The Drama Kids

By Pete Nicely

9 bathroom-length stories about the kids nobody likes. Drawings by Jeff Hurlow.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pete Nicely
• Release date: Apr 22, 2010
• ISBN: 9781452337715

Pete Nicely

Working on a fishing boat right outside Delacroix.

Book preview

DRAMA KIDS

The Corrected Stories of Pete Nicely,

Drawings by Jeff Hurlow

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PUBLISHED BY:

Pete Nicely and Jeff Hurlow

Drama Kids

Copyright © 2012 by Pete Nicely and Jeff Hurlow

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

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DRAMA KIDS

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Table of Contents

How I Need a Hand in Mine to Feel

I Don't Know How to Share Me With You

For Some Reason It Never Feels Right

I Haven't the Strength to Give Up

Free Association

On Child Stardom

All My Hopes Are in One Envelope

Stop Calling

It Was All the Little Things

Drama Kids

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How I Need A Hand In Mine To Feel

I got happy/sad when he said he was leaving. Happy/sad in that way I get whenever something I've been really conniving about works.

I'd been pushing him away in a million obvious and several thousand less-obvious-but-not-exactly-subtle ways. Every morning, I made coffee for one; I hadn't asked him for his half of the bills in months; I never went to bed at the same time as him; I wouldn't kiss him before, after or during sex; I left half-empty boxes of tampons all over the apartment; I'd vacuum when he was napping; I constantly threw away his Brie before it was bad; eventually, I had to ask him to stop singing in the shower.

After a year of tolerating his voice, his doo-wop as he soaped himself up—doo-wop, which cracked and pattered with the logic of a bonfire—I pulled the shower curtain open and said, Please stop.

I hated it. It was driving me crazy, creating knots in my shoulders, unleashing toxins that my brain had managed to bury deep in my anatomy beneath trans-fats and chewing gum.

But you used to love it, he said, in a sad little boy way, shampoo about to drip into his eyes.

I used to lie.

I had to be cruel. And since I hate being cruel, I had to be somebody I hated.

He nodded and said, Sure. As if it were his idea to stop in the first place.

He was really too sweet to notice anything, really, except my hair. He draped a strand across his chest every night, petting it as he sank into his dreams with a quiver. It was his security blanket and mine was burying my hand under the stomach of Brown, my cat.

Brown slept at my side as he'd been trained to do since he was so tiny I was afraid I'd crush him. And that's what we did every night until I went away for work one weekend.

But my hair was dead. It was easy to love. So one day, without permission, without warning, without much thought at all, I decided to chop it off.

How do you want it, honey? Raoul—the dark, fey, some-type-of-minority Supercutter who drew my name on a ticket—asked.

Off at the chin, I said, and immediately began to tear up. That made Raoul fall in love with me instantly.

By the time my hair was dry, Raoul was sure I was doing the right thing. He thought that I had to get that boy away as nicely and quickly as possible for my healthiness. Also, he insisted that I looked too too hot with my new short hair. It sharpens your chin, makes your eyes pop. Sexy as hell, he told me and I slipped him a twenty, which he said was the largest tip he'd ever gotten. I hugged him, and as I did, I started to sob. I cried so much that I had to apologize.

Raoul grabbed my hand. Don't you worry, honey. Tears are fantastic for my skin.

But it didn't work, of course.

When I got home, he stared at me for a full minute.

Then he had me stand right under a lamp so he could interrogate it, strand by strand. Then he professed undying affection for my new hairstyle in the most sincere tone of voice a human being is capable of. He made Mr. Rogers sound like an insincere prick.

And he'd won again.

When we first gotten together he'd made me promise not to ever cut it, not even an inch. Then he made me promise again whenever he went down on me—the only part of sex he was any good at.

And I had disobeyed that. I'd violated our oral contract and betrayed him. And what did he do? He fell in love with me all over again. And it was even worse than the first time. He took pictures of me from every angle and Photoshopped me into baby's breath and clouds. The printouts were all over the house. He framed several. He made screensavers of me fading into me. He begged me never to grow my hair long again, which turned every day into a decision. A decision I was trying not to make.

Whenever he was nice, whenever he cared about anything, I got sadder. It made it harder to be cruel. So I had to think about Brown. I had to think about that Monday morning when the taxi dropped me off. A fading pink flyer with a staple through Brown's nose, dangling off a telephone pole. It was my favorite picture, the one where Brown was obviously smiling—a picture I'd been edited out of it.

He had no idea how the cat got out. No idea. He looked everywhere at all hours, checked every pound twice, and cried about it for a week until I said I forgave him. Then it was like Brown had never existed—at least for him.

A few weeks after my haircut, I didn't go home the whole weekend.

No call, no nothing. I just showed up at my sister's and stayed.

As soon as I showed up on Monday night, he started apologizing.

When I forgave him for pushing me away and ignoring my needs, he invented new things to apologize for—he was distracted by work; stuffed up and snoring; afraid he was turning into his mom's asshole boyfriend. But he really couldn't do anything wrong. That was the problem. That was the really painful thing—painful in that ironic way. Like I knew I wasn't in any real pain and he was, and that was the painful part.

He just needed to leave, and I wanted to stay because the less I loved him, the more I loved our little apartment. He'd found it, but it was mine, really. And the chances of finding another pet-friendly, freeway-adjacent one bedroom with hardwood floors, reliable central air and a private garden were infinitely smaller than the chances of falling in love with another sad guy with a squeaky voice.

I could live without love. My apartment was something else; it took the thought of losing it to make me see that. Whenever I thought about having to leave, I had to swallow hard or walk out of the room. If I didn't, I knew I'd scream, Take your Barcalounger, your two framed Diego Rivera prints, your old-fashion ice cream scooper and go.

Are you sleeping with someone? he finally asked, first thing in the morning, six AM Monday, before I could even turn my alarm off.

Why? I asked, turning into my pillow, staring off aimlessly as I imagined ruined women did. I couldn't just say the truth: no. Even the idea of sex with another man repulsed me because I knew it would just make me think of him becoming sadder and sadder until tears seeped out every pore. Tears that wouldn't ever stop.

So just cry. And leave.

I don't know. Sorry, he said, jumping out of bed and pulling his jeans on.

A few weeks after I stopped sleeping nude, he began wearing a shirt to bed. Just a shirt. I considered buying him pajamas—those long-sleeve pajama suits dads have to wear. But even that was too much of a mixed message. It was still a gift.

So we lived in limbo and he was always saying with his eyes, this isn't easy for me at all. It was, though. It