Renny Boy

There are only a few things that truly tick me off.

Like constant annoyances, insults to my family, pointless lies, or just really stupid people. I’m not a belligerent kid, honest. It’s just when things like that happen to me, I get angry.

Let me tell you a story within a story.

- - -

It was a warm September night - the summer was still in full force, even if the calendar said it was fall. Florida’s fall comes sometime in mid-November if you’re lucky.

At about nine at night, my mom told me to take out the trash. Nothing big - I had to do it every night. But this time, when I emerged from the front door to put the bag in one of the garbage cans, something was…up.

Thump. I slammed the trash in, putting the lid back on. Stars peeked out from behind the eternally cloudy skies, twinkling up high. Our neighbors’ houses were deeply lit from within. From where I stood, all of the houses just looked like two-story toasters lined up next to one another, carbon copies of each other. I heard shuffling around the bushes at the foot of our driveway, and at first I thought it was just a cat or something.

Well, then, that must’ve been one hell of a mouth-breathing cat, since I heard gasping coming from the source of the shuffles.

My heart began to pound a million times a second, since I had no idea what was happening. Raccoons weren’t too common where I lived, and I sure as hell didn’t wanna be mauled by a bear. Upon further inspection, I spotted a shadow that extended out into the street. That shadow definitely didn’t belong to a small animal.

And there it was, hiding mere feet in front of me. It could’ve been anything – somebody with a gun, a mutant two-legged deer, a knife-wielding psychopath.

I had no idea what it was, and that mere thought was terrifying. “What the heck!” I whispered harshly, letting my fear keep me from saying something PG.

The figure gasped again. And that’s kinda saying something about its fear threshold if it gets scared by a skinny kid like me.

And then he fell backwards onto the worn street, and I didn’t know what to do! I could’a beat the crap out of him, but once I saw coffee eyes and dark curly hair sticking out everywhere, oh man. I almost screamed.

It was Brendan.

He shifted onto his back and smirked, slurring his words.

“What’s up, man?”

- - -

It was hard to make eye contact with Brendan for a while. But he seemed to forget about the incident within the next day. And I’m not the kind of kid who holds grudges, like I’ve said before. No matter how close I came to a heart attack.

The first couple days of school were completely hectic. I kept forgetting where my classes were, and ended up tardy twice. Plus, I drew a few blanks on my teachers’ names…I guess I wasn’t totally used to that epic hustle and bustle of seventh grade yet. I could only imagine what my level of confusion would be on my first day of high school. God, I didn’t wanna think about that back then. Thinking of all of the little and big things that could possibly go on between now and then…man.

I’ve always found it funny the way I supposedly make friends (if it even happens). I’ve never been social, but I find that certain kids hang around me like a group. Before I know it, I find myself talking to them, and then I start trusting them. I just think it’s so weird. But eventually, since I started hanging with Soria and Luke started hanging with me – and Brendan tagged along, of course – we kinda were inseparable.

Never made sense to me, but what was done was done and that’s not really the kind of thing you’re allowed to question – you just sit back and let it happen. People say you can pick your friends. Well, that’s not always the case.

And I never forgot the first conversation I had with Soria. The one in gym class. I specifically remember wanting to get together with her and make some tunes, and she agreed…I think. But later on, it was like it never happened - neither of us mentioned it…for a few weeks. Though it made sense if she forgot. It was only a one-time thing that I never reminded her about.

“Yo kid,” she called to me one Wednesday on our way to science class. I slowed down my steps until she caught up. This was the time of day, in the middle of it, when everybody was at their peak energy and able to effectively lump up in the heart of the hall, thus slowing all of us down to the optimum level. Maroon and golden (I use the term “golden” loosely) tiles sprawled out underneath our feet, rusty gray lockers standing at our sides, Soria and I walked together.

“Hey,” I said.

She smiled for a split second, her eyes darting around. “Yeah, um…remember the first day of school, and you asked about the whole getting together thing? With music and stuff?” she blurted out all at once.

I nodded.

“Well, I was wondering…you wanna come over sometime?” she offered, clutching her math book like it was a stress ball. This was weird to me - I never thought of her as shy, just a bit quiet, sometimes. I understood that it was a little hard to share something like music, though. Maybe that was the reason.

“I thought you’d never ask.”

She beamed up instantly. “So…what day did you wanna do it?”

We set it for Saturday. Soria scribbled something on a spare piece of paper, ripped it off and handed it to me, turning on her heel to go to her locker.

The warning bell rang. I didn’t wait for her to get her stuff; I didn’t wanna be late to class and instead I rushed to Mrs. V’s class by myself.

- - -

It took a while to ‘fess up to my parents about Soria. And once I did, I really didn’t understand why I procrastinated for so long. I mean, it wasn’t like she was my girlfriend or anything in my eyes. My mom, on the other hand, with her frizzled scarlet hair bouncing around the frame of her face, thought differently when I told her.

“Oh, honey! That’s wonderful!” Mom gushed, clapping her hands together like I’d just won the lottery. “So, is she cute…?”

“Mom, she’s just a friend.” I knew I’d be using that stock line for a while.

“Your father and I were just friends too, Ren. But things change, and feelings grow, and….”

I sneered in disgust. The last thing I wanted to hear was a romance novel. “Soria’s a musician, mom. And she invited me to come to her place to, you know, maybe start something. Like, a band, I mean,” I explained. Her face fell as if she were remembering something bad.

“But…honey, you haven’t sang in front of other people since…” she trailed off.

And I really wish she’d said nothing. It triggered a switch in my head that made all of my organs slosh into my stomach. Some things are buried so deep in your mind and are meant to stay that way, never being dusted off and remembered. This event is one of those things. So take note, since I won’t be telling you about this again.

- - -

It was first grade.

It was December 12th.

And it was my time to shine.

Well…if only I could shine. I was a dull star compared to the rest of the Claymore Elementary Chorus. Hiding behind all the girls in shining dresses and boys gasping in neckties, I tried desperately to go unnoticed.

I was actually starting to get an interest in singing, but I really had no interest in making it that public. My mom begged the guidance counselors to let me in the Chorus, even though tryouts were over. She said something about “hurting my self-esteem.” Even then, all I could think about were the hundreds of faces staring straight into my soul.

I could not care less about whether or not I could sing.

But things have a funny way of changing when pressure sets in.

My eyes darted suspiciously around the huge auditorium, searching for a soul I could recognize. No go. I couldn’t even find my parents, and even with my mom’s mane of crimson hair and my dad’s ponytail and horrible posture, nobody in the crowd stood out.

I was youngest kid in the chorus; the rest of them were fifth and sixth graders mostly. Hiding behind people wasn’t too difficult, but it was hard to make it look like I wasn’t looking up girls’ skirts, which I wasn’t (I didn’t even know what parts they had up there). Finally I ended up settling at the far side of the flock, thinking I was safe.

Wrong.

Chances are, they were just one of the performers’ teenage brother and his idiot friends, but there was a group of 15 or 16-year-old dudes grouped together in front of the stage. They were all laughing. I wasn’t so sure whether they were laughing at us at first, but then it became pretty clear.

When I shuffled closer to the cluster of kids to sing “Silent Night” with my peers, they began to mock us with hooting and taunting.

“Pretty boys! Wooo!”

“What’re you guys, Aaron Carter wannabes?”

Time quit moving. My entire face turned red. My teeth clenched in anger, but at the same time, tears threatened to break the barrier and come rushing down my cheeks. Before I knew it, I was running full speed backstage as fast as my little legs could carry me. Even if, chances are, they were also teasing a few of the other choirboys, I was just so embarrassed that I just…I just couldn’t take it. It’s a painful memory I hate to dwell on, I push it out of my head whenever it threatens to surface, but sometimes it’s just so clear that I’m unable to let it go. I’m not really one to…express a lot of emotion. It’s kind of rare. Most of the time I’m laughing awkwardly while my voice cracks or I’m making smartass remarks that my dad always used to scold me for.

But some things just get to me.

It just…it hurt, you know? It sucked.

I’ve been called a lot of things in my life. Renny boy (I still haven’t forgiven Soria for that nickname), quiet boy, shy boy. But being called a “Pretty Boy” hurt the worst. I was a flustered mess for the rest of my life in elementary school at Claymore thanks to that incident, even though I know looking back that I wasn’t the only one who was affected, and I was certain that I knew that whoever declared that words don’t hurt was an idiot.

I’d noticed that people always added the suffix “Boy” to whatever they want to call me. What I wanted to know is when people would quit calling me just a boy and start calling me something like…I don’t know, an adult. It was hard enough having to grow up. I just wanted to know that I was coming along fine in the process.