“Go out with you? What are YOU thinking? Please!”

            Squeals of laughter rose in the hall. The young man stood with his eyes to the ground, hands crammed into his pockets, hoping the flush rising in his cheeks was not too noticeable. Though he had foreseen the answer months earlier when the girl stood aside, pointing, giggling, and whispering, he couldn’t recall exactly what had given him the sudden courage to face the beautiful blonde. The knot in his stomach disappeared, replaced with nausea. He ran for the bathroom to escape their laughing that rang in his ears, their eyes chilling him with the icy stares of repulsion, and to vomit.

            He righted himself, wiping his mouth with the back side of his arm. The spikes on his leather wristband brushed against his cheek, scraping the flesh slightly, but he hadn’t noticed. Facing a mirror, he stared into the other’s eyes, trying desperately to find the child he once was. His oily black hair strung out across his forehead and curtained his brow, the tips brushing with eyelashes. He pushed his hand aside with a black-tipped finger and swept it up atop his head, slicking it back. His face revealed, he felt naked, bare, and saw what the girls were laughing at. His rustled his hair back onto his face. He wiped off any substance that might have found its way onto the black shirt with the grotesque gnarled face of Satan’s apprentice, one blue eye and one brown jutted out from the cloth, black lipstick lined the thin flesh around his mouth, eye shadow streaked across his face and smeared down his temples. The boy’s eyelids slipped shut, and in a sudden stroke he shattered the reflective glass, sending splinters glistening to the tile floor. He ignored the stinging of his knuckles, cut, but not seriously, as he walked down the empty halls.

      “Look at the freak…man, who does your make-up?”

            Tables rumbled as the other jocks pounded them, roaring and cheering their teammate on. The kid they spoke of closed his eyes, fighting the tears that burned.

      “Fuck off Jared!” He threw a slab of mystery meat at the jock’s pretty-boy face, but missed, and the rubber slice landed on the one behind him.

      “What the fuck?! Hey Jared, I think we gotta teach this fag some table manners!”

      “Careful boys, he might cry and smear his mascara!”

      The laughter burst out again, echoing off the white walls of the cafeteria. No one noticed as he crept out, head hung low. His deep blue hair dangled in front of him and obstructed his view, but he made no motion to clear it away. His breathing grew labored as he angrily hyperventilated, stomping down the hall. He slipped into the bathroom, kneeling to check under the stalls, then turned to lock the door. Setting his backpack on the floor, he unzipped the bag and pulled out a plastic baggy and tissue paper. Resting his head back on the cool tile of the bathroom wall, he brought the rolled joint to his lips, dragging off of it before laying his arm back at his side. Exhaling, the smoke blew out in front of him and dissipated into the air. He ignored the hot tears streaming down his cheeks or their salty taste that fell on his lips and kept smoking, calming himself. His head fell forward into his open palms.

            After class, he went to his locker to load up his books and head for home, though everyone else was expected to stay one more period, he made the exception for himself. His cut knuckles slid across the cool metal of the door streaking the freshly painted “Perv”. He furrowed his brow, swallowed the lump in his throat and figured the combination. Upon opening the door, he found slick wet latex strung on his books and jacket, girly pictures, and the bottom of the box. He slammed his locker shut and headed for the front doors.

            After flicking the joint into a toilet, he tipped his head back to squirt Visine into his irritated eyes, then splashed on a cap full of Old Spice before returning back into the student world. Reaching out for the lock, his leather band slid down his wrist, exposing the tender red flesh and crusted blood. He pulled his arm back quickly, readjusting the bracelet, then left. He decided not to continue on to class, but walked about the school, passing classes where they all sat, sleeping, passing notes, snickering about the incident in the halls this morning while some no-count teacher drowned them out and struggled to explain the subject they were not qualified to teach. He came across a familiar row of lockers and noticed the red paint that splattered his own. “Fag”. He clenched his teeth and balled his fist.

      “Sonofabitch!” He pounded the metal with a weakened punch each time until a dent appeared beneath his closed hand.

      “Hey! What the hell are you doing? Get over here now young man!”

            He turned from the voice and dashed down the hall.

     “Come back here!”

            He jumped down the stairs three at a time and burst through the doors, the warm sun shining down on his tear-stained face. He deeply inhaled the fresh air and readjusted his back pack, then calmly walked down the cement pathway, over the grass and through the neighbor’s yard, heading home.

            That night the two boys gathered in his basement. The walls were painted black, even with the fluorescent lighting humming overhead, one could still feel consumed in darkness. Marilyn Manson’s blue and red eyes pierced through the room’s atmosphere, his black stringy hair spilled over his pasty white flesh, his ivory teeth clenched, lined with midnight red lipstick. The odor of paint Aluminum and KCI03 swam in the room, PVC piping lined up against the walls. With a white flash and a thunderous explosion, the walls of the house above shook. The boys sat silently for the telltale sound of footsteps above heading towards the basement door. Nothing. He rearranged his goggles and peered back into the test tube over the Bunsen burner.

            “It’s ready.”

            Screams flooded the halls of the school. Explosions were rumbling through the walls on multiple floors, gunshots could be heard in the distance. Blood smeared the once white enamel walls, dripping down to the tile, smeared further by the bottoms of running shoes. No one recognized the boys holding the machine guns, who could recall the face of a young man they harassed day in and day out as they turned their eyes and went home at night to sleep comfortably. Students tripped over a dead body rushing for the front doors or any accessible exit; one dangled from the shattered window of the second floor, bleeding profusely while police helped him down.

            She sat under the table, weeping silently, covering her head as she curled in fetal position. The gunshots rang out in the library, she clenched her hair in fear, trembling, praying. Without looking she sensed the figure standing over her. Raising her head, she came face to face with the open-ended barrel of a gun. She closed her eyes, waiting for the bullet to kiss her brain.

      “Do you believe in God?”

            She stared up at him, confused, blinking the tears away.

      “Do you?!”

      “Yes! Yes I do!” she whimpered.

            He laughed and raised the gun. The shot echoed through the halls.

            He looked out the window from the hall. Lines of students were running from the school with their hands over their heads, squatted low as police shouted instructions to them and paramedics tended to the injured. Finding no one else in the halls, he slowly walked to his locker; the words “Perv” lasted through an cleaning attempt. The barrel slid between his lips and his finger curled about the trigger.

            As the halls grew silent, he stood over the body of a young blonde girl. The sound of a bullhorn outside seeped in through the windows.

      “Come out with your hands up in the air, leave your weapons!”

            He threw his head back, laughing uproariously. Tears formed in the corners of his eyes, and he placed his gun to his temple.