The Boy Who Couldn't Sleep and Never Had To by DC Pierson Page A

say. “They’ll cart you away and hook you up to machines and whatever. I’m not saying you have to put it in the school newspaper.”
    â€œOkay I’m special,” Eric says.
    â€œIf we let it this could be an adventure,” I say.
    â€œI don’t see how,” Eric says.
    â€œSomebody finds out they have special abilities, and then the adventure begins.”
    We both grew up on comic books and
Star Wars
. I just can’t understand how he wouldn’t be high all the time off the fact that he might be the chosen one.
    Eric’s elaborate self-made lunches come with their own brought-from-home silverware. He’s scraping the tines of his fork on the concrete in the shadowy corner of the loading dock.
    â€œSorry if it scared you,” Eric says. “And thank you for not telling anybody.”
    â€œDon’t worry about it.”
    â€œIf you want. If you want, we could look into … what it takes for me to not be conscious.”
    â€œSerious?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œOkay. Friday after school.”
    It’s quiet and then the bell rings.
    â€œWell, we’re NOT hitting me over the head with a bat. We just aren’t.”
    â€œNo, right, of course. It wasn’t an ‘idea’ per se. Just more of, like, a concept.”
    Eric and I are walking home after school on Friday. Other kids’ cars speed by on the main road that runs past our school. The Drama Club has put flyers for their upcoming production underneath everybody’s windshield wipers and nobody’s taking them out, just driving away and letting them fly off on their own, so the street is a mess of Day-Glo-orange paper. Brendan Tyler’s new car, the one I overheard some idiot saying he’d give his left nut to have, accelerates to pass some band girl in a Camry. I am certain I would rather have both testicles than that car, even if it means I have to walk everywhere.
    â€œSo the mob method is out. Your wisdom teeth aren’t coming in? Like at all?”
    Eric runs his tongue around his mouth for effect. “No.”
    â€œOkay. Well, I still don’t think Children’s Tylenol PM is a very good measure of how narcotics affect your thing.”
    â€œNarcotics? I’m not sure I’m all that excited about where this seems to be heading.”
    â€œRelax. I don’t mean like, black tar heroin. There are lots of substances that are legal and safe that we can get our hands on.”
    I don’t see my brother’s car speeding by, and I wonder if that means he’s home already.
    â€œIt’s not for me, it’s for a friend.”
    â€œThat glasses kid?”
    â€œâ€¦ No.”
    â€œReally? Cause you pretty much have like one friend.”
    â€œIf somebody wanted to really get knocked out, like, there’s no way they could stay awake. Not enough to kill anybody or get anywhere close—”
    â€œPussy!” Tits says.
    Tits is standing over a laptop on a stool in our garage. When I came in the laptop was playing a tinkly GarageBand rhythm and my brother was howling into a microphone hooked up to the laptop in his best imitation of all the scream-o bands he likes and Tits and his other friends were looking at each other and nodding like “YES, THIS IS IT.”
    â€œSix Valiums. Or as we call it, Alan’s mom’s lunch.”
    â€œFuck yaself!” Alan says from where he’s slumped in the corner in his green hoodie that says THE WORLD’S BEST FUCKING SKATERS.
    â€œOr, you know what? Oh … shit,” my brother says. “Follow me. ONE MOMENT, CUNTS, ONE MO-MENT!” he screams to his buddies in his soccer hooligan voice. He drops the mike on the concrete garage floor.
    â€œHey!” Alan yells. I guess it’s his microphone.
    My brother goes into the house, and I follow him. On the stairs, he says: “One week they’re like, egging your friend’s house like a baby, next