The Book of Joe

new semester, but having it done to you as a senior was particularly humiliating. They left Sammy hanging by his belt and underwear waistband on the back hook of a bathroom stall door, where he remained, tears of pained frustration dripping down his face, until he was discovered and cut down by some freshmen who mistook him for one of their own.
    “Why do you think it is,” he said morosely when I came across him in the cafeteria later that day, “that no matter where I go, guys like that seem to find me?” I frowned sympathetically, feeling guilty, as if my not having been able to prevent this inevitability reflected a secret collusion with Tallon and his crew or, at best, an endorsement of the inherent system that put Sammy at such risk.
    “You’ve met our resident assholes,” I told him. “They go after every new kid. It’s a territorial thing, like dogs pissing in their yards. They did their thing and it’s over. I would just stay out of their way.”
    Sammy looked up at me, tears forming behind his glasses.
    “I’ve spent my entire life avoiding the Sean Tallons of this world,” he said bitterly. “And somehow they always seem to find me. It seems to be my destiny.”
    “That’s bullshit,” I said.
    Sammy remained unconvinced. “We’ll see,” he muttered.
    A few days later in a crowded bathroom, Sean pulled Sammy away from the urinal in mid-piss, causing him to urinate all over his shoes and pants. “If you want to see my dick that badly, just ask,” Sammy reportedly shouted at his attacker. “It will save you the trouble and me the cleaning up.”
    Sean was utterly unaccustomed to this sort of slur on his unimpeachable character, and Sammy got a punch in the face and his head dunked in the toilet for his trouble. Indeed, most of Sean’s attacks on Sammy did seem to depend on undressing him to some degree, but it would be years before I recognized this as possibly significant.
    That afternoon, Wayne and I cut history and sneaked up onto the roof for a smoke. It was drizzling lightly, a misty spray that licked at our faces as we lit up. “You heard about Sammy?” I said.
    Wayne nodded, frowning as he blew the smoke out through his nose.
    “You can say something to them,” I said. “They’ll listen to you.”
    “It’ll just make things worse,” he said.
    “That’s a cop-out,” I said, getting annoyed. “If they were hassling me, you’d put a stop to it.”
    “It’s not the same,” Wayne said defensively. He sighed miserably, staring out at the thunderheads amassing on the horizon. “He brings it upon himself,” he said softly. “Why does he have to act like such a ... fag.” The word rose in the air before us, baring its fangs like a dragon, challenging us to brave its snot-encrusted flames and enter its lair.
    “He is who he is,” I said. “Just because you defend a guy, that doesn’t make you - ”
    “Doesn’t make me what?” Wayne said, daring me.
    “Nothing,” I said.
    “You think I’m a homo, Joe?” he said, glowering at me.
    “You think I’m gay?”
    I considered the question carefully. “I don’t know what to think.”
    “Well, I’m not,” he said hotly.
    “Fine.”
    “What do you mean, fine?”
    “I mean fine.”
    He stared at me intently for a minute, then nodded slowly and took a long drag on his cigarette. “Fine,” he said.
    As far as I could tell, after that Sammy and Wayne stopped speaking altogether.
    A few weeks later, Sean and Mouse grabbed Sammy between periods and pulled him into the yearbook office, where they pulled down his pants and attempted to photocopy his naked ass for posterity. Sammy put up a fight, and they ended up breaking the glass plate as they forced him to sit on the machine. His cuts required sixteen stitches, and it was two weeks before he was able to sit comfortably again.
    The principal of Bush Falls High was Ed Lyncroft, a portly, doddering, ridiculous little man who desperately craved approval from students and faculty alike. On those occasions when he addressed large segments of the student body, he did so in a stammering, self-effacing manner, as if to say he was in on the colossal joke that was him. His well-documented excessive use of a cloying brand of aftershave and his penchant for peppermint candies did nothing to negate the conventional wisdom that he was a raging alcoholic who laced his ever-present coffee mug with generous amounts of whiskey.
    Lyncroft’s spineless demeanor rendered him fairly