Sun Tzu said: “Engage people with what they expect; it is what they are able to discern and confirms their projections. It settles them into predictable patterns of response, occupying their minds while you wait for the extraordinary moment—that which they cannot anticipate.”
It’s astonishing, how many aspects of fifth-century-BC Chinese military strategy are applicable in twenty-first-century American high schools.
DAY: 12
TOTAL CALORIES, APPROX.: 800
It stayed with me, the adrenaline euphoria of hurting those boys. The moment played itself over and over in my mind, sending a fresh rush of pleasure through my veins every time. I could never in a million years have repeated it—I had somehow switched on to autopilot and accessed strength and knowledge I, under normal circumstances, totally lacked. But it had happened, and there were witnesses, and that’s what’s important.
My epic dodgeball victory came on a Friday, which meant my two-day suspension would start the following Monday. Which meant a four-day weekend. It occurred to me that getting in trouble was pretty awesome.
Saturday morning my phone rang.
“Hey, Matt,” Tariq said. “Got plans?”
You may be wondering, Dear Reader: why did Tariq suddenly want to be my friend? Why, when he was so popular and I was so not? And why, when I was a useless faggot and he was a ladies-man sports star, did he call me on the weekend to see what I was up to?
I have many theories. Here are my favorites:
1. Tariq’s busy throbbing social life left him feeling unfulfilled. There were plenty of ugly words I could use to describe Tariq, but stupid wasn’t one of them. Tariq was a smart boy with lots of stupid friends. His soccer teammates and the people they hung out with weren’t down for discussions of literature or politics or current events. The best he could do was Bastien, whose intellect lacked imagination, who shunned art and culture and anything else that might involve emotion. Perhaps Tariq wanted a friend who was his intellectual equal. So he turned to me. Which isn’t to say that I was very smart, but he wouldn’t be the first person to mistakenly assume that someone was intelligent because they were unpopular.
2. Tariq liked books. I liked books. No one else in our school liked books. So.
3. Tariq felt guilty. Movies and books are forever saying how criminals feel compelled to confess, how thieves and murderers who got away scot-free are nevertheless hounded by their consciences into doing penance, often in ways that lead to their capture. So even if Tariq didn’t explicitly say to himself, I did something terrible to Maya, maybe I can set my karma straight by being buddies with her poor, ugly, misshapen brother, maybe he felt some impulse pushing him in my direction, telling him to take pity on me, trying to feel better about the hurt he put on her.
4. Tariq was the helpless victim of the expert manipulation skills that my super-sharpened senses gave me.
5. Tariq was an even bigger sociopath monster than I thought he was, and having destroyed my sister by getting her to drop her guard he had turned his sights on me.
6. None of the above.
7. Several of the above, in a gruesome messy complex combination not even Tariq truly understood.
So I smiled and said, “No weekend plans,” and paused for just a second, and said, “Why?”
“Thinking of heading down to the city to see a punk show,” he said, and I could hear in the tone of his voice and the echo of the wind that he was sitting in his truck, alone. “Wanna come?”
“Absolutely,” I said without pausing, without thinking, without wondering whether Mom would give me permission, because nothing else mattered but this opportunity to be alone with my enemy. I grinned gleefully.
Poor little lonely Tariq, the lamb leading himself to my slaughter.
I remembered how his eyes lit up when he had a beer in his hand. No more so than most high school jocks, I imagined, but still, it was a weakness. Something I could exploit. I sniffed around the whole house until I found a bottle of scotch—so well hidden it made me stop and think—
I had never seen my mother drink a drop of alcohol.
I wondered why—and put the bottle in my book bag.