layers | john bender

[02] "Shut up, you mall-maggot."

2. sᴏᴄɪᴀʟʟʏ ᴅᴇᴍᴇɴᴛᴇᴅ

Bender gets up and sits on the railing across from us.
"What do you say we close that door. We can't have any kind of party with Vernon checking us out every few seconds."
Brian after staying shut for the duration of the boys' argument, finally says something.
"Well, you know the door's s'posed to stay open."
"Thank you, Captain Obvious!"
I got up and walked over to the railing that Bender was sitting at, standing on his left side. I grabbed Bender's hand and played with his glove.
"So what?" Bender finally replies to Brian.
"So why don't you just shut up? There's five other people in here you know." Andrew says after attempting to ignore John with all he had in him.
"Well four others who don't agree, a party sounds nice." I look at Andrew and smirk, then continue to look at Bender's hand.
"God you can count. See! I knew you had to be smart to be a- a wrestler." John says looking at Andrew.

I attempted to let go of his hand but he quickly interlocked them. He acted as if it was nothing and continued to listen to Andrew.
"Who the hell are you to judge anybody anyway?"
"Really." Claire replied agreeing with Andrew almost right away. I look at Claire who stares at our hands and mock her. She sticks up her middle finger at me and continues to listen in to the boys.
"You know Bender," Andrew started, sounding just like my father, I just knew it'll be something fucked up. "You don't even count. I mean if you disappeared forever it wouldn't make any difference. You may as well not even exist at this school."
I stood there in shock and anger. Bender tenses up and slightly squeezes my hand, his vulnerability doesn't show as it quickly washes away before he thinks of something slick to say.
"Well I'll just run right out and join the wrestling team."

Claire and Andrew both look at each other and laugh as if it was the funniest thing in the world.
"Maybe the prep club too! Student council." I chuckle at his sarcasm as Andrew, seemingly, takes things seriously.
"No, they wouldn't take you."
Bender placed his right hand on his chest.
"I'm hurt."
The sarcasm dials down a bit before Claire starts talking once again.
"You know why guys like you knock everything," Bender whispers a little 'Oh, this should be stunning' to me before allowing Claire to proceed.
"It's 'cause you're afraid."
"You're serious?" I roll my eyes at her.
"Oh, God!" Bender mocked enthusiastically. "You ritchies are so smart, that's exactly why I'm not heavy in activities!"
"You're a big coward!" Claire shouts out.
"Oh, bite me Claire!" I spat out and walked forward a bit. "Just because he doesn't do that country club bullshit you and all your other little friends do, doesn't make him a coward."
Bender pulled me back by the hand he was still holding on to while Brian blabbered.
"I'm in the math club."
"See you both are afraid they won't take you. You don't belong so you just have to dump all over it." Claire clearly not caring what I had to say, continued with her irrelevant speech and pointed at me. "No one would take the school's whore anyways."
I scoffed at her and rolled my eyes.
"Well it wouldn't have to do with you activities people being assholes, now would it?" Bender fired back. I nodded agreeing with every bit of his words.
"Well, you wouldn't know. You don't even know any of us."
"We know you and I think that's enough." I muttered, John looked at me smirking slightly knowing just how pissed off I was. He then looks back up at Claire.
"Well I don't know any lepers either but I'm not gonna run out and join their fucking clubs."
"Hey let's watch the mouth, huh?" Andrew intervened.

All of our conversations seemed to always be between the four of us. Allison hasn't said a word and Brian keeps blabbering.
"I'm in the physics club too."
I looked over at Brian who seems to feel left out.
"S'cuse me a sec," Bender says to Claire and I. "What are you blabbing about?"
Brian uneasily looks over at Bender.
"Well, what I said was, I'm in the math club, the Latin club and the physics club...physics club."Bender nods and turns back to Claire and I.
"Hey Cherry," Claire looks annoyed knowing he is speaking about her. "Do you belong to the physics club?"
She looked dumbfounded for a second before looking at him.
"That's an academic club." She replied in a duh tone.
"So?"
"So...academic clubs aren't the same as other kind of clubs." She shrugged slightly looking at the both of us.
"Oh, but to dorks like him," I pointed to Brian. "They are."
Bender turns to Brian including him in the conversation completely.
"What do you guys do in your club?"
"In physics, um, we ah, we talk about
physics...about properties of physics."
I pulled away from Bender, although I didn't want to, and sat back down at the table I was before.
"So it's sorta social...demented and sad, but social.  Right?"
"Yeah, well, I guess you could consider it a social situation." Brian seemed slightly nervous speaking to the intimidating John Bender but he continued nonetheless. "I mean there are other children in my club and uh, at the end of the year we have, um, you know, a big banquet, at the, uh, at the Hilton."
"So," I started. "You load up, you party..."
"Well, no, we get dressed up..." Brian faces me now. "I mean, but, we don't...we don't get high."
As if she knew how annoying she was to me and how I felt about her, the princess spoke up.
"Only burners like you two get high..."
"Shut up, you mall-maggot." Claire ignored me but certainly didn't enjoy the idea of Bender pulling me up from the seat and grabbing onto my waist to ensure I wasn't gonna go after the bitch.
"And, uh, I didn't have any shoes. So I had to borrow my dad's.  It was kinda weird 'cause my mom doesn't like me to wear other people's shoes." As Brian kept on speaking what sounded like utter gibberish, I thought does the princess actually have a thing for Bender. I didn't like the idea but hell if that's the case, why should I care?
"And, uh, my cousin Kent...my cousin Kendall from, uh, Indiana... He got high once and you know, he started eating like really weird foods.  And uh, and then he just felt like he didn't belong anywhere. You know, kinda like, you know "Twilight Zone" kinda." Bender, surprisingly, just listened intently to Brian's story. I was a bit shocked seeing that he didn't get bored of the conversation when clubs started to be mentioned.
"Sounds like you." Claire told Bender, giggling slightly. I laugh mockingly in my head but my face of disgust is clear.
"Look, you guys keep up your talking and Vernon's gonna come right in here." Andrew's goody two shoes side was showing as he's had enough of our chats. "I got a meet this Saturday and I'm not gonna miss it on account of you boneheads."
I give Andrew the same look of disgust as I gave Claire.
"What a square." I whispered to Bender, he chuckled and looked at Andrew.
"Oh and wouldn't that be a bite." Bender let out a moan of sarcastic agony. "Missing a whole wrestling meet!"
"Oh, I know," Bender was bound to say something that'll offend Andrew. "I feel all empty inside because of it.  I have such a deep admiration for guys that roll around on the floor with other guys!"
"Ahhh, you'd never miss it. You don't have any goals."
"Oh, but I do!"
"Yeah?"
"Andrew, you've dug yourself a hole." I state laughing because I knew Bender would turn it all to humor for his own entertainment.
"I wanna be just like you! I figure all I need's a labotamy and some tights!" Bender joked. I couldn't help myself but laugh. And as if on cue Brain and I both asked, "You wear tights?"
Brian was genuinely curious while I laughed, making fun of Andrew for his uniform.
"No I don't wear tights, I wear the required uniform."
"Tights." Bender confirms.
"Shut up!"
"Aw, c'mon Layers, leave the poor guy and his tights alone." I'm sure no one understood me as I was still laughing my ass off. Bender joined in the laughter before quieting down once we heard Vernon's foot steps.
Bender quickly sat down in between Claire and Andrew. He saw me still standing and pulled me down onto his lap. We hear the door to Vernon's office open then close and Bender laughs. He then scoots me off a bit, gets up and heads to the door of the library.
"You know there's not s'posed to be any monkey business!" The dork speaks out. Bender turns back around and points at him.
"Young man, have you finished your paper?" Imitating Vernon, he turns back around and goes over to the door. He looks around cautiously, making sure Vernon couldn't see, and casually took the screw from the door out.
"What are you gonna do?" Claire asks surprised as if she wasn't expecting him to find some way to close the door.
"Drop dead, I hope!" Andrew furiously answers her question for Bender.
I couldn't help but think, 'God, these people are such losers.'