'I don't care,' she said. 'I'm not that interested.'
'Well, he's interested,' I said. 'Just stick with Struthers.'
'Oh, kid, let me tell you,' she sighed. 'Struthers is sweet, but he is boring, boring, boring.'
I hung my head. We were in the upstairs hall of what was now only a rented house, although it still felt like the Bates family house to us. Franny rarely came into my room anymore. We did our homework in our own rooms and met outside the bathroom to talk. Frank didn't even seem to use the bathroom. Every day, now, in the hall outside our rooms, Mother would stack up more cartons and trunks; we were getting ready to move to the Hotel New Hampshire.
'And I don't see why you have to be a cheerleader, Franny,' I said. 'I mean, you, of all people -- a cheerleader.'
'Because I like it,' she said.
In fact, it was after a cheerleading practice that I met Franny, not far from our place in the ferns we didn't see so much of -- now that we were students at the school -when we encountered Iowa Bob's backfield. They had accosted someone on the path through the woods that was the shortcut back to the gym; they were working someone over in the large mud puddle that was drilled with football cleats -- holes like machine-gun fire in the mud. When Franny and I saw who they were -- the boys in the backfield -- and that they were beating up on someone, we started to run the other way. That backfield was always beating up on someone. But we hadn't run more than twenty-five yards before Franny caught my arm and stopped me. 'I think it was Frank,' she said. 'They've got Frank.'
So of course we had to go back. For just a second, before we could actually see what was going on, I felt very brave; I felt Franny take my hand and I gave her a strong squeeze. Her cheerleading skirt was so short that the back of my hand brushed her thigh. Then she pulled her hand out of mine and screamed. I was in my track shorts and I felt my legs turn cold.
Frank was wearing his band uniform. They had stripped the shit-brown pants (with the death-grey stripe down the leg) clean off him. Frank's underwear was yanked down to his ankles. The jacket of his band uniform had been tugged up to the middle of his chest; one silver epaulette floated free in the mud puddle, alongside Frank's face, and his silver cap with the brown braid -- almost indistinguishable from the mud itself -- was squashed under Harold Swallow's knee. Harold held on to one of Frank's arms, fully extended; Lenny Metz stretched Frank's other arm. Frank lay belly down with his balls in the heart of the mud puddle, his astonishing bare ass rising up out of the water and submerging again, as Chipper Dove pushed it down with his foot, then let it up, then pushed it down. Chester Pulaski, the blocking back, sat on the backs of Frank's knees with Frank's ankles locked under this arms.
'Come on, hump it!' said Chipper Dove to Frank. He pushed down on Frank's ass and drove him deep into the mud puddle again. The football cleats left little white indentations on Frank's ass.
'Come on, you mud-fucker,' said Lenny Metz. 'You heard the man -- hump it!'
'Stop it!' Franny screamed at them. 'What are you doing?'
Frank seemed the most alarmed to see her, although even Chipper Dove couldn't conceal his surprise.
'Well, look who's here,' Dove said, but I could tell he was thinking about what to say next.
'We're just giving him what he likes,' Lenny Metz told Franny and me. 'Frank likes to screw mud puddles, don't you, Frank?'
'Let him go,' Franny said.
'We're not hurting him,' Chester Pulaski said; he was forever embarrassed about his complexion and he chose to look at me, not at Franny; he probably couldn't stand to see Franny's fine skin.
'Your brother likes boys,' Chipper Dover told us. 'Don't you, Frank?' he asked.
'So what?' said Frank. He was angry, not whipped; he'd probably stuck his fingers in their eyes -- he'd probably hurt one or two of them, here or there. Frank always put up a fight.
'Putting it up boys' asses,' said Lenny Metz, 'is disgusting.'
'It's like stickin' it in mud,' Harold Swallow explained, but he looked as if he'd really rather be running, somewhere, than holding Frank's arm. Harold Swallow always looked uneasy -- as if he were crossing a busy street, at night, for the first time.
'Hey, no harm done,' said Chipper Dove. He took his foot off Frank's ass and took a step toward Franny and me. I remembered what Coach Bob was always saying about knee injuries; I was wondering if I could take a swipe at Chip Dove's knee before he beat the shit out of me.
I didn't know what Franny was thinking, but she said to Dove, 'I want to talk with you. Alone. I want to be alone with you, right now,' Franny told him.
Harold Swallow shrieked with a laughter as nasal and high-pitched as the song of any waltzing mouse.
'Well, that's possible,' Dove said to Franny. 'Sure, we can talk. Alone. Anytime.'
'Right now,' Franny said. 'I want to do it right now -- or never,' she said.
'Well, right now, sure,' said Dove. He rolled his eyes to his backfield men. Chester Pulaski and Lenny Metz looked mortified with envy, but Harold Swallow was frowning at a grass stain on his football uniform. It was the only mark on him: a small grass stain, where Harold Swallow must have flown too close to the ground. Or perhaps he was frowning because Frank's outstretched body blocked his view of Franny's feet.
'Let Frank go,' Franny told Dove. 'And make the others go -- to the gym,' she said.
'Sure we'll let him go,' Dove said. 'We were just going to, anyway, right?' he said -- the quarterback: giving signals to his backfield. They let Frank go. Frank stumbled getting up and tried to cover his private parts, which were thick and sodden with mud. He dressed himself, furiously, without a word. At that moment I was more afraid of him than I was afraid of any of the others -- they were doing what they'd been told to do, anyway: they were trotting down the path to t
he gym. Lenny Metz turned to leer and wave. Franny gave him the finger. Frank pushed wetly between Franny and me and started tramping home.