“Look, man, I don’t know what you’re on tonight, but-”

“Don’t tell ME what to do,” the junkie shrieked. “I MADE that. It was such a good situation before you came, and now we have NOTHING BUT TELEVISION!”

The junkie raised the jagged glass bottle high, an urban Norman Bates.

I raised a hand, and a lash of black lightning hit the glass, which exploded out of the doper’s hand. He turned, enraged, but upon seeing me, fear took over, and he scrambled away with a scream.

The young bum sat up on the bench, eyes bright, face gnarled into a grimace.

“You have no need to worry,” I said. “I mean you no harm.”

The bum opened his mouth to scream, and all that came out was a hideous, blood-soaked roar.

Out of his mouth squirmed the tentacles-huge, meaty, writhing with a sound like wriggling scorpions; clicking mixed with squishing. All over his body, his skin seemed to stretch, bloat, and then split open, revealing the black many-tendriled body of the creature. Finally his eyes seemed to melt, dribbling down his face. Behind them sat two red, segmented orbs, twitching at me curiously, studying my every move.

ANDREW TOMAS IS in my grade, but he’s a year older than the rest of us because he got held back a year for being a smartass and an asshole. He wears Polo and North Face and Armani Exchange and refers to certain kids as “faggot motherfuckers.” He’s not a jock, although everything about him would suggest it. He listens to hardcore rap and tries to freestyle in the student lounge over the ghetto kids beatboxing. He has the Tasmanian Devil in bling-bling jewelry tattooed on his calf. He’s a sadist, the worst kind of bitter, arrogant bully imaginable, who just wants to take his anger out on anyone who looks weaker than he does. My violence is something uncontrollable, a gut response to being treated a certain way; his is calculated and plain old mean. And while he makes my academic nightmare a living hell, his beautiful Goth sister holds my heart at her all-girls academy thirty blocks away.

I’m privileged enough to have moved from being a “faggot motherfucker” to being a “freak-ass bitch” in the vast, complicated mind of Andrew Tomas. The only reason I’ve had this wonderful privilege bestowed on me is because a kid who hangs out with Andrew named Omar once took my glasses off my head and started playing Monkey in the Middle with Andrew. What happened? Well, the venom went off and I tore Omar’s eyebrow ring out, and when he tried to fistfight me afterward, I knocked one of his teeth loose. I got my glasses back and was immediately transferred from being a “faggot” to being a “freak” or “schizoid” or whatever the word of the day was, it doesn’t fucking matter. It’s one of the venom’s most prominent traits: If you’re someone I like, I’m a violent, twisted bastard. If you’re someone I don’t, I am the Marquis de fucking Sade. The only reason that Omar didn’t report me to the administration was because telling the full story would’ve involved explaining why two strapping young lads were tormenting such a “sensitive” and “troubled” young boy as Locke Vinetti. Andrew, however, put my name down in his head.

If my life were an Archie comic, Andrew would be Reggie. On crack.

When I get to school Monday morning, I decide to speak privately to Randall about it.

“Did you know Renée is Andrew Tomas’s younger sister?” I yell right into his face.

He holds up a finger-he needs to finish the paragraph in his book. WHAM! Down come my books on his desk, illustrating the urgency of the matter.

Randall looks up from his copy of Kerosene with a frustrated groan. “Jesus, Locke. You didn’t know that?”

“No, I didn’t fucking know that! She’s YOUR friend, not mine! This girl’s older brother is the jock asshole in an eighties movie! I’m fucked!”

Randall stares a bit, his face devoid of thought. “I don’t see why this is so much of an issue.”

The venom roars in anger. I blink hard. “Randall, what the hell are you talking about? There’s no way I can be with this girl when her brother tortures me every day at school! I can just see a family dinner-‘Hey, Andrew, pass the pork chops!’ ‘Here you go, you freak-ass bitch!’”

“Since when are you going to Renée’s for family dinners?”

“Well, not yet,” I say, turning crimson, “but perhaps someday I will! Perhaps I meet her mom and dad and all they’ve heard about is how much of a ‘whack spazzoid’ I am!”

Randall’s face darkens. “I wouldn’t worry about that, Locke.”

“Why not? What part of this shit SHOULDN’T I worry about?”

He doesn’t even look up from his book when he verbally punches me in the heart.

“Renée’s parents are dead.”

I reach for words and find a big empty space. I speak, and all I get is a thin, reedy noise, like a deflating balloon.

“Yeah,” continues Randall. “That I didn’t expect you to know. But it’s something you should.”

I suppose so.

“Wow. Randall, that’s…”

“Explains a lot, doesn’t it?”

I manage a slow nod and a gulp. “The Goth thing’s not just for show, is it?”

“She’s a dark one, man. You okay?”

“Yeah, it’s just new, I…you know, I’ve never met an…orphan before.”

“That’s not a very PC word, man. Besides, Oliver Twist was an orphan. Annie was a fucking orphan. Renée’s just a girl with no parents. Call her an orphan and she’ll probably slug you.” A smile crosses his lips, just a little; the idea amuses him.

“How’d they-”

“This line of questioning needs to end right now, Locke,” says Randall, looking at his book. I’m about to ask why when I hear my last name shouted from behind me. I turn around and surprise, there’s Andrew Tomas standing right in front of me, back hunched slightly so that his six-foot-five frame can lean down to my five-foot-ten size. Scenes from Jurassic Park flash before my eyes.

“How was your stay at my place last night, Locke?” he asks, mock sincerity bright in his voice. “Did you have an okay time? Was everything to your liking?”

“Hi, Andrew,” I say softly. I need to keep it together. The venom shakes and shouts, tensing my muscles, but I plaster my hands at my sides. This is Renée’s older brother, and I have to start dealing with that right goddamn now.

“Answer the question, Locke.”

“It was fine.”

“Good!” he barks accusingly. “Because that visit to my house was your last. My sister may be a bit of a freak, Vinetti, but not your kind of freak. Not a psycho.”

The venom swells in me to the point where I want to cry or scream, I’m not sure which. It’s no longer flying off the handle; it’s building, storing itself until it takes over. You’re nothing, Tomas, it cries, preparing to strike. Give me one more minute of buildup, and then say the wrong thing. I’ll rip your face off. I’ll make you eat your fucking teeth.

“What about her house, Andrew?”

He looks at me like I’m an idiot, which just makes him look like an idiot. “What does that mean?”

“Well, apparently I’m not allowed in your house. What about her house? Can I visit there?”

Andrew slaps a big hand on my shoulder. It weighs, eh, seven pounds. “Is that supposed to be funny, Vinetti?”

I could break every single one of your goddamn fingers right now. I could bite a hole in your neck the size of a grapefruit.

“You’re making me angry, Andrew,” I say. I squint my eyes, squeeze my fists till my fingernails dig into my hands. You like this girl, I repeat to myself, and that means you can’t do this.

“Listen, Lou Ferrigno, I don’t give a shit how angry you get. Just keep your grubby hands off my sister, y’dig?”

“Leave me alone, Andrew,” I snarl, pulling his hand off my shoulder.

“Or what?”

The venom grins and starts going haywire. Oh, fuck, it’s too late. I blew it. This is happening. It’s-