Introducing…

Zack Kaplan-Moss

Bronson Shineholtz:
…..That’s my fake name. I don’t use it maliciously, like a name I give to women I sleep with that I don’t want to know me or something.  I wouldn’t do that.  I just like to tell people at bars. It occurred to me that it might be weird. We don’t usually introduce ourselves with a full name. But Bronson Shineholtz pulls no punches.
…..He has his own coat. It’s leather, stitched and patterned, and not something I would have imagined myself wearing. Sometimes, I think of it as a costume.  I had it on today while I was waiting for a gyro at the Jarvis Grill, up on the north side of Chicago. Waiting being the operative word; a gyro can take over fifteen minutes at that kind of place. Even if you’re only one.  Which I wasn’t. All told, I tallied seven, including both sides of the counter. I think technically they call that “several.”  But for the Jarvis grill, I call it crowded.
…..I sat at one of the tables at the back of the restaurant watching the bum who had just stumbled in.  He was babbling a little wildly, giving some sob story, and staring around the room. I wondered what gave him the idea that it was ok to come into a restaurant and harass people. There have got to be some boundaries. I sat and hoped that he didn’t make it all the way across the narrow little grill to me, because I hate when they talk to me. As he invaded the space of a pretty dark-haired woman in line to order, she glanced over at me and we shared a thrilling moment of eye-contact.
…..I felt like I had met her before.  I opted for playing cool while I tried to figure it out, alternately studying my hands (I needed to cut my fingernails) and studying her.  When a young man came in and said hello to her like he knew her,  I put it together.
…..Her name was Helen Jenkins and I went to high school with her.

Helen Jenkins:
|…..I don’t really know what I was doing there to begin with. I hadn’t seen Clark in like five years and this is where he wanted to meet me? Some crummy little grill with sticky floors and barely enough room to stand up straight? I wondered if he was trying to trick me into going back to his apartment where he could seduce me. Maybe I wanted to be seduced.
…..Of course Clark was late though, and I was left standing there by myself. I tried to avoid feeling uncomfortable by looking around and that’s when I saw Paul.
…..I recognized him right away. He was wearing this kind of silly leather jacket, and sitting at a table in the back of the little restaurant, but I knew it was him. He was looking at me too. I hadn’t seen him in probably longer than I’d seen Clark—maybe six or seven years—and I could tell that he hadn’t figured yet out who I was. I’m not normally a fan of leather jackets, and even though it was a little silly like I said, I have to admit, he wore it pretty well. It seemed comfortable on him and gave him a sort of edgy air. He looked attractive. Well built. He had a little glint in his eye, a bit of careless stubble and he sat slouched and looked me over with a confidence that he didn’t used to have.
…..I had been sort of into Paul in high school. Not enough to do anything about, but he had a unique view of things. He could be condescending though, and I always felt that he thought he was smarter than me. He liked to make sure everyone knew it too.

Bronson Shineholtz:
…..I remembered freshman year when I had square-danced with Helen for like five minutes during PE. I was so nervous. I kept hoping that my hands felt nice to her, because hers sure did to me. They were slim and cool to the touch in that hot little room we were all packed into. Sometime during that same year I promised myself that I would, “get her by senior year.”
…..I felt a quick wave of nausea course through me. It rushed forward with such intensity that it pushed a little explosion out of me that came out in a gasp. I pretended that I was coughing.
…..It was because, with all the accurate and humiliating pain of hindsight, I had to realize all over again that there has never been a girl more out of my league than a freshman named Helen Jenkins. Like we didn’t even compete in the same arena. Nearly a decade later, it was still causing me physical pain to imagine the two of us side-by-side. Back then, I was a pudgy little boy with gel in my hair and she was already a full-grown woman. Even if I had somehow magically “gotten her,” I wouldn’t have had a clue what to do with her.
…..Obviously, nothing came of it. By senior year, she had started dating a guy who kind of looked like me. His name was Clark and he was a freshman at the time. Think about that. Freshman year she dates a senior. And senior year she dates a freshman. There was definitely something up with that.
…..I knew her little boyfriend too. We played water polo together and he was a pathetic sack of shit. He flailed when he swam, he fouled out of every game he played in, and he got in fights with everyone, even his own teammates.
…..I remember a party I was at one time. Clark showed up at some late point in the night and promptly fought his former friend Louis, the same one he sat next to on the bench. They rolled around the floor of some rich girl’s suburban home and broke a vase.
…..It was because of Clark that I remembered Helen Jenkins though. Because who the fuck else would come bursting through the door but Clark? He looked exactly the same, which is to say, still kind of like me. Dark hair, tall, slim, he was just dressed different and maybe had a somewhat smaller nose. Maybe a more squared jaw.
…..He knew me by sight too. And he winked at me.  That wink. That insolent, casual, wink.
…..Before I knew what I was going to do, I was standing and moving rapidly across the restaurant. I grabbed him by the front of his black-and-blue Rugby shirt and I threw him backwards as hard as I could. I could see the whites of his eyes and the back of his throat as he yelled. He stumbled over a chair and fell on the floor.  As he scrambled to get up, I grabbed the same chair, brought it high above my head and then whistling down and crashing over his head and back.
…..I had expected the impact to be softer somehow.  Like hitting a sack of meat or something. But it sent rough shivers all the way up my arms. My hands hurt from the force of it. He fell back on the floor, and I hit him again.  The chair was wooden, and broke the second time.  My hands were buzzing and numb.  It was like when I was thirteen and found out what happens when you put a staple in a light socket.
…..I must have cut his head open, because there was blood pooling and dripping when I flipped him over. I grabbed him by the front of his shirt again and lifted him up. I think maybe I said something, but I don’t know what.  He was limp and heavy. I let him go and he made a soft little thump as he slipped back onto the floor.
…..I became aware that everyone was staring at me.  And I ran out.  I didn’t know what else to do.  There was blood on my coat, and blood on my shoes.  My hands were red and bleeding and they hurt. I wanted to collapse, curl up into the fetal position and disappear. I didn’t know what had happened to me. Like it wasn’t really me that had done it.

Helen Jenkins:
…..After Paul ran out, I thought about a conversation I had with him one night at a party. He’d been all on about Clark and asked me something like, “Why are you dating him anyways?”
…..“I don’t know.” I’d said, “He’s hot and kind of wild. It’s exciting. Occasionally embarrassing, but exciting. And he’s actually one of the sweetest boys I’ve ever met. He’s just passionate is all.” I could see that when I said that Clark was hot, it needled him. He raised the side of his top lip a little, almost like a snarl.
…..“Passionate?” he said, “He’s an idiot. I’m sorry. I don’t really know him. Forget it. You’re one of those girls that like the bad boy.”
…..“I guess. They’re more exciting than the normal ones.”
…..“It’s an act though. You’ve got to know that, right? He’s just a rich white kid like the rest of us. You should be careful with him. People like that have a way of spinning out of control.”
…..That’s what I mean about condescending. Paul liked to think that he knew everything. He was going to tell you how it was and you’d better listen to him or you’d be sorry. I couldn’t stand it.
…..After he beat Clark with the chair, he turned him over and said “you should be more careful.” I know that he was talking to Clark, but I think he meant the words for me.
…..Clark wasn’t about to hear anything. He was just lying there bleeding, but I was finding it hard to be all that worried about him. I’m not callous, I could see that he was breathing, and soon he started whimpering so I knew that he was going to be all right. The lady that owned the place had already called the police—in this neighborhood, she probably had them on speed dial—there wasn’t really anything I could do. There was a lot of blood, but head injuries tend to do that.  It really wasn’t as bad as it looked.
…..I had Paul’s face frozen in my mind. Right before he had run out, he had looked up at me. His eyes were so wide, I noticed for the first time that they weren’t really hazel like I thought but closer to green. His nostrils were flared and he was clenching his teeth so I could see the definition of his jaw. It wasn’t until he left that I remembered to breathe and sucked in a great big mouthful.
…..I watched him as he ran off down the street. He was taller than I remember. And I wondered where he was going.
…..When the ambulance came, Clark was moving around a bit. I didn’t get in with him, and when the police asked me what the assailant looked like, I told them I couldn’t remember. I’m not sure why. It’s just that when they asked, I really couldn’t think of how to describe him. I said, “He was pretty tall I guess.” Then I said what I figured I was supposed to say, “It all just happened so fast.”
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→VOLUME 11