.

The class harmonized a deep, melodic groan, signifying that they were disgusted in a deeply gratifying way. So I stopped.

Ricky demanded I go on. Do the bathroom, too, Mister.

I agreed—but only after three students shared first.

Some soft groans until Gabe Corona raised his heavy hand inches above his heavy head. He nodded slowly, smiling as if he were doing each of us a huge favor.

Gabe was an extra-large, extra-pudgy kid who, like me, weighed well over two hundred pounds. All of the male students wore baggy clothes exclusively. But Gabe’s spherical physique demanded extremes; he was always clad in a gigantic blue t-shirt with a stain that resembled the shape of South America somewhere on its southern hemisphere.

I nodded, and Gabe followed his pointer finger as he read his depiction of sharing a bunk with his uncle Juan: That fool comes home all drunk at two eating chips. I swear he eats a billion chips. I swear he gets crumbs all up in everywhere, even in my ears. He lifted his finger and placed it in his ear hole to excavate. Thankfully, he didn’t seem to find much.

Nice hyperbole, I said. Hyperbole was a vocabulary word.

I know, huh? Gabe said, knowingly, and slid forward. His desk edged into his belly exactly where the equator belonged.

Alex Modelo was next. He listed each item that his divorced dad had given him to compensate for abandoning his mother: Playstation I and II, 53 DVDs, a silver plated shoe horn, one professional boxing glove…

Just one, fool? Gabe asked.

Alex nodded as if one were even better than two.

Marilyn Ramos—a tiny girl who was girly as a girl is allowed to be—raised her hand, daintily. I nodded and she began, her faint lisp feminizing each word. Again she’d hijacked an assignment to describe the dress she’d worn to her Quinceanera: It’s pink and the ruffles have ruffles.

The holy shroud was now in her closet in a bag that her grandmother had festooned with mothballs that resembled pretty church bells.

Marilyn, you put the tube top I wore to my Quinceanera to shame. Groans. But seriously, that sounds nice, and— I wanted to say girly, but I said, Nice, again.

See Mister, that’s why you need a wife, Jessica said. She’ll make everything nice.

Every male in the class grunted. Every female head nodded mechanically.

How old are you, Mister? Ricky asked, thinking he’d found a loose string he could tug and undo my snug little world. But I just clapped my hands four times as I said, "Open Joy Luck."

Two years earlier, during my first month as a teacher, I’d made the rookie mistake of telling a class my real age. I knew that I’d screwed up when a girl said, Twenty-two? You’re younger than my boyfriend. Immediately, that class quickly clawed back every trace of the slight authority I’d accumulated.

So I repeated my demand that they open their books. This time in a louder and more irritated voice. This signified I was serious, which queued the moans that accompanied any compliance.

Teachers are the weather in the classroom. We make it rain or shine, Ed Hossarian—the teacher on campus besides whom I admired most—explained several times when I used to eat in the teachers’ lunchroom. So I trudged on, repeating myself, like a blustery summer wind or a mystery rash or forgotten history. Soon every book was open, and no one seemed to recall that I’d promised to read on about my filthy bedroom. And that was a good thing. The rest of my journal was only fit for future scholars who might want to know where twentieth-century onanists hid their porn before it all ended up on the Internet.

Page 4, I said. I’ll begin.

At that point—for reasons that have to do with the tendency of bodies at rest to stay at rest—they pretty much gave in. For nearly a half hour, the few book-smartish kids listened, occasionally jotting what might’ve been notes; the more social, interpersonally intelligent kids passed each other notes; the denser souls drifted off, staring through the blinds and the steel grates on the windows, dreaming of swimming pools filled with marshmallows. And as I read from The Joy Luck Club and expounded upon the foreign mysteries of mother-daughter relations, something akin to focus (or conditional surrender) rolled in and settled for longer than it ever had in that class.

Reveling in the mildly pleasing warble of my voice and encouraged by an occasional nod of Jessica’s head, I went on and on and on a little more until so many eyes were set on the sunshiny nothingness outside the windows that it was obvious that they’d all exceeded their tolerance for my pedantic pitch.

Ed Hossarian also said, The less you talk, the more they learn, so I knew it was time to shut up and get some learning in before they went off and did whatever they did instead of homework. I formulated a thought-provoking compare/contrast culminating assessment: What does Lindo Jong have in common with Ying Ying St. Clair? Satisfied, I spoke the words and grabbed some chalk to jot answers on the board.

And though I’d intended to conjure a simultaneous vision of a Venn diagram in thirty-seven students’ minds, my words seemed to plunge to the floor before they hit the first row.

Nothing. Even Jessica was showing me the top of her head.

From the shuffling of pens, hands and feet, I realized that I was in a sudden-death match with the clock. It was 3:08. Only four minutes left in class. The clock was winning.

I felt my antiperspirant begin to fail as Ricky caught me checking the time. There was nothing on his desk. No book. No notebook. No pen. He didn’t even have a backpack with him.

And though I’d definitely asked a crucial question—the sort of question that could easily end up on the test—notebook rings everywhere were clinking shut. Unsorted papers were rustling into unorganized stacks. Zippers were zipping up whatever they zipped.

It was a hasty end to what, for me, had been a mildly successful instructional period. And despite the fear that I might trigger a psychotic rage in one or more of my students, I wasn’t willing to surrender the slight progress we’d made. So I repeated the question again—slowly.

Fidgety hands and down-turned eyes confirmed a blatant reluctance to assent to my state-mandated authority. And something in the way they were defying me so blatantly so late in the day must’ve triggered my fight-or-flight reflex.

I paused and resisted the urge to flee. I then hardened my heart and broadened my chest into what I hoped was confident body language. I needed to assure them I wasn’t letting my people go—not until I got something, anything, that resembled an answer. Your attention, please.

No response, actually more fidgeting.

Suddenly furious and nearly weepy, I yelled, "Stop the goddamn packing! and added, Please!" attempting calm, again.

Just about every student’s face froze mid-gape.

They were used to my freaking out, but they were apparently unfamiliar with my version of a full-blown nervous breakdown. For several split seconds, I almost hated them. Then I hated myself for almost hating them.

It wasn’t their fault that life was so hard. It was their fault that they had no concept of the ridiculous obstacles awaiting them—how as minorities and teenagers they lowered home values by simply appearing in public without a uniform with a nametag. And it certainly wasn’t their fault that I’d misplaced a stack of their essays the weekend before, leaving me with a throbbing sort of guilt that I could only still by assuring myself that I knew exactly where those papers must be: The lost and found of a dive bar in Glendale or one of my two favorite Kentucky Fried Chicken franchises.

This time I’m as serious as sin, OK? I said. What does Lindo have in common with Ying Ying? I need an answer, or we can, according to state law, stay up to fifteen minutes after the bell. As soon as those words were out, I wanted them back.

First of all, I wasn’t sure there was any such law. I was only repeating something a teacher spat at a sixth-period class I was in a decade before. Also—though I threatened it about once a week—I wasn’t planning on staying after the bell with them, ever. Extending class would’ve been more a punishment for me than them, and on that day it wasn’t even possible. An emergency faculty meeting had been called at 3:22 exactly.

Bathroom, Mister? Ricky asked, putting his hand in the air. He always knew the perfect time to ask for a bathroom pass—just after any potentially poignant moment or right as I approached the climax of an overblown rant.

Cut it, Rick, I said. I want my answer—now.

Rick? Ricky turned to his neighbor to explain that I’d called him Rick, which must’ve sounded excruciatingly white. Disdainful laughs crackled across the room. A wildfire ready to flare.

Quiet! I said.

Silence resumed.

I stared harder, forcing eye contact, panning slowly over faces. My expression was demanding yet reassuring, I hoped. I wasn’t looking for THE answer. They knew that English class doesn’t have so-called right answers, which is why it is the only class that has anything to do with the real world.

But there’d better be AN answer, I warned, OR ELSE.

That threat yielded the exact reaction I should have expected: A flood of aggrieved, lingering moans—the sort of moans that should be reserved for childbirth or a love song filled with saxophones or a very obvious, non-sexual pun.

But I couldn’t back down—no, not after making a big stupid deal out of the whole stupid thing. And despite my best histrionics, they weren’t giving in.

Mister, what’s so serious about sin? Jessica asked.

It’s obvious, said Lupe, attempting to suffocate any conversation that might outlast the bell.

Well, I paused to mull the seriousness of sin. Maybe—

I flinched, detecting movement in my periphery. The door five or six feet from where I stood was opening. I turned toward the movement and saw a slight gap filling with daylight.

A sullen face peeked in.

I tensed entirely adopting the defensive pose I’d mastered hiding behind the girls during Dodgeball in the third grade.

Hi, the sullen face said, his voice cracking on an extremely breathy H.

Some boy at the back of the class forced out a laugh—an exaggerated, clearly mocking snicker. I turned to stare the snickerer down but couldn’t place him. Every male in the room was watching each other watch me. Their faces too serious—too agitated. Eyes too focused. Shoulders too close to their ears.

And the females looked—as they always did—surprised.

My attention was forced back to the door where the sullen face had become a nearly full-sized sullen body in dark, slack clothing. The clock ticked. Everyone tilted toward the boy.

His bony arms were clutching a binder and a book to his chest. He took another step in and offered a thin, flimsy hand holding a thin, flimsy envelope. B-24? the sullen kid asked.

Yes, sir. An automatic response to a question I was asked what dozens of times a day, ever since the room number had been painted over along with some graffiti the winter before.

The sullen kid said peered over his slightly uneven wire-framed glasses and said, I’m supposed to be here.

Must be nice to know that, I said.

He smiled. The two piercings on his bottom lip glimmered against the glare of the fluorescent light or the yellowish linoleum on the floor. I took the envelope.

It was thin yet sealed and official—like a program change from the counseling office. So, are you joining us?

Jeeeeeeezus, someone in a back row said.

I’m supposed to be here. In fourth period, actually, he said. And as soon as he said fourth, the boys deflated back into their seats. I’m Charlie. Another snicker.

I relaxed, too—slightly. My fourth period was decent and civilized, which is to say they generally obeyed me. It was also my only class that wasn’t maxed out at thirty-eight kids, which is why I hadn’t added any students since the second day of the semester, months ago.

Alrighty then, I said. And right then, right as I was about to regain some order and get an answer to my question, the bell clanged, mockingly. I quivered, stunned that the end had come so soon after an hour that felt longer than the entire Reagan presidency—sans the Iran-Contra-scandal years.

Every face in the classroom—except the sweet mugs of Charlie and dear, saintly Jessica—brightened with a wild, sadistic grin. They’d won. I hadn’t gotten my answer.

You all better know what Ying and the other girl, person, have in common tomorrow. Bye. By the time I was saying better, they were all drifting toward the door. I stepped back to let them pass. A few of the larger pack animals, including Gabe, flocked in a manner that forced poor Charlie out of their way. Instead of cowering into a corner, as I would’ve, Charlie stepped aside and offered the mob a path with a sweeping arm movement that demonstrated more than a slight panache.

Hey, I snapped, in a too high-pitched tone and knew I should say something else. I wanted the whole class to come back and apologize or something, but there wasn’t time for that kind of shit—or any shit at all. So I just muttered some angry babble loud enough for Charlie to hear.

Don’t worry, Mr. Nicely, Charlie said. You know.

Right. But I knew I should be angrier or, at least, competent. But Charlie didn’t seem to care that he’d nearly been trampled. Instead it gave him an odd glow and a limpid smirk. I liked that, and I liked Charlie immediately.

I