Carl
Carl looked over at Sokowski in the driver’s seat of the truck. He hated the motherfucker. He knew that Sokowski thought he was stupid. Always treated him like some kind of moron or something, ever since high school. But over the years whatever Sokowski wanted him to do, Carl would end up doing it. Carl didn’t know why exactly. Maybe it was because he was tired of being a wallflower. Or maybe it was because he was short and fat and didn’t really fit in, and Sokowski let him into his circle of friends. That’s all Carl really ever wanted, he guessed. To fit in, no matter the cost or humiliation.
He’d jumped his dirt bike over Sokowski’s Chevy truck in the tenth grade. They had built a makeshift ramp out of flimsy plywood and milk crates. Sokowski had invited over a bunch of the FFA guys—wearing their blue corduroy Future Farmers of America jackets that they never seemed to take off, even in the summertime when it was eighty degrees out. They bought a half keg with Carl’s money, and got good and drunk so that they could watch Carl make an ass out of himself. Carl got good and drunk himself and played right along. On his first and last jump, his back tire clipped the hood of Sokowski’s truck and flipped him up and over the handlebars. Carl broke three ribs, fractured his left wrist, and tore most of the skin off his legs, stomach, and face. To make matters worse, he had been wearing only tighty whities, because Sokowski thought that would be even funnier to watch. As Carl sat in a pool of his own blood, Sokowski and the other burnouts laughed their asses off.
Carl always soaked up the attention that his stunts brought him. He did stupid shit at the drop of a hat, because it was the only way that the other guys would give him the time of day.
And he did a bunch of stupid shit. Usually at the expense of others. Mainly girls. Girls were easy targets. They fell for almost anything and couldn’t kick Carl’s ass. The meanest joke he ever played on a girl still bothered him to this day. Years of guilt ate him up inside. Sokowski had put him up to banging the fattest, ugliest chick in their class. Susan Ross. Carl’s cruel joke earned her the name “Sexy Sue.”
Sue was an outcast who never spoke to the other kids, ate by herself in the cafeteria, and didn’t participate in any gym classes because she didn’t want to change her clothes in the girls’ locker room. She was the unfortunate wallflower that Carl used to be and was both fat and poor to boot. Because of that she had a big red target on her back.
The senior class was having a party down at the river toward the end of the school year, and kids like the band freaks and bookworms knew better than to go to that kind of party—it would be nothing but trouble for them. But Sue fell victim to false hope. At Sokowski’s prompting, Carl invited her to the party to have a few beers and hang out. Sue was exactly like Carl—she just wanted to fit in.
Sue showed up that night wearing the same tight-fitting clothes she always wore, clothes that showed all her rolls of fat in all the wrong places. Long, greasy hair hung over her eyes, and she smelled like her father’s barn, where she worked every day before and after school. With Sokowski and the other guys looking on, Carl fed her cup after cup of punch spiked with Everclear. She wasn’t used to drinking and got buzzed pretty quickly. Carl gave her attention that she never received before. Asked her questions and made her laugh a few times. Sue never had anyone hit on her before.
It didn’t take long to get her in the back of Carl’s truck. She told him that she had never been with a boy before, and Carl just nodded at the confession. Carl had her clothes off quickly and took her from behind. He didn’t want to see her face. He couldn’t bear having her look him in the eyes while he performed his act. She was on all fours, and Sue’s fat cheeks pressed into the vinyl seats as Carl grunted and thrust into her. The sound of sweaty skin slapping sweaty skin could be heard over the perky lyrics of Brian Hyland’s “Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini” blasting from the car stereo. At the time Carl found it funny that he was having sex to this song. He knew that Sokowski and the guys would find it hilarious as well.
It was over pretty fast. Carl was drunk, but not drunk enough to come inside her. He pulled out and ejaculated onto her massive ass. She rolled over so that she could look at Carl, but he turned away and quickly threw his clothes back on. He told her he had to take a piss. As planned, he grabbed her large cotton panties on the way out.
Carl went and joined the boys. They drank and laughed and slapped Carl on the back like he was some kind of hero. They all watched and waited for Sue to get out of the truck. The fun wasn’t over. Not by a long shot. It had to be at least fifteen minutes before Sue got up the courage to get out of Carl’s truck when it was clear he wasn’t returning.
Finally she stumbled out of the cab. Her hair was messed up more than it usually was, and her shirt was twisted and untucked. By this time everyone at the party was in on the joke. They were waiting for her grand exit from the truck.
A roar of laughter erupted as she spotted her audience of classmates. A couple dozen kids stood around the bonfire, bent over laughing and pointing at her. A chant arose, initiated by Sokowski. Sue’s head buzzed from the punch, but it only took a moment for her to understand what everybody was saying.
“Sexy Sue! Sexy Sue! Ain’t no virgin and smells like poo!”
As the kids chanted, they all looked up at a tree beside the bonfire and howled even louder. Sue peered at what they were pointing at and laughing about. Someone had hoisted her extra-large panties into the air, and they hung like a soiled flag from a tree limb.
“Sexy Sue! Sexy Sue! Ain’t no virgin and smells like poo!”
Everybody was drunk, and they cackled and chanted over and over again for so long that it seemed surreal. But Sue stood paralyzed, unable to move her fat legs. She took in the mocking faces of her classmates, most of whom she had known since kindergarten. And it wasn’t just the boys who were laughing at her expense—girls were laughing at her, too.
Unable to contain herself anymore, she burst into tears and ran from the bonfire. Still drunk and uncoordinated, she tripped over her own feet and fell to the ground. She rolled in the dirt, which only made things worse. A new wave of laughter erupted around the party.
Carl stood in the middle of the delighted crowd beside Sokowski and remembered that Sokowski even had his arm around his shoulders. When Carl saw Sue on all fours on the ground, covered with dirt and grass, her face stained with tears, his smile faded a little.
A few weeks later, on graduation day, word spread around school about Sue’s suicide. That morning she had hanged herself in her father’s cattle barn. Carl knew why she did it. It didn’t take a brain surgeon to figure it out. She didn’t want to face her classmates on graduation night. It was just too much.
Carl and Sokowski never spoke about Sue or the suicide. Life went on.
Now Carl looked over at Sokowski again. Sokowski gripped the steering wheel and squinted to focus his drunken eyes on the road. They pulled in to Doc Pete’s driveway and parked the truck. Sokowski grabbed two rifles from the gun rack and handed one to Carl. Sokowski’s lousy grin was back.
Carl looked down at the rifle and said nothing. The same shit was happening again. People were dying because of them.
