Free Palo Alto: Stories by James Franco

of ill-formed fat that showed through the skin when he moved. The skin on his stomach was as white as the inside of a radish.
    In fourth grade, in Mr. DeFelice’s class, I had to sit next to Sasha Alexander. She wore the thickest glasses I’ve ever seen. She had short red hair, lots of freckles, and no friends.
    The class practiced writing cursive. We had to write our desk partner’s name. Mr. DeFelice came around to inspect. He told me my
x
in
Alexander
looked like a swastika.
    *   *   *
    In eleventh grade we studied the Civil War. There were the Bad Confederates and the Good Guys in the North. Some people still believe that the Confederates were right.
    The water-ski camp went to Knott’s Berry Farm. Ute and Howard and I and the others weren’t allowed to go into Knott’s Berry Farm because of the fight Howard had with Chad and because of what Howard did with the black girl and because he told that we had made him do it. The head counselor and his wife wanted to kick us out of camp, but instead we missed out on Knott’s Berry Farm. It was Hulk’s idea. We stayed in the parking lot by the bus with Jane and threw a Frisbee. Jane had to stay because she was our counselor. She was sad for us. That was when she told us that she was the black sheep of the family.
    At the very end of the day we got to go into Knott’s Berry Farm. We saw Chad. He had his T and C tank top on. He had met a local girl in the park. His friend told us that Chad had got to second base with her already when they went on the mine ride. She was blond and pretty.
    Riding back to the campsite, Ute drew pictures of people being burned in ovens. He burned Howard and Chad and Hulk in his ovens. They went in as they were—it looked like them, Ute was good at drawing cartoons—and they came out as skeletons.
    A little kid told about the drawings. Hulk came back and saw the pictures. Back at camp he told us how bad the Nazis were and that it was not something to joke about.
    Nobody in the camp liked us.
    *   *   *
    Ute was handsome but he was a nerd too. He drew lots of pictures. Ed and I drew pictures with him. We made our own comic called
The
Alien Brothers.
We drew ourselves like vicious aliens and killed the people in our school.
    In fourth grade Sasha Alexander was the biggest dork I could ever think of. Buckteeth and short red hair and glasses. She said she could play basketball better than me. I laughed. We played at lunch and I won. She didn’t admit that I won. Back in class I told her she was a dork and a poor loser, and she stabbed me in the arm with a pencil. The hole was gray from the graphite.
    Mr. DeFelice didn’t do anything about it.
    When we were eight this guy pulled Ed’s bathing suit off. Ed didn’t have a mushroom. He was half Korean. We were scared to fight the big guy who did it. Hulk didn’t know about it, so the kid didn’t get in trouble.
    In high school it was mostly white kids. There were only about thirty black students. Some were bussed in from East Palo Alto. Most of them hung out in an area in front of the school library. That was their spot. They got bad grades and wore parkas.
    *   *   *
    That night at Mid-Pen we were drunk and tired of walking. Me and Ivan and Ed and Jack stood on the cement-filled tire of a tetherball pole. We held the pole and rocked the tire back and forth and sang drunken songs. The rest of the group left.
    We were drunk and we came up with our own songs. We sang about Heebs, and stingy Jews. Not meanly, just loud and funny. I sang loud.
    Ute was mad about it, he asked how we could do that to Dave Frankel and Howard, and he left. No one cared. We didn’t care about Howard, he was a fool.
    At water-ski camp we made fun of Howard and the black girl, Angela, so much. Late at night we snuck out of our sleeping bags and smoked pot. At campfire one night we dared Howard to push Angela in the water.
    We sang “Wimoweh, wimoweh,” and then as everyone walked back to our sleeping