All in good time (Ezzy's Education: Part 16), By Garrett Murch
With the hot water heater not working at home, Trunk had taken a long shower in the locker room following Tuesday afternoon’s football practice—after his teammates had all taken theirs. At practice he’d thrown the ball well, consistently hitting his targets both short and long range. He looked not only ready for the homecoming game, but like he could even be a college quarterback—if he bothered to study more than the bare minimum required to remain on the team. Since the season before, Trunk had told his teammates (and others) he would skip college and somehow just go pro. He said things like, “College is for losers. Turns you into an elite, pantywaist Justice freak.” He had said as much at practice that day.
When he started his father’s old red pickup, he noticed the gas gauge was at empty. After pulling into the nearest gas station and parking alongside a gas pump, Trunk reached into his pants pockets and pulled out three crumpled dollar bills. One was held together with scotch tape.
“Shit!” he yelled. He ran his fingers through the dusty consoles of the truck, finding a quarter, two dimes and a penny. Looking at the sign showing the price of gasoline, he muttered, “Not even a gallon.”
One of the dimes slipped out of Trunk’s hand and fell through the narrow space between the driver seat and the center console. He crammed his hand into the crevice and felt around for the dime. His fingers quickly found and retrieved two empty plastic nips of Fireball whisky. “Jesus, Dad,” he said. He forced his hand back down and felt all around but he did not find the dime. He stepped out of the truck and threw the nips in the trash before he started pumping gas.
Trunk loved gas vapor. As he pumped the gas, he consciously inhaled the vapors through his nose, with a look on his face like vacationers on the Maine coast breathing in fresh ocean air. He went inside and paid $3.36 for the gas. The .83 gallons he purchased was roughly what it would take him to drive five miles to Trendon Bravissimo’s house and drive home. He walked back to the truck and drove straight to Trendon’s house, keeping the truck in neutral wherever possible.
On the mostly yellow lawn behind Trendon’s, about twenty classmates, nearly all boys, hung out. They sat in folding chairs or stood next to the chairs. They talked and laughed while four classmates played beer pong several feet away. A large Trunk flag and a large American flag were planted firmly in the ground next to a propane grill with several rust holes in it.
A thin, blonde boy with red cheeks was glued to a laptop, laughing and cheering by himself. Due to the peach fuzz on his face, he looked too young to be a senior. Noticing his candidate for student body president had arrived, the boy yelled, “Trunk! Get over here, man. You gotta see this!” Trunk smiled for half a second and strutted over, emotionless and with his nose in the air like the animated skunk, Pepe Le Pew, following a scent.
“Trunk!” Trendon yelled as he scurried toward Trunk and the boy, spilling beer on his t- shirt. “True story. You gotta see this.” Trendon was a little out of breath when he reached them.
“What have we got here, my Vicious Vindicators?” Trunk asked. He continued before the boys could respond. “That’s what I’m going call you two. My Vicious Vindicators. My ‘VV.’ You know I love you guys.”
The boys both beamed.
“Seriously you gotta see this!” Trendon said. He dropped his empty beer can and stomped on it. Several times. “Most of the guys here said it’s too much. Some of them are pissed about it. But trust me, I know you’ll love it.”
Trunk eyed Trendon. “Show it to me. Where are your parents?”
Trendon’s face displayed a youthful innocence when he replied. “My mom works nights this week, and my stepdad’s inside on the couch sleeping. He was drinking even before I got home, so it’s all good. The guy’s awesome. Taught me this new drinking game the other day.”
Trunk rolled his eyes. The boy with the laptop positioned the screen so Trunk could see it. “That’s a sim of Lucinda,” Trunk said.
The boys laughed.
“She looks awful,” Trunk said. “I like it already.”
“Wait, it gets better,” Trendon said.
“Why is she bent over?” Trunk asked. “And what is that wooden thing clamped around her neck?”
“Watch this!” the laptop boy said.
A second sim in the video had a body shaped like Trunk’s. That sim pulled a rope and a cartoon guillotine blade dropped on and through the neck of sim Lucinda. The Lucinda sim’s head rolled on the ground and stopped. “We must have watched this fifty times now,” Trendon said. His laughing induced hiccups.
Trunk crossed his arms. He looked up and to the left. He looked up and to the right. He looked at the boys and squinted before frowning. “Boys,” he said, “I know I’m supposed to tell you this is terrible. I’m supposed to say this is inexcusable. Hell, I’m probably suppooosed to kick you off my campaign for this and tell everyone I want nothing to do with you.”
Every boy in the yellow backyard now stared at Trunk, listening. “But I’m not going to,” Trunk said.
Trendon, peach fuzz laptop boy, and a couple other boys—totaling less than 2 percent of the Ebbing High School student body—cheered the loudest they had all afternoon.
“And you know why I’m not going to do that?” Trunk asked.
”Why?!”
“I’m not going to,” Trunk said, “because even though I know I have this election in the bag, and I will win the most votes, Lucinda Barron has a secret plan to change your votes from Trunk to Lucinda. That’s how she plans to steal the election.”
“Boo!”
“Fuck Loo-sin-dah!” Trendon yelled—and thus a chant began.
Fuck Loo-sin-dah! Fuck Loo-sin-dah!
Trunk now had his hands on his hips. As the chant grew to seven or eight boys, he donned his signature look of pride, looking like he smelled something foul in the air, possibly a fart of his own making.
“That’s right, boys,” Trunk said. “Okay, simmer down now, fellas.” The boys who were chanting stopped.
“I repeat, Lucinda Barron has a plan to change your votes. Can you believe that? I know, I know.”
“Tell us her plan and we’ll shut it down!” Trendon yelled.
“All in good time, my friends. All in good time.” Trunk unscrewed his water bottle and took a sip.
“If we’re going to stop Lucinda,” one boy said, “we need to know her plan!”
“Calm down there, guy,” Trunk said. “Lucinda is going to change the ballots, or swap them out, something like that, you know. You know how I know?”
“How?” several in the crowd asked, nearly in unison.
“I know ‘cause I know, and that’s all I need to know. And if that’s good enough for me, it should be good enough for you. You know? I have also heard it on good authority.”
“Here, here!” Trendon yelled, raising his new beer can into the air, foam dripping down the can’s side.
“Now Trendon, you and the boys are going to sound the alarm on InstaTok, am I right?” “You are right indeed, Trunkster.”
“No. You don’t get to call me that, Baby Trendon.” Trendon looked away like a puppy told he was a bad boy.
Trunk looked at the students there, a fine representation of his core supporters if not the other 95 percent or more of Ebbing students. “And if anyone complains,” he said, “call them fake Patriots, Trunk style haters, Lucinda’s Justice infiltrators. You know, the usual.”
Trunk gave his crowd a big smile and an okay gesture as he walked back to his father’s rusty truck. Before driving off, he sent a text to Link Conary: “Little Link. How are you and Yellow Bello. You two are so cute. I know you’re kicking yourselves now for not jumping on the unstoppable Trunk train. Little guppies.”