Three Morons

There were three of them, at first. They called themselves communist, but then again, they weren’t communist they were three white suburban guys from Wilmette, Il trying to stand out, trying to be different at a pretentious public high school that boasted to have graduated scientists and literature greats. These three guys would become neither, but the summer before their junior year as they sat together in a restaurant booth sipping cold coffee from porcelain cups at the local dinner, they hatched their plan to become communists. This is before one of them got the gun.

Only one of them was rich, Charles. He came from a rich family, a rich white family that traveled to Europe every summer, and had two black Mercedes parked in their two car garage next to of their manicured lawn. Charles was the one in the group that started to carry around in his leather brief case, the works of Karl Marx, and a bent up used copy of Walden that he purchased at the local thrift store for twenty five cents a piece. Neither of the books had been cracked open to be read by him. He never read books only comic books. But, he liked to carry these bits of manifesto for show, hoping it would get him some “trim.” He was not the leader of the group.

The other two were poor, Todd and Glen, not dirt poor, but poor enough to know they didn’t belong in the affluent suburb on the North shore of Chicago. Poor enough that they needed a scheme to rebel against the stuck up, self- centered pricks they attended high School with. The preps and the jocks, and the others, who scoffed at them, or looked down at them as they walked the halls of their great high-school that boasted to create geniuses, but only if they came from money.

The plan of becoming communists was closely corroborated by Todd and Glen. It was clearly the defining moment in their relationship to each other and to all the others in their high school. Charles did not know what it meant to really be a communist, but he went along with it anyway. At the diner the three of them, and Todd’s girlfriend, who would in a couple of days become his ex-girlfriend, whispered back and forth about a plot. The girl-friend went along with the whispering about the golden orb telling them that they were being watched, and for her not to look behind her. But she soon grew bored with the whole scene, and got up and left.

The three of them sat alone blowing spit balls at each other and then Todd, the more obnoxious one of the group yelled and stood up on the vinyl booth, for everyone in the diner to hear—“just be careful of what you say. I think this fork has a listening device.” The pudgy, middle aged box blonde waitress asked them to leave, and they all shouted in unison as they rushed out of the diner--“Communists are everywhere.” One old man grumbled that the youth of today were idiots. His wife, a housewife all her life, sat there nodding along with his discourse about today’s youth and their funny spiked hair. He use to make the same grumbles about their own children and their long hair, she thought but kept her thoughts, to herself as she had for the last thirty-two years.

As the degenerates raced down the tree-lined streets in Glen’s beat- up impala, Todd informed Glen that they now all had to become communists because if they didn’t join the communist party they would be slaughtered with the rest of the non-communists when the USSR finally invaded the USA, and the only way to be saved was to join the party. Charles went along with it, annoyed at the farce, but happy to be a part of something.

Soon everyone at their high-school knew they were communists; Todd and Glen accumulated various pins and buttons proclaiming the virtues and support of the communist party. Charles sported his manifesto, and declared that he was the ring leader. But, in truth, Glen, the quieter one, the one who scrabbled in his notebook obscene comics of Charles fucking his pretend girlfriend was the leader of the three. He was the one who wore the Green Beret, and the old army jacket with a sewn tapestry of Karl Marx on the back of his jacket. When people asked him who it was, he would either say it was Jerry Garcia or Walt Whitman depending on how gullible the person was who was asking. He was the one who had the bigger collection of communist pins on his jacket and Green Beret. He was the one who pissed Charles off the most with his self –righteous swagger and his ballast distain for the rich.

Todd on the other hand perceived everyone at his new high as being very stuck up and unreceptive. He was 6’6 and a gangly adolescent who didn’t fit in very quickly because he didn’t do sports and he wasn’t very smart. He developed a negative attitude due to his insecurities about his manhood. He was still a virgin at sixteen. This bugged him. He masturbated three, sometimes four times a day. He thought he was abnormal, but in reality he was a normal teenage boy because Glen admitted that he too sometimes masturbated three or four times a day especially after gym class, in the upstairs men’s bathroom.

Two months into Todd’s sophomore year, he met Glen. Charles was already friends with Glen. Glen and Todd became fast friends because Glenn disliked everyone as much as Todd did. For reasons that were unclear to both Todd and Glen, Glen was infamous at their high school way before their plan of becoming communists. And soon, Todd became identified with Glen, and their animosity toward their fellow school mates grew to such proportions that it was all they could talk about—and at times excluding Charles from the conversation because they believed he represented everything they were against. But, they still stayed friends with him. If, for any other reason, he was the blunt of their cruel jokes, and Charles knew that if he did not put up with their cruel and obnoxious banter at him he would not have been welcome in their little group. If he did not tolerate them calling him Fat-ass or calling him Garbor, a nickname he got because he once picked a perfectly good sandwich out of a the garbage and ate it. It was still in its wrapper and it was a ham and cheese sandwich, his favorite. But Todd and Glen mercilessly teased him about eating a thrown out sandwich, especially since he came from a wealthy family.

The concoction of the “Communist plot” fit perfectly with the persecution, real or unreal that Todd and Glen felt at school. It was their common bond, which continued to develop through the year. In their minds the persecutions from their peers were real. They felt the glances, heard the snide comments to their outfits, and sometimes someone would yell out “Communist”. They didn’t mind being seen as freaks—it only fueled their hatred. Todd and Glen gloated whenever a teacher showed any negativity to their costumes of communist propaganda, and their smug behavior. They often came to class late, and spoke out of turn, sometimes shouting communist slogans, sometimes just shouting.

The boys were bored. Inventing the communist plot was a fun distraction from the routine of high school life, but Glen, the leader, felt more passionate about it then the others, he believed that it tapped into his creativity, and helped separate himself from those he didn’t like; and he didn’t like a lot of people. In fact, he didn’t really like Todd and Charles, but he put up with them because he was bored. But, in his head, the Communist plot was real, as real as him scribbling down notes and bursts of political insight on the demise of his petty suburban township. To make it more fun for him, he invented more and more myths about himself—like how he owned a motorcycle, and had several older women outside of high school he dated. There were no older women, but he did nothing to dispel the myths he created for himself. He believed that any good communist would have a slew of women at his beckon call, and of course ride a hog!

Charles knew he really did not fit in with Todd and Glen, but he was constantly trying to fit in. Charles’ parents had observed him even as a young boy having a strong impulse to belong to a group and to conform to its norms. This was true with Charles and his so called need to be accepted by Todd and Glen even though they were real ass holes. Even though they were the lowest on the totem pole at their high-school because they didn’t do sports and they really didn’t fit in: they weren’t punk or popular or even nice. They abused Charles with their harsh jokes and caustic remarks, and not including him in all of their after school activities. But still, Charles still kept coming around; still he was always in the shadows. But there was one particular incident that caused the tables to turn on Glen. Charles got a gun.

Glen’s girlfriend had broken up with him two months after he had hatched his plan of becoming a communist. She was no longer interested in being associated with him, not so much for his political views, but for his lack of interest in her. When they were together just the two of them, he didn’t talk at all. And when she confronted him on this, he said something that he didn’t have her around to talk to, but to look at, she was pretty, and he liked her company for that reason. Plus, he said “talking is overrated.” He also began to smoke a lot of pot. She believes this is the main reason why he stopped talking, and for his crazy ideas of yellow orbs and talking forks.

Glen wasn’t too upset when his girlfriend broke up with him. In fact, he was glad about it, this is what he told Todd the day after his girlfriend called him and said simply she no longer wanted to see him in private, at school was fine they could have lunch, but she didn’t want to be known as his girlfriend. Todd said that Glen was better off and was secretly glad Glen no longer had a girlfriend. It made him feel better about himself, knowing now that all three of them weren’t getting laid.

Todd suggested that night to get drunk in celebration that Glenn was now a free man. His mother was out of town and there was plenty of liquor in the liquor cabinet. They decided on rum because they wanted to pretend as they drank it that they were on the beaches of Jamaica. Todd had seen an advertisement for some rum that came out of Jamaica and he always wanted to go there. Plus there were pretty girls in the advertisement and he thought all the girls in Jamaica had to be prettier than the chicks at his high school. And these pretty Jamaican girls would want him because he drinks their kind of rum. He kept all these thoughts to himself as Glen and he got drunker and drunker on the rum. At some point in the evening they got hungry, and Glenn suggested they walk to the corner store and get something to eat. They had not invited Charles to their little drunken party because they had not wanted to share the rum with him. So, as they walked they joked back and forth what they would say to him if they did run in to him on the way to the store. They had told Charles that they were going to bed early since they had to get up early the next morning to take their ACT’s.

They ran into Charles halfway to the store, but for some reason Charles didn’t ask them what they were doing, he just suggested they all go to McDonald’s. Both Todd and Glenn thought Charles was acting strange, but then really couldn’t know for sure if he was acting strange or if they were the ones acting strange because they were the ones who were drunk. Charles offered to buy them some food, and this was a strange act because Charles never offered to buy them food even though he was the one who always carried around a wallet full of money, and boasted about the fact that he had money, and both Todd and Glen never had any money.

They all took seats in the back. Charles was staring around not looking at Todd and Glen but kept repeating to them to be cool. Neither Todd nor Glen knew what he was talking about because they were just sitting, waiting for Charles to buy them something to eat. Finally Charles gets up and walks toward the counter to order food. There was a crowd of jocks and cheerleaders at the far end whispering and pointing at Glenn and Todd as they waited patiently for Charles to return with their food. They sat in quiet contempt resembling Cuban communist militants with their green berets slid to one side of their faces and their military fatigues tucked into their combat boots. Glenn to be different wore silver spurs on his boots to also indicate to outsiders that he was the leader of the group. Usually when placed in a situation like waiting for food or walking through the halls of their high-school both Todd and Glen would ignore the stares and pointing of fingers and the muffled laughter, but tonight, both being drunk they both turned to the table filled with their advisories and shouted “what the fuck are you looking at?” Todd secretly wanted to get into a fight that night, so he stood up pulling his shoulders back showing off his full stature of 6’6 and walked over to the table. He grabbed a handful of fries and some ketchup and started smearing them around the middle of the table then flicking some at the girls who hid behind their jock boyfriends.

Glen shouts to one of the boneheads “You want to take it outside?” And then Todd backing him up says, “You got a problem? Let’s take it outside.”
The rum was making them feel fearless, invincible, and superior to the three heavy sized jocks that were now staring at them and starting to stand up, but their perky petite cheerleader girlfriends were pulling on their varsity jackets begging them to sit down.

Charles was no where to be found. Todd and Glen flipped off the table and took off out the back entrance of the McDonalds. They were still really hungry and now pissed at Charles for not buying them any food. They started heading back to Glen’s hoping to find some leftovers in his mom’s refrigerator. Glen grumbled something that there might be some meatloaf left from last night’s dinner. They walked in silence sobering up. They heard a car behind them and with out turning around to see who it was both assumed it was the jocks from McDonald’s so they started running wildly because now in their sober states they knew there was no way they could fight them.

But it was Charles waving a gun from the driver’s window. Telling them to get in, to get the fuck in the car, before he started shooting at the mailboxes that lined the false illusion of serenity of the North shore suburb. Glen kept shouting at Todd that Charles had a gun. Todd thought it was only a BB gun, but Glen insisted that it was a real gun. They kept running not believing that Charles would shoot them, not believing that their friend could be so adroit in driving and shooting at the same time. But then they heard the car abruptly stop, and the slamming of the car door. And Charles shouting “Take that you fucking communists, take that you fucking freaks.” And the gun shots rang out, and Glen’s last thought before he hit the ground was what a good shot Charles was for a fat guy. Charles had aimed right between Glen’s shoulders, right between Karl Marx’s eyes. Todd, mouth agape stood there stunned that his comrade had fallen, but wasn’t going to wait around to see if Charles was going to take a shot at him. He took off running. Charles walked over to the crumpled figure of Glen and tapped him with the toe of his freshly polished combat boot on Glen’s shoulder. He saw the trickle of blood at Karl Marx’s upper lip but Glen was still breathing, and for a second Charles had the most bizarre desire to finish him off, but he rolled him over, and pointed the BB gun in Glen’s now sober face, and hissed, “stop calling me Garbor,” and with that Charles turned around and walked back to his father’s Mercedes, cranked the radio , and streaked off, leaving Glen in the road.

For a second Glenn thought he couldn’t move, but there was only a slight numbing feeling between his shoulders. He got up from the sidewalk and dusted himself off, and walked home. Pissed at both Charles and Todd, worthless sperms for human beings, he mumbled under his breath as tromped up his front porch, letting the screen door snap behind him waking his mother and not really caring that he did.