It doesn't take long for the next shoe (peen) to drop. As usual, John Wayne High School has canceled whatever scheduled learning was to take place during third period to hold a pep rally for the football team. Apparently, they're playing some crosstown rival that we're all supposed to hate for some stupid reason. 

Anyway, we don't get much of a pep rally before another peen steals the spotlight. As we file into the gym to begin the rally, a familiar sound overtakes the usual chatter. There's laughing and shrieking, and yelling. It's another peen, I'm just not sure where.

Everyone's looking up at the rafters, so I look up at the rafters. For a moment, all I see are the various banners signifying John Wayne High School's football achievements. Then I notice that one of the banners isn't quite like the other ones. It's the same maroon and gold color, but something is different. Very different. Just like the flag from this morning, the banner has a dick pic just above the words "free the peen."

Principal Boone and the other administrators begin barking at us to exit the gym immediately. But asking teenagers to turn away from the sexual humiliation of a peer is like asking a dog to give up her bone. 

I look over and see Coach Krieger trying to swipe at the banner and pull it down with a mop handle. But just like his sex-ed classes, Coach Krieger's attempt to pull down the banner is a stupid and futile gesture because the banner is fifty feet above the ground, and the mop handle is only about six feet long.

Nearby Coach Krieger, I see the football team. They're laughing, not at the banner, but at one of their teammates. Thor, the football player who apologized to me earlier is red with embarrassment. But unlike on the football field, where Thor knows exactly where to place his body for maximum carnage, he looks lost. He's stumbling around, uncertain if he should join  Coach Krieger's futile efforts, or blend into the crowd.

Except, Thor can't blend into the crowd. It's his peen up on that banner. And as his teammates point and laugh at him, it occurs to me that they recognized his peen. It could've been an anonymous peen, but they outed him. They must've seen his peen a million times in the locker room, but the minute they saw it here, in public, with everyone in school laughing and giggling, they turned on their teammate. They probably didn't even think about it. In a millisecond, they processed the fact that someone else's peen was being served up for the amusement of the crowd. They thanked their lucky stars that it wasn't them, and then they proceeded to distance themselves from the humiliation the way teenagers always do, by making fun of the other person.

I feel bad for Thor. I've literally been in his shoes. And while he was part of the crowd that Nick Spears led against me, I don't feel good about him getting a taste of his own medicine. In fact, as the crowd begins to chant, Thor, Thor, Thor, I feel sick. Because in that moment, I see the mighty Thor, a man-child who crushes other men-children, begin to cry. The more he cries, the louder the taunts get. Then finally, Thor can't take it anymore. He runs from the gym, knocking over a trio of cackling meme girls. 

In that instant, I realize that there are no winners here. We are all losers. What goes around comes around, but as it comes around, it exposes us for what we really are. Each of us, regardless of our status at school, is a cruel instrument. We thrive on the pain of others because when that pain is exposed and served up for entertainment, it makes us feel like we're not alone. And we are not alone. We're part of a large, terrible thing that feeds off the pain of people like Thor, people like Elroy, people like me, and even people like Nick Spears. We're part of a large terrible thing that will devour each and every one of us, if we don't stop it.

But as I look around the gym, I don't see any appetite for stopping this menace. What I see is a crowd hungry for more. And now that Thor has left the building, their chant has changed.

Free the peen! 

Free the peen! 

Free the peen! 

As it turns out, it doesn't take long for the next peen to be freed. At lunch, a group of students discover a table with a sheet covering it. There's a little tag on the sheet with a handwritten note that reads: "free the peen." 

Someone pulls the sheet off the table, and underneath there's a giant cake. Except it's not like any cake I've ever seen. Drawn in icing that looks surprisingly photo-realistic is another dick pic. The crowd once again begins to shriek. And this time, the anonymous dick is unmasked in seconds, not by the football team, but by the crowd. Because of all the boys at John Wayne High School, only one has red hair, and the pubes on that cake are as red as a fire engine.

"Danny Sutton's peen!" someone shouts.

Suddenly, the crowd begins to chant.

Danny dong!

Danny dong!

Danny dong!

But unlike Nick Spears or Thor, Danny's first reaction isn't to cry. His first reaction is to hide the peen. Like he's on blitz to sack the quarterback, Danny rushes toward the cake, knocking over anyone who stands in his way.

When he reaches the cake, however, Danny looks puzzled. The sheet that once covered the cake has disappeared. For a moment, it looks like Danny is thinking about picking up the enormous cake and carrying it out of the cafeteria. But with the crowd jostling him, that doesn't seem like the best idea. So, Danny does the next best thing, which in this case, is the worst possible thing.

With his hands, Danny smears the icing the on the cake. It doesn't take much to erase the frosted peen, but in an instant, Danny is covered with icing and frosting. That's not a good look. And it doesn't take long for the teenage collective to modify their chant. Instead of chanting "Danny dong" the crowd screams for "Danny ding dong." It's kind of a perfect chant, because with that one extra word it manages to fuse the cake and the cock, so to speak, by referencing the pastry treat called Ding Dongs. 

Danny ding dong!

Danny ding dong!

Danny ding dong!

From the look on Danny's face, I can tell he knows that from this day forward he'll always be Danny ding dong in much the same way that I was known as Little Peter. But from the look on Danny's face, I can tell something else. He'll bottle up whatever pain and humiliation he's feeling right now, and he'll keep bottling it up, until he can find someone to take that pain out on. It's a nauseating feeling, because I know that the more the kids chant "Danny ding-dong," the more the boy who has been tagged with that nickname will dish out pain to some poor innocent person down the road.

"Kind of like a game of Where's Waldo, but for peens, don't you think?"

I turn to my left to see Becky Spade, queen of the meme girls, and the person who started this whole mess back in Coach Krieger's health class when she said I needed a bigger banana. Why is Becky Spade talking to me? 

"I like your style, Peter. I've often thought the best revenge is to let them eat cake."

I'm not sure if Becky Spade realizes that she's mixing her references. The best revenge is a life lived well, or so the saying goes. And let them eat cake was just some crass thing Marie Antoinette said before the French peasants cut off her head.

"We should talk," Becky Spade says. "Not here. How about I give you a ride home after school?"

"Me?"

"Duh."

I can't think why Becky Spade would want to give me a ride, or what she could possibly have to say to me. 

"After school," she says. "I'll pick you up in front of the school at three sharp."

Becky starts to walk away.

"Why me?" I ask.

Becky turns her head over her right shoulder. There's a devilish twinkle in her eye, and she says, "Isn't it obvious?"

It's not obvious, but I don't get a chance to follow-up. Because Becky Spade walks away, and as she does, I hear her say, "Nice work with the ginger."

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