Excerpts From Eden '99 Ch. 9 Rumpshaker
"All I wanna do is zoom a zoom zoom zoom in a boom boom."
Eden ‘99
Ch. 9 Rump Shaker
“Not mean to make you sit, not mean to make you jump. But yep, make the hotties in the party shake your rump…”- Reckx-in-effect
Chucky
July, 2000
…No, goddamn it! I don’t care what you heard from Ryan! I told you never to believe that kid!
No! I don’t care! I don’t wanna hear none of that. And yeah, I’ve read the stupid article. I’ve got mail, for Christ sake. Ryan spammed that junk to every name on his buddy list whether they knew Tyler or not. And, so what? As if there’s only one Tyler Sanchez in all of Colorado. I don’t care what that Rocky Mountain garbage says. I’m telling you, if I have to fly out to Colorado myself, I’m gonna find that two-faced, back-stabbing, judas mother fucker Tyler or raise him from the dead to kill him again myself. And when I find his scrawny ass, he had better fork over every dime he owes me or I swear to God, by the time I’m through with him, he’s going to wish he were as dead as everybody thinks he is.
As if what Tyler did to Noelle isn’t deserving of a beatdown all on its own. Ditching Noelle not a week after he found out she was Preggers McGregor’s with his kid. Oh, and bankrolling his escape with my cut of our profits. Now, I’ll be the first to admit, I’ve done my fair share of dirt. But what Tyler did to Noelle, and to me, I ain’t never done nobody dirty like that.
He ran off with Fred’s cut of the money too. And you know what Fred’s like. We’ve all heard the stories Grace used to tell. What do you think Fred will do if he ever gets his hands on, Tyler? Or gets his hands on me? Yeah, there’s a drug dealer out to get me now because of that thieving, filthy, skeevy, sneaking Tyler. And people call me a scumbag.
What? Who calls me was a scumbag, specifically?
Um, my mom, right before she threw me out. Why?
Oh yeah, and thanks for letting me crash on your couch. I needed a place to lay low. If Fred shows up I’ll jump out the bathroom window and kick it in your garage till he splits. Hit up my Motorolla. I’ll kill some time playing snake. But I doubt Fred will turn up. When was the last time you spoke to him?
That recently? You’re helping him with what? But did he ask about me?
He did?
He said he was going to do what if he found me? Tear my head off and do what with it?
Gross.
But what are the odds of him showing up here, on the real?
That’s not very reassuring at all. You’re not making this up because I asked to crash on your couch, are you? Nah, course not. Thanks again.
Fuck it. Like I said, if Fred catches me here, I’m diving out your window like superman. I’m Auti. Maybe I ought to go to Colorado too, you know, to find Tyler and Paul.
This is crazy. I haven’t seen you since the day I left for camp juvie.
Oh shit, that just reminded me. Do you remember Vice Principal Morse? Yeah, that vice Principal Morse.
Course, by now, you ought to know all about Vice Principal Morse and his mistress, Ms. Mary, that fine-ass Social Studies teacher with them legs for days. You know how the VP was making booty calls to get jiggy with Ms. Mary behind his pregnant wife’s back and with Ms. Mary’s husband, Mr. Mahony, just down the hall. Who knew Mr. Mahony, that history geek, had been a Golden Gloves boxer in another, much younger life? Vice Principal Morse found that out the hard way and everybody in Ms. Mary's fourth period class got a ring side seat to the K.O.
Remember all that Ill shit popping off?
Now, I happen to know for a fact that what went down with the Vice Principal last year, all losing his shit and his job along with it, that was all Tyler and Conrad-the-Conman’s stupid fucking fault. And I’ll tell you how too. But first you’ve gotta solemnly swear to keep what I’m about to tell you on the DL. Down to the low. You never heard none of this tall tale from me, right?
Right?
Alright, then.
February, 1999
First off, you know, Verna, that security guard with them banging, beefy Thunder Thighs, she’d finally cornered Conrad in the Boy’s room after chasing his squirrely, smoking ass all over campus all morning, all damn semester; actually, from the second I busted Brianna’s weirdo work of art over Ms. Smith’s nappy ginger afro, the Administration and faculty members all declared it open season on them Buddha Monks. Especially, after word got around that Tyler was still holding it down for me, pushing our product on campus and all while I was kicking back in some beachfront rehabilitation camp for delinquents. Course, that was only part of the reason why security had it out for us kids. We know better now.
Naturally, Conrad was presumed guilty by association, being Tyler’s best bud and all (second only to yours truly). Security Staff had the biggest raging hard-on out for Conrad, it was obscene. They weren’t even trying to hide the fact they were out to fuck him but good. They had my man pegged as the biggest, bitch-made, sucker-ass mark in the clique. People forget, now, that until around sophomore year-ish (I’m guessing), Conrad was every teacher’s wet dream, a straight-A student on the honor role and chess club and all that other nerdiness. I can’t say why or what happened. I don’t know. I never asked. But when Conrad’s GPA pulled a kamikaze nosedive, his teachers most definitely took notice. Worried letters were sent home, and parent-teacher conferences were held. They even hooked him up with a super foxy tutor to help motivate him maybe. The tutor helped. I know that for a fact because it was the only class he passed that semester. I was there the day we got report cards and Conrad's grades were shockingly worse than mine.
But you know how it is. Teenagers, they rebel. It’s a natural rite of passage that everybody goes through. Pushing those boundaries that we’re raised never to cross to see how far they stretched until we find our breaking point, the lines we won’t or don’t like crossing, that shit that sort of shapes who we are as people in the world. Them Amish folk even got a name for it. You know them Amish, Mennonite types? The Pennsylvanian Dutch? They got a name for that rebellious phase in every young person’s life, when they begin to question everything they've ever known and become total know-it-all, entitled, dip-shits. They call it…what do they call it? Damn it. Maybe look it up on Lycos later. It’s Amish, for sheezy and I think it rhymes with...rhymes with…rump shaker.
What were we talking about? Oh, yeah.
And what were Conrad’s teachers supposed to do but watch as Conrad Frances, their star student plummeted from the heavens like lucifer himself. They’d seen it a million times. They had their hands full of students that actually gave a damn. But security, they figured Conrad, the lost fallen angel with the big brain and even bigger heart would be the easiest to flip like a switch. They knew that with the right leverage, all they’d have to do to get Conrad to squeal was squeeze. They were going balls to the wall after Conrad and weren’t about to ease up until they found what weight they needed to press him with and started hardcore stalking Conrad all around Campus.
I remember, every now and then, Conrad coming around, all edgy, talking crazy, like, “I think that guard with the Thunder-thighs was following me today. And yesterday too,” telling how he’d had to double back on the way over, just in case, and that maybe we all ought to relocate to stay on the safe side of things.
“Maybe she’s in love with you,” Violet always teased him and we all gave him shit, saying, “Yeah, that’s probably it,” to shut his stoned face up and keep his paranoia from spreading to the rest of us, the way paranoia does around a circle of stoners.
Like I said, we know better now, that Conrad was right to be straight trippin’. But at the time, we were totally clueless and also too lazy to take him seriously cause of all the weed we were busy smoking.
Luckily, the guards were on to Jack shit and with their heads stuck so far up each other’s butts they failed to recognize how tight Conrad and Tyler were, how far back that connection went, and that Conrad would take a buck knife to that big, nerdy heart of his before ever stabbing Tyler in the back.
And besides, all Conrad was guilty of was being a slacker, pothead, with a nicotine habit. Honest to God, Conrad has been one of my boys since birth so I feel like I’ve earned the right to call him a moron. I’ve known him long enough to know without a doubt, that Conrad Frances is a bona fide idiot.
But, to be fair, It’s not like he was helping Tyler distribute. Regardless of whatever’s, Conrad was king of the idiots but he was still smarter than that. I warned Tyler that was a bad idea but does anyone listen to Chucky? And once Thunder Thighs had finally cornered him in the boy’s room and caught him smoking on school grounds without a tardy pass, Conrad was shitting bricks, a whole metric shit ton.
On the way to Vice Principal Morse’s Office, Conrad said he and Tyler were walking a little slower than Verna, on her blind-side, littering the hedges along the path with Zig Zags and loosies and make-shift paraphernalia from his pockets literally behind Thunder Thighs back.
Conrad had taken the stick out of his deodorant and carried his drugs in the hollowed-out plastic applicator. The VP had searched Conrad's belongings twice. Both times the VP had shoved that Speed Stick brand stash can in Conrad’s face and asked,” What’s this?”
Both times, Conrad said, “deodorant.”
Both times the VP tossed the applicator aside without removing the lid. Everybody bitched, like, “Conner your weed tastes like Speed Stick, foolio,” but after bypassing Vice-Principal Morse twice, Conrad said he wasn’t about to change it up. Even though his joints did taste like funky fresh arm pits and he knew it and it was nasty.
On the flip mode, Tyler wasn’t sweating nothing.
Tyler had stashed the pinner joints he sold for five dollars a pop in hollowed out Bic pens. Those generic white pens with the black caps. The pens were wrapped in rubber banded bundles that Tyler kept in his backpack’s front pocket. Anyone searching him would've uncovered his narcotics easily had they only thought to take the caps off any one of Tyler's pens to find an over-priced puny pinner joint where a ball point and it’s ink straw was meant to be. Each bundle was worth an ounce and we were moving two ounces on a good day. We would've been moving a hella lot more if Kyle didn’t have the jocks and preppy kids in his pocket already. Fuck Kyle.
Poor kids party harder. It’s a fact. Poverty is oppression. We have to. Look that up on Lycos later too.
For some reason no one ever bothered to check these pens Tyler was peddling when security searched him. So, Tyler was chill. And his vile of LSD was hidden in the bottle of eye drops that security sweated him over but let slide. He was fiddling with the eyedrop bottle in the front pocket of that navy-blue windbreaker he was always wearing even after Coach Montgomery gave him the boot from the track team. It’s not like Tyler could afford another hoodie. Tyler was broker than a joke. And even when we started making a little extra cash. He wore that ratty navy-blue old wind breaker anyway. I hate that I ever felt sorry for that sorry punk.
Tyler was “Too chill,” Conner told me. Like, “Zen chill.” Conner said Tyler was “mad spooky.” Plus, this would’ve been Tyler’s first meeting with the Vice Principal. Everybody knew the “three strikes and you’re fucked” policy with Vice Principal Morse. God, that man was a prick. I’m talking about the biggest prick in history. Like, royally.
Tyler knew he had nothing to worry about. Conrad though, that kid was in full spaz mode. The VP would probably phone Conrad's folks, a-gain. Conner'd be suspended for a week and his folks would be disappointed in him, a-gain. But Conrad told me later that he was sorta kinda secretly hoping he would get suspended; thought maybe a week off might do him some good.
Thunder Thigh corals Tyler and Conrado into the VP’s office talking about how she caught them smoking in the boy’s room. But since Tyler and Conrad flushed their butts, Old Thunder Thighs didn’t have any evidence on them. All she had on them at worst was truancy. So, Conrad was all, like, “Nu-uh, not me.” And Tyler was, like, “shut up Conrad.” And Morse, who was sick that day, didn’t give a shit about either of them.
The VP stressed Conrad over Conrad’s eyes being red. But Conrad said the VP’s eyes were even redder. All day, everyone was telling him to go the fuck home. Be with your preggers wife. Unless he was maybe avoiding that pregnant wife of his. Like no matter how bad he felt, home would make the VP feel worse.
“You look like you’re about to drop dead.” Conrad told the VP and Tyler told Conrad to shut up again. Conrad never did know when to shut his dumb ass, smart mouth. It was a nervous tick. We ran into trouble and Conrad ran his motor mouth. Tyler was maintaining that “Zen Calm” Conrad had mentioned. Like, “detached.” So that when Tyler told Conrad for the second time to shut his mouth. Tyler’s dead calm confused Conrad. And for the first time in maybe his entire life, Conrad kept his trap shut.
Conrad told me afterward that the VP’s trash bin was overflowing with used Kleenex. Conrad kept his hands in his pockets out of fear that he might catch whatever the VP was carrying, that he wanted to cover the bottom of his face with his shirt to keep the germs out. The VP kept on hacking wads of phlegm into tissues and tossing the Kleenex at this pyramid of mucus towering above the rim of Morse’s trash bin.
Morse asked if Tyler was stoned and Tyler asked, “In what way?””
Morse asked, “Your eyes are red like Conrad’s. Are you high now?”
Tyler said, “It’s allergies. I think there might be a bug going around.”
“Are you lying?” Morse asked.
“No.” Tyler replied cooly.
“To yourself?” Morse asked.
Then Tyler shut up.
“Well if you were stoned. I bet you aren’t anymore.” that big ‘Ol buzz-kill, Morse, said.
Morse didn’t have it in him to search them; Said they were “lucky” that he didn't have the energy. But Morse mad dogged Tyler all dramatic like and said something along the lines of, “I ‘ve got my eye on you.”
Then Morse let them go. Like Morse said, "Lucky break."
Conrad and Tyler had retrieved everything they’d tossed along the way to the office and made it all the way back to the art building before Tyler noticed anything was missing. Tyler’s cross-country windbreaker had a factory defect from the very start, that Tyler was always forgetting about. There was a tear in his windbreaker’s front pocket. Tyler was always losing his shit through that tear in his pocket. That afternoon he lost a whole vile of LSD, nearly a hundred hits worth.
duh, whoops
Morse was sick, like I've been saying. His eyes were red and he wasn’t even stoned. The poor guy probably wanted some relief. That’s why when he found the eye drops that Tyler left behind on that chair in his office, he used them. That’s exactly the moment Conrad told me they came running back into his office; exactly as Morse was dropping four hits of acid into his glowing red eyeballs.
Conrad said Tyler smiled when he saw it. Conrad was like Elvis--"All Shook up." Said he felt his spine twitch and butterflies in his stomach. Not Tyler though. Conrad said this big, bright creepy smile appeared on Tyler’s ugly face.
Tyler was, like, “Uh. Those are my eyedrops. They’re prescription. I need them, for my allergies.” Tyler lied.
The Vice Principal tried to lie his corrupt ass off at first and said, “No. These are my eyedrops.”
And Tyler had to point out the “X” he’d scribbled on the bottle to keep from accidentally frying balls like the Vice Principal was about to.
And the Vice Principal apologized and handed Tyler his vile back. “Must’ve got them mixed up,” said the biggest, lying Prick of all time.
Morse told them to get to class.
Now think back on everything that happened with the Vice Principal that afternoon. Now imagine that Vice Principal Morse was on acid the whole time. Four whole hits of “Smurf.”
Fucking, Tyler. Dumb as rocks. When I get my hands on that guy. If he isn’t dead by now, I swear, I’m going to kill him. I swear to Christ…