That Was School,
This is the Theater
by C.E.S. Pool 

My name’s Horsebutt. That’s a weird name, I know, but my parents was kinda weird. They named my oldest brother Pugsley and my other oldest brother Seltzer. I got two other brothers, one named Ipso-Facto and the last one named some unpronounceable grunting sound, but both of them’s in jail for killing my parents.

We run with kind of a gang, me ‘n’ my brothers. All the other kids at school call us the Trogs—Pugsley, he’s real smart, he says it stands for the Trotskyites in the Russian Revolution, they was devoted to true communism and the rights of the working class. But one of the Socks said “Trogs” was short for Trogolodytes, but he didn’t tell me what kinda revolution they fought in.

The Socks, that’s what we call the rich kids and their gang. Fancy-pantses, always strutting around in their high-water jeans, showing off their la-de-da socks to the world. I hate the Socks. Everybody in the Trogs hates the Socks. Except for Santo, he don’t speak enough English to tell us what he hates. He just keeps going on about some Spanish thing called “la Cameron Diaz” and making humping motions.

I love my brothers, but most of the time they’s working jobs and don’t hang out with me. So I hang out with Massapequa and Steven. My best friend is Steven, ‘cause he’s kinda weird, like me and my family. His family named him Steven and then told him to pronounce it in one syllable. I can almost do it, but Steven stutters sometime so it’s really hard to get him down to even three syllables on it.

Massapequa, he’s a hard call. He grew up the poorest of all of us—his dad was the first guy to create an online site to compete with the brick-and-mortar stores, selling brick and mortar. He was also the first victim of the dot-com boom, back in 1994. He just shot himself last year with a borrowed gun after saving up for years to buy the bullet. He didn’t kill himself, but he blew out real important parts of his brain and now he thinks Tom Green is the funniest guy on earth. It’s pretty sad. Massapequa hates him and don’t visit him at the asylum no more.

Things are going good for me, though, ‘cause Pugsley said I was old enough for the rumble tonight. A rumble’s real fun, where everyone gets together and fights each other until the last ones is standing. Pugsley said if we lived in the West Bank over in the Middle East we could rumble all the time, which would be sweet.

Pugsley and Seltzer were workin’ the day before the afternoon before the rumble, so Steven and Massapequa and me was hanging out at the movie.

“This movie’s gay,” yelled Massapequa at the movie, and the audience shushed him. The movie was a re-release of The Boys in the Band, and me and Steven thought it was pretty good. Massapequa got all mad, though, and got up and told us, “I’m going for smoke. You gonna come with me or watch this gay-ass movie?”

We decided to go with Massapequa, though I wanted to see the rest of the movie. Out in the lobby was a pretty girl—she was dressed real fancy, with bright red socks. Massapequa saw me staring at her and he laughed.

“Hey, look, Se’en. Horsebutt’s got the hots for a Socks!” Steven laughed, and stuttered. Then, Massapequa got real seriously intense and looked kinda like James Dean for a minute, and he said, “Don’t even think about it, Horse. There ain’t no Socks would go out with a Trog. She’d stab ya just as soon as look at ya.”

I knew the girl from my school, though. Her name was Sponge, just like the song. She kinda seemed a little cold to everybody, but I knew it was just ‘cause she was shy. We worked on a science project a few months ago and I knew she was nice when ya got to know her.

“Hi there, Sponge,” I said, kinda smiling a little shy myself.

She stabbed me right in the neck with a nail file. I fell down, all bleeding and stuff. But I knew it was just ‘cause her friends were there, and she really did like me.

For more of this great story, buy C.E.S. Pool’s novel
That Was School, This is the Theater A Christmas Card
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