American Outlaw Read online

  “Hey, fag,” he said pleasantly, “I know who you are. You’re that Jesse James kid.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “Didn’t you hear me?” Tom’s smile curled into a sneer. He looked at me and kind of snorted. “So, what’s that you’re wearing, kid?”

  I looked down at the used button-down shirt I’d bought for school, with my own money. The collar was frayed.

  “Don’t you have any fucking pride, kid? I mean, I wouldn’t come to school wearing a piece of shit like that if you paid me.” He laughed again. The two kids who flanked him, his football flunkies, laughed, too.

  “Goddamn, kid, aren’t you gonna say anything back to me?” His voice lowered menacingly. “I mean, I’m talking to you. Are you deaf, faggot?”

  Suddenly, BOOM! He sucker-punched me in the stomach as hard as he could. It knocked all the breath out of me. I struggled for a second, but I didn’t fall. We stared at each other for a long second, motionless. A small crowd of kids had gathered around us, and they watched us now, breathing quietly.

  We both stood there for a minute, eyefucking each other.

  Then I pushed past him and kept walking.

  “Exactly, dick!” called one of Dixon’s flunkies, laughing. “Go cry to your mommy! And don’t even think about coming to tryouts unless you want some more.”

  I stomped off to class. I was never too great in school in the first place—composition I was okay at, and metal shop was my specialty, but beyond that, I just never tried. Shop was a good opportunity to laugh at all the stoners in there, who all seemed to be making either bongs or silencers. I remember the day one kid got his long hair caught in a drill press. It was real high-speed shit: didn’t even move his head, just scalped him. It was all bloody.

  That afternoon, Bobby and I walked down to the football field together.

  “So, we gonna rock this shit, James?”

  “Of course,” I answered. Inside, I wasn’t so sure.

  Uniforms were doled out. The returning varsity got theirs first, of course. They all seemed to know one another: cool kids with big muscles and giant shoulders, making jokes and cracking wise. From a short distance, I saw Tom pointing over at me. He said something to one of his flunkies, and the whole group of them laughed.

  “Hey,” Bobby said, curious, “did that fucker just point you out?”

  “Nah. Don’t think so.”

  “He just fucking pointed at you, man! Why are all of them laughing?”

  “It’s nothing,” I said. “He just punched me in the stomach today, that’s all.”

  “You’re kidding, right?” Bobby said, aghast. “That kid punched you? What are you going to do?”

  “Nothing. I’m gonna play football.”

  “Jesse James, I swear.” Bobby’s face grew dark. “If you go pussy on me, I will personally kick your ass myself.”

  “All right, jerkoffs!” a coach called out. “Enough yapping! Come and get your rags.” The JV kids swarmed around the coaches, trying to get uniforms. We were an ugly little crew. Tiny runts, fatsos with man-tits, white trash, mean losers, and punks with messed-up lives. As a whole, we were one big zit cluster, a dog pile of teenaged assholes hoping against hope to make the big squad. But even we knew that most of us didn’t have a fucking chance.

  Another coach blew his whistle. “Gentlemen! Line up! Let’s toss, sweep, block!”

  Slowly, the varsity center, along with his quarterback, fullback, and tailback, all strutted up to the line together—they’d done this drill before. Tom, of course, was the quarterback. Big, imposing linebackers came to stand on either side of the formation.

  “Oh, hey, it’s the faggot, with the gay clothes,” Tom called to me. “I thought I told you not to come down here today, didn’t I?”

  I said nothing.

  “Let’s get a defensive line!” the coach called, motioning over to the crew of JV kids. None of us moved. “Guys! Let’s not be shy. I don’t have all day.”

  I walked up to the outside linebacker position. Bobby came out and stood beside me. Another tenth grader, a chubby kid named Mike, walked up and joined us. Slowly, the defensive line filled.

  The coach tossed the ball to the center. “All right, boys. Let’s see what you got.”

  “Hut, hut!” Tom shouted. He looked both ways, put his hands down underneath his center’s thighs, got ready to receive the ball. I stared at him, dead-eyed.

  “Hut, hut, HIKE!”

  As soon as the ball was snapped, I tore off the line, heading straight at him. Dixon looked to his left—no one there. He drifted back, looking for his tailback. I snuck around the end. The fullback tried to chop at my legs, but I straight-armed him and pushed him down.

  Dixon looked to his right—drifting back again. His tailback approached, and he was just about to sweep, when I arrived.

  I tackled the fucker hard, right around his ribs, and brought him down to the field violently. The ball flew loose, and all the air expelled from Tom Dixon’s mighty lungs with a clumsy “OOOF!”

  “Nice hit, Jess,” Bobby hooted. “Show ’em how we do it!”

  Tom Dixon squirmed under me uncomfortably. He looked dazed. “Get off, kid!”

  He lay there, trapped under my knees.

  “Nah, I don’t think so,” I whispered.

  I wrenched his helmet off his blow-dried head and smashed him in the face with my fist. I hit him as hard as I could, my knuckles hammering the bone of his cheek, driving his head into the ground. I pulled him up by the collar of his jersey, punched him in the temple again, then socked him below his eye. I hit him in the face again and again, over and over, until blood was gushing.

  “He’s crazy!” Dixon’s buddy cried. “Get him off! Fuck, this kid needs to be put in jail!”

  They tried to rip me away, but I was locked on like a pit bull. I bashed his skull against the ground over and over again, filled with rage. Finally, Tom Dixon made a terrible, high-pitched squeal: an inhuman, pig-shriek sound. The sound of complete defeat. As soon as I heard that, I smiled and loosened my grip. I let the rest of the team peel me off him.

  I staggered back over to Bobby and the JV kids, on shaky legs, feeling like I had to vomit.

  “Fuck, James, that was awesome,” Bobby said, collapsing with laughter. He clapped me on the back. “You see that fucker’s face? Man, I had no idea you even had that in you!”

  I was still shaking. I hadn’t come close to depleting my rage. I wouldn’t for a long, long time.

  2

  “You gotta grow up,” our head coach advised me, shaking his head. “You know, I think a year on the JV squad might be just the ticket for you.”

  I guess it was meant to be a lesson: you know, don’t pulverize the quarterback, kid—can’t do that and expect to advance in life . . .

  But I was real butt-hurt about being put on JV. To be sent down to the little-kid squad? Man, I couldn’t even sleep, I was so pissed off. I’m bigger and meaner and faster than any of those varsity motherfuckers! I’d never felt so desperate or cheated.

  So when I suited up for that first JV game, I had a chip on my shoulder.

  “You look a little crazy, Jess,” Bobby said. “What’s going on in that sweet li’l head of yours?”

  “Shut up, motherfucker.”

  They blew the whistle, and I just went completely haywire. I knocked out two of the opposing team’s quarterbacks in the first quarter. One of them I laid out flat-cold with a hit, and the other one, I fucking broke his leg or something. After that, the ref called a quick meeting with my coach.

  “Look, you gotta get the nut job out of there,” the ref said. “He shouldn’t be playing with the tadpoles.”

  So they moved me to the varsity after that. Finally, I felt happy—vindicated, I guess. I was an outside linebacker, which meant my job was basically to kill the quarterback. And that’s just what I did, over and over again. I was quicker and crazier than any of the kids out there, and I was out for blood. By my sophomore year
of high school, I was six foot three, weighed 220 pounds, and could run a forty-yard dash in 4.7 seconds. I was just a horrible person to have gunning for you.

  Due to the fact that I could play ball, I was given an identity at school: jock. I guess I looked the part, due to my build, and the fact that I was sporting a flattop back then. Not too many kids wore flattops in the mid-eighties in Southern California. It was more of a long-hair period. Inside, though, I didn’t feel much like a jock. I loved football and lived for being on the field, but I didn’t really like other jocks. I wasn’t going to jock parties or drinking jock beer. A glorious secret remained hidden in the sinew of my fifteen-year-old body: deep down inside, where no one could see it, I was a punk.

  “Are you back again?”

  “Sure am, back again,” I mumbled to the clerk at Zed’s, the best record store in Long Beach.

  “Gonna buy anything this time?”

  “Maybe,” I said, rifling through the tapes as fast as I could. “You guys have that new Misfits album?”

  “Nah,” the clerk sighed. “Try me later this week. Maybe you can shoplift it then.”

  So they were on to me. I didn’t really care. I loved the music. I was going to get it any way I could. Suicidal Tendencies, D.O.A., Circle Jerks, Black Flag—it was all just full-on aggression and rage and manic energy, channeled into thrash. To people who hated the sound, I know it probably sounded like a bunch of screaming. But to those of us who loved it, it was powerful. It was a way to say that something rotten and fake and wrong was going on in the world. Punk said we’d evaluated the situation, and weren’t going to nod along.

  Punk was sort of the opposite of jock in that way, actually.

  If I was going to listen to Social Distortion, then I needed punk style. No punk would be caught dead with long hair, let alone Tom-Dixon-blow-dried-jock hair. I longed to shave my head, like a true hard-core, but I couldn’t, because my dad wouldn’t let me. I shaved my head exactly one time, and afterward, he wouldn’t talk to me for a couple of weeks. He was just a dick like that.

  So I settled on the flattop as a compromise. My barber was a retired military dude who’d cut hundreds of heads every week for twenty-five years running. He slapped apple pectin on my scalp, so the bristly blond strands stood straight up, looking tough.

  Of the flattop, my dad approved. But it remained clear that no matter what, I’d be fending for myself when it came to school clothes. Exasperated, I decided to take matters into my own hands. Hidden under my mattress, I still had most of the cash that I’d gotten from the burger stand robbery. Gingerly, I removed the giant wad of money and flipped it through my hands carefully. Even after all this time, the faintest whiff of French-fry grease still clung to it.

  The preppiest store in the Tyler Mall was GHQ. All the rich kids shopped there; the shirts in the windows at GHQ were precisely the same ones that the preps would be wearing in the halls on Monday mornings. Publicly, I scoffed at the fuckers, but secretly, I wished I could show up to school just once looking store-bought. I’d never had the money for it before. Looking at my wad, I knew it was time.

  The heat felt stifling as I stepped out of my house. I had no wheels, so I had to hoof it over to the mall. Only a few determined strides into my journey, I was sweating hard. By the time I got to the store, my ratty shirt was soaked all the way through.

  “Man,” I muttered, disgusted, trying to peel my shirt off my chest. The Tyler Mall felt freezing. Blasts of air-conditioning made the wet fabric next to my skin feel like a cold blanket. I felt ridiculous, and for a moment, I considered turning back—but that would be like admitting defeat. I’d come this far. So, ducking my chin into my chest, I stumbled my way into GHQ.

  “Can I help you?” A very pretty girl who appeared to be several years older than me, maybe a college freshman, was working the counter. She stood there, looking tan and cool, like she’d never sweated in her entire life.

  I was still out of breath from my walk. “Yeah,” I huffed, then paused to compose myself. I never quite knew what to say to really pretty girls. “I need to get some . . . shirts.”

  She smiled warmly. “We have lots of those. Do you know what kind of shirts you’re looking for?”

  I blushed, momentarily at a loss. “Something . . . with a collar?” I mumbled.

  “Something . . . with a collar,” she said teasingly. “Hmm . . . wait, what about this?” She moved to the nearest rack and pointed her elegant hand at a long-sleeved button-down Madras shirt.

  “Yeah,” I said. “That looks good.”

  “You know, we also have that shirt in red.”

  “Okay.”

  “Okay . . . to which shirt?” She smiled and leaned over the counter. The tiniest fraction of her bra could be seen down the front of her blouse. My pulse quickened.

  “Both,” I said, woozy. “In fact,” I said, clearing my throat, “I’ll take every color you have in that size.”

  “Every single color?”

  “Every color,” I repeated, fingering my wad of stolen money. I looked up and met her gaze fully for the first time. “And then I’d like to look at some pants.”

  She smiled at me. “Let’s get you all set up, hon.”

  I walked out of GHQ half an hour later, my hands full of bags and boxes. I’d bought all the shirts they had in my size, plus about six pairs of nice pants, and a pair of slip-on boots with a black sole. Yeah, I was feeling like the preppiest punk in Riverside, indeed.

  I threw on my new threads as soon as I got home. Primping in front of the mirror in my bathroom, I couldn’t believe what I saw reflected back at me. For the first time outside of the football field, I liked the way I looked. Repeatedly, I sniffed at my shirt, savoring its aroma: brand new.

  Grinning, I waltzed into the living room, clad in new pants, new shirt, and new boots. I hung out there, watching TV, feeling pretty damn good. Then my dad came home from work. He took one look at me and frowned.

  “Jesse.”

  “What’s that?” I was watching the screen and didn’t look directly at him.

  “I’m gonna need you to go change.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  He pointed at my shirt and my pants. “Go change out of that costume.”

  “What are you talking about?” I was confused. “Why?”

  “Doesn’t look right,” he said.

  “Huh?”

  “You look like a faggot in that!”

  I stared at him, stunned.

  “Go change.”

  And he left the room.

  I sat there for a few minutes, stung. Soon Joanna hovered over me, her arms crossed. “You heard your father. Hurry up and change into your regular clothes.”

  “Beat it,” I muttered.

  She took a deep breath. “Jesse, I don’t want to have to tell you again.”

  I stomped out, slamming the door behind me. I knew what my dad was so pissed off about. It wasn’t that he knew I’d stolen money—he wouldn’t have cared about that. Rather, he’d realized I could survive without his help. I didn’t have to go through him anymore.

  I set off down the road to Bobby’s. His house was only about ten minutes away from mine—we lived in the same shitty part of Riverside. I was still fuming when I got to his house.

  “Jesse James, fuck me, you’ve gone fashion model!” He cackled, taking in my tacky new duds. “So, sexy, what’s happening?”

  “Cut it out,” I said. “My dad’s already been giving me hell.”

  “Sensitive,” Bobby observed.

  “My stepmom is even worse,” I complained. “I hate that little bitch.”

  “No way, James,” Bobby disagreed. “That stepmom of yours is cute, man.”

  I groaned. “Come on, Bobby.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “That’s disgusting.”

  “Disgusting?” Bobby asked. “I don’t think so, my friend. That blond hair? So darn cute. I’d do her in a heartbeat. You would, too, i
f you had the chance.”

  “You’re sick.”

  “Were you born without a penis?” Bobby said seriously. “It’s okay if you were. I swear I won’t tell anyone.”

  “Dude, come on.”

  “Man, that is tough. But I promise, I’ll never tell a soul.” He kept up his serious face for about five seconds, then fell over laughing.

  “You’re an idiot.”

  Bobby cackled. No one could crack up Bobby like Bobby himself. “Now look, man, cheer the fuck up. That’s an order.”

  “I am cheered up,” I grumbled. “You’ve made a big difference.”

  “Finally,” Bobby sighed. “Jesus. Can we go steal shit, now?”

  I wasn’t going to tell him the truth, of course: that in part, Joanna freaked me out because I had come across a stash of naked pictures of her when I was twelve.

  I was all alone in the garage after school one day, picking through the thousand or so magazines that my dad had collected across the years at flea markets and swap meets. He’d bought up stacks and stacks of old McCall’s and Life magazines and Saturday Evening Posts and National Geographics on the cheap; some were valuable collector’s items, others were just discolored garbage that he hadn’t gotten around to throwing out. From time to time, I leafed through them idly, just for something to do.

  I was methodically making my way through a stack of Posts when I came upon a small box with a canvas cover on it. Just for the hell of it, I decided to open it. When I did, I found a black-and-white photograph of Joanna wearing a thin, lacy teddy. She was contorted in an awkward position that showed off most of her skinny little body.

  “What the hell . . . ?” I muttered.

  I peeled the picture back, revealing another. There was a whole avalanche of them. In some, my stepmother’s lips were puckered up dreamily. In others, she offered up a teasing pose. With equal parts dread and curiosity, I slowly examined each photo in the stack. A blank expression often played upon Joanna’s face, as if she was receiving direction she didn’t quite understand. In most, a freckled hand was atop her bare hip, awkwardly.

  Joanna was small and pasty, with blunted breasts and an epic bush. This was the woman behind my nightly meat loaf. I felt confused, and somehow tricked. You don’t want to see your stepmom naked. At least, I didn’t.