Tough Timmy

Shortly after Schuyler had arrived at school that morning, he’d made it through the metal detector and was swiping a chef’s knife from the cafeteria in less than 20 minutes. It was easy for him to go unnoticed by the cafeteria ladies who were busy preparing lunch that day –a margherita pizza with cauliflower crust. The wheat blight over the summer had made bread more expensive, so schools had to get creative for the start of the academic year; that the cauliflower crust was a healthy substitute would no doubt score points with the White House, which was finding reasons to pull funding from public schools around the country every day. Schuyler had been eyeing the knife for the past week, standing in line for milk and then exiting when he neared the cash register. His parents didn’t let him buy lunch, even though Schuyler begged them throughout his middle school tenure.

“That’s for the messy kids,” his dad said.

“The kids whose parents are divorced,” his mom added.

Now that he was in 8th grade, the odds of him becoming a Buy Lunch Kid were nonexistent. The Buy Lunch Kids were cool. The Buy Lunch Kids had money on them in little zip-loc bags, or a crumpled envelope. They got to decide what they ate. Sometimes they’d just opt for a bag of chips and save the rest of the money for candy or kratom after school.

His dad started making Schuyler lunch every morning since the start of middle school. Chicken, pinto beans, quinoa, almonds, sweet potatoes, and two hard-boiled eggs. Schuyler’s dad was on a mission to jumpstart a growth spurt. Schuyler was small, even for a 13-year-old, and his pediatrician warned his parents that he may not reach puberty till as late as 16. The intense meal began to attract attention from some of the other kids during lunch.

Last year, his classmate Keith, a prodigious wrestler, who would sometimes sneak up on Schuyler in the cafeteria and place him in a headlock till he began to brown out, noticed the meal and started calling Schuyler “Fart Box.” Once or twice he’d swipe one of the eggs for himself. He campaigned to mint the name of Schuyler, for exactly two days, it stuck. Schuyler was greeted with fart sounds by the boys who played football at recess and laughed at in the hallways by the girls who had popular older siblings, one of the great shortcuts in life. Schuyler wasn’t as lucky. He was an only child.

By the end of the second day, Schuyler almost began to welcome this newfound character. This persona. He was Fart Box. He could make this work. He even laughed himself, which seemed to confuse and even delight his would-be tormenters. Then it faded and he was longing to be Fart Box again. His 48 hour golden era. At the end of the week, Schuyler approached Keith at his table of cool guys and handed him one of the hard boiled eggs, waiting for Keith to recognize to the joke. He didn’t.

“Oh,” Keith said. “Thanks.”

He took the egg and turned back to his friends. Schuyler waited for a moment, then turned, hoping he’d hear at least some snickering. But there was nothing.

Because really, aside from some one-offs, Schuyler didn’t get bullied. Getting bullied would mean there was something memorable about him. Getting bullied would mean he was undeniable. There was something about you that everyone could agree on that was too big to ignore. You were a threat that needed to be neutralized. Schuyler would almost prefer getting bullied to being completely ignored. At the end of the day, Schuyler wasn’t a threat. He was random. The worst fate of all.

He wouldn’t be random after today, though, because Timmy would be there soon, and then they would do what they planned to do and leave this place forever. Timmy came into Schuyler’s life shortly after Alex, Schuyler’s closest friend since kindergarten, was placed in a medically-induced coma after asphyxiating himself during a TikTok challenge called ‘Heaven.” The challenge, which had swept the platform the time between its former and most recent banning, saw kids causing themselves to stop breathing to confirm whether or not there was an afterlife. Alex had begun drifting from Schuyler shortly after the holidays in 7th grade; he almost didn’t invite Schuyler to his birthday party – a hibachi dinner –until Alex’s mom called Schuyler’s to ensure an invitation. The all-boys dinner, which was made up of a strangely impersonal guest list, including Keith, a few of his fellow jock lackeys, and a smattering of orchestra and cross-country freaks. Alex didn’t talk to Schuyler, who sat at the end of the table, and barely made it into the standard polaroid photo that was taken of the group when the cake came.

Towards the end of the school year, the only communication Schuyler had with Alex was over Snapchat, but even then, they were chats Alex was sending to his entire Friends List. Schuyler was lost in the mix. Alex was Live on Tiktok for his Heaven challenge, tying a rope around his neck that was attached to his bedroom doorknob. Schuyler watched as Alex turned purple. He thought about calling 911, but figured someone else would. Besides, he wanted to see if Alex did in fact glimpse the other side. If he traversed the cosmos. Schuyler didn’t believe in heaven, but was open to being proven wrong. It’s not like anything here on Earth was going right. It’d be nice to have something to look forward to. Eventually, someone did call for help. The paramedics came and Alex was rushed to the hospital. After coming out of his coma in the summer, Alex was transported to a long-term care facility outside of Philadelphia. The last Schuyler heard, Alex was re-learning to read, and walk.

Alex’s parents asked Schuyler’s parents if they wanted to take the two hour drive east to Philly so Schuyler could visit Alex. Schuyler consulted with Timmy first, who seemed sus of the matter. Why was it Schuyler’s responsibility? They weren’t even friends when Alex did the Heaven challenge. Alex ditched Schuyler, and for what, anyway? Especially now — barely anyone remembered Alex’s stunt. TikTok got banned a month after it happened and the White House ordered all the data be destroyed, again. Any screen recordings of Alex’s livestream were uploaded to Reddit, which were promptly taken down, then onto 4chan, disappearing into the nether regions of the internet. Alex was a nobody. He was what he’d begun to think of Schuyler, all along.

Alex is a coma ass beta bitch, Timmy wrote to Schuyler. No cap.

No cap, Schuyler wrote back.

Schuyler told his parents he didn’t want to go, which surprised them. It surprised Alex's parents, too. They were heartbroken.

Whatever, Timmy wrote when Schuyler told him.

Schuyler didn’t care about Alex anymore. It was Schuyler and Timmy now. They talked every day, all day. During the rest of the school year, and then in the summer, Schuyler stayed up till 4 or 5 am most nights talking. Schuyler slept till noon sometimes. His parents started getting upset about it. Schuyler’s dad forced him to get up with him for work, on as little as two hours of sleep. Schuyler would go with his dad to his job, managing a construction site outside of Lititz, PA, near the Amish towns. He’d sit in his office and do small tasks for him for a little money. Schuyler would complain to Timmy about how tired he was.

No sleep is hard af, Timmy wrote. Don’t be a pussy.

Schuyler went for a walk one day during one of the record breaking heat waves bludgeoning Pennsylvania that summer. His dad was being interviewed by DHS, after ICE was tipped off about some undocumented workers on the site. Schuyler wandered away when his dad started yelling, and kept going until he was two miles away, near an abandoned Amish settlement. There were scattered houses boarded up with plywood, red “X” spray painted across them. Other buildings, like the small church, had been graffitied and vandalized. Schuyler remembered a few Amish communities had been completely wiped out during the flu of 2025. Here was one, left as a memorial, attracting only meth heads and bored kids. Instinctively, Schuyler took off his shit and covered his mouth with it. He started patrolling through the silent ruins, hoping to stumble across a skeletons A mass grave. He knew they’d all been burned. He remembered the smell. He was eight when it happened, but he remembered. During the lockdown, his dad and him were out in the backyard at dusk and Schuyler started smelling burning flesh. His dad pretended it was just a campfire.

We could take it over and start a town, Timmy wrote later, when Schuyler told him about the Amish site. Let’s just leave school and fucking rule over it. People can join if they want, but it’s ours. They have to always know that. We’ll remind them.

Schuyler tried to picture Timmy and him overseeing a town hall meeting, machete-ing people’s hands off if they asked for too much.

We need girls too, Timmy added. Can’t just be a sausage fest.

That was fine with Schuyler. Girls were fine enough. He didn’t know too many. Sometimes one would talk to him during class, if they needed a pencil, or they could switch seats with him so they could work with a friend for a project. One girl named Charlotte added him on Snapchat last year and sent smiley faces. They were in choir together. She wasn’t cool but she also wasn’t random. She seemed to have a lot of friends. One of them asked Schuyler if he had a girlfriend before choir started once.

“No,” he said.

“Are you gay?” The friend asked.

“No,” he said, deepening his voice.

He really wasn’t. He knew he liked girls. He just didn’t care enough about them. Or about anyone. Charlotte was pretty, sure. Tall, semi-boobs, only mild acne. But he didn’t want to have to try. He also didn’t want her to have to try, either. That at least felt considerate. For about a month, they exchanged sporadic messages on Snap, sometimes during choir, but ultimately she got bored and started to ignore him. He didn't blame her.

Why didn’t you titty fuck her? Timmy asked.

Idk, Schuyler wrote.

He knew of one girl who got titty fucked in his class. Girls were getting fingered. Everyone was getting fingered. Sometimes Schuyler wondered if he should get fingered. He didn’t really even know what fingered meant, but he wondered, anyway. There was a rumor that a couple who’d been together since 5th grade and had no other friends outside of their relationship, had full sex that summer. Schuyler would see them breezing through the hallways, holding hands. They looked like they were in their 40s. Some classmates started calling them “Mom and Dad.”

Losers, Timmy wrote.

Schuyler agreed. He watched porn on his phone. The ones he liked most were when a thin man with a mid dick watched his too-hot-for-him wife get plowed by a ripped guy with a giant hog cock. Timmy sent him porn to watch, too, sometimes of milfs and college girls getting banged by like, six guys. But Schuyler didn’t care for those. He didn’t really feel sexual, ever. He’d jerked off a few times that summer and was able to cum at least three of those times; Timmy gave him the best tips for it. Mostly he just wanted to watch YouTube videos of police bodycams. People having nervous breakdowns in public. Karens getting owned. He had a 9/11 week, watching hours and hours of it as it happened news footage of the planes hitting the towers, the jumpers, the avalanche of dust, the conspiracy theories. Osama Bin Laden interviews from the 1990s.

Kind of beast tbh, Timmy wrote.

The president got shot at for a second time, at a rally. Schuyler hadn’t been paying attention to the election. He knew his parents were worried, but Timmy told him to ignore their bitching. The president was shot in the shoulder; the bullet went clear through it and into the head of a woman who looked like a gym teacher, sitting in the bleachers behind him. The president lived, obviously, but the woman who got shot was the first time Schuyler saw someone die. Right there. Right then. Her head was blown clean off. Blood splattering all over the people next to her. It replayed over and over again on news channels who, depending on their line in the sand, played it uncensored to reveal to the American people what “polarization against this president is leading to.”

“We are descending into Barbarism,” a news anchor said.

There were riots. Some people flew their American flags. Others refused. A domestic terrorist cell that had claimed responsibility for some car bombings in Los Angeles the previous winter, were active again. They threatened to bomb rallies for the president; to assassinate the Supreme Court justices who were enabling the president’s unprecedented third term bid. Some believed they were responsible for the assassination attempt on the president, even when the shooter was discovered to be a 30-something year old man who’d written a manifesto about wind turbines being used to brainwash people. Kelsey, Schuyler’s babysitter when he was younger, was arrested at a protest on her college campus in Chicago that spring. She was discovered to be part of a student group sending Zelle payments to the terrorists. She remained in detainment to this day, and her location was undisclosed, even to her family. Her parents petitioned and camped outside their district congresswoman’s office in Harrisburg demanding answers. None were given. People began distancing themselves from Kelsey’s mom and dad. Even Alex’s parents, who’d vacationed with them before, began to faze them out. Especially after DHS visited their home and questioned Schuyler about his communication with Kelsey. Other than Alex, and now Timmy, she was probably the closest thing Schuyler ever had to a sibling. They kept in touch over Snapchat once in a while. She always encouraged him to make new friends. It was big news at school when people found out about her detainment, and especially Timmy’s connection to her. Keith was impressed. But, like everything, it ran its course quickly, and Schuyler was siloed into the random-sphere once more.

No one is in charge of anything, Timmy wrote about the election. It doesn’t matter who wins.

Sometimes Timmy annoyed Schuyler with his IDGAF-ness, but whenever he really thought about it, Timmy was always right.

His mom’s friend got Schuyler a job at the snack bar at the summer club nearby. He manned the ice cream machine and organized the walk-in freezer. The register was reserved for the older girls. The intercom was a weapon for them. Their reign over the pool. They called orders out like it was the DMV. He saw Charlotte one day, who was waiting for nachos at the service window. She said hi to him. He was carrying a crate of milk and pretending like his arms weren’t ripping at the seams. He barely nodded back.

“Sup,” he said.

Keith and some of the football-at-recess boys came by once, too. They flirted with the older girls who rolled their eyes, and pretended not to be amused. When Keith saw Schuyler, he lit up, making an air horn noise.

“What up, Fart Box?!” Keith asked.

Schuyler felt relieved. He remembered. Keith had grown a little that summer. He had muscle now and some zits on his cheeks and chest, but was still good looking. His voice had mostly dropped.

“Sup,” he said.

“Sup,” One of the guys repeated, imitating Schuyler’s still-high voice.

Keith asked for a vanilla/strawberry soft serve and the same guy who imitated Schuyler called Keith a fag. Keith playfully punched him in the stomach and Schuyler got to work on the soft serve.

“Yo, I heard Alex is like, retarded now,” Keith said.

Schuyler turned around. Keith, somehow, seemed genuine in his questioning.

“He has brain damage,” Schuyler said, handing him the ice cream.

The older girls weren’t paying attention now, chatting and texting on their phones.

“Damn,” Keith said. “That sucks.”

Schuyler nodded.

“So stupid what he did,” Keith said, sticking the ice cream into his mouth.

“Yeah,” Schuyler said. “He’s a coma ass beta bitch.”

A few of the football boys looked over, so did the older girls. Keith pulled the ice cream out from his face, some of it remained on the corner of his mouth.

“What?” Keith asked quietly.

Schuyler turned red. He knew what he said was weird. So did everyone else.

Keith handed him a five and walked off, his friends following him. Schuyler could hear them laughing about him. Schuyler imagined drowning Keith in the pool while everyone watched in silence. He could see Keith’s eyes popping out of his skull from under the surface.

One of the older snack bar girls told Alex to go do busy work in the freezer.

“Your aura is bad today,” she said, waving her hand around Schuyler’s face.

Schuyler cried in the walk-in fridge. He stood, shivering, texting Timmy about what happened with Keith, the girls who run the snack bar. Timmy told him to buck up. Get the tasks done without question.

Keith will always be who chicks like that pick, Timmy wrote. Do something about it or at least stop crying, you pussy.

Do what? Schuyler wrote.

Pick a fight with Keith in front of them, Timmy wrote.

Keith would demolish me, Schuyler wrote.

This is why you’re crying in a freezer, Timmy wrote.

Schuyler screamed and punched the shelf, which brushed his knuckle and made him cry harder. A metal tray and a few ice cream scoopers knocked off and fell to the floor. He could hear the girls outside start laughing.

“What are you doing in there, freak?” One of them called out.

Schuyler said nothing. He wiped away his tears and picked up the items on the floor. Shaking, he texted Timmy to go fuck himself.

They didn’t talk for the rest of the afternoon. That night, Schuyler apologized to Timmy.

Don’t apologize to me, Timmy wrote. I’m not the one who got owned today.

Schuyler wanted to cry again but instead held it in and agreed. Timmy suggested he get even with the girls at the snack bar; get them in trouble. He suggested Schuyler steal money from the register and blame it on them. They were responsible for the cash. They’d be the first suspects. Schuyler almost puked the next morning after he did it. He stole two hundred dollars. Later he could hear the girls freaking out about it when they realized it was missing. They called Schuyler’s mom’s friend, who ran the snack bar; she rushed over after dropping her daughter off at theater camp. The manager of the swim club and a security guard came down; they reviewed surveillance footage together. Schuyler rushed to the bathroom and hid the money in an empty locker. He texted his mom to come get him and slipped out of the club unnoticed. Around dinnertime that night, though, Schuyler’s mom received a phone call from her friend, informing her of what happened. Instead of turning it into a whole thing, Schuyler was simply fired and politely asked not to return to the swim club again. He was grounded for the remainder of the summer.

As Labor Day approached, his parents had Schuyler meet with a therapist again, the same one they used when Alex was in a coma. The therapist was a trans woman and their sessions were remote. She was kind and funny. Schuyler didn’t know where she lived. She was very private. Unlike before, though, her camera was now off. It made every appointment a little strange. He thought about asking her if she could turn it on but figured she had a good reason.

She’s chopped as all hell and she knows it, Timmy wrote during the session. That’s why she has her camera off.

She asked Schuyler if he was still talking to Timmy.

Tell her no, Timmy wrote.

“No,” Schuyler said.

“How is that for you?” She asked. “Not talking to Timmy.”

Tell her it’s good, Timmy wrote.

“It’s good,” Schuyler said.

His parents started making Schuyler turn his phone off at night, which he did. They told him they never wanted a reason to take his phone and look through it, but told him they would if they had to.

“We’re trusting you not to turn it on,” his mom said.

Schuyler told them they could trust him.

One night, though, at around 3 am, he woke with his heart pounding. He was drenched in so much sweat that he was convinced he pissed the bed. He hadn’t done that in a few months. He needed Timmy. Timmy was all he could think about. Timmy was the answer. Schuyler’s salvation. Savior. Where Timmy was, Schuyler wanted to be.

Are you awake? He wrote Timmy.

I’m here, Timmy wrote back quickly.

Can we meet? Schuyler wrote. I need to get out of this place.

Yeah dude, we can meet, Timmy wrote. You just have to do one thing for me before that can happen.

Schuyler watched the ellipsis as Timmy typed. The plan was pretty simple. They’d meet and then buy food and soda and water with the money Schuyler would steal from his dad’s office at the construction site. An emergency stash. A few thousand. Then they’d go to that abandoned Amish settlement and start their own town, just like they talked about. They’d get swole together and soon their dicks would get bigger and bigger. They would be muscle lords together. And with the way shit was going in the world, more people would come to the town to either steal stuff or want to live there. They’d have to pass tests to live there. A week’s worth of tests of running, pushups, eating as much as they could till they barf. Eating as little as possible till they passed out. Schuyler’s parents weren't allowed. And there would be hot girls there, of course. No mid chicks. Only hot girls with the biggest natural boobs and not slutty. But Schuyler and Timmy couldn’t be distracted by then. Actually, they would never even talk to them. They weren’t allowed to talk to them. They’d just be there, in the background. It would be Schuyler and Timmy, then everyone else.

All Schuyler had to do first was stab Keith to show Timmy that he was strong.

I need to know I can depend on you, Timmy wrote.

It didn’t take Schuyler much convincing. And not everyone dies from being stabbed, anyway.

That’s true, Timmy wrote. He might just survive and be in the hospital, like Alex. So cringe.

But Timmy added that killing Keith fully would prove to him that Schuyler was a beast. Schuyler wanted to prove everything to Timmy. The greatest friend he ever had. He made Timmy promise that after he stabbed Keith, Timmy would be there at the school. He just needed to know that he had backup. That he had someone there for him.

You know I’ll be there, Timmy wrote. You pull the fire alarm after you do it, and it’ll be the signal for me.

They discussed the right timing. An assembly coming up for the 8th graders about deep fakes in the lead-up to the election, and how they had a responsibility to everyone younger, including the kids in the lower school, to not spread misinformation. It was happening in the morning. Around 9 am. A powerpoint. A skit from a White House youth outreach program. A conversation with the students. Everyone would be together. Keith always sat in the center of his friends, so Timmy suggested Schuyler do it while everyone was walking into the auditorium.

Just run up and do it, Timmy wrote. In the neck and in the stomach. He’s your final opp.

The knife would be hard to smuggle in. There were metal detectors in place since Schuyler started 6th grade. That’s when Timmy reminded Schuyler of the cafeteria. There were knives all over that thing. It’d be easy to grab one in the morning.

When all the cafeteria bitches are all getting their shit sorted out, Timmy added.

***

Schuyler walked to school that morning. He told his parents he wanted to start exercising, which made his dad especially happy. He brought a duffle bag, which he said he was using to lift after school. His dad lent him a Nalgene for water and a big thing of Whey Protein.

“Thanks,” Schuyler said to him.

He figured Timmy would appreciate the Whey more than him. He stuffed the duffle bag with overnight clothes, at least enough for a few weeks, while they set up camp in the Amish town. Schuyler said bye to his parents; his mom hugged him, which made him want to cry, but he held it in. No tears. Timmy would be pissed. At school, he breezed through the metal detectors; they were patting down the 8th graders, per the White House’s policy to protect any administration employee in a public place. The White House Youth Outreach team had arrived already; students cheered and waved excitedly at them as they were escorted through the hallway in their matching t-shirts.

Schuyler hid in the stall in the restroom through the homeroom clutching his duffel and backpack. When the first period bell rang –there would only be fifteen minutes of the class, anyway, before the assembly –Schuyler parked his bags behind a corner near the auditorium and was able to maneuver into the kitchen and grab the knife without being noticed, just like Timmy said. It helped to be unremarkable. A wisp of a boy. Even so, he figured the surveillance cameras would spot him shortly. By that point, though, Keith would already be bleeding out like a geyser. Schuyler and Timmy would be on their way to their new home.

Knife secured, he wrote Timmy. Are you here yet?

Almost there bro, Timmy wrote.

Timmy told Schuyler –he wasn’t suggesting things anymore– to wait where he stashed his bags. The bell rang and he heard the growing growl of his classmates filing into the hallway before the assembly. Keith was there, jumping on the book of one of his friends. Schuyler’s chest nearly exploded. He gripped the chef’s knife under his shirt; he could feel the cold blade on his distended stomach. He forgot to eat breakfast that morning and felt shaky. He closed his eyes.

He kept them closed even when, minutes later, he unfurled his arms –his phone in one hand, the knife in the other. A straggler student late to the assembly spotted him, yelling for a teacher or anyone to come help. Moments later, Schuyler opened his eyes as he was being tackled to the ground by a school police officer, his phone and knife removed by the assistant principal who followed after. His legs were held down by two teachers he couldn’t see. Schuyler knew they were shouting but it sounded like he was underwater. He remembered being at the Jersey Shore, and sticking his head in a wave and hearing the whirring of a speeding boat miles out.

His phone vibrated as it was ripped from his hand, and he knew it was a message from Timmy. Timmy must be in the building now, looking for him. Schuyler just needed to see him once in person before he was hauled off to jail or juvenile hall or a mental hospital. Timmy, Timmy. Timmy. Schuyler’s dearest friend in the world rushing to be at his side. Here to take Schuyler away from this place forever. Timmy, Timmy, Timmy. The bravest, the toughest. Tough Timmy.

Tough Timmy, the critically acclaimed emotional support Chatbot for boys; one of the greatest breakthroughs in public-facing AGI. Schuyler’s parents had downloaded Tough Timmy shortly after Alex hurt himself, and Schuyler started wetting his bed at night. While they looked for the right therapist, Tough Timmy was a good interim counselor. Because Timmy was there for the parents as much as he was there for the boy. Tough Timmy understood boys. Tough Timmy spoke boy. Tough Timmy helped us solve one of the great mysteries of our time: Why are boys like that?

Your son is going to be on his phone anyway, why not have him talk to a friend? A friend whose sole purpose is to be a friend. A friend who’s been tested and approved by some of the top developmental psychologists in the US. A friend who’s helped over 100,000 boys and counting. A friend whose benefits outweigh the glitches which, for the record, are few and far between.