Grasshopper Gut Punch by Jacob Orlando

Grasshopper Gut Punch | Jacob Orlando

I didn’t kill anyone. I’ve never wished death on a person, not even Cody Willis. Now he’s gone. That’s not on me. Him and four other classmates of mine, plus a teacher. They’re dead, I’m not, and that sucks. I was deep in some popcorn chicken when they bit it. Sounds awful, but it’s true. I have the Sonic receipt to prove it. And his truck — it couldn’t have been me. Not grasshoppers. Always hated the damn things. Let me tell you about me, Cody Willis and grasshoppers.

Our elementary school didn’t have a gym, so we had to walk half a mile to the middle school down the street for P.E. In September, the blacktop sizzled and the grasshoppers were damn near everywhere, crunching up every step, flying from nowhere right at your face.

One day, I was walking by a bank teeming with grasshoppers ahead of some classmates who I didn’t care for, including regular jackass Cody Willis. He was walking with two brainless friends of his and two girls I knew but never talked to. I heard them laughing, and then someone whipping at the grass, riling up the grasshoppers so they tore through the air like missiles.

I started to turn around to see who had launched the attack, and boom — one of the freak things came right at me, all legs and wings and terror. I tried to swat it away, but it clung tight to my finger until finally, with a heaving shriek, I flung it off.

This sent Cody’s crew into hysterics. They doubled over howling, slapping their knees. One of the girls was wiping away tears. Cody came at me all friendly, like, “Sorry, my bad.” Then disgust warped his grin. He pointed down at my chest and yelled, “There’s more on you!” Convulsing, I raked at my shirt — and nothing. He was messing with me.

My face felt hot. I wanted to push him over, to make him cry in front of all his friends. But I knew better. You had to pick your battles with guys like Cody.

That day, we were playing parachute games, and Cody wanted to do a new one he called grasshopper gut punch. We all stood around the parachute shaking our corners. In the game, you had to go under and across to the other side without getting gut punched by a grasshopper on top. If you made it, you took someone’s spot, and they were next. If you got gut punched, you joined the grasshoppers. Simple enough.

Cody started as a grasshopper and chose two of his meatheads to get gut punched. Then he picked one of the girls — Penny, I guess — promising to go gentle on her. She skittered under the parachute. Cody didn’t move at first, listening for her steps. She came close. I thought she might choose me, but she stopped. Right then, I caught Cody’s eye and shook hard. He seemed to get a signal and pounced, taking Penny as she giggled, smirking up at me as he held her.

He chose me next. I could hardly say no. I crouched and took off my shoes so my socks slid quiet on the slick gym floor. I was a phantom. I teased Cody, letting him think he had me, slipping out of reach. We played nice. Then he ended it, coming down on me hard. I tried to buck his gut punches. His fingers closed around my throat, and the parachute strangled off my breath.

When he let me go, I scrambled away, gasping for air and hollering for him to back off. Seeing stars and hearing static buzz, I realized I was tearing up, so I bombed it to the nearest exit and came out into the bright afternoon. I breathed in deep, spinning in the sun.

     I then became aware that I didn’t have any shoes on. I had another pair in my cubby, but it was a long walk and the sidewalk was white hot on the soles of my feet.

Maybe I should have gone back in for my shoes. Maybe Cody would have apologized. Maybe. But I didn’t want to go back to his game. So I started walking, gritting my teeth at the sting of hot tarmac. A grasshopper landed ahead. I crushed it smooth under my heel.

When I got back to my cubby, my socks were caked with brambles and grasshopper legs, and my feet hurt bad from all the pricks and scrapes, not to mention the heat. 

The next day at recess, I had a golden opportunity to push Cody Willis off the slide. Didn’t doubt myself a lick. I got suspended for a week. I also got to watch Cody Willis limp around on crutches for a month.

Okay, so I broke his ankle once seven years ago. That doesn’t mean I wanted to kill him.  Get this — he was my first kiss. Isn’t that messed up?

We were sitting together in the back row of the school bus on the way back from a field trip to the natural history museum, having become friendly after sharing a desk in social studies. Our knees touched some. He was making fun of how the girls squealed at the butterfly exhibit. Nature’s delicate beauties turned out to be evil little alien creeps — eeeeeeuurghh! 

He had me tickled. Then, with no warning, he popped me on the mouth. It happened so quick, all I could do was blink and ask what the hell he was doing.

“A guy thing,” he replied. When I told him that guys didn’t normally do things like that, he rolled his eyes and said, “Chill out.”

After that, we barely spoke. We pretended not to see each other in the halls, or our eyes met and moved on. It was easy for him. He was the golden boy. I was a loser.

Our eighth grade formal was in the gym. I caught him getting punch with Olivia Benson, the star girls soccer striker. They went to the dance floor. I watched from the edge of the crowd. He didn’t see me. They moshed through a few pop songs, then swayed together during a slow, sopping ballad. I saw his hands slipping low down her back. Everything was right at his fingertips. But when the song ended, she broke from him and went to the lobby. He followed, and I couldn’t stand to lose sight of him. She went into the ladies room, not looking back as he called after her. He glanced around, cheeks flush, then dove out the nearest exit door.

The night was muggy and crawling. Flies pooled beneath the streetlights and beetles littered the sidewalk. I was sweating in seconds, swatting mosquitoes off my neck. The parking lot was empty except for Cody, standing there by the curb. He heard the door and glanced back, met me with a hard stare and said, “What are you doing?”

I asked him the same question. He shook his head and said, heavily exasperated, “Girls.” I asked him if Olivia was okay. He grunted and said, “She’s a tightwad.” I told him to grow up. He glared at me and said, “Don’t be a fag.”

I didn’t like that. Don’t forget — he started our game. He expected me to follow his rules. He kissed me because he wanted to, and he counted on me to just be okay with it.

So I told him, “You’re the fag.”

He didn’t give me time to regret it. He slugged me across the jaw, knocking me clear on my ass. I snatched his wrist as I went down, and we crashed to the grass in a tangle. He clawed at my face until I kneed his gut, scrambling up to straddle him, baring my teeth, a hand at his throat as he dug his fingernails into my forearm — and then I realized that he was smiling.

He was enjoying himself. We both were. Everything between us was simmering. We were back at it, playing our game, and we felt really alive.

Right then, a grasshopper plunked onto Cody’s face. He sputtered up in a belly scream, writhing under me to get a hand free so he could swipe it off. I let him go, wheezing, laughing. He staggered up, wiping at his face. When he looked at me, I caught his hurt, and for a moment, it seemed like he’d say something. Then, without another word, he went inside.

I didn’t follow him. Instead, I went to our elementary school. The walk seemed shorter. The warmth in the tarmac was almost nice, and the grasshoppers didn’t stir as I passed. I sat at the top of the slide on our old playground, looking up at the stars. 

In high school, Cody was untouchable. He was in the running for homecoming king. Rumor was he’d scored a date with icy hot Rosa Benevides. He was always one slick asshole. But now he had prospects — career, family, life, all that. And me? I was already a hazy memory he could plausibly deny. He did his best to ignore me, avoid me, blot me out. If he spoke to me, he was cold. To him, I was just a smear of grasshopper guts.

Now, I admit we met the night before he died and said some regretful things.

I was driving slow down the road to our old school, wrapped up in way back when. I pulled up by the curb, got out — and that’s when I saw him.

Cody sat at the top of the slide. Seemed like he was alone. He watched me walk up to the playground. I asked what he was doing. He said, “I could ask you the same question.”

I felt like we’d been there before, like we were destined to be locked in this tug of war. And I didn’t want that. So I said I was sorry for pushing him, and everything else.

He seemed surprised. He said, “Why do you care?” That didn’t feel exactly fair to me, but I replied that I shouldn’t have hurt him. He laughed and said, “You? Hurt me?”

Now, if I had wanted to, I could have taken him out clean right then and there. But seeing him again, I realized that I missed him. You can’t call it even with guys like Cody. Guys like me, I guess. We’re out to win. I’d almost forgotten the thrill of going up against him.

I shook my head, spat and said, “Eat my ass.”

As I turned back to my truck, he called, “You wish.” Then quieter, he added, “Fag.”

I stopped and looked back at him. He was watching me, waiting for me to make the leap. He wanted us to come together. But I was sick of him getting what he wanted.

Okay, so someone filled Cody’s truck with grasshoppers during homecoming. A prank, right? Whoever did it clearly put in a lot of work and planned on Cody coming back in one piece, drunk on his own dreaminess, primed to have his night really spiced up. You’d have to know a lot of lonely roads where grasshoppers thrive on mile-long stretches of untouched turf. You’d have to spend hours stomping around swinging garbage bags to round them up. You’d have to get used to the sticky tickle of their legs, the flutter of their wings, the bombastic thwack as they kamikazed into you. You’d have to find Cody’s truck in the parking lot and score a few minutes with no one around. You’d probably have to break in, but if you were really lucky, you’d notice that the back sliding window was open. You’d have to do it quick and get the hell out of there. You’d have to imagine Cody’s face as he got the ultimate grasshopper gut punch.

Again, couldn’t have been me. Always hated the damn things.

Instead, you get to imagine Cody’s face as he sensed something awful in the crowd, heard gunshots, then felt that heat rip through him, spilling his blood, leaving his body.

I never wanted that for him. I would never want that for anyone.

And we lost the guy. The shooter. Unidentified and still at large. I don’t know anything else about it. Names get around. Guys no one expected to see at homecoming. Guys like me, maybe. But this story isn’t that. All said and done, we have to live without the ones we lost.

I liked Cody, liked him a lot. I liked him alive. He grasshopper gut punched my heart. That’s all we got.

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