Free The Danger of Being Me by Anthony J Fuchs Page A

and the door swung inward again.  Ben stumbled into the room, an overstuffed Jansport swaying from his right arm and a densely piled cafeteria lunchtray clutched tight in his left hand.  He kicked the door closed with his heel.  "I'm here, I'm here.  The party can start."
    Ethan laughed.  "What took you so sodding long?"
    "Oh, you are not going believe this shit," Ben said, juggling his back-pack and tray in a precarious balancing act.  "I'm walking down the hall after Health class, trying to remember how to put on a condom, and I pass this jaw-dropping feminine specimen.  If there was ever proof that God is an artist, it was this girl.  Absolutely unbelievable craftsmanship: all the right curves in all the right places, legs that ran all the way up to heaven and past Avalon, and the kind of ass that men fight wars over."
    He paused, pointed to Ethan. "You know what I mean."  Then he glanced to Phil and smirked. "You probably don't, but you can just take my word for it.  Well built."
    Ben finally heaved his bookbag to the carpet, kicked it under the computer terminal, and slid his lunchtray onto the table.  "So naturally I'm drawn to this girl, `cause I've got eyes and a pulse and whatnot, and I start following her completely by accident, and she gets all the way to the cafeteria and realizes I'm following her."
    He dropped into the seat beside me and looked around the table.  "So I try to play it cool, `cause you have to play it cool with a girl like her, and I say to her, 'I wish I was your derivative so I could lie tangent to your curves'."
    "Oh, Jesus," Phil muttered, shaking his head.  I laughed at that, and Ben shot me a sidelong glance.  I coughed to cover up my laughter, and that made Ethan laugh.
    "Long story short," Ben said.  Helen barked out a laugh at that, but Ben pressed on.  "She slaps me across the face, one cheek to the other.  I never even got her name."
    He paused.  The silence spun out.  All five of us stared at him.  "I was out cold in the lobby for six minutes."
    Awkward silence flooded the room.  Then Winnie said, "Do you ever get tired of the sound of your own voice?"
    Helen laughed again, and Ben shook his head, "Never."  He considered; "Well, maybe this one time in 1989, but –"
    "Anyone got the game?"  Phil said before Ben could launch into another meandering anecdote.  Ethan stood and crossed the room to the counter next to the door.  He opened the cabinet near the floor and dug out the teal box marked Trivial Pursuit: Genus 3.  He returned the game to the table, setting out the board and hand out the pieces.
    Ethan always played as brown and I was always blue.  Winnie, being the only emerald-eyed member of our little consortium, had adopted the green piece.  Ben had taken to the orange piece.  Helen always played pink, and Ben sometimes tried to call her that as a nickname.
    Phil did not play.  He asked the questions, because when he answered them, no one else could win.
    Ben examined his gamepiece.  "Shotgun rules?"
    "Is there any other way to play?" Helen scoffed.
    "Very well, very well," Ben said, leaning in over the table to set his orange piece at the center of the board.  "Give the reigning Singles Champ some elbow room."
    "Save it," I said.  "You won on a fuckin technicality."
    He picked up his slice of pizza and bit off a chunk, grinning.  "It doesn't matter if you win by an inch or a mile; winning's winning.  If you catch my meaning."
    "I'd guess you're closer to an inch than a mile," I said, drinking from my soda.  "If you catch my meaning."
    Helen snickered, leaning forward over the table onto her elbows, showing off the pair of freckles just below her collarbone that I still thought of Betelgeuse and Bellatrix.  She smirked at Ben, and said, "I'm pretty sure I do."
    He turned to her, flashing his widest, toothiest grin.  "My offer to let you find out for yourself still stands."
    Helen waved him off, leaning back into her seat.  "Oh, no, but thank