I Don’t Like Anybody

It’s August, Saturday, and we’re tired of summer. Watching Creature Double Feature on Channel 56. Me and Danny and Angie. Seeking refuge from the heat in my downstairs den, crowded on the couch my dad calls The Indomitable Couch. It’s brown, heavy vinyl that sticks to your legs. Dog hair brushes off. Spilled drinks slide off. Nothing can make it uglier than it is.

On the TV screen a sea monster is swimming to shore. The sea monster looks something like a T-Rex and something like a frilled lizard, with ears that bounce like a dog riding in a car. The shore is lined with tanks and rocket launchers to keep back the sea monster. As if. Angie flips a Rubik’s Cube. Danny and I pass a game of hangman. We’ve already filled in the stick man’s arms and legs, but Danny grants a stay of execution by adding a dick. A stick dick. Angie hears us laughing and sings that stupid song about sitting in a tree.

“Why are you such a dufus?” I ask her, and she puts on a know-it-all smirk.

“You like him, don’t you?”

She always does this. Making me pick a boy I like. Threatening to tell Smelly Todd I like him if I don’t choose somebody. And then telling the boy I like him, so he’ll either avoid me or follow me around at recess, but either way it’s weird.

“I don’t like anybody,” I say, and Danny’s face goes sort of stomach-punched, even though I only meant I don’t like anybody her way, and he’s my best friend, and why does Angie have to win at everything?

The sea monster’s head rises above the water, frilled ears streaming. She roars. Bullets blast. Rockets roil the waves. The sea monster keeps on. She’s coming to rescue her baby. A bomb goes off, mushroom cloud rising behind the sea monster, but we all know. Nothing’s going to keep her from getting to shore.