Strays by Ron Koertge

girlfriend. If you’re alone too much, the hyenas will get you.”
    I honest to God take a step back. “What! What’d you just say?”
    “I said if you’re alone too much, the hyenas will get you. Don’t you watch the Animal Channel?”
    Her hand is still on my chest, and it’s warm. Maybe even warmer.
    “Hang around with boys,” she says, “and all you do is brag and eat trans fats. And if you want to have a little cry, you’re gay. Girls love it when boys cry, and I know just the girl.”
    “Megan, I don’t think so.”
    “How can you not think so? You don’t even know who she is.”
    “I mean I’m, uh, kind of busy.”
    “Doing what? Being an orphan? How much time does that take?”
    “I just . . . I want to keep my grades up, and basically I don’t date, okay?”
    “It’s not a date. It’s having a friend who’s a girl. Wanda’s like two years older than you. She graduates with Astin in six weeks, and then she’s leaving for New York, so it can’t be a date. You’re a way more interesting guy than you give yourself credit for, and she’s totally fabulous. I’ll set it up. You and Astin come over. Wanda and I will be there. We’ll swim; I’ll have stuff to eat. Don’t say no or I’ll cry.”

A week or so later, I’m walking down the stairs at the Rafters’ when C.W. comes out of his room. “What’s the big deal with Little Noodle?” he says. “Astin made it sound like somebody with an ax. It’s a doll.”
    “Yeah, but didn’t that whole scene freak you out?”
    “Compared to havin’ to shoplift for some foster mom who needs a hundred dollars for a new tattoo? Get serious. A few choruses of ‘Rock-a-Bye-Baby’ to the Noodle and I get this.” He points to his polo shirt.
    I’m still not used to him in his new clothes.
    He grins at me. “What’d you pay for those cargo pants?”
    “They were on sale at the Gap.”
    “Hey, just sing to the Noodle and you get an upgrade to Banana Republic.”
    “Astin and I do just fine at the Gap.”
    “Does he go in the dressing room with you and make sure everything’s just fabulous?”
    “No.”
    He puts his hand on my shoulder. “Teddy, man. I’m pullin’ your chain here, okay? Just doin’ the dozens at the undergraduate level, if you get my drift. So let’s try it again. I say, ‘Did he go in the dressing room with you?’ and you say, ‘Fuck you.’”
    “I don’t use the f-word.”
    “Okay, okay. How about I say, ‘So you two go in the dressing room and he keeps dropping his keys. I sure hope you didn’t pick ’em up.’”
    “But that didn’t happen.”
    C.W. laughs out loud. “You’re one of a kind, Teddy. Where’d you grow up, Mars?”
    “Kind of.”
    “Let’s try this one more time. Forget Astin, okay? I know he’s not gay. Let’s say you get on my nerves, so I tell you, ‘Iron is iron and steel don’t rust; yo mama got an ass like a Greyhound bus.’ What do you say?”
    “Does it have to rhyme?”
    “No. But if you gonna cap my rap, it has to put me in my place, man. I just disrespected your mama.”
    “I’m not very good at this.”
    “Try, ‘Yeah, well, yo mama raised you on ugly milk.’”
    “I say that to you?”
    “Uh-huh.”
    I stand up a little straighter. “Okay, but is Ugly Milk a brand, or is the milk itself just unattractive?”
    C.W. laughs and drapes his arm around my shoulders as we walk toward the living room. “You’re either the hippest son of a bitch I’ve seen in a long time or the dumbest cracker in the world.”
    Astin’s watching TV, but he still wants to know who’s the dumbest cracker in the world.
    “Teddy here,” says C.W.
    “Leave Teddy alone, homie. Teddy’s my right-hand man.”
    “Why don’t you use your own hand, you lazy puke?”
    They’re both laughing when I give Astin the grammar exercise he left on my bed this morning. I tell him, “I changed a few things. You still don’t know what a prepositional phrase is.”
    He barely glances at it.