Didn’t get much sleep that night.
Allenton was a bit of a maze when you wanted it to be, and after dodging the State Troopers in the helpful dark of the reluctant dawn, X and I barely got home without cherry lights and the searchlight.
It took us a while to get started that night, but somewhere around one in the morning, we figured it out. And gave the sleepy town of Allenton a night to remember.
Allenton was unincorporated, which, to a city kid of twelve, means there ain’t shit going on at night. No cops but those that drive about a hundred miles a night on winding roads. There was a bit more of a presence recently because a few houses had been broken into by unnamed parties that had resulted in a few stolen dollars and vandalism. The authorities knew they were looking for kids, stupid, rebellious kids that had nothing to do but fuck things up and make a mess.
The cops probably guessed at an age closer to fifteen and eighteen, and they were excited to catch them. But X and I had a falling out, and the nights had been quiet for a while.
Something had been said to the wrong person at school, or X had helped the wanna be bullies the weeks before. I had felt betrayed or I had betrayed him, and for about a week and a half to two weeks, I had not snuck out of the house and the streets had been quiet. I’m sure the cops thought that whoever the vandals were had moved on and they began to patrol a bit lighter.
I need to tell you about the pièce de résistance of me and X’s rebellion. A night that almost ended in disaster, and a night that I will never forget.
Allenton had a few solid businesses that were set there, but not many.
They had a laundry mat that me and my family washed all our clothes at. They had an arcade that had been a bar, closed down, been a bar a second time, and was now an arcade. They had a factory that I think processed soy beans or corn and saw to farms all around the area. They had a marketplace of sorts that carried everything a family might need from can goods to soda to metal magazines that Less was obsessed with. Every kind of grocery that could be found, including glass bottles of soda that you paid a deposit for, bring in empties and exchange them for full bottles, and every kind of sweet cake that we needed from twinkies to coffee cakes. The arcade had a restaurant off the right side, and there were a few bars and places to buy beer. However, the weirdest and most out-of-place business that the tiny town boasted was the tractor store.
John Deere had a franchise set up here with about ten different kinds of tractors and riding lawn mowers. They were all parked outside the small shop, and they trickled out enough business to keep things interesting.
The fight between me and X came to a head on the bus outside of the school. We were waiting to go home, and things just kind of burped up.
“Just because you’re a fucker with a tiny dick,” Shadow said, as X found his seat.
Shadow had been taking little pecks at X since the big argument, and he was not going to be satisfied until he kicked X’s ass.
X dropped into a seat, one forward and across the aisle from me, as Shadow barked out his weak ass insult, and he shook his head in frustration.
X flipped Shadow the bird without looking over his shoulder.
“You wish, you stupid fuck,” Shadow said. “You wish I would fuck you.” Shadow started making humping motions with his hips as he stood up, and he moaned and wailed like the girl on the Guns and Roses tape he listened to.
“Shut your fucking mouths and get over it already,” Rock yelled from the back of the bus.
“Kiss and make up, assholes,” Bland added.
Shadow looked back at the high schoolers and realized they wanted this struggle to be over as much as both of us did, maybe more. X had to admit to something that he had done and apologize, or I had to make some sort of amends. Shit, I don’t remember. The slight had been so small that only pride stood in the way.
In truth, I missed X something fierce. Shadow had been hand-tailored to be X’s friend. Without X, he was drifting. Shadow couldn’t get his feet set, and I just wanted things to get back to normal. But X and I lived in a kind of boiling state from the beginning, where we had to admit to the other’s strength and challenge it at all times.
“End this,” Pormore said. “Everyone is tired of this stupidity between you two.”
That was when I realized that both X and I were like mascots to the high schoolers and they were pissed that their favorite sitcom, the X and Shadow show, had been halted.
Shadow stood and tossed his backpack at the window of the seat he was in, and X stood and turned around.
X snarled and Shadow shoved him.
“Come on, guys, get over it,” Rock said.
I swung a fist. If this was going to end, it had to go my way. I felt that the high schoolers expected Way Cool Junior to come out on top, when they really just wanted it over.
X twisted and Shadow’s fist hit him in the shoulder harmlessly. X dropped and swung up, connecting with my flank. The blow was soaked by my thick green fatigues jacket and we were off.
Shadow went straight for the throat. With both hands, he grabbed X by the neck and held him, pushing him back. He wanted to get him to the floor, straddle him in the aisle, and slam his head on the floor a few times. Then it would be over without having to punch X in the face.
X was as dirty as a villain could be. His tiny fist grabbed my crotch, gripping just the tip of my dick and one ball, and squeezing.
It hurt like the devil, but the high schoolers were watching and I couldn’t lose this. I pushed with every bit of strength I could, but X just bent back, twisting his back and throwing back his head. His grip faltered and he only had his hand wrapped around my dick, and I was slowly shoving him to the ground. But he could bend like a twizzler, and though I bent him back enough to lift one foot from the ground, his other still stubbornly held him up.
I refused to tighten my grip and actually choke him, and he refused to pull what he held. We just pushed in an ineffective struggle of anger mixed with loyalty and an unwillingness to actually hurt the other.
Stranger stepped onto the bus and saw us in our messy friendly tangle.
“For fuck’s sake,” she snapped. She stuck her head out of the bus. “Fight,” she said to the bus driver, who stood outside of the door watching kids board. “If that is what you want to call it.”
The bus driver pushed past her, grabbed X and shoved me.
X let go of my dick before the pull did any damage, and he looked at me. “Fuck you, asshole.”
“Suck my dick,” Shadow snapped.
Soon the bus driver, who was remarkably fast considering we were two very slippery kids, had both of us by the back of the coat and was dragging us to the office.
“Watch the jacket! You rip it, I’ll fucking kill you,” Shadow yelled.
“Watch your mouth, you idiot kid,” the bus driver said. He pushed us through the mob of kids leaving the school and shoved us into the office with enough force to make us tumble to the floor like a couple of bowling pins.
We both fought to our knees and went after each other again.
X liked my throat idea and grabbed my neck. I went for his crotch and missed. I grabbed the inside of his thigh, squeezed as hard as I could and he cried out.
“Dammit.” The bus driver grabbed us both and threw us to the corners of the office floor.
Secretaries and the principal, and X and I were tossed into chairs.
I was gasping for air. He was red in the face and we glared at each other.
“Fuck you,” X said.
“No, fuck you,” Shadow replied.
“Both of you, shut the hell up,” the principal said.
“Mrs. Typewriter, can you follow this gentleman back to his bus and retrieve these boy’s bags for me, please?”
“Yes, sir,” she said. She looked at us as if reluctant to leave us alone with the principal. As if the extremely large grown man could not handle two twelve-year-olds that really didn’t want to hurt each other.
“His is the one that says fucker on it,” X shouted.
“His says asshole,” I added.
I looked at him, and he glared at me, and we both busted out laughing.
That smile. The maniacal grin of the tiny Joker stretched across his wide mouth filled with too many teeth, and I could not stop giggling.
“Stay here,” the principal said. “X, I know your number. What’s your name?” the principal said, pointing at me.
“His name is dickhead,” X said.
“X, shut your mouth!” the principal shouted. “What’s your name, kid?”
I had only been going to that school for about three months. “My name is Dickhead,” I said.
Both of us laughed, and X fell out of his chair.
Parents were called, and me and X told dirty jokes to each other until they arrived. The secretaries begged us to stop, but we kept it up. We were both so excited to have each other back that we couldn’t repress the joy.
The secretaries snickered at our filthy jokes, and me and X kept entertaining the room.
“See,” Rose said from the front seat of the car, after having to leave work to pick me up. “See how much of a trouble maker he is? I hope you got him good. Maybe he will know to stay away now. Maybe you can get a real friend now, not just a monster that will take you to—”
I barely heard her. I was already trying to plan what me and X were going to do when we broke free of our prisonlike lives and hit the streets that night.
Usually he met me at the back of the house but that night, before he could get there, I slipped out the back door on the second floor, jumped off the back porch with no railing, and ran to his house.
He met me on the road.
“I kicked your ass,” he said giggling.
“I damn near choked you to death.”
“Who has the mark? Who has the mark?”
And he was right. When he grabbed my throat in the office floor, his nails had dug two tiny slices of blood about an inch and a half down the side of my neck.
“Fuck you.”
That was when we decided that tonight was a celebration.
Tonight we had to do something special. No normal, attack on the laundry mat or breaking into a house and peeing on the pillow would do. Tonight we had to make a statement.
On my way to the bus the next morning, the cops, the tractor store owners, and citizens who had to stand by and watch were still crowded around me and X’s offering to the town of Allenton.
The high schoolers didn’t have time to snort their coke off one of the girl’s compacts. They were too busy staring at what we had done.
I got to the bus stop and turned away. The show was to the right, but I just looked forward.
Cops came and questioned the high schoolers about it all, but no one could tell them anything, and the cops would not hang any of this on anyone they were not sure of.
They started questioning the middle schoolers who were crowded around each other, staring at the street in front of the tractor store.
“I know that someone at this stop knows what happened here last night. Now Grr, I know your father and—”
“I don’t know anything, pig, and even if I did, I wouldn’t tell you. I’m no narc,” she snapped.
He stared at her hard for a few more moments before sighing and looking at his pad.
The bus roared to a stop right in front of us, and I jumped on as fast as I could.
I slipped my headphones on and cranked Guns and Roses as loud as I could, looking out the window at the cop, who was staring at me through the window frosted on the sides. X dropped in next to me giggling, even though we had agreed we would not speak that morning.
“Welcome back, boys,” Rock said. He patted X on the shoulder as he passed. The bus began to pull away as the cop stared at me and I tried not to look at him.
X smacked my headphones off my head. “Hey.”
“Fucker,” Shadow said.
“When do you think they will find the keys?” X whispered.
I looked at the tractors and riding lawn mowers, all pulled out and parked in the street to the right, blocking everything. Ten John Deeres parked at varying intervals, and I remembered where we hid the keys.
“Not sure,” I said.
“Under the trashcan bag was genius,” X said.
“Keep your voice down, ass!” I said, looking around.
But everyone was looking at us. Everyone was looking at us in awe.
For more about the series Reality of the Unreal Mind, visit Amazon.
Jesse Teller 
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