The Brain

This is a short story about heaving a fat kid into a recycling bin with a retarded fellow in Michigan in the early 90s.

Frank was a stereotype. At five feet two inches tall and two hundred pounds, he was barely able to lift his perfect-replica light saber to illuminate his Dragonlance novel. Frank was your classic nerd, he was a geek, and he was my friend. During Spanish class I would write and he would illustrate a comic we conceived called Udder Destruction about a mutant, bipedal, well-armed, fast-talking milk cow with an axe to grind. We spent a week in detention together for co-authoring a play that envisioned Dustin Hoffman’s character from Rain Man venturing to Sea World to liberate Shamu. The opening scene saw Rain Man engaged in a messy slap fight with the snap-crackle-pop of his Rice Krispies. We deserved the adulation we received from our fellow seventh graders. The play was a hit in our writing class. We also deserved, and graciously accepted, our detention. Frank and I were thick as thieves.

Brian was a quiet, unassuming kid. He had a very small group of friends and he didn’t venture out into gen-pop often. The times I spoke with him prior to eighth grade were few, but he was funny and smart and kept to himself by choice, not because he couldn’t make friends. You knew this kid too. Every school has him. Frank and I called Brian “The Brain”. He was the guy who was going to be on the cover of Forbes one day. Unfortunately, he made the cover of the local paper instead.

I spent the summer before eighth grade wearing out my second cassette of Pearl Jam’s genre-definer, Ten, and, in hindsight, enjoying one of my last summers before the women, booze, and drugs of early adulthood complicated everything. Frank lived down the road, and we would spend entire days playing pool poorly in his basement (which is not a euphemism for something tawdry, like it sounds, but actual poor pool playing). That’s where we were when we heard Frank’s mother call out to us, her voice somber.

Brian had been in a car accident. He’d smashed his head into the glove compartment, causing severe brain damage. He’d have multiple brain surgeries and months of physical and psychiatric therapy in order to find a version of himself that could operate in the world. The news hit me and Frank hard. We liked the Brain and looked up to him. We saw in him a person who, without compromising who he was, was able to survive middle school without much detection. Frank and I, on the other hand, screamed “nerd”. We never compromised, but, for it, we would catch the ire of a quarterback here or a star power-forward there. It seemed that a colorful imagination did not make up for a girly layup and cowering in a corner during dodgeball. We didn’t know what to expect from the new Brian, and it was a subject of much conjecture leading up to the first day of our last year in middle school.

That day came in late August and I wore my worst smelling flannel shirt over a BBQ sauce-stained Nirvana t-shirt for the occasion. Remember, it was the early 90’s. I walked to school and, upon entering the building, began searching for Brian. I wish that I could say that I was searching for him in order to tell him how sorry I was and to let him know that I would be there for him, whatever he needed, but honestly, I can’t say that. I was a kid and I was morbidly curious as to how fucked up his bean got. When I found him outside the “special” kids’ classroom, I came to find that his bean got fucked up real good. His head was covered with deep scars, patches of hair growing wispy and unsettling. When he spoke, he spoke loudly, his hands gesticulating madly, his words slurred and ill-considered. He called out to me upon seeing me and I called back, “Hey, Brain!” The nickname took on a dark tone, and I considered abandoning it.

Brian in many ways became the opposite of his previous incarnation. He was boisterous and embarrassing and simply fantastic. That first day, he leaned into me and whispered, “Let’s throw Frank in the pop cans.” Our school, as most schools do, had large recycling bins to collect empty soda cans. This was an anthropologically important time in history when soda was what one drank in middle school. This sounded, logistically speaking, like a tough endeavor. Frank was a couple hundred pounds, I was a weakling, and my partner in crime was retarded. Not one to back away from a challenge, I accepted.

We agreed to meet at the vending machines at lunch and conspired to wait for Frank to pass, pull him from the stream of hallway traffic, and tip him into the bin. When lunchtime rolled around, I was nervous. We weren’t going to get away with it. Frank would be too heavy. A teacher would see us. The bin would tip, spilling soda cans everywhere. There were a million ways for our plan to fail. Little did I, or even Brian I assume, know that, since his accident, the Brain was about as strong as the big Indian in One Flew Over a Cuckoo’s Nest. The moment came, Frank approached, Brian was standing with his back pressed against the Pepsi machine, and I was at his side with my back against the Fruitopia machine.

Suddenly, Brian darted out from behind is post, puma-quick, and grabbed Frank. I pulled him by his arms out of the hall and Brian Hulk-heaved him into the air and dropped him, ass first, into the bin. Mission accomplished. Frank was unharmed and amused, as we knew he would be. Brian was joyously basking in his accomplishment, and I wore a wide, shit-eating grin. We helped Frank out of the bin and went to class, our heads buzzing with innocent glee and too much Tangerine Wavelength.

Throwing Frank in the pop cans became our way of dealing with the relative hardships of the eighth grade. If one of us was rejected by a girl; throw Frank in the pop cans. When I failed my first class ever (first of many); throw Frank in the pop cans. When Frank’s dad divorced his mom; sorry, Frank, pop cans.

After eighth grade, Brian went to a different high school, a place better suited to his needs. Frank and I remained friends through freshman year, but drifted apart soon thereafter, as is the way these things go. Last I heard, Frank got married and joined a cult, which seems about right. I don’t know what happened to the Brain. I like to think that he’s found, figuratively speaking, a new Frank and a new recycling bin in which to toss him. I like to think that the buzz of innocence and youth is still alive in that banged up bean of his. Hopefully one day we’ll get to do it again. Watch your ass, Frank.