Free Now Playing by Ron Koertge

wearing thin.”
    I look at Colleen helplessly.
    “Don’t worry about me,” she says icily. “I can take care of myself.”
    On Monday, I wait outside her English class, but she doesn’t show. At noon, she’s not in the cafeteria. I’m too nervous to eat, so I look in the Pit and by the candy machines. I ask a couple of stoners and then this skate punk who used to hang around with Ed. Nobody’s seen her.
    And then, right after French, there she is. Different clothes from Saturday night, so I know she’s been home. She’s carrying this ugly purse that’s black-and-white and covered with some kind of coarse hair. It’s made out of somebody’s pony, I swear to God.
    “Well,” she says, getting right in my face, “if it isn’t Mr. Chickenshit.”
    She swings that purse at me. I block with my good arm, lose my balance, and go down onto the polished linoleum.
    “What’d I do?”
    The hall goes dead quiet. Everybody watches.
    “It’s what you didn’t do, Benjamin. It’s three o’clock in the morning before the cops figure out my mom’s never coming. I thought I was your girlfriend. Why didn’t you stay with me?” Colleen hits me again, and I curl up. “Jesus Christ, Ben. I finally meet one guy I think I can trust just a little, and look what happens.” She wields that hideous purse like an ax. One blow for every word. “Nobody plays me, Ben. Nobody.” Then she starts to swing wildly. “Why don’t you take a picture of this, you cold-hearted bastard?”
    And she doesn’t stop whaling away at me until some teacher comes storming out of his classroom, gets both arms around her waist, and literally carries her away, kicking and screaming.
    Colleen gets suspended and sent to Alternative School. Dumbbell High. Bad Girl Academy. Vice-principals almost never punish the handicapped, but Grandma puts me in solitary. The Hole. Carpeted and air-conditioned, but I’m totally alone. She and I don’t even eat together. I’ve never seen her so mad.
    A week goes by. Not a word from Colleen. Grandma thaws out a milliliter at a time. We don’t talk about what happened, but we do talk. A little, anyway.
    On Friday, A.J. e-mails and wants to go to the Rialto, but I tell her there’s no way. So she calls Grandma, says how her mom knows Grandma from some board or other. Says she needs to talk to me about this documentary she’s thinking of making. Couldn’t I get a pass for just one afternoon?
    The next day I’m dressed and in the living room, waiting for A.J. like I used to wait for Colleen. Grandma glides up beside me. It’s weird to see her mad like a regular parent. I was always such a good boy. And then I met You-Know-Who.
    “Home by six o’clock, Benjamin, and not a minute after.”
    “Yes, ma’am.”
    “If anything happens, I want you to call me.”
    “Nothing will happen. We’re just going to the movies, and then maybe Buster’s. That’s it. Thanks for letting me do this. Really.”
    She picks an invisible piece of lint off my shirt. This is her way of saying she’s not totally steamed anymore. Grandma was never much of a toucher. When I was little, she would read to me, then tuck me in and almost kiss me good night. Half an inch away. A quarter. Three millimeters. Never all the way.
    Colleen was a toucher. Colleen went all the way and a little past that.
    Grandma says, “I just want you to know that I am still this far from taking your camera away.” Her thumb and forefinger are half an inch apart.
    “I understand. And I don’t blame you. It won’t happen again. Nothing like that will ever happen again.”
    I see Marcie across the street, down on her knees in front of a palm tree.
    “Can I go over and say hi?” I ask. “A.J. can just pull into her driveway.”
    “I still want to meet this young woman.”
    “Sure. Absolutely.”
    Waiting at the curb, I look both ways like a good boy. Marcie sees me coming, stands up, and brushes at her pants.
    “Did you have to dig your way out?” she