Futile Efforts by Tom Piccirilli

got it up, and that took forever.   I had to get on top or he would've crushed me, and he came in about ten strokes.   He cried afterwards.   He wanted to marry me.   I locked myself in the bathroom and threw up twice.
    She opens the locker and you see that the pages and pictures you taped up are still there, yellowed and grimy.    You know they're yours but you can't recognize them any longer.   Newspaper clippings, magazine art, headlines.   You try to read the words but she grabs a book and shuts the door again.   She takes a breath and her ripening breasts thrust forward.   You jump back a step as if she just snapped open a switchblade.
    "Hey," she says, "this might sound funny, but–"
    "I've got to get going."
    "Yeah, well, I was just wondering if–"
    You shrink away, wheel about and damn near start scampering off.   You've never scampered before and it's sort of fun.   You've never even said the word scamper before and now you can't stop.   She follows for a few steps, trying to grab you by the elbow.   You shirk away before she can touch you.
    "Stop," you tell her.   "Scamper, scamper."   It's a sound you can't get out of your head, you fuckin' nut.   "Scamper."
    "But–"
    "I wouldn't cry afterwards."
    "Hey, listen, you're–"
    You turn a corner, rushing past kids walking in groups, in pairs, everybody with somebody.   "I wouldn't want to marry you!"
    A skinny boy arched like a vulture gets in your way and you plow straight into him.   He's probably a hundred twenty pounds in his white suede sneakers and he lifts off as if from a launching pad.   His long hair flails around his ears, little peach fuzz chin curling in flight.   He's got some serious elevation, goes up and flies backwards at least ten feet before he hits the wall outside the cafeteria hard.   The doors rock open.   You can clearly hear his arm snap in two.   He glares at the protruding bone and then glances at you, then back to the jagged jutting ulna and then back at you.   The pain won't hit him for another minute.   A fat kid with a kettle drum says, "Holy shit, man."
    You run.
    What room was it?   What was the number?   The utilities closet of seventh period study hall.   306?   308?   You lunge into 306 and see shadows writhing in the corners–two teachers screwing around, or two students making out, somebody giving head to the dead, or the smelly orphans still slinking around trying to get their internal organs back.
    Eu estarei escravendo ao congressista local immediamente .   A remocao de meus intestines e certamente uma acao immoral e oths l.   Eu procurarei os danos .
    I will be writing to the local congressman immediately.   The removal of my intestines is surely an immoral and illegal action.   I shall seek damages.
    There are shouts and the angry clamor of footsteps.   They're probably carrying torches, they've got you surrounded.   There will be tear gas soon.   Those high-tech laser beam gunsights scrawling over your chest.   You slip into the empty classroom next door.
    Oh yes.
    Here it is, this is it.   You give a satisfied grunt and cut loose with your father's chortle.
    See.   Your tortured soul has been in the corner all the time, curled in the agony of common trauma.   It glances up as you enter, pale and shaky.   It lets out a pained bleat as you reach down.   Tears well and dribble.   It jitters happily and struggles forward to meet you.   You touch and the cool swims up through your spine.
    The security guard puts his .45 to your temple, and you give him a slow and knowing grin, a hip wink that says it all.   Of course, it's D'Angelis .   Your face is reflected in his shining badge and you can hardly believe you're the same person you were twenty minutes ago, twenty years ago.   There was a time you would've begged him, or any other maniac, to pull the trigger and get it over with in one quick solution.   But already that existence is drifting away.   You're here to stay.
    He