Five

On the bus, I decided to text the Adder. He was my main man for getting most any drug I wanted, although I chose to stick mostly with weed. The bus was mostly full, so I ended up sitting next to this chubby dude in an expensive looking gray suit.

hey man, i need about 3g by tom. can you come by?

The response came almost immediately:

Sure. Meet me by JJ’s swing at the park in 30 min. Sound good?

JJ was an old homeless man who used to haunt a swing set in the park near my house. He was there for years, until one day he either died or disappeared or something, and the swing was deemed ‘safe to use’ by the police again. People still didn’t let their kids swing on it, thinking that it might have some kind of STD or whatever. Eventually, the city council built a new swing set for all the little children who wanted to swing, but never got around to tearing JJ’s swing down. So now it was a meeting spot for the local teens and stoners and so forth.

I texted back:

will be there. thanks.

I noticed the suit guy trying to read my texts in what I guess he thought was a casual manner. So I texted Stitches this:

so im on the bus and this fatassed guy in a suit is trying to read my texts over my shoulder YES I CAN SEE YOU MR SUIT MAN AND I KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING so now can you please f**k off and not read my text messages? thank you! 

I didn’t look at him, and I didn’t make eye contact. But he stood up and changed seats anyway, and I could feel his eyes piercing my skin through my jacket. I grinned, and laughed quietly to myself.

The park was still a couple bus stops away so I killed some time on the bus by playing Snake on my phone. I beat Trina’s high score (She liked to take my phone sometimes) and then crashed into my own tail. When it was my stop, I got off, and avoided looking at the suit man.

After I got off the bus, I still had to walk about five minutes. My house was near there anyway, so I stopped by and dropped off my bag. The Adder wouldn’t be there for another fifteen minutes or so anyway. Nobody was home, so I picked up some cash from my stockpile and walked out, slamming the door behind me.

The walk to the park took about five minutes, so when I got there I just hung around JJ’s swing for a bit. There were some moms at the park with their little kids, but, like I said, they don’t like them hanging around this swing, so nobody bothered me.

Pretty soon, the Adder showed up. He’s a skinny dude, with shaggy, dirty brown hair that touches his shoulders. I handed him forty bucks. He smiled, sat beside me on the other swing, and gave me the weed in a little bag. I shoved it into my pocket and thanked him.

I didn’t know the Adder’s real name. When I first met him, in ninth grade, he introduced himself as the Adder and that’s the way it’s always been. I didn’t even try to find out his given name, I just accepted it. The name suited him, anyway. He liked snakes, and, in a way, kind of looked like one. In a less direct way, he was also surprisingly good at math. I mean, he didn’t go to my school or anything where I could see, but sometimes I’d ask out loud things like “What’s 3% of 78?” or whatever and he’d be like “2.34” without missing a beat. It was kind of creepy, actually. Anyway. The point is, he’s a cool guy and I enjoy his company.

We chatted for a bit, and then he said he had to go make a delivery and left. Walking home, I awkwardly bumped into Adrian Kupfer. Of course. I was always kind of scared of him, because he’s all big and muscular and attractive-looking. And that’s not all.

What can I say about Adrian Kupfer, apart from the fact that he’s Baby Rabinowitz’s boyfriend? Well, he looked exactly the way you’d expect an Adrian to look. At the risk of sounding totally gay, he was tall, hunky, muscular, with a strong chin and lazily curly hair that fell close to his shoulders and framed his chiselled face perfectly.

I guess you could say I envied him. Why wouldn’t I? The guy had everything: perfect body, perfect hair, perfect face, perfect girl, perfect house, and so forth. And what did I have? A scrawny body, stringy hair, an acne-ridden face, no girl, a crap house and my virginity.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, it’s true. I, Elliot J. Kieselstein am a virgin.

Sad? Yes.

Pathetic? Yes.

Downright depressing? Yes.

The fact that I am both male and sixteen should cause me to NOT be a virgin. Unfortunately, I have yet to meet a girl who would be willing to be my sexual partner in a relationship. I mean, I know plenty of girls who I’d want to be my sexual partners, and even some who I’d tolerate if they offered. So far, none have, and so I am stuck being single and watching all of my friends have girlfriends and make out and lose their virginities one by one.

“Hey. Elliot-dude.” He put his hand on my shoulder and quite literally shook me out of my reverie.

“Hey.” I said. “Adrian-dude.” And then I put my hand up for self-defence reasons. Adrian, however, seemed to think this was a friendly gesture and high fived me with all the strength that he could muster.

I almost fell backwards but managed to stay standing and continue the conversation, if you could even call it that.

“Elliot-man! We gotta burn!”

“Uh, yeah.” I said. “Totally.”

“Do you got anything on you?”

As much as I wanted to point out his gross grammatical mistakes, I couldn’t do so without fear of losing my face, so I just shook my head no.

“Trina said we’re all going to burn tomorrow, so just meet us by the tree. Invite Baby too.”

He nodded, clapped me across the shoulder and loped off, leaving me shaking.