Thompson - Such Creatures

Blandy

Sorele

A rundown inner-city park. High-rises loom. There is a slide, a jungle gym. These structures should be constructed so that they can be transformed into elements that might be found in a concentration campa bunk, an old ladder, a barbed-wire fence. The sky is dashed with dark and light blues, sunset colours, pitch-black night, and then dawn.

BLANDY: Im peeing myself laughin in the hall, okay? With my girls? Were like: Yo, what up, mami? Nothin much, what up wich you, girl?

We are at Crystals locker, decorating it crazy for her fourteenth birthday, even though I heard she was talkin shit about me; I said to her: I dont talk shit about you, why you talkin shit about me? and she didnt say nothing. I was gonna show her I dont talk shit by doin up her locker with condoms and cigarettes and that and Perez, he walks up and I am like OH MY GOD! because decorating lockers is automatic suspension, eh, so Im like passing out, and hes like: Blandy, I wanna talk to you. I go: What, Im not doing nothing, asshole, are you serious? What, do you think I have a weapon? Do I look like I would carry a weapon? and Chernelle goes: Dry! Shes so funny, man, and he goes: No, Im not pissed off at you, even though you got zero on your all about me skit, because you didnt prepare nothing. Well, so what I didnt prepare!? My Aunt Connie, who is really my foster mother, had took me to Casino Niagara for two days. He says: Blandy, I want you to be the star in the play for class. Im like: What play? A play? Thats so gay. Hes like: Dont say that, I tole you that was offensive to gay people. I go: Its just an expression, man, it dont have nothing to do with gay people, my uncle is gay, I even hang out with him sometimes, and he goes: Okay, okay, just dont use it to mean something cheesy. Im like: Okay! Then he says: Anyways, the play is Hamlet. Im like: What, you gotta be kidding me! I never been in a play since grade one. Hes like: Youre in it. Im like: Okay, okay. But I dont want to look bad. Whos doin the costumes? Hes like: Cooper. Im like: COOPER? The pool teacher? We all hate that guy, we hate getting into our bathing suits for pool because he is lookin at our butts, right; you should see him, his eyes when he is lookin at us? Reminds me of the look on a dogs eyes when he is eating his own vomit. So all the girls, every single one of us, have their period every time its pool, there is like one nerdy girl in the pool who dont know about him yet cause she came from like Russia, yesterday. We dont want him lookin at our butts, not because they are big, though, dont be thinkin that, man, nobody I know worries about havin a big butt I mean yeah, we worry about it, but you gotta be really fat to be called fat in my school. And nobody wants to be blond. In fact, if you are blond? You dye your hair brown.

So Im like: Im not doin it if Cooper is doin the costumes, so Perez is like: So you do your own costume, and Im like: YES. Cause I dont care what part I am playin, I am wearing my sweatpants and my hoodie and really sick shoes. All my shoes are new and all my shoes are expensive. I got fifteen pairs of shoes; if I hadda get shoes at Payless? I would kill myself. So Im like: What part? Hes like: Hamlet. Theres gonna be three Hamlets and two of them are girls. So I go: Everyones gonna be girls, youre not gonna get any boys to do the play, sir, because if you say play the boys will say No friggin way, a play? Thats so friggin gay! He goes: I said dont say that again, Im like: I JUST DID! Anyways, I go: If you are a boy you are a baller or a skater and nothin in between. And Perez, hes like: I got the boys already. They have to do it, its for class. And he gives me the script. Im like: You dont expect me to actually read this thing, do you? And he goes: Ill show you the movie but you gotta try readin it. So I take it home and I do try to read it but I cant understand nothing. I throw it against the wall. Next day Im like: Im not doin it, I have my period. He goes: Okay, okay, forget the script. Here is what you gotta say, and he has it all down! He says: BLANDY, listen, and spit out your gum. Since you are Hamlet number three your first lines is Mother? Mother? Now, Mother, whats the matter? You ever said that? Huh? Huh? Huh? And he is so in my face! Im like: Okay, okay, yah, only every friggin day with my mother, because my mother, Theresa? She was always freakin, and so I did, I said that to her all the time. And you know when Hamlet says Sit you down, and she is afraid of him, so she goes: Oh oh wilt thou kill me? Well its funny, that reminded me of the time I was really pissed off at my mother for getting with this shithead, right? Joseph the frickin maniac. And just because Im yellin and callin her a stupid woman and just because I pulled a knife on her, she calls the cops on me! Well, hey, I pulled the knife on her because after I called her a stupid woman she was callin me a slut, and I was eleven! You shouldnt call your eleven-year-old daughter a slut. I told her, I said I am telling all my friends you called me that. So she says to the cops: My daughter is trying to kill me! Boo hoo. Lyin bitch, the cops just laughed. Then they took me away in HANDCUFFSI am SERIOUSand the last time I seen her? They were takin her away in handcuffs.